We are in the year 2012 now. We still have hope and challenges. A lot of contributions have been made by folks among the world over. Thankfully, more U.S. troops are returning home from Iraq. Yet, we still have a lot more to go to promote freedom and justice. Even in 2012, we have a policy where assassinating American citizens without a trial is real. Even in Iraq, there are still threats of massive sectarian violence. There is a policy about detaining American citizens indefinitely without trial as promoted by the NDAA situation. The TSA regularly uses illegal search and seizures sometimes involving physical molestation and nude photography (even of kids). There is still in America a highly militarized police force more motivated to stop drug use than to protect the citizens’ cherished civil liberties. The militarized police accelerated their power and influence since 2001 especially. Some dedicated individuals have exposed this police state too, so I want to make that absolutely clear. There are thousands of dead soldiers (who didn’t need to die period) as a product of the war on terror (including the NATO/NGO related bombings of sovereign nations like Libya, countries in Africa, etc.). There is a centralization of all power without checks and balances in the world. The Supreme Court immorally supported corporate personhood (or the lie that corporations are people too as Romney admitted that he adhered to that concept). Presently, rampant and unfair wealth redistribution from the poor to corporations is here. Cronyism is a part of the agenda of the 1 percent indeed. This economic inequality contributes to the events of recession. People are suffering. Some once middle class families including their children are now living in shelter. It’s wrong to see these occurring, so new ideas and programs ought to be made into existence (so that poverty can be eradicated not only in America, but in the world). This is the time of great historic change. 2012 will be the year of elections. At least 59 nations will see new elections. The USA, France, China, and Russia will have elections and they make up about 40 percent of the world’s GDP. 2012 is a great time to be alive and willing to seek justice and liberty.
Planned Parenthood is a group that is still being exposed from across the political spectrum. Many Pro-Life human beings are from across the political spectrum. There are pro-life libertarians that are pro-life, because they don’t believe in violating the rights of human beings. They believe that one has the right to control one’s own body, but not to show aggression to suppress the rights of unborn human beings. For the record, many pro-life people believe in programs to help children in and outside of the womb. This refutes the lie of pro-abortion radicals of pro-life individuals not caring about caring for the baby after he or she experienced birth. There are pro-life liberals like Mike Cummings, Dick Gregory, Mark Hatfield, Mary Rose Oakar, and others. Either the unborn is human nor not. There are no half-humans. The unborn life in the womb is human since it has distinct physical, genetic, and emotional properties that are distinct from the mother. It has DNA and it grows. Being pro-life has nothing to do with suppressing women’s rights. It has to do with protecting the rights of the unborn child. Study after study fully documents that abortion on demand can increase the risks of depression, infertility, various cancers, and other negative outcomes upon women. This is a reality that folks acknowledge. In 2012, the abortion industry has been challenged by men and women who want to protect life. Some pro-abortion extremists desire even partial birth abortion when we have laws that heavily ban nearly all partial birth abortions (doctors have commented that partial birth abortion on demand has no medical necessity at all). One group called the Radiance Foundation is a non-profit group. It has worked in college campuses, churches, conferences, and community outreach locations to help human beings. The leader of the Foundation has adopted children. Biased media groups like NRP and others have lied about the Radiance Foundation as well. They didn’t yet PP to intimidate them at all. Planned Parenthood has a new leader in their group, but they haven’t apologized for their founders’ bigoted, pro-white supremacist agenda. PP’s founder is of course Margaret Sanger. She wanted to target the unfit for extermination. This isn’t me typing these words down. This is documented by her literature. She spoke at a racist gathering of Klan figures. That is why black civil rights leaders then and now want to decrease the huge rate of abortion in the black community. 60 percent of black pregnancies end in abortion in NYC alone. That is why adoption, promoting the beauty of possibility, maternity leave, and other programs can help human beings. You can’t say that I want to protect vulnerable children, but agree with shedding innocent blood at every time via abortion. These pro-abortion people claim that the unborn isn’t human when each unborn child has unique DNA, advanced bodily functions even before the second trimester, and a huge sense of worth plus value in the world. The intentional destruction of innocent human life is sick whether it’s war, executing an innocent man via the death penalty, or abortion on demand. That policy doesn’t promote the defense of the helpless at all. Abortion on demand violates the human rights of unborn human beings. It isn’t a matter of choice, but a matter of whether we promote human rights or not for all peoples. Choices have limitations, because humanity is not perfect. A person doing whatever they want is a prescription for anarchy. I have no right to kill. Morality is legislated all of the time in banning slavery, establishing rights for women’s, having civil laws against violent crimes, laws against incest, laws against pedophilia, etc. So to assume that morality is never or should not be legislated is silliness. There should be more pro-people legislation that improves child care, improves adoptions, etc. To assign a sliding scale of value on human life and judge which innocent life can live or die (based on ambiguous reasoning) is eugenics. We are all equal. That means that all human beings have equal value and we all have unalienable rights given by God that can’t be stripped away. Abortion sheds innocent blood. Abortion is the negation of the equality of unborn human life.
Byzantine expanded its trade under Justinian and other Emperors. Trade is important in ancient civilization in numerous ways. Trade can allow goods to come into various locations. Trade can build economies in locations and trade and cause more cultural diffusion. Cultural diffusion is the spreading of cultures between nations or civilizations in a fluid fashion. Greek Orthodox Christianity and the Byzantine Empire allowed people in the Byzantine Empire to form their own unique style of art and architecture. One of the easiest ways to under Byzantine art was to understand mosaics. Mosaics are forms of art that use little sections (made up of clay, and other materials) to create elaborate images. Much of the art existed in Constantinople. This art spread into Europe and across the world. Mosaics are one dimensional, but they are highly colored in advanced patterns. One famous mosaic image is the image of Christ (being flanked by Mary and John the Baptist) as found in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The Hagia Sophia is a domed church and today, there are Islamic influences in it (like the minarets, etc.). The painting is found in the upper gallery. Some mosaics were made as late as the 12th century during the era of the Byzantine Empire. Similar art are found in Bulgaria, Russia, and other Eastern Orthodox nations. Ancient Greek and ancient Roman art influenced Byzantine art. How? Well, in ancient Byzantine there were large classical sculptures in Constantinople. Some of Byzantine was more abstract or symbolic. Frescoes were found in the empire as well. Frescoes are found in the ancient Etruscan culture and the ancient Roman culture. In the early years of the Byzantine Empire, there were reliefs of events like the Edict of Milan. What was the Edict of Milan? This happened after the Roman Emperor Diocletian persecuted Christians. Diocletian was one (if not the most) anti-Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire since he allowed the murder of thousands of innocent Christians via persecution. The Edict of Milan was a letter signed by Emperors Constantine I and Licinius. The letter proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire. The letter was issued in 313 A.D. This period caused more tolerance, but the Roman Empire still tried to harm the rights of non-approved Christian churches in that time and later. Iconoclasm was an influence in Byzantine art. Iconoclasm is a time when the Orthodox Church would ban any art that was related to religious matters from biblical stories to religious figures (as the religious leaders perceived such images as to be heretical). The Orthodox Church today accepts married priests and they refuse to acknowledge the Pope as the head of the whole Christian Church. This division between the Catholics and the Orthodox began during the era of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire preserved ancient Greek and Roman works. This was vital to the development of the Renaissance since Byzantine scholars would travel to Rome with those ancient classical works. The reasons that these scholars left Turkey was that the Muslims conquered Constantinople in 1453 A.D. These Muslims were the Turks. The Turks are a group of people with both an Asian and an European genetic lineage. Some of them are related to the Mongolians. So, these scholars feared religious persecution from the Muslims. That is why these scholars traveled from Turkey into Italy, Greece, and the rest of Europe. The Byzantine culture spread via trade to the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, etc. to reach the Scandinavian, Baltic, and Slavic peoples. St. Cyril allowed many Slavs even to accept the Greek alphabet. The Slavs are an Indo-European people. Originally, the Slavs were based in Central plus Eastern Europe. The spread of Byzantine culture also caused many Eastern European nations to accept the Orthodox religion too.
In 2012, the NDAA is the law of the land. The NDAA law promotes indefinite detention according to its critics. The President signed a law that authorization to indefinitely detain, torture, and deny trial to Americans (according to some civil libertarians). It will grant power to all future Presidents. This new law was signed by the President on December 31, 2011. This new law is against the principles of the nation in my opinion. At first, President Barack Obama pledged to veto the National Defense Authorization Act. Now, he signed the law. We don’t need public consumption. We need reality. The indefinite detention provisions are evil. The President signed the law despite having serious reservation about the provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists according to the Associated Press. These reservations have nothing to do with the rights of the people under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that he swore to protect. The reservation with the NDAA law deals with the changes that challenged the President’s terrorism fighting ability. When the impedance was removed, he reportedly accepted the legislation. Some feel that the veto threat was about Section 1022 and not the authorization for the indefinite detention of Americans in Section 1021. The debate about the law deals with requiring military protocol on detention rather than leaving the discretion over whether to detain to the executive branch under the power of the Presidency. The President issued a signing stated that he wanted to have flexibility on safety matters. He said that he is cautious to the rights of the individuals of the nation, but the new law threatens the rights of every Americans’ due process rights (including a public trial and right to a jury). The President has new authority upon himself. The President said that his administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without a trial of American citizens, but the law could be manipulated by a future President to have it. The ACLU warns people about this new law. The ACLU said that: “…While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations…” ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero stated: “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.” This is a controversial law indeed.
By Timothy
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