"Renaissance Thinking About the Issues of Our Day"
Quote of the Day: "A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future." ~Leonard Bernstein Hour One: How do we get health insurance parasites off our backs? Thom has a rumble with Edward Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation www.heritage.org; Plus, is "Burn a Quran Day" Pastor Terry Jones guilty of spiritual abuse in Germany? Thom confronts Dr. Jones about the charges www.doveworld.org Hour Two: How can we help America see through the racism and jingoism that is the modern Republican Party's "new Southern strategy?" NAACP President Ben Jealous will be here www.naacp.org Hour Three: How have the Neocons destroyed the Republican party and why does it put America at risk? Thom challenges Tom Pauken, former head of the Texas Republican Party http://tompauken.com; Plus, "Bring Solar Back to the White House" - Bill McKibben, environmentalist/author, will be here to talk about his latest campaign www.350.org
Comments
When will people start to believe me? Thom, here is an article from your friend!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama--Failed-President--by-Rob-Kall-100907-252.html
I told it to you! Will you start to believe me more?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/They-Kill-Alex-by-Chris-Hedges-100906-443.html
To paraphrase Jesus' words as He died on the cross in my own words.
"MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN THE UNITED STATES OF HELL???"
Thom I think I've identified an Issue with your narrative I'd like to quickly address here for you.
I called in recently to make the point that the disinformation campaign currently underway in the USA ( & world wide) must be dealt with before anything else. Meaning, any attempt to progress on any issue will be thwarted by the distortion of the Professional media's narrative created manipulated by the most powerful group on earth, the wealthy.
This is the root of the problem we are all arranging deck chairs around. You could argue campaign finance reform is equally disruptive, but how do you hope to pass ANY decent legislation in the echo chamber of a disinformation campaign as pervasive as the for-profit professional news entertainment industry is sustaining?!?
You should be reminding everyone every day, "Reject for-profit corporate news, and the affiliates (polls, radio, blogs, etc) that echos them."
=^)
Health Insurance in Switzerland according to justlanded.
http://www.justlanded.com/english/Switzerland/Switzerland-Guide/Health/Health-insurance
How to get basic health insurance in Switzerland.
..."Basic sickness insurance is provided by many public and private insurance companies – you are free to choose. Benefits are identical from all providers, but premiums can vary considerably, so shop around (and have a look at www.comparis.ch)."...
Tom, your guest starting out the show talking about Swiss health insurance was correct on one point, public and private companies provide basic health insurance in Switzerland. The point is that all of the companies have to offer the same basic benefits (but prices vary) and what is provided is monitored by the government.
So Terry Jones is gong to continue with his Quran burning, and if any violence results from it, then that is proof of how violent Islam is?
My suggestion: let's have a Bible burning. Let's talk about the evils of Christianity. Let's publicize this everywhere. And when some Christians react violently, that will merely be proof of the violent nature of Christianity, right?
Average Americans need more money.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Wealthy-Have-Enough-Mo-by-Robert-Reich-100906-28.html
Fire a worker and receive a raise!!!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/42-More-Pay-Goes-to-Emplo-by-Kevin-Anthony-Stod-100906-237.html
A dysfunctional family!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/It-Can-t-Wait-by-David-Glenn-Cox-100905-315.html
It's just the beginning.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Our-Long-National-Nightmar-by-David-Michael-Gree-100905-263.html
Brehin good on Ya!
It's why I keep saying that this democracy...er oligarchy we are under will only go down
when the extreme corruption is apparent....Let the GOP get back in power
they are so good at screwing things up that our USA will crash.....it's the only way.
And my rants here on the board is that both the GOP & DNC....have media spinoff(FauxNews & MSNBC for DNC)
to peddle their bulls..t propaganda to Americans.....in the end, we ordinary American loose.
Just look how MSNBC just afew days ago try to feed us the bulls..t.that combat was over in
Iraq.
A sad read!
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=118198
I'm a bit conflicted. On the one hand there is the Muslim Community Center being built near the demolished buildings of the World Trade Towers, it is completely legal and protected under law. The left defends it and the right condemns it. On the other hand you have this minister in Florida who wishes to burn Korans, which is also permissible under law, but the left condemns it and the right defends it.
Freedom of speech isn't about people saying and acting as you want them to, its about people having the right to say the things that you may not want to hear.
It feels like hypocrisy to me to condone one act and condemn another. Yes, I believe the Muslim Community Center being built where its being built is fine. Also I find the burning of books (any books) repulsive, but if the minister has purchased the Korans legally, then as far as I'm concerned what he does with them is his business, so long as he doesn't catapult them at people in an attempt to cause physical harm.
I can't in good conscience join in a protest against someone's speech. The only thing I feel is right is to turn my back on it. His right to burn Korans, is my right to burn in effigy a politician I despise, its my right to assemble with like minded people and demonstrate for our beliefs.
Talking about this minister is giving him what he wants, more attention.
How can I be an ideal American, and yet think I have the right to tell someone to shut-up. I can't do it, I can't join in on condemning this minister to the point of trying to stop him from acting.
N
I guess I feel the most appropriate reaction to this Koran buring is this. Invite Muslim representatives to the next group get together you have to give the group a lecture on the teachings of the Koran. You want to counter this buring, then obviously do exactly what this minister most fears, educate yourself and your peers if possible.
This isn't a travesty, its an opportunity.
N
@Jeanie, our country is primarily a Christian country and the wrong and immoral wars in the Middle East are Christianity's final crusade against the Muslims. The final crusade has been delayed about fifteen hundred years. G.K. Chesterton has said, "It's not that Christianity has been tried and failed; it's that it's never been tried." Christians are not reading the New Testament in the Holy Bible.
Maxrot, this "reverend" is doing this, as Thom said, to instigate and incite. It's not like he is doing something within his church to exercise his "free speech" rights with his teeny congregation. He is doing this to be political, hence all the interviews he's doing, and that is also why it's wrong. Burn whatever you want, but when you politicize it, and still don't have to pay taxes, and know (but not care) that this will incite extremists on the other side to hurt people--that's not really a right to free speech.
Plus he's nuts. Also, has Faux News condemned this at all? Have any rightwing Christian people in the media in this country condemned it? What about forgiveness and compassion and tolerance? If I were a Christian, I would be so confused at the very conflicting messages put forth by the New Testament and the media and the rightwing extremist Christians. Gerald is right.
Fire? Fire's cool!
I can see it now - 5,000 people with fire extinguishers facing off with 5,000 people with flamethrowers.
Lets get this guy a cage match with Fred Phelps.
This reverend is like Lindsay Lohan. A nothing media-whore who would continue being inconsequential if the media would just stop giving in to his narcissistic needs. Like Sarah Palin and so many others. They should have no publicity. And they would vanish.
@Jeanie #18: Jon Stewart showed a clip from CNN: Barbara Starr was giving a report on Congress when Wolf Blitzer cut her off for some "Breaking News!" The feed went to an aerial of Lindsay Lohan getting out of a squad car.
As long as someone getting out of a car is more important than Barbara Starr's report, we are in serious trouble.
OK Jeanie, he's nuts, let us again ignore our Bill of Rights.
Hate may be deplorable, but it is not illegal. To give up our rights over the way people feel is cowardly. I could care less if someone wants to burn books. In the long run all they do is keep themselves ignorant, and ignorance is weakness.
N
Accelerate the Contradictions!: I could support this platform... Yes, its the demands put forward by the German Social Democrats in their 1891 Erfurt Program. Ah, smell the progress!
Rutherford B. Hayes destroyed the Republican Party. It's been a tool ever since.
Maxrot, he might have a right to do it, but he's still wrong. Like Rev. Phelps is wrong. He's also trying to blackmail the people building the Muslim center in NY. And we're not saying the government should step in and make him stop. Just pointing out Muslim-baiting.
Thom had some callers who were critical of his onterview with Terry Jones. My criticism of Thom is that he has too many conservative crazies on his show who have filibustered him. He finally called someone on their nonsense.
Jeanie, there is no might about his right. But you should re-read my initial comment on this, if you think I support his actions.
I think there is obvious hypocrisy here, the same people that want the Muslim Community Center to be built are the same that are decrying this Terry Jones.
The quote goes something like this "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to my death the right of you to say it." Many people on the left can talk the talk, but they can't seem to walk the walk.
N
I know you don't support his actions. He may have a right to say and do what he likes in the name of free speech, but I think it crosses the line when it is deliberately done to invoke a response from enemies of this country. It's very different from people's outrage at a Muslim building a few blocks from Ground Zero (with no outrage over strip clubs and tattoo parlors on the same block). That outrage also makes news worldwide and also emboldens the extremists who are dangerous. So I don't have a problem saying that the Quran (however you spell it) shouldn't be burned and anti-Muslim sentiments and rallies should not be held. I'm not going to stop them, but they shouldn't be publicized, and then they get their "free speech" rights and we get to have less hatred for us worldwide.
Thom has asked to give the definition of conservative or who is a conservative. I will try to answer that question.
Definition of a Conservative
The word conservative means to preserve that which is essential, to hold on to those values which are timeless and of value.
A conservative is one who works for the integrity of the environment. A conservative in the Catholic Church would be one who goes back to the biblical values of Jesus and conserve the essence of what he taught and lived.
Take the beatitudes, the call to love one's enemies. How do we preserve and protect these ideals?
Yet, we need to ask the question, “Why did someone put the CON in CONservative?”
CAN ONE BE A CHRISTIAN AND A CONSERVATIVE AT THE SAME TIME?
Two Thousand years ago in the midst of the Conservative, Militantly, Bellicose, Roman Empire and the parallel Rule of the Ultraconservative Conservative Herodian Kings and Priests, where the death penalty was a broadly used as it has been in Texas and Florida since the Bush advent therein, there came a man who opposed all of that for which they stood. He opposed the death penalty and much forgiving of sexual sins. (The woman caught in adultery John 8:1-11)
He despised greed/avarice which the Bushites Gekko say is Good!. Luke 16:19-31 The avaricious rich man
He opposed violence of any sort; he was by his own admission, "meek and mild." He advocated tolerance and acceptance of others. He offered free health care to any who approached him.
He also refused to condemn or judge others except for the rich who were avaricious and the hypocrites. He opposed judging others, a prime factor in the Bush administration IS judging others Luke 7: 37-42- judging others
He was dismissive of sexuality as a major judgmental concern. Luke 4:4-42 Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well
Jesus was, by the definitions, condemnation and attacks on Liberals by the Bushites and the "Christian" Right, a "bleeding Heart Liberal." They are indeed correct, because in his opposition to everything for which The Conservative Roman Empire and the Ultraconservative Conservative Herodian Kings and Priests, stood Jesus was and remains a Liberal. There is no way the Church can, without being hypocritical wriggle its way around the reality that one cannot be a Christian and a Conservative, any more than one can be a Christian and support the slaughter in Iraq (A nation 12 times smaller than the USA, and lacking air force and navy at the time of the invasion), and the planned slaughters in Iran, and Venezuela.
Therefore, begs the question, CAN A PERSON BE BOTH A CHRISTIAN AND A CONSERVATIVE?
The purpose of college is to help you think and to be exposed to a wide range of ideas. Conservatives want dummies leaving our high schools and colleges. They want programmed idiots roaming our country and the world. What truly amazes me are my relatives from marriage who are conservatives and they fail to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Conservatives do not want to be challenged by educated persons. They believe in keeping people stupid so they can control you and enslave you to remain their drones and cannon fodder.
Conservative Brains! Most people know that the conservatives have their brains in their colons and every 24 hours or so they reveal to the world that they really have shit for brains.
So Jeanie, you don't have problems with freedom of speech, just freedom of the press?
N
I would hope that by 2012 our country will have a viable third party called the Jesus Party. Here are some thoughts on the Jesus Party.
The Jesus Party
Jesus was truly an amazing person. When Jesus walked among us, He was an inclusive person who excluded no one. He loved the harlots, the lepers, the maimed, the sinners, the outcasts, the forgotten, the blind, the deaf, and all the people. Jesus is a beautiful and wonderful role model for us to follow.
What Jesus desires for America and the world are peace and justice on our planet for all of His children. He also has a vision for the world.
Jesus’ vision for the world is social wholeness, a state of well being for all, where everyone has access to the goods of creation intended to meet the needs of all. Jesus offers us the substance of the biblical vision of one community embracing all creation where all enjoy the resources that make communal harmony joyous and effective.
Jesus’ intended vision of the world, a dream for Him that resists our tendencies for division, hostility, fear, lust, and misery. If there is to be well-being, it will not be just for the isolated and insulated individuals, it is security and prosperity granted to the whole community: the poor, the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the tax collector and the sinner, the despised and the rejected, young and old, the powerful and the dependent. We are in it together. Together we stand before His blessings and together we receive the gift of life.
When it comes to vote in 2012, I cannot vote for a Republican to be president because I have contempt for Republicans. I cannot for a Democrat because Democrats disgust me. I am left with an Independent, a Green, or a Socialist candidate. I do not know where the Tea Bagger Party stands and the same goes for the Coffee Party candidate.
I would hope that a viable party in 2012 would be The Jesus Party. Jesus is the party’s founder. The central theme of The Jesus Party was given to us at the Last Supper. It is the Eleventh Commandment. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.
The life of Jesus would be the party’s role model. We need only to read the New Testament in the Bible for our guide to a better world.
gerald... oh Geezus that's a bad idea.
N
Jones is putting US troops in danger per SOS Clinton. He should be arrested as a terrorist.
@Maxrot, if both parties do not adopt the ideas of the Jesus Party, then we need a people party to fill the void that the crazies in both parties are clinging to for the election.
What happened to our once great country?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-United-States-of-Fear-by-Bill-Quigley-100907-862.html
Grandmothers are the smartest people in America.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-GRANDMOTHER-WANTS-TO-KNO-by-Joan-Wile-100907-743.html