Sunday 26 March 2017

Consistent principles pay of for Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders, U.S. Congressman (now U.S. Sen...
Bernie Sanders, U.S. Congressman (now U.S. Senator) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You may doubt it but it can well help to your credibility to hold on for years to the same ideas.

It looks like people are coming to see who can be the more honest politician. Having come to see how Trump is of the same political tribe to fill his own pocket with power, no matter if he does violence to the truth, more Americans are willing to come to listen to Bernie Sanders.

Saying the same things for nearly a half-century. He's been a consistent democratic-socialist fighting on behalf of working people and against financial/corporate power. While his straightforward commitment to his ideals is refreshingly genuine, he did not make his mark on the national scene until last year at age 74.

Sanders His message about the ravages and unfairness of runaway inequality hit home because it is true.

He wants more citizens going for basic human rights.


Here's a rough draft of such an agenda:
  • The right to a job at living wage: Everyone who is willing and able to work should be entitled to a job that today would pay at least $15 an hour. If the private sector is unable to produce such jobs, then government should serve as the employer of last resort. There's more than enough work to be done to rebuild our infrastructure and protect our environment.
  • The right to universal health care: It is time to expand Medicare—our efficiently run single-payer system for the elderly—to anyone who wishes to join.
  • The right to free public education from pre-k to graduate school: Each child deserves access free of charge to as much education as he or she qualifies for through our public educational systems. Nearly every economically advanced country provides free higher education. So should we. (See here.)
  • The right to a sustainable environment, free from chemical, radioactive and carbon pollution: We need to protect working people and communities from harmful exposures while rapidly reducing the emission of greenhouse gases—the cause of global warming. The climate crisis is real and must be addressed now. In doing so we also should have a policy of buying goods as locally as possible to limit the carbon footprint of transportation, and we should make sure industries do not flee to countries with weaker health, safety and environmental standards.
  • The right to an impartial criminal justice system that does not harm anyone based on their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, racial category or religion. In particular, we need to dramatically reduce the differential impact of enforcement, prosecution and sentencing on young people of colour.
    • The right to vote, free of voter suppression activities and billionaire influence: For our democracy to endure we need to halt any and all efforts to deny voting rights, and we need to curtail the influence of money in all areas of the political system.
    • The right to citizenship for all residents: We are a nation of immigrants, documented and undocumented. There should be a straightforward pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants here today.
    • The right to organize unions without employer threats or harassment, We need to reform the current laws and processes which allow employers to intimidate workers from joining labor unions. Congress should pass the Free Choice Act which will level the playing field. (See here.)
    • The right to control our money through public state banks and a national postal bank: We need an alternative to the predatory financing provided by Wall Street. Modeled on the public Bank of North Dakota, every state should charter a public bank whose first and only goal is to serve its people. Like many other nations, we also need a national postal bank to provide financial services in all our communities. (See Public Banking Institute and Campaign for Postal Banking.)
    But can America really afford these basic human rights?
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Tuesday 21 March 2017

Racisme geen eenrichtingsverkeer

Affiche racisme dans le sport
Affiche racisme dans le sport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Racisme is geen éénrichtingsverkeer. Het is helemaal niet enkel een probleem dat uitgaat van autochtone Vlamingen ten aanzien van allochtonen. Er bestaat evenzeer racisme tussen diverse bevolkingsgroepen. En verder bestaat er ook racisme of vooroordelen van allochtonen ten aanzien van autochtone Vlamingen. Sommige onderzoekers beweren zelfs dat dat nog groter is bij allochtonen dan bij autochtonen.

De kijk van de Gentse schepen Elke Decruynaere (Groen) op racisme doet Vlaams minister van Gelijke Kansen Liesbeth Homans (N-VA)  de wenkbrauwen fronsen..

Denkt zij dat racisme éénrichtingsverkeer is? Dat racisme iets is dat enkel uitgaat van "autochtone Vlamingen" richting "allochtone Vlamingen"?

Racisme is geen éénrichtingsverkeer. Het is helemaal niet enkel een probleem dat uitgaat van autochtone Vlamingen ten aanzien van allochtonen. Er bestaat evenzeer racisme tussen diverse bevolkingsgroepen. En verder bestaat er ook racisme of vooroordelen van allochtonen ten aanzien van autochtone Vlamingen. Sommige onderzoekers beweren zelfs dat dat nog groter is bij allochtonen dan bij autochtonen.

Lees:

'Campagne die discriminatie wil tegengaan, moet beter kunnen dan andere vooroordelen bevestigen'

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John Gossner teaching spiritual life came not from church but from God

As a young Catholic priest, educated at the University of Dillingen, in Germany late in the 1790s, Johannes Evangelista Gossner also known as John Gossner, longed for a Christianity that would make him alive. He began to teach others what he had learned from Johann Michael Sailer of the   Society of Jesus and Martin Boos, who had followed the extreme practices of asceticism as a penance for sin, all to no avail, as he believed, and then developed a doctrine of salvation by faith which came very near to pure Lutheranism.

By 1802, Gossner his earnest endeavours to show people that they could have new spiritual life directly from God (rather than through the agency of priests and the church) landed him in hot water with his denomination. The Jesuits brought him into a church court. Still unsure of how to reconcile evangelical thought with traditional Catholic teaching, John agreed to toe his church's line. (When he sought to leave his church, a highly-placed Lutheran advised against it.)

Having a real gift for teaching at those places hr came to speak he reached many, packing assembly halls with lots of listeners. This got him such reputation wich led to an invitation to come and pastor the Germans who lived in Russia. In St. Petersburg from 1820-1824 he preached evangelical sermons after each mass. Four and five hundred listeners packed the church every time. He invited sincere seekers to his apartment and when that could not hold everyone, he rented assembly halls. He worked closely with Prince Golitsyn, an evangelical.
Because the Dominicans distrusted him, Johannes provided private teaching outside of the church building. This proved so successful that Russia's Orthodox leaders grew alarmed. Metropolitan Serafim of the Orthodox church pleaded for John's expulsion from the country. The Tsar ordered John out; but the evangelical seed had been planted. It spread into neighboring Estonia and Finland, and was strong in St. Petersburg two generations later.
When John returned to Germany, the Catholic church expelled him in 1826, and he went for the Protestant communion. As Reformed (Calvinist) minister of Bethlehem's Church (1829-1846), a Lutheran and Reformed simultaneum in Berlin, he was conspicuous not only for practical and effective preaching, but for the founding of schools, asylums and missionary agencies. In Berlin's Bethlehem church he continued his successful work, leading large numbers of people to seek a deeper Christian life. He created kindergarten schools, founded a hospital, and started the mission organization which bears his name.
Gossner emphasized the missionary as an apostle driven by faith and casting all his cares on God. His soc. received royal sanction 1842. Sent missionaries to Australia, New Guinea, South Sea Islands, Indonesia, India (with special success among the Kols), Afr., and Am. 
John Gossner died in Berlin on this day, March 20, 1858. His mission work lives on, having converted hundreds of thousands to Christ in India.
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Monday 20 March 2017

Incidents of hate have become commonplace in the U.S.A. anno 2017

In the United states of America since Donald Trump raised his voice, incidents of hate have been directed against transgender women, Jews, African Americana, Hispanics, Muslims, Hindu Americans, Sikh Americans and others. They have taken place from New York and Florida to California and Washington State.

Friday March 10, 156 civil and human rights groups urged Trump in writing to respond faster and more forcefully to hate-based incidents. In his recent address to a joint session of Congress, the president condemned "hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms," but some critics said he had taken to long to issue that statement.
According to me he in the previous years has contributed a lot to the friction between the different ethnic as well as different religious groups.

In addition, a new Muslim-Jewish coalition, against hate crimes, is pushing the government to provide more data on hate crimes and focus on punishing offenders. The group represents an effort get advocates to stand up for people of other faiths and ethnic backgrounds.

Suhail Khan, a member of the group and former Republican appointee, said the power of the Muslim-Jewish alliance is the ability for members to come to the defence of people of another faith, not their own.

Khan told Cup of Politics there is a very powerful impact on people who witness situations
 "when people are standing up for each other.”
"When a stranger stands up for another individual who is being attacked for their ethnic or religious background, others will join in,"
 he said. But the effect works in reverse as well: People can be encouraged by their peers to join the harassment of someone from a different background.

Stanley Bergman, a co-chairman of the group, said
 "our goal is to make sure that this matter — this hate crimes challenge — is on top of mind of the legislature." 
The first step, Bergman said, is to ensure uniformity of data collection and prosecution around the county.
"In some parts of the country there is better collection of data and of course there is better prosecution," he said, but "in other parts of the country there is not any kind of recognition that there is a challenge."

Listen to the whole conversation.


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Additional reading
  1. What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism
  2. The Rise of Anti-Seminism
  3. If you’re going to be a hater, make sure you’ve done your homework.

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Fight against nationalism main struggle for feminists today

For Feminist activist Sasha Shevchenko, "the main struggle for feminists today", apart of "the fight against patriarchy, the Church, the sex industry and any kind of totalitarianism", is "the fight against nationalism" and "Nazi ideas" that are "growing like mushrooms after the rain". 
During a debate at the European parliament in Brussels, Shevchenko and fellow Femen activists Oxana Shachko and Yana Zhdanova, said that
"the situation in Ukraine is much worse today than it was under former president Viktor Yanukovich", but their main concern today is "the situation of refugees in Europe."
"As we are refugees ourselves" – the three women fled Ukraine and have applied for asylum in France – "we see that society does not accept easily refugees. Although we are white women, we face many obstacles in getting asylum. Bureaucratic obstacles and also politicians using the refugee crisis for their own purposes. We don't want to be manipulated by Marine Le Pen and other populist politicians. The European Union should stay united and spread the idea of a place that accepts everyone. Nazi – meaning far-right – ideas spread across Europe and are the major threat to it. People should fight Marine Le Pen and the likes the same way they fought Hitler."





Sunday 19 March 2017

March 19, 1263 First significant concordane of the Bible

English: Page from the Dutsch Professorenbijbe...
English: Page from the Dutsch Professorenbijbel ("Professors Bible"), a translation of the Latin Vulgate of the Books of the New Testament. This part, covering the Pentateuch, was published in 1904. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
March 19, 1263
Hugh of St. Cher, a Dominican, made the first significant concordance of the Bible. This was for the Latin Bible, the Vulgate. He is said to have had the help of 500 Dominican friars. The only other person known to have attempted to compile a Bible concordance before him was St. Anthony of Padua. Hugh's concordance only gave the Latin word but did not give any of the text around it. This made it crude by modern standards. All the same, it served as a basis for the work of men who soon came after him.
Bible chapters had not yet been broken into verses. In order to help scholars find words, Hugh broke each chapter into seven parts to which he gave letters of the alphabet.
The concordance was only one of three tools that Hugh gave the Dominicans. Each of them was needed to assist the order to meet their goal of preaching the Gospel. One of his other efforts was an attempt to correct the errors of the Vulgate. However, he did not know that Jerome had made the original translation and often turned down Jerome's comments in favor of the ideas of other writers. When the church learned that Jerome had actually made the Vulgate translation, Hugh's work lost all credibility.

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Friday 17 March 2017

Donald Trump after declining numbers of people victimised for their religion managed to increase the numbers again

Emblem of the Ku Klux Klan
Emblem of the Ku Klux Klan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
According to an article from the National Review, the most reliable data on hate crimes comes from the FBI, which shows that the number of people victimized for their religion declined dramatically from 2010 to 2014: from 1,552 victims to 1,140 victims, or by 36 percent.

The number of victims of anti-Jewish bias declined similarly: from 1,039 to 648 victims, or by 38 percent. The FBI then records an uptick in 2015, to 1,402 total victims and 730 victims of anti-Jewish bias.

Since Donald Trump  heated up the crowd in 2016 many North Americans came to see a threat in other religious groups than their christians denominations. Not only immigrants and refugees became the bad guys. The hate speeches of Donald Trump took care that the KKK and far right fundamentalist evangelicals could find enough reasons to go against Jews.

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Thursday 9 March 2017

Discussie over zendingsbevel in Lutherbijbel

De voormalige Thüringse landsbisschop Christoph Kähler (Leipzig), die de revisie van Lutherbijbel leidde, stelt dat Luther bewust zo vertaald heeft zoals nu in de nieuwe Lutherbijbel is opgenomen, omdat mensen andere volken niet tot christenen kunnen maken.
In De Lutherse gemeenschap is er discussie ontstaan over de zendingsopdracht die Jezus heeft gegeven aan zijn volgers.

Het zendingsbevel in Mattheüs 28:19 in de vorig jaar opnieuw uitgegeven Lutherbijbel is niet goed weergegeven, zo vinden critici.
 
In de vertaling staat niet: 
„Gaat heen en maak alle volkeren tot discipelen”
, maar:
 „Gaat heen en leert alle volken.”
 Ds. Jochen Teuffel (Vöhringen/Iller) noemt het een vervalsing. Luther volgde hier niet de Griekse grondtekst maar de Latijnse Vulgaat. Het woord ”mateteuo” betekent meer dan leren en heeft betrekking op een betrokken levenshouding. 

Praying to see troubles in the proper perspective


I pray to see my troubles in the proper perspective.
I know that, as I have suffered, others have suffered and still suffer more.
I pray that I may help to relieve their pain. Amen