Mockery of Christianity in America

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. President, International Association of Educators for World Peace Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education, Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

The United States has been described by former US President John F. Kennedy as a “conglomeration of nations.” Needless to say, it may also be viewed as a “conglomeration of religions.” In fact, there is hardly a nation and religion which could not be found in this country. Quite a few millions still speak their native language of origin at their homes.

Nation of Great Diversity

Some of the leading languages most Americans speak to each other are Spanish, Chinese, German, Italian, Korean, Arabic, Russian, French and a variety of Indian languages, in addition to English which is the predominant language of the government and schools in general. Although the dominant religion seems to be Christianity, some of the leading ones may be viewed as Islam, Judaism, Hindu and Buddhist, besides a few others. Christianity is generally divided into Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox.

We have nothing but fear itself

A Roseland, Indiana, city council member orders police to remove a fellow city council member.  The police escort him out, shove him down on his face and pound his head. Onlookers either cheer, do nothing, joke, behave as if all were normal, or yell at others to let the police do their jobs.  Not a single person protests.  Only the one victim is hauled off in the police car.  No one jumps in and shouts "Before this becomes Nazi Germany, arrest me too!"

A University of Florida student asks inconvenient questions of a U.S. senator.  Police tackle him and shoot him with a taser.  Onlookers, including the senator, either cheer, do nothing, joke, behave as if all were normal, or yell at others to let the police do their jobs.  Not a single person seriously protests.  Only the one victim is hauled off to jail.  Fascist-friendly media outlets love the story because the senator is a Democrat, but they don't tell the story right.  Progressive media outlets don't tell the story, even though they would tell it right, because the senator is a Democrat.

Free speech takes a capitol beating

Washington – Free speech took a beating with another round of arrests September 18 in the nation’s capital.  It was administered by the police at a rally sponsored by the most unlikely-sounding group to be involved in such a thing: Veterans for Freedom.

U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman, John McCain and Lindsey Graham were among the featured speakers at the rally held in Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill.  About 150 people attended the rally to support the group’s pro-war position, as did about 30 people who were not in support.  Before the rally concluded, Leah Bolger, David Barrows, Christine Rainwater, Anne Kitridge, and Anne Katz were arrested by Capitol Police. 

Barrows said he had gone to the park because he heard Lieberman was going to speak. When the Senator was talking, Barrows spoke out, “I don’t want your 'bomb and run genocide' in Iran.”

As soon as I did, a plainclothes policeman came up to me and said, “You’re under arrest,” the 60 year-old D.C. resident continued.  But, Barrows said, instead of going with the officer immediately he moved another six feet closer to the stage, whereupon he was placed under arrest.

How to predict the eventual performance of the next US president

Charles Mercieca, Ph.D., President International Association of Educators for World Peace Dedicated to United Nations Goals of Peace Education, Environmental Protection, Human Rights & Disarmament Professor Emeritus, Alabama A&M University

The American people have learned from experience that the person they choose as their President does not tend to perform in accordance with the promises he made and hopes he gave prior his election. Unfortunately, this episode has now been going on repeatedly for quite a long time. The time is now ripe for all Americans to predict the performance of every presidential candidate that may be elected with fair accuracy. This could be done before elections take place. This way there should be no regrets afterwards.

American Political Structure

Secret USDA enforcement action revealed Aurora Farm’s certifier found to have willfully violated NOP rules

CORNUCOPIA: In a startling revelation today The Cornucopia Institute made public a document indicating that not only did the USDA find that the nation's largest organic factory-farm dairy operator "willfully" violated the federal organic standards, but that one of its certifiers, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, had, also, "willfully" failed to legally perform their oversight responsibilities under the federal regulations.

In a letter dated April 16, 2007, Mark Bradley, Director of the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), notified Colorado of a formal Notice of Proposed Suspension of its accreditation as a certifying agent for organic livestock.

USDA investigations of both Aurora Organic Dairy, operating factory farms in Texas and Colorado, and their certifiers, were prompted by a formal legal complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005. The USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and a committed a number of other serious improprieties.

Sanity in tiny nibbles

The abyss between “crime against humanity” and “we’ll have to look into this” may be all but unfathomable — deep as a mass grave — but sometimes we have to trust the process.

I fear that democratic progress is a mouse’s progress: justice — sanity — in tiny nibbles. This past Sept. 11, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law that seems to promise this sort of progress — to evaluate the scope of an acute, ongoing, manmade calamity — and I find myself trying to curb my sense of impatience that it doesn’t do more.

The law authorizes the state to educate returning vets and National Guardsmen on their rights, as well as available testing and treatment, if they think they’ve been exposed to hazardous substances overseas, in particular, depleted uranium. It also sets up a task force through the Illinois Veterans Association to study the health effects of such exposure.

Can we talk? Day one of IVAW's "Truth in Recruiting" campaign

Washington – This began as a story about the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) "Truth in Recruiting" campaign.  But by the end, it seemed more like a story about whether or not we can still talk with each other in this country. 

In the early morning chill of September 17, on the plaza in front of Union Station, members of IVAW set out literature and donuts on a card table and waited for the young International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition activists to arrive.  After a briefing, four-person teams left for various military recruiting offices and the campaign was underway.  In addition to handing flyers to people walking into recruiting offices, the effort includes "Befriend a Recruiter," a tactic intended to waste as much of a recruiter’s time as possible by talking with youth who have no intention of joining the military.      

Kerry's sense of timing

As police officers were torturing a University of Florida student with a taser in the back of a lecture hall as punishment for asking inconvenient questions of Senator John Kerry, the Senator chose not to order them to stop. Rather he calmly mumbled his non-answers to the questions and even joked about the young man's inability to come up on stage. Later, Kerry posted a statement on his website in which he chose not to answer the student's questions in a serious way, but rather expressed with full muddledness that he was for arresting the student before he was against it and even expressed concern that the police might have somehow been hurt.

Kerry's exquisite sense of timing was also on display in late 2004 when he speedily conceded an election that had been widely expected to witness Republican election fraud, many reports of which had already come in. I've been wanting to ask Kerry the same thing this student asked (why the hell he conceded so fast) ever since that day. On November 8, 2004, I published on Counter Punch a lengthy lament over Kerry's betrayal of all those prepared to fight for an honest recount, which included these points:

American Debtors’ Prison

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New day in the anti-war movement?

Other demonstrations against the war in Iraq have been larger, but the one that happened in Washington, D.C. this past Saturday was significant in another way because of a very different feel about it.

Contingents of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW ) www.ivaw.org and Veterans for Peace www.veteransforpeace.org  lined up at the front of the march, sponsored by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, stepping off on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House.  Hundreds of mostly youthful "marshalls" formed a long line on either side of the route, holding hands and placing themselves between the crowds filling the sidewalks and the marchers, later estimated by wire services at 100,000 people.

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