posted March 01, 2006 02:58 PM              

This is from their "Core Vision" statement (as linked to and further articulated on the TIKKUN website):

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It is our contention that social change and inner change go hand in hand. We are building a movement in which we can talk about love and caring for each other--and this is the only way we can overcome the old left/right dichotomies and dead policy debates that fill academic journals, leftie magazines, the insipid television confrontations between shouting talkiing heads, the vacuity of so many of the speeches at leftie anti-war demonstrations, and the rhetoric of elected officials. For too long these predictable slogans and divisions have paralyzed American politics and made most of us feel like withdrawing into a purely personal life. At this moment, we are particularly excited by and supportive of the upsurge of social justice activism aimed both at promoting environmental sanity and at challenging the destructive impact of globalization. But we hope to play a role in deepening those and other social change movements to integrate into their core the kind of spiritual awareness that can make it possible for them to reach a much wider audience and thus be able to actually achieve their social justice goals.

To do so we must talk at a far deeper level than merely repeating or reframing the traditional leftist demands for economic and political rights. While we support those demands and thus welcome any advances that provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, child care, and other basic rights, we also believe that these will only be won on a global level when the social change movements are able to address the spiritual consequences of the triumph of corporate globalization: a society-wide depression and repression of what we can variously call the life-force, eros, God-energy or Spirit..

Please note that this is very different from those who talk about spiritual politics but actually mean only this: that it would be politically advantageous and opportune to take the traditional liberal agenda and dress it up with some spiritual or “values” language. So they take the existing liberal/left agenda, with its primary focus on social justice, inclusion of those who have been left out, economic redistribution, and peace—and then they find some Biblical quotes to bolster the case for the pre-existing liberal/progressive agenda. We support all that, but our movement goes much deeper. We don’t believe that the liberal agenda can be won simply by reframing it in spiritual language. For a large section of the American public, the primary source of pain in their lives is not about economic deprivation or non-inclusion, but about the way that the ethos of selfishness and materialism plays out in their personal lives and in the lives of people around them in ways that are destructive and feel terrible. They can’t stand being part of the manipulative, narrowly utilitarian way people treat each other and themselves and the earth. They want a framework of meaning to their lives and to the lives of those around them that speaks of higher meaning to life, shows a path to a life that is not only about maximizing money but about maximizing a meaningful life—in short, they want and need a politics of meaning, and need a meaning-oriented movement that can counter the spiritual depression that surrounds them. Don’t confuse this with those who simply are trying to put some Biblical quotes in front of the same old Democratic Party or liberal agenda—we are seeking a much deeper change. Our challenge is not only to the Right—but also to the liberals and progressives, to the Greens and the Democrats, who have not allowed themselves to get beyond their knee-jerk antagonism to religion and spirituality, an whose openness to religious or spiritual people is only utilitarian and does not include a willingness to learn about the actual dimensions of the spiritual deprivation which is endemic to the way global capitalism functions today, and the ways that it generates a global emotional depression.

This spiritual depression and emotional repression that suffuse contemporary life are the near-universal responses to the globalization of a self-congratulatory individualism, obsessive materialism, and consumption—all provided as compensation for the meaninglessness of our present-day culture. The one-dimensional technocratic consciousness, speed-up of work, perception that we have "no time" to do what we really believe in, and our inability to recognize others in terms that go beyond what they can do for us to advance our own agendas as rational maximizers of self-interest—all these combine to create human beings who, if they don’t explode in violence or self-destructive alcohol and drug abuse, find themselves in varying degrees of disconnection to their inner selves, their feelings, and their capacities to be loving towards others and responding to the universe with joy.

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posted March 01, 2006 03:28 PM              

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....but I wonder if I were to jump on your back stating how can you be such a loving peace seeking American Indian if you so readily berate someone and call into question their religious convictions? See how it can be turned?

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The person I was "berating" about their "religion" was the shrub, and no one here on these forums...and I stand by my convictions!

How can a man who STOLE (Bible says Thou shalt not steal) two elections call himself a Christian????

How can a man who sent hundreds of our young people into a bloody war, based on lies, to be sacrificed and maimed (Bible says Thou Shalt not kill), call himself a Christisn?

Oh there's more I could say about this dispicable person, but what I've said is enough to challenge his claims of being "a Christian."

As for me being a "loving peace, American Indian" - ah shux, Pid...I've been found out...

posted March 01, 2006 06:02 PM              

Excerpt: The irregularities were so massive and widespread it took Conyers 102 pages to list them. His report, "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio," was released on January 5, and is a clear indictment of the shameful lengths to which Republicans will go to derail democracy. At the same time, in a buoyant fund-raising letter to Ohians while the votes were still being counted, Blackwell made the case that he should be elected governor in return for saving the Great Buckeye State from "an unapologetic liberal named John Kerry," and for delivering the spoils to Bush.

Dec. 15, 2004:
Proof of Ohio election fraud exposed

Excerpt: TRIAD is owned by a man named Tod Rapp, who has also donated money to both the Republican Party and the election campaign of George W. Bush. TRIAD manufactures punch-card voting systems, and also wrote the computer program that tallied the punch-card votes cast in 41 Ohio counties last November.

... A representative from TRIAD Systems came into a county board of elections office un-announced. He said he was just stopping by to see if they had any questions about the up-coming recount. He then headed into the back room where the TRIAD supplied Tabulator (a card reader and older PC with custom software) is kept. He told them there was a problem and the system had a bad battery and had "lost all of its data". He then took the computer apart and started swapping parts in and out of it and another "spare" tower type PC also in the room. He may have had spare parts in his coat as one of the BOE people moved it and remarked as to how very heavy it was. He finally re-assembled everything and said it was working but to not turn it off.

He then asked which precinct would be counted for the 3% recount test, and the one which had been selected as it had the right number of votes, was relayed to him. He then went back and did something else to the tabulator computer.

The TRIAD Systems representative suggested that since the hand count had to match the machine count exactly, and since it would be hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count to come out exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers. He suggested making them look like employee information or something similar. The people doing the hand count could then just report these numbers no matter what the actual count of the ballots revealed. This would then "match" the tabulator report for this precinct exactly. The numbers were apparently the final certified counts for the selected precinct.

Dec. 13, 2004:
See for yourself or read the transcript
Programmer's testimony before
U.S. House Judiciary Committee
Excerpt: Mr Curtis, are there programs that can be used to secretly fix elections? Yes.

How do you know that to be the case? Because in October of 2000 I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney, at the company I work for in Oviedo, Florida, that did just that.

And when you say, "Did just that," it would rig an election? It would flip the vote fifty-one forty-nine to whoever you wanted it to go to, and whichever race you wanted it to win.

And would that program that you designed be something that elections officials, that might be on county boards of elections, could detect? They'd never see it.

U.S. ELECTION:
Democracy in Question
Ritt Goldstein

STOCKHOLM, Nov 18 (IPS) - John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, told IPS he has been calling it "the Armageddon election" for about a year. Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes the Republican Party was able to "steal it before election day."

Facts suggest something went very wrong on Nov. 2.

Speculation focuses upon a number of questions -- purposeful miscounts, anomalies surrounding electronic voting (e-voting) machines, particularly the optical scan types; and numerous reports of voting "irregularities" in heavily Democratic areas.

"What they 'do' is minorities," Nader said, highlighting the thrust of Republican efforts, "and make sure that there aren't enough voting machines for the minority areas. They have to wait in line ... for hours, and most of them don't. There are all kinds of ways, and that's why I was quoted as saying, "this election was hijacked from A to Z," Nader told IPS.

From the same article…

Allegations regarding optical scan machines' potentially allowing the manipulation of Florida's vote have been widely reported. In Ohio, the Green and Libertarian parties are pursuing a recount, numerous instances of voting irregularities having been reported there.

"As far as I'm concerned, this election was clearly stolen. What they did in Ohio was systematically deny thousands of African Americans, and other suspected Democrats, the vote," charged progressive author, commentator and activist Harvey Wasserman of Franklin County, Ohio.

"It was like Mississippi in the fifties, and it was deliberate ... had there been enough (voting) machines, and had people equal access to the polls with a reliable vote count, there is no doubt that John Kerry would have carried Ohio," he told IPS.

…

"In the end, what Nader is doing in New Hampshire is the best answer. And if there's a recount in Ohio," that is also important, said Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist who specialises in statistical methods, elections and public opinion.

Somewhat concerned about the possible manipulation of e-voting machines, Franklin was more concerned over "the ordinary administration of elections," citing the simple logistical problems that had plagued voters.

He pointedly noted that the last two presidential elections highlighted "how the decisions of local people (officials) ... can have a considerable influence over who gets to vote, what rules govern." http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=26346

posted March 01, 2006 06:38 PM            

I would suggest Conyers has or is about to have enough on his plate and perhaps more than Conyers can chew when the House Ethics Committee takes up the ethics complaints against him. It's also true Conyers could be indicted for some felonies.

March 1, 2006
Former Conyers aides press ethics complaints
By Jonathan E. Kaplan

Two former aides to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) have alleged that he repeatedly violated House ethics rules.

Deanna Maher, a former deputy chief of staff in Conyers’s Detroit office, and Sydney Rooks, a former legal counsel in the district office, provided evidence for the allegations by sharing numerous letters, memorandums and copies of e-mails, handwritten notes and expense reports with The Hill.

In letters sent separately by each woman to the House ethics committee, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, they allege that Conyers demanded that aides work on several local and state campaigns and forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children. They also charge that some aides illegally used Conyers’s congressional offices to enrich themselves.

Maher decided she could no longer work for Conyers in such an unethical environment and quit in May 2005. Rooks had left Conyers years earlier; she was a full-time staffer working in the office for him from 1997 to 1999. Before leaving, Conyers placed her on paid administrative leave for several months and stopped paying her in April 2000.

“I could not tolerate any longer being involved with continual unethical, if not criminal, practices which were accepted as ‘business as usual,’” Maher wrote in a letter to the ethics panel dated Jan. 13, 2006.

A spokesman in Conyers’s office referred questions to Stanley Brand, an attorney who regularly defends public officials charged with wrongdoing.

Brand said, “We’ve responded fully and completely over two years ago to what the ethics committee sent to us, and we’ve not heard anything since then.”

A partisan dispute over staffing issues shut down the ethics committee in 2005, but GOP sources said the panel, known formally as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, has since hired a staff director and a team of investigators. The committee is evaluating which investigations to pursue, including the Conyers matter.

Rooks said that she spoke to Ken Kellner, a lawyer on the committee, last year but that he dismissed her complaints “as old news.”

While the ethics committee has been aware of the allegations against Conyers for at least two years, Maher’s allegations date back to 1998, a year after Conyers hired her.

Maher had been a well-known child advocate in the Detroit suburbs. She told the ethics panel in a letter that Conyers nicknamed her the “Legal Beagle” because as chairwoman of the Youth at Risk Advocacy Coalition she pushed the state of Michigan to upgrade a home in Wayne County for delinquent children.

In her Jan. 13 letter, Maher recapped a previous allegation she had made that DeWayne Boyd, a former top aide to Conyers, used Conyers’s congressional office to obtain a fake passport after being convicted of fraud, making false statements and government theft in 2004. Sentenced in 2005 to 30 to 46 months in prison, Boyd fled to Ghana before being recaptured and extradited to the United States.

The crux of the allegations involves complaints that Conyers used his staff to work on several local and state campaigns including his wife’s failed bid for a seat in the state Senate. In 2003, the Detroit Free Press reported about the allegations that Conyers repeatedly violated House rules by forcing staffers to work on campaigns without taking leave.

Among Maher’s allegations:

• In 2002, Conyers’s aides in D.C. were sent to Detroit to help his wife, Monica, win a state Senate seat. While she lost that election, she won a seat last year on the Detroit City Council.

• On June 2, 2003, Conyers forced Maher to spend a day campaigning for Keith Williams, who won a seat on the Wayne County Commission. She became fed up and drove off after going door to door to distribute campaign literature for a few blocks.

• Carol Patton, a legislative counsel on Conyers’s personal staff, was hired in 2003 to help Williams and to help JoAnn Watson in her bid for Detroit City Council. Patton still works for Conyers and earns more than $44,000 per year, according to the 2005 House statement of disbursements.

• In a Dec. 22, 2004, letter, Maher said Conyers staffer Melody Light “conducts her law practice (charging legal fees) out of the congressional office. … She has in effect hung out her shingle on [Conyers’s] office door.”

Maher and Rooks said that Conyers tasked staffers in his district office with taking care of his two young boys, John and Carl.

“If he asked you to do something, you knew you had to do it,” said Rooks, 54, who administers a homeless shelter in Detroit.

She told The Hill that she tutored “Little John,” as Conyers’s elder son is known, when he was a student at the Cranbrook School, a private school in Bloomfield Hills. The tutoring took place during normal working hours, and she was not given additional compensation for the work, nor was she reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses.

Rooks said when the son received low grades, Conyers told her, “‘Well, Rooks, you can add tutoring to your list of stuff to do.’”

She added that a staffer would pick the son up from school, take him to the office, fix him a snack and help him with his homework.

Maher provided a copy of an e-mail from Jan. 13, 2004, written by Dean Christian Thornton, a former staff assistant, who complained that he had not been reimbursed for the cost of gasoline when Conyers “wanted me to use my truck to shuttle him and his kids around and not use his car.”

A former staffer who has worked for two House Democrats said, “This type of behavior is so prevalent, the unofficial duties that members require you to do off-the-record. Most staffers are subjected to this unfair treatment. It’s the great untold story on Capitol Hill.”

posted March 01, 2006 06:48 PM              

Yeah and I have a picture of the presidents face tatooed on my a$$.

*Rolls eyes

posted March 01, 2006 09:30 PM              

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Again.. Rainbow.. that is YOUR opinion and NOT a fact about stealing the election. You are entitled to that and to call him what you want... I am also entitled to voice my opinion and state what I did about you.

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Right-O

But what I didn't understand was this part.....

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...how can you be such a loving peace seeking American Indian if you so readily berate someone and call into question their religious convictions?

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Ah...excuse me, but what in tarnation does being an American Indian have to do with my opinions??? That comment is so far out in left field, it's funny...

posted March 02, 2006 04:24 PM            

What I was saying or pointing out is that you readily berated Bush and questions his religious convictions, in fact (among the other wonderful names that you call him) you stripped away any notion that he could be a Christian at ALL... right? Are you following so far?

You come off and you have stated that you are more about peace and love (hence the name RAINBOW) and you so easily call into question another person's love of their religion. It isn't enough for you to state 'I don't see how this person can call himself a Christian when he does this or that" Instead you state "THIS PERSON IS NOT A CHRISTIAN or else..."

You have made a few pretty hateful remarks about this person, yet should anyone slightly offend you, by God you start ranting and raving - pulling the "poor me" thing. I used the term "American Indian" only because you have associated your racial background with peace. I do not associate or portray the fact that because I am American Indian (I choose that term over Native American) I must be pacifist or peace loving- not all tribes were or are.. that is a fact. So, how can someone that is so full of love and peace, who would never judge another human being harshly (because, as you said, we are all human) so easily call into question what is in the heart of the President so adamently as you? Would you call all other former Presidents that led us into war, where we lost troops, murderers? What about Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Carter, Nixon, Kennedy, Clinton...etc..... Reagan. Are they ALL murderers because our people died at the hands of an enemy? What standard do you use to measure if someone is considered a patriot for sending troops to war or a murderer?

posted March 02, 2006 07:45 PM              

I'm not very familiar with TIKKUN, I've read only a bit of their literature and perused their website a few times. I kinda like them too. They're novel if nothing else.

Still, I remain suspicious of those who yank they're spirituality down to an earthy plane. I know it's the trend these days and I understand that the hope is to bring a newfound morality to our lives, but the dangers, I believe, outweigh the possible benefits. I think religion and spirituality already suffer from overly materialistic thought processes (the growing trend of fundementalism in all religions is maybe the most obvious sign of this) and the heady combination of religion and politics can only make it worse. I'm pretty confident utopia doesn't breed spiritual growth so if given the choice between a healthy spirit or a healthy society, I'll go with the former.

I'm not saying this sort of thing can't do immeasurable good when placed in skilled hands - King and Gandhi were cleary inspired by a deep spirituality - but there aren't too many sets of skilled hands out there able to keep things in balence.

posted March 02, 2006 08:00 PM              

I tend to think that Bush really does believe he is a good Christian. Many would agree. On the other hand, many probably believe Cindy Sheehan and her camp are doing the good and Christian thing. Last week I drove past a middle-aged soccer mom type in a SUV with a bumper sticker that said something along the likes of "Jesus protects the 2nd Amendment". Apparently she believes Jesus is consummed with thoughts of guns and Constitutions ... and so her own mind follows suit. It's very odd and in my ever-so-humble opinion sort of proves my last post true.

posted March 02, 2006 11:57 PM              

Pid says...

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I used the term "American Indian" only because you have associated your racial background with peace

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Pid...that is a lie! I hate to put it so bluntly...but that's what it is!

We had this discussion before...and I agreed with you that not all tribes were pacifist or peace-loving, and I didn't associate my racial background with peace.

Who I am; my philosphosy of life; my ideals; have nothing to do with my racial background...How could it? I wasn't raised the "native way."

My spiritual beliefs come mainly from some very valuable studies with The Lemurian Philosophy...

My mother was white, my father was American Indian...I was born and raised in a "white world." (because my father's world was turned white).. It has only been recently that I've come to the reservation (because we finally got our land back) to become more acquainted with my roots, and the Anishnabek way of life. ...and I don't mean the "white man's" version...

So how you can sit right there and tell such outrageous lies about me, is beyond my comprehension.

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Rainbow... you still take things out of context I see. Are you now trying to turn this into a Race thing?

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I am not! But apparently you are. You're the one who brought up the "Indian" thing.

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You come off and you have stated that you are more about peace and love (hence the name RAINBOW)

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Your imagination is running away with you, girl!

I've used Rainbow as a sceen name for years.

I first started posting as Rainbow at a place called SPIRIT WEB (about 10 years ago) and I picked Rainbow for an altogether different reason than the one you just now made up in your head...

Some of my friends at Spirit Web knew why I had choosen the name, and I think some here do...It had to do with an experience I had, but I don't feel I owe any explanation to you, especially since you've already jumped to your own conclusions about it!

...and yes I try to be about peace and love...

****

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You have made a few pretty hateful remarks about this person, yet should anyone slightly offend you, by God you start ranting and raving - pulling the "poor me" thing

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"This Person" you are talking about is no doubt, bush.

...and am I anti-bush?

Yup! you bet I am! And I owe no one any apologies for it.

As for making hateful remarks, I'll admit that I do - but they are limited to bush and his goonies.

I don't knock people here on the forum - unless you call defending yourself from stupid accusations, knocking them...You, on the other hand, called me POND SCUM, one time...

****

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So, how can someone that is so full of love and peace, who would never judge another human being harshly (because, as you said, we are all human) so easily call into question what is in the heart of the President so adamently as you?

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It is because I AM a peace loving individual that I call into question bush's behavior.

I don't HATE bush, I think he is a very sick man, and I'm sorry about that..and were he just Joe Schmo...that's where it would end. He'd be sick...and I'd feel sorry about it.

However he is NOT just Joe Schmo. He is the president of the United States for God's sake, and that's when pity turns to frustration and outrage....and he should be taken out of office...he needs to be impeached before he does more damage to us....

He took us to a war based on lies! He's responsible for so many deaths that I don't even want to think about it...He even has members of his own party in an uproar now!

He is NOT a good man! And I am not the only one who is aware of it...

More and more people are waking up to just how horrible he is...and some of us knew it from the start...

****

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Maybe I am wrong about how I interpreted your posts on being on the reservation and the whole peace connotation. Funny how you were all about embracing the post before and now you have your panties in a bunch over it. LOL....

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Ya know Pid...I just don't know what you're talking about here...what post/posts are you talking about????

posted March 03, 2006 12:09 AM              

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I tend to think that Bush really does believe he is a good Christian. Many would agree.

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He probably does Tink, cuz the man is delusional.....

posted March 03, 2006 01:54 AM              

(I don't make these pictures boys and girls....I found out that bush has this huge fan club out there willing to make them them for me )

posted March 03, 2006 07:19 AM              

quote:

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However he is NOT just Joe Schmo. He is the president of the United States for God's sake, and that's when pity turns to frustration and outrage....and he should be taken out of office...he needs to be impeached before he does more damage to us....

He took us to a war based on lies! He's responsible for so many deaths that I don't even want to think about it...He even has members of his own party in an uproar now!

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Rainbow

As Sue G said, "As for the President, god bless him, but what does he expect?"

People in positions of power put themselves in the path of global scrutiny. As such, they have the ultimate responsibility to behave responsibly and honestly; to be above corruption, deception, intimidation or manipulation and to do things legitimately. I agree that in times of crisis, there is also an onus upon them to take risks and make decisions for the good of their people however, that does not include going against, for example, UN security council rulings (which are in place partly to prevent situations similar to Germany in 1939 from repeating themselves), because the rashness of those actions endanger far more innocent people than they protect.

Unfortunately, George has not achieved such tenets of good leadership and therefore, he has cast himself as the subject of people's 'frustration and outrage' just as Rainbow so eloquently described.

posted March 04, 2006 12:29 AM            

That would make Dick Cheney President. Cheney has no plans to run for office in the next presidential election. But if he were President, he might decide to stay on, if for no other reason than to expose Hillary as the corrupt Marxist she is, instead of the patriotic American she claims to be and end her political career. You saw what Cheney did to poor Boy Wonder, John Edwards...ummmm, one of the smartest lawyers in America. So they say.

lalalinda