War Crimes and Consequences

* Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.       This sobering article is a must read for those who say we must "fight fire with fire" against our enemies. It's good evidence that when we do, we run the risk of becoming just like those we oppose. Terror is terror -- no matter who commits it. -- Rick Mitchell             Click the following to access the sent link:       War Crimes and Consequences*             Get your EMAIL THIS Browser Button and use it to email information from any Web site.   *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=8907

"It's time for America to get out of Iraq" - Listen to Neil Young's music and sign the petition

"We don't all have to believe what our president believes to be a patriot" -- NEIL YOUNG

NEW ANTI-WAR CD Listen to the new Neil Young album, then take action to bring our troops home in 2006

Early this morning, TrueMajorityACTION began offering free streaming audio of Neil Young's new, surprise antiwar album in it's entirety.

Though he wrote the defining protest anthem of the Vietnam era, Young initially supported President Bush's "war on terror." Like most of America, though,¹ he says that what is happening now in Iraq is just plain wrong.

Take a listen to a powerful voice for ending the quagmire, and while you're there you can raise up your own -- TrueMajorityACTION members today are launching a push behind a new Senate amendment to get our troops out of Iraq by New Year's Day.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, says that Congress will only hand over the latest $68 billion that President Bush wants for the Iraq War if his administration gets the troops out by Dec. 31st, 2006. It would support the troops, but not the unending war.

This is a great chance to bring more people into the growing movement for sanity in Iraq. So check out the album, sign the petition, and tell your friends.

Feeling a change in the wind,

Matt Holland
Online Director, TrueMajorityACTION


"Living With War" on the TrueMajorityACTION website: http://neilyoung.truemajorityaction.org

¹ "US Support for Iraq War Down to 28%." March 16, 2006.

---

Forward this widely or use the following link to tell your friends about this.
Tell-a-friend If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for TrueMajorityACTION.

While Phil talks about WHO supports him, Steve talks about what he proposes to DO in Sacramento

Although I have donated (twice I think) to the Angelides campaign, I have become increasingly aware that while Phil seems to be focusing on WHO supports him (i.e., on party and labor constituencies), Westly seems to be offering a number of policy proposals on education, the environment, crime, etc.

This concerns me, since I know that Westly apparently has more financial resources and potential for connecting with individuals who are more likely to relate to ideas and proposals than to party loyalty.

If Phil does get the party's endorsement, I certainly hope he will begin to make more overtures to the public in terms of WHAT he proposes to do rather than WHO supports him.

Thank you for listening and passing these thoughts along to the candidate.

Rick Mitchell
Concord, CA

On 4/25/06, Constance McKee, Angelides 2006 <info@angelides.com> wrote:

As CA a Democratic Delegate from Assembly District 24 I am voting for Phil Angelides as my nominee at the California Democratic Party Convention in Sacramento this Saturday.

But my vote alone is not enough. I need your help!

Each delegate at the convention will cast a vote to determine which candidate receives the California Democratic Party's nomination. We must make sure Phil gets a strong majority of delegate votes . . .

FW: Modern life takes massive flows of oil-based energy

Dennis Brumm has excerpted the following paragraphs which explain the nature of the oil crisis -- it goes far beyond cost of fuel for autos and trucks. This was written in 1997. I take the apparently pessimistic view of the experts quoted by Dennis as a 'wake-up call' and a challenge to the imagination and/or ingenuity of our ability to respond to crises once we are fully aroused to the need. But, unfortunately, it takes a LOT to get our society to that point. Spreading the word that there is a problem is a good way to begin, if it is not already too late...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dennis Brumm <brumm@brumm.com>
Date: Apr 28, 2006 5:40 AM

"...Modern agriculture, ­indeed, all of modern civilization, ­requires massive, uninterrupted flows of oil-based energy. For example, the International Energy Agency projects that world oil demand will rise from the current 68 million barrels per day to around 76 million b/d in the year 2000 and 94 million b/d in 2010. [10] What will happen when demand for oil exceeds maximum possible production?

To really understand the underlying causes and implications of oil depletion, one must stop thinking of the "dollar cost" of oil, and take a look at the "energy cost" of oil. We note that the energy cost of domestic oil has risen dramatically since 1975. [11] As oil becomes harder and harder to find and get out of the ground, more and more energy is required to recover each barrel. In other words, the increasing energy cost of energy is due to increasing entropy (disorder) in our biosphere.

Optimists tend to assume that the "quality" (e.g., liquid vs. solid) of energy we use is not significant, that an infinite amount of social capital is available to search for and produce energy, and that an infinite flow of solar energy is available for human use. Realists know that none of these assumptions is true.

In fact, ALL alternative methods of energy production require oil-based energy inputs and are subject to the same inevitable increases in entropy. Thus, there is NO solution to the energy (entropy or disorder) problem, and the worldwide energy-food crisis is inevitable. "

Fwd: Don't Turn Back, and Don't Give Up, Because We Are on Our Way ... Romney

I am forwarding part of a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Rod Romney, appropriate for Easter season and for the coming electoral campaign period. In the interest of space and general applicability I have shortened and omitted reference to any particular church or community. Thanks to Dr. Romney and also to David Enroth (for forwarding).

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SpiritWarriorSky@aol.com < SpiritWarriorSky@aol.com>
Date: Apr 22, 2006 9:37 PM
Subject: Don't Turn Back, and Don't Give Up, Because We Are on Our Way ... Romney

NO EASY RECIPES

Rev. Rodney R. Romney
April 23, 2006

---

. . . Cooking is an art, and while it is not an art I have mastered, it is an art whose results I have appreciated and enjoyed all my life. After all, one doesn't have to be a painter to enjoy looking at art.

When it comes to the spiritual life, we generally follow a similar process. We read the words of wisdom and instruction that spiritual teachers have spoken or written. We then try to apply these teachings to our own lives and to live by them. But what I have discovered in the spiritual realm is that there are no clear and easy recipes to follow, because not everyone is reading from the same book. What works for one may not work for another. Moreover, the spiritual recipes handed down to us are always being altered or revised, and one is left wondering if there are any such things as infallible doctrines, absolute truth or a universal theology which everyone can follow. . .

Many in the Christian tradition have historically believed that the wisdom and teachings of a man named Jesus offer an infallible guide, which, if followed, will result in spiritual perfection and salvation. But now, two thousand years later, we have come to realize that those teachings came down through a period of oral transmission and were not written until a number of years after Jesus died. Jesus himself apparently wrote nothing. Moreover, while the collection of stories and letters about him was extensive, they do not all agree. Moreover, only four gospels or stories of his life were chosen by an ecclesiastical council to be preserved in what today we call the New Testament. . .

Today we of the Christian faith and heritage live in what I would call an Age of Tumultuous Transformation, brought about by a new era of scholarship and understanding. Something new and drastically different is struggling to be born. What it will be is not yet known, but it will not only alter Christian doctrine and thought, it may also bring us into greater kinship with other religious traditions all around the world. We may yet achieve a universalism with all people and religions that has thus far eluded us.

No easy recipes are being offered by which this will come about, but the signs are visible on the horizon for those who have the insight to read and interpret them. We are on our way to something new, something transformative, something that could possibly bring humanity closer together, rather than holding us apart from one another. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen. Indeed it has already begun.

John Burroughs in Christian Century magazine said that the lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is to "look under foot." We are always nearer the divine and the true sources of power than we think we are. The great opportunity is not in some distant future or some past scholarship but right where we are at this moment. The ground on which we stand today is holy, as indeed is every place and every moment. . .

Is this not what spirituality should be about: the quest to know ourselves, to know our own souls, within the confines of time and place that we currently occupy, and then to take up the quest of loving one another as we want to be loved? Is not our struggle to know God really a struggle to know and love ourselves? Spirituality is also our struggle to know and love one another and the world we all share. This struggle is always taking place on holy ground (the ground underfoot) as we experience both life and death in our midst.

Traditional Christianity claims that Jesus was resurrected from the grave and appeared to his followers before he was taken up into heaven. Whether we believe that or not, there seems to me to be a desire and hope in nearly all humanity to believe in the eternal life of the human soul and to see forgiveness, joy and completion extended to every person that dies. We can mourn the loss of a loved one, but we can also remember with gratitude and love the good times we shared. That is indeed a kind of resurrection of the one who has died.

One thing we here can all do together is to covenant to extend a warm and loving welcome to all . . . because we believe in the dignity and sacred worth of every person. [There are relatively few congregations] to openly welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons . . . [and to serve as catalysts] for religious freedom, social justice and responsible stewardship of the earth and all its life forms and resources. Although we may have differences when it comes to theological belief systems, we respect the life and faith of every single person. Respect is a recipe that we have [to make] work.

We need compassion for this time in which we live. We need compassion for the thousands of people being branded as illegal immigrants in this country, a compassion that can be found in the teachings of a young Jewish carpenter named Jesus. It was in the name of Jesus that Dorothy Day crusaded for the rights of the poor and those being victimized by major corporations. It was in the name of Jesus that men and women in the past crusaded against slavery and holding sharecroppers in servitude. It was in the name of Jesus some crusaded for child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage and decent housing for the poor. It was in the name of Jesus that Martin Luther King, Jr. marched with workers who were only asking for a living wage. He gave his life for the freedom and equality of all people. Our remembrance of these persons and others like them is a resurrection of their lives.

Along with compassion, we need courage for this time. Bill Moyers said recently in a talk, "This is a time for heresy, as American democracy is being threatened by perversion of money, power and religion. Money has bought out elections right out from under us. Power has turned our government of the people, by the people and for the people into the patron of privilege. Religions have been hijacked by fundamentalists who have made religion the language of power, the excuse for violence, and the alibi for empire. We must answer the principalities and powers that would force on America a stifling conformity, or the day will come when we will no longer recognize the country we love."

The name of Jesus has not always been associated with compassion and courage. It has also been used to segregate, discriminate and separate. An unspoken motto of many churches and religious leaders has been "The urge to purge, rather than the urge to merge." Instead of striving to achieve oneness as a religion or a human race, many religious leaders obsessed by their own narrow views, have discriminated against women, against homosexuals, against equal rights for all, against religious diversity, against anyone who disagrees with them, and against the deepest values and ideals of our own country. We need to find a unifying purpose and principle in both government and religion, for if we don't, the day will come when we will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

An old rabbinic saying expresses it well: "We agree to differ; we promise to love, and we unite to serve." That may sound like a recipe, and perhaps it is, but it is not an easy recipe. It will take complete dedication on the part of all of us to live it out fully. But in the end it will take us beyond our differences and unite us in a sacred work. We can always do more together than we can do alone. We need each other. We always have, and we always will.

A year ago I wrote out a list of Spiritual Principles by Which to Live and shared them with you. This list is the result of my living my last fifty years as a minister and educator, coupled with a growing, evolving belief that these principles will bring me my greatest joy. It is also the best recipe I know for bringing harmony and peace to the world. I repeat it again in slightly abbreviated form.

1, Everything is one. All creation is an expression of a higher force we traditionally have called God. We are all connected to all life.

2. Unconditional love is the highest expression of our being . The greatest act of our lives is to love, because it is love that brought us into being, and it is love that will see us safely through this life.

3. Life is eternal and our most precious gift. We do not die. The body dies, but something within each of us is eternal and lives forever. Call it the soul, the spirit, consciousness, or whatever you will. Life, I believe, is eternal. We must not only respect our own lives, we must also cease from any activity, especially war, that would harm or destroy others.

4. All religious systems contain some truth, but they also have some tenets that are not true. There is no one true church or one true religion. All religions are the products of human growth and diversity and subject to human error.

5. Slowly the world is being spiritually transformed. A new consciousness and unity is slowly being achieved. Even though our government has made some horrible mistakes recently in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq, a higher consciousness and a new unity of people is being slowly achieved. This vision will slowly become a reality as more people begin to work toward it.

I do not offer these principles as easy recipes, for they are not. I am only stating what I think must happen if we are going to create a better world. We may not live to see all the changes for which we yearn, but we can leave this earth knowing that we, in some small way, helped to create a better world for future generations. How can we ask for any more than that?

This is not a time to be frightened or skeptical. This is a time to move forward with courage, compassion and faith. We are, as I said earlier, at the edge of an age of tumultuous transformation, an age of enlightenment, understanding and love. So today I say to this congregation today and to all who hear or read these words: don't turn back and don't give up. We're on our way.

Gas Station Blues (and Reds)

Thanks to Dominick Di Noto for forwarding.

Fwd: Moonie craziness almost defies belief...

Thanks to Dennis Brumm for forwarding this article. I am coming more
and more to believe that our civil liberties depend on the absolute
right to ignore and have no part in any religion, whatsoever. If that
sounds radical, it is merely and indication of how far we had slid
away from our basic Constitutional rights, of which this is one -- a
very important one. Rev. Moon and his beliefs are indistinguishable,
as far as I am concerned, from those of the Nazi Third Reich. and,
unfortunately, he has lots of other "upstanding" (would-you-believe
Christian?) operatives who are ready and willing to be grand poobahs
in his "kingdom." God help us! No, we had better start helping
ourselves, because we have only ourselves to blame if we permit this
nonsense to spread and grow further. -- RevRickM

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dennis Brumm <brumm@brumm.com>
Date: Apr 17, 2006 5:08 PM

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/34072/

Rev. Moon's Conjugal Visitations
By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet. Posted April 17, 2006.

We all know the religious Right wants to tell us what we can't do in
the bedroom, but no one asks what they want us to do instead.

Among the trendier gripes about why liberals lack power in American
politics is that there isn't enough tolerance for America's faithful.
A big problem, Rabbi Michael Lerner recently sighed, is that "the
Left's hostility to religion and spirituality has become such a major
stumbling block to the chances that progressive forces will ever win
enough power" to make a difference. So the new advice, from Hillary
Clinton to the New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook, is: Stop making
snickering remarks at Jerry Falwell's expense. Cheer the innovation of
$2 billion in federal tax money carted off to religious groups last
year. Drag the "Left Behind" series into your Amazon shopping cart.

And listen, I should add, to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, owner of
the conservative mouthpiece the Washington Times and self-proclaimed
Messiah. Moon's warning to America is that we must have sex the way he
entreats us, in the positions he has designated, or else forfeit our
"love organs," as he dubs them, to the dark lord Satan.

We all know the Right wants to decide what we can't do in the
bedroom. But no one ever seems to ask what the Right wants us to do
instead.

"After the act of love," read the instructions from the Rev. Moon's
conservative Family Federation, "both spouses should wipe their sexual
areas with the Holy Handkerchief. Hang the handkerchief[s] to dry
naturally and keep them eternally. They must be kept individually
labeled and should never be laundered and mixed up."

Maybe the best explanation of our widespread ignorance of the
Washington Times owner's sex rites is liberal squeamishness. For those
of you who suckled on secular humanism and feminist tracts (which Moon
calls Satanic, by the way), these prescriptions from God might seem as
off-putting as a Castro Street postcard storefront to Dr. James
Dobson.

But in order to usher in a national dialogue on faith in the public
square, it's important to look beyond stereotypes of the Right to
understand the diverse philosophies behind public movements for
state-enforced morality.

Rev. Moon, whose Washington Times is a crown jewel of the
conservative media Death Star, offers the essential lessons. He's the
last man most Americans would associate with Republican power circles,
but is in his own secretive way as important a figure in the Christian
Right as Jerry Falwell, who's still in business thanks to a $3.5
million bailout from Moon in 1995, or Tim LaHaye of the Council For
National Policy, who took money to serve on the board of a group
rehabilitating Moon's image, and once wrote a letter addressing Moon
as "the Master."

Just how big is Moon's standing in the Right? The "Republican Noise
Machine" is a mighty edifice built with $3 billion in gifts from
various right-wing philanthropists. Moon's gift of the Washington
Times to the conservative cause alone places him in the club as a
charter member; the paper owes its existence to a staggering figure of
over $2,000,000,000 since 1982 in donations in Moon's mystery money.

Moon also also controls United Press International, one of the
world's largest wire news services. In addition to having a hand in
the creation of modern-day Christian Right politics, Moon has given
huge sums to Richard Viguerie, the "founding funder" of the Reagan
revolution; Terry Dolan, the pioneer of the "liberal bias" attack; and
George W. Bush, who received $250,000 from Moon in 2004.

By 1989, U.S. News & World Report was reporting Moon had built "a
network of affiliated organizations and connections in almost every
conservative organization in Washington, including the Heritage
Foundation," but that "conservatives ... fear repercussions if they
expose the church's role." In 2004, a veteran Christian Right
lobbyist, Gary Jarmin, arranged to have Moon coronated the "King of
Peace" in a kitschy ceremony on Capitol Hill in which he wore a
glittering crown and royal robes.

Moon, the first President Bush said, while touring South America with
the True Father in 1996, is "the man with the vision" whose newspaper
"restores sanity to Washington." So why must the gatekeepers of the
mainstream media bar his ideas from the public debate on morality? Why
does his own employee, Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley,
whose paper Moon says he mainly established to "tell the world about
God," hold back from telling the McLaughlin Group about the greatness
of Rev. Moon's plans for society?

In the interest of healthy public discourse, it bears upon us instead
to consider the philosophy fueling Moon, who has long acted on his
professed longing to see gays and "free sex" banished from America.
Moon's Federation offers an instruction manual explaining, among other
things, on which occasions the man should be on top, how Satan can be
banished with the spank of a wooden paddle and franker lessons still.

Recipe for love

There is, as Moon sees it, a profound sex crisis in America. "Satan,"
the Times publisher said in 2004, "is clinging to our sexual organs."
Women are a "line of prostitutes," who should be punished for
selfishness. "The concave organ [vagina] should be sealed with
concrete."

"The women are the problem in history," he said in 2004. "Women who
don't want to have children should cut away their breasts, bottoms and
love organ because the purpose for those was first for the children.
If they don't fulfill that purpose, then they are not needed."

"Woman's sexual organ is like the open mouth of a snake filled with
poison," he said in 1996. Men don't get off any easier. Keep pliers in
your pocket, he says, "and when you go to the bathroom, once a day,
pinch your love organ. Cut the skin a little bit as a warning."

Moon has even a darker vision for gay men. Moon told an audience he'd
like to see them removed in a "purge on God's orders.... Gays will be
eliminated, the three Israels will unite. If not, then they will be
burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring, but this is
what happens. It will be greater than the Communist purge but at God's
orders." (No wonder the Times style guide puts "gay" in quotes.)

Far from being confined to his church, his philosophy has fueled
years of voter mobilization drives, state and local candidacies and
public campaigns opposing sexual liberties for nonmembers -- such as
birth control, sex education, gay rights. There have been
Moon-sponsored rallies for "pure sex" in the streets of Chicago,
featuring mascots dressed up as gonorrhea bacteria. So don't mistake
his sexual beliefs for a party to which you aren't invited. "By 2004,
we have to reach the level of Jesus occupying Rome," he said in 2001,
speaking of his American ambitions. "Invite me as master and owner, or
it all will fade away and be broken. The Capitol Hill, the U.N. -- I
should be the king."

The goal of getting involved in politics and social services, say his
clerics, is to cleanse Satan from humanity's bloodline. Meanwhile,
under George W. Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative and abstinence-only
grants, his pastors have won nearly $1 million in public funding.
Moon's abstinence-only education group Free Teens USA, funded by the
Department of Health and Human Services, instructs school kids in New
Jersey: "It's not just your body, it's your whole lineage forever." In
a lesson plan featured online, a "family tree" exercise appears to be
inspired by Moon's teachings. And to teach that loving carelessly is
vile, youths are asked to drink from a cup of spit, according to a
lesson plan featured online.

Conjugal visitation

So let's say you've married a spouse chosen for you by the creator of
the Washington Times at one of his 2,000-couple stadium weddings.
You've gone through a Moon-ordained period of sexlessness, but now the
time has come to get down to business for the first time with your new
husband or wife.

Not so fast. At some date prior to the lovemaking, Moon's "indemnity
stick ceremony" is used to paddle Satan's spirit from your
lover-to-be. The evil spirit is present, according to one church
testimony, because "men and women misused each other's sexual parts,
for selfish purposes, [and] it gave birth to this resentment ... So we
receive three hits of the stick."

According to the Family Federation website, Satan will not be purged
until newlyweds carry out his "Three Day Ceremony" in specified sex
positions, in Holy Gowns, in front of his photograph. You're to meet
at a location that's "as holy a place as possible" -- one of Moon's
churches is OK. You should have a number of items on hand, according
to the instructions available online, including a Holy Handkerchief, a
church-supplied cloth, and a photo of the Washington Times publisher
and conservative benefactor with his wife, Hak Ja Moon. By now you
have embraced them as your True Parents, maybe even replacing your
biological mom and dad. Next the room must be sanctified to ward off
any potential Satanic comeback, with prayers, a candle and the
sprinkling of holy salt.

Over three nights, there must be three acts of sex. The first night,
the woman is on top. The second night proceeds much the same as the
first. But this time there is emphasis on the idea the man-on-bottom
has progressed to "Growth Stage Adam."

Night three: time for the "man to restore dominion." Missionary position.

Moon appears to recognize that not all men will be able to sustain an
erection during this procedure.

"The act of love should be a complete act (penetration and
ejaculation)," the anonymous authors make clear. "In the event that it
is difficult to achieve this, strive to achieve as much penetration as
possible and continue with the remainder of the ceremony.

"For the act of love, it is all right to caress each other. Insertion
must be accomplished. The couple should continue the act of love until
ejaculation, but if it is difficult to reach ejaculation, the act may
be stopped at that point. However, insertion itself must be
accomplished. If insertion is not possible because the husband does
not have an erection, the wife must take her husband's sexual organ in
her hand and guide it into her sexual part in order to successfully do
the ceremony. If the act of love is not fulfilled and it is delayed,
it must be fulfilled within 24 hours starting from the beginning of
the ceremony. It is not permitted to use a condom or any other
apparatus during the act of love."

In an America where the separation of church and state have widely
come to be seen as an urban legend, these ideas deserve as much
consideration as the Silver Ring Thing, until recently the inspiration
for a $1 million grant in Pittsburgh to push someone else's religious
crusade: "to saturate the United States," as the mission statement
said, "with a generation of young people who have taken a vow of
sexual abstinence until marriage and put on the silver ring. This
mission can only be achieved by offering a personal relationship with
Jesus Christ ..."

And this is the risk of inviting God into the public square. One
man's Silver Ring Thing is another man's Holy Handkerchief.

An urgent appeal from Rabbi Michael Lerner

Dear Friend of PeacePolitical.com,

The following email was received from Rabbi Michael Lerner, and I recommend it and his Spiritual Activism conference program to you. I am convinced that the so-called "religious right" is a radically illogical and dangerous manifestation of error in our society and our world. Our form of democracy, and indeed our civilization, is dependent on informed citizens who are capable of rational thinking and intelligent decision-making. Those forces, whether religious or political, which would seek to sway public sentiment and opinion through biased and impassioned demagoguery, must be countered by those of us who hold that public policies are subject to historical and scientific truth or analysis and not by reliance on supposedly sacred and unquestionable religious and cultural tenets.

Many organizations and individuals (including myself) are engaged in furthering such awareness and commitment, but I think Rabbi Michael Lerner's voice is one of the clearest and most effective. Please read and consider his words below and assist by forwarding to other individuals and organizations who may be inclined to help in this vitally important effort.

-- Rev. Rick Mitchell
   www.PeacePolitical.com 

I would like your help in getting word out to the largest email lists to which you have access (both personal and organizational) about the Spiritual Activism conference that will be held in Washington, D.C. May 17-20, 2006. The conference is the first East Coast appearance for the Network of Spiritual Progressives, co-chaired by me, Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, and professor of African American studies and Religion at Princeton U. Cornel West. I'm sorry I have to reach you through this impersonal note--but I don't know how else to do this.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives has 3 goals:

1. to challenge the misuse of God and religion by the Religious Right to justify war and militarism, cuts in programs for the poor and powerless in order to justify cuts in taxes for the rich, assaults on human rights and civil liberties, and destruction oaf the separation of church and state;

2. to challenge the religio-phobia and hostility toward religious and spiritual people that appears in some sections of liberal and progressive culture, and to help the Left distinguish
between reactionary forms of religion and the progressives forms that it took with Martin Luther King, Jr., William Sloan Coffin, Abraham Joshua Heschel and many others. and to build a new spiritual progressive politics not only for religious people, but also for those who do not believe in God but are "spiritual but NOT religious"

3. to seek a New Bottom Line in the Western world so that institutions get judged efficient, rational or productive not only to the extent that they maximize money or power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethically and ecologically sensitive behavior, and enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings as manifestations of the sacred and inherently valuable and to be respected, and enhance our capacities to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement at the grandeur of all that is.

This is the ground floor of building a new kind of paradigm for progressive politics, and it could have a major impact in making the liberal and progressive forces far more successful in healing and transforming American society. As I've shown in my new book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right, many people agree with the Left on specific issues but still end up feeling that their greatest pain is the deprivation of love, a sense of meaning in work, and a feeling that they are surrounded by materialism, selfishness, and moral insensitivity, that their children are subjected to sexual pressures before they are old enough to handle them, and that the Left seems oblivious to these kinds of issues and only addresses economic entitlements and political rights.

We in the NSP (the Network of Spiritual Progressives) care very much about eliminating poverty, fighting for equal rights, ending the war in Iraq and the militarist assumptions that led to it, but that these important struggles will not be won until the Left also seems to care about these other "meaning" issues in the lives of many Americans. Moreover, the Left is only clear on what it is against, but rarely has it communicated clearly what it is for. That's why we are taking our demand for a New Bottom Line to the Congress and the media May 17-20—along with a detailed SPIRITUAL COVENANT WITH AMERICA that is meant to provide a positive vision of what a progressive spiritual politics is about (you can read it fully explicated in The Left Hand of God, which, I'm happy to say, has become a national best-seller since it was published by Harpers in February).

The spiritual activism conference will be a unique blending of progressive religious people with progressive "spiritual but not religious" people. Among the presenters, besides me, Cornel West and Sister Joan Chittister: Jim Wallis (progressive Evangelical editor of Sojourners and author, God's Politics), Cindy Sheehan (mother of U.S. solider killed in Iraq war), Episcopal ArchDeacon Michael Kendall, Marie Denis (Fellowship of Reconciliation), Rev. William Sinkford (national president, Unitarian Universalist Association), Rev. Joan Campbell (Chautauqua Institute), Harry Knox (Human Rights Campaign), Rev. Penny Nixon (Metropolitan Church, San Francisco), Rabbi Brain Walt (national chair, Rabbis for Human Rights), Seyyed Hossein Nasr (author, The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity), Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (chair, Progressive Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives), Shaikh Kabir Helminski (Sufi teacher), Svi Shapiro (author of Beyond Liberalism and Excellence: Reconstructing the Public Discourse on Education), Rev. Ama Zenya (United Church of Christ), John Dear S.J. (Catholic non-violence activist), Rev. Lennox Yearwood (Progressive Democrats of America), Robert Thurman (Buddhist teacher and author The Jewel Tree of Tibet), Jonathan Granoff (chair, American Bar Association committee on disarmament), Rev. Lynice Pinkard (United Church of Christ), Bill Meadows (national chair, Wildlife Association), Enola Aird, Katrina Vanden Heuvel (editor, The Nation), Christopher Hedges (former NY Times reporter and author: War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning), Peter Gabel (associate editor of Tikkun and professor of law, New College of California), Thea Levkowitz (Religion and the Environment), Rev. Tony Campolo (Evangelical teacher), Holly Near (progressive music), Michael Bader (psychoanalyst), Michael Posner (human rights), Arthur Waskow (Shalom Center), Rev. Donna Schaper, Nanette Schorr, Rabbi Debora Kohn,  Barbara Coombs Lee, Enola Aird, Rev. Bob Edgar (chair, National Council of Churches), Rev. Debora Johnson, John Seed, Paul Wapner, Mary Darling, Rev. Donna Schapper, Harvey Cox, Janet Chisholm, Roshi Bernie Glassman, Rev. Glenn Harold Stassen, Rev. Paul Smith, Çharlene Spretnak, David Abrams
Rev. Robert Hardies & Rev. Louise Green (All Souls Unitarian church), and many more.

Even if you can't come to the conference, you can join as a dues paying member the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) and help us out financially, or even help us build a local chapter in your area. For information on registering for the conference or joining the NSP: www.spiritualprogressives.org or 510 644 1200 (between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time).

I hope you personally will come, or join, and I'd particularly appreciate it if you'd send this note to everyone you know, and in your own name urge them to come as well..

Many blessings,

Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun, rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco, and author, The Left Hand of God
RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org

www.PeacePolitical.com (formerly known as EcumenicalNews.com)

"Taking aim at current gun laws," by Nicole Brodeur, Seattle Times

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa writes in his book God Has a Dream, ... before we can become God's partners, we must know what God wants for us. "I have a dream," God says. "Please help Me to realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing ..."In God's family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight. Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tursi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian--all belong ... God says, All, all are My children. It is shocking. It is radical.

Ugliness. Alienation. Disharmony. Shocking. Radical. What on Earth is happened here in Seattle last Saturday at 7 a.m.? Not far from my home Kyle Huff of Whitefish, Montana, summarily executed six people, the youngest of which was 14. He committed these horrendous acts before blowing his own head off with his shotgun. Nobody knows why, including his twin-brother with whom he shared an apartment where the ammunition and guns were stored.

At church class on Sunday I heard the usual excuses: Alcohol. Drugs.

I don't think so. There was a very deep-seated anger present in this person. I've read stories about Kyle Huff's Mother, but no mention of his Father.

In church class Sunday I asked: Why has Bill Gates become a success entrepreuneur with a spirit of charitable compassion whereas Kyle Huff is now infamous as a mass murderer of the youngest among us in their most joyful, playful moments? To some questions there are no simple answers.

Imagine a group of people, mostly sixty plus, in a class still trying to discern God's call for our lives? Eighty-five year old Glen Asher told a story about Bill Gates being given responsibility by a school librarian for organizing the school library during his formative years. Glen speculates that Bill discovered he could organize anything and because he did he now helps many of us organize our daily routines. A school prinicipal suggested that vision is a primary contributor to evolution. What we picture we can become. That's why positive role models are so important. People who love us, and show us the way. Like Jesus.

What picture was in Kyle Huff's mind when he pulled the trigger leaving our world a lot darker than the blossoms of springtime were we hoping for instead? ... Sky

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Nicole Brodeur

Taking aim at current gun laws

By Nicole Brodeur

Seattle Times staff columnist

Even before the shock subsided, The Blame Game began.

It was the rave scene that killed those poor kids Saturday on Capitol Hill. It was the city's weak All Ages Dance Ordinance. It was the weed they smoked, the beer they drank, the music that drained their heads of reason. It was the parents who didn't keep track. Stop.

What killed those people was a 28-year-old man named Kyle Huff, who took advantage of American gun laws and packed his pickup with an arsenal of weapons that no person should ever want or need: An assault rifle. A handgun. A shotgun. A machete. Hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

"There's plenty for everyone," Huff said as he started shooting, according to witness statements to police.

We all want to know why Huff opened fire on a houseful of innocents. But what confounds me is why anyone should have such weapons, and so many.

Huff used a pistol-grip shotgun and a .40-caliber semiautomatic Ruger.

He used them six years ago to blast a moose sculpture in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont. Police seized the guns, then returned them to Huff — their rightful owner. And why not? He had committed no felonies. And no one could have known then what would happen years later in a house in Seattle.

On Saturday, Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske walked through that house before the bodies were removed. Afterward, he called Huff's shotgun "not for hunting purposes, but for hunting people."

It was a wretched moment: Less than 24 hours earlier, Kerlikowske and Mayor Greg Nickels were honored by Washington CeaseFire for "their work to end gun violence in Washington state."

"It doesn't feel for naught," Kerlikowske said Monday. "Reasonable, common-sense gun laws are going to be an issue for a while.

"Looking at those bodies put it in perspective as to why I speak on this issue. That progress has slipped away in the last few years, and we're all trying to bring it back to a level of sanity."

John Rosenthal has a plan. Last year, the Boston real-estate manager founded the American Hunters & Shooters Association ( www.huntersandshooters.org), a nonprofit seeking "common sense gun-safety measures."

Rosenthal wants to represent the millions of American gun owners who act responsibly and expect the government to do the same, like restricting access to military-style weapons, and requiring training and permits, and tightening rules for gun-show sales.

I told him about the guns Huff used.

"People are asking where these guns are coming from, and I think the question is, 'Where aren't they coming from?' " Rosenthal said. "National gun policy has been to allow unrestricted access to all firearms, including assault weapons, which had been banned until last September."

Why would someone want to buy an assault rifle?

"Because they can."

Kyle Huff owned an arsenal. And then he killed six people.

Because in America, he could.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com . They were just kids.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company