Jesus Camp Saturday, September 30, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Jesus.1 comment so far
I’m not even sure how to say something nice, so I won’t say anything at all……
Oxfam Katrina Video Friday, September 29, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Jesus, Poverty Sucks.add a comment
Check out this highly emotional video released by Oxfam about the neglect of Katrina victims in New Orleans and Biloxi. It is a beautiful thing to see the dedication of the marginalized in the face of such a national tragedy. It is also great to see so many communities of faith rallying behind the victims of such a devastating storm, but alas, we need more. Pray for the area, especially for the children affected. We still need more laborers who recognize the Gospel’s preferential option for the poor….
Dubya to Lauer: In Your Face Sunday, September 17, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, Saving Democracy, The Administration, W.2 comments
Is it just me, or is nearly every speech coming out of this Administration these days venemous, fear-inducing, and intimidating? I can’t believe this man is our Commander in Chief – maybe that bumper sticker is true that says ‘A Village in Texas Has Lost Its Idiot’ – or perhaps the other one I saw recently that reads ‘Vote Republican: It’s Easier Than Thinking’. Anybody coming to vote this November better think hard about supporting the crazy conservative ideas that are coming from Washington these days. As much as I disagree with many of his ideas, thank goodness John McCain and others are standing up against W’s attempt to distort the Geneva Conventions. The following are videos of a live interview with Bush and Matt Lauer from last Friday, followed by Jon Stewart’s classic response (sorry for the A/V time delays – can’t do much about those). Let’s pray for a nicer, less militaristic president in ‘08…..damn, we still have two more years???
Darfur Activism A La George Clooney Saturday, September 16, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, International Politics.2 comments
Whatever you believe about his politics, George Clooney has done more than most of us to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Granted, a number of us were canvasing Tenaya dorm bulletin boards in the Muir Dorms at UCSD our freshman year about the outbreak of violence on various fronts in Sudan (watch for news coming out of the eastern part of the country that the American news media has conveniently neglected – and the possibility of an unprecedented three concurrent genocides, against three separate affected groups, in three separate regions of the same nation.) – however Mr. Clooney is embodying what it looks like to ‘redistribute yourself’ in the paraphrased language of that amazing passage found in Isaiah 58 (esp. vs. 10).
Now if only we all had the courage to speak up for the defenseless, particularly those who are being slaughtered as we sit back and brandish Hezbollah, Iran, and the nebulous “Middle East” as terrorists and ‘enemies’ – how many inhabitants of Darfur need to perish before we as the West take concerted action to cease overt genocide? If the Darfurians were Christians instead of Muslims, would this Church, this Administration, the UN, and anybody who can think their way out of a paper bag (a number which is sadly decreasing in our country in our fear-saturated culture these days) let these atrocities continue?
Anybody want to go to Sudan next summer???
And check out his 3-part interview on Anderson Cooper 360, below:
Give the Commie a Break, You….Commies! Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Uncategorized.add a comment
The BBC is reporting this article in which the Communist Party of India (Marxist), also known as the CPI(M), will not let 93-year-old Jyoti Basu retire from the Party activism until a gathering of the Party members in 2008.
Now, I’m not a huge fan of retirement myself, for entirely different reasons, but c’mon – give the man a break! Give him a beer, too! He deserves it – he’s 93 and still fighting for your cause, hold him high in the esteem of your Party and search for a newer base.
Having walked various streets in India, particularly in the rural areas, it is interesting to see how CPI(M) finds its presence all over. You certainly don’t need one 93 year old guy to hold your party together when you have tens of millions of impoverished masses in the largest democracy in the world who live on less than $2 a day. You need a grassroots revolution of young people filled with the Spirit of Jesus and a heart for the justice of the Kingdom of God to sweep through your nation…..perhaps someday….
Interesting Bush Speech Critique Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, Saving Democracy, The Administration, W.add a comment
Keith Olbermann intrigues me afresh with his interesting critique of W’s 5 year anniversary of 9/11 speech Monday night. Rather than attack the subtle militarism that pervaded the speech from the Oval Office, or to fully dismantle the rhetoric that spews political spin of 9/11 from the White House for political gain, Olbermann asks as he reports live in front of the crater of the Twin Towers, “Look into this empty space behind me, and the bipartisanship upon which this Administration also did not build, and tell me this, ‘Who has left this hole in the ground?’ We have not forgotten, Mr. President, you have. May this country forgive you.”
An interesting critique indeed – certainly not unpatriotic or un-American, as this Administration simultaneously brandishes the detractors of it’s concurrent wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in the nebulous ‘War on Terror’ as sufferers of ‘moral and intellectual confusion’ (see Rumsfeld-Fascism post) while also proclaiming the greatness of our ‘freedoms,’ and still simultaneously taking credit for both the presence of those freedoms and their being spread across the globe in a form of intellectual neo-colonialism wrapped inside a bacon-flavored ribbon of supply-side economic globalization and ‘free’ market exploitation.
Evidently we’re allowed to listen to rhetoric about how ‘great’ our freedoms are (even when they come at the cost of foreign lives and the economic and political stability sovereign nations), yet we’re unable to actualize and apply said freedoms to everyday life in America, even as the President politicizes the most tragic event to occur on US soil for his party’s own foreign and domestic agenda and political gain.
May the words of Jesus echo solemnly in our souls this week….’Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you’….simultaneously with ‘forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do;’ though in this case it appears from the recent speeches of the past week and a half that the ‘transient occupiers of the Oval Office,’ to quote Keith from a previous post, know precisely what they are attempting to do…
Stay tuned for my response to the ‘comments’ sections from previous posts about my views on the reality, legitimacy, and alleged necessity of the military and armed forces in our nation. I value the comments posted, I’m just a little swamped with my actual life, and so I’m purposely diminishing my blogging life to sporadic bursts of quasi-necessary views and updates strategically positioned to follow major addresses and events surrounding blindingly patriotic phenomena in this country.
CIA-Iraq (Un)Intelligence Sunday, September 10, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in International Politics, Saving Democracy, W.1 comment so far
The New York Times is currently running this article confirming afresh the lack of intelligence connecting Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, which was a major justification for the US’s unilateral actions in invading the sovereign nation of Iraq.
This is interesting on many levels, but most importantly, for seeking the true process this Administration took to draw this nation into a (now civil) war. The article has a number of notable paragraphs, as follows:
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“The report about the group’s role concluded that faulty intelligence from the group made its way into several prewar intelligence reports, including the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that directly preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war. It says that sources introduced to American intelligence by the group directly influenced two key judgments of that document: that Mr. Hussein possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program.”
“As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.
The C.I.A. report also contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case for going to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.
The panel concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’
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Thus, the previously cited video must be re-posted here for those who may have so conveniently forgotten:
Funny to see that Hussein and Al Qaeda were actually opponents until America entered the fray and blew the country to hell. Also interesting to see Colin Powell and others as pawns in the system….used to have respect for that man….
We shall see tomorrow evening whether Mr. Bush continues to manipulate the American populace, along with his attempt to manipulate the rest of the world into believing his reasons for going into Iraq to fight the ‘War on Terror’ were just, accurate, and necessary. Be prepared to get threatened with fear afresh, America. It’s coming…tomorrow night. Just make sure you cover your bases as you think hard about the last 5 years, the role we’ve played in the world, and how our actions have further perpetuated a cycle of violence worldwide rather than eradicating the real threats and breeding grounds for terrorist threats worldwide.
O’Reilly Exposed Monday, September 4, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in International Politics, Local Interest, Saving Democracy.add a comment
I was unable to post the following video into the ‘comments’ section of the previous post (I should have known, but I’m not the most technologically savvy individual I know), so it will appear here. There have been incorrect allegations of Olbermann’s use of “the Holocaust” (however there have been numerous instances of conflict between Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly over the last few years, including the use of a ’seig heil’ by Olbermann with a cheesy mask of O’Reilly in front of him.), to which I attempted to post the following video of Olbermann both exposing O’Reilly and simultaneously defending American troops in WWII and subsequently denouncing Nazi war crimes and their exploitation and misrepresentation on O’Reilly’s program.
Rumsfeld Follow-Up, Olbermann Style Sunday, September 3, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Fighting Tyranny, International Politics, Saving Democracy, The Administration.6 comments
After my Rumsfeld-fascism post from last week, I had to post this follow up.
The transcript of Mr. Rumsfeld’s militaristic speech to the American Legion can be found here.
I especially love his question:
“And can we really afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, but America, is the source of the world’s troubles?”
Um, Secretary Rumsfeld, destructive? C’mon That view is called Democracy in action, freedom of speech and expression, and those funny things we dissenters like to call logic and evidence.
Followed shortly thereafter by his reference to detractors of the Iraq war (that invasion of a sovereign nation state in the attempt to find either: a) weapons of mass destruction or b) links between Iraq and Al Qaeda – the invasion found neither):
“And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere. “
Funny – the ‘pro-life’ party that’s fine with slaughtering civilians in Arab lands is worried about ‘moral and intellectual confusion’ when dissenters press for a prospective timetable of troop withdrawal??? I’m not sure it’s the dissenters who are confused. We just value a larger aperture of being ‘pro-life’ while you, Mr. Rumsfeld, as well as this Administration, are not pro-life, you’re simply anti-abortion, and there’s a huge difference between the two.
Just a note – the American troop death toll is approaching the total number of Americans who perished in the 9/11 attacks…..is anybody else paying attention to these numbers???
Mr. Rumsfeld, did you happen to note the more accurate definition of fascism provided earlier? Sound familiar? The first sentence chronicles what you and this administration espouse on a daily basis both at home and abroad. See prior ‘Rumsfeld’ post.
And to cap it off, perhaps one of the best pieces of journalistic dissent since Edward Murrow stood up to right-wing Senator Joseph McCarthy during the latter’s fanatical attempt to purge this nation of Communism five decades ago.
The following is Keith Olbermann’s rebuttal to Rumsfeld’s speech – yes, that’s right, the former host of the ‘Big Show’ with Dan Patrick on Sportscenter takes our Secretary of Defense to school….on that bastion of liberal cable news activism, MSNBC.
Thank goodness high profile folks are speaking out in dissent against this increasingly authoritarian regime known as the Bush Administration. We are all better off because of it. Like Olbermann contends, dissent is the first line of defense against tyranny. And I’ll join him in resisting neo-conservative tyranny any day. Thanks, Keith.
Community College Students Still Struggling to Attain Success in the Classroom Saturday, September 2, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Uncategorized.add a comment
The New York Times is running this article about the challenges currently facing community college students in America…another reminder to me of the importance of investing in the lives of the underserved and the underprivileged in our respective societies.
