Saturday, May 9, 2015
Mother's Day for Peace
Embedded below, or watch it HERE.
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Saturday, February 21, 2015
The Kind Of Missionary The World Most Desperately Needs
The Kind Of Missionary The World Most Desperately Needs
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Is it ever moral to desert?
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| The photo that started it all. |
We may never know the entire truth about this particular case (Sgt Bowe Bergdahl). The real issue it whether it's moral/just/right for someone to desert (break a contract) when they discover they have been lied to and are merely pawns/cannon fodder for the multi-national corporate interests/global elite. When they discover their mission is protecting poppy fields or territory for oil pipelines or rich mining resources. Or toppling a leader so a more “favorable one” (to US interests) can be installed.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe, 1870
This Mother's Day, we honor all mothers affected by war, in particular those who have suffered the ultimate loss of a child from war. These days, we must count the losses of our soldiers killed in action, but also those who die by their own hands both on and off the battelfield, as military suicides now exceed the number of combat deaths.
This year, Brave New Foundation is remembering and honoring the origins of Mother's Day in this short online video (HERE). Through the power of compassion and womanhood, we hope to work towards peace.
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Mother's Day Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe, 1870
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
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In Solidarity,
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Afghanistan Veterans Against the War Committee
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Gulf War Syndrome
After the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of U.S. veterans suffered toxic reactions, neurological damage, and rare cancers due to exposure to 2,4,5,-D and 2,4,5-T dioxin that was used in the form of the defoliant Agent Orange. Unfortunately, the U.S. military denied the problem and failed to heed any of the lessons of this chemical butchery. Instead, it expanded its harmful legacy to the current generation of soldiers and civilians exposed to new, more deadly chemical toxins in the Persian Gulf.
Join accomplished filmmaker Gary Null, PhD, as he explores the real truth about Gulf War Syndrome and the secrets about chemical and germ warfare that the U.S. government is hiding from its veterans and the public. Dr. Null uncovers the hidden truths about Gulf War Syndrome, including the deadly and toxic effects of armor-piercing radioactive depleted uranium, the use of experimental and risky vaccines on over 1,100,000 U.S. troops, and the indescribable chemical contamination and environmental devastation that the military caused during the Persian Gulf Wars.
In this film, Dr. Null relies on compelling testimony from eyewitnesses who served in the military, leading doctors and scientists who specialize in chemical exposure, and those veterans still suffering from the effects of their tours of duty.Monday, March 12, 2012
A guest post (2)
~Debbie
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Have you ever thought much about the Japanese Internment (Concentration) Camps?
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution:"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws..."
We just threw that out the window, the government had no respect of persons. Some will try to tell you that "we did it for their own safety" - but that's just not true. If it were true, things would have been done a lot differently.
Japanese Americans video part 1
(Look around on YouTube, there's lots more...)
This photo was taken by Dorothea Lange, (found here) "...Through her work with farm families and migrant workers during the Great Depression, photographer Dorothea Lange was familiar with images of displacement. But, when she was hired by the War Relocation Authority to document life in Japanese neighborhoods, processing centers, and camp facilities, the racial and civil rights issues added a new dimension. “What was horrifying was to do this thing completely on the basis of what blood may be coursing through a person’s veins, nothing else. Nothing to do with your affiliations or friendships or associations. Just blood,” Lange said. As the Library of Congress wrote, “Lange quickly found herself at odds with her employer and her subjects’ persecutors, the United States Government.”..."
10 min. Documentary:Photo Title: "Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at 13th and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war."
Or so they said...did you know that we shot people who got "too close to the fence"? And after the war was over, we did not necessarily send/take people home again- we shipped some of them to strange foreign countries. (The "Institute of Texan Cultures" in San Antonino, Texas has a really good section about this very topic. It is a great (& large) museum, you should go if you are in the area.) ...I wonder if this family did get to go back...?
"...what corporate media tends to omit is that the U.S. fought that war against racism with a segregated army. It fought the war to end atrocities by participating in the shooting of surrendering soldiers, the starvation of POWs, the deliberate bombing of civilians, wiping out hospitals, strafing lifeboats... And Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the leader of this anti-racist, anti-atrocity force, signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, interning over 100,000 Japanese-Americans without due process. Thus, in the name of taking on the architects of German prison camps he became the architect of American prison camps...." (source)
I pray that our nation will wake up, and never make that mistake again. Fred Korematsu was a young man of 23, who tried to stand up for his rights....
A message from Mr. Korematsu's daughter:
(A film by Eric Fournier. The award-winning documentary that tells the story of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American man who resisted internment, eventually facing (and losing in) the Supreme Court. For more information about Fred Korematsu and his struggle for civil rights, see http://korematsuinstitute.org)
On June 12, 1942 Korematsu had his trial date and was given $5,000 bail (that comes to $71,120.16 today). Can you believe that?!? Click here to read Fred's full bio.First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
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And I say, what are you going to do if they (or your own government) come for your neighbors?
Who did Jesus say are our neighbors?
We are ALL neighbors....the Indians, Africans, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Mexicans, North & South Koreans, Germans, Oklahomans & Texans, People from Lone Oak & Campbell...and the list goes on...never, never ending...
People say we are a "Christian nation", but do we behave like one?
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Adrienne McKee (my blog can be found here)
Monday, March 5, 2012
A guest post
~Debbie
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This is the first article that I read on the subject, 5 or so years ago. If you look at nothing else here, please read it! click here (I don't remember how I knew about the marchers in the first place.)
Click here to watch a short "talky" News Reel with an interview blip from an eye witness reporter.
This next one is a collection of photos set to Al Jolson's "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"
embedded video:
"Bonus Marchers" and police battle in Washington, DC. By an unknown Associated Press photographer, July 1932
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer
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Please go "Google"/search or YouTube Bonus Marchers or Bonus Army. (did you know in 2009 there were 106,558 homeless veterans? click here for charts or here for an article Just imagine how many more there are today, as the US economy so much worse now. Sad- really sad.
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Can you really blame these men for making their voices heard? Can you imagine the despair they felt? In 2010 alone, 950 solders/veterans tried to commit suicide per-month, and 18 a day actually are "successful".
I quote from an ArmyTimes article: "Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department. Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and 11 percent of those who don’t succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months. The numbers, which come at a time when VA is strengthening its suicide prevention programs, show about 18 veteran suicides a day, about five by veterans who are receiving VA care...the VA’s suicide hotline has been receiving about 10,000 calls a month from current and former service members..." click here for the rest of the story....
George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower or President Hoover.
~Adrienne McKee (my blog can be found here)
PS: Thank you Mom for helping me research my data! Love you!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Judge Andrew Napolitano - 1
It's too bad that FOX took the Judge off the air, but I must say I am not surprised.I am more surprised that they let him stay on for so long...
Judge Andrew Napolitano: What if Both Parties are the Same?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Protect our Liberty

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
US Supreme Court Judge
Source: Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States,
277 US 479 (1928)
To see comments on this quote, please visit:
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/
To read a bit about him:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Louis_Brandeis
Monday, September 5, 2011
Tyrannical Power is Absolute.....

"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would
be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to
prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in
perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice,
provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a
government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only
arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and
supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their
principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property,
and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care
of thinking and all the trouble of living?"
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
[Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel, le Comte de Tocqueville] (1805-1859) French historian
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/
Thursday, August 25, 2011
When Martin Luther King Reached the Point of No Return

shorter version here
original post here
By John W. Whitehead
8/25/2011
"I have begun the struggle and I can't turn back. I have reached the point of no return."--Martin Luther King Jr.The official dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial is scheduled to take place on Sunday, August 28th, the 48th anniversary of King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. If anyone deserves a national monument in his honor, it would certainly be Martin Luther King Jr., a man who inspired countless Americans, including myself, to take a stand against injustice.
King was an amazing individual: courageous, passionate about freedom, willing to tackle large-scale issues (such as materialism, militarism and the Vietnam War), and relentless in his pursuit of justice--he stood his ground, even in the face of death threats and opposition from friends and associates. A warrior and a visionary, King saw first-hand what tyranny looked like and worked tirelessly to oppose it. As King observed, "The universe is on the side of justice."
King's journey to the "mountaintop," as he put it, began with a boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. City officials had done everything possible to stem the boycott of their segregated bus system by the black citizens of Montgomery. Inevitably, the city resorted to what had always worked in the past: the use of police power.
The date was January 26, 1956. It was in the afternoon, and the young minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was on his way home with two fellow church members. The acknowledged leader of the highly controversial boycott, he was put on notice to follow the traffic laws meticulously. There was no reason to make himself an easy target for arrest. But, as fate would have it, the police targeted the young minister, and he was arrested: "Get out King; you are under arrest for speeding thirty miles an hour in a twenty-five mile zone."
Thus began Martin Luther King Jr.'s journey toward jail. The moment of truth, however, had arrived for the young minister. Warned that he could be made to disappear by the authorities, fear began to grip King. As he writes:
As we drove off, presumably to the city jail, a feeling of panic began to come over me. I had always had the impression that the jail was in the downtown section of Montgomery. Yet after riding for a while I noticed that we were going in a different direction. The more we rode the farther we were from the center of town. In a few minutes we turned into a dark and dingy street that I had never seen and headed under a desolate old bridge. By this time I was convinced that these men were carrying me to some faraway spot to dump me off. "But this couldn't be," I said to myself. "These men are officers of the law." Then I began to wonder whether they were driving me out to some waiting mob, planning to use the excuse later on that they had been overpowered. I found myself trembling within and without. Silently, I asked God to give me the strength to endure whatever came.This was at the height of segregation in the American system. It was a time where, when blacks got out of line, at a minimum they faced jail time. Only a month earlier, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, had refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man. This violation of the segregation law brought a swift arrest.
But King by now was the troublemaker. Cut off the head and the movement dies. This King knew. That is why he began to panic as his ride with the police continued:
By this time we were passing under the bridge. I was sure now that I was going to meet my fateful hour on the other side. But as I looked up I noticed a glaring light in the distance, and soon I saw the words "Montgomery City Jail." I was so relieved that it was some time before I realized the irony of my position: going to jail at that moment seemed like going to some safe haven!As the jail doors slammed shut behind King, he felt a strong inner peace: "For the moment strange gusts of emotion swept through me like cold winds on an open prairie. For the first time in my life I had been thrown behind bars."
Soon King's bail was posted and King was free to leave. But King's rendezvous with jail cells was just beginning. More importantly, the movement that began in Montgomery was moving beyond state borders. A nationwide movement with a capital M was in process. This made King even more of a target.
Several weeks later, King happened to be in Nashville giving a lecture when he learned that he, with others, had been indicted by a grand jury for violating Montgomery's segregation laws. He immediately booked a flight home, stopping over to see his father in Atlanta. Martin Luther King Sr. recognized that a new scenario had developed. The threat was no longer jail time. It was death. "My father, so unafraid for himself," writes King, "had fallen into a constant state of terror for me and my family."
Earlier, King's home in Montgomery had been bombed and the police were watching his every move. After the bombing, King's mother had taken to bed under doctor's orders. King's father brought some of Atlanta's leading citizens into his home to speak with his son about the dangers of returning to Montgomery. But King knew that often courage in the face of tyranny is all that the oppressed have at their disposal. It was time, as King said, to take a stand. As he told those assembled:
My friends and associates are being arrested. It would be the height of cowardice for me to stay away. I would rather be in jail ten years than desert my people now. I have begun the struggle, and I can't turn back. I have reached the point of no return.Upon arrival in Montgomery, King headed for jail to discover that the others indicted with King had the day before surrendered for arrest. "A once fear-ridden people had been transformed. Those who had previously trembled before the law were now proud to be arrested for the cause of freedom."
Against incredible odds, the blacks of Montgomery won the right to be treated equally on the city's buses. Soon, the movement took on amazing proportions which would compel a government that refused to hear their pleas to listen and heed their demands. But not a shot was fired by the blacks of Montgomery. Led by a man who believed in nonviolent resistance to government oppression--a man who believed that governments must listen to and heed our demands, these brave people would soon transform the face of America.
Few suspected that King's voice would be prematurely silenced, but King knew his days were numbered. He knew there was a larger force at work in his life. And that's how he concluded his sermon--the last words he spoke in public:
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.Forty-three years after King's assassination, our nation is still plagued with wars, government surveillance and a military-industrial complex that feeds a national diet of warmongering. And King, once a charismatic leader and voice of authority, has been memorialized in death to such an extent that younger generations recognize his face but miss out on his message. Yet he still speaks volumes to us today.
"Speaking truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act," George Orwell once said. Such was Martin Luther King. They may have killed the man, but his spirit of truth lives on. We would do well to learn from him how to speak truth to power.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
THE GENERAL'S SON
From the end: ".....For those people who do want to associate themselves with Israel and Zionism and drape themselves in the Zionist flag, the flag that has come to represent intolerance, hate, racism, and brutality, they can feel free to do so, but they need to know this, that when the trials begin and the tribunals take their place and the Truth and Reconciliation commission begins its work and they are finally shamed into admitting that they were wrong, they need to remember to go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from the people they so blatantly wronged because they need to realize that we will never forget them and their conscience will never allow them to forget that they supported the killing, they draped themselves in the flag and they mocked the bereaved....the rest of us will move on and.....we will go on to create a democratic secular state in our shared homeland where Muslims, Christians and Jews live as equals......"




