unshackled

3 July 2008

Obama “Shift to the Center” and the Narrow Authoritarian Spectrum in U.S. Politics

This article highlights just a few of the growing number of things that make me uncomfortable about the direction Obama is taking his campaign and on the way he will lead America when he is sitting in the Commander-in-Chief chair.

Some of the things that concern me the most:

His approval of the Supreme Court ruling regarding the second ammendment.
His support of ethanol instead of a more sustainable fuel.
He supports criminal execution in certain cases.
Javan Lapp points out that it seems as “if his ‘we will talk it out with enemies’ is falling by the wayside.”
His ridiculously blind semitic support including his call for an undivided Jerusalem controlled by Israel.

This article points out that it was only recently that Obama began his treacherous flop to the center. Progressives, beware. Stay tuned for more.

140: [links]

2 July 2008

Cynthia McKinney Deserves Your Support, Obama Does Not

As many of you know, I’ve been increasingly disappointed to the sake of disillusionment with Obama these past weeks beginning with the Rev. Wright betrayal. Black Agenda Report points out some very good things about Obama that should be obvious but unfortunately aren’t as Obama is fast becoming the newest Washington slick-willy.

I’m leaning towards Cynthia McKinney…a Washington rebel that signed her political death sentence by refusing to accept without question the official story regarding 9/11.

“McKinney, whose last act in Congress was to submit articles of impeachment against George Bush in 2006; who courageously questioned the White House version of events before and after September 11, 2001; who acted as a one-person conscience of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking out against corporate and military mega-theft under both Clinton and Bush; who has with amazing consistency always placed principle above her own personal and electoral fortunes, is at this juncture in history the only vehicle through which progressives can both register their outrage at Obama and begin the process of rebuilding a mass, Black-led movement for real social change. (Ralph Nader cannot, for reasons of temperament and race, achieve such dual purposes.)”

139: [links]

Give me no other, originally uploaded by artkauffman.

This shot was taken in Grenada; it was the last picture on the roll and I nearly didn’t get the shot. I’m glad I did, though. It makes me happy.

30 June 2008

Opting Out

It’ll be interesting to see how economic pressures influence the self-sufficiency of the Amish and Mennonite communities that remain aloof from government aid.

137: [links]

29 June 2008

Evangelical movement touts ‘Jesus for president’

Claibourne’s still making waves and here’s CNN reporting from Pittsburgh, an event which I unfortunately missed because I’m still in El Salvador. I’m so excited to see efforts in Pittsburgh like Claibourne’s combined with great organizations like Thomas Merton which has existed for decades.

I can’t talk enough about how the political demographics have changed since 2000 and how the Evangelical Right has fallen from grace and power. Suffice to say that it has, and everything has changed, and even the media doesn’t have it right when it talks about a “Religious Left”.

Sure, there are those flip voters out there that mirror the Religious Right (if you don’t know what that is, ask your parents) but for the most part the young evangelicals and the movement that was facilitated by organizations like Sojourners and yes, Claibourne’s ordinary radicals are willing to ask the deep questions and work for real change that can’t be brought only by legislation and partisan politics.

The media underestimates the new “young Evangelicals” (the new buzzword).

135: [links]

Theologian helps Obama find his religious voice

Obama attempts to court the “Religious Left”. Uhuh. Should be interesting.

134: [links]

Presbyterian leaders OK gay clergy

This is a monumental step for healing in the worldwide church. But this wasn’t exactly a majority (54% to 46%); divisions still exist.

In other denominations, the California-Pacific Annual Conference (part of United Methodist Church) recently passed a resolution changing their views on the ordination of those in the GLBT community, defying the larger United Methodist Church. “We want to affirm same-sex couples who choose to marry and some of our pastors who choose knowing that it is in violation of United Methodist Church law to participate in those marriages,” says the Rev. Frank Wulf.

132: [links]

27 June 2008

I don’t care if it is law, it just seems so wrong

Scot McKnight draws a references the legalistic priest and levite who refused to help the poor traveller in his rant against the Supreme Court decision. “The Supreme Court decision is a classic example of being legal and right but dead wrong, in my opinion of course.”

Any society that allows its honorable citizens to carry handheld murder weapons on their person is a society with a fascination for violence and believes in its redemptive power. It is unfortunately this society that we find ourselves in–a society that is more like the Roman empire than it is the “land of the free”.

133: [links]