THE PRICE OF IDOLATRY

The price for the Religious Right’s wholesale idolatry of private everything was that Christ’s reputation was tied to a cynical political party owned by billionaires from the fast-food industry, raping the earth (not to mention our health), to the oil companies destroying our climate. It only remained for a Far Right Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court to rule in 2010 (Citizens United V. The Federal Election Commission), that unlimited corporate money could pour into political campaigns – anonymously -- in a way that clearly favored corporate America and the super wealthy who long since were the only entities served by the Republican Party’s defense of the individual against the government. The “individuals” turned out to be Exxon, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, McDonald’s and Goldman Sachs et al.

Then the internet came along and Fox News came along and Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann et all came along and no fiction was too fantastical to be believed as fact. We passed into a high tech stone age, myth superstition and outright lies gained a new currency.

This was the logical conclusion of the process of delegitimizing the Federal Government that was launched by the Reconstructionists, the anti-abortion movement and of course is fed by the “Left Behind”/Christian Zionist apocalyptic revenge fantasy.

The Billionaire Lynch Mob’s only sacrament is fear. Their reward for cashing in on white religiously-believing middle class American’s addiction to Bronze Age biblical mythology is to walk away with our country. And fear-filled white Americans don’t get anything in return, unless you count their fleeting visceral pleasure of putting “that uppity black man” in the White House in his place.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of many books including Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back

A Shift Realized: The Banking Crisis as the First Postmodern Event

the global financial crisis as a 'world historical moment

the first global event that is wholly and uniformly a postmodern crisis

it is ultimately perfectly predicted and consummated in the

• ontological works of Lyotard (The Postmodern Condition),
• the global theories of Baudrillard (The Precession of Simulcra) and
• the mind–politics of Foucault (Discipline and Punish)
  

with the global capitalistic system in greater flux theoretically than ever before we are glimpsing the ultimate death of the last Grand Narrative in modern history. After

• the death of God (Nietzsche),
• the death of dialectic (Fukuyama, Zizek, Baudrillard),
• and now with the possibility of the death of late capitalism
  

we find ourselves at another cultural cross–roads, one that can only find refuge in simulation.

FREE MARKET AND RELIGIOUS VARIETIES OF FUNDAMENTALISM

I would like to see some work that explores the ties between free market fundamentalism and the development of religious fundamentalism with the thesis along the lines of the publication in 1910 of the 12 volume work titled "The Fundamentals: A Testimony To The Truth", anonymously financed by Lyman Stewart and his brother Milton, cofounders of Union Oil or Unocal, as a reaction against and a deterrent of the work of those like Walter Rauschenbusch. You could throw in some "latter day false prophet" references just for fun and let the audience guess which one is which.

Laura Schlessinger and Leviticus

Laura Schlessinger is a US radio personality who dispenses advice to people who call in to her radio show. Recently, she said that homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22 and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. The following is an open letter to Dr. Laura penned by a US resident:

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him or her that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to follow them.

(a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

(b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

(c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.

(d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

(e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on Sunday (the Sabbath). In the book of Exodus verse 35:2 it clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

(f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't know. Can you settle this?

(g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

(h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

(i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

(j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16). Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14).

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging, and we should do what the bible says.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

CLASS STRUGGLE IN THAILAND

What has erupted in Thailand is the first stage of a class struggle. Bitter political infighting in the Thai ruling elites over the past four years has opened the door for the entry of sections of the rural and urban poor into political life.

The Thai military is poised to move

The army has declared two areas of the capital to be “live fire zones”.

“Red shirt” demonstrators are confronting heavily armed troops. that have broad significance for workers throughout the region and internationally

demands for immediate elections, deeper social concerns over poverty and unemployment have begun to intrude.

The “Red Shirt” protests backed by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, billionaire businessman



far from homogeneous, but come from the country’s poorer rural areas, obvious signs of sympathy among the military’s lower ranks, drawn from the same social layers.

she added. “They [are] always rich, we always poor. That is not democracy”.

extravagant riches of a tiny elite have continued to multiply even as the global economic crisis has brought greater hardships

“democracy” goes well beyond demand of Thaksin and protest leaders for new elections
basic social right to a decent standard of living

top 20 percent of the population controls 69 percent of the nation’s wealth as compared to just 1 percent for the lowest 20 percent.

the bottom 20 percent is $US45 a month—the official poverty line.

economy contracted by 3.5 percent, credit dried up, small farmers, businessmen and vendors, along with the working class. Resumption of economic growth and booming share prices have not alleviated.



harbinger of class struggles throughout the region and globally.

small minority who enriched through speculation and exploitation of cheap labour
throughout Asia

The divide in China and India is also socially explosive.

Thailand point to political problems. anti-government movement dominated by the Thaksin-backed United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) who are exploiting the demonstrations for the economic and political interests of a section of the Thai elite.

in power between 2001 and 2006, Thaksin also to ride roughshod over democratic rights as his opponents.

He limited handouts to stimulating the economy and reviving Thai businesses after the 1997–1998 Asian economic crisis.

His programs cut across long-established systems of patronage which alienated the army, state bureaucracy and the monarchy

if these urban and rural poor remain under UDD leadership, they will be betrayed.

last April when the demonstrations went out of their control, Thaksin and the UDD ended the campaign.

This is confirmation of Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. The organic incapacity of any section of the bourgeoisie to satisfy the democratic aspirations and social needs of working people

Only the proletariat is capable of genuine democratic rights, agrarian reform and rouse the rural masses into a struggle for a workers and farmers’ government based on socialist policies

Thailand is the tenth largest auto exporter with half a million workers

working class has yet to make its presence felt. Like its counterparts around the world, the working class in Thailand has no mass political party of its own that represents its class interests on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. It has limited trade unions that function as tools of government and the corporate elite

Stalinist Communist Party of Thailand, based on the bankrupt Maoist perspective of rural guerrilla action, dissolved.

Former student radicals from the 1970s have joined pro- and anti-Thaksin camps of the ruling class.

Unless they become independent of all factions of the capitalist class, the working class faces great dangers.

There are discussion in ruling circles about the military coup and the unleashing of tanks and troops to restore order which is driven by sharp falls on the share market
disaster for the tourist industry, amid a global economic climate of continuing instability and crisis

A PERIOD OF RESISTANCE

They absolutely don’t want you to know about the economic collapse of the Western World called the “Panic of 1873” that forced tens of millions of people in the United States and Europe to abandon their farms and crowd into cities providing the slave labor needed to fuel the Industrial Revolution that amassed the fortunes of corporate and banking interests still surviving to this day.

They absolutely don’t want you to know about the economic collapse of the Western World called the “Panic of 1907” that led to the destruction of the United States monetary system allowing the private European banking giant known as the Federal Reserve System to gain total control over the American economy by 1913 and leading to World War I starting in 1914.

They absolutely don’t want you to know about the economic collapse of the Western World known as the “Great Depression” that began in 1929 when the Federal Reserve crashed the US stock market allowing them to take American off of the gold standard and paving the way for an alliance between the United States and Nazi Germany, but that was thwarted at the very last moment in 1933 when Marine General Smedley Butler stopped the overthrow of President Roosevelt.

They absolutely don’t want you to know that the father of one American President and grandfather of another, Prescott Bush, was one of the chief financers for Americas corporate and banking elite of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

They absolutely don’t want you to know that two brothers from the German Warburg banking family, Paul and Max, headed both the US Federal Reserve and German Central Bank that financed both World War I and II.

They absolutely don’t want you to know that the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II remade American, once again, by forcing millions of its citizens into what are called suburbs and away from their city centers where modern electric transit systems were dismantled leaving these people dependent upon automobiles thus fueling massive profits for the car and oil industries while at the same time encircling these suburban enclaves with massive road systems called Interstates that were actually designed by Nazi German engineers to allow these areas to be militarily controlled in “times of war”.

Note: Not many Americans even know that their “Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” is now, and always has been a military project.

And even though I could go on and on with so many critical and important to know historical truths that have been hidden from you, the most important one these “officials” don’t want you to know about is that each and every time these elites have come against the American people they met fierce resistance, and they’re afraid is about to happen again.

These periods of resistance are called by historians as the Great Awakenings and of which there were three: The first began in the 1730’s and led to the American Revolution, the second began in the early 1800’s and led to the American Civil War, and the third began in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s and led to the rise of social movements gaining women the right to vote, the abolition of child labor, and the unionization of workers.

As the United States and its Western Allies are once again mired in a deliberately engineered economic collapse, and as the stirrings of a Forth Great Awakening are beginning to be felt in the corridors of power, there is one thing each and everyone of you can be assured of….your life, your Nation, your hopes, your dreams…EVERYTHING…will in less time than you can believe be changed beyond all recognition….are you prepared for it?

THE (FREE MARKET) GODS ARE CRAZY

free market fundamentalism.

two British economists, Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson. the “free-booting, super-rich free-market operatives”

• “They promised economic stability, and have delivered chaos and volatility.

• They promised an economic order based on enterprise, thrift and personal effort and have delivered one based on chronic indebtedness and wild speculation.”

• “They promised a ‘transparent’ future in which all the costs and prices would be clearly laid out, allowing people to make informed choices in their lives. They have delivered a world of bizarre, occult financial knowledge, one in which everything from the true cost of a mobile phone package to the real value of billions of pounds worth of ‘securitised’ debt is impossible to gauge.”

• They promised an expanded middle class of property and share-owning individuals, a new Yeomanry of sturdy, independent citizens. They have delivered the unleashing havoc on professional and white-collar career structures smashed up the pension schemes of the middle class and forced their children deep into debt for the privilege of attending university.”

The authors argue that the world economy has been reduced to this state by the “mania of speculation.” These speculators, they maintain, have “taken advantage of the gradual erosion of any serious control over their activities.”

What were once marketed as ‘innovative’ financial products by investment bankers, were just balloons filled with hot air. these bankers created a 600-trillion-dollar derivatives market, which is 10 times the world GDP



fundamentalism does not work, be it a political, religious or economic doctrine.

President Nicolas Sarkozy remarked, “Self-regulation is finished … Laissez-faire is finished.”

Bric countries. What saved them, they have not followed in the footsteps of these ‘teachers’ and opted for unbridled markets.

• The regulators have failed in their job of protecting the interest of the common man.

• And so have auditors and global rating companies in looking after the interests of shareholders.

The trouble is that both the regulators and the regulated around the world are the ‘Taliban’ of the same madrassa that teaches ‘unbridled free-market fiqah.
Indeed, it is time to deal with the anger-spitting inequality dragon. It cannot be wished away by the faith-healers of the ‘trickle down theory.’ It’s time for a sustainable flow of resources to the dispossessed.