Apostasy is on the rise as the man made fictions behind religiosity meet their demise.

A melding of spirit and science begins in the minds of the wise.

Indeed Saira!

The Wisdom of Zinn continues all:

http://[DELINKER]www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/24/1442258

Peace

“The purpose of the separation of Church and State is to keep forever from these shores, the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”...James Madison

Oops..we kind of fell down on that one, didn't we?

Empyrius n- great link. Everyone should read it. But for thise who don't here's some important quotes from Howard Zinn in the article (sorry, it makes a long post):

“Very often that’s a feeling I get when I wake up in the morning. I think, “I’m living in an occupied country. A small group of aliens have taken over the country and are trying to do with it what they will, you know, and really are.”
They’ve taken over the country. They’ve taken over the policy. They’ve driven us into two disastrous wars, disastrous for our country and even more disastrous for people in the Middle East. And they have sucked up the wealth of this country and given it to the rich, and given it to the multinationals, given it to Halliburton, given it to the makers of weapons. They’re ruining the environment. And they’re holding on to 10,000 nuclear weapons, while they want us to worry about the fact that Iran may, in ten years, get one nuclear weapon. You see, really, how mad can you be?

And the question is, how has this been allowed to happen? How have they gotten away with it? "

And Göring [second in command to Hitler, head of the Luftwaffe] said, “... The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country.”

I was interested in that last line: “It works the same way in any country.”

When you know history, you know that governments lie, as I.F. Stone said. Governments lie all the time. Well, not just the American government. It’s just in the nature of governments. Well, they have to lie. I mean, governments in general do not represent the people of the societies that they govern. And since they don’t represent the people and since they act against the interest of the people, the only way they can hold power is if they lie to the people.

Eugene Debs said in a speech during World War I, which landed him in jail, “The master class has always started the wars. The working class has always fought the wars.” And, of course, that has been true all the way.

"...the people who die in wars are more and more and more people who are not in the military. You may know this about the different ratio of civilian-to-military deaths in war, how in World War I, ten military dead for one civilian dead; in World War II, it was 50-50, half military, half civilian; in Vietnam, it was 70% civilian and 30% military; and in the wars since then, it’s 80% and 85% civilian."

I became friends a few years ago with an Italian war surgeon named Gino Strada. He spent ten years, fifteen years doing surgery on war victims all over the world. And he wrote a book about it, Green Parrots: Diary of a War Surgeon. He said in all the patients that he operated on in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere, 85% of them were civilians, one-third of them, children. If you understand, and if people understand, and if you spread the word of this understanding, that whatever is told to you about war and how we must go to war, and whatever the threat is or whatever the goal is -- a democracy or liberty -- it will always be a war against children. They’re the ones who will die in large numbers.

So, war -- well, Einstein said this after World War I. He said, “War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished.”

Aye Yogi; the Zinn master rules!

And here is an interesting piece by Karen Kwiatkowski: http://[DELINKER]www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski167.html

And my boy Chuck Hagel seems to finally be coming around: http://[DELINKER]www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401104_pf.html

And how does a warmongering criminal like Elliot Abrams continue to stay within the most powerful governmental positions? http://[DELINKER]www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15896208/site/newsweek/

Power, privilege, religious 'righteousness,' and the greed of the rich, shall indeed prove fatal for millions upon millions of us 'little people' in the years to come . . .

Peace

Göring says, "The people can always be brought to [do] the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. It works the same way in any country."

Yes, I found this statement to be very creepy too Yogi: very creepy . . .

Peace

Very creepy indeed it seems because it is possible

to pacify the pacifists intellectually causing them

to sing a different tune, march to a different drummer

and change horses in the middle of a stream...

very creepy is absolute conviction gone suddenly awry.

Maybe "what they do" is working here after all...

Saira,

Great post.

The U.S. has fallen mightily from the original thoughts that gave birth to her. The country was based on the idea that the role of government was to increase liberty. Sadly, we have decided that the role of government is to babysit its citizens (both financially and morally) from cradle to grave; we've embraced the idea that this is a "Christian" country rather than a country with a majority of Christians (a huge difference); and most dangerously we've decided that the Constitution is a "living document", a document defined by "what's popular", rather than what's important. Of course "the living document" idea ensures that the Constitution is not worth the paper it's written on.

Peace,
Scott.

Thank you Saira for reminding us of the thread of wisdom passed through time.....it gives the little people hope.

Peace must come from Peace..........

You are one cool chick, saira!
with your threads,

Their should be more like you, around,

anyhow,
Here's my contribution,
Maybe it's an imigrant thing,

You leave your homecountry with your family,
their believes, conditioning, thinking of..
and in the meanwhile, the 'old country' has evolved more, than the new, euh read old..paradigms..

or was it the other way around..
the ocean..

Somebody feeling, my thought?
and,
extremists, fundamentalists, fairytales of, a memory of..

;)
Love, Passion,

Theology is the science of the divine lie
-- Mikhail Bakunin

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.
-- Mikhail Bakunin

Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.
-- Walter Bagehot

I can't understand a word of what Arianna Huffington says; sounds Greek to me.

Har har har

Jimmy Carter knows what is going on!
http://[DELINKER]www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/28/jimmy-carter-iraq-invas_n_35097.html

Ya'all hear that Newt Gingrich! I am telling you 'guys,' if you put fear in the masses, anything can happen. Just like right now how Americans are so scared of Muslim 'extremists,' and their desire to make the whole world Islamic, I can just imagine it was much the same thing the NAZI government of Germany was telling the German people about the Jews . . .

When has not the American government been at war against somebody, some ethnic group, nation, or geographical hemisphere--WHEN?

Scary!

Peace

Time for some good old Pragerisms folks (O Amba)!

Keith Ellison should not be allowed to take his oath of office on the Qu'ran "not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization."

Undermines American civilization huh! In a nation founded upon the separation of church and state, the very fact a person swears an oath upon any book, is contrary to the very U.S. Constitution. Period!

Prager goes on, "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible."

This is anything but separation of church and state people, this is explicitly stating that the ethos of Christianity is the state.

And then consider . . .

H.J. Res. 104/Public Law 102-14

To designate March 26, 1991, as `Education Day, U.S.A.'.

Source: Library of Congress

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One Hundred Second Congress of the United States of America

AT THE FIRST SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Thursday, the third day of January,

one thousand nine hundred and ninety-one

Joint Resolution

To designate March 26, 1991, as `Education Day, U.S.A.'.

Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded;

Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws;

Whereas without these ethical values and principles the edifice of civilization stands in serious peril of returning to chaos;

Whereas society is profoundly concerned with the recent weakening of these principles that has resulted in crises that beleaguer and threaten the fabric of civilized society;

Whereas the justified preoccupation with these crises must not let the citizens of this Nation lose sight of their responsibility to transmit these historical ethical values from our distinguished past to the generations of the future;

Whereas the Lubavitch movement has fostered and promoted these ethical values and principles throughout the world;

Whereas Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitch movement, is universally respected and revered and his eighty-ninth birthday falls on March 26, 1991;

Whereas in tribute to this great spiritual leader, `the rebbe', this, his ninetieth year will be seen as one of `education and giving', the year in which we turn to education and charity to return the world to the moral and ethical values contained in the Seven Noahide Laws; and

Whereas this will be reflected in an international scroll of honor signed by the President of the United States and other heads of state: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That March 26, 1991, the start of the ninetieth year of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, leader of the worldwide Lubavitch movement, is designated as `Education Day, U.S.A.'. The President is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAJOR ACTIONS: 1/31/1991 Introduced/originated in House
3/5/1991 Committee on Post Office and Civil Service discharged.
3/5/1991 Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed without objection.
3/7/1991 Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate without amendment and with a preamble by Voice Vote.
3/20/1991 Signed by President.
3/20/1991 Became Public Law No: 102-14.
http://[DELINKER]www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/7laws.html

Yeah . . .

"Without these ethical values and principles the edifice of civilization stands in serious peril of returning to chaos."

Now if that is not alarmist terminology I don't know what is . . .

1. You shall practice equity, establish and promote justice
2. You shall not commit Idolatry
3. You shall not commit Blasphemy
4. You shall not commit Sexual Immorality
5. You shall not commit Murder
6. You shall not commit Theft
7. You shall not eat the limb torn from a live animal. Flesh with the life of it, the blood of it, you shall not eat.

Since capitalism is idolatry we are not doing too good now are we; and exactly who has all of the money anyway . . .

Economics and greed and we still haven't learned . . .

Peace

Oops. Here is the Prager link too:

http://[DELINKER]www.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2006/11/28/america,_not_keith_ellison,_decides_what_book_a_congressman_takes_his_oath_on

Peace