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Truly hateful people are rare, but, then, doesn’t take that many in a nation where the “nice” people refuse to take a stand on behalf of the weak. When the mainstream population considers concern for the plight of the vulnerable to be “political correctness”, it only takes a handful of hateful people to persecute entire minorities.

When long buried hatred comes to the surface it becomes hard to contain. A Jewish boy was beaten and called “dirty Jew” by classmates in Paris. The Jewish school has received hate mail after the murder of three Jewish children, a teacher and three police on March 19th. It is the sacred duty of every religion to challenge the stereotypes it has of people from other faiths. To neglect this duty is to be complicit with this kind of violence.

To read article click here.

The mere claim that one is perfectly objective is a confession of insanity. We human beings are deeply subjective -all of us. To believe that one is fully rational is not only delusional, it is also a precursor to discord. When we do not realize our own subjectivity, we deem the subjectivity of others as a sign of their inferiority.

Ayn Rand’s call to selfishness found many followers, some of whom triggered the disasters of ruthless crony capitalism that now poison every aspect of American life.

As a Christian, I recognize in Ayn Rand’s thought the antithesis of the Sermon of the Mount, but the refusal to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper is not mere failure in religion, it is failure to be human.

To read article on Ayn Rand, click here.

The hate crime against an Iraqi woman has devastated an immigrant community. At first they thought the threatening note was a prank, but she was later discovered in a pool of blood. “At this point, we are not calling it a hate crime,” said Lt. Mark Coit of the El Cajon police. “We haven’t made that determination. We are calling it an isolated incident, because we don’t have any evidence of anything similar going on at this point.”  Apparently, the community must now wait until the police have enough victims to treat it as a hate crime.

To read, click here.

Further evidence that Homer Simpson should run for President. A recent Gallup poll says that slightly more Americans now believe production of energy should be our top priority over environmental protection. This must be how the Dodo went out. So what if we go extinct as long as gas prices are lower?

To see more on poll, click here

Everyone who works on racial issues in the US knows that underneath a thin veneer of civility lies the ancient beast. The beast hides in deadly prisons and in mute history books. The beast does not come out into the direct light, but it breathes in the shadows of our attention waiting until moments like this. This racist cartoon was published in the Daily Texan before being removed. It casts the Treyvon Martin case as an attack by “colored” people upon “white” people. Anyone who believes that the evil of white supremacy is dead in our nation lives in a deep trance. Thanks to reporter Joshunda Saunders for not letting the disturbing story slip by.

To see cartoon and read article, click here.

The life of an activist is one of joy. Even in losing, one is surrounded by beautiful and caring people. Being successful in an oppressive system can give you everything but a living heart.

While it is probably true that we in the US have more freedom than most people who have ever lived, it is also true that those freedoms can be suspended if we actually challenge the power hierarchy. In other words, we are free as long as we stay in our place, but pepper spray, fire hoses and possibly prison await those who actually rock the boat. John Stoehr has written a brief article for Al Jazeera English looking under the mask of freedom in the US. Most of the article focuses on modern examples but he quoted a hero of mine, Eugene Debs:

“In 1918, Debs visited three socialists in jail for dodging the World War I draft. Afterward, he walked across the street to give an impromptu speech that enraptured onlookers for hours. Because of this speech, Debs was eventually found guilty of violating the Espionage Act, a deeply un-American set of laws that are still in effect (in fact, the Obama administration is using the laws against Bradley Manning, who leaked secrets to WikiLeaks). These laws are designed to crush criticism of the state. The irony of Debs’ time may be the irony of ours: “They tell us we live in this great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people,” Debs said to his audience. “That is too much, even for a joke.”

It is important to appreciate the freedoms we have. It is also important to use those freedoms to push back the powers that control our lives. Freedom has to be more than deciding which rich person gets to tell us what to do.

To read article, click here.

Obviously, the President won’t shoot people on the street from the Rose Garden, but exactly what are the legal limitations that keep the executive branch from being judge, jury and executioner? The ACLU is challenging the President through the freedom of information act to find out the legal basis for his policy of targeted killings of civilians without due process. Exactly who and how can a President decide to kill? Seems like a kind of important question. Thank goodness someone is asking it.

To read more, click here.