Texas Governor Rick Perry will be holding a huge prayer event in August because apparently America is suffering a “moral crisis:”
PERRY: Right now, America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters. As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy.
... To hear some conservatives tell it, we are always in some sort of moral crisis. What are we – a country or a character in Biblical soap opera?
Secondly, what’s the deal with Rick Perry anyway? Wasn’t he all gung-ho a while back with talks about tea parties and secession?
Just when did he start waxing philosophical about God and prayer? Probably the same time folks began to figure out just how bad of an economic shape Texas is in. And I haven’t even talked about the teachers’ protest which recently took place.
But I am most reticent about Perry’s “let’s all come to Jesus” moment because he is partnering with the American Family Association .
That’s the organization designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group due to its penchant for demonizing and passing propaganda about lgbts, Muslims, and others who don’t fit into its narrow definition of Christianity.
And if the AFA is involved, like-minded groups such as the Family Research Council (another anti-gay hate group) will be sure to follow. And of course I’m guessing that so-called evangelical members of Congress – i.e Sen. Jim DeMint, Reps. Mike Pence and Michele Bachmann are sure to come.
All of this means that Perry’s event will probably be nothing more than ego boosting masquerading as piety complete with prayers that will go as follows (although not using these specific words):
“Oh Lord God, please don’t let America fall in spite of the sins of other people. Heaven forbid that we show a little introspection and ask forgiveness for our sins such as bearing false witness against the gay community or scaring people with phony claims of Sharia law taking over America or even our neglect of the poor and unemployed because these things were done for the betterment of your kingdom so they really don’t count as sins.”
So what are the evils which America has committed to deserve God's wrath War in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or using torture as a means to punish & humiliate America's demonic enemies not doing enough to help the poor, the unemployed, the homeless , Veterans returning from the War Zones mentally and physically shattered? No the Religious Rights God they claim loves war and hates the poor their "God" loves the prosperous and those who do not prosper are just not true Christians or are just not part of the elect their God hates Muslims ,Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, wiccans , pagans, most non-whites,Gays, liberals and wimpy Good Samaritans their God Hates "Do Gooders".
They think their No-nonsense Macho Alpha Male ,wrathful,white-skinned,pro-capitalist, pro-prosperity God is angry because of tolerance, inclusiveness, pluralism, feminism, unions, the minimum wage, medicare , income taxes , racial equality, gender equality, helping the poor and the down and out, or caring about the Environment that is "God's Creation" and in their view worst of all putting an uppity black man in Washington to rule over those they believe are superiour ie White male Christian Americans.
And as I have pointed out numerous time for all their talk of supporting the troops you won't hear them fighting for better wages or benefits or better healthcare or help for veterans returning from these war zones to help them readjust to civilian life after their bodies and or their minds have been broken.
These ultrapatriotic conservatives regard any soldier who claims to suffer for instance from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or head trauma or other related mental health issues as being in the words of General Patton just cowards and scam artists.
Newt Gingrich and his rich friends don't mind sending other peoples children off to fight their questionable wars and will make thunderous speeches about their heroism and sacrifice but will refuse them a pay raise or better training as Rumsfeld said "You go to war with the army you have;not the one you wish you had".
Such a statement is beyond mere callousness and cynicism shows how little they value the lives of these soldiers who come from mainly the lower classes . He and other members of America's elite and the Military Industrial Complex pursue war without justification except to profit the Armaments industry and make themselves look tough and macho that is "Real Men".
If these war mongers love war so much they should be made to take part and be placed on the front lines and not allowed to cower at home in Washington or in the Emerald City in Iraq or elsewhere where they protected a thousand times better than the average American soldiers.
In the earlier times Kings and Lords, Dukes, Generals all were often in the thick of the battle- men would follow them because they to put themselves in harms way.
We should re-establish this policy especially in cases such as Iraq where the reasons for the war were rather dubious and were mainly drummed up in Bush's brain or that of his advisers who saw soldiers as human fodder and not as men as worthy of life as they are.
and another racist draconian immigration law instituted in fear of the "Browning of America" ala Pat Buchanan , Santorum, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Sara Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tea party Express & the GOP .
Arizona Law With an Alabama Twist: Immigration Law Targets Kids by Steve Benen,via Alternet.org, June12, 2011
Arizona generated quite a bit of attention last year when state policymakers approved a radical anti-immigrant measure known as SB 1070. Legal challenges to the law are still underway.
What’s generating far less attention is the fact other states are in the process of going even further. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R), for example, signed a sweeping new anti-immigrant measure into law this week, after it was approved by a Republican-dominated legislature, to significantly less fanfare than the Arizona fight in 2010,
Sam Brooke of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project talked to Justin Elliott about why the Alabama law, which takes effect in September, is the worst state measure to date.
“I think one of the sponsors of the bill summed up it best when he said: ‘This is the Arizona law with an Alabama twist.’ It is everything that was included in Arizona’s SB 1070 — including everything that was enjoined by the courts when they evaluated that bill. The twist is a provision in the Alabama law that requires schools to determine and verify immigration status of any student who is enrolling and any parent of students who are enrolling. The bill’s backers are saying that this is constitutional because they are not turning people away from schools. The schools are not supposed to turn people away, but they are required to collect this data and to report it to the Legislature. This is clearly in violation of existing Supreme Court precedent, because it will in fact have a chilling effect on immigrant children enrolling in school.
“There’s also a prohibition on renting in the law. It is a crime for a landlord to rent an apartment if they knew or should have known that the tenant is undocumented. Also under the law, if a person enters into a contract with someone who they know to be an undocumented immigrant, that contract is unenforceable in the state courts.”
Arizona’s “show me your papers” provision has effectively been copied in Alabama, requiring police officers to check the immigration status of individuals the officers believe might be in the country illegally. As in Arizona, the police don’t (and won’t) have any special training in immigration law, aren’t permitted to engage in racial profiling, and can be sued by any private citizen in Alabama for not enforcing the provision strictly enough.
Brooke added, “Fundamentally it’s our view that this is an un-American law. It’s a law that requires people to carry identification on them at all times in order to prove that they’re a U.S. citizen. It’s a law that is making all of us a lot less safe here in Alabama. This is definitely a dark day in the civil rights history of Alabama.”
And given Alabama’s civil rights history, that’s really saying something.
Since the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan there has been a major uptick in anti-Americanism in that country.
Rising Anti-Americanism in Pakistan Middle East Online, June 12, 2011
Shrouded in secrecy, drone attacks have turned into propaganda tools for both defenders and critics. Because the international and Pakistani media are denied access to the tribal areas, the target territory of drone attacks, the precise count of casualties remains unclear, writes Liaquat Ali Khan.
Middle East Online
On May 14, after deliberations of over 10 hours, the democratically-elected Pakistan Parliament in a joint session of both houses passed a unanimous resolution to reclaim Pakistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security against US military actions. Invoking the U.N. Charter, international law, and humanitarian norms, the resolution specifically condemns “the continued drone attacks on the territory of Pakistan,” which have increased manifold under President Obama. The resolution empowers the Pakistan Government “to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to NATO/ISAF forces” in case the CIA-operated drone attacks are not “stopped forthwith.” The Parliament also expressed “its deep distress” over “the campaign in certain (US) quarters” to malign Pakistan as a nation that secretly supports terrorist outfits.
The US National Security Council (NSC), the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters, should take notice of the rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan. It must review the policy of drone attacks and find ways to establish rapport with the Pakistan Parliament. Failure to do so would most likely harm US strategic and foreign policy interests.
Drones as Propaganda Tools
Shrouded in secrecy, drone attacks have turned into propaganda tools for both defenders and critics. Because the international and Pakistani media are denied access to the tribal areas, the target territory of drone attacks, the precise count of casualties remains unclear. Furthermore, no one knows with certainty whether drones kill more militants or civilians. Defenders, mostly in the US, support drones as efficacious machines to fight militants lodged in inaccessible mountains. Critics, mostly in Pakistan, condemn drones as lawless gadgets that kill innocent men, women, and children, the indigenous population of tribal areas.
As for civilian casualties NATO and USA make feeble dishonest excuses as they bomb weddings, weddings, and any other family gatherings or villagers gathering for religious holidays and celebrations
and further damaging news about Pakistan US Relations. It appears the USA does not trust the Pakistan government or its security arm the ISI and so is keeping them in the dark about US military attacks inside Pakistan. And still the deadly drones keep coming killing more civilians than Taliban , insurgents or other so called terrorists.
American government and pentagon refuse to admit these facts and refuse to accept that every time the US forces kill civilians each incident creates more insurgents who see themselves as simply defending their homeland
No US boots on Pak soil: CIA chief told
Reuters ,The Times of India online, June 12, 2011
ISLAMABAD: CIA director Leon Panetta told Pakistan's army and intelligence chiefs that he was concerned about a reduction of US troops allowed in country, but was bluntly told no American boots would be allowed on the ground, Pakistani military officials.
Panetta, nominated to take over as defence secretary next month, arrived in Pakistan on Friday in an unannounced visit, his first trip since a secret US raid that killed Osama bin Laden and severely damaged ties between the allies. Pakistan's army said Thursday it had drastically cut down on the number of US troops allowed in the country and set clear limits on intelligence sharing with the United States.
"He (Panetta) expressed concerns over the reduction of trainers and operatives. We told him very clearly 'no boots on our soil is acceptable'," said the Pakistani military official. Panetta held talks with army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of military intelligence. The Pakistani military released a statement saying: "Both sides discussed the framework for future intelligence sharing."
A US embassy spokesman said he had no information on the talks. The United States kept Islamabad in the dark about the May 2 raid by Navy SEALs until after it was over, humiliating Pakistan's armed forces and putting US military and intelligence ties under serious strain.
and another article on the motives and mindset of Nato & US forces in Afghanistan and their dismissive attitude towards the murdering of civilians.
The peoples in this region see themselves as resistance fighters taking on a hated foreign occupation force. NATO now doing what the Ugly American leaders want them to do.
The rules of war as defined in the Geneva Conventions , the Nuremberg Trials have been tossed out in favor of "Total War" in which the enemy is loosely defined so that it includes those who fight and all those who know or who are related to those who fight.
So all Afghan citizens are characterized as being the enemy.
What is disturbing and disheartening is that many of those who support the US and NATO actions in Afghanistan are all too willing to accept any feeble excuse those in power make. To do otherwise would mean that those troops they support and their commanders are not worthy of support.
The War in Afghanistan began to some extent as a legitimate means to get Osama Bin Laden and his supporters after 9/11 attacks and to take out the Taliban.
Now these Western forces stay in Afghanistan to take revenge on the Afghan peoples including the Pashtun Tribes for each fresh killing of a Western soldier.
At Nuremberg the world condemned the NAZIS for their retaliating attacks on civilians in which they would kill 50 civilians for the death of one German soldier killed by the resistance now we see the same mentality in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and now Libya .
Meanwhile President Obama following in the footsteps of the Bush/Cheney regime representing the worst of America foreign policies threatens to attack Iran or Syria, or maybe Egypt or Turkey to teach these lesser beings (according to those in power in the West) to either do what America wants or face the real possibility of harsh draconian sanctions (ala Gaza or Iraq etc.) or invasion and occupation by the American Empire and its satellite states (ala the former Soviet Union ).
Note during the sanctions on Iraq at 500,000 people died unnecessarily and still the USA and the Western nations refuse to apologize.
But for America it is a story that has been going on for about two centuries as America stole territory from Mexico, Spain, the Philippines, Hawaii, Cuba, Florida, Texas, Southern California, Oregon and Washington State and so on.
Believing that this was America's destiny and that America represents God and therefore doing God's work as they enslaved millions of Black people and all but exterminated the Native Americans believing that God commanded America to take most of North America as their territory and now they are taking down one nation after another and massacring their peoples.
Their argument might be fallacious but how can one argue with America's political elite when sooner or later their fall back position is that God wants them to conquer most of the world or that it is just a matter of Natural Law and or evolution.
Afghanistan: Why Civilians are Killed" By James Petras June 12 2011 "Information Clearing House"
...A People’s War: Not a War on Terror
The killing of civilians is not “accidental”. The fundamental reason that so many civilians are killed, everyday, in every region for over a decade, is because the civilians and the combatants are indistinguishable. The image of the Afghan combatants as some kind of footloose professional bomb throwing terrorist is completely off the mark. Most Afghan fighters have families, cultivate farmland and tend herds; they raise families and attend mosque; they are ‘part-time civilians’ and part-time fighters. Only in the schematic minds of the “great strategists of war” in the Pentagon and NATO headquarters do such distinctions exist. Their deadly military mission to ‘save the people from terrorist fundamentalists’, a self-serving self-deception, is, in fact, a ladder up the military-political hierarchy. Each step up depends on waging a ‘just war’ to a successful conclusion.
The civilian-combatants are a mass popular phenomenon. How else can we explain their capacity to sustain armed resistance for over a decade, indeed, advancing with the passing of time? How can we explain their military success against the armed forces and advisers from 40 countries, including the US, Europe and a clutch of Afro-Asian-Latin American mercenaries? How can we explain the growing resistance despite suffering from military occupation, backed by the most advanced technological instruments of war? How can we explain the ebb of popular support for the war in the ‘Conqueror’s country and the growing number of recruits for the Resistance? The combatants have the loyalty of the Afghan people; they do not have to spend billions to buy the spurious ‘loyalties’ of mercenaries who can and have at any moment ‘turned their guns the other way’.
The civilian-combatants are a mass popular phenomenon. How else can we explain their capacity to sustain armed resistance for over a decade, indeed, advancing with the passing of time? How can we explain their military success against the armed forces and advisers from 40 countries, including the US, Europe and a clutch of Afro-Asian-Latin American mercenaries? How can we explain the growing resistance despite suffering from military occupation, backed by the most advanced technological instruments of war? How can we explain the ebb of popular support for the war in the ‘Conqueror’s country and the growing number of recruits for the Resistance? The combatants have the loyalty of the Afghan people; they do not have to spend billions to buy the spurious ‘loyalties’ of mercenaries who can and have at any moment ‘turned their guns the other way’.
Weddings are bombed because combatants attend weddings – along with hundreds of relatives and friends. Villages are bombed because peasants cultivate crops, which contribute to the resistance. Civilian shelters become military sanctuaries. Afghanistan is polarized: the US military versus a people in arms. Faced with this reality, the real policy of NATO-Pentagon is to rule or/and ruin. Each bomb killing dozens of civilians in search of one sharpshooter deepens the isolation and discredit of the puppet ruler. “President” Karzai has seen his mission of building a ‘civilian base’ to reconstruct the country utterly discredited. His impotent complaints to NATO to cease bombing civilian targets fall on deaf ears; because the NATO command knows very well that ‘the civilians’ are the ‘deep resistance’ – the vast reserve of support for the combatants; their eyes and ears far excel all the electronic intelligence devices of the Occupier. Just as Karzai cannot convince the civilians to turn against the combatants so he cannot convince the imperial armies to stop bombing civilian homes and gatherings.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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