The Quiet Power of Europe

The last line really spoke to me on a political, social, and personal level.  Slow, ungainly, and incremental may be boring to watch; but, that method is working just fine in my life!

By Stefan Theil | NEWSWEEK

Published Oct 30, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Nov 9, 2009

It's often easy to view Europe as an aging continent in terminal decline. Pundits and politicians lament that the European Union is weak, riven by conflict, and unable to translate its size and wealth into hard power. Or, as British Foreign Minister David Miliband put it last week, "the European whole is less than the sum of its parts."

Yet such charges of drift and decline miss a stark reality. As the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall arrives next week, Europe finds itself more united, prosperous, and secure than at any time in history. EU members have become some of the planet's most adroit globalizers, opening themselves to the world while keeping in place their extensive social services—Germany alone exports as much as China. The continent has also fared better than expected in the downturn. Europe's unemployment rate now bests America's, and France and Germany managed to escape the recession faster than the United States.

Things look almost as good on the political front. In the years since communism ended, the EU has doubled in size, and its population will pass 500 million next year. The Union, often decried as dysfunctional, has reached another important milestone: the Lisbon Treaty, a quasi constitution that streamlines decision making, has just been approved by the last of the 27 members. Its passage will curtail the veto that gave even tiny members the ability to block major projects, and will create a new post of EU president, who will be empowered to speak on the Union's behalf.

Thanks to this record, another half dozen countries are pushing to join. Enlargement has become a huge source of soft power as well, a potent weapon for spreading Europe's influence. Turkey, for example, has enacted a long chain of reforms over the past two decades to improve its candidacy, and Albania, one of Europe's most backward states, recently announced it would become the world's first Muslim-majority country to allow gay marriage—just to show Brussels it can meet EU standards on human and civil rights.

The EU is even beginning to extend its power beyond its neighborhood. EU countries now have some 100,000 soldiers, 60,000 diplomats, and countless aid workers deployed worldwide. And the cliché that Europeans avoid fighting is wrong: 21 European states have soldiers in Afghanistan, where they've suffered a full third of the Coalition's combat deaths. Europe, in other words—despite its nature as an often bickering club of nations—has already become a global power. True, the EU method—slow, ungainly, and often incremental—may be boring to watch. But that method is working just fine, and its prospects look better than ever.

Find this article athttp://www.newsweek.com/id/220516

© 2009

Gabi on WJTV August 20, 2009 helping with the weather forecast.

Gay Marriage, Democracy, and the Courts

I found this to be a rather compelling and thought provoking opinion from Mr. George, specifically in the context that the Constitutional prerogatives of liberty retained by the people and the states must be treated seriously by the Judicial Branch of government.  Additionally, he left me wanting to gain a better understanding of Loving v. Virginia and how the case may or may not be germane to the issue of same-gender marriage.  Finally, Mr. George’s recognition that polyamorous relationships are next to be seeking official recognition by the government fits well within the conversation. 

While slippery-slope arguments should be greeted with skepticism, there are many well-known names already advocating other unions beyond same gender marriage.  Robert George aptly identifies the crux of the issue without the fear and prejudice often seen from the fringe political right.  In the end, the logic of same gender and polyamorous marriage advocates, “is unassailable once the historic definition of marriage is overthrown.”

OPINION

AUGUST 3, 2009, 11:22 A.M. ET

The culture war will never end if judges invalidate the choices of voters.

By ROBERT P. GEORGE

We are in the midst of a showdown over the legal definition of marriage. Though some state courts have interfered, the battle is mainly being fought in referenda around the country, where “same-sex marriage” has uniformly been rejected, and in legislatures, where some states have adopted it. It’s a raucous battle, but democracy is working.

Now the fight may head to the U.S. Supreme Court. Following California’s Proposition 8, which restored the historic definition of marriage in that state as the union of husband and wife, a federal lawsuit has been filed to invalidate traditional marriage laws.

It would be disastrous for the justices to do so. They would repeat the error in Roe v. Wade: namely, trying to remove a morally charged policy issue from the forums of democratic deliberation and resolve it according to their personal lights.

Even many supporters of legal abortion now consider Roe a mistake. Lacking any basis in the text, logic or original understanding of the Constitution, the decision became a symbol of the judicial usurpation of authority vested in the people and their representatives. It sent the message that judges need not be impartial umpires—as both John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor say they should be—but that judges can impose their policy preferences under the pretext of enforcing constitutional guarantees.

By short-circuiting the democratic process, Roe inflamed the culture war that has divided our nation and polarized our politics. Abortion, which the Court purported to settle in 1973, remains the most unsettled issue in American politics—and the most unsettling. Another Roe would deepen the culture war and prolong it indefinitely.

Some insist that the Supreme Court must invalidate traditional marriage laws because “rights” are at stake. But as in Roe, they are forced to peddle a strained and contentious reading of the Constitution—one whose dubiousness would undermine any ruling’s legitimacy.

Lawyers challenging traditional marriage laws liken their cause to Loving v. Virginia (which invalidated laws against interracial marriages), insinuating that conjugal-marriage supporters are bigots. This is ludicrous and offensive, and no one should hesitate to say so.

The definition of marriage was not at stake in Loving. Everyone agreed that interracial marriages were marriages. Racists just wanted to ban them as part of the evil regime of white supremacy that the equal protection clause was designed to destroy.

Opponents of racist laws in Loving did not question the idea, deeply embodied in our law and its shaping philosophical tradition, of marriage as a union that takes its distinctive character from being founded, unlike other friendships, on bodily unity of the kind that sometimes generates new life. This unity is why marriage, in our legal tradition, is consummated only by acts that are generative in kind. Such acts unite husband and wife at the most fundamental level and thus legally consummate marriage whether or not they are generative in effect, and even when conception is not sought.

Of course, marital intercourse often does produce babies, and marriage is the form of relationship that is uniquely apt for childrearing (which is why, unlike baptisms and bar mitzvahs, it is a matter of vital public concern). But as a comprehensive sharing of life—an emotional and biological union—marriage has value in itself and not merely as a means to procreation. This explains why our law has historically permitted annulment of marriage for non-consummation, but not for infertility; and why acts of sodomy, even between legally wed spouses, have never been recognized as consummating marriages.

Only this understanding makes sense of all the norms—annulability for non-consummation, the pledge of permanence, monogamy, sexual exclusivity—that shape marriage as we know it and that our law reflects. And only this view can explain why the state should regulate marriage (as opposed to ordinary friendships) at all—to make it more likely that, wherever possible, children are reared in the context of the bond between the parents whose sexual union gave them life.

If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union—and thus to procreation—will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy.

A veneer of sentiment may prevent these norms from collapsing—but only temporarily. The marriage culture, already wounded by widespread divorce, nonmarital cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing will fare no better than it has in those European societies that were in the vanguard of sexual “enlightenment.” And the primary victims of a weakened marriage culture are always children and those in the poorest, most vulnerable sectors of society.

Candid and clear-thinking advocates of redefining marriage recognize that doing so entails abandoning norms such as monogamy. In a 2006 statement entitled “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,” over 300 lesbian, gay, and allied activists, educators, lawyers, and community organizers—including Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, and prominent Yale, Columbia and Georgetown professors—call for legally recognizing multiple sex partner (“polyamorous”) relationships. Their logic is unassailable once the historic definition of marriage is overthrown.

Is this a red herring? This week’s Newsweek reports more than 500,000 polyamorous households in the U.S.

So, before judging whether traditional marriage laws should be junked, we must decide what marriage is. It is this crucial and logically prior question that some want to shuffle off stage.

Because marriage has already been deeply wounded, some say that redefining it will do no additional harm. I disagree. We should strengthen, not redefine, marriage. But whatever one’s view, surely it is the people, not the courts, who should debate and decide. For reasons of both principle and prudence, the issue should be settled by democratic means, not by what Justice Byron White, in his dissent in Roe, called an “act of raw judicial power.”

Mr. George is professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and founder of the American Principles Project (www.americanprinciplesproject.org).

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Keyes, Birthers, Buckley and Birchers: Oh my!

I commend Bill Pascoe for speaking truth to power by issuing a call for conservatives to end the so-called 'Birthers' movement against President Obama.  There may be numerous legitimate reasons for conservatives (and liberals) to oppose some of the policy directions of Obama, but following quack conspiracy theories is not one of them!

COMMENTARY

By Bill Pascoe, CQ Guest Columnist

CQ Politics

updated 2:37 p.m. CT, Tues., July 28, 2009

WASHINGTON - "Dear Birthers: Stop! Sincerely, Serious Conservatives."

I’ve held fire for the last several months as I’ve watched the so-called "Birther" movement gain steam. At first it was amusing, like playing a drinking game — you know, like taking a shot every time Chris Matthews explains why he insists on pronouncing the former Vice President’s name "CHEE-knee."

It’s not amusing anymore.

As one of the GOP operatives whose job it was to defeat Barack Obama in a campaign for federal office (there have only been three GOP campaigns run against him, and I’ve been involved with two of them), I can attest to the fact that nowhere in our opposition research did we find any reason to believe that the man was not a natural born citizen of the United States.

I can also attest to the fact that Alan Keyes, who, at about 1:22 into this video shot on February 20 of this year, lays out the "Birther" case against Obama, never raised any doubts about Obama’s alleged overseas birth while he was running against Obama for the United States Senate in Illinois in 2004.

Oh, Alan Keyes said all sorts of other nutty things while he was the GOP Senate nominee in 2004, the kinds of things that cause campaign operatives to go gray prematurely — "Jesus Christ would not vote for my opponent," Second Daughter Mary Cheney was a "selfish hedonist" and other such bon mots — but he never once challenged Obama’s place of birth.

Nor did he suggest Obama had anything to do with the introduction of the Edsel, nor the marketing of New Coke; nor the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, nor the disappearance of Amelia Earhart; nor did Keyes allege Obama was anywhere near Graceland on the morning of August 16, 1977, nor did he suggest Obama had anything to do with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

But that "Birther" thing...

Seriously. Is this anything but a gift to the Democrats?

Am I the only one to notice that mainstream media attention to the "Birthers" has picked up in recent weeks, and that this increased attention is coincident to the turn in Obama’s approval ratings?

For instance, a search of The Washington Post web site on the term "Birther" yields as its oldest hit this one from July 6; a search of The New York Times, though, shows one June reference in passing and then the first real mention of the term on July 22.

Far be it from me to assume one is the cause of the other, but, still, it is an interesting coincidence.

Coincidence or not, it is eating up valuable air time and gobbling up precious inches of type that could, and should, be devoted to other, more pressing, matters, like the self-immolation of the Democratic Party as it struggles to find a way to reform the health care delivery system without destroying it.

Reasonable and responsible conservatives, thus, are stuck. We are being lumped in with irresponsible and unreasonable conspiracy theorists.

And I believe the time has come for reasonable and responsible conservatives to deal with the "Birther" Problem.

In January 1962, conservative leaders faced a similar problem: How to deal with the members of the John Birch Society, whose leader, Robert Welch, believed that the former president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a a conscious agent of the International Communist Conspiracy.

National Review Founder William F. Buckley, Jr., Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, conservative historian and philosopher Russell Kirk, and American Enterprise Institute President William Baroody took it upon themselves secretly to meet at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, where they decided Welch and the Birchers would have to be excommunicated from the Conservative Movement, lest their lunacy taint reasonable and responsible conservative political activity.

Were Buckley alive today, is there any doubt he would have the same response to the "Birthers"?

I think not.

DISCLAIMER: When I write about the politicians in my past, CQ Politics says I have to turn the cards face up. I arrived in Chicago in late May of 2004 to try to help then-GOP Senate nominee Jack Ryan campaign against Barack Obama . Four weeks after I arrived, Ryan ended his campaign. I was the guy whose idea it was to recruit Alan Keyes to run as Ryan’s replacement candidate -- which led to a nightmarish 86-day campaign, about which all I will say for now is that if I ever sit down and write the book about that campaign, it will be called “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.”

Bill Pascoe is CEO of The Foundation for American Freedom, a conservative think tank headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and writes the ”In the Right” blog at CQPolitics.com.

CQ © 2009 All Rights Reserved | Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1255 22nd Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037 | 202-419-8500

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32190004/ns/politics-cq_politics/

© 2009 MSNBC.com

Democrats Denounce Obama for Bush-Like Signing Statement That He Is Not Bound By Federal Legislation

Jonathan Turley is a wonderful example of one who consistently speaks truth to power.  Once again, the power of the Executive Branch is proving to be too intoxicating.  Truly, how much difference will there be between the legacies of Bush and Obama?! 

Four House Democrats have finally stepped forward to denounce the Bush-like policies of President Obama, particularly his recent signing statement proclaiming that he is not bound by federal legislation. The letter was signed by Reps. David Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; Barney Frank of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee; and subcommittee chairs Reps. Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks of New York. The letter breaks from the lockstep loyalty shown Obama despite his adoption of many of Bush’s most controversial positions.

The four democrats expressed how they were “surprised” and “chagrined” by Obama’s declaration in June that he does not have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill restricting $106 million aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

This signing statement followed a similar signing statement declaring that he was not bound by limitations in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill. The signing statement on that bill occurred two days after Obama promised to depart from the abuses of signing statements by Bush.

The House has voted to oppose Obama’s signing statements, here.

Just to keep a rough score, here is the top ten list of Obama’s rollback on civil liberties and constitutional principles:

1. Issued signing statements asserting that he is not subject to the limitations set by Congress (despite his campaign promises opposing such statements);

2. Opposed any investigation into the torture program (here) and alleged war crimes of the Bush Administration;

3. Opposed any investigation into the unlawful surveillance program;

4. Preserved the surveillance programs of the Bush Administration;

5. Withheld photographs of the abuse of detainees to prevent “embarrassment” to the nation as well as White House logs;

6. Promised CIA employees that they will not be investigated or prosecuted for any crimes that they allegedly committed as part of the torture and surveillance programs;

7. Asserted that, even if acquitted in court, he would retain the right to hold detainees indefinitely and will preserve the Bush tribunal system;

8. Delayed his own deadline for a report on the future for Guantanamo Bayand detainees and opposed the right of detainees to challenge their confinement;

9. Asserted executive privilege arguments in court that go beyond prior Bush claims; and

10. Secure the dismissal of dozens of civil liberties lawsuits designed to uncover unlawful conduct and deprivation of privacy rights.

In his morphing into Bush, Obama has even outdone Bush on references to Jesus — while expanding his faith-based initiatives.

Of course, most members were not so moved to confront Obama on his opposition to any investigation or prosecution for torture. It took his refusal to comply with their authority over appropriation that produced this “chagrined” response.

Many Democrats appear blind to the hypocrisy shown in the treatment of Obama and the media on civil liberties. When Bush took these positions, he was rightfully denounced. Yet, the opposition to Obama is far more muted and nuanced. I supported Obama. However, he has abandoned not only campaign promises but basic principles of human rights and civil liberties in these policies. Democrats are showing the same cult of personality that destroyed the Republicans in their blind loyalty to George Bush.

Link to Dr. Turley's res ipsa loquitur blog post: http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/22/democrats-denounce-obama-for-bush-like-signing-statement-announcing-he-is-not-bound-by-federal-legislation/

My mom and dad's 17th anniversary !

Hi! I haven't blogged in awhile,but I'm back! Oh and hi Ashley Pearson! She is my bff! Anyway's my mom and dad's anniversary is on Saturday July 25.

My brother Evan and I are going to stay at my grandma and grandpa's house. My dad is going to bring the playstation three and little big planet

game so we can be occupied. We agreed that he plays 1st player and I play 2nd player unless he is not playing. Well see you later! -- Gabi

No Reconciliation Without Conversion

"There is no reconciliation without conversion, the constant journey with God into a future of new people and new loyalties.  Broken by sin, we do not long for what God wants.  The world and its dividing lines such as nation, ethnicity, race, sex, power, and caste resist the new creation of God's beloved community where there is 'neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female' (Galatians 3:28).  Self-interest easily becomes the goal of relationships, and loyalty to one's own group easily becomes the aim of politics.  Reconciliation thus requires a transformation of desire, habits, and loyalties.  This is a long and costly journey which is impossible without God's forgiveness and grace.  But there is reason to hope:  God has promised to give us everything we need for this transformation."

-- Emmanuel Katongale and Chris Rice, Reconciliation as the Mission of God

Is Obama Even Willing to Seek Justice and Follow the Law?!

I am beginning to have serious doubts...politics and pragmatism are taking the place of the rule of law.

Check Out What Jonathan Turley Has to Say on Countdown...

Iran’s Regime: Marching Toward a Cliff

Let's spend some time listening to the Iranians speaking about themselves, rather than forcing them and ourselves to live with false constructs.  This looks to be a very interesting and insightful read.  Grace and peace to the Iranians.  Salam Alaikum to Neda Agha-Soltan and her family.

June 22nd, 2009

A special comment by Tamim Ansary, author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes

The Khomeinist regime in Iran is in terminal trouble; but that doesn’t mean Iran is about to repudiate Islam and become a secular democracy. In order to see where Iran is going, it’s important to see where it’s been.

The so-called Islamic Revolution of Iran was never just about Islam. It was the product of  three revolutionary currents coming together. One was constitutionalism, a century-old struggle for democracy, driven mostly by Iran’s secular modernists.  One was Islamism, a push to put the shari’a in charge of political life—a movement fed by rural resentment of the Westernized urban elite and embraced by merchants of the country’s traditional economy.

And then there was nationalism: a rage fueled by Iran’s long-subjugation to European powers, a passion that permeated every level of Iranian society and made people of all backgrounds hungry to see Iranian sovereignty, strength, and pride restored.

In the tumult of 1978-79, master strategist Ayatollah Khomeini appropriated the nationalist impulse into his Shi’i Islamist movement. He was in a good position to do so because Shi’ism had been intertwined with “Iranianism” for over five centuries.  Indeed, it was a defiant Shi’ism that set Iran apart from its powerful Ottoman and Moghul neighbors and let it emerge into history as a nation-state.

By making his brand of Islamism the face of Iranian nationalism,  Khomeini combined two streams of revolutionary enthusiasm and used it to crush the third stream, the  democracy movement of the secular modernists.

In the next several decades, while the world mourned the death of Iranian democracy, Khomeini and his successors made good their promise to nationalist pride and thus secured their grip on the country. They humiliated the United States; beat back Iraq; eradicated all traces foreign cultural influence in Iran; and forged a menacing state able to project its power through Lebanon into the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But recently the Khomeinists have faltered.  The ascension of Ahmadinejad has hurt them.  The trouble with Ahmadinejad is not that most of the world sees him as a villanous thug (that by itself could have helped him domestically.) The problem is that most of the world sees him as a laughable buffoon, a donkey: he brings shame upon the nation.  And he compounded his flaws by mismanaging the economy.  Iranians worried about tomorrow’s livelihood feel their country’s power and prestige waning.  As a result, the regime’s ownership of the nationalist agenda erodes.  If it loses that chip, it must rely purely on its Islamic credentials for legitimacy and even in Iran, that’s not enough.

Many in clerical establishment have seen this coming. This is what the reform movement has been about.   Men like Khatami, Mousavi, and Rafsanjani don’t propose to dismantle the Islamic Republic and replace it with a secular democracy. They’re out to save the Islamic Republic by changing its approach to the world and thus preserve its stature in world affairs.  They see what Obama sees: that belligerent bullying ultimately weakens a nation. This doesn’t mean their commitment to Islam (or even Islamism) has weakened, any more than Obama’s willingness to talk with states like Iran means he no longer believes in democracy.

In Iran, however,  the pressure of internal contradictions has built up such intensity that there is no controlling the reformist challenge and no predicting its consequences.  The only thing we can say for sure is that the regime led by Khamenei is in a bind from which it cannot escape.

The regime is in a bind because the question on the table now is whether it is hurting the nation, and the question doesn’t come from disaffected outsiders but from core members of the ruling elite.

Every instrument the regime possesses for dealing with the crisis tends to put its own legitimacy at risk. Khamenei’s decision-making has further boxed him and his cabal into a corner.   Take the election results: had those been counted properly, they might well have produced numbers pretty close to what the regime announced—believe it or not, that’s what a Manchester Guardian poll and several others showed in the weeks before the election. In the voting itself, there may not have been much fraud.

But that no longer matters, because the votes were not counted properly. That’s indisputable.  By issuing the results of the voting sooner than the votes could possibly have been counted,  Khamenei drew the spotlight away from scattered polling booths and trucks rolling through the streets with ballot boxes, and situated the central act of fraud squarely in the headquarters of the regime.

As Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei may have many powers, but he doesn’t have the power to do as he pleases for personal gain. As a fundamental principle, in the Islamic Republic, no one is free to do as he pleases, not even the “Supreme Leader.”  Everyone is subject to the law—that law being the shari’a. By appearing to commit a blatant dishonesty in order to put his own man in the drivers seat, Khamenei has cost himself an aura of impregnable authority, and this will hurt him because, for all the military and police resources at his command, the Supreme Leader’s authority ultimately derives from rectitude and religious learning, not bodyguards and guns.  As soon as people stop believing in his rectitude, guns won’t save him.

No doubt Khamenei calculated that his decree would stop all the protests dead and that life would then do what life does: go back to normal.  But the protests didn’t stop and so Khamenei found himself caught out in cold.

Therefore, he went to the next step and called on his military resources, because what else could he do? The revolution of 1979 suppressed whole currents of revolutionary passion unrelated to Islam, and those sentiments have been festering and heating up under the skin of the Islamic Republic for decades. The Khomeinist regime cannot let that magma keep welling to the surface.  The trouble is, the division in Iran runs vertically.  This is not a confrontation between a homogenous oppressed underclass and a monolithically united tyranny.  Leading members on both sides of the divide are highly placed insiders. In calling out the troops, the regime turns its guns on itself.  To justify this action, it has no recourse but to redefine some founding members of the Islamic revolution as disloyal outsiders. Even if it succeeds in thus rebranding men like Rafsanjani, it damages the legitimacy of the state structure as a whole: success is failure.

Furthermore, to keep the opposition scattered and disorganized, the regime has no choice but to stopper up their channels of communication. That means it has to disrupt the Internet, shut down Facebook, stop the Twittering, and keep cell phone text messages from getting through.  These, however, are the power technologies of our time. These are what make societies effective, powerful, and modern.  In shutting down these systems, the regime is dragging Iran back into a primitivism that can only reduce the country to third-tier status—and Iranians can feel this. So all such actions offend the yearnings still alive in the Iranian soul for strength, self respect, and a high standing in the world.

In short, every step the regime can take to shore up its strength must cost it some credibility and squander some of its ability to keep presenting itself as the champion of Iranian pride. If a plurality of the nation comes to feel that these Khomeinist clerics are good Muslims but bad for Iran, they are finished.  Their only possible hope then will rest with some outside force inserting itself into the fray and giving them a convenient scapegoat, someone like John McCain, who incredibly enough said today that the United States “should lead”  the Iranian revolution.  But then, if the Khomeinists of Iran depend on John McCain to save their hides, they’re probably dead men walking already.

http://therumpus.net/2009/06/iran%E2%80%99s-regime-marching-toward-a-cliff/

© 2008 The Rumpus

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The American Patriot’s Bible Released by Thomas Nelson

Oh, my heart is saddened to hear about such a Bible.  I was once of that mind, however, and I believe that it is possible to be set free from the bondage of blind nationalism and reject as false a spirituality that holds the flag higher than the Way of the cross and resurrection.  The separation of church and state philosophy that is reflected in our Bill of Rights and the nature of our republic does as much to protect the government from religious warfare, as is protects the church from becoming a whore of the government.

Last Sunday (May 3, 2009) my church, Northside Baptist Church, recognized Baptist World Alliance Day during worship.  English Christians fled religious persecution and held their first baptismal service in Holland in early 1609.  Their study of the Bible led them to call for personal faith linked to baptism.  When they returned to England, dissenters were in danger of whippings, fines, and imprisonment.  400 years later, Baptists still affirm and defend the freedoms first embraced by our earliest leaders.

The Baptist World Alliance is a fellowship of 214 Baptist conventions and unions comprising a membership of more than 37 million baptized believers and a community of 105 million.  The Baptist World Alliance began in London, England, in 1905 at the first Baptist World Congress.  Reflecting our deep held Baptist convictions, Northside Baptist Church of Clinton has become a financial and ministry partner of the Baptist World Alliance.

The Baptist World Alliance is a global movement of Baptists sharing a common confession of faith in Jesus Christ, bonded together by God’s love to support, encourage and strengthen one another, while proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to a lost world.

The goals of the Baptist World Alliance are:
1. To unite Baptists worldwide.
2. To lead in world evangelism.
3. To respond to people in need.
4. To defend human rights.
5. To promote theological reflection.

This is how we called ourselves to worship and prayer...

Jesus Christ is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.  He knows his own, and his own know him.  He guides us along sure paths and calls us believe in his name and lay down our lives for one another.  Come now, let us respond to the Shepherd’s voice. Come to the table he has spread before us. Let us gather at his call in union with our Baptist sisters and brothers around the world and with all people everywhere who have found salvation in him.  Called together as one flock under one shepherd, let us offer ourselves in worship.

God of grace and God of glory, you have raised your crucified Son, Jesus, from the dead. He was rejected by those who build to their own glory, but you have made him the cornerstone of life and healing and grace and truth, and called us to find salvation in him alone. We are gathered here at your call. We are gathered here because you are our shepherd and we need nothing more. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, gather us as one flock, abiding in Christ Jesus, faithful to the heritage of faith we have received, and boldly going wherever you call us.  Receive our praise, our love, our service, through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.





The Patriot’s Bible — Really?
by Greg Boyd

May 8th, 2009

Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit entitled “Really? With Seth and Amy”? Sometimes it’s pretty funny. I was thinking that perhaps the best way to get through my critique of The American Patriot’s Bible (henceforth Patriot’s Bible) would be to give a “Really?” type report on it.

I want to preface my “report” by saying I am certain the commentators behind the Patriot’s Bible are well intentioned, godly scholars who believe they’re doing the Kingdom (and America) a great service. Despite their noble intentions, however, I believe this Bible is, frankly, idolatrous, dangerous and profoundly damaging to the Kingdom. I feel compelled to denounce it in the strongest possible way I can. The sarcasm that follows is intended for this purpose only.

Here’s some “really?” reflections, in no particular order.

* The Lord’s statement that Moses “is faithful in all My houses” (Num. 12:7) calls for a boxed quote from Grover Cleveland about how the teachings of Christ “results in the purest patriotism…”

Really? Oddly enough, Christians for the first three centuries of the church were persecuted for being unpatriotic. They wouldn’t pledge allegiance to the emperor or fight to defend the empire. Now Jesus becomes the champion of patriotism. Really? Does this hold true for Russians, North Koreans and Iranians, or just Americans? And how on earth did we leap from a verse about God’s “houses” to the topic of patriotism in the first place? Really?

* In 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul notes that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are spiritual and mighty in God for the tearing down of strongholds. This inspires the Patriot’s Bible commentators to provide the reader with a historical note about Eisenhower signing into law the clause “one Nation under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance. Eisenhower is quoted as saying this clause would help “strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our countries most powerful resource in peace and war.”

Really? Do you really think Paul – who taught us to give our enemies food and water and to never retaliate (Rom. 12:14-21) – would approve of having his authority borrowed to buttress up America’s resources in war? Really? Doesn’t this verse explicitly say he’s not talking about earthly wars and that our weapons are not carnal? Oh, and by the way, the Patriot’s Bible leaves out “not carnal” in their commentary’s quote of this verse. Really?

* Perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16 which tells us “God so loved the world he gave his only Son…” This inspires the commentators of the Patriot’s Bible to quote Colin Powell on how “the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders.”

Really? Really?? With all due respect to the bravery of American soldiers, are you really suggesting that in sending soldiers to war, the United States is acting like God did when he sent his Son? Would you be willing to grant this parallel for every nation that has sacrificed young men and women in war, or is it just the United States that is God-like in doing this? Don’t Russians and Iranians love their children too? And aren’t we tip toeing dangerously close to blasphemy when we compare our nations military with the sacrificial love of God? Just wondering.

* Jesus statement that “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (Jn. 8:36) inspires a page long commentary on the Bill of Rights, with an ominous emphasis on how the “wall of separation” between church and state today is threatening freedom of religion.

Really? Doesn’t the wall separating church and state protect the freedom of religion? But more importantly, are we to actually believe the freedom Jesus was talking about had anything whatsoever to do with political rights? Why didn’t he say so, since his audience happened to have zero political rights. He could have inspired a violent political revolution, similar to the American Revolution, if he’d connected his freedom with political freedom.

Wait a minute: this is exactly what many in his audience wanted and expected Jesus to do. How did Jesus respond? He rebuked them, telling them instead to love and do good their enemies. It’s kind of what got him crucified. His “freedom,” like his Kingdom, apparently is “not of this world.” Nevertheless, the Patriot’s Bible succeeds in accomplishing what Jesus’ audience could not. Jesus becomes the champion of political freedom after all! Patriot’s Bible — 1. Jesus — 0.

* David’s census of warriors in Israel and Judah (2 Sam. 23:8) elicits a full page commentary on “Freedom’s Defense,” consisting of quotes from various people who agreed that freedom is worth fighting for, including the 19th century former slave, Frederick Douglas.

Really? The link between David’s census and American soldiers is tenuous enough, (couldn’t this be applied to soldiers from every nation?) but what’s even stranger is that this is an account of David disobeying God. He was not to place his trust in warriors but to trust God, which is why counting his soldiers was forbidden. What’s even stranger is that Douglas is included in this list. The freedom Douglas was talking about was the freedom that the United States was at the time denying blacks!

Here’s a quote of Douglas that I wish had found its way into the Patriot’s Bible.

“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked…I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity.”

I suppose including a quote like this might call into question the God-ruled glorious history of this Christian nation celebrated throughout this Bible. But come on. What do you think Douglas would think of this Bible — let alone having his name used to advance it’s agenda?

* A reference to Joseph being sold as a slave to the Ishmaelites (Gen. 37:28) elicits a tender quote from Dick Cheney regarding how easy it is to “take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.”

Really? Dick Cheney the champion for civil liberties? Really? And on the topic of liberty being taken from people, why does the version of American history in this Bible gloss over the long and bloody history of how white Americans took away the freedom of millions of Africans and Native Americans? Honestly. Christopher Columbus is made out to be a hero – even fulfilling Zechariah 9:10 which says “He shall speak peace to the nations…” — and no mention is made of how he and his fellow Conquistadors cheated, enslaved, raped, mutilated and executed members of the indigenous population. Instead, the Patriot’s Bible sees God’s hand involved in this and every other advancement of white Europeans on this land. Really? Could you possibly do a better job justifying those who reject Christianity as a Eurocentric, racist, nationalistic and violent religion?

* A statement that the king of Tyre gave gifts to David (2 Samuel 5:11) occasions a commentary on President Thomas Jefferson who provided the newly converted Kaskaskia Indian tribe seven year support for a priest and money for a church.

Really? We can certainly applaud Jefferson’s generosity, but are you really going to mention this act of kindness on the part of the American government toward Indians and remain silent on the many acts of betrayal and butchery toward Indians perpetrated by, or with the support of, the U.S. government? Really?

Why, for example, don’t we find a commentary on how President Andrew Jackson signed the “Indian Removal Act” in 1830, robbing Cherokees, Choctaw and other Indian tribes of millions of acres of land once promised them because white settlers now wanted it. (Among other things, it was discovered the land had a lot of gold.) Jackson eventually ordered them to march to a little reservation in Oklahoma, and multitudes died in the process.

Is presenting America as “one Nation under God” really so important you need to be this one-sided in your retelling of its history? Really?

* Joseph’s statement to his brothers that God had sent him to Egypt before them “to preserve life” (Gen. 45:5) elicits a quote from Clarence Manion regarding the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are equal in the sight of God.” In so far as any connection between this verse and commentary can be made, it seems the commentators are suggesting a parallel between God sending Joseph and God sending the Declaration of Independence “to preserve life.”

Really? I mean, I’m all for Americans being happy we’re free, but come on! Where did these commentators discover the divine revelation that God was fighting on the side of the U.S. troops against the British? After all, the British had a lot more Bible on their side in their debate with the American Revolutionaries than the Revolutionaries did (e.g. Rom. 13:1-7). And while we’re on the topic, shouldn’t a commentary on the Declaration of Independence at least mention that, when it was signed, the “all men are created equal” clause applied only to white males?

Lets celebrate the Declaration of Independence. But do we really want to suggest it was sent by God? Really?

* Following a passage that says that Abram armed his servants for war (Gen. 14: 14) the reader is given a page-long history on “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms” that celebrates the fact that early Americans were always “prepared to fight” for “liberty” which was “at the heart of their religion.”

Really? Really?? Do we honestly need a section defending – indeed celebrating – the right to bear arms in a Christian Bible? Come on! Didn’t Jesus rebuke Peter and tell him to put away his sword (Jn 18:10-11)? Didn’t Jesus tell us to “not resist an evil person” but instead “turn to them the other cheek” (Mt 5:38)? Didn’t Jesus command us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us if we want to be “children of your Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:44-45)? And while it may be true that political liberty was at the heart of many American pioneers, didn’t Jesus constantly tell us to surrender our rights, giving a person our shirt if he takes our coat for example?

Yet, here we have a Christian Bible eulogizing American pioneers who were willing to kill for their personal liberty. What’s wrong with this picture?

* Though it finds every verse it can to use as an excuse to heap further praise on America, the Patriot’s Bible is curiously silent on all passages that might in any way curb a Christians enthusiasm for this (or any other) nation. For example, there is no comment on any of the passages that depict Satan as the ruler of the whole world and as owning all the authority of all the kingdoms of the world (e.g. Lk 4:5-6; Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 n 5:19; Rev. 13).

Really? Do the commentators in the Patriot’s Bible think America is somehow exempt from Satan’s rule? What part of “all the kingdoms” in Luke 4:5-6 did the Patriot’s Bible not understand? Wouldn’t you think that a Bible devoted to eulogizing this “one Nation under God” would find these passages comment-worth, if only to disagree with them?

* In I Samuel 12:13 the Lord reluctantly accommodates Israel’s demand for a King, telling Samuel that this constitutes a rejection of him. This inspires a page long commentary on how Christians have a duty to vote.

Really? Really?? I’m a huge fan of democracy, but it says something when a Bible has to stoop this low to find support for it. Come on! The whole Saul-as-King narrative is about human rebellion against God! One might have thought the passage would be used to support the view that Christians have a duty not to vote.

* You have to love this one. A statement that “the mighty have fallen in the midst of battle” (2 Sam. 1:25) inspires a commentary entitled “Duty-Honor-Country.” Here General Douglas MacArthur says that soldiers sacrificing (and of course, killing) for their country represent “the noblest development of mankind.” The commentators of the Patriot’s Bible add that “as long as other Americans serve their country courageously and honorably, his words will live on.”

Really? Really?? Christians can’t find anything more noble than soldiers fighting other soldiers in the interest of their respective nations? Not even, say, someone choosing to die for their enemies rather than killing them? Really? And does the title of “noblest development” apply to all soldiers from all countries, or just to American soldiers? Hasn’t every country thought it’s soldiers were the noblest? Are Christians really to get sucked into the age long merry-go-round bloody game of insisting that our soldiers are more noble than our enemies? Really?

I could go on (and on and on), but I think I’ve made my point. I’ll end by simply noting that the very fact that there’s a sizable market for this Bible (why else would Thomas Nelson Publisher’s publish it?) is a sad commentary on the state of the church in America. It makes me tilt my head, squint my eyebrows and say….

Really? Really?


Link to this article:  http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/the-patriots-bible-really/

Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Christus Victor Ministries & Greg Boyd. Designed by Turtle Interactive.

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The Truth about the Swine Flu...

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A Primer on the American Form of Government

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Meghan McCain Warns of Looming Civil War in the GOP

I suspect that the infighting among conservatives reflects a broader trend in our culture, or more specifically our culture wars.  When you have been fighting for so long, sometimes it is hard to recognize that the war may have already been won or lost.  The younger generations do not recognize the perceived or real threats shared by their parents.  The older generations wrongly assume that the younger generations do not care.  A word of caution to the more politically liberal among us...the same is true for them!  While I may not personally agree with everything that Meghan McCain has voiced, I deeply respect her willingness to speak truth to power!

Posted: 09:00 AM ET on CNN PoliticalTicker

From CNN's Rebecca Sinderbrand

Meghan McCain addressed a group of gay Republicans in Washington Saturday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Meghan McCain warned a group of gay Republicans Saturday that there was "a war brewing in the Republican Party" – a war between the past and the future.

"Most of the old school Republicans are scared s***less of that future," she told a gathering of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian party members.

The 24-year-old daughter of former GOP presidential candidate John McCain pushed back against critics upset over her comments to CNN that she wanted President Obama to succeed, and played down her recent headline-grabbing feuds with conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. "I did not expect my frustration with what I perceive to be overly partisan and divisive Republicans to cause a national incident," she said.

"I feel too many Republicans want to cling to past successes…I think we're seeing a war brewing in the Republican Party," she said. "But it is not between us and Democrats. It is not between us and liberals. It is between the future and the past…

"I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends. And yes, I am a Republican," she told a cheering crowd.

Last week, McCain signed a deal with Hyperion to write a book about the future of the Republican Party. She said Saturday that embracing new technology wouldn't solve the party's problems. "Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn't going to miraculously make people think we're cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don't divide our nation further will," she said. "That's why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing, and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what's keeping our party down."

On Monday, McCain wrote an opinion piece urging the Republican Party to use more gay-friendly language. "Of all the causes I believe in and speak publicly about, this is one of the ones closest to my heart," she wrote in a blog post on the Daily Beast titled 'Memo to the GOP: Go Gay.' " If the Republican Party has any hope of gaining substantial support from a wider, younger base, we need to get past our anti-gay rhetoric."

McCain's father, former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, does not support same-sex marriage but opposed a constitutional amendment five years ago that would have banned the practice, calling the legislation "un-Republican." Speaking to the Log Cabin Republicans Friday, former Bush and McCain senior advisor Steve Schmidt publicly endorsed same-sex marriage.

© 2008 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.

Mr. Obama: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely...

Mr. President, I think you are simply wrong on this one.  Warrant-less wiretapping is not only dangerous it is also antithetical to the basic premises of our civil society and constitutionally guaranteed rights.  Just because one does not get caught does not mean that one is not a criminal.  The president is not entitled to unlimited power or power that is beyond a bridle.  Please do not allow a horrible error of the Bush administration to become standard operating procedure for the executive branch.  A benevolent and enlightened dictator is still a dictator who enslaves. 

You gave us your word, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  Furthermore, you know that you are directed to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed...."  Oh yea, one last word of truth spoken to power:  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  Mr. Obama, make this right!



Tuesday, April 7, 2009

(04-06) 15:26 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration's wiretapping program, this time against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records.

Disclosure of the information sought by the customers, "which concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security," Justice Department lawyers said in papers filed Friday in San Francisco.

Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of the Obama presidential campaign's "unceasing criticism of Bush-era secrecy and promise for more transparency."

In a 2006 lawsuit, the AT&T plaintiffs accused the company of allowing the National Security Agency to intercept calls and e-mails and inspect records of millions of customers without warrants or evidence of wrongdoing.

The suit followed President George W. Bush's acknowledgement in 2005 that he had secretly authorized the NSA in 2001 to monitor messages between U.S. residents and suspected foreign terrorists without seeking court approval, as required by a 1978 law.

Congress passed a new law last summer permitting the surveillance after Bush allowed some court supervision, the extent of which has not been made public. The law also sought to grant immunity to AT&T and other telecommunications companies from suits by customers accusing them of helping the government spy on them.

Nearly 40 such suits from around the nation, all filed after Bush's 2005 disclosure, have been transferred to San Francisco and are pending before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker. He is now reviewing a constitutional challenge to last year's immunity law, which the Obama administration is defending.

Walker is also considering a challenge to the surveillance program by the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now-defunct charity that was inadvertently given a government document in 2004, reportedly showing that its lawyers had been wiretapped during an investigation that landed the group on the government's terrorist list.

The Obama administration is also opposing that suit and has challenged Walker's order to let Al-Haramain's lawyers examine the still-classified surveillance document.

The administration's new filing asks Walker to dismiss a second suit filed in September by AT&T customers that sought to sidestep the telecommunications immunity law by naming only the government, Bush and other top officials as defendants.

Like the earlier suit, the September case relies on a former AT&T technician's declaration that he saw equipment installed at the company's San Francisco office to allow NSA agents to copy all incoming e-mails. The plaintiffs' lawyers say the declaration, and public statements by government officials, revealed a "dragnet" surveillance program that indiscriminately scooped up messages and customer records.

The Justice Department said Friday that government agents monitored only communications in which "a participant was reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization." But proving that the surveillance program did not sweep in ordinary phone customers would require "disclosure of highly classified NSA intelligence sources and methods," the department said.

Individual customers cannot show their messages were intercepted, and thus have no right to sue, because all such information is secret, government lawyers said. They also said disclosure of whether AT&T took part in the program would tell the nation's enemies "which channels of communication may or may not be secure."

by Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/07/MNRP16TJOQ.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

© 2009 Hearst Communications Inc.

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Bumble bee song

Well,sorry to keep you waiting!Here is another song I found along with butterfly.Enjoy!

Is Simply Being Alive Becoming a Medical Condition?!

Things that make you go, humm?!?  If you have not done so, I suggest watching the movie, The Road to Wellville.  It humorously documents the pseudo-science and alchemist-medicine that led to the creation of breakfast cereals and the Kellogg -v- Post rivalry.  (Did you know that corn flakes were offered as a remedy for national health pandemic of rampant masturbation?)  I wonder if we have really come that far...maybe we are just deluding ourselves into thinking that we really understand what it is to be human?!



By Alasdair Cross
Producer, Medicalisation of Normality

Restless leg syndrome, social anxiety disorder, female sexual dysfunction, celebrity worship syndrome - it seems that a new illness is invented every week, covering every potential quirk in human behaviour.

Is the human condition becoming a medical condition?

Ten per cent of British children are regarded as having a clinically recognisable mental disorder, 34 million prescriptions for anti-depressants were written in the UK in 2007, while it is estimated that 10% of US children take Ritalin to combat behaviour problems.

Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director of the National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health and a key government adviser is deeply concerned at what he sees as a medicalisation of a vast swathe of society.

He said: "I think there is an inherent danger from increasingly classifying people.

"If you look at the American Psychiatric Association 'bible', you'll see almost every piece of human behaviour can be classified as being in some way aberrant."

Dr Kendall sees dangers in a "tendency for new categories to be invented, often at the behest of drug companies looking for a new drug".

Medical historian, Dr Louise Foxcroft agrees, pointing to ill-defined conditions such as female sexual dysfunction and to the erectile hardness scale promoted by the producers of Viagra which she claims "is a creation of fear and anxiety".

It is certainly not a new phenomenon.

Historical ailments

Dr Foxcroft, author of 'Hot Flushes, Cold Science', has shelves of old medical textbooks stuffed with long-forgotten ailments.
“ I think there is an inherent danger from increasingly classifying people ”
Dr Tim Kendall National Collaboration Centre for Mental Health

Among them is hysteria, the symptoms of which could range from excessive masturbation to excessive novel reading and a tendency to wander.

Common treatments for hysterical women, and they were invariably women, included opium, the removal of the clitoris and incarceration.

Later, neurasthenia became the fashionable mental affliction, suffered by the likes of novelist, George Eliot and philosopher Immanuel Kant.

These over-worked intellectuals were offered the more convivial option of Priory-style rehab retreats to help ease their troubled minds.

Such ailments and the chance of treatment were once confined to the upper classes but that has changed in the past 20 years.

US advertising

In 1997 the US fully legalised the advertising of prescription medicines.

Since then television ad breaks and popular magazines have been packed with explicit claims for the effectiveness of anti-depressants, behaviour modifying drugs and pre-menstrual tension treatments.

Prescriptions for the most heavily-advertised drugs have risen significantly.

Could we see a similar effect in the UK?

Dr Kendall is concerned by current European Commission proposals that could loosen the blanket ban on the advertisement of prescription medicines to European consumers.

Do not expect Prozac ads before Coronation Street or a Ritalin sponsored X-Factor.

However, the proposed shift would allow adverts on medical websites and in relevant magazines.

Dr Richard Tiner of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry says that his members are completely opposed to 'direct to consumer advertising' on the American model.

Dr Kendall, an adviser to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, said: "It's far better that independent bodies like NICE provide the evidence, turned into plain English for patients.

"I'd far rather that's what patients got than so-called information provided by a pharmaceutical company."

If the proposals become law then, as in the US, we can expect to see even more new conditions and new drugs to treat them, new ways not to be 'normal'.

'The Medicalisation of Normality' is broadcast on BBC Radio Four at 2100 BST on Monday 30 March and repeated on Wednesday 1 April at 1630 BST.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7967851.stm

Published: 2009/03/30 07:04:55 GMT

© BBC MMIX

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MSNBC Answer Desk: Big bonuses for everyone? How much money is there?

Some very interesting information that seems to contradict many policy wonks and much of the "conventional wisdom" spewed on talk radio and editorial news shows...please consume with much salt!



By John W. Schoen
Senior producer
msnbc.com
updated 8:37 a.m. CT, Mon., March. 30, 2009

With the government's latest handout to investors looking to profit on the bank bailout, more than one reader is wondering: Why doesn't the government just give the money directly to taxpayers?

Why isn't the stimulus money being given to the taxpayers that are going to have to pay for it? I keep hearing that this would be about $500,000 each, which would go to pay off mortgages, buy cars, vacations, you name it. Wouldn't this do more to "kick-start" the economy?
— Gary J., Greenville, S.C.

It sure seems like you and I have somehow gotten left off the list of people getting some of those trillions of bailout dollars the government is handing out.

Maybe it’s because the government isn’t sure exactly how many of us are out here. (More on that in a minute.) But it wouldn’t come close to $500,000 a head. And it’s not clear it would provide the “kick start” we’re all looking for.

So far, the list of bailout recipients includes banks (some of whom got us into this mess in the first place), a failed insurance company (ditto), car companies, foreign central banks, and investors who are getting risk-free loans to profit from buying up bad bank assets. Congress is doling out hundreds of billions more to state and local governments, schools, health care providers and people who build roads and bridges for a living.

To be sure, there is some money in there for individual taxpayers: roughly $360 billion. Most of that money will pay for tax cuts targeted to specific groups — including people with the lowest incomes, first-time home buyers, people whose unemployment benefits are about to run out or the rapidly growing middle-income households who are being victimized by the "alternative minimum tax" originally created to make rich people pay their fair share. Some of these people who are eligible for a tax cut, and don’t owe any taxes, get a “refundable tax credit” (aka “a check.”)

Figuring out how much we’d all get if the government gave the rest of that money directly to taxpayers turns out to be harder than it looks. Though the Federal Reserve has doled out several trillion dollars (so far) that money represents loans backed by collateral that includes other forms of debt. This, after all, is what the Fed does in “normal” economic conditions: it swaps its Federal Reserve Notes (aka “cash”) for U.S. Treasuries held by banks and other “primary dealers” in the financial system.

To pump more money into the system, the Fed usually pays cash for Treasuries; to drain cash, it sells them back. Despite a massive expansion of lending since last September, the only real change has been the types of debt the Fed is accepting and the companies it does business with. The list of both has gotten much longer.

The Treasury, on the other hand, is spending our money and getting no hard assets in return. The $787 billion “stimulus package” is money the government won’t get back. The other big chunk of change, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Plan, or TARP, is being invested in bank stock and, soon, to help investors buy chancey loans and bonds backed by dicey mortgages.

These assets are worth something, but no one knows how much because no one can predict how much further the economy will slide and how many more homeowners will default on their mortgages. If all this paper changes hands at a steep enough discount, the government might actually make money on the deal — which they'll split with investors who took none of the risk. For investors, it's a "heads I win, tails I don't lose" deal.

So far, the money that’s been actually spent (not lent with a good chance of it coming back) comes to about $1 trillion (this year’s $787 billion stimulus package plus the last year's $168 billion stimulus that was mostly paid out as tax rebate checks.)

So how much would every taxpayer get if that $1 trillion went directly to individuals? That’s hard to say. The IRS estimates there will be roughly 154 million individual returns filed in 2008, but many of those are joint returns filed by married couples. Because of the way it collects its data, the IRS can’t say exactly how many people those returns represent. Same goes for the Joint Committee on Taxation – the arm of Congress that handles tax matters. (You’d think Congress would at least want to have a rough estimate of how many taxpayers there are out here.)

The Tax Foundation, a private research group, estimates there are 194 million of us who file income tax returns, individually or jointly, though many don’t end up owing tax. (And some get that "refundable tax credit.") But if you spread $1 trillion evenly over 194 million people, each of us would get a check for $5,154.64.

That certainly would be a nice little bonus. Not exactly AIG material, but it would relieve at least some of the financial pain most taxpayers are feeling right now. But it wouldn’t come close to replacing the trillions of dollars in lost home values or the trillions more in retirement savings and investment losses. That huge money crater is the main reason the economy is in a tailspin.

To pay you a $500,000 bonus, the government would need to borrow roughly $100 trillion, and there just isn’t that much available wealth on the planet. (If the government created that much money, the surge in inflation would mean you’d use up your $500,000 to order a pizza.) You also probably wouldn’t get the biggest economic bang for all those bucks.

It turns out when times are tough, people tend to take a windfall and save it for an even rainier day. That’s what happened to a lot of the money that was handed out in tax rebates last year. There was a noticeable uptick in retail sales as the checks cleared, but sales fell right back down again — and kept falling — as home prices fell and unemployment rose. That’s why Congress took a different tack this time around.

Economists say the best way to stimulate the economy is to put the money where it has the highest “multiplier effect.” If the money is targeted to build a highway, for example, those dollars start off on the books of the contractor with the winning bid. The contractor then keeps a little in profit, which gets spent to buy a new backhoe or pay for groceries for the contractor’s family. Most of the money goes to pay for labor and materials; the workers take the original dollar and spend it again on, say, a new set of tires for the pickup truck that gets them to work. The tire shop owner spends the dollar a fourth time — maybe it goes back to the tire plant, where the manager can call up a worker who’s been laid off and turn the dollar over yet again, so the newly rehired worker can take her family out to dinner, and tip the waiter, and so on. Every time that dollar moves along, it creates fresh economic activity. That's what we need most right now.

The folks at the Congressional Budget Office have even gone through the $787 billion stimulus package and estimated which parts of it provide the most efficient stimulus. According to their report, tax cuts and direct payments to individual have the lowest “multipliers” — some less than 1.0, which means those dollars won’t get past the original recipient. The biggest multipliers are direct spending on goods and services by the government and transfers to state and local government for infrastructure. But only $132 billion of the stimulus package was spent on those two categories, according to the CBO.


How much American currency is in circulation?
— David T. Clifton, Ariz.

On Wednesday, Mar. 25, there was just shy of $900 billion ($899,798,000,000) Federal Reserve notes (dollars) in circulation, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. That includes cash sitting in bank vaults, but most of it is out there making the rounds of the global economy.

That cash represents less than half of the $2.1 trillion in assets on the Fed’s books. The rest is largely debt securities, like U.S. Treasuries that the Fed swaps for cash when it wants to add or drain cash from the system.

The supply of paper money is about $100 billion higher than this time last year. But that's just the minimum monthly payment on the $2.6 trillion in consumer credit outstanding. These days, paper currency is only one form of money. The contraction of consumer wealth from lost retirement savings and falling home values is much bigger than the increase in supply of paper money.

And that's why, for now, the folks at the Fed say they're not too worried about stoking inflation with all these trillions of dollars in fresh lending and spending.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29920296/page/2/

© 2009 MSNBC.com

Just Something to Consider...

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How Obama can repair AIG damage

I am not sure that anyone really knows what is going on in the economy...but I am sure that there are some profiteers and robber barons who know exactly how to take advantage of the situation.  I believe in free markets(at least I think I do)...but they must also be fair and accountable markets.  Actions taken by our government, regulators, and business insiders over the past dozen years have eliminated much of the fairness and accountability of the market, which may result in much of the freedom being stripped away.  Let us all remain vigilant, be willing to speak truth to power, and never allow our current view to block our vision as we navigate these uncertain waters.



By Drew Westen
Special to CNN

Editor's Note: Drew Westen is professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation." He has been a consultant or adviser to several candidates, nonprofit organizations and Fortune 500 companies, and informally advised Barack Obama's campaign.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- In getting the nation's economy back on its feet and pursuing an agenda aimed at keeping it there for the next 40 years, the White House has to do two things at once: implement effective policies and keep the public behind the president long enough to keep implementing them until they work.

As the president learned in the stimulus debate, even the best policies don't sell themselves, especially when the other side is aggressively attacking them. President Obama's inspiration, Abraham Lincoln, noted that without public opinion behind you, good governance is impossible.

In this sense, the AIG debacle, in which the government has handed nearly $200 billion of taxpayers' money to one of the corporate Leviathans whose misadventures have cost many taxpayers their jobs, homes and savings, is both instructive and destructive.

The White House needs to be able to go back to the American people if the banks need another infusion of capital or the economy needs another stimulus -- both of which are high-probability events -- and the president needs public opinion at his back to enact his ambitious agenda on infrastructure, health care and education.

So aside from offering the kind of sweeping and long-needed regulatory reforms he proposed Wednesday (the policy side of the equation), what does President Obama need to do to prevent the AIG fiasco from eroding public confidence in what government can do in times like these?

Three things. First, he needs to make sure, when a story like this one breaks, that he and his public surrogates are all on the same page. The president got it right with his cool public outrage and his order to his Treasury Secretary to look harder for ways to stop another round of public theft.

In the same way, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, responded with just the right tone to Dick Cheney's attempt to pin both the Bush economy and the next terrorist attack on the new administration. Gibbs wryly noted that Rush Limbaugh was apparently unavailable to do the interview and that the former vice president was not in much demand right now for his economic advice.

But watching some of the president's chief economic advisers publicly throw up their hands in helplessness, suggesting the government could feed the monster but couldn't control it, was a reminder of what happens when presidential surrogates speak without proper media training, a unified message and a clear sense of why getting their message right on this really matters.

Second, the White House needs to speak in plain language to the American people about what needs to be done, so it harnesses their legitimate anger and anxiety and continues to inspire their confidence and hope.

Americans understand that if you own 80 percent of a company (like the federal government owns of AIG), you are in the position to tell senior management what to do, and if you can't, you need a new lawyer, because you wrote a bad contract.

Americans could readily understand that if a single company is so important that its demise would spell the demise of the entire economy, then it should either be owned, tightly regulated (as public utilities are), or split up by the government, because we can't afford to have our common interest held hostage to the private interests of any single company.

Americans also would not have a visceral reaction to temporary "nationalization" of failing banks if someone would stop calling it nationalization and tell a coherent story about what happened and why we have to take the steps we do: that the Bush administration, in its bank bailout, socialized the risks of sleazy business practices while privatizing the gains, and that isn't fair.

If we as taxpayers are going to assume the risk as stakeholders when bankers make bad decisions, we should reap the profits as shareholders when those banks are profitable again, and use that money to pay down the national debt, cut our taxes and get a solid return on our investment.

That leads to the third point. The president needs to tell the American people the story, over and over, of how we got in this mess, who put us in it and what will and won't get us out of it. Franklin Roosevelt had no trouble pinning the nation's economic difficulties on the Republicans who had fiddled with free-market extremism as the nation's economy burned, and it took 40 years and the charisma of Ronald Reagan for anyone to put voice to that ideology again.

A good story typically has protagonists, antagonists, a battle between them and a resolution. The president has a penchant for telling stories without antagonists (even while those antagonists are antagonizing him, with their rhetoric of "borrow and spend," "socialism," etc.).

When referring to the causes of our economic meltdown, he often reverts to passive voice (something "was done") or to nameless, faceless, impersonal forces ("corporate greed"). The reality is that we're in this mess because for eight years we were in the grip of a radical economic ideology that preached that all would be well if we just gave free rein to corporate greed and removed all constraints on it.

The unspoken (and sometimes spoken) idea was that if we just let the people who know the most about energy (energy executives, of course) shape our energy policy in private meetings, the people who know the most about meat production (the cattle and meat-packing industries) regulate meat production, and the people who know the most about Wall Street (bankers, hedge fund managers, and derivatives traders) regulate (or refuse to regulate) banking and investing, everything would be fine.

The fact that the federal government engineered a $170 billion no-strings-attached, no transparency required bailout to AIG when the economy was melting down was not a deviation from that philosophy. It was its logical extension.

The president needs to make clear where his policies -- and values -- depart from those of the previous administration if he wants people to hang onto their tenuous, newfound belief that maybe this time government is part of the solution and not the problem.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Drew Westen.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/19/westen.obama.aig/index.html
 
Copyright 2008 Cable News Network

War Message Found Inside Lincoln's Watch

I think I am starting to believe that movies like National Treasure might have some truth in them?!  This is really too cool!



By Kelly Marshall

(CNN) -- A long-hidden message has been discovered inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch, the Smithsonian's Museum of American History announced Tuesday.

Watchmaker Jonathan Dillon was repairing Lincoln's watch in April 1861 when he heard about the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and wrote a short message on the metal inside the watch, the Smithsonian said.

There it remained, unseen for almost 150 years, it said.

In a 1906 interview with The New York Times, Dillon reported that as soon as he heard the news about the first shots of the Civil War, he unscrewed the dial of the watch and wrote on the metal, "The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try."

The actual message that the museum found differs from the watchmaker's recollection. It says, "Jonathan Dillon, April 13-1861, Fort Sumpter [sic] was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon, April 13-1861, Washington, thank God we have a government, Jonth Dillon."

According to the Smithsonian, it was not unusual for professional watchmakers to record their work inside a watch.

"Lincoln never knew of the message he carried in his pocket," said Brent D. Glass, director of the National Museum of American History.

The museum decided to open the watch after being contacted by the watchmaker's great-great-grandson, Doug Stiles, who had heard about the message Dillon said he had inscribed and wanted to see if it was really there.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/10/lincoln.watch/index.html
 
Copyright 2008 Cable News Network

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Sojourners: Our Moral Audit of the Budget

While there may be some specifics to disagree with, I concur with the overall assessment of the change in our national budget priorities.  I hope the evangelical center and left will continue to speak truth to power and lay aside quibbles for the time being...I hope.  I hope the evangelical right can find a way to acknowledge honest policy differences with their brothers and sisters in Christ yet remain in loving fellowship bound by a common love for a risen Lord and a willingness to walk in his Way...I hope.



by Jim Wallis 03-02-2009

Four years ago, faced with a disastrous federal budget proposal, Sojourners coined a phase, “budgets are moral documents.”  That phrase has now entered the common lexicon, but it remains our fundamental principle.  Budgets reflect the values and priorities of a family, church, organization, city, state, or nation. They tell us what is most important and valued to those making the budget. So, it is important that we do a “values audit” of President Obama’s proposed budget, a “moral audit” of our priorities. Who benefits in this budget, what things are revealed as most important, and what things are less important?  America’s religious communities are required to ask of any budget: what happens to the poor and most vulnerable — especially, what becomes of the nation’s poorest children in these critical decisions?

The values of the American people should also be applied to the budget, e.g. fairness (everyone paying their fair share); opportunity for all Americans; fiscal, personal, and social responsibility; balancing important and different priorities; defining security more broadly than just military considerations, as it is related to economic and family security too; compassion and protection for the vulnerable; building community; and upholding the common good.

That’s a principle that has been forgotten in the past years.  We have trusted in “the invisible hand” of the market to make everything turn out all right, but things too often haven’t turned out all right. The invisible hand let go of some things, like the common good. The idea that policies which benefit the wealthiest will eventually benefit everyone has proven false. The president’s budget is a step toward restoring the value of the common good to our policy.  It is a step to rebalance our priorities, protect the vulnerable, and strengthen the middle.

It contains major investments in the president’s three priorities: significantly expanding health care coverage, focusing on climate change reduction and developing renewable energy, and investing in education – early childhood programs, strengthening and reforming public schools, expanded opportunities for college — all of which will benefit low-income people.  There are also specific changes in important areas such as tax policy, food and nutrition programs, housing, needed aid to veterans, prisoner re-entry, global food security, and increased foreign aid for combating pandemic disease. It’s a budget aimed at redressing the imbalances.

The growing inequality in America over decades is a sin of biblical proportions, and it’s time to bring our principles of social justice to bear.  As columnist E.J. Dionne wrote,

The central issue in American politics now is whether the country should reverse a three-decade-long trend of rising inequality in incomes and wealth.  Politicians will say lots of things in the coming weeks, but they should be pushed relentlessly to address the bottom-line question: Do they believe that a fairer distribution of capitalism’s bounty is essential to repairing a sick economy? Everything else is a subsidiary issue.

It is that question that should guide our moral audit of the budget. The fundamental moral question in the upcoming budget debate is whether to begin to reverse the rapid and massive increase in American inequality which has grown over the past thirty years — and has dramatically increased during the past eight. I believe it is time to stop helping the undeserving rich, under the now demonstrably false assertion that this will then benefit the rest of us. When the top 1 percent of the country now get 20 percent of its income, control 33 percent of its wealth, and pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than their receptionists do (as Warren Buffet has pointed out)—something has gone terribly wrong in America. The new Obama budget is the first and dramatic step to fix all that, and turn the nation in a different direction.

The new budget proposed by the White House is a dramatic step in the direction of the common good, with strong support for the middle of America, real help for the poorest among us, and the proposition that the wealthiest pay their fare share. And my prediction is that many in the faith community, especially those on the front lines of serving the poor, will rally around the principles and priorities of this budget, bringing their energy and advocacy to bear on the debate that now lies ahead. Because this will not just be a policy debate, but also a moral one; the prayers of the faithful — along with their watchful eyes, willing hands, and ready feet — will surround the congressional budget process over the next few months.

This post comes from Jim’s remarks at a media teleconference on March 2, 2009. Click here to listen to the call.

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