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Current Events 1998-2008 |
Fr. Ben: I just checked out your web site, and I must say that it is remarkable. It is surely the best single source of information on social justice and peace issues that I have found. The current events section is especially good. I have not found another source with so much information on so many issues of current importance. Kudos! Jay Guzwiller XU '98 |
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Signs of the Times
Jesus urged us to read the signs of the times. Here I share my own
reading of current events in the light of my vision of utopia, the truth of
tomorrow. As a community, as a nation, we have a collective light graced
story in which God has loved us and we have taken that love to others. The
I think we also need to face our collective dark graced story which takes courage and spiritual freedom to admit. God is present in our dark graced story revealing to us that it is dark and helping us to move the dark graced story to the light graced story side of the ledger. You may feel that what follows below is more of the dark graced story than the light. If you have more examples of the light graced story, I welcome them as part of our dialogue. I feel as long as we do not have basic human rights for each human person in our world, we have not reached the beginning. It's not enough for me to be relatively free and secure. I can't be happy as long as there's one person who is basically unhappy and lacking in the bare necessities.
Media
Modern media control public opinion and thus our limited democracy. Modern
media promote our culture of violence. Modern media does not represent
adequately workers, the environment, sustainable farming, peace groups, most of
what you find on this web-page. Modern media is owned by and controlled
by corporations. Modern media influences our understanding of religion and
faith.
I think we need a three-fold approach to the media. We need to critique TV,
radio, and the newspapers. (See for example, FAIR, Fairness in Accuracy in Reporting, http://www.fair.org/ ) The electronic intifada
http://electronicIntifada.net critiques the media on
Below
is an example of a critique of the corporate media: "Because This Is
the
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2921"On
July 16, CBS Face the Nation host (and CBS Evening News anchor) Bob Schieffer
dedicated the entire Sunday morning news show to the Middle East conflict. In
his closing editorial, he adapted a well-known fable in an attempt to explain
the causes of the current conflict--or rather, the lack of causes:
"Finally today, when the war broke out in the Middle East, the first thing
I thought about was the old story of the frog and the scorpion who were
trying to cross a river there. The scorpion couldn't swim, the frog was
lost. So the scorpion proposed a deal, 'Give me a ride on your back, and I'll
show you the way.' The frog agreed, and the trip went fine until they got to
the middle of the river, and then suddenly the scorpion just stung the frog. As
they were sinking, the frog asked, in his dying breath, 'Why would you do
that?' To which the scorpion replied, 'Because this is the
Lest
there be any doubt about who is the frog and who is the scorpion in that
parable, Schieffer went on to spell it out: "It is worth noting that the
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip did not kidnap that Israeli soldier and provoke
all of this because the Israelis were invading
Schieffer was echoing the media's conventional wisdom in portraying the Palestinian raid that captured the Israeli soldier as an inexplicable provocation. The New York Times, in a June 29 editorial headlined "Hamas Provokes a Fight," declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," adding that "an Israeli military response was inevitable."
The
media assumption is that in withdrawing from
From
the time of the pullout until the recent upsurge in violence, according to
B'tselem's lists, no Israelis were killed by violence emanating from
Hamas
also points to the capture of some of its leaders by
Moreover,
None
of this is to say that Hamas, which has regularly ignored the distinction between
military and civilian targets, does not share part of the blame for the current
crisis. But to act as though
Israel's
"response" has resulted in the deaths to date of at least 103
Palestinians, while no Israelis have died other than one soldier killed by
friendly fire (New York Times, 7/19/06). Meanwhile, Israel has also destroyed
Gaza's main power plant and its water system, leaving tens of thousands of Gaza
families without access to food, water and medical care (Oxfam, 7/19/06). In
Lebanon, Israel has killed over 300 people, the vast majority of them
civilians, wounded over 1000 and displaced half a million (MSNBC, 7/19/06). To
call such devastation an "excuse" for Arabs to "distance
themselves from
Why
is Bob Schieffer allowed to get away with such shallow, dismissive coverage of
complicated and tragic events? Because it's the
We also need alternative sources of information from the mainline news sources. One of these are the links on this web page. Another are the newsletters of the many peace and justice groups. One of the alternative sources of information is the web-site of the National Office of Jesuit Social Ministries www.jesuit.org Here you can access immediate information updates and urgent action steps which are priorities of the National Jesuit Social Ministries. Jesuit Advocates is a relatively easy way to contact your legislators.
The US Jesuit Conference is in a process of strategic discernment concerning the future apostolic priorities of the Society of Jesus. If you wish to give in-put, go to http://www.Jesuit.org/sections/default.asp?SECTION_ID=601.
Another Catholic Social Justice Lobby is Network www.networklobby.org
See also Archdiocese of Cincinnati www.Catholic
Cincinnati.org
See also Ecumenical Advocacy Days http://www.advocacydays.org Sojourners of Rev. James Wallis http://www.sojo.net
Jewish Voice for Peace also makes it relatively easy to contact public officials about Israel/Palestine/Lebanon http://www.Jewishvoiceforpeace.org
A third approach is to create our own means of communication. The picture
above is taken in the radio studio of WVXU, 91.7 FM. For twenty eight
years I had a weekly radio show called Faith and Justice Forum the response of
religious groups to God's call for social action.
A fourth approach would be community ownership of the communications media or
more wide-spread ownership. Presuming we achieve a genuine democracy, I
think this would give everyone a better chance to exercise their natural right
of free speech.
www.freepress.net
Free Press is a national nonpartisan organization working to increase informed
public participation in crucial media policy debates, and to generate policies
that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system
with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial sector.
We believe that a more democratic
Why care about media? Media play a huge role in our lives. The Internet, TV, radio, newspapers, movies and books inform our ideas, values and beliefs. They shape our understanding of the world. Media are also essential to our democracy. We depend upon the news and information we get from the media to make informed decisions and to hold our government and corporate leaders accountable.
What's wrong with media? Our media system is in a crisis.The takeover of our country's media outlets by a small handful of giant conglomerates puts too much power and influence in too few hands. That's bad for our democracy, which depends on our ability to access diverse sources of news, information and opinion. Our media is in trouble in other ways, too. The big cable and phone companies that control access to the Internet want to be gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites and services you can use depending on which companies have paid them the most. They want to turn the open Internet we've always had into a closed, private toll road.
And public broadcasting, one of our most
valuable public resources, is under constant threat in
Who owns the airwaves? Believe it or not, you do! The "airwaves" are the transmission frequencies used by radio, TV and satellite broadcasters, cell phone companies, even your TV remote control, to transmit signals. Although the airwaves are used for many different purposes, they ultimately belong to you, the American public, in the same way that your sidewalk or your local park belongs to you. The airwaves are a public resource. Unfortunately, citizens rarely even get to use the airwaves to make their own voices heard! Some businesses, like cell phone companies, pay the government to use the airwaves (also called "spectrum"). Radio and TV broadcasters, though, use these airwaves free of charge. In return for this generous government handout, broadcasters are required by law to serve the public interest.
Current Events 2008
THE FAILURE OF DEREGULATION : A SOUTH AMERICAN ALTERNATIVE
By John Laun, Columbian Support Network
The week of September 15 – 21 brought a basic change in the approach of
the
What we may clearly observe here is the bankruptcy, not just of fraudulently and carelessly run business and
financial institutions, but of the Bush administration’s approach to the
economy itself. The question for us now
is how will this gigantic failure affect
Interestingly, several countries
in South America have come to that same conclusion and are building a
multilateral structure through which the governments in those countries
---Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and
Venezuela---can implement economic policies which seek to answer the needs of
the poor and the middle classes, and not to line the pockets of the rich and
politically powerful. Instead of dismissing the economic policies of the
governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, each
declaredly “socialist”, US policy makers would do well as they
implement government bailouts ( a type of
“socialism” one might say) to follow the lead of these countries in
developing programs aimed at guaranteeing a certain basic standard of living
for all of the country’s residents.
In light of this it was striking to
see President Bush welcome to the White House the President of Colombia, Alvaro
Uribe Velez, the principal ( and perhaps only) South American defender of the
capitalist model which has brought the U.S. financial system and many, many
U.S. citizens to the edge of the abyss. Alvaro Uribe has presided over the
displacement of millions of peasants, Afro- Colombians and indigenous peoples
as he promotes large-scale export agriculture and a
bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the
September 21, 2008
Address of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Nations, April, 2008:
"As Pope John Paul II expressed it in 1995, the United Nations should be
"a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and
develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a 'family of nations'"
(Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 50th Anniversary
of its Foundation, New York, 5 October 1995, 14).
The founding principles of the UN -- the desire for peace, the quest for
justice, respect for the dignity of the person,
humanitarian cooperation and assistance -- express the just aspirations of the
human spirit, and constitute the ideals which should underpin international
relations. As my predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II have observed from this
very podium, all this is something that the Catholic Church and the Holy See
follow attentively and with interest, seeing in your activity an example of how
issues and conflicts concerning the world community can be subject to common
regulation. The United Nations embodies the aspiration for a "greater
degree of international ordering" (John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis, 43), inspired and governed by the principle of subsidiarity,
and therefore capable of responding to the demands of the human family through
binding international rules and through structures capable of harmonizing the
day-to-day unfolding of the lives of peoples. This is all the more necessary
at a time when we experience the obvious paradox of a multilateral consensus
that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the
decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the
form of collective action by the international community.
Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction of local and
global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the
climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a
readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity
with the weakest regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those
countries in
Recognition of the unity of the human family, and attention to the innate
dignity of every man and woman, today find renewed emphasis in the principle of
the responsibility to protect. This has only recently been defined, but it was
already present implicitly at the origins of the United Nations, and is now
increasingly characteristic of its activity. Every State has the primary duty
to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human
rights, as well as from the consequences of humanitarian crises, whether
natural or man-made. If States are unable to guarantee such protection, the
international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the
United Nations Charter and in other international instruments. The action of
the international community and its institutions, provided that it respects the
principles undergirding the international order, should never be interpreted as
an unwarranted imposition or a limitation of sovereignty. On the contrary, it
is indifference or failure to intervene that do the real damage. What is needed
is a deeper search for ways of pre-empting and managing conflicts by exploring every
possible diplomatic avenue, and giving attention and encouragement to even the
faintest sign of dialogue or desire for reconciliation.
The principle of "responsibility to protect" was considered by the
ancient "ius gentium" as the foundation of every action taken by
those in government with regard to the governed: at the time when the concept
of national sovereign States was first developing, the Dominican Friar
Francisco de Vitoria, rightly considered as a precursor of the idea of the
United Nations, described this responsibility as an aspect of natural reason
shared by all nations, and the result of an international order whose task it
was to regulate relations between peoples. Now, as then, this principle has to
invoke the idea of the person as image of the Creator, the desire for the
absolute and the essence of freedom.
This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the
responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are specifically focusing
upon this year, which marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. This document was the outcome of a convergence of
different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the
common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and
the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the
world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being
presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international
relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and
interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human
dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in
the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person,
who remains the high-point of God's creative design for the world and for
history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and
present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this
context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic
conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could
vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural,
political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints
must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but
so too is the human person, the subject of those rights.
[The Pope continued in English]
The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly
demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them,
are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between
justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict. The
promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating
inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security.
Indeed, the victims of hardship and despair, whose human dignity is violated
with impunity, become easy prey to the call to violence, and they can then
become violators of peace.
The common good that human rights help to accomplish cannot, however, be
attained merely by applying correct procedures, nor even less by achieving a balance
between competing rights. The merit of the Universal Declaration is that it has
enabled different cultures, juridical expressions and institutional models to
converge around a fundamental nucleus of values, and hence of rights. Today,
though, efforts need to be redoubled in the face of pressure to reinterpret the
foundations of the Declaration and to compromise its inner unity so as to
facilitate a move away from the protection of human dignity towards the
satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests. The Declaration
was adopted as a "common standard of achievement" (Preamble) and
cannot be applied piecemeal, according to trends or selective choices that
merely run the risk of contradicting the unity of the human person and thus the
indivisibility of human rights.
Experience shows that legality often prevails over justice when the insistence
upon rights makes them appear as the exclusive result of legislative enactments
or normative decisions taken by the various agencies of those in power. When
presented purely in terms of legality, rights risk becoming weak propositions
divorced from the ethical and rational dimension which is their foundation and
their goal. The Universal Declaration, rather, has reinforced the
conviction that respect for human rights is principally rooted in unchanging
justice, on which the binding force of international proclamations is also
based. This aspect is often overlooked when the attempt is made to deprive
rights of their true function in the name of a narrowly utilitarian
perspective. Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human
interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held
sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society,
and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was
expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the
masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to
others what you would not want done to you "cannot in any way vary
according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world"
(De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an
expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the
will of the legislators.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As history proceeds, new situations arise, and the attempt is made to link them
to new rights. Discernment, that is, the capacity to distinguish good from
evil, becomes even more essential in the context of demands that concern the
very lives and conduct of persons, communities and peoples. In tackling the
theme of rights, since important situations and profound realities are
involved, discernment is both an indispensable and a fruitful virtue.
Discernment, then, shows that entrusting exclusively to individual States, with
their laws and institutions, the final responsibility to meet the aspirations
of persons, communities and entire peoples, can sometimes have consequences
that exclude the possibility of a social order respectful of the dignity and
rights of the person. On the other hand, a vision of life firmly anchored in
the religious dimension can help to achieve this, since recognition of the
transcendent value of every man and woman favors conversion of heart, which
then leads to a commitment to resist violence, terrorism and war, and to
promote justice and peace. This also provides the proper context for the
inter-religious dialogue that the United Nations is called to support, just as
it supports dialogue in other areas of human activity. Dialogue should be
recognized as the means by which the various components of society can
articulate their point of view and build consensus around the truth concerning
particular values or goals. It pertains to the nature of religions, freely
practiced, that they can autonomously conduct a dialogue of thought and life.
If at this level, too, the religious sphere is kept separate from political
action, then great benefits ensue for individuals and communities. On the other
hand, the United Nations can count on the results of dialogue between
religions, and can draw fruit from the willingness of believers to place their
experiences at the service of the common good. Their task is to propose a
vision of faith not in terms of intolerance, discrimination and conflict, but
in terms of complete respect for truth, coexistence, rights, and
reconciliation.
Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom,
understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and
communitarian a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly
distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer.
The activity of the United Nations in recent years has ensured that public debate
gives space to viewpoints inspired by a religious vision in all its dimensions,
including ritual, worship, education, dissemination of information and the
freedom to profess and choose religion. It is inconceivable, then, that
believers should have to suppress a part of themselves their faith in order to
be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy
one's rights. The rights associated with religion are all the more in need of
protection if they are considered to clash with a prevailing secular ideology
or with majority religious positions of an exclusive nature. The full guarantee
of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship, but has
to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the
possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order.
Indeed, they actually do so, for example through their influential and generous
involvement in a vast network of initiatives which extend from Universities,
scientific institutions and schools to health care agencies and charitable
organizations in the service of the poorest and most marginalized. Refusal to
recognize the contribution to society that is rooted in the religious dimension
and in the quest for the Absolute by its nature, expressing communion between
persons would effectively privilege an individualistic approach, and would
fragment the unity of the person.
My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the United Nations, and it
is intended to express the hope that the Organization will increasingly serve
as a sign of unity between States and an instrument of service to the entire
human family. It also demonstrates the willingness of the Catholic Church to
offer her proper contribution to building international relations in a way that
allows every person and every people to feel they can make a difference. In a
manner that is consistent with her contribution in the ethical and moral sphere
and the free activity of her faithful, the Church also works for the
realization of these goals through the international activity of the Holy See.
Indeed, the Holy See has always had a place at the assemblies of the Nations,
thereby manifesting its specific character as a subject in the international
domain. As the United Nations recently confirmed, the Holy See thereby makes
its contribution according to the dispositions of international law, helps to
define that law, and makes appeal to it.
The United Nations remains a privileged setting in which the Church is committed
to contributing her experience "of humanity", developed over the
centuries among peoples of every race and culture, and placing it at the
disposal of all members of the international community. This experience and
activity, directed towards attaining freedom for every believer, seeks also to
increase the protection given to the rights of the person. Those rights are
grounded and shaped by the transcendent nature of the person, which permits men
and women to pursue their journey of faith and their search for God in this
world. Recognition of this dimension must be strengthened if we are to sustain
humanity's hope for a better world and if we are to create the conditions for
peace, development, cooperation, and guarantee of rights for future generations.
In my recent Encyclical, Spe Salvi, I indicated that "every generation has
the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order
human affairs" (no. 25). For Christians, this task is motivated by the
hope drawn from the saving work of Jesus Christ. That is why the Church is
happy to be associated with the activity of this distinguished Organization,
charged with the responsibility of promoting peace and good will throughout the
earth. Dear Friends, I thank you for this opportunity to address you today, and
I promise you of the support of my prayers as you pursue your noble task.
Before I take my leave from this distinguished Assembly, I should like to offer
my greetings, in the official languages, to all the Nations here represented.
Peace and Prosperity with God's help!
[The Pope repeated the above greeting in French, Spanish, Arab, Chinese and
Russian]
Association for the Rights of
Catholics in the Church http://www.arccsites.org/
In this year commemorating the enormous contribution to the
Muslim-Jewish-Christian
Thousands of our brothers and sisters have been killed, many have been tortured, and American civil liberties have been negated based on a story that has been challenged by hundreds of highly credentialed technical experts and scholars.
We, of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth during these trying times, execute the principles of our combined faiths: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8), God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and love. (2nd Timothy1:7), Say what is true, although it may be bitter and displeasing to people. (Prophet Muhammad: Hadith: Baihaqi) http://www.mujca.com
As we can
engage in wishful thinking, we can also engage in fearful thinking.
“I don’t want to look at the evidence that 9/11 was an inside job
because I’m afraid of what an investigation would do to my image of the
It takes a great deal of Ignatian spiritual freedom and
courage to read and listen to serious difficulties with the official explanation
of Sept. 11, 2001. Dr. David Ray Griffin
explains his own perspective in The New
Pearl Harbor (updated)
We can ask whether our
own faith can interface with the power of the media, corporations, and
the government. Were the teachings of Jesus on the dignity of each person
opposed to the notion of American empire presented by some
neo-conservatives? Did Jesus have
serious difficulties with the empire that existed when he brought his life
and his message to our world? Was Jesus crucified because of His
opposition to Empire? Does Jesus today have difficulty with any
empire? Read also Dr. David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor (2004), The 9/11
Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2004), 9/11 and American Empire (Vol I) –
Intellectuals Speak Out (2006), Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A
Call to Reflection and Action (2006), The American Empire and the Commonwealth
of God (2006), Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and
Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2007), 9/11 Contradictions:
An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (2008). I
would start with the up-dated edition of The New Pearl Harbor. It’s closely reasoned and thoroughly
researched. Those who reject the
official conspiracy theory, most of whom say the best explanation of the facts
is that it was an inside job, agree on one thing, there is need for a new,
thorough, independent investigation of the greatest crime of the century.
When two or more people plan to do something illegal or immoral, it’s a conspiracy. The official explanation is a conspiracy theory. After reading and listening it takes a great deal of prayer and discernment to decide which of the four versions below fit more plausibly with the facts.
There are at least
four versions of 9/11:
1. The official
conspiracy story: on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 Arab Muslims hi-jacked four US
Commercial airliners. Two of them crashed into two buildings of the
Even after
two planes crashed into the
A fourth
plane was forced down in
2. Same as
above except that 9/11 was blowback to our gross violation of human rights
around the world especially to the Palestinians,
3. People in the US Government and military knew about the conspiracy and allowed it to happen, ordering Norad to stand-down its fighter planes which about 100 times a year intercepts flights off course or flights suspected of being hi-jacked.
4. People in
the US Government and Military conspired to carry out 9/11, collapsing the
three buildings in the
There is no
evidence the 19 Arabs named were devout Muslims ready to meet their Maker or
even that they were on the planes. Some of the nineteen are still
alive. The building fires were not even close to the temperature needed
to melt steel. No high-rise steel buildings before or after 9/11 have
collapsed because of fires or planes crashing into them. Millions of
dollars were made by those betting stocks would fall of the two airlines that
crashed into the
The 9/11
Truth Coalition includes Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives,
engineers, architects, scholars, veterans, air-plane pilots, many of the relatives of the victims, many of the
fire and police departments and of the F.B.I (all of which latter three groups
are afraid to speak out) etc. etc. Some have spoken out and have been
ridiculed and dismissed as crazy, even fired or threatened. One of the
greatest crimes in history has been committed and no one has been
prosecuted. Investigations into the greatest crime of the century
have been blocked and obstructed, evidence destroyed and covered up. The FBI says it has no legal case against
Osama Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.
The latter’s “confession” on a poor quality video is
obviously not him. To the extent that
some Al-qaeda may have taken credit for out-witting the greatest super-power in
the world, it has greatly increased their prestige and numbers. Some claim Osama Bin Laden is still working
for the
Although no one pretends to know all the details partly
because much of the evidence has been destroyed, the one point that the 9/11
Truth Coalition agree on is that there needs to be an
entirely new independent investigation.
If respected citizens from a friendly country like
In any case an end to
the war system with the secrecy that accompanies it is imperative and now. Likewise, an end to the
secrecy and confidentiality of basic economic and scientific research in our
economic system. Jesus says the
truth will make us free. First the truth
may hurt, but eventually the truth will make us free. As St. Ignatius of Loyola says in the Spiritual Exercises, Discernment of
Spirits, no. 326, if we reveal deceits and malice, the evil spirit sees that he
cannot succeed because his obvious deceptions have been detected. On a positive level, to be honest with
ourselves is the very best effort a person or the human family as a group can
make. The resources of our planet need
to be shared or there won’t be any resources to share.
A leader of
the Patriots and in general agreement with the 9/11 Truth Coalition is Dr.
Robert Bowman. Dr. Robert Bowman has a
doctorate in nuclear physics, was a Lt. Col. in the Air Force, was highly decorated
for his over 100 combat missions in Vietnam, was advisor to Ford and Carter on
weapons in Space and the missile-shield "defense" system termed Star
Wars. See http://www.thepatriots.US
and also http://www.patriotsquestion911.com
Bob Aldridge is a World War II veteran and former engineer. He is an adviser/consultant sponsor of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, British-American Security Information Council and the Institute for Law and Peace. His book America in Peril puts in doubt the official version of 9/11 and recounts the intrigue and deception that has followed.
How can doing research into 9/11 be a call from God? If we don’t have a truly independent investigate, will such a false flag operation be perpetrated again? See also http://www.cincinnati911truth.org/ Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth http://www.ae911truth.org/
510 architectural and engineering professionals and over 2000 other supporters including A@E students have signed the petition demanding of Congress a truly independent investigation.
If the evidence is so clear, why don't more people know about it?
911 Truth people feel that the Principalities and Powers including the media do not even want to discuss it because the global economy is so fragile that the truth would cause such a lack of confidence in the system that the truth would lead to a global financial collapse. However, 911 Truth think that not revealing the truth will cause an even greater evil, an ecological disaster. It's evident that no matter who is elected, there will be only small changes. The world needs such basic changes that only the truth will set us free. If we don’t challenge this false flag operation, the next time they will be more clever and efficient.
Some say the Anthrax incident is part of the neo-con
conspiracy; also the present support of
The main point that all in the 911 Truth Coalition agree on is that a
truly independent investigation is necessary and now. Otherwise those who planned and executed the 9/11
attacks will try again and next time be more efficient. No one knows all of the details. But it’s clear that the official
explanation has huge holes in it. The
recent report of the National
I suggest that
whatever your religion, philosophy, or human values that you compare your
values and principles with those of the American Empire of some of the
neo-conservatives. I think you can see
from the vision presented on this web-page that my own Catholic faith and
vision is in direct contradiction with an American Empire or any Empire. If our primary faith is in Americanism, if
our Christian Faith is subordinated to our faith in
We need to join the
world community, create in a non-violent way a global ethic, put basic economic
and solidarity human rights into our legal and constitutional structures,
create a form of economic democracy and a democratic world federation. God bless
Palestinian
Refugees
One of the most thoughtful and
detailed analyses of the Palestinian situation that could provide the basis for
honest negotiations beyond the pale of "security" and
"terrorism" which permits us to push the issue aside. Karen
Abu Zaid is Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for
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Edward
Said Lecture |
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I am deeply honored to have been asked to deliver this year's Edward Said
lecture here at
It is to the
I begin with a few words on the remarkably gifted Palestinian to whose memory this lecture series is dedicated. Edward Said was born in British Mandate Palestine and his extended family was forced to flee the 1948 conflict to dispersed locations – Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and the United States, thus reflecting a blend of the Palestinian refugee and diaspora experience.
Some might wish to highlight the outward contrasts between Edward's life
of relatively privileged opportunity and the daily struggle for survival
presently confronting many Palestinians – refugees and non-refugees
alike. I prefer to note that, however wide the divide of class and
circumstance, Edward Said's work succeeded in illuminating for a global
audience the universal Palestinian predicament, and within it, the particular
ordeal of
Such perspectives resonate with UNRWA for a number of reasons. Our
humanitarian and human development activities are non-political in character
and practical in orientation. To be effective in our work, however, we must be
conscious of the complex context in which the
UNRWA's work is informed as much by an understanding of this context as
it is by our close physical connection with the
As many of you know, UNRWA's raison d'être is the direct provision of
essential public services to
Tonight, I shall offer glimpses of the
I chose the themes of exile, isolation and prospects to highlight
pertinent aspects of the uniquely fraught
The leading word in my title this evening is a defining attribute of the refugee condition everywhere. In refugee parlance, "exile" implies the occurrence of abnormal – usually tragic - events which threaten life, liberty or safety to a point where the instinct of self-preservation overrides attachment to community, land and livelihood, propelling flight to a place of safety. This sequence – flight, dispossession and arrival at a place of refuge – triggers a ripple of dissonance at a number of levels. The refugee is cast adrift from the moorings of identity, kinship, livelihood and belonging. And in their place emerges a sense of loss, the psyche of dislocation and an overwhelming longing for that which is lost.
Beyond the very personal, human consequence of forced flight, mass refugee movements disturb the often fragile equilibrium of international relations and immediately raise the issue of international responsibility.
States are under an obligation to guarantee the protection of rights and freedoms for their nationals and others in their territories. People become refugees when their country of origin is no longer able or willing to perform that obligation or afford them the protections necessary for normal life. To compensate, there is a matrix of shared, overlapping duties and roles entrusted to a variety of international actors. These are grounded in international law and custom and are meant to ensure that the "protection vacuum" in which refugees find themselves is filled.
Shared responsibilities straddle the humanitarian, developmental, political and diplomatic arenas. Ideally, these should function in mutually reinforcing harmony to deliver international protection for refugees. Inherently and by definition, such protection is finite in duration because the law and practice of refugee protection recognizes - at least implicitly - the refugee's fundamental need to physically restore the broken bond with his or her place of origin. Moreover, the protection framework assumes that reinstating the connection with the country of origin is the most effective way to resume full protection to the refugee.
If this condensed outline of forced flight and its connotations is accepted, it is appropriate to consider to what extent it corresponds to the experience of Palestinian exile and isolation, and how these themes play out in the countries and territory where UNRWA exercises its mandate.
On 14 May, 1948, the State of
For one side, the conflict was a war of liberation and independence, and victory an affirmation of the rightness of its cause. For the other, it was a catastrophe or Nakba presaging an era of suffering, struggle and unwavering resistance. One question on which views diverge particularly sharply, concerns the circumstances of Palestinian flight. Was it a "conventional" exodus of civilians seeking safety from an armed conflict in which civilian casualties were incidental, or was the scenario one of expulsion in which the ejection of, and casualties among, Palestinians were calculated and premeditated?
I raise this question to prompt reflection on a particular characteristic
of Palestinian exile, namely, that the conflict which 'created' the refugees
established at the same time a new and different entity on the
The point is the 1948 conflict was imbued with existential significance. In the popular consciousness of those in the new State and throughout the Jewish diaspora, there was at the outset (and reportedly long before) little appetite for allowing - let alone encouraging - the inclusion of Palestinians in the new State. On the contrary, many historians agree that the overriding intent was to discourage or exclude Palestinian return.
In the decades since 1948, this 'orientation towards exclusion' has been cemented in many ways. Recurrent conflict has reinforced deep-seated antagonism on both sides, playing into the hands of those, including many in positions of authority, who question the feasibility of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence. And, of course, there is the demographic issue, which tends to cast natural Palestinian population growth as an effective bar to the possibility of return.
If we admit that the option of refugee return to the country of origin is
central to the protection framework, then we see how the special circumstances
surrounding the 1948 conflict and Palestinian exodus significantly constricted
– and continues to constrict - the scope for protection and just
solutions for Palestine refugees. I refer to the "orientation to
exclude" to describe part of the limitations placed on the protections
available to
Across the region in which UNRWA works, Jordan and Syria stand out as
countries where the trials of Palestinian exile have been tempered by a climate
favorable to their protection. In place of the inclination to exclude, in
In
Political instability and armed conflict have also been the bane of
While challenges remain in
There is a tendency to assume that conditions in the West Bank are
relatively acceptable in comparison to the situation in
I shall speak to four areas where Palestinian exile in the
The homes and landed property of Palestinians and
The circumstances of this invasion of fundamental rights vary. Some houses are destroyed in the course of military operations. Many are demolished in pursuance of judicially issued administrative orders on the grounds that the owners lack building permits. While the orders are issued under Israeli law, questions arise as to why so few Palestinians are able to satisfy the requirements for applying for building permits and why so many who do apply are denied them.
It has also been observed that the areas cleared by the destruction of
Palestinian homes and property appear to correspond to the expansion of Israeli
settlements on Palestinian land. The inference is that settlement activity and
demolitions may be allied elements in a larger scheme to create a
Palestinian-free zone around occupied
And land confiscation appears to be quickening of late, in parallel with
accelerated construction of Israeli settlements, with significant parcels set
aside for exclusive use by some 480,000 Israeli settlers or to support a vast
security infrastructure. It is estimated that some 38% of
Obstacles placed by the occupying power to impede free movement of
Palestinians and their goods are a feature of the closure regime in the West
Bank. These take a variety of forms: both stable and 'flying' checkpoints
manned by military or private security personnel; trenches dug across roads;
blocks of concrete; and mounds of earth or boulders. These obstacles, which
The illegal separation barrier, with its associated system of
checkpoints, terminals, permits and searches, is another practical
manifestation of exile exclusion and isolation of Palestinians in the West
Bank. The barrier is a hybrid structure. Much of it takes the form of a fence
with restricted security zones on either side along with an array of security
accessories – observation towers, patrol roads, trenches and razor wire.
In parts, the barrier is a wall of grey concrete slabs, 25 to 28 feet high and several
inches thick. It is a dominant, overpowering presence in the lives of those who
live in its shadow, a testament to the exclusion of Palestinians from normal
life and a bold statement of
Construction of the barrier has continued in disregard of the 2004
Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, and now stretches over
57% of its planned 723 kilometer route. When it is completed, it will have used
up or rendered useless nearly 10% of
Those who have seen the barrier firsthand or on a map will notice that it
runs a jagged course, encroaching deep into West Bank territory at many points,
creating pockets between it and the border with
And
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of
pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain." These are the words
of Adriana, in Shakespeare's "A Comedy of Errors," a title that rings
with irony.
I hasten to add that there is nothing inherently wretched about the 1.5
million Palestinians in
The fortitude of Gazans is legendary. Their cries seldom reach our ears.
What we do hear, clearly and repeatedly, are pleas from within and outside the
United Nations to stem the suffering of
Since early 2006, after Hamas won free and fair, democratic elections in
the occupied Palestinian territory, a range of progressively more stringent
sanctions have been imposed on
The main crossings at Rafah and Karni have been closed for most of the
period since June, suspending exports from
Consider the decrease in the declining number of trucks allowed in over the
last 12 months. From January to June 2007, prior to Hamas taking control of
The blockade on
Among the blockade's most destructive effects on Palestinians are those
of a long-term nature. Last year, before
Most refugees are no longer able to supplement UNRWA rations with purchases of food; they cannot afford it, or produce never makes it from farm to market for lack of