Search results for: slavery

Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

September 26, 2014 by CHARLES R. LARSON WN: There is someone of my acquaintance who rails against the US Black community for its violence of Black on Black, while almost completely downplaying police violence against Blacks. He also rails against them for their poverty: they just are not enterprising, and therefore deserve their state, end […]

Where Were You?: A Profile of Modern Slavery

by Matt Friedman • June 16, 2016 photo above: Matt Friedman and Sylvia Yu Friedman an excerpt: If the Holocaust nearly a century ago remains on the world’s conscience, why have we not cared that today six times that number of young people, even children, have vanished into brief lives of unspeakable cruelty, exploitation and […]

Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018

At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]

Extensive Commentary On: What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism

By Robert P. Jones | November 12, 2020 WN: Beyond tragic the pullquote to the right, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth—Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are […]

The Great Sumas Lake Heist: A Guilty Little Secret in Plain Sight

Sumas Lake until a century ago covered about 10% of the Fraser Valley’s fertile farmland. Then it was ‘disappeared.’ Whatever happened? And what to do about it? NOTE: There are several footnotes that add related material to the article, that for some may be of interest. NOTE 2:It was exactly a year ago that the […]

Commentary on: “The Invention of Thanksgiving”

By Philip Deloria November 18, 2019 image above: The Indians who joined the mistrustful Pilgrims, Wampanoag tradition suggests, were honoring a mutual-defense pact. Illustration by Rui Tenreiro WN: If the article highlighted below shocks the reader, I suggest gently that you have grown up on a different planet . . . It is a story […]

Interaction With “The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime”

September 22, 2017 by Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall photo above by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0 WN: Welcome to America the Beautiful. As kids, my brothers and I loved the highlighted song, as sung by George Beverly Shea–who performed in front of more people than any other singer in history. We played it […]

Legacy of Shame:

October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]

They Went to Bible College to Deepen Their Faith.

Becca Andrews September 30, 2021 photo above: yelp.com WN: The article highlighted below begins with Megan Wohlers telling her story of abuse, and ends with these understated words from her: And that’s not how Jesus would have acted. I added October 24, 2021 almost an identical story, only from Jerry Falwell’s (Founder) Liberty University. His […]

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

By George Packer July/August 2021 Issue The Atlantic image above: Lucy Jones WN: Wow! The essay is stunning as it is brilliant. At least read my excerpts below. Better though, purchase the book it is excerpted/adapted from: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal. It challenges understanding about America’s past and present place in […]

This Is Why America Needs Catholicism

By Matthew Walther Mr. Walther is the editor of The Lamp, a Catholic literary journal, and a contributing editor at The American Conservative. image above: Vartika Sharma WN: Cogently presented and inspiring. Amen! excerpts: When I began reading through the archives of Triumph several years ago, I found these arguments striking. This was not because […]

Opinion: The Jan. 6 select committee is already exceeding all expectations

Opinion by Columnist Jennifer Rubin July 28, 2021 photo above: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) hugs Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn on Tuesday after he testified to the House select committee hearing on regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Pool/Reuters) WN: Officer Harry Dunn’s words highlighted in the pullquote below capture a profound […]

Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire

SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. The website is dedicated to: The Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire.     More on Empire below. PLEASE NOTE: the Sitemap. There is also a list of all Book Reviews separately, and alongside each post. You may search the Blog too. Please consider […]

How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance

By Michael Kranish July 14, 2021 photo above: patheos.com WN: What does one do with such elite entitlement; with such endless prevarication; with such premeditated blindness/deafness? In short, with such just plain awfulness?! Mark 8:18 and John 12:38 – 41 in Jesus’ words are pointers to a response: Do you have eyes but fail to […]

The Christian Right Is in Decline, and It’s Taking America With It

Opinion Michelle Goldberg July 9, 2021 photo above: Mark Peterson/Redux WN: To the first part of the title: Amen!!!1 To the second part: Whenever Christianity “owns” a culture it becomes corrupt. British 19th-century Catholic historian Lord John Acton observed: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, […]

Haiti’s fate is intertwined with the U.S.

By Ishaan Tharoor with Claire Parker  Email photo above: A man speaks on the phone next to a mural in the Little Haiti neighborhood of Miami on July 8. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) WN: Haiti is a made-in-France-and-America tragedy . . . Please see Egberto Willies on this: My wife Esther and I visited there in 1991, […]

House approves Juneteenth holiday, sends bill to Biden’s desk

By Marty Johnson – 06/16/21 WN: So momentous! And this announced on Thursday the 17th!: The federal government will give employees the day off on Friday after President Biden signs a bill making Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in America, a federal holiday. “Today @POTUS will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, […]

John A. Macdonald can wait

By Stephen Maher June 7, 2021 photo above: Shoes sit in front of the Parliament buildings during a ceremony on June 3, 2021 in Ottawa (Adrian Wyld/CP)  WN: It is the human condition that historians from within a culture generally silence any contrary narrative that might put into a negative light the moral rectitude of […]

Joe Biden’s War Powers:

Intercepted with Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 Recording: Go to website and listen to Joe Biden’s War Powers 2021-04-28·36 min. Transcript excerpts below. illustration above: Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism by Joel Andreas. WN: In the end, Joe Biden’s devout Catholicism, his profound empathy from personal tragedy, his commitment to the welfare […]

Dear White America – “History Has its Eye on You”

By Community April 16, 2021 photo above: The quote is from The Talmud. WN: The above from The Talmud echoes Micah 6:8, seen to the left. It in turn is picked up in Matthew 23:23, featuring Jesus’ indictment of the religious establishment of the day: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you […]

Compliance Will Not Save Me

April 19, 2021 Ibram X. Kendi, Contributing writer at The Atlantic photo above: Charmaine Edwards (left) speaks to supporters during a protest outside a courthouse in Dallas in 2017. Her stepson, Jordan Edwards, was a 15-year-old in Balch Springs, Texas, when he was shot and killed by police. LM Otero/AP WN: According to The Washington […]

Frederick Douglass’ Hope

Gerald McDermott January 25, 2021 WN: This highlighted article is about challenge and hope. excerpts: [su_dropcap size=”5″]I[/su_dropcap]n January 1862 Frederick Douglass, former slave who became America’s greatest socio-political prophet of the nineteenth century, declared that America was facing Armageddon. “The fate of the greatest of all Modern Republics trembles in the balance.” God was in […]

Killing Nora: The Real Reason Trump Should Have Been Impeached

January 22, 2021 by Nicky Reid cartoon: too true! WN: What is true of the Criminal Justice System is also “too true” in general of our living “normal lives” in the West. And it extends: to us in the West aware enough of what being in league/lockstep with Western powers (Five Eyes, NATO, NORAD etc., […]

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity.

Jesus Was a Victim of Empire. Acknowledging This Should Transform Christianity. By Christine Mungai, Truthout Part of the Series: Religion’s Role in the Struggle for Justice December 16, 2020 photo above: howafrica.com WN: This is the central theme of this website! A significant portion of what follows is from the previous highlighted part. There is […]

GOD IS NOT GREAT: How Religion Poisons Everything

Christopher Hitchens, Toronto: Emblem Editions, 2008, 307 pp. WN: With such a claim in the title, Hitchins’ treatise invariably tells us far more about the author than his subject. His brother Peter’s book fills in the details: The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith. To be sure: any humanist with a modicum […]

The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is.

When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president. Published on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (Zinn Education Project) photo above: Students deserve an explanation for the origins of the Electoral College. (Photo: […]

‘He’s Destroyed Conservatism’: The Republican Case Against Trump’s GOP

Stuart Stevens was a winning GOP operative. Now he feels terrible about what he’s done to the country. By MICHAEL GRUNWALD Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for Politico Magazine. 08/19/2020 photo above: AP/Patrick Semansky [NOTE: It took an article by Bob Ekblad (Blind and Deaf) in Clarion Journal, noted below, to occasion a revision […]

Life Under the Bomb Means a Life of Resistance

Published on Thursday, August 06, 2020 by Common Dreams by Rev. John Dear photo above: “Our message over the years has been simple and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They don’t make us safer; they don’t provide jobs; they don’t make us more secure—these are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and […]

The Case for Reparations

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. Story by Ta-Nehisi Coates June 2014 Issue WN: NOTE: This piece appeared in The Atlantic  6 years ago. It […]

An Open Letter To Joe Biden

Dear Mr. Biden. If I might be so bold, I wonder about connecting some dots at this incredible kairos moment of U.S. and world history. I was moved by your empathetic videoed message to the Floyd family during the funeral service in Houston. You have deeply suffered multiple losses as this article sensitively points out: […]

How Can We Celebrate “Freedom” While Kids Are in Concentration Camps?

How Can We Celebrate “Freedom” While Kids Are in Concentration Camps? By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout Published July 4, 2019 photo above: Pro tip, flag-waver: Your July Fourth “freedom” narrative is a bald-faced lie.Lauren Walker / Truthout WN: And damned if anyone out there for the most part cares!… I have a close relative who […]

On March 15, the Climate Kids Are Coming

On March 15, the Climate Kids Are Coming A massive, international, youth-led mobilization will demand action on the climate crisis. By Mark Hertsgaard  Twitter March 4, 2019 photo above:  Mad as hell: Greta Thunberg is not letting leaders get away with inaction on the climate crisis. (Christian Charisius / Picture-Alliance / dpa / AP Images) […]

A Centuries-Old Idea Could Revolutionize Climate Policy

[irp]A Centuries-Old Idea Could Revolutionize Climate Policy The Green New Deal’s mastermind is a precocious New Yorker with big ambitions. Sound familiar? Robinson Meyer Feb 19, 2019 illustration above: John Trumbull / Caitlin Ochs / Eric Vidall / Reuters / Thanh Do / The Atlantic WN: The Deal continues to sound hopeful! However, as we […]

Evangelicals, Let’s Talk About Violence Against Women

Evangelicals, Let’s Talk About Violence Against Women October 4, 2018 by Kristin Du Mez photo above: Kavanaugh Family at the The White House – courtesy Wikimedia Commons WN: When half of all white evangelicals think Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault are true. (An NPR/PBS NewHour/Marist poll […]

Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs

The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism

The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean August 24, 2018 Slavery and the Origins of Capitalism by Louis Proyect WN: I wrote the following in introduction to a book similar in its findings about 19th-century American capitalism to 17th-century colonial capitalism, entitled The Half  Has Never […]

Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is ‘inadmissible’

Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide1 Aug 2, 2018 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Theology   photo above: Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. […]

The Last Temptation

How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory Michael Gerson April 2018 Issue Politics WN: This is a greatly informed, wise and even hopeful assessment of what has happened to white Evangelicals in America since their embrace of Trump (81% voted for […]

The Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism

Posted on July 21, 2015 by christian hegemony Challenging Christian Hegemony Practical tools for recognizing and resisting Christian dominance WN: Every time I read an essay so well presented as that highlighted below (and so beyond tragic!), as a committed follower of Jesus, I know that I don’t have to wear the blame, but I […]

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, Vol 3 (3) (2011) pp 54-70 ©2011 International Journal of Critical Pedagogy Permission to quote from paper granted by the author, Dr. Robin diAngelo WN: In our immediate family, we have a non-white daughter and daughter-in-law, a non-white nephew and his non-white partner, and two non-white grandsons. As I reflect […]

Don’t Just Protect Affirmative Action From Trump—Demand More

Racism’s economic effects are pernicious.​ August 24, 2017 By Bryce Covert WN: Similar realities obtain of course in Canada. Please see for instance a trilogy edited by Steve Heinrichs of Mennonite Church Canada. Affirmative action – railed against by a close family member – is a drop in the bucket for what is needed. As the […]

Christianity Does Not Justify Trump’s ‘Fire and Fury’

Steven Paulikas THE STONE AUG. 14, 2017 photo above: Jeff Swensen for The New York Times excerpts: Jeffress told The Post, “God has endowed rulers full power to use whatever means necessary — including war — to stop evil.” I argue that recent history has already demonstrated that the invocation of evil in political rhetoric leads […]

Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington

Worried About Those Global Cyber Attacks? They Were Started by Washington The notorious US spy agencies invented this monster, first with the Stuxnet virus against Iran—but then they lost control over it. By William Greider JUNE 30, 2017 WN: Of course, the United States has never been the “peacekeeper that upholds the world’s higher values”, as […]

White Supremacy Is Anti-Gospel. I’m Glad the Southern Baptist Convention Agrees

WN: I copied the entire article below. It is about an historic decision by the Southern Baptist Convention. Russell Moore has been the head of the (SBC) Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission since 2013. As you can see from the links, he has been an amazing voice within those ranks for actually […]

Ajamu Baraka, “Uncle Tom,” and the Pathology of White Liberal Racism

AUGUST 24, 2016 by ERIC DRAITSER WN: White Supremacy has many disguised faces. One is “white liberal”, worn by those who supported a Black President because it is the “liberal thing” to be anti-racist, and who smugly know they do the right thing: end of all discourse. But the issue is far deeper – and […]

‘Death row nun’ explains why she does it

Sister Prejean tells prisoners they’re worth more than their crimes By Agnieszka Krawczynski of The B.C. Catholic Wednesday, 10 May 2017 11:56p photo above: Sister Helen Prejean meets Joel Ivany, the director of the Vancouver Opera’s performance of Dead Man Walking, in Vancouver April 29. (Agnieszka Krawczynski / The B.C. Catholic) WN: Canada abolished the death […]

Fifty Years On: MLK’s Concerns Still Plague Us, Including Militarism

Tuesday, 04 April 2017 photo above: Racism, extreme materialism and militarism are still inextricably linked, and still prevent our society’s becoming anything close to Dr. King’s “beloved community.” (Photo: Susan Melkisethian) KEVIN MARTIN AND REVEREND DR. HERBERT DAUGHTRY WN: The United States has acted like an empire since its inception: its two foundational sins are indigenous […]

Trump travel ban hits major setback after judges uphold temporary restraining order

Ben Jacobs in Washington @Bencjacobs Thursday 9 February 2017 23.17 GMT Complete victory’: attorney general celebrates Trump travel ban verdict Judges upheld order issued last week to prevent 90-day travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries and 120-day freeze on US admission of any refugees Travel ban: judges refuse to reinstate Trump’s order – live WN: One […]

Millions Will Be Harmed by Trump’s Policies, Warns Rights Advocate in Open Letter

‘As president, you will have the heavy responsibility to prevent enactment of dangerous pledges and proposals that were made in the course of the campaign’ Published on Thursday, November 24, 2016 by Common Dreams By Nika Knight, staff writer WN: Human Rights Watch Director Kenneth Roth, subject of the article highlighted below, valid as it […]

For Abolition: Prisons and Police Are More Than Brutality, They’re State Terror

Saturday, 12 November 2016 00:00 By Frank Castro, The Hampton Institute | News Analysis photo above: Jobs For Felons Hub; Edited: LW / TO This is an incredibly powerful assessment of “state terror” in arguably the most oppressive democracy of recent times: the United States of America. The author’s analysis rings true at every turn: […]

The Republic Repeals Itself

By Andrew Sullivan WN: The article linked below is one of despair. There is no doubt this is a sentiment joined in by untold millions around the world, not least in America. However, Andrew Sullivan’s painting of the American Republic as an ideal to emulate was only ever that: an ideal with a hollowed-out centre. […]

Buying sex is a crime – though you’d never know it in BC

by Flyn Ritchie October 21, 2016 photo above: Gwendoline Allison was one of several speakers at an October 18 press conference / rally which urged the police and government to enforce Bill C-36. an excerpt: Two years ago the federal government passed Bill C-36, which made the purchase of sex illegal. So far, however, no […]

An Open Letter to Michelle Obama, October 13, 2016

 WN: A friend reminded me, in response to that below, that none of us in the first world is untainted vis à vis violence. And with that taintedness is a bending at least towards hypocrisy and Pharisaism – which my friend also reminded me about. So with that mea culpa, please read on.: Dear […]

Platform – The Movement for Black Lives

photo above (from this article): A sign marking the number of days activists have occupied Freedom Square, an encampment across the street from the Chicago Police Departments’s “black site” of Homan Square. (Photo: Sarah Ji) Released August 1, 2016 Click on each of the six categories below “DEMANDS” to read the much fuller statements. an […]

The Average Black Family Would Need 228 Years to Build the Wealth of a White Family Today

Just as past public policies created the racial wealth gap, current policy widens it. By Joshua Holland AUGUST 8, 2016 WN: The poor are invariably blamed for their poverty. This article, applicable to other “democracies,” challenges this perverse blaming of victims. excerpts: [su_dropcap]I[/su_dropcap]f current economic trends continue, the average black household will need 228 years to […]

State Terrorism and Racist Violence in the Age of Disposability: Expanded Version

Sunday, 10 July 2016 00:00 By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed photo above: Demonstrators record a crowd of police officers on hand in New York’s Times Square, where a large crowd protested after fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, July 7, 2016. (Photo: Christopher Lee / The New York Times) an excerpt: Note […]

Is War the Real [U.S.] National Pastime?

These are excerpts from an interview with Eugene Jarecki, director of the documentary: “Why We Fight“. For consideration: “Pax Americana: War is the means by which Americans learn geography.” – Ambrose Bierce an excerpt: Q: It is very interesting that in the film you used the footage of [current US Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld’s meeting […]

Book Reviews List

SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. A Farewell To Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Gospel of Peace –Brian Zahnd Against The Death Penalty: Christian and Secular Arguments Against Capital Punishment –Gardner C. Hanks A Gentler God: Breaking Free of the Almighty in the Company of the Human Jesus […]