Posts from — September 2008

Kids were intimidated with assault rifles for no good reason that I can see.

Yet our cookie-cutter media outlets, so many of which are owned by Rupert Murdoch, did not report this incident: that police raided meeting of journalists and bloggers AT GUNPOINT in an apparent effort to disrupt independent coverage of the Republican National Convention and stifle any display of disapproval for the direction in which the Republicans have taken the nation – and will continue to take us.

Watch this video and you tell me if you think these kids were a real threat.

Regardless, the home in which they were staying was raided by police with assault rifles and their computers and journals confiscated. Most were told they could not get their possessions – including house and car keys – back until Monday September 8th. This harassment was meant to send a message:

“Do not coordinate public activity. Roll over and play dead.” And, as Bill O’Reilly is so fond of snarling at anyone he doesn’t like (after turning off the person’s microphone) “Just shut up.”

Sadly, that video is no longer available, so here’s a video that gives an overview of what peace protestors were facing. Note this fact:

‘Normally it is the taxpayers, the citizens of a community, who bear the cost of liability for misconduct by their government officials. That way, the officials must answer to the public for their actions. By the RNC (Republican National Convention) purchasing liability insurance on behalf of the city of St. Paul to cover claims of police misconduct, they have literally funded the abuse of police power in order to enhance their political agenda.’

So will you “just shut up” about this incident? Or will you express outrage? Will you write or call the Mayor of St. Paul? Because this group was monitored and targeted simply for doing what average Americans have always done: try to get their voices heard.

Should we not protest this incident, those who bully and repress will be emboldened to go even further. And technology will help them.

Technology exists now to monitor you without you even knowing it’s being done, and to silence you as reported in Silencing Online Speech In Tunisia:

“..it seems the email accounts of some Tunisian Internet users are being monitored by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) without their knowledge. DPI is a technology that has the ability to monitor the online activity and filter the traffic on the network by removing “unwanted” material from the actual body of received emails.

Recently, I asked Robert Guerra – a Toronto-base technologist who helps NGOs with data privacy, secure communications and information security about this. These are his comments: [Read more →]

Thanks to a blogger discovering my blog about Haiti’s troubles, I have discovered a cornucopia of information about the world: Global Voices! I’ve added RSS feeds from this organization to the right sidebar because I believe this is a news source that is more than worth your while to follow.

These are the stories you don’t hear because U.S. media is so consolidated. Yet they are the stories we need to hear so we can connect with our brothers and sisters around the world.

Check out this blog post, for instance, entitled Ramadhan, Prayers and Clean Blogging which, frankly, shows us that our Muslim brothers and sisters are more like us than they are different.

Global Voices is very concerned – as we all should be – with freedom of speech. This is not something that we in the West can take for granted. Because once speech is silenced, injustice and poverty grow.

During the Republican National Convention, Amy Goodman – the long standing and respected host of Democracy Now - was arrested, along with dozens of journalists. To quote her:

“They seriously manhandled me and handcuffed my hands behind my back. The top ID [at the convention] is to get on the floor and the Secret Service ripped that off me. I had my Democracy Now! ID too. I was clearly a reporter.”

“One of the police kept shouting at me ‘Shut up, shut up,” she said. “It was extremely threatening.”

Watch this video, put yourself in her place and decide for yourself if there was any reason to arrest her. [Read more →]

What is crazy-making?

Crazymaking is the deliberate misinterpretation of reality so as to confuse and befuddle a person in order to manipulate that person.

Crazymaking is throwing up one barrier after another to the solving of problems, picking fights, dividing family members against each other, and creating discord and disharmony.

The crazymaker has many strategies open to him or her.

[Read more →]

While the City of St. Paul intimidates journalists with the possibility of criminal and felony prosecutions, the case one can make against St. Paul – or more accurately against that city’s governing leadership – is airtight.

The City Of St. Paul, Minnesota slapped down democracy this past week. Journalists were targeted, deliberately arrested and their homes raided. Many of the innocent were charged with felony rioting. Yet, watch the videos, and you’ll swear it’s the police who are rioting.

Videos At The Uptake.Org

The press cannot do its job when its journalists are muscled to the ground, stripped of their cameras and press credentials, given bloody noses, and thrown in jail.

[Read more →]

The devastation in Haiti from Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Hannah is grim. The people of Haiti face starvation. Their crops are destroyed, many have not eaten in nearly a week.

Now is the time to donate to an aid agency: ActionAid or the IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies). As you read this, thousands of Red Cross volunteers are working round the clock to help the mounting number of victims from the storms.

Please do not wait. Do it right now.

Even should you be having a rough time yourself, dig deep within yourself. Connect with your fearlessness. Then give whatever you can, even if it’s only a dollar. God does not care about the amount, but only about your intention and the love with which you give it.

This from CBC News today:

“Freelance reporter Reed Lindsay said he encountered an injured young boy in the city who was fending for himself after his parents drowned in the floods.

‘He had a broken leg and had no medical help at all,’ Lindsay told CBC News on Friday from Gonaives. ‘He was wearing his underwear. It was the only thing he had left.’”

I know, if you could, you would scoop that child up into your arms and take him into your home. You would feed him and dress him and comfort him. You would change your habits in order to help him build a new world from the shattered pieces of his heart.

And doing this would give you new energy, new strength, new purpose because you’re human. Because you care. Because God lives inside you. Because that’s the power of love.

So give with him in mind. In your heart say, “God, I make this donation for this boy. I trust You will take my love – and my financial help – to him.”

There are many boys like him. If you can help just one – give enough to help just one – that is a beautiful act that praises the Lord.

And, together, we will help them all.

PRAYER TO LEARN THE LESSON

Dear God,

Teach me what I need to learn from these storms.

If it is faith, open my eyes
So I see you love me
And respond to me.

If it is generosity,
Open me so I give with a happy heart.

If it is gratitude,
Let the realization of my good fortune
Drop me to my knees
In thanks for my life.

If it is a need for joy,
Let me sing, dance and rejoice
That my children and I are safe;
That we have shelter, electricity, water, and food
That I have so much
In comparison to those who live
On two dollars a day.

If it is awareness of my responsibility
To actively help create a better world
Guide me to those actions
That fill me with new purpose and power.

Collectively we create the world’s sorrow
And we create the world’s joy.

Our sorrows show us where we need to create joy,
And where we need to take better care of each other.

Help me create joy, Lord,
For that boy,
And for everyone who suffers,
As well as for myself.

Help me perform whatever miracles you want of me today.

Because we are One Being
That lives and breathes in You.

Thank you,
Amen.

“Show mercy and compassion every man to his brother.” Zecharia 7:9

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 5:40

Tropical Storm Hannah is moving through the Bahamas. She has killed over 90 people in Haiti due to floods and mudslides, in addition to the 75 Haitians killed by Hurricane Gustav.

Haiti, an impoverished nation of 9 million souls, was already on the edge of starvation before these two storms. Most  Haitians live on less than $2 a day and the meteoric rise in the price of oil, along with manipulation of global markets by hedge funds, had already caused food shortages. As in other poor nations, Haitians rioted over skyrocketing food prices in April.

According to Reuters, the humanitarian group ActionAid has said that a major relief effort will now be needed in Haiti. The group’s director, Raphael Yves Pierre, advised that “The whole country is under water and Hanna has devastated crops everywhere.” President Rene Preval called the situation “catastrophic.”

Please pray for these people in this, hour of their need, and make a donation, however humble, to ActionAid.

In regard to Hannah, she has the potential to strengthen into a Hurricane and head up the East Coast. If she does, she could make landfall anywhere from Florida to the Carolinas.

Meanwhile the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stormtracker map shows two other tropical storms, Ike and Josephine, in the Atlantic and headed west toward the Caribbean.

It’s clear from all His parables, and from everything He said, that Jesus was telling us this crucial message:

[Read more →]

It’s hurricane season and time for hurricane prayers. I feel neglectful for not posting hurricane prayers earlier because God does listen and respond to our deepest needs and beliefs.

Nearly two million people fled the Louisiana coast and New Orleans and the Red Cross, as usual, has dispensed essential aid. Hurricane Gustav just brushed New Orleans on Monday and the levees held.

It’s reported that there is no power and people are returning to “a hot, dark city.” Now the clean up begins. The Red Cross will continue to provide shelter, food, water, and comfort on our behalf for our countrymen and women.

So, even if times are tough for you, consider making even a $5 or $10 contribution to help the Red Cross help those in need because, to paraphrase Jesus, whatever you do to the least of us, you do to Him.

Hurricane season started in June and we have been so fortunate to see as little activity as we have. Now that it has picked up, let’s make prayer for those on our coasts part of our daily reverence. This is the first of the Hurricane Prayers I intend to post: [Read more →]

Today, almost a billion people are slowly starving to death. They just don’t get enough food. Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of starvation. An additional two billion people live on under $3 per day. In the United States, one out of every eight children under the age of twelve goes to bed hungry at night.

Don’t you think that, together, we can do better than that?

Then check out the One Campaign to end global poverty. Here’s One’s latest 30-second commercial which illustrates so well that when it comes to the need for ending poverty, it takes all of us, working together, to get the message out.

“I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality.” 2 Corinthians 12: 10

Dear God,

Help me perform whatever miracles you want of me today.
Help me tap into Your truth:
What I do to my brother I do to myself.

Make me fearless in my faith
So I can share what I have with others
In true joy.

In You there is no hunger
And no starvation.

May I act as Your Hands
And help distribute Your Plenty to all.

Amen.

Imagine a sign that says Unforgiveness: Only $40.

Would you buy it?

Of course not!

However, those who sell unforgiveness always call it something else, something we don’t recognize as unforgiveness, like the “service” of sending an “I told you so” e-mail to the recipients of your choice after the end of the world.

(I found mention of this here:  I Didn’t Make This Up.) [Read more →]