Maybe a little prayer should be added seeking forgiveness for the treatment of Native Americans by the majority Anglo society?
Thanks to Jay:
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Reznews List Owner is not the author or responsible for the contents in following news article, but is an actual news article that can be located at the following newspaper site and or press release location. The following news or press release article can be located at:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=904&Itemid=1
Issue for Nov 26 - Dec 2, 2008. Published every Wednesday
What Happy Thanksgiving?
by Netfa Freeman
Black Americans should be among the last to celebrate Thanksgiving, a mythology that seeks to absolve white settlers of their intentional eradication of Native Americans. "African descendants in the US aren't primarily responsible for the theft of land or the genocide of indigenous people. But to insinuate that what happened and is still happening to indigenous Americans is a relic of the past makes one an accomplice." Thanksgiving encourages notions of American exceptionalism. "At the height of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa , Americans had the audacity to claim a higher moral ground than the apartheid government."
What Happy Thanksgiving?
by Netfa Freeman
"Thanksgiving is literally the celebration of a massacre of a whole people."
There's nothing like one-o-them home cooked meals by Momma.
Just the thought of extended family getting together and partaking in the bonding ritual of a feast, is enough to bring a nostalgic tear to the eye. And when something becomes a tradition it can be hard to break from, even if its roots prove to be decadent and warped.
Even though many African people (any person of African descent) in the United States know not to recognize Columbus Day, we have yet to renounce Thanksgiving and we neglect its true historical significance. Who can deny that Columbus was nothing more than a colonial pirate who stumbled, lost and starving, onto the shores of this continent? He would have certainly perished if it weren't for his indigenous rescuers, whom he repaid with plunder, pillage and enslavement.
We take comfort in knowing that he wasn't from Africa, and that the likes of him committed in essence the same assault on Africa . But doesn't Thanksgiving have the same decadent origins? How absurd is it for Black people/Africans to recognize Thanksgiving as anything other than a "celebration in the taking."
In discussions about why African-"Americans" can honor this tradition of forgotten origins it is common to hear proclamations about how it has now become "a time for family and friends; a time to be thankful for the blessings in our lives." After all, what purpose does it serve to dwell on the past?
" Columbus was nothing more than a colonial pirate."
Consider this, African people. Someone murders a family and is demented enough to commemorate the atrocity, declaring it a thankful occasion. As years go by the offspring of the murderers-who have since all died-invite you to also give thanks on this occasion, while the survivors are never given the opportunity to have closure or redress. Everyone encourages them that this should now become a thankful time and for them to forgive and forget the historical truth behind the occasion.
Maybe we don't realize that Thanksgiving is literally the celebration of a massacre of a whole people. This is shown as a 1623 Thanksgiving sermon in Plymouth Massachusetts "gave special thanks to God for the devastating plague of smallpox that destroyed the majority of the Wampanoag Indians. He praised God for eliminating "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth.'" (Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, Thanksgiving in America, November 1991) The smallpox was intentionally passed to the Wampanoag, one of the earliest perpetrations of biological warfare.
Maybe African descendants in the US aren't primarily responsible for the theft of land or the genocide of indigenous people. But to insinuate that what happened and is still happening to indigenous Americans is a relic of the past makes one an accomplice.
It is not in the past that our indigenous sisters and brothers are still oppressed, still having land taken from them, and still experiencing "treaties" being broken.
It's not in some distant past that Native Americans are being subjected to all the symptoms of oppression: disease, homelessness, dilapidated and vermin-infested housing, substance abuse, inadequate education, unemployment, and police brutality. One of their freedom fighters, Leonard Peltier has languished as a political prisoner for nearly 30 years; framed in events provoked by an assault on Native people by the FBI.
"Smallpox was intentionally passed to the Wampanoag, one of the earliest perpetrations of biological warfare."
If our history of slavery as African people and the continued racist contempt for us still shows how far we have to go, then the settler-colonialist legacy and continued racist contempt for the fundamental human rights of North America's Indigenous people bears on the civic responsibilities of anyone who claims to be American.
We have no right to claim a land that is not ours no matter how much we worked and slaved to build it. This is especially true for those in the US who do not incorporate support for Indigenous people into the struggle for their own rights.
Malcolm X taught us that land is the material basis of all political and economic power for any people. When you take away someone's land, you take away his or her entire source of livelihood and right to sovereignty. We must recognize we reside here at the expense of our Native American sisters and brothers.
We even owe them a historical debt for often providing us with the only real refuge from slavery when some of us were able to escape. They have had their land stolen from them and we were stolen from our land. But if we are to stay and struggle here in America , then we should only do it in deference to them. We are obliged to speak out on their behalf on every platform, in every venue, at every opportunity before we ever make claims to this land, or better yet invite them to speak out for themselves.
How would we feel if the Boers of South Africa had proclaimed the Sharpsville Massacre as an event to celebrate with a "thanksgiving" ?
Doesn't the fact that America is as great as it is due to contributions --involuntary and otherwise-- from African people mean we have earned a piece of the pie?
"We reside here at the expense of our Native American sisters and brothers."
Consider this simple analogy. Let's say someone kidnaps you from your house. They take you to invade another person's house, abusing that person and locking them in the closet. After kidnapping you from your home and invading this other house you are kept to serve your captor and to help renovate this "new" house. Eventually your captor "grants" you freedom and allows you some nominal access to this new house. But-whose house is it really?
When the issue of America being stolen land is brought into discussions about African-American claims to this nation, it is common to be reminded by the establishment in the following manner: "We weren't the ones who stole it and the past is past and nothing can be done about it now."
We know how these discussions go. We've engaged in countless numbers of them. In our attempts to rehabilitate the integrity of African people in America and the world, we still have a long way to go.
We fought to institutionalize a Black History Month to counter the omissions and misrepresentations of us in America 's history. We've researched and published about the multitude of scientific and technological contributions our great minds have given to this and other societies. We have won affirmative action legislation and many of us have ascended social, economic and political ladders to become sport and Hollywood celebrities, corporate CEOs, mayors and congresspersons, etc.
However, we don't feel that we have the same obligation that white people have to recognize and act in practical solidarity with the dispossessed indigenous people of the Americas . Somehow our struggles have absolved us of all responsibility to work for true reparations for their plight.
"Whose house is it really?
We gotta keep it real, people. Our "American" hands don't seem so clean when we consider the history of some things we often regard with pride. While it's accepted that the Buffalo Soldiers did not participate in the massacres of Native Americans, they were still employed in "keeping the peace," building forts on reservations, making sure Native Americans stayed in reservations, and protecting white settlements. How many of us proudly display portraits depicting Buffalo soldiers in our homes or workplaces?
At the height of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa , Americans had the audacity to claim a higher moral ground than the apartheid government. Even many Africans in America spoke out loudly of how backward South Africa was and how the US government and multi-national corporations doing business there should realize the disrespect to all people of African descent.
Apartheid was even compared to the Jim Crow laws we were subjected to in America , which were presented as an ugly "past." Many of us saw and see America as having moved beyond the U.S. version of apartheid.
As Jesse Jackson put it on July 18, 1984 at the Democratic National Convention, in San Francisco : "From Fannie Lou Hamer in Atlantic City in 1964 to the Rainbow Coalition in San Francisco today; from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we have experienced pain but progress as we ended America 's apartheid laws."
"Indian reservations have severely limited powers and as a result are subjected to severely limited justice."
But how could this be? It isn't even a perfect analogy. We are not indigenous to this land and are more equivalent in status to the so-called "coloreds" in South Africa . Our struggle and claims in North America do not speak to the nature of settler-colonialism as they do in South Africa . We conveniently overlook the real analogy here, the real disgraceful similarities between the US and South Africa . America makes a mockery of the meaning of democracy. An honest look at South Africa concedes that, while statues and laws have been abolished that enforced that system of racist segregation and deprivation of human rights; serious remnants of the inequality it sustained still persist. In North America , however, the situation of indigenous people has not even transcended to that level. The US ' form of apartheid can still be found.
In its strict sense the term apartheid originates from the Afrikaans (Boer language in South Africa ) word meaning "apartness" and in 1948 became the official name of the South African system of racial segregation. As South Africa is clearly not the only place in the world to practice such a system, the form it takes in other places of the world varies and contrary to what most people are led to believe is still practiced in the US against Indigenous people.
For example, Indian reservations are permitted a pseudo autonomy within the United States . While many have their own police forces, courts, and jails, they have severely limited powers and as a result are subjected to severely limited justice. One feature of these limitations is the fact that the federal government has the sole authority to investigate and prosecute almost all felonies. A recent story by The Denver Post exposed how this results in gross neglect of Native American victims of serious crimes and how Indian reservations are the only places in the US where the race of the perpetrators and/or that of the victims determines who has jurisdiction to handle cases.
"Our mutual oppression should mean a natural alliance between us."
Narrator for an episode of Bill Moyer's Journal, Sylvia Chase explains, "If a felony in Indian country involves two non-Indians, it is tried in state court. However, if either the assailant or the victim is an Indian, neither the state nor the tribe has jurisdiction. The crime must be tried in federal court." This particular feature of US apartheid has its roots in mutations of the Major Crimes Act passed by congress in 1885, which stipulates that major crimes committed by Indians in Indian country have to be tried in federal court.
With Native Americans still statutorily being deprived of their human rights, there should be no surprise why America gives so much support to the settler-colonial state of Israel . It is no different than Israel . They sympathize with Israeli settlers over the natural land and other human rights of the indigenous Palestinians.
Maybe the reason why Black people in this country don't want to give all due respect to the Native Americans is because they are afraid it might, in theory, mean moving back to Africa . The comforts some of us have come to associate with America just aren't home in Africa . Although, some of us here in America still suffer so that we honestly wouldn't see much difference between our state of underdevelopment in Africa versus that in America . Yes, there are living conditions in the US for both Indigenous and people of African descent that are tantamount to what are often referred to as "third world" conditions.
So, if anything, our mutual oppression should mean a natural alliance between us and our Indigenous sisters and brothers. An alliance, that we would be unjust to pay only lip service. We need to say loudly to them that Africa, not America remains our only legitimate homeland.
Netfa Freeman is the director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists at the Institute for Policy Studies. Mr. Freeman is a longtime activist in the Pan-African and international human rights movements and is also a co-producer/ co-host for Voices With Vision, WPFW 89.3 FM, Washington DC . He can be reached at http://us.mc812.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=netfa@hotsalsa.org This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
The end
Posted on Reznews: November 26, 2008http://us.mc812.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Reznews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
By: Larry Kibby - http://us.mc812.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lkibby1@citlink.net
Elko Indian Colony, Nevada Larry Kibby - American Indian Poetryhttp://www.freewebs.com/lkibby1/index.htm
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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Lame Duck pres.
| I suggest reading the whole article. A fitting good-bye to a bad president. Time online Bush's Last Days: The Lamest DuckBy JOE KLEIN Joe Klein – Wed Nov 26, 5:45 am ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081126/us_time/08599186230700 ..... "So I've been searching for valedictory encomiums. His position on immigration was admirable and courageous; he was right about the Dubai Ports deal and about free trade in general. He spoke well, in the abstract, about the importance of freedom. He is an impeccable classicist when it comes to baseball. And that just about does it for me. I'd add the bracing moment of Bush with the bullhorn in the ruins of the World Trade Center, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles - overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence." |
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
ADHD, gift or curse - only your mother knows for sure
Well [New York Times online]
A New Face for A.D.H.D., and a Debate
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: November 24, 2008
When pediatricians diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they often ask their patients whether they know anybody else with the problem.
These days, children are likely to reply with a household name: Michael Phelps, the Olympic superstar, who is emerging as an inspirational role model among parents and children whose lives are affected by attention problems.
“There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of pride — I got the impression sometimes that some of the kids felt like they owned Michael,” said Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, director of the Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center. “There is a special feeling when someone belongs to your club and the whole world is adoring him.”
But the emergence of a major celebrity with attention deficit has revealed a schism in the community of patients, parents, doctors and educators who deal with the disorder. For years, these people have debated whether it means a lifetime of limitations or whether it can sometimes be a good thing.
Children with the disorder typically have trouble sitting still and paying attention. But they may also have boundless energy and a laserlike focus on favorite things — qualities that could be very helpful in, say, an Olympic athlete.
For that reason, some doctors are pushing for a new view that focuses on the potential strengths of the disorder. Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author whose books include “Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder From Childhood Through Adulthood” (Touchstone, 1995), says the current “deficit-based medical model” of the disorder results in low-self esteem.
“It’s not an unmitigated blessing, but neither is it an unmitigated curse, which is usually the way it’s presented,” said Dr. Hallowell, who has the disorder himself. “I have been treating this condition for 25 years and I know that if you manage it right, this apparent deficit can become an asset. I think of it as a trait and not a disability.”
The notion that a disability can be harnessed in a positive way is not a new concept. Last year, a study found that 35 percent of the small-business entrepreneurs surveyed identified themselves as dyslexic. The researchers concluded that dyslexia made them better communicators and problem solvers, more likely to delegate authority.
Dr. Hallowell says low-self esteem and low expectations result from the way the A.D.H.D. diagnosis is presented to children, parents and teachers. He tells children with attention deficit that they have the brain of a race car, and he wants to work with them to build better brakes.
“We want to tell children, ‘You’ve got a difference, but not a disease,’ ” he said. “Michael Phelps is one of any thousands of examples of mega-successful people, C.E.O.s and brain surgeons and famous writers, inventors and entrepreneurs, who have A.D.H.D.”
Other experts, however, say that while such success stories can be inspiring, parents need to know that their children face real risks. Research shows that children with attention deficit have different brain patterns from other children, and that they are more likely to drop out of school, be involved in car accidents and use illicit drugs.
“This reframing A.D.H.D. as a gift, personally I don’t think it’s helpful,” said Natalie Knochenhauer, founder of A.D.H.D. Aware, an advocacy group in Doylestown, Pa. “You can’t have a disability that needs to be accommodated in the classroom, and also have this special gift. There are a lot of people out there — not only do their kids not have gifts, but their kids are really struggling.”
Ms. Knochenhauer, who has four children with the disorder, says they too were inspired by the astonishing performance of Mr. Phelps in Beijing. But she added, “I would argue that Michael Phelps is a great swimmer with A.D.H.D., but he’s not a great swimmer because he has A.D.H.D.”
Dr. Koplewicz, of N.Y.U., agreed. “There are lots of children in the world who have chronic illnesses or disorders like diabetes, allergies or dyslexia who accomplish great things in spite of the fact that they have these disorders,” he said. “I worry when we say A.D.H.D. is a gift, that this minimizes how real it is.”
Michael Phelps’s mother, Deborah Phelps, says she has spoken openly about her son’s diagnosis because she wants other parents to seek out resources and support. Her son stopped taking A.D.H.D. medication at age 10. But today, Ms. Phelps is a national spokeswoman for McNeil Pediatrics, which makes the attention-deficit drug Concerta. (Dr. Hallowell and Ms. Knochenhauer have also consulted for McNeil; Dr. Koplewicz has no industry ties.)
Ms. Phelps, who is a school principal in Baltimore, says the qualities that often accompany the disorder are not always negative, although it may require extra effort and knowledge to help children harness their talents.
“You’ll find they are creative children,” she said. “They do have determination when you are able to work with them and be consistent. I want young parents to reach out and get assistance and not give up hope.”
well@nytimes.com
A New Face for A.D.H.D., and a Debate
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: November 24, 2008
When pediatricians diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they often ask their patients whether they know anybody else with the problem.
These days, children are likely to reply with a household name: Michael Phelps, the Olympic superstar, who is emerging as an inspirational role model among parents and children whose lives are affected by attention problems.
“There is a tremendous, tremendous amount of pride — I got the impression sometimes that some of the kids felt like they owned Michael,” said Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, director of the Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center. “There is a special feeling when someone belongs to your club and the whole world is adoring him.”
But the emergence of a major celebrity with attention deficit has revealed a schism in the community of patients, parents, doctors and educators who deal with the disorder. For years, these people have debated whether it means a lifetime of limitations or whether it can sometimes be a good thing.
Children with the disorder typically have trouble sitting still and paying attention. But they may also have boundless energy and a laserlike focus on favorite things — qualities that could be very helpful in, say, an Olympic athlete.
For that reason, some doctors are pushing for a new view that focuses on the potential strengths of the disorder. Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist and author whose books include “Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder From Childhood Through Adulthood” (Touchstone, 1995), says the current “deficit-based medical model” of the disorder results in low-self esteem.
“It’s not an unmitigated blessing, but neither is it an unmitigated curse, which is usually the way it’s presented,” said Dr. Hallowell, who has the disorder himself. “I have been treating this condition for 25 years and I know that if you manage it right, this apparent deficit can become an asset. I think of it as a trait and not a disability.”
The notion that a disability can be harnessed in a positive way is not a new concept. Last year, a study found that 35 percent of the small-business entrepreneurs surveyed identified themselves as dyslexic. The researchers concluded that dyslexia made them better communicators and problem solvers, more likely to delegate authority.
Dr. Hallowell says low-self esteem and low expectations result from the way the A.D.H.D. diagnosis is presented to children, parents and teachers. He tells children with attention deficit that they have the brain of a race car, and he wants to work with them to build better brakes.
“We want to tell children, ‘You’ve got a difference, but not a disease,’ ” he said. “Michael Phelps is one of any thousands of examples of mega-successful people, C.E.O.s and brain surgeons and famous writers, inventors and entrepreneurs, who have A.D.H.D.”
Other experts, however, say that while such success stories can be inspiring, parents need to know that their children face real risks. Research shows that children with attention deficit have different brain patterns from other children, and that they are more likely to drop out of school, be involved in car accidents and use illicit drugs.
“This reframing A.D.H.D. as a gift, personally I don’t think it’s helpful,” said Natalie Knochenhauer, founder of A.D.H.D. Aware, an advocacy group in Doylestown, Pa. “You can’t have a disability that needs to be accommodated in the classroom, and also have this special gift. There are a lot of people out there — not only do their kids not have gifts, but their kids are really struggling.”
Ms. Knochenhauer, who has four children with the disorder, says they too were inspired by the astonishing performance of Mr. Phelps in Beijing. But she added, “I would argue that Michael Phelps is a great swimmer with A.D.H.D., but he’s not a great swimmer because he has A.D.H.D.”
Dr. Koplewicz, of N.Y.U., agreed. “There are lots of children in the world who have chronic illnesses or disorders like diabetes, allergies or dyslexia who accomplish great things in spite of the fact that they have these disorders,” he said. “I worry when we say A.D.H.D. is a gift, that this minimizes how real it is.”
Michael Phelps’s mother, Deborah Phelps, says she has spoken openly about her son’s diagnosis because she wants other parents to seek out resources and support. Her son stopped taking A.D.H.D. medication at age 10. But today, Ms. Phelps is a national spokeswoman for McNeil Pediatrics, which makes the attention-deficit drug Concerta. (Dr. Hallowell and Ms. Knochenhauer have also consulted for McNeil; Dr. Koplewicz has no industry ties.)
Ms. Phelps, who is a school principal in Baltimore, says the qualities that often accompany the disorder are not always negative, although it may require extra effort and knowledge to help children harness their talents.
“You’ll find they are creative children,” she said. “They do have determination when you are able to work with them and be consistent. I want young parents to reach out and get assistance and not give up hope.”
well@nytimes.com
Thanks to Jay,
Send your entry hereDEADLINE: December 31WINNER TO BE ANNOUNCED: January 12
From The Nation online:
After leaving office ex-President Bush reportedly will head the American Red Cross where he will push for "vast forward-looking measures" dedicated to "helping future disaster victims help themselves" such as swimming and lifesaving classes for residents of low-lying regions. --Edward Sorel
Now for the Contest:
ANNOUNCING... THE NATION'S RETIRE BUSH CONTEST!
THE QUESTION: WHAT WILL W. DO AFTER LEAVING OFFICE?
Send us your answer, disingenuous or otherwise, in 25 words (more or less). The winner will be chosen by a panel of fair-minded judges (Victor Navasky, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Richard Lingeman). First Prize is an original drawing, based on your entry, by famed New Yorker artist Edward Sorel.
Send us your answer, disingenuous or otherwise, in 25 words (more or less). The winner will be chosen by a panel of fair-minded judges (Victor Navasky, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Richard Lingeman). First Prize is an original drawing, based on your entry, by famed New Yorker artist Edward Sorel.
Send your entry hereDEADLINE: December 31WINNER TO BE ANNOUNCED: January 12
Subscribing to this blog
I have added an option at the top of the page where you can subscribe to this blog if you are interested. This will end the unsolicited e-mail messages you receive everytime I add a new post. If you use Google Reader [see below] you can get a snapshot of updates there when they are posted. You will also be able to use the reader to subscribe to other websites or blogs that you want to stay current with.
Cheers,
Bub
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Cheers,
Bub
Get all your news and blogs in one place with Google Reader
With Google Reader, keeping up with your favorite websites is as easy as checking your email.
Stay up to date
Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for new content.
Share with your friends
Use Google Reader's built-in public page to easily share interesting items with your friends and family.
Use it anywhere, for free
Google Reader is totally free and works in most modern browsers, without any software to install. Take a tour »
Monday, November 24, 2008
Nov 22 08
Can't wait to get up before the sun on Friday and go shopping? Here is a dandy little Excel file that some industrious soul created to make your life a little easier. Save it to your computer, open it up and sort to your hearts content. The guy must be a saint. A twisted, consumer oriented saint.
SlickDeals.net has a constantly updated page with uploaded scans of all major Black Friday ads (located here), and the website also created a comprehensive Excel spreadsheet (located here) organizing all Black Friday items into one neat place, so getting a quick overview of items and prices won't require having to scan through tons of color ad pages.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
from a ZDNet blog http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1968&tag=nl.e623
Go ahead…Hang out on MySpace. Wait, what? The MacArthur Foundation just released a study suggesting that, not surprisingly, given the integration of social media into business and modern culture, the time kids spend with so-called new media, is generally neither wasted nor particularly harmful. In fact, as one of the lead researchers points out in the New York Times, Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
But, that said, there is this: Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Here is the LU Libraries MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/harrisonlibrary
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From the Mother of all Mothers Mother Earth News online:
******************
Also from Mother The other side of Environmentalism:
Philosophy and farming with publisher Bryan Welch. 11/10/2008 4:33:03 PM
I would describe myself as a committed environmentalist. It's my passion and my work. I've covered our deepening environmental crisis as a journalist for 30 years and now I run magazines and Web sites dedicated to raising human awareness of environmental issues. My wife and I raise much of our own food on our little organic farm and we supply organic food to lots of other local families. Environmentalism is my passion, my career, my chief avocation. I've watched the environmental "movement," if you will, grow from a radical, tie-dyed clique into a mainstream global consensus. I don't think we, as environmentalists, can take much credit for that however. We have, for the last 30 years, been among society's least effective leaders and least pleasurable companions. In his 2006 essay, "Beyond Hope," Derrick Jensen claims that the most common words he hears spoken by environmentalists,everywhere,are "We're fucked."[1] He exaggerates, but he has a point. Our attitudes reek of Puritanism. We are, often, dour, strict and humorless. We're judgmental. Behind most of life's simple pleasures we see unnecessary consumption, which we ridicule. Because humanity is responsible for environmental problems we are, ipso facto, all sinners and we find little joy in being human. We portray the giant global corporations as occult covens, and we burn their representatives in effigy in our own reenactments of the Salem witch trials. When our neighbors seem too moderate or abstract for our tastes — as the Quakers did to New England's 17th-century Puritans — we whip them out of the colony, at least figuratively, and we're not above discussing executions. (The Puritan authorities hanged four Quakers for their religious beliefs in Boston between 1659 and 1661.) To say the least, we're no fun a lot of the time. Maybe that explains why we've accomplished so little in the past 30 years. After all, we were right all along. Why has it taken popular opinion so long to catch up? Well, for one thing, no one follows a pessimist. We've spent far too much time confessing our sins and assigning our scarlet letters. We've invested far too little time visualizing successful outcomes. [1] Jensen, Derrick. Beyond Hope. May/June 2006 issue of Orion magazine. Excerpted from Endgame, published in June 2006 by Seven Stories Press. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& From: Reznews@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Reznews@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Larry Kibby Like me. I may be a Christian, but it's not like I'm one of those wacko "love your neighbor as yourself " types. God forbid! I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice." My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That's all. Just the core beliefs. You won't see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden. I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff. But that doesn't mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that. We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven. Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She's way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it! But believe me, we're not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing. We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we're against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such. When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire! I hope I've helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you! #################### |
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