mlk – beyond vietnam
newsposted on 28 August 2010
martin luther king jr
“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word”.”
danger of promoting presidential assassination apparently
alien to local church group, fire departments
fun d' mental
posted on 5 August 2010
For more than a month and at several venues including church carnivals and fire department fund raisers, a Pennsylvania mid-way game operator offered the chance for fair goers to blast away at a cartoon character styled after President Barack Obama.
Irvin Good, who owns and operates Goodtime Amusements, of Hellertown, PA, displayed the cartoon character; a black man in a suit, holding a paper that reads “health bill” and wearing a presidential seal belt buckle, as a target in a shooting game called “Alien Invasion”. Good, who removed the character from the game after receiving complaints, said to one customer who complained about the image of Obama being used as a shooting target, “if you are (offended), you might want to be. But you’re interpreting it as being Obama. We’re not interpreting it as Obama.” Good went on to explain to local newspapers that the cartoon image of the president “didn’t look like him or anything like that,” but offered an apology and said, “I guess you could see a likeness to it if you wanted to,” pointing out that the presidential image also had “alien antennae”.
One complaining church fair attendee told the Lehigh Valley Times Express, “The message (was) step right up and shoot the president — I mean, c’mon. In my lifetime, two presidents have been shot and I don’t think we should have that as an amusement game.”
its all true
Roseto carnival game message: ‘Step right up and shoot’ Barack Obama : Lehigh Valley Times Express
Obama-like target in carnival game stirs outrage : Philadelphia Inquirer
photo credit : lehighvalleylive.com
v2 1.5
verbatimposted on 22 June 2010
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protesting Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara
in bed with the redposted on 2 June 2010
Haneen Zoubi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who serves as an elected representative in the Israeli Knesset, was on board the Mavi Marmara when it was attacked in international waters on May 31, 2010.
“Zoubi said Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla’s flagship, the Mavi Marmara, and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter directly above them. Terrified passengers had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all unarmed.
…within minutes of the raid beginning, three bodies had been brought to the main room on the upper deck in which she and most other passengers were confined. Two had gunshot wounds to the head, in what she suggested had been executions. Two other passengers slowly bled to death in the room after Israeli soldiers ignored messages in Hebrew she had held up at the window calling for medical help to save them. She said she saw seven other passengers seriously wounded.“Israel had days to plan this military operation,” she told a press conference in Nazareth.
“They wanted many deaths to terrorise us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of Gaza.”
Johnathan Cook in the National, Abu Dhabi
Images from the 06.01.10 protest against the Israeli attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla at the Israeli Consulate in Chicago, IL.
verbatim 36.5
verbatimposted on 1 June 2010
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buffy in marjah
spread of the redposted on 28 May 2010
Report 05.28.10 – ->>
1000 americans (and untold numbers of civilians) dead in afghanistan over the course of this 9 years of occupation
- –
Last night when I went out walking my dogs at about 7pm they and me both looked skyward when we heard the oncoming rush of low flying helicopters- not an uncommon occurance living 3 blocks from the expressway…
As the thunder got closer I realized that this was no gaggle of SKY 5 traffic reporters.
I knew the sound – the same sound heard every day in afghanistan – the evil gargle of military helicopters.
I looked at the dogs who looked back and we remembered that obama was ‘coming home’ over the memorial day weekend.
Without thinking – in fact it was because of remembering: black site prisons, warrantless wiretapping, government sponsored big-bidness pollution disasters – and the deaths of 1000 american young people in 9 years of occupation in afghanistan – my arm outstretched in an almost involuntary spasm – and I flipped off the president of these united states.
the universal soldier
He’s five foot-two, and he’s six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He’s all of thirty-one, and he’s only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.
He’a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.
And he’s fighting for Canada,
He’s fighting for France,
He’s fighting for the USA,
And he’s fighting for the Russians,
And he’s fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.
And he’s fighting for Democracy,
He’s fighting for the Reds,
He says it’s for the peace of all.
He’s the one who must decide,
Who’s to live and who’s to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can’t go on.
He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can’t you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
~buffy sainte-marie
war is over (if you want it)
verbatim 36.4
verbatimposted on 9 May 2010
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