Monday, September 30, 2013

Senate Rejects House Budget Offer With Shutdown Near



BREAKING NEWS 

Monday, September 30, 2013 2:32 PM EDT


The Senate on Monday quickly rejected a House proposal to fund the government only if Democrats agreed to delay or undo parts of the 2010 health law as House Republicans gathered in the Capitol to plot their response in the escalating budget fight.
Within minutes of convening just after 2 p.m., the Senate on a 54 to 46 vote followed through on Democratic threats to strip the health care provisions from a measure passed by the House early Sunday morning and send it back to the House.
But House Republicans showed no sign of backing down, signaling a readiness to shut down the federal government over the health law.

READ MORE »

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html?emc=edit_na_20130930

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Friday, September 27, 2013

COMECE organises a Conference on the Common good



Tuesday, 1 October, 19:00 @ Chapel for Europe



A fundamental aim of the European project has been the pursuit of and protection of the common good. Nation states have willingly and knowingly sacrificed some of their sovereignty with a view to attaining the greater good of the whole European family.


The discussion as to what constitutes the common good remains at the heart of the European political discourse. Father Patrick Riordan will explore for us Catholic thinking on this concept, as relevant today as it was seventy years ago.

Read more and register

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3 days from shutdown, Senate pushes ahead on spending bill



Susan Davis, USA TODAY 12:18 p.m. EDT September 27, 2013

The question is what House Republicans will do.



(Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)




Story Highlights
The Senate is set to approve Friday a stopgap spending bill through Nov. 15
The House opposes it because it does not defund Obamacare
The government will shutdown on Oct. 1 without a funding measure


WASHINGTON — The Senate was on track to approve Friday a stopgap spending bill through mid-November to head off a government shutdown in three days, but the legislation has inflamed House Republicans because it stripped out a provision to defund President Obama's health care law.

Senate conservatives pledged to keep up their efforts to dismantle the law. "This vote is not the end. It's not even the beginning of the end," said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, will not accept a "clean" funding bill and intends to amend it and send it back to the Senate by Monday. However, House Republicans are unsure how, exactly, to respond.

The House adjourned Friday but is scheduled to be in session over the weekend.

There is "uncertainty in their own caucus," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday, "I don't think we know what we'll be voting on from what minute to the next, because I don't think they know what we'll be voting on from one moment to the next."

Pelosi said Democrats will vote in support of the Senate funding bill, but Boehner is under pressure from House conservatives to again try to use the spending bill to rein in the health care law.

Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said lawmakers were debating a number of alternatives to the Senate funding bill but said as of Friday, the next steps were murky. "To be honest with you, I don't know," he said. "We haven't coalesced around a consensus yet."

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., who is charged with drafting the spending bill, said he was awaiting a decision from GOP leaders. "I'd be open to whatever leadership thinks we should do," he said.

House Republicans are also working to put together a legislative package tied to an impending vote to raise the debt ceiling, the nation's borrowing limit, that will hit Oct. 17, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The bill would suspend the debt ceiling through the 2014 elections in exchange for a one-year delay of implementation of the health care law and instructions on how to overhaul the federal tax code without raising additional revenue.

The package also includes a grab-bag of perennially popular GOP legislation that is unpalatable to Democrats, such as construction of a new oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, and increasing means testing for Medicaid recipients.

President Obama has maintained that he will veto any legislation that seeks to delay or defund his signature domestic achievement, and Democrats have vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling.


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God and the Fascists: The Vatican Alliance with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Pavelic


opednews.com


Excerpt from GOD AND THE FASCISTS; The Vatican Alliance with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Pavelic, by Karlheinz Deschner (Prometheus Books, 2014). Reprinted by permission of the publisher.


This is the prologue to the book:





Why, after almost fifty years, should there be a reprint of Karlheinz Deschner's work God and the Fascists ( Mit Gott und den Faschisten )? Because it is very topical. Because it is, fully unfairly, in danger of being forgotten. Because it disrupts a process of suppression, or better, indeed the deliberate policy of disinformation, pursued by the Vatican. It reminds us of the Vatican's collaboration not only with Hitler, the greatest criminal of all time, but also with Mussolini, Franco, and the little-known Pavelić, the Fascist leader in Croatia who, along with Cardinal Stepinac, was responsible for the concentration and death camp of Jasenovac, of whose existence only few people know today.

Because the web of lies spun by the Vatican is exposed. It has been trying to position itself as an anti-Hitler resistance organization for decades, although according to Cardinal Faulhaber, Pius XII was "the best friend, indeed, the only friend of the new Reich at the beginning," especially in the unstable initial phase of National Socialism, when history could have taken a completely different course! Because it is not a fashionable book that caters for a trendy opinion for reasons of accommodation but presents and summarizes historical facts precisely and in great detail and draws conclusions that are comprehensible to everyone. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen clearly considers it unnecessary to quote Deschner at all in his book A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust , despite Deschner being able to provide much more information using much less ink nearly forty years earlier. And because it is also exciting to read, like a novel but where every line is the truth and every reader is considerably more intelligent and enlightened after reading it than he or she was before and may also be shocked to see the extent of the collaboration between the Nazis, all the Fascists, and the Vatican! In short, because it exposes a historical lie. The lie of the Catholic resistance.

Let us not forget that it was the French Revolution that showed the Catholic Church where its boundaries were and thereby put an end to its feudal power--albeit, unfortunately, only half-heartedly. But still, the Spanish Inquisition did not sentence the last heretic--the schoolteacher Caetano Ripol--to death at the gallows, followed by a "symbolic burning," until July 26, 1826, almost half a century after the Bastille was stormed! After the revolution, Napoleon's troops occupied the Papal States at the end of the eighteenth century--which had arisen from bloody wars and been legitimized by a forged document, the so called Donation of Constantine--arrested Pius VI, and took him to Valence as a prisoner. The Congress of Vienna restored the Vatican rState again in 1815 with a reduced territory, but in 1870, after the occupation by Italian troops, it finally disappeared in the new Italian state. Those responsible were then excommunicated. . . and could not have cared less.

The increasing power of the bourgeoisie, the development of the European national states, the emancipation movement, the natural sciences and progress through technological developments increasingly forced Catholicism onto the back foot in the second half of the nineteenth century--it tried desperately, and in vain, to take up the fight against "modern rationalism" with the first Vatican Council and restore the beleaguered papal authority by means of the dogma of infallibility. But time was against Catholicism. Under Bismarck, nearly two thousand Catholic clergy were imprisoned or given hefty fines in the Kulturkampf ("battle of the cultures") for interfering in state affairs; the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican on February 28, 1867 (and did not restore them until 1984 under Ronald Reagan). The "Roman Question" had arisen: How could the Holy See be saved from ultimate, and at that time foreseeable, downfall? How, and with whose aid, could its former power be restored? This problem was exacerbated by the growth of the decidedly anticlerical workers' movement after the debacle of the First World War, which was committed to enlightenment and the principle of equality.

This is the starting point of Karlheinz Deschner's book God and the Fascists . The aim of this new edition, published by Prometheus Books, is to ensure it is not forgotten. With richness of detail, historically founded, and by mining a vast number of sources, it proves that after the First World War, the chance was seized to turn the wheel of history back together with the rising Fascist movements. For fear of a victory of the workers' movement across Europe--according to the Soviet model--the Vatican, together with the reactionary property-owning classes and their henchmen--the Fascists--entered an alliance that was intended to secure the existence of both. This unholy Catholic alliance with the supposedly lesser--Fascist--evil led to the greatest catastrophe in human history: the Second World War and the Holocaust.

After the Catholic party "Partito Popolare" was dissolved by Pius XI, the curia paved the way for Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism. As a reward, they received--by means of the Lateran Pacts--the Vatican State back, a sovereign, stately construct, albeit reduced in size, and the monstrous sum of one billion lire in state bonds and 750 million lire in cash. These assets formed the basis of the Vatican Bank, which is under strict observation from the American supervisory authorities today because of its machinations, suspicion of money laundering, and proximity to the Mafia.

And the Vatican helped the Nazis to power according to exactly the same pattern and under the same premises. The Catholic Centre Party--the oldest party in Europe led by Prelate Kaas, a close friend of Cardinal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the Pope's second-in-command--concurring with the Enabling Act of March 24, 1933, and then dissolving itself cleared the way for Hitler. The subsequent dictatorship set the catastrophe in motion. The historical lie that nobody at the time knew who they were dealing with is clearly disproved by Karlheinz Deschner. Because the first concentration camps had been built before the Enabling Act--not for the Jews at this point, but for political opposition--basic citizens' rights were suspended and the boycott of Jewish businesses, doctors, and lawyers was called for. Hitler's Mein Kampf could not have been unknown to Eugenio Pacelli: the same Eugenio Pacelli who had been the papal nuncio in Berlin until 1929 ("the best-informed diplomat in Germany") and then made a career in the Vatican, first as cardinal secretary of state, then as pope. Pope Pius XII. He, who had the reputation of being an outstanding connoisseur and friend of Germany, harvested the fruits of that collaboration on July 20, 1933, in the form of the concordat with Nazi Germany. This treaty under international law still has constitutional status in the Federal Republic of Germany to this day (Article 123.2 of the German Basic Law). It regulates the friendly relations between the Holy See and the German Reich; state religious education was introduced under it, with a status equal to that of the other subjects taught, the payment of salaries from religious-education teachers to bishops by the state from public tax revenue is guaranteed and church tax collected by the state--to this day, let it be noted--a new phenomenon that was to have far-reaching consequences. Workers must publicly declare their religious confession, losing their previously constitutional right to keep this silent, and employers are obliged to take part in the collection of the ecclesiastical obolus. A church state was born! The Hitler concordat meant that the clergy's robes were afforded the same protection as military uniforms, priests were exempted in advance from military service--they knew what was coming--the dissolution of the Centre Party was retrospectively justified and a great deal more.

Karlheinz Deschner describes how the collaboration of the German episcopate with the Nazis--which could only happen with the approval of the curia--lasted until the end of the Second World War, how vicars, priests, and bishops prayed for Hitler's Reich every Sunday all across the land, which was also regulated in the concordat (Article 30), and agitated in favor of the war, how churches and cathedrals were decorated with swastikas on Hitler's birthday, and the papal nuncio personally congratulated the Führer, full of pride, on his fiftieth birthday in 1939--half a year after the Kristallnacht! In the so-called church struggle, which is supposed to have been the expression of church resistance, the church stood up only for its own interests, never against Hitler, never against the war, and never for the Jewish population. And even after the military defeat of Nazi Germany, the Vatican helped high-ranking Nazi functionaries to flee to South

America with the help of the ratline, with which Mengele, Eichmann, and many other criminals escaped the Allies' justice.

What did Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII dream of ? They dreamt of a Catholic continental Europe in a united military battle against the godless Soviet Union, as degenerated as it may already have been by Stalin's influence (read Arno Lustigers Stalin and the Jews: The Red Book ). They dreamt of the end of Orthodoxy, the end of communism, and the Catholicization of Russia. And of a neutral, Anglican Great Britain and a neutral United States. Because a military conflict within the western camp made the outcome of the war unpredictable. After the military defeat of France, this dream seemed to be well within reach, and in 1940 the whole world was convinced that Hitler would win the war. The realization of the curia's dream had, with Hitler's help, come within their grasp.

We learn from Karlheinz Deschner how the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, was openly welcomed, not only by the German episcopate, and how unlimited their enthusiasm for Hitler and agitations against Russia were. And Pius XII--who allegedly did too little against Hitler and said too little--spoke in a radio address one week later of "rays of light that raise the heart to great, holy expectations: great bravery and courage in defending the foundations of Christian culture and optimistic hope for their triumph," by which he intended to express, according to embassy counselor Menshausen, the hope that the great sacrifices demanded by this war would not be in vain and would, should Providence so wish, lead to victory over Bolshevism. In this "war between worldviews," which had been so longed for by the Catholics and which Hitler also called it, the Holocaust was viewed as a kind of collateral damage.There may even have been a secret feeling of satisfaction in light of the two thousand years of Christian anti-Judaism. Had Hitler not, in April 1933, already coquetted before high Catholic functionaries--as Deschner reports--and much to their delight, that his "treatment of the Jewish Question" was merely a continuation of medieval Catholic tradition?! In any case, the pope never condemned the Nazi pogroms against the Jews, not even when the Jews were rounded up before his eyes, so to speak, and taken away. Today's propagated idea of a Judeo-Christian West is based on a syncretism swindle.

The Vatican was even more deeply involved in Fascist crimes in Croatia, where the Franciscans played a leading role in the atrocities perpetrated there, which were so brutal that even the Germans complained. Ante Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian Fascists, called the Ustashi, coined the slogan that a third of the Orthodox population of Yugoslavia should be forcibly converted, a third expelled, and the other third murdered. Seven hundred fifty thousand Serbs fell victim to this regime with clerical help, and often after brutal torture, as did 80 percent of the Jews in Yugoslavia. The Primate of the Croatian Catholics, Archbishop Dr. Stepinac, collaborated with Pavelić from the first minute to the last. After his conviction as a war criminal, the Ustaša leader managed to escape, initially to South America, with the help of the ratline. He was accompanied by the former contact man between the Croatian archbishop Stepinac and the Vatican, the priest Krunoslav Draganović, who was, among other things, responsible for the deportation of Jews and Serbs during the war as a "resettlement officer" and was later one of the key figures in the organization of the ratline. He later fled to Franco's Spain, where he found refuge in a Franciscan monastery in Madrid. This war criminal died on December 26, 1959, and received the blessing of the Holy Father on his deathbed. Stepinac was the only high cleric who was at least partly brought to justice for his deeds. The sentence: sixteen years' imprisonment with forced labor. After six years of imprisonment, he was released early. Today's theologians may claim that this verdict was based on a "misunderstanding." But it is no misunderstanding that Yad Vashem rejected the obscenity of an application to grant him the title and honor of a "Righteous among the Nations" twice, in 1970 and 1994. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998.

In his resume at the end of the book, Karlheinz Deschner says, in 1965, "If one considers the attitude of Eugenio Pacelli to the politics of Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Pavelic, it hardly seems an exaggeration to say: Pius XII is probably more incriminated than any other pope has been for centuries. He is so obviously involved in the most hideous atrocities of the Fascist era, and therefore of history itself, both directly and indirectly, that it would not be surprising, given the tactics of the Roman Church, if he were to be canonized."

And now the beatification is already under way, less than fifty years later! If Hitler had won the war, one may wish to add, then he would presumably have long since attained the same Catholic honors.

And Franco's support from the Vatican in the Spanish Civil War--and before--is also a theme of this rewarding book, this irreplaceable source of information.

Let us now return to the present, to the constitutional knock-on effects of the church's collaboration with Fascism in Germany. One has to only compare this close interrelationship between church and state, this still-surviving German church state--which, under the Weimar Constitution and the federal constitution of Germany, should never have been permitted--with the constitutions of France and the United States, in which the separation of church and state is clearly stipulated. It then becomes clear how far Germany is today from being a modern democracy. It is a country in which the churches, on the basis of regional concordats, have places in all radio and television broadcasting councils, in nearly all newspaper editorial offices, in countless other influential institutions, and--some quite openly, others well hidden--at the levers of power. It then becomes clear what massive favors Hitler and Mussolini did the Vatican with this special answer to the Roman Question, with the restoration of its statehood, its assets, and its public influence, which were in a state of dissolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. And at what cost to the rest of the world!

General News 9/26/2013 at 13:31:44

Headlined to H2 9/26/13

Karlheinz Deschner's book is an important contribution to enlightenment, a jewel for anyone who seeks historical truth; it is an antidote to the historical lie of Catholic resistance to Adolf Hitler and provides a fundamental contribution to the current debate on the rehabilitation of the Pius Brotherhood (fronted by Richard Williamson, who denied the Holocaust), the planned beatification of Pius XII, the scandal surrounding the Vatican Bank, the reintroduction of the Good Friday Intercession, and the role of the Vatican in the world in general.

Anyone who is looking for the historical Ariadne's thread in the labyrinth of church heteronomy will go nowhere without Karlheinz Deschner's book God and the Fascists . I would, at this juncture, recommend to anyone who wishes to find out more, many historical layers deeper, for example, about the historical origins of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby's superb, central work The Mythmaker:

Paul and the Invention of Christianity (1986), in which he proves that Christianity is not founded on the Jewish Jesus but the Greek Paul, who composed a highly virulent mythical mix of gnosis, mystery cults, and the story of Jesus and, therefore, started off two thousand years of Christian anti-Judaism, which culminated in the Holocaust.

The other Ariadne's thread from the religious labyrinth--the subjective, "psychological" one--can be found by anyone looking for it in Sigmund Freud (e.g., Totem and Taboo , The Future of an Illusion , Moses and Monotheism ), and more especially in the pioneering study of religion by Fritz Erik Hoevels, ""Bhagwan' Rajneesh and the Dilemma of any Humane Religion" in Mass Neurosis Religion , published by Ahriman International, which is now also to be credited with the republishing of Deschner's masterpiece God and the Fascists . Both authors make it clear how small the eye of the needle is through which human society must pass if the aims of enlightenment, reason, freedom, the principle of equality, and maximum happiness for the maximum number of people are to become reality, how many archaic and yet real power structures must be broken in order to achieve this.

May the interested reader convince himself or herself of the topicality of this book nearly fifty years after God and the Fascists was first published. It is thrillingly written and a literary achievement of the first rank.


Peter Gorenflos

Berlin, Germany


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Order of Malta's interfaith aid to refugees

Charity & Solidarity 

2013-09-23 12:50:32

(Vatican Radio) As refugees continue to flee from Syria into Lebanon and other neighbouring countries, aid agencies and organisations on the ground are working hard to deliver medical assistance and humanitarian support.

The Sovereign Order of Malta is among the organisations working in Lebanon, where it runs medical centres open both to local residents and to refugees. It works closely with the Imam al Sadr Foundation in Lebanon, to provide humanitarian aid through interreligious collaboration. It also works closely with the International Blue Crescent Foundation in Syria, to deliver emergency aid in Damascus and Aleppo.

Giulia Cirillo spoke to Marianna Balfour, Press Officer of the Sovereign Order of Malta, about her recent visit to the Khaldieh medical centre, on the border between Lebanon and Syria.


Listen to Giulia Cirillo’s interview with Marianna Balfour:


“The humanitarian emergency has increased immensely over the last few months, in particular because there are some new epidemies, due to the terrible hygienic conditions in which the refugees live. […] The Khaldieh centre is in northern Lebanon, it’s approximately 30/40kms away from the border with Syria. The kind of assistance it offers ranges from cardiology to gynecology, endocrinology, and so forth. […] It’s a very remote area, it’s a very rural area with very few services. The Sovereign Order of Malta with this Khaldieh centre carries out a very important task because it also carries out, for example, vaccination campaigns. […] It distributes sanitary kits, so shampoo, detergents, nappies for children, obviously water for powder milk – a lot of women have very small children, and because they’re undernourished they can’t feed them personally, so they have to give them processed milk.”


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"That they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind."


John 9
King James Version (KJV)


And
as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.


6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?

9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.

10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?

11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.

13 They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind.

14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

15 Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.

16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.

17 They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.

18 But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.

19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?

20 His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:

21 But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.

22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him.

24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.

25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?

27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?

28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.

29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.

31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.

33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.

34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?

36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?

37 And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?

41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

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Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Obama redefines the US as a Constitutional Democracy






mauriedee



Published on Sep 13, 2013


Mr. Obama does not see us as a Republic which could be why he ignores Congress and much of the Constitution.

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A Constitutional Republic, Not a Democracy



By: Daniel Horowitz (Diary) | November 7th, 2012 at 01:58 AM

In case anyone needed a lesson in understanding the difference between democracy and a Constitutional Republic a.k.a. Europe and America, tonight’s results should serve as a clear message. This is democracy in full force.

Why did we need a constitution? Why are popular elections not a sufficient means of preserving liberty?

A pure unbridled democracy is a political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power by means of democratic elections. In an unvarnished democracy, unrestrained by a constitution, the majority can vote to impose tyranny on themselves and the minority opposition. They can vote to elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights. Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected despotism in Notes on the State of Virginia (also cited in Federalist 48 by Madison):


An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Thus, a constitution that limited and divided the power of government was necessary to preclude elected officials from imposing tyranny on the people. This is why they adopted a constitution with limited enumerated power, divided and checked across several branches and levels.

In other words, tonight’s narrow majority victory for Obama and the Democrats should not be so consequential. Pursuant to the society we are supposed to be, elections are not the end all; the Constitution is the end all. Elections should not be so consequential. Forty-eight percent of us should not be forced into the tyranny of a government-takeover of much of our lives just because 50% vote for insidious characters who want to grow government for their own sake.

Yet, we no longer live in a Constitutional Republic. We live in a pure democracy – one that is similar to Europe, in which the majority can pretty much vote for people who will vitiate the Constitution and implement any form of tyranny it pleases. Screw the minority. Yes, so much for minority rights, progressives. As founder John Witherspoon noted, “pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Yet, there is still one element of our Constitutional Republic that has been preserved; the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches and the separation of the individual states from the federal government. We have held onto the House with roughly the same strong majority, plus we have added a number of new conservatives. Additionally, we have picked up some state legislative chambers, increasing our majority control over a record number of state governments.


It is in the House and in the states that we must make our stand for God, Country, and Constitution; for liberty, freedom, and the American way of live.

If you’ve noticed over the past two elections, it is in the lower offices – the House and state legislatures – that we have made the biggest gains.

On a personal level, I am committed to growing a conservative majority in the House and the states, while holding the existing members accountable on all policy issues. Through the Madison Project, Red State, and other venues, I and my colleagues will not rest until we grow a strong bench of viable conservative leaders who will, someday, run for higher office.

Onward, soldiers!

Cross-posted from The Madison Project


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BibleUnlimited

Published on Jan 20, 2013


Scripture clearly reveals the pivotal role the USA will play in the final events of this world's history.

The Certainty of the Sanctuary Message by Colin Standish






truthforfreedom7


Published on May 11, 2013

....

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For neither did his brethren believe in him


After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Now the Jew's feast of tabernacles was at hand.
His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.
For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.
For neither did his brethren believe in him.
Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.
The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.
When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee.
10 But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
11 Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he?
12 And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.
13 Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews.

John 7:1-13
KJV 

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Reporter Had To Decide If Snowden Leaks Were 'The Real Thing'




September 11, 2013 3:11 PM




http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=221359323&m=221413468

47 min 18 sec





According to Barton Gellman, Edward Snowden (above) specifically asked journalists not to make all the documents he leaked available to the public. Getty Images

Since the beginning of June, Barton Gellman has been reporting on classified intelligence documents given to him by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor. As a result of the Snowden leaks, Gellman and reporter Laura Poitras of the PRISM program, which mines data from nine U.S. Internet companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook.

Gellman, who has been writing for The Washington Post, also that the NSA has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress expanded the agency's powers in 2008. He that the U.S. has conducted cyber-operations against computer networks in foreign countries — including Iran, Russia, China and North Korea — and on the "black budget" used to fund secret programs in America's 16 spy agencies.

Gellman is in the process of writing a book on the expansion of government surveillance since the Sept. 11 attacks 12 years ago. He shared a Pulitzer Prize with the rest of The Washington Post's staff in 2002 for reporting after Sept. 11, and won another Pulitzer with Jo Becker in 2008 for their series of articles on Vice President Dick Cheney. That series became the basis of Gellman's best-selling book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. Gellman is also a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.

He joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to discuss working with Edward Snowden and the effectiveness of post-Sept. 11 surveillance systems.

Interview Highlights

On how he began corresponding with and trusting Snowden

"The combination of knowing [investigative filmmaker Laura Poitras], of having a background on surveillance issues and of knowing how to communicate securely, all of those were required. She had been approached by Snowden late last year, and honestly lots of journalists get approached by lots of people who purport to know a lot about secret worlds and to have important secrets to disclose. And quite often they can be dismissed quickly as cranks. This one couldn't.

"Laura did not know who she was talking to. He was only willing to talk through the use of these very secret, very secure channels, and she came to me one day and said, 'Can I talk to you in confidence?' And she showed me some of her notes of these conversations. She said, 'Does this look like it's for real to you?' I said, 'So far, it does. But you're going to need a lot more verification, a lot more back-and-forth.'



Barton Gellman is also a contributing editor at large for Time. David Burnett/Contact Press Images

"I started suggesting questions to ask this mystery correspondent. She started showing me answers. ... And finally I opened a direct channel to Snowden and, working alongside Laura, we finally convinced ourselves that if and when he revealed his identity and if and when he actually transferred a document ... we were convinced it was going to be the real thing."

On Snowden's intentions

"[Snowden] gave these documents, ultimately, to only three journalists. What he said he wanted was for us to use our own judgment and to make sure that his bias was kept out of it so that we could make our own judgment about what was newsworthy and important for the public to know. And he said we should also consider how to avoid harm.

"Now, in case anyone doubts his intentions, let's consider what he could've done. If Chelsea [aka Bradley] Manning was able to exfiltrate and send to WikiLeaks and publish in whole half a million U.S. government documents, Edward Snowden — who is far, far more capable [and] had far greater access, certainly knows how to transmit documents — he could've sent them to WikiLeaks. He could've set up and mirrored around the Internet in a way that could not have been taken down. All of the documents could be public right now and they're not. ... He told us not to do it."

On revealing the names of private companies that cooperated with the PRISM program

"There's a long history of private-company cooperation with the NSA that dates back to at least the 1970s. The old telecommunication systems — like AT&T and Verizon and their predecessors — did this sort of routinely and without legal compulsion and out of some combination of patriotism and business-as-usual and fairly lucrative contracts.

"The new Silicon Valley-based Internet companies did not have the same traditions, but to one degree or another they went along and they were under legal compulsion to do so. ... But it was very important to them and to the government to keep their identities a secret. ...

"The thing the intelligence community most wanted to protect in that first story [we wrote] — the most they asked us to hold back was the names of the companies. And we cooperated to a considerable degree with security requests, but my argument back to them was if the damage that you're worried about consists of the companies being less willing to cooperate or suffering a blow to their businesses because the public or their customers don't like what they're doing or don't approve of the program, that's exactly why we have to publish it. That's the core duty we have in terms of accountability reporting."

On whether we're living in a Big Brother society

"Big Brother is a very imperfect analogy. On the one hand ... I see no evidence that the government is assembling these tools in order to spy on political opponents or corruptly to serve some private interest, or things that you worry about with the Big Brother analogy.

"On the other hand, it has accumulated powers that were beyond all imagination of George Orwell — that dwarfed the surveillance capabilities of Orwell — and as it has done so — as it has made the whole world and the U.S. population more and more transparent — it has become more and more opaque about what it's doing. So, increasingly we are living behind one-way mirrors in which the government knows more and more about us and we know less and less about what the government is doing."








On the effectiveness of post-Sept. 11 surveillance

"I have no doubt from reading through some of these files that the surveillance has achieved very important goals, has found very important facts that have served American security. It's not all ... in the field of counterterrorism, but we care a lot about the spread of nuclear weapons; we care a lot about certain activities that are undertaken by foreign governments. So I am absolutely not making the claim that this stuff does not serve American security.

"But you know, in the preamble to the Constitution there are six major purposes that are set out for the design of our government. One of them ... is to secure the national defense. It's not the only interest we have and there has to be a balance, and the balance has not been debated by an informed public because there was an absolute dearth of information. And what we're seeing now, what a lot of Americans say they appreciate, is enough transparency to enable Congress and the American public to decide where they want to draw the lines."


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Obama on Syria and the Red Line ...


Barack Obama Full Statement - 31 August 2013 





blazekomrad

Published on Aug 31, 2013


August 08.31.2013
Breaking News

Chemical Weapon Syria Crisis
America blames Assad for attack.

President Barack Obama said that the United States "should take military action against Syrian targets" in a Rose Garden address Saturday. However, he said he would seek congressional authorization when federal lawmakers return from recess.
The president appealed for congressional leaders to consider their responsibilities and values in debating U.S. military action in Syria over its alleged chemical weapons use."Some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment," he said. "Today I'm asking Congress to send a message to the world that we are united as one nation."




Flashback to 2012


Obama Warns Syria's Assad Chemical Weapons A 'RED Line'




IBTimesUK



Published on Aug 21, 2012


President Obama made a surprise appearance during Jay Carney's White House briefing. Speaking to a packed press room, he raised a smile as he traded banter with them before launching into the serious issue of Syria and chemical weapons. He confirmed that the US has said Assad needs to step down. Obama then tackled the issue of humanitarian aid to Syrians, and those who are fleeing the country to escape the Assad regime ,severely straining the resources of nearby host countries. And the President ended the briefing on a serious note, by saying that should the US and United Nations be aware of any chemical weapons then they would react accordingly to the threat. On the same day that Obama made this statement in the US, the Russian Minister and Syrian ally, SERGEI LAVROV speaking at a news conference in Helsinki, said Moscow would not approve any political transition that was forced on Syria. Stating that only the United Nations Security Council alone, can authorise the use of force against Syria, and not just the US.



Written and presented by Ann Salter

Oh, no he didn't?




Obama: I Didn't Set A Red Line On Syria




Kimberly Junction

Published on Sep 4, 2013



Obama: I Didn't Set A Red Line On Syria (September 4, 2013)




Internet pioneer Phil Zimmermann on the future of online privacy

Phil Zimmerman on Q



Huffduffed by BigDaveDiode on September 3rd, 2013


In the wake of the Snowden affair and revelations about Gmail privacy (or lack thereof), internet pioneer and cryptography expert Phil Zimmermann joins Jian to discuss the future of online privacy and why he fears the spread of government surveillance.

Zimmermann is the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy, and one of the founders of Silent Circle, which offers a variety of secure communications services. But the company recently shut down its email service, and deleted all its clients’ data, over concerns they couldn’t guarantee its security.

Zimmermann explains just how easy it is to collect data from popular email services, why he believes everyone has something to hide, and why he doesn’t buy the justifications for widespread snooping.

"The problem is that the way things are going now with surveillance, the government doesn’t distinguish between criminals and the rest of us," he said.

"When you feel resigned, that is exactly where they want you to be."


Source
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Phil Zimmerman on Q on Huffduffer . . .

Defending the Constitution - Coast To Coast AM - John B. Wells


Coast To Coast Am - September 8 2013 - Defending the Constitution - C2CAM Daily - John B. Wells



C2CAMDaily10


Published on Sep 9, 2013 Coast to Coast AM September 8 2013 - Coast To Coast AM today -
Coast To Coast Am this week - C2CAM - C2CAMDaily

■ Website: http://www.C2CAMDaily.com
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Friday, August 23, 2013

Journalists Under Attack - New World Next Week







corbettreport

Published on Aug 22, 2013

Welcome to http://NewWorldNextWeek.com -- the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week, James and James try something different as they cover a number of updates and addenda to breaking news stories from across the globe:

CIA Documents Acknowledge Role In Iran's '53 Operation Ajax Coup
http://ur1.ca/f5vxh

NSA Surveillance Said To Be Broader Than Initially Believed - Covers 75% Of Internet
http://ur1.ca/f5vxk

White House Won't Condemn Detention of Glenn Greenwald's Partner
http://ur1.ca/f5vxo

NSA Collects 'Word for Word' Every Domestic Communication, Says Former Analyst
http://ur1.ca/ev7ua

Guardian Editor Says Destruction Of Snowden Data "Won't Harm Our Reporting"
http://ur1.ca/f5vxx

Why The Guardian Destroyed Hard Drives Of Leaked Files
http://ur1.ca/f5vy2

Michael Hastings' Toxicology Reports Twisted Throughout Media
http://ur1.ca/f5vy7

Bradley Manning Gets 35 Years For Leaking Classified Files
http://ur1.ca/f5vya

Video: Latest Syrian Chemical Attack Follows History of False Flag Provocations
http://ur1.ca/f5vym

Tank At Crippled Japan Nuclear Plant Leaks Highly Radioactive Water
http://ur1.ca/f5vyo

At The Root Of Egyptian Rage Is A Deepening Resource Crisis
http://ur1.ca/f5vyr

Why Conspiracy Theories Still Haunt Princess Diana
http://ur1.ca/f5vyv

Ground Zero On The CIA's Area 51 "Admissions"
http://ur1.ca/f5vz2

Visit http://NewWorldNextWeek.com to get previous episodes in various formats to download, burn and share. And as always, stay up-to-date by subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report http://ur1.ca/39obd and Media Monarchy http://ur1.ca/kuec Thank you.

Previous Episode: Lavabit Shutdown, Mars Mission, Weed TV
http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=7795

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One Year in Mission





GCYouthMinistries


Published on Dec 12, 2012


Fourteen volunteers from around the world will come to New York for six months to "be the hands and feet of Jesus" and receive evangelism and leadership training that they will implement in their home countries.

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God's Urgent Warning to LEAVE The Cities!!! By MMM





MrPioneerlight2011


Published on Aug 6, 2013

Go Forward!!! A Practical Guide on Following God's Urgent Warning to Leave the Cities.
Please go to: www.endtimepreparedness.com

For More Information Please SEE Our Website:n www.exposingdeceptions.org

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NM Court Says Christian Photogs Guilty of Discrimination for Refusing LGBT Weddings


Todd Starnes | Aug 22, 2013










The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian photographer who declined to photograph a same-sex union violated the state’s Human Rights Act and one justice warned the photographers were “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

In 2006 Vanessa Willock asked Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography, to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” in the town of Taos.

Huguenin and her husband declined the job because their Christian beliefs were in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony.

Willock found another photographer at a cheaper price but nevertheless filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission accusing Elane Photography of discrimination based on sexual orientation. She was later found guilty and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines.

“The Huguenins today can no more turn away customers on the basis of their sexual orientation – photographing a same-sex marriage ceremony – than they could refuse to photograph African-Americans or Muslims,” Justice Richard Bosson wrote in the court’s unanimous decision.

Bosson said the Christian photographers are now “compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.”

“Though the rule of law requires it, the result is sobering,” he wrote. “It will no doubt leave a tangible mark on the Huguenins and others of similar views.”

A recent Rasmussen survey found that 85 percent of Americans support the right of a photographer to refuse participating in a same-sex wedding.

Bosson said the case provokes reflection on what the nation is about.

“At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others,” he wrote.

He said the Constitution protects the rights of the Christian photographers to pray to the God of their choice and following religious teachings, but offered a sobering warning.

“But there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life,” the justice wrote. “The Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal firm specializing in religious liberty cases, representing the photographers. Attorney Jordan Lorence said the ruling in effect means gay rights now trump religious rights.

“Government-coerced expression is a feature of dictatorships that has no place in a free country,” Lorence said. “This decision is a blow to our client and every American’s right to live free.”

Lorence said the New Mexico Supreme Court undermined the constitutionally protected freedoms of expression and conscience.

“If Elane Photographer does not have her rights of conscience protected, then basically nobody does,” he told Fox News. “What you have here is the government punishing someone who says, ‘I, in good conscience, cannot communicate the messages of this wedding.’”

Amber Royster, the executive director of Equality New Mexico, called the court decision a big victory.

“What it came down to is this was a case about discrimination,” she told Fox News. “While we certainly believe we are all entitled to our religious beliefs, religious beliefs don’t necessarily make it okay to break the law by discriminating against others.”

Royster said forcing a business that offers services to the public to abide by discrimination laws does not violate the First Amendment – and does not pit gay rights against religious rights.

“It’s about discrimination,” she said. “It’s not religious rights versus gay rights. We have a law on the books that makes it illegal to discriminate against LGBT persons. It makes it illegal for business to do that and this business broke the law by discriminating against this couple.”

Ken Klukowsi, of the Family Research Council, called the ruling profoundly disturbing.

“This decision may bring to Americans’ attention the serious threat to religious liberty posed by overbearing government agencies when it comes to redefining marriage,” he said. “Rather than live and let live, this is forcing religious Americans to violate the basic teachings of their faith or lose their jobs.”

Lorence said they are considering appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is very coercive, very authoritarian to crush those who do not agree and make public examples of them – and in a free society, that simply should not be,” he said.


Source
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OBITER DICTUM : Political correctness or absurdity





By Edward A. Kazanjian
Belmont Citizen-Herald

Posted Aug 21, 2013 @ 10:58 AM


Belmont, Mass. —

I was accused by some at Town Meeting of being politically incorrect when I attempted to keep the word chairman, in lieu of the proposed chairperson or chair, in the Town’s bylaws. My only rationale was that chairman is the proper title and may be genderized if necessary by adding madame or mister. There was no other agenda! I admit that I am not always politically correct BUT that is only because I feel that attempting to be so is not necessary since I know I have no intention of discriminating or alienating anyone. When I coached and said, "let’s go guys!" I was not being sexiest…it was a girls soccer team. I raised two daughters and have a granddaughter and have every reason to want is best for their gender BUT being over politically correct is not the way for that insure that result. Rather, I suggest, taking all the effort put into the absurd issues listed below and do something positive.

I decided to look into "politically correct" and found that historically, the term was a colloquialism used in the early-to-mid 20th century by Communists and Socialists in political debates, referring pejoratively to the Communist "party line", which provided for "correct" positions on many matters of politics. It has morphed through the efforts of both by liberals and conservatives to its present use, a term that refers to language, ideas, or policies which address discrimination against or alienation of politically, socially or economically disadvantaged groups.

I read recently that the city of Seattle is banning the use of the word "citizen" in favor of resident and banning the use of "brown bag" because it might be considered racist. Citizen is a good word describing someone who lives in a particular town or city…it does not HAVE to mean one who has legal or social benefits or obligations…though it may in certain contexts. Resident on the other hand denotes a particular place not the entire country or city…these words do not mean the same thing.

Don’t even get me started on banning "brown bag"…For heaven’s sake the Greater Boston Food Bank’s Brown Bag program provides supplemental groceries to about 8000 seniors every month with no issues of skin color. Since 1973, Bloomingdale’s has promoted their brown-paper bag system, an elegant design that has retained its elegance and is not racist. I personally brown bagged it to work for forty years…the paper sacks were first introduce in 1852 and since then have been brown in color NOT RACIST. And one of the most successful and largest businesses in the world, UPS, said, "Let Brown DO IT!"...since 2002 and since 2007 has had a new "Whiteboard campaign" introduced due to changes in its business scope, and recently has a new campaign "We love logistics" all very successful and none of it racist!


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A post-Christian Middle East?


By Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland
updated 5:57 PM EDT, Thu August 22, 2013






Christians targeted in Egypt

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Christians have been targeted in Egypt, Syria and Libya
Bergen: Egypt's Christians largely supported the coup that overturned Morsy regime
In turn, Christians have been attacked by Islamists over the past week, he says
Bergen: The region has become increasingly hostile to non-Muslims


Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad." Jennifer Rowland is a program associate at the New America Foundation.

(CNN) -- There have been Christians in the Middle East since the time of, well, Christ.
Now that two millennium-long history could be in danger.

Islamist thugs have attacked dozens of churches across Egypt in the past few days, burning many of them down.


Peter Bergen

The attacks seemed to be protests against the brutal military government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood that killed many hundreds of Egyptian Islamists over the past week.

Pope Tawadros II, the leader of Egypt's Christian Copts, met publicly with top military officers as they announced the coup that removed President Mohamed Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood government from power in early July.

Christians, who make up 10% of the population, and other minorities had complained that a new constitution that had been passed by the Morsy government infringed on their rights.

For some Islamist militants, now it's payback time. According to one report, 52 churches across Egypt were attacked in 24 hours last week. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights has counted at least 30 churches attacked, along with other Christian facilities.

After Morsy was removed from power, a mob armed with axes hacked a Christian businessman to death near Luxor in southern Egypt and then continued their rampage in the village of Nagaa Hassan, burning dozens of Christian homes and killing three other Christians.

Today there are more than 10 million Christians in the Middle East and they make up an estimated 5% of the Middle East's population.

A century ago they made up an estimated 20%.

Much of this fall can be attributed to factors such as emigration and the high birth rates of many Arab Muslims, but some of it is also attributable to the increasing marginalization and targeting of Christians; a worrying trend being seen not just in Egypt but also in other Arab countries.

Take Syria. Many Syrian Christians have tacitly supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which draws much of its strength from the small Shia Alawite sect and therefore has historically favored and protected Syria's other religious minorities.

As a result, the jihadists who have come to dominate a significant portion of the Syrian rebel movement have supplemented their war against the government with attacks that target Christians. On June 27, a suicide bombing in a Christian area of Damascus killed at least four people.

Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels are suspected of killing an Italian priest who had spent most of his life rehabilitating a monastery north of the Syrian capital of Damascus and who disappeared last month. The Rev. Paolo Dall'Oglio had reportedly been trying to secure the release of several hostages in the custody of an al Qaeda-aligned group.

Meanwhile, in March in Benghazi, Libya, where a militant attack on a U.S. government complex left four Americans dead in September 2012, around 60 Christians were rounded up by extremists and handed over to the government on suspicion of immigrating from Egypt illegally. The militants tortured several of their captives, killing one of them.

That bout of vigilantism followed the arrest in February of four Christians accused of proselytizing to Muslim Libyans.

The consequence of such attacks and harassment has been an exodus of Christians from the region.

Residents of northeastern Syria, where Christians have historically been concentrated, estimate that one-third of the Christians there have fled the country during the past two years.

Similarly in Iraq, since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the Christian Iraqi population may have dropped by as much as 50%, according to a CIA assessment.

And despite making up only about 3% of the Iraqi population, Christians accounted for half the Iraqis who fled the country in 2010, about 200,000 people.

Egypt's religious tensions have a longer history than the recent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and Christians. Although then-President Hosni Mubarak kept a tight lid on the country's Islamist extremists, clashes between Muslims and Christians erupted sporadically throughout the '90s.

But since Mubarak's fall, extremist violence against Christians has picked up in Egypt. In early October 2011, Egypt saw its worst instance of sectarian violence in 60 years, when two-dozen Christians died in clashes with the military.

As a result of these kinds of attacks, by one estimate, around 100,000 Christians left Egypt in 2011.

This kind of homogenization has happened before in the Middle East, which boasted a sizable Jewish population in the '50s. But with the creation of the state of Israel and the rise of Arab nationalism and then Islamism, the region has become more hostile to non-Muslims.

Around World War II there were 100,000 Jews in Egypt, a community that had existed in Egypt since the time of the pharaohs.

Now, there are a handful of synagogues operating in Cairo. They are heavily guarded and generally empty as they cater only to the few dozen elderly Jews who are still left in Egypt.

One can only hope that this is not to be the fate of the Christians of the Middle East.


Source
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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Churches In Egypt Cancel Sunday Masses For the First Time in Over 1500 Years

 Daniel Doherty | Aug 22, 2013





The persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt has become so bad and so violent in recent weeks that churches in the northern part of the country have cancelled Sunday masses and prayer services for the first time in nearly two millennia. The Times of Israel reported this story a few days ago:


Amid escalating violence against Egypt’s Copts, churches in Minya, located in upper Egypt, cancelled Sunday Mass for the first time in 1,600 years. Other churches in Minya also didn’t hold prayer services.

“We did not hold prayers in the monastery on Sunday for the first time in 1,600 years,” Priest Selwanes Lotfy of the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram Monastery in Degla, just south of Minya, told the al-Masry al-Youm daily.

He said supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi destroyed the monastery, which includes three churches, one of which is an archaeological site. “One of the extremists wrote on the monastery’s wall, ‘donate [this] to the martyrs’ mosque,’” Lotfy added.

Copts, the largest indigenous Christian minority in the Middle East and North Africa, make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s total population of some 90 million people. One of the world’s oldest Christian communities, they have generally kept a low-profile, but have become more politically active since Mubarak was ousted and sought to ensure fair treatment in the aftermath. They regularly face violence and discrimination within Egyptian society.

The Times further points out that over 58 Coptic churches in Egypt have been desecrated since last Sunday and hundreds more have been killed. The reason is because many radical Islamists contend that Coptic Christians are principally responsible for the ousting of their Dear Leader, former Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamad Morsi, and therefore must be punished accordingly. Recall earlier this month that an innocent, ten-year-old Christian girl was murdered in cold blood. Why? Because she had the audacity to walk home from Bible Study class…

Meanwhile, the military pledged last week to rebuild every Coptic church Islamists have burned, looted, and destroyed:

The Egyptian defense minister has ordered the repair and reconstruction of all churches that suffered damage in the country’s violent demonstrations since the Egyptian military removed President Mohamed Morsi from power last month.

Defense minister Col. Gen. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi intends to fix the damage to Coptic churches at Rabaa Adaweya and Nahda squares, according to a report by the Mid-East Christian News.

Dozens of churches were attacked and burned in riots after thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities to demand the end of what they call military rule, following the removal of Morsi on July 3. Many of Morsi's supporters have voiced criticism at Egypt's Christian minority for largely supporting the military's decision to oust him from office.

“The Egyptian defense minister ordered the engineering department of the armed forces to swiftly repair all the affected churches, in recognition of the historical and national role played by our Coptic brothers,” read a statement that aired on Egyptian television.

Perhaps the Egyptian military’s resources could be better spent on -- oh, I don’t know -- protecting its people. After all, if they don’t, I see no compelling reason why we should continue sending them foreign aid.


Source
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As popular culture overflows with vampires and zombies, are we forgetting to be scared of evil?



By Thomas Fleming

PUBLISHED: 10:22 EST, 4 June 2012 | UPDATED: 10:22 EST, 4 June 2012






Rudy Eugene, 31, pictured in an old police mugshot, was shot dead by police in Miami after attacking a man and eating chunks of his face

In 'Eating People is Wrong,' Malcolm Bradbury's genial satire on 1950's leftism, it was still possible to take certain European prejudices for granted. Eating our fellows, as one non-European character in the novel learned, was wrong. Even today most of us probably regard it as not very nice. Nonetheless, the media in every form are ablaze with true stories of cannibalism.

A Haitian-American in Miami attacked a homeless man and ate three fourths of his face, a white mother in Texas drowned her baby and ate bits of it, and the son of a Kenyan college professor in Maryland killed and consumed parts of a 37-year-old Ghanaian boarding in his parents' house. In New Jersey, a man stabbed himself 50 times and pelted the police with some of his intestines. Most bizarre of all, perhaps, is the unconfirmed story of a Canadian homosexual porn actor on the lam for allegedly eating his Chinese boyfriend.

The internet - an electronic petri dish created to culture conspiracy theories - offers the usual zany ideas. It's all voodoo or environmental pollution, and we are on the verge of a zombie apocalypse. It is the tweet twittered round the world.

Amateur philosophers and pop culture critics are in a rush to ascend their cracker barrels and deliver their explanations for the hysteria. People are worried about the economy, see, and project their own fears onto the cannibals. Zombies, so they argue, are our worst nightmare because they have no redeeming virtues. Vampires are romantic - or have been made to seem so in cheap fiction - and even werewolves are tragic figures. But flesh-eating zombies? Why now?

Bogeymen and mythical demons are, as a sociologist would say, "socially constructed" by the stories we are told, the films we see, the religious traditions we accept. As we go mad, we are inclined to pattern our obsessions and delusions according to the myths that dominate our culture. A schizophrenic Christian or even cultural Christian has visions of Christ and the saints, while an ancient Greek in his dreams would receive admonitions from tall handsome people, whether gods or dead relatives.

If zombies and cannibals are coming out of the woodwork to stir our imaginations, it is partly the fault of a very sick popular culture that dotes on the perverse movies of George Romero, Anne Rice's novelistic gushings over vampires, and the teen-exploitation books, movies, and TV shows in which ghouls, werewolves, and vampires are basically not bad creatures who just need a little understanding. We are teaching ourselves not just to celebrate evil but to elevate it. Good people trying to muddle through in a difficult world are boring: Evil is way cool.

There are very few people, any more, who even know that the zombies of legend are not flesh-eating corpses but soulless voodoo slaves, exploited by their masters. For a real zombie movie, watch the Jacques Tourneur/Val Luten movie - beautifully filmed - I Walked With a Zombie. Then watch one of Romero's Night of the Living Dead cannibal-fests and you will begin to understand what has become of our poor world.

The appeal of the old pre-Romero zombie films, and of movies like Don Siegel's The Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Ionesco's play, the Rhinoceros or, even earlier, Karl Capek's R.U.R. and The War With the Newts was the fear of dehumanization. The forces of capitalism and Marxism, as well as mass media and commercialism, were turning out a breed of men and women who seemed less and less rational, less compassionate, less humane and, indeed, less human. People, in other words, like George Romero, Ann Rice, and their admirers.

We no longer fear dehumanization, because too many of us have already lost so much of our humanity. Rape, mutilation, cannibalism - it's all in a day's work for a TV scriptwriter. Someone with a DVD player and a Netflix account can feed his imagination all day long on comic book evil. It is our religion. The Greeks had Zeus and Apollo and Athena; we have Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Buffy and Spike, and the entire cast of Twillight.

Human societies have always had their share of misfits, creeps, and sociopaths, but they also had a moral, aesthetic, and spiritual framework in which to understand the outlaw Grendel or monsters living under volcanos. The great lyric poet Pindar contrasts the lawless rage of Mt. Aetna's Typhon with the serene and beautiful order imposed by the music of Apollo.

Today, such popular art as we have tends to side with Typhon, and there is hardly an undergraduate reader of Milton who does not think Satan is the hero. It is, of course, easy enough to turn off the TV set and throw away the pulp fiction celebrations of vampires and ghouls, but one still has to wonder what the neighbours are reading and watching.



The wildly popular Twilight films are full of romanticised evil-doers, notably vampires and werewolves

Unfortunately, anyone who takes up this theme will be put down as paranoiac or puritanical. Don Siegel is always described as a rabid McCarthyist, which he was not, and anyone who ventures to criticise vampirism will be dismissed as homophobic - "You see, it's an obvious metaphor."

Anyone halfway sane in the 21st century must feel like Dr. Miles Bennell (played by Kevin McCarthy character in Don Siegel's film). Before your very eyes, human beings are turning into pod people - soulless aliens without a trace of compassion.

"Look you fools, you're in danger! Can't you see? They're after you. They're after all of us! Our wives...our children...they're here already! You're next!"

Yes, it's over the top and not the ending Siegel wanted, but it's no less true. A stupefied fascination with monstruous evil is obviously contagious. A few cannibals or zombies, more or less, is nothing to worry about, it is worth thinking about a global population of deracinated consumers who tease their imaginations with real and fictional tales of such depravity.

As they used to say at the end of cheap horror movies, "They're coming to your town. Perhaps they are sitting next to you in the theater." If you are watching Zombie Apocalypse, they probably are - or, rather, they have to worry about sitting next to you.




Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2154452/As-popular-culture-overflows-vampires-zombies-forgetting-scared-evil.html#ixzz2cjCMAMq6 


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Beauty and beer: Monks' outreach is part of new evangelization

VATICAN LETTER Aug-21-2013 (970 words) Backgrounder. With photos. xxxi






Benedictine Brother Francis Davoren, left, head "brewmonk" or brewmaster, and Benedictine Father Benedict Nivakoff, director of Birra Nursia, toast with their blond brew at the brewery of St. Benedict's Monastery in Norcia, Italy. (CNS/Henry Daggett)


By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even before retired Pope Benedict XVI set up a pontifical council for new evangelization and convoked a world Synod of Bishops on the theme, a new group of Benedictine monks was using Latin and liturgy to reach out to those whose faith was weak or nonexistent.

Now they've added beer to the blend, and people are flocking to the monastery in Norcia, the birthplace of St. Benedict, about 70 miles northeast of Rome in the Umbrian countryside.

But for the 18 members of St. Benedict's monastery, life is still about prayer.

"If the prayer doesn't come first, the beer is going to suffer," said Father Benedict Nivakoff, director of the Birra Nursia brewery and subprior of the monastery.

The monks in Norcia initially were known for their liturgical ministry, particularly sharing their chanted prayers in Latin online-- http://osbnorcia.org/blog -- with people around the world.

But following the Rule of St. Benedict means both prayer and manual labor, with a strong emphasis on the monks earning their own keep.

After just a year of brewing and selling their beer in the monastery gift shop and through restaurants in Norcia, financial self-sufficiency seems within reach, and the monks are talking expansion.

"We didn't expect it to be so enormously successful," said Father Cassian Folsom, the U.S. Benedictine who founded the community in 1998 and serves as its prior. "There's been a huge response, and our production can't keep up with the demand and the demand continues to grow."

But even with the talk of expanding the brewery, and perhaps exporting some of the brew to the United States, the Mass and the liturgical hours are still the centerpiece of the monks' lives.





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