Government
News Items You May Have Missed
Citizens United at 13
This year marks the thirteenth anniversary of Citizens United. This decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ended a century of restrictions on donations to political candidates. It allowed, corporations, other groups, and individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. The only limitation was they couldn't coordinate directly with a candidate's campaign. The result was an avalanche of $4.5 billion dollars in the decade following the 2010 decision to buy elections. Most of this money was donated by a few super wealthy individuals....
THE COMMUNITY CHURCH OF BOSTON
On June 10, 1963, President John Kennedy gave the commencement speech at the American University in Washington D.C. Titled “A Strategy of Peace,” it is considered one of the greatest speeches in modern history. It was given after Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had, through negotiations, resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis, and not long before Kennedy was assassinated.
The Community Church of Boston, in conjunction with the JFK Peace Speech Committee, has been doing a series of videos centering around Kennedy’s speech and how it applies to international ...
Ignoring the Lessons of Past Mistakes
Wars are a sink hole for tax dollars. This is well known and one would think Congress would take steps to prevent waste, fraud and corruption with spending on Ukraine. But this is not the case. In July, Senate Democrats blocked creating an inspector general to oversee spending for the war in Ukraine.
Congress has so far authorized $113 billion in spending for Ukraine. John Sopko, the former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, says “If that much money is coming in, you know some of it is going to be stolen...” Even more of it is going to be wasted ...
Rights of Nature
Since we kicked off the Rights of Nature Wisconsin effort in late 2022, we have made some significant progress. When you join the call (link below), you can see our video, the website and other materials, hear about local resolutions and more. More importantly, you will learn what comes next and how we can all be part of building this movement and restoring our proper relationship with the natural world.
What exactly is Rights of Nature?
We envision a world where the inherent rights of nature are respected and protected, and where the natural world is ...
DEAR LEGISLATORS – SEPTEMBER 4, 2023
Dear Legislators,
Please, for your own wellbeing, but more importantly for the wellbeing of your children, your grandchildren, and for all Earth’s children, spare two minutes to watch the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX3aAnGwmLo
https://youtu.be/YX3aAnGwmLo?si=5hW0fHP_3gV9Amlw
Dear Legislators, let us repeat the closing words of the video taken from the book The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism by Professor Barry Sanders:
“Here’s the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory ...
Danny Haiphong
https://youtu.be/AS44mvuo7Ow?feature=shared
Propaganda
WHAT WE BELIEVE
George Orwell, author of the novel “1984,” is often quoted about the use of language to control societies and nations. His statements seem contemporary:
“The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.”
“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”
“If he were allowed contact with foreigners, he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about ...
Freedom in Autocracy and Democracy
In America, some of us have mistaken autocratic government as freedom. Conservative societies know that true freedom is possible only in well-regulated societies where democratically enacted laws and legal procedures outline acceptable behavior. Without laws that regulate the limits of behavior, societies are at the mercy of the powerful. In extreme dictatorships of the right, or left, autocratic “laws” dictate the lifestyle of their subjects. In autocratic systems, a demagogic leader convinces his followers that they can express their individual freedom by joining his ...
Don’t Tread on Me….Big Business!
Down the road whereon our home sits a neighbor flies the flag with a coiled rattlesnake and the words Don't tread on me written above it. I'm sure you've seen one like it. This is a flag with a history reaching to the mid eighteenth century. Back then the original colonies were pretty loosely connected and were facing off against the French and their Native American allies in what historians call the French and Indian War.
My neighbor's flag evolved from a political cartoon image that Benjamin Franklin first published in 1754. It depicted a snake chopped up into ...
THE HUMAN JOURNEY
Historically, two of the strongest indicators that a dominant "empire" is irreversibly in decline, are the financialization of its economy (manipulating money to make money - effectively parasitism) and excessive militarism (to defend and spread its parasitism). The US now exhibits these indicators in spades. Our nation, the United States, follows the path of previous great powers exiting the stage.
But again, speaking historically, the equation is different this time around. Humanity, for the first time, faces two great threats to our actual ongoing presence on Earth ...