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Please visit the good folks in our blogroll. I have added Richard Stallman's home page and ICUJP: Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a wonderful organization I have had the good fortune to work with the past few months. Give these folks your support any way you can; a friendly email saying where you heard of them is always welcome.
Peace, Robert
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You absolutely must check out Richard Stallman's personal page. That's right computing freedom legend Richard Stallman, founding father of Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project has linked to Repeal AUMF from his personal page:
Long-term action items
Support the campaign to repeal the overbroad "authorization for use of military force", adopted by a panicky congress in 2001, which gives Bush carte blanche to start wars anywhere.(emphasis added)
Yes, friends, that entry links back to our own front door. Please take a moment to drop by Richard's site, which has a wealth of information other vital projects.
Thank you, Richard!
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I need easier access to these:
At Royce Hall Harris outlined three ways to support religion. In typical sophist manner he listed the three to which he has prepared answers and implied his list was exhaustive. But he missed at least one important support of religion: it is an unavoidable fact of human life, be the form a simple animism like Shinto or a complex and contradictory mysticism like Zen or a politically powerful force like the Roman Catholic church. Like it or not, humans are religious, arguably from the same drive as that which moves science, to wit, the desire to understand, to orient within the larger universe, to predict and control and achieve favorable outcomes. Cavil as much as he may like (there's a two-syllable word for your detractors
) Harris can do nothing to stem the tide of religiosity. And you rightly point out that Harris's ideological kettle cannot contain itself. I don't know that Harris's views on religion are really worth the bother to discuss. His conclusion that his views justify religious persecution, by way of contrast, should be very much at the forefront. Harris considers "us" to be at war with Islam. Not with a nation. Not with perpetrators of some crime. With a religion. I suspect this is what comes of asking questions with great socio-political impact of a neuro-scientist-in-training, about on a par with asking Durkheim about an aneurysm. But the truly dominant religions in our culture are scientism, from which comes such oxymorons as "Christian Science", and cebebritism, in which a manufactured "religion" like Scientology actively recruits the Tom Cruises and John Travoltas of the world. Harris currently benefits from the blind worship of both science and celebrity, despite the vacuity of what I've seen of his writing and presentation.
it's possible Harris just lacks the maturity to recognize what really motivates him. But to be clear, he's not a racist. Nor a sexist. When Chris Hedges made the mistake of calling Harris's position racist Sam acted like a chess junkie confronted with the one opening he knows well enough to play credibly. "How dare you call me a racist, when I'm the one pointing out how it's Muslim women who suffer most under Islam!" He was quite breathless about it, and managed to imply, deftly, that in opposing Harris it is Hedges who is complicit in the plight of the oppressed. (Nahida's comments about the accuracy of Sam's views, obviously, notwithstanding.) So, be clear, Sam Harris is not a racist, per se. He is, however, by the words he has written, an unrepentant religious bigot, and an arrogant one at that, hiding behind efforts to earn credentials completely unrelated to the subject matter at hand and a gift for, like all sophists, emotional argument, reductionism, and the raising of straw men. But I was equally disappointed with Hedges and Scheer. Scheer at one point flatly said, "I"m not going to put you on the spot' with regards to Harris's whine that Hedges misrepresented Harris. When later Hedges pulled chapter and verse from Harris's own book Harris tried to deflect. And then Hedges blew the whole thing by feeding Harris one of Harris's preferred gambits, the accusation of racism, after which Sam deftly moved to his intellectually illegitimate Nazi allusions. Hedges should have known better. And even after gifting Sam with such a slow-pitched softball, Hedges should have simply said, "My mistake, the word is 'bigot'."
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Arguably we'll be needing to block all U.S. economic activity, as there is no way we can be seen has having done aught else but threatened "the peace or stability of Iraq". But such a contradiction doesn't invalidate such orders from the Imperium; they only put us on alert that there will be not even lip service to reason.
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,
(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:
(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or
(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:
(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;
(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and
(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.
Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.
Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.
Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.
Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.
Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 17, 2007.
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At first it seems funny, and the folks at boingboing.net present it tongue-in-cheek. But the more I think about it the more sense it makes. If this is really from a 1952 comic then it's part of the collective unconscious and may indeed explain what to some of us younger folk are the truly depraved and irrational actions of our current leaders.
(Previously at boingboing.net)
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