"What this means is that corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host."

-Derrick Jensen

(Perhaps my profane words will offend, but in light of the fact that we are in a race to eradicate capitalism before it renders the Earth uninhabitable, I don't give a nut).

Humanists condemn the killings and sacrifice of children in Swaziland. We are particularly outraged by the reported case (in the Times of Swaziland (Friday May 9 2008)of a 'new born baby hanged with umbilical cord on a tree' and other cases of child murder and mutilation in the country. These acts of human savagery are believed to be carried out for ritual purposes by persons seeking spiritual power, fortune, protection and fortification. Cases of child murder and sacrifice are expected to rise especially now Swazis are preparing for elections. And politicians will be trying to acquire some muti(charms) that would help them succeed.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal and x-posted at The Wild, Wild Left, Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus, The Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and World Wide Sawdust.

As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February:

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal on April 6th and x-posted today at The Wild, Wild Left, The Peace Tree,The Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

How many economists have you read or watched on television in recent years that claimed the economy was performing well while you struggled to make ends meat and keep up with the cost of living? Indeed, until recently a happy talk virus had infected a cabal of conservative plutocrats who preached the virtues of limited regulation, market forces and free trade as wages declined and predatory lenders had a party. It seemed we were hearing conservative politicians and their mouthpieces at the Heritage Foundation or Fox news refer to the economy as "the greatest story never told" at every opportunity.

Now that the housing and credit crisis has metastasized, conservative apparatchiks are fighting to minimize government intervention on behalf of regular folks while preserving corporate welfare. They accuse anyone who raises a fuss of waging class warfare. Instead these agents of the status quo prefer we erroneously obsess about Social Security going bust and agree to privatize it for Wall Street's benefit.

By Jason Miller

Dedicated to Bobbie L.

4/3/08

In the sermon just minutes before his death, Archbishop Oscar Romero (a man who truly practiced the teachings of Christ) reminded his congregation of the parable of the wheat. "Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ, will live like the grains of wheat that dies. It only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain. The harvest comes because of the grain that dies We know that every effort to improve society, above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses; that God wants; that God demands of us. I am bound, as a pastor, by divine command to give my life for those whom I love, and that is all Salvadoreans, even those who are going to kill me."

--These words appeared in a newspaper just two weeks before Archbishop Romero was shot (by a filthy Right Wing Death Squad supported by the US) while celebrating Holy Communion in the hospital which had been his home since his enthronement in 1977.

"You could piss off Jesus Christ himself!"

--Russ Miller

Nigerian government needs to recognize the existence and rights of 'religious' minorities

Mammon in a New Suit

No one can serve two masters.  He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  Matthew 6:24

In the past few days our surly Vice President who is normally in an "undisclosed location" surfaced to be interviewed by ABC's Martha Radditz in a now famous exchange, something to the effect that two thirds of Americans want us out of Iraq and his one word reply was "SO".

Then in this interview Cheney on ABC, on milestone of 4,000 dead

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

If President Bush has the biggest burden, I wonder how the families of the 4,000 dead "volunteers" feel and the over 30,000 severely wounded, I am sure it bothers them that the President has this huge "burden" on him.

I could have added hyperlinks to every word in this missive to provide “authenticity” for the contents.  It would transform the reading of this brief lament into a three-day marathon.  There is so much fact out there to substantiate the message that it would take a book of footnotes.  Why bother?  Those of you who are aware of the truth are, well… aware of the truth!  Those who have chosen to be enablers of evil wouldn’t bother to use references anyway or, being true to their nature, would simply dismiss them as more left wing ranting.  If you really want to check something, you know how to use a search engine don’t you?

Compassion and Capitalism don't mix.

The Clinton campaign wants desperately to woo primary voters – and swing superdelegates – with the argument that wherever she has led in the "big states" when she matched against Barack Obama she will surely carry the day in November in a faceoff against Republican John McCain. Her strategists cling to that hoped for scenario in states like CALIFORNIA, NY, FLORIDA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, and so on.

But the numbers that came out since mid-March, though overshadowed by Obama confronting the controversy of his pastor, expose the Clinton big-state falsehood. Obama bests her against McCain . . .

. . . in the very biggest states.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as The Wild Wild Left, The Peace Tree, Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

Effective change agents and activists must blend their cognitive skills and passions with deep reservoirs of inner strength. It's a life path requiring self-sacrifice, discipline, a tough hide combined with empathy, idealism joined with pragmatism, a willingness to put ego aside, resiliency and a perspective beyond the moment of immediate conflict.

Alas, many of us dedicated to pursuing the cause of peace, justice and economic fairness are demoralized by setbacks and criticisms overtime. Personal lives are also easily consumed by the flames of devotion to causes larger than ourselves, such as reversing global warming or stopping genocide. It's so easy to lose our balance as we stand apart from professional colleagues, friends and relatives who don't share our passions or devotion to change the world for the better.

In 2000 Nader made a collossal mistake that cost Gore the election. Part of that mistake was what seemed an inexplicable statement that Gore and Bush were equivalent. I knew this was bullshit just like I knew it was bullshit when Gore, Cheney and Powell claimed Hussein was tied with al-Qaeda. And events since then have proven Nader was as "mistaken" as Bush, Cheney and Powell. The question always was: was Nader mistaken or lying? Either way, Nader only won 3% of the vote in 2000, not enough to do him any good, but enough, in key swing states, to help deliver the election to Bush.

I don't know about 2000, but by 2004 Nader was abandoning all pretense of values. Nader abandoned the Green Party, yet expected them to follow him blindly. They chose not to. In 2004 a large chunk of Nader's money and support came from Republicans. Among those Republican who went out on a limb for the self proclaimed messiah of the left was none other than John McCain, whose legal team did their best to get Nader on the ballot in Florida. As the Greens went their own way, Nader turned to Republicans, John McCain in particular, to save his campaign. The result? Nader got .3% of the vote...one tenth of what he got in 2000.

Now in 2008 Nader is running yet again. And John McCain seems to be behind his run, quite literally. Nader's website attacks Barack Obama. His website attacks Hillary Clinton. His website DOES NOT talk about John McCain, his former (and current?) patron.

"Of Mommies and Daddies Who Just Don't Give a Fuck"

By Jason Miller

Thomas Paine's Corner

Sorry kids, but you're just going to have to deal with the fact that we are greedy narcissists. We're dyed in the wool consumers, we worship Mammon, and eliminating the cancer of capitalism is simply out of the question.

GAO finds that DOD has stopped trying to find veterans used in Cold War experiments that used chemical weapons and biological weapons and drugs such as LSD and PCP. They basically just gave up in 2003 and have no plan to continue.

On Thursday the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed what many of the veterans involved in the Cold War Experiments, known as Operation SHAD/112, Edgewood Arsenal's chemical weapon and drug tests 1955 - 1975 and the Fort Detrick  Biological Weapon tests from 1953 - 1972. There were thousands of soldiers used in these experiments, on ships, on the ground and in the air, they were exposed to many types of toxic materials and many of the programs have never conducted follow up medical studies.

A few of the programs have ran some studies but the way the Institute of Medicine (IOM) received the contracts from the DOD it was constructed to ignore much of the known research already done. This is a given there is not much in the way of living victims of chemical weapons and biological weapons attacks. The 1995 Tokyo Subway Sarin attack, the victims of Iran/Iraqs war in the 1980s, but we don't have much interchange with Iran.