No More MSM Deception: How About Some Truth in 2013?

25 Pertinent Facts That The Mainstream

Media Wouldn't Discuss in 2012

During the Hitler dictatorship in Germany from the 1930's up to the mid-40's, there was a branch of the government called "The Ministry of Propaganda" that dished out a torrent of profane distortions about Jewish people, and later the outcome of the war itself. It was headed by a guy named Joseph Goebbels, who committed suicide at the end of the war rather than face capture, which would surely have been followed by a death sentence at the Nuremberg Trials. Today in America, we have a similar position within the White House staff that we call the Press Secretary, who can be seen regularly on the evening news. He serves the same function, he just has a far more innocuous title than "Propaganda Minister". This person's job -- and I have noticed regular personnel changes -- is to spoon-feed the media the information du joir of the day. Everybody knows that the media is told what to say and how to say it, and yet there a few protests about it. Today's message is my small contribution towards demanding some truth from our news sources. No more US Government propaganda please, we have all had a bellyfull already!

For decades, the mainstream media in the United States was accustomed to being able to tell the American people what to think and how to think it. Unfortunately for them, a whole lot of Americans are starting to break free from that paradigm and think for themselves. A Gallup survey from earlier this year found that 60 percent of all Americans “have little or no trust” in the mainstream media. More people than ever are realizing that the mainstream media is giving them a very distorted version of “the truth” and they are increasingly seeking out alternative sources of information. In the United States today, just six giant media corporations control the mainstream media. Those giant media corporations own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many prominent websites. But now thanks to the Internet the mainstream media no longer has a complete monopoly on the news. In recent years the “alternative media” has exploded in popularity. People want to hear about the things that the mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about. They want to hear news that is not filtered by corporate bosses and government censors. They want “the truth” and they know that they are not getting it from the mainstream media. That's also one of the primary reasons why people are doing away with cable TV as I have. It's not just the money saved from unsubscribing to cable TV, it's the fact that everybody knows everything they are watching is a load of BS.

We are watching a media revolution happen, and many in the mainstream media are totally freaking out about it. In fact, some in the mainstream media have even begun publishing articles that mock the American people for not trusting them. For example, a recent CNN article entitled “Still ‘paranoid’ after all these years” portrayed Americans that don’t trust the media as paranoid conspiracy theorists that have left rationality behind. Ever have the feeling you’re being lied to by the news media, the authorities, the corporate world? That somebody — or something — is out to get you? You’re not alone. Welcome to 21st-century America. Look around. Trust is hitting historic lows. Just a third of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, a decline of 31% since 2002, according to the Pew Center for People and the Press. Gallup has Congress’ approval rating is in the low 20s, after nearing single digits last summer. And the news media aren’t much better off. “Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center has been tracking since 1985,” a Pew report said this past summer. The article goes on to make it sound like it is very irrational not to trust the media, but in this day and age it is imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves. Blindly trusting someone else to do your thinking for you is very dangerous.

Anyone that does not acknowledge that the mainstream media has an agenda is not being honest with themselves. The mainstream media presents a view of the world that is very favorable to their big corporate owners and the big corporations that spend billions of dollars to advertise on their networks. The mainstream media is the mouthpiece of the establishment, and the worldview being pushed on the big networks is going to be consistent with the economic, financial, political and social goals of the establishment. The mainstream media loves to talk about things that fit with that agenda, and they don’t like to talk about things that suggest that there is something wrong with that agenda. The following are 25 facts that the mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about right now:

#1 The mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about the fact that gun sales are absolutely skyrocketing in the aftermath of the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

#2 They also don’t really want to talk about the fact that disarming the population has resulted in some of the most horrific massacres in human history.

• 1911 – Turkey disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1915 – 1917 they murdered 1.5 million Armenians.
• 1929 – Russia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1929 – 1953 they murdered 20 million Russians.
• 1935 – China disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1948 – 1952 they murdered 20 million Chinese.
• 1938 – Germany disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1939 – 1945 they murdered 16 million Jews.
• 1956 – Cambodia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1975 – 1977 they murdered 1 million Educated people.
• 1964 – Guatamala disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1964 – 1981 they murdered 100,000 Mayan Indians.
• 1970 – Uganda disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1971 – 1979 they murdered 300,000 Christians.

#3 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that a bill allowing for the “indefinite military detention of US citizens on American soil” was passed by the U.S. Senate on Friday. Never mind that it's completely unconstitutional (see the Bill of Rights 4th amendment, among other places in the US Constitution).

#4 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that volcanoes all along the Ring of Fire are roaring to life. It seems like a new eruption is being reported every few days now. In fact, a red alert has just been issued for a massive volcano that sits along the border between Chile and Argentina.

#5 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the use of genetically engineered seeds has caused on explosion of new “super weeds” that are incredibly difficult for farmers to kill.

#6 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that renowned trends forecaster Gerald Celente is predicting a “financial disaster” in 2013.

#7 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that it is easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a job as a flight attendant in America today.

#8 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that nearly 400 TSA employees have been fired for stealing from travelers since 2003. Our tax dollars hard at work. Nice.

#9 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that giant corporations such as Facebook are funneling gigantic amounts of money through offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands in an effort to avoid taxes.

#10 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the U.S. dollar is in danger of losing its status as the primary reserve currency of the world. If this were to occur -- and it might -- financial calamity would surely follow.

#11 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that president Barack Obama has gone off to vacation in Hawaii while the rest of the nation hopes for a fiscal cliff deal to get done. Of course the mainstream media has to mention that he is on vacation because they always keep track of what the president does, when in actuality they should be doing a much better job keeping track of Wall Street speculators, their bankers, and all their filty lucre.

#12 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that there are government websites that give immigrants instructions about how to come over to our country illegally and then apply for SNAP benefits while formerly middle class American workers and their children starve for lack of work.

#13 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the U.S. economy is losing millions of jobs to nations where it is legal to pay workers slave labor wages. Actually, this process is already started in the US as well, due to the fact that no one can live on a minimum wage paycheck. The mainstream media is totally married to the one world economic agenda that their corporate owners make so much money from, and so they say nothing as a steady stream of businesses and jobs continue to leave the country.

#14 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the recent tax increase is causing large numbers of wealthy individuals to consider moving out of the state of California.

#15 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that hunger and poverty are absolutely exploding in the United States at the same time that they are telling us that the economy is “recovering”.

#16 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that North Korea now has a three-stage rocket with enough range to potentially hit the western United States.

#17 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the United States Postal Service is losing 25 million dollars a day and is on the verge of financial collapse.

#18 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that our biggest oil supplier in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, still kills people for changing religions.

#19 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that political correctness is taking over America. The truth is that the media does not see any problem with that at all.

#20 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that nearly half a million employees of the federal government are making more than $100,000 a year.

#21 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the birth rate in the United States fallen to an all-time low. The elite are actually absolutely thrilled that less babies are being born.

#22 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that violent crime in the United States increased by 18 percent in 2011 and that many major U.S. cities are seeing violent crime totally spiral out of control.

#23 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that Barack Obama received more than 99 percent of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Ohio on election day.

#24 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that during the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. national debt grew by about as much as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.

#25 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the Federal Reserve created the conditions for the last financial crisis and their mismanagement of the economy has now brought us to the verge of another horrible economic downturn. According to the mainstream media, the Federal Reserve is “above politics” and should not be criticized. Maybe the Federal Reserve should be nationalized so that printing and coining money returns to the auspices of the US Treasury like our Constitution specifies. All the US top-tier leadership needs to do is return to the original Constitution. It's the perfect way to wipe out the so-called national debt.

Thank God It's Christmas

Go Ahead! Hug That Tree and Give Thanks This Holiday

It's true. I hug people, pets, and trees. I make no bones about it. Call me a tree-hugger and I'll thank you for the compliment. If you would rather not hug me right now, it's OK, I understand.

I once tried to hug a tree in California that was alive during the time of Christ. I couldn't resist. I had to get next to such ancient life. To walk among that grove of redwoods was to walk in the hush of a cathedral, only one far more ancient, more holy, than any church. An ancient habitat still alive with flowing juices while busy sucking moisture from the ground and giving it back to the sky. One busy drawing energy down from the sun and giving it to the earth. I couldn't help looking up in the presence of such enormous trees. If God creates living things of such magnificence as these trees, how much more will he do for those who ask Him for his help?

Georgia isn't California, but we too have trees that are worthy of hugging. If you've ever hiked to the north Georgia mountains, there are ancient and gigantic pine, poplar and magnolia trees. Although much younger than California's redwoods, and only about half as tall at the most, I can't help but be amazed at the majesty of His Majesty and of that which he has created continually since before time began.

You too have hugged trees, admit it or not. When you were a child, you hugged lots of trees if you were a climber, or if you used trees as home base during games of hide-and-seek. Carrying a load of firewood is a way of tree hugging, if it's done with the right attitude. And when cutting down Christmas trees, even that could be described as a form of hugging. On the other hand, I've been known to wrap both arms around a scruffy old oak and utter thanks and blessings for what it's meant to the scenery and the air and the critters of this garden-spot of the universe. It's a way of giving thanks, and giving thanks is the key to happiness. Too many people see the holidays as a time to swap gifts around and so to see how much they can get. Far too many more are having the leanest and most depressing Christmas they have ever had, and that is a social injustice. Those of you who are familiar with my ministry's website already know how I feel about social injustice. For more about this visit my political activism page on this website.

It may be impossible to write anything truer than that about happiness, so let's say it again. Giving thanks is the key to happiness. It's a way of affirming life, of choosing hope over despair, faith over cynicism, if you'll pardon a detour. I promise to bring this round again, so bear with me.

Abraham Lincoln, a man who sometimes suffered what today is called clinical depression – a man who suffered personal tragedies and incredible stress, said, "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." It's ever so true. To assess life by starting with your misfortunes is a sucker's game. There's no end to the misery you can catalog. One of the primary principles of Buddhism is that "All is Suffering." While recognizing there's some truth there, I don't embrace that philosophy. I know it must seem true to some, but I've been blessed in so many ways, it would be chintzy and dishonest to pretend otherwise. For the privilege of being alive, I start each day with an attitude of gratitude and a prayer of praise and thanks unto God. How lucky am I, Lord, to still be alive and to have survived all that I have been through? Fifty-seven years it's been, and I've took a nasty licking but my clock is still ticking!

I would say the odds of my still being here would otherwise be all but impossible. Life is such a luck of the draw as it is. It's like winning the lottery each year of our lives to have such an existence at all. That's how much luck is required. It took all the crazy detours of history to bring my parents together. If a million different ancestors over thousands or millions of years hadn't done exactly as they did most every day of their lives—and partook of the blessings and curses of life in just the right order, down to feeling romantic or lusty in the right moments, I wouldn't be here now. If a billion bits of space debris hadn't interacted in just the right ways to send a giant meteor crashing into the earth about 65 million years ago, eradicating the dinosaurs and making way for us mammals, none of us would be here. If the Big Bang ("Let there be light") had occurred with just a fraction of one percent more velocity, the planets and stars could not have formed. A fraction of a percent less velocity, and the whole universe would have collapsed back on itself. If seawater were a little saltier, if the earth weren't tilted on its axis just so, if the sun were a few miles farther off or closer in. If gravity were a few degrees stronger, we wouldn't exist. All of these so-called coincidences don't scratch the surface of things that had to go just right to make our lives possible. We are incredibly blessed to be alive and riding this silken beast called breathing – inhale, exhale – from the moment of birth until the instant of death.

And all those trees, exhaling oxygen and inhaling the poisonous carbon dioxide from our own breath, exist in a relationship to us that is at once symbolic of the fragile web of life and a crucial part of it. That fantastic web of life is a feature of this awesome universe we must love and adore. It is reason enough to thank God in this Christmas season, and every day of our lives. And reason enough to hug a tree.

Is There Anybody Else Out There Who Has Lost Faith in the American Dream?

Is The American Dream A Christian Nightmare?

The American Dream has at its core an escape from the real world to build a personalized utopia, a custom-made fantasy island of sorts. Those of us who were taught to pursue this dream were told to live an isolated life for as long as possible. If we work hard enough to make enough money, we will be able to buy a house in the right neighborhood so our kids go to the right schools and buy enough stuff so as to please ourselves and shut out the world. But the house and our neighborhoods are not the only part of our island. Our cars give us the power to choose almost everything such as where our work, houses, churches, and friends can be. Our cars allow us to escape what we don't like about the neighborhoods we must visit.

If that is not enough, our TVs and our internet connections allow us filter out whatever else could intrude on us. And it is not that we need help to filter out what is unpleasant, the media does that for us already – testified to by those who are from other countries. Our media protects us from the real life negative stories about what our country and corporations do to others. In lieu of the unpleasant truth, our media reports only that which does not interfere with our consumption of their sponsors' products. And out of that small selection that is left from all of this filtering, we use the remote to choose shows based on how they make us feel.

The Christian sees this isolation by his secular fellow Americans as an affirmation of his own theological hiding. Many conservative Christians have embraced theologies that further sequester them from others in a self-imposed isolation. For example, I rarely see any articles or postings that deal with current events no matter how many people are suffering. Nor do I see much in the mainstream media or on Christian television that calls into question the extreme immorality of waging war. Rather, their articles and TV shows are concerned with fine theological points, evangelical efforts, how to run church services, and most particularly fund raising. But it is not just the articles that are printed in our literature that show how we distance ourselves, we use our gospel of individual salvation to shut out what is disturbing. We so reduce our standing before God to the current state of our inner self and beliefs that we become hyper vigilant over ourselves while ignoring the needs of others. As a result, we become agitated and even panicked when the concerns of the world ask for our time. And it isn't just the negativity of the news that disturbs us, it is its complexity. Since things are simple when we only have to care for ourselves, we prefer to pay as little attention as possible to others.

And when we do see and respond to the suffering of others, it is only to a chosen few fellow Christians or to those whom we cannot avoid. But such an approach to helping others goes against what the Bible teaches. Isaiah chapters 58 to 59 and Jeremiah 22:16 (“He defended the cause of the poor and the needy, and so all went well. 'Is that not what it means to know me', says the Lord?”) closely tie helping those in need with having seen the light. Likewise, Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats not only taught that those who helped those in need were the sheep who received eternal life, it also showed that those who neglected the needy were banished from paradise. He also demonstrated this latter principle in His parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In His parable of the rich man, who built extra barns to hold the excess of his harvest and told himself to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow he could die – well, sure enough, he did. Last in my list is the book of Proverbs, containing such tasty nuggets of wisdom such as, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (chapter 14, verse 31), and “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor, and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them” (chapter 22, verses 22-23).

But perhaps the most pathetic way that Christians remove themselves from the world is by blindly submitting to authority. It is not that Christians are not called to submit to those in authority, quite the contrary. But many of today's Christians do so as a way of shielding themselves from the risks that come with confronting evil rather than from punishment. Thus, submission to authority is sometimes practiced not in order to love God and others, but to secure for oneself the kind of world that is most tolerable if not lovable. And so when evil prevails in either the private or public sector, this legitimate command to submit to the authorities is used to hide oneself, as Jonah tried to do, from the mandate to preach the Gospel. But not only are we negligent when we fail to confront those who abuse their power, we become complicit in their evil ways. And we do so in order to ride in on the coattails of evil and power rather than risk any reprisal for challenging it.

Martin Luther King faced this very dilemma when he stood up to the legal racism and hatred that was rampant in the South. He wanted to honor and follow the commandment in Romans 13 that told him to submit to the authorities. At the same time, he knew that many authorities were enforcing unjust laws and allowing abuse and terrorism. He could have submitted and just gone along with the status quo and he would have avoided making himself a target. But that would be the coward's way out! For if he was quiet, then others would continue to suffer horribly. So King concluded that he could meet both responsibilities by using respectful dissent and peaceful protest. When arrested, he made no effort to resist. He did not challenge authority of the police; but he did challenge the validity of unjust laws and the society that enjoyed them.

Finally, there is still an even greater escape from our responsibilities to the world that many Christians use and I am not referring to belief in the Rapture. That flight consists of relying solely on prayer to confront the sins of the status quo. It isn't that prayer should be forsaken. But prayer without the actions can be dead, especially when we pass over opportunities to speak out. What makes the last two reasons for not speaking out most despicable is that when using them, we use a veneer of righteousness and concern to cover our fear and apathy. While neglecting the suffering of others, we say to them that we care but our lack of actions show that it is only for ourselves. Some Christians will protest by pointing to individual acts of helping those in need or to mission trips taken to help those in need. But while such actions should be passionately embraced, they cannot excuse us from failing to defend those who are being oppressed. The apostle Paul wrote, “Faith without works is dead”, and it's even more true today than when those words were written 2,000 years ago. Private acts of charity must be done in conjunction with preaching the Gospel to power. I aspire to the same by putting up this website.

There is a Biblical reason why the American Dream is so desirable to Christians. It is because we see the American Dream as Paradise restored and thus our Christian duty to enjoy. In fact, some think that the purpose of God's Word is to make Paradise accessible again. Such Christians argue that basing one's life on God's Word is like following the right blueprints when constructing a building, and they have a point. The more we follow God's Word, the more we can avoid the hazards of sin. But the big question becomes did God give us His word to return us to the Garden or to help us through the Wilderness? But before answering that question, we must understand why would Jesus commanded us to collect our treasures in heaven rather than on earth and why the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us we to look for a home to come rather than a home here.

To believe that God's Word tells us how to regain Paradise, even in part, is to believe a lie. The real attraction to the American Dream isn't the opportunity to restore what was lost but to worship what can be found – mammon. The American Dream is a monasticism with benefits. Its preachers assure us that we can be righteously selfish. The “prosperity gospel” is taught in churches like a canned sales pitch, and is gleefully and mistakenly received as truth by the gullible. It allows us to flee from what is unpleasant and distasteful in the world while enjoying its corruptible fruit. This makes the American Dream a trap for the Christian. For when we try to take what we want, we become deaf and blind to both the world God wants us to share His love with as well as our own spiritual condition.

My conclusion, then, is to reject materialism and the pursuit of economic gain! Jesus said, “One cannot serve two masters. He/she will either love one and despise the other, or cling to one while rejecting the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon (money)”. Choose today whom or what you will serve in life. You can either pursue wealth and material goods, or you can pursue a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and all that goes with it. One cannot serve them both, since from the vantage point of the believer they are in opposite directions from each other. Our wealth and possessions die with us or are willed to others after we are gone, but Jesus Christ lives today, tomorrow, and forever! It is He and he alone that is the correct choice for us to make. Right now would be a perfectly good time to do this (for those who haven't already done so). Simply pray within yourself to Jesus and ask Him to take charge of your life. It doesn't matter how, just do it. He always does a great job anyway, so there is no point in resisting him. Ask him now, he is waiting eagerly for you.

God Isn't Always in Church. How Revolutionary!

Why I Believe in God

I would like to share with you the reasons why I believe in God. I understand such a conversation may be an automatic turnoff to those of you who do not believe in a higher power, but I assure you there's a nugget of truth and timeless wisdom in this story for everyone. After all, when you get right down to it, we all have to believe in something, whether consciously or not.

It all started one day as I was about to return home on MARTA, the public transit system for metro Atlanta where I live. Now maybe I was tired or maybe I was so hungry I couldn't think clearly, but I accidentally got on the northbound train when I intended to go south. It wasn't until about 10 minutes later that I realized my mistake and disembarked at the very next stop. But once I got my bearings I thought for a moment that I saw God.

OK, it wasn't literally God. It was one of His creations, a young man in his twenties, asking for money for something to eat. I told him I carried no cash, but I could get him some food if that's what he truly needed. He spoke to me in soft tones that were barely audible. He was apparently ashamed for having to beg. I told him not to worry, I would be back in 5 minutes. I went into a nearby Burger King that was in easy walking distance from where I was and got him a “whopper”, some fries and a drink, but by the time I came back out with the food he was gone. Only God knows where. So I did the only thing I could at that point. I took the food home, warmed it up and ate it. So much for good deeds for today. Like Mighty Casey at the bat that day in Mudville, I had struck out.

Now to some, running into this homeless person is a coincidence at best, or a nuisance at worst. But I chose to see something else. I chose to see God. Not in person, mind you, but within the hearts and minds of others. I don't see God only in the good things in life, I see Him in the bad things too. Like homeless people, not to imply that homeless people are bad, or like the affluent, or anywhere in between. I see God in triumph and defeat, in wealth or in poverty, in war or in peace, and in life or in death. “The earth is the Lord's”, king David once wrote, “and everything in it”. It also says in the book of Genesis that mankind was created in God's “image and likeness”. So we belong not to ourselves but to God.

One of the biggest problems with organized religion is the claim of having definitive answers about an infinite being. But true faith does not require us to have all of the answers. Only God knows all that. Faith, as it relates to spirituality, isn't knowing something others don't know – we call that a secret – but rather belief in something that can't be empirically proven or disproved. In other words, to truly be a person of faith one must accept the fact that God exists. If there was visible evidence of God's existence, we wouldn't need faith. And on the flip side, atheists cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt there is no God.

So while I can't prove God intended for me to run into that homeless man on the street that day, the skeptic cannot prove that some form of intelligence – God, if you will – did not. This is what I meant when I said we all believe in something. When you get right down to it, everyone is walking in faith, it's just not faith in the same thing. Unless you are one of the multitudes of people whose faith has been shattered by the loss of your jobs, your homes and cars, your savings, and even whole families that are breaking up due to financial hardship. Still others are walking with the wrong kind of faith, such as their faith in material goods and financial wealth as they surround themselves with as many friends as money can buy. The most dangerous are those who carry themselves about in the mistaken belief that power, whether political, economic or by brute force, is the ultimate achievement in and of itself. Such power over others for any reason is an illusion because it is never permanent. Sooner or later, realizing the same, those under power's thumb will inevitably become very tired of being ruled over with an iron fist and throw off the chains of oppression. It has happened over and over again throughout history, including the American Revolution.

Lots of people have voiced a concern, expressed a doubt or raised a question about this issue all over the world, only to be told by their family, church, friends or tribe: “We don't discuss those things here”, or, "I believe the discussion itself is divine." This doesn't include certain religious denominations who teach that their way is the only way because their message is the only truthful message. This is completely contrary to Scripture, which says that only those who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can be saved from judgment. Religion is secondary, almost like an afterthought, when it comes to faith in Jesus. Besides, if God doesn't exist then why are so many people so uncomfortable talking about Him?

So where is God in all this? He was in the eyes of the homeless man I tried to help. He is in the eyes of your neighbor, your friends, your family, your co-workers, and those you worship with at church – or not, if that's what you prefer. God pleads for the homeless, begs for the hungry, cries out for the sick and the mentally ill, and He is interceding for the unemployed, for single parents working multiple part-time jobs, and for those in life who have simply lost their way. God didn't just make some people, He made all of us “in his image and likeness”. So God is asking all of us, “What are you going to do for all of my sons and daughters who are hurting or in want, who need my Peace and my Healing? Look closely at the homeless, the unemployed, the ex-convict, the forgotten and rejected sons and daughters of mine and you'll see a reflection of Me”. If anyone is doubtful about the point I am making, that's okay. To admit doubt removes the arrogance of certainty prevalent in so many evangelical Christians and atheists alike and replaces it with the humility -- and even peace -- that comes with not knowing the answers. I do not find the mystery to represent the absence of God but rather his presence. If we could figure God out, he wouldn't be that impressive.

If the promise of heaven or the threat of hell is the only reason you can find to seek His face, you are missing the point. We were all put here on this earth to live our lives one of two ways; we live our lives either serving others or serving ourselves. It's all up to us. Maybe we should examine ourselves to see which of the two is the case. Maybe it was just a coincidence that I got turned around going to a place I regularly visit, running into someone I never met, and offering my hand to assist someone at a time when so many others turned theirs away. Maybe. But I chose to believe it was something else. I believe God sends us opportunities to serve others just to see what we will do or how we will react. That says a lot about somebody right there. For it is within the desire to serve that my faith in God is nourished.

What Does the Real Bible Say?

Stop Sugarcoating the Bible!

The Bible is a gritty book. Very raw. Very real. It deals with people just like us, just as needy and screwed up as we are, encountering a God who would rather die than spend eternity without us. Yet despite that, it seems like Christians are uncomfortable with how earthy the Bible really is. They feel the need to sanitize God when we should be looking at ourselves instead.

For example, look in any modern translation of Isaiah 64:6, and you’ll find that, to a holy God, even our most righteous acts are like “filthy rags.” The original language doesn’t say “filthy rags”; it says “menstrual rags.” But that sounds a little too crass, so let’s just call them filthy instead. And let’s not talk so much about Jesus being naked on the cross, and let’s pretend Paul said that he considered his good deeds “a pile of garbage” in Philippians 3:8 rather than a pile of crap, as the Greek would more accurately be translated.

And let’s definitely not mention the ten commandments in the Old Testament. That might be unpopular. Never mind that between the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy there are a total of 630 of them. That could expose people as being the sinners that we all truly are. God forbid!

The point?

God’s message was not meant to be run through some arbitrary, holier-than-thou politeness filter. God couldn't care less about political correctness, which is something I work at emulating every single day. He intended the Bible to speak to people where they’re at, caught up in the stark reality of life on a fractured and dying planet.

There are dozens of Psalms that are complaints and heart-wrenching cries of despair to God, not holy-sounding, reverently worded soliloquies. Take Psalm 77:1-3: “I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh, that God would listen to me! When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted. I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help” (New Living Translation).

And rather than shy away from difficult and painful topics, the Old Testament includes vivid descriptions of murder, cannibalism, witchcraft, dismemberment, torture, rape, idolatry, erotic sex and animal sacrifice. According to St. Paul, those stories were written as examples and warnings for us, as he wrote: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it.”(1 Corinthians 10:11-13, NIV). So obviously they were meant to be retold without editing out all the things we don’t consider nice or agreeable.

I believe that Scripture includes such graphic material to show how far we, as a race, have fallen and how far God was willing to come to rescue us from ourselves. God is much more interested in honesty than piety, and in our Spirituality rather than in how religious we are. And that’s what He gives us throughout Scripture, telling the stories of people who struggled with the same issues, questions and temptations we face today.

Peter struggled with doubt and with a bad temper, and we hear all about it. Elijah dealt with depression; Naomi raged with bitterness against God; Hannah struggled for years under the burden of her unanswered prayers. David had an affair and then arranged to have his lover’s husband killed. Noah was a drunk, Abraham a liar, Moses a murderer. Job came to a place where he found it necessary to make a covenant with his eyes not to lust after young girls (Job 31:1). Jesus said, “I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. It's all a matter of priorities. “I desire mercy”, Jesus said, “not sacrifice”. Don't boast to God about how often you attend church, or how much you “tithe” each week. Never mind your rituals, Jesus was saying. Tell me about how much you did for others whether they deserved it or not. I want to know how well you treated others. That's all that matters in the end.

It’s easy to make “Bible heroes” (as Protestants might say) or “saints” (as Catholics might refer to them) out to be bigger than life, immune from the temptations that everyone faces. I find it encouraging that Jesus never came across as being pious or condescending. In fact, he was never accused of being too religious; instead he partied so much that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton because he was perceived as associating with “sinners” (Matthew 11:19). His first miracle was changing water into wine, and it is documented in all four gospels that wine was served and consumed at the Last Supper. So, people who insist that one must be a teetotaler to go to heaven when they die simply don't know what they are talking about.

Jesus never said, “The Kingdom of God is like a church service that goes on and on forever and never ends.” Our church services can't hold a candle to what heaven will be like. He said the kingdom was like a homecoming celebration, a wedding, a party, a feast to which all are invited. This idea was too radical for the religious leaders of his day, and in some cases it still is. They were more concerned about etiquette, manners, traditions and religious rituals than about partying with Jesus. And that’s why they missed out. That’s why we miss out.

According to Jesus, the truly spiritual life is one marked by freedom rather than compulsion (“So if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed” John 8:36), and by love rather than ritual (“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these. 'Well said, teacher' the man replied. 'You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but Him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices'”.Mark 12:30-33, NIV). Another hallmark of a truly Spiritual life is one focused on peace rather than guilt (“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27, NIV). Jesus saves us from the dry, dusty duties of religion and frees us to cut loose and celebrate.

I don’t believe we’ll ever recognize our need for the light until we’ve seen the depth of the darkness. So God wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty with us about life and temptation and forgiveness. And grace. Only when the Bible seems relevant to us (which it is), only when the characters seem real to us (which they were), only then will the message of redemption become personal for us (which it was always meant to be).

We don’t need to edit God. We need to let him be the author of our new lives and the construction superintendent for our growing and expanding faith. The time is getting short, people. It's time for all of us to lead more Spiritual lives. The stakes are where we will spend eternity, and there is no more serious subject than that.

Of Madness and Consumption

This is America: Blind Consumerism

The psychopathology of consumerism: we have become programmed like robots to spend more than we can afford on things we don't really need. Like sheep headed to the trimmers, we roll out at this time of the year at the bidding of shop-till- you-drop gimmicks while capitalism fleeces us all. The worst part is that the useless junk we buy doesn't benefit the US economy, it benefits China's. Those who control America's shadow government – the real movers and shakers from behind the scenes, not their puppets in Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court – have sold out our country to the opposing side and have thus committed treason. The reason most people don't care about or won't even consider this glaring reality is because they can “live so much cheaper” buying the very inexpensively made garbage that China has been dumping on our shores since the 1980's. Cheaper at first, yes, but due to shoddy manufacturing and poor quality Chinese products are notoriously short-lived and invariably cheap imitations of much better quality merchandise that used to be made here in the US. And so we fight and claw for the raw deal at the various suburban box stores offering low wages and no benefits to staff.

So, how much can we save on all these wonderful items? That depends on whether one can afford to pay cash while doing their shopping or not. If one uses plastic that person will end up paying far more in interest, fees and carrying charges than they would have for a comparable higher-ticket item at the finest store in town. How much can we save? Let's ask some more pertinent questions and explore some far more evident realities about this issue. For example, what about the Chinese workers slaving in dangerous non union factories for 1-2 dollars a day? What does the company make off the deal? Who is actually winning? Is it really the mesmerized consumer teary and googly-eyed while giggling gleefully at 30, 40, and 50% off deals? Could it be that the whole stinking thing is rigged from beginning to end? Of course it is, just look at what is being sold and calculate how much it costs to make it. If I look at a can of pork and beans on the grocery shelf and it's priced at 75 cents, it doesn't take a marketing genius to figure out that 75 cents is an outrageous markup. The cans are made by the thousands and cost just a couple of pennies each to manufacture in large quantities. The contents of the can usually cost as much or less, and ditto for the label. So we're looking at 2 cents for the can, 2 more for the contents, and maybe an extra penny or two for the label. Add another penny as margin for error and we have 7 cents. Seven cents, and the retail price is 75 cents? So the gross profit is more than ten times the cost, or a markup in excess of 1000%. Or consider a far more expensive item such as the latest I-phone. They sell for about $300-400 dollars plus tax, but there was a posting on the Internet just recently to the effect that it only costs Apple, Inc. about $120.00 to manufacture I-phones because they were being made in China, resulting in a 150-300% markup. So much for “God bless America”.

"Oh," the politicians and talking heads say to us on TV, "it's the American workers. They don't want to work menial jobs like canning pork and beans. And we can't assemble I-phones in America because its workers aren't qualified." Never mind that there are many thousands of recent college graduates who are living with their parents because they are unable to support themselves. There simply are no jobs for these poor young adults, and yet they are expected to repay predatory and exorbitant student loans. The careers for which they have been training have already been out-sourced to the third world during the last 4, 5, or 6 years that these hapless individuals have spent earning their degrees. They have all been robbed of their educations, which have been rendered worthless by the multinational corporations and the military-industrial complex.

Yet we are expected to perform our patriotic duty as well as appropriately celebrate the “holidays” (Never mind that Jesus wasn't even born in December) as we shop till we drop looking for that fantastic deal. We are in the process of being programmed to slave part time at minimum wages and with no health benefits while buying $300,000.00 houses, $70,000.00 cars and trucks plus big screen TV's. While all this is occurring, employees of corporations are lining the pockets of senators, congressmen and supreme-court justices in Washington D.C. while sitting on presidential cabinets making decisions regarding our planet's future, our future, and our children's future. Is it any wonder that the entire world seems to be coming unglued?

Meanwhile our consumerism is devouring the planet into what might soon become more lifeless than the moon or a Wall Street Tycoon. Yet, mesmerized by commercials with intelligence levels less than a jackass after having a brain amputation, we roll blindly into the gates of the shopping centers turned shopping malls turned humongous big box stores. To share with you what brought out this little speech, consider the following release from the Associated Press.

"A shopper in Los Angeles pepper-sprayed her competition for an X-box and scuffles broke out elsewhere around the United States as bargain-hunters crowded malls and big-box stores in an earlier-than-usual start to the madness known as Black Friday. For the first time, chains such as Target, Best Buy and Kohl's opened their doors before midnight on the most anticipated shopping day of the year. Toys R Us opened for the second straight year on Thanksgiving itself. And some shoppers arrived with sharp elbows. On Thanksgiving night, a Walmart in Los Angeles brought out a crate of discounted X-boxes, and as a crowd waited for the video game players to be unwrapped, a woman fired pepper spray at the other shoppers 'in order to get an advantage,' police said. Ten people suffered cuts and bruises in the chaos, and 10 others had minor injuries from the spray, authorities said. The woman got away in the confusion, and it was not immediately clear whether she got an X-box. On Friday morning, police said, two women were injured and a man was charged after a fight broke out at an upstate New York Walmart. And a man was arrested in a scuffle at a jewelry counter at a Walmart in Kissimmee, Fla. In the U.S., Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, has taken steps in recent years to control its Black Friday crowds following the 2008 death of one of its workers in a stampede of shoppers. This year, it staggered its door-buster deals instead of offering them all at once."

-- The Associated Press, Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 26, 2011

Lennon and McCartney of the Beatles wrote in the song "Revolution", "you say you want a revolution, well you know, we'd all love to change your head." Yes, it is more than changing Wall Street or who resides in the White House. It is, ultimately, about changing ourselves. If we all really want some serious change, then change must start from within. This Christmas, change how you celebrate. Speak from your heart to your kids about consumerism and how it is affecting the planet as well as our behavior. Help them to understand that it's not about how much we have, but rather how much we contribute. Life is not about how much we own or the value of our possessions, life is all about making a stand for good things like faith, mercy, kindness, and above all, love. Instead of buying your wife a new car and maybe going into debt, take her up on the highest place around where you live, or to some favorite romantic spot, and renew your vows to her. Instead of buying your husband a new bag of golf clubs, give him a night he will never forget. Enjoy each other and be loving to each other. To enjoy is to enjoin, to enjoin is to unite.

Consumerism and the vain pursuit of worldly goods keeps us isolated by gimmicks of sensationalist advertising of strikingly beautiful women, absolutely perfect children and gorgeous, flaming hunks of men that are created off the corporate mold. To put it simply, the corporate mold is a load of BS. And who is being molded in all these advertising gimmicks? You are! For what purpose? To make others rich at your expense. The blue chip corporations have a very good reason for doing all this. As long as they can keep us isolated, we can never be united. Don't go there this year, and keep your money. Find richness in your heart and share that this Christmas instead.

An American Trajedy: Another Labor Union Bites the Dust

Workers Massacred Without a Shot Being Fired

This past week we have witnessed the death of an American icon, Hostess Brands, the makers of Twinkies, Zingers, and other delights for kids of all ages. Hostess has shut its doors in a labor dispute with its workers over pay and benefits cuts, as well as the elimination of their pensions. These workers had already agreed to 2 prior cuts in salary and benefits, but a third cut in each plus the forced liquidation of their retirement pensions proved to be too much. Many of these workers had been paying into their retirements for decades, and so they were furious when the company took them away. Evidently none of the striking workers thought it possible that their entire careers would evaporate before their eyes, but that is exactly what happened.

The Hostess employees were given a choice: Either give up their pensions including the face value of their retirement savings, or give that up plus everything else including their careers. In the end they all wound up losing it all. Not since President Ronald Reagan fired 15,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981 – effectively crushing an entire labor union out of existence – has such a terrible blow been dealt to organized labor in America. The infamy of president Reagan's actions against organized labor in the US are still palpable decades later. And so it will be for Hostess Brands, the company that committed suicide rather then pay their workers a living wage (the striking workers would have had to accept pay and benefits cuts averaging 40% each). The average salary of a Hostess worker was reportedly around $40,000; settling the strike would have cut their pay to $25,000 while nearly doubling the cost of their benefits.

So the striking workers had a choice: Lose their pension savings and half their benefits, along with a 40% pay cut, or lose everything. That doesn't sound like much of a choice to begin with. Is it any wonder that they went on strike? If I were in their place I likely would have done the same, or at least given it some serious consideration. If I still had kids at home, I would have to think about that really hard before choosing whether to strike or not, but in the end I think I still would have.

Workers who insist on a living wage is not something peculiar to only American labor unions of the 20^th and 21^st century. This is a tradition that goes all the way back to the time of Moses in the Old Testament, where it is written, “The workman is worth his wages” (quoted by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew) and, “Do not muzzle your oxen when they are treading out the grain”. The modern equivalents of that translation would be, “You can run your horses as hard as you want, provided you give them time to replenish themselves”, or “You can keep on driving your car so long as you remember to add fuel when it needs it.” So it is with workers. If it costs a modern family of four $28,000 to $32,000 dollars annually for their basic essentials such as housing, food, transportation, energy and fuel, and the dad's or mom's employer only pays the breadwinner $23,000 annually, this is obviously a huge problem. If both parents work, they end up spending half of their 2^nd income on child care. That brings me to my point. If any given worker's salary or hourly wage doesn't even meet the cost of their most basic living expenses, then that worker ceases to be an employee because they have become slaves. Am I not on target here? If discovering that you are a slave when you previously thought of yourself as an employee makes you angry and maybe resentful as well, that not only proves you are normal but also that you are functioning on a higher level. It means you have a brain and you're not afraid to use it. That's always a good thing. Hold that thought, please, while I continue.

Everyone who wants to work and earn a paycheck should have the means to do so. To tell someone that they are unneeded or unwanted is demeaning, mean-spirited and can even be threatening. Why are there not enough jobs for people that want one? Because we are working with a 19^th and 20^th century business and economic model in a 21^st century world! What happens when companies that are controlled by their executive officers and are owned by their stockholders can no longer make a profit? The company declares itself bankrupt and gets liquidated through the courts, with all the proceeds going to the stockholders and creditors of the now-defunct company. That is exactly what happened with Hostess Brands. Everything for them and nothing for the workers who built the company and made it profitable. The top 1% gets to eat steak, but it's beans for the rest of us, as if the American people are expected to put up with this untenable situation in the American workplace indefinitely. Hostess is just the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone everywhere, without exception and regardless of their background, is entitled to a livelihood and to a living wage. That's why I've been advocating a $12.00 per hour minimum wage in my writings since 2010 (I started out at $10.00 and just raised it to $12.00 on my website recently). Anyone who can find no suitable work can and should be retrained to learn new skills, and access to higher education is no longer a luxury in the 21^st century, it is a necessity. As such higher education is a basic human right, and to deny anyone access to higher learning or Internet access for purely economic reasons is a civil rights violation of the highest order. Everyone has the right to be able to support and sustain themselves and their families at a reasonable level of success and comfort. Today in America, where 1 in 4 children will depend on SNAP benefits in order to eat, clearly exactly the opposite is occurring. In a country that is alleged to be the richest in the world, this to me is inexcusable.

Of course I can hear our “leaders” in Washington and their “presstitutes” in the main stream media howling with derision already. We have a $16 trillion dollar deficit and I want to give everyone free higher education? “Impossible”, they will retort. Let me spell this out in black and white so everyone understands. If the US military's combined forces took one day's expenditures from the ongoing and increasingly pointless occupation of Afghanistan and deposited that very sum of money into an interest-bearing account of most any kind, the US would have enough cash money to send every American kid to four years of college fully paid for including tuition, books, food, transportation and Internet access. That's every kid from pre-K through seniors in high school. It's not that we don't have the money, it's just that our country's leadership is spending it on all the wrong things.

So, how do we end unemployment, homelessness and poverty for good? A job for everyone who wants one, and paid training for those who don't qualify (yet). According to the US Dept. of Labor, the average employee in the 21^st century will have to change careers up to as many as 8 times during all their combined working years. Does the US Dept. of Education, or the Dept. of Labor for that matter, seriously expect US workers to take on up to 8 student loans and repay them over our lifetimes while still buying cars, houses and boats? What planet are these jokers from anyway? Education is a human right, and equal opportunity for education for all regardless of background or economic status is an American civil rights issue for the 21^st century and beyond. To exclude anyone from higher education for economic reasons is discriminatory and therefore it is a civil rights violation under the law. It is essential that America's middle and working classes join together in unison to stand up to these corporate bullies – the top 1%, and particularly the top .1 percent. Otherwise we will soon find ourselves out in the cold with an uncertain future just like the Hostess workers across the nation. We the 99% must fight back, otherwise we will all be crushed just like the Air Traffic Controller's union was back in 1981.

Of The Bullies, By The Bullies, and For The Bullies by Rev. Paul J. Bern (excerpt from chapter 5 of his book, "Occupying America: We Shall Overcome") Perhaps the most ominous sign regarding the true nature of economic discrimination and class warfare against the middle class and the poor, which invariably includes people of color, is that of bullying, intimidation and similar forms of abuse directed at employees in the workplace. Although I'm certain that everybody who reads this can think of an example of having a really bad boss, the following alarming example of abusive management in the third world is the best (or worst) example I have found. The question is, could this “method” of management be coming to America's shores next? Worse yet, is it already here? More than a decade ago, shoe giant Nike came under fire for its use of sweatshop labor in the production of its products. Most of the criticism focused on its Indonesian workforce, where workers, largely young women, were forced to labor under harsh conditions and abusive supervisors. In 1997, filmmaker Michael Moore made Nike abuses a subject of his film "The Big One", and met with Nike CEO Phil Knight. Knight explained that the reason his company was using low-wage labor in Indonesia is allegedly because "Americans don't want to make shoes". At the Taiwanese-operated Pou Chen Group factory in Sukabumi, Indonesia, which makes Converse shoes for Nike, and PT Amara Footwear factory in Jakarta, workers alleged that they are paid ultra-low wages, regularly verbally and physically abused, and even fired for the act of taking sick leave. The 10,000 mostly female workers at the Taiwanese-operated Pou Chen plant make around 50 cents an hour. That’s enough, for food and bunkhouse-type lodging, but little else. Some workers interviewed by the AP in March and April described being hit or scratched in the arm — one man until he bled. An internal Nike report released to the AP found that 'nearly two-thirds of 168 factories making Converse products worldwide fail to meet Nike's own standards for contract manufacturers. Meanwhile, in 2010, Nike CEO Mark Parker received an 84 percent hike in his annual compensation, raking in $13.1 million, an amount many of the workers in Sukabumi and Jakarta can only dream of. If the top 1% has their way, these kinds of workplace abuses and sweatshop conditions will be making their way to your workplace. Here in Georgia where I live (plus several other states, mostly in the Southeastern US) we have what are called “right to work” laws. Basically what it means is that anyone can be terminated for any reason, or sometimes for no reason at all. So no matter where you work, there is always this cloud of uncertainty hanging overhead, knowing that you can get canned without warning, even if you are doing everything right. Imagine what Jesus would say about this if He came back today! Would he be pleased? Absolutely not! So I would say that being forced to work in what amounts to a hostile work environment is just one more reason for us all to rise up against the top 1% and take back all that they have stolen from us. Our dignity, our human rights and our governmental, economic and political systems will be taken and confiscated from the rich no matter how long it takes. The fact of the matter is that this type of brute-force management has lately spread from much of America's professional life over into our personal lives, with the most obvious examples being the militarization of our police departments combined with the lost cause known as the “war on drugs”. In so doing, those who used to be sworn to protect and to serve have become those who harass and intimidate. They have become the lackeys of the top 1%, with some in law enforcement chomping at the bit for an opportunity to lock up a few people and bloody a few heads, if not worse. However, I also believe that there is no small number in the law enforcement community who realize that they are actually part of the 99%. When they do, and especially when they realize that they are just pawns for the 1%, they will join us in droves, coming over to our side having realized that they were only being contemptuously used to guard what the 1% has hoarded at the expense of all the rest of us, including themselves. The police arms race has very clearly spread well beyond the urban borders of the only cities to actually be targeted by foreign terrorists. Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms. The extent of this weapon “inflation” does not stop with high-powered rifles, either. In recent years, police departments both large and small have acquired bazookas, machine guns, and even armored vehicles and tanks for use in domestic police work. The most serious consequence of the rapid militarization of American police forces, however, is the subtle evolution in the mentality of the "men in blue" from peace officer to soldier. This development is absolutely critical and represents a fundamental change in the nature of law enforcement. The primary mission of a police officer traditionally has been to keep the peace. Those whom an officer suspects to have committed a crime are treated as just that -- suspects. Police officers are expected, under the rule of law, to protect the civil liberties of all citizens, even the bad guys. For domestic law enforcement, a suspect in custody remains innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, police officers operate among a largely friendly population and have traditionally been trained to solve problems using a complex legal system; the deployment of lethal violence is an absolute last resort. Soldiers, on the other hand, are trained to identify and kill the enemy. This is a problem. Cops are increasingly seeing the citizens they’re hired to protect as “the enemy.” This is in part how nonviolent protesters end up tear-gassed and shot at. This is part of why violence is so often the first resort of cops dealing with any sort of tricky situation, rather than the last. The idea that we need our cops to be the heavily armed soldiers of the streets — instead of, say, social workers and peacekeepers with the power to arrest — leads to bad recruiting, bad training, unnecessary deaths, mass distrust of the police by vulnerable communities, and the contemptuous feeling of many cops that they themselves are above the law. The trend toward a more militarized domestic police force began well before 9/11. It actually began in the early 1980s, as the Reagan administration added a new dimension of literalness to Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs." Reagan declared illicit drugs a threat to national security. In 1981 he and a compliant Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which allowed and encouraged the military to give local, state, and federal police access to military bases, research, and equipment. It authorized the military to train civilian police officers to use the newly available equipment, instructed the military to share drug-war-related information with civilian police and authorized the military to take an active role in preventing drugs from entering the country. A bill passed in 1988 authorized the National Guard to aid local police in drug interdiction, a law that resulted in National Guard troops conducting drug raids on city streets and using helicopters to survey rural areas for pot farms. In 1989, President George H. Bush enacted a new policy creating regional task forces within the Pentagon to work with local police agencies on anti-drug efforts. Since then, a number of other bills and policies have carved out more ways for the military and domestic police to cooperate in the government's ongoing campaign to prevent Americans from getting high. Then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney declared in 1989, "The detection and countering of the production, trafficking and use of illegal drugs is a high priority national security mission of the Department of Defense." The problem with this mingling of domestic policing with military operations is that the two institutions have starkly different missions. The military's job is to annihilate a foreign enemy, while cops are charged with keeping the peace and with protecting the constitutional rights of American citizens and residents. It's dangerous to conflate the two. That distinction is why the U.S. Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act more than 130 years ago, a law that explicitly forbids the use of military troops in domestic policing. The September 11 attacks provided a new and seemingly urgent justification for further militarization of America's police departments: the need to protect the country from terrorism. Within months of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the Office of National Drug Control Policy began laying the groundwork with a series of ads tying recreational drug use to support for terrorism. Terrorism became the new reason to arm American cops as if they were soldiers, but drug offenders would still be their primary targets. In a particularly egregious example comparable to going duck hunting with a bazooka, the seven police officers who serve the town of Jasper, Florida -- which has all of 2,000 people and hadn’t had a murder in more than a decade -- were each given a military-grade M-16 machine gun from the Pentagon transfer program, leading one Florida paper to run the headline, “Three Stoplights, Seven M-16s.” In 2006 alone, the Department of Defense distributed vehicles worth $15.4 million, aircraft worth $8.9 million, boats worth $6.7 million, weapons worth $1 million and “other” items worth $110.6 million to local police agencies. After 9/11, police departments in some cities, including Washington, D.C., also switched to battle dress uniforms (BDUs) instead the traditional police uniform. Critics say even subtle changes like a more militarized uniform can change both public perception of the police and how police see their own role in the community. One such critic, retired police sergeant Bill Donelly, wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, "One tends to throw caution to the wind when wearing ‘commando-chic’ regalia, a bulletproof vest with the word ‘POLICE’ emblazoned on both sides, and when one is armed with high tech weaponry." Departments in places like Indianapolis and some Chicago suburbs also began acquiring machine guns from the military in the name of fighting terror. The September 11 attacks enabled a new source of funding for military-grade equipment in the Department of Homeland Security. In recent years, the agency has given anti-terrorism grants to police agencies across the country. The DHS grants are typically used to purchase items such as the Lenco Bearcat, a modified armored personnel carrier that sells for $200,000 to $300,000. The vehicle has become something of a status symbol in some police departments, who often put out press releases with photos of the purchase, along with posing police officers clad in camouflage or battle dress uniforms. The post-September 11 era has also seen the role of SWAT teams and paramilitary police units expand to enforce nonviolent crimes beyond even the drug war. The total number of SWAT deployments per year in the U.S. may now top 60,000, or more than 160 per day. SWAT teams have been used to break up neighborhood poker games, sent into bars and fraternities suspected of allowing underage drinking, and even to enforce alcohol and occupational licensing regulations. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed. Never mind the collateral damage! Earlier this year, the Department of Education even sent its SWAT team to the home of someone suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program. In so doing, the inability to repay one's student loan has now become criminalized. This is why we are occupying and will continue to occupy America. Being poor and broke is not a crime. We the American people will not stand idly by while poverty becomes criminalized. Enough is enough! Class warfare has been declared upon us all by the top 1%, and the main assault against the remainder of us has already commenced. Starting with the Occupy Movement in September 2011, and the 'We Are the 99%' Movement at about the same time, the counterattack by the 99% against the elitist 1% has begun in earnest. In so doing, although a second American Civil War has been started by the wealthy elitists, it is we the people – the 99% – who comprise the overwhelming majority of America, and it is we who will finish it. I

Of The Bullies, By The Bullies, and For The Bullies

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

(excerpt from chapter 5 of my book, "Occupying America: We Shall Overcome")

Perhaps the most ominous sign regarding the true nature of economic discrimination and class warfare against the middle class and the poor, which invariably includes people of color, is that of bullying, intimidation and similar forms of abuse directed at employees in the workplace. Although I'm certain that everybody who reads this can think of an example of having a really bad boss, the following alarming example of abusive management in the third world is the best (or worst) example I have found. The question is, could this “method” of management be coming to America's shores next? Worse yet, is it already here?

More than a decade ago, shoe giant Nike came under fire for its use of sweatshop labor in the production of its products. Most of the criticism focused on its Indonesian workforce, where workers, largely young women, were forced to labor under harsh conditions and abusive supervisors. In 1997, filmmaker Michael Moore made Nike abuses a subject of his film "The Big One", and met with Nike CEO Phil Knight. Knight explained that the reason his company was using low-wage labor in Indonesia is allegedly because "Americans don't want to make shoes".

At the Taiwanese-operated Pou Chen Group factory in Sukabumi, Indonesia, which makes Converse shoes for Nike, and PT Amara Footwear factory in Jakarta, workers alleged that they are paid ultra-low wages, regularly verbally and physically abused, and even fired for the act of taking sick leave. The 10,000 mostly female workers at the Taiwanese-operated Pou Chen plant make around 50 cents an hour. That’s enough, for food and bunkhouse-type lodging, but little else. Some workers interviewed by the AP in March and April described being hit or scratched in the arm ― one man until he bled.

An internal Nike report released to the AP found that 'nearly two-thirds of 168 factories making Converse products worldwide fail to meet Nike's own standards for contract manufacturers. Meanwhile, in 2010, Nike CEO Mark Parker received an 84 percent hike in his annual compensation, raking in $13.1 million, an amount many of the workers in Sukabumi and Jakarta can only dream of.

If the top 1% has their way, these kinds of workplace abuses and sweatshop conditions will be making their way to your workplace. Here in Georgia where I live (plus several other states, mostly in the Southeastern US) we have what are called “right to work” laws. Basically what it means is that anyone can be terminated for any reason, or sometimes for no reason at all. So no matter where you work, there is always this cloud of uncertainty hanging overhead, knowing that you can get canned without warning, even if you are doing everything right. Imagine what Jesus would say about this if He came back today! Would he be pleased? Absolutely not! So I would say that being forced to work in what amounts to a hostile work environment is just one more reason for us all to rise up against the top 1% and take back all that they have stolen from us. Our dignity, our human rights and our governmental, economic and political systems will be taken and confiscated from the rich no matter how long it takes.

The fact of the matter is that this type of brute-force management has lately spread from much of America's professional life over into our personal lives, with the most obvious examples being the militarization of our police departments combined with the lost cause known as the “war on drugs”. In so doing, those who used to be sworn to protect and to serve have become those who harass and intimidate. They have become the lackeys of the top 1%, with some in law enforcement chomping at the bit for an opportunity to lock up a few people and bloody a few heads, if not worse. However, I also believe that there is no small number in the law enforcement community who realize that they are actually part of the 99%. When they do, and especially when they realize that they are just pawns for the 1%, they will join us in droves, coming over to our side having realized that they were only being contemptuously used to guard what the 1% has hoarded at the expense of all the rest of us, including themselves. 

 

The police arms race has very clearly spread well beyond the urban borders of the only cities to actually be targeted by foreign terrorists. Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms. The extent of this weapon “inflation” does not stop with high-powered rifles, either. In recent years, police departments both large and small have acquired bazookas, machine guns, and even armored vehicles and tanks for use in domestic police work.

The most serious consequence of the rapid militarization of American police forces, however, is the subtle evolution in the mentality of the "men in blue" from peace officer to soldier. This development is absolutely critical and represents a fundamental change in the nature of law enforcement. The primary mission of a police officer traditionally has been to keep the peace. Those whom an officer suspects to have committed a crime are treated as just that -- suspects. Police officers are expected, under the rule of law, to protect the civil liberties of all citizens, even the bad guys. For domestic law enforcement, a suspect in custody remains innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, police officers operate among a largely friendly population and have traditionally been trained to solve problems using a complex legal system; the deployment of lethal violence is an absolute last resort.

Soldiers, on the other hand, are trained to identify and kill the enemy. This is a problem. Cops are increasingly seeing the citizens they池e hired to protect as 鍍he enemy.�This is in part how nonviolent protesters end up tear-gassed and shot at. This is part of why violence is so often the first resort of cops dealing with any sort of tricky situation, rather than the last. The idea that we need our cops to be the heavily armed soldiers of the streets �instead of, say, social workers and peacekeepers with the power to arrest �leads to bad recruiting, bad training, unnecessary deaths, mass distrust of the police by vulnerable communities, and the contemptuous feeling of many cops that they themselves are above the law.

The trend toward a more militarized domestic police force began well before 9/11. It actually began in the early 1980s, as the Reagan administration added a new dimension of literalness to Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs." Reagan declared illicit drugs a threat to national security. In 1981 he and a compliant Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which allowed and encouraged the military to give local, state, and federal police access to military bases, research, and equipment. It authorized the military to train civilian police officers to use the newly available equipment, instructed the military to share drug-war-related information with civilian police and authorized the military to take an active role in preventing drugs from entering the country.

A bill passed in 1988 authorized the National Guard to aid local police in drug interdiction, a law that resulted in National Guard troops conducting drug raids on city streets and using helicopters to survey rural areas for pot farms. In 1989, President George H. Bush enacted a new policy creating regional task forces within the Pentagon to work with local police agencies on anti-drug efforts. Since then, a number of other bills and policies have carved out more ways for the military and domestic police to cooperate in the government's ongoing campaign to prevent Americans from getting high. Then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney declared in 1989, "The detection and countering of the production, trafficking and use of illegal drugs is a high priority national security mission of the Department of Defense." The problem with this mingling of domestic policing with military operations is that the two institutions have starkly different missions. The military's job is to annihilate a foreign enemy, while cops are charged with keeping the peace and with protecting the constitutional rights of American citizens and residents. It's dangerous to conflate the two. That distinction is why the U.S. Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act more than 130 years ago, a law that explicitly forbids the use of military troops in domestic policing.

The September 11 attacks provided a new and seemingly urgent justification for further militarization of America's police departments: the need to protect the country from terrorism. Within months of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the Office of National Drug Control Policy began laying the groundwork with a series of ads tying recreational drug use to support for terrorism. Terrorism became the new reason to arm American cops as if they were soldiers, but drug offenders would still be their primary targets. In a particularly egregious example comparable to going duck hunting with a bazooka, the seven police officers who serve the town of Jasper, Florida -- which has all of 2,000 people and hadn’t had a murder in more than a decade -- were each given a military-grade M-16 machine gun from the Pentagon transfer program, leading one Florida paper to run the headline, “Three Stoplights, Seven M-16s.”

In 2006 alone, the Department of Defense distributed vehicles worth $15.4 million, aircraft worth $8.9 million, boats worth $6.7 million, weapons worth $1 million and “other” items worth $110.6 million to local police agencies. After 9/11, police departments in some cities, including Washington, D.C., also switched to battle dress uniforms (BDUs) instead the traditional police uniform. Critics say even subtle changes like a more militarized uniform can change both public perception of the police and how police see their own role in the community. One such critic, retired police sergeant Bill Donelly, wrote in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, "One tends to throw caution to the wind when wearing ‘commando-chic’ regalia, a bulletproof vest with the word ‘POLICE’ emblazoned on both sides, and when one is armed with high tech weaponry." Departments in places like Indianapolis and some Chicago suburbs also began acquiring machine guns from the military in the name of fighting terror.

The September 11 attacks enabled a new source of funding for military-grade equipment in the Department of Homeland Security. In recent years, the agency has given anti-terrorism grants to police agencies across the country. The DHS grants are typically used to purchase items such as the Lenco Bearcat, a modified armored personnel carrier that sells for $200,000 to $300,000. The vehicle has become something of a status symbol in some police departments, who often put out press releases with photos of the purchase, along with posing police officers clad in camouflage or battle dress uniforms. The post-September 11 era has also seen the role of SWAT teams and paramilitary police units expand to enforce nonviolent crimes beyond even the drug war. The total number of SWAT deployments per year in the U.S. may now top 60,000, or more than 160 per day. SWAT teams have been used to break up neighborhood poker games, sent into bars and fraternities suspected of allowing underage drinking, and even to enforce alcohol and occupational licensing regulations. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed. Never mind the collateral damage! Earlier this year, the Department of Education even sent its SWAT team to the home of someone suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program. In so doing, the inability to repay one's student loan has now become criminalized. This is why we are occupying and will continue to occupy America. Being poor and broke is not a crime. We the American people will not stand idly by while poverty becomes criminalized. Enough is enough!

Class warfare has been declared upon us all by the top 1%, and the main assault against the remainder of us has already commenced. Starting with the Occupy Movement in September 2011, and the 'We Are the 99%' Movement at about the same time, the counterattack by the 99% against the elitist 1% has begun in earnest. In so doing, although a second American Civil War has been started by the wealthy elitists, it is we the people – the 99% – who comprise the overwhelming majority of America, and it is we who will finish it. In fact, this counterattack has already begun, it's just that it wasn't that apparent at first. It wasn't supposed to be. In the next chapter I will shed as much light as I can on how this is occurring, and highlight a few methods about how this can be accomplished in as peaceful a manner as possible.