Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

 Right-Wing Christians Put Out Their Top-10 Favorite Racist Attacks on Obama (VIDEO)

November 24, 2013 | Filed under: Barack Obama,Racial Issues,Videos | Posted by: Mindy Fischer

The outright hatred for President Obama by right-wing groups who call themselves Christians and Patriots is just astounding. This website called “Americans Who Hate Obama” is one of many that proudly displays their racism and bigotry. Americans Who Hate Obama has put out a video with their top 10 favorite racist attacks on Obama.
This video proudly features things like calling the Obamas monkeys, terrorist Muslims, non-Americans, incompetent, and fried chicken and watermelon devouring negros.
It also features many unbelievably offensive slurs and signs. One says, “Send Obama back to the jungles of Kenya.” Another reads, “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012.” A girl shows off her new t-shirt that says, “Obama is my Slave.”
But, perhaps the most disturbing things in this clip are the pictures of nooses, including one with Obama literally hanging by a noose.

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Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

Rush Limbaugh: “This Is Just Pure Marxism Coming Out Of The Mouth Of The Pope”

FreakOutNation

opinionated politics | we inform, you decide.

November 27, 2013

By Anomaly

 We knew this would happen after Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as “a new tyranny”, while writing of income inequality, and urging global leaders to fight poverty. One by one Republican talkers will trickle in, to voice their negative opinions of the Pope.
Infamous bigot, Pamela Geller asked when the Pope became an Imam.
And now here’s Rush Limbaugh declaring,”This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope.”

Listen to Rush’s objections as he mentions the Pope’s fight against poverty.

Rush Limbaugh would call Jesus Christ a CINO.
Courtesy of Media Matters. 

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Is a Neurotic Form of Christianity Destroying America?

July 12, 2013  

Posted by: Robert De Filippis

 

 
“The deconstruction of Christianity is not an attack on the church but a critique of the idols to which it is vulnerable – the literalism and authoritarianism, the sexism and racism, the militarism, and the love of unrestrained capitalism with which the church in its various forms has today and for too long been entangled, any one of which is toxic to the kingdom of God.”
“Strategically, diplomatically, socially, politically, morally, economically, evangelically, in every possible way we are witness today to a low point in American leadership, an ethical, social, political and biblical catastrophe.”
These passages from the book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by John Caputo, taken out of context, might suggest that religion is the singular cause for the continuing trajectory of a deepening dysfunction in our society. But a twisted popular form of Christianity catalyzes two other more powerful ingredients; predatory capitalism and a government that serves the interests of big money.
These three powerful components work together to drag us down the slope to more and more dysfunction in the name of a more moral society – a moral society based on a set of values that are so misapplied as to become destructive.
In other words, these three components create a moral society that destroys its own villages in order to save them.
For instance, while we hammer home the lessons of radical individualism in the guise of moral virtue, we reduce the resources or opportunities required to become self sustaining for great portions of our citizenry.
Just to be sure no one mistakes our moral lesson of self-sufficiency, we raise the interest rates on student loans, and the vital college education needed for success in the future becomes less accessible to the masses.
To be sure our moral lessons continue,  we keep our taxes low and maintain our spending on defense against an imagined enemy and our educational system is gutted to balance the budget.
We are cursed with near sightedness. We can’t seem to see the long term effects on the country when a low skilled, minimally educated workforce must shoulder the tax load of the future or compete with highly educated citizens of other nations.
We have an amazing ability to blame the victims in our troubled society and justify our accusations on a revisionist Christian morality which would be unrecognizable to the Christ himself. Not so much because Christianity was St. Paul’s invention, but because of the absurdity of present day revisionist interpretations.
This modern form of Christianity has become an expedient for the infiltration of a radical form of capitalism intermingled with our public institutions. The very same institutions that were formed to protect the interests of the citizenry, who are now doing the bidding of the mega wealthy, while pointing to the moral failure of the masses they were intended to serve.
Yes, Mr. Caputo, we have many idols. And although I’m encouraged by your efforts to  deconstruct Christianity, I doubt our ability or willingness to take the same actions with capitalism and governance.
It would never get through the Republican led House of Representatives. That’s the one with all the good Christian Tea Party moralists.
Rather, they are satisfied to keep Americans dancing around the golden calf, with the improbable hope that eventually some of capitalism’s largesse will trickle down into their laps.
We are minimum wage, millionaires-in-waiting, fully immersed in this form of idolatry, trusting our day will come.
If there is an unpardonable sin, it’s using religion to separate and discriminate rather than to connect and make whole.
On America’s behalf, Mea Culpa!
Robert De Filippis

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Religious Right Furious Pope Francis Wants Them To Follow The Bible

 Religious Right Furious Pope Francis Wants Them To Follow The Bible

Written by: Sarah Wood

Many on the religious right are livid that Pope Francis would have the audacity to want people to live up to the actual teachings of the Bible which fully negates their agenda of sweeping the poor under the rug and rewarding the already obscenely wealthy.

“How dare he say trickle-down economics doesn’t work!” said Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). “The beloved Ronald Reagan, who was far more religious than any Pope said if we keep giving the wealthy more money, everyone will have more money. We just need to wait a little bit longer to see it work!”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), devout Catholic, said of the Pontiff, “He is obviously reading from the wrong part of the book. Wealth and greed are beautiful Biblical concepts that go back even further than Jesus.”

“I just don’t diddly understand why therefore and more what this here supposed religious leader-type thingy thinks he’s up to,” said Sarah Palin.

Many in the religious right are denouncing the anti-capitalist remarks of Pope Francis. They don’t want any sort of actual religious facts and teachings to derail their attempt at creating a feudal society.

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6 Outrageously Greedy Companies That Make Scrooge Look Like a Softie

6 Outrageously Greedy Companies That Make Scrooge Look Like a Softie 

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore

Meet the companies offering sh*t sandwiches to employees for the holidays.

Photo Credit: shutterstock.com

November 24, 2013  |  

Ebeneezer Scrooge knew how a greedy capitalist deals with workers during the holiday season: Consider yourself cheated when they take a day off with pay to celebrate with their families.
But the old miser is bit too soft for many of today’s corporate titans. A day off with pay? Bah, humbug! Across America, workers are faced with no paid holidays at all or “encouraged” to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some get paid extra, some don’t. Unless you have a union contract or work for the federal government, Thanksgiving and Christmas may just be another day on the job.
While Scrooge was forced to bow to Victorian norms and give his employees Christmas Day off with pay, American law does not require such generosity. In fact, the U.S. is a world leader in least generous holiday arrangements.
American misers don’t stop there: From paying starvation wages to abandoning victims of factory disasters, there is no action too heartless for some of our best-known companies. Here are some of the brands offering “season’s beatings” to hard-working people.
Kmart
Several stores on this list will be open on Thanksgiving, but Kmart has outdone them all by announcing it will be open 41 hours straight, starting at the obscene hour of 6am on Thanksgiving Day.
According to Kmart spokeswoman Shanelle Armstrong, the company is doing workers a favor, informing the Huffington Post that "We staff with teams & seasonal associates when possible, giving them the opportunity to make extra money during holiday."
Many customers obviously can’t appreciate such generosity, leaving irate messages on Kmart’s Facebook page like these:

“Hey Kmart! Because of you being Open on Thanksgiving and totally disrespecting your employees, Our Family will never spend a $ in your store!”
"I refuse to shop at a store that makes employees work on Thanksgiving so you can earn a buck this store among others takes the fun out of shopping on black Friday.”

Around the country, Kmart’s full-time employees report being pressured to work over holidays, despite the company’s claim of using seasonal and temp workers.
McDonald's
McDonald’s, never one to shy away from screwing employees, recently found itself caught up in a blizzard of negative PR for putting its business principles into writing in the form of a list of holiday budget tips for its workers, whose pay averages $8 per hour. (This just months after a stunningly McStupid employee budget guide that allowed zero dollars for heat and $20 for healthcare.)
The company has some money advice that would make Scrooge giddy. Facing debt? Try returning some of your presents and selling off possessions on eBay. Need to make a purchase? Go to a thrift shop instead of the mall. Feeling depressed? “Try to avoid using shopping as a pick-me-up or as a way to relieve boredom.”
McDonald’s concluded with a cheery holiday message for workers who live below the poverty line: “Financial security is something we all dream of. You can make this dream a reality with a little hard work and a lot of dedication.”
Thanks, McDonald's. Could we at least have fries with that?
Sears
With an Ayn Rand-worshipping libertarian at the helm (financier Eddie Lampert), it’s no wonder Sears has become the poster child of worker misery (Sears Holdings also now owns Kmart). When he took over Sears in January 2013, Lampert rolled up his sleeves, turning the company into a giant Randian experiment where workers were pitted against each other until the venerable retailer descended into a chaos of screaming matches and infighting.

Naturally, Sears will be open on Thanksgiving this year (8pm).  And that’s not all.

A year after the horrific factory fire in Bangladesh, Sears, which sold clothing made there, is giving victims the cold shoulder, declining to participate in a global effort to get compensation to injured workers and the families of survivors. According to the New York Times, some European retailers, like the Anglo-Irish Primark, have embraced their moral obligation and are working hard on the effort, but Sears is unmoved by the idea of burned and paralyzed victims, or families trying to survive without a breadwinner. Happy holidays.
Walmart
Walmart, boasting a profit of $15.7 billion last year, has distinguished itself by paying crap wages to its 2.2 million employees.In fact, the majority of its workers with children live below the poverty line.
This year, the company is actually holding food drives so that its own poorly paid employees can donate food to each other for the holidays.
Walmart is really a standout when it comes to caring about workers — for example, not giving a hoot if people die while making its products. The company recently showed what anti-sweatshop activist Samantha Maher calls “an astonishing lack of responsibility” to the victims of the Bangladesh factory fire where a large portion of its clothing was being made. Like Sears, it will not participate in relief efforts for victims.
Walmart has announced it will open its stores at 6pm on Thanksgiving, and according to chief marketing officer Duncan MacNaughton, employees are “really excited to work that day.” Gee, work or get fired? Or end up with so few hours that you can’t eat that week? What an exciting choice!
What MacNaughton does not say is that many Walmart workers would like to work full-time, but are forced to work part-time so the company can avoid offering benefits. They are also forced to deal with erratic schedules that drive them into poverty, making them unable to take second jobs or arrange childcare.
Josh Eidelson reports that Walmart can expect protests and demonstrations across the country during Black Friday, including strikes.
Apple
Apple was planning on increasing the number of stores open on Thanksgiving this year, but CEO Tim Cook made a big show of expressing his goodwill by insisting that only some of his employees should be miserable for the holidays: those working in stores on the Las Vegas Strip, Hawaii’s Waikiki Beach and New York’s Fifth Avenue.
Cook’s largesse is duly noted.
But so is the fact that Apple’s employees are pretty miserable to begin with. According to Glassdoor.com—sort of like Yelp for America’s workforce where employees leave reviews of their experience on the job—working for Apple is no picnic. In terms of satisfaction, Apple ranks #34, far behind tech companies like Facebook (#1), Google (#6) and Linked-In (#14). It also ranks below Shell Oil US (#18), Mastercard (#29) and Bain & Company (#4). Apple employees complain of long hours, difficulty in balancing life and work, and — surprise! — “retail hours involving holiday hours.”
Apple’s per-employee revenue is an off-the-freaking charts $2.13 million, yet the average salary of an Apple store “Genius” is $38,937, which, in locations like New York, is barely subsistence level. Apple is sitting on a tremendous amount of cash right now, but is it going to increase the pay and benefits of the workers who make its success possible? Or maybe invest in the development of new products? Perish the thought! No, it appears Apple is likely to do a massive stock buyback (read: stock manipulation) and enrich executives to the tune of $150 billion (if Carl Ichan has his way). Stock buybacks are a noxious form of redistribution of profits away from workers and an innovation-killer, and should be banned.
Let’s not forget that Apple is facing a class-action suit for conspiring with other tech firms to screw over employees with do-not-hire arrangements. Or that Apple iPhone workers in China work in virtual slavery. Or that Tim Cook sent an incredibly creepy video to employees warning them to read up on “business conduct” guidelines. Et cetera.
Macy’s
For the first time in its 155-year history, Macy’s will be open on Thanksgiving. This is especially ironic given that the iconic store has practically made its name synonymous with the holiday through its nine-decades-running festival of ginormous balloons, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year, many Macy's workers will not be able to enjoy the parade, because they will be inside bound to cash registers.
Macy's employees have reported an obnoxious scorescorecard system that the company uses to judge and control them. They also complain of low wages, dirty conditions, and poor training — which is no suprise given reports of "Shop and Frisk" incidents involving people of color getting harassed in the store.
Last year, we noted that Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren was spending his time lobbying to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Lundgren is part of a notorious group of greedy CEOs called “Fix the Debt” which strives to further distress hard-working people by running ad campaigns, purchasing members of Congress, etc. so that he and his fellow Scrooges can enjoy tax breaks by shredding the social safety net.
According to Forbes, Lundgren took home over $10 million last year.
And there you have it — a corporate climate in America which would make Scrooge himself shudder.

Lynn Parramore is an AlterNet senior editor. She is cofounder of Recessionwire, founding editor of New Deal 2.0, and author of 'Reading the Sphinx: Ancient Egypt in Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.' She received her Ph.d in English and Cultural Theory from NYU, where she has taught essay writing and semiotics. She is the Director of AlterNet's New Economic Dialogue Project. Follow her on Twitter @LynnParramore.

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To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

 To quote from Sodom and Gomorrah: ” … So don’t be gay.”

November 9, 2011 By John Shore 

 

Is there some sort of resurgence happening around the idea that when it comes to proving that God condemns gay people, you just can’t beat the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Because lately I’ve been hearing from fundy-type Christians who want me to read S&G, so that I’ll understand that that’s the message of that story.
So I just now went and reread the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As far as I can tell, the Big Main Lesson of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is that if it ever happens that, for some inexplicable reason, every man in your town is suddenly seized by an overwhelming desire to gang-rape the angels who are sleeping over at your house, offer them your daughters to rape instead. But then worry not, because your guest angels will strike blind all the would-be rapists, who will then be unable to locate your front door, let alone your daughters. Also, if God later starts raining burning sulphur down upon your town, do not look back at that spectacle, no matter how far away from it you are at the time, because doing so will instantly transform you into a pillar of salt. And then that’s a drag for your family.
But maybe I just have a weird translation of the Bible. Maybe, in other translations, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah concludes in this way:

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. So don’t be gay.

That I have a bad Bible translation is most certainly the problem. Because I cannot think of any other reason for which any sane person would ever seriously suggest that the point of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is to prove that homosexuality is immoral.

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Conservative Christian Leader Says Single Moms Should Put Their Kids Up For Adoption

 
Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr. November 27, 2013 3:59 am

In what sounds like a strong suggestion for taking kids away from single moms by force, a ‘Christian’ leader urges them to give their kids up voluntarily. Photo from JuicyEcumenism.Com.

In what seems like a single step away from advocating that we take kids away from their single moms by force, a conservative Christian leader is urging them to give up their children voluntarily.

A conservative Christian leader says single moms should surrender their kids to Christian homes with two parents.

Right Wing Watch reports that Southern Baptist leader Richard Land is calling on single mothers to put up their kids for adoption so that Christian households with two parents can raise them.
In a November 23rd article published on The Christian Post, Land urges single mothers across the nation to stop being selfish and hand their kids over to good Christian parents so they can be raised properly, the way he thinks God intended.

“Keeping the baby is almost never preferable to allowing a baby to be adopted into a solid, faithful Christian home,” Land claims. “A single mother who keeps her baby is quite often denying that baby the father that God wants for that baby, and every baby, to have. Furthermore, in most circumstances, keeping the baby circumscribes and forecloses both the mother’s and the baby’s economic futures in tragic and unfortunate ways. If the mother is doing what is best for her baby (one of the defining marks of maternal love), she will part with her baby so that it will have the future God intended for him or her to have… Adoption allows the mother to give her child both a mother and a father who will love and cherish the child.”

Richard Land calls for a policy that would increase the number of kids in need of adoptive homes by millions.

Land says he understands that there are already 100,000 children waiting to be adopted in the United States, but he still thinks all 11 million single moms in the nation should freely surrender their kids. Why? Because he says the children of single moms are being raised improperly and really should be given the chance to have a father in their lives, even if they have to squander their childhood in orphanages waiting to be adopted.
Apparently, Land has no clue how many children that is. Try about 20 million. That’s how many children would be flooding the adoption system if Land had his way. Earlier in his article, before he completely insulted single moms, Land tried to make the case for adoption instead of abortion. He says that women should always choose adoption rather than seek an abortion. Since an estimated 1.2 million abortions are performed every year, that would be 1.2 million babies that the already overworked and underfunded adoption and child services system would have to deal with each year, in addition to the 20 million Land expects single moms to give up. Can anyone possibly imagine this turning out well?
Unless conservatives are literally willing to order their congressional puppets to open the government wallet and write a gigantic check (Can anyone honestly imagine that happening?), the system would implode upon itself. Millions of children would be stranded. And millions of children would be added to the million-plus children who are now homeless in America. It would create a crisis of epic proportions, with not enough Christian households around to solve it.

Richard Land’s call carves a dangerous path.

The fact is, abortion is a necessary choice that all women should have. Sure, they have ability to choose adoption. But it seems that Land is suggesting forcing that choice upon women. There are already so many children who have no home, why force women to thrust more children into that situation? It’s seriously insane.
Furthermore, after single moms read what Land said, it wouldn’t surprise me if they tarred and feathered him in a public square. As if conservatives haven’t attacked single mothers enough, this guy is openly claiming that they don’t raise their children right and that the only way they can do so is to have a husband. This personally enrages me, because I was raised by a single mother, as are millions of children every single year. Is it hard? Sure it is. But does that mean my single mother wasn’t a fantastic parent who raised me well? Absolutely not.
Land’s call for single moms to willingly surrender their children is a dangerous signal from religious conservatives. You know how conservatives are currently cheering for Russia to forcibly take children away from gay couples? It sounds like conservatives are now one step closer toward forcibly taking children away from single mothers here in America. I’m not sure what conservatives call that, but most sane people would call it kidnapping, which is illegal. Furthermore, Land’s call to for single moms to give up their kids to Christian couples is highly suspicious. Clearly, these Christian fundamentalists would be free to indoctrinate these kids. Basically, Land wants to take kids away from their single moms so they can be brainwashed with hate, fear, prejudice, and ignorance. Again, I’m not sure what Land calls that, but most sane people would call that child abuse.

Conservatives have stopped at nothing to attack single mothers.

This is yet another aspect in the GOP’s war on women. They simply can’t stand single moms, even though it’s a good bet that many right-wingers were raised by them. Despite that, conservatives have stopped at nothing to attack single mothers.
Kansas Republicans are increasing the cost of childcare across the state to fund abstinence-only programs that don’t work. You know who is going to be affected by that the most? Single moms. In Wisconsin, the GOP thinks single moms actually want fatherless children and have compared single motherhood to child abuse. Republicans even blame single moms for the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
But that’s not all. Republican policies such as abstinence-only programs and their anti-contraception crusade lead to more women becoming single moms. Not only that, their policies only make the lives of single mothers harder, thus making it more difficult to care for their children. GOP efforts to eliminate child care services, preschool, food stamps, and equal pay for women have only made things harder for single women.
Here’s a thought. The he-man woman haters within the GOP should get off their collective asses and begin pushing birth control and comprehensive sex education. The number of unintended pregnancies would drop as would the number of abortions. And here’s an even better idea. What if Republicans actually supported and enacted equal pay for women? What if they increased child care services and pre-school at the same time? Those combined efforts would reduce the number of women who become single mothers via unintended pregnancies. And single mothers would have a large enough income and the assistance they need to take care of their kids.

Richard Land’s call is sure to drive more women and their children into the welcoming arms of the Democratic Party.

Conservatives have the gall to wonder why women are voting for Democrats, and yet they attack women on all fronts. Of course, it’s not going to get any better for the GOP considering one of their own just insulted millions of single mothers and the millions of children who are raised by them. On that same note, let’s not forget that young people are increasing voting against the Republican Party. By attacking their moms, the GOP is just giving them another reason to vote Democrat.

Richard Land, and conservative men like him, are sexist assholes.

It’s amazing how conservative men can claim to know so much about child-rearing when they have made it abundantly clear that they expect women to do all the work. Maybe if Republicans advocated for teaching men to be good partners with the women they have a child with, more kids would have a father in their lives. Unfortunately, conservative men like Richard Land are too busy being sexist assholes, and you can’t expect sexist assholes to teach other men not to be one. In short, these anti-women conservative men are totally unfit to raise children and are totally unqualified to judge single mothers and how they raise theirs.

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Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

A change to obscure procedural rules in the U.S. Senate and the upcoming 2014 elections could be a dangerous window of opportunity.

November 26, 2013  

 

AlterNet / By CJ Werleman

Elections have consequences. The Senate Democrats’ detonation of the “nuclear option” has dramatically raised the stakes for secular progressives in 2014, because if there are two issues that juice the Christian Right the most, it’s women’s reproductive rights and judicial activism. On the latter, the Religious Right senses a once-in-a-decade opportunity to impose its radical worldview on America.
Last week, the Senate voted 52-48 to eliminate the ability of the minority party in the Senate to filibuster executive branch nominees and any judgeship below the Supreme Court by changing the requirements for passage to a simple majority vote. It was a historic move made because there was no other alternative, given the GOP’s unprecedented abuse of the filibuster. In the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered. Half occurred under all presidents from Washington through to Bush. Remarkably, the other half has taken place under just one president: Obama.
Why such aggressive judicial obstructionism by the GOP?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. writes, “This era’s conservatives will use any means at their disposal to win control of the courts. Their goal is to do all they can to limit Congress’s ability to enact social reforms.”
The Christian Right, which is the GOP’s most reliable and agitated voting bloc, is obsessed with the courts, and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit is the nation’s second most important judicial body, which is why Republicans “gave the game away when all but a few of them opposed Obama’s three most recent appointments.”
Now that Democrats were forced into limiting the filibuster, the Christian Right has its incentive to mobilize for 2014. A simple majority control of the Senate gives it an opportunity to pack the courts with judges straight out of the Justice Scalia mold, who once said that separation of church and state would come under scrutiny under a Supreme Court with a Scalia majority. If the Christian Right sweeps Republicans to control the Senate in next year’s midterms, the anti-secularists will take a big step forward toward their stated ideological goals.
The recent Values Voter Summit demonstrated that the likely 2016 GOP frontrunners have a base wish to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy — a nirvana absent gays, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and science books. The right-wing media elites are already doing their bit to gin up the far right’s judicial activists with Rush Limbaugh comparing filibuster reform to rape.
Truth in Action Ministries recently released a film titled Freedom on Trial, which features Robert Bork, the failed Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and Heritage Foundation vice president Genevieve Wood. The general theme of the documentary is that Christianity is under attack thanks to liberal "activist judges." Bork warns that courts are “teaching the people that religion is evil,” while another conservative attorney claims decisions that go against the Ten Commandments will “destroy the country.”
President Obama’s judicial nominees were being filibustered because they threaten to alter the circuit court’s philosophical balance. The Republican Party has again demonstrated that nullification and obstruction are ready-made weapons to ensure the courts remain dominated by conservatives.

Cass R. Sunstein, author of Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Bad for America, writes, “Our courts now represents the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. These reformers include a number of federal judges—radicals in robes, fundamentalists on the bench….some of these judges do not hesitate to depart radically from longstanding understandings of constitutional meaning.” Political analyst James Fallows writes, “Add that to the simply unprecedented abuse of the filibuster in the years since the Democrats won control of the Senate and then took the White House, you have what we’d identify as a kind of long-term coup if we saw it happening anywhere else.”

The end of the filibuster threatens the far right’s stranglehold on our courts. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell warned, “The solution to this problem is at the ballot box. We look forward to having a great election in November 2014.” John McCain warned, “Democrats will regret this.”
For Republicans to take back the Senate, they’ll need to win six seats. Given Democrats will need to defend 21 seats, compared to just 14 for the GOP, and that seven of those 21 Democratic seats are in states that lean Republican, expect the Christian Right to be the party’s primary water carrier in the midterms.
Former Speaker Tip O’Neill liked to say that all politics is local. He was wrong. It’s tribal. The detonation of the nuclear option ensures the always-mobilized theological tribe will turn out in high numbers in 2014. This means America’s secular state will remain in the balance should the secular left tribe do no better than its impotency in 2010.
CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America and God Hates You, Hate Him Back. Follow him on Twitter @cjwerleman.

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7 Reasons Why It's Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution

What science can tell us about our not-so-scientific minds.

By Chris Mooney

Tue Nov. 26, 2013 8:31 AM GMT

 

The ascent of man? José-manuel Benitos/Wikimedia Commons. Photoillustration by Matt Connolly.

Late last week, the Texas Board of Education failed to approve a leading high school biology textbook—whose authors include the Roman Catholic biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University—because of its treatment of evolution. According to The New York Times, critiques from a textbook reviewer identified as a "Darwin Skeptic" were a principal cause.
Yet even as creationists keep trying to undermine modern science, modern science is beginning to explain creationism scientifically. And it looks like evolution—the scientifically uncontested explanation for the diversity and interrelatedness of life on Earth, emphatically including human life—will be a major part of the story. Our brains are a stunning product of evolution; and yet ironically, they may naturally pre-dispose us against its acceptance.

1871 satirical image depicting Charles Darwin as an ape. The Hornet/Wikimedia Commons

"I don't think there's any question that a variety of our mental dispositions are ones that discourage us from taking evolutionary theory as seriously as it should be taken," explains Robert N. McCauley, director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture at Emory University and author of the book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not.
So what can science tell us about our not-so-scientific minds? Here's a list of cognitive traits, thinking styles, and psychological factors identified in recent research that seem to thwart evolution acceptance:
Biological Essentialism. First, we seem to have a deep tendency to think about biology in a way that is "essentialist"—in other words, assuming that each separate kind of animal species has a fundamental, unique nature that unites all members of that species, and that is inviolate. Fish have gills, birds have wings, fish make more fish, birds make more birds, and that's how it all works. Essentialist thinking has been demonstrated in young children. "Little kids as young as my 2 and a half year old granddaughter are quite clear that puppies don't have ponies for mommies and daddies," explains McCauley.
If essentialism is a default style of thinking, as much research suggests, then that puts evolution at a major disadvantage. Charles Darwin and his many scientific disciples have shown that essentialism is just plain wrong: Given enough time, biological kinds are not fixed but actually change. Species are connected through intermediate types to other species—and all are ultimately related to one another.

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Teleological Thinking. Essentialism is just one basic cognitive trait, observed in young children, that seems to hinder evolutionary thinking. Another is "teleology," or the tendency to ascribe purposes to things and objects so as to assume they exist to serve some goal.
Recent research suggests that 4 and 5 year old children are highly teleological in their thinking, tending to opine, for instance, that clouds are "for raining" and that the purpose of lions is "to go in the zoo." The same tendency has been observed in 7 and 8 year olds who, when asked why "prehistoric rocks are pointy," offered answers like "so that animals could scratch on them when they got itchy" and "so that animals wouldn't sit on them and smash them."

Title page of the Reverend William Paley's 1802 work Natural Theology, which famously propounded an argument for God's existence based on the appearance of design in nature. Wikimedia Commons

Why do children think like this? One study speculates that this teleological disposition may be a "side [effect] of a socially intelligent mind that is naturally inclined to privilege intentional explanation." In other words, our brains developed for thinking about what people are thinking, and people have intentions and goals. If that's right, the playing field may be naturally tilted toward anti-evolutionist doctrines like "intelligent design," which postulates an intelligent agent (God) as the cause of the diversity of life on Earth, and seeks  to uncover evidence of purposeful design in biological organisms.
Overactive Agency Detection. But how do you know the designer is "God"? That too may be the result of a default brain setting.
Another trait, closely related to teleological thinking, is our tendency to treat any number of inanimate objects as if they have minds and intentions. Examples of faulty agency detection, explains University of British Columbia origins of religion scholar Ara Norenzayan, range from seeing "faces in the clouds" to "getting really angry at your computer when it starts to malfunction." People engage in such "anthropomorphizing" all the time; it seems to come naturally. And it's a short step to religion: "When people anthropomorphize gods, they are inferring mental states," says Norenzayan.
There has been much speculation about the evolutionary origin of our anthropomorphizing tendency. One idea is that our brains developed to rapidly assume that objects in the world are alive and may pose a threat, simply because while wrongly mistaking a rustle of leaves for a bear won't get you killed, failing to detect a bear early (when the leaves rustle) most certainly will. "Supernatural agents are readily conjured up because natural selection has trip-wired cognitive schema for agency detection in the face of uncertainty," write Norenzayan and fellow origin of religion scholar Scott Atran.

Illustration by Rene Descartes of the pineal gland, which he believed to be the location of the soul within the brain. Wikimedia Commons

Dualism. Yet another apparent feature of our cognitive architecture is the tendency to think that minds (or the "self" and the "soul") are somehow separate from brains. Once again, this inclination has been found in young children, suggesting that it emerges early in human development. "Preschool children will claim that the brain is responsible for some aspects of mental life, typically those involving deliberative mental work, such as solving math problems," write Yale psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg. "But preschoolers will also claim that the brain is not involved in a host of other activities, such as pretending to be a kangaroo, loving one's brother, or brushing one's teeth."
Dualistic thinking is closely related to belief in phenomena like spirits and ghosts. But in a recent study, it was also the cognitive factor most strongly associated with believing in God. As for evolutionary science? Dualism is pretty clearly implicated in resistance to the idea that human beings could have developed from purely natural processes—for if they did, how could there ever be a soul or self beyond the body, to say nothing of an afterlife?
Inability to Comprehend Vast Time Scales. According to Norenzayan, there's one more basic cognitive factor that prevents us from easily understanding evolution. Evolution occurred due to the accumulation of many small changes over vast time periods—which means that it is unlike anything we've experienced. So even thinking about it isn't very easy. "The only way you can appreciate the process of evolution is in an abstract way," says Norenzayan. "Over millions of years, small changes accumulate, but it's not intuitive. There's nothing in our brain that says that's true. We have to override our incredulity."
Group Morality and Tribalism. All of these cognitive factors seem to make evolution hard to grasp, even as they render religion (or creationist ideas) simpler and more natural to us. But beyond these cognitive factors, there are also emotional reasons why a lot of people don't want to believe in evolution. When we see resistance to its teaching, after all, it is usually because a religious community fears that this body of science will undermine a belief system—in the US, usually fundamentalist Christianity—deemed to serve as the foundation for shared values and understanding. In other words, evolution is resisted because it is perceived as a threat to the group.
So how appropriate that one current scientific theory about religion is that it exists (and, maybe, that it evolved) to bind groups together and keep them cohesive. In his recent book The Righteous Mind, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that religions provide a shared set of beliefs and practices that, in effect, serve as social glue. "Gods and religions," writes Haidt, "are group-level adaptations for producing cohesiveness and trust." The upside is unity; the downside, Haidt continues, is "groupishness, tribalism, and nationalism." Ideas and beliefs that threaten the group or the beliefs that hold it together—ideas like evolution—are bound to fare badly in this context.

Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Fear and the Need for Certainty. Finally, there appears to be something about fear and doubt that impels religiosity and dispels acceptance of evolution. "People seem to take more comfort from a stance that says, someone designed the world with good intentions, instead of that the world is just an intention-less, random place," says Norenzayan. "This is especially true when we feel a sense of threat, or a feeling of not being in control."
Indeed, in one amazing study, New Zealanders who had just suffered through a severe earthquake showed stronger religiosity, but only if they had been directly affected by the quake. Other research suggests that making people think about death increases their religiosity and also decreases evolution acceptance. It's not just death: It's also randomness, disorder. In one telling study, research participants who were asked to think of a situation in which they had lacked control and then to "provide three reasons supporting the notion that the future is (un-) controllable," showed a marked decline in their acceptance of evolution, opting instead for an intelligent design-style explanation. (Another study found that anti-evolutionists displayed higher fear sensitivity and a trait called the "need for cognitive closure," which describes a psychological need to find an answer that can resolve uncertainty and dispel doubt.)
Such is the research, and it's important to point out a few caveats. First, this doesn't mean science and religion are fundamentally incompatible. The conflict may run very deep indeed, but nevertheless, some individuals can and do find a way to retain their religious beliefs and also accept evolution—including the aforementioned biology textbook author Kenneth Miller of Brown University, a Catholic.
Second, while there are many reasons to think that the traits above comprise a core part of who we are, it doesn't automatically follow that religion is the direct result of evolution by natural selection. It is also possible that religion arises as a byproduct of more basic traits that were, in turn, selected for because they conferred greater fitness (such as agency detection). This "byproduct" view is defended by Steven Pinker here.
In any event, the evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. "Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us," writes the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance.
Perhaps more surprising would be if it didn't.
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Chris Mooney

CorrespondentChris Mooney is a science and political journalist, podcaster, and the host of Climate Desk Live. He is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science 

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What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale

 

This is a popular image of the first Thanksgiving, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. But this is definitely NOT what happened.

What Really Happened at the First Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side of the Tale

 

Gale Courey Toensing

11/23/12

When you hear about the Pilgrims and “the Indians” harmoniously sharing the “first Thanksgiving” meal in 1621, the Indians referred to so generically are the ancestors of the contemporary members of the Wampanoag Nation. As the story commonly goes, the Pilgrims who sailed from England on the Mayflower and landed at what became Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 had a good harvest the next year. So Plymouth Gov. William Bradford organized a feast to celebrate the harvest and invited a group of “Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit” to the party. The feast lasted three days and, according to chronicler Edward Winslow, Bradford send four men on a “fowling mission” to prepare for the feast and the Wampanoag guests brought five deer to the party. And ever since then, the story goes, Americans have celebrated Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Not exactly, Ramona Peters, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer told Indian Country Today Media Network in a conversation on the day before Thanksgiving 2012—391 years since that mythological “first Thanksgiving.”
We know what we’re taught in mainstream media and in schools is made up. What’s the Wampanoag version of what happened?
Yeah, it was made up. It was Abraham Lincoln who used the theme of Pilgrims and Indians eating happily together. He was trying to calm things down during the Civil War when people were divided. It was like a nice unity story.
So it was a political thing?
Yes, it was public relations. It’s kind of genius, in a way, to get people to sit down and eat dinner together. Families were divided during the Civil War.
So what really happened?
We made a treaty. The leader of our nation at the time—Yellow Feather Oasmeequin [Massasoit] made a treaty with (John) Carver [the first governor of the colony]. They elected an official while they were still on the boat. They had their charter. They were still under the jurisdiction of the king [of England]—at least that’s what they told us. So they couldn’t make a treaty for a boatload of people so they made a treaty between two nations—England and the Wampanoag Nation.
What did the treaty say?
It basically said we’d let them be there and we would protect them against any enemies and they would protect us from any of ours. [The 2011 Native American copy coin commemorates the 1621 treaty between the Wampanoag tribe and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony.] It was basically an I’ll watch your back, you watch mine’ agreement. Later on we collaborated on jurisdictions and creating a system so that we could live together.
What’s the Mashpee version of the 1621 meal?
You’ve probably heard the story of how Squanto assisted in their planting of corn? So this was their first successful harvest and they were celebrating that harvest and planning a day of their own thanksgiving. And it’s kind of like what some of the Arab nations do when they celebrate by shooting guns in the air. So this is what was going on over there at Plymouth. They were shooting guns and canons as a celebration, which alerted us because we didn’t know who they were shooting at. So Massasoit gathered up some 90 warriors and showed up at Plymouth prepared to engage, if that was what was happening, if they were taking any of our people. They didn’t know. It was a fact-finding mission.
When they arrived it was explained through a translator that they were celebrating the harvest, so we decided to stay and make sure that was true, because we’d seen in the other landings—[Captain John] Smith, even the Vikings had been here—so we wanted to make sure so we decided to camp nearby for a few days. During those few days, the men went out to hunt and gather food—deer, ducks, geese, and fish. There are 90 men here and at the time I think there are only 23 survivors of that boat, the Mayflower, so you can imagine the fear. You have armed Natives who are camping nearby. They [the colonists] were always vulnerable to the new land, new creatures, even the trees—there were no such trees in England at that time. People forget they had just landed here and this coastline looked very different from what it looks like now. And their culture—new foods, they were afraid to eat a lot of things. So they were very vulnerable and we did protect them, not just support them, we protected them. You can see throughout their journals that they were always nervous and, unfortunately, when they were nervous they were very aggressive.
So the Pilgrims didn’t invite the Wampanoags to sit down and eat turkey and drink some beer?
[laughs] Ah, no. Well, let’s put it this way. People did eat together [but not in what is portrayed as “the first Thanksgiving]. It was our homeland and our territory and we walked all through their villages all the time. The differences in how they behaved, how they ate, how they prepared things was a lot for both cultures to work with each other. But in those days, it was sort of like today when you go out on a boat in the open sea and you see another boat and everyone is waving and very friendly—it’s because they’re vulnerable and need to rely on each other if something happens. In those days, the English really needed to rely on us and, yes, they were polite as best they could be, but they regarded us as savages nonetheless.
So you did eat together sometimes, but not at the legendary Thanksgiving meal.
No. We were there for days. And this is another thing: We give thanks more than once a year in formal ceremony for different season, for the green corn thanksgiving, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, our new year in May—there are so many ceremonies and I think most cultures have similar traditions. It’s not a foreign concept and I think human beings who recognize greater spirit then they would have to say thank you in some formal way.
What are Mashpee Wampanoags taught about Thanksgiving now?
Most of us are taught about the friendly Indians and the friendly Pilgrims and people sitting down and eating together. They really don’t go into any depth about that time period and what was going on in 1620. It was a whole different mindset. There was always focus on food because people had to work hard to go out and forage for food, not the way it is now. I can remember being in Oklahoma amongst a lot of different tribal people when I was in junior college and Thanksgiving was coming around and I couldn’t come home—it was too far and too expensive—and people were talking about, Thanksgiving, and, yeah, the Indians! And I said, yeah, we’re the Wampanoags. They didn’t know! We’re not even taught what kind of Indians, Hopefully, in the future, at least for Americans, we do need to get a lot brighter about other people.
So, basically, today the Wampanoag celebrate Thanksgiving the way Americans celebrate it, or celebrate it as Americans?
Yes, but there’s another element to this that needs to be noted as well. The Puritans believed in Jehovah and they were listening for Jehovah’s directions on a daily basis and trying to figure out what would please their God. So for Americans, for the most part there’s a Christian element to Thanksgiving so formal prayer and some families will go around the table and ask what are you thankful for this year. In Mashpee families we make offerings of tobacco. For traditionalists, we give thanks to our first mother, our human mother, and to Mother Earth. Then, because there’s no real time to it you embrace your thanks in passing them into the tobacco without necessarily speaking out loud, but to actually give your mind and spirit together thankful for so many things… Unfortunately, because we’re trapped in this cash economy and this 9-to-5 [schedule], we can’t spend the normal amount of time on ceremonies, which would last four days for a proper Thanksgiving.
Do you regard Thanksgiving as a positive thing?
As a concept, a heartfelt Thanksgiving is very important to me as a person. It’s important that we give thanks. For me, it’s a state of being. You want to live in a state of thanksgiving, meaning that you use the creativity that the Creator gave you. You use your talents. You find out what those are and you cultivate them and that gives thanks in action.
And will your family do something for Thanksgiving?
Yes, we’ll do the rounds, make sure we contact family members, eat with friends and then we’ll all celebrate on Saturday at the social and dance together with the drum.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/11/23/what-really-happened-first-thanksgiving-wampanoag-side-tale-and-whats-done-today-145807

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The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians

The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians 

 

By: Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Tuesday, November, 26th, 2013, 7:28 am

It is instructive that Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin (retired), who now works as the Family Research Council’s executive vice president, cares more about what Jesus looked like than what Jesus taught.
Boykin, another one of those who says Islam is not entitled to First Amendment protections, and thinks God, not the American people, chooses our presidents, told the audience of a Men’s Prayer Breakfast at William Jessup University, that,

[Jesus] was a man. He was a man’s man, but we feminized him in the church…he was a tough guy and that’s the Jesus that I want to be like. That’s the side that I want to be like. But we’ve feminized Jesus in the church and the men can’t identify with him anymore; not the kind of men that I want to hang out with, they can’t identify with this effeminate Jesus that we’ve tried to portray. He was a tough guy. He was a man’s man.

For Boykin it was bromance at first sight and perhaps a wee bit of latent homosexuality as he waxed over Jesus’ “big, bulging biceps…thin waist” and “strong shoulders” (Who knew Jesus was the Marlboro man?)
Boykin’s accidental outing of himself aside, we don’t know what Jesus actually looked like. But we do know that he was not the strangely Germanic blond guy of popular imagination. He was a dark-skinned Semite:

There is also no doubt that Jesus smelled bad. They didn’t have deodorant in the first century of the Common Era so Jesus smelled bad, Peter smelled bad, Pontius Pilate smelled bad, Caiaphas smelled bad, the guys who nailed Jesus to the cross smelled bad, and so did the two rebels he was executed with and the people who watched, including Jesus’ mother. We get that. But smelling bad doesn’t make you a man when everyone – women included – smells bad. This sort of reasoning is why Boykin is working for the FRC.
We get that too.
But it’s a shame Boykin and the FRC care more about what Jesus smelled and looked like than they do the important things, like what Jesus taught about the poor coming first and the rich, having sold their souls to the dark powers that ruled the age to become rich, coming last. That would be swell, but people like Boykin prefer the Weaponized Jesus of the twenty first century to the apocalyptic prophet of the first.
Jesus is often portrayed as a carpenter but he might well have been, like Socrates, a stone mason, since the word used, in Mark 6:3, τέκτων (tekton), means only that he made things with his hands; it does not specify which craft he practiced. So yes, he would have been a hardy, no doubt muscular fellow, though Geza Vermes, whom I often cite here, points out that the language used – “son of a carpenter” – is used in the Talmud to mean somebody who is “learned” and therefore might have simply signified that Jesus was wise. Of course, we already figured that out, given what he said about rich people chances of getting into heaven (Matthew 19:24).
He might have been big, strapping, smelly AND wise. We’ll just never know. And it really doesn’t matter.
And that is because most of us would agree that what Jesus said was more important than what he looked like. Think about the Beatitudes and Jesus’ words, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) and think about them particularly in terms of what President Barack Obama has accomplished with regards Iran and its nuclear program.
Because it is Obama the Republican response was automatically negative but their response should have been to remember Jesus’ words, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).
What we get instead is Bryan Fischer proclaiming that God will curse America for making a deal with Iran. Fischer forgets Jesus entirely and goes all Old Testament on us:

What he cursed us with are people like Bryan Fischer and Jerry Boykin and groups like the Christian America Patriots Militia, who have been claiming that Jesus and the Second Amendment together gives them the right to assassinate the president.
If Republicans really cared about Jesus, and what Jesus taught, they would be talking less about their Savior’s manly odor, flip open the New Testament that supposedly informs their beliefs, and realize that having done what Jesus wanted, Obama is blessed, not cursed, and that even if he does something you don’t like, you forgive him, not kill him.
It is too much to say that Jesus would say he wants his religion back. It was never his religion to begin with, after all. It is beyond contestation that Jesus was a Jew who preached an apocalyptic message to the Jews, that he ignored the Gentiles (Pagans) and not only ignored them, but told his disciples to avoid them, referring to Gentiles in true Jewish fashion as “dogs” and “swine” (Matthew 7:6).
Jesus did not invent Christianity. Christianity is a religion that was invented about Jesus, based, allegedly, on his teachings and not his appearance. But Jesus would certainly want those teachings heeded. He did not walk all over a Galilee infested with bandits, rebels, Herodians, and Romans, just for yucks. It was hot, dangerous – and smelly, after all.
We have to assume (assuming a historical Jesus in the first place) that he was serious about what he said.
He died for it, after all.
Whether Jesus was right or wrong about what he taught, whether he was an illiterate Galilean craftsman or divine, he died miserably and in great agony on the cross. And in at least one of the mutually contradictory versions of his death, he told his Father to “forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He did not say “nuke ‘em till they glow” or “bomb them into the Stone Age,” like would a Republican.
We should respect that, Christian or otherwise.
But Jerry Boykin and his ilk have no genuine respect for Jesus. Jesus has become “weaponized” – a club used to bludgeon enemies. This is not at all what Jesus would have wanted, since he said to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) and that if somebody steals your shirt to give them your cloak as well (Matthew 5:40) and to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).
The only weapon here is love.
But conservatives hate that Jesus. Hate is more their speed. Old Testament wrath. A god who tosses nukes with his fingertips. That god profits them and their friends in the military industrial complex. That’s a Jesus they can get behind. That’s the Jesus Boykin really loves with all his manly man’s heart.
Unfortunately, that’s not the Jesus in the gospels, which is, after all, supposed to be a good message, not a bad.
The thing is, if Christianity is a religion about what Jesus taught, then these people on the Religious Right are not Christians at all. How much greater their crime if they claim Jesus actually created Christianity.
Yes, I do think Jesus would want his gospel heeded if he put in an appearance today. And I suspect he would have a few words for the dogs and swine on the Religious Right who have been masquerading as followers of the rabbi from Galilee.

The Religious Right With Their Weaponized Jesus Are Not Christians was written by Hrafnkell Haraldsson for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Tue, Nov 26th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

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The American Family Association wants Christians to boycott Radio Shack. But WWJD?

November 25, 2013 By Dan Wilkinson

 

The American Family Association is calling for a boycott of Radio Shack. Why? Because in their holiday advertising Radio Shack uses the word holiday instead of Christmas.
The AFA regularly seeks to impose upon the world its particular brand of distorted Christianity by means of boycotts and similar campaigns, so this latest call to action is hardly a surprise.
Is this really how Christians want to make their voices heard? Do we really want to be known for demanding that others explicitly recognize and promote our religious holidays?
Would Jesus boycott a store that didn’t celebrate his birthday?
I don’t think so. I think he would have gone out of his way to shop at such a store, to engage with the people there, to show them the warmth, compassion, and love for which he gave his life. I think the petty economic activism advocated by the AFA is the antithesis of how Christians are supposed to interact with the world.
I don’t regularly shop at Radio Shack. But the AFA’s latest “campaign” sure makes me want to.
The AFA is asking its supporters to leave comments on Radio Shack’s Facebook page, and to call the company’s corporate office (817-415-3011, opt 0) to “let them know you are serious about taking your business elsewhere.”
I will be contacting Radio Shack. But I’ll be letting them know that, as a Christian, I wholeheartedly support their all-inclusive holiday advertising. I encourage you to do the same. If enough of us do that, maybe the AFA will learn something they seem to be missing about the real message of Christmas.

---

Dan Wilkinson
Dan is a writer, graphic designer and IT specialist. He lives in Montana, is married and has two cats. He blogs at CoolingTwilight.com.

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Three of the Biggest Lies Republicans Tell About Themselves

Three of the Biggest Lies Republicans Tell About Themselves

November 25, 2013 By Allen Clifton  

 

When I talk with Republicans, I often feel like I’m speaking with someone who lives inside of a bubble where the outside world and all of its realities are simply unable to penetrate.  It’s the school teacher who votes Republican despite Republicans stripping teachers unions of collective bargaining power.  It’s the individual who’s soon to rely on Medicare and Social Security, claiming they don’t need the federal government.  The person on welfare who voted for the politician who just voted to cut their benefits.
But one area where Republicans excel at is propaganda.  They’re really good at it.  They’ve successfully convinced millions of people to be absolute hypocrites, vote against their own interests and believe that giving rich people more money benefits the rest of us.
Basically, they’ve convinced people to lie to themselves.
So I decided I would give a quick rundown of three of the bigger lies Republicans perpetuate about themselves (though there are far more than three).
1) They’re fiscally conservative 
This is probably the biggest joke of them all.  It’s amazing to me that this is real platform they actually run on, yet haven’t had a Republican president who’s actually balanced the budget since President Eisenhower in the 1950′s.  Hell, their “conservative hero” Ronald Reagan came close to quadrupling the national debt during his eight years.  How exactly is someone a “beacon for fiscal responsibility” when they almost quadrupled the national debt?
And I know some conservatives will do what they always do and blame Democrats for Reagan running up our national debt.  I love reading the asinine conclusion that the near quadrupling of our debt was the fault of Tip O’Neill, not Reagan.  I hate to break it to these people, but Reagan signed off on every single piece of legislation during his eight years in office that led to the massive growth of our national debt.  Congressional Democrats couldn’t simply enact legislation without Reagan’s approval.
Then again, conservatives who make this argument clearly don’t understand how government works.  They’re also the ones who give all of the credit for our balanced  budget in the 90′s to congressional Republicans.
Then look at George W. Bush.  He took a balanced budget and completely wrecked it.  It took him one year to send us back into deficits after President Clinton gave us a surplus.  And don’t even tell me that our budget surplus should be credited to the Republicans in Congress.  If they were the primary reason why we had a balanced budget, it would have continued after Clinton left the White House, when they were still in charge of Congress — but guess what?  It didn’t.
What Bush did was cut taxes, then started two wars.  That’s like buying an $80,000 sports car just after taking a massive pay cut at work.  He reduced our revenue then increased our spending.  How again is that being “fiscally conservative”?
The only area Republicans point to for this claim of “fiscal responsibility” is their opposition to tax hikes.  But guess what?  Cutting taxes has nothing to do with being smart with money.
Oh, but they’ll cut programs that help the poor and the needy, that’ll balance our budget, right?  But you damn sure better not mention cutting oil subsidies or closing tax loopholes for the rich — Republicans will have no part in eliminating either of those.
The only place Republicans are fiscally conservative is in their minds.
2) Small government 
This is another joke.  I love how the party which actively campaigns for president on the pretense of passing Constitutional Amendments that would define traditional marriage is somehow the party of “small government.”
Or the party that continues to pass laws in Republican-controlled states attacking the right for a woman to have an abortion, requiring ultrasounds or transvaginal probes before an abortion can be performed.  That’s small government? 
Hell, if they had their way there would still be a ban on homosexuals in the military.
The fact is, Republicans love government.  Well, as long as that government is supporting something they want.  The only time they’re advocates for “small government” is when the government forces them to do things like — give people civil rights.
I live in Texas, a highly Republican state, where you can’t even buy liquor on Sunday due to outdated laws passed decades ago.  Hell, there are some counties in Texas where you still can’t buy alcohol at all.  How “small government” of them.  Isn’t Texas supposed to be a beacon for “small government values”?  Right.
The truth is, Republicans love government when they can use it to try to enforce their bigotry and ignorance, but hate government when it prevents them from enforcing their bigotry and ignorance.
3) Pro-life 
Being anti-abortion doesn’t make you “pro-life.”  Just like supporting the right for a woman to have an abortion doesn’t make you “pro-abortion.”
Republicans constantly prove that they don’t give a crap about life the moment it’s out of the womb.  Sure, they’ll use a fetus to stir up anger within people to get votes, but the fact of the matter is once that baby is born — they couldn’t care less.
The GOP has consistently cut funding for programs that help the poor and the needy.  They’ve strongly stood against access to health care for all Americans.  There’s even a push now by many to privatize Medicare and Social Security so that these programs are handed over to greedy corporations that can gamble with the future of millions of Americans.
There are tens of millions of children who will have less to eat this holiday because of the Republican cuts to our nation’s SNAP program.  And if Republicans get their way, tens of billions more will be cut from the program.
In a state like Texas — where millions of its citizens go without health care — Rick Perry refused to expand Medicaid coverage so that millions of Texans could receive health care, some for the very first time.  This is a practice we’ve seen all over the country in many Republican-controlled states.
How “pro-life” of these Republicans to deny access to health care for millions of Americans who desperately need it.
And the sad fact is, Republicans only really “care” about a fetus because it helps them get votes.  Otherwise they wouldn’t oppose — and cut — funding to programs that would help millions of poor children all across the United States.
When Republicans say they’re “pro-life” all they really mean is they’re anti-abortion — that’s it.  To call Republicans “pro-life” is an absolute joke.  Because once that baby is born, they couldn’t care less what happens to it, as long as it votes Republican in 18 years.
Now of course these aren’t the only ways Republicans lie to themselves.  These are just three of the bigger “labels” they give themselves that I find completely absurd.
But I’m sure to any Republican reading this, I’m absolutely wrong.  Sure I am.  Of course, they’ve most likely never voted for a Republican president who’s balanced the budget, they probably support a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, and you can bet they support massive cuts to welfare programs that feed millions of poor children.
Like I said, it’s like they live in a delusional bubble that reality is simply unable to penetrate.

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Focus on the Family serves up a rancid turkey in time for Thanksgiving

Focus on the Family serves up a rancid turkey in time for Thanksgiving

by Steveningen

 

Ugh. Where to even begin with this one. The odious Focus on the Family has released a video designed to teach you how to explain the truth behind Thanksgiving to the kiddies. It is so rife with distortions, fabrications, omissions, persecution complex, and anti-government bias that it is a hideous thing of beauty.

Hi. I'm Stuart Shepard, This is Stoplight. About now, children are bringing home Pilgrim hats and turkeys made out of construction paper. And maybe making lists of things they are thankful for. But, it's up to us to make sure they understand the full context of what happened back around 1620.
We are the Pilgrims.
They were not called "the Pilgrims" back when this whole thing started. England would not allow these Christians to live out their faith they wanted to. They were told to fall in line with the government's view of religion. If not, they could be taken to court, fined or even imprisoned.
We are the Pilgrims.
So, some of them packed up and moved to Holland. Now thing were generally better there. But then they watched as the culture began to draw their children away from the Christian faith they were learning at home.
We are the Pilgrims.
So, then they booked that trip on the Mayflower. A cargo ship. Not really designed for passengers. Think of it as a floating tractor-trailer being tossed about by a stormy ocean. It was spartan, it was rough, but it eventually got them here to the New World.
We are the Pilgrims.
They signed the Mayflower Compact saying they were united in this undertaking for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Its simple framing of democracy would inform the U.S. Constitution more than 150 years later.
We are the Pilgrims.
They learned about human behavior: That if the colony took what each one produced and shared it with everyone else, well it brought out the very worst in human beings. The colony only succeeded once it allowed each family to have their own property and enjoy the benefits of their own labor.
We are the Pilgrims.
So--after having government trample on their God given rights--after seeing their children wooed away by a decadent culture, after a treacherous ocean voyage, a harsh winter, after learning how imperfect human beings function as a group--after all that--they held a feast to celebrate. And they thanked God for His Providence.
We are the Pilgrims.
It was only after Christian faith was turned into action, and after it was applied to real life troubles, and after they endured hardship while giving thanks--that they became known as "The Pilgrims."
We--are--the Pilgrims.

Even those with a rudimentary historical understanding of Thanksgiving would somehow remember to include the Indians at the first Thanksgiving table. But I suppose that is just too much for today's xenophobic, immigration-hatin' modern Pilgrim. Best just not to mention them and give over that time to further drive home all that persecuting, government intrusion and fear into your children's soft little heads. Among all the tripe to be found in this video is this doozy that sits at the very heart of the religious right.

They signed the Mayflower Compact saying they were united in this undertaking for the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith. Its simple framing of democracy would inform the U.S. Constitution more than 150 years later.

Here they have taken the notion that it was our Founding Fathers who intended our Constitution to be divinely inspired and are now crediting the wacked-out Pilgrims for our Constitution that clearly states there shall be no separation of Church and State. Or something. The stupid, it burns.
So, when you find yourself at your own Thanksgiving table on Thursday, please remember to give a little moment of thanks that Stuart Shepard isn't sitting over there at your kid's table giving your little ones a history lesson.
Update: Thanks to Dave in Northridge for sharing this link: The Puritans and the Puritans who settled Massachusetts, 1620-1630.

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