I wish more people realized that racism isn’t necessarily disliking people of color. It is stereotyping human beings. It is seeing superficial traits as essential. Racism is looking at other types of people as though your own group is the template for humankind, and other types of people are inferior versions of yourself. Racism is not realizing that the whole idea of “race” is a construct, and almost always carries with it misunderstanding.
To read article, click here.
The word “university” was once linked with the word of “universal”. The purpose of a university, at least in my romantic mind, was to lift minds above cultures, religions or economies and help us master the virtues of our universal humanity. Obviously, some things have changed.
To read the truthout article click here
This is an interesting article from Mother Jones asking why Ron Paul is so popular among military political donors. While I believe libertarian solutions are the last thing this nation needs, the article is a reminder that people aren’t really “supporting the troops” when we refuse to question the causes for with they are sent to kill and die. No one hates war like an old soldier. As one vet put it, “We veterans know about the mistakes that previous presidents have made, and we don’t want to repeat them,” Diliberto said of young vets who are loyal to Paul. “We need to change what we do.”
To read, click here
It’s only a civil trial, but at least British Petroleum will face some kind of consequences for the oil spill, beyond half-hearted efforts to just clean up their mess. But whatever happens in this trial will not be enough. When cost cutting decisions cost lives, and this kind of devastation, it is time to move to the criminal courts. If the Department of Justice does not get serious about the crimes of the rich
, paying for worker deaths and toxic spills will just be a cost of doing business.
To read, click here
Most Christians are taught a view of theology that has no ethical implications at all. To be sure, people are taught ethics and morals, but their theology as such is amoral. In that view, the life of Jesus is a story about magic tricks. A man is born of a virgin, performs a lifetime of miracles, dies, and then, gets up from his grave. If you believe the story, you’re saved, if you don’t you’re damned. In this version of Christianity it is possible to love God, but remain indifferent to the global struggle for human rights. I want to say, that’s bad religion and makes for a bad human beings. When we study the life of Jesus, there are clear ethical implications from the day Jesus says he has come to announce good news for the poor, to the end of the story when he tells Peter he can only love Jesus by caring for other human beings. Jesus lived before Christianity. When he spoke he was not referring to any of the creeds, rituals or rules that were the later inventions of the church. Jesus did not come to teach us Christianity, he came to teach us how to love.
It is a great mistake to accept or reject religion at face value. The symbols of religion often reveal depths of the life process that we do not live long enough to experience, but whose truth is written in the intuitions of our animal bodies. Many symbols show up all over the world not because they are true at the level of the story, but because they raise to consciousness the deep intuitions that we are apart of a larger life. The following article in Science
Daily is on the life of the flock, but it is also true of humans. We are part of a larger life that we do not live long enough to experience, but of which we are always be a part.
To read, click here
Toward the end of the Roman Empire, war was the only way Romans could keep up their level of consumption. It’s probably the same with most empires, particularly as they die. Easy access to cheap resources requires crushing anyone who might block that supply with needs of their own. It is part of the role of any Emperor or President of an empire to distract the people from what is really happening by casting our aggression into a defense of the homeland, and their resistance into a threat to our very existence.
Beautiful photos of a people trying to do more than just survive.
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Finally! This is how you do it. This time the President didn’t trade off the vulnerable to “get a deal done.” Texas will lose federal funds, but people will know who to blame. As the Republicans say, you can’t reason with terrorists. So when they themselves assault women, or the poor, or immigrants, the President needs to stand firm like this every time. And the women of Texas need to turn out in mass to get rid of these hillbillies in the Texas legislature once and for all. No one should be allowed to even enter the capital who has 
not learned this lesson, “Don’t mess with Texas women.”
To read, click here
