“The film’s box office success suggests that’s where people are across the globe.”

The only way to avoid deicide is not merely to campaign against genocide, but to co-create a world with room for everyone. More basically, it involves sublimating and redirecting militaristic impulses to confront the violent false God residing deep within our own psyches. That God is driving us to suicide writ large. Consequently the fundamental battle must take place in our own hearts and souls. –Mike Rivage-Seul

I was googling references to the “punitive punishing god” for today’s entry on my “Not Far From The Kindgom” blog and stumbled upon Mike Savage-Reul who wrote among lots of other things, The Emperor’s God: Imperial Misunderstandings of Christianity.
Mike Rivage-Seul is a liberation theologian who directs Peace and Social Justice Studies at Berea College in Kentucky and bears a very impressive resume of activism.
I also learned that Mike, as do I, has a Zblog where I found the following excellent writing:
Avatar, what liberals are missing, Mike Rivage-Seul
Avatar is the 2nd most popular movie ever. Does anyone really think that the reason for that popularity is because it has a spectacular 3D aspect? I doubt it, that would drive  other 3D blockbusters – currently Clash of the Titans – headed up into the top five movies of all time as well.
It seems to me that something else has generated global popularity – the content. As Mike writes,

“The film’s box office success suggests that’s where people are across the globe. However, even more basically, “Avatar” is spiritual. Its popularity reveals widespread sensitivities of that kind in audiences everywhere. “

Mike then proposes a very eloquent review and interpretation of the spiritual message of Avatar, suggesting among other things that James Cameron’s creativity and design which presented a “hidden message” was deliberately crafted. As Jesus might say, “They who have eyes and ears, let them see and hear.”
Literal or fundamentalist Christian objections and rejections of the value of the film – based on doctrinal impurity, absolute and inerrant theology – even outright heresy have done little to reduce the impact of this provocative film.
Read Mike’s opinion on Avatar. Dare to be willing to rethink how you’ve always perceived reality through mortal eyes that have ignored spiritual signposts literally hidden along the pathl.
Or are you the type who believes that only the path itself matters and any deviation from the path is dangerous – could in fact be fatal given the fact that a scorekeeping God of judgment day awaits.
I’ve said before, many believing Christians clamor around and climb all over the image of Jesus who always pointed to Our Father, the God of Compassion. These believers ignore where Jesus is pointing and remain content to gather at the statue.

What if it really was about oil regardless of which party?

“The center cannot hold” …  An incompetent Bush or charismatic and persuasive Obama … at the bottom line is the one single overwhelming reality slouching toward Bethlehem?

For most Peak Oil worries was something intellectually understood but also easily shoved to the back burner as something of much less importance than other domestic and global issues … like abortion and terrorism.

Well it’s never too late to read up on Peak Oil …. better yet find one of the documentary DVD’s and this time don’t watch it from a political partisan or talk-show pooh pooh perspective.

Your fossil-fuel-based heating and gasoline bills will go up in the future and never again come back down.

Military Report Warns of 'Serious' Oil Shortages By 2015. Will We Go To War For Oil?  Crooks and Liars: Susie Madrak

"While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India."  - US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015

Who are they kidding? It's going to put major economic and social stresses on what's left of the United States economy, because China's selling us all those cheap goods. – Susie Madrak

Then … if your mind is still open and wondering … watch young Mr. Redford with Mr. Robertson (hairdo and all) in something extremely precient.

An entire nation adorned in the emperor’s new clothes.

Author Oliver Lange in his novel, Vandenberg, had this to say about American society in the 1970’s.

"We proved the lie, were served up with a gagging portion of our own vintage distillation of apocalyptic horseshit

-- all the narcissistic swill about indomitable spirit, invincibility, courage and nobility of purpose

-- and demonstrated once and for all to those who looked on with interest a fact long suspected:

that this nation, through a self-administered indoctrination of spurious righteousness, larded with the false rewards of superfluous luxury, had at last achieved the most tractable, malleable -- let's face it, spineless -- people to walk the face of the earth."

-Aptly described by Oliver Lange in Vandenberg - The Journals, 1971

Lange’s Cold War novel concerned a fictional lone American holdout against a Soviet occupation of America – hardly a liberal theme by today’s standards.

Yet the description still appears to fit this society to a Tee.

Our politicians of both parties thrive on tossing our way narcissistic swill about what America stands for and what the American People are truly like.

I’m reminded of G.W. Bush during his presidency expressing surprise that the rest of the world might not see America and Americans in the same light as our narcissistic swill and all those talking points celebrities of all stripes throw at us.

We do hopefully attempt to teach, encourage and try to foster ideas of indomitable spirit, invincibility,  courage and nobility of purpose in the military. You know, those in whom we have cast our imperialistic dice importing Democracy, war, defense and security. But that seems to be enough and not needed for the majority of the population.

For the rest of us talk is cheap, indomitable spirits are prompted by the cheap theatrics and propaganda of talk-show and political personalities, movies and commercialized patriotism more interested in money than global peace, global honor or global respect.

Robert Blum has a video out there that flat out states the premise of America’s track record all around the world, Be nice to America or we’ll bring Democracy to your Country. 

I dare you to expose your beautiful minds to that short video and then tell me how and why none of it is true nor an accurate portrayal of what’s been going on while we potato our couches.

The public righteousness long proclaimed by the TV reverends and political god-talkers finally caught the attention of genuine social justice Christians. They are now furiously publicizing social justice values in the most justified religious backlash in years and having success – except among those who think God is a conservative Republican.

That might be a good sign but it still seems like the most popular and followed god-talkers are not the ones advocating that we care for our poor and infirm.

No … the god talkers that fill former basketball arenas and mega-churches are either promising that God the capitalist wants to reward folks too trusting for their own good with riches

… or are promising that the greatest threat to religion in America lies in liberal and progressive values that detract from the image of God as the One Angry Almightyness who supports a fundamentalist literal definition of sin which can’t be tolerated with any degree of allowance..

I suggest that the wisest thing we can do is turn off the television sets and all the other “sets” through which we are told what to think, what to feel, what to be afraid of and how our money can buy us relief from all of it.

I suggest that being fluffed into believing every little commercialized medical threat and the need to consult your doctor needs to be seen as a need to ask the Doc if super-glue on the lips is a good way to stop eating corporate-larded-consumable swill

… and if ear plugs and eye masks are the best way to lower all your physiological levels to a manageable level. ( Have you every noticed how that word broken down the middle forms two double syllable concepts: “physio” and “logical” – neither of which are honestly proposed to you in pharmaceutical commercials.)

Turning off the TV sets at least until advertisers and broadcasters get the message that selling larded false rewards of superfluous luxury, gossip-based headline news and self-absorbed entertainment is not what a mature society wants or needs to remain a mature and civically involved society – that would help.

Oh …. sorry … that above paragraph describes someone else’s Brave New World where “mature” and “society” can be justifiably used in the same sentence …. but certainly not our Cowardly Consumptive Outworn World.

We can’t go on like this much longer.

Our new clothes were never new and never clothes.

Our uncovered asses are all hanging out there exposed to the winds of change …while we

… well we seem to be content in our ignorance or awareness of (whichever fits) the fact that we are the most tractable, malleable -- let's face it, spineless -- people to walk the face of the earth."

Thank you Oliver … sorry you are still right on the money.

Well, don’t that beat all? If only we’d understood this earlier!

I found this old link I never really checked out … but maybe should have.

The Dallas Morning News: Texas Republicans have a new party chairman

At Saturday morning's prayer meeting, party leader Tina Benkiser assured them that God was watching over the two-day confab.
"He is the chairman of this party," she said against a backdrop of flags and a GOP seal with its red, white and blue logo.

The party platform, adopted Saturday, declares "America is a Christian nation" and affirms that "God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom."

"We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and state,"

Well hell ... why didn't we all know this before?

I thought that at the least, God hung around in churches worldwide and made guest appearances to both liberal and conservative believers in Sunday meetings all over the place.

Smilin down on congregations from them big TV screens in the mega church meetings

or seen behind the curtain making stage whispers to Patrick Robertson, Official Mouthpiece of the Almighty.

But actually running the Texas Republican Party?

The cradle that spewed GW over the side and onto the whole country?

God lives down there and rides on a float in the Stockyard parade every year in San Antone?

This changes everything.

Non-Republicans need to immediately start the repentance process before it's too late. We need to do more to bring America  in alignment with God's Texas.

A committee should immediately form to consider the stigmatas and miracles of all the wonderful Texans God has ordained for America and I don’t mean just Dubya.

There’s Joel Osteen, John Hagee and of course those enlightened school-text-book folks and their personal revelations for the rest of the world. A fawning and accommodating sainthood should be granted .... and we ignorant and non-literalist citizens better get off the radar before the caravan to Dante's Woodshed starts loading.

I can't believe that I could not see it all along.

I'd heard God was a Republican but I just thought that was Sarah Palin’s wishful shoot-from-the-hip-from-a-helicopter thinking. But Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas ... that just boggles the mind.

Well ... somebody better tell Barak Obama and Jim Wallis.

I’m surprised Beckistan hasn’t made more hay of this..

I've got family in Utah and I've got to give them the bad news that the Jazz ain't the Lord's team after all and not to bet against the Mavericks.

We need more than rules of engagement for irresponsible and unwise discharge of military weapons.

Iraqi outrage over U.S. killing video.

Two young children whose father was killed in the attack could not understand why they were targeted.

"We were coming back and we saw an injured man. My father said lets take him to hospital. Then I heard only the bullets ... why did they shoots us? Didn't they see we were children?" Sajad Mutashar, who was injured along with his sister, said.

The answers from our supposedly patriotic command officers with the fruit salad on their chests to prove their patriotic mettle are straight out of a betrayal of the fictional premise upon which American bragging rights are based.

I support the establishment of “Rules of Engagement” for civilian citizens of the United States of America when dealing with this sort of shameful behavior by those who act without conscience or common sense.

Under my Rules of Engagement citizens are allowed to formally and legally repudiate the actions and the actors of those who pretend to defend our country and its Constitution by irresponsible use of their weapons and skills ... hold them accountable and invoke corporate and personal penalties.

Loose lips sink ships … but on the other hand …

A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month(.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan.

The War on WikiLeaks and Why It Matters – Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

What the heck is WikiLeaks?

Per Greenwald, WikiLeaks is “the site run by the non-profit group Sunshine Press, that is devoted to exposing suppressed government and corporate corruption by publicizing many of their most closely guarded secrets..”

WikiLeaks refers to itself as the “intelligence agency of the people.”

So what “ships” floating around out there are at risk because of WikiLeaks’ loose lips?

Well, check it out:

The Standard Operating Manual for Guantanamo,

documents showing how corrupt offshore loans precipitated the economic collapse in Iceland,

the notorious emails between climate scientists,

documents showing toxic dumping off the coast of Africa,

and they have recently come into possession of classified videos relating to civilian causalities under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, as well as documentation relating to civilian-slaughtering airstrikes in Afghanistan which the U.S. military had agreed to release, only to change their mind.

Collateral Murder is the video if you have the integrity and willingness to watch it.

“All of this has made WikiLeaks an increasingly hated target of numerous government and economic elites around the world, including the U.S. Government.  As The New York Times put it last week:  ‘To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret.’ "

I’m appreciative of these particular loose lips and think we are better informed for what they have made known.

The question should not be “Should WikiLeaks be Prosecuted or Targeted?”

No, the more justified questions going all the way up to our President should be,

What the hell on Earth are you doing in our name?

Were you ever going to tell us?

How about a presidential address justifying why this country needs to be the global bully pulling these sort of acts – not for my individual freedom – but in the name of false patriotism and the pure unfettered citizen jingoistic mind set that lets one nation pillage – without accountability – the rest of the world?

Ralph Nader … free-market corporatism’s notorious victim

 

One American who stepped up, took a few swings, knocked several out of the park … only to be optioned to the minors in his prime.

Presidential candidacies were but a small part of his career in comparison, but as a real player this guy scared the hell out of the robber barons. To get to the current crap we call broadcast news, mind-slinging adverstising,  konservative blow-hardiness and citizen apathy (I don’t know and I don’t care) - the barons had to get Ralph out of the way before too many wised-up.

I’ll give you 10 Glen Becks, 10 Limbaughs, 10 Hannitys, and 10 O’Reilly’s plus one each of every CEO of every major corporation in America for your Ralph Nader card … and I’ll be the one better off.

How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and America, Too

Are today’s teabaggers the tea party started by Ron Paul?

The sentiments seem to be in the right place … and who wouldn’t want to hold ALL government actors accountable … including those no longer there?

But there still seems to be an almost willful naivete coming out of the verbiage that in essence misunderstands reality and attempts to reflect a contemporary original thinking that is no longer in place. That thinking is literally partisan talking points based on little foundation other than money from backers of a sore-loser political philosophy,

Tea Party Problems Revealed - Mike Green

Long article worth reading if you are invested in understanding more about tea party motivation. Excerpts:

The enigmatic Tea Party movement softened its hardcore image with the recent appearance of Pam Stout, president of the Sandpoint, Idaho Tea Party Patriots, on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Mrs. Stout is no doubt a sweet-hearted woman with growing concerns over the welfare of America, but her popularity as a political activist in the fragmented Tea Party movement has cast a spotlight upon common naivete rampant among many Tea Party groups.

Disillusioned Tea Partiers:

Widespread political ignorance among various Tea Party supporters appears to be the culprit that undermines legitimate ideals and concerns articulated by many of its informed diplomatic members.

On March 30, Letterman sought to conduct a tough interview in a soft tone and bring to light some of the surface-level thinking that seems common among Tea Party members.

Leaving aside the insidious rancor and racial hostilities that have attached themselves to the outskirts of the growing movement, Letterman did a good job of getting to a few core issues.

... Collusion Caused Crisis

America's economic crisis can be pinpointed to a collaborative effort between the controlling powers in the financial sector and controlling powers in Congress and the White House.

Where would Tea Party advocates draw the line between business freedoms and government regulation?

... Cause of Crisis

Tea Party supporters, like Stout, apparently slept through this epic battle of the states versus the federal government. Ironically, at the time of this economic war over the premise of states rights to protect the citizenry, the federal government was led by a Republican president, George W. Bush.

... Naive Notion

Stout ignores the catastrophe inherent in the sudden loss of two million jobs, making the naive point that something will simply crop up due to entrepreneurial creativity. In the interim between job loss and gain, each out-of-work American is facing monthly living expenses and the creditors and banks who aren't concerned with the debtor's lack of income.

Will the two million newly created jobs magically appear before the mortgage is due?

Stout's premise is one that underscores the argument of the theoretical "free market." Unfortunately, her naive notion that the nation simply "overspent" opens her points to criticism of being simply surface-level.

This guy of course is not in a class by himself.

Dr. Jack Cassell refuses to treat Obama supporters

He’s there with that women who refused to give Halloween trick or treat to the children of Democrats.

Like religious bigots who only care about the worthy poor and wicked witches who only care about worthy reflublican children, Dr. Jack Cassell only treats the worthy ill.

Gosh, if I ran the only gas station in town I’d tell guys like that I only sell gas to the worthy drivers

If I ran a grocery store I’d only sell to the worthy hungry

My library would only lend books to worthy readers

My tavern would only sell beer to worthy drunks.

Where does it all end?

I only clean up worthy dog poop I guess.

So how come our state A.G. McKenna isn’t this smart?

Why we won’t file states’ rights suits

Richard Cordray is the attorney general of Ohio, and Tom Miller is the attorney general of Iowa.

Now what was it Washington State A.G. McKenna said was his main reason for wanting to expend limited state funds on a wild goose chase?

His colleagues in the Midwest don’t think so.

Excerpts:

As attorneys general for our respective heartland states, we take issue with the constitutional arguments being made against this new legislation.

Under long-settled Supreme Court precedents, Congress has ample power under the commerce clause of the Constitution to legislate on health care. Congress has the authority to regulate anything that affects interstate commerce “among the several States.”

This is bolstered by the supremacy clause, which explicitly makes the Constitution and the laws of the United States “the supreme Law of the Land” for all Americans.

For Congress to have the power to pass this legislation, therefore, the health care problem need only affect interstate commerce. It clearly does. ... That is also why state laws require many millions of Americans to have car insurance — a few irresponsible citizens should not be allowed to heap the costs of their behavior on the rest of us.

...We live under mandates every day. Without them, society as we know it would disintegrate. Every criminal law tells us what we cannot do.

And sometimes the law tells us what we must do.

Congress can require young Americans to register for the draft to serve in the military, for example, or can require us all to pay taxes for programs like Social Security and Medicare. We can — and do — argue about what shape these laws should take, without claiming that our leaders are constitutionally barred from dealing with our most pressing problems.

Instead of pursuing lawsuits, we should work to find ways to improve the lives of the American people and protect our four most fundamental freedoms: of speech, of religion, from want and from fear.

Hey … no rowdies allowed … don’t force me to call the bouncer!

Face Book is a social networking site where people gather like they do at family reunions and coffee klatches and share minutia of their lives.
No politics or religion cause that's gauche
... so told me my friends & relatives … specially those with whom I disagree.
Some local … some who live in the Great and Spacious Building with me … and some who are part of the *People’s Konservative American Republic.
So I went searching the Face Book pages of Palin, Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, and Huckabee.
Not one of them were into tea and krumpets. Well some were into some form of tea stuff. But none of them were doing much talking about the brand of their lectric shaver.
And all of them write gauche stuff ...
Check out the PKAR website:

"It is time for us to stop talking about right and left,"

Now finally a more realistic and literalistic presentation on what the "F" word stands for.

Is America Yearning for Fascism?

"The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward." - Chris Hedges http://tinyurl.com/ygecyah

Alone … in the dark … in a powder room … when and by whom will the match be lit?

When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says "Don't Retreat, Instead-RELOAD!" there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen.

When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen.

When a Republican lawmaker shouts "baby killer" at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty.

They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.

These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence.

But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism,

"In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented."

It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous.

If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.

Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims.

The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans.

The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans.

The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press.

Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.