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27 Nov 09

The Family: DC’s C Street Group Tied To Proposed Death Penalty for Gays in Uganda

American Christianity at its worst. Supporting death penalties for gays in Ugandan politics via the C Street cult in DC.

www.pensitoreview.com/...-uganda-death-penalty-for-gays - Preview

zach_wamp rightwing christianity fundamentalism usa culture

25 Nov 09

Op-Ed Contributors - The Great Wallop - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com/...16ferguson.html - Preview

china usa economy

15 Nov 09

Analyze This - Obama's China Visit | Newsweek.com

Fascinating.

www.newsweek.com/...print - Preview

china obama usa

Shambaugh thinks China's armed police should train Afghan cops, for example. But Beijing shuns anything close to putting boots on the ground. "Every foreign power that goes in has failed—so why should China join the list of failures?" as Tsinghua University foreign-policy expert Yan Xuetong says. One Chinese Netizen put it more tartly in a chatroom posting: "Now NATO wants China to help wipe it's ass."
Within Chinese government circles, explains Shambaugh, there is an escalating debate over whether the country should assume the role of a "responsible big power" or just continue practicing the late Chinese strongman Deng Xiaoping's more veiled and ambiguous strategy of "biding time, hiding capabilities, but doing some things." Skeptics in the Beijing leadership believe China simply isn't ready to take on much greater global responsibilities—and yet "some people want Beijing to overextend itself precisely so that Chinese growth will be stifled," says Professor Yan. "China is terribly conflicted internally over this issue," Shambaugh says, quipping that when Chinese and American leaders meet next week "maybe there should be a third chair for a psychiatrist to analyze these two psychologically wounded, ambivalent, schizophrenic countries."
2 more annotations...
- The high point of Obama's China visit, for example, is meant to be a "town hall" meeting with young Chinese in Shanghai—and his aides want it to be broadcast live on Chinese TV and streamed live over the Internet. But Beijing remains nervous about unscripted interactions with ordinary Chinese; the last-minute haggling underscored Beijing's jitters about the issues of freedom of speech and human rights that Obama's team intends to raise. Thursday, State Department officials briefed a number of mostly Chinese bloggers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou in an attempt to mobilize the social-media tools that Obama used so successfully to communicate with American voters. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on the bloggers, who asked if Chinese would be able to access news of Obama's visit on Twitter or Facebook, which remain blocked by the Great Firewall of China.
- One reason for all the paranoia is that, at heart, the countries still don't totally understand each other. China's hamfisted style of one-party rule remains at odds with American democracy: "It lies at the heart of the distrust between these two countries," says Minxin Pei, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  
  So at the same time that China remains uncomfortable with its new role (but craves recognition of its rise), the United States needs real help overcoming global challenges but doesn't want to give offense. Analyze that!

11 Nov 09

Neocons Say, Beware of China | Crooks and Liars

China spends a tenth of what the USA does on its military, and American neocons are calling this a threat.

crooksandliars.com/...neocons-say-beware-china - Preview

china defense military usa

10 Nov 09

Booman Tribune ~ A Small Slice of Conservative Sanity

www.boomantribune.com/...21847 - Preview

christianity usa conservatism history saswc

Free Thought Manifesto: One Nation, Under Illusion

Reminds me of the Qing neo-Confucianists.

freethoughtmanifesto.blogspot.com/...one-nation-under-illusion.html - Preview

usa china

28 Oct 09

Conservatives Are Rewriting the Bible to Free It From "Liberal Bias" | | AlterNet

and doing it on a wiki. Fascinating.

www.alternet.org/...ree_it_from_%22liberal_bias%22 - Preview

wiki bible conservatism usa

6 Signs That the American Empire Is Coming to an Early End | World | AlterNet

www.alternet.org/...pire_is_coming_to_an_early_end - Preview

romanempire usa history saswc saswc09

25 Oct 09

dotCommonweal » Blog Archive » GOP on health care: `Will this improve your life?’

www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog - Preview

saswc christianity usa healthcare

30 Sep 09

The end of the Pax Americana? | Salon

www.salon.com/...index.html - Preview

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Newsmax: Military Coup Would Take Care Of "Obama Problem" | Crooks and Liars

crooksandliars.com/...-military-coup-would-take-care - Preview

romanempire saswc history usa

26 Sep 09

Ali A. Rizvi: Are Evolution-Deniers any Different from Holocaust-Deniers, Birthers, or Truthers?

Great and timely anecdote about a history teacher being shouted down by Holocaust-denying parents -- analogy for trying to teach science in some cultures, including America's.

www.huffingtonpost.com/...tion-deniers-any_b_295254.html - Preview

evolution holocaust history culture usa creationism intelligentdesign science religion philosophy truth

"Imagine you are a teacher of recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organised, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers...

Holocaust deniers really exist. They are vocal, superficially plausible and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.

Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to 'teach the controversy', and to give 'equal time' to the 'alternative theory' that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.

...Fashionably relativist intellectuals chime in to insist that there is no absolute truth: whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of personal belief; all points of view are equally valid and should be equally 'respected'."

INDOlink - Analysis: End of the American Era is Inching Closer

www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php - Preview

romanempire usa history empire coldwar

I feel that while Obama has regained the confidence of the allies yet he is not able to convince many Americans who are not willing to accept either the global realities or the fact that the American style of capitalism is not working and needs a fundamental change. These people are blaming Obama to be a socialist or a Marxist and even some are calling him a fascist and comparing him to Hitler. For too long the Americans have been made to believe that their system is the best in the World and the rest of the World, particularly the European allies, have given up on the puritanical capitalism and have adulterated it with socialist pollution. Many Americans continue to hold onto their beliefs in spite of the overwhelming evidence that America lags behind all the industrialized countries both in the field of healthcare as well as in education. Healthcare and education are the two fundamental pillars of any social system. Obama is the first American president who has come close to admitting the reality rather than continuing to live under illusion. However, for admitting the truth, he has to face the growing wrath of many people, particularly of many white people.

17 Aug 09

Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away | Media and Technology | AlterNet

www.alternet.org/...life_on_earth_is_slipping_away - Preview

globalwarming propaganda oil medialiteracy usa politics

16 Aug 09

Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls | Health and Wellness | AlterNet

www.alternet.org/...tives_are_rampaging_town_halls - Preview

fascism ncsshistory saswc09 saswc germany nazis usa

Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate America's Dirty Work | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

The economic and political connections to the social movement: a comparison.

www.alternet.org/...rporate_america%27s_dirty_work - Preview

ncsshistory saswc09 saswc fascism usa germany history nazis

Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism? | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

Brownshirts and Teabagger mobs, and more.

www.alternet.org/...e_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism - Preview

fascism usa saswc09 saswc ncsshistory history

09 Aug 09

Orcinus: Fascist America: Are We There Yet?

Pretty frightening, and well-researched and analyzed. It's a good time to be living abroad.

dneiwert.blogspot.com/...-america-are-we-there-yet.html - Preview

usa culture fascism history

Talk To Action | Jack Hayford Backs Odd Theory: Sex With a Demon Drove Down Japanese Stock Market

The danger of Foursquare megachurch. Orcinus blog notes the group fits the Brownshirt profile in Weimar.

www.talk2action.org/...3919 - Preview

christianity fundamentalism culture usa

At Ted Haggard's church, as described in Speigel's 1997 public radio episode, church members were "prayer walking" Colorado Springs block by block, praying for all the city's inhabitants. They were also methodically identifying demons, which were associated in one case, described by Spiegel, with a high school playground area frequented by drama students whose free-thinking had invited down demons who then infested the playground area.
the first Transformations video presented the claim that Christians could effect dramatic declines in crime rates, addiction, and traffic accidents, as well as cause miraculous reversal of environmental degradation, by driving demon spirits and individuals accused of witchcraft and sorcery from cities, towns, and geographic areas.
3 more annotations...
- The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel was founded in the 1920's by the colorful media sensation, flamboyant and troubled evangelist and revivalist Aimee Semple McPherson. During the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, McPherson organized a theatrical church production depicteding what "Sister Aimee" called "the hanging and burial of monkey teachers." Jack Hayford was brought in to preside over the Foursquare Gospel denomination in 2003 after its previous head was implicated in a church-based financial Ponzi-scheme.
- Hayford's succubus-based economic model is part of a wider religious and ideological construct known as "spiritual mapping", which goes hand in hand with a recasting of "spiritual warfare", a preexisting concept in Christianity that used to mean self-struggle. Paired with "spiritual mapping", "spiritual warfare" has been redefined by Jack Hayford, C Peter Wagner, Sarah Palin's prayer group leader Mary Glazier, and others, to mean the taking of geographic territory, by driving out demons.
- Spiritual Warfare/Spiritual Mapping comes freighted with a comprehensive ideology casting all non-Christians, and denominational Christians and Catholics as well, as under demonic influence. The new evangelizing paradigm, which shifts emphasis from converting individuals to Christianity and towards attempts to take geographic territory and "disciple" nations.
  
  In the new scheme, alleged human sins can open "portals" that allow in demons who can then exert influence over individuals, ethnic groups, cities, nations, and family lineages (as "generational curses"). That influence is held to be different from "demon possession" but can be remedied in a manner similar to that sometimes prescribed for cases of alleged demonic possession: exorcism (of the demons).