XBible

The Rose of Persia Poetry: Never Before

2005-07-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Hello, Whomever Thou Be-est,

(it's not really easy to do Bible-speak on the web actually. Has anyone else discovered that MS Word has a strong exception to the word 'Galilee' (and don't even TRY 'Galilean'!!).

I haven't written for awhile, as I had a semester from Hell, and then the dread experience of catastrophic success (actually got a project funded---but now that means I have to do it!!). I've been on C-Span (live), I've been broadcast into Persia in Hi-Def, and I've been back to Hollywood for some documentary work. All very hectic, as my project gets off the ground, so....

I am going to use this site for publication of my Human Rights poetry (it comes out on the UN web listserve, WUNRN, but if you aren't on that, you can get it here), since people ask me for copies and I don't always have the files by me.

So. This writing has started on its own, really. I attended a peace conference in Paris and was gutted by what I saw---film smuggled out of Iran, of the most hideous abuses---and I learned about the indigenous Iraqi resistance. Oddly---tho they would say, obviously!---it is headed by women of astonishing power, charisma and intelligence. And poems about them started writing themselves in my head. So, there it is. Not exactly against my will, but certainly not on my to-do list!

So, I am writing, and working, and trying to stay healthy and love my own people....

best,
Anatyahu

Never Before

Never before so many:
Children at risk,
Little girls gone lost
In feticide or war,
A torrent of loss.

Africa bleeding orphans;
Asia bartering babes;
America starving some,
Saving others; Europe numb
Wondering from where
The challenge will come.

Never before so many:
More slaves, more starvation,
More battered, more disease,
More murdered, more tortured,
More wealthy at ease.

Never before so many
Cradles plundered
While governments blunder.
Their mothers go on dying,
Their children go on crying,
Trafficked to lands of prosperity.

Never before so many
Aware, outraged,
Connected, engaged,
Committed, unfitted
For standing silently by.

An ocean of women,
A shoreline of men,
A trillion prayers of ‘never again’,
A whole planet willing to try,
One single Earth unwilling to fail.

They say the sea has changes---
Can you hear the breakers roar?
Are we not linked as never before?

Therefore we will prevail.

2005-04-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

Psalm 42: listen to your heart!

Hello, I'm back (having fallen in a deep pit of administrative goo), and more recovered from the horrors of the Congressional Display over the poor woman, Terry Schiavo.

If I had a typical elected representative, I'd have considered asking him to write a bill directed just at me and my health problems; I could have sent a few minutes of me on video tape so they needn't bother with examinations or data, too!

Looking at responses in our propaganda media, even they have been reporting that most Americans were disgusted and repulsed by the Congressional meddling in marriage and the health situation which have occupied many courts who all ruled in accordance with the law. Only those seeking on the internet have seen the hollow nature of the Right Religious wingnuts: their 'sanctity of life' doesn't include prisoners, or Iraqi civilians, or babies (brown) in Texas who have their life support removed if there parents cannot pay, thanks to then Gov. G. W.

Did most parishes sit quietly on this one? Does the new pope have anything useful to say? Do bible geeks have anything helpful to add in the current religious quest to trash the Constitution?

Stay tuned for more. Local preaching out and about this winter/spring suggests that UCC and UUA congregatons are mighty glad to hear an expert speak up on holy war, ethnicities, and 'Dominion' theology (which is apparently a.o.k., right up until it becomes 'Temple Domination System" which allows white Aryans to trash Jewish religion of Jesus' time).

The Sermon on the Mount, so under-read by the Fundies, is still the heart of the message of Christianity, especially ethics! See Deut. and Lev. 19 for all that loving the neighbor stuff's first appearance in the Hebrew Scriptures.

On the Good Samaritan: AJ Levine suggests the best way to 'gloss' it with appropriate ethnicities for its geography (Samaria is the West Bank, folks): it's an Israeli right wing settler in the ditch, and a member of Hamas is the one who stops to help him. Now, can you tell the story without trashing Judaism, OR minimizing the enmity between the two groups?

Who is our neighbor?

Everyone.

Night-night!
Anatyahu

Pastoral Letter: On Hope

2005-02-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Beloved-in-Struggle,

It's a strange day: why are servers of alternative news all down today? why can't Randi Rhodes show stream on my PC? is it just the craziness besetting all our houses, post blizzardo loco, or is it the Apocalypse knocking in Newton?....these and more considered...

My pastor, on reading one of my emails last week, wondered where one finds hope, should one happen to be committed to being a truthful voice...which sometimes sounds like 'Voice of Doom'?

Ah, hope! hope is a good thing, perches in the soul, so we are told by poets, and more: but like African Americans who'd rather have success than 'endurance', I forgot to give, all NT-y, an 'accounting for our hope' when I advised you to start your youth groups studying conscientious objection now, so they can have a credible claim when the draft reappears...

I have hope because hope is not enough; I have hope because I see and experience the POWER of the global yearning for peace, justice, economic, cultural, religious 'rights'. It is by no means *my* small pittance of action , cast adrift into a vast sea of suffering, that stands as my source of hope; not by any means! It is rather what comes back to me when I reach out of my own horror and self-pity over my country and its blasphemy (how's THAT for an old fashioned religious charge?!).

If I know that there is Muslim-Christian 'street theatre' in the poorest villages of Pakistan dramatizing the issues of gender violence, how can I despair in Newton?

If I know that somewhere in the Hague, and Canada, and at the UN, women are looking at demographic patterns and crime, such that they reach out to us women in New England to warn us of a serial killer on I-495...long before the Worcester police will admit its not just drugged-out prostitutes (the disposable designated victims of our society, among others)....how can I not feel held in a shining web of sisterhood, with its defiance of apathy?

When my email from Iraq contains commiserations on my flooded basement and broken boiler, with reminders to take care of my health, how can I feel cut off from the true covenant, written on the heart, which is Compassion?

Perhaps too many people have been quoting Quran at me for too long: (very loosely rendered, and no, don't ask me which Sura, I can't find it via my refs, so maybe this is 'oral' tradition of a verse in a sura): "Even when trouble seems to be at its very worst, do not despair, O lovers of Allah, for Allah will send help from afar". When enough people start calling *your* concern that very 'help from afar', how can you NOT work to deserve that honor?

A Muslim woman's tear fell on my hand once, at a conference I was doing on women in the three scriptures: I don't know why you're even here*, she said. I don't know why you even care about what is happening to us', she said, her tear splashing on me like a burning brand, perhaps 'tear-sisters' instead of 'blood brothers'. "I am you", I told her; "you are me. We are in this together: anything that is happening to you is happening to me. Of course, we care, even if its not 'our issue'."

(*and isn't it dreadful that THAT'S the impression of a Western religious person, that we couldn't possibly care outside of our own boundaries?!)

So, beloved community, I think there is plenty of reason to hope, if only we claim our own power.

It is happening in places SO far from the 'government' centers of power that it DOES make me think optimistically. If the USA is returned to the conditions that two thirds of the world already live in thru economic disaster, this is a GOOD thing, a Solidarity thing, and means we will not be able to do as much damage as we attempt to turn this battleship back from environmental and totalitarian disaster.

Civilizations collapse. It happens. We just happen to get to experience it up close and personal---but the poor still survive! THEIR lives are unchanged by whether we make energy conversion a top priority in this country of not. Will we be worse off? yes. Will that be worse for a nation afflicted with Affluenza? not necessarily....(these are all feminist ethical insights taught me by beloved Jane Cary Peck, of blessed memory, who taught ethics at ANTS in the 80s and left behind her groups united and networked, instead of books.....). My other mentors....? Frederick Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Dr. King...their witness is ever before me, and their writings beside my bed for the night reaches of pain and grief for the world. I intend MORE than endurance, more than patience; I experience the power for good all around me, and it is....well, powerful!

I will miss the Internet and running water, though!

your Sheherazade of the Net,
anatyahu

A Pastoral Letter for Americans

2005-01-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Beloved Community,

people ask me (some of you, even) ---how can you be so 'active' around human rights issues, when so many other things are going on, closer, deserving of attention....don't you know that churches are struggling, mainstream denominations are moribund, seminaries going out of business right and left, etc. etc. etc.....?

I do know those things, but I see them from a broader picture, because--thank goodness--I am not alone in a morass of namby-pamby groups afraid to call Evil what it is, for fear of offending anyone. Living daily with the United Nations sending me info, expecting me to act, expecting me to be a global citizen, is actually salvific! I know what its like in Baghdad today, and how its different from Mosul; I know what happens when you try to send a package to an Iraqi professor through the mail, and I know that as a person of faith, I am REQUIRED to 'take it personally'.

As a scholarship student with a federal loan, I was once required to take an oath--yup, to 'protect and defend the US Constitution and the United States from all enemies, at home and abroad'. Fortunately, even then I was enough of a literary critic to parse this with my own circumstances: civil rights and protests against Viet Nam WERE acts of protection and defense; knee-jerk nationalism was not. I suppose that oath is still with me, especially when I hear Our Leader take a similar oath with a smirk, wink and a nod.

So help me God!

It has been very hard to go through the Auschwitz commemorations this year, given Sudan, Fallujah, Baghdad, the systematic discrimination against African American voters in this nation, the 'Wall of Separation' that guts Palestinian villages, the violence wrought all over the world by all kinds of fundamentalist extremists. I think of our soldiers coming home as vegetables from head injuries, with catastrophic injuries to extremities that the Vet Admin doesn't want to pay for, coming home with PTSD and a healthy dose of blood guilt---I am filled with a gruding admiration for those soldiers who refuse to return to Iraq at any cost (and I hereby administer Feminist Absolution and Blessing to all of those decent men who choose suicide; let us hail them as Martyrs of Decency). We have made our children into war criminals to benefit the greed and moral bankruptcy of those who stold our government--while the mass of an undereducated and self-congratulatory public looked on, waving its flags.

I invite you to remember, as I often remind myself, that in fact what we are seeing now is the raw and real America I experienced in the segregated south of the 50s and 60s: a country founded on violence and exploitation, where daily humiliation and degradation are meted out to ordinary citizens who don't happen to fit the 'right' model of what we 'value'. America is simply being exposed for what it has always been---read the new books on Abraham Lincoln, read history of robber baron capitalism, or the struggles of immigrants, and you will see that the only 'new' thing here is the extent of the hubris. As we hear the battlecry from all the Bush coronation balls, 'Only wimps stop at Baghdad!', one needs to accept that our very soon-to-be-experienced economic collapse is a very, VERY good thing---if that is the only thing that will stop this.

I am agreeing with Seymour Hersh(Chain of Command: the Road to Abu Graib) , who is a major resource on my book about the Bible and human rights: individual integrity still exists everywhere; it is the system which has been shown to be utterly corrupt and unresponsive.

Below is another assessment of where we stand as a former superpower with no friends in the world except other criminal states. Hurray! Watch for upcoming Trouble in Venezuela, who would rather trade its oil in Euros to China, than be our puppy-state! It's not optimistic reading, but its pretty accurate from all I've read and see going on.

Buy Euros, make a plan, and protect your children from the murder of their souls by their government. Be faithful unto the end, and remember, selling your soul to save your body....doesn't work. In the end, you die anyway. Are you who you should be right NOW?!!

I'll quote beloved president George Peck of ANTS, who always used to say:
"If it became a capital crime tomorrow to be a Christian,
would there be enough evidence to arrest you?"

Make it so, O people of faith!

a biblical theologian*,
CRF

(*"just 'cos she's quotin' Bible, that don't make her Right!")

***
downloaded from the Smirking Chimp.com

Foreign Policy
Fred Kaplan: 'CIA report: American global dominance could end in 15 years'Posted on Friday, January 28 @ 09:46:53 EST

By Fred Kaplan, Slate

Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council—the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.The NIC's conclusions are starkly presented in a new 119-page document, "Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project." It is unclassified and available on the CIA's Web site. The report has received modest press attention the past couple weeks, mainly for its prediction that, in the year 2020, "political Islam" will still be "a potent force." Only a few stories or columns have taken note of its central conclusion:
The likely emergence of China and India ... as new major global players—similar to the advent of a united Germany in the 19th century and a powerful United States in the early 20th century—will transform the geopolitical landscape with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries. In this new world, a mere 15 years away, the United States will remain "an important shaper of the international order"—probably the single most powerful country—but its "relative power position" will have "eroded." The new "arriviste powers"—not only China and India, but also Brazil, Indonesia, and perhaps others—will accelerate this erosion by pursuing "strategies designed to exclude or isolate the United States" in order to "force or cajole" us into playing by their rules.America's current foreign policy is encouraging this trend, the NIC concluded. "U.S. preoccupation with the war on terrorism is largely irrelevant to the security concerns of most Asians," the report states. The authors don't dismiss the importance of the terror war—far from it. But they do write that a "key question" for the future of America's power and influence is whether U.S. policy-makers "can offer Asian states an appealing vision of regional security and order that will rival and perhaps exceed that offered by China." If not, "U.S. disengagement from what matters to U.S. Asian allies would increase the likelihood that they will climb on Beijing's bandwagon and allow China to create its own regional security that excludes the United States."To the extent that these new powers seek others to emulate, they may look to the European Union, not the United States, as "a model of global and regional governance." This shift to a multipolar world "will not be painless," the report goes on, "and will hit the middle classes of the developed world in particular" with further outsourcing of jobs and outflow of capital investment. In short, the NIC's forecast involves not merely a recalibration in the balance of world power, but also—as these things do—a loss of wealth, income, and, in every sense of the word, security.The trends should already be apparent to anyone who reads a newspaper. Not a day goes by without another story about how we're mortgaging our future to the central banks of China and Japan. The U.S. budget deficit, approaching a half-trillion dollars, is financed by their purchase of Treasury notes. The U.S. trade deficit—much of it amassed by the purchase of Chinese-made goods—now exceeds $3 trillion. Meanwhile, China is displacing the United States all across Asia—in trade, investment, education, culture, and tourism. It's also cutting into the trade markets of Latin America. (China is now Chile's No. 1 export market and Brazil's No. 2 trade partner.) Asian engineering students who might once have gone to MIT or Cal Tech are now going to universities in Beijing. Meanwhile, as the European Union becomes a coherent entity, the dollar's value against the euro has fallen by one-third in the past two years (one-eighth just since September). As the dollar's rate of return declines, currency investors—including those who have been financing our deficit—begin to diversify their holdings. In China, Japan, Russia, and the Middle East, central bankers have been unloading dollars in favor of euros. The Bush policies that have deepened our debt have endangered the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.What is the Bush administration doing to alter course or at least cushion the blow? It's hard to say. During Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings last week, Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D–Md., raised some questions about the nexus between international economics and political power. Rice referred him to the secretary of the treasury.The NIC issued the report a few weeks before Bush’s inaugural address, but it serves to dump still more cold water on the lofty fantasy of America delivering freedom to oppressed people everywhere. In Asia, the report states, "present and future leaders are agnostic on the issue of democracy and are more interested in developing what they perceive to be the most effective model of governance." If the president really wanted to spread freedom and democracy around the planet, he would (among other things) need to present America as that "model of governance"—to show the world, by its example, that free democracies are successful and worth emulating. Yet the NIC report paints a world where fewer and fewer people look to America as a model of anything. We can't sell freedom if we can't sell ourselves.Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate.Reprinted from Slate:http://slate.com/id/2112697/

Crimes of Religion and State

2004-11-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

A nice review of the debacle in Ohio tells us not to think that election we 'lost' was all that fair, EVEN if nobody in the Mainstream Propaganda Media bothers to cover the story but MSNBC.

A good essay comparing the 'fundamentalism' of Islam with its Judeo-Christian counterparts is most useful on documenting how 'terror' came to be a method, a word, and a crusade. Since most Muslims cringe when you say 'Islamic/Muslim fundamentalist', this is a must-read for interfaith and politics work.

For a nexus of hope, see you fellow Blues in the states Slave and Free, apologizing to the world---and starting to change the world's mind! I like the signs best that say "Please sanction us for killing Iraq and the planet".

Only two weeks after the Election and wow, the Selective Service is already on the case to make more of our sons, nephews, grandsons, and all the women, too, into wholesale war criminals. So much for the all-volunteer Army I heard someone promising us just...gosh, a mere two weeks ago!

Enjoy your faith based govt, friends!

Anatyahu

Whoops! Biblical Karma...?

2004-11-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Well, friends, I think it IS only fair that the dollar skid so we can all share the existential experience of the Iraqis who have been 'liberated' into being insurgents rather than inhabitants of their own country! (One wonders how long it will be before Blue Staters and moderate Repubs get classified as 'insurgents')

Found a great, angry website with wicked, WICKEDLY funny 'Jebus' art on it: go take a look-see (http://www.mykeru.com/). On a more sober note, Barbara Ehrenrich reminds of what the early Christians, a beset minority, were able to achieve, and compares the Slave State ChristoFascists to Hamas in their strategies.

Louise Arbour, UN Commissioner on Human Rights, is calling it 'war crime' in Fallujah today and calling for investigation. Muslims are really loving that video of the Marine shooting a wounded man in a mosque; they wonder:

And THIS is different from beheading, how?
I can't tell them, that's for sure!

Anatyahu

2004-11-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

Adulterous Generation!

No Other Gods Before Me (Exodus 20)

2004-11-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

20:2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
20:3 you shall have no other gods before me.
20:4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
20:6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
20:7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Travelling around the US during a genocidal attack on a nation that presented no imminent threat is a pretty discouraging business...

--some nice granny in Minneapolis says, behind me as we schlep terminals, 'I hope they all die!' (of the residents of Fallujah---and by extension, all Middle East?'

--a normal looking young woman sitting next to me on the plane goes off on the ACLU for ruining America and marriage....'How did they do that?' I ask tentatively, to receive the Defense of Marriage spiel...

Do gay people try to obstruct straight weddings in Virginia?, I ask.

no, not that she knows of...

Do gay people try to take away the rights of straight marrieds?, I ask.

no...

Do gay people not pay taxes or health insurance fees or rent, such that they should be prohibited from being a full member of society?, I ask

yes, they pay taxes and ought to have legal rights, but not at the expense of 'Marriage'

What is it that is actually destroying American families?, I ask. Isn't it that mothers can't be home because it takes two incomes just to manage a mortgage and a meal for everyone, not to mention all the things kids are taught to want as though they really needed them...?

hmmm....I never thought about the economics of marriage like that....

(Yeah, I'll bet! )

Sigh....

The mind boggles at the way so many people who would think of themselves as decent and god-fearing (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean to them!) are able to look away from the war crimes committed in their name (why do Americans deserve to feel 'safe' but Iraqi's don't?) and preserve the illusion that they are moral beings....

Bloodthirsty grannies and blind girls...I feel more connected to the women Ph.D students who write to me from Mosul....to the Iranian ex-pats who confront fundamentalism...

A Geek's reading of the 10 Commandments

oh, evil and adulterous generation, saying 'Lord, Lord!' while hating and killing innocent women and children!

It's a sure sign that the Patriarchal God, Big Daddy Up in the Sky with Thunderbolts, does not and never did exist: because the outright binding commandments that ought to be punished just get away scot free....!

As some biblical writers (Job 24) would say, "O, why are the times (of judgment)
not kept by the Almighty?!!'
and why do thosewho know him never see his days?
24:2 The wicked remove landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them.
24:3 They drive away the donkey of the orphan; they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
24:4 They thrust the needy off the road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves.

Job never thinks that knowing punishment will fall on your descendants is much of a deterrent to the evil: look at our trade and budget deficits. Maybe they really do think that since they are making Armageddon, they need not look to the future!

But it looks pretty clear to me from Exodus:

Idolatrous American fundamentalism is just that: American empire, lives, hegemony, safety, flag and president have become the idols they worship instead of the Living One!

There will be a long-term cost to pay for this kind of ignorant, narrow, bigoted version of Christianity and Judaism, and it will fall on the children and the grandchildren, as well as the perpetrators.

Taking God's name in vain should bear a cost!
Oppressing the desperate (Red Crescent not allowed into Fallujah by US troops) should bear a cost!

Being hopelessly bigoted should bear a cost!

The parents have eaten sour grapes,
but the children's mouth puckers....(Jeremiah somewhere)
....
Morality and religion is about more than what happens between the waist and the knees.
Pass it on!

****
The news is full of things you should look at: Raed's blog from Fallujah; Bush's theology of war; the dollar failing within 3 years; all the American wounded we don't see in pics; Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General and the knee-jerk Hispanic reaction by some of 'whoopee!' (I guess I've got to thank the Bushies and the Slave States for making me, the theologian, so darn relevant, because I worked on torture texts from the Spanish Inquisition awhile back, tracking their use of Bible as a warrant for their crimes against women, homosexuals, lepers, and Jews; however, I was hoping to figure out the Iron I to Iron IIa transition and the re-citification of ancient Judah as a special treat to myself for a long and bloody career of paying attention to the nasty stuff...).

But you're going to have to look for all this yourselves, as Im not convinced anyone but Dawnie is reading this....

we'll see...

Anatyahu

2004-11-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

Iraq after 'stabilization' of insurgency

But God Looks on the Heart....(1 Sam 16)

2004-11-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

Oh, folks!

It's good to know that OUR lawyers, and even some in the corporate media in the Free States are continuing to challenge the election results but doing it in a way that exposes the Bushies and their cynical attack on Falluja for what it is: 'distraction' to the election fraud (and a summons to Armageddon: Al Sistani and others have ruled that the 'insurgency' is a 'self-evident' jihad that requires NO special fatwa or other ruling. It's self-defense plain and simple!)

*Is* liberal democracy and/or the Democratic Party dead in the water, its true corporate donors perfectly happy to have it so, since they benefit so much more for Bushies' kleptocracy? Maybe, if the DLC thinks the way to win is go to the unprincipled Slave State Right!!!

What would the Hebrew Bible say about picking a leader?

Note the selection process in 1 Samuel 16, so desirous of proving why short, little, unknown David (text is composed AFTER the choice of David as 'real' king) should prevail over the House of Saul?

1 Sam 15 showed that a failure in 'ritual purity' was enough to oust Saul (in the writer's mind, at least), but when they go to choose a Son of Jesse, it is NOT the big elder guy they choose...but the little shepherd out there caring for the actual sheep, one of the economic sources of life for the community. The author must explain why God chose the less 'electable' guy?

Says God to Samuel who is wondering:

Humans look on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looks on the heart!

Looking on the 'heart' of the Slave States and their Christofascism, I have a little seer's message, too, for the Blood Red America and their vaunted moral 'values':

Dear Slave State PseudoChristians,

You know how you hate and despise gay people to the depths of your being with a totally irrational fear, yet feel all just and noble and faithful about it because you drag out selected Bible verses for your Gospel of Hate?

Well, Muslims--now, most of them, since Falluja and Abu Graib--feel exactly the same hate and revulsion for YOU and your state, with far more credible reasons for their anger, and with the backing of their faith!

The difference between you two is this:

THEY are willing to die for their faith;
you are only willing to kill for yours!

What goes around, comes around!, says the Lord:
He who digs a pit will fall into it,
and a stone will come back upon him who starts it rolling. Prov 26:27

***
Sadly, the Blue States shall suffer with the Red, but its all about 'collective guilt', isn't it? If we were willing to decimate a city of 250,000 in order to cut off an 'insurgency' of 400-4000 folks, then we musn't squabble about Blue America being flushed along with the Red.

Enjoy your war, Red States, and watch it playing soon in a city near you!

Anatyahu

Amos 2: the strong shall not retain their strength

2004-11-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hard times in Falluja and Mosul; gallows humor from the girl bloggers--Stooge Allawi, the former CIA operative we have installed as puppet leader is now being called 'allow-y', since he will bow to his american handlers whenever he needs to allow his citizens to be massacred in order to save them.

Add to your War Crimes Running Tally List:

1. against Geneva convention, US marines brag and video their taking of a free hospital in Falluja; their treatment of those captured there replays Abu Graib in the minds of the inhabitants

2. US troops did not permit families to depart Falluja while they were leading up to the assault

But, HEY! not to worry, Alberto "Let's Torture Anybody!" Gonzales will soon replace Ashcroft, so I imagine US citizens will shortly be sharing the karmic burden of Falluja, eh?

A new look at the election and esp. the impact of Howard Dean's Democracy for America group is heartening, and Canadians have opened a site, pledging to give up their 'singlehood' to marry Americans fleeing north (you may select a mate of the gender of your choice), which, as they say, makes us liberals proud to be North Americans (since we can't be proud of being part of Two Nations, ever so divisible, slave and free....).

Of course, the Book of Amos has a few words to say to warmongers! Im glad the NeoCons are SOOOOOO attentive to reading the Bible, but do they actually understand the words?

Amos 2: 13-16

So, I will press you down in your place, just as a cart presses down when it is full of sheaves.2:14 Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain their strength, nor shall the mighty save their lives;2:15 those who handle the bow shall not stand, and those who are swift of foot shall not save themselves, nor shall those who ride horses save their lives;2:16 and those who are stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, says the LORD.

Geek's Note:

Horses represent the 'tank' of ancient warfare, and this text tells us we're in the Iron Age, as before that, horses were not ridden but used in chariot warfare. Nakedness is always a symbol of lost status (marked in one's clothing), and of utter defenselessness. POWs and detainees are stripped to give them precisely this dissolution of personhood---the military refers to it as 'softening up' the prisoners (cf. Abu Graib).

Rule here is one of Jesus' nice sayings as a wisdom teacher: Mt 26:52

Those who live by the sword
will die by the sword!

Yet another good reason to bless the peacemakers!

Have fun, America: what goes around, comes around!

Anatyahu

2004-11-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Christofascist Holy War begins outside Falluja

2004-11-09T13:48:00.000-08:00

Your Christian tax dollars at work! Hey, Policy Happens!

2004-11-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

Don't think of an elephant!

If your Right hand offends you....(Mt 5:30)

2004-11-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

I was reading Raed's site this a.m., and had to leave her map of the 'red states' in horror and wondering where she got it.

A little cybersleuthing produced some incredible break down maps of the vote by region: its NOT a blood red quilt with blue edging!! Nevertheless, please be aware and pray for our Free Blues stuck in all those Slave states (their Red is for blood, their favorite form of salvation)! They all have PESTS (go to http://www.alternet.org/ and get the straight poop on Post Election Stress and Trauma Syndrome(PESTS)! In fact, those in Florida have COMPLEX PESTS, due to repeated battering of election fraud.

Remember, they hit us because they love us and they are trying to 'save' us---same plan as in Falluja...

On the other hand, it's pretty scary. Still, if we go with the secession model, you'll see we're not going to lose much by jettisoning everything west of the Mississippi, since Oregon and Wash will go to be Lower Columbia (a province of Canada), California will become part of Greater Mexico, and the NE and sane midwest cities will become part of Superior (the new province of Canada extending down to the old Mason-Dixon line).

If you right hand offends you,
CUT IT OFF! (Matthew 5:30)

The kingdom of Heaven is right where it always was: within you!

Blue and proud of it,
Anatyahu

W-W-J-D: Falluja

2004-11-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

Well, news isn't good but if you're not checking in on Iraqi blogs, or al Jazeera, then you're not having the Full Nightmare of American Empire. Since we wouldn't dream of having real discussions about our god-given right to torture anyone we please, thank Heaven that Arab artists are putting the matter before their public in a stunning way....

Take a look at Iraqi girl blogger, Raed in the Middle and look at the wretched Christian symbols all over this 'holy war' of our Emperor's devising. What? heart not sufficiently broken? Cruise on into Baghdad Burning, why dontcha? There's no new post today, but last week she talked with relatives fleeing Falluja. Apparently, 4 US tanks are burning (gee, I hope they're some of the ones festooned with rosaries!) and 1 helicopter shot down; US troops withdrew from city centre, now still in hometown hands.

Mission Accomplished!?
My pet goat!

On election fraud: best info coming out of the Rhandi Rhodes show on AirAmericaRadio. Thinking your gay friends are kidding about their response to this election?

Working full time against the Occupation(s) (hey, it's a bible thang....) sure can take a bite outta the old pocket-book and with no Social Security to look forward to, Mr. Fair Wage says that US corps have been silently and massively moving OUT of dollars and into Euros.....so if you've got savings, it's time to secure them! Venezuela ( a real democracy) and Iran (NOT!) have both switched to Euros for their oil, and as oil goes, so goes the world.

Watch the dollar fall as the market goes up on the prospects of more gutted environmental controls and outsourced jobs! While there will be short term problems for the EU, and the whole world really, as the dollar is the (former) 'gold' standard for currency, eventually we will be better off backing the Euro.... ("proud to be an American...where at least I know I'm free..."--at least now we can exegete that 'free': free to be a war criminal with impunity, free to steal elections, free to foment hate and war....you know, 'free'!, just like Falluja will be...)

The UK's Guardian has some great articles on climate change (the Bushies have been trying to gut their own science report on global warming...watch for it, when it comes).

Sitting in our Altered Books workshop on Saturday, someone asked about the election fraud:
W-W-J-D? Now, some in the studio thought that meant, 'What Would Jesus Do?' (with variants, What would Jesus drive? Who would Jesus bomb?), but then the questioner said, no, no, the Boston version of this question is:

'What would Johnny do?' (Johnny Damon, our Jesus-looking 'idiot') (check out http://hexachord.net/alcs/, a site submitted by our Fearless Leader, Nick Carter, for a bit of light and joy)

THIS we can answer definitively!

Johnny would keep playing.

So, git on in there and play: would you rather see democracy strike out 'looking' or 'swinging'? at least one way you have a chance to hit the Grand Slam.

What can YOU do?

Veterens Day War Protests:
turn off the TV; don't shop, don't fill your gas tank, and eat home cooked food with your actual family....

psst, pass it on.....!

Anatyahu

America in their eyes...

2004-11-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

My husband, the former football player and Mr. Living Wage in a B-school (after losing the tech job, of course), says that the 'bully' profile of our country is now clearly established for the world--and even when they 'win' (by fair means or foul), they don't prove anything and just provoke more disgust and suspicion (apparently, you can never believe a bully--before, during or after they hit you).

As we prepare for our Holy Quest (oil and empire) in Fallujah, Paul Craig Roberts writes about the 'end of the American century': our 'street cred' is gone.

Look at Greg Moses on the media burying the election fraud scandal, and an HDS divinity student looks at the realities behind the polls: close examination suggests we might not actually be the conservative dunderheads that the pundits make out...

Read last week that we should, in contradistinction to our Slave State fellows, end OUR prayeres with 'God curse America, that the world might live...!'

Try it out--maybe it's time for a 'Progressive Prayer Team' to challenge the Empire Prayer Team.....?

Anatyahu

Dems Heading to the Right?

2004-11-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

Check out Arianna Huffington's analysis of What Happened, and Responses.

Honestly, *I* don't see why the Dems don't go for their message of economic populism as a VERY high form of biblical morality (cf. Books of Amos and Micah, about theft of land from small families!). The people who hate the Free States are going to hate the Dems no matter WHAT they do, so better to stay true to ideals of democracy and economic justice.

But without fair elections, none of that will help! Fortunately, it looks like our geeks can hack if they want to, so we are not helpless on this one. However, I think we need to have lawyers when election officials conduct counts of absentee ballots and provisional ones, as those officials are elected and party members and have a vested interest! Common Cause has some good articles about our system and how it must be reformed.

On Fascist propaganda and the Nazi use of the media to introduce 'pre-emptive war', here's another nice professor exposing the lessons of history!

Pray for Fallujah! I'll have updates on how to send aid to Iraqi women who are trying to hold the fort without much help from international agencies (due to all the kidnappings).

MEBP (Anatyahu)

Poem from UU Mass Bay District Art Event

2004-11-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Hey, some of you asked for my poem about the relationship between prayer and activism; here it is:

Traveling

Travelling into the silence of God,
how loud the cries of the world become,
till 'Come to Me!' and 'Go to them!'
together merge to be heard as one.
The scholars on the soup kitchen street
read a living text, etched out in crow's feet,
hear the Exile's tale on every tongue.

Anatyahu

After the Election Fraud...

2004-11-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

Hey, folks!

Behold, I have heard the laments of my people, saying, WHY does she send us so much email from the United Nations and other restive activist groups?! Does she not know I have no space for All That, much less, time to read it!

Nay, beloved community: I don't expect you to read it all, only to forward it on to those who are doing that sort of work or follow the topic, or delete it. But one thing I have learned from doing Human Rights work is that in some ways it is just like Biblical Studies:

Documentation is everything (sometimes)!

At any rate, if part of the Post-Fraud plan is to directly challenge the ChristoFascist Right and their Corporate Masters by:

- talking with 'values' based voters about the inconsistencies in what they think they voted for in terms of policy, and what's actually going on--so you need indisputable facts and place to get 'em

-relentlessly exposing the hypocrisy and mis-representation of Biblical texts and values

-networking more effectively to find alternate media and to get our message of economic populism out

-holding the Dem Leadership's feet to the fire: no going even more 'right' to woo undecided voters; rather we must build our old base as effectively as the Fascist Right has done

-challenge Election Fraud so we can make some headway on the 2006 Congressional Elections

-make the FR (Fascist Right; I'm not going to keep writing it out, okay?) deliver: let's see both abortion and male masturbation (same principle, folks) criminalized.

-figure out a great state referendum to put on ballots to bring our base to the polls (just as Rove trucked out so many Slave State Born Agains on gay marriage and abortion)
***

So, to get started, get rolling on Election Fraud by visiting:

www.blackboxvoting.org: This is Bev Harris' group, in support of Ralph Nader's challenge in NH to get the whole vote recounted

www.blackboxvoting.com (generally, on the frauds that have been going on since 2002: you didn't REALLY think Max Clelland couldn't defeat some jerk in Georgia, do you!?)

Keep up with the news from alternate sources:
visit AirAmericaRadio online to find a local station or stream video

Or check any of the great websites for Common Cause, Alternet, Liberal Oasis, etc. for the real skinny!
***

Bible text of the Week: Isaiah 1: Your hands are full of blood'

1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.1:15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Faith without works is dead, folks, and just voting on a 'values' issue won't save you unless you do something about it! Are you against Abortion? Then your church must teach sex education as well as abstinence, and start an Adoption List of those who promise to take the non-aborted babies so that every mother who brings a crisis pregnancy to term will be able to place her child (since the State certainly won't help!).

Be consistent! that's all we ask!
'Right worship', or worse, Right Rhetoric, is no substitute for justice!!!

*** A Geek's Comment:

Yes, of course, this is about a time long ago when the fat cats thought they could commit every kind of economic evil (for which the Bible's code metaphor, sadly, is 'whoredom' or 'adultery', in order to shame the wicked men by comparing their actions to women's), as long as they coughed up lavish worship replete with orthodoxies. Bad news! Didn't work! Won't work now, either!
Note that the passage actually began by shaming the leaders of Judah by comparing them to Sodom and Gomorrah, the synonyms for great and wicked cities for their lack of hospitality (a Value in the ancient world that was more important than even protecting one's own family---see Lot at Sodom in Gen 18-19, and dreadfully, Judges 19-21). By starting the passage AFTER that literary technique of invoking legendary evil, we keep it simple and go to the heart of the passage (justice trumps ritual everytime), and don't go down the rabbit hole of explaining figurative language to folks who might knee jerk at hearing the Queer Cities cited). But: good to have the back-up explanation in case you've got a careful reader out there who knows the passage as well as you.

Still, I think they CAN'T actually *know* the Bible, or they might have remembered, on the eve of more war crimes in Fallujah,

Blessed are the peacemakers....

Anatyahu