Evangelical Christian leftist, iconoclast(so I'm told). Interested in sociology, political-economy, theology, WW2 history, Sport (especially cricket)
288 followers 16 following 111 posts
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Look at this graph. The share of national income going to the richest 10 percent was lowest (and share to lower 90 percent highest) when union membership was at its highest. As unions have weakened, inequality has widened. This is why we must build back union power.
www.haaretz.com/middle-east-...
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We are called to see that the meaning of the Christian life is in the construction of just and equitable social structures and institutions...that means giving up much of the paternalism of a love-ethic that encourages generosity but not the reconstruction of the social order. A Gospel of Hope:117
www.newscientist.com/article/2492...
A Christianity rooted in patriarchy will always define women first and foremost by their relationship to men. A Christianity rooted in the gospel of Jesus will always see women first and foremost as fellow human beings created in God's image. May we understand the difference.
On a truck at the rage against the regime rally in Orlando Florida.
Using Christ to justify cruelty is one of the oldest and most common forms of taking Christ’s name in vain.
Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just admitted that the Big Ugly Bill's "Trump Accounts" are a "backdoor for privatizing Social Security." This follows Trump and DOGE slashing SSA staffing levels to record lows. Make no mistake: the Trump regime is waging war on Social Security.
Loser- we are gaining! 😜😉🇳🇿
On July 19, The United Church of Christ passed a resolution at its General Synod denouncing what it calls "domestic terrorism" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the U.S. Constitution.
Can’t believe I’ve become a radical extremist with so many unpopular, society-shaking opinions like that all humans deserve human rights, including clean air and healthcare.
What I would say to you is, look, I know we've made a right mess of things and we have no idea what we are doing, but Labour doesn't even have any policies now that we've repealed them all. So what I would say to you is we need new ideas to attack. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
Don’t let someone’s refusal to soften their heart harden yours.
NO
No they won't wonder- it is patently obvious now, and it will be then too.
HBO should fire Bill Maher and give his time slot to Stephen Colbert.
I doubt they were that naive.
It is our testimony that one cannot live a faithful, productive, joyous life unless one has grace and truth-fidelity and reliability- at one's core... Even in our culture...it continues to be the case that grace and truth are irreducible foundations for a livable, sustainable life. -A Gospel of Hope
This is 100% unacceptable. It sounds like conditions described in The Nuremberg Trials, minus the ovens. Every American must make it known in every way possible this will not be tolerated.
Sleeping? Impossible. I was just told he's the hardest working President ever.
Trump and his cronies claim they support immigration as long as it’s done legally. But today, thousands of Afghans in the U.S. lose their Temporary Protected Status. They’re here legally and would be targeted by the Taliban if they had to return home. The cruelty is the point.
If ICE has so much money, “why do they need the military?…My speculation is because it plays better on TV.”
You can’t support and celebrate mistreatment and cruelty towards your fellow human beings and follow Jesus at the same time. They are diametrically opposed to one another. You can follow cruelty or Jesus, but you can’t do both. You take Jesus’ name in vain when you try to.
Oooh what a naughty boy! Telling off? Bollocks. Let me translate for you: What I'd like to say is that I completely agree with David but I'm worried that it might be treading on Winston's toes, and that might be a real problem. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
I'm afraid so, mate
This has always been the GOP's strategy: 1) Cut taxes for the wealthy & corporations by claiming they'll pay for themselves. 2) Explode deficits 3) Use the debt as an excuse to demand cuts to vital programs that help millions. 4) Repeat.
Seymour trying to hide the fact that we all submitted, me for the first second and third time ever to try to stop his shitty corporate, Atlas funded, oil and gas agenda. He is a terrible person who would rather sell this country for scrap than build a single thing to make it better
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
Stephen Miller's Jewish ancestors fled a pogrom in Belarus and went to America as refugees. It's a bitter irony that he is leading the charge to deport people in similar circumstances. What demons is he wrestling with, I wonder?
NZ Politics
When you are full don't forget. Being full causes amnesia. Being comfortable causes indifference. Being secure makes us unresponsive. -Walter Brueggemann The Gospel of Hope, p. 3
“Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” -Proverbs 14:31
Now it's Jeffries turn....don't hold your breath
Billionaire tax cuts are a policy choice. Cutting healthcare for millions is a policy choice. Cutting food assistance for children is a policy choice. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich is a policy choice. Make no mistake: Trump and the GOP are choosing to do this.
The Trump-Republican budget would be a disgrace under any circumstance. At a time when inequalities of income and wealth in America are wider than they have been in more than 80 years — with the richest Americans taking home near-record amounts of both — the bill is shameful.
The 35 richest Republican members of Congress have a net worth of $2.5 billion. They stand to gain from the GOP budget's tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich. Meanwhile, they're cutting Medicaid and food assistance for millions of their constituents.
www.oikoumene.org/resources/do...
Democrats cannot defeat authoritarian fascism without an agenda that stands squarely on the side of working people. We need a pro-worker, pro-democracy, anti-establishment movement that will take on oligarchy like never before.
This is the lesson Democrats should heed from Zohran Mamdani's historic win.
More attacks on the workers of Aotearoa-New Zealand by the Coalition of Chaos www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...
And?
If you think it's over, you are extremely naive.
“U.S. Officials Concede They Don’t Know Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stockpile” Mission accomplished! 🤦🏽♂️
Starship blowing up is a bigger deal than you think. It’s not a prototype in a sandbox anymore, it’s a $4B NASA contract to land humans on the Moon ($2.8B initially, $4B with follow-ons). Every explosion is taxpayer-funded hardware going up in flames.
For those who say “Illegal is illegal.” On this Juneteenth, remember: slavery was once legal. Harboring a fugitive enslaved person? Illegal. Black freedom? Illegal. “Illegal is illegal” has always been used to defend injustice. Legality ≠ morality. Justice calls us higher.
A lot of liberal haters who know nothing about space travel are mocking the SpaceX launch pad explosion but actually it's all science. For instance we learned from this that it's bad for the rocket to blow up before we even do anything to it.
When Hate Is Loud Love Must Be Louder — The Christian Left Store — Get yours today by clicking below. Our merch helps support the ministry. the-christian-left-store.creator-spring.com/listing/tcl-...
My most recent Substack. You can read the rest here: open.substack.com/pub/benjaminrc…
I wrote this piece back in 2012, showing how the Israeli attack on Osirak in 1981 didn’t end but in fact accelerated Saddam’s covert nuclear weapons programs. It also quotes US generals saying you can’t end Iran’s nuclear program with a bombing campaign. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
As against every other day? 🤔
Those are WW2- era tanks in the video (M4 Shermans).
NZ politics. The Coalition of Chaos continues to try sending us back to the 19th Century. Attacking our social safety nets via privatisation, undoing our environmental protections, diminishing workplace safety, and now, attacking sick leave for workers. What's next- Workhouses?
Bugger- paywalled 😡
The church has always been at its best when it stands with the crucified, not the crucifiers.
www.comeandsee.com/view.php?sid...
“The world does not need the church to talk about what is already possible. The work of the church is to battle the world’s definition of what is believable and unbelievable.” - Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope
In just five days, Trump’s administration indicted a Democratic member of Congress for engaging in oversight, threatened to arrest a Democratic governor for governing in accord with his mandate, and handcuffed a Democratic senator for asking a question at a press event. Join tomorrow’s protest!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
So prophetic imagination is grounded in the conviction that God is doing something lively in the world. That it may be slow, but it is very sure, and that a new world is coming into being that will discredit and dismiss the old totalism.” -Walter Brueggemann, “Called to a Dangerous Oddness”.
Has he stopped drinking, though? 🤔
A DHS spokesperson defended the detainment, accusing Sen. Padilla of failing to properly identify himself during Sec. Kristi Noem's press conference. But multiple videos show Padilla clearly identifying himself as a senator.
Sigh. They can demand all they like...might as well piss into the wind. They need to actually do stuff- like stand in front of a picket/protest line
They should refuse to comply- it's an unlawful order
“Prayer is a refusal to settle for what is.” — Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence (2018)
— Walter Brueggeman, Interrupting Silence (abridged).
“Since we now live in a a world that is fitfully drifting toward fascism, the breaking of silence is urgent. In the life of the church, the breaking of silence by the testimony of the gospel often means breaking the silence among those who have a determined stake in maintaining the status quo.”
Crossfire my arse. You can see from the video she and/or the camera crew were deliberately targeted.
As you watch ICE terrorize Los Angeles, remember: private prison companies are going to get very, very rich off Trump's cruelty.
Trump is declaring fake emergencies against immigrants and protesters while gutting our capacity to respond to actual emergencies like natural disasters and pandemics.
“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.” – Walter Breuggeman, The Prophetic Imagination
Watch the slow motion: it appears to me that the officers discuss the photographer and reporter before the one on the end fires on them (it looks to me like he's aiming at the camera, not the reporter, but you decide)
That's the plan
It is said Proud Boys and J 6 ers fill the ranks of Ice. Question for the legal eagles on here How are they allowed to carry weapons? A pardon doesn’t restore your gun rights. Unless you’re Mel Gibson and your pal fires the AG. BUT ISN’T CARRYING GUNS AGAINST CA LAW if a convicted felon?
These militarist ICE raids are the actual government oppression that right wingers dreamed was happening during Covid. They are not up in arms like they were about masking, go figure.
The best "Tiananmen Square" event is if Newsom, if he had any balls, went out there and stood between the troops and the protesters.
Trump can’t stand to be humiliated. This is what's driving his dictatorial moves. But he will overreach. He already has. And this overreach will ultimately be his undoing. As long as we keep our heads — and engage in peaceful civil disobedience. Be strong. Be safe.
TCL's Morning Message: The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding. – Proverbs 29:7 (NRSVUE)
Tyranny requires constant effort. Oppression is the mask of fear. Authority is brittle. And most importantly: you are never truly alone when standing up to authoritarianism. You have friends everywhere.
Words matter. Truth matters. A few hundred protestors exercising their constitutional right to assemble, speak and dissent is not a “violent mob” and it is not an “insurrection.” See this for what it is: a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law in Los Angeles.
The federal government is taking over the California National Guard and deploying 2,000 soldiers in Los Angeles — not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle. Don't give them one. Never use violence. Speak out peacefully.
NZ politics Seymour lost the Oxford debate; doubles down with this lot
MAGA that supports and praises violent insurrectionists on January 6th now lecturing America about people protesting ICE. LOL. OK, Karens.
abc7.com/post/multipl...
Beware the “extreme centrists” who think the fix for what’s wrong is doing more of what we have been doing all along except more efficiently and fast
Selfishness Is Not a Virtue — There are now Christian writers and theologians mounting a frontal attack against the very value that allows us to understand our neighbors. (Gift Article)
You can continue to provide surface level analyses of political opinion that fail to grapple with the underlying material conditions and structural causes of ideology formation but they will continue to be useless and fail to provide or indicate what the long term solutions are.
That any of us have to care about the messy breakup of these two massive narcissists — and that they both individually wield such massive power — is an indictment of our political system and further proves the poisonous influence of Big Money on our democracy.
"Who Is Abu Shabab? Meet the Gaza Gangster that Israel Armed to Counter Hamas" Netanyahu admits to supporting ISIS-linked Gaza gangs, who have been accused of stealing humanitarian aid. Muhammad Shehada reports for Zeteo in an exclusive investigation:
Do I think Christian Nationalism is good? NO. However, define fascism-it's a term too easily bandied about to discredit others.
In just 130 days, Elon... -Secured even more contracts -Derailed at least 40 fed investigations of his corporations -Gutted agencies that regulate his business -Installed loyalists throughout the government Elon has fallen out with Trump, but he got exactly what he wanted.
For years we've heard from the right about "welfare queens" and other so-called "freeloaders" pulling one over on the government. But actually, it's the wealthy who are the real freeloaders — pulling one over on us all by skirting their taxes. Where is the outrage over that?
Trump's tariffs, tax cuts, and austerity budget are a windfall for the super-rich at the expense of the poor. This is what class warfare looks like. [Via @4taxfairness.bsky.social]
Bizarre! Nicole McKee in favour of loosening restrictions on real semi-automatic rifles but wants tighter restrictions on Te Pati Māori pointing finger guns🙄
When you have a First Past the Post system, it doesn't really tell you that much