Senator John McCain went into Syria to meet with the Syrian rebels. This is ironic for many reasons. One is that the U.S. government claims to fight terrorism. Yet, they are funding the rebels, who have terrorists among many of their ranks indeed. Not to mention that numerous individuals are in Guantanamo Bay for just associating with terrorists. Numerous FSA rebels in Syria have admittedly said that they were led and have allegiance to Al-Qaeda terrorists. The Republican Senator John McCain wants U.S. military aid to the Syrian opposition. He made a surprise visit to Syria and met with the rebels. This comes when Russia and the U.S. are trying to set up a peace conference. This comes when the EU wants to scrap the arms embargo of the Syrian opposition. This will give Britain and France the means to send heavy weaponry to the rebels when the Syrian Army troops are scoring major victories. Many of the former Guantanamo Bay detainees (as found in a list) are in there, because some of them are merely associating with terrorists. John McCain did just this action when he meet up with FSA militants. These militants begged him to pressure President Barack Obama to send weapons and launching air strikes against the Assad government. NATO tries to differentiate between FSA rebels and the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in Syria. Yet, some of them are one and the same. Some Jabhat al-Nusra members are commanding FSA rebels. There are facts that prove that many sections of the FSA rebels are terrorists. John McCain is associating with many terrorists members. FSA rebels have defected to Jabhat al-Nusra in drove. Jabhat al-Nusra is in the leading front line fighting force in Syria. They command other rebel groups. They have killed U.S. troops in Iraq. After the State Department declared Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization, 29 different FSA rebel outfits pledged allegiance to the Al-Qaeda groups. FSA rebels have vowed to fight the U.S. after they finish with Bashar al-Assad. They burn American flags. Some of them are filmed singing songs to glorify the CIA asset Osama bin Laden and the evil 9/11 attacks. Some of the FSA rebels have cannibalized human beings. Some of them have murdered Christians, Sunnis, Shia, and other dissidents in Syria. FSA rebels have forced children to behead human beings and create other atrocities. They have killed journalists in targeted killings like Maya Nasser and Yara Abbas. FSA rebels are pictured wearing the black flag of Al-Qaeda and wearing uniforms with Al-Qaeda insignia on. The UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said that FSA rebels have used chemical weapons. They are being funded by the Saudis and the Qataris. John McCain is the man supporting the terrorists in Libya that murdered innocent human beings before. When the No Fly Zone resolution over Libya was first passed in the UN, it was designed to enable ‘rebel’ forces in Libya to “protect the civilian population” from air and armor attacks from the Libyan Army. What ensued almost immediately after the resolution passed was nothing of the sort: the UK and France – under US direction – took it upon themselves, in almost 10,000 airstrike sorties within six months, to not only destroy all of Libya’s meager air-force and armor, but destroy the vast majority of the infrastructure Gaddafi had built. This ran alongside a targeted assassination campaign against Gaddafi himself to bring about the desired regime change, which just by chance, also happens to be completely against international law. He or John McCain wants conflict with Iran, but loves to ally with terrorist allied human beings in Syria. The secular Syrian government is targeted for regime change (and Jabhat al-Nusra wants an extremist fundamentalist state filled with sharia law). The CIA has used an arms trafficking operation from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Syria according to numerous sources. Saudi Arabia is hypocritical to claim to want freedom in Syria, but they have some of the most authoritarian, anti-freedom policies in the world. The neo-conservatives want Western involvement in a war with not only Syria, but with Iran as well. The Syrians should have freedom, but not at the hands of theocratic terrorists. There should be an independent peace conference and discussions as a means to end the Syrian civil war (and make solutions that will benefit all of the Syrian people not a select few or U.S./NATO interests).
Fannie Lou Hamer was one of the greatest human rights activists in human history. She led a legacy of diverse activism in the world. Her legacy is very huge. She was born in 1917 in Montgomery, Mississippi. She was the youngest of 20 children. Her family moved into Sunflower County, Mississippi in 1919. Her family worked on the plantation of E.W. Brandon. Hamer picked cotton. By the age of 13, she picked 200-300 pounds on a daily basis. She later became an activist. Hamer in the 1950's, Hamer attended several annual conferences of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership or the RCNL in the all black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Dr. T. R.M. Howard was a civil rights leader and a wealthy black entrepreneur. He headed the RCNL. The RCNL conferences featured entertainers like Mahalia Jackson including Thurgood Marshall, and Rep. Charles Diggs of Michigan. They readily discussed issues of voting rights and other civil rights issues. She was forcibly sterilized in 1961 by a white doctor as part of the Mississippi's plan to reduce the number of poor black Americans in the state. She was also inspired to fight for equality and justice by witnessing a sermon made by Rev. James Bevel on August 23, 1962. Rev. Bevel was an organizer for SNCC or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He gave his sermon in Ruleville, Mississippi and appealed the folks to register to vote. Institutionalized racism, harassment, murder, assaults, and even lynchings came to those black human beings who registered to vote in the South. Hamer was the first volunteer to register. She later said, "I guess if I'd had any sense, I'd have been a little scared - but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they'd been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember." In August 31, Fannie Lou Hamer came to Indianola, Mississippi to register. She was religious. Therefore, she began to sing Christian hymns like "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "This Little Light of Mine" to the group as a means for them to bolster their resolves. Hamer believed that the civil rights struggle was not only a political struggle for freedom, but a deeply spiritual one as well. She expressed a lot of courage in her life, especially in Indianola. SNCC organizer Bob Moses wanted to meet with Fannie Lou Hamer because of her activism. Fannie Lou Hamer was jailed in Winona, Mississippi on a false charge. Her and her colleagues were beaten brutally by the police almost to the point of death. This happened in June 9, 1963. She was released in June 12, yet this still never deterred this strong Black Sister at all. She continued to have voter registration drives like the "Freedom Ballot Campaign", a mock election in 1963, and the "Freedom Summer" initiative in 1964. She was known to the volunteers of Freedom Summer - most of whom were young, white, and from northern states - as a motherly figure who believed that the civil rights effort should be multi-racial in nature. Sammy Young Jr. and Wendell Paris were allies and worked under Fannie Lou Hamer. Sammy was assassinated in Tuskegee in 1966. Paris continued to work as a community activist in Tuskegee and Mississippi. She is famous for her courage stand for equal representation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. In the summer of 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party of the Freedom Democrats wanted to challenge the Mississippi's all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention of that year (as not representative of all Mississippians). Hamer was elected Vice-Chair. The Freedom Democrats voiced the concerns and expressed words on the plight of African Americans in Mississippi. They wanted representation that could challenge LBJ's nomination process. The reason was that many other Southern delegations could break toward Republican challenger Barry Goldwater. That means in turn that he would almost certainly lose those states' electoral votes in the election. Hamer was shown in the media. This angered Johnson and this piece of work Johnson called her a name. So, in the final analysis, no President gave us our freedom. God did and the efforts of human beings did via blood, sweat, and tears. Hamer and the rest of the MFDP told the Convention about their issues that they have encountered with registration. She suffered a lot. Her speech was shown unedited in later news programs despite Johnson's efforts to divert press coverage away from Hamer's testimony. Hamer refused to compromise. Hamer was not part of later negotiations. A new compromise was attempted to be reached. The Convention would select the two delegates to be seated, for fear the MFDP would appoint Hamer. In the end, the MFDP rejected the compromise, but had changed the debate to the point that the Democratic Party adopted a clause which demanded equality of representation from their states' delegations in 1968. This was an important event since it not only showed the fallibility of the Democrats, but it outlined that still representation is still under attack then and now. Fannie Lou Hamer continued to fight for local civil rights causes and the Freedom Democrats. She ran for Congress in 1964 and 1965. She opposed the Vietnam War.
Reconstruction was one of the most important parts of American history. It lasted for a few decades, but its implications are still felt in our time in 2013. Class, race, and other factors influenced the history of Reconstruction. Reconstruction began when the Civil War was over in 1865. The South has been devastated by war. Communities have been displaced. African Americans were legitimately freed from the bondage of slavery. It was a long time coming. New challenges and new debates arose in the American consciousness. A lot of human beings focus just on the 20th century to research the civil rights struggle, but the struggle for civil rights was definitely fought in the time of Reconstruction. You can make the case that the golden era of the civil rights movement (from 1954 to 1968 was like a Second Reconstruction). Now, after the Civil War, three constitutional amendments were passed, which have a huge resonance in the human rights movement. They were the 13th Amendment that ended slavery, the 14th Amendment that gave African Americans citizenship, and the 15th Amendment that gave African Americans males the right to vote (it would be decades later that women would be allowed to vote in the USA). Reconstruction was a time when emancipated slaves or freed brothers and sisters had guns in their hands. They wanted political and social equality. They fought for the redistribution of land and towards political liberty. The old order of the Old South was turned upside down. The land was owned once by big proprietors, whom many of it was stolen from Native Americans. Southern lands were controlled by the federal government and the military, because Southern state governments were extremely weakened as a product of the Civil War. The military occupied Southern lands until they were on their feet. Abraham Lincoln wanted the South to be united as compassionately as possible while the Radical Republicans wanted justice sent to the South more strongly because of their actions. When Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson was President. He was one of the most prejudiced and racist Presidents in American history. Andrew Johnson was not only a Freemason, but he started to amnestying former slave owners and weeded radicals out of the Freedmen's Bureau. He pardoned the Confederate traitor and 33rd Degree Freemason Albert Pike (who was the author of Morals and Dogma. We know who he is). Andrew Johnson had a very evil, vicious hatred of black people. Andrew Johnson was a former slave-owner. That is why he never liked the link up of poor blacks and whites. Johnson’s amnesty proclamations were an abrogation of Sherman’s Field Order No. 15. Forty thousand freedmen were deprived of 485,000 acres of land. Land is a key portion of true liberation not just political action. The Radical Republicans soon got control for a while for most of Congress and they set much of the tone of Reconstruction. The South was held under military control by Congress. General Grant appointed generals running each district. Former Confederate states had to accept the terms of the Union in order to be readmitted into the USA. Many black Americans wanted 40 acres and a mule. This comes from Sherman’s Special Order No. 15, which he issued in Savannah in 1865, right after he finished his march through Georgia. That order gave 40 acres of abandoned land and also unneeded old Army mules to newly freed black families. In the summer of 1865, the redistribution of abandoned and confiscated land was Freedmen's Bureau policy supported by the military. The Freedmen's Bureau was a federal agency that assisted freed slaves from 1865 to 1872. It was weaken heavily by 1870. Abraham Lincoln initiated it in 1865. They wanted economic development, agricultural development, and labor rights among black Americans. They wanted legal rights for African Americans. Andrew Johnson tried to cut funds from it and its funding was decreased by 1869. One of the greatest achievements of the Freedman's Bureau was education. African American George Ruby worked as a teacher and as a school administrator including a traveling inspector for the Bureau. He evaluated the performance of Bureau field officers. About 90,000 black Americans were in schools by the end of 1865. Many Republicans dominated Reconstruction governments across the South. The majority of officeholders were white with a significant minority of blacks, based on the support of blacks and some poor whites. Black Republicans became the major focus for political, social and economic justice in the South. Black human beings wanted more political rights, more schools, more land, more hospitals, more debtors’ relief, etc. These things benefited the vast majority of the South, both black and white. Many Black Republicans were in state Congresses all over the Old South indeed. The first African American Congressman was Hiram Revels.
The history of government is controversial. I reject the two extreme views of the government being infallible and the other view that the government can only do evil in society either. A watchful and careful eye on government is legitimate and fine. Extremism in the sense of banning any form of government that can harm the elderly, the poor, minorities, and others is wrong though. The reactionaries exploit crisis as an excuse to condemn even legitimate government social programs. They have irrational hatred of the national government building roads or providing disaster relief. Back decades ago, their ideological predecessors hated the federal intervention against slavery, legal segregation, and other fights against the system of white supremacy. If the private sector can't do the job or if it needs regulation, then the public sector should come in as a means to handle the business of the people. In the final analysis or at the end of the day, it is all about the people. In our generation, there are some Tea Party types and some libertarians that hate government so much that they reject it at every turn. The Tea Party claims that they are outlining Revolutionary War era principles, but they are not completely accurate. Even some of the anti-federalists were never opposed to all forms of government. The opposed the monarchy and what it stood for. James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong national government as a means to check state level corruption. Madison didn't agree with Hamilton's national bank, but each man agreed with a strong and effective federal government (beyond the states’ rights oriented Articles of Confederation). The reactionaries back then wanted to fight national government as a means to continue the act of slavery. Many Southerners feared that slavery would be outlawed, so they wanted to continue their action. According to Robert Perry, the Second Amendment was created in part as a means to quiet Southern plantation fears of a slave insurrection (and to use militias to maintain the system of slavery). Patrick Henry and George Mason – tried to rally opposition to the proposed Constitution by stoking the fears of white plantation owners. Mason said that the Constitution Convention failed to have protection for slave plantation owners. Mason and Henry ignored the fact that back then, black human beings' rights were violated via the 3/5 provision, the slave trade clause, the fugitive slave clause, etc. Historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg recount the debate in their 2010 book, Madison and Jefferson, noting that the chief argument advanced by Henry and Mason was that “slavery, the source of Virginia’s tremendous wealth, lay politically unprotected” and that this danger was exacerbated by the Constitution’s granting the President, as commander in chief, the power to “federalize” state militias. Perry said that the Second Amendment that it was used originally as a means to protect slave revolts. If that is the case, then that is wrong. This still doesn't mean that the concept of self-defense or the concept of legitimately owning arms is immoral. Some extremists exploit the Second Amendment as a means to condemn any form of self-defense or owning arms legitimately. We have the right to self-defense period. It is just that the folks who created the Second Amendment are not perfect. Now, Thomas Jefferson mocked James Madison for trying to use the commerce clause as a means to have federal road building (as a way to improve national transportation). Some in the South continued to resist federal activism not in the realm of sincerity. They wanted to do it as a means to maintain slavery and oppression against black human beings. As University of Virginia historian Brian Balogh noted in his book, A Government Out of Sight, Southerners asserted an extreme version of states’ rights in the period from 1840 to 1860 that included preventing aid to disaster victims. This sounds similar to the Tea Party movement. When Abraham Lincoln became President, then the rest is history. Southern states seceded from the Union. Today, we have historical revisionism where the Tea Party falsely claims that the Founders were some anti-government activists collectively. The reality is that liberty is fine, but states’ rights are never superior to human rights. Human rights and human dignity are eternal concepts in the world society indeed.
Jesse Duplantis is a famous minister. He is known in the heretical word faith movement. I heard of him from television and other sources indeed. He is from Louisiana and he is known to utilize a lot of humor in his sermons. His teachings on the Bible are weird and are very similar to the prosperity gospel as well. He is similar to Kenneth Copeland in his theological stances. He regularly outlines his personal stories as a means to justify his teachings. Jesse loves to have a hatred of doctrine by his own words: “Naturally, the devil tried to shut down this living, breathing Church. He wanted dry bones. He began to take the freshness of God and put Ecclesiastical dogma on it. He used theological understanding to water down the fire.” (Jesse Duplantis, Voice of the Covenant magazine, November 1997, p. 7). The truth is that real doctrine is not meant to confine spirituality. It was created in order to make it grow and to have boundaries of real moral enlightenment. Ecclesiastical dogma is different than the study of God or theology. The New Testament was created by human beings with great theological understanding like the apostles Matthew, Peter, Paul, etc. Jesse Duplantis is famous to advance revelations and slaying human beings in the spirit. He claims to have experiences related to the supernatural. He screams Jesus all of the time. He claims to speak in tongues and lay hands on human beings. He asks -- “Someone has a liver disorder come forward while the anointing of God is present.” He promises-- “I guarantee you will be revived after the sermon” (Mar. 7, 2000 TBN). Jesse made biblical inaccurate statements like the following: "...If God told a lie, it wouldn't be a lie because it would become truth..." (Oct. 6, 2000) No a lie is a lie and God ONLY tells the truth, the Bible says he cannot lie. Jesse Duplantis said that he has been hit with lightning a number of times. He loves the prosperity gospel. He claims that we must be anointed to get out of poverty and those in poverty lack the anointing. He makes the following comments (taken from The Nov. 1997 Voice of the Covenant magazine, p.5) “The very first thing on Jesus` agenda was to get rid of poverty! Would you like to know why some people, including ministries, never get out of poverty? Its not because they aren’t smart. It’s not because they don’t have windows of opportunity. It’s because they’re not anointed. If you’re not anointed, poverty will follow you all the days of your life. His first objective was to get rid of poverty.” This is nonsense since the poor have been some of the spiritually strong human beings in human history. Obviously, we should fight against poverty, but not claiming that poverty is a product of lacking spirituality. And he just condemned the apostle Paul who said he was 1 Cor.4:11-12 “To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure.” Peter is condemned as being not anointed because in Acts 3:6 Peter said to the man at the gate of the temple “Silver and gold I do not have.” I guess the apostles did not know yet what Duplantis and the rest of his friends know today. The reality is that Jesus Christ never owned a jet, was poor, and was reviled by even some in his own community for his revolutionary views. Jesse Duplantis loves money, he loves his money, and his preaching is heavily about money in general. Jesse said that he agrees with the prosperity gospel propaganda. Years, this arrogant, egotistical man said the following words about his money: "...You watch me and this Mr. Cessna man here, I'll be the first preacher to buy a brand new, spankin' new, brand new jet that will fly all over this world. Get that sucker out of that glass hanger!...You can say all you want, Jack. I'll fly by your house and tip the wing. I'm gonna get something for Jesus. I'm gonna do something for God...” (Jesse Duplantis Show, TBN, 9/ 8/97). He once boasted that God has done everything that he has prayed for. This is strange since not one person born beside Jesus could have said this. He claims to have communications with God and having a trip to Heaven. Sometimes, he preaches from Kenneth Copeland's pulpit. The Gospel is rather simple. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, he was buried, he died, and he rose up again taking up the same body that he came in. The Gospel is based on the blood, the cross, and his resurrection. Anybody trying to focus on money, riches, and false spiritualism is someone ignoring the Gospel of the Savior Son of God Yeshua ben Yoseph. Salvation is a gift freely given not earned. That is why it is not uncommon for witness world faith teachers to teach heresies. Some of them have spewed blasphemies and other strange doctrines in the faith of truth and reality. For example, Kenneth Copeland made the following comment about Jesus Christ: "He [Jesus] allowed the devil to drag Him into the depths of hell....He allowed Himself to come under Satan's control...every demon in hell came down on Him to annihilate Him....They tortured Him beyond anything anybody had ever conceived. For three days He suffered everything there is to suffer." (Kenneth Copeland, "The Price of It All," 3.). The truth is that Jesus Christ was never under Satan's control at all.
By Timothy
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