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It is always disappointing when a person you’ve long admired for their counter-cultural, Christian thinking reveals the decay of a conventional adherence to the status quo.

Thus my growing disappointment in Ron Sider’s blog. A blog, I suspect, that is read by a good many evangelical Christians.

I was a young man when I got my hands on Dr. Sider’s classic book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.  I have deeply admired him and followed his work ever since. He was kind enough to write a promotional paragraph for my last book, I Pledge Allegiance: I Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America.

Unfortunately, his most recent blog post, entitled “Why Are the Russians Promoting Bernie Sanders,” continues the surprising (at least, to me) revelation that Dr. Sider’s ability at cultural criticism has eroded, his posts merely repeating the predictable canards of our corporate news outlets and the Democratic establishment.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I won’t repeat my deep skepticism of the world-weary “Russian hacking/collusion” conspiracy started by Hillary Clinton as a malicious fig- leaf used to distract from her terrible presidential campaign.

I will only point my readers to the numerous — and consistently vindicated — reports (both in print and online) from real investigative journalists like Glenn Greenwald (here, here at The Intercept), Matt Taibbi (here, here at the Rolling Stone), Max Blumenthal (here, here, and Aaron Mate (here, here, here, here, and here  both at the Greyzone Project and The Nation magazine).

Each of these men exposed the Russia-gate (I hate that term) narrative as a complete lie, perpetuated by the Dems as a useful tool to attack Donald Trump.

The new “intelligence reports” of ongoing election interference, on behalf of both Trump and Sanders, is even more dubious. Notice that we are never given any evidence to support the charges.

We are just supposed to take the intelligence community’s word for it.  Excuse me, but does anyone remember when Iraq’s WMDs were a “slam dunk” according to our CIA director?

Or, more recently, remember the Congressional intelligence briefing (regarding the assassination of Iranian general, Soleimani) where Congress-people left the meeting complaining about the complete lack of evidence presented to them. One Congressman called it “a farce” another “a disaster.”

We discover much wiser counsel from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who urges all citizens to “condemn” the malicious, anti-democratic “election interference by US intelligence agencies“! Please read what she says as a sitting member on the House Armed Services Committee.

In her article, Gabbard vehemently — and quite rightly — condemns such in-house intelligence tactics as the new McCarthyism. And she is absolutely right.

Not only am I deeply chagrined to see Sider uncritically repeating the establishment mantra about Russia, but he is also mimicking the DNC talking points against Bernie Sanders’ unelectability.

I won’t indulge in long counter-arguments here. I will only say, “Phewey on all that malarkey!”

Instead, I will give you a few short informative video clips to watch below.

Check out:

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, debunks the 6 common criticisms made against Sanders with data and evidence, not Democratic establishment talking points. Spoiler alert: numerous polls predict Sanders would beat Trump in a general election.

Jeremy Scahill, at The Intercept, talks about Sanders’ life-long opposition to America’s vicious  wars of imperialism here, and how red-baiting is a long-standing tactic for fear-mongering and the deflection of public attention away from the virtues of an anti-establishment candidate like Sen. Sanders.

Finally, watch this ad from the organization Jews for Bernie explaining why they support Sen. Sanders, as do I.

So, I will probably continue to read Dr. Sider’s blog, but I stopped anticipating helpful political insights.

They are not to be found.

 

The Trump News Network, aka Fox News, refused to sell 30 seconds of air- time for the Academy Award nominated documentary, “Night at the

Garden.”  The ad is called “It Can Happen Here.” Read the story here and here.

The 7 minute film consists of archival footage showing a pro-Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939.  Hitler had just completed construction of his 6th concentration camp.  In only seven months Germany would invade Poland, triggering the bloodiest war in recorded history.

During that East coast winter evening 79 years ago, 20,000 Nazi-supporting Americans packed the New York City arena, raised their right arms in the Nazi salute, and applauded wildly to virulent, anti-Semitic speeches.

We can even see a mob of Nazi brown-shirts beat a protester who climbs onto the stage, until he is finally saved by New York police on the scene.

You can watch the entire film at the producers’ website here, or on YouTube here.

Yes, IT CAN happen here, folks.

Is it unfair of me to suspect that this is why Fox News refused advertisement time for this documentary; the

very network that daily encourages Trump to take more and more extreme measures in his racist policies against people of color?

I don’t think so.

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna expose the fact

that the lion’s share of pharmaceutical research for the development of new drugs is funded by the National Institute for Health not by the drug companies themselves.  Watch the video here.

In other words, the long-standing argument used by pharmaceutical companies,  insisting that they had no choice but to charge high prices for their medications in order to recoup the initial investments demanded by

their own research and development, has always been a lie.

No. These companies have used our tax dollars, invested into the publicly funded scientists working for the public good at the N.I.H., to develop new drugs for their private, commercial benefit.

They then lie about the costs of their own research in order to justify the extreme price gouging that prevents many people from being able to afford the medications that they need.

It’s class warfare, again, folks.  Class war in the land of crony capitalism.

Big corporations exploit the little people both coming and going.  It’s like paying a huge cover charge, first, to get into the dance, and then being mugged by the same bouncer as you exit out the back.

 

The independent, investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal has reported

extensively on the unfolding situation in Venezuelan at his news site The Grayzone Project.

He is now reporting from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.  Check out the recent video segment posted on his Twitter feed here.

Max’s headline reads:

“I’m at Simon de Bolívar square in Caracas where Venezuelans are lining up for blocks to sign a declaration denouncing US intervention and imperialism. One man waiting just told me: ‘Please put in your picture that we’re not invisible and not being paid.’

“…Lines stretch for blocks. Maybe some other western media is here but I haven’t seen them.”

I am grateful to intrepid reporters like Max and his co-workers who bring us the other side of this important story; the side that U.S. news outlets will never report; the side that our government wants to hide; the side which highlights American aggression in the pursuit of American greed and self-interest.

This is the side that the American church ought to be defending….there’s no two ways about it.

 

The Greanville Post has published a good article by Bill Van Auken explaining some of the history that has led up to the current coup attempt in Venezuela.  It’s entitled, “Washington Engineers Right-Wing Coup in Venezuela.”

I have posted an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“…Washington’s recognition of Guaidó as president constitutes a naked intervention by US imperialism with the aim of achieving its own predatory aims in Venezuela, which boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves. At the same time, it is aimed at rolling back the influence in the hemisphere of Russia and China, which have both established close economic and political ties with Caracas.

“This regime change operation has been two decades in the making, from the abortive 2002 CIA-orchestrated coup against Maduro’s late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, under George W. Bush, through the imposition of sanctions by the Obama administration and its designation of Venezuela as an ‘extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.’ (emphasis mine)

“By in effect throwing US support to a rival government, the Trump administration is seeking to create the conditions for a military coup or even civil war within Venezuela as well as a US military intervention from without…

“It was revealed last year that US officials repeatedly met between the fall of 2017 and the beginning of last year with a group of Venezuelan military officers seeking US support for the overthrow of Maduro. These contacts failed to reach fruition because Washington believed that the conspiracy was insufficiently prepared…”

Believe it or not, archaeologists continue to excavate the network of caves along the western shore of the Dead Sea that produced the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

Haaretz has an interesting article describing this ongoing work.  Below is an excerpt.  You can read the entire article here.

“The fact that in 2019 explorations to find scrolls are still ongoing may sound

surprising. Gutfeld thinks otherwise.

“’To many it seems obvious that everything that could be found in the Judean Desert caves has been found, and they are empty. But in the last few seasons we proved that there are findings galore and that these excavations are very important,’ he says.

“’From the first bucket we took out of the cave, we’ve been sifting out pottery fragments. We’ve found vessels and organic material including hundreds of olive pits, dates, seeds and nuts. We’ve found ropes, jars, lids, an intact decorated bronze pot, a candle unique to the Qumran region, linen textiles that were probably used for wrapping scrolls. We found leather straps that were probably used to tie the scrolls…'”