8-26-05, 9:35 am
According to Venezuelanalysis.com, U.S.-based Human Rights group Global Exchange and the National Council of Churches issued separate statements in which they condemned fundamentalist televangelist Pat Robertson's call for the assassination of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez.
Global Exchange condemned the actions and words of Bush supporter Pat Robertson and called on the administration to 'condemn in the strongest terms possible' Robertson's statement. The organization further demanded an investigation of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, for the potential illegality of using federally licensed airwaves to call for the assassination of a democratically elected head of state.
National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar stated, 'It defies logic that a clergyman could so casually dismiss thousands of years of Judaeo-Christian law, including the commandment that we are not to kill. It defies logic that this self-proclaimed Christian leader could so blithely abandon the teachings of Jesus to love our enemies and turn our cheeks against violence. It defies logic that a former candidate for the presidency could skirt the brink of international law to call for the assassination of a foreign leader on the grounds that he might some day be a danger to us. It defies logic that this so-called evangelist is using his media power not to win people to faith but to encourage them to support the murder of a foreign leader.'
The Bush administration merely described Robertson's words as 'inappropriate' and denied planning an assassination. For his part, Robertson denied calling for Chávez's assassination, despite the transcripts of his show to the contrary.
According to NCLBgrassroots.org, grassroots rebellion against the controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act already has spread in some form to 47 of the 50 states. The NCLB-related backlash is documented in terms of anti-NCLB legislation (21 states); opting out/waivers/ exemptions (40 states); litigation (four cases, with more in the offing); NCLB unfunded-mandate cost studies (21 states); and NCLB school failure rate studies (including one by MA showing NCLB will flunk 75-90 percent of schools over time).
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is filing a lawsuit demanding full funding for Connecticut public schools. He said: 'Millions of dollars are at stake in Connecticut alone. Along with taxpayers, the real victims are our children, whose education is robbed of critical resources. The federal government has rejected and even ridiculed requests for full funding or flexibility under No Child Left Behind.'
Blumenthal added, 'There is a growing groundswell of support for our action. In Connecticut, 37 towns and cities have voted to endorse our effort — and more will vote in the coming weeks and months. Our legislature has clearly and strongly called for this challenge.'
Critics of No child Left Behind see it as a planned effort by the Republicans to under fund schools and purposely cause them to fail in order to make a case for turning public resources over to private companies and private schools. It is essentially a de facto privatization plan.
The US Student Association is distributing a petition that calls on members of Congress to reject an upcoming Higher Education Act (H.R. 609) and refuse to support Higher Education reauthorization if it fails to include the most affordable loan consolidation options for students; lowering the interest rate cap to 6.8%; the Student Aid Reward Act and increases to the grant authorizing levels of the Pell Grant, SEOG, Federal Work-Study and CCAMPIS.
In addition to this, the Budget Reconciliation cuts $9 billion from the student loan programs. The Republican Party leadership and the Bush administration have led the charge in making higher education more costly, forcing middle and lower income students to take more loans to pay for higher fees and tuition. The result will be to force lower income students out of colleges and universities.
You can read more about the US Student Association's petition at: .
A recent report by the Institute for Southern Studies, titled 'Missiles and Magnolias Revisited: The South at War 2005,' shows that Southern states pay a disproportionately higher cost in lives and resources for Bush's war on Iraq.
According to 2005 analysis, 35% of active-duty U.S. military personnel come from the South, 51% of active-duty U.S. military personnel based in the continental U.S. are stationed in the South, four of the top five states nationally for stationing troops are in the south, and of the top 15 states where those serving in the military are born, the South accounts for 7.
In addition, the South has contributed the most in deaths: of the U.S. troops that have died in Iraq, 38% were based in the South and 47% of the troops that have died in Afghanistan were based in the South.
The South's political economy continues to be dominated by the military industrial complex. An analysis of defense-related contracts reveals that 32% of the military contracts granted in 2005 have gone to companies in the South.
The dominance of the South by military related corporations has adversely affected its political leadership. Surveys of voting records show that 58% of Southerners in the U.S. House and Senate scored in the bottom one-fourth of a peace-related scorecard of congressional voting records put together by Peace Action.
According to the report, 'the South remains ... the ‘most military-friendly’ area of the country. The South’s economic, political and cultural ties to the military have also made it uniquely dependent on military expansion, and made the region especially vulnerable to the hardships of war.'
This Sunday in Crawford, Texas, several clergy from around the nation will join Cindy Sheehan, fellow Gold Star Families, and supporters, in a service of prayer outside the President's ranch. It will be the final Sabbath before President Bush ends his five-week vacation and heads back to the White House.
The Vacation Will End — but the Vigil Will Not!
Faithful America is asking for people who are part of a faith community to join them in a nationwide commitment called Ringing in Remembrance. Beginning this Sunday, Faithful America asks each faith community to remember the nation’s fallen soldiers and their families by tolling their church bell — once for every one who has died in the previous week.
The call to this commitment to honor the fallen reads in part: 'Let us all pause to remember their sacrifice, to remember their families as we seek God's help in sharing the burdens of Cindy Sheehan, Celeste Zappala, and the other Gold Star Families: ‘Why did our sons and daughters die in this war?’'
