Phil Zuckerman
Huffington Post

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (The Tea Party and Religion) reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one's money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation's poor -- especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of "socialism," even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training -- anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

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Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

George Katsiaficas is a renowned university professor, sociologist, author and activist. He is a visiting American Professor of Humanities and Sociology at Chonnam National University, Gwangju, South Korea where he teaches and does research on the 1980s and 1990s East Asian uprisings.

Katsiaficas has a Ph.D. of sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Since 1990, he has taught sociology at the Wentworth Institute of Technology's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. During the period between 2006 and 2008, he was an Associate in Research at the Harvard University and Korea Institute.

He specializes in social movements, Asian politics, the U.S. foreign policy, comparative and historical studies and has written numerous books in these fields.

In 2003, he won the American Political Science Association's Special Award for Outstanding Service and in 2008, received the Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Fellowship.

Among his major books are "The Battle of Seattle" by the New York's Soft Skull Press, "Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party" by New York's Routledge Press and "South Korean Democracy: Legacy of the Gwangju Uprising" by London's Routledge Press.

What follows is the complete text of interview with Dr. George Katsiaficas on the recent uprising in the Arab world, its impacts on the international developments and its implications for the United States and its European allies.

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Stephen Lendman

Wisconsin Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach texts on his cell
phone at a downtown Chicago hotel. (M. Spencer Green, AP)

Three weeks and counting since Wisconsin public workers began heroically protesting for rights too important to lose, including collective bargaining without which all others are threatened.

Daily, many thousands braved cold and snow - marching, demonstrating, and sleeping over, sacrificing personal comforts to keep struggling for justice. Teachers, police, firefighters, nurses, maintenance workers, and other public employees were joined by union and nonunion private sector ones, along with doctors, lawyers, other professionals, and thousands of college and high school students from across Wisconsin and other states.

Behind the scenes, however, union bosses and Senate Democrats plan capitulation. Negotiations accomplished nothing, Senator Bob Jauch saying, "In order to kill this bill we could never go home. That's not practical and most people realize it."

They, in fact, "realize" that elected officials are supposed to serve them, governing fairly, what neither party does, serving only wealth and power interests, not their constituents. That's the core issue - partisan politics for the privileged, producing unprecedented wealth inequality both parties conspire to exacerbate.

At the same time, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said:

"Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca said he came away from a meeting with Walker on Thursday with hope that an agreement could be reached. He said Walker was talking to Senate Democrats and understood the two sides needed to come up with a 'win-win' solution to bring them back."

However, neither side knows it's possible so faking it is planned, pretending collective bargaining will be saved when, in fact, returning assures its demise, followed by greater draconian measures without it. Even union bosses agreed to let workers bear the budget balancing burden, not Wisconsin elites and corporate favorites getting handouts, not ultimatums that sacrifices must be shared.

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Ghalib Sultan
Ghalib Sultan's Blog

The arrests of Raymond Allen Davis (RAD), an established CIA operative and US national Mark De Haven from Peshawar have blown the lid off CIA’s clandestine operations in Pakistan. What is shocking is the extent of the massive covert maneuvers, which have been going on for years since the painstakingly laid infrastructure could not have been established in a few weeks’ time. As Pakistan’s security agencies dig deeper, they uncover more dark secrets. It has now become apparent that CIA was working for besides itself, the interests of a number of other foreign powers having hegemonic concerns in Pakistan; some of them openly hostile to Pakistan. If this is not abuse of hospitality then what else is? There is honour even amongst thieves. In the dark and dank world of espionage, enshrouded in secrecy and comprises, there are certain norms and mores, which are upheld. However, it appears that the CIA is totally devoid of any ethical considerations. It is an accepted moral principle of espionage that the host country has the exclusive right of operating at home and external agencies have to coordinate their efforts in consonance with the home government. In this case, the CIA has crossed all limits especially when Pakistan and USA are considered to be allies and ISI and CIA have had the opportunity to work in tandem, first to route the Soviets from Afghanistan and post 9/11 to defeat the Al-Qaeda. However, at some stage CIA’s plans included working to the detriment of Pakistan’s interests too.

Under the garb of diplomats, the US government managed to place intelligence, security and guerrilla warfare experts in its embassies and consulates in Pakistan. These estimated over 3000 operatives have been conducting an internecine warfare within Pakistan. They have managed to infiltrate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda network and create their own Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan) force, which has been recruited, trained and equipped by these CIA operatives to target Pakistan Army personnel, Armed Forces installations, markets, hospitals, schools and public places to destabilize Pakistan. The Soviet Intelligence Agency SVR has disclosed that RAD and his network have provided Al-Qaeda operatives with chemical, nuclear and biological weapons so that installations in the US may be targeted and Pakistan is blamed and pressed to do more of the US’ dirty work like conducting operations in North Waziristan.

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Dennis Avery
CFACT

A new paper affirms the earth’s long, moderate, natural climate cycle. Dr. U.R. Rao, former chair of India’s Space Research Organization, says solar variations and cosmic rays account for 40 percent of the world’s recent global warming.

It’s nice when people validate your work. Fred Singer and I—co-authors of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years —are currently basking in the glow of a new paper that affirms the earth’s long, moderate, natural climate cycle. The study is by Dr. U.R. Rao, former chair of India’s Space Research Organization. He says solar variations and cosmic rays account for 40 percent of the world’s recent global warming.

Dr. Rao says the data between 1960 and 2005 show lots fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth, due to a periodic expansion of the sun’s magnetic field. The bigger solar magnetic field blocked many of the cosmic rays that would otherwise have hit earth. Fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth meant fewer water droplets shattering in our atmosphere, and thus fewer of the low, wet clouds that deflect solar heat back into space. So the earth warmed.

Fred and I tried to tell the world in 2007 that the moderate 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle was the cause of the warming since 1850, based on historic and paleoclimatic evidence. The cosmic ray linkage was put forth in 2008 by Henrik Svensmark of Denmark. The UN’s panel on climate change dismissed that whole approach, claiming the variations in the sun’s irradiance were far too small to account for the rapid warming from 1976–98.

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Vera Macht
Gilad Atzmon's Blog

Government measures on the sea, even if they are illegal, are not an act of piracy, according to international law. The actions of the Israeli military are not likely to have been considered in the implementation of this law. The cousins Mustafa, 42, Mahmoud, 30, and Hjazi ElLaham, 27, were on the morning of the 19th February 2011, like every morning, fishing with their boat off the coast of Gaza. They were in the same area in which they are always located, 2.5 nautical miles from the coast, well inside the allowed zone. The Oslo agreement had assured the fishermen of Gaza bilaterally 20 nautical miles of fishing. Israel later unilaterally reduced this distance to 6 miles, and since the blockade was declared the fishermen are only allowed to fish within 3 nautical miles.

It was a stormy day, the cousins were almost alone on the sea. While the other fishermen had stayed at home because of the weather, the three couldn’t afford to lose a day of work. They were just pulling in their net, when an Israeli warship approached. The soldiers on the ship began to shoot at their net. The three fishermen began to work faster, they couldn’t risk to lose their net, and started the engine. Until then, it was an ordinary day. "We are shot at by Israeli warships almost daily," says Mustafa, the eldest, “we are used to that.” Then they were ordered over loudspeakers to stop the engine, or the soldiers would shoot the captain's hand. The three stopped the boat and pulled the motor out of the water. The Israeli warship began to circle around the small boat, so fast that they generated waves that made the fishing boat almost capsize.

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