As the war becomes more deadly, costly and counter-productive each day, a growing majority of citizens want to see a change of course in Iraq and U.S. foreign policies that better reflect American values.

With mid-term elections approaching, Peace Action's Peace Voter 2006 campaign will bring the occupation of Iraq and other key foreign policy issues to the forefront of the electoral debate.

We will put our elected officials on record on critical peace and security issues and demand their commitment to a more responsible foreign policy for our country.

By making peace the top priority in 2006, you can make a big impact at the local level, helping to build a powerful movement of people willing to organize for peace on Election Day, and beyond. This November, let's hold Congress accountable to the rising tide of public opinion that's urging an end to the war in Iraq and a new direction for U.S. relations with the world.

Become a Peace Voter today.

1100 Wayne Ave. Ste 1020, Silver Spring MD 20910 (301) 565-4050 www.Peace-Action.org

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Pasta for Peace

Hoosiers for Peace requests the honor of your presence…

What: Share Sunday Gravy with Local Progressives at Pasta for Peace. Good Food, Stimulating Conversation, Inspirational Music, Film, and Art and a Silent Auction. Did we mention the pasta was shaped like peace signs? To reserve your seat, call 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org. Seats are limited and going fast.

When: June 25, 2006 from 1 to 4 p.m. (with dinner at 2 p.m.)

Where: Indianapolis Peace and Learning Center (6040 DeLong Rd.) in Eagle Creek Park.

Why: Now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace. Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. To find out more visit www.hoosiersforpeace.org

Cost: Adults $20, Children 5-12 $7, Children under 5 eat free. All proceeds will go towards the advertising campaign. Seats are limited, contact Heather for tickets today: 202-9302 or e-mail heather@hoosiersforpeace.org.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.  -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

May 7, 2006

Dear Peacemakers,

Will you help to spread and encourage peace? With a record number of American soldiers dying in April 2006 and possible military action against Iran becoming daily news, now is the time to spread the word to mainstream America to unite and stand up for peace.

Hoosiers for Peace is sponsoring a statewide advertising campaign, which is focused on uniting the community to call for peace. This campaign will cost $14,000. This money will be used to pay for a full-page ad in the Indianapolis Star to ask more than 700,000 Hoosiers to call for peace. We are contacting dozens of organizations to make a proposal to form a coalition to raise funds and send a collaborative message to Hoosiers to Call for Peace. The message is: Call your friends, your family, and your representatives and ask them to support the Call for Peace.

Like most Americans, we oppose war based on the following, which will be reflected in the advertisement:

A. War Kills. More than 2,400 American Soldiers have died and nearly 1,000 Hoosier soldiers are in harms way.

B. War depletes our resources. Billions of dollars are going to sustain war efforts while ordinary citizens struggle for social services.

C. War will not make us secure. Studies have shown that the U.S. is no more secure today than it was before 911.

Hoosiers for Peace, a website sponsored by Progressive Indiana, requests your support to make this advertisement a success. We will use the advertisement to call for peace. Each group in the coalition working on this project will be listed in the ad. Each group will be asked to raise $1000 by October 1, 2006. Below are some suggestions for fundraising:

1. Letter Writing Campaign: Contact your family and friends and ask them to support this call for peace. Tell them how many people we can reach and ask them to make a generous donation and spread the word. You may collect the money through your organization or you may refer them to Progressive Indiana. Donations may be sent through our secure online giving by going to www.progressiveindiana.org and click on donate now or log onto www.hoosiersforpeace and click on donate now. Checks may also be made payable to Progressive Indiana and mailed to:

Progressive Indiana

P.O. Box 55253

Indianapolis, Indiana 46205-0253

2. Host a house party. Go grassroots and organize a pasta dinner or backyard barbecue and ask for a donation from each guest. Play poker and donate half of each pot to the campaign for peace. Have a bake sale through your church or place of employment.

3. Plan a small event. Invite your community to an event and ask for donations for the ad. Small concerts, speakers, and socials are some ideas for these events. Get creative and network!

We need at least 14 groups to join the coalition and many more people to join the campaign to help fill in possible gaps. If we join together we can make this happen and we can bring Hoosiers together through this ad. As we Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, and call for an End to the War we can stand united for peace. We can make a difference by showing ordinary Hoosiers that there are many people like them working for peace. Please contact us as soon as possible if you would like to participate in this campaign. With a little work and collaboration we can make a large impact on our community.

In Peace,

Heather Allen-Garde

Director, Hoosiers For Peace

heather@hooisersforpeace.org

heatherreneeallen@yahoo.com

317/202-9302

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it – Eleanor Roosevelt

About the Author

Dr. David C. Korten has authored numerous books, including When Corporations Rule the World, and The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism. He is a co-founder and board chair of the Positive Futures Network, which publishes YES! A Journal of Positive Futures; founder and president of The People-Centered Development Forum; an associate of the International Forum on Globalization; and a member of the Club of Rome. A former Harvard Business School professor, Air Force captain, and USAID advisor, he has more than thirty years experience living and working in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He also serves on the boards of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies and the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

David Korten

Butler University

June 26, 2006

7pm

Reilley Room

Atherton Hall

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The Not Your Soldier Project gives youth the tools we need to stop the military invasion of our schools and our communities.

Not Your Soldier Action Camps bring together young people who are heavily targeted by military recruitment. At the camps, youth learn how to take action to fight military recruitment, the poverty draft, and the corporations that profit off of war.

In 2006, Not Your Soldier will be hosting a national camp for youth and adult allies.

>>Go to the Pick a Camp section to find out more!

If you're interested in hosting a regional Not Your Soldier gathering, find out more here.

Not Your Soldier National Days of Action are coordinated days of creative, non-violent direct action where youth take leadership and tell recruiters, "We are Not Your Soldiers!"

>>Sign up for our action alert e-mail list!

Parents: have questions? Check out Info for Parents, and our FAQ's to find out what the camps will be like.

Today's News and Views

June 21, 2006

Republican Leadership Defying Will of Public, Congress by Preventing Increase of Minimum Wage

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

After a surge in efforts in the House and Senate to increase minimum wage from its lowest level in 50 years, the Republican leadership is doing everything they can to keep American workers from earning fair and reasonable salaries.

Congress has given itself an annual raise of almost $35,000 since 1997, but has not increased minimum wage by one cent despite inflation. The leading Democratic proposal would raise minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in three increments over two years.

About 83% of the public supports this boost, including 72% of Republicans, according to an April survey by the Pew Research Center.

Last week in the House Appropriations Committee, seven Republicans helped to create a 32-27 majority in favor of creating this modest increase in an amendment to an annual appropriations bill. Instead of scheduling an “up or down vote” in the full House, Republican leaders are “cutting and running” from voting on the entire appropriations bill until after the upcoming elections to make sure representatives are not swayed by their constituents to support the increase.

In the Senate today, a 52-46 vote in favor of a similar amendment was not enough to overcome GOP procedural maneuvering to require 60 votes for approval. Republican Leader Bill Frist even tried to attach abortion restrictions to the minimum wage proposal to prevent a fair decision by his colleagues.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, the amendment’s sponsor, released a statement promising future action: “This battle will continue all across America until at long last justice is done. It’s time for the Republican leadership to stop its obstruction and get out of the way.”

Kennedy also said that “when Democrats take control (in November).... One of the first acts of legislation will be a freestanding minimum wage bill.”

While a growing number of rank-and-file Republicans in Congress and millions of Americans are becoming more supportive of an increase every day, the Republican leadership is intent on abusing their power to override dissent and to appease their richest contributors.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Pentagon Withheld Info on Troops' Deaths

Pentagon Admits It Waited 9 Months After Finishing Probe to Tell Families About 2 Troops' Deaths

By SCOTT LINDLAW

The Associated Press

TRACY, Calif. - The Pentagon waited nine months after completing an investigation into the deaths of two U.S. soldiers before notifying relatives the men were killed by Iraqi troops, the military acknowledged Wednesday.

The June 2004 deaths of Army Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr., 34, of Tracy, and 2nd Lt. Andre D. Tyson, 33, of Riverside, were originally attributed to an ambush during a patrol near Balad, Iraq. The Army said this week a military investigation found the two had been shot by Iraqi civil defense officers. No possible motive has been divulged.

Military officials visited Tyson's family on Tuesday and McCaffrey's on Wednesday to deliver the report, which was completed on Sept. 30, 2005, according to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. She called the nine-month delay troubling.

"If the American people knew that the people we are directly helping train turned on our soldiers, support for this war would slip," Boxer said. "It's very disturbing to think that the Pentagon might be told to keep this kind of thing close to the vest."

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Boxer's timetable on Wednesday.

"There was a time gap, no doubt about it," Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. "The Army regrets any delay in notifying the family, and we took immediate steps to do so once those facts were determined."

A cadre of high-ranking officers personally apologized to the mother of one soldier for the delay Wednesday, but didn't provide much new information, Nadia McCaffrey said.

"The most stunning thing I saw and heard today was that I told them some of the details that I had almost since the day my son was killed, and they didn't have any idea about it. They didn't know. They had never heard of it," she said.

Soldiers who witnessed the attack have told Nadia McCaffrey two Iraqi patrolmen opened fire on her son's unit. The witnesses also said a third gunman simultaneously drove up to the American unit in a van, climbed onto the vehicle and fired at the Americans, she said.

Iraqi forces who had trained with the Americans had fired at them twice before the incident that killed Patrick McCaffrey, and he had reported it to his superiors, Nadia McCaffrey said.

Tyson's relatives told the AP they were not surprised to learn new details about his death when the Army officers briefed them.

"They never tell the family the truth. You know how politics is," said Ophelia Tyson, grandmother of Andre Tyson.

One of the trainees has been arrested and imprisoned by the Iraqi government, according to Boyce, but he could not say which prison or when he was arrested.

The second trainee is believed to be dead, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been made public.

A Pentagon spokesman knew of no other incident like the shootings. Boyce said the U.S. military remained confident in its operations with Iraqis.

McCaffrey and Tyson were assigned to the Army National Guard's 579th Engineer Battalion based in Petaluma.

Associated Press Writers Erica Werner and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Andrew Glazer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

U.S. Losing Its Middle-Class Neighborhoods
From 1970 to 2000, Metro Areas Showed Widening Gap Between Rich, Poor Sections

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006; A03

INDIANAPOLIS -- Middle-class neighborhoods, long regarded as incubators for the American dream, are losing ground in cities across the country, shrinking at more than twice the rate of the middle class itself.

In their place, poor and rich neighborhoods are both on the rise, as cities and suburbs have become increasingly segregated by income, according to a Brookings Institution study released Thursday. It found that as a share of all urban and suburban neighborhoods, middle-income neighborhoods in the nation's 100 largest metro areas have declined from 58 percent in 1970 to 41 percent in 2000.

Widening income inequality in the United States has been well documented in recent years, but the Brookings analysis of census data uncovered a much more accelerated decline in communities that house the middle class. It far outpaced the decline of seven percentage points between 1970 and 2000 in the proportion of middle-income families living in and around cities.

Middle-income neighborhoods -- where families earn 80 to 120 percent of the local median income -- have plunged by more than 20 percent as a share of all neighborhoods in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. They are down 10 percent in the Washington area.

Jim and Lynn Russell and son Adam moved from a middle-income Indianapolis neighborhood to an outer suburb.
Photo Credit: Photos By Blaine Harden -- The Washington Post
Related Article: U.S. Losing Its Middle-Class Neighborhoods, page A03

It's happening, too, in this prosperous, mostly white middle-income Midwestern city where unemployment is low and a vibrant downtown has been preserved. As poor and rich neighborhoods proliferate, the share of middle-income neighborhoods in greater Indianapolis has dropped by 21 percent since 1970.

"No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years," said Alan Berube, an urban demographer at Brookings who worked on the report.

"It means that if you are not living in one of the well-off areas, you are not going to have access to the same amenities -- good schools and safe environment -- that you could find 30 years ago," he said.

The decline of middle-income neighborhoods may also be a consequence of increased economic opportunity and residential mobility, especially for upper-income minorities, said Joel Kotkin, an urban historian and senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

"This is about upward mobility and class. Until the 1970s, middle-class blacks and other minorities often had little choice about where they could live," said Kotkin, the author of "The City: A Global History." He added: "They usually had to live close to lower-income people of their own race. Now, if they can afford it, they can move to higher-income neighborhoods. Dollars trump race. Many choose not to live around poor people."

The Brookings study says that much more research is needed to better understand why middle-income neighborhoods are vanishing faster than middle-income families. But it speculates that a sorting-out process is underway in the nation's suburbs and inner cities, with many previously middle-income neighborhoods now tipping rich or poor.

Several urban scholars who had no role in the Brookings study said that its findings are consistent with what they have seen in cities from Los Angeles to Cleveland, as the middle class hollows out and as an economic chasm widens between rich and poor neighborhoods.

"We are increasingly being bifurcated on an economic basis," said Paul Ong, a professor of public affairs at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It has taken a big chunk out of the middle."

In Los Angeles -- the most hollowed-out metropolitan area in the country over the past three decades -- the share of poor neighborhoods is up 10 percent, rich neighborhoods are up 14 percent and middle-income areas are down by 24 percent.

The Brookings study says that increased residential segregation by income can remove a fundamental rung from the nation's ladder for social mobility: moderate-income neighborhoods with decent schools, nearby jobs, low crime and reliable services.

Alice McCray used to live in just that kind of neighborhood, a postwar suburb on the far east side of Indianapolis. She has not moved since 1971. It's the middle-class character of her neighborhood that has moved away and left her three-bedroom ranch house behind. With higher-income residents gone, McCray's neighborhood has tipped poor in the past decade. A third of the incoming population lives below the poverty line. Crime is up, and schools have deteriorated.

"I had nine block captains on our neighborhood watch group, and seven of them have moved, said McCray, 61, who owns a cleaning business. "They said they were not going to put up with this."

For people who do not want to put up with aging, troubled neighborhoods and have the means to do something about it, escape is remarkably easy -- in Indianapolis and across much of the country.

The housing industry in the Midwest and the Northeast routinely floods local markets with new, ever-larger houses. In greater Indianapolis, more than 27,500 houses were constructed between 2000 and 2004, even though the population grew by only 3,000.

In the process, older houses and many older neighborhoods -- such as McCray's -- have become as disposable as used cars.

Such overbuilding is rampant across the Midwest and Northeast, where the number of new houses -- almost always at the edge of metro areas -- swamped the number of new households by more than 30 percent between 1980 and 2000, according to a study co-written by Thomas Bier, executive in residence at the Center for Housing Research and Policy at Cleveland State University.

"As upper-income Americans are drawn to the new houses, neighborhoods become more homogenous," he said. Echoing the Brookings study, he said: "The zoning is such that it prevents anything other than a certain income range from living there. It is our latest method of discrimination."

In a pattern that is the mirror opposite of what is happening in the Midwest and Northeast, there is a chronic undersupply of housing in many cities on the West Coast. But it, too, has contributed to a decline of middle-income neighborhoods, said Berube, the Brookings demographer.

He said rapid population growth in cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle combines with rigid geographic and legal restraints on construction to limit housing supply. In Los Angeles, for example, the population grew by 11 percent between 1990 and 2002, but the number of housing units increased by just 5 percent.

That has pushed up the price of housing in mixed-income neighborhoods. Gentrification often pushes the poor away to less-desirable suburbs.

In Indianapolis, it is an abundance of housing that lures the middle class out of established neighborhoods.

Until last month, Jim and Lynn Russell lived with their 1-year-old son, Adam, in a middle-income neighborhood called Irvington on the city's near east side. The area of restored historic houses is 20 minutes by car from downtown, where they both work as bank executives.

But the Russells, who have another baby due in the fall, were worried about mediocre test scores at nearby public schools. They were also concerned about safety. A mass killing -- seven people shot in their home -- took place this month not far from their former house.

"Things like that don't happen in Carmel," said Lynn Russell, 31, who grew up in Indianapolis, as did her husband.

Carmel, where the Russells just bought a house, is not a close-in suburb. About 45 minutes north of downtown at rush hour, it is one of the fastest-growing communities in greater Indianapolis. Schools are among the best in Indiana, and housing is abundant and, by national standards, extremely affordable for professional couples. The Russells bought their four-bedroom house on half an acre for $230,000.

Urban planners complain that exurbs such as Carmel are bleeding cities of the middle class. But Jim Russell said he and his wife have made "the logical choice" by moving to a upper-income neighborhood that is safe, comfortable and better for their growing family.

New Haven Independent

Tess Wheelwright photo

Lamont Tapped To "Take It Back"

by Tess Wheelwright | June 22, 2006 09:30 AM

The last time New Haven saw Ned Lamont, he was rousing a ballroom of blogheads at the Omni Hotel. In the much quieter setting of a Chapel Street bookstore Wednesday, the candidate for U.S. Senate joined author David Sirota in an effort to take back the word “mainstream” from incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman.

At 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, the Democratic challenger to Lieberman staked out a spot in the children’s section of downtown’s Atticus Bookstore & Café to hear from political strategist David Sirota (pictured below). Sirota, also a regular contributor to The Nation and a twice-a-week guest on The Al Franken Show, is the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government – And How We Can Take It Back.

That’s not, he told the gathered dozens of Ned fans and Atticus regulars, going to be easy.

The really worrisome corruption isn’t Tom DeLay or the $90,000 in a congressman’s freezer, Sirota said: It’s the mighty, mighty corporations whom our leaders can’t afford to displease. “What’s really corrupt is what’s legal. If we’re wondering why our government no longer solves problems, it’s because it no longer challenges the Big Money interests at the root of those problems.” Sirota gave examples – like Bush’s 2005 “bankruptcy bill” which protects billionaire corporations but not the truly bankruptcy-prone individual with a health problem or death in the family, Sirota said (a Daily Kos blogger agrees), or the tort reform pushed by Republicans to "save the system the cost of frivolous lawsuits” -- aka “limit the legal rights of individuals to fight back in court,” said Sirota. He gives more examples on his "Sirotablog", and more in his book.

But the examples that really interested the Nedheads were the ones that starred Sen. Joe Lieberman as a favorite bedfellow of Big Money. “There’s lots about Lieberman in here,” said Sirota, raising his book (as Ned, who hadn’t yet read it, raised his eyebrows). Lieberman is a special target of Sirotafire for his self-billed “centrism,” his publicized identity as an able consensus-builder with Republicans. For Sirota, a cooperator with the current “corrupt administration” isn’t a “centrist,” but a strategic “hijacker” of that label. “Lieberman decides to be part of a consensus in Washington that pushes the hostile takeover of our government.”

Sirota billed Ned Lamont’s campaign as a strike back – and a timely one. The clock is ticking for the 'Take It Back' piece of his vision, Sirota said. “In ten years, [my book] would be called just Hostile Takeover : How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government—Thank you very much.”

Wednesday, Sirota was still able to offer a few recommendations – if not the “silver bullet people want.” “We need to put public financing of elections at the center of our political activism,” he said, crediting Connecticut as ahead of the curve. “We need to focus that political activism locally in our backyard,” added Sirota, who diagnosed the “hostile takeover in government” as “far less pronounced if you take it down the food chain.”

That led to Ned. “What we’re seeing in this race is that ordinary citizens can have a real impact on the political destiny of this country. The fact that there is a race is a huge success. People are shocked and amazed that there is a race. People all over the country are watching this race.”

History Lesson

Lamont passed on making a stump speech in the Atticus kiddie-corner, but he did take time to offer a few words on history. Namely, that the Iraq war and the decisions of our current leaders do not fit with its lessons. “These choices are way outside the mainstream,” Lamont said.

He recalled World War II and the “conflict between liberation theology and containment.” “America went with containment. We didn’t say, We’re going to roll in there and liberate Czechoslovakia, liberate Poland.” Fast-forward to today’s war and the emphasis on “Iraqi freedom.” “This war is way outside the historical norm,” Lamont said.

And, as if to emphasize a reassignment of the “outsider” label, the grassroots and blog-launched candidate said it again. “It’s way outside the mainstream.”

“Half the time they accuse me of aiding and abetting the Republicans, and half the time I’m a ‘creature of the blogs.’ I’m probably somewhere in the middle.”

He didn't say “centrist.” “This is a president with a bad set of priorities. Rather than spend $250 million in Iraq, we need to start investing in great schools for our kids,” in public housing and public transportation, in “putting in place a platform for small businesses. That is the historical tradition of this country.”

As Lamont took policy questions from the crowd – he supports a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel, health care is a basic right, environmental responsibility and economic growth are not opposed – he reinforced how far he’s come toward comfort and confidence in the candidate’s seat. He made a joke. People laughed. He got serious. People listened.

“[Lieberman]’s too quick to say we’ve got to find the common ground. We’ve got to start talking about the common good.”

Lamont hadn’t heard about Jajuana Cole’s murder and the spate of youth violence upsetting New Haven – but he wanted to. “Tell me about it,” he said sincerely, though he looked sincerely tired after a long day on the campaign trail and with the Bridgeport high school students whom he teaches about small business entrepreneurship. Linking the shootings here to parallel “gang activity” in Stamford and Bridgeport, he stuck the blame to a lack of youth programs, a lack of “good investments in opportunities for youth.” “When school gets out at 2:45 in Bridgeport, most kids have nowhere to go but home to an empty house. The message is disheartening.” And by the way, “What happened to gun control?”

Afterward, Ned fled (to later return), Sirota sold books, and campaign staffers sold the connection between the book’s call and Ned’s answer. “David’s book helped define the driving issue of this campaign: The importance of a change agent being elected,” said campaign chief Tom Swan.

That’s Not Christian!

June 22, 2006

Focus on Gays: Episcopal Church Fussing and Fighting Again

Filed under: Uncategorized, News and politics — thatsnotchristian @ 2:12 am

"The U.S. Episcopal Church, trying to appease an angry and alienated worldwide Anglican community, reversed itself on Wednesday and agreed to try to avoid the consecration of more openly gay bishops.

The action came 24 hours after one of two legislative bodies at the 2.3 million member U.S. church's convention had rejected a similar idea." "Episcopal church votes to curb gay bishops"

Just a note about the always-entertaining Episcopal Church and its longrunning escapades vis a vis gay people. Yesterday cooler heads prevailed, and it seemed that gay bishops would be allowed. I half-way heard a TV interview or two last night while perched atop the stove trying to jam my mother's quirky old exhaust fan back into its slot, and noticed that people seemed pretty perked up about the prospects of ending all the fussing and fighting and getting on with church business–i.e., helping people and saving souls.

Now, however, I see on Reuters.com that certain Episcopals are working themselves into a lather over the very thing that everybody seemed so cheery about last night. There's a lot of hand wringing and gnashing of teeth going on, and as a result there's not much time left over for soul-saving or community-building.

I was living in Nashville a few years ago when the issue of same-sex unions and gay marriage came up, which of course got the Southern Baptists excited, but I was surprised to see that the usually sedate and accepting Episcopalians weren't far behind.

In fact, it got to be embarassing whenever I drove visitors around that fair city because a few local Episcopals went so far as to hang a floppy piece of black cloth over their lovely old church sign. When that fell off, somebody applied big swaths of angry black paint over the word "Episcopal".

As we'd drive by, I'd try to distract my guests by pointing out the beautiful trees on the other side of the boulevard, but sometimes it didn't work and they'd ask,

"Hey, what's wrong with that church? It looks like it's been vandalized! Somebody has put a lot of black graffiti over–"

"Oh no, don't worry," I'd quickly reassure, "that wasn't done by vandals, but by churchgoers. They're just a little moody."

Now some will immediately comment below, chastising me for not supporting anti-gay promotions of all kinds. However, I will point out that Jesus never said one word against gay people, and since Christ's values should naturally come first in CHRISTianity, that's the rock on which I'll stand.

All Stoning, All the Time
I shall directly address, however, the anti-gay scriptures that aniti-gay rightwingers find so intoxicating. This is something that many, many Americans don't realize but should (spread the word!): The Old Testament contains several verses written by men who opposed homosexuality (and biblical literalists believe that every word written by these men was inspired by God)–but not in terms of restricting gay marriage or gay bishops or gay soldiers or gay whatnot. The only Old Testament prescription for handling gay people is "stoning unto death".

And there are several other groups of people, including adulterers and rebellious children, that Old Testament writers advised stoning unto death. In "Biblical days", stoning was the capital punishment of choice, though there were several lesser-known methods of punishment for the authorites to use as desired, such as "poisoning the womb" of women. (By the way, poisoning the womb would then lead to a spontaneous abortion (forced miscarriage), were the woman pregnant, and this is prescribed by Old Testament Biblical writers. Interesting.)

What all this means is that people like James Dobson who are trying to turn gays into straights have, if they're the strict "Bible literalists" they claim to be, got the whole thing wrong. And when churches bicker about homosexuality, they seem to understand the spirit of the Old Testament doctrine, but are trying to ignore the letter of the law, which is all about stoning, stoning and more stoning.

Not taking away or limiting rights in society or churches or the workplace, but stoning unto death. If we're uncomfortable with that–and I hope to gracious goodness that most Christians are–then we need to drop all this anti-gay marriage or bishops or military or whatever the next anti-gay thing will be, not only because Jesus never taught us to revile or harm gay people, but because these issues are never actually mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

This isn't too surprising since, were the anti-gay scriptures obeyed literally, gay people wouldn't even exist: The moment a man "lay with" another man, he'd be stoned unto death–not prevented from marrying, not prevented from becoming a bishop, not prevented from joining the military, and certainly not enrolled in a sexual-orientation-change program.

These controversial, ever-divisive issues are invented by modern people in search of religious justification for their prejudices…but in point of fact, their pursual of these wedge-issues is not supported anywhere in the Bible. If you want anti-gay sentiment in Scripture, you'll have to sign on for the real thing: you guessed it, stoning.

There's not much wiggle room in the Old Testament, and many of its punishment-and-death values couldn't be more different than the merciful, nonviolent values that Jesus taught and exemplified in word and deed. We cannot, as Christians, treat others according to that brutal Mosaic code. If we're not willing to go around throwing stones at gay people, we've already broken the Mosaic law so we might as well hang up the towel on the whole anti-gay mission, and find something better to do. Like helping me get the grease off this horrid old kitchen exhaust fan.

My unsolicited advice to gay-focused Episcopalians is to think about all the wonderful things you could be doing if you didn't have to stew about this issue. Look around your communities, see what you can do for those whose lives are in terrible turmoil, whose spirits are nearly extinguished by drugs, alcohol, crummy jobs and poverty.

Don't let a few "angry", "alienated" people fill you with angst. Fussing and fuming over gay bishops wastes precious time, energy and resources that could be devoted to worthy causes. It also sends a powerful message to the world that sexual orientation is more important in a bishop than dedication to Christlike values and service to those in need spiritually or materially. And that's not Christian!

Well that's it for me. I'm worn out from that stupid exhaust fan. Good night, and let's hope the Episcopals have settled down by morning.

State of emergency declared in Baghdad
23/06/2006 - 18:19:45

The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew today after insurgent gunmen set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on US and Iraqi troops just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

With just two hours notice, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ordered everyone off the streets of the capital. US and Iraqi forces also were engaged in firefights with insurgents in the dangerous Dora neighbourhood in south Baghdad.

The fighting along Haifa Street near the Green Zone, the site of the US and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government, was unusual in its scope and intensity.

There have, however, routinely been clashes along the thoroughfare, making it so dangerous that a sign at one Green Zone exit checkpoint warns drivers against using the street.

As the state of emergency was announced in the capital, a car bomb ripped through a market and nearby petrol station in the increasingly volatile southern city of Basra today, killing at least five people and wounding 18, including two policemen, police said.

A bomb also struck a Sunni mosque in the town of Hibhib northeast of Baghdad, killing 10 worshippers and wounding 15 in the same town where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed earlier this month, police said.

At least 19 other deaths were reported in Baghdad.

Throughout the morning today, Iraqi and US military forces clashed with attackers who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles and fired from alleys and doorways along Haifa Street.

Four Iraqi soldiers and three policemen were wounded in the fighting, said police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.

The region was sealed and Iraqi and US forces conducted house-to-house searches.

Defence Ministry official Major General Abdul-Aziz Mohamed Jassim said nobody can go out during the curfew, which the prime minister’s office initially said would last from 2pm local time today until 6am tomorrow but later shortened to end at 5pm local time today.

The state of emergency includes a ban on carrying weapons and gives Iraqi security forces broader arrest powers, Jassim said.

“The state of emergency and curfew came in the wake of today’s clashes to let the army work freely to chase militants and to avoid casualties among civilians,” he said.

“They will punish all those who have weapons with them and they can shoot them if they feel that they are danger.”

Gunmen also attacked a group of worshippers marching from Sadr City, the Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad, to the Buratha mosque on the other side of the city to protest a suicide attack a week ago on the revered Shiite shrine. At least one marcher was killed and four were wounded, Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.

The US military reported that two Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldiers were killed this morning when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb southeast of the capital. Earlier in the day, a separate military statement reported that two US Marines were killed during combat in the volatile Anbar province in separate attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, and a soldier died elsewhere in a non-combat incident on Wednesday.

The deaths raised to at least 2,517 members of the US military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003.

The new security measures came as Maliki sought to rein in unrelenting insurgent and sectarian violence. He launched a massive security operation in Baghdad 10 days ago, deploying tens of thousands of troops who flooded the city, snarling traffic with hundreds of checkpoints.

While violence had diminished somewhat, the outbreak of fighting on Haifa Street and in the Dora neighbourhood apparently prompted Malaki to declare the state of emergency even as prayer services were in progress today, sending many residents scrambling homewards to beat the curfew.

Also today, police said they found the bodies of five men who apparently were victims of a mass kidnapping from a factory on Wednesday. The bodies, which showed signs of torture and had their hands and legs bound, were floating in a canal in northern Baghdad, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said.

A police raid on a farm yesterday freed 17 of the captives, who were believed to have been taken by Sunni extremists as they boarded company buses for the trip home after work at the al-Nasr General Complex, a former military plant about 20 miles north of Baghdad that now makes metal doors, windows and pipes.

There has been rampant sectarian violence in the region, where tit-for-tat kidnappings and revenge killings are common, but nothing on the scale of Wednesday’s abduction. The al-Nasr plant is between Baghdad and Taji, a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

Initial reports said as many as 85 people, including women who had taken their children to work, were taken. But Industry Minister Fowzi Hariri told state-run Iraqiya TV yesterday that 64 people were abducted and two of those were killed trying to escape.

Thirty people, mainly women and children, were freed shortly after the kidnapping, leaving 15 still believed in captivity.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organisation for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed in an internet posting that it had killed 81 workers who were “building a new American base".

It was unclear if the group was referring to the factory kidnap victims, and the authenticity of the statement could not be verified, although it was posted on a website used by insurgents to post statements and videos. The same group claimed it kidnapped and beheaded two US soldiers last weekend.

At least 25 people also have been killed gangland-style in the northern city of Mosul this week, with residents gunned down in ones and twos and bodies found scattered throughout Iraq’s third-largest city.

Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, has a mixed Kurdish and Sunni Arab population and a tradition of bad blood. The Kurds, who are largely Sunni Muslim but not Arab, have formed a prosperous autonomous region nearby after decades of oppression and mass killings under the Sunni Arab minority that ran Iraq until Saddam Hussein was ousted three years ago.

Also today, the US military said it killed four foreign insurgents in a raid north of Fallujah. Two of the dead men had 15lb suicide bombs strapped to their bodies. The military said an insurgent thought to be an Iraqi also was killed in the raid, which was launched on information from a suspected arrested in the region in previous days.

Separately, the military said, it detained a senior leader of al Qaida in Iraq and three other suspected insurgents on Monday during raids northeast of Baghdad, near where al Qaida chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air raid earlier this month.

In other violence today, police said:

- Gunmen killed an engineer who worked at Baghdad airport in a drive-by-shooting in western Baghdad.

- Police discovered the bodies of four men who had been handcuffed and shot. The dead men, all between 30 and 25, were found in the north Baghdad district of Kazimiyah.

- A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in the Dora region of southern Baghdad killed a police officer and wounded four others.

- Police found the body of a man who had been shot in the head and chest in central Baghdad just after dawn.

- The bodies of two women in their mid-20s who had been shot in the head were found in an eastern Baghdad drainage canal.

- Police found the bodies of four bullet-riddled and handcuffed men wearing civilian clothes in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah. A roadside bomb also exploded in the predominantly Shiite area, sparking a fire in two discount clothing stores.

Thomas Crosbie Media 2006.

Bigotry Beneath the Fog

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 23, 2006; A25

Once in a while the fog machine that's kept on "high" around here to obscure everyone's real intentions breaks down. There's always a mad rush to crank it up again, but for the briefest moment we can see our elected representatives for what they really are, not what they pretend to be. Wednesday we had one of those rare high-definition moments, when the House Republican caucus defied its leaders and refused to back renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

That tells you about all you need to know, doesn't it?

Speaker Dennis Hastert was ready to move forward with a feel-good, election-year extension of the landmark 1965 act that guaranteed voting rights for African Americans disenfranchised by Jim Crow law and custom in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia. In 1975 the act was expanded to cover Alaska, Texas and Arizona, where citizens with limited command of English -- Latinos, mostly -- were being treated as if they were black folks in the South.

Hastert understood that reauthorizing the act would be useful in efforts to convince voters that the Republican Party as presently constituted is just ultraconservative, not actually racist. But Hastert was sandbagged by fellow Republicans who rebelled in a private caucus meeting Wednesday. The renewal probably could have won easy approval on the House floor, since Democrats would have voted for it, but Hastert's policy is to not bring out any bill that lacks majority support from Republicans, so he had no choice but to yank it.

So much for the erstwhile "party of Lincoln."

In what was described as a contentious caucus meeting, Southern Republicans complained that their states were being singled out by the act, which was originally intended to do away with the poll taxes, literacy tests and other measures that were used to deprive black voters of their rights during the Jim Crow era. Having grown up in South Carolina during the "last throes" (to quote Dick Cheney in another context) of racial segregation, I can testify that the states in question went far out of their way to earn the enhanced scrutiny the Voting Rights Act forces them to endure.

Most members of Congress agree, and there probably would have been no problem if other members of the caucus hadn't raised a separate issue: the act's requirement that bilingual ballots be made available in localities where significant numbers of voters speak a language other than English.

Hmmm. Let me take a wild guess: Any chance the issue might be voters who speak, say, Spanish? Any chance this is just a warm-up for the rabid demagoguery we're going to hear from Republicans on the immigration issue this fall?

So there we have it. In one breathtaking moment of clarity, we see that a significant portion of the House Republican caucus is determined to deep-six, or at least fatally weaken, a landmark law designed to make it possible for the nation's largest minority groups to exercise their franchise at the polls -- and designed to make it difficult for anyone with nefarious intent to keep these minority citizens from voting.

Decades ago the Republican Party built its "solid South" with thinly disguised, and sometimes blatant, appeals to white racist voters who felt threatened by blacks. Now Republicans seem to have decided to paint Latinos as the new menace and buenos días as a mortal threat.

I have argued several times that African Americans and Latinos have more to unite us than divide us and that we had better find ways to stand together or we will perish separately. I rest my case. (For the moment, at least.) Yes, even though a nonpartisan blue-ribbon commission concluded that there are concrete reasons for the Voting Rights Act to be renewed, it's true that the value of this 41-year-old piece of legislation is partly symbolic. And it's also true that the South of today is not the South of my youth. Congress is under no real time pressure, since no portion of the act expires until next year. Hastert surely will find some way to quash this little GOP revolt and get the act extended.

That will be a good thing when it happens, but it won't be enough. While Congress is on the subject of voting rights and equal access to the polls, our representatives ought to take a serious look at the irregularities that marred the presidential vote in Florida in 2000 and the allegations of unfair voting procedures in Ohio in 2004.

This Congress won't, though, since whatever happened in Florida and Ohio ended up electing George W. Bush. The fog machine will be up and running again before you know it.

eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Blue Inkblots

"History's verdict is all we have left. And when tomorrow calls today into account, some of us want to be able to say we stood up. We called out. We were not silent." --Leonard Pitts Jr. "Gestures of Conscience Bring Solace," Baltimore Sun, March 19, 2006

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

FEEL SAFER YET?

Washington is failing to make progress in the global war on terror and the next 9/11-style attack is not a question of if, but when. That is the scathing conclusion of a survey of 100 leading American foreign-policy analysts.

In its first "Terrorism Index," released yesterday, the influential journal Foreign Affairs found surprising consensus among bipartisan experts.

Some 86 percent of them said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush's claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror…

The survey's participants included an ex-secretary of state and former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, along with prominent members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
--"War on Terror Called a Failure: Washington's Diplomatic Efforts Rated a 1.8 out of a 10," Lynda Hurst, Toronto Star, June 15, 2006.

The book's ("The One Percent Doctrine," by Ronald Suskind) opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001 memo titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
--"The Shadow of War, In a Surprising New Light," Barton Gellman, Washington Post, June 20, 2006.

"The Bush policy in Iraq has not made America safer, but has built a better terrorist."
--"Frameshop," Jeffrey Feldman, www.theframeshopisopen.com, June 20, 2006.

Remember back when Bush was running for re-election and we had all those national security color scares? The red and orange scares that scrambled municipal police departments all over the country in a frantic attempt to stop those ghastly terrorists from destroying us all?

Ever notice how we ALWAYS got a new color scare every time John Kerry had a bounce in the polls? The last serious color scare we got was the week following the Democratic presidential convention.

After Bush was re-elected, we never had another color scare, not even after London was bombed. Not even after Madrid was bombed. Not even after that dire Canadian plot was uncovered last week.

No more terrorist scares, once the Republicans were back in office.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? In spite of the terrible cost to municipal police departments in officer overtime and canceled vacations, those terrorist scares were used by the federal government for one thing and one thing only: campaign politics, Republican-style.

They had absolutely nothing to do with national security.

The Department of Homeland Security, created in the aftermath of 9/11, was rated for effectiveness at only 2.9 out of 10. Changes in the intelligence structure was assessed at "poor to fair," with one percent noting that reform "in most cases has produced new levels of bureaucracy in an already overly bureaucratic system."
--"War On Terror Called Failure," Lynda Hurst, Toronto Star, June 15, 2006.

The thing is, the Republicans keep beating this tired old drum that it's the DEMOCRATS who are the enemy--not al Qaeda--and that if we DARE let the Democrats take care of national security, those little wimpy wusses, why, they'll just wring their hands and go into therapy. The Republicans, however, are STRONG and DECISIVE and by God, they will KEEP US SAFE.

They're keeping us safe right now, fighting the GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR in Iraq. If we weren't fighting those terrorists in Iraq, we'd be fighting them in our own front yards. (I have a conservative friend who actually told his six-year old daughter that very thing.)

Dick Cheney is keeping us safe--he's keeping us so safe that not even the president knows what he's up to.

(Ron Suskind, in his powerful new book, "The One Percent Doctrine" writes that) Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the CIA was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation…

Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush "plausible deniability" from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details.

Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes, "Keeping certain knowledge from Bush--much of it shrouded, as well, by classification--meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed….Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial…It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much."
--"Personality, Ideology, and Bush's Terror Wars," Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Book Review of Ron Suskind's "One Percent Doctrine," June 20, 2006.

So, let me get this straight. The president's point of view could not be fogged up with the truth; that would get in the way of White House lies to sell the war or whatever other snake oil they had to peddle. Better to keep him in the dark so he could go in front of the television cameras and be sincere because, after all, he honestly had not seen anything to the contrary to what he was saying.

What a beautiful plan. It worked too, didn't it?

While Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were going around whipping up public fears, the president was busy soothing the nation that he, and he alone, held the secret key to keeping us safe.

In this way, he could sanction such things as scooping up suspected terrorists, flying them on secret airplanes under cover of darkness to eastern European countries who had no problem with torture, and get "intelligence" from them that could then be used to…whip up public fears so that…the president could soothe those fears.

Wow, though, at least we're safer, right? We don't have those awful terrorists running around crashing planes into buildings any more thanks to those harsh policies. You gotta do whatcha gotta do to keep us safe, right?

One example out of many comes in Ron Suskind's gripping narrative of what the White House has celebrated as one of the war's major victories: the capture of Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in March 2002. Described as al Qaeda's chief of operations…the Saudi-born jihadist was the first al-Qaeda detainee to be shipped to a secret prison abroad. Suskind shatters the official story line here.

Abu Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal fighter they supposed him to be. CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3--a boy, a young man, and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said," Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official. "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality"…

…That judgment was "echoed at the top of the CIA and was, of course, briefed to the president and vice-president," Suskind writes. And yet somehow, in a speech delivered two weeks later, President Bush portrayed Abu Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction in the United States."
--"The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light," Barton Gellman, Washington Post, June 20, 2006.

Like everything else coming out of this White House, this so-called "war on terror" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, illusion and magic, hypnotic media spells, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Suspicion, not evidence, is the new formula for action. And no amount of evidence DIS-proving that suspicion, makes any difference in the dogged White House portrayal of paranoia as policy.

…an emerging portrait of the administration…eager to circumvent traditional processes of policy development and policy review, and determined to use experts (whether CIA, the Treasury Department or the military) not to help formulate policy but simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.
--"Personality, Ideology, and Bush's Terror Wars," Michiko Kakutani, New York Times, June 20, 2006.