I’m sure I’m not the only one. Still, I found a couple of items that help with that. And I’m on the lookout for more! We still have the power, even thought it doesn’t feel like it. We the people still have the power, if we stay constructively informed.
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I don’t even recall now what I was reading this morning that linked Transvitae, but here are its resources pages. I am not trans, so I only hope there isn’t anything there are the site that is, let’s say inappropriate. I read around and it seems like a decent place, but I am no expert. Resources are resources, though. We need to know about resources.
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Plus, I’m going to try to draw Number Nine Eight One, and anyone else who has such an urge should do so, also! 🌞 🧑🎨
Laura Smith resigned from the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors after a video appeared to show her mimicking Elon Musk’s alleged Nazi salute
By David Chang• Published January 26, 2025 • Updated on January 26, 2025 at 5:32 pm
(There’s a video there, if it’s something you want to see. The still shows a person doing what she appears to be doing, if I am clear.)
A supervisor of a town in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, resigned after a video in which she appeared to mimic Elon Musk’s alleged Nazi salute went viral.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of the social media platform X, and Administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, sparked outrage when he made a gesture that resembled a Nazi salute while addressing a crowd at an inauguration event for President Donald Trump.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) later posted a statement on X saying it seemed like Musk “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute.”
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on…— ADL (@ADL) January 20, 2025
Despite the ADL’s statement, many have still accused Musk of performing the salute. In response, Musk posted a series of Nazi-related puns on X which led to more backlash.
Amid the controversy surrounding Musk, Laura Smith, a Republican and the Vice Chair of the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors, posted a video of herself on the social media platform TikTok in which she appeared to mimic Musk’s gesture. (snip)
After Trump removed a key restriction on where ICE agents can make arrests, the Quakers are fighting back.
The Quakers are suing Trump’s Department of Homeland Security for allowing ICE raids in places of worship.
The lawsuit, filed in Maryland on Monday by multiple different Quaker groups from across the country, states that “the very threat of [immigration] enforcement deters congregants from attending services, especially members of immigrant communities,” and notes that the raids infringe on religious freedom.
“A week ago today, President Trump swore an oath to defend the Constitution and yet today religious institutions that have existed since the 1600s in our country are having to go to court to challenge what is a violation of every individual’s constitutional right to worship and associate freely,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is representing the Quaker groups in court. “The troubling nature of the policy goes beyond just houses of worship with sanctuary programs—it is that ICE could enter religious and sacred spaces whenever it wants.” (snip-MORE)
January 28, 1992 Nuclear production at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal – a complex used for both power plants and nuclear weapon munition manufacture – was permanently closed after repeated revelations of environmental contamination in the surrounding land and water supply, 25 miles northwest of Denver. Following closure, the facilities were completely dismantled and the site cleared. The principal product of Rocky Flats was the fissionable plutonium trigger or “pit” at the core of every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal. Since its construction in 1951 it was managed at different times by Dow Chemical, Rockwell International and EG&G. Dow and Rockwell paid fines in the tens of millions of dollars and were ordered to pay damages in the hundreds of millions to local residents for the environmental damage. Despite the residual plutonium contamination on the 6500-acre site, it has been transferred by the Department of Energy to the Fish and Wildlife Service (Interior) as the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge. Rocky Flats Right to Know
January 28, 1995 Soldiers’ Mothers Committee members Over 100 members of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia went to a Red Army training camp to reclaim their sons. Since its founding in 1989 the Soldiers’ Mothers Committee had worked to expose human rights violations within the Russian military and has consistently supported a true alternative service option for conscientious objectors. The Mothers Committee earned the 1996 Right Livelihood Award This link takes us to the Right Livelihood Award main page. Apparently 1996 is too far back, or I didn’t search it correctly. P&J’s link goes to an error page on the site.-A.
After Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez rejected his immigration proposals earlier in the day and put forward one of their own, DeSantis slammed their plan as “weak” and claimed they were “gutting” his proposal to require all law enforcement officials in the state to work with federal immigration enforcement officials. (snip-this was the newest update at 8 PM when I set this up. There could be more by now!)
I think we need a category for “Resources.” Anyway, our friend and fellow blogger Annie Asks You gave a couple of resources for us to pass along and use to help our neighbors, earlier in a comment on another blog. I put together a Substack about it, so here it is. It’s short.
These sites have information people need so they are prepared in case authorities believe they have reason to question or detain you. The sites are run by experts, with clear advice for preparation and dealing with authorities. -A.
ICE and CBP might not respect our rights, but they cannot take away our POWER. Use these resources to learn about your rights and express them in case you have an encounter with an immigration official. (snip)
Jan 15, 2025 This Know Your Rights resource provides general information on what to do if you are stopped, arrested, or detained by immigration or other law enforcement. Originally published in December 2015. (snip)
Rare because I rarely post such. Pastor Bolz-Weber says all this so well, and it is what I learned when I was young and growing up; what I work to apply in my own (and in no one else’s) life. I’m not proselytizing or trying to “draw anyone in.” This helps to explain why and how I feel as I do about justice and peace, and love and understanding and all that, including hope and light. Enjoy with a mind that can absorb without feeling there’s gonna be a “come forward” moment, because there’s not one. (Other than to Christians who feel as we do, but wonder about Zionism and Nationalism being as bad as they are.)
This morning I had a quick breakfast with another Lutheran pastor. This of course is not terribly remarkable in the scheme of things, except for the fact that the breakfast took place in the Kingdom of Jordan, a few feet away from the Dead Sea and my colleague had to cut the breakfast short so he could return home to his family, but he was anxious about all the military check point between here and there.
“How far of a drive is it” I asked.
“If I had a car and could drive straight there, about an hour. But my hope is that it will only take 8 hours.” He accepted that he may in fact not even make it home at all tonight.
Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Lutheran Pastor who lives and serves a church in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been here since the day the Spirit blew through them on the day of Pentecost, so Munther and my other Palestinian Christian friends can get slightly annoyed when well meaning Christians from the West ask “when did your family convert?”.
Um, over 2,000 years ago?
Munther and I are in Jordan right now for a conference – 60 academics and church leaders from 17 countries gathered over the last several days for a consultation on Christian Zionism (belief that Jewish people have a “divine right” to the land here – using a few verses in a 4,000 year old text to have authority over foreign policy and global political realities of today), and the impact of that on Christians in the Middle East; a few days together in a majority Muslim country, across the Dead Sea from the State of Israel to talk about Christian folks’ business: how do the theological beliefs of one group of Christians impact the lives of another group of Christians halfway across the planet?
Many of us grew up with some form of Christian Zionism, I know I did. Perhaps it stemmed from a desire to be faithful to what we have been told, or a desire to help usher in the second coming of Christ (ala The Late Great Planet Earth) so he can come back and destroy the world and take us up to heaven (described this week as science fiction theology), or a desire to assuage the guilt left over from the unspeakable atrocities and genocide of the holocaust.
It will take me time to metabolize what I heard over the last few days. Christian Zionism is widespread, and far reaching in it’s impact, and I am committed to try and maintain the humility it takes as a US citizen and a Christian to consider people like Munther and my friend Mitri Raheb as reliable narrators of the impact on the ground in Palestine.
Palestinian Christians should be listened to by us, their siblings in Christ.
Munther Isaac appeared in ‘Til Kingdom Come (2020), an Israeli documentary about American Christian support for Israel.[20] In the film he explains his view to pastor William Bingham that Christian Zionism contributes to the oppression of Palestinians. After their conversation, Bingham calls Isaac an anti-semite and says that Palestinians do not exist. – Wikipedia
This morning before Munther left to make his way home, he told me a story of a family in his church. For over 150 years they have rightfully owned and inhabited their land outside Bethlehem – a beautiful parcel dotted with olive trees, often hundreds of years old themselves.
Israeli settlers (whose actions are deemed illegal by the UN Security Council) who for years have been attempting to take this family’s land, confronted them at their gate recently, demanding the family leave. The family showed them their ownership documents – dating back from Ottoman rule, then Jordanian rule through to Israeli rule. The settlers angrily lifted up their Bible and said “We have documents too. God gave us this land!”
As I mentioned, I am overwhelmed by all I heard this week and will try and write more later for those who are interested, but for now I wanted to report how one word stood out for me in a particular way during the conference, and that word is: heresy.
19th century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher defined heresy as, “that which preserves the appearance of Christianity, and yet contradicts its essence“
So perhaps that is the correct word for when, with all the trappings of Christianity behind us, we who seek to justify or maintain our dominance over another group of people use the Bible to prove that our domination`is not actually an abuse of power at the expense of others, but is, indeed, part of “God’s plan”. Because there you have the appearance of Christianity (Bible verses and God-talk) contradicting its essence (love God, and love your neighbor, blessed are the meek, etc…).
Is it not heresy when slavery is established as “God’s will”; when the subordination of women is established as “God’s will”; when discrimination against queer folks is established as “God’s will”, when the taking of one people’s land by another people is established as “God’s will” (hello, manifest destiny), when the executive VP of the National Rifle Association claims that the right to buy an assault rifle is “not bestowed by man, but granted by God”? When a self-justifying message is heretically delivered in God’s name it brings with it a poison that infects the deepest parts of us and when the poison spreads, so does the violence.
When you can say that God Almighty is co-signing on your dominance over another group of God’s children, then every means is justified, right to the end. Every inch of land stolen, every suicide bombing enacted, every act of violence committed, every weapon used, every checkpoint and illegal detention, every child who dies, every tower that falls to the ground – all of it covered under some sort of bullshit spiritual umbrella policy. There are no means that need justifying if we claim God as our patron and guide.
And I imagine God is just about sick to death of it.
As I claimed in my book about sexual shame and religion, we should never be more loyal to a doctrine or an interpretation of a Bible verse than we are to people. If the teachings of the church are harming people we re-think those teachings. Amen?
Speaking up for Palestinians often comes at a cost. Those of you who have done it know. I also know, but am frankly too tired to care right now. So, if based on my recounting of the stories of my friends and colleagues, anyone is moved to called me anti-semitic, please open up the notes app on your phone and feel free to write it there but I will delete your unfounded accusations if you leave them here.
My apologies for the edge in my writing voice. We are all exhausted and as my friend Jodi just texted me, “this month has been two years long already.”
Thank you for reading. I am genuinely sending my love. Please pray this ceasefire holds. And for those waiting on the side of a road right now to return to the rubble of their homes. And for the hostages and prisoners who were released yesterday. I cannot imagine the trauma.
January 27, 1847 Several hundred citizens of Marshall, Michigan, helped former slaves escape to Canada rather than be returned to their “owner” by bounty hunters. Adam Crosswhite and his family, escaped Kentucky slaves, were tracked to the abolitionist town of Marshall by Francis Troutman and others. Both black and white residents detained the bounty hunters and threatened them with tar and feathers. While Troutman was being charged with assault and fined $100, the Crosswhites fled to Canada. Back in Kentucky, the slaveowner stirred up intense excitement about “abolitionist mobs” in Michigan. Since 1832, Michigan had had an active antislavery society. Quakers in Cass County, Laura Haviland in Adrian and former slave Sojourner Truth in Battle Creek were only a few of the many Michiganians who worked on the Underground Railroad—an informal network that assisted escaping slaves. Southern concern over the Underground Railroad led Congress to pass a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. In 1854 opposition to the extension of slavery prompted Michigan citizens to meet in nearby Jackson to organize the Republican Party. Laura Haviland with some artifacts of slavery Sojourner Truth– this should be a link to Ohio History Connection’s entry on Sojourner Truth. That page is no longer available. I don’t see a date or a reason, just that it’s gone. So, here is a link to the National Women’s History Museum’s entry on Sojourner Truth! -A
January 27, 1945 The Red Army of the Soviet Union liberated the German Nazis’ largest concentration camps: the Auschwitz main camp, the Birkenau death camp and the Monowitz labor camp in southwestern Poland. Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
January 27, 1951 The first atomic test was conducted at the Nevada Proving Ground as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. The Proving Ground was created by President Harry Truman on January 11, 1951. The final nuclear test, Divider, was conducted on September 23, 1992. There were 99 above ground tests and over 800 below ground tests there. read more
January 27, 1969 In Detroit, African-American auto workers, known as the Eldon Avenue Axle Plant Revolutionary Union Movement, led a wildcat strike against racist practices and poor working conditions at the Chrysler plant.Since the 1967 Detroit riots, black workers had organized groups in several Detroit auto plants critical of both the auto companies and the United Auto Workers union leadership. These groups combined Black-Power nationalism and workplace militancy, and temporarily shut down more than a dozen inner-city plants. The most well-known of these groups was the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, or DRUM. They criticized both the seniority system and grievance procedures as racist. Veterans of this movement went on to lead many of the same local unions. Detroit: I Do Mind Dying A Study in Urban Revolution (pdf)
January 27, 1973 The United States and North Vietnam signed “An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” in Paris and all U.S. troops were to leave Vietnam within 90 days. The United States, South Vietnam, Viet Cong, and North Vietnam formally sign but because South Vietnam was unwilling to recognize the Viet Cong’s Provisional Revolutionary Government, all references to it were confined to the document signed by North Vietnam and the United States. The same day, the United States announced an end to the military draft.The Vietnam War resulted in between three and four million Vietnamese deaths with a countless number of Vietnamese casualties. It cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. The financial cost to the United States came to something over $150 billion dollars. Henry A. Kissinger and Le Duc Thos initial the agreement.
January 27, 1973 The Pentagon announced a “zero draft,” putting the Selective Service System on standby after five years of continuous operation. 1,728,344 men had been drafted in the previous eight years (principally for the war in Vietnam), 25% of all the armed forces.
January 27, 1988 CISPIS demo May, 1981 Wash DC The Center for Constitutional Rights revealed the FBI had spied on numerous organizations critical of Reagan administration policies in Central America. The principal target was the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). 100 other groups were also investigated, including the Roman Catholic Maryknoll Sisters, the United Auto Workers, the United Steel Workers, and the National Education Association. FBI Director William Sessions said the investigations were an outgrowth of the belief that CISPES was aiding a “terrorist organization.” CISPES today How domestic surveillance multiplied under the label or preventing terrorist attacks
January 27, 1996 France performed its final nuclear weapons test. France exploded the last in a series of six underground nuclear devices in the South Pacific. The tests, ordered by President Jacques Chirac, ended a moratorium imposed by the former president, François Mitterand, but Chirac said France would accept the terms of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln rose before the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, to make a speech. Just 28 years old, Lincoln had begun to practice law and had political ambitions. But he was worried that his generation might not preserve the republic that the founders had handed to it for transmission to yet another generation. He took as his topic for that January evening, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.”
Lincoln saw trouble coming, but not from a foreign power, as other countries feared. The destruction of the United States, he warned, could come only from within. “If destruction be our lot,” he said, “we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
The trouble Lincoln perceived stemmed from the growing lawlessness in the country as men ignored the rule of law and acted on their passions, imposing their will on their neighbors through violence. He pointed specifically to two recent events: the 1836 lynching of free Black man Francis McIntosh in St. Louis, Missouri, and the 1837 murder of white abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois.
But the problem of lawlessness was not limited to individual instances, he said. A public practice of ignoring the law eventually broke down all the guardrails designed to protect individuals, while lawbreakers, going unpunished, became convinced they were entitled to act without restraint. “Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane,” Lincoln said, “they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”
The only way to guard against such destruction, Lincoln said, was to protect the rule of law on which the country was founded. “As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor…. Let reverence for the laws…become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”
Lincoln was quick to clarify that he was not saying all laws were good. Indeed, he said, bad laws should be challenged and repealed. But the underlying structure of the rule of law, based in the Constitution, could not be abandoned without losing democracy.
Lincoln didn’t stop there. He warned that the very success of the American republic threatened its continuation. “[M]en of ambition and talents” could no longer make their name by building the nation—that glory had already been won. Their ambition could not be served simply by preserving what those before them had created, so they would achieve distinction through destruction.
For such a man, Lincoln said, “Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.” With no dangerous foreign power to turn people’s passions against, people would turn from the project of “establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty” and would instead turn against each other.
Lincoln reminded his audience that the torch of American democracy had been passed to them. The Founders had used their passions to create a system of laws, but the time for passion had passed, lest it tear the nation apart. The next generation must support democracy through “sober reason,” he said. He called for Americans to exercise “general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws.”
“Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”
What became known as the Lyceum Address is one of the earliest speeches of Lincoln’s to have been preserved, and at the time it established him as a rising politician and political thinker. But his recognition, in a time of religious fervor and moral crusades, that the law must prevail over individual passions reverberates far beyond the specific crises of the 1830s.
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