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550,260 | sputnik--2019-11-21--India's Plan to Boost Economy via Stake Sale in Gov't Firms May Harm Jobs - Trade Union General Sec. | 2019-11-21T00:00:00 | sputnik | India's Plan to Boost Economy via Stake Sale in Gov't Firms May Harm Jobs - Trade Union General Sec. | The Indian federal Cabinet has approved disinvestment of the government’s stake in public sector majors Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), and inland cargo mover Container Corporation of India (Concor), apart from two other public sector units, in order to boost revenue collections amid the slowing economy. The Indian government’s mega plans on disinvestment of government stakes in public sector units is likely to fetch $11.2 billion for the government. After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Cabinet met late Wednesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a media briefing said, “The government will sell its 53.29% stake in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd to a strategic buyer, ceding management control.” General Secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress Amarjeet Kaur believes that this move is a "retrograde decision" that will cause job losses. The three public sector firms put up on the selling block by the government are the top companies in their respective sectors. A Finance Ministry source said that at current valuations, the three companies themselves are likely to fetch around $11.2 billion for the government in the current financial year. Supporting the Cabinet’s decision, Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Thursday that the “Government has no business to remain in business. Sectors, where businesses can sustain themselves, should be allowed to continue”. The other two companies that are on sale are THDC India Ltd., in which government will sell a 74.23% stake and North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Ltd., from which the government plans to exit completely. | null | https://sputniknews.com/world/201911211077365818-indias-plan-to-boost-economy-via-stake-sale-in-govt-firms-may-harm-jobs---trade-union-general-sec/ | Thu, 21 Nov 2019 11:06:19 +0300 | 1,574,352,379 | 1,574,340,686 | economy, business and finance | economy |
554,555 | sputnik--2019-12-26--Rapid Stock Market Growth Reflects Risks to World Economy Amid US-China Trade War – Prof | 2019-12-26T00:00:00 | sputnik | Rapid Stock Market Growth Reflects Risks to World Economy Amid US-China Trade War – Prof | US stock futures continued to rise on 26 December amid post-Christmas trading. Citing Bespoke Investment Group, CNBC admitted Thursday that the S&P 500, that measures the stock performance of America's 500 large-cap companies, has returned over 50 percent since Donald Trump was elected. According to the media outlet, the bellwether index – a leading indicator of the direction of the economy – has secured over 28 percent in 2019 this year, "well above the average 12.8% return of year three for past US presidents". Other indices have also grown considerably: "Nasdaq up 72.2 percent since our great 2016 election victory! Dow up 55.8 percent. The best is yet to come!" the US president tweeted on 24 December. Trump does not deserve all the credit for the rise, according to Nicola Borri, an economics and finance professor at Rome's LUISS Guido Carli University: in fact, the US stock market has been growing at an unprecedented pace since the end of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. At the same time, "most economists are worried about the policies put forward by the Trump administration, especially those related to trade policies", Borri points out, in an apparent reference to the US-China trade war that has repeatedly cast a chill over global markets. The Sino-American trade war has been raging on since spring 2018, accompanied by temporary truces and tough negotiations. In mid-December, Washington and Beijing reached a consensus on the terms of a "phase one" trade deal. The agreement envisages the cancellation of some new tariffs and reduction of some old ones on Chinese imports in return for increased purchases of American farm, energy, and manufactured goods by China, as well as settling some intellectual property problems. Although stocks are continuing to go higher, Borri does not rule out a possible collapse of trade talks, which could have serious negative effects on the world economy. As he explains, "whenever news arrives that these risks do not materialise, like when Trump finds an agreement with China, then investors reap the fruits of their bets". "These are all sources of major risk for the world economy and they are likely to be with us for the next years, and possibly more", he emphasises. Meanwhile, some economic observers predict a further rise despite the aforementioned risks: as Market Watch suggested on Monday, emerging markets are likely to get more attractive, US stocks to go higher, and President Donald Trump to be re-elected, while the US economy is catching the wind in its sails. | null | https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201912261077872200-rapid-stock-market-growth-reflects-risks-to-world-economy-amid-us-china-trade-war--prof/ | Thu, 26 Dec 2019 22:03:00 +0300 | 1,577,415,780 | 1,577,406,751 | economy, business and finance | economy |
569,674 | tass--2019-08-26--Global trade wars key risk for Russian economy in 2020-2022 says minister | 2019-08-26T00:00:00 | tass | Global trade wars key risk for Russian economy in 2020-2022, says minister | MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. Economic Development Minister Maksim Oreshkin considers further deterioration of the global economic environment amid trade conflicts to be the key risk factor for the Russian economic development. "(Russia’s) Economic Development Ministry projects that global economic growth will decline below the 3% mark in 2019 for the first time since 2009. Considering the ongoing trade wars that are an additional brake on global economic growth, the outlook has been revised downwards. Global GDP growth is expected to slow down to 2.5% in 2024," Oreshkin told a briefing on Monday. He added that "the global economy will not contribute to a faster growth of Russia’s economy." The minister said earlier that the possible global crisis due to the US-China trade conflict would negatively influence Russia, though the country is better-prepared for that crisis than for those in 2008 and 2014 thanks to the fiscal rule and the inflation targeting policy. | null | https://tass.com/economy/1075122 | 2019-08-26 18:29:33+00:00 | 1,566,858,573 | 1,567,533,351 | economy, business and finance | economy |
571,893 | tass--2019-10-08--Global economy will lose $700 bln by 2020 due to trade conflicts, says IMF head | 2019-10-08T00:00:00 | tass | Global economy will lose $700 bln by 2020 due to trade conflicts, says IMF head | WASHINGTON, October 8. /TASS/. The global economy will lose about $700 bln or about 0.8% of world GDP by 2020 due to global trade conflicts, while the growth of world trade has almost stopped, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday. In late September, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) selected Kristalina Georgieva to serve as IMF Managing Director and Chair of the Executive Board for a five-year term starting on October 1, 2019. "For the global economy, the cumulative effect of trade conflicts could mean a loss of around $700 billion by 2020, or about 0.8% of GDP," she said adding that the "global trade growth has come to a near standstill," Georgieva said. "We have spoken in the past about the dangers of trade disputes. Now, we see that they are actually taking a toll," the head of the IMF added. Georgieva called on the global community to "work together, now, and find a lasting solution on trade." "Countries need to address legitimate concerns related to their trade practices. That means dealing with subsidies, as well as intellectual property rights and technology transfers," she said. "We also need a more modern global trading system, particularly to unlock the full potential of services and e-commerce," she stated added that "the key is to improve the system, not abandon it." Currently, the most acute trade conflict is the dispute between the United States and China. Over the past year, they have repeatedly imposed customs duties against each other. US President Donald Trump is trying to reduce the trade deficit, while China disagrees with Washington’s policies and responds with similar measures. In 2018, the United States introduced customs duties on imports of steel and aluminum, which caused sharp criticism, in particular from Washington’s allies in Europe. | null | https://tass.com/economy/1082083 | Tue, 08 Oct 2019 19:17:38 +0300 | 1,570,576,658 | 1,570,574,910 | economy, business and finance | economy |
766,644 | theindependent--2019-07-23--World economy will slump to weakest growth in decade due to Trumpaposs trade war and Brexit IMF f | 2019-07-23T00:00:00 | theindependent | World economy will slump to weakest growth in decade due to Trump's trade war and Brexit, IMF forecasts | Global economic growth will slow this year to the weakest rate in a decade, the International Monetary Fund has said, blaming Donald Trump’s trade war with China, Brexit uncertainty and geopolitical tensions. The IMF has downgraded its last forecasts, compiled in mid-March, and now expects growth of 3.2 per cent in 2019 and 3.5 per cent 2020. There is a risk that even these lower forecasts prove to be too optimistic, the organisation said in its World Economic Outlook report published on Tuesday. One reason growth could be worse is an escalation in the US-China trade dispute, it added. The US imposed tariffs on around $200bn of Chinese imports in May and banned American firms from doing business with Huawei, citing concerns that the Chinese company’s equipment could allow spying by Beijing on US citizens. The IMF said there is a “pressing need” to resolve trade tensions and dispel the uncertainty around trade agreements, including between the UK and the EU. “Specifically, countries should not use tariffs to target bilateral trade balances or as a substitute for dialogue to pressure others for reforms,” the report stated. Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, stressed that point at a press conference, saying: “The need for global cooperation is urgent.” The fund has also updated its forecasts for the UK. It predicts growth of 1.3 per cent this year – compared with 1.2 per cent forecast earlier – and 1.4 per cent in 2020, as before. However, this is based on the assumption of an orderly Brexit with a transition period. The forecasts were produced before Boris Johnson was named as the new UK prime minister, raising the risk of a no-deal Brexit. Mr Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the EU in October with or without a deal. The IMF’s outlook for the world economy broadly chimes with forecasts by the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research, released on Monday. NIESR predicted growth of around 3.25 percent this year and 3.4 next year, both down from 3.6 per cent in 2018. But NIESR was more pessimistic than the IMF about Britain’s prospects, seeing growth of 1.2 per cent in 2019 and 1.1 per cent in 2020, provided a no-deal Brexit is avoided. | Ben Chapman, Olesya Dmitracova | https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/economy-brexit-trump-trade-war-gdp-imf-forecast-a9017486.html | 2019-07-23 14:30:43+00:00 | 1,563,906,643 | 1,567,536,046 | economy, business and finance | economy |
1,059,430 | unian--2019-01-14--Ukraine-India trade up to 23 bln Economy minister | 2019-01-14T00:00:00 | unian | Ukraine-India trade up to $2.3 bln – Economy minister | India is Ukraine's largest trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region. The volume of trade turnover between Ukraine and India in the first ten months of 2018 increased by 1.5% to $2.295 billion, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv said during the International Partnership Summit in Mumbai (India). According to Kubiv, the exports of Ukrainian products amounted to over $1.8 billion, the economy ministry press service reports. Kubiv has noted that India is Ukraine's largest trading partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Read alsoUkrainian producers able to export apples to India "Ukraine has a wide range of projects in various areas interesting for attracting investment and developing manufacture of quality products with high added value. These are agri-industry and energy, industry in general, and aircraft industry, in particular, including aircraft repair and maintenance, supplies of helicopters for medical services and other civilian needs," said the minister. He stressed that all these areas could be of interest to Indian businesses. “In turn, we're offering the most favorable business climate,” Kubiv added. Industrial cooperation between businesses is among the key tasks of the further cooperation between the two countries. As UNIAN reported earlier, trade turnover between Ukraine and India in 2017 grew by 18.8%, amounting to $2.8 billion. | null | https://economics.unian.info/10408077-ukraine-india-trade-up-to-2-3-bln-economy-minister.html | 2019-01-14 18:40:00+00:00 | 1,547,509,200 | 1,567,552,626 | economy, business and finance | economy |
1,076,449 | usnews--2019-10-16--Fed Survey Finds US Economy Being Hurt by Trade Battles | 2019-10-16T00:00:00 | usnews | Fed Survey Finds US Economy Being Hurt by Trade Battles | The survey, known as the beige book, will be used by Fed officials when they meet Oct. 29-30 to decide whether to cut interest rates for a third time this year. Financial markets are expecting another rate cut as the central bank seeks to protect the economic expansion from the fallout from a trade war between the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China. The beige book findings will likely be cited by Fed officials who believe the central bank should cut rates again because of rising risks that the nation's longest recovery, now in its 11th year, could be derailed. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group, said based on the beige book's emphasis on areas of weakness he expected the Fed will cut rates again at the October meeting. The report, compiled from information gathered by the Fed's 12 regional banks, said that the banks' business contacts still expected the economic expansion to continue but many had lowered their outlooks for growth over the next six to 12 months. The report also found conditions varied by regions. States in the southern and western part of the country generally were more upbeat than regions representing the Midwest and Great Plains. That disparity likely was influenced by the tough times faced by many farmers. They have been caught between President Donald Trump's higher tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese imports and retaliatory tariffs imposed by China, which has also canceled purchases of U.S. farms goods, including soybeans, in an effort to hurt a key Trump constituency. The beige book said that businesses across all regions were having to deal with persistent worker shortages and tight labor market conditions across various skill levels and occupations. This has been an issue as unemployment has continued to fall and in September dipped to a half-century low of 3.5%. A number of districts reported that manufacturers had reduced employment because of softness in new orders. However, some firms were concerned about the longer-term availability of workers and opted to trim hours rather than lay off employees. Even with the tight labor markets, wages were described as rising only moderately but some upward pressure was noted for lower-skilled workers in the retail and hospitality industries and for higher-skilled professional and technical workers. Price increases were described as modest but both retailers and manufacturers noted rising input costs, often for items that had been hit with new tariffs in the trade war. The report said that retailers were finding more success in passing on the price increases to their customers than U.S. manufacturers were finding. Trump announced last Friday a temporary truce in the U.S.-China trade battle, saying he had agreed to suspend a tariff hike scheduled to go into effect this week on $250 billion of Chinese imports. He said that the Chinese had agreed to buy $40 billion to $50 billion in U.S. farm products. While the cease-fire lifted spirts on Wall Street, much more work will be needed to achieve a final deal. Investors have cited this lingering trade uncertainty as a main reason they believe the Fed will feel the need to cut rates again later this month. | Associated Press | https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2019-10-16/fed-survey-finds-us-economy-being-hurt-by-trade-battles | Wed, 16 Oct 2019 22:45:42 GMT | 1,571,280,342 | 1,571,273,055 | economy, business and finance | economy |
1,088,786 | veteranstoday--2019-11-07--IMF: Global trade tensions deepen Eurozone economy slowdown | 2019-11-07T00:00:00 | veteranstoday | IMF: Global trade tensions deepen Eurozone economy slowdown | [ Editor’s Note: This was a juicy topic. The EU downturn is partly due to its own foolish moves over sanctions against Russia for “taking over” Crimea when it voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russian rather than receiving the neo-Nazi treatment from those the EU, US and NATO backed in overthrowing the Ukrainian government. Sure, the former Ukraine government was corrupt, but the replacements murdered lots of people simply because they were ethnic Russians, and the US government and the EU had no problem with that whatsoever. Later, the European JCPOA partners rolled over on the JCPOA by not doing the major trading due with Iran, starting with buying a million barrels of oil a month, hiding behind the Trump sanctions threats with unfulfilled promises of “we’ll live up to the deal eventually”. Europe lost the largest Airbus buy order, 100 planes, that it may never see again, and Boeing the same due to Trump breaking the deal. On the Airbus deal, because US parts and technology were used – part of free and friendly trade with the EU – that allowed the US to kill that order. So all the pent-up import demand that could have helped EU economies went up in smoke and it is looking at 1.2% growth, with worse coming for the next two years. That is not leadership. It is the total absence of leadership. Shame on the EU for not standing up for its people and the Iran deal. What the EU has done is to show that talk is cheap, with five years of negotiation thrown out the door. That will hurt them down the road, likewise with the US’ sanctionista foreign policy. It will get worse before it gets better, which I cover in the second part of today’s PressTV interview, starting at 3:40 … Jim W. Dean ] Jim's Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded via PayPal Jim's work includes research, field trips, Heritage TV Legacy archiving & more. Thanks for helping. Click to donate >> | Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor | https://www.veteranstoday.com/2019/11/06/imf-global-trade-tensions-deepen-eurozone-economy-slowdown/ | Thu, 07 Nov 2019 04:07:45 +0000 | 1,573,117,665 | 1,573,132,612 | economy, business and finance | economy |
1,103,323 | westernjournal--2019-06-20--Mexico Becomes First To Pass Trump Trade Deal Our Economy Is Open | 2019-06-20T00:00:00 | westernjournal | Mexico Becomes First To Pass Trump Trade Deal: ‘Our Economy Is Open’ | Mexico’s Senate passed the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement on Wednesday, making the nation the first to ratify the new trade pact, Politico reported. Mexican foreign affairs undersecretary Jesús Seade announced the passing of the legislation on Twitter, writing, “USMCA passes! Mexico goes first with clear signal that our economy is open.” “We’re confident that our partners will soon do the same,” Seade went on to say. TRENDING: Border Patrol Agent Offers To Give Ocasio-Cortez a Personal Tour of Detention Facility After ‘Disgusting’ Holocaust Comparison Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called a special session to consider the deal after the Senate broke for recess at the end of April. The agreement passed by 114 to 4 votes, with three lawmakers abstaining from the vote. Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to place 5 percent tariffs on Mexican goods over the ongoing southern border crisis, López Obrador maintained confidence that the deal would pass. Prior to the vote, Mexican lawmakers expressed concern over the president’s unpredictability. However, the deal was widely seen as a way of providing economic stability to the Mexican people. Sen. Verónica Martínez García, the secretary to the Senate Economy Commission, told the Senate floor, “The USMCA is synonymous with opportunity in the short and long term.” While Mexico appears confident over the deal, the U.S. Congress isn’t entirely on board yet. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said that rushing a vote on the deal would be a bad idea. During a breakfast for reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor, Pelosi outlined her concerns over labor and environmental protections in the agreement, as well as provisions on pharmaceuticals. The Democratic congresswoman also said she would not accept the deal if it is simply “NAFTA with sugar on top.” As Democrats have yet to agree to sign the deal, the text passed in Mexico’s Senate may not represent the totality of the final agreement. Any renegotiation of terms, forced by the Democrats, would require the agreement of Mexico and Canada. Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative, said this week that he will work with Democrats to address their concerns on enforcement. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Jack Buckby | https://www.westernjournal.com/mexico-becomes-first-pass-trump-trade-deal-economy-open/ | 2019-06-20 00:03:15+00:00 | 1,561,003,395 | 1,567,538,641 | economy, business and finance | economy |
146 | 21stcenturywire--2019-02-23--Netanyahus Slide Towards Jewish Fascism Should Shock Americans | 2019-02-23T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | Netanyahu’s Slide Towards ‘Jewish Fascism’ Should Shock Americans | More and more, Israel is finding increasing difficulty in justifying its overtly far-right ethno-nationalists and antiquated apartheid policies in a 21st century world which doesn’t regard its policies and practices as civilized or acceptable. One of the main problems facing Israel as it attempts to project a ‘normal’ image to the rest of the world, is that the Zionist doctrine which claims the whole of former Palestine as being a ‘gift from God’ is itself a form of pure ideological fundamentalism – which has now morphed into the official extremist state doctrine. This extremist ideological stance then gives the state of Israel its sole claim to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and key portions of Gaza, hence, Likud’s status quo has gone past the point of no return in terms of Israel’s inclusion into an international community which sees running a pogrom in the 21st century as being not only patently illegal, but also vile in a moral and ethical sense. Rather than evolving towards a more moderate position, Israeli hawks are pushing the state institutions even further to the right – into a bona fide fascist camp. In his recent piece entitled, “Netanyahu Now Endorses Jewish Fascism. US Jews Cut Your Ties With Him Now,” Haaretz’s Etan Nechin explains how the Likud-dominated Israeli political leadership is locked into a far-right political death spiral which it will not escape with a new and even more extremist coalition hoping to seize power this spring… Benjamin Netanyahu faced media criticism this week for hosting the right-wing prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary who have been accused of being anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic. But in response, Likud MK Anat Berko epitomized Netanyahu’s politics in a single sentence: “They might be anti-Semites, but they’re on our side.” Netanyahu lost his moral compass years ago, but in this election cycle – a chronicle of a victory foretold – he no longer cares about appearing as the fascist-enabling Pied Piper who will lead Israel into oblivion and isolation only to keep himself in power. PM Netanyahu: "I have to commend you for taking on the effort, and your foreign minister, for confronting the lies that are put forward against Israel in places like the Human Rights Committee in EU forums and elsewhere. You stand up for Israel and you stand up for the truth" pic.twitter.com/ALdUNyI3pz Netanyahu has been working hard in the last few weeks to help create a coalition between Jewish Home, the latest incarnation of the Mafdal, a venerable religious Zionist party, and a party called Otzma Yehudit, which could be called the Jewish National Front, a radical far right party whose members, like its former leader, Baruch Marzel, were followers of Meir Kahane’s Kach Party. Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 24 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron in 1994, was a Kach member at that time. SEE ALSO: In Their Own Words: Was Every Israeli Prime Minister a Racist? The Jewish home, Jewish Power, Eli Yishai, and the National Union must unite to save 6-8 seats to the right-wing bloc. We must not lose these votes because the split on the right will lead to a loss in the elections and the establishment of a leftist government. None of them alone does pass the threshold, uniting them will bring at least 6-8 seats. This is a moment of crisis for Israel as a liberal democracy, but it is just as much a moment of crisis, and a test, for American Jews. (…) This may seem like a political puppet show, or familiar political horse-trading. But it isn’t. It shows how far to the right the Israeli right has gone. Betzalel Smotrich, an MK for Jewish Home who famously organized the “Beast Parade” as protest to the Pride Parade in Jerusalem and has declared his support for segregating Jews and Arabs, not only in settlements, but also in hospitals, tweeting, “It is natural that my wife would not want to lay down next to someone who just gave birth to a baby that might want to murder her baby in another 20 years,” could be the post-election minister of education. Moti Yogev, another Jewish Home MK, said that Israel’s Supreme Court should be razed with a bulldozer. And now, Jewish Home has merged with Otzma Yehudit – who are even more extreme. Yes, there have always been extremist elements in the Israeli political sphere, but they have always been outcasts… | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/02/23/netanyahu-slide-towards-full-blown-jewish-fascism-should-shock-americans/ | 2019-02-23 18:04:17+00:00 | 1,550,963,057 | 1,567,547,539 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
2,177 | abcnews--2019-11-12--Timeline of Cardinal George Pell's career and accusations | 2019-11-12T00:00:00 | abcnews | Timeline of Cardinal George Pell's career and accusations | Australia's highest court on Wednesday agreed to hear an appeal by Cardinal George Pell of his convictions for molesting two choirboys in a cathedral more than two decades ago. Some events in Pell's career and the criminal case: July 16, 1996: Auxiliary Bishop George Pell is appointed archbishop of Melbourne. He molests two choirboys that December inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, according to testimony from one of the victims. Feb. 25, 2014: Pope Francis appoints Pell to the powerful position of Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy. April 8, 2014: One of the molested choirboys dies of a heroin overdose without alleging the crime and having told his mother he had not been abused. Aug. 5, 2014: Victoria state police establish Task Force Sano to investigate how religious and other nongovernment organizations handled abuse accusations. June 18, 2015: The surviving choirboy gives his first statement to Sano detectives outlining criminal allegations against Pell. Dec. 12, 2015: Australian media report that Pell has canceled an appearance before an Australian inquiry into how institutions responded to child sexual abuse. Pell said he could not fly back to Australia because of ill health. Dec. 23, 2015: Sano publicly appeals for information relating to allegations of sexual offenses while Pell was Melbourne archbishop. March 1, 2016: Pell begins testifying by video link from Rome to the Australian child abuse inquiry. Pell was critical of how the church had dealt with pedophile clerics in the past but denied he had been aware of the extent of the problem. Oct. 19, 2016: Sano detectives go to Rome and question Pell. Pell hears details of the choirboy's allegations for the first time. June 29, 2017: Police charge Pell with multiple counts of historical sexual assault offenses, making him the most senior cleric to be charged in the church's abuse crisis. Pell denied the accusations and took an immediate leave of absence as Vatican finance minister to return to Australia to defend himself. July 26, 2017: Pell makes his first court appearance on charges that he sexually abused multiple children in Victoria state decades earlier. Details of the allegations were not made public. Pell vows to fight the allegations. May 1, 2018: A magistrate commits Pell to stand trial, and he pleads not guilty to all charges. May 2, 2018: A judge separates the charges into two trials, the first dating to his tenure as Melbourne archbishop and the other when he was a young priest in Ballarat in the 1970s. Aug. 15, 2018: Trial begins in the Melbourne case and runs for four weeks. Sept. 20, 2018: Jury discharged after failing to agree on a verdict following more than five days of deliberation. Feb. 26, 2019: Suppression order forbidding publication of any details about the trial is lifted. Prosecutors abandon second trial on the Ballarat charges. March 13, 2019: Judge announces Pell is sentenced to six years in prison on five sex abuse convictions and must serve three years and eight months before he is eligible for parole. June 5-6, 2019: Victoria state Court of Appeal hears his appeal against the convictions. Nov. 13, 2019: Australia's High Court agrees to hear an appeal next year. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/timeline-cardinal-george-pells-career-accusations-66954116 | Tue, 12 Nov 2019 18:20:24 -0500 | 1,573,600,824 | 1,573,603,595 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
2,808 | abcnews--2019-12-03--Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before | 2019-12-03T00:00:00 | abcnews | Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before | At the end of another long day trying to sign up new clients accusing the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse, lawyer Adam Slater gazes out the window of his high-rise Manhattan office at one of the great symbols of the church, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “I wonder how much that’s worth?” he muses. Across the country, attorneys like Slater are scrambling to file a new wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy, thanks to rules enacted in 15 states that extend or suspend the statute of limitations to allow claims stretching back decades. Associated Press reporting found the deluge of suits could surpass anything the nation’s clergy sexual abuse crisis has seen before, with potentially more than 5,000 new cases and payouts topping $4 billion. It’s a financial reckoning playing out in such populous Catholic strongholds as New York, California and New Jersey, among the eight states that go the furthest with “lookback windows” that allow sex abuse claims no matter how old. Never before have so many states acted in near-unison to lift the restrictions that once shut people out if they didn’t bring claims of childhood sex abuse by a certain age, often their early 20s. That has lawyers fighting for clients with TV ads and billboards asking, “Were you abused by the church?” And Catholic dioceses, while worrying about the difficulty of defending such old claims, are considering bankruptcy, victim compensation funds and even tapping valuable real estate to stay afloat. “It’s like a whole new beginning for me,” said 71-year-old Nancy Holling-Lonnecker of San Diego, who plans to take advantage of an upcoming three-year window for such suits in California. Her claim dates back to the 1950s, when she says a priest repeatedly raped her in a confession booth beginning when she was 7 years old. “The survivors coming forward now have been holding on to this horrific experience all of their lives,” she said. “They bottled up those emotions all of these years because there was no place to take it.” Now there is. AP interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and clergy abuse watchdog groups offered a wide range of estimates but many said they expected at least 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey and California alone, resulting in potential payouts that could surpass the $4 billion paid out since the clergy sex abuse first came to light in the 1980s. Lawyers acknowledged the difficulty of predicting what will happen but several believed payouts could exceed the $350,000 national average per child sex abuse case since 2003. At the upper end, a key benchmark is the average $1.3 million the church paid per case the last time California opened a one-year window to suits in 2003. That offers a range of total payouts in the three big Catholic states alone from $1.8 billion to as much as $6 billion. Some lawyers believe payouts could be heavily influenced by the recent reawakening over sexual abuse fueled by the #MeToo movement, the public shaming of accused celebrities and the explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report last year that found 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in that state over seven decades. Since then, attorneys general in nearly 20 states have launched investigations of their own. "The general public is more disgusted than ever with the clergy sex abuse and the cover-up, and that will be reflected in jury verdicts," said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church in that city and was portrayed in the movie “Spotlight.” Said Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, who has won tens of millions in sex abuse cases against the church going back to the 1980s: "The zeitgeist is completely unfavorable to the Catholic Church.” For Mones, the size of lawsuit payouts under the new laws could hinge on whether most plaintiffs decide to settle their cases with dioceses or take their chances with a trial. "The X-factor here is whether there will be trials," he said. "If anyone starts trying these cases, the numbers could become astronomical." Since the 15 states enacted their laws at different times over the past two years, the onslaught of lawsuits is coming in waves. This summer, when New York state opened its one-year window allowing sexual abuse suits with no statute of limitations, more than 400 cases against the church and other institutions were filed on the first day alone. That number is now up to more than 1,000, with most targeting the church. New Jersey’s two-year window opens this week and California’s three-year window begins in the new year, with a provision that allows plaintiffs to collect triple damages if a cover-up can be shown. Arizona, Montana and Vermont opened ones earlier this year. Even one of the biggest holdouts, Pennsylvania, is moving closer to a window after legislators voted last month to consider amending its constitution to make it easier to pass one. Already, longtime clergy abuse lawyer Michael Pfau in Seattle says he's signed up about 800 clients in New York, New Jersey and California. Boston’s Garabedian says he expects to file 225 in New York, plus at least 200 in a half-dozen other states. Another veteran abuse litigator, James Marsh, says he’s collected more than 200 clients in New York alone. “A trickle becomes a stream becomes a flood,” Marsh said. “We’re sort of at the flood stage right now.” Church leaders who lobbied statehouses for years against loosening statute-of-limitations laws say this is exactly the kind of feeding frenzy they were worried about. And some have bemoaned the difficulty of trying to counter accusations of abuse that happened so long ago that most witnesses have scattered and many of the accused priests are long dead. “Dead people can’t defend themselves,” said Mark Chopko, former general counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There is also no one there to be interviewed. If a diocese gets a claim that Father Smith abused somebody in 1947, and there is nothing in Father Smith’s file and there is no one to ask whether there is merit or not, the diocese is stuck.” Slater’s Manhattan offices may have views of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, spiritual home of New York City’s Catholic archdiocese, but ground zero for his church abuse lawsuit operation is a call center, of sorts, about an hour’s drive away in suburban Long Island, in an office building overlooking a parking lot. There, headset-wearing paralegals in a dozen cubicles answer calls in response to ads on talk radio and cable TV news channels pleading: “If you were sexually abused by a member of the clergy, even if it happened decades ago ... you may be entitled to financial compensation.” That pitch spoke to 57-year-old Ramon Mercado, who had long kept silent about the abuse he suffered in the 1970s, in part because he didn’t want to upset his devout Catholic mother. Since her recent death, he’s ready to talk about the New York City priest who invited him into his Plymouth sedan to warm up on a cold day and ended up molesting him hundreds of times over the next three years. "I was sitting in my living room and someone came on TV, 'If you’ve been molested, act now,'" Mercado said. "After so many years, I said, ‘Why not?’” When such calls come in, the paralegals are trained to press for details but to do so gently. "What age would you say you were?" "Ten or 11? OK. Would you remember the face if you saw it?" "He would take you out of your bed? What did he say when he came to get you?" "Do you want to take a break? Are you OK? Are you sure?" The next step is to get a lawyer on the line to see if it’s a case they can take to court. Slater says that out of the more than 3,000 calls his firm has taken leading up to and since the opening of New York’s one-year window, it has signed up nearly 300 clients, and expects another 200 by the middle of next year. One recent day, lawyers talked to at least a half-dozen potential plaintiffs by lunchtime, with one saying she was raped at a first communion party and another saying a priest sodomized him after he was told to pull down his pants so his temperature could be taken. In a windowless break room over pizza, the lawyers recounted some of the other horrific claims they’ve heard in just the past few months: A young girl penetrated by a finger, then a fist; a boy raped by three priests at the same time; an altar boy told to perform oral sex and then swallow because it would “absolve him of his sins.” One plaintiff still smells the alcohol on the priest's breath decades later. Another says he can still hear the priest approaching his classroom as he came to get him, the squeak of shoes in the school hallway. One man called with his story and later killed himself. A terminally-ill woman called from a hospice care center — "I've been holding this in my whole life." Many of the accusations involve those already identified by dioceses as “credibly accused” — there are 5,173 priests, lay persons and other clergy member that meet that standard, according to a recent AP tally. Those are the easy cases. But many others are like Mercado’s, involving priests never accused publicly before, some long dead. And so that turns lawyers into cold-case investigators, calling retired Catholic school teachers and retired rectory staff, combing through yearbooks and, in Mercado’s case, tracking down missionary workers who went on the priest’s overseas trips. “This type of case isn’t for every law firm. It's not a hit-in-the-rear car accident,” Slater said. “There is work to be done.” And money to be made. For his fee, Slater said he plans to ask for a full third of any awards his clients collect and he’s been spending in anticipation, hiring a half-dozen new paralegals, opening an office in New Jersey and breaking a wall in Long Island to make more room. One of the lawyers eating pizza, Steven Alter, pushed back when asked if the people coming forward are just in it for the money. “It’s not a cash grab,” he said. “They want to have a voice. They want to help other people and make sure it doesn't happen again. “I haven't had one person ask me about the money yet." This is the day the Catholic Church has long feared. The church spent millions of dollars lobbying statehouses for decades, arguing it would be swamped with lawsuits if time limits on suing were lifted. That battle now lost, it is girding for Round Two, by turning to compensation funds and bankruptcy. Compensation funds offer payment to victims if they agree not take their claims to court. They offer a faster, easier way to some justice, and cash, but the settlements are typically a fraction of what victims can get in trials. And critics say the church is just using them to avoid both a bigger financial hit and full transparency. New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan set up the first fund in 2016, pitching it as a way to compensate victims without walloping the church and forcing it to cut programs. It has since paid more than $67 million to 338 alleged victims, an average $200,000 each. The idea has caught on in other states. All five dioceses in New Jersey and three in Colorado opened one, as did seven dioceses in Pennsylvania and six in California, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S. Such funds, Dolan said in a newspaper op-ed piece last year, “prevent the real possibility — as has happened elsewhere — of bankrupting both public and private organizations, including churches, that provide essential services in education, charity and health care.” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and a longtime critic of the new statute-of-limitations laws, said their effect — if not their intent — “is to disable the church.” “When a diocese goes bankrupt, everyone gets hurt,” he said. But bankruptcy has become an increasingly more common option. Less than a month after New York’s one-year lookback window took effect, the upstate Diocese of Rochester filed for bankruptcy, the 20th diocese or religious order in the country to do so, listing claims from alleged abuse survivors and other creditors as much as $500 million. Assets to pay that are estimated at no more than one-fifth that amount. The Diocese of Buffalo may be next. It has begun paying victims of the 100 priests it considers “credibly accused” of abuse, tapping proceeds from the sale of a lavish $1.5 million mansion that once housed its bishop who is facing pressure to resign. When a diocese files for bankruptcy, lawsuits by alleged abuse survivors are suspended and payments to them and others owed money — contractors, suppliers, banks, bondholders — are frozen while a federal judge decides how much to pay everyone and still leave enough for the diocese to continue to operate. It’s orderly and victims avoid costly and lengthy court cases, but they often get less than they would if they were successful in a trial. A recent Penn State study of 16 dioceses and other religious organizations that had filed for bankruptcy protection by September 2018 found that victims received an average settlement of $288,168. Bankruptcy can also leave abuse survivors with a sense of justice denied because the church never has to face discovery by plaintiff lawyers and forced to hand over documents, possibly implicating higherups who hid the abuse. For many of his clients, Slater said, the fight in court is crucial because they want to expose the culture behind the crime, not just out a single priest. “They want to see how the church allowed them to be abused, how they ruined their lives. The church is solely in possession of the information and there is no other way to get it,” he said. “It’s a different process in bankruptcy — you don’t get discovery and you don’t get it in compensation programs. The truth never comes to light.” Other church tactics in the past few months could be a harbinger for the future. In July, the Archdiocese of New York sued 31 of its insurers, fearing they would balk at paying all the new alleged victims. And just last month, church officials on nearby Long Island sought to throw out New York’s new statutes of limitations law in sex abuse cases, arguing it violates the due process clause of the state constitution. The Diocese of Rockville Centre contends time limits to file suits can only be extended in “exceptional circumstances,” such as when plaintiffs are unable to file because they are abroad in a war zone. Another pair of long shot cases are being closely watched because of the obvious financial implications. Five men who claim they were sexually abused by priests when they were minors filed suit in Minnesota earlier this year contending some of the responsibility rests with the world headquarters of the church — the Vatican. Then came another abuse suit last month in Buffalo accusing the Vatican of racketeering. The Vatican is a sovereign state widely seen as off limits to abuse victims, but some lawyers say it’s time, especially now that U.S. dioceses are under attack, that it begins tapping its vast wealth. Raymond P. Boucher, a veteran Los Angeles sexual abuse attorney, contends the Vatican’s legendary riches include stashes of art in vaults that could not possibly be exhausted “and still pay every single claim that anybody could bring in the United States.” “They have them just in the vaults. They don’t even have to take anything off the walls.” | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/surge-abuse-claims-threatens-church-67462271 | Tue, 03 Dec 2019 18:37:56 -0500 | 1,575,416,276 | 1,575,417,941 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
2,856 | abcnews--2019-12-04--Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before | 2019-12-04T00:00:00 | abcnews | Surge of new abuse claims threatens church like never before | At the end of another long day trying to sign up new clients accusing the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse, lawyer Adam Slater gazes out the window of his high-rise Manhattan office at one of the great symbols of the church, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “I wonder how much that’s worth?” he muses. Across the country, attorneys like Slater are scrambling to file a new wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by clergy, thanks to rules enacted in 15 states that extend or suspend the statute of limitations to allow claims stretching back decades. Associated Press reporting found the deluge of suits could surpass anything the nation’s clergy sexual abuse crisis has seen before, with potentially more than 5,000 new cases and payouts topping $4 billion. It’s a financial reckoning playing out in such populous Catholic strongholds as New York, California and New Jersey, among the eight states that go the furthest with “lookback windows” that allow sex abuse claims no matter how old. Never before have so many states acted in near-unison to lift the restrictions that once shut people out if they didn’t bring claims of childhood sex abuse by a certain age, often their early 20s. That has lawyers fighting for clients with TV ads and billboards asking, “Were you abused by the church?” And Catholic dioceses, while worrying about the difficulty of defending such old claims, are considering bankruptcy, victim compensation funds and even tapping valuable real estate to stay afloat. “It’s like a whole new beginning for me,” said 71-year-old Nancy Holling-Lonnecker of San Diego, who plans to take advantage of an upcoming three-year window for such suits in California. Her claim dates back to the 1950s, when she says a priest repeatedly raped her in a confession booth beginning when she was 7 years old. “The survivors coming forward now have been holding on to this horrific experience all of their lives,” she said. “They bottled up those emotions all of these years because there was no place to take it.” Now there is. AP interviews with more than a dozen lawyers and clergy abuse watchdog groups offered a wide range of estimates but many said they expected at least 5,000 new cases against the church in New York, New Jersey and California alone, resulting in potential payouts that could surpass the $4 billion paid out since the clergy sex abuse first came to light in the 1980s. Lawyers acknowledged the difficulty of predicting what will happen but several believed payouts could exceed the $350,000 national average per child sex abuse case since 2003. At the upper end, a key benchmark is the average $1.3 million the church paid per case the last time California opened a one-year window to suits in 2003. That offers a range of total payouts in the three big Catholic states alone from $1.8 billion to as much as $6 billion. Some lawyers believe payouts could be heavily influenced by the recent reawakening over sexual abuse fueled by the #MeToo movement, the public shaming of accused celebrities and the explosive Pennsylvania grand jury report last year that found 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children in that state over seven decades. Since then, attorneys general in nearly 20 states have launched investigations of their own. "The general public is more disgusted than ever with the clergy sex abuse and the cover-up, and that will be reflected in jury verdicts," said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church in that city and was portrayed in the movie “Spotlight.” Said Los Angeles lawyer Paul Mones, who has won tens of millions in sex abuse cases against the church going back to the 1980s: "The zeitgeist is completely unfavorable to the Catholic Church.” For Mones, the size of lawsuit payouts under the new laws could hinge on whether most plaintiffs decide to settle their cases with dioceses or take their chances with a trial. "The X-factor here is whether there will be trials," he said. "If anyone starts trying these cases, the numbers could become astronomical." Since the 15 states enacted their laws at different times over the past two years, the onslaught of lawsuits is coming in waves. This summer, when New York state opened its one-year window allowing sexual abuse suits with no statute of limitations, more than 400 cases against the church and other institutions were filed on the first day alone. That number is now up to more than 1,000, with most targeting the church. New Jersey’s two-year window opens this week and California’s three-year window begins in the new year, with a provision that allows plaintiffs to collect triple damages if a cover-up can be shown. Arizona, Montana and Vermont opened ones earlier this year. Even one of the biggest holdouts, Pennsylvania, is moving closer to a window after legislators voted last month to consider amending its constitution to make it easier to pass one. Already, longtime clergy abuse lawyer Michael Pfau in Seattle says he's signed up about 800 clients in New York, New Jersey and California. Boston’s Garabedian says he expects to file 225 in New York, plus at least 200 in a half-dozen other states. Another veteran abuse litigator, James Marsh, says he’s collected more than 200 clients in New York alone. “A trickle becomes a stream becomes a flood,” Marsh said. “We’re sort of at the flood stage right now.” Church leaders who lobbied statehouses for years against loosening statute-of-limitations laws say this is exactly the kind of feeding frenzy they were worried about. And some have bemoaned the difficulty of trying to counter accusations of abuse that happened so long ago that most witnesses have scattered and many of the accused priests are long dead. “Dead people can’t defend themselves,” said Mark Chopko, former general counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “There is also no one there to be interviewed. If a diocese gets a claim that Father Smith abused somebody in 1947, and there is nothing in Father Smith’s file and there is no one to ask whether there is merit or not, the diocese is stuck.” Slater’s Manhattan offices may have views of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, spiritual home of New York City’s Catholic archdiocese, but ground zero for his church abuse lawsuit operation is a call center, of sorts, about an hour’s drive away in suburban Long Island, in an office building overlooking a parking lot. There, headset-wearing paralegals in a dozen cubicles answer calls in response to ads on talk radio and cable TV news channels pleading: “If you were sexually abused by a member of the clergy, even if it happened decades ago ... you may be entitled to financial compensation.” That pitch spoke to 57-year-old Ramon Mercado, who had long kept silent about the abuse he suffered in the 1970s, in part because he didn’t want to upset his devout Catholic mother. Since her recent death, he’s ready to talk about the New York City priest who invited him into his Plymouth sedan to warm up on a cold day and ended up molesting him hundreds of times over the next three years. "I was sitting in my living room and someone came on TV, 'If you’ve been molested, act now,'" Mercado said. "After so many years, I said, ‘Why not?’” When such calls come in, the paralegals are trained to press for details but to do so gently. "What age would you say you were?" "Ten or 11? OK. Would you remember the face if you saw it?" "He would take you out of your bed? What did he say when he came to get you?" "Do you want to take a break? Are you OK? Are you sure?" The next step is to get a lawyer on the line to see if it’s a case they can take to court. Slater says that out of the more than 3,000 calls his firm has taken leading up to and since the opening of New York’s one-year window, it has signed up nearly 300 clients, and expects another 200 by the middle of next year. One recent day, lawyers talked to at least a half-dozen potential plaintiffs by lunchtime, with one saying she was raped at a first communion party and another saying a priest sodomized him after he was told to pull down his pants so his temperature could be taken. In a windowless break room over pizza, the lawyers recounted some of the other horrific claims they’ve heard in just the past few months: A young girl penetrated by a finger, then a fist; a boy raped by three priests at the same time; an altar boy told to perform oral sex and then swallow because it would “absolve him of his sins.” One plaintiff still smells the alcohol on the priest's breath decades later. Another says he can still hear the priest approaching his classroom as he came to get him, the squeak of shoes in the school hallway. One man called with his story and later killed himself. A terminally-ill woman called from a hospice care center — "I've been holding this in my whole life." Many of the accusations involve those already identified by dioceses as “credibly accused” — there are 5,173 priests, lay persons and other clergy member that meet that standard, according to a recent AP tally. Those are the easy cases. But many others are like Mercado’s, involving priests never accused publicly before, some long dead. And so that turns lawyers into cold-case investigators, calling retired Catholic school teachers and retired rectory staff, combing through yearbooks and, in Mercado’s case, tracking down missionary workers who went on the priest’s overseas trips. “This type of case isn’t for every law firm. It's not a hit-in-the-rear car accident,” Slater said. “There is work to be done.” And money to be made. For his fee, Slater said he plans to ask for a full third of any awards his clients collect and he’s been spending in anticipation, hiring a half-dozen new paralegals, opening an office in New Jersey and breaking a wall in Long Island to make more room. One of the lawyers eating pizza, Steven Alter, pushed back when asked if the people coming forward are just in it for the money. “It’s not a cash grab,” he said. “They want to have a voice. They want to help other people and make sure it doesn't happen again. “I haven't had one person ask me about the money yet." This is the day the Catholic Church has long feared. The church spent millions of dollars lobbying statehouses for decades, arguing it would be swamped with lawsuits if time limits on suing were lifted. That battle now lost, it is girding for Round Two, by turning to compensation funds and bankruptcy. Compensation funds offer payment to victims if they agree not take their claims to court. They offer a faster, easier way to some justice, and cash, but the settlements are typically a fraction of what victims can get in trials. And critics say the church is just using them to avoid both a bigger financial hit and full transparency. New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan set up the first fund in 2016, pitching it as a way to compensate victims without walloping the church and forcing it to cut programs. It has since paid more than $67 million to 338 alleged victims, an average $200,000 each. The idea has caught on in other states. All five dioceses in New Jersey and three in Colorado opened one, as did seven dioceses in Pennsylvania and six in California, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S. Such funds, Dolan said in a newspaper op-ed piece last year, “prevent the real possibility — as has happened elsewhere — of bankrupting both public and private organizations, including churches, that provide essential services in education, charity and health care.” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and a longtime critic of the new statute-of-limitations laws, said their effect — if not their intent — “is to disable the church.” “When a diocese goes bankrupt, everyone gets hurt,” he said. But bankruptcy has become an increasingly more common option. Less than a month after New York’s one-year lookback window took effect, the upstate Diocese of Rochester filed for bankruptcy, the 20th diocese or religious order in the country to do so, listing claims from alleged abuse survivors and other creditors as much as $500 million. Assets to pay that are estimated at no more than one-fifth that amount. The Diocese of Buffalo may be next. It has begun paying victims of the 100 priests it considers “credibly accused” of abuse, tapping proceeds from the sale of a lavish $1.5 million mansion that once housed its bishop who is facing pressure to resign. When a diocese files for bankruptcy, lawsuits by alleged abuse survivors are suspended and payments to them and others owed money — contractors, suppliers, banks, bondholders — are frozen while a federal judge decides how much to pay everyone and still leave enough for the diocese to continue to operate. It’s orderly and victims avoid costly and lengthy court cases, but they often get less than they would if they were successful in a trial. A recent Penn State study of 16 dioceses and other religious organizations that had filed for bankruptcy protection by September 2018 found that victims received an average settlement of $288,168. Bankruptcy can also leave abuse survivors with a sense of justice denied because the church never has to face discovery by plaintiff lawyers and forced to hand over documents, possibly implicating higherups who hid the abuse. For many of his clients, Slater said, the fight in court is crucial because they want to expose the culture behind the crime, not just out a single priest. “They want to see how the church allowed them to be abused, how they ruined their lives. The church is solely in possession of the information and there is no other way to get it,” he said. “It’s a different process in bankruptcy — you don’t get discovery and you don’t get it in compensation programs. The truth never comes to light.” Other church tactics in the past few months could be a harbinger for the future. In July, the Archdiocese of New York sued 31 of its insurers, fearing they would balk at paying all the new alleged victims. And just last month, church officials on nearby Long Island sought to throw out New York’s new statutes of limitations law in sex abuse cases, arguing it violates the due process clause of the state constitution. The Diocese of Rockville Centre contends time limits to file suits can only be extended in “exceptional circumstances,” such as when plaintiffs are unable to file because they are abroad in a war zone. Another pair of long shot cases are being closely watched because of the obvious financial implications. Five men who claim they were sexually abused by priests when they were minors filed suit in Minnesota earlier this year contending some of the responsibility rests with the world headquarters of the church — the Vatican. Then came another abuse suit last month in Buffalo accusing the Vatican of racketeering. The Vatican is a sovereign state widely seen as off limits to abuse victims, but some lawyers say it’s time, especially now that U.S. dioceses are under attack, that it begins tapping its vast wealth. Raymond P. Boucher, a veteran Los Angeles sexual abuse attorney, contends the Vatican’s legendary riches include stashes of art in vaults that could not possibly be exhausted “and still pay every single claim that anybody could bring in the United States.” “They have them just in the vaults. They don’t even have to take anything off the walls.” | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/surge-abuse-claims-threatens-church-67462271 | Wed, 04 Dec 2019 01:32:13 -0500 | 1,575,441,133 | 1,575,461,213 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
3,031 | abcnews--2019-12-09--US Catholic priests beset by overwork, isolation, scandals | 2019-12-09T00:00:00 | abcnews | US Catholic priests beset by overwork, isolation, scandals | More than a century ago, waves of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland and Quebec settled in Chicopee and other western Massachusetts mill towns, helping build churches, rectories and schools to accommodate their faith. Today the priests leading those churches are under siege due to stresses, challenges and sex abuse scandals complicating their lives and those of their fellow priests across the United States. The Rev. Mark Stelzer is among those trying to persevere. He's a professor at a Roman Catholic college in Chicopee, and its chaplain. He travels frequently to out-of-state events organized by a Catholic addiction-treatment provider, recounting his own recovery from alcoholism. Last year, his busy schedule got busier. Amid a worsening shortage of priests, the Diocese of Springfield named him administrator of a parish in Holyoke, Chicopee’s northern neighbor, where he lives alone in a mansion-sized rectory while serving as spiritual leader to the 500 families of St. Jerome’s Church. “I’m at an age where I thought I’d be doing less rather than doing more,” said Stelzer, 62. Stelzer loves being a priest, yet he's frank about the ever-evolving stresses of his vocation that leave him nostalgic for the priesthood he entered in 1983. “It was a lot simpler then,” he said. “There’s a real longing, a mourning for the church that was — when there was a greater fraternity among priests, and the church was not facing these scandals that are now emerging every day.” Stelzer’s concerns echoed those of other priests, and some of their psychological caregivers, who were interviewed by The Associated Press. Weighing on the entire Catholic clergy in the U.S. is the ripple effect of their church’s long-running crisis arising from sex abuse committed by priests. It’s caused many honorable priests to sense an erosion of public support and to question the leadership of some of their bishops. That dismay is often compounded by increased workloads due to the priest shortage, and increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce. They see trauma firsthand. Some priests minister in parishes wracked by gun violence; others preside frequently over funerals of drug-overdose victims. One such victim was a 31-year-old woman whose family was among Stelzer’s closest friends. “This is one of the few times I actually felt my voice quivering,” he said of the funeral service he led last year. Burnout has been a perennial problem for clergy of many faiths. But Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at California's Santa Clara University who has screened or treated hundreds of Catholic clerics, sees new forms of it as the sex abuse crisis persists and many parishioners lose trust in Catholic leadership. “You’re just trying to be a good priest and now everyone thinks you’re a sex offender,” he said. “If you walk in a park with your collar on, people think you’re on the lookout for children. ... Some have been spat upon.” The Springfield diocese, like many across the U.S., has a long history of sex-abuse scandals. In the early 1990s, priest Richard Lavigne was defrocked and several of his victims received cash settlements. In 2004, a grand jury indicted Thomas Dupre on two counts of child molestation soon after he resigned following a 13-year stint as Springfield’s bishop. Stelzer had hoped the abuse crisis was abating but it resurfaced dramatically over the past two years. Abuse allegations led to former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s ouster from the priesthood and a Pennsylvania grand jury report asserted that about 300 priests had abused at least 1,000 children in the state over seven decades. “It opened up an old wound and now we're back to ground zero,” Stelzer said in an interview at the College of Our Lady of the Elms. The wound is self-inflicted, said Rev. Philip Schmitter, 74, who has served for 50 years in Flint, Michigan. His stance endears him to an African American community where he lived in public housing for three decades to maintain close ties. “This cover up, this ‘Let's protect the institution’ was just a heinous, utterly unchristian kind of behavior,” he said. Two miles north of Stelzer’s campus, on a recent Sunday, the Rev. William Tourigny was getting ready for the 4 p.m. Mass — his fourth and last of the day — at Ste. Rose de Lima Church. When Tourigny, now 66, was ordained in 1980, the Springfield diocese had more than 300 priests serving 136 parishes. Since then, the ranks of priests have shrunk by more than half and nearly 60 of the parishes have closed. For Tourigny, it’s meant many more funerals to handle, including dozens related to drug overdoses and heavy drinking. Even his own family has been scarred: Tourigny says the 27-year-old daughter of his first cousin was killed in circumstances he describes as fueled by her drug habit. “But for her addiction, she was a wonderful mother,” Tourigny said. Tourigny says he’s worked nearly 40 years without a real vacation. For years, he’s had therapy sessions, which he describes as “crucially important,” and he strives to minister compassionately without being engulfed in the emotions of those he consoles. “I can share their pain but I can’t enter into it,” he said. “I’d be overwhelmed by grief.” With 2,500 families, many of Polish and French Canadian descent, Tourigny's parish has fared better with membership and finances than several nearby parishes. Yet Tourigny says many Catholics now mistrust the church hierarchy because of the flawed response to the abuse scandals. “I was ordained at a time when the church was so alive — there was so much optimism,” he said. “Then things began to change quickly. It has changed the way people look at us. The church has lost credibility and it’s hard to get credibility back again.” Plante, the California psychologist, says even priests deeply devoted to their work are upset. “A lot are angry at bishops and the institutional church for screwing up — a lot of them feel they’ve been thrown under the bus,” he said. “They’re also concerned that one of these days someone will accuse them of misbehavior, even if they’ve done nothing wrong. They’re asking, 'Did I do something 30 years ago that could be misconstrued, that will come back and haunt me?'” The Rev. Stephen Fichter, pastor of St. Elizabeth Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey, said he has counseled people who’ve been abused by Catholic clergy and understands the “pain and horror” they experienced. Yet he voiced concerns on behalf of priests with unblemished careers who feel vulnerable to unwarranted suspicions. “Sometimes a priest is confronted by an anonymous accusation from 30 or 40 years ago, and doesn’t have a chance to defend himself,” Fichter said. “It used to be innocent until proven guilty. Now a lot of priests feel it’s been turned upside down.” Mark Stelzer proudly identifies himself as an alumnus of Guest House, a residential facility in Michigan that has specialized in addiction treatment for Catholic clergy since 1956. He travels frequently to make presentations on behalf of Guest House, and teaches a course at his Chicopee college titled “Addiction and Recovery.” By the time he was ordained, Stelzer says, he was consuming alcohol daily. Only after five more years of steady drinking did acquaintances suggest he had a problem, leading to his stay at Guest House. Guest House’s president, Jeff Henrich, is an experienced drug and alcohol counselor. He says substance abuse among priests is a longstanding problem but has been aggravated by recent developments — including the “residual shame” arising from the sex-abuse scandals and increased isolation as more priests now manage parishes on their own. Since 1985, according to researchers at Georgetown University, the Catholic population in the U.S. has risen by nearly 20%, but the number of priests has plunged from more than 57,000 to under 37,000. “There’s fewer of them and more work to do,” Henrich said. “That means you’re far more likely to live alone than ever before — and very few of us were meant to live alone.” In response, treatment experts urge priests in recovery to find companionship in a support group and to form friendships outside their ministry. Stelzer agrees that isolation raises the risks of substance abuse. “We’re lone rangers,” he said. “Substance abuse might go undetected for longer when you’re living alone. A lot of those in treatment now say it was because of isolation, working harder and longer, and not feeling support from leadership.” The harmful consequences of the priest shortage have come to the attention of the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre. Addressing U.S. bishops in November, he urged them to be attentive to their priests’ health, spiritual well-being and sense of priestly fraternity. “Many priests are saying they no longer know one another,” Pierre said. “Others, due to the priest shortage, are forced to live in isolation, managing multiple parishes.” Stress, burnout, depression and addictions are among the conditions treated at St. Luke Institute, a residential treatment center for Catholic clergy and lay leaders, in Silver Spring, Maryland. St. Luke’s president, the Rev. David Songy, is a psychologist who has worked extensively with troubled priests. One growing problem, he says, is that new priests are now often assigned their own parish within three years, instead of 10 or more in the past, and may be ill-prepared to oversee finances and personnel as well as pastoral duties. “Some of the younger people that come to us — they’ve been overwhelmed and weren’t sure how to deal with things,” Songy said. Stress, burnout, depression and addictions are among the conditions treated at St. Luke Institute, a residential treatment center for Catholic clergy and lay leaders, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Other stressful changes relate to ideological differences. Tourigny considers himself a progressive and has welcomed lesbian couples into Ste. Rita. He says many young priests now emerging from seminary are less tolerant of LGBTQ congregants and eager to revive the tradition of celebrating Mass in Latin. Another change noted by several priests: Some parishioners, rather than showing deference to their pastors, openly challenge them. “In the past they might have disagreed, but they’d be courteous. Now it’s different,” said Fichter. “They think you are not Republican enough or Democratic enough depending on which end of the political spectrum they occupy. ... They want you to preach what they want to hear, and they will confront you.” At St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York — just north of New York City — there’s increased emphasis on screening applicants for their ability to handle stress and avoid the burnout that’s now affecting some priests even early in their ministry. “There’s no doubt these men coming forward are facing what will be a very stressful life,” said the Rev. Thomas Berg, the seminary’s vice rector. “We must be sure they have the skill set or will be able to develop it.” “On top of that, in some places, you don’t have a sense that their bishop supports them,” added Berg. “In plenty of dioceses, priests are essentially treated as outside contractors — there’s a lack of a genuinely caring relationship.” Police officers, firefighters and paramedics are collectively labeled first responders. Henrich, the Guest House president, says priests also merit that label. “They see trauma and loss on a very regular basis,” he said. “They get called out to hospitals, deal with grieving families, with lost and dead children.” Gun violence is the plague besetting the Rev. Mike Pfleger’s parish in an African American area of Chicago. "It's a war zone,” says Pfleger, an outspoken pastor at Saint Sabina Church since 1981. “Doing funerals of children is the hardest for me.” The violence has ripple effects: he says parents of slain young people go through divorce, mental breakdowns, addiction. “It becomes overwhelming when it’s day in and day out, and you don’t have the resources to meet the needs,” he said. Now 70, Pfleger says his health is good, and his work rewarding. Yet he says he and his colleagues risk being overwhelmed by the crises facing their neighborhood of Auburn Gresham. “I was seeing myself becoming depressed, after several violent deaths in a short span,” he said. “I needed to make sure I talked to somebody. “Last year I didn’t take any days off — I realized that was a big mistake,” he added. “It’s important to have people around you to say, ‘Are you OK?’” In Brunswick, Ohio, a town of 34,000 people 20 miles (30 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland, the Rev. Robert Stec’s priorities have been transformed, due to the scourge of opioids, since he became pastor of St. Ambrose Church in 2005. In 2016, Brunswick’s Medina County reported 20 opioid-related deaths. Stec presided over six funerals of those victims in a short span. While sharing parishioners’ grief, Stec resolved to combat the opioid epidemic and founded a multifaith coalition of Northeast Ohio religious leaders. Stec is grateful that Brunswick has better-than-average mental health services. But he and his fellow priests in drug-ravaged towns still employ a triage policy, seeking help for the most dire cases, because they can’t provide comprehensive support to every affected parishioner. “We weren’t trained for this in the seminary,” he said. Still the priests treasure their jobs despite the challenges. Mark Stelzer holds onto his role as a comforter. “For a lot of people, I’m the last person they saw while they were still alive,” he said. “There's an energy and grace in those moments.” Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-catholic-priests-beset-overwork-isolation-scandals-67591495 | Mon, 09 Dec 2019 05:42:50 -0500 | 1,575,888,170 | 1,575,893,327 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
3,572 | abcnews--2019-12-28--Hundreds of accused clergy left off church's sex abuse lists | 2019-12-28T00:00:00 | abcnews | Hundreds of accused clergy left off church's sex abuse lists | Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse — after The Associated Press asked why he was not included. Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses’ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete. An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served. The AP reached that number by matching those public diocesan lists against a database of accused priests tracked by the group BishopAccountability.org and then scouring bankruptcy documents, lawsuits, settlement information, grand jury reports and media accounts. More than a hundred of the former clergy members not listed by dioceses or religious orders had been charged with sexual crimes, including rape, solicitation and receiving or viewing child pornography. On top of that, the AP found another nearly 400 priests and clergy members who were accused of abuse while serving in dioceses that have not yet released any names. “No one should think, ‘Oh, the bishops are releasing their lists, there’s nothing left to do,’” said Terence McKiernan, co-founder of BishopAccountability.org, who has been tracking the abuse crisis and cataloging accused priests for almost two decades, accumulating a database of thousands of priests. “There are a lot of holes in these lists,” he said. “There’s still a lot to do to get to actual, true transparency.” Church officials say that absent an admission of guilt, they have to weigh releasing a name against harming the reputation of priests who may have been falsely accused. By naming accused priests, they note, they also open themselves to lawsuits from those who maintain their innocence. Earlier this month, former priest John Tormey sued the Providence, Rhode Island, diocese, saying his reputation was irreparably harmed by his inclusion on the diocese’s credibly accused list. After the list was made public, he said he was asked to retire by the community college where he had worked for over a decade. Some dioceses have excluded entire classes of clergy members from their lists — priests in religious orders, deceased priests who had only one allegation against them, priests ordained in foreign countries and, sometimes, deacons or seminarians ousted before they were ordained. Others, like Poster, were excluded because of technicalities. Poster’s name was not included when the Davenport, Iowa, diocese issued its first list of two dozen credibly accused priests in 2008. The diocese said his crime of possessing more than 270 videos and images of child pornography on his work laptop was not originally a qualifying offense in the church’s landmark charter on child abuse because there wasn’t a direct victim. After he was released from prison, the diocese found Poster a job as a maintenance man at its office, but he was fired less than a year later after admitting to masturbating in the bushes on the property, which abuts a Catholic high school. Still, the diocese did not list him. Poster went on to violate the terms of his probation, admitting he had contact with minors at a bookstore and near an elementary school, federal court records unsealed at the AP’s request show. A judge sent him back to jail for two months and imposed several other monitoring conditions. Child pornography was added to the church’s child abuse charter in 2011 and, though the diocese promised it would update its list of perpetrators as required under a court-approved bankruptcy plan, it never included Poster. “It was an oversight,” diocese spokesman Deacon David Montgomery told the AP. He said the public had been kept informed about the case through press releases issued from Poster’s arrest until his removal from the priesthood in 2007. Poster, now 54, lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, near a school and two parks. He hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing for more than a decade and declined to comment when reached by the AP, saying he preferred to stay out of the spotlight. Of the 900 unlisted accused clergy members, more than a tenth had been charged with a sex-related crime — a higher percentage than those named publicly by dioceses and orders, the AP found. Dioceses varied widely in what they considered a credible accusation. Like Poster, some of the priests criminally charged with child pornography weren’t listed because some dioceses said a victim needed to report a complaint. In addition to Poster, the AP review found 15 other priests charged with possessing, distributing or creating child pornography who were not included on any list. Other dioceses created exceptions for a host of other reasons, ranging from cases being deemed not credible by a board of lay church people to the clergy members in question having since died and thus being unable to defend themselves. “If your goal is protecting kids and healing victims, your lists will be as broad and detailed as possible. If your goal is protecting your reputation and institution, it will be narrow and vague. And that’s the choice most bishops are making,” said David Clohessy, the former executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who now heads the group's St. Louis chapter. The largest exceptions were made for the nearly 400 priests in religious orders who, while they serve in diocesan schools and parishes, don’t report to the bishops. Richard J. McCormick, a Salesian priest who worked at parishes, schools and religious camps in dioceses in Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana and Louisiana, has been accused of molesting or having inappropriate contact with children from three states. In 2009, his order settled the first three civil claims against him. Yet he does not appear on any list of credibly accused clergy members. McCormick finally faced criminal charges after one of his victims spotted the priest’s name on a very different list — one posted in 2011 by a Boston lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who represents church sexual abuse victims. Thirty years had gone by, but Joey Covino said he immediately recognized a photo of McCormick as the priest who had molested him over two summers at a Salesian camp, a woodsy retreat for underprivileged boys in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Covino’s boyhood had revolved around church, where he served as an altar boy, played in a Catholic Little League and where his mother — raising four children on her own — gratefully accepted assistance from friendly priests. When she sent Covino and his brothers back to the free camp for a second year, “I was petrified — petrified — and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t even ask my brothers to see if it had happened to them,” said Covino, now 49 and a police officer in Revere, Massachusetts. “I’ve always told myself I should have done something. I should have fought back.” Covino said the entirety of his adult life had been altered by McCormick’s abuse — failed relationships, his decisions to join the military and later the police, nightmares that plagued him. His decision to come forward led to McCormick being convicted of rape in 2014 and sentenced to up to 10 years. The priest since has pleaded guilty to assaulting another boy. The Salesians, based in New Rochelle, New York, have never posted a list of credibly accused priests. “Our men who have been credibly accused and have had accusations have been listed in the various dioceses that we serve,” said Father Steve Ryan, vice provincial of the order. Ryan said he was certain McCormick’s name appeared on several lists, including Boston’s. But when Boston posted its list in 2011, Archbishop Sean Patrick O’Malley wrote that he was not including priests from religious orders or visiting clerics because the diocese “does not determine the outcome in such cases; that is the responsibility of the priest’s order or diocese.” O’Malley since has called on religious orders to post their own lists, spokesman Terry Donilon said. The AP found the Boston archdiocese has the most accused priests left off its list, with almost 80 not included. Nearly three-quarters, like McCormick, were priests from religious orders. Another dozen died before allegations were received — another exclusion cited by the archdiocese. McCormick also is not on the New York archdiocese’s list or lists posted by the Archdiocese of Gary, Indiana, and the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida — both places where he faced accusations. After the AP inquired, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese in New Orleans, where McCormick served in 1991, said the archdiocese would seek to verify information about the priest and add him to its list. If McCormick goes onto New Orleans’ list, he would be excluded from the AP’s undercount analysis, despite still being absent on lists in the other dioceses where he served. Because the AP counted only priests left off all lists, critics say the number of 900 unnamed priests represents just a tiny portion of the true scope of the underreporting problem. Other priests excluded from the credibly accused lists were left off because of findings from the diocesan investigations process. Review boards — independent panels in each diocese staffed with lay people to review allegations of abuse — make the initial recommendation on whether an allegation is credible. The standards those boards use to investigate claims and the process itself often is so shrouded from public view that some victims say they weren’t allowed to attend when their allegations were discussed. Dozens of priests whose accusers received payouts or legal settlements were left off credibly accused lists because review boards deemed the accusations not substantiated or because bishops or even the Vatican later overturned the board’s findings on appeal. The standards for Vatican appeals are even more secretive. In 2006, the Chicago Archdiocese’s review board investigated a claim from two brothers who alleged a priest named Robert Stepek had abused them. The board found “reasonable cause to suspect that sexual abuse of minors occurred,” but Stepek was restored to good standing in 2013 after a Vatican court said it was “unable to find evidence strong enough.” The court found Stepek engaged in inappropriate behavior for a priest, however, and he remained without an assignment under restrictions until his death in 2016. The AP found about 45 accused clergy members who did not appear on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s list of credibly accused priests. The archdiocese said they were excluded for a variety of reasons, including deciding that about a dozen priests found unsuitable for ministry by a review board due to conduct involving minors did not do anything that rose to the level of abuse. A spokesman said the archdiocese has a thorough and transparent investigation process, but declined to comment on any of the individual cases of priests not named on its list. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the AP that he had to fight church leaders to release a groundbreaking 2018 grand jury report that named more than 300 predator priests and cataloged clergy abuse over seven decades in six of the state’s dioceses, not including Philadelphia. Several bishops played a direct role in covering up the abuse in Pennsylvania, Shapiro said. “You can’t put much stock in the lists that the church voluntarily provides because they cannot be trusted to police themselves,” he said. In Buffalo, New York, Bishop Richard Malone resigned under pressure earlier this month after his executive assistant leaked internal church documents to a reporter after becoming concerned the bishop had intentionally omitted dozens of names from its list of credibly accused priests. Buffalo’s list has more than doubled to 105 clergy members since those documents were released. Still, the AP found nearly three dozen accused priests who remain unnamed by the diocese. The number of new claims being reported to law enforcement and church officials over the last two years has increased, spurred in part by revelations of abuse from high-ranking church officials such as former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and by the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the more than 20 other state investigations launched in its wake. The AP found more than 130 priests who were accused in the last two years whose names do not appear on any lists. Another 37 unlisted priests were accused under New York’s Child Victims Act, which recently opened a window for victims to file civil lawsuits regardless of the statute of limitations, a trend being echoed across the country. Anne Burke, now chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, was part of the Catholic Church’s inaugural National Review Board, a commission formed to help implement the church’s 2002 child abuse charter. “We gave our report and recommendations over 15 years ago. They never followed through. That was the final nail in the coffin as far as we were concerned in terms of the bishops ever being able to pull themselves away … from the bureaucracy and be transparent,” Burke said. “That is why we are here again today, and it’s worse.” Many advocates say the church has a long way to go toward being transparent and are determined to see that it becomes far more open about problem priests. Attorney Jeff Anderson, known for suing dioceses for information on accused clergy, has released almost 30 various rosters of clergy he has received allegations against or whose names appear in church documents. “We feel a fierce public imperative to continue to release our lists because those released by dioceses contain only a fraction of the true report,” Anderson said. “And they lead people to believe they are coming clean when they are not.” It was a list that Anderson’s law firm released in the Archdiocese of New York that led 34-year-old Joe Caramanno to file a complaint, decades after he said he was abused. Caramanno had been hospitalized for an anxiety disorder when he was a teenager and part of his return to high school involved mandated meetings with a priest who controlled his medication. It was during those sessions that Caramanno said Monsignor John Paddack fondled him. Caramanno, now a teacher, said it wasn’t until he saw Paddack’s name on Anderson’s list that he felt he could come forward. “I needed the validation that it wasn’t just me. It made it more real,” he said. The archdiocese’s official list of credibly accused priests, released a few months after Anderson’s, contains only half the names and does not include Paddack, who has stepped down during the ongoing investigation. “It makes me wonder if I hadn’t come forward … would he still be an active priest?” said Caramanno, who has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese under New York’s Child Victims Act. An archdiocese spokesman said a request for comment had been relayed to Paddack, but the priest did not respond. Victims and advocates say the church should be transparent about investigations when allegations are received, arguing that trust in the church can be restored only if bishops are completely forthcoming. Several dioceses have chosen to include priests under investigation on their lists, removing them if the allegations are determined to be unsubstantiated, but many others do not disclose investigations or include those names. “Every cleric no matter where they came from or were ordained or went to school or who signs their paycheck ... all of that is hair-splitting and irrelevant,” said Clohessy, of the group SNAP. “What matters is one question: Did or does this credibly accused predator have access to my flock ever? Even for a few hours. If the answer is yes, then that bishop needs to put that predator on his list.” AP reporters Ryan J. Foley, Adam Geller and Matt Sedensky and researcher Randy Herschaft contributed to this report. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hundreds-accused-clergy-left-off-churchs-sex-abuse-67954198 | Sat, 28 Dec 2019 00:03:19 -0500 | 1,577,509,399 | 1,577,534,816 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
670,822 | theepochtimes--2019-10-17--Sen. Sasse Wants a Vote on Protecting Church Tax-Exemptions | 2019-10-17T00:00:00 | theepochtimes | Sen. Sasse Wants a Vote on Protecting Church Tax-Exemptions | WASHINGTON—Sen. Ben Sasse was so incensed when Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke proposed ending federal tax exemptions for churches that oppose same-sex marriage, the Nebraska Republican resolved to get every member of Congress on the record on the issue. Sasse took to the Senate floor in an impassioned speech late Oct. 16 “to ask each and every member of Congress to answer this simple question: Is it right for the United States federal government to get into the business of policing Muslims’, Jews’, and Christians’ religious beliefs about whether or not they are acceptable? Is it the business of the federal government of the United States to determine true and false religion? “Last week, a former member of Congress didn’t blink an eye—a former member of Congress now running for president—didn’t blink an eye when he announced that he would strip religious institutions, colleges, churches, and other not-for-profit service organizations. He would strip them of their tax-exempt status if they don’t agree with his political positions.” O’Rourke’s declaration came during a CNN town hall on LGBT issues, when he was asked if he would support ending the tax-exempt status of “religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities” that oppose same-sex marriage. “Yes,” O’Rourke responded, adding that “there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, any institution, or any organization that denies the full human rights and full civil rights of every single one of us.” The former Texas congressman, who gave Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a surprisingly tough reelection battle in 2018 but has failed to make a dent in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaign, also said that, “As president, we’re going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.” On Oct. 16, Sasse described O’Rourke’s statement as “a pretty major departure from what America is and what we usually talk about in this body.” “So, we should pause, and we should call that what it is. That is extreme intolerance. It is extreme bigotry,” he said. “And it’s profoundly un-American. The whole point of America is the First Amendment, and the whole point of the First Amendment is that no matter who you love, and no matter how you worship, we believe in America that everyone, everyone is created with dignity.” Sasse’s resolution declares that “the protections of freedom of conscience enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States remain central to the experiment of the United States in republican self-government under the Constitution of the United States”; “government should not be in the business of dictating what ‘correct’ religious beliefs are”; and “any effort by the government to condition the receipt of the protections of the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States, including an exemption from taxation, on the public policy positions of an organization is an affront to the spirit and letter of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” All senators present will have an opportunity to say “aye” or “no” on the issue, when the Sasse resolution is brought to the floor of the upper chamber. That could happen as early as Oct. 21, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) used Senate Rule 14 on Oct. 17 to bypass the normal procedure that sends a legislative proposal to a committee and put the resolution directly on the Senate agenda. A companion version would have to be introduced by a congressman before it could be considered in the House of Representatives. The resolution could become a problem for six members of the Senate who are currently seeking the Democratic nod to oppose President Donald Trump in next year’s election, including Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Michael Bennett of Colorado, and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Shortly after the CNN event, a Warren spokeswoman said she opposes O’Rourke on the issue. “Religious institutions in America have long been free to determine their own beliefs and practices, and she does not think we should require them to conduct same-sex marriages in order to maintain their tax-exempt status,” said Saloni Sharma. Spokespeople for the other five Democratic senators didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times. Booker was asked the same question at the CNN event, but declined to answer definitively, saying: “I’m not dodging your question. I am saying I believe fundamentally that discrimination is discrimination.” | Mark Tapscott | https://www.theepochtimes.com/sen-sasse-wants-a-vote-on-protecting-church-tax-exemptions_3119895.html | Thu, 17 Oct 2019 20:35:31 +0000 | 1,571,358,931 | 1,571,411,292 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,871 | abcnews--2019-11-04--FBI: Man who spoke of hating Jews held in temple bomb plot | 2019-11-04T00:00:00 | abcnews | FBI: Man who spoke of hating Jews held in temple bomb plot | A man who repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic views has been arrested in a plot to bomb a historic Colorado synagogue, federal officials said Monday. The co-conspirators in the plot turned out to be undercover agents, who arrested the man shortly before he planned to bomb the synagogue early Saturday morning, according to court documents. Richard Holzer was arrested Friday in Pueblo just after the agents brought him what he believed were two pipe bombs along with dynamite to blow up Temple Emanuel. In fact, the undercover agents had phony bombs incapable of causing damage, authorities said. Holzer, 27, described what he thought were the explosives as "absolutely gorgeous" and said they should go ahead with the attack overnight to avoid police, the court document said. Holzer, who lives in Pueblo, briefly appeared in court on Monday in handcuffs and wearing a gray polo shirt with a black collar. He told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen Mix that he understood the charge against him, and she scheduled his next court date for Thursday. It was unknown if Holzer had a federal public defender Monday, although one would be appointed for him before Thursday's hearing, said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver. The Office of the Federal Public Defender in Denver said Monday it does not comment on its cases. Holzer was in federal custody in the Denver area, Dorschner said. The foiled plot is the latest attempted attack against a synagogue in the U.S. just over a year. In October 2018, a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh killed 11 people and became the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. In April, a woman was killed and three people were injured when a man opened fire inside a Southern California synagogue with an AR-15 military-style rifle. The investigation into Holzer began after an undercover FBI agent purporting to be a woman who supports white supremacy contacted him on Facebook. Holzer repeatedly espoused anti-Semitic and white supremacist views in his messages with the agent. "I wish the Holocaust really did happen...they need to die," he wrote her on Facebook, according to the court documents. Holzer told the agent he had checked out the temple property and met with her and other undercover agents at a Pueblo motel on Friday. He brought a copy of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" with him, the documents said. The agents then arrested Holzer, who waived his right to remain silent and spoke to investigators, the documents said. "He referred to the plan as 'my mountain' and to Jews and Synagogues as a 'cancer' to the community," the document said. He also told agents he didn't want to hurt anyone but would have proceeded with an attack if he knew someone was inside, the papers said. U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn in Denver said federal and Pueblo law enforcement had thwarted "an imminent threat of domestic terrorism against a Colorado religious institution." "Mr. Holzer repeatedly expressed his hatred of Jewish people and his support for a racial holy war," Dunn said at a news conference. If convicted of a pending domestic terrorism charge, Holzer could face 20 years in prison, Dunn said. The Temple Emanuel synagogue is the second-oldest in Colorado and was completed in 1900, according to Temple Emanuel's website. It has a congregation of about 30 families and a rabbi from Denver who travels to Pueblo twice a month. Pueblo is about a two-hour drive south of Denver. A voicemail left at the temple wasn't immediately returned. "Mr. Holzer will now have the opportunity to explain his behavior through our court system in a constitutional way — which in the spirit of irony, protects religious freedom as one of its most golden rules," Pueblo Police Chief Troy Davenport said. This story has been updated to correct that Holzer allegedly planned a Saturday attack, not Sunday, and that Martinez is a prosecutor, not Holzer's defense attorney. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fbi-colorado-man-arrested-plot-bomb-synagogue-66747056 | Mon, 04 Nov 2019 17:53:15 -0500 | 1,572,907,995 | 1,572,908,788 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
11,095 | aljazeera--2019-03-21--Birmingham Muslims blame far-right extremism for mosque attacks | 2019-03-21T00:00:00 | aljazeera | Birmingham Muslims blame 'far-right extremism' for mosque attacks | Four mosques in the English city of Birmingham were damaged overnight, police said on Thursday, in the latest in a spate of Islamophobic attacks in Britain since the murder of 50 people by a white supremacist at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. West Midlands Police said detectives and counterterrorism officers are investigating after windows were smashed at four mosques in Birmingham. The force said in a statement the incidents "are being treated as linked". Officers responded after reports in the early hours of Thursday of a man seen shattering windows with a sledgehammer at one mosque, the police said. "Neighbourhood officers are working closely with mosques around the West Midlands today," the force said. "Since the tragic events in Christchurch, New Zealand, officers and staff from West Midlands Police have been working closely with our faith partners across the region to offer reassurance and support at mosques, churches and places of prayer," West Midlands Police Chief Constable Dave Thompson said in a statement. "At the moment, we don't know the motive for last night's attacks," Thompson added. "At difficult times like this, it is incredibly important that everyone unites against those who seek to create discord, uncertainty and fear in our communities," he said. Forensics experts are working to identify evidence at the scenes of the four attacks, while CCTV is also being examined. Shabana Mahmood, a member of parliament for Birmingham, said the reported attacks were "truly terrible." "I would urge all residents to remain calm and call [the police] with any info you may have," Mahmood tweeted. A statement from the Birmingham Council of Mosques said: "We were deeply horrified to hear a number of mosques were vandalised during the early hours of this morning. "Birmingham's mosques are a place of worship, serenity and a source of peace and tranquillity. We are appalled by such acts of hate/terror." In August last year, Birmingham mosques were attacked with catapults during evening prayers. The city, in the Midlands, is home to a large Muslim community. "I think that all religious institutions do need access to a high security budget [from the government], in light of the fact that far-right extremists have been left for too long," Kamran Hussain, general manager at Birmingham's Green Lane Mosque and Community Centre, told Al Jazeera. "Far-right extremism ... is now in Eastern Europe, it is in America, and it has been left unchangelled in many aspects. We haven't addressed it in the media or even at government level." Hussain's mosque was not targeted, but is close to those that were, such as the Witton Islamic Centre. "The risk from Islamophobia has been on the rise for many years now," said a Witton Islamic Centre spokesperson. "This form of hate has fallen under the radar in many aspects, including some parts of the media and our intelligence and security services. The tragic events from last week's attacks in Christchurch have caused great concern among the Muslim community." Saddique Hussain, trustee at the Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif, said it was impossible to fully secure a mosque. "Trying to secure a building of this nature and calibre is extremely difficult, and not possible to do," he said. "A mosque needs to be an open place of worship. For example, we can't lock our doors when the prayers start because some people [are] late for prayers. "To secure a place where the door is constantly open? ... You can’t." Worshipper Ali, 26, said: "People see what is going on in the world because of social media and they get annoyed. They kind of believe it and take it the wrong way. If I die in the mosque, I would be blessed. So, I think there should be no security and the doors should remain open." | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/uk-counter-terror-police-investigate-attack-birmingham-mosques-190321110555768.html | 2019-03-21 17:57:00+00:00 | 1,553,205,420 | 1,567,545,385 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
11,375 | aljazeera--2019-03-30--Irans referendum and the transformation to an Islamic Republic | 2019-03-30T00:00:00 | aljazeera | Iran's referendum, and the transformation to an Islamic Republic | Qom, Iran - The year was 1979. An Islamic revolution had just overthrown Iran's powerful US-backed king, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was now in charge of what for centuries had been an ancient empire. In the months after Khomeini seized power, Iran's revolutionaries began the difficult work of rebuilding government institutions using Islam as a roadmap. The first major act of the new leaders was to hold a referendum. On March 30 and 31, the shaky leadership asked all Iranians over the age of 16 a simple yes or no question: should Iran be an Islamic Republic? Looking back, it may seem strange to ask that of a country that had just experienced a successful Islamic revolution. But even though Mohammad Raza Pahlavi - the shah of Iran - was gone, Iranians remained divided about what they wanted the future to look like. At the time, the Islamic Republic of Iran was far from a foregone conclusion. In one of his first speeches after returning from exile, before the revolution had taken hold, Khomeini seemed to know he would have to put his leadership claim to some kind of vote. "I must tell you that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, that evil traitor, has gone. He fled and plundered everything. He destroyed our country and filled our cemeteries. He ruined our country's economy," Khomeini said. "I shall appoint my own government. I shall slap this government in the mouth. I shall determine the government with the backing of this nation, because this nation accepts me." But even after Pahlavi's removal, revolutionaries were hit by infighting, the new government was still suppressing anti-revolution dissent in parts of the country, and just weeks before the referendum tens of thousands of women marched in the streets of Tehran to protest against a new mandatory veil law. For Khomeini and his supporters, the referendum was a way to legitimise their rule. Nearly 99 percent of Iranians voted in favour of abandoning Iran's old constitution and using Islam as the blueprint to write a new one. The vote and its results were scrutinised by critics all over the world. But in December, Iranians voted again in favour of ratifying their new Islamic constitution. Today, defenders of the Islamic system of government point to the referendum as a democratic mandate for Iran's current theocratic system. It's one of the lesser known events of 1979, but the referendum was a pivotal moment that fused religion and politics, and transformed Iran's legislative landscape. Iran's transformation from empire to Islamic Republic began in Khomeini's hometown of Qom in the 1960s. One too many fiery speeches admonishing the royal family forced him into exile in 1964. He spent 15 years away from home, much of it in another city of religious scholars - Najaf in Iraq. But that didn't stop him from criticising the shah of Iran for making concessions to Western powers that he saw as a violation of Iranian sovereignty. He smuggled letters and bootleg cassette tapes into Iran, using an underground network of mosques and seminaries. His speeches, played in homes around the country, became the bedrock of the revolution to come. Mahmoud Mohammadi Yazdi is the caretaker of Khomeini's family home in Qom. He was one of Khomeini's students and a young man at the time of the revolution. He was with him during his exile in Najaf and says Khomeini's primary motivation was to improve the lives of ordinary people. "He was perfect in every way," Yazdi said. "Everyone liked him." Khomeini's followers remain fiercely loyal. At his request, Yazdi risked his own life to return to Iran as part of a first wave of the revolution. "We all accepted whatever he said," Yazdi said. "Two years before the revolution, he wanted someone to come to Iran [and] he said it is dangerous but there is no one to go but me. I told him if he is OK with it, I would go. "I came here and I faced hardships, but it was not a big problem. I was arrested here in Qom and later I was released. But if [the authorities] knew why I was there, they would never have let me go. We believed what we were doing was the right thing. We all thought the same way; it was just for God and Imam [Khomeini]." Khomeini was becoming much more than a champion for common people. His revolution changed him as much as it changed Iran, transforming him from dutiful cleric to monumental political figure. He may have considered his actions at the time to be a spiritual calling. But the wheels he set in motion decades ago made religion a right of passage for modern-day Iranian political life. Getting anything done in the capital, Tehran, often means getting the blessing of clerics who oversee elected officials. In place for 40 years, this system has made Qom, Iran's religious heartland, one of the most important cities in the country. "If before the revolution, very few young people were interested in entering [Islamic seminaries], today many youths that would have been educated in universities in the past are entering [Islamic seminaries]," said Seyyed Ali Mousavi, a professor in one of Qom's many religious institutions. Before the Islamic Revolution, Mousavi said, religious scholars were primarily concerned with how Iranians conducted their spiritual lives. After 1979, their public role changed drastically. "After the [1979 Islamic Revolution], other than their social role, clergies took on political roles," he said, adding, "not just in parliament, they even entered other branches of government. So, they became more influential. "Today, the impact of seminaries and clergies on the social space of Iran, as well as politics, is greater than in the past. It has meant clergies have dual roles, and that both have been expanded. Firstly, in society and secondly in the ruling class." For Iran's younger generations, religious study has become a precursor to any ambitions of government work. The city is filled with young men and women in their 20s, hoping to someday climb the political ladder in the capital. One seminary student running between classes was clear in his assessment about the value of a religious education in modern-day Iranian politics. "The most important issue in any society is its ideology," he said. "The ideology of Islam is the best and the clerics of Qom have the right ideology. So, because it is where the clerics are, Qom is Iran's most important city." | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/iran-referendum-transformation-islamic-republic-190330210626860.html | 2019-03-30 21:27:43+00:00 | 1,553,995,663 | 1,567,544,683 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
14,157 | aljazeera--2019-07-02--UN expert No rights improvements in Eritrea after peace deal | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | aljazeera | UN expert: No rights improvements in Eritrea after peace deal | The human rights situation in Eritrea shows no sign of improvement since it signed a peace agreement with neighbouring Ethiopia last year, ending two decades of war, a UN expert said in a report. UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Daniela Kravetz, on Tuesday expressed her regret the peace deal failed to bring widespread abuse and violations to an end. "The dividends of peace are not yet benefiting ordinary Eritreans, nor are there any signs to suggest they will," said Kravetz, who was appointed to the position last October. "Eritrean authorities remain unwilling to tolerate any expression of dissent," she added, pointing out that "hundreds continue to flee the country every month". In response, Eritrea's ambassador to the UN, Gerahtu Tesfamichae, called Kravetz's report "unacceptable". "The overriding objective of [her] mandate was to vilify, isolate and destabilise [his country]," he said. Eritrea, ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since 1993, has been fiercely criticised by human rights watchdogs, especially over reports of arbitrary arrest and detention, bans on certain religious faiths, and open-ended military conscription. Hundreds of thousands have fled the country in recent years, many taking the perilous route across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. The signing of a peace agreement with Ethiopia last July raised hopes that warming diplomatic ties would be matched by domestic change in Eritrea. But Kravetz said those hopes failed to materialise. Kravetz highlighted the continued restrictions placed on religious communities in the country. In recent weeks, she said she received "troubling" reports of arrests of Christians at different locations in and around the capital, Asmara, during prayer gatherings, including women and children. Five Orthodox priests were reportedly detained at the Debre Bizen monastery. And, in mid-June, authorities "seized all health facilities managed by the Catholic Church in the country", she said, adding this had affected a total of 21 clinics and health centres that had long served rural communities. Kravetz said authorities justified the move under a 1995 regulation banning religious institutions from carrying out development activities. She voiced regret they had decided to enforce the regulation just weeks after the Catholic Church in the country called for dialogue and reforms to prevent further mass departures. Christians were not the only ones targeted, Kravetz said, decrying that numerous Muslims were also imprisoned. She raised the case of Said Mohammed, a Muslim man in his 30s, who died on June 13 from "mistreatment in prison and lack of proper medical attention". Like her predecessors, Kravetz took issue with Eritrea's system of open-ended military conscription, stressing it "remains one of the main drivers of migration from Eritrea". She urged the country to reform the system and limit military service to 18 months. | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/07/expert-rights-improvements-eritrea-peace-deal-190702143604128.html | 2019-07-02 19:02:11+00:00 | 1,562,108,531 | 1,567,537,238 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
17,410 | aljazeera--2019-11-15--Egyptian woman fights unequal Islamic inheritance laws | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | aljazeera | Egyptian woman fights unequal Islamic inheritance laws | An Egyptian woman is taking on the country's inheritance laws that stipulate that female heirs inherit half as much as male heirs. Since her father's death last year, Huda Nasrallah, a Coptic Christian, has stood before three different judges to demand that the inheritance left behind by her father be divided equally between her and her two brothers, who have testified in court alongside her, but the court has twice ignored their testimony The courts have twice issued rulings against Nasrallah, basing them on Islamic inheritance laws that favour male heirs. Nasrallah, a 40-year-old human rights lawyer, is now challenging the rulings in a higher court. A final verdict is expected to be handed down later this month. She has formulated her case around Christian doctrine which dictates that heirs, regardless of their sex, receive equal shares. "It is not really about inheritance, my father did not leave us millions of Egyptian pounds," she said. "I have the right to ask to be treated equally as my brothers." Calls for equal inheritance rights began to reverberate across the Arab world after the Tunisian government had proposed a bill to this effect last year. Muslim feminists hailed the bill. But there has been a backlash from elsewhere in the Arab world. Egypt's Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni religious institution in the Muslim world, vehemently dismissed the proposal as contradictory to Islamic law and destabilising to Muslim societies. But there is hope that Tunisia could have broken the taboo on the topic for the region. Nasrallah belongs to Egypt's estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, who live in a predominantly Muslim society governed by a constitution in which Islamic Shariah is the main source of legislation. Christians face restrictions in inter-religious marriages and church building, and are banned from proselytising to Muslims. Egypt's legal system grants the Coptic church full authority over personal status matters of Copts, namely marriage and divorce. But the church does not have the same powers over its followers' inheritance rights. One of the oldest Christian communities in the world, the Egyptian Coptic church is also deeply conservative on social matters, banning divorce except in cases of adultery or conversion to Islam. Nasrallah says she is making her case on religious grounds because she believes the court is more likely to respect existing structures within the society. She says she is trying to capitalise on a rare Christian doctrine that respects gender equality. Karima Kamal, a Coptic female columnist at the privately-owned al-Masry al-Youm daily, says that Nasrallah's case highlights the double discrimination that Coptic women can face in a society where religion is printed on government-issued identification cards. "You should not implement the rules of one faith on people of another faith," she says. In early December 2018, Nasrallah's father, a former state clerk, died, leaving behind a four-story apartment building in a low-income neighbourhood of Cairo and a bank deposit. When she and her brothers filed their request for inheritance at a local court, Nasrallah invoked a church-sanctioned Coptic bylaw that calls for equal distribution of inheritance. She says she was encouraged by a 2016 ruling that a Cairo court handed down in favour of a Coptic woman who challenged Islamic inheritance laws. While Nasrallah's brothers also testified that they would like their father's inheritance to be divided fairly between them, many Coptic men prefer to benefit from the Islamic laws, she said, using the excuse that it is out of their hands. "The issue of inheritance goes beyond religious rules. It has to do with the nature of the society we are living in and Egypt's misogynistic judicial system," said Hind Ahmed Zaki, a political science assistant professor at Connecticut University. She says the state fears that if they grant equal property rights to Christian women, Muslim women will soon ask for the same. Girgis Bebawy, a Coptic lawyer, has represented dozens of Copts in similar cases over the last two years, though he has yet to win a single one. He's hoping that the latest case, which is currently before Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court, could end differently. "It's religious intolerance," he says. Many Coptic families decide to settle inheritance matters outside the legal system, but Nasrallah says that as a lawyer, she hopes her case could set a precedent for others. "If I didn't take it to court, who would?" she said. | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/egyptian-woman-fights-unequal-islamic-inheritance-laws-191115082221545.html | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 09:28:08 GMT | 1,573,828,088 | 1,573,820,555 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
27,905 | bbc--2019-06-20--US Supreme Court rules WW1 cross can remain on state land | 2019-06-20T00:00:00 | bbc | US Supreme Court rules WW1 cross can remain on state land | The US Supreme Court has ruled that a concrete cross honouring World War One soldiers can remain on state land, reversing a lower court decision. The American Humanist Association had sued to remove the Bladensburg, Maryland, monument, saying it was an unlawful endorsement of Christianity. But the top court said the 94-year-old cross was a "historical landmark" and destroying it would be disrespectful. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented in the 7-2 vote. Two of the court's liberals, Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan, joined the five conservatives in the majority. The American Legion, which holds commemorative events at the site, had said the memorial merely honoured veterans and was not religious. He acknowledged the 32ft (9.7m) cross was "undoubtedly a Christian symbol". But he wrote that the monument had come to represent "a symbolic resting place for ancestors who never returned home, a place for the community to gather and honour all veterans and their sacrifices for this Nation, and a historical landmark". As such, the court's majority concluded, destroying or defacing the Bladensburg Cross "would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment". Justice Ginsburg, in the dissent, wrote that the cross violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment - that "demands governmental neutrality among religious faiths and between religion and non-religion". She added: "By maintaining the Peace Cross on a public highway, the Commission elevates Christianity over other faiths, and religion over non-religion." But the majority concluded that due to the passage of time, "there was no way to be certain about the motivations" of the monument's creators. "And this is often the case with old monuments, symbols, and practices," Justice Alito wrote. "Yet it would be inappropriate for courts to compel their removal or termination based on supposition." The American Humanist Association said in a statement following the ruling that their "legislative efforts will be redoubled...to strengthen the wall of separation between church and state". The group also said that the majority opinion "fails to honour the sacrifice of Jewish soldiers that went intentionally unrecognised" in the memorial. While some local residents had joined the association's lawsuit against the landmark, other organisations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars group, had petitioned to save the cross. They said its removal could affect similar memorials across the country, including Arlington National Cemetery. Wednesday's ruling does not offer a blanket support of all similar displays, however. Justice Alito noted: "Retaining established, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices is quite different from erecting or adopting new ones. The passage of time gives rise to a strong presumption of constitutionality." The Supreme Court's conservative majority has previously been swayed by religious freedom arguments. They have defended the right to public prayer, allowed religious institutions to receive public funds for secular purposes, and determined that family-owned companies should not be forced to cover birth control. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48710429 | 2019-06-20 21:38:29+00:00 | 1,561,081,109 | 1,567,538,563 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
29,772 | bbc--2019-08-13--Hillsong A church with rock concerts and 2m followers | 2019-08-13T00:00:00 | bbc | Hillsong: A church with rock concerts and 2m followers | As Christian churches throughout the US face widespread decline, one church is bucking the trend. But is Hillsong a triumph of marketing or faith? If someone were to choreograph an ideal concert audience, it would look something like this. Everyone has their hands up and everyone is swaying. The opening bars of each song are met with a roar of frenzied recognition. For the few who don't already know them by heart, the lyrics beam down from massive screens flanking the stage. The songs sound expertly engineered to elicit an emotional reaction. The melodies rise, fall, then rise again like a more dramatic version of Mumford and Sons. The band, Hillsong United, had sold out the Anthem, among Washington's favourite venues. The collective style of the 10 members on stage is mirrored by their audience: skinny jeans, over-sized T-shirts and tattoos. This uniformity makes the fans look less like a crowd and more like a congregation. There are a few hints that the members of Hillsong are not your average rockstars, different to a musician like Billie Eilish, who took the same stage just days before. First, there is no alcohol being sold anywhere in the venue. Any related branding has been hidden. Second, there are volunteers in blue vests slowly circling the concert floor, seeking donations for a Christian ministry group. And third, there is a massive CGI recreation of Jesus Christ on the cross, beamed up above the stage. This isn't just a concert, this is church. The band, Hillsong United, is a vital limb of Hillsong Church. Founded by husband and wife duo Brian and Bobbie Houston in Sydney, Australia, in 1983, the ministry has expanded into a global Evangelical phenomenon. It spans six continents and claims churches in 23 cities. Every Sunday, an average of 130,000 worshippers will attend a Hillsong service somewhere around the world. Hillsong's congregation now boasts a celebrity following: Justin Bieber and his wife, Hailey Baldwin Bieber, are famed members. NBA players Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving have been known to seek guidance from Hillsong New York's head pastor, Carl Lentz. Chris Pratt, Kylie Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian have also been tied to the church. "They are one massively impactful ministry right now," says Mack Brock, who opened for Hillsong during its North American tour this year, after more than a decade as a worship leader at Elevation, a megachurch based in North Carolina. Hillsong calls itself a "contemporary" Christian church, "on a mission to see God's kingdom established across the earth". This mission is being manifested in its ministry and its sprawling brand. Hillsong lays claim to two colleges (one in Sydney and one in Phoenix, Arizona), annual conferences, a 24-hour TV channel, community service initiatives and a music label. Of these, Hillsong United is arguably the most visible and, certainly, the most accessible to the mainstream. The band has more than 2 million followers on Instagram, with an additional 1.5 million combined from its 10 members. Their songs have almost 3.5 million weekly listens on Spotify. Their followers nearly double that of the platform's Top Christian channel. Its most popular song to date, Oceans, has been played more than 155 million times on Spotify alone. For context, that is more than twice the plays than Billie Eilish's recent collaboration with Justin Bieber. The tie between Christianity and rock music is not new, but the expanse of Hillsong's reach may be. The North America leg of its People tour included stops in more than 30 cities in the US and Canada. In November, they will take on Latin America, covering Brazil, Argentina and Peru. Hillsong is "on the forefront of church music" Brock says. "They're the ones that I think do it best." The meteoric rise of Hillsong, in all its various forms, is particularly striking given persistent declines in religiosity worldwide. For years, the Christian share of the US population has fallen, paralleled by an increase in those who do not identify with any religion at all. Over a period of seven years - 2007 to 2014 - the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christian dropped by almost eight percentage points. This drop is most pronounced among young people, a demographic that is especially enthralled by Hillsong. At the Anthem, the line to enter formed about an hour before the doors to the venue opened, more than two before anyone started singing. "We've waited our whole lives to see them" says Danielle Caputo, 27, as she waited to see the band in July. "On earth, it's the easiest way to see God's love in person." Her friend, Kristin Maghamez adds: "Hillsong concerts are a place where you can truly worship." Most of the people I spoke to answered with some version of this: Hillsong's music is an embodiment of their faith, and their concerts are a chance to share in it with others. "You feel like sometimes there's nobody with our views," Maghamez says. "[Christianity] is almost looked down upon." Many intimated a visceral connection to Hillsong or, as Caputo put it: "I'm going to cry my eyes out." And there were plenty of tears, especially when Hillsong, the band, leaned more toward Hillsong, the church. "God's been doing something," says lead singer Joel Houston - son of Bobbie and Brian - to the crowd, resting his hands on his guitar. "I believe there's not one person here by accident." "I believe God is going to meet you where you're at." This notion - of meeting followers where they are - is central to Hillsong's mission, and to its appeal. Hillsong is located squarely in the thoroughfare of the young and hip. Hillsong's band sells out arenas, its church services fill Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom, its pastors sit courtside at NBA games. Brock and other followers interviewed reject the idea that Hillsong's designer aesthetic is either a deliberate choice on the part of its leaders, or a calculated marketing scheme. But to an outsider, Hillsong's initial appeal lies in the visuals. Its brand looks and feels like your cool friend on Instagram. "They're relevant," says Joe Adevai, who attended Hillsong College in Sydney before becoming a worship leader in New Jersey. "They're keeping up with the culture," he said. "How do you stay cool and be a Christian?" Whatever the packaging, Hillsong is, fundamentally, a religious institution. More specifically, it is an Evangelical church, one that sees the Bible as "accurate, authoritative, and applicable to our everyday lives". To some, this presents an inherent contradiction: a church marketed widely, with contemporary branding, that remains decidedly conservative. Josh Canfield knows this tension intimately. He first joined Hillsong in 2008, soon becoming a vocalist on their worship team. Compared to the church of his youth, Hillsong seemed "edgy". When Canfield, who is gay, joined Hillsong, he was still grappling with his sexuality in the context of his faith. While his parents' church was explicit in its stance - homosexuality is a sin - Hillsong was less transparent. "It did feel like a "don't ask don't tell" kind of situation," Canfield says. "No one is going to ask, because no one wants to ask." Sermons were resolutely positive, Canfield tells me, calling upon congregants to love the marginalised, immigrants and the poor. "But it does seem like they just forget about the LGBTQ group," he says. In 2014, Canfield appeared on the reality show Survivor, speaking openly about his sexuality and his role at Hillsong. Canfield had told leadership at Hillsong New York of his plans, who "gave the go-ahead". But after episodes began to air and Canfield's storyline gained media attention, head pastor Brian Houston publicly "clarified" Hillsong's stance on homosexuality. In a blog post on Hillsong's website called Do I Love Gay People, Houston wrote that "God's word is clear" on homosexuality. "Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles," he said. "Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid." Canfield was asked to step down from his position with the vocalist team. After a series of private meetings with New York's head pastor, Carl Lentz, Canfield decided to leave the church. "My problem is not that Hillsong believes that homosexuality is a sin, that is their prerogative to have that belief," he says. "But the problem is they're not being completely open about their beliefs because they don't want those people to leave… is that lying? In religious terms, is that a sin of omission?" The semantic two-step in Houston's statement is a common refrain among Hillsong congregants: the church welcomes all people, but does not condone all "lifestyles". They prefer to talk about what they are for rather than what they are against, turning to some version of "love the sinner, not the sin". "I think the Bible calls it out as a sin," Caputo says to me of gay marriage, a few weeks after the concert. "I don't think it's wrong to say that, but it needs to follow up with: God will love you anyway." Steven Paulikas, a priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn and a doctoral student at Oxford's school of theology, argues there is a cost to this type of nuance. "If a church says that it's welcoming in one part of its way of being, but explicitly says it's not welcoming in another place - those things are irreconcilable," he says. "And one thing trumps the other." Paulikas did not comment specifically on Hillsong, but spoke about churches in general that include all people, but not all parts of them. "That form of bait and switch is a type of spiritual violence," Paulikas says. "As a queer person… it's profoundly disturbing." On the surface, Paulikas' steepled church lacks some of the star power claimed by Hillsong. And though he says that his own congregation has grown in recent years, he acknowledges the institutional slide hurting others like it. "We see our numbers declining and it is very distressing," he says. Looking at churches like Hillsong, "there are feelings of envy because our institutions are by and large losing people". Paulikas and his colleagues talk about ways to expand their circles of faith - something Hillsong has mastered - "to an obsessive extent". But he objects to the "success" of a church being measured in relation to its fan following. The shine associated with Hillsong is of no interest to him. "I see that as a distraction," he says. "Is that Evangelism or is that marketing?" Moral teaching is strongest when it is removed from earthly markers of success like wealth and popularity, he continued. After leaving Hillsong, Canfield has turned to a smaller congregation, one without the celebrity of Hillsong. "When the cameras aren't there, and no one is interviewing you, that's where most true Christianity resides," he says. But he is still defensive of his former church. "You walk into Hillsong and it's cool and it's dark and there are lights going and there are all these people around you who are your age who are smiling and talking," Canfield says. "And then the music starts and it washes over you… the noise of outside gets cancelled out." "The music is so beautiful and uplifting and it makes you feel better," he continued. "I don't think there's anything in the Bible that says we can't feel good." | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49186785 | 2019-08-13 20:15:50+00:00 | 1,565,741,750 | 1,567,534,279 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
34,087 | bbc--2019-12-17--Pope lifts 'pontifical secret' rule in sex abuse cases | 2019-12-17T00:00:00 | bbc | Pope lifts 'pontifical secret' rule in sex abuse cases | The Pope has declared that the rule of "pontifical secrecy" no longer applies to the sexual abuse of minors, in a bid to improve transparency in such cases. The Church previously shrouded sexual abuse cases in secrecy, in what it said was an effort to protect the privacy of victims and reputations of the accused. But new papal documents on Tuesday lifted restrictions on those who report abuse or say they have been victims. Church leaders called for the rule's abolition at a February Vatican summit. They said the lifting of the rule in such cases would improve transparency and the ability of the police and other civil legal authorities to request information from the Church. Information in abuse cases should still be treated with "security, integrity and confidentiality", the Pope said in his announcement. He instructed Vatican officials to comply with civil laws and assist civil judicial authorities in investigating such cases. The Pope also changed the Vatican's definition of child pornography, increasing the age of the subject from 14 or under to 18 or under. Charles Scicluna, the Archbishop of Malta and the Vatican's most experienced sex abuse investigator, called the move an "epochal decision that removes obstacles and impediments", telling Vatican news that "the question of transparency now is being implemented at the highest level". • Child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church: What you need to know The Church has been rocked by thousands of reports of sexual abuse by priests and accusations of cover-ups by senior clergy around the world. Pope Francis has faced serious pressure to provide leadership and generate workable solutions to the crisis, which has engulfed the Church in recent years. Pontifical secrecy was designed to protect sensitive information such as communications between the Vatican and papal embassies - in a similar fashion to the secrecy applied to diplomatic cables. But it was also applied over the years to judicial cases, to protect the privacy of victims and the identities of those accused. Critics said pontifical secrecy had been abused by some Church officials to avoid co-operation with the police in abuse cases. "Certain jurisdictions would have easily quoted the pontifical secret ... to say that they could not, and that they were not, authorised to share information with either state authorities or the victims," Archbishop Scicluna said. "Now that impediment, we might call it that way, has been lifted, and the pontifical secret is no more an excuse." Under the new instruction, the pontifical secret no longer binds those working in offices of the Roman Curia to confidentiality on other offences if committed in conjunction with child abuse or child pornography. Witnesses, alleged victims, and the person who filed the report are also be unbound from obligations of silence. On his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis has responded to a longstanding complaint from survivors by announcing that any testimony gathered by the Church in relation to cases of sexual violence, the abuse of minors and child pornography will now be made available to state authorities. In the past, the Church has been accused of using secrecy laws as a justification for not reporting cases of abuse. The consequence of breaching the pontifical secret was excommunication from the Church, so there was little incentive to be open to state authorities. That prohibition has now been abolished. It is the latest attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to address the scourge of clerical abuse that has manifested itself across continents and in a range of religious institutions. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50824842 | Tue, 17 Dec 2019 14:58:11 GMT | 1,576,612,691 | 1,576,627,653 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
45,873 | bbcuk--2019-12-06--Stansted Airport puts new terminal plan on hold | 2019-12-06T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Stansted Airport puts new terminal plan on hold | Stansted Airport has put its new £150m arrivals terminal on hold while it reviews the plans. Economic and political uncertainty, fresh demands from airlines, and delays in approval for further expansion are behind the rethink, bosses said. The terminal was due to open in 2020, as part of an ongoing £600m plan to create capacity and improve facilities at the Essex airport. Stansted is consulting with airlines to "future-proof" the building. The airport said uncertainty over what border controls would be required after Brexit and wider economic doubts had also influenced the review. It is reconsidering the interior design of the building, to ensure it can use new technologies and install facilities - such as passenger lounges - that will appeal to the long-haul operators it wants to attract. It has also been waiting for more than a year for approval from Uttlesford District Council for its plan to increase passenger numbers. Stansted currently handles 28 million passengers a year, and has permission to increase capacity to 35 million. It wants to increase that number to 43 million. Brian Ross, of campaign group Stop Stansted Expansion, said there had been a recent dip in passenger numbers at the airport. "There are a bunch of reasons for it but the fact is that Stansted is in decline rather than moving ahead," he said. "So why would they have any urgency to build a new arrivals terminal? There isn't that urgency." The airport denied passenger numbers had been a factor in reviewing the terminal. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-50689715 | Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:32:30 GMT | 1,575,682,350 | 1,575,678,317 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
397,465 | observer--2019-06-17--So Much for a Woke Catholic Church | 2019-06-17T00:00:00 | observer | So Much for a Woke Catholic Church | What can you expect from someone with (at least nominal) complete control over a powerful and fabulously wealthy organization and its 1.2 billion adherents as well as infallibility—as in he is never wrong, can never be wrong, an always-rightness gifted straight from the divine? Not a whole hell of a lot, if that person is the pope, the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, and your expectation is a religious and charitable institution able to adjust to meet the reality in which it exists rather than drawing ever deeper from a well dug during the Dark Ages. The bar was admittedly low, as it ought to be for any outfit that systematically shielded serial child molesters so that they could re-offend, consequence-free, over a period spanning decades, in almost every corner of the globe. And lo, over the past year, the Catholic Church has managed to crawl under it. But by re-embracing homophobia, injecting itself into the gender debate and exploiting its great shame—the ongoing sex abuse scandal—as a tool for internecine power politics, the church is merely staying true to its values and its identity. And we should expect more of the same. The Catholic Church was back in the news this month for the wrong reasons, because it is LGBTQ Pride month, and there is no progressive and secular event religion can’t try to ruin. Catholics were told to avoid Pride parades and related events because LGBTQ people and LGBTQ rights are “contrary to Catholic faith and morals” and “especially harmful for children,” as the “[p]roudly pro-life” Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island tweeted earlier this month. Tobin’s tweet went viral because he chose to tweet it rather than merely declaim it from the pulpit, but it shouldn’t be surprising. As Tobin explained in a non-apology, outre homophobia—like the homily given during Palm Sunday mass by a priest in Corpus Christi, Texas, in which he declared that “the LGBTQIA plus whatever values are not the values” of the area—is merely consistent with the official teachings of the church. All of this is in the catechism, and there are many Catholics who are just fine with it. In more worldly dealings, the church remains a slick and secretive operator, recently convincing a German court that it has no prerogative to reveal how it spends the billions of dollars it receives from taxpayers every year. Any disappointment or outrage felt at this return to the normal stems from false hope that things would get better—more just—and things like this would not happen, or happen less, or become marginalized and not mainstream (again). The false hope radiated from Pope Francis, the “People’s Pope,” the broke-ass-by-choice priest from Latin America elected to God’s top job in 2013. Francis eschewed the baroque luxuries in which his predecessor seemed to wallow. Francis said the right things. He said that climate change is real and a “moral issue.” He said gay people should be embraced and not condemned. “Who am I to judge?” he asked in 2013, when the notorious Vatican gossip machine spread the rumor of a gay priest working in the Holy See. Francis even offered economic critiques. When he denounced the “idolatry of money,” the lifeblood of the market-based capitalism keeping billions of people in poverty’s bondage, could you hear a faint whisper of “liberation theology,” the “Marxist Catholicism” that helped make Latin American priests targets of CIA-connected right-wing death squads? There was promise that Francis would be a sort of social justice warrior pope—a pejorative on the right-wing that is basically the papal job description, as given by Jesus Christ himself—and that his church would follow. It hasn’t. From the very beginning, Francis found himself besieged by reactionary elements within the church (which could also be a way to say, “the church”). Last August, Carlo Maria Viganò, an ur-conservative archbishop, landed the heaviest blow yet: In an 11-page letter, he accused Francis of participating in the modern church’s most profound sin, condoning and hiding priestly sexual molestation. Francis denied the accusation, but it was a clear sign of “war” against Francis by church conservatives—and it is working. Last week, the Vatican issued a document on gender, in which it declared that trans and gender-fluid people are “confused” and that gender is not a construct or a “choice” but a God-given identity issued at birth. It’s tempting to credit Viganò’s broadside with shaking Francis’ faith, but the letter merely followed other signs that the pope wasn’t so woke—or at least his wokeness was susceptible to a revolt in his ranks. In January 2018, eight months prior, the pope dismissed credible accusations of child abuse against a Chilean priest as “calumny.” Gender theory, in particular, has been a bête noire for Francis, who has blasted academia for introducing notions that threaten the family. This is not to say that Francis is so craven or so susceptible to palace intrigue that he has lost all faith. Last week, Francis repeated earlier condemnations of an economic system that finds “new ways” to keep poor people “in bondage.” The pope would not be down with the gig economy. He is not the problem. The problem is his institution and trends identified by social scientists in healthy religious institutions. Religions that are rigid and inflexible and reactionary attract and keep adherents. Religions that are open and welcoming and pluralistic shed followers. This is partially why the church is re-embracing wildly unscientific practices, like exorcism, even as Francis preaches data-driven acknowledgments of climate change. This path is a straight line heading only one way. You must think of any church first and foremost as a business. (If you disagree or doubt, spend a couple of Sundays in prayer and count the number of times you are hit up for money.) Businesses need customers to keep the lights on and to buy fancy robes and candles and stuff and to maintain a real estate portfolio that has been the envy of the most vain potentates the world has seen. Wokeness is death, and you would be a fool to believe the Catholic Church is interested in that particular eschatological method. The Catholic Church on view this month, petty and ugly and venal, is the Catholic Church, and will be ever thus. | Chris Roberts | https://observer.com/2019/06/catholic-church-lgbtq-pride-gender-identity/ | 2019-06-17 17:26:28+00:00 | 1,560,806,788 | 1,567,538,983 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
438,763 | rawstory--2019-05-05--Here is how the Founding Fathers ensured America would not be a Christian nation | 2019-05-05T00:00:00 | rawstory | Here is how the Founding Fathers ensured America would not be a Christian nation | When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, almost no one in politics or everyday life went around proclaiming, “I am a Christian.” If indeed you were a Christian—that is, someone who considers Jesus Christ the Messiah—you identified yourself as a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Baptist, a Catholic, and so on in excelsis in order to let others know where you stood in the vast American religious landscape. Calling oneself a Christian today, by contrast, has a special, politicized meaning. For most people in public life, this self-identification suggests a particular form of conservative Christianity, a brand of religion that seeks not only to proselytize but to impose its values on others through the machinery of the state. The huge exception to this rule is President Barack Obama, who has been forced by the birther-paranoids to advertise his credentials as a Christian in order to refute the lie that he is a “secret Muslim.” Once upon a time (until around 1980, actually), the appellation “Christian” used to mean “right-wing Protestant,” as a consequence of the historic animosity between many forms of American Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. That is no longer true, as demonstrated by GOP primary hopefuls Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, the darlings of Protestant fundamentalists, although they personify the cliché “more Catholic than the pope.” (In Gingrich’s case, the relevant pontiffs would be certain medieval and Renaissance vicars of Christ who produced numerous children through extra-pontifical liaisons.) Santorum is in fact a Catholic fundamentalist—unlike the majority of American Catholics, who do not accept either the notion of papal infallibility or the Vatican line on sexual behavior. Liberal Catholics, well aware of the political meaning of Christian in American politics, generally call themselves plain old “Catholics.” Thus, when Santorum and Gingrich used their dog whistles throughout the Republican primaries to imply that Obama is not the Christian he claims to be, what they really meant is that he is not their kind of Christian. It has also become standard for politicians to offer a nod to “our Judeo-Christian heritage” in an effort to display theocratic inclusiveness. The slippery Gingrich never stumbled over this phrase, but Santorum often did, dragging Judeo out to four syllables so that it came out “Jew-day-ee-oh.” It is clear that this ecumenical platitude was not a part of the sanctimonious Santorum’s upbringing. Was the United States founded as a Christian nation, meaning that the framers of the Constitution established a government whose laws would not only reflect but also enforce the rules of a particular brand of Christianity? No, period. The answer is as clear as Santorum’s pronunciation of Judeo is slurred, and the explanation can be found in the old (i.e., pre-1980) American practice of identifying oneself by denomination. Denominational identification is as old as the earliest colonies in the New World, given that the first Puritan theocrats were fleeing persecution by adherents of another denomination—the Church of England. By the revolutionary era, doctrinal and intellectual distinctions separating one Christian denomination from another remained as immense as the gulf between the beliefs of a Jew and any Christian, or between any orthodox religious believer and a deist. The founders did not want doctrinal differences to wreak civic havoc of the kind then evident throughout Europe. That is why they left not only Jesus but indeed any deity out of the Constitution. That the American population was and is overwhelmingly Christian is a fact. That makes it all the more remarkable that the founders did not establish a Christian government. The Christian Right cannot point to a single mention of Jesus or Christianity in any of the nation’s founding documents and is forced to rely, for divine antecedents, on the line in the Declaration of Independence that talks about all men being endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. But even if this were a statement of belief in a specific god rather than a general assertion of the philosophy of natural rights, it is most decidedly not a statement of faith in Jesus Christ. In any event, it is futile to engage in debate with spokespeople for the Christian Right on this subject, because for them, the Christian origin of the American state is an article of faith that cannot be disproved by facts or plain English. Tell them, for instance, that the godlessness of the Constitution was taken for granted and attacked by conservatives at state ratifying conventions in 1787 and 1788, and they will point to the conventional “Year of Our Lord” dating of the document. This supposedly refutes hundreds of statements by angry ministers complaining about the absence of God from the document that would furnish the young government’s written foundation. As one cleric observed at North Carolina’s state convention, the Constitution’s ban on religious tests for public office in Article VI, Section 3 amounted to “an invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us.” He was entirely accurate in his description of the potential effects of letting anyone, regardless of religious belief, run for public office. And when it came time to ratify the Constitution, he and his fellow theocrats were voted down in every state. The ungodliness of the Constitution kept popping up in public discourse throughout the nineteenth century, most notably when a powerful group of Protestant ministers came to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and demanded that he support an amendment to declare Jesus Christ, not “We the People,” the source of all governmental power. Lincoln, a canny politician who knew when not to take on another battle in the middle of a bloody civil war, declined to take any action and instead went along with a move to placate the ministers by putting “In God We Trust” on a two-penny coin in 1864. Lincoln presumably viewed the inscription of trust in a deity on a coin as an innocuous action calculated to avoid the trouble that would surely be generated by a Christian amendment to the Constitution. Little did he know that nearly 150 years in the future, right-wing politicians would employ that slogan to attack the much older motto E Pluribus Unum. Lincoln’s brand of compromise was described by Jon Meacham in Time magazine as “a long-standing covenant between believers and nonbelievers in which secularists live with public religious appeals and images in exchange for self-regulating moderation on the part of the faithful. It’s an ancient and wise accommodation that allows religion and politics to inform each other without promoting an eschatological war between church and state.” In fairness, Meacham argues that extremists like Santorum had violated this unspoken and unsigned “covenant.” However, “self-regulating moderation on the part of the faithful” is a flimsy altar upon which to base any agreement regarding the separation of church and state. Had the founders believed in the capacity of the faithful for such “self-regulation,” they never would have prohibited religious tests for national office at a time when most state governments still had religious discrimination written into their laws. One aspect of the imaginary covenant between religious believers and secularists began to break down in the 1960s, long before the rise of the Christian Right. Since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid and the expansion of federal aid to education during Lyndon Johnson’s administration, secularists have rarely objected to the expenditure of federal funds through religious institutions like hospitals and charities. This is hardly a symbolic matter. It is far more important than the symbolic victories won by secularists of that era in the Supreme Court on issues like school prayer. The firestorm set off by the Obama administration’s effort to make Catholic institutions offer insurance policies that cover contraception was described by the media as a dispute over religious liberty. Religious liberty meant, to the Catholic bishops, the right to participate in federal programs and receive funds provided by all taxpayers while imposing their religious doctrines on employees and patients alike—whatever their religion or lack thereof. Not every religion wants to have the taxpayers’ cake and eat it too. Mormon charities, for instance, do not accept government money. The ability of the religious Right to frame this dispute purely as a matter of religious freedom—meaning freedom for the most conservative forms of religion—is a direct result of the long erosion of the separation of church and state at the practical level of taxpayer funding. Throughout these decades of erosion, what was once the religious center has constantly been pulled to the right. There is no real answer to be found in the nation’s founding documents about this question, because the founders never envisioned an America in which the federal government would spend billions of dollars on health and education, whether through religious or nonreligious institutions. It is worth noting, however, that Virginia’s 1786 Act for Establishing Religious Freedom—which later served as the template for the Bill of Rights—came into being in opposition to a proposal that would have taxed Virginians for the support of Christian teaching in the public schools. Virginia’s law, not the statutes of states that still had established churches, became the template for Article VI, which was supposed to ban religious preference within the government, and the First Amendment, which prevented government from favoring one religion over another. The issue in Virginia, then, like the national issue over the prerogatives of sectarian hospitals today, encompassed both religious freedom and money. The bishops are not the least bit concerned about the freedom of non-Catholic (or, for that matter, Catholic) employees whose consciences tell them that contraception is just fine. They are not concerned about rape victims, whatever their religion, who will not only be refused the morning-after pill by their hospitals but also will not even be told about other nonsectarian hospitals that provide such services. They will not be concerned if someday the Vatican decides that living wills are a usurpation of divine and ecclesiastical authority and that everyone has a duty to go on living and suffering until some deity decides to pull the plug. The question is not whether the United States is a Christian nation: it is whether church authorities adhering to a deeply conservative brand of Christianity (along with some ultra-Orthodox rabbis who do not speak for most American Jews, any more than bishops speak for most American Catholics or the Family Research Council speaks for most American Protestants) get to use taxpayer money to further their parochial agenda. It is true that most American secularists tolerate a good deal more religious symbolism in public life than we would like, but it is sheer fantasy to suggest that we have signed on to any covenant that tolerates the expenditure of public money according to the prescriptions and proscriptions of canon law or general biblical laws. Oh, wait. There really weren’t any biblical laws about contraception because there wasn’t any effective contraception. But then, biblical Israel was definitely not a Christian nation. It was, however, a theocracy, like every Christian feudal monarchy and nation-state that succeeded the Roman Empire. The founders made a noble effort to say goodbye to all that in order to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity. Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: a History of American Secularism (Metropolitan, 2004) and a forthcoming biography of Robert Green Ingersoll, to be published next January by Yale University Press. | Susan Jacoby, Free Inquiry | https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/here-is-how-the-founding-fathers-ensured-america-would-not-be-a-christian-nation/ | 2019-05-05 17:24:20+00:00 | 1,557,091,460 | 1,567,541,138 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
453,966 | redstate--2019-01-23--Lady Gaga Declares Mike Pence the Worst Type of Christian Yes THAT Lady Gaga | 2019-01-23T00:00:00 | redstate | Lady Gaga Declares Mike Pence the “Worst” Type of Christian – Yes, THAT Lady Gaga | When it comes to condemning someone’s faith I’ll need a better source. The Academy Awards were announced yesterday and, as expected, Lady Gaga received two nominations. One was for her role in the film “A Star Is Born”, and the other is for the song “Shallow”, on which she is a co-writer. This good news was highly anticipated, as the film was positioned as one of the favorites going into the Oscars. However Ms. Gaga does not seem all that happy. Just days ahead of the announcement the singer was performing in Las vegas, and during her set she took the time to pause and deliver a barb-filled political message. As she first addressed the government shutdown (the nation is now jubilant as she has lent her opposition to the issue) she then took the time to segue into delivering invective towards Vice President Mike Pence. “You are the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian,” the singer stated, in her revealing sequined leotard. If you think it odd that the meat-wearing entertainer is weighing in on the theistic bonafides of a politician well, the item that set her off will be even more confounding. It is that Pence’s wife took a job at a private school as an art teacher. “And to Mike Pence who thinks that it’s acceptable that his wife works at a school that bans LGBTQ. You are wrong. You said we should not discriminate against Christianity? You’re the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian,” Gaga said to a cheering crowd. “I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everybody is welcome. So you can take all that disgrace, Mr. Pence, and look yourself in the mirror and you’ll find it right there.” The video of her lecture is here: It seems revealing that while she delivers what sounds like scorn from within the faith she uses terms that emanate from a removed source. “You say we should not discriminate against Christianity” are the words that would be spoken by those on the outside. And in discussing “what I do know about” Christianity it sure sounds like someone studying from afar, not one who feels they exist within the faith. But note her stark contradiction while delivering her hectoring message. She takes issue with supposed prejudice, and being unwelcoming, while casting harsh judgement about another’s faith. This is not the action of someone operating within the Christian framework. Where does her own tolerance exist? Where is her willingness to forgive and reach out to assist, if she is convinced of errant? What led to this particular condemnation is a recent announcement made that Karen Pence would be teaching an art class two days a week at Immanuel Christian School, in Springfield, Virginia. ICS has a policy that disallows LGBTQ students, and this interpreted level of intolerance is foisted upon Karen, and then is projected onto the Vice President. The result? Pence is declared the “worst Christian” because a Christian school adheres to Christian principles. What has Lady Gaga (an avowed supporter of gay agendas) in a dander is the school issues a parental agreement that outlines what they deem to be moral standards that need to followed: Seems that this is not unfairly targeting Gaga’s beloved group, as it is a blanket statement of a moral code. While homosexual activity is in fact addressed, that is preceded by declaring heterosexual activity is also disallowed. That hardly then can be declared as discriminatory. What gets lost in the social signaling furor of course is that there need not be a focus placed on the sexual activities of the students by entertainers and the media. ICS is a school that teaches students from kindergarten to 8th grade. Putting the focus on matters of a sexual nature, in a Christian school, is an effort at injecting secular standards onto a religious institution, and then delivering scorn for not following a secular conscript. That this comes from a singer who last appeared at the Oscars singing about sexxual assault victims is somewhat priceless. The film that her song was featured in that year? It was produced by Harvey Weinstein, well before his scandal was made public, but at a time when his sexual predatory behavior was an opeen secret in Hollywood. The hollowness of Gaga’s charge here is exposed if we are to apply the same measurement to the standards of the entertainment and press elitess. Were they not the same crowd who expressed outrage at the concept of a husband telling his wife how to vote. Now the message is a husband SHOULD be directing his wife on how to behave, but in order to meet the standards of those who said that kind of action is wrong. Huh. Seems hypocritical, and therefore of no substance. Same result if a Christian school were to turn away from the teachings in the Bible to appease the social activists in Hollywood. | Brad Slager | https://www.redstate.com/bradslager/2019/01/23/lady-gaga-declares-mike-pence-%e2%80%9cworst%e2%80%9d-type-christian-yes-lady-gaga/ | 2019-01-23 18:05:23+00:00 | 1,548,284,723 | 1,567,551,251 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
147,844 | drudgereport--2019-05-03--Violence prompts houses of worship to beef up security | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Violence prompts houses of worship to beef up security... | When members of the Bayside Shul gathered for Passover last month, it was behind the locked doors of the synagogue, an armed security guard patrolling its parking lot. And when Milwaukee-area Muslims kneel in prayer for the start of Ramadan on Sunday, many local mosques will be taking those same precautions. Seven years after a white supremacist killed six worshipers at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin — after Charleston and Pittsburgh, Christchurch, Sri Lanka and now Poway — faith leaders are increasingly hardening their buildings against potential attacks. Many are hiring off-duty police officers or armed security guards for services and special events. They are locking doors, installing cameras, taking active-shooter training and in some cases tacitly allowing the carrying of concealed weapons during services. These are necessary precautions, they say. But they worry that they cut at the very heart of their faith traditions, which call on them to welcome the stranger, to open their doors as places of prayer and refuge. "It is really disheartening," said Othman Atta of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, which operates three mosques in Milwaukee and Brookfield. "You don't want to be a fortress, where you're turning people away or creating a separation. But you don't want to be sitting targets either," he said. "This is something all religious institutions are really struggling with." RELATED: Daughter of the rabbi injured in the San Diego synagogue shooting has a connection to the Milwaukee area RELATED: 500 attended a vigil at the Islamic Center of Milwaukee for victims of the New Zealand mosque attacks Last week's shooting at a San Diego-area synagogue was the latest in a series of deadly attacks on houses of worship in the United States and abroad in recent years. Last fall, 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. This year, 50 people died when a white supremacist attacked mosques during Friday prayers in Christchurch, New Zealand. And more than 200 were killed in the Easter Sunday bombings of Catholic churches by Islamic militants in Sri Lanka. At the same time, the FBI and other organizations have documented an increase in hate crimes, including those based on race and religion, and spikes in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic incidents. In the most recent FBI report, hate crimes committed on the basis of religious identity jumped 23 percent, the biggest annual increase since 2001. Many Milwaukee-area houses of worship began seriously evaluating their security after the Sikh Temple shooting in 2012, with the help of local and federal authorities. And they have added security measures over the years, driven at times by the most recent attack. James Davis, an elder at New Testament Church in Milwaukee, said his church began hiring an armed security guard in 2015 after white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine people during a Bible study at an African American church in Charleston, S.C. After Pittsburgh, Congregation Emanu-El B'Ne Jeshurun in River Hills, which had been securing its doors for a while, hired a full-time director of security — a first for a Milwaukee-area synagogue. And the Bayside Shul beefed up its security, locking doors at all times, installing new security cameras inside and out, and hiring armed security for services and events. Some Milwaukee-area mosques have been using armed security guards for a while, but interest has increased over the last year, according to Atta. "There's definitely a sadness that this had to happen," Rabbi Cheski Edelman said of the heightened measures at the Bayside Shul. "But people understand that this is the reality ... and that it's the best way to protect the community." Some congregations have begun drafting their own members to assist in security, whether that's greeting newcomers at the door or patrolling their parking lots, with an eye toward spotting anyone who looks unfamiliar or out of place. And some are turning a blind eye to the "no-weapons" signs they posted after Wisconsin passed its concealed carry law in 2011, believing that congregants who are trained and licensed to carry firearms could save lives in the minutes it takes for police to respond to an attack. "It's kind of a don't-ask-don't-tell policy," said Noman Hussain, the imam at the Islamic Society's Masjid Al-Noor mosque in Brookfield, which has used an off-duty Waukesha County sheriff's deputy for security for about two year. "But we're going to highly recommend that anyone who wants to carry makes sure they have multiple hours of training, so they don't do more harm than good," he said. "For now, we're not officially allowing guns. But if someone does and we don't know about it ..." At New Testament, where several members work in law enforcement or other jobs in which they're licensed to carry firearms, church leaders are taking a more direct approach. According to Davis, the church is developing a security "ministry" that would sanction the carrying of concealed firearms by certain qualified members. And it would revamp its "no-weapons" signage to make it clear that some members "have the permission of the board of elders to carry a concealed weapon." "We want to do as much as we can to let folks know that this may be the wrong building to go after," said Davis. Many faith leaders blame the increase in hate crimes on the rise of President Donald Trump, whose anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, they believe, has emboldened extremists, and the power of social media to amplify their views and inspire copycats. "We live in a much more polarized society right now. And that's part of the problem," said Atta. "I think it's empowering more people to think they have free rein to say and do what they want to do." There is a long history in African American churches of some members carrying firearms because of racist attacks, according to the Rev. Walter Lanier, pastor of Progressive Baptist Church on Milwaukee's northwest side. Still, he said, it is seen by some as a lack of faith that God will protect them. Edelman, of the Bayside Shul, does not share that view. "The Jewish tradition is pretty clear that we are partners with God. We have to do our part, and God will do His part," he said. To illustrate, he shared the biblical story of Jacob's meeting with his brother, Esau, after two decades estranged. "When Jacob was going to confront his brother, it says he prayed, but he also prepared for war," said Edelman. "He did both." Contact Annysa Johnson at [email protected] or 414-224-2061. Follow her on Twitter at @JSEdbeat. And join the Journal Sentinel conversation about education issues at www.facebook.com/groups/WisconsinEducation. | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/IQn-JWjlimk/ | 2019-05-03 00:55:38+00:00 | 1,556,859,338 | 1,567,541,332 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
452,442 | realclearpolitics--2019-11-20--Will 2020 Dems Turn Off More Faith Voters in Fifth Debate? | 2019-11-20T00:00:00 | realclearpolitics | Will 2020 Dems Turn Off More Faith Voters in Fifth Debate? | Will Democrats upset more faith voters in tonight’s debate? A new extensive study released today suggests they better not. In the last debate, Beto O’Rourke said that churches that espouse traditional marriage should be taxed. When asked by CNN’s Don Lemon, “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities—should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” O’Rourke didn’t flinch. “Yes,” he replied. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” Democrats balked. Frontrunners Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg tripped over themselves to disagree. “I’m not sure he understood the implications of what he was saying,” Buttigieg said. “Going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centers or other religious facilities in this country is just going to deepen the divisions we’re already experiencing.” Even The New Republic, hardly a bastion of moderate liberal thinking, proclaimed that O’Rourke “is out over his skis.” Two weeks later, O’Rourke ended his campaign. The resounding backlash to O’Rourke, even from the left, was a striking example of a reality that a report from the pro-bono law firm The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty makes clear -- namely, that Americans of all stripes still deeply value religious liberty and don’t want to see people of faith and their institutions punished for their beliefs. The report, a statistical index that gives extensive coverage to nearly every corner of the issue of religious liberty, finds that support for a broad interpretation of religious liberty remains strong, despite having weathered a battering in the culture wars. Eighty-seven percent of respondents, for example, believe in the “freedom to practice a religion in daily life without facing discrimination or harm from others.” The index authors note a particularly strong desire among respondents for a “hands off government approach” when it comes to the treatment of religion in society. Overwhelming majorities support allowing religious organizations and groups to make their own hiring and leadership decisions (an issue that recently played out at the Supreme Court in the case of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC) and oppose penalizing individuals or groups for their religious views about marriage (an issue that is still playing out in the Court and is bound to be for years to come). Above all, the index finds that religious liberty is a point of consensus in a deeply divided nation, a conclusion that is also backed up by a report released just days ago from the Pew Research Center. While respondents in that survey disagreed about the mixing of religion and politics, majorities agreed that religion is a force for good in society and is something that generally brings people together. In short, though we may be becoming less religious as a country, we still value the role of religion and value the principle of religious liberty even more. And while Democrats may pay lip service to these ideas in tepid statements, the reality is that the party walks a different line. Democrats are only increasing their efforts to punish charities like adoption agencies for their religious views about marriage, to force healthcare workers to perform procedures that violate their religious beliefs and religious employers and taxpayers to pay for them, and to exclude religious schools and charities from public funding programs, yet another issue currently before the highest court. The party talks like Buttigieg but acts like Beto. The American people strongly agree that Americans should not pay a price, literal or figurative, for their faith. And they deserve to know in clear terms that their potential president does too. A perfect task for a primary debate moderator. | <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/ashley_mcguire" data-mce-href="../../authors/ashley_mcguire">Ashley McGuire</a>, RCP | https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/11/20/will_dems_turn_off_more_faith_voters_in_fifth_debate_141779.html | Wed, 20 Nov 2019 13:03:18 -0600 | 1,574,272,998 | 1,574,295,566 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
767,786 | theindependent--2019-08-01--Three wedding rules you should never ignore as a guest according to etiquette expert | 2019-08-01T00:00:00 | theindependent | Three wedding rules you should never ignore as a guest, according to etiquette expert | With the introduction of flower walls, millennial pink wedding dresses, and wedding hashtags, it would be fair to assume that weddings have become anything-goes affairs that are evolving with the times. After all, millennial brides and grooms tend to avoid many traditional wedding elements, such as ceremonies held in religious institutions, and the bridal bouquet toss, which is now done by fewer than half of brides, according to The Knot. The role of guests has also changed, with a focus on guest experience now an ever-increasing aspect of wedding planning. However, when it comes to the question of whether everything has fundamentally changed for those invited to a wedding, according to an etiquette expert, the answer is no. We spoke to national etiquette expert Diane Gottsman, who told us that there are still some traditions that it is never acceptable for wedding guests to ignore - and that the main ones still hold true. We've all heard of mothers-of-the-groom upstaging their son's wife with a white dress of their own but even for those with no ill intentions, white is still off-limits for anyone other than the bride. “White is still reserved for the bride,” Gottsman told us. “A guest should select another colour and there are plenty of beautiful options when it comes to picking out a great wedding outfit.” She also said the rule applies to guests of all genders, so men who are not the groom should avoid showing up in a white suit. Do not propose during someone else's wedding Stealing any of the bride and groom’s attention during the big day is also a huge no, which means guests should avoid behaviours such as using the time to propose. It may seem romantic to become engaged on the love-filled day, especially if the wedding happens to be of the destination variety, but Gottsman advises against it. She said: “Regardless of where another person’s wedding is located, the celebration should be reserved for the bride and groom. “A proposal by another individual, unless agreed-upon by the bride and groom in advance, should wait for another time.” According to The Knot, you shouldn’t even ask the bride and groom for permission - as chances are they would prefer you didn’t and it may put them in an awkward position. There are no exceptions to kid-free weddings Taking into account the bride and groom’s wishes also means abiding by their rules, whether that means wearing black-tie or not bringing children. Although kid-free weddings can be difficult to plan for for guests with young children, Gottsman says “guests should honour the request”. “However, parents can opt to pass on the wedding if it causes issues,” she told us. “The bride and groom should be prepared for the circumstances without getting their feelings hurt.” In addition to abiding by the general rules, guests should also be considerate of unspoken expectations - such as arriving on time rather than early or late and only bringing a plus-one if you’re explicitly invited to. Unplanned speeches, not giving a gift, skipping the ceremony, or drinking too much should also to be avoided, according to Brides. Millennials may be changing up the wedding industry, but some wedding rules are here to stay. | Chelsea Ritschel | https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wedding-rules-etiquette-white-no-kids-bride-groom-guests-a9034931.html | 2019-08-01 17:49:39+00:00 | 1,564,696,179 | 1,567,535,115 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
232,332 | globalresearch--2019-12-17--The Child that Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State? | 2019-12-17T00:00:00 | globalresearch | The Child that Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State? | “Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts… We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.”—The Bishop’s Wife (1947) The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land. Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later? What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them? A singular number of churches across the country are asking those very questions, and their conclusions are being depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing. These nativity scenes are a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war. The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do? What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do? Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer risked his life to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality. Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds. Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.” “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” This is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love. After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings. When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be. Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state? Consider the following if you will. Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000. Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery. Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed. Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill. From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses. Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone. Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us. From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations. Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.” While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies. Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled. Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery. Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored. Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach. Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait. Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books. Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later. Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error. Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square. Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs. Indeed, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state. Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebrations and gift-giving, we would do well to remember that what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute. Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of . His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People is available at . Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. | John W. Whitehead | https://www.globalresearch.ca/child-christmas-forgot-how-would-jesus-fare-american-police-state/5697994 | Tue, 17 Dec 2019 14:55:51 +0000 | 1,576,612,551 | 1,576,627,492 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,070,765 | usatoday--2019-02-27--Supreme Court justices search for middle ground in church-state fight over 40-foot Latin cross on st | 2019-02-27T00:00:00 | usatoday | Supreme Court justices search for middle ground in church-state fight over 40-foot Latin cross on state land | WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with how to maintain a constitutional distance between church and state while preserving a 40-foot Latin cross on government property. By the end of the oral argument, it appeared the justices had found a way: By deciding that the "Peace Cross" in Bladensburg, Maryland, is essentially grandfathered in, but new religious displays might not get equal treatment. "What about saying past is past," Associate Justice Stephen Breyer said by way of defending the towering monument, "but no more?" Part of the problem was the high court's own convoluted case history: a series of high court rulings on the intersection of government and religion that some justices acknowledged has left the rules in disarray. But by setting clear rules for such displays, the justices knew they could endanger monuments from coast to coast – or allow even more to be built. Their goal appeared to be simple: Don't add or subtract from the status quo. "There are cross monuments all over the country, many of them quite old," Associate Justice Samuel Alito told Monica Miller, the lawyer representing an association of atheists and others objecting to the Christian cross on government land. "Do you want them all taken down?" When Miller sought to allay those concerns by differentiating the Bladensburg cross from others in Arlington National Cemetery and across the country, Alito shot back: "Would you like us to write that in our opinion?" Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor appeared most intent on declaring the Peace Cross unconstitutional, with Associate Justice Elena Kagan a possible objection as well. "People wear crosses to show their devotion to the Christian faith," Ginsburg said. But the remaining justices seemed ready to let it stand while searching for a plausible explanation. The question before the court was simple: Does the 93-year-old monument violate the First Amendment, which prohibits government establishment of religion? The answer might very well be yes, but few of the justices want to see it moved, mutilated or demolished. Conceived in 1919 by bereaved mothers of the fallen and completed by the American Legion six years later, the war memorial has become part of the town's landscape. "It's no ordinary cross," said Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing the American Legion. "Not a single word of religious content appears anywhere." Against that backdrop, Miller had a difficult time convincing the justices that the Maryland war memorial cannot stand. Nevertheless, she argued that religion, not commemoration, is what most observers see as they drive by. For nearly a half century, the court's seminal doctrine has been the "Lemon test," named after the decision in 1971 that was intended to define what government could and could not do when it comes to religion. But over the years, the justices have ignored the very rules that lower courts continue to follow. In 1971, the court said any government role must have a secular purpose, cannot favor or inhibit religion and cannot excessively entangle church and state. Years later, it outsourced part of the decision-making process to a "reasonable observer." In 2005, the justices created exceptions to their original test for passive religious displays, such as Nativity scenes or the Ten Commandments. In a case upholding legislative prayer in 2014, they incorporated history and tradition into the mix. That led Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to suggest that the Lemon test should be retired. "Is it time for this court to thank Lemon for its services and send it on its way?" Gorsuch asked by way of suggestion. In the Peace Cross case, a federal district court judge ruled in 2015 that the monument was OK under the Lemon test. But in 2017, a federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 that the cross failed to pass the test, calling it the "preeminent symbol of Christianity." The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit voted 8-6 not to reconsider that ruling. The Trump administration joined dozens of religious, municipal and veterans groups defending the memorial and complaining that the court's mixed messages force legal battles to be decided "display by display.” The case has stood out on the court's humdrum docket this term as a likely win for the conservative majority, bolstered by Kavanaugh's confirmation in 2018. Even before his elevation, the court had ruled in favor of many religious groups and causes. In 2014, the court ruled that corporations with religious objections do not have to include free coverage of contraceptives in health insurance policies. In 2017, it said religious institutions can receive public funds for secular purposes, such as playground renovation. Last year, it absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing on religious grounds to serve a same-sex wedding. Watching what the court does with the Peace Cross are state and local governments across the country that have their own monuments to worry about. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and municipal groups claim hundreds could be affected, from the steel beams that form the Ground Zero cross in New York City to a memorial in Taos, New Mexico, that commemorates the Bataan Death March. Two of the most prominent displays rise above Arlington National Cemetery: the 13-foot Argonne Cross, erected in 1923 and dedicated to "our men in France," and the 24-foot Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, donated in 1927 to honor U.S. citizens who served abroad in the Canadian army. A group of 30 states led by West Virginia listed dozens of war monuments large and small that could be challenged if the Supreme Court rules against the Peace Cross, from Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania and Georgia's Chickamauga Battlefield to La Mesa, California, and Coos Bay, Oregon. The American Humanist Association disputes those numbers and says very few crosses or monuments are in jeopardy. The group won a federal appeals court ruling last summer that threatens a 34-foot cross towering over a city park in Pensacola, Florida. | Richard Wolf, USA TODAY | http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/599005114/0/usatodaycomwashington-topstories~Supreme-Court-justices-search-for-middle-ground-in-churchstate-fight-over-foot-Latin-cross-on-state-land/ | 2019-02-27 17:39:03+00:00 | 1,551,307,143 | 1,567,547,103 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,070,607 | usatoday--2019-02-20--Does a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I veterans violate the Constitution The Supreme Court | 2019-02-20T00:00:00 | usatoday | Does a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I veterans violate the Constitution? The Supreme Court will decide. | WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court will be on trial itself next week when it weighs the fate of a 40-foot Latin cross honoring World War I dead that reignited the nation's never-ending battle between church and state. At first glance, the question before the Supreme Court seems simple enough: Does the monument violate the First Amendment, which prohibits government establishment of religion? But the answer is complicated by opinion after opinion from the court over the past several decades. Look no further than how the judicial system itself has officially characterized the thorny issue – "murky," "muddled" and "morass" are ways judges, lawyers and constitutional scholars describe the court's rules for government involvement with religion. Also "unclear," "unsound" and "unworkable." By the justices' own admission, the court's interpretations of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause have left the law in "chaos," "disarray" and "shambles." Into this steps a 93-year-old memorial that towers over the small town of Bladensburg, Maryland. Conceived in 1919 by bereaved mothers of the fallen, and completed by the American Legion six years later, it's owned and operated by a government agency. In 1971, the court said any government role must have a secular purpose, cannot favor or inhibit religion and cannot excessively entangle church and state. Years later, it outsourced part of the decision-making process to a "reasonable observer." In 2005, the justices created exceptions to their original test for passive religious displays, such as Nativity scenes or the Ten Commandments. In a case upholding legislative prayer in 2014, they incorporated history and tradition into the mix. All of which led Associate Justice Clarence Thomas to conclude last year that "this court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is in disarray." "We don’t have a real strong sense of what the rules are, and this has been true for a while," says Richard Garnett, founding director of Notre Dame Law School’s Program on Church, State and Society. The Trump administration agrees. It joined dozens of religious, municipal and veterans groups defending the "Peace Cross" and complaining that the court's mixed messages force legal battles to be decided "display by display.” The Justice Department says that turns the purpose of the Establishment Clause on its head by creating even more disputes. The case stands out on the court's humdrum docket this term as a likely win for the conservative majority, bolstered by Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation in 2018. Even before his elevation, the court had ruled in favor of many religious groups and causes. When it did not, several conservative justices usually complained. In 2014, the court ruled that corporations with religious objections do not have to include free coverage of contraceptives in health insurance policies. In 2017, it said religious institutions can receive public funds for secular purposes, such as playground renovation. Last year, it absolved a Colorado baker of discrimination for refusing on religious grounds to serve a same-sex wedding. Against that backdrop, the American Humanist Association will have a hard time convincing the justices that the Maryland war memorial should be moved or redesigned, perhaps as a slab or obelisk. Nevertheless, it argues vociferously that religion, not commemoration, is what most observers see in a 40-foot Latin cross. "This is the most intensely religious and most intensely sectarian symbol that there is," says Douglas Laycock, a leading scholar on religious liberty and law professor at the University of Virginia and University of Texas-Austin. As for the difficult church-state divide, he says, "All the justices, left to right, have a problem trying to draw lines." The attack on the cross has mobilized the religious right like few issues before. Its wrath mostly is focused not on the challengers but the court itself. For nearly a half century, the court's seminal doctrine has been the "Lemon test," named after the decision in 1971 that was intended to define what government could and could not do when it comes to religion. But over the years, the justices have ignored the very rules that lower courts continue to follow. Shortly after joining the high court in 1986, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia said contemporaneous decisions on the subject "leave the theme of chaos securely unimpaired." Around the same time, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy called the test "flawed in its fundamentals and unworkable in practice.” Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was responsible for adding the "reasonable observer" test for determining where the line is drawn between government and religion. In 2010, when a federal appeals court that included future Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that 12-foot crosses honoring fallen state troopers on the side of Utah highways were unconstitutional, Gorsuch said the fictional observer turned out to be "biased, replete with foibles and prone to mistake." Associate Justice Stephen Breyer – one of three Jews on the high court – swung his colleagues in both directions on the same day in 2005. A Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courthouse was unconstitutional, he said, but a Ten Commandments monument outside the Texas State Capitol was not. "This case is an opportunity for the court to clean up Establishment Clause jurisprudence," says David Cortman, senior counsel with the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, who successfully argued the Supreme Court case for a Lutheran church seeking public funds for playground repairs in 2017. According to the libertarian Cato Institute, "The court should now squeeze Lemon out of its jurisprudence." In the Peace Cross case, a federal district court judge ruled in 2015 that the monument was OK under the Lemon test. In 2017, a federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 that the cross failed to pass the test, calling it the "preeminent symbol of Christianity." The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit voted 8-6 not to reconsider that ruling. The high court is poised to overrule that decision. Despite urging from about 40 groups defending the war monument, the justices may not issue a sweeping decision with clear rules for church-state disputes. Those who favor more church-state separation hope the Bladensburg cross, at best, will be given a pass because it's been standing for so long. Watching what the court does with the "Peace Cross" will be state and local governments across the country that have their own monuments to worry about. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and municipal groups claim hundreds could be affected, from the steel beams that form the Ground Zero cross in New York City to a memorial in Taos, New Mexico, that commemorates the Bataan Death March. Two of the most prominent displays rise above Arlington National Cemetery: the 13-foot Argonne Cross, erected in 1923 and dedicated to "our men in France," and the 24-foot Canadian Cross of Sacrifice, donated in 1927 to honor U.S. citizens who served abroad in the Canadian army. Another is the Ground Zero Cross in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York. A group of 30 states led by West Virginia listed dozens of war monuments large and small that could be challenged if the Supreme Court rules against the Peace Cross, from Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania and Georgia's Chickamauga Battlefield to La Mesa, California, and Coos Bay, Oregon. The appeals court decision "puts at risk hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of similar monuments," 4th Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer said. The American Humanist Association disputes those numbers and says very few crosses or monuments are in jeopardy. The group won a federal appeals court ruling last summer that threatens a 34-foot cross towering over a city park in Pensacola, Florida. Senior counsel Monica Miller says the Bladensburg war memorial is unique because of its size and location. Even so, she says, the dispute could be resolved by transferring the land to private ownership and incorporating a disclaimer sign on the property. "The cross being physically removed is not necessary," she says. "We’ve never said 'rip it to shreds, bulldoze it.' " But Miller acknowledges that in her view, "there's no principled way to uphold this cross. ... It’s imposing on every driver who goes through that intersection, whether they want to see it or not." | Richard Wolf, USA TODAY | http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/598050646/0/usatodaycomwashington-topstories~Does-a-foot-Latin-cross-honoring-World-War-I-veterans-violate-the-Constitution-The-Supreme-Court-will-decide/ | 2019-02-20 23:35:22+00:00 | 1,550,723,722 | 1,567,547,866 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
218,297 | freebeacon--2019-11-02--Continetti: Beto Got Nowhere Campaigning on Cultural Issues | 2019-11-02T00:00:00 | freebeacon | Continetti: Beto Got Nowhere Campaigning on Cultural Issues | Washington Free Beacon founding editor Matthew Continetti on Friday said failed 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s cultural platform did not attract Democrats. "Beto, with the strong claims on guns and same-sex marriage, wasn't able to get traction with his own party," Continetti said on MSNBC's Meet the Press Daily. He pointed out that the progressive Democratic candidates leading in the race are the ones campaigning on economic issues rather than cultural ones. "When you look at the other candidates in that progressive part of the party who are leading, they're the ones who focus on economic issues," he said, naming Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). "They're the ones who have a large part of the party behind them right now." O’Rourke campaigned on a controversial gun buy-back plan and proposed revoking the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that would not support same-sex marriage. Anchor Chuck Todd said conservatives might wish O'Rourke were staying in the spotlight, given how much ammunition he's provided them with his extreme positions. "I have a feeling there are some folks in the conservative movement who don't want to see Beto O'Rourke go away too quickly," Todd said. "Because there are two things he brought into the debate that freaked out Democrats… One was the ‘you're darn right we're going to take your guns.’ And the other was getting rid of the tax exemption for churches, which wouldn't please some churches on the left-hand side." Continetti said he expects O'Rourke's far-left rhetoric to continue to be a factor. "The good news for Republicans is that's all on video," Continetti said. "The video isn't going anywhere. I'd say what's striking is Beto swung for the fences on the cultural issues." | Washington Free Beacon Staff | https://freebeacon.com/politics/continetti-beto-got-nowhere-campaigning-on-cultural-issues/ | Sat, 02 Nov 2019 11:13:48 +0000 | 1,572,707,628 | 1,572,886,695 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
869,228 | therussophileorg--2019-07-02--Anger grows over Israels controversial al-Quds dig in presence of US officials | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | Anger grows over Israel’s controversial al-Quds dig in presence of US officials | US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and Senator Lindsey Graham (From L) attend the opening of an ancient road underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem al-Quds on June 30, 2019. (Photo by AFP) **Palestinians and several organizations have condemned the inauguration of a highly contentious tunnel built by the Israeli regime at an archaeological site in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds and the attendance of American officials at the event.** On Sunday, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt along with Sara Netanyahu, wife of the Israeli Prime Minister, wielded sledgehammers to break open the so-called “Path of Pilgrims,” which lies underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood. “Were there any doubts about the accuracy, the wisdom, the propriety of President Trump recognizing Jerusalem (al-Quds) as the capital of Israel, I certainly think this lays all doubts to rest,” he said. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speaks at the opening ceremony of an ancient road underneath the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem al-Quds on June 30, 2019. (Photo by AFP) In a statement issued on Monday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned “the colonialist plans to replace the existing reality in occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds) and the environs of the Old City.” It also denounced the presence of American officials at the ceremony as a hostile act against the Palestinians. “The administration of President Donald Trump proves day by day its … unlimited affiliation to the colonial settlement project led by the extremist right in the state of the occupation,” it added. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also slammed the US officials’ participation in the event, saying Friedman and Greenblatt “were not American diplomats, they were extremist fanatic Israeli settlers.” PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat said the pair had hurled insults at international law “by blessing a project of settlers that has dispossessed dozens of Palestinian families nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.” He further called on all Arab and Muslim leaders to condemn in strongest terms the provocations of Greenblatt and Friedman and the threats their actions pose to the Palestinians and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The tunnel, he added, is “a settlement project” based on “a lie that has nothing to do with history.” Israelis say the now-subterranean path served as a pilgrimage route to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, some 2,000 years ago. In addition, the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement in a statement Tuesday described Friedman’s participation in the ceremony as “aggressive behavior that violates all diplomatic norms and puts the international laws at risk.” “This criminal act reflects the US position, which totally supports the Israeli occupation,” it added. The resistance group also held those who joined a recent US-sponsored Bahrain conference responsible for Washington’s “disdain for Jerusalem (al-Quds) and its holy sites.” The workshop, meant to promote a “deal” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was held in Manama on June 25-26 despite a Palestinian boycott. **Arab League, Al-Azhar join Palestinians** Moreover, the Arab League condemned Israel’s opening of the so-called “Road of Pilgrims” as a flagrant violation of international law. Saeed Abu Ali, Arab League’s assistant secretary general for Palestine and occupied Arab lands, said the participation of American officials in the inauguration of the tunnel proves the Trump administration’s “absolute bias and full adoption of these settlement projects in violation of international consensus and legitimacy.” He also warned of the serious consequences of continued Israeli excavations in occupied Jerusalem al-Quds. Similarly, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, which is the foremost religious institution for Sunni Muslims, criticized Israel’s attempts to alter the identity of Jerusalem al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque. In a statement, Al-Azhar urged all countries to adopt decisive positions in order to stop Israel’s repeated disregard for the rights of the Palestinian people, their land and holy sites. It further reiterated its firm opposition to any measures that would infringe the rights of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. | Michael Sullivan | https://www.therussophile.org/anger-grows-over-israels-controversial-al-quds-dig-in-presence-of-us-officials.html/ | 2019-07-02 06:55:06+00:00 | 1,562,064,906 | 1,567,537,167 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
197,939 | fortruss--2019-01-17--RUSSIA RISING Russia On Course to be Top 5 Economy by 2020 DESPITE Sanctions | 2019-01-17T00:00:00 | fortruss | RUSSIA RISING: Russia On Course to be Top 5 Economy by 2020 DESPITE Sanctions | RUSSIA RISING: Russia On Course to be Top 5 Economy by 2020 DESPITE Sanctions MOSCOW, Russia – Despite years of Western sanctions, Russia will become the fifth largest economy in the world next year, surpassing Germany and the United Kingdom, British bank Standard Chartered said in its long-term growth forecast. In a report describing projections about the world economy by 2030, the bank said that China will likely bring down the US to become the world’s largest economy sometime next year when measured by a combination of purchasing power parity, exchange rates and nominal gross domestic product. Beijing will be followed by the USA, India, Japan and Russia in the top five. The top 10 countries will also include Germany, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey and the United Kingdom. “By 2020, most of the world’s population will be classified as middle class. Asia will lead the rise of middle-class populations, even as the middle classes stagnate in the West,” said Standard Chartered researcher Madhur Jha. The report predicted that Asian economies will grow significantly in the next decade, taking seven of the top ten in the list of the world’s largest economies by 2030. Last week, the World Bank said in its economic outlook it expects Russia’s GDP growth rate to rise to 1.8 percent in 2020 and 2021. The bank said the Russian economy grew 1.6 percent last year, registering “relatively low and stable inflation and increasing oil production”, despite the more restrictive economic sanctions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2019 to 1.8%. The positive impact of rising world oil prices on the Russian economy would outweigh the negative effect of Washington’s sanctions, the IMF said. Meanwhile, official figures from the Federal Bureau of Statistics showed that Europe’s largest economy, Germany, decelerated sharply in 2018. It grew by 1.5% last year, its lowest rate since 2013. A weaker global economy problems in the auto industry were cited as contributing to the slowdown. | Paul Antonopoulos | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/01/russia-rising-russia-on-course-to-be-top-5-economy-by-2020-despite-sanctions/ | 2019-01-17 18:00:30+00:00 | 1,547,766,030 | 1,567,552,110 | economy, business and finance | economy |
198,064 | fortruss--2019-02-01--Ukraines economy to collapse without Russia | 2019-02-01T00:00:00 | fortruss | Ukraine’s economy to collapse without Russia | KIEV, Ukraine – Kiev must stop being a “beggar” who humbles himself to the West and normalize relations with Moscow, otherwise its economy will collapse, opines former minister of the country. When it comes to Russian-Ukrainian relations, there is a threat of an economic collapse for Ukraine, says former Minister of Infrastructure Yegeny Chervonenko. “There is an objective reality – January is almost over, and together with it, European quotas end. The figures are indomitable,” he told TV NewsOne . In his view, it would be better for Ukraine to conduct an independent policy and stop acting as a “beggar” who humbles himself to the West. Instead, Kiev should establish a dialogue with Moscow. At the same time, the former minister recalled that Russia has not taken any action against the factories of the president of Ukraine, Pyotr Poroshenko, nor against three million Ukrainians who are working in Russian territory, since “Ukraine does not give opportunities.” Moscow and Kiev have negotiated trade restrictions since September 2015. Russia has repeatedly said it will suspend the bans in response to similar actions by Ukraine. At the end of December last year, the Russian government expanded the list of banned Ukrainian products for import. Both food products and industrial products have entered the list. The Russian measure was taken in response to the Kiev sanctions. After the Euromaidan (nationalist demonstrations) in 2014, Ukraine’s economy is declining. Kiev is attempting to carry out economic reforms by borrowing from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which affects the well-being of citizens: taxes are rising while wages and pensions remain low. It also increased the country’s external debt. Ukraine, despite being economically dependent on Russia, chooses at every moment to prioritize hostile relations to serve Western imperialist and corporate interests. For this reason, Ukraine has one of the worse economies in the western world despite being highly industrialized. | Paul Antonopoulos | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/02/ukraines-economy-to-collapse-without-russia/ | 2019-02-01 20:39:49+00:00 | 1,549,071,589 | 1,567,550,027 | economy, business and finance | economy |
199,706 | fortruss--2019-09-30--China-US trade war pulls German economy into recession | 2019-09-30T00:00:00 | fortruss | China-US trade war pulls German economy into recession | The largest economy in the European Union is experiencing serious problems as China and the United States introduce new duties on mutual trade, and Brexit can bring a new batch of problems for Germany under the accelerated scenario. Expectations of a recession in the German economy intensified after German GDP declined 0.1% in the second quarter. If the decline is recorded in the third quarter ending on September 30, the fact of the recession will be recognized by formal indicators. So far, the sharp slowdown in the German economy is mainly due to external factors – the German domestic market is holding quite confidently. However, it is difficult to count on a quick recovery in world trade, and the problems of the German economy are already beginning to exert influence on other countries of the European Union. According to the September forecast of the German Institute for Macroeconomics and Market Research (IMK), the country’s economy is in a state of “acute threat of recession” – its probability is estimated at 59.4%, although in August this figure was 43%. The Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich predicts a 0.1% decline in German GDP in the third quarter, while the Kiel Institute of Economics expects an even larger drop of 0.3%. The OECD forecast was also published in mid-September, according to which German GDP will grow by only 0.5% this year, and growth by 0.6% is expected next year. This is significantly worse than the expected growth in the eurozone as a whole (1.1% and 1%, respectively) and compared with the previous forecast. The OECD’s previous forecast estimated Germany’s economy to grow by 0.7% in 2019 and 1.2% in 2020. The main pressure on the export-oriented German economy is creating a reduction in world trade, primarily due to the trade war between China and the United States. Signs of problems were noticeable last year, when the volume of new export orders for German enterprises began to decline, falling to the level of the end of 2016. At the same time, the dynamics of German industry began to slow down, especially in industries such as engineering, pharmaceuticals and the chemical industry. In July, when the industrial production index decreased by 0.6%, a number of executives of the largest German auto parts manufacturing companies reported that realities turned out to be worse than their pessimistic scenarios. The reduction in orders from automakers hit the business of the world’s largest chemical concern BASF, “Weakness in industry spreads like an oil slick to other sectors of the economy. The weakness of the situation is already affecting the labor market: unemployment in Germany has been recorded for the fourth consecutive month, ” Timo Wolmershuiser, an Ifo Institute expert, quotes the German news agency Deutche Welle . Not only economists expect a recession: according to an August assessment by Ifo, the German business sentiment index fell for the fifth consecutive time, dropping to a minimum since November 2012. China became Germany’s main trading partner in 2016, displacing the United States, which immediately moved to third place after France. Donald Trump Protectionist Policies Contribute to US Reduction, which was dissatisfied with the almost twofold lag in US imports to Germany from German exports to the United States (for 2015, respectively, 60.7 billion and 113.2 billion euros). On the contrary, in the case of China, the Germans were faced with the task of reducing the mutual trade deficit, which in 2015 amounted to 20.6 billion euros. Over the past three years, due to the growth of German exports to China, this imbalance has noticeably decreased: last year, the volume of Chinese imports to Germany amounted to 106.2 billion euros, the export of German goods to China reached 93.1 billion euros, including due to the German auto industry. Exactly a year ago, under the influence of the trade war, Germany became a leader in the export of cars to the Chinese market. In general, China last year retained first place in total trade with Germany, ahead of the Netherlands (189.4 billion euros) and the United States (178 billion euros). But already in February of this year, Germany faced a fall in foreign trade – exports fell by 1.3% compared to the same month of 2018, and imports fell by 1.6%. According to data as of mid-August, German exports fell already by 5.1% compared to the same period of the previous year (to $ 632.9 billion), and industrial production was also declining at the same pace. “The weakening of world trade, the global struggle in the automotive industry, Brexit and China’s economic problems are bringing a perfect storm for Germany,” said Keith Jax , strategy expert at French bank Societe Generale, for CNN in August . In early September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a two-day official visit to Beijing , who had to take a very difficult line in negotiations with the PRC leadership. On the one hand, Hong Kong protest activists counted on Merkel’s support, sending a letter to the German chancellor reminding them of an international campaign to support civil rights activists in the GDR three decades ago. On the other hand, representatives of German business announced problems with the bureaucracy in doing business in China. During negotiations with Premier of the State Council of China Li KeqiangMerkel said that in order to resolve the situation in Hong Kong, the parties need to refrain from violence, while urging “not to impede the development process of China.” In addition, the German chancellor expressed the hope that an agreement on the protection of investment between China and the European Union will be concluded in the near future. As for the economic relations between Germany and the USA, here one of the most negative expected scenarios is the introduction of 25 percent duties on the import of German cars and auto parts into America. Donald Trump announced the relevant plans in February, but they were postponed for six months after the European Commission announced a response in the form of duties on US exports in the amount of 20 billion euros. This timeout expires in mid-October. Another serious risk for the German and European automobile industry as a whole is Brexit. A few days ago, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (EAMA) issued a statement signed by 23 automakers, which said that in the event of a tough scenario for Britain to exit the European Union, the automobile industry would face a “genuine earthquake”. The possible restoration of customs barriers will lead to huge costs for automakers, and Germany will be among the most affected, given its significant investment in the British auto industry (for example, companies such as Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Mini). | Joaquin Flores | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/09/china-us-trade-war-pulls-german-economy-into-recession/ | 2019-09-30 16:56:35+00:00 | 1,569,876,995 | 1,570,221,922 | economy, business and finance | economy |
200,030 | fortruss--2019-11-18--Decentralization of the Russian economy shows positive results | 2019-11-18T00:00:00 | fortruss | Decentralization of the Russian economy shows positive results | MOSCOW – According to the French portal Les Échos, the lower use of the US dollar in the Russian economy produced good results and favored the ruble. With rising tensions between Russia and the United States in 2014, Moscow is increasingly reducing its dependence on the dollar, both to circumvent US sanctions and to strengthen its economic power. As published by the French portal Les Échos, such a policy has been presented by the increasing use of national currencies in trade between Russia and countries like Iran, China and Turkey, all who have strained relations with Washington. In addition, Russian currency reserves in the BRICS countries increased, thus favoring trade between these countries, which amounted to the equivalent of $125 billion in 2018, which was also confirmed by the president of the BRICS VTB bank, Andrei Kostin. “The share of non-dollar payments to the EU, China and BRICS countries has already exceeded 50%. Russian banks and US companies have reduced their dependence on dollar financing. The share of US dollar assets in Russian reserves is already halved,” said Kostin. Still according to the media, the Russian ruble had fallen 17% against the dollar in 2018. However, with the dollarization the Russian currency has risen 7.6% since then. Such a result could indicate greater independence of the ruble against the US currency. This comes as the Russian Ministry of Finance has reported that the country will not borrow in US dollars until 2021. “We will borrow in currencies other than the dollar,” Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Thursday, adding that the country will not borrow any more in 2019. “This year we have no plans to borrow more in foreign markets, we have fulfilled our program and even exceeded it. Next year we will see. It will probably not only be in euros, but perhaps in [Chinese] yuan,” said Siluanov. In March, the Russian ministry issued €2.7 billion of Eurobonds due 2035. Three months later, the Finance Department issued €1.37 billion of additional Eurobonds to mature in 2029 and €900 million in 2035. | Paul Antonopoulos | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/11/decentralization-of-the-russian-economy-shows-positive-results/ | Mon, 18 Nov 2019 10:33:17 +0000 | 1,574,091,197 | 1,574,103,843 | economy, business and finance | economy |
200,576 | fortune--2019-01-05--Americas Disastrous New Normal A Booming Economy and Soaring Deficits | 2019-01-05T00:00:00 | fortune | America’s Disastrous New Normal: A Booming Economy and Soaring Deficits | The U.S. is currently experiencing a disastrous “new normal”: The economy is booming at the same time that government debt and deficits are exploding. That scenario is a radical departure from the normally healthy, self-correcting interplay between economic growth and budget shortfalls—and its likely long-term consequences are worth losing sleep over. In almost every other period in recent history, U.S. deficits have been counter-cyclical. When growth weakens, unemployment rises, so that fewer people are paying taxes. Falling profits shrink revenues from corporate levies, and the government frequently enacts emergency spending measures to recharge the economy. The shrinking tax receipts and temporary outlays swell the deficit. When the economy revives, in contrast, an expanding workforce and a surge in earnings lifts revenues and narrows the budget gap. What’s remarkable is that the countervailing forces have held debt and deficits in a relatively tight range, keeping our fiscal course well outside the danger zone. The gap between outlays and revenues generally fluctuates, from deficits seldom exceeding 4% of GDP to occasional surpluses, so that over the long-term, annual shortfalls have averaged around 2%. The U.S. economy has been able to handle those modest deficits with ease. So long as GDP growth matched or exceeded 2%, federal debt as a share of national income remained constant, or even declined. Today, that trend is reversing. Growth and deficits are moving upward in tandem, something that’s happened only briefly in the past. In 2018, GDP expanded at a robust 3.1%, and the Congressional Budget Office forecasts a decent 2.4% reading for 2019. Yet the agency predicts that the deficit will jump by 46% to $970 billion in 2020, rising to 4.6% of GDP, and that the shortfall will grow to 7.1% of GDP by 2028 if Congress extends tax reductions that are scheduled to sunset, a likely outcome. A December 13 report from the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Budget (“The Deficit Has Never Been This High When the Economy Was This Strong“) points out that past periods of big deficits were usually accompanied by high unemployment and a large “output gap,” meaning that the economy was operating far below its potential because a big share of the workforce, and swaths of manufacturing capacity, stood idle. The CRFB notes that at the time of the 1992 recession, the unemployment rate was 7.4%, the output gap reached 3.5%, and GDP had contracted slightly the previous year, factors that drove the deficit up to 4.5% of GDP. In 2009, the U.S. had a jobless reading of 8.5%, an output gap of 5.9%, and a no-growth economy that pushed deficits to 9.8% of GDP, a number inflated by a wave of emergency spending. By contrast, today a record-low 3.4% of the workforce is unemployed, the economy is operating above potential, and growth last year exceeded 3%. Yet the deficit is projected to jump from 3.9% this year to 4.6% next year, with higher numbers to come. “Those numbers show that fast growth cannot wash away the deficit, and that deficits will keep getting bigger even at 3% growth,” says Marc Goldwein, CRFB’s senior policy director. What’s really scary, says Goldwein, is that the CBO projects that the rate of U.S. economic expansion will drop below 2% by 2020, and stay in the sub-2% range for the next eight years. As he points out, growth in the range the CBO projects would drive deficits to over $1.5 trillion by 2028, and push the ratio of total outstanding federal debt to GDP to around 100%, an extremely dangerous number. As Goldwein acknowledges, the U.S. could keep piling on seemingly unsustainable debt and deficits for years, without triggering a financial crisis. “You don’t know if a crisis will come next year, or far in the future,” he says. “What you do know is that even now, the deficits are curbing growth.” The U.S. must issue gigantic volumes of Treasury bills and bonds to fund the deficits, and many investors and companies purchase those safe securities instead of channeling that money into entrepreneurial ventures, or providing private enterprises with fresh capital for new plants and data centers. Each year, Goldwein says, deficits divert an estimated $5 trillion a year that could be spurring private enterprises into Treasuries, slightly lowering growth year after year in a cycle that will make the U.S. economy significantly smaller in a decade than if deficits were shrinking. Big and growing deficits pose a second near-term threat, even if the U.S. avoids a funding crisis. Growing interest payments will crowd out spending that’s needed for social programs. “Government interest payments next year will exceed everything the federal government spends on children, including child tax credits, school lunches and the like,” says Goldwein. “That means we’ll spend more for the past generation than investing in the future generation.” By 2028, the CBO projects, interest on the debt could reach $1 trillion, or more than one dollar in eight of all spending, versus one in thirteen in 2018. The deficit’s big driver is demographics. Even if the economy expanded at 3% or more a year, revenues wouldn’t remotely rise fast enough to cover exploding healthcare and retirement costs for the fast-growing population of seniors. Nevertheless, recent, mainly misguided, legislation is making the problem a lot worse. The budget agreement of 2018 that expanded both military and domestic spending, and 2017 tax bill, will add a combined $420 billion to the 2019 deficit; if those measures hadn’t been enacted, the shortfall would be just 2.6% of GDP. Goldwein fears that the Trump administration and Congress will reach another budget-busting compromise this year. Both parties are championing a big infrastructure deal. President Trump advocates financing the new outlays by raising the gasoline tax; the Democrats want to lift levies on the rich. It’s probable that the two sides will deadlock on raising revenues, and enact the new spending sans funding, adding even more to the deficit. The outlook isn’t all bleak. The Trump administration is advancing a number of promising proposals to attack galloping healthcare costs. It’s seeking legislation to reduce pay for doctors employed by hospitals to the scale that applies to private physicians. Trump also seeks to shift enrollees in Medicare Part D to cheaper generic drugs, and to start negotiating lower prices on pharmaceuticals prescribed by private physicians under Medicare Part B. Another promising area is removing loopholes from the huge new deduction granted to small businesses, by eliminating incentives for individuals to register as self-employed in order to avoid taxes. Those reforms would help. But only radical entitlement reform, a big new source of revenue, or a combination of the two, can tame future deficits, and forestall a looming funding crisis. A few years ago, I wrote a piece citing two figures who agree on almost nothing. Paul Ryan (in his pre-speaker days) and economist-pundit Paul Krugman, both contended that if nothing is done to restrain spending, America may turn to a European-style value-added tax (VAT). Unsurprisingly, Ryan despised that course, and Krugman embraced it. “We could get a funding crisis, and Democrats will claim that that only a VAT will save the country,” Ryan told me. Goldwein agrees that a VAT may be in American’s future. “The longer we wait, the more likely a VAT,” he says. The shame is that because Congress and the Administration are refusing to act, America may be forced into a solution that will take the pressure from where it should be––cutting spending––and permanently raise the size of government. In the process, a VAT could cap expansion of the private sector that funds that government. That’s the price America may pay for years of profligate spending, unfunded tax cuts, and fiddling in the face of fiscal disaster. | Shawn Tully | http://fortune.com/2019/01/05/us-economy-deficit-government/ | 2019-01-05 14:52:35+00:00 | 1,546,717,955 | 1,567,553,815 | economy, business and finance | economy |
200,858 | fortune--2019-01-12--US Economy Is Floating on an Ocean of Debt Gundlach Warns | 2019-01-12T00:00:00 | fortune | U.S. Economy Is Floating on an ‘Ocean of Debt’, Gundlach Warns | Jeffrey Gundlach said yet again that the U.S. economy is gorging on debt. Echoing many of the themes from his annual “Just Markets” webcast on Tuesday, Gundlach took part in a round-table of 10 of Wall Street’s smartest investors for Barron’s. He highlighted the dangers especially posed by the U.S. corporate bond market. Prolific sales of junk bonds and significant growth in investment grade corporate debt, coupled with the Federal Reserve weaning the market off quantitative easing, have resulted in what the DoubleLine Capital LP boss called “an ocean of debt.” The investment manager countered President Donald Trump’s claim that he’s presiding over the strongest economy ever. The growth is debt-based, he said. Gundlach’s forecast for real GDP expansion this year is just 0.5 percent. Citing numbers spinning out of the USDebtClock.org website, he pointed out that the U.S.’s unfunded liabilities are $122 trillion — or six times GDP. “I’m not looking for a terrible economy, but an artificially strong one, due to stimulus spending,” Gundlach told the panel. “We have floated incremental debt when we should be doing the opposite if the economy is so strong.” Gundlach is coming off another year in which his Total Return Bond Fund outperformed its fixed-income peers. It returned 1.8 percent in 2018, the best performance among the 10 largest actively managed U.S. bond funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gundlach expects further declines in the U.S. stock market, which recently have steadied after reeling for most of December since the Great Depression. Equities will be weak early in the year and strengthen later in 2019, effectively a reversal of what happened last year, he said. “So now we are in a bear market, which isn’t defined by me as stocks being down 20 percent. A bear market is determined by the way stocks are acting,” he said. Rupal Bhansali, chief investment officer of International & Global Equities at Ariel Investments, picked up on Gundlach’s debt theme in the Barron’s cover story. Citing General Electric’s woes, she urged investors to focus more on balance-sheet risk rather than whether a company could beat or miss earnings. Companies with net cash are worth looking at, she said. | Bloomberg | http://fortune.com/2019/01/12/jeffrey-gundlach-us-debt/ | 2019-01-12 17:37:40+00:00 | 1,547,332,660 | 1,567,552,784 | economy, business and finance | economy |
201,407 | fortune--2019-01-28--35-Day Government Shutdown Cost the US Economy 3 Billion in Permanent Losses | 2019-01-28T00:00:00 | fortune | 35-Day Government Shutdown Cost the U.S. Economy $3 Billion in Permanent Losses | The 35-day government shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion, of which $3 billion isn’t likely to be recovered. That’s according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. The $8 billion that should be recouped comes from the government reopening and federal workers receiving back pay, the CBO said. In total, losses amount to a 0.1% reduction in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 0.2% in the first quarter of 2019. The CBO estimates the lasting economic effects of the shutdown will cause the 2019 level of GDP—the value of all U.S. goods and services— to be 0.02% smaller than it would have been otherwise. Going forward, the shutdown has lowered the expected annualized economic growth rate by 0.4% in the first quarter of 2019, according to CBO estimates. In the fourth quarter of 2018, the shutdown decreased that rate by 0.2%. The most negatively affected? Federal workers who went weeks without pay and private sector companies that lost business, amounting to permanently foregone income. The CBO’s calculated losses also don’t include the indirect negative effects the CBO was unable to quantify. | Natasha Bach | http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/shutdown-cost-3-billion-cbo/ | 2019-01-28 16:14:31+00:00 | 1,548,710,071 | 1,567,550,535 | economy, business and finance | economy |
202,452 | fortune--2019-02-27--Global Economy May Have Already Bottomed Out Says Goldman Sachs | 2019-02-27T00:00:00 | fortune | Global Economy May Have Already Bottomed Out, Says Goldman Sachs | The global economy may have already bottomed out, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Economist Jan Hatzius. While growth remains soft, Goldman’s current activity indicator in February is slightly above the downwardly-revised December and January numbers. “Some green shoots are emerging that suggest that sequential growth will pick up from here,” Hatzius and Sven Jari Stehn wrote in a note dated Feb. 26. Still, the risk to Goldman’s global GDP forecast of 3.5 percent for 2019 “is probably still on the downside.” remains positive on risk assets, although upside is now probably lower as markets have become “more sanguine on recession” expects bond yields to rise maintains a bearish dollar view, given a dovish Fed and expectation for a pickup in global growth is modestly bullish on oil over the next 2-3 months, but sees a more bearish outlook for the remainder of the year’The case for a pickup from the current pace is strongest in the U.S. as the drag from a tightening of financial conditions eases, according to Hatzius. Goldman also sees tentative signs of a turnaround in Chinese growth. That’s in line with Bloomberg’s snapshot of early indicators of activity: Some executives remain cautious. Jamie Dimon, Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., used the bank’s annual presentation to investors to acknowledge a growing number of potential obstacles to the economy that carried his firm to record profits last year. “We are prepared for a recession,” Dimon said. “We’re not predicting a recession. We’re simply pointing out that we are very conscious about the risks we bear.” Goldman reckons Europe looks like the weakest major region, “with Italy in recession, Germany close to it, and most other economies growing at only about a trend pace,” according to the note. Goldman has pushed back its expectations for the first ECB hike from late-2019 to mid-2020. As for the Fed, Goldman says the prospects for moves in the next 6 to 9 months have fallen and an increase toward the end of the year would require a rebound in both growth and core inflation. It expects an announcement at the March meeting that the Fed will end balance sheet runoff later this year, probably in September. | Malcolm Scott, Bloomberg | https://fortune.com/2019/02/27/goldman-sachs-global-economy/ | 2019-02-27 10:41:58+00:00 | 1,551,282,118 | 1,567,547,131 | economy, business and finance | economy |
203,316 | fortune--2019-04-08--SP Global CEO Says Hiring More Women Could Boost Economy By 8 | 2019-04-08T00:00:00 | fortune | S&P Global CEO Says Hiring More Women Could Boost Economy By 8% | S&P Global CEO Doug Peterson is on a campaign to hire and promote women more in the workforce. He calls it “Change Pays.” He says it makes economic sense and he has the numbers to prove it. “If the U.S. had promoted women at the same rate as countries like Norway,” he says, “the economy could grow by 8 percent or $1.6 trillion dollars.” Peterson is calling on business leaders to create benchmarks to reach gender parity. That includes his own company, S&P Global, the giant data and financial firm that is ranked on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in America. He says there are four women on the company’s board of directors and women account for 30 percent of the executive ranks at S&P. But he confesses, “We need to do a lot more. We have to hold ourselves accountable.” The S&P “Change Pays” initiative comes as a California law now requires that all public companies based in the Golden State have at least one woman on their boards. By the end of 2021, most will need three, a change that could cause a significant shift in gender equality at American companies. When Peterson talks with CEOs, he has a simple message that he hopes will bring about change. “What I say to business leaders is, ‘What do you want for your daughter? What do you want for your cousin? What do you want for your sister? And what kind of opportunities do you want for women in the world?'” he says. “And this is the way you have to think about it.” Watch the video above for more from my interview with Peterson. | Susie Gharib | http://fortune.com/2019/04/08/sp-global-ceo-doug-peterson-change-pays/ | 2019-04-08 18:49:08+00:00 | 1,554,763,748 | 1,567,543,580 | economy, business and finance | economy |
204,944 | fortune--2019-07-25--Theres a Refugee Pay Gapand Its Costing the Global Economy Trillions | 2019-07-25T00:00:00 | fortune | There’s a Refugee Pay Gap—and It’s Costing the Global Economy Trillions | Underutilized. Underpaid. Underemployed. And the global economy is $1.4 trillion worse off because of it. That’s the assessment of an extensive new report covering the untapped economic—not to mention, societal—value of refugee women released on Wednesday by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) and International Rescue Committee (IRC). Refugee women don’t just face a pay gap worthy of the loudest “equal pay!” chant, they are systematically and routinely shut out of the market by restrictive labor laws, increased threats of violence, all forms of discrimination, as well as regulatory and administrative barriers in their host countries. That all adds up to big losses for the global economy. The report’s authors calculate that were those employment and earnings gaps to be closed, the global GDP would climb $1.4 trillion annually. (Add refugee men and women and the estimate climbs to $2.5 trillion.) Locking refugee women out of the U.S. economy alone costs the country $1.6 billion. From Washington to Brussels, immigration policy is dividing countries from within, with leaders on the right and left drawing starkly different positions on how to handle the flow of migrants—it’s estimated there are 70 million displaced people around the world—across the border. Hardline politicians and their base want more barriers on new entrants into their home markets. This week, the Trump Administration sought expanded powers to fast-track the deportation of undocumented individuals in the country. Economists and civil rights activists, meanwhile, have repeatedly warned that by excluding this group from the labor market, the entire economy suffers. Refugee parents often are forced to keep their children out of school, and their skills as shopkeepers, artisans and entrepreneurs are never allowed to flourish in the marketplace. "This is not a zero-sum game,” said Melanne Verveer, GIWPS Executive Director. “When refugee women are gainfully employed, they and their families benefit—along with their communities and host countries. Our findings underscore the need for regulatory reforms and policy change to unlock refugee women’s potential.” The report zeroed in on Turkey, Uganda, Lebanon, Jordan, Germany, and theU.S.—six countries which together host almost eight million refugees, or 40% of the world’s refugee population. The authors then extrapolated their findings across the top 30-refugee hosting countries, which host 90% of the world's refugees. A vast disparity in employment rates across the six countries it surveyed. At 40%, the U.S. had the highest refugee women employment rate. Germany, Jordan and Lebanon had the lowest at 6%. Drilling down into earnings, refugee women are consistently short-changed. Turkey is the biggest offender where a pay gap of roughly 94 cents per dollar exists between refugee women and host men. In the U.S. that same gap is roughly 29 cents per dollar earned. Closing the pay gap and discriminatorylabor barriers could boost overall GDP by $53 billion in the six countriesstudied. IRC’s president and CEO David Miliband said they plan to use the findings of the report to push policy makers for meaningful change in refugee labor practices. “For example,” he said, “candidates to lead the International Monetary Fund, must be asked if they will continue Christine Lagarde's focus on closing the gender pay gaps around the world, and how they plan to address the specific issue of women refugees.” —You might have longer than you think to invest for retirement —Facebook’s Libra currency could threaten the global financial system —The surprising way Republicans used to use immigration to boost the economy —One of Warren Buffet’s favorite metrics is flashing red. Corporate profits are due for a hit Don't miss the daily Term Sheet, Fortune's newsletter on deals and dealmakers. | Bernhard Warner | https://fortune.com/2019/07/25/refugee-pay-gap-costing-trillions/ | 2019-07-25 14:42:58+00:00 | 1,564,080,178 | 1,567,535,843 | economy, business and finance | economy |
205,150 | fortune--2019-08-01--Is Easy Money From the Fed Turning the US Economy Japanese | 2019-08-01T00:00:00 | fortune | Is Easy Money From the Fed Turning the U.S. Economy Japanese? | Ruchir Sharma, the Chief Global Strategist for Morgan Stanley, is worried easy money from the Fed could cause an economic crisis in the United States similar to the three-decade malaise of deflation and low growth experienced in Japan. Sharma shared the following in The New York Times: In this environment, cutting rates could hasten exactly the outcome that the Fed is trying to avoid. By further driving up the prices of stocks, bonds and real estate, and encouraging risky borrowing, more easy money could set the stage for a collapse in the financial markets. And that could be followed by an economic downturn and falling prices — much as in Japan in the 1990s. The more expensive these financial assets become, the more precarious the situation, and the more difficult it will be to defuse without setting off a downturn. It's certainly possible the Fed could be blowing bubbles by continuing to keep interest rates low. Valuations are already at nosebleed levels in U.S. stocks and no one really knows what the impact will be from a decade or so of keeping rates on the floor. But it's important to draw some distinctions between the markets in Japan back in the 1980s and what's going on in the U.S. today. While it's true U.S. stocks have had an unbelievable run over the past 10 years or so, it pales in comparison to the magnificent bubble in Japan during the 1980s. In his book Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor provides many anecdotes and stats that show how insane the Japanese real estate and stock market bubble was in that time: In the 10 year period from 1980-1989, the MSCI Japan Index was up 1142% or nearly 29% per year. And that's after it was up nearly 400% (17.4% per year) from 1970-1979. Through the end of June 2019, the S&P 500 is up 14.7% per year (300% in total). The 10 years prior to that, the S&P was down 20% or more than 2% per year. One of the biggest reasons U.S. stocks are up so much over the past 10 years is because they performed so terribly in the preceding 10 years. This is more about mean reversion than a runaway bubble. A $100,000 investment in Japanese large-cap stocks in 1970 would have turned into $5.7 million by 1989. A $100,000 investment in large-cap U.S. stocks in 1999 would have turned into less than $315,000 by June 2019. This is one of the reasons the overhang in Japan was so severe. They pulled forward decades and decades of returns. We have a long way to go to ever catch up to the atmospheric rise in Japanese financial assets. Until they began raising interest rates in late-2015, the Fed effectively kept short-term interest rates at zero for nearly a decade. Although the stock market recovered mightily in this time, it doesn't appear the U.S. consumer went on a crazy borrowing spree. Household debt to GDP has fallen substantially as consumers have slowly but surely repaired their balance sheets following the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression. This means there is now more income available to service household debt. If anything, U.S. households were taking more credit risk during the housing bubble even though yields were higher as the Fed began raising rates in the mid-2000s. And according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the quality of debt people are taking on is also improving. Fewer people are taking out mortgages from the peak housing bubble years but much of the drop off has come from borrowers with low credit scores: One of the reasons things got so out of hand during the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 is because the debt was being issued hand over fist to low-quality borrowers. A combination of high debt levels with lower income and credit quality meant the first signs of trouble in the housing market sent borrowers into a tailspin. Both the debt service level and credit quality of borrowers have improved in the aftermath of the crisis. All of this is not to say that the U.S. can't or won't experience downturns or credit busts in the future. Anything is possible. But the U.S. has a long way to go to reach the levels of craziness that were exhibited in Japan in the 1980s or even here in the mid-2000s. Ben Carlson, CFA is the Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. | Ben Carlson | https://fortune.com/2019/08/01/fed-rate-cut-us-recession-japan/ | 2019-08-01 18:25:51+00:00 | 1,564,698,351 | 1,567,535,126 | economy, business and finance | economy |
205,590 | fortune--2019-08-23--Mastercard CEO How to Make the Digital Economy Work for Everyone | 2019-08-23T00:00:00 | fortune | Mastercard CEO: How to Make the Digital Economy Work for Everyone | For the last 75 years, globalization has emerged as one of the most powerful forces in human history in alleviating poverty, significantly expanding the middle class, and enhancing prosperity around the world. But, while the benefits of globalization have been significant, they have not always been broadly shared. And while economic growth has been substantial, that growth has not included all. Tomorrow the G7 will convene to discuss economic inequality. Tackling inequality starts with inclusion. This is true of any of the themes being raised by our global leaders—equal access to opportunity regardless of gender or origins, more fair and equitable economic policies, maximizing the potential of digital technologies. So how do we level the playing field for all those being left behind? Four years ago, Mastercard set out to achieve financial inclusion for 500 million unbanked people by 2020. We acknowledge that reaching this goal, however, is the beginning of the journey. We need to do more to help people achieve financial security and realize their full potential in today’s dynamic digital economy. We have seen how advances in digital technology can be a spark for the well-being of communities and countries. Yet globally, more than a billion people cannot prove their identity, and 1.7 billion adults lack access to any financial services. This isn’t a developed or developing world problem alone. Bridging the inequality gaps we face today requires us all to think about how technology and innovative partnerships can help people be their most productive, whether they need training, tools, services, access to capital, savings, insurance, or simply connectivity. We are seeing this come to life in a program we’re piloting with Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG), the world’s largest coffee trader, which has enabled hundreds of smallholder farmers in Latin America to be paid immediately, directly, and digitally. Operating in a digital supply chain, these farmers now have greater visibility into the market and prices, quicker payment options, and more access to financial services. NKG has more insight into its sourcing, boosting the company’s ability to extend credit to farmers going forward so they can safely grow their businesses and save for the future. This is just one example. We all have an opportunity across the private and public sectors to work together to better understand the needs of the most vulnerable and customize solutions to meet those needs. For Mastercard that means creating opportunities for women in factories to be paid safely and securely for their work. It means unlocking credit for microbusiness owners. It means helping families in the most remote areas easily pay school fees and keep their lights on. Making the digital economy work for everyone everywhere requires tackling some of society’s most basic problems. For example, identity documentation helps governments establish residents’ rights to national benefits. A well-designed digital identity ecosystem allows institutions to serve the individual with ease and at low cost. Every individual in the world should be the owner of their own identity and should be able to define it, protect it, and use it to advance their goals. This is where we and other entities are looking to add further support. This isn’t just an issue of philanthropy or corporate social responsibility, as important as those are. This is about businesses achieving commercially sustainable social impact, aligning their business models and products and services with broader social and economic imperatives. This is not at odds with delivering shareholder returns, but the means by which to do so. This is part of a long-standing commitment at Mastercard to do well by doing good, a sentiment which I believe most CEOs agree with, as the recent statement from my colleagues at the Business Roundtable also demonstrates. Growth is not sustainable if it is not inclusive. Financial inclusion is just the first step. Ajay Banga is the president and CEO of Mastercard. —Girls Who Code CEO: Men need to be brave in the service of women —Delivering on the promise of purpose beyond profits —Regulate fintechs for what they do, not what they don’t —Retaining good employees is tougher than ever, but offering paid family leave can help —Supporting LGBT employees is a patriotic act Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily | jakemeth | https://fortune.com/2019/08/23/g7-meeting-mastercard-business-roundtable/ | 2019-08-23 13:00:28+00:00 | 1,566,579,628 | 1,567,533,602 | economy, business and finance | economy |
206,161 | fortune--2019-09-18--Recession Watch The Yield Curve Suggests Some Worry About the Economy Has Passed | 2019-09-18T00:00:00 | fortune | Recession Watch: The Yield Curve Suggests Some Worry About the Economy Has Passed | Just a few weeks ago, the big bond market story was yield curve inversion—when shorter-maturity bonds pay more in interest than longer ones—and the 30-year Treasury dropping to an historical low yield of under 2%. Today, after a few weeks of cooling and the Fed having cut an interest rates an additional 0.25%, things seem calmer. Yields on bonds are higher than they were at the beginning of September and the big type of inversion that investors watch—when the yield of the 2-year bond is higher than that of the 10-year—that happened in August has reversed itself again. That suggests some worry about the economy may have passed. "We've had a very aggressive move down in yields and we're taking a breather," said Ed Al-Hussainy, senior interest rate and currency analyst at Columbia Threadneedle. "The pullback of rates of last week was in response to an overbought, technical condition," agreed Raul Elizalde, chief investment officer and president at Path Financial. "Traders had jumped on a trend of lower and lower rates and long positions in bonds were piling on each other." In other words, investors expected yields to continue dropping, making bonds with higher yields worth more. The tendency to jump on trends has "become more prevalent in recent years," notes to Elizalde, which can magnify moves in either direction. The rush to bonds really heated up in early August as investors, worried about an escalation of trade tensions between the U.S. and China, looked for a safe haven for their money. The more institutions and individuals that buy bonds, the higher the price goes, as laws of supply and demand kick in. And the higher the prices, the lower the yields, which move inversely. "The goodwill gestures by both China and the U.S. to work on their differences and resume trade talks may have been the catalyst to get everyone standing on one side of the boat to run to the other side," said Blaine Rollins, managing director and portfolio manager for 361 Capital. Related: Yes, the market will eventually crash. Here’s how to be ready for the next one Now, after the attacks on Saudi Arabia oil fields and the Fed's announcement of an expected rate cut, Treasurys have moved back small amounts. According to data from Bloomberg, as of 2 p.m. on Wednesday, the 30-year bond was yielding 2.22% instead of Friday's 2.37%, the 10-year is at 1.76% rather than 1.9%, the 2-year dropped from 1.79% to 1.71%, but the 6-month up from 1.88% to 1.89% and the 3-month landing at 1.92% from Friday's 1.99%. "As long as US Treasuries continue to have positive rates, they will remain hugely attractive to the rest of the developed world, much of which is trading well in negative-rate territory," Elizalde said. A difficulty in discussing yield curves is that the term is slippery. It refers to a comparison of one maturity-length government bond's yield compared to another. There could be an inversion between 2-year and 10-year bonds at a given time but not between 2-year and 20-year or 30-year. So inversion can be an issue of degree. In addition is the question of how long the inversion lasts. A few months is more serious than a few weeks—at least it historically was—and we've had a couple of short-term yield inversions so far this year, the latest having started in mid-August. But no one has ever been able to track the predictive efficiency of yield inversions at times of ultra-low interest rates while the Fed reduces them even more. The good news, at least in the short term? Even when yield curves have heralded recessions, it has taken anywhere from 10 to 22 months for the economic slowdown to happen. Now to see what effect, if any, the Fed's rate cut will ultimately have. —Are we near a recession? The godfather of the inverted yield curve says it's "code red" —Saudi Aramco is getting what it’s long wanted—perhaps at the expense of its IPO —Passive investing has exploded. But here’s why fears of a bubble are overblown —Why the next recession may feel very different than 2008 —U.S. recession indicators haven’t made up their minds Don't miss the daily Term Sheet, Fortune's newsletter on deals and dealmakers. | Erik Sherman | https://fortune.com/2019/09/18/recession-update-yield-curve-economy-treasury-bonds/ | 2019-09-18 19:47:33+00:00 | 1,568,850,453 | 1,569,329,951 | economy, business and finance | economy |
206,613 | fortune--2019-10-08--Trump’s Tariffs Were Supposed to Ding China, But the U.S. Economy Is Getting Hit 2.5x Harder | 2019-10-08T00:00:00 | fortune | Trump’s Tariffs Were Supposed to Ding China, But the U.S. Economy Is Getting Hit 2.5x Harder | Facebook Brings Workplace to Portal Devices, Moving in on WebEx, Skype, and Zoom’s Teleconference Turf | Shawn Tully | https://fortune.com/2019/10/08/trump-china-tariffs-trade-war-us-economy-impact/ | Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:55:09 +0000 | 1,570,568,109 | 1,570,573,080 | economy, business and finance | economy |
206,867 | fortune--2019-10-17--Is the U.S. Consumer ‘Wavering’? Slowing Retail Sales Are a Warning Sign That the Economy May Be in | 2019-10-17T00:00:00 | fortune | Is the U.S. Consumer ‘Wavering’? Slowing Retail Sales Are a Warning Sign That the Economy May Be in Trouble | When Trade Wars Hit You in the Stomach—Tariffs on This Beloved Italian Cheese Go Into Effect in a Matter of Hours, and the Markets Are Grumbling | Kevin Kelleher | https://fortune.com/2019/10/17/consumer-spending-retail-sales-economic-warning-sign/ | Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:38:08 +0000 | 1,571,323,088 | 1,571,314,341 | economy, business and finance | economy |
207,849 | fortune--2019-12-10--3 Lessons for Today’s Economy from Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s Long and Storied Career | 2019-12-10T00:00:00 | fortune | 3 Lessons for Today’s Economy from Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s Long and Storied Career | Netflix Expects 40 Million Households to Watch ‘The Irishman’ Over the First Month | Erik Sherman | https://fortune.com/2019/12/10/paul-volcker-career-lessons-fed-chair/ | Tue, 10 Dec 2019 22:00:04 +0000 | 1,576,033,204 | 1,576,022,771 | economy, business and finance | economy |
210,906 | foxnews--2019-05-03--Surging economy complicates Dems 2020 message against Trump | 2019-05-03T00:00:00 | foxnews | Surging economy complicates Dems’ 2020 message against Trump | President Trump might as well stick his tweet Friday morning on a campaign bumper sticker: "JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!" The social media declaration came as the Labor Department reported robust new economic numbers, saying employers added 263,000 jobs in April as the unemployment rate dropped to a 49-year low. The stats only bolstered the president's economy-focused message as he gears up for what is sure to be a grueling 2020 re-election fight. As Democrats increasingly make the election about the president's character and controversies, the string of positive jobs reports are complicating any efforts to expand that message to run on more traditional kitchen-table issues. "I'll be running on the economy," Trump said flatly, speaking to reporters at the White House Friday. Trump's campaign was quick to tout the numbers as well, with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declaring "the era of low expectations for American workers and their families is long over thanks to the Trump economy." She added in a statement, "With this kind of momentum, we look forward to hearing the economic plans of the Democrats as they spin tales about Americans not feeling the results of the Trump economy, when in fact workers everywhere can feel the boom!” The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent with the latest report. While part of that drop was due to an increased number of Americans who've stopped looking for work, the jobless rate is at its lowest level since 1969. Also of note: the average hourly pay for workers jumped 3.2 percent from a year ago, which is considered a very healthy increase by economists. The new numbers appear to put to rest fears earlier this year that the economy was heading toward recession. And they extend the nation's nearly decade-long recovery from the Great Recession. That economic recovery, which started during then-President Barack Obama's administration, is expected to become the longest in the nation's history come July. The president touted on Twitter that "we can all agree that AMERICA is now #1. We are the ENVY of the WORLD — and the best is yet to come!" as he re-tweeted a Drudge Report headline that read "ENVY OF THE WORD. UNEMPLOYMENT 49-YEAR LOW." While Trump spotlighted the new economic report, the news appears to make it a tougher sell for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination contenders on the economy, which remains a leading issue for voters. Many of the leading Democratic presidential candidates passed on reacting to the Labor Department's report. But former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, taking aim at Trump, argued that "nobody should be beating their chest over that ... We've got a long way to go." Hickenlooper, speaking with Fox News in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire before unveiling his own plans to boost the economy, admitted that "certainly we're making progress and that's great." But he added, "is it fast enough for most Americans? I don't think so." McEnany boasted that "the new jobs report is further proof that the Trump economy continues to boom and deliver benefits that all Americans are feeling." Her statement was an implicit shot at many of the leading Democratic contenders, who've continuously slammed the president as they argue the Trump tax cuts and the economic recovery have only benefited the wealthy and large corporations. "The middle class is hurting, it’s hurting now,” former Vice President Joe Biden declared on Monday in Pittsburgh, as he delivered the first speech of his newly declared White House bid. “The stock market is roaring. But you don’t feel it. There was a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it?” Biden asked, as the audience packed into a union hall chanted, "No." Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a top rival for the Democratic nomination, wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News last month that "in America today, we have more wealth and income inequality than any other major country on Earth and it is worse now than at any other time since the 1920s." And the independent senator from Vermont, who's making his second straight White House run, vowed to fight for "an economy that expands the middle class and reduces poverty and not one that makes the very rich much richer." Another progressive contender for the nomination, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, repeatedly spotlights that the 2020 election "is our chance to dream big, to fight hard, and to make this an America that works not just for the rich and the powerful but an America that works for everyone.” Veteran New Hampshire-based political scientist Wayne Lesperance said that "challengers to the president are working hard to craft a narrative that elevates their stature and defines the president as not deserving a second term. Part of the strategy is to reframe the president’s strengths as illegitimate." Lesperance, vice president of academic affairs at New England College, stressed that "the fact is economic growth and job creation are stronger than expected and impact all Americans positively." "Harry Truman’s famous maxim that the buck stops here is as true in good economic times as bad. President Trump is the beneficiary of a surprisingly strong and growing economy. And if the past is prologue, American voters will reward the president as they continue to vote with their pocketbooks," he added. The release of the report comes just two days after a new national poll by CNN indicated Trump had hit a new high on his economic approval ratings, with 56 percent of those questioned saying the president's doing a good job on the economy. CNN's polling, though, also showed numerous Democratic candidates including Sanders, Biden and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke beating Trump in head-to-head matchups. While there's plenty for Trump to brag about and a good narrative for him to tell, there's no guarantee he'll stay on message. Republicans in Congress urged the president to spotlight the economy and the tax cuts during the 2018 midterm elections, but he often drifted to other issues as he stumped for GOP candidates. Some pundits question whether the 2020 election will see an electorate focused on the economy, or on values. White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney thinks the economy will win out over all the controversies that have consumed the Trump presidency. Spelling out the president's 2020 economic message, Mulvaney on Tuesday suggested voters would still be willing to support Trump at the ballot box even if they don't like him personally. "You hate to sound like a cliché, but are you better off than you were four years ago? It's pretty simple, right? It's the economy, stupid. I think that's easy. People will vote for somebody they don't like if they think it's good for them," Mulvaney said as he spoke at the Milken conference in Los Angeles. | Paul Steinhauser | http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/LcCLSv8tqJg/surging-economy-complicates-dems-2020-message-against-trump | 2019-05-03 19:00:44+00:00 | 1,556,924,444 | 1,567,541,323 | economy, business and finance | economy |
214,497 | france24--2019-02-14--Nigerian elections Has the countrys economy improved under Buhari | 2019-02-14T00:00:00 | france24 | Nigerian elections: Has the country's economy improved under Buhari? | Nigeria has banned the import of rice, but it's a strict move which is beginning to benefit factories like this in Kano. FRANCE 24's Anna Cunningham visited a plant where they process 350,000 tonnes of rice every day. This business has an estimated turnover of anything between five and eleven million euros a year, a huge profit in a part of Nigeria that largely remains impoverished. Being based in the north, with close access to rice farmers has been key. Northern Nigeria is much less industrialised than the South. But in Kano a lot of businesses are begining to gravitate towards food processing. This company makes plastic food bags. Like other businesses it has benefited from the improved security situation, in a city that no longer has multiple checkpoints. | FRANCE24 | https://www.france24.com/en/video/20190214-nigerian-elections-has-countrys-economy-improved-under-buhari | 2019-02-14 13:56:41+00:00 | 1,550,170,601 | 1,567,548,587 | economy, business and finance | economy |
219,781 | freedombunker--2019-02-16--Amazons NYC Pullout Shows Economy Is Rigged Just Not the Way Most People Think | 2019-02-16T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Amazon’s NYC Pullout Shows Economy Is Rigged, Just Not the Way Most People Think | Amazon announced Thursday it will not build a new headquarters in New York City, citing the backlash from union leaders and some lawmakers over the nearly $3 billion in government incentives included in a deal to bring the company to NYC. Those leaders treat Amazon’s decision as a victory. For Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio, it’s a defeat, as they led the effort to lure the company to New York. No matter how it’s spun, the facts don’t change. This decision represents billions in lost tax revenues for the city and state, over and above the $3 billion in incentives. Amazon won’t be employing an estimated 25,000 additional New Yorkers. And many millions more in business with local vendors will not occur. To opponents of the deal, a principle has been defended: Giant corporations like Amazon shouldn’t be offered tax “subsidies” to come in and “exploit” local workers and the community. But this theory raises several questions. First, what is a “subsidy"? Strictly speaking, a subsidy is when the city, state, or federal government cuts a check out of its treasury to the corporation in question. In some cases, as in Governor Cuomo’s $485 million check to Solar City in 2016, corporations are subsidized. It is a gross abuse of the English language to call allowing a private company to keep its own money a subsidy. But often, what is described as a subsidy is really a tax exemption, meaning not collecting taxes the company would otherwise owe in return for something the government wants. This may be the promise of new jobs, new “green products,” or just the new taxes the government expects to collect over and above the exemption(s) it has offered the company to establish a location within its jurisdiction. It is a gross abuse of the English language to call allowing a private company to keep its own money a subsidy. But it still seems wrong, doesn’t it? It is, but not for the reasons most people think. Most objections to these types of deals are based upon envy of some rich person’s wealth, which used to be considered un-American and is a bad basis for policy regardless. What really makes these deals wrong is that they amount to government central planning of the economy. Here’s how it works: Step One is to tax and regulate everyone into a state of complete economic paralysis. Step Two is to grant limited relief to those businesses who either represent something politicians like or who promise to deliver something politicians need. The far-left politicians who protested Amazon establishing an HQ in Queens to some degree bit their own noses to spite their faces. Companies like Tesla do both. First, they represent the green energy movement, the cause célèbre of politicians everywhere. They also promise to create a significant number of jobs in places they establish manufacturing or other large presences, which helps politicians get re-elected. Third, they provide what politicians crave most: new tax revenues they otherwise wouldn’t receive, even if they must give away a little to get a lot. In Amazon’s case, the green angle isn’t so much a factor, although they likely say all the right things in their marketing literature. But they do provide the other two benefits to politicians: the new jobs to take credit for and the new tax revenues to spend. The far-left politicians who protested Amazon establishing an HQ in Queens to some degree bit their own noses to spite their faces. Amazon would have poured money into local and state tax coffers that would have been proportionally funneled into New York’s generous welfare state. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gleefully tweet-celebrated this as a victory against “Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.” To her and those of her ilk, Jeff Bezos and presumably all Amazon’s shareholders are the villains, although it’s never clear if members of the far left understand publicly traded companies are owned by people other than their founders. Bezos owns 16 percent of the stock. The rest is largely owned by mutual funds, investing for anyone with a 401K, including public school teachers and other people leftists like. If the deal is passed by the legislature and signed by the governor or mayor, democracy is served, for whatever that’s worth. Regardless, the owners of Amazon or any other corporation have no implicit obligation to open new locations anywhere. Their objection to Step One in the central plan is perfectly understandable and unquestionably within their rights. They also have the right to name conditions for doing business in any given locale. If the deal is passed by the legislature and signed by the governor or mayor, democracy is served, for whatever that’s worth. All Bezos or the other Amazon shareholders have done is act legally in their own interests. The real villains are the politicians, who established the central plan in the first place. In a free country, the government is supposed to protect the right of everyone “to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men,” as Adam Smith put it. Steps One and Two do exactly the opposite. They create a barrier to entry to the market that can only be breached via an admission ticket granted by the government. That ticket costs money only the largest corporations can pay. Ironically, the very taxes and regulations anti-capitalists champion provide the means for corporations they say they hate to grow to unnatural size and eliminate the small, locally-owned competitors they claim to cherish. That’s not to say that in an honest, free market Amazon wouldn’t be dominant, but there would be more room for competitors in niches and on the margins to survive. Amazon’s competitors one set of victims of these central planning schemes. Consumers are victims, too, but not because they are “subsidizing” large corporations. The tax exemptions corporations get are more than offset by the new taxes they pay in the locales they relocate to. That’s why politicians are willing to offer the exemptions in the first place. The real loss to consumers is choice. They have less choice in a world where Amazon has fewer competitors, which is inevitable when the economy is centrally planned, and politicians decide who can play and who can’t. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/02/16/amazons-nyc-pullout-shows-economy-is-rigged-just-not-the-way-most-people-think/ | 2019-02-16 14:00:43+00:00 | 1,550,343,643 | 1,567,548,284 | economy, business and finance | economy |
221,026 | freedombunker--2019-05-01--How a Tiny Village Transformed Chinas Economy by Proving Incentives Matter | 2019-05-01T00:00:00 | freedombunker | How a Tiny Village Transformed China’s Economy by Proving Incentives Matter | "Work hard, don't work hard—everyone gets the same. So people don't want to work." Those were the words of Yan Junchang, the Chinese farmer who spearheaded a secret agreement that ultimately saved millions of lives. In 1978, farmland in China was divided up into collectives. Courtesy of the Communist revolution, no personal ownership of farmland was allowed. "Back then, even one straw belonged to the group," said Jungchang, who was a farmer in the village of Xiaogang in 1978. "No one owned anything." At the time, the produce of the farmers belonged to the government, who would then divide up the food evenly among the farmers in the collective. Contrary to the plentiful bounty that socialists insist would result from collective ownership over the means of production, “there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate.” But under collectivism, some are more equal than others. As the farmers starved to death, “no civil servant suffered from hunger in our region,” Junchang recalled. According to the contract, “The farmers agreed to divide up the land among the families. Each family agreed to turn over some of what they grew to the government, and to the collective. And, crucially, the farmers agreed that families that grew enough food would get to keep some for themselves,” according to the NPR report. Even a partial introduction of the linking of effort to reward reaped stunning results. “Grain output increased to 90,000 kilograms in 1979, over six times as much as the previous year,” according to China.org. “The per capita income of Xiaogang climbed to 400 yuan from 22 yuan.” Farmers, now incentivized by the opportunity to even partially benefit from their effort rather than see their produce forcibly shared with the collective, unsurprisingly exerted greater effort. "We all secretly competed," said Junchang. "Everyone wanted to produce more than the next person." “Before the contract, the farmers would drag themselves out into the field only when the village whistle blew, marking the start of the work day,” NPR added. “After the contract, the families went out before dawn.” Not everyone was pleased with the Xiaogang farmers’ actions, however. As China.org has noted, “Some people accused Xiaogang's villagers of ‘digging up the cornerstone of socialism.’ Luckily, Fengyang Prefecture's Party Secretary, Wang Yuzhao, was open-minded.” Yuzhao was informed of the favorable harvest yielded by the new arrangement and promised to protect the village’s secret as long as the practice didn’t spread. Word of the farmers’ contract did spread, however. But fortunately for Yan and his fellow villagers, “there were powerful people in the Communist Party who wanted to change China's economy. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who would go on to create China's modern economy, was just coming to power,” reported NPR. The Chinese government allowed for other economic liberalizations, as well, which helped spur historic growth credited with lifting up to 500 million Chinese out of poverty. The Xiaogang farmers’ agreement inspired the end of communal farming in China three decades ago, but unfortunately, the Chinese government continues to refuse to legalize rural land ownership. The courageous actions of the Xiaogang farmers illustrate a point as important now as ever. As more people, especially the young, have been developing a sympathetic view of socialism and the collectivization of the means of production, the farmers’ story reminds us of just how disastrous collectivism can be. The elimination of the proper incentives provided by private property rights over the means of production creates not an egalitarian bounty but a paradise for parasites. Separating reward from effort kills the initiative to work. Private property rights in a free economy, on the other hand, are indispensable for the eradication of poverty and the growth of human flourishing. When confronted by your socialist family member or friends on social media advocating for economic collectivism, be sure to tell them the story of the secret contract that revolutionized China. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/05/01/how-a-tiny-village-transformed-chinas-economy-by-proving-incentives-matter/ | 2019-05-01 18:00:18+00:00 | 1,556,748,018 | 1,567,541,467 | economy, business and finance | economy |
221,714 | freedombunker--2019-06-27--How the Gig Economy Can Save a Generation Drowning in Student DebtIf We Let It | 2019-06-27T00:00:00 | freedombunker | How the Gig Economy Can Save a Generation Drowning in Student Debt—If We Let It | When Guenevere Garrido got accepted into UCLA, she knew it was an opportunity she couldn’t turn down, even if she wasn’t sure how she was going to pay her tuition. Like 44 million other Americans, she made the decision to take out student loans and borrowed $40,000 to pay for her college education. Majoring in child development, Garrido’s first job after graduation was working in a preschool where she made $13 an hour. While she eventually made a career switch into a higher paying job, no matter how much her paycheck increased, she was still being strangled by debt. Combined with accrued interest and other outstanding debt, Garrido soon found herself $68,000 in the hole. Realizing she needed supplementary income to dig herself out, Garrido decided to start driving for Uber and the rideshare company SideCar. Since both companies let drivers set their own hours, Garrido was able to drive nights and on the weekends without it interfering with her full-time job. In July 2016, just three years after she began participating in the gig economy, Garrido made her very last student loan payment. In 2018, she became 100 percent debt free. Garrido credits that second income with changing her life. The additional money allowed her to pay down her loan and taught her life skills she didn’t even know she needed. She described no longer feeling helpless, but empowered. “There were times when I made a payment of $3,000 at once. It was always about preparation,” she told NBC News. As of now, the average student loan debt is pushing $40,000. To make matters worse, more than one out of every ten people are delinquent on their monthly payments. Fortunately, the gig economy has offered a lifeline to a generation of college graduates crippled by student loan debt and eager to break free of their financial chains. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017, 55 million people, or more than 35 percent of the US workforce, were participants in the gig economy. By 2020, that number is expected to jump to 43 percent. Yet, instead of praising the gig economy for creating so many opportunities for Americans, many insist that these workers are being treated unfairly and need to be made full-status employees, completely disregarding why this sector is so appealing to so many. California legislators are currently considering a bill which, if signed into law, will majorly disrupt the gig economy. Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), would effectively change the employment status of hundreds of thousands of freelance workers within the state from independent contractors to full-status employees, placing new financial burdens on employers and threatening the livelihood of the entire gig economy and its participants. If they are not careful, the entire gig economy may soon be regulated out of existence. The bill passed the State Assembly—the state’s lower house—at the end of May by a vote of 53-11 and will now need to be approved by the California State Senate before reaching Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk. AB 5 comes in response to labor rights activists pushing for rideshare companies like Uber, Lyft—as well as other gig economy participants like DoorDash and TaskRabbit—to give its contractors the same employment rights as are granted to regular employees. “Every worker in California deserves to earn a living wage, benefits, and to be able to join together with their co-workers so they can set standards for their jobs,” Doug Bloch, political director at the local chapter of the Teamsters union in California, told Politico. While these labor activists might be filled with good intentions, they are failing to understand, or at least recognize, why so many people—consumers and contractors alike—were drawn to the sharing economy in the first place. And if they are not careful, the entire gig economy may soon be regulated out of existence. The steep rise of the gig economy over the last decade has ushered in a whole new era of job opportunities for Americans. For those looking to supplement their income, moonlighting as an Uber driver is a great way to earn extra money quickly. For artists or writers looking to build their careers, many might work full-time jobs during the day and then take on “gigs” working hourly or at a per-piece rate. And with the number of Digital Nomads increasing, taking “gigs” as opposed to traditional employment has allowed many young people to travel and live life on the go, rather than staying strapped to one place. In addition to a quick onboarding process that allows participants to begin earning money within a week of signing up, the gig economy allows the flexibility of having a part-time job and access to additional income whenever you feel like it with few strings attached. The gig economy’s contractor model has helped keep freelancers and transitioning workers on their feet during times of personal financial crises. And in exchange for this flexibility, those who participate as contractors forgo the benefits typically given to full-status payroll employees, like health insurance or vacation pay. This is how the gig economy works, and it is what has made it so attractive to so many (see graph above). In choosing to participate in the gig economy, contractors understand what it is they are signing up for and what they are sacrificing. By not having to request time off or make sure you haven’t used too many of your vacation days, you have made the choice that you value your freedom over the security of a job with benefits and health care. This is about subjective value and personal choice, not oppression or exploitation. And, while California lawmakers and labor activists might not want to admit it, in many cases the gig economy’s contractor model has been precisely what has helped keep freelancers and transitioning workers on their feet during times of personal financial crises. A few years ago, Moises Abrego abruptly lost his job. He was fortunate enough to quickly find a position selling insurance, but since that profession relied heavily on commission, he was still struggling to make ends meet as he built up a client base. Abrego needed supplemental income quickly if he was going to be able to make his mortgage payment and prevent a foreclosure on his home—a concern that kept him awake at night. After a friend told him about Uber, Abrego decided to give it a try. Since Uber is contractor-based, he didn’t have to go through a lengthy interview process or wait weeks for an answer from a prospective employer. Instead, he was able to start making money almost immediately. A New Jersey resident at the time, he found that he could make about $800 a week staying local or about $2,000 if he was willing to drive into the city. With this additional income, Abrego was able to generate enough money to keep his house and pay his bills. Thornberg writes that “the idea these people are being exploited and need help just doesn’t fly." “There are many others out there who are struggling. Do not hinder our opportunity to get those jobs,” Abrego said. “Uber is providing a good means for people to make a decent living and support their families.” By turning contractors like Abrego into full-status employees, the California legislature is threatening to hinder the growth of the burgeoning sector and potentially spell the end of the gig economy. As economist Chris Thornberg points out, these legislators fundamentally misunderstand the appeal of gig work. "California's economy has the lowest unemployment rate it has ever had. People have options, and they're still choosing to drive Uber or Lyft,” Thornberg writes. “The idea these people are being exploited and need help just doesn’t fly." At the heart of this new proposed legislation rests the pressing question of what makes someone a full-status employee versus a contractor. In 2018, the California Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the case of Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles. The ruling, now known as the “Dynamex decision,” dealt with the employment status issue of contracted delivery drivers and instituted the “ABC test” as a means of determining whether or not a person is an employee or a contractor. The ABC test sets specify: (A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact; (B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and (C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity. It is estimated that the California state government loses about $7 billion annually from the alleged misclassification of employees. The new bill gives legal teeth to the Dynamex decision by setting forth legislation that would mandate that companies use the ABC test to determine the tax and employment status of each worker. While passed off as a giant leap forward for workers rights, this bill is really a means for the government to get its hands on more money. It is estimated that the California state government loses about $7 billion annually from the alleged misclassification of employees. By forcing employers to categorize more of their workers as full-status employees, the state hopes to increase its tax revenue. Yet, even with revenue serving as an obvious incentive for government officials, this hasn’t stopped labor activists from jumping on board and making this an issue of employee rights—something it most certainly is not. And if the bill is approved, which is likely given California’s political climate, the economic repercussions will be felt in sectors beyond just the gig economy alone. In addition to the contractors suffering from the passage of AB 5, companies themselves will suffer tremendous losses. If gig economy “employers” are forced to pay for their contractors benefits and higher pay, many will be unable to financially stay afloat. And without Uber in business, you cannot have Uber drivers. And without these jobs, which in 2015 accounted for 160,000 for Uber alone, many would find themselves suddenly without a previously relied upon income. But Uber and others in the gig economy are hardly alone in fearing what these employment status changes may do to its financial livelihood. Independent contractors can be found in almost every industry, and in California, a state dominated by the entertainment sector, Hollywood is expected to suffer huge losses. From actors to makeup artists and everything in between, Hollywood is comprised of many independent contractors and thrives as a result. If instead of this gig model, the entertainment industry is forced to take on additional costs in order to treat each contractor as an employee, the whole sector could be threatened. Thornberg predicts that if AB 5 is signed into law, many film and television productions would be forced to either leave the state or find a way to cut costs elsewhere. "The reaction is typically lower base pay," he says.If California wants to protect workers and foster a thriving economy, it should allow people to make their employment decisions independent of state action. "For the industry to shake out, ultimately people are going to get more in the way of benefits, more in the way of comfort, and less in the way of take-home pay." And Hollywood is not the only ally of the gig economy when it comes to the new legislation. Already, several other industries have come forward asking for exemptions from the bill, including: doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, insurance agents, accountants, engineers, financial advisers, real estate agents, and hairstylists who rent booths at salons. Unions can yell about worker rights until they are blue in the face, but at the end of the day, the people who should be involved in determining a “worker’s” status is the company and the individual performing the work. If a contractor wants to be a full-status employee, he or she can decline contract work and find a job where this is possible. Legislators should also not be too hasty in altering the employment status of gig economy workers unless they want to bear the responsibility of rendering the sector completely nonexistent in the process. If California wants to protect the rights of its contractors and help foster a thriving economy, it should allow people like Moises Abrego and Guenevere Garrido to make their employment decisions independent of state action. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/06/27/how-the-gig-economy-can-save-a-generation-drowning-in-student-debt%e2%81%a0-if-we-let-it/ | 2019-06-27 13:00:18+00:00 | 1,561,654,818 | 1,567,537,806 | economy, business and finance | economy |
223,010 | freedombunker--2019-10-09--The Economy Keeps Growing, but Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy | 2019-10-09T00:00:00 | freedombunker | The Economy Keeps Growing, but Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy | Environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel remembers the moment his research trajectory changed. Over dinner one night in 1987, his friend and colleague Robert Herman, a physicist with a wide range of interests, wondered aloud, "Are buildings getting lighter?" That apparently simple question inspired the pair to begin looking into the "material intensity" of the modern world. In 2015, Ausubel published an essay titled "The Return of Nature: How Technology Liberates the Environment." He had found substantial evidence not only that Americans were consuming fewer resources per capita but also that they were consuming less in total of some of the most important building blocks of an economy: things such as steel, copper, fertilizer, timber, and paper. Total annual U.S. consumption of all of these had been increasing rapidly prior to 1970. But since then, consumption had reached a peak and then declined. This was unexpected, to put it mildly. "The reversal in use of some of the materials so surprised me that [a few colleagues] and I undertook a detailed study of the use of 100 commodities in the United States from 1900 to 2010," Ausubel wrote. "We found that 36 have peaked in absolute use…Another 53 commodities have peaked relative to the size of the economy, though not yet absolutely. Most of them now seem poised to fall." A few years earlier, a writer and researcher named Chris Goodall had noticed something similar in the United Kingdom's Material Flow Accounts, "a set of dry and largely ignored data published annually by the Office for National Statistics," as the Guardian put it. He summarized his findings in a 2011 paper titled "'Peak Stuff ': Did the UK Reach a Maximum Use of Material Resources in the Early Part of the Last Decade?" Goodall's answer to his own question was, essentially, yes: "Evidence presented in this paper supports a hypothesis that the United Kingdom began to reduce its consumption of physical resources in the early years of the last decade, well before the economic slowdown that started in 2008. This conclusion applies to a wide variety of different physical goods, for example water, building materials and paper and includes the impact of items imported from overseas. Both the weight of goods entering the economy and the amounts finally ending up as waste probably began to fall from sometime between 2001 and 2003." Goodall was eloquent about the significance of dematerialization: "If correct, this finding is important. It suggests that economic growth in a mature economy does not necessarily increase the pressure on the world's reserves of natural resources and on its physical environment. An advanced country may be able to decouple economic growth and increasing volumes of material goods consumed. A sustainable economy does not necessarily have to be a no-growth economy." I agreed with Goodall about the significance of economy-wide dematerialization, especially because the United Kingdom and the United States were the leading economies of the Industrial Era—a period that was defined by an unprecedented and extraordinary rise in the use of natural resources and other exploitations of the environment. If those two countries could reverse course and achieve substantial dematerialization, it would be a fascinating and hopeful development. It would also be surprising, because it would mean that something fundamental about the mainstream understanding of how growth works would be incorrect. Most of us carry around an implicit or explicit belief that because humans always want to consume more, we will use more resources year after year to satisfy these wants. Technologies that allow us to make more efficient use of resources will not let us conserve resources, because we'll just use the technologies to let us consume even more—so much more that overall resource use will continue to rise. This was the clear pattern until 1970. What could possibly have caused it to change? Moreover, if absolute dematerialization was a real and durable phenomenon, were there any interventions that individuals, communities, and governments could make that would help accelerate and spread it? Fortunately for anyone interested in dematerialization, a lot of high-quality evidence exists about resource consumption over time in America. Much of it comes from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a federal agency formed in 1879 and tasked by Congress with "classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain." That examination of mineral resources is a boon to anyone interested in dematerialization, because since the start of the 20th century, the USGS has been collecting data on the use of the most economically important minerals in America. Of particular interest is the survey's yearly estimate of "apparent consumption" of each mineral. This consumption takes into account not only domestic production of the resource but also imports and exports. For example, to calculate America's total apparent consumption of copper in 2015, the USGS would take the amount of copper produced in the country that year, add total imports of copper, and subtract total copper exports. The survey's data tell a fascinating story. To understand it, let's start with metals, one of the most obviously important materials for any economy. Here's total annual consumption from 1900 to 2015 of the five most important metals in the United States. A reminder: This is not annual consumption per American. This is annual consumption by all Americans—the total tonnage used year by year of these metals. All of these metals are "post-peak" in America, meaning that the country hit its maximum consumption of each of them some years ago and has seen generally declining in use since then. The magnitude of the dematerialization is large. In 2015 (the most recent year for which USGS data are available), total American use of steel was down more than 15 percent from its high point in 2000. Aluminum consumption was down more than 32 percent and copper 40 percent from their peaks. This dematerialization becomes even more impressive when consumption of resources in the United States is compared to the country's economic growth. Note that a huge decoupling has taken place. Up to 1970, consumption of metals in America grew just about in lockstep with the overall economy. In the years since 1970, the economy has continued to grow pretty steadily, but consumption of metals has reversed course and is now decreasing. We're now getting more "economy" from less metal year after year. We'll see a similar great reversal in the use of many other resources. America is an agricultural powerhouse—the world's largest producer of both soybeans and corn and fourth-largest producer of wheat. Fertilizer is, as we've seen, essential for growing crops. So here's the country's total consumption over time of fertilizer, water, and cropland. Instead of GDP, this graph charts total U.S. crop tonnage. Here again, output (crop tonnage) used to be tightly linked to inputs (water and fertilizer). But then that relationship changed, and we're now getting more from less. Fertilizer use is down almost 25 percent from its 1999 peak, and by 2014 total water used for irrigation had decreased by more than 22 percent from its maximum in 1984. Total cropland has also fallen, to levels rivaling the lowest points of the previous century. Building structures and infrastructure requires a lot of resources, so let's look at total consumption, according to the USGS, of the most important building materials. Let's also include data on timber use from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and throw in paper for good measure. Here I see two different stories. The first is about building materials—cement, sand and gravel, and stone. Consumption of all of these peaked in 2007 and has dropped sharply since. But the sharp drop-off is surely because of the Great Recession, which hit the construction industries particularly hard. As construction recovers, we may find that we are not post-peak in these materials. But I predict that we're forever post-peak in our use of both wood and paper. Total timber use is down by a third and paper by almost 20 percent since their high points. Are these graphs representative of what's been going on in the American economy as a whole? They are. Of the 72 resources tracked by the USGS, from aluminum and antimony through vermiculite and zinc, only six are not yet post-peak. Of these, we spend by far the most on gemstones. We Americans apparently have a bottomless thirst for bling. If shiny ornamental stones are excluded from the analysis, then more than 90 percent of total 2015 resource spending in America was on post-peak materials. American consumption of plastics, which is not tracked by the USGS, is an exception to the overall trend of dematerialization. Outside of recessions, the United States continues to use more plastic year after year in the form of trash bags, water bottles, food packaging, toys, outdoor furniture, and countless other products. But in recent years, there has been an important slowdown. According to the Plastics Industry Trade Association, between 1970 and the start of the Great Recession in 2007, American plastic use grew at a rate of about 5.2 percent per year. This was more than 60 percent faster than the country's GDP grew over the same period. But a very different pattern has emerged in the years since the recession ended. The growth in plastic consumption has slowed down greatly, to less than 2 percent per year between 2009 and 2015. This is almost 14 percent slower than GDP growth over the same period. So while America is not yet post-peak in its use of plastic, it's quickly closing in on this milestone. Finally, let's look at total energy consumption combined with greenhouse gas emissions, which are the most harmful side effect of generating energy from fossil fuels. I was surprised to learn that total American energy use in 2017 was down almost 2 percent from its 2008 peak, especially since our economy grew by more than 15 percent between those two years. I had walked around with the unexamined assumption that growing economies must consume more energy year after year. This turns out not to be the case anymore—a profound change. Energy use went up in lockstep with economic growth in America for more than a century and a half, from 1800 to 1970. Then the increase in energy use slowed down, and then it turned negative—even as the economy kept growing. Over the last decade, we've gotten more economic output from less energy. Greenhouse gas emissions have gone down even more quickly than has total energy use. This is largely because we have in recent years been using less coal to generate electricity and more natural gas, which produces 50–60 percent less carbon per kilowatt-hour. The conclusion from this set of graphs is clear: A great reversal of our Industrial Age habits is taking place. The American economy is now experiencing broad and often deep absolute dematerialization. Is the rest of the world dematerializing? It's a hard question to answer definitively because there's no equivalent of the detailed and comprehensive USGS data for countries other than America. There is evidence, though, that other advanced industrialized nations are also now getting more from less. Goodall, of course, found that the United Kingdom is now past "peak stuff." And Eurostat data show that countries including Germany, France, and Italy have generally seen flat or declining total consumption of metals, chemicals, and fertilizer in recent years. Developing countries, especially fast-growing ones such as India and China, are probably not yet dematerializing. But I predict that they will start getting more from less of at least some resources in the not-too-distant future. | Andrew McAfee | http://freedombunker.com/2019/10/09/the-economy-keeps-growing-but-americans-are-using-less-steel-paper-fertilizer-and-energy/ | Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:00:46 +0000 | 1,570,629,646 | 1,570,626,514 | economy, business and finance | economy |
227,555 | globalresearch--2019-01-23--Global Economy on the Brink as Davos Crowd Parties On | 2019-01-23T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Global Economy on the Brink as Davos Crowd Parties On | At Davos, Switzerland every year the global capitalist elite gather to party…and to prepare for the year ahead. This year more than 1500 private jets will reportedly fly in. Thousands more of their underling staff will travel via business class to handle their personal, and corporate, logistics. Shielded from the media and the pubic, the big capitalists share views in back rooms and listen to experts on finance, government policy, technology, and the economy. The experts are especially probed to identify and explain the next ‘black swan’ or ‘gray rhino’ event about to erupt. Wealthy celebrities are invited to entertain them as well after evening dinner and cocktails. But the real networking goes on privately afterwards, in small groups or one on one, among the big capitalists themselves or in private meetings with heads of state, finance ministers, and central bank chairmen. Typically each annual meeting has a theme. This year there are several: the slowing global economy, the fracturing of the international trade system, the growing levels of unsustainable debt everywhere, volatile financial asset markets with asset bubbles beginning to deflate, rising political instability and autocratic drift in both the advanced and emerging economies, accelerating income inequality worldwide—to mention just a short list. On the eve of this year’s World Economic Forum gathering, some of the most powerful, wealthy, and more prescient capitalists have begun to speak out to their capitalist cousins, raising red flags about what they believe is an approaching crisis. Ray Dalio, the billionaire who found and manages the world’s biggest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, warned that he and other investors had squeezed financial markets to such “levels where it is difficult to see where you can squeeze” further. He publicly admitted in a Bloomberg News interview that, in the future profits will be low “for a very very long time”. The era of central banks providing free money, low rates, and excess liquidity have run their course, according to Dalio. He added the global economy is mired in dangerously high levels of debt, comparing it to the 1930s. Paul Tudor Jones, another big finance capitalist, similarly warned of unsustainable debt levels—created by companies binging on cheap credit since 2009—that “could be systemically threatening”. Not just government debt. But especially corporate debt, where levels in the US alone have doubled to more than $9 trillion since 2009 (most of it high risk ‘junk bond’ and nearly as risky ‘BBB’ investment grade corporate bond debt). Almost as worrisome, one might add, is the now more than $1 trillion leverage loan market debt in the US (i.e. loan equivalent of junk bonds). US household debt is also now approaching $15 trillion. And US national government debt, at $21 trillion, is about to surge over the next decade to $33 trillion due to the Trump 2018 tax cuts. And that’s not counting trillions more in US state and local government debt; or the tens of trillions of new dollarized debt undertaken by emerging market economies since 2010; or the $5 trillion in non-performing bank loans in Europe and Japan; or the even more private sector debt escalation in China. Corporate debt levels are not alone the problem, however. Debt can rise so long as financial asset prices and real profits do so—i.e. provide the cash flow available to service the debt. But when profits and asset prices (of stocks, bonds, derivatives, currency exchange rates, commodity futures, etc.) no longer rise, or start to turn down, then debt service (principal & interest) cannot be repaid. Defaults often follow, causing & investor confidence to slide. Real investment, employment, and household incomes thereafter collapse, and the real economy is dragged down in turn. The real decline further exacerbates the collapse of financial asset prices, and precipitates a mutual feedback of financial and real economic collapse. And financial markets began to deflate in 2018; and it is now becoming increasingly clear that the real side of the global economy is slowing rapidly as well. In February 2018 the first early warning appeared for financial markets. Stocks plunged in the US, Europe and even China. They temporarily recovered—a ‘dead cat bounce’ as they say before an even deeper decline in the fall. Then oil and commodity futures prices collapsed by 40% or more in late summer-early fall 2018. Stock markets followed again in October-December 2018 by 30-40% in US, China, Europe, and key emerging markets. Key merging market currencies—Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa—all fell precipitously as well. And housing prices from the UK to Australia to China to New York began to implode as the year ended. In January 2019 stock markets recovered—i.e. a classic, short term, bull market recovery in what is today’s fundamentally long term global bear market. Dalio’s and Jones’ worries by unsustainable debt and pending crisis have started to become real, in other words. Becoming real as well is evidence of emerging defaults, a critical phase that typically follows asset markets’ decline and slowing profits. In the US there’s the Sears default, with JCPenney in the wings. And the giant corporation, once the largest in the world, the General Electric Corp., slouching toward default. Its global profits slowing and stock price imploding, GE is now desperately selling off its best assets to raise cash to pay its excess debt. It’s not alone. Scores of energy companies involved in US shale oil and gas production are teetering on the brink. In Europe, there’s deepening troubles at Deutschebank, and just about all the Italian banks, and UBS in Switzerland, and the Greek banks. In Japan, there’s trillions of dollars in non-performing bank loans as well, which Japan’s central bank continues to cover up. And then there’s China, with more than $5 trillion in bad loans held by local governments, by shadow bankers, and by its state owned enterprises that the China central bank and government keep bailing out by issuing ‘trusted loans’ (i.e. equivalent of junk bonds in US). Default cracks have begun to appear everywhere in the global economy, in other words, major indicators that the excess debt accumulation and financial bubbles of the past decade cannot be ‘serviced’ (principal-interest paid) and have begun to negatively impact the global economy. What’s becoming clear is that the next crisis will not emerge from the housing sector with excess debt and price bubbles driven by subprime mortgage loans and related financial derivatives. What’s more likely is that the next crisis will emerge from debt defaults and collapsing real investment by non-financial corporations. Moreover, the tipping point is nearer than most in business or media will admit. Trump’s 2018 tax cuts simply threw a veil over the real condition of corporate performance in the US this past year. The tax cuts provided a windfall, one time subsidy to corporations’ bottom line. It is estimated that US S&P 500 corporations’ profits were boosted 22% by the Trump windfall tax cuts alone. Since S&P 500 profits for 2018 were roughly 27%, it means actual profits were barely 5%. That’s the real situation going into 2019—a condition that assures US stock markets, junk bond markets, and leveraged loan markets in particular will experience even greater contraction in 2019 than they did in 2018. The bubbles will continue to pop. In the global economy, it is even more evident that by the end of 2019 it is likely there will be recession in wide sectors of the real global economy amidst further asset markets’ price declines. In Europe, the growth engine of Germany is showing sure signs of slowing. Manufacturing and industrial production in the closing months of 2018 fell by 1.9%. After a GDP decline in the third quarter 2018, another fourth quarter 2018 German contraction will mean a technical recession. Equal to at least a third of all the Eurozone economy, as goes Germany goes Europe. France and Italy manufacturing are also contracting. Nearly having stagnated at 0.2% in the third quarter, the Europe economy in general may have slipped into recession already. And all that before the negative effects of a UK Brexit or an Italian banks’ implosion or deepening protests in France are further felt. In emerging market economies, the steady rise of the US dollar in 2018 (driven by rising US central bank interest rates) devastated emerging market economies across the board. Rising dollar values translated into corresponding emerging market currency collapse. That triggered capital flight out of these economies, and their falling stock and bond markets in turn. To stem the outflow, their central banks raised interest rates, which precipitated deep recession in the real economy, while their collapsing currencies generated higher import prices and general inflation in their economies as well. That was the story from Argentina to Brazil to Turkey to South Africa and even to Asia in places. The US halting of interest rate hikes in 2019 may relieve pressure on emerging market economies somewhat in 2019. But that easing will be more than offset by China’s 2019 economic slowdown now underway. In the second half of 2018 investment, consumer spending, and manufacturing all slowed markedly in China. Officially at 6.6% for 2018, according to China statistics, China’s real economy is no doubt growing less than 6% due to the methods used to estimate growth in China. Its manufacturing began to contract in late 2018, and with it a significant slowdown in private investment and even consumer spending on autos and other durable goods. China’s slowing will mean less demand for emerging market economies’ products and commodities, including oil and industrial metals. A respite for emerging market economies from the US dollar rising will thus be offset by China slowing. When both financial asset markets and the real economy are together slowing it is a particularly strong ‘red flag’ warning for the economic road ahead. And more contractions in stocks and other financial assets, together with slowing of manufacturing, housing, and GDP in Europe, US, and Japan in 2019, are likely which means trouble ahead in 2019. Along with all the data increasingly pointing to financial asset deflation gaining a longer term foothold—and with real economy indicators like manufacturing, housing, GDP, exports as well now flashing red—there is also a growing list of political hotspots and potential ‘tail risks’ emerging in the global economy. Some of the ‘black swans’ are identifiable; some yet to be. In the US, the government shutdown and the prospect of policy deadlock between the parties for two more years could qualify as a source of further economic disruption. In Europe, there are several ‘tail risks’: the Brexit situation coming to a head in April, the challenge to the Eurozone by the new Italian populist government, the chronic and deep street protests continuing in France, and the general rightward social and political drift throughout eastern Europe. In Latin America there’s the extremely repressive policies of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Macri in Argentina, which could end in mass public uprisings at some point. In Asia, there’s corruption and scandals in Malaysia and India. And then there’s the US-trade war with China, which some factions in the US are trying to leverage to launch a new Cold War. Not least, there’s the potential collapse of negotiations between the US and North Korea that could lead to renewed threats of military conflict. All these ‘political instabilities’ , given their number and scope, if left unresolved, or allowed to worsen, will have a further negative effect on business and consumer confidence—now already slowing rapidly—and in turn investment and therefore economic growth. Ray Dalio’s and Tudor Jones’ warnings on the eve of Davos have been echoed by a growing list of capitalist notables and their government servants and echoes. IMF chairperson, Christine Lagarde, has been repeatedly declaring publicly that global trade and the economy are slowing. Reflecting Europe in particular, where exports are even more critical to the economy, she has especially been warning about a potential severe US-China trade war disrupting the global trading system—and global economy in turn. The IMF has been issuing repeated downward adjustments of its global economic forecasts. So too has the World Bank. As have a growing number of big bank research departments, from Nomura Bank in Japan to UBS bank in Europe. Former US central bank chairs, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, have also jumped in and have been raising red flags about the course of the US and global economies. Former Fed chair, Greenspan, has even declared the US is already on a recession path from which it can’t now extricate itself. Given all the emerging corroborating data, the red flags and warnings about the current state of the global economy, and the growing global political uncertainties, the Dalios, the Jones, and others among the Davos crowd are especially worried this year. On the eve of the Forum’s first day on January 23, 2019, a leading discussion topic among the cocktail parties is the buzz about the just leaked private newsletter from billionaire Seth Klarman, who heads one of the world’s biggest funds, the Baupost Group. In his newsletter leaked to the New York Times, and widely circulated among early Davos crowd attendees, Klarman reportedly chides his readers-investors about not paying more attention to the social and political instabilities growing worldwide, about Trump’s direction which is “quite dangerous”, and the US in effect retreating from global leadership, leaving a dangerous vacuum behind. Investors have also become too complacent about global debt and risk levels now rising dangerously, he argues. It could all very well lead to a financial panic, he adds. The US in particular is at an ‘inflection point’. He ominously concludes, “By the time such a crisis hits, it will likely be too late to get our house in order”. The recent statements by Dalio, Tudor Jones, Klarman, and the others reminds one of the last crisis and crash of 2008. When Charlie Prince, CEO of Citigroup, the biggest bank at the time, was asked after the crisis why he didn’t see it coming and do something to avoid the toxic mortgage-derivatives bomb and protect his investors and customers, Prince replied he did see it coming but could do nothing to stop it. His investors and customers demanded his bank continue—like the other banks were—investing in subprime mortgages, lending to shadow banks, selling risky derivatives and thereby continuing to make money for them, just as the other banks were doing. Charlie’s response why he did nothing to stop it or prepare was, ‘when you come to the dance, you have to dance’. No doubt the Davos crowd will be partying and dancing over the next several days in their securely gated, posh Switzerland retreat. After all, the last ten years has increased their capital incomes by literally tens of trillions of dollars. And capitalists are driven by a mindless herd mentality once they’ve made money. They believe they can continue doing so forever. They believe the money music will never stop. One can only wonder, if they’ll be dancing later this year to the same song as Charlie’s in 2008. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Dr. Rasmus is author of the book, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and the forthcoming ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump’, 2019. Jack hosts the Alternative Visions radio show on the Progressive Radio Network. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle is @drjackrasmus.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. | Dr. Jack Rasmus | https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-economy-brink-davos-crowd-parties/5666277 | 2019-01-23 15:15:29+00:00 | 1,548,274,529 | 1,567,551,158 | economy, business and finance | economy |
227,942 | globalresearch--2019-02-10--Save Venezuelan Sovereignty Oil Economy Destabilized Peace-keeping Role by Russia China Non-alli | 2019-02-10T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Save Venezuelan Sovereignty: Oil Economy Destabilized. Peace-keeping Role by Russia, China, Non-alligned Nations? | A previous article touched on the issue. Preserving and protecting the sovereignty of any nation from internal conflict or the threat of foreign takeover is what peacekeeping is supposed to be all about. Russia, China, and other countries supporting Venezuelan sovereignty, opposing the Trump regime’s coup attempt, should mobilize and deploy peacemaking forces to defend the country’s freedom in its time of need. The UN defines the mission of peacekeepers as “a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace” under UN Charter provisions. More on this below and why peacekeepers may be the most effective way to defeat the Trump regime’s coup attempt. Washington wants Venezuela transformed into another US vassal state. The imperial prize is gaining control over its and other valued resources, including timber, iron ore, copper, diamonds, lead, zinc, bauxite, nickel, tin, mercury, gold, silver, manganese, chromium, platinum, titanium, tungsten, and phosphates. USGS Survey of oil resources in the Orinoco Oil Belt The rage of hardliners in charge of Trump’s geopolitical agenda to replace democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro with US-controlled puppet governance gravely threatens Venezuelan sovereignty and social democracy. Republicans and Dems reject government of, by, and for everyone equitably, including at home. Sovereign independent Venezuela, its model social democracy under higher, more normalized, oil prices and stable conditions, free from US political, economic, and sanctions war, is able to provide everyone in the country with vital social services – today a shadow of earlier times because of what’s going on. During Hugo Chavez’s first three years as Venezuelan president, annual oil production, the country’s key revenue source, was around three million barrels a day (bpd). From 2013 – 2015 under Nicolas Maduro, it was 2.5 million bpd. In January 2018, production was 1.65 million bpd, slumping during year to 1.25 million bpd, lower still to 1.15 million bpd by yearend. It’s currently at 1.1 million bpd, likely to fall to 900,000 bpd or lower in 2019 as long as US sanctions war continues, supported by the EU, other countries, and many foreign enterprises. Reuters reported that European buyers are sharply cutting purchases – pressured by the Trump regime the news service failed to explain. Two of the world’s largest oil traders, Vitol and Trafigura, said that they would observe US sanctions – no matter their illegality. The Wall Street Journal reported that oil storage is “filling up” in Venezuela because of a lack of buyers. The Trump regime threatened to severely punish nations and entities circumventing its sanctions to conduct normal business with Maduro. Venezuelan oil union leader Luis Hernandez called what’s going on “an absolute disaster,” adding (t)here’s almost no way to move the oil.” Tankers are delayed, redirected elsewhere, or positioned offshore because of fear of US sanctions. If unable to sell enough oil, Maduro’s government will run out of cash, Venezuela’s economy to crash more than already, an untenable situation. It’s precisely what Trump regime hardliners want, hoping to switch the allegiance of Venezuela’s military from Maduro to usurper in waiting Guaido, a US creation with no legitimacy, a nobody elevated from obscurity to prominence, a figure to be used and discarded if and when no longer needed. If the Trump regime’s plan fails, plan B may be military intervention for the first time regionally since Franklin Roosevelt withdrew US forces from Haiti in 1934. Meanwhile, millions of Venezuelans are suffering hugely under severe hyperinflation and economic Depression conditions. Maduro is clinging to power tenuously. Around 40 nations, most EU, Latin and Central American ones plus Canada publicly declared support for right-wing extremist/US-designated puppet Guaido – barely over one-fifth of UN member states. At the same time, the Trump regime faces significant world community opposition to its attempted coup d’etat. Half or more of EU member states have not publicly endorsed Guaido so far. Through his spokesman, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has not recognized his legitimacy, saying “recognizing governments is not a function for the secretary but for member states.” The African Union expressed “solidarity with the people of Venezuela and…support for constitutional president Nicolas Maduro.” The largely US-controlled Organization of American States (OAS) got only 16 out of 34 member states to express support for Guaido, short of the required number needed for its endorsement. The UN Charter empowers Security Council member states to take collective action for maintaining international peace, stability and security. When deployed, the stated mission of Blue Helmets includes restoring and maintaining peace, upholding the rule of law, maintaining order, along with pursuing economic and social development initiatives. Far too often, things don’t turn out this way. Peacekeepers end up either creating more conflict than resolving it or being counterproductive and ineffective. That aside, US, UK, and French veto power prevents Security Council authorization for peacekeepers to Venezuela other than under their control – why it’s essential for nations supporting its sovereignty and democratically elected Maduro to act on their own with consent from his government, a mission led by Russia and China. Both nations have large investments in Venezuela to protect, especially China. Trump regime hardliners want their regional presence and influence countered and squeezed, ideally eliminated. If their coup succeeds, Sino/Russian investments could be lost entirely or in part. If gotten, US control over Venezuelan oil can decide which foreign buyers it’ll be sold to, which others shut out. The same hold true for Iranian oil reserves, the region’s largest after Saudi Arabia’s. Henry Kissinger earlier explained that controlling oil permits controlling nations – why the US seeks control over as much of the world’s supply as possible. Preserving and protecting Venezuelan (and Iranian) sovereignty should be a red line for Beijing and Moscow. A Sino/Russian peacekeeping mission to Venezuela, together with contingents from other nations supporting Maduro’s legitimacy as Venezuelan president, may be key to preventing the US attempted takeover of the country. Diplomatic outreach to Washington is a waste of time, accomplishing nothing. Time and again, the US flagrantly breaches international treaties, conventions and agreements, along with Security Council resolutions and its own Constitution. The only language Washington understands is toughness. International action to preserve and protect Venezuelan sovereign independence is the only effective strategy to challenge Washington’s destructive imperial agenda. There are times when action is the only option. This is one of those times, a key moment in history when it’s vital for China and Russia to step up to the plate and do the right thing! Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” | Stephen Lendman | https://www.globalresearch.ca/save-venezuelan-sovereignty-oil-economy-destabilized-peace-keeping-role-by-russia-china-non-alligned-nations/5668145 | 2019-02-10 14:06:13+00:00 | 1,549,825,573 | 1,567,548,994 | economy, business and finance | economy |
228,016 | globalresearch--2019-02-14--Cuba The Equilibrium of the World and Economy of Resistance | 2019-02-14T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Cuba – “The Equilibrium of the World” – and Economy of Resistance | The Fourth International Conference for “The Equilibrium of the World” took place in Havana, Cuba from 28 to 31 January 2019. The Conference, organized by the José Marti Project of International Solidarity, was sponsored by UNESCO and a number of local and international organizations and NGOs. It coincided with the 60thAnniversary of the Cuban Revolution and as such was also a celebration of that successful demonstration to the world that socialism, solidarity and love for life can actually survive against all odds – and, yes, Cuba, has faced more hardship than any other country in recent history, through boycotts, embargoes and all sorts of economic sanctions, heinous military infiltrations and assassination attempts, initiated by the United States and followed, largely under threats from Washington, by most of the western world. Viva Cuba! – A celebration well deserved – and in the name of José Marti, who was born 166 years ago, but whose thoughts and spiritual thinking for a new world are as valid today as they were then. They may perhaps best be summarized as love, solidarity, justice, living well for all and in peace. These principles were taken over by Fidel and Raul Castro, the Che and Hugo Chávez. They transcend current generations and reach far beyond Latin America. The conference had many highlights; brilliant speakers; a torch march was organized at the University of Havana in honor of José Marti; and the organizers offered the participants an extraordinary music and modern ballet performance at the National Theater. From my point of view some of the important messages came from the representative of China, who talked about the New Silk Road, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of building bridges and connecting countries and people, whereas the west was building walls. A Russian speaker sadly admitted that it took his government a long time and relentless trying to build alliances with the west – until they realized, relatively recently, that the west could not be trusted. Professor Adan Chavez Frias Chavez, Hugo’s brother, described an invasive history over the past 100 years by the United States of Latin America and called upon the brother nations of the Americas and the world to bond together in solidarity to resist the empire’s infringement and steady attempts to subjugate sovereign nations – with a vision towards a multipolar world of equals, of sovereign nations living together in peaceful relations. My own presentation focused on Economy of Resistance. And what a better place than Cuba to talk about economy of resistance! Impossible. Cuba has a 60-year history of successful resistance against a massive embargo, ordered by Washington and followed by almost the entire western world, thus demonstrating that the west has been reduced to a US colony. This was true already during the Cold War, but became even clearer when the Soviet Union “fell”. Here too, the west, led by Washington, was instrumental in the collapse of the USSR – but that’s another story – and the US grabbed the opportunity to become the emperor of a unipolar world. Cuban troops also resisted and conquered the attempted US Bay of Pigs (Playa Girón) invasion launched by President Kennedy in 1961 – and not least, Fidel Castro survived more than 600 CIA initiated assassination attempts. The principles of Economy of Resistance cover a vast domain of topics with many ramifications. This presentation focused on four key areas: On food, health and education sovereignty– Cuba is 100% autonomous, as far health and education go. However, Cuba imports more than 70% of the food her citizens consume and that, at present, mostly from the European Union. Cuba has the capacity and agricultural potential to become not only fully self-sufficient, but to develop and process agricultural produce into an agricultural industry and become a net exporter of agricultural goods. This process might be addressed as a priority policy issue. However, it will take some time to fully implement. Meanwhile, it may be wise to diversify imports from other parts of the world than the EU – i.e. Russia, China, Central Asia, friendly ALBA countries – because Europe is not trustworthy. They tell you today, they will always honor your purchasing contracts, but if the empire strikes down with sanctions – as they did recently for anyone doing business with Iran, Cuba may be “cooked”. Spineless Europe will bend to the orders of Washington. They have demonstrated this time and again, not least with Iran, despite the fact that they signed the so-called Nuclear Deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, on 14 July 2015 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – the United States, UK, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany and the EU – and Iran), after which Obama lifted all sanctions with Iran – only to have Trump break the agreement and reimpose the most draconian sanctions on Iran and on enterprises doing business with Iran. The US government, and by association Europe, does not adhere to any agreement, or any international law, for that matter, when it doesn’t suit them. There are plenty of indications – Venezuela today, to be followed by Nicaragua and Cuba. These should be valid signals for Cuba to diversify her food imports until full self-sufficiency is achieved. Already in 2014, Mr. Putin said the ‘sanctions’ were the best thing that could have happened to Russia. It forced her to revamp her agriculture and rebuild her industrial parks with the latest technology – to become fully independent from imports. Today, sanctions are a mere propaganda tool of the west, but they have hardly an impact on Russia. Russia has become the largest wheat exporter in the world. – Cuba could do likewise. She has the agricultural potential to become fully food-autonomous. On Economic and financial sovereignty– four facets are being addressed. The first one, foreign investments, Cuba may want to focus on (i) technology; (ii) assuring that a majority of the investment shares remains Cuban; (iii) using to the extent possible Cuba’s own capital (reserves) for investments. Foreign capital is bound to certain conditionalities imposed by foreign investors, thus, it bears exchange rate and other risks, to the point where potential profits from foreign assets are usually discounted by between 10% and 20%; and (iv) last but not least, Cuba ought to decide on the sectors for foreign investors – NOT the foreign investor. As the hegemony of the US dollar is used to strangle any country that refuses to bend to the empire, a progressive dedollarization is of the order, meaning, in addition to the US dollar itself, move progressively away from all currencies that are intimately linked to the US dollar, i.e. Canadian and Australian dollars, Euro, Yen, Pound Sterling – and more. This is a strategy to be pursued in the short- and medium term, for the protection against more sanctions dished out by the US and its spineless allies. Simultaneously, a rapprochement towards other monetary systems, for example in the east, especially based on the Chinese gold-convertible Petro-Yuan, may be seriously considered. Russia and China, and in fact the entire SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), have already designed a monetary transfer system circumventing the western SWIFT system, which has every transaction channeled through and controlled by a US bank. This is the key motive for economic and financial sanctions. There is no reason why Cuba could not (gradually but pointedly) join such an alternative system, to move out of the western claws of embargo. The SCO members today encompass about half of the world population and control one third of the globe’s GDP. Drawbacks would be that the import markets would have to be revisited and diversified, unless western suppliers would accept to be paid in CUC, or Yuan through a system different from SWIFT. Moving away from the western monetary transfer system may also impact remittances from Cubans living in the US and elsewhere in the west (about US$ 3.4 billion – 2017 – less than 4% of GDP). It would mean departing from monetary transactions in the Euro and European monetary zones. Be aware – the future is in the East. The West is committing slowly but steadily suicide. Another crucial advice is – stay away from IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Trade Organization (WTO) – and the like. They are so-called international financial and trade organizations, all controlled by the US and her western “allies” – and tend to enslave their clients with debt. The CUC versus the Peso, a dual monetary system (CUC 1 = CuP 25.75), has also been used by China up to the mid-80s and by Germany after WWI, to develop export / import markets. However, there comes a time when the system could divide the population between those who have access to foreign currencies (CUC-convertible), and those who have no such access. Also, the convertibility of the CUC with the Euro, Swiss franc, Pound Sterling and Yen, make the CUC, de facto, convertible with the dollar – hence, the CUC is dollarized. This is what Washington likes, to keep Cuba’s economy, despite the embargo, in the orbit of the dollar hegemony which will be used in an attempt to gradually integrate Cuba into the western, capitalist economy. – However, Washington will not succeed. Cuba is alert and has been resisting for the last 60 years. The Fifth Column – refers to clandestine and / or overt infiltration of opposing and enemy elements into the government. They come in the form of NGOs, US-CIA trained local or foreigners to destabilize a country – and especially a country’s economy – from inside. There are ever more countries that do not bend to the dictate of the empire and are targets for Fifth Columns – Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Pakistan and more – and Cuba? The process of “infiltration” is becoming ever more sophisticated, bolder and acting with total impunity. Perhaps the most (in)famous organization to foment Fifth Columns around the world, among many others, is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the extended arm of the CIA. It goes as a so-called NGO, or ‘foreign policy thinktank’ which receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the State Department to subvert non-obedient countries’ governments, bringing about regime change through infiltration of foreign trained, funded and armed disruptive forces, sowing social unrest and even “civil wars”. Cases in point are Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Libya – and more – and now they attempt to topple Venezuela’s legitimate, democratically elected Government of Nicolás Maduro. They work through national and international NGOs and even universities in the countries to be ‘regime changed’. Part of this ‘Infiltration” is a massive propaganda campaign and intimidation on so-called allies, or client states. The process to reach regime change may take years and billions of dollars. In the case of Ukraine, it took at least 5 years and 5 billion dollars. In Venezuela, the process towards regime change started some 20 years ago, as soon as Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998. It brought about a failed coup in 2002 and was followed by ever increasing economic sanctions and physical military threats. Earlier this year, Washington was able to intimidating almost all of Europe and a large proportion of Latin America into accepting a US-trained implant, a Trump puppet, Juan Guaidó, as the interim president, attempting to push the true legitimate Maduro Government aside. To put impunity to its crest, the Trump Government blocked 12 billion dollars of Venezuela’s foreign reserves in NY bank accounts and transferred the authority of access to the money to the illegitimate self-appointed interim president, Juan Guaidó. Along the same lines, the UK refused to return 1.2 billion dollars-worth of Venezuelan gold to Caracas. All these criminal acts would not be possible without the inside help, i.e. the “Fifth Column”, the members of which are often not readily identifiable. It is not known, how often the empire attempted ‘regime change’ in Cuba. However, none of these attempts were successful. The Cuban Revolution will not be broken. Water resources – is a Human Right and a vital component of an economy of resistance. Water resources will be more precious in the future than petrol. The twin satellites GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) discovered the systematic depletion of groundwater resources throughout the world, due to over-exploitation and massive contamination from agriculture and industrial waste. Examples, among many, are the northern Punjab region in India with massive, inefficient irrigation; and in Peru the Pacific coastal region, due to inefficient irrigation, unretained runoff rain- and river water into the Pacific Ocean, and destruction of entire watersheds through mining. Privatization of water resources, not only of drinking water and water for irrigation, but of entire aquifers, is becoming an increasing calamity for the peoples of our planet. Again, with impunity, giant water corporations, led by France, the UK and the US are gradually and quietly encroaching on the diminishing fresh water resources, by privatizing them, so as to make water a commodity to be sold at “market prices”, manipulated by the water giants, hence, depriving ready access to drinking water to an ever-growing mass of increasingly impoverished populations, victims of globalized neoliberal economies. For example, Nestlé and Coca Cola have negotiated with former Brazilian President Temer, and now with Bolsonaro, a 100-year concession over the Guaraní aquiver, the largest known, renewable freshwater underground resource, 74% of which is under Brazil. Bolsonaro has already said, he would open up the Amazon area for private investors. That could mean privatization of the world’s largest pool of fresh water – the Amazon basin. Economic Resistance means – Water is a Human Right and is part of a country’s sovereignty; water should NEVER be privatized. For Cuba rainwater – on average about 1,300 mm / year – is the only resource of fresh water. Cuba, like most islands, is vulnerable to rainwater runoff, estimated at up to 80%. There are already water shortages during certain times of the year, resulting in droughts in specific regions. Small retention walls may help infiltrate rainwater into the ground, and at the same time regulate irrigation, provide drinking water and possibly generate electricity for local use through small hydroelectric plants. The National Water Resources Institute (INRH – Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos), is aware of this issue and is formulating a forward-looking water strategy and planning the construction of infrastructure works to secure a countrywide water balance. Other challenges include the hygienic reuse and evacuation of waste water, as well as in the medium to long run an island-wide Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). In Conclusion, Economic Resistance might be summarized as follows: Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. | Peter Koenig | https://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-equilibrium-world-economy-resistance/5668567 | 2019-02-14 06:04:37+00:00 | 1,550,142,277 | 1,567,548,503 | economy, business and finance | economy |
229,246 | globalresearch--2019-05-05--19 Facts About Current US Economic Performance I Dare You to Tell Me the Economy Is Booming | 2019-05-05T00:00:00 | globalresearch | 19 Facts About Current US Economic Performance: I Dare You to Tell Me the Economy Is “Booming” | As I discussed yesterday, nobody should be using the term “booming” to describe the state of the U.S. economy until we have a full year when GDP growth is 3 percent or better, and at this point we haven’t had that since the middle of the Bush administration. And as you will see below, the latest numbers are clearly telling us that the U.S. economy is not even moving in the right direction. Economic conditions are getting worse, and they weren’t that great to begin with. According to the calculations that John Williams has made over at shadowstats.com, the U.S. economy is already in a recession, but of course the Federal Reserve will continue to tell us that everything is just fine for as long as they possibly can. Unfortunately for them, they can’t hide the depressingly bad numbers that are coming in from all over the economy, and those numbers are all telling us the same thing. The following are 19 facts about our current economic performance that should deeply disturb all of us… But at least the stock market has been doing well, right? Actually, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been down for two days in a row, and investors are getting kind of antsy. Hopes of a trade deal with China had been propping up stocks in recent weeks, but it looks like negotiations may have hit “an impasse”… I warned my readers repeatedly that this would happen. The Chinese are going to negotiate, but they are going to drag their feet for as long as possible in hopes that the U.S. will free Meng Wanzhou. Of course that isn’t going to happen, and so at some point the Chinese will have to decide if they are willing to move forward with a trade deal anyway. But if the Chinese drag their feet for too long, Trump administration officials may lose patience and take their ball and go home. In any event, the truth is that the U.S. economy is really slowing down, and no trade deal is going to magically change that. And a lot of other pundits are also pointing out that a substantial economic slowdown has now begun. For example, the following comes from Brandon Smith’s latest article… The bottom line is, the next crash has already begun. It started at the end of 2018, and is only becoming more pervasive with each passing month. This is not “doom and gloom” or “doom porn”, this is simply the facts on the ground. While stock markets are still holding (for now), the rest of the system is breaking down right on schedule. The question now is, when will the mainstream media and the Fed finally acknowledge this is happening? I suspect, as in 2008, they will openly admit to the danger only when it is far too late for people to prepare for it. Hopefully things will remain relatively stable for as long as possible, because nobody should want to see a repeat of 2008 (or worse). Unfortunately, we can’t stop the clock. We are already more than a third of the way through 2019, and we will be into 2020 before we know it. It has been an unusual year so far, but I have a feeling that it is about to get much, much more interesting. Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time. Featured image is from The Economic Collapse | Michael Snyder | https://www.globalresearch.ca/19-facts-about-current-us-economic-performance-i-dare-you-to-tell-me-the-economy-is-booming/5676575 | 2019-05-05 17:38:33+00:00 | 1,557,092,313 | 1,567,541,097 | economy, business and finance | economy |
230,288 | globalresearch--2019-08-01--Erdogans Risky Geopolitical Pirouette Turkeys Economy in Troubled Waters | 2019-08-01T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Erdogan’s Risky Geopolitical Pirouette. Turkey’s Economy in “Troubled Waters” | Turkey’s economy has been in increasingly difficult straits for months, especially since the failed July 2016 coup attempt. The latest move by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to fire his central bank head and replace him with a more amenable loyalist has already resulted in the largest one-time interest rate cut in the bank’s history. Will this be enough to revive growth in the troubled economy in time for the next national elections in 18 months? What seems to be Erdogan’s overall economic strategy as he tries to balance Washington, Beijing, Moscow and even Brussels? And does it have a chance to revive economic growth? On July 25, Turkey’s new central bank governor, Murat Uysal, cut the bank’s main interest rate by an eye-popping 4.25%, from 24% to 19.75%. It took place three weeks after Erdogan sacked the previous governor for refusing to cut the economy-killing high rates, even after the lira had long passed out of the 2018 crisis. It was the first rate cut in three years and followed the firing of a central bank head who followed the economic orthodoxy that high interest rates are needed to kill inflation, another fraudulent modern economic myth made popular in the 1970’s by Fed chief Paul Volcker. At 24%, Turkey had the highest interest rate of any major economy. Notably, the lira barely reacted to the big cut, leading Erdogan to demand that Uysal continue with further cuts. In doing so the Turkish president demonstrated his lack of reverence for one of the most powerful mandates of world finance, namely that politicians have no right to interfere in the sacred business of the “gods of money” controlling the world central banks. Ever since the Basle Bank for International Settlements was created in 1930 by Bank of England Governor Montagu Norman, with help from the US bankers, nominally to deal with German World War I reparations payments under the Young Plan, but as it soon became clear, to serve as a politically independent world central bank monetary cartel, central bank independence has become dogma. The BIS helped create the devastating myth that central bankers independent of any elected political influence, guided by their superior wisdom, would manage economies far better than central banks that were subject to political pressure, or, god forbid that were actually state or public banks. As has been demonstrated by many economic historians and detailed in my book, The Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, every major financial boom and subsequent crash since creation of the US Federal Reserve in 2013 in a Wall Street bankers’ coup, has been created by central bank interventions, usually using interest rates. The bogus “business cycle” theory is little more than an elaborate smoke screen to conceal the role of the Fed or the ECB in the EU in controlling the economy in the interests of what US Congressman Charles Lindbergh and other Wall Street critics in the 1920’s called the Money Trust. What Erdogan has done by firing Murat Cetinkaya as governor and putting a political crony in his place has set off alarm bells among western central bankers. Erdogan followed the rate cut news by declaring, The lira even rose after the rate cut, emboldening Erdogan. The question is whether the Turkish economy and Erdogan will succeed in reviving the troubled Turkish economy in time to improve his electoral chances in coming months before next national elections following the political defeat in the key municipal elections in both Ankara and Istanbul. The high rates were imposed by the former central bank governor to halt a free-fall of the Lira in 2018 that Erdogan blamed on foreign interference. In effect Erdogan was right to the extent that the US Fed had begun a major series of its own rate increases “to normal,” whatever that means, and Quantitative Tightening that was sending shock waves around the world. However, the Fed actions were clearly not specifically aimed at Turkey. For the previous ten years Erdogan and the Turkish economy had taken advantage of almost a decade of historically low global interest rates following the 2008 financial crash. During the economic boom, cheap credit flowed into construction of hotels, apartments, bridges, railways and other projects creating a huge economic boom, but mostly on money borrowed from abroad in dollars or Japanese Yen or Euros. By 2018 Turkish corporations held some $200 billion in foreign loans. When the Fed began its reversal, foreign lenders to high-profit markets like Turkey began to exit, fearing the worst, leading to a Lira collapse. From January 2018 to the present the lira lost a staggering 37% against the dollar as Turkish and foreign investors fled the falling lira, making it nearly impossible to repay the foreign loans from earnings. Companies went bankrupt, unemployment rose to 15% officially, and inflation near 25% by October, 2018 as the price of imports soared. With an economic boom financed with foreign loans for projects that earned in lira, the economy went into free-fall during 2018, a major reason for Erdogan’s poor election results this year. Clearly reacting to the economic collapse and the negative impact of 24% central bank rates, Erdogan went so far as to oppose central bank dogma and propose that interest rates outside his political control were “the mother and father of all evil,” telling Bloomberg in a May 14 2018 interview that, “the central bank can’t take this independence and set aside the signals given by the president.” Now Erdogan clearly feels able to act on that by getting a political crony to head the central bank. However with such a high level of foreign currency corporate debt, it is clear that 19.75% interest rates or even zero or negative rates as in the EU will not be enough to create a new prosperity in Turkey. Interesting enough, in 2018 Erdogan began to suggest, according to close business allies, that the 2008 Lehman Bros global financial collapse had led him to lose faith in western capitalism. All of this takes place amid a turbulent geopolitical backdrop. Turkey’s ongoing attempts to create its own “buffer zone” against the Syrian Kurds on his borders, his growing ties to Teheran, Moscow and Beijing, and the growing tensions with NATO partners over Turkish drilling ships offshore Cyprus are leading some commentators to predict that Erdogan plans to take Turkey out of NATO and to join with China and Russia and other Eurasian states in an alliance around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where Turkey is presently a “dialogue partner.” Erdogan’s refusal to back down to Washington pressure on purchase of Russian advanced S-400 anti-missile defense systems, said to be the world’s most advanced, has heightened such speculation of an Erdogan geopolitical “pivot east.” Moreover, on July 2, following the Japan G20 meeting, Erdogan was in Beijing as official guest of China President Xi Jinping. There Erdogan dropped earlier sharp criticism of what have been described as “re-education camps” where a reported 1 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims are interned. Turkey historically considers the Turkic Uyghurs to be related, and refer to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province as East Turkestan. This time Erdogan pragmatically dropped critique of Beijing’s Muslim policies and focused on what he considered more crucial—money: credits and loans from China and Chinese companies for infrastructure projects in Turkey as part of the China Belt and Road Initiative. While in Beijing the Turkish president stated to the press that it was, “uncontested that all ethnic groups living in Chinese Xinjiang live happily in the conditions of development and prosperity of China.” Just four months earlier Erdogan’s Foreign Ministry had declared the situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, “a great embarrassment for humanity.” Quite a shift. In 2018 Turkish-Chinese bilateral trade was $23 billion, according to the Turkish Statistics Office, making China Turkey’s third largest trading partner. Most of that, some $18 billion is China export to Turkey. Erdogan is clearly eager to change that more to Turkey’s favor. There was no grand announcement after the Xi-Erdogan talks of new Chinese investments in Turkey. Will the growing tensions of Erdogan with Washington, and now increasingly with Germany and other EU states, lead to a break with NATO? At this point it is highly unlikely. The EU, especially Germany, UK and Italy are far the largest importers of Turkish products. China is not in a position with its rapidly slowing economy and declining trade surpluses to cushion the economic blow of a Turkey pivot out of NATO and the West to the East and the SCO. The financial panic resulting would plunge Turkey into deep depression so long as Turkey abides by the rules, still, of Anglo-American central banking and financial markets. Ironically, Erdogan has made tiny gestures towards a non-western model, but to date with little effect beyond the 4.25% interest rate cut from his hand-picked new central bank chief. He is not ready to risk all in an economic and political alliance with the SCO or with Iran. The result is that rather than an Erdogan “geopolitical pivot” to the east, we see an Erdogan “pirouette” to east, the west, even north and south, trying a delicate balancing act to gain most from all. The risk is he could end up displeasing all. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.” This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms. The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is. | F. William Engdahl | https://www.globalresearch.ca/erdogans-risky-geopolitical-pirouette-turkeys-economy-in-troubled-waters/5685245 | 2019-08-01 10:38:17+00:00 | 1,564,670,297 | 1,567,535,102 | economy, business and finance | economy |
230,579 | globalresearch--2019-08-21--What Globalism Did Was to Transfer the US Economy to China | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | globalresearch | What Globalism Did Was to Transfer the US Economy to China | The main problem with the US economy is that globalism has been deconstructing it. The offshoring of US jobs has reduced US manufacturing and industrial capability and associated innovation, research, development, supply chains, consumer purchasing power, and tax base of state and local governments. Corporations have increased short-term profits at the expense of these long-term costs. In effect, the US economy is being moved out of the First World into the Third World. Tariffs are not a solution. The Trump administration says that the tariffs are paid by China, but unless Apple, Nike, Levi, and all of the offshoring companies got an exemption from the tariffs, the tariffs fall on the offshored production of US firms that are sold to US consumers. The tariffs will either reduce the profits of the US firms or be paid by US purchasers of the products in higher prices. The tariffs will hurt China only by reducing Chinese employment in the production of US goods for US markets. The financial media is full of dire predictions of the consequences of a US/China “trade war.” There is no trade war. A trade war is when countries try to protect their industries by placing tariff barriers on the import of cheaper products from foreign countries. But half or more of the imports from China are imports from US companies. Trump’s tariffs, or a large part of them, fall on US corporations or US consumers. One has to wonder that there is not a single economist anywhere in the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve, or anywhere else in Washington capable of comprehending the situation and conveying an understanding to President Trump. One consequence of Washington’s universal economic ignorance is that the financial media has concocted the story that “Trump’s tariffs” are not only driving Americans into recession but also the entire world. Somehow tariffs on Apple computers and iPhones, Nike footwear, and Levi jeans are sending the world into recession or worse. This is an extraordinary economic conclusion, but the capacity for thought has pretty much disappeared in the United States. In the financial media the question is: Will the Trump tariffs cause a US/world recession that costs Trump his reelection? This is a very stupid question. The US has been in a recession for two or more decades as its manufacturing/industrial/engineering capability has been transferred abroad. The US recession has been very good for the Asian part of the world. Indeed, China owes its faster than expected rise as a world power to the transfer of American jobs, capital, technology, and business know-how to China simply in order that US shareholders could receive capital gains and US executives could receive bonus pay for producing them by lowering labor costs. Apparently, neoliberal economists, an oxymoron, cannot comprehend that if US corporations produce the goods and services that they market to Americans offshore, it is the offshore locations that benefit from the economic activity. Offshore production started in earnest with the Soviet collapse as India and China opened their economies to the West. Globalism means that US corporations can make more money by abandoning their American work force. But what is true for the individual company is not true for the aggregate. Why? The answer is that when many corporations move their production for US markets offshore, Americans, unemployed or employed in lower paying jobs, lose the power to purchase the offshored goods. I have reported for years that US jobs are no longer middle class jobs. The jobs have been declining for years in terms of value-added and pay. With this decline, aggregate demand declines. We have proof of this in the fact that for years US corporations have been using their profits not for investment in new plant and equipment, but to buy back their own shares. Any economist worthy of the name should instantly recognize that when corporations repurchase their shares rather than invest, they see no demand for increased output. Therefore, they loot their corporations for bonuses, decapitalizing the companies in the process. There is perfect knowledge that this is what is going on, and it is totally inconsistent with a growing economy. As is the labor force participation rate. Normally, economic growth results in a rising labor force participation rate as people enter the work force to take advantage of the jobs. But throughout the alleged economic boom, the participation rate has been falling, because there are no jobs to be had. In the 21st century the US has been decapitalized and living standards have declined. For a while the process was kept going by the expansion of debt, but consumer income has not kept place and consumer debt expansion has reached its limits. The Fed/Treasury “plunge protection team” can keep the stock market up by purchasing S&P futures. The Fed can pump out more money to drive up financial asset prices. But the money doesn’t drive up production, because the jobs and the economic activity that jobs represent have been sent abroad. What globalism did was to transfer the US economy to China. Real statistical analysis, as contrasted with the official propaganda, shows that the happy picture of a booming economy is an illusion created by statistical deception. Inflation is undermeasured, so when nominal GDP is deflated, the result is to count higher prices as an increase in real output, that is, inflation becomes real economic growth. Unemployment is not counted. If you have not searched for a job in the past 4 weeks, you are officially not a part of the work force and your unemployment is not counted. The way the government counts unemployment is so extradinary that I am surpised the US does not have a zero rate of unemployment. How does a country recover when it has given its economy away to a foreign country that it now demonizes as an enemy? What better example is there of a ruling class that is totally incompetent than one that gives its economy bound and gagged to an enemy so that its corporate friends can pocket short-term riches? We can’t blame this on Trump. He inherited the problem, and he has no advisers who can help him understand the problem and find a solution. No such advisers exist among neoliberal economists. I can only think of four economists who could help Trump, and one of them is a Russian. The conclusion is that the United States is locked on a path that leads directly to the Third World of 60 years ago. President Trump is helpless to do anything about it. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. | Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | https://www.globalresearch.ca/globalism-transfer-us-economy-china/5686832 | 2019-08-21 13:25:28+00:00 | 1,566,408,328 | 1,567,533,819 | economy, business and finance | economy |
231,328 | globalresearch--2019-10-09--Will the Federal Reserve Make Trump a New Herbert Hoover? Is the US Economy Primed for a 1929-style | 2019-10-09T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Will the Federal Reserve Make Trump a New Herbert Hoover? Is the US Economy Primed for a 1929-style Shock? | In recent months US President Trump has pointed repeatedly to his role in making the American economy the “best ever.” But behind the extreme highs of the stock market and the official government unemployment data, the US economy is primed for a 1929-style shock, a financial Tsunami that is more influenced by independent Fed actions than by anything that the White House has done since January 2017. At this point the parallels between one-time Republican President Herbert Hoover who presided over the great stock crash and economic depression that was created then by the Fed policies, and Trump in 2019 are looking ominously similar. It underscores that the real power lies with those who control our money, not elected politicians. Despite proclamations to the contrary, the true state of the US economy is getting more precarious by the day. The Fed policies of Quantitative Easing and Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) implemented after the 2008 crash, contrary to claims, did little to directly rebuild the real US economy. Instead it funneled trillions to the very banks responsible for the 2007-8 real estate bubble. That “cheap money” in turn flowed to speculative high-return investment around the world. It created speculative bubbles in emerging market debt in countries like Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and even China. It created huge investment in high-risk debt, so called junk bonds, in the US corporate sector in areas like shale oil ventures or companies like Tesla. The Trump campaign promise of rebuilding America’s decaying infrastructure has gone nowhere and a divided Congress is not about to unite for the good of the nation at this point. The real indicator of the health of the real economy where real people struggle to make ends meet lies in the record levels of debt. Today, fully a decade after the unprecedented actions of three presidents, the US economy is deeper in debt than ever in its history. And debt is controlled by interest rates, interest rates ultimately in the hands of the Fed. Let’s look at some signs of serious trouble which could easily put the economy in a severe recession by this time in 2020. On September 25 the corporate bond debt of Ford Motor Co., which unlike GM refused government nationalization in 2008, has just been downgraded to “junk” status by Moody’s, who said Ford faces “considerable operating and market challenges…” It affects $84 billion in company debt. Junk rating means than most insurance companies or pension funds are banned from holding the risky debt and must sell. Before Moody’s rated Ford bonds at the lowest just prior to junk, BBB. The problem is that over a decade of Fed low interest rates, corporations have taken greater debt risks than ever, and the share of BBB-rated or “at risk of junk” bonds today has risen to more than 50% of all US corporate bonds outstanding. At the start of the crisis in 2008 BBB-rated bonds were only a third of the total. That amounts to more than $3 trillion of corporate debt at risk of downgrade to junk should the economy worsen, up from only $800 billion a decade ago. Ten years of unprecedented ultra-low fed interest rates are responsible. Moody’s estimates that at least 47 other multi-billion US corporations are vulnerable to junk downgrades in a sharp economic downturn or with rising interest rates. The most mentioned are the aerospace and electrical conglomerate GE which among other things makes jet engines for troubled Boeing. Corporate debt in the USA today is a ticking time bomb, and the Fed controls the clock. Today total corporate debt exceeds $9 trillion, an all-time high, a rise of 40% or $2.5 trillion since 2008 according to the St. Louis Fed. With the ultra-low Fed interest rates since 2008, companies have doubled the debt outstanding but debt cost has risen only 40%. Now in recent months the Fed has been raising interest rates directly and indirectly via Quantitative Tightening. The most recent token .25% rate cut does little to change the grim outlook for the US bond market, the heart of the financial system. Ford among other problems is being hit hard by the global downturn in the auto sector. In the USA car dealers have become so desperate to sell cars as consumers are choking on record levels of personal debt that they have recently offered 8-year car loans. For the past two years the Fed has been slowly ratcheting interest rates higher. The predictable result has been rising default on household debts, especially car loans. As of April, 2019 a record 7 million Americans were 90-days or more behind in car loans, some 6.5% of all auto loans. More than 107 million Americans have car loans today, up from 80 million in 2008 and an historic record. The rise in defaults parallels the Fed monetary tightening graph. Both Ford and GM are announcing thousands of job layoffs as the economy slows and consumer debt reaches dangerous levels. Ford is cutting at least 5,000 jobs and GM 4,400 in US operations. Tens of thousands more layoffs are deemed likely in coming months if the economy worsens. Then the private US Institute for Supply Management just reported that its index of manufacturing industry contracted to the weakest since June 2009, the depth of the economic crisis a decade ago. In the survey companies cited uncertainties related to the China trade war of Trump as the major factor behind depressed hiring and business activity. Trump then attacked the Fed for not moving fast enough to lower rates. One indicator of the precarious state of the USA real manufacturing economy is the deepening recession this year in the trucking industry, the sector that moves goods through the country. In September 4,200 truck drivers lost their jobs as freight rates plunged owing to lack of goods traffic. In the first six months of 2019 around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, three times the number a year before when Fed rate impacts were still low and trade war consequences far less clear. In June trucking loads were down more than 50% in June compared with June 2018 in the trucking spot market. Rates also dipped by as much as 18.5% over that same period. The volume of freight shipped by all modes in the US has been sinking dramatically. Freight shipments within the US by truck, rail, air, and barge fell 5.9% in July 2019, compared to July 2018, the eighth month in a row of year-over-year declines, according to the Cass Freight Index for Shipments, which excludes bulk commodities such as grains. This decline, along with the 6.0% drop in May, were the steepest year-over-year declines in freight shipments since the Financial Crisis of 2008. Far from realizing the lessons of the US sub-prime housing debt crisis leading to the global crisis of 2007-2008, the banks have quietly moved back into making dodgy loans. Moreover, the two quasi-government mortgage lending guarantee agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in worse shape than during the 2007 sub-prime real estate crisis. Nonetheless in March, 2019 the President signed a Memorandum calling for steps to end the ten-year Government conservatorship of the two agencies. However, as several officials recently testified, “The U.S. housing finance system is…Worse off today than it was on the cusp of the 2008 financial crisis.” That, despite $190 billion of taxpayer bailout to the two agencies. By a Congressional directive Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are allowed to hold a loss buffer capital reserve of combined $6 billion. However they own or guarantee almost $5 trillion in mortgage securities. Many of those mortgages are of dubious or dodgy credit quality like before 2007, as banks look for higher interest rate yields. If the overall economy worsens in the coming year in the run-up to November 2020 elections, home mortgage defaults could soar. It has been estimated that The key to the US economy is debt and debt is at an all-time high for US Government, whose deficit is rising annually at more than $1 trillion, for corporations with record debt and for private households where home mortgage debt, student loan debt and car loan debt all are at record high levels. Student loan debt reached $1.46 trillion by January 2019, with serious delinquency rates much higher than any other debt type. Mortgage debt accounted for $9.12 trillion. Total private household debt was a record $13.5 trillion. If we add to this precarious economic debt the situation in American agriculture where farmers face the worst crisis since the early 1980’s, it is clear that the economic miracle of the Trump era is far from stable. To wit, one of the most noted features of recent US economic growth, the US shale oil recovery of 2018 that made America the world’s largest oil producer, has all but flattened out this year as world oil prices fall sharply. The fall is threatening many US shale oil producers many of whom borrowed by issuing blow investment of high interest yield junk bonds in hopes of a recovery from the price collapse after 2014. Even an attack on Saudi oil infrastructure and threats of war in Iran and Venezuela have not stopped the price slide in oil in recent weeks. If oil prices continue to fall below $55 a barrel a new wave of bankruptcies and closings in the US energy sector will follow, most likely in 2020 just in time for the US elections. From 1927 to 1929 the Fed deliberately created then burst a stock bubble using interest rates. Republican President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act in 1930 to defend American industry, resulting in a trade war that was blamed along with Hoover for the Great Depression that was brought on by an economy bloated with debt and easy money during the Roarin’ Twenties boom. Hoover was blamed and lost re-election to Democrat FDR with his New Deal. Behind all were the actions of the Federal Reserve, the real power. Soon it will be clear if 2020 will be a modern era repeat of the Hoover script, this time with a Democrat whose “New Deal” will likely be green. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.” This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms. The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is. | F. William Engdahl | https://www.globalresearch.ca/fed-make-trump-new-herbert-hoover/5691459 | Wed, 09 Oct 2019 09:34:47 +0000 | 1,570,628,087 | 1,570,622,852 | economy, business and finance | economy |
231,532 | globalresearch--2019-10-31--US Equities Soar While Real Economy Plummets. Deep Recession Ahead? | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | globalresearch | US Equities Soar While Real Economy Plummets. Deep Recession Ahead? | On Wednesday, the S&P 500 closed at a record high, the Dow and Nasdaq just shy of record territory. Yet according to economist John Williams, noted for reengineering official data to how it was accurately calculated decades earlier, the “US economy remains in intensifying downturn.” Year-over-year payroll growth is at a level “last seen going into and coming out of the great recession,” indicating significant economic weakness. A “confluence of unusual risk factors (are) developing or already in play.” New and existing home sales are declining. Inflation adjusted durable goods orders are down. Non-annualized Q III GDP growth “was not meaningfully different from zero.” “September 2019 manufacturing remained 4.8% (-4.8%) shy of ever having recovered its pre-recession peak activity.” “In the 101-year history of industrial production, that reflects a record 142 consecutive months of economic non-expansion, as measured by the Federal Reserve Board’s monthly surveying.” So why are US equities at or near record highs? Money printing madness (quantitative easing – QE) is back with a vengeance, along with three cuts this year in the fed funds rate. It’s the interest rate banks and other depository institutions charge when lending money to each other, most often on an overnight basis, the lower the rate, the cheaper the borrowing cost. Interest rate cuts and QE don’t stimulate economic growth or create jobs. Money created flows to bank balance sheets for speculation, high salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, stock buybacks, along with mergers and acquisitions for reducing competition by consolidating to greater size. Money dropped on Wall Street facilitating all of the above fuels higher asset prices. From 2006 until December 2015, the fed funds rate was zero. During this decade, QE created $3.5 trillion in virtually free money for corporate America and speculators, fueling the longest bull market in US history. As much as $23.7 trillion went for bailout funding, according to former Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) administrator Neil Barofsky, the greatest of grand theft. In October 2018, Project Censored reported that “the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) may have accumulated as much as $21 trillion in undocumented (unaccounted for) expenses between 1998 and 2015.” All of the above grand theft came and continues to come at the expense of eroding social justice and other vital homeland needs. The greatest US wealth disparity was created and now exists since the late 19th/early 20th century robber barons age. According to Wall Street on Parade, the “Fed up(ped) its Wall Street bailout to $690 billion a week” in late October. The “giant money spigot” began flowing freely in mid-September, “growing exponentially” at present, adding: “The New York Fed will now be lavishing up to $120 billion a day in cheap overnight loans to Wall Street securities trading firms, a daily increase of $45 billion from its previously announced $75 billion a day.” Benefitting firms are getting cheap money “continuously rolled over,” effectively making funds “permanent loans…exactly what happened during the 2007-2010 Wall Street collapse…without the authorization or even awareness of Congress or the American people.” Citigroup alone got over $2.5 trillion in near-free money. What the mother-bank New York Fed is now doing “is unprecedented in US history.” Yet establishment media aren’t reporting what should be regular headline news. No Wall Street or economic crisis was declared by the Fed. No congressional hearings were held on what’s going on. No one authorized what’s happening. Loans are going “to the New York Fed’s primary dealers, which are stock and bond trading houses on Wall Street who count hedge funds among their largest borrowers,” Wall Street on Parade explained. Dodd-Frank financial reform was supposed to prevent what’s going on. Yet it’s happening with a vengeance, fueling speculative excess and the great wealth disparity. The Federal Reserve isn’t federal. It’s owned and controlled by major Wall Street banks, serving their interests, not the economy or public welfare. According to the Economic Collapse Blog (ECB), 14 signs show economic weakness — what money printing madness isn’t addressing. “Not since the last recession have we seen numbers this bad. The ‘mini-boom’ that we witnessed for several years has now turned into a ‘bust,’ and very tough times are ahead,” said ECB, listing the signs it sees as follows: “#1 US business hiring has fallen to a 7 year low. #2 Consumer confidence in the United States has now declined for 3 months in a row. #3 Defaults on ‘subprime’ auto loans are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2008. #4 The percentage of ‘subprime’ auto loans that are at least 60 days delinquent is now higher than it was at any point during the last recession. #5 Vacancies at US shopping malls have hit the highest level since the last recession. #6 Destination Maternity has announced that they will be closing 183 stores as the worst year for store closings in US history just continues to get worse. #7 The Cass Freight Index has now fallen for 10 months in a row. #8 US rail carload volumes have plunged to the lowest level in 3 years. #9 In September, orders for class 8 heavy duty trucks were down 71 percent. #10 Tesla’s US sales were down a whopping 39 percent during the third quarter of 2019. #11 The bad news just keeps rolling in for the real estate industry. Last month, existing home sales in the United States declined by another 2.2 percent. #12 New home prices have fallen to the lowest level in almost 3 years. #13 According to one recent report, 44 percent of all Americans don’t make enough money to cover their monthly expenses. #14 A recent survey found that more than two-thirds of all US households ‘are preparing for a possible recession.’ ” Small businesses are being hit hardnest by economic weakness. ECB quoted investor Michael Pento saying: “When this thing implodes, we are all screwed. On a global scale, we have never before created such a magnificent bubble.” “These central bankers are clueless, and they have proven that beyond a doubt. All they can do is to try to keep the bubble going.” What can’t go on forever, won’t. An eventual day of reckoning is inevitable. When arrives it won’t be pretty. Like always before, ordinary people will be hit hardest. Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” | Stephen Lendman | https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-equities-soar-economy-weakens/5693639 | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:02:12 +0000 | 1,572,552,132 | 1,572,539,155 | economy, business and finance | economy |
231,832 | globalresearch--2019-11-19--Europe’s Economy Today & Tomorrow | 2019-11-19T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Europe’s Economy Today & Tomorrow | The Wall St. Journal page one article of November 18, 2019 broadcast: “Europe’s New Jobs Stoke Discontent”. It asked: ‘why are workers so angry’, when millions more jobs have been created since Europe’s last recessions (2008-09 and 2011-13), when millions more job openings remain, and when minimum wages have been raised in most countries’? The article then goes on to try to answer some of these questions. It suggested one problem is that the vast majority of new jobs created in Europe have been contingent (i.e. temp, part time, independent contractor, etc.). That has meant, in turn, lower aggregate pay and a lack of insurance, disability, pension (deferred wage) benefits. It also has meant less job security and longer total hours worked and more costs to workers trying to cobble together multiple part time jobs. Europe has developed a two tier labor force, of those that ‘have somewhat’ and those who ‘definitely have not’. These 2nd tier conditions afflict mostly younger, under 35 years old workers. Apart from the substandard wages and benefits, the contingent work has left them with a sense of hopelessness that they’ll ever be able to get out of the ‘2nd tier worker’ hole, a kind of 21st century indentureship, that they know prevents them from living a normal life, having a family, obtaining reasonable housing, and so on. The condition is not picked up by mainstream media referring to economy-wide gains in ‘average wages’, which mostly apply to regular, 1st tier workers. Job creation numbers also do not distinguish between the two tiers and the low quality (contingent, precarious) jobs that account for the vast majority of jobs created in recent years in Europe (as well as in the USA and Japan). Nor are contingent jobs reflected in the large number of unfilled job openings, which are for the highly skilled, technical workers that capitalism needs in greater numbers today but which the educational systems have failed to produce. In short, the data that mainstream media articles like the Wall St. Journal keep referencing as indications of a strong labor force and good job gains are irrelevant to the growing problem of temp and part time jobs that official government data either ignore or don’t accurately reflect. Furthermore, the official mainstream press and media don’t connect the mass protests and demonstrations breaking out worldwide to the growing problem of contingent employment and its discontent. Beneath the apparent causes of the growing mass demonstrations and protests lies the mass discontent and growing hopeless of young people over their deteriorating work and living conditions. Look beneath what’s happening with Yellow Vests in France, Hong Kong demonstrations, mass demonstrations across the South American continent, in North Africa and the Middle East, and what you will find is young workers growing desperate over their working conditions, over income inequality, the lack of jobs that provide a basic living, and their sense of hopelessness of change any time soon. In other words, discontent over their fate in emerging 21st century capitalism. But the worse is still yet to come. Contingent, or so-called precarious, work and its condemning of workers to a ‘new indentureship’—a kind of 21st century capitalist serfdom—is now being intensified by new capitalist business models and technological change. The new models are creating even more precarious work. They are what I call the ‘Amazon Effect’ and the ‘Uber Effect’. But these new business models are not the worst of it. Overlaid on contingency, precarious work, and the intensification by these new business models is the even greater negative impact now just emerging due to Artificial Intelligence. AI promises to exacerbate the problems of low pay, long hours, job insecurity and general hopelessness caused by precarious work, and the revolutions in capitalist business models from Amazon and Uber that are making that precarious employment even worse. Europe’s economy has been even more devastated than America’s by the recent contingent-precarious job trends of capitalism. And AI will prove even more destructive when it comes. This past spring 2019, this writer was interviewed for a book of interviews to be published soon in Poland. The following excerpt from the interview addresses the destruction of labor markets, jobs, incomes and lives of workers, going on in recent decades and coming in Europe in the decade ahead. Already reeling under the effects of precarious work and new business models, Europe’s workers are about to be further impacted by Artificial Intelligence. AI will come later in Europe than in the US and Asia. Its introduction will therefore be more intense and its effects therefore even more disruptive. Interviewer: I was talking with Aleksandr Dugin, he is one of the top ideologists for Kremlin right now and he told me something quite interesting. He said that, the problem in Europe is not so economical problem, there is a deeper problem. He said that firstly, the whole population of Europe will be replaced by people from Africa and Middle East, and all these people will be replaced by robots, the whole labor will be replaced by automation, what do you think about that. Dr. Jack Rasmus: Yes, well I don’t agree that you’re going to have a mass immigration into Europe. Europe is already closing off its’ borders in various ways from the immigration from North Africa and the Middle East. The problems in North Africa are part of the problems of global lack of real global economic recovery and the greater ease of transportation and communication of recent decades, so these folks are coming to Europe but that’s a symptom of the bigger problem. Not the problem itself. The second part of your point is much more fundamental and structural, and that is what we are seeing now is changes in the labor markets and product markets globally and capitalist economies changing at a very rapid rate. What that means is that in order for capitalists to compete with each other globally and individually they have got to cut costs even more rapidly and the new technologies and business models are enabling it to do just that. Artificial intelligence is the next wave of massive change in the labour markets. We’ve already seen the change in Europe where we’ve already had a shift to contingent employment, part time and temp jobs, in recent decades. Over the last ten years, most of the jobs created in Europe have been these second tier kind of jobs, part time, temp contingent jobs. Low paid, service jobs with no rights, less benefits than first tier. That labor market change is behind a lot of the yellow vests and protest in Europe. It’s economic, it’s jobs, hopeless jobs and hopeless futures and the elite’s ignoring that as it erupts. That’s already a big problem in Europe, where even in Germany 60% to 70% of the jobs created, according to data I’ve seen, have been these second-tier jobs and these second-tier workers are rebelling now. Their unions are tied into the state apparatus, pretty much, so workers just expressing this individually, spontaneously. So that problem of widespread 2nd tier employment already exists in Europe, but now we’re going to have overlaid on it this new wave of technology, driven by A.I. that will make it much worse. And what is Artificial Intelligence? It’s simply eliminating decision making, simple decision making in the economy. More sophisticated decision making, more complex will still be there. In fact you’ll see an increase in jobs in data science and statistical analysis and so forth but these are high level and highly skilled jobs and not everyone can do them. And the education system has not been preparing people to do those jobs. So we’re going to see the jobs that were simple decisions jobs, a lot of these second tier contingent jobs, are even going to disappear. A McKinsey report in the United States, McKinsey Consultants, recently came out this year and said in the U.S alone AI will mean 30% of the occupations will either be eliminated or significantly reduced in terms of hours worked. 30% of occupations, that’s roughly of one third of 165 million jobs in the US, are going to be either eliminated or reduced in hours and therefore pay. The same thing’s going to happen in Europe. This is artificial intelligence, which is simply large databases, massive computing power and statistical analysis to develop machine learning so that the machinery, the automation, makes the decisions and you don’t need simple people making simple decisions. Well that’s going to have a massive impact by the middle of the next decade to the economies. It’s going to allow business that make this shift—those who don’t will go under—to be more profitable and to survive the new capitalist competition that will continue to intensify. But it’s going to wipe out a lot of businesses and a lot of jobs in the process. Now all that AI effect is coming on top of the crisis of slow economic growth since 2009 that already exists as well as the economic recession that’s just around the corner. How will they deal with that, how will the elites of these countries in Europe, and the U.S and Japan, deal with this convergence of AI, slow growth, and recession is going to be interesting because we are going to have far more people unemployed and under-employed and we’re going to be in a situation of very low growth in general with segments, pockets, of explosive economic growth by those companies and industries that are able to exploit these changes in technology. It will be a very ‘dual track’ world economy, with the gap between haves and have nots growing even more than today. I: I’m still wondering what will happen with this working class in Europe, and basically everywhere, who cannot compete with Artificial intelligence. Young people are going to study something, but they know they cannot compete in one decade or two decades, they won’t be able to get any job in the market because the Artificial Intelligence can just replace you. So, I was talking with people who are involved deeply with artificial intelligence, they are building artificial intelligence at MIT or wherever and they just told me “OK, maybe the government will send you some money every month and that will fix the problem” but this from my perspective sounds like bullshit to be honest. DJR: Well you know, there will be more chronic unemployment and especially underemployment. We will have a larger based of unemployed in relationship to the employed. There will be many more underemployed than we have now, that’s going to get even worse. The question is how that affects the consumption potential of the system when we don’t have job growth. We already see a chronic slow economic growth since 2010. It will mean there will be more debt-financed consumption. They will allow more people to survive more on borrowing, more on credit. Which is just a way of taking away your future wages, but they’ll rely on debt much more. More underemployed, more unemployed, and more credit and household debt. Some people are talking that a universal basic income will have to occur. I think that might be a partial solution in theory but it will never fly politically, at least not in the USA. The political forces will never agree to UBI, universal basic income, as long as they have control of the political system to the extent they do. So I don’t see that actually happening over the next decade. Not in the USA. I think the recession is coming soon and it will accelerate AI. You know the McKinsey study predicted that by 2025 you’re going to have maybe thirty to fifty percent of all the companies implementing some form of AI. And again, A.I.is just a new business model to reduce cost even more. That’s what it’s all about. AI is very much like Amazon and it’s very much like the sharing economy. See this is the new product revolution in capitalism. Capitalism is evolving and changing more rapidly than ever before. It’s always been a dynamic system. But It’s accelerating in its rate of change and we see this is in the labor markets and we see this in the product markets and these new business models now emerging. And we see it in changes in fiscal and monetary policy and we’re seeing it in trade policy. What is Trump’s trade offensive all about? Well it’s about positioning the U.S capitalist class, and U.S business elite, to maintain hegemony over the global economy as all these changes occur over the next decade. They are restructuring particularly the relationship with China, the biggest US competitor, so the U.S business elite can remain dominant and the dollar, the global trading currency, can remain dominant. They are preparing for this and that’s how I see all this Trump trade war. Trade is a response to capitalist restructuring underway. Changes in trade relations have to occur after we have had all these structural changes in the finance markets, product markets and the labor markets. Capitalism is changing. Capitalist change means that if you’re not a capitalist, you’re going to make even less, they’re going to squeeze you with these new business models, you the worker, and they’re going to squeeze their capitalist competitors to whatever extent they can with these new business models. If you look at France, what are all the changes Macron is trying to do? Well he wants to change the product market, he wants France to become more like the U.S in terms of Uber, Amazon and A.I. and that’s true for all of Europe. They are all trying to do this. Germany is still based on the old business model largely, i.e. to make things, but it knows it’s going to have to change more rapidly in the future. Europe knows this, they know they’ve got to make these changes and they know they are behind the global curve. They’re playing catch up to the USA and China. The changes are coming rapidly in China and in the U.S. Britain wants to attach itself more to the U.S, that’s partly why you have this Brexit thing. It knows what the future is going to be, France knows, but they can’t make the change fast enough you see because they don’t have the banking system, the financial system, to pull off the financial restructuring. They don’t have the higher education system to prepare the labor markets for AI and the new models, and to be able to do this on the massive scale necessary, that’s already occurring in the U.S and China. So Europe is the weak link, as I said, because it’s not been able to make this capitalist evolution fast enough in product markets, and its attempts to radically change labour markets in favor of capitalists is producing blowback and discontent and creating working class eruptions both in the streets, like in France, and at the ballot box, like in Brexit in England and other places, in Italy. I: Well it sounds like some dystopian movie from the future, so what do you think is inclusive capitalism is some kind of solution for this? For example, like Lynn Forester de Rothschild she’s proposing inclusive capitalism as a solution for economy right now, so what do you think about that, is it a real solution or some kind of hoax? DJR: Well I think that’s an ideological phrase, we’re all inclusive in capitalism, we’re all a part of capitalism. If she thinks that the solution is to make everyone a capitalist, that’s nonsense. That kind of ideology has always been around in one form or another, in other words. It’s a way of deflecting the problem of capitalism itself by saying we’re going to reform capitalism and you can all be capitalists. In other words you’re all going to make more money. It’s an ideological response to a crisis of the system itself in my view. You know, it’s a phrase, sounds nice: inclusive. You don’t have to be a worker and worry about whether you’ve got a job or you can feed your family, you can be a capitalist too. How that actually works, I don’t know. It’s more a way of deflecting discontent than any realistic solution. I: What do you think is the real solution here, because people are proposing the sharing of the economy which is new. DJR: Yeah, the sharing economy, or the gig-economy, whatever you want to call it, this is one of the new business models at the leading edge of capitalism. Whether or you talk about Uber or Airbnb or all the other “sharing”. What is the essence of the sharing economy? Well it’s a way of capitalist businesses to figure out how to pass their cost of production off to the work themselves. Let’s take Uber. It’s model makes them more profitable than other businesses models. With the changes of technology, we’re getting new business models. Uber is an example of a new business model of the gig-economy. Amazon is an example of a new kind of business model as well. Artificial intelligence, and the businesses and industries they will spin off, are the ‘next generation’ of the shift to new capitalist business models. The old industrial business model where you make things, make goods, where you have a chain of suppliers and you hire workers to make the things… that is dying. It is not dead by any means, but the leading edge of capitalist evolution are the new business models. Take the Uber business model. Think about it right, Uber has software and Uber has control of the customer, but instead of Uber building a physical infrastructure or investing in physical capital, i.e. the transport equipment, it gets their worker to use his physical capital, his car and to use his working capital meaning paying for insurance and gasoline and so forth. So they are making the worker bear the cost of the physical and working capital, which reduces the money wage Uber pays the worker. It’s a form of intensifying exploitation. Uber sits back, and it controls the cost, it has no cost of goods. It’s a service that doesn’t have to produce anything physical. It doesn’t have to pay the worker a higher union wage, in fact the laws prevent the workers from organising as workers because they’re supposedly small businesses themselves you see. It’s a new form of more intense exploitation of the working class, that result in greater profits for Uber. Why do you think Uber is able to raise billions of dollars? Because investors know the business model is so profitable. And this is what all the sharing economy is about, whether it’s Airbnb or whatever. In Airbnb, you get the homeowner to use his own physical capital, his home, as the hotel. The sharing economy company has the software that identifies the customers and puts the customer in connection with the ‘worker’, whether he is the car-driver or the homeowner, and reaps super profits off the top. You see it’s a much more efficient, much more profitable business model and that’s why it’s booming. We’re going to see the same thing happen with Amazon where you’ve got a new business model as well. Where you don’t have brick and mortar and no worries of the cost of facilities and so forth. You just have transport and moving goods around, that’s another new business model that’s already wiping out other big box retail stores and small retailers everywhere in the cities it does business. It will soon destroy millions of trucking jobs as well and automate out its warehouse jobs. That’s a new business model. Then we’re going to see newer business models with AI, because it’s all software manipulation and eliminating the cost of production, the cost of goods, and putting that cost on the backs of workers, who are hired as small businesspeople. That’s the AI model. I: Exactly, so it is in other terms the person who is involved in that kind of sharing economy is in some way a capitalist. DJR: Yeah, In other words you make the worker assume the worst part of being a capitalist, in other words, the costs. You don’t let the worker, who becomes a kind of blended worker, part worker/part small businessperson, share in the profits. It’s the company sitting on top of it all, the Uber, the Airbnb, whatever that skims off the lion’s share of the profits, and you don’t even allow the new worker businessperson to organize collectively amongst themselves to negotiate a share of the super profits for themselves. You use the laws to prevent that. Maybe that’s what this other person meant by inclusive capitalism. The worker becomes a businessperson in the view of the law, and his exploitation is intensified in the process. You know it’s simply a justification for the intense exploitation these new business models represent. I: So what is the solution here for this sharing economy, to be shareholder of Airbnb or other platform or whatever it is, I’m not just a worker who is involved with Airbnb, I am a shareholder of this stock of this company, maybe this is the solution if you know what I mean? DJR: Yeah, well I know what you mean but individual share holding of stock of a company doesn’t give you any control over their business practices and strategies and policies of that company. It just means you’ve given some of your money to someone else to invest somewhere. You need to have sufficient control of the stock, 5 or 10 percent to affect the business policies of the company. So just owning stock, if you’re a small stockholder, doesn’t provide any control, it’s control that we should be talking about not ownership of a piece of paper and a formal, infinitesimal share of a company. What needs to happen is that the laws need to change so that the worker-employee/small businessperson, whatever this new blend of worker is in the labour market, can organize collectively to get a collective voice to defend themselves. That hasn’t happened yet, and you’re not going to stop this new business model of capitalism, but the question is how vulnerable do you leave those whose are being exploited by it. I really think they need to unionize in a new form of union. Not the old form of union based on the old company structures, but some kind of new form. But the capitalist states are making sure that they block that by legal means. And as far as the rest of society is concerned, what we got in the 21st century here is the state, and the government, engaging increasingly in subsidizing business and capital incomes. Both with monetary and fiscal policy. With monetary policy they’ve bailed out the banks and investors, then they’ve given them free money for ten years now. Everywhere in the advanced economies, and especially in Japan, and to some extent in Europe, they’re propping up bond and stock markets by central banks buying private securities. That increases the demand for bonds and stocks that keeps up the price of both that protects the wealth of investors. Financial assets like stocks and bonds keep rising, but it’s all artificial. They’re being subsiding more and more by the state. Fiscal policy in the form of tax cuts for corporations, investors, and the rich more and more. In the U.S in 2018 they’ve passed four trillion dollars in tax cuts for businesses and investors. So the state, fiscal and monetary policy and other forms of policy, like trade policy, are being employed by states to subsidize capital incomes like never before. we now see a trade war with Trump who is trying to restructure the global trading system for that purpose. The state is increasing propping up the capitalist economy and capital incomes. Before, state policies would share with labor, and small businesses, but now you’ve got capital, big capital, particularly finance capital which has absorbed more and more political control, and thus we see fiscal monetary policies more and more reflecting the interest of corporations, professional investors, and the wealthy at the expense of the rest, until you get an eruption like the yellow vests in France. There the government had to back off a little, Macron backed off a little, threw a few crumbs to pacify it. Teresa May backs off a little bit, reduces austerity just a little, and throws a few crumbs, to the working classes of Britain. These responses are temporary responses, however, to relieve the pressure while the main policies continue to subsidize with monetary and fiscal measures, i.e. subsidize the business class. How long can that go on, well history will tell. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump‘, Clarity Press, October 2019, available for purchase at discount from this blog. Click on the book icon. | Dr. Jack Rasmus | https://www.globalresearch.ca/europe-economy-today-tomorrow/5695374 | Tue, 19 Nov 2019 04:16:44 +0000 | 1,574,155,004 | 1,574,165,074 | economy, business and finance | economy |
281,834 | labourlist--2019-08-23--HS2 will help us build an economy for the many | 2019-08-23T00:00:00 | labourlist | HS2 will help us build an economy for the many | Doom-mongers and NIMBYs are out in force. Our poor excuse for a Prime Minister, Boris ‘piffle’ Johnson, has given them hope. Johnson’s review of High-Speed Two (HS2) is as ill-conceived as it is needless. The only questions which remain to be answered regarding this vital piece of infrastructure are: why didn’t we build it at least a decade ago and why doesn’t the line go all the way to Scotland? Nay-sayers say it’s expensive. No shit Sherlock. You simply can’t build new railways lines on the cheap. A large chunk of the money being spent is in compensation for compulsory purchase orders – any new line would need to foot a similar bill. Then we also have lots of tunnels – many of them not an engineering necessity – due to the public’s demand for the removal of what they deem eyesores. Sadly, many people simply don’t appear to appreciate the majestic look of a train going much faster than any other land-based vehicle. Let’s face it, our need for HS2 is down to capacity, capacity and more capacity! Our current network is bursting at the seams. If nothing is done, our West Coast Mainline will soon be full between London and Coventry. Our East Coast Mainline from London to Peterborough is not in much better shape. The country needs new railway lines to avoid bottlenecks in our existing network, slow running of trains due to congestion and to increase services. We also need new lines to move freight from our roads onto our railways as we take the challenges of climate change head-on. Given all this, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to conclude that new lines should be built to 21st Century standards so they can provide the fastest and most efficient train services possible today. This means building a high-speed line to connect our major conurbations and to free the existing rail network, mostly for shorter distance travel and freight. That’s why our union, supportive as we are of HS2, doesn’t feel that the current project is ambitious enough. The new high- speed line should go all the way to Scotland. Once built, HS2 will be around for a very long-time – perhaps well over a century. Its maintenance and renewal costs for the first decades of operation will be considerably lower than what we currently spend on our Victorian network. From its signalling system to its rolling stock, everything, will be brand spanking new. This should be blindingly obvious but gets lost in the debate about HS2’s up-front costs. We will also have increased rail capacity making most intercity journeys quicker with far less delays. If the new line went all the way to Scotland then most long-distance journeys will be on the high-speed network for a large chunk of their trajectory if not for their entirety. Of course, the connectivity HS2 brings will put rocket boosters under the economies of the North. As well as that the building stage will support thousands, upon thousands, of good jobs. The HS2 college in Doncaster is already starting to train the new generation of engineers that our railways and our economy so badly needs. The icing on the cake could be the return of real train manufacturing to our country. One of the companies bidding to build the high-speed rolling stock has promised to erect a brand-new factory in Fife, creating 1000 well-paid skilled jobs. They are also looking to open a research and design facility in Derbyshire which will create another 500 jobs mainly for scientists and engineers and which will once again see trains designed from scratch within our shores. In addition, their plans include creating around 6500 jobs within their supply chain across the length and breadth of Britain, thus making sure that most of the components on these trains are home-made. On top of that they will be looking to export their British-made trains across the world, making a positive contribution to our balance of trade. So frankly, when you weigh-up the economic, social and environmental gains of HS2, keeping the show on the road – or rails, rather – is a no-brainer. I am therefore somewhat disappointed that our Labour Party has also been calling for a review. If we are dead serious about wanting to create a new economic settlement for the many, which also combats the real menace the climate emergency poses and puts in place an industrial strategy with strong links to our public procurement, then HS2 is the kind of investment which ticks all these boxes. This is right-up John McDonnell’s street – using public investment and procurement to boost our skills, our manufacturing base and help spread economic well-being across our country. What’s not to like? We need more infrastructure projects of this nature – and fast – if we are to create an economy for the many, where no one is left behind. **James Kelly is editing _LabourList_ while Sienna Rodgers is away.** ### Value our free and unique service? LabourList has more readers than ever before - but we need your support. Our dedicated coverage of Labour's policies and personalities, internal debates, selections and elections relies on donations from our readers. [Support LabourList](/donate) | Manuel Cortes | https://labourlist.org/2019/08/hs2-will-help-us-build-an-economy-for-the-many/ | 2019-08-23 13:40:11+00:00 | 1,566,582,011 | 1,567,533,566 | economy, business and finance | economy |
286,191 | lewrockwell--2019-04-08--Dead Economy Walking | 2019-04-08T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Dead Economy Walking | Germany is the key to the EU economy. This is not news. What is news is that Germany’s economy is in the toilet. Not slowing down…. not hitting some bumps. The Germans are industrial and exporting powerhouses. And the trends for those two things have been in decline for over a year. Balance of trade for the past two quarters have been the lowest they’ve been since 2016. And the euro has backed off 13% since January of 2018. That’s because so much of Germany’s exports are to other EU countries and they are loaded to the gills with debt. Furthermore, a big miss to the German Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) in March was confirmed this week by April’s number which was just as horrific. The March 22nd release missed by over 3 points to come in at 44.7 versus expectations of 48.0 (Anything under 50 is considered contraction). Contraction happened (again surprising the market) in February. In fact, it’s been nothing but misses, some of them similarly horrible, since the beginning of last year. This is putting Germany on the road to recession. Again, this isn’t news to anyone watching markets carefully. I present it to cut through the insanity surrounding Brexit and provide some context. I’ve described Brexit as an existential threat to the EU. It is that and so much more. And it is why everyone on both sides of the channel are working so hard to undermine it. In my latest for Strategic Culture I name names. The EU does not want Brexit and if it were to happen it will inflict incredible damage to the British political system and its integrity. This is really no different than what happened in Greece in 2015. And it was directed by Angela Merkel than and it is being directed by Merkel today. The EU’s intransigence in negotiations, aside from it having no other option, is an elaborate bluff to separate and divide the British political class, now that the people have voted to leave. How an Economy Grows a... Peter D. Schiff, Andre... Best Price: $2.79 Buy New $5.95 (as of 07:30 EDT - Details) I find it pathetic to see Merkel on a charm tour in Ireland this week to present her Mutti Merkel side to help ease the pain of Theresa May’s open betrayal of the British political system. Now that the fix is nearly in Merkel and Donald Tusk are playing good cop to Guy Verhofstadt’s frothing-at-the-mouth bad cop. Germany’s descent into economic malaise now is Merkel’s biggest problem, though I doubt she’s fully cognizant of the implications. Everyone suffers from normalcy bias and for her the European project should be strong enough to weather any storm. But, what if it isn’t? The conventional wisdom is keeping the U.K. in the EU as a tax cow is paramount to ensuring continued German dominance over the bloc. And, I agree that is the thinking in Brussels. But, I’m coming to believe that the reality is different than the mindset of the perpetrators. So, I make the counter-argument that, in fact, Germany and Merkel have already lost the war to hold the EU together, regardless of Brexit. Destroying the British political system will not make the Brits easier to control, but rather harder. It will not scare the recalcitrants like Matteo Salvini of Italy and Marine Le Pen in France. It will enrage them. A failure of Germany’s economy to hold the bloc together will ricochet back on Germany’s leadership of the EU very quickly. We’re seeing this in French President Emmanuel Macron’s open defiance of Germany on Brexit. So many people, including Remainers in London, make the argument that they can’t survive against a bigger, stronger economy like the EU’s, namely Germany’s. So much of what the EU is built on has been the willingness of everyone else to suffer Germany’s visions for integration as long as Germany was willing to fund it. But, that’s looking more and more to not be the case into the future. The EU has nearly reached the limit of internal transfers which paper over how weak Germany’s long-term economic prospects are under the current political rubric. There comes a point when a simple slide into recession is not just another cyclical downturn that can be papered over by more central bank credit and wizardry. It becomes something the politicians can’t strong-arm away and the media can’t sugar-coat. The Real Crash: Americ... Peter D. Schiff Best Price: $3.52 Buy New $10.95 (as of 10:45 EDT - Details) Germany’s recession is here because of the structural problems of the EU’s fiscal black hole. It’s resulting in obvious capital flight into U.S. assets — the dollar, stocks and bonds simultaneously. It has pushed up the price of safe-haven assets in Europe beyond absurd levels. And yet, no one dare call this a crisis! And because there is still some slack yet in the German economy, it hasn’t fully expressed itself yet at the consumer level. So, that gives everyone enough wiggle room to talk the talk. But, savings is rising rapidly while consumer spending is topping out. The news is still mixed enough that it hasn’t begun to hurt Merkel further politically. Just wait. It will be. The Best of Thomas Luongo | Thomas Luongo | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/04/thomas-luongo/germany-dead-economy-walking/ | 2019-04-08 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,554,710,460 | 1,567,543,648 | economy, business and finance | economy |
286,758 | lewrockwell--2019-07-02--How the Fed Wrecks the Economy Over and Over Again | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | How the Fed Wrecks the Economy Over and Over Again | When people talk about the economy, they generally focus on government policies such as taxation and regulation. For instance, Republicans credit President Trump’s tax cuts for the seemingly booming economy and surging stock markets. Meanwhile, Democrats blame “deregulation” for the 2008 financial crisis. While government policies do have an impact on the direction of the economy, this analysis completely ignores the biggest player on the stage – the Federal Reserve. You simply cannot grasp the economic big-picture without understanding how Federal Reserve monetary policy drives the boom-bust cycle. The effects of all other government policies work within the Fed’s monetary framework. Money-printing and interest rate manipulations fuel booms and the inevitable attempt to return to “normalcy” precipitates busts. In simplest terms, easy money blows up bubbles. Bubbles pop and set off a crisis. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. How an Economy Grows a... Peter D. Schiff, Andre... Best Price: $1.56 Buy New $2.99 (as of 04:50 EDT - Details) In practice, when the economy slows or enters into a recession, central banks like the Federal Reserve drive interest rates down and launch quantitative easing (QE) programs to “stimulate” the economy. Low interest rates encourage borrowing and spending. The flood of cheap money suddenly available allows consumers to consume more – thus the stimulus. It also incentivizes corporations and government entities to borrow and spend. Coupled with quantitative easing, the central bank can pump billions of dollars of new money into the economy through this loose monetary policy. In effect, QE is a fancy term for printing lots of money. The Fed doesn’t literally have a printing press in the basement of the Eccles Building running off dollar bills, but it generates the same practical effect. The Federal Reserve digitally creates money out of thin air and uses the new dollars to buy securities and government bonds, thereby putting “cash” directly into circulation. QE not only boosts the amount of money in the economy; it also has a secondary function. As the Federal Reserve buys U.S. Treasury bonds, it monetizes government debt. The central bank can also buy financial instruments like mortgage-backed securities as it did during QE1 in 2008. This effectively serves as a bank bailout. Big banks get to remove these worthless assets from their balance sheets and shift them to the Fed’s. Theoretically, this makes the banks more solvent and encourages them to lend more money to ease the credit crunch that occurs when banks become financially shaky. This monetary policy results in a temporary boom. All of that new money has to go somewhere. It could result in rising consumer prices (inflation), but generally, it pumps up the price of assets such as real estate and stock markets, creating a fake wealth effect. People feel wealthier because they see the value of their assets rapidly increasing. With plenty of debt-driven spending and rapidly increasing asset prices, the economy grows, sometimes at a staggeringly fast rate. This process also creates inequality. The first receivers of this new money – generally bankers and politically-connected individuals and institutions – get the most direct benefit from the newly-minted dollars. Their decisions on where to spend the money create artificially high demand in the chosen industries or asset classes. Think the housing market in the years leading up to ’08 or tech companies during the dot-com boom. This amplifies distortions in the capital structure. The first receivers also get to spend the new money before the inflationary effects take hold and prices rise. Those who receive the money later on down the line, say through pay raises, don’t get the same benefits as the first users. Price inflation eats up their gains. Meanwhile, surging economic growth, shrinking unemployment and rising stock markets driven by money-creation give the illusion of a healthy economy, but the monetary policy hides the economic rot at the foundation. In order to sustain an economic expansion, you need capital goods — factories, machines, natural resources. Capital goods are produced through savings and investment. When central banks juice consumption without the requisite underlying capital structure, it will eventually become impossible to maintain. You can print all the dollars you want, but you can’t print stuff. At some point, the credit-driven expansion will outstrip the available stock of capital. At that point, the house of cards begins to collapse. Imagine you plan to build a giant brick wall. With interest rates low and credit readily available, you borrow all the money you need to complete the job. But two-thirds of the way through, a brick shortage develops. You may have plenty of money, but you’ve got no bricks. You can’t finish your project. This scenario provides a simplified picture of what happens in the economy during a Fed-fueled economic expansion. Flush with cash, investors begin all kinds of projects they will never be able to complete. Eventually, the malinvestments become apparent and the boom teeters and then collapses into a bust. Of course, the Fed helps this process along as well. Once the apparent recovery takes hold, the Fed tightens its monetary policy. It ends QE programs and begins to nudge interest rates back up. When the recovery appears to be in full swing, the central bank may even shift to quantitative tightening — shrinking its balance sheet. During the boom, governments, consumers and companies pile up enormous amounts of debt. Rising interest rates increase the cost of servicing that debt. They also discourage new borrowing. Easy money dries up. This speeds up the onset of the next recession and the cycle repeats itself. To understand this, we can look back at the past three boom-bust cycles. In October 1987, the stock markets crashed. The following year, inflation rose above 5 percent, prompting then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to raise interest rates to a peak of 9.75 percent in late 1988.* This led to a mild recession in the early 1990s. Greenspan pushed rates down to a low of 3 percent in late August 1992, then began to slowly nudge them upward in 1994. But the Fed never got rates anywhere near the pre-recession level. With the economy plugging along, rates peaked at 6 percent in February 1995. From there, Greenspan held rates in the 5 percent range through 2001. As the New York Times put it, “Greenspan makes a winning bet in the mid-1990s, resisting pressure to raise interest rates as unemployment declines. He argues that increased productivity, including the fruits of the computer revolution, have increased the pace of sustainable growth. Indeed, the Fed finds itself debating whether there is such a thing as not enough inflation, and a new Fed governor named Janet L. Yellen plays an important role in convincing Mr. Greenspan that a little inflation helped to lubricate economic growth.” In December 1996, the dot-com boom was in full swing. Greenspan actually warned of “irrational exuberance” in the markets, even as he fed it with artificially low – for the time – interest rates. And then the dot-com bubble popped in the spring of 2001. In response, Greenspan slashed rates, eventually dropping them all the way to 1 percent in June 2003. This set the stage for the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed began nudging rates higher in the summer of 2004. By February 2005, we were already seeing ripples of trouble in the over-inflated housing market, but the Federal Reserve continued nudging rates up. Of course, mortgage rates moved upward along with the federal funds rate. More homeowners began to default. In late 2007, the bottom fell out and in 2008, the entire system imploded, kicking off the Great Recession. By December 2008, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had dropped rates to .25 percent – effectively zero – and he launched what would become three rounds of quantitative easing. The Fed held rates at that historically low level for seven years. And now we find ourselves in the midst of a new bubble. The economy is loaded up with government, corporate and consumer debt. The stock markets have been juiced to record levels. We also see other asset bubbles in high-yield bonds, housing (again), and commercial real estate, along with a lot of other assets you don’t hear as much about – such as art and comic books. Investment strategist and author Peter Schiff says the current bubble economy has grown far bigger than it was in the months leading up to the 2008 crash. Janet Yellen nudged rates up for the first time in 2015, followed up with one hike in 2016. It wasn’t until 2017 that the central bank began to normalize in earnest, hiking rates seven times over the next two years. After the last hike in December 2018, the Fed funds rate stood at 2.5 percent. The Federal Reserve also began to unwind quantitative easing in 2018 by shedding assets from its balance sheet. The Real Crash: Americ... Peter D. Schiff Best Price: $1.99 Buy New $8.95 (as of 02:35 EDT - Details) Last fall, the impact of rate hikes and quantitative tightening began to ripple through the economy. The stock market tanked. It was the first sign that the cycle was about to turn from boom to bust. Current Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell rode to the rescue, signaling that interest rate normalization was over and announcing the end of quantitative tightening. This monetary policy 180 has stabilized the markets for the time being. But it is only a matter of time before the bubbles pop and the economy moves into the downward spiral. Not only is the existence of a central bank-fueled business cycle rooted in sound economic theory, we see the impact of Federal Reserve monetary policy in the ups and downs of the business cycle as it has played out through time. The bottom line is that we can’t “fix” the economy by electing Republicans or Democrats. We can’t put the country on sound economic footing by tweaking this or that policy in Washington D.C. The only way to put the economy on a sound footing is to deal with the root cause of the problem — the Federal Reserve and its constant meddling. As long as the Fed controls the monetary system, there will never be a “free market” in America. The central bankers always have their fingers on the economic scales. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/no_author/how-the-fed-wrecks-the-economy-over-and-over-again/ | 2019-07-02 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,562,054,460 | 1,567,537,296 | economy, business and finance | economy |
312,534 | mercurynews--2019-04-10--Letter A healthy planet and a healthy economy dont have to be treated as mutually exclusive | 2019-04-10T00:00:00 | mercurynews | Letter: A healthy planet and a healthy economy don’t have to be treated as mutually exclusive | #### A healthy economy and planet is a viable option Re: “[Climate change overreaction is a bigger man-made threat](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/05/letter-climate-change- overreaction-is-a-bigger-man-made-threat/)” (Letter to the editor, April 5): When considering the letter-writer’s opinion, one must balance the projections of what is to come if we don’t react or if we underreact. These projections, which have been offered for decades, are proving not only to be true, but even understated. They indicate that future generations will see collapses of flora and fauna, devastating and unpredictable natural weather patterns and food scarcity our modern society has never seen. A healthy planet and a healthy economy don’t have to be treated as mutually exclusive, as the letter implies. Surely, we humans are smart enough to negotiate terms that will support both goals – examples are HR 763’s carbon fee and dividend, or a Green New Deal. Doing nothing just isn’t a viable option. **Laura Porter** _San Mateo_ Submit your letter to the editor via [this form](/letters-to-the-editor) Read more [Letters to the Editor](/opinion/letters) | Letters To The Editor | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/10/letter-a-healthy-planet-and-a-healthy-economy-dont-have-to-be-treated-as-mutually-exclusive/ | 2019-04-10 14:10:28+00:00 | 1,554,919,828 | 1,567,543,306 | economy, business and finance | economy |
895,654 | therussophileorg--2019-11-01--Greek Hierarchs Initiate Pan-Orthodox Council to Resist ‘Independent’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church | 2019-11-01T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | Greek Hierarchs Initiate Pan-Orthodox Council to Resist ‘Independent’ Ukrainian Orthodox Church | This post was originally published on this site Throughout history, America’s CIA has always viewed religious institutions and movements around the world as an access point – in order to insert US influence, and to divide and destabilize regions along geopolitical lines. One such example is the current US and CIA-backed effort to split the eastern Orthodox Church and thereby limiting ‘Russian influence’ in a coveted NATO possession like Ukraine. The recent move towards ‘autocephaly’ of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church would certainly be a high-value objective of Washington which has openly expressed its desire for regime change in Moscow, and to bring the fringes of eastern further into the western fold. Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus and Metropolitan Seraphim of Kythira and Antikythera have sent a joint letter-appeal to all local Orthodox churches calling on them to hold the Pan-Orthodox Council on the Ukraine question, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus told vimaorthodoxias.gr. He noted that the recognition of the Orthodox Chruch of Ukraine (‘independent’) by the Greek Orthodox Church may lead to tragic consequences. According to him, the flock is extremely divided and is watching the developments with anxiety as the new Schism is a fact. Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus emphasized that no local Orthodox church has recognized the recently created Orthodox Church of Ukraine and that the Greek Orthodox Church made a historical mistake, when it decided that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople had a right to support the Ukrainian schism. The actions of the top Greek metropolitans regarding the Ukraine question demonstrates that despite the tactical administrative success of Constantinople in Greece, it remains in a very complicated situation because of its actions in Ukraine. In this situation, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is in fact fueling a conflict within the Orthodox World to pursue own political goals. | 21wire | https://www.therussophile.org/greek-hierarchs-initiate-pan-orthodox-council-to-resist-independent-ukrainian-orthodox-church.html/ | Fri, 01 Nov 2019 19:40:56 +0000 | 1,572,651,656 | 1,572,647,640 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
894,924 | therussophileorg--2019-10-19--RN questions foreign funding for Strasbourg mosque | 2019-10-19T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | RN questions foreign funding for Strasbourg mosque | This post was originally published on this site The Alsatian capital in the heart of Europe is also a privileged target for political Islam. And between troubled financing and complacency of the municipality, nothing seems to slow down its progress. This was denounced by the councilor and regional RN representative Andréa Didelot. At the beginning of October, the people of Strasbourg learned with amazement from the local press that their municipality, through its director charged with religious institutions, had participated in a so-called “courtesy” visit to the NGO Qatar Charity. This was allegedly carried out in order to obtain funding to finish the construction of the Eyyub Sultan Mosque affiliated to the Turkish movement Milli Görus, in the district of Meinau. Muslims are now the second largest religious group in this region of 2,9 million people, and there is considerable debate about whether Islam should receive the support given to other religions. The NGO Qatar Charity, under cover of humanitarian aid, is strongly suspected of participating in the financing of Islamist terrorism and maintaining close links with terrorist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaida, AQIM, as well as the Syrian Islamic Front. Beyond the dangerousness of these fundamentalist movements, Qatar Charity has never hidden its desire to influence Islam in Europe by promoting a vision of society at odds with any republican principles, a certain vision of women and a conception of human rights and democracy. Nicolas Matt, councilor delegate of LREM charged with religious institutions, is surprised that he is questioned about this trip, while no one had found anything wrong with a previous visit to Russia in connection with the funding of an Orthodox church he said. France is however not currently suffering from terrorism related to “Putinist obedience”… This matter will no doubt animate discussions over the Christmas market, in a city which was bruised by the “imbalance” of an Islamist less than a year ago. A jihadist killed three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg before he was shot dead by French police. The Islamic State jihadist group claimed him as one of their “soldiers” before 700 French security forces hunted down 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said at the time three police officers had tried to question Chekatt after spotting him on the street in the Neudorf area of the northeastern French city where he grew up, but he opened fire. Writer Joachim Véliocras has complained about the Islamisation in the Regional Council of Alsace. Thanks to a Concordat , a special agreement decreed by Bonaparte dating from 1801 that grants public status to religion and permits priests to be paid by the State, Islam can count on public funding too. In 1801, Alsace was part of France. However, when in 1905 the law separating Church and State went into effect in France, Alsace was part of Germany. Thus, when Alsace again became French it never renounced the Concordat. The project is large: 5500 m2 including 900 prayer rooms and a mezzanine reserved for women. It will be one of the largest mosques in Europe built in the Ottoman style. It is also the fourth mosque built in Strasbourg, after that of Heyritz in 2012, Robertsau in 2015 and Hautepierre in 2017. The laying of the first stone was done under the watchful eye of the faithful who came in great numbers and with many officials: elected officials of Strasbourg, members of the council of Muslims and the ambassador of Turkey in France. | fwmstaff | https://www.therussophile.org/rn-questions-foreign-funding-for-strasbourg-mosque.html/ | Sat, 19 Oct 2019 05:49:19 +0000 | 1,571,478,559 | 1,571,496,713 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
899,999 | therussophileorg--2019-11-15--Tatarstan invites Saudi foundation to jointly present Islamic culture to Europeans | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | Tatarstan invites Saudi foundation to jointly present Islamic culture to Europeans | This post was originally published on this site KAZAN, November 14. /TASS/. Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov invited the secretary of the Alwaleed Philanthropies charity foundation, the princess of Saudi Arabia, HRH Lamie bint Abdelmajid Al Saud to jointly implement projects that would introduce Islamic culture to the Europeans, the presidential press service announced on Thursday. The president of Tatarstan and the princess of Saudi Arabia met on the sidelines of the World Tolerance Summit in Dubai. The Alwaleed Philanthropies Foundation organizes various events in European countries that enable their residents to get acquainted with the Islamic culture. Rustam Minnikhanov praised the foundation’s mission and proposed to jointly develop it. “I agree with you on this, Islam has a great history and rich culture. It is important to show this to other countries. We are also actively working on this matter in Tatarstan. Perhaps we could add our works to your collection,” he said. The princess supported the idea. The head of the Russian region went on to speak about the work underway in Tatarstan on restoring religious sites and strengthening multicultural harmony. He invited the princess to visit Tatarstan during her trip to Russia. Alwaleed Philanthropies Charity Foundation operates in 180 countries. The foundation implements charity projects in education, healthcare, natural disaster response, women’s rights, and also boosting multicultural dialogue. The II World Tolerance Summit is being is held in Dubai on November 13-14 bringing together representatives of various states, religious institutions, educational institutions, cultural associations, non-governmental organizations and influencers. The summit is dedicated to tolerance and cultural understanding aimed at strengthening peace and mutual understanding between people. Special attention will be paid to enhancing cooperation to ensure security and stability all over the world. | Michael Sullivan | https://www.therussophile.org/tatarstan-invites-saudi-foundation-to-jointly-present-islamic-culture-to-europeans.html/ | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 09:55:43 +0000 | 1,573,829,743 | 1,573,821,179 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
900,000 | therussophileorg--2019-11-15--Tatarstan leader discusses multicultural dialogue at Dubai summit | 2019-11-15T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | Tatarstan leader discusses multicultural dialogue at Dubai summit | This post was originally published on this site KAZAN, November 14. /TASS/. President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov shared his experience in develpoing multinational and multireligious tolerance with the participants of the World Tolerance Summit in Dubai, said the presidential press service on Thursday. “The Council under the President of Tatarstan on multinational and interreligious relations is working in the republic. We adopted a concept on national state policy. A scientific and expert council operates on the basis of Kazan Federal University. And of course, in our affairs we rely on our muftiate and metropolis which allows us to ensure peace, harmony and stability,” said Minnikhanov. The president noted that in total about 4 million people live in Tatarstan — representatives of 173 nationalities. According to him, the republic has extensive experience of muslims and orthodox christians living side by side. They have a mutual understanding them, he noted. A lot of mosques and cathedrals were lost during the Soviet period. Since the 90s to the present day, a number of religious sites are still being restored, noted the president. “But our main task was to prepare people, theologists, who could properly build this system. At present, the Tatarstan Metropolis and the Spiritual Administration of Muslims make a huge contribution to strengthening tolerance and stability in the republic. All events in Tatarstan are held with the participation of our main religious figures,” he added. According to the Tatarstan leader, the republic simultaneously restoring both Muslim and Orthodox shrines. For example, the Kul Sharif Mosque and the Orthodox Annunciation Cathedral are located on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin. The republic’s fund for the revival of historical and cultural monuments did an enormous job to restore Ancient Bolgar and the island city of Sviyazhsk. Work on recreating the Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God is underway, the Bolgar Islamic Academy was opened. The republic pays special attention to issues of religious education. “People can be swayed by different beliefs. Thus, we make sure that the system of Islamic and Orthodox education is structured and that various harmful trends do not cause any problems,” said Minnikhanov. The II World Tolerance Summit is being is held in Dubai on November 13-14 bringing together representatives of various states, religious institutions, educational institutions, cultural associations, non-governmental organizations and influencers. The summit is dedicated to tolerance and cultural understanding aimed at strengthening peace and mutual understanding between people. Special attention will be paid to enhancing cooperation to ensure security and stability all over the world. | Michael Sullivan | https://www.therussophile.org/tatarstan-leader-discusses-multicultural-dialogue-at-dubai-summit.html/ | Fri, 15 Nov 2019 08:55:07 +0000 | 1,573,826,107 | 1,573,821,181 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
482,193 | shtfplan--2019-12-20--The Child That Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State? | 2019-12-20T00:00:00 | shtfplan | The Child That Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State? | This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute. The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There was no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land. Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later? What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family was forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them? A singular number of churches across the country are asking those very questions, and their conclusions are being depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing. These nativity scenes are a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings, and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism, and war. The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do? What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do? Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer risked his life to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality. Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds. Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.” “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” This is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny, and love. After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state, not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings. When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be. Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state? Consider the following if you will. Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000. Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery. Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis, and purposes yet to be disclosed. Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill. From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero-tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses. Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone. Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenage years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us. From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations. Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.” While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies. Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled. Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery. Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored. Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach. Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip-searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait. Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books. Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later. Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error. Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square. Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs. Indeed, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state. Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebrations and gift-giving, we would do well to remember that what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less. | Contributing Author | https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-child-that-christmas-forgot-how-would-jesus-fare-in-the-american-police-state_12202019 | Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:30:56 +0000 | 1,576,902,656 | 1,576,886,493 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
841,594 | therussophileorg--2019-02-07--The Pope And Islams Most Important Imam Just Signed A Covenant That Pushes Us Much Closer To A One | 2019-02-07T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | The Pope And Islam’s Most Important Imam Just Signed A Covenant That Pushes Us Much Closer To A One World Religion | This [post](https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-pope-and-islams-most-important- imam-just-signed-a-covenant-that-pushes-us-much-closer-to-a-one-world- religion/) was originally published on [this site](http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/) InvestmentWatchBlog by [Michael Snyder](http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-pope-and- islams-most-important-imam-just-signed-a-covenant-that-pushes-us-much-closer- to-a-one-world-religion) A historic interfaith covenant was signed in the Middle East on Monday, and the mainstream media in the United States has been almost entirely silent about it. Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb is considered to be the most important imam in Sunni Islam, and he arrived at the signing ceremony in Abu Dhabi with Pope Francis [“hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/04/pope-and-grand- imam-sign-historic-pledge-of-fraternity-in-uae "“hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood”"). But this wasn’t just a ceremony for Catholics and Muslims. According to [a British news source](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/04/pope-and-grand-imam- sign-historic-pledge-of-fraternity-in-uae "a British news source"), the signing of this covenant was done “in front of a global audience of religious leaders from Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other faiths”… > The pope and the grand imam of al-Azhar have signed a historic declaration of fraternity, calling for peace between nations, religions and races, in front of a global audience of religious leaders from Christianity, [Islam](https://www.theguardian.com/world/islam "Islam"), Judaism and other faiths. > > [Pope Francis](https://www.theguardian.com/world/pope-francis "Pope Francis"), the leader of the world’s Catholics, and Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Sunni Islam’s most prestigious seat of learning, arrived at the ceremony in Abu Dhabi hand-in-hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood. In other words, there was a concerted effort to make sure that all of the religions of the world were represented at this gathering. According to [the official Vatican website](https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-02/pope-francis-uae- press-inflight-press-conference.html "the official Vatican website"), a tremendous amount of preparation went in to the drafting of this document, and it encourages believers from all religions “to shake hands, embrace one another, kiss one another, and even pray” with one another… > The document, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, was prepared “with much reflection and prayer”, the Pope said. The one great danger at this moment, he continued, is “destruction, war, hatred between us.” “If we believers are not able to shake hands, embrace one another, kiss one another, and even pray, our faith will be defeated”, he said. The Pope explained that the document “is born of faith in God who is the Father of all and the Father of peace; it condemns all destruction, all terrorism, from the first terrorism in history, that of Cain.” There is a lot of language about peace in this document, but it goes way beyond just advocating for peace. Over and over again, the word “God” is used to simultaneously identify Allah and the God of Christianity. Here is just one example… > We, who believe in God and in the final meeting with Him and His judgment, on the basis of our religious and moral responsibility, and through this Document, call upon ourselves, upon the leaders of the world as well as the architects of international policy and world economy, to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring an end to wars, conflicts, environmental decay and the moral and cultural decline that the world is presently experiencing. On top of that, the document also boldly declares that “the diversity of religions” that we see in the world was “willed by God”… > Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept; In essence, this is saying that it is the will of God that there are hundreds of different religions in the world and that they are all acceptable in His sight. We know [that the elite want a one world religion](https://amzn.to/2Gf8u40 "that the elite want a one world religion"), but to see the most important clerics from both Catholicism and Islam make such a dramatic public push for it is absolutely stunning. You can find the full text of the covenant that they signed [on the official Vatican website](http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents /papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html "on the official Vatican website"). I have also reproduced the entire document below… —– INTRODUCTION Faith leads a believer to see in the other a brother or sister to be supported and loved. Through faith in God, who has created the universe, creatures and all human beings (equal on account of his mercy), believers are called to express this human fraternity by safeguarding creation and the entire universe and supporting all persons, especially the poorest and those most in need. This transcendental value served as the starting point for several meetings characterized by a friendly and fraternal atmosphere where we shared the joys, sorrows and problems of our contemporary world. We did this by considering scientific and technical progress, therapeutic achievements, the digital era, the mass media and communications. We reflected also on the level of poverty, conflict and suffering of so many brothers and sisters in different parts of the world as a consequence of the arms race, social injustice, corruption, inequality, moral decline, terrorism, discrimination, extremism and many other causes. From our fraternal and open discussions, and from the meeting that expressed profound hope in a bright future for all human beings, the idea of this Document on _Human Fraternity_ was conceived. It is a text that has been given honest and serious thought so as to be a joint declaration of good and heartfelt aspirations. It is a document that invites all persons who have faith in God and faith in _human fraternity_ to unite and work together so that it may serve as a guide for future generations to advance a culture of mutual respect in the awareness of the great divine grace that makes all human beings brothers and sisters. DOCUMENT In the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and who has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, to fill the earth and make known the values of goodness, love and peace; In the name of innocent human life that God has forbidden to kill, affirming that whoever kills a person is like one who kills the whole of humanity, and that whoever saves a person is like one who saves the whole of humanity; In the name of the poor, the destitute, the marginalized and those most in need whom God has commanded us to help as a duty required of all persons, especially the wealthy and of means; In the name of orphans, widows, refugees and those exiled from their homes and their countries; in the name of all victims of wars, persecution and injustice; in the name of the weak, those who live in fear, prisoners of war and those tortured in any part of the world, without distinction; In the name of peoples who have lost their security, peace, and the possibility of living together, becoming victims of destruction, calamity and war; In the name of _human fraternity_ that embraces all human beings, unites them and renders them equal; In the name of this _fraternity_ torn apart by policies of extremism and division, by systems of unrestrained profit or by hateful ideological tendencies that manipulate the actions and the future of men and women; In the name of freedom, that God has given to all human beings creating them free and distinguishing them by this gift; In the name of justice and mercy, the foundations of prosperity and the cornerstone of faith; In the name of all persons of good will present in every part of the world; In the name of God and of everything stated thus far; Al-Azhar al-Sharif and the Muslims of the East and West, together with the Catholic Church and the Catholics of the East and West, declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard. We, who believe in God and in the final meeting with Him and His judgment, on the basis of our religious and moral responsibility, and through this Document, call upon ourselves, upon the leaders of the world as well as the architects of international policy and world economy, to work strenuously to spread the culture of tolerance and of living together in peace; to intervene at the earliest opportunity to stop the shedding of innocent blood and bring an end to wars, conflicts, environmental decay and the moral and cultural decline that the world is presently experiencing. We call upon intellectuals, philosophers, religious figures, artists, media professionals and men and women of culture in every part of the world, to rediscover the values of peace, justice, goodness, beauty, human fraternity and coexistence in order to confirm the importance of these values as anchors of salvation for all, and to promote them everywhere. This Declaration, setting out from a profound consideration of our contemporary reality, valuing its successes and in solidarity with its suffering, disasters and calamities, believes firmly that among the most important causes of the crises of the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and a prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principles. While recognizing the positive steps taken by our modern civilization in the fields of science, technology, medicine, industry and welfare, especially in developed countries, we wish to emphasize that, associated with such historic advancements, great and valued as they are, there exists both a moral deterioration that influences international action and a weakening of spiritual values and responsibility. All this contributes to a general feeling of frustration, isolation and desperation leading many to fall either into a vortex of atheistic, agnostic or religious extremism, or into blind and fanatic extremism, which ultimately encourage forms of dependency and individual or collective self-destruction. History shows that religious extremism, national extremism and also intolerance have produced in the world, be it in the East or West, what might be referred to as signs of a “third world war being fought piecemeal”. In several parts of the world and in many tragic circumstances these signs have begun to be painfully apparent, as in those situations where the precise number of victims, widows and orphans is unknown. We see, in addition, other regions preparing to become theatres of new conflicts, with outbreaks of tension and a build-up of arms and ammunition, and all this in a global context overshadowed by uncertainty, disillusionment, fear of the future, and controlled by narrow-minded economic interests. We likewise affirm that major political crises, situations of injustice and lack of equitable distribution of natural resources – which only a rich minority benefit from, to the detriment of the majority of the peoples of the earth – have generated, and continue to generate, vast numbers of poor, infirm and deceased persons. This leads to catastrophic crises that various countries have fallen victim to despite their natural resources and the resourcefulness of young people which characterize these nations. In the face of such crises that result in the deaths of millions of children – wasted away from poverty and hunger – there is an unacceptable silence on the international level. It is clear in this context how the family as the fundamental nucleus of society and humanity is essential in bringing children into the world, raising them, educating them, and providing them with solid moral formation and domestic security. To attack the institution of the family, to regard it with contempt or to doubt its important role, is one of the most threatening evils of our era. We affirm also the importance of awakening religious awareness and the need to revive this awareness in the hearts of new generations through sound education and an adherence to moral values and upright religious teachings. In this way we can confront tendencies that are individualistic, selfish, conflicting, and also address radicalism and blind extremism in all its forms and expressions. The first and most important aim of religions is to believe in God, to honour Him and to invite all men and women to believe that this universe depends on a God who governs it. He is the Creator who has formed us with His divine wisdom and has granted us the gift of life to protect it. It is a gift that no one has the right to take away, threaten or manipulate to suit oneself. Indeed, everyone must safeguard this gift of life from its beginning up to its natural end. We therefore condemn all those practices that are a threat to life such as genocide, acts of terrorism, forced displacement, human trafficking, abortion and euthanasia. We likewise condemn the policies that promote these practices. Moreover, we resolutely declare that religions must never incite war, hateful attitudes, hostility and extremism, nor must they incite violence or the shedding of blood. These tragic realities are the consequence of a deviation from religious teachings. They result from a political manipulation of religions and from interpretations made by religious groups who, in the course of history, have taken advantage of the power of religious sentiment in the hearts of men and women in order to make them act in a way that has nothing to do with the truth of religion. This is done for the purpose of achieving objectives that are political, economic, worldly and short-sighted. We thus call upon all concerned to stop using religions to incite hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism, and to refrain from using the name of God to justify acts of murder, exile, terrorism and oppression. We ask this on the basis of our common belief in God who did not create men and women to be killed or to fight one another, nor to be tortured or humiliated in their lives and circumstances. God, the Almighty, has no need to be defended by anyone and does not want His name to be used to terrorize people. This Document, in accordance with previous International Documents that have emphasized the importance of the role of religions in the construction of world peace, upholds the following: – The firm conviction that authentic teachings of religions invite us to remain rooted in the values of peace; to defend the values of mutual understanding, _human fraternity_ and harmonious coexistence; to re-establish wisdom, justice and love; and to reawaken religious awareness among young people so that future generations may be protected from the realm of materialistic thinking and from dangerous policies of unbridled greed and indifference that are based on the law of force and not on the force of law; – Freedom is a right of every person: each individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives. Therefore, the fact that people are forced to adhere to a certain religion or culture must be rejected, as too the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept; – Justice based on mercy is the path to follow in order to achieve a dignified life to which every human being has a right; – Dialogue, understanding and the widespread promotion of a culture of tolerance, acceptance of others and of living together peacefully would contribute significantly to reducing many economic, social, political and environmental problems that weigh so heavily on a large part of humanity; – Dialogue among believers means coming together in the vast space of spiritual, human and shared social values and, from here, transmitting the highest moral virtues that religions aim for. It also means avoiding unproductive discussions; – The protection of places of worship – synagogues, churches and mosques – is a duty guaranteed by religions, human values, laws and international agreements. Every attempt to attack places of worship or threaten them by violent assaults, bombings or destruction, is a deviation from the teachings of religions as well as a clear violation of international law; – Terrorism is deplorable and threatens the security of people, be they in the East or the West, the North or the South, and disseminates panic, terror and pessimism, but this is not due to religion, even when terrorists instrumentalize it. It is due, rather, to an accumulation of incorrect interpretations of religious texts and to policies linked to hunger, poverty, injustice, oppression and pride. This is why it is so necessary to stop supporting terrorist movements fuelled by financing, the provision of weapons and strategy, and by attempts to justify these movements even using the media. All these must be regarded as international crimes that threaten security and world peace. Such terrorism must be condemned in all its forms and expressions; – The concept of _citizenship_ is based on the equality of rights and duties, under which all enjoy justice. It is therefore crucial to establish in our societies the concept of _full citizenship_ and reject the discriminatory use of the term _minorities_ which engenders feelings of isolation and inferiority. Its misuse paves the way for hostility and discord; it undoes any successes and takes away the religious and civil rights of some citizens who are thus discriminated against; – Good relations between East and West are indisputably necessary for both. They must not be neglected, so that each can be enriched by the other’s culture through fruitful exchange and dialogue. The West can discover in the East remedies for those spiritual and religious maladies that are caused by a prevailing materialism. And the East can find in the West many elements that can help free it from weakness, division, conflict and scientific, technical and cultural decline. It is important to pay attention to religious, cultural and historical differences that are a vital component in shaping the character, culture and civilization of the East. It is likewise important to reinforce the bond of fundamental human rights in order to help ensure a dignified life for all the men and women of East and West, avoiding the politics of double standards; – It is an essential requirement to recognize the right of women to education and employment, and to recognize their freedom to exercise their own political rights. Moreover, efforts must be made to free women from historical and social conditioning that runs contrary to the principles of their faith and dignity. It is also necessary to protect women from sexual exploitation and from being treated as merchandise or objects of pleasure or financial gain. Accordingly, an end must be brought to all those inhuman and vulgar practices that denigrate the dignity of women. Efforts must be made to modify those laws that prevent women from fully enjoying their rights; – The protection of the fundamental rights of children to grow up in a family environment, to receive nutrition, education and support, are duties of the family and society. Such duties must be guaranteed and protected so that they are not overlooked or denied to any child in any part of the world. All those practices that violate the dignity and rights of children must be denounced. It is equally important to be vigilant against the dangers that they are exposed to, particularly in the digital world, and to consider as a crime the trafficking of their innocence and all violations of their youth; – The protection of the rights of the elderly, the weak, the disabled, and the oppressed is a religious and social obligation that must be guaranteed and defended through strict legislation and the implementation of the relevant international agreements. To this end, by mutual cooperation, the Catholic Church and Al-Azhar announce and pledge to convey this Document to authorities, influential leaders, persons of religion all over the world, appropriate regional and international organizations, organizations within civil society, religious institutions and leading thinkers. They further pledge to make known the principles contained in this Declaration at all regional and international levels, while requesting that these principles be translated into policies, decisions, legislative texts, courses of study and materials to be circulated. Al-Azhar and the Catholic Church ask that this Document become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities and institutes of formation, thus helping to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others, and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters. In conclusion, our aspiration is that: this Declaration may constitute an invitation to reconciliation and fraternity among all believers, indeed among believers and non-believers, and among all people of good will; this Declaration may be an appeal to every upright conscience that rejects deplorable violence and blind extremism; an appeal to those who cherish the values of tolerance and fraternity that are promoted and encouraged by religions; this Declaration may be a witness to the greatness of faith in God that unites divided hearts and elevates the human soul; this Declaration may be a sign of the closeness between East and West, between North and South, and between all who believe that God has created us to understand one another, cooperate with one another and live as brothers and sisters who love one another. This is what we hope and seek to achieve with the aim of finding a universal peace that all can enjoy in this life. _Abu Dhabi, 4 february 2019_ Related Posts: **If everyone who reads our story, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure.[For as little as $10, you can support the IWB – and it only takes a minute.](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s- xclick&hosted_button_id=DAKZTAE6PJLGW) Thank you.** 400 views Related Posts: from https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-pope-and-islams-most-important- imam-just-signed-a-covenant-that-pushes-us-much-closer-to-a-one-world- religion/ | IWB | https://www.therussophile.org/the-pope-and-islams-most-important-imam-just-signed-a-covenant-that-pushes-us-much-closer-to-a-one-world-religion.html/ | 2019-02-07 19:16:48+00:00 | 1,549,585,008 | 1,567,549,283 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,117,165 | zerohedge--2019-12-25--The Child That Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare In The American Police State? | 2019-12-25T00:00:00 | zerohedge | The Child That Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare In The American Police State? | Authored by John Whitehead via The Rurtherford Institute, “Once upon a midnight clear, there was a child’s cry, a blazing star hung over a stable, and wise men came with birthday gifts. We haven’t forgotten that night down the centuries. We celebrate it with stars on Christmas trees, with the sound of bells, and with gifts… We forget nobody, adult or child. All the stockings are filled, all that is, except one. And we have even forgotten to hang it up. The stocking for the child born in a manger. It’s his birthday we’re celebrating. Don’t let us ever forget that. Let us ask ourselves what He would wish for most. And then, let each put in his share, loving kindness, warm hearts, and a stretched out hand of tolerance. All the shining gifts that make peace on earth.”—The Bishop’s Wife (1947) The Christmas story of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land. Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later? What if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born at this moment in time? What kind of reception would Jesus and his family be given? Would we recognize the Christ child’s humanity, let alone his divinity? Would we treat him any differently than he was treated by the Roman Empire? If his family were forced to flee violence in their native country and sought refuge and asylum within our borders, what sanctuary would we offer them? A singular number of churches across the country are asking those very questions, and their conclusions are being depicted with unnerving accuracy by nativity scenes in which Jesus and his family are separated, segregated and caged in individual chain-link pens, topped by barbed wire fencing. These nativity scenes are a pointed attempt to remind the modern world that the narrative about the birth of Jesus is one that speaks on multiple fronts to a world that has allowed the life, teachings and crucifixion of Jesus to be drowned out by partisan politics, secularism, materialism and war. The modern-day church has largely shied away from applying Jesus’ teachings to modern problems such as war, poverty, immigration, etc., but thankfully there have been individuals throughout history who ask themselves and the world: what would Jesus do? What would Jesus—the baby born in Bethlehem who grew into an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day (namely, the Roman Empire) but spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—do? Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked himself what Jesus would have done about the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his assassins. The answer: Bonhoeffer risked his life to undermine the tyranny at the heart of Nazi Germany. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked himself what Jesus would have done about the soul-destroying gulags and labor camps of the Soviet Union. The answer: Solzhenitsyn found his voice and used it to speak out about government oppression and brutality. Martin Luther King Jr. asked himself what Jesus would have done about America’s warmongering. The answer: declaring “my conscience leaves me no other choice,” King risked widespread condemnation when he publicly opposed the Vietnam War on moral and economic grounds. Even now, despite the popularity of the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) in Christian circles, there remains a disconnect in the modern church between the teachings of Christ and the suffering of what Jesus in Matthew 25 refers to as the “least of these.” “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” This is not a theological gray area: Jesus was unequivocal about his views on many things, not the least of which was charity, compassion, war, tyranny and love. After all, Jesus—the revered preacher, teacher, radical and prophet—was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. When he grew up, he had powerful, profound things to say, things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. “Blessed are the merciful,” “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and “Love your enemies” are just a few examples of his most profound and revolutionary teachings. When confronted by those in authority, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. It cost him his life. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be. Can you imagine what Jesus’ life would have been like if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, he had been born and raised in the American police state? Consider the following if you will. • Had Jesus been born in the era of the America police state, rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, how many toilets are in your home, etc. The penalty for not responding to this invasive survey can go as high as $5,000. • Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery. • Had Jesus been born in a hospital, his blood and DNA would have been taken without his parents’ knowledge or consent and entered into a government biobank. While most states require newborn screening, a growing number are holding onto that genetic material long-term for research, analysis and purposes yet to be disclosed. • Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill. • From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses. • Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence. Parents across the country have been arrested for far less “offenses” such as allowing their children to walk to the park unaccompanied and play in their front yard alone. • Rather than disappearing from the history books from his early teenaged years to adulthood, Jesus’ movements and personal data—including his biometrics—would have been documented, tracked, monitored and filed by governmental agencies and corporations such as Google and Microsoft. Incredibly, 95 percent of school districts share their student records with outside companies that are contracted to manage data, which they then use to market products to us. • From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations. • Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.” • While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs. Many states, including New York, are providing individuals with phone apps that allow them to take photos of suspicious activity and report them to their state Intelligence Center, where they are reviewed and forwarded to law-enforcement agencies. • Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled. • Viewed by the government as a dissident and a potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery. • Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored. • Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach. • Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward against his will for a mandatory involuntary psychiatric hold with no access to family or friends. One Virginia man was arrested, strip searched, handcuffed to a table, diagnosed as having “mental health issues,” and locked up for five days in a mental health facility against his will apparently because of his slurred speech and unsteady gait. • Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books. • Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later. • Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year, many on unsuspecting Americans who have no defense against such government invaders, even when such raids are done in error. • Instead of being detained by Roman guards, Jesus might have been made to “disappear” into a secret government detention center where he would have been interrogated, tortured and subjected to all manner of abuses. Chicago police have “disappeared” more than 7,000 people into a secret, off-the-books interrogation warehouse at Homan Square. • Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs. Indeed, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, given the nature of government then and now, it is painfully evident that whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state. Thus, as we draw near to Christmas with its celebrations and gift-giving, we would do well to remember that what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less. | Tyler Durden | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/4aSSs5e84So/child-christmas-forgot-how-would-jesus-fare-american-police-state | Wed, 25 Dec 2019 04:55:00 +0000 | 1,577,267,700 | 1,577,278,123 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,116,463 | zerohedge--2019-12-07--The Impact Of Increased Political Polarization | 2019-12-07T00:00:00 | zerohedge | The Impact Of Increased Political Polarization | As I write this, the House Intelligence Committee has voted to adopt the committee's Impeachment Inquiry Report along strict party lines. All 13 Democrats on the committee voted "Yes"; all nine Republican committee members voted "No." This party-line split is neither unusual nor unpredictable, but reflects the deep partisanship that is one of the defining aspects of our American society today. I use the words "American society" rather than "American politics" here on purpose. We know that personal partisan identity affects one's views on a wide variety of policy issues, and, of course, partisanship is the defining determinant of people's views of their political leaders. But recent Gallup analyses show just how much our political identity today is a part of our views of a wide variety of other aspects of life, which often are not directly related to politics. Personal political identity affects views of the nation's healthcare system, how one views the economy, one's overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the nation, views of the safety of the nation's schools, worry about mass shootings, job satisfaction, views of the state of the environment and views of one's personal life situation, among others. The impact of political partisanship appears to be increasing. As my colleague Jeff Jones has documented, the difference between Republicans' and Democrats' job approval ratings of President Donald Trump is the largest Gallup has ever measured for a president, eclipsing the already high polarization measured in approval of President Barack Obama. Pew Research recently reported on Americans' views of the opposite political party, concluding that "the level of division and animosity -- including negative sentiments among partisans toward the members of the opposing party -- has only deepened." An important review of academic research by journalist Thomas Edsall last year highlighted the degree to which the political polarization has increasingly taken on an emotionally negative tone. As Edsall notes: "Hostility to the opposition party and its candidates has now reached a level where loathing motivates voters more than loyalty," and "The building strength of partisan antipathy -- 'negative partisanship' -- has radically altered politics. Anger has become the primary tool for motivating voters." There Are Some Benefits of Increased Political Polarization Is this increasingly pervasive influence of party as a key and defining aspect of the way Americans look at the world around them good or bad? As is true with almost all such questions, the answer is complex. There are some benefits to individuals and society from political polarization and conflict between opposing viewpoints. As we know, the Founding Fathers anticipated there would be conflict between factions in our society and set up the three branches of our federal government to deal with them. If handled correctly, optimal solutions are more likely to emerge when everything is subject to skeptical analysis. (Along these same lines, billionaire Ray Dalio defines this process of constant questioning as the search for "radical truth" and contends it is a secret to his business success.) Plus, a strong emotional allegiance to one's political and ideological reference group can have significantly positive effects for individuals, who gain meaning and purpose in life from social solidarity with an in-group while railing against threatening enemies. Partisan "us versus them" perspectives are easier for many individuals to handle cognitively than are complex approaches to issues and situations that attempt to take into account multiple pluses and minuses. And importantly, there are real economic benefits for businesses that can take advantage of and monetize the behaviors of emotionally driven partisans seeking reinforcement for their views. Among these beneficiaries: cable news networks, talk show hosts, book publishers, bloggers and podcast producers. And, of course, politicians gain support and maximize turnout when their constituents can be emotionally activated on the basis of perceived threats. As political consultants advise clients, negative campaigning is most often much more effective than efforts to remain positive. But today's increase in partisanship in the U.S. also has significant harmful effects. Most importantly, polarization and partisan conflict lead to inaction, as "my way or the highway," ideologically rigid mentalities lower the probability of achieving the compromise that should be at the heart of legislative functioning. (We saw this "destroy the village in order to save it" mentality shut down the U.S. government in 2013.) As I've reviewed previously, the American public as a whole rues this approach to politics, giving Congress and its ability to deal with domestic and international problems very low evaluations (even if the American public itself in some ways causes this political inaction by virtue of its own polarized attitudes). We also have the sociological impact of polarization and increasing disapprobation of one's political opposites. Any functioning society needs to develop and maintain its social institutions -- the widely agreed-upon ways in which society handles the core functions necessary for survival. But that agreement appears to be waning. Partisans on both sides increasingly see institutions in the U.S. not as beneficial and necessary, but as part of an effort by the other side to gain advantage and to perpetuate its power and philosophical positions. Liberals and Democrats today, for example, have lower trust in traditional family institutions, traditional religious institutions and the economic system. Republicans have lower trust in the scientific process, higher education, the mass media, and the role of the state (government). These skeptical views of institutions and social structures skew us toward distrust, anger and internal infighting -- not actionable efforts to fix problems and address threats. As noted, a healthy skepticism of the way things operate in society is often warranted. But our society must continue to function, and that functioning requires an underlying agreement in the legitimacy of societal institutions. This is particularly true today, when there are increasing external threats to our society and way of life from all sides, ranging from rogue states to terrorists to changes in weather and climate patterns to shifting world economies and massively unstable populations. At some point, our society must balance the internal conflict resulting from differences in partisans' views of the world with a broader agreement on how we as a society adapt to external threats and achieve societal objectives. What will it take to do that? Presumably we need leaders who don't focus as much on taking advantage of, and stoking, partisan differences as they do looking at the larger picture. That's a difficult challenge, but one to which the American public may well be quite receptive. It's usually easier to criticize than to make efforts to agree on solutions. But we are going to need more emphasis on the latter in the years ahead, I think, if our society is to thrive and survive. | Tyler Durden | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/jo7um-bcUII/impact-increased-political-polarization | Sat, 07 Dec 2019 03:25:00 +0000 | 1,575,707,100 | 1,575,723,276 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,110,682 | wnd--2019-12-22--Supreme Court to decide who picks Catholic school teachers | 2019-12-22T00:00:00 | wnd | Supreme Court to decide who picks Catholic school teachers | Seven years ago the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the famous Hosanna-Tabor case that a Lutheran school has the right to choose who will teach its faith precepts to students. Now the justices have agreed to review the same issue regarding two Catholic schools. The non-profit legal group Becket said Wednesday the Supreme Court justices agreed "to weigh in on whether the government can control who a church school chooses to teach its religion classes." The court accepted two cases, Our Lady of Guadelupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James Catholic School v. Biel. Becket is defending the two Catholic elementary schools in California that claim the right to choose ministers who embody their faith, without government interference. The much-overturned 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided otherwise, ruling against the precedent established by the Supreme Court in 2012. The Hosanna-Tabor case "protected the First Amendment right of a Lutheran school to choose who teaches the faith to the next generation, free from government interference," Becket explained. A "ministerial exception" allows religious schools to choose their own religion teachers. It "protects all religious groups' freedom to choose 'ministerial' employees without interference from bureaucrats or courts. Most courts have ruled that ministerial employees are those employees who perform important religious functions, like instructing young children in the precepts of the Catholic faith. But in both Our Lady of Guadalupe School and St. James School, the Ninth Circuit rejected this widely accepted rule," Becket explained. "Parents trust Catholic schools to assist them in one of their most important duties: forming the faith of their children," said Montserrat Alvarado, vice president and executive director at Becket. "If courts can second-guess a Catholic school's judgment about who should teach religious beliefs to fifth graders, then neither Catholics nor any other religious group can be confident in their ability to convey the faith to the next generation." Becket said the teachers, Agnes Morrissey-Berru and Kristen Biel, "played crucial roles in teaching the Catholic faith to their fifth-grade students. Both taught a religion class, integrated Catholic values into every subject they taught, joined their students in daily prayer, and accompanied students to Mass and other religious services." But they sued when their contracts were not renewed. In December 2018, the 9th Circuit ruled against St. James Catholic School. In April 2019, the court also ruled against Our Lady of Guadalupe School. Even though both teachers had significant religious responsibilities, the 9th Circuit still decided that their work was not religious enough, Becket explained. That prompted a warning from a minority coalition at the 9th Circuit that the ruling was "the very hostility toward religion our Founders prohibited and the Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed us to avoid." "Do we really want judges, juries, or bureaucrats deciding who ought to teach Catholicism at a parish school, or Judaism at a Jewish day school? Of course not," said Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. "Religion teachers play a vital role in the ecosystem of faith. We are confident that the Supreme Court will recognize that, under our Constitution, government officials cannot control who teaches kids what to believe." The court explained, "Without correction, the 9th Circuit's rule promises to turn up the heat on church-state conflict across the western United States and leaves religious institutions subject to two starkly different First Amendment standards depending on the accident of geography." Becket said the Supreme Court needs to speak on the issue because seven other circuit courts have disagreed with the 9th Circuit's ruling. | WND Staff | https://www.wnd.com/2019/12/supreme-court-decide-picks-catholic-school-teachers/ | Sun, 22 Dec 2019 00:36:48 +0000 | 1,576,993,008 | 1,576,975,491 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,109,891 | wnd--2019-10-16--Beto now says progressive insanity out loud | 2019-10-16T00:00:00 | wnd | Beto now says progressive insanity out loud | Failing Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is raging against the dying of his political light. Desperate and alone, his campaign on the precipice of collapse, Beto has banked on one policy: radical honesty. And that means he is now saying the quiet part of the progressive agenda out loud. This is a candidate who openly claims he'll come take Americans' guns (though he then pretends this won't involve the police acting as an enforcement arm in removing those weapons). This is a candidate who suggests that abortion one day before full term is a constitutional right. And now this is a candidate who admits that he will seek to bankrupt virtually every traditional religious institution in America. When asked at a CNN Democratic town hall regarding LGBTQ issues about whether nonprofit status should be removed from churches that refuse to honor same-sex marriages, O'Rourke simply said, "Yes." He then explained in detail: "There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. … And so as president we are going to make that a priority, and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the rights of our fellow Americans." This statement is insanely radical. It suggests that the mere presence of religious institutions that dissent from the social left's political orthodoxy cannot be tolerated. It is not an infringement on rights for free associations of religious people to deny the validity of marriages based on both historic natural law and traditionally religious precepts. But according to O'Rourke, the existence of such institutions amounts to an infringement. This move by O'Rourke was utterly foreseeable. In expectation of precisely this sort of logic, I endorsed the libertarian position on same-sex marriage – get government out of the entire business of marriage – in March 2013, two years before Obergefell v. Hodges. I wrote at the time that any federal cramdown of same-sex marriage would result in states being "forced to recognize same-sex marriages," public schools being forced to teach its morality and religious institutions losing tax-exempt status. "Religious Americans," I predicted, "will be forced into violating their beliefs or facing legal consequences by the government. The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty will largely become obsolete." At the time, this was considered over-the-top. Now it's a mainstream Democratic position. And the Democrats will go further than merely removing nonprofit status. They will use anti-discrimination law as a baton to destroy the existence of "discriminatory" religious institutions, from churches to synagogues to religious schools. They will refuse to accredit home-schooling programs that do not teach the left's preferred social values – after all, anything less would be benefiting organizations that, in O'Rourke's view, deny "the full human rights" of LGBTQ people. This tyrannical thinking was expressly prohibited by the founders, who saw the threat of government toward religion as paramount – not the other way around. And for years, Democrats have understood that O'Rourke's agenda had to be kept under wraps – most Americans aren't interested in his full-scale culture war. But now he's saying the quiet part out loud. It will be fascinating – and frightening – to see how many Democrats echo him in the coming months. | Ben Shapiro | https://www.wnd.com/2019/10/beto-now-says-progressive-insanity-loud/ | Wed, 16 Oct 2019 22:59:25 +0000 | 1,571,281,165 | 1,571,272,825 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,105,136 | westernjournal--2019-10-11--Beto: Preach Against Same-Sex Marriage and Your Church’s Tax-Exempt Status Should Be Ended | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | westernjournal | Beto: Preach Against Same-Sex Marriage and Your Church’s Tax-Exempt Status Should Be Ended | Democratic presidential candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke believes religious institutions that don’t support same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status. The former Texas congressman and failed Senate candidate made the threat during CNN’s Equality Townhall in response to a question from anchor Don Lemon, according to The Hill. “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities — should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” Lemon asked. “Yes,” the struggling candidate answered. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break, for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” TRENDING: Breaking Report: It’s Starting to Look Like Mueller Lied Under Oath “As president, we’re going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans,” he said. O’Rourke’s threat to take away religious institutions’ tax-exempt status based on ideological grounds poses a dire threat to the free practice of religion itself. Many people, possibly including O’Rourke himself, don’t know exactly why religious institutions do not have to pay taxes. O’Rourke described the exemption status as a “reward” or a “benefit,” implying that the federal government is actively favoring religious organizations over secular ones. This is not true. In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970) that the purpose of exemptions is to neither advance nor inhibit religion. On the contrary, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in his majority opinion that these tax breaks create only “minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches.” That’s the kicker. Tax exemption for religious institutions exists to reinforce the wall of separation between church and state, a principal that leftists like O’Rourke claim to revere. RELATED: FBI's Latest Report Reveals Dem-Hated AR-15s Used in Less Than 3% of All Gun Homicides How so? Because, as Chief Justice John Marshall put it in his McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) opinion, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Simply put, holding money over the heads of churches can be seen as a crackdown on the practice of religion, because it encourages them to alter what they preach. If that wall of separation comes down, then it’s not the government that will suffer. It will be religion that pays the price, in more ways than one. If churches are forced to pay taxes, then what’s stopping the federal government from raising them? O’Rourke’s statement pulls no punches — he makes it clear that he wants to prevent people from speaking out against gay marriage. If he gets his way, then churches that continue to hold to biblical principles could be hit with more and more debilitating costs. In fact, the possibility of the government taxing these churches straight out of existence is not out of the question. And then, in the country that was founded on the principle of religious freedom, a bloated centralized government would have destroyed churches simply for expressing religious beliefs. Statements like these just go to show the hypocrisy of the left. When school prayer or Ten Commandment monuments are on the docket, separation of church and state becomes a paramount founding principle of our nation — at least to leftists. But when religious institutions stand to benefit, such as with tax exemptions, the separation between church and state gets thrown out the window. O’Rourke needs to realize that this principle swings both ways. Instead of framing the idea of separation of church and state as protecting the government from religious invasion, leftists should see it as a neutral principle that protects both the public and religion. And in this day and age, keeping the government out of religion is more urgent than ever. Especially if people like Beto O’Rourke are in charge. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Cade Almond | https://www.westernjournal.com/beto-preach-sex-marriage-churchs-tax-exempt-status-ended/ | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:24:03 +0000 | 1,570,843,443 | 1,570,833,403 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,103,354 | westernjournal--2019-06-22--Megachurch To Create Its Own Police Force After New State Law Passes | 2019-06-22T00:00:00 | westernjournal | Megachurch To Create Its Own Police Force After New State Law Passes | An Alabama megachurch has been granted the authority to create its own police force, leaving the American Civil Liberties Union howling in protest. Briarwood Presbyterian Church, located near Birmingham, Alabama, and affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of America, was granted the authority to hire police in a bill that passed the state legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey. The 4,100-member church operates schools in Jefferson and Shelby counties that attract about 2,000 students. It also operates Madison Academy in Madison County, which has about 850 students. The church and its schools “may appoint and employ one or more suitable persons to act as police officers to keep off intruders and prevent trespass upon and damage to the property … These persons shall be charged with all the duties and invested with all the powers of police officers, including the power of arrest for unlawful acts committed on the property,” the law states, according to Al.com. The executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, Randall Marshall, said that the church could be allowed to hide criminal activity under this new law, The Associated Press reported. TRENDING: Trump Gloats About the First Lady: ‘We Have Our Own Jackie O. Today… Melania T.’ He said the law will be challenged because it gives government power to a religious institution. The ACLU and other liberals vented their outrage about the law on Twitter, saying past allegations about the church should have stopped it from being able to have its own police. The church has been seeking a police officer on its grounds for several years. “Briarwood Presbyterian Church is very concerned with the safety of its members, students and visitors in these times of uncertainty when schools, churches, shopping malls and other places that do not have protection are randomly attacked,” Briarwood said in a 2017 news release on its website. “We believe it is in the best interest of our members, students and visitors to provide the best protection possible for them with the least amount of intrusion upon their worship, school and other activities.” At that time, the church addressed the issue of separating church and state. “[I]t has been suggested to us that the state law permitting Briarwood Presbyterian Church to have a police officer on staff would violate the Establishment of Religion Clause in the U.S. Constitution. We are assured by counsel that this is not an Establishment Clause issue,” the church’s statement said. “The church does not have the ability to exercise any authority or enforce any law at any place except on the church property and related to criminal acts which may take place on that property. Even then, arrests and other procedures that may follow are done in conjunction with local law enforcement and the District Attorney’s Office.” A media release from Briarwood posted by WBRC in response to being given the go-ahead to hire police officers said the request stems from a 2016 state task force on the safety of educational institutions. “The report recognized that the presence of qualified first responders and law enforcement officers has proven to be the number one line of defense in providing a safe environment, and recommended that each Alabama school have a resource officer on location,” the statement said. A 2017 release also noted that the church does not put all of its trust in police officers. “While seeking to be responsible, ultimately the church proclaims that its trust is in the Lord of Glory who sovereignly cares and provides for His people. To Him alone be Glory and Honor now and forevermore,” the release said. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Jack Davis | https://www.westernjournal.com/megachurch-create-police-force-new-state-law-passes/ | 2019-06-22 17:12:46+00:00 | 1,561,237,966 | 1,567,538,403 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,103,322 | westernjournal--2019-06-20--FBI Uncovers Syrian Refugees ISIS Bomb Plot in Pittsburgh | 2019-06-20T00:00:00 | westernjournal | FBI Uncovers Syrian Refugee’s ISIS Bomb Plot in Pittsburgh | The FBI arrested a Syrian refugee Wednesday who had plans to bomb an unidentified Christian church in north Pittsburgh in July to “take revenge” for his Islamic State “brothers in Nigeria.” The refugee, 21-year-old Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, had resided in Pittsburgh since his request for asylum in the United States was granted in early 2016, Fox News reported. Alowemer was first suspected earlier this year when the FBI found that he had been in contact with another local supporter of the Islamic State under bureau investigation. He later met with an undercover FBI agent and an FBI source who claimed to be Islamic State sympathizers a number of times throughout April 16 and June 11, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. “Syrian Man Arrested on Terrorism Charges after Planning Attack on Christian Church in Pittsburgh: Complaint alleges Syrian man plotted attacks in the name of ISIS,” FBI Pittsburgh wrote in a tweet accompanying the statement. During his meetings and correspondences with the FBI, Alowemer revealed not only a videotaped profession of support for the Islamic State but also extensive plans to commit his act of terror at the north Pittsburgh church. These plans included materials already purchased for the improvised explosives as well as two Google satellite photos of the bombing location — complete with a hand-made notation of plausible arrival and escape routes. Pittsburgh’s Joint Terrorism Task Force carried out the arrest Wednesday. Alowemer has been charged with “one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State” and “two counts of distributing information relating to an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction,” according to the DOJ statement. “The FBI takes threats to churches and other religious institutions extremely seriously and will use all our resources to stop potential terrorist attacks against them,” Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division Michael McGarrity said in the DOJ statement. “Targeting places of worship is beyond the pale, no matter what the motivation,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers added, assuring that law enforcement and investigative teams in Pittsburgh would remain vigilant in light of the arrest. Alowemer was “admitted to the United States as a refugee on Aug. 1, 2016,” under the Obama administration, according to the DOJ statement. President Barack Obama was a strong proponent of expanding the U.S. asylum program as Syria’s Civil War began, despite reports from the intelligence community and other departments that the U.S. did not have the resources to properly vet the Syrian refugees. Obama and various leaders at the United Nations were vehement that Syria’s refugees were predominantly women, children and the elderly, and that the risk of radicalization among the community was low. According to research from The Heritage Foundation, however, 44 Syrian refugees were involved in 32 terrorist incidents in Europe between January 2014 and June 2018 — killing 182 and wounding 814. Citing these European incidents, President Donald Trump took a harsh stance on America’s refugee programs early on, capping admittance at 30,000 in 2018 according to The New York Times. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Andrew J. Sciascia | https://www.westernjournal.com/fbi-uncovers-syrian-refugees-isis-bomb-plot-pittsburgh/ | 2019-06-20 23:18:03+00:00 | 1,561,087,083 | 1,567,538,641 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,098,524 | westernjournal--2019-01-24--AP Interview UAE sees Popes visit as way to build bridges | 2019-01-24T00:00:00 | westernjournal | AP Interview: UAE sees Pope’s visit as way to build bridges | The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal. ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As the United Arab Emirates prepares to host Pope Francis in February, the country’s minister of tolerance said the first-ever papal visit to the Arabian Peninsula will contribute to building bridges at a time of growing nationalism and insularism around the world. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan spoke with The Associated Press on Thursday, ahead of Pope Francis’ Feb. 3-5 trip to the UAE, where Islam is the official religion. The pope is scheduled to meet with leading Sunni Muslim clerics and other religious figures in an interfaith meeting in Abu Dhabi and celebrate Mass with Catholics living in the region. Foreigners make up the vast majority of the UAE’s population, and Hindus, Christians and Jews are permitted places of worship. Authorities have suppressed political dissent, however, jailing activists and curtailing human rights work. Al Nahyan was appointed the country’s first minister of tolerance in 2017. It is one of several unique government posts created in recent years, along with ministers of state for happiness, artificial intelligence and youth. He said the Ministry of Tolerance aims to build bridges and break walls that “some people try to erect to hide behind.” He said he has been tasked with reaching out to UAE residents of different faiths and backgrounds, in order to make them feel safe and respected. “Our definition of tolerance is to understand the other, to talk to each other— at the same time keeping our own differences,” Al Nahyan said, speaking from his Abu Dhabi majlis, a traditional meeting space of large woven rugs and walls lined with cushioned seating. “It’s a beautiful mosaic, our differences, whether it’s in our religions or culture or other habits,” he said. The UAE has declared 2019 it’s “Year of Tolerance.” The public and private sectors have been encouraged to rally behind the state’s yearlong initiative to promote the country as a beacon of tolerance where some 200 nationalities live and work peacefully. The UAE is comprised of a federation of seven emirates that includes the tourist-friendly metropolis of Dubai. The country sits on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula and is home to about 9 million people — nearly 8 million of them foreign residents. Despite the country’s public push for tolerance, the government continues to crackdown on opposition activists, particularly individuals or groups suspected of having links with the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. The UAE has branded the Islamist group a terrorist organization and views it as a threat to the country’s system of hereditary rule. In 2017, the UAE joined other Arab countries in boycotting and blockading Qatar over its support of Islamists in the Middle East. Residents were warned that expressing sympathy for Qatar could lead to fines and imprisonment. Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, are blocked from conducting research in the UAE and political parties are banned. Mosques are tightly monitored, and virtually all activities outside of regular prayer time require a license. Imams receive their salaries from the government. Al Nahyan said efforts to restrict certain groups and control mosques are in place to safeguard against extremist ideas and “people who would want to advance their own agenda and hijack our religion and to distort it.” “If this is not controlled, believe me, there would be a worse situation,” he said. The country’s constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise religious worship on condition that it does not conflict with public policy or violate public morals. Laws also prohibit discrimination, abusing any holy shrine and insulting any religion. Indians make up more than a third of the UAE’s population, with around 3.3 million residing in the country. There is a Hindu temple in Dubai and a large one being built in Abu Dhabi on land donated by the country’s rulers. The UAE is also home to around 1 million Catholics, including a sizeable Philippine community. In addition to several Catholic churches, there are numerous churches in the UAE belonging to other Christian denominations, a Sikh temple and a space for Jewish worship. Al Nahyan said the pope’s visit highlights the UAE’s openness to people from around the world. During his visit, Pope Francis is scheduled to meet Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s foremost religious institution based in Egypt, and other religious figures. Al Nahyan said he expects the meeting to end with a declaration that will serve as a road map for the different faiths “to work to create a better world.” “This is the strongest message to send to those who are trying to divide us, to those who are creating mistrust between us,” he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | AP Reports | https://www.westernjournal.com/ap-ap-interview-uae-sees-popes-visit-as-way-to-build-bridges/ | 2019-01-24 17:39:30+00:00 | 1,548,369,570 | 1,567,551,107 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,096,443 | westernjournal--2019-01-05--116th Congress Has Lowest Number of Christians in US History | 2019-01-05T00:00:00 | westernjournal | 116th Congress Has Lowest Number of Christians in US History | A new study found that the current Congress has the fewest Christians among its members since surveys first recorded the religious affiliation of those elected to Washington. The Pew Research Center survey found that the current 116th Congress has 471 members who identify as Christian. That’s a drop from the 505 recorded in the 87th Congress in 1961. Although 88 percent of the new Congress identifies as Christian, that represents a 3 percentage point drop from the 115th Congress. The Congress that comes closest to the current one in terms of the number of Christians is the 111th Congress in which 477 Christians took part. That Congress, like the current one, saw a rise in Democratic members. That’s significant, because in the 116th Congress, 253 of the 255 Republicans elected identify themselves as Christian. The other two are Jewish. TRENDING: Iran Pushes Warships Closer to US Waters, Plans To Close In On Atlantic Among elected Democrats, the picture is very different. Sixty-one of the 282 Democrats are not Christian. Of those, 32 are Jewish and 18 refused to specify any religious affiliation. Among the Democrats, there are three Hindus, three Muslims and two Buddhists. The survey showed that among Christians, there have been changes in the denominations represented in Congress. Anglicans (Episcopalians) dropped by nine seats, while Catholics lost five seats. Members of Congress who said they were evangelical Christians or were part of unspecified nondenominational churches increased by 18 seats. Only one new member — Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — reported no religious affiliation at all. RELATED: FBI Opens Investigation After Mysterious Pence Texts Are Sent to GOP Members Overall, the survey showed that the members of Congress identify as Christian more than Americans as a whole, of whom roughly 71 percent say they are Christians. “I think some of this is just that politicians change more slowly than the public in many ways and don’t want to court potential trouble with voters by admitting that they don’t have any kind of religious affiliation,” said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, NPR reported. Green also said that because political leaders are affiliated with core institutions in their communities, religious affiliation rather naturally follows. “Political leaders tend to be deeply embedded in the institutional life of their communities,” he said. “They are much more likely to belong to the Rotary Club or be members of a charity or a professional association, and in most places in the United States, religious institutions are part of the local community infrastructure.” We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards. | Jack Davis | https://www.westernjournal.com/116th-congress-lowest-number-christians-us-history/ | 2019-01-05 14:10:23+00:00 | 1,546,715,423 | 1,567,553,867 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,091,893 | vox--2019-09-30--Trumps DOJ just escalated the fight over whether religion is a license to discriminate | 2019-09-30T00:00:00 | vox | Trump’s DOJ just escalated the fight over whether religion is a license to discriminate | The Trump administration filed an unusual brief in a dispute between a gay teacher and the Catholic Church on Friday. Should the administration’s position be adopted by courts, it could expand the universe of employers who are allowed to defy laws banning discrimination in the workplace. The case is Payne-Elliott v. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and it involves a gay man who, until recently, was a teacher at a Catholic school in Indianapolis. Some time after plaintiff Joshua Payne-Elliott got married in 2017, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis ordered the school to fire Payne-Elliott because he married a man. The archbishop informed the school that it would be stripped of its Catholic identity and would no longer be affiliated with the church if it did not comply with the order to fire Payne-Elliott. After what the school described as “22 months of earnest discussion and extensive dialogue with the Archdiocese of Indianapolis about Cathedral’s continued Catholic identity,” the school ultimately decided to capitulate to the archbishop’s demand, and Payne-Elliott was fired last June. Payne-Elliott responded by suing the archdiocese. The Trump administration’s decision to weigh in on this case is surprising because Payne-Elliott filed his suit in an Indiana trial court — i.e. not in a federal court — and the case would have to run the full gauntlet of appeals in Indiana’s court system before it could even be considered by the Supreme Court. It’s unclear how the Justice Department even became aware of this lawsuit, although it’s possible that they were lobbied to weigh in on this case by conservative religious groups or by the Catholic Church itself. It is also unlikely that Payne-Elliott will prevail. Twenty-two states prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, but Indiana is not one of them. So Payne-Elliott brought a weaker claim alleging that the archdiocese is “unlawfully interfering with his employment and contract with” the school. Although the Supreme Court is currently weighing whether existing federal law bans LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, Payne-Elliott does not invoke that federal law in his suit against the archdiocese. The archdiocese, moreover, can raise a number of religious liberty defenses against this suit. But the archdiocese raises another, potentially very consequential argument against Payne-Elliott’s suit, and the Trump administration endorses this defense in its brief. According to the Trump administration, allowing this suit to proceed would violate the archdiocese's right to “expressive association” — a First Amendment claim that allows certain organizations to decide who they wish to associate with. That claim is potentially quite radical, and it could lead to many employers gaining a broad new right to ignore anti-discrimination laws. Because expressive association is a constitutional claim, a Supreme Court decision expanding that doctrine could trump anti-discrimination suits brought under any federal or state statute — including the federal ban on race and sex discrimination. A handful of Supreme Court precedents give employers with religious objections to a civil rights law some ability to ignore that law. In its 2012 decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran v. EEOC, for example, the Supreme Court recognized a “ministerial exception” that “precludes application of [anti-discrimination laws] to claims concerning the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers.” The definition of who qualifies as a “minster,” moreover, goes beyond full-time clergy. Hosanna-Tabor itself involved a teacher at a church-affiliated school — though that teacher also had significant religious duties. So it is possible that Mr. Payne-Elliott also qualifies as a minister and thus cannot bring an anti-discrimination suit. More recently, in 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court sided with a cake baker who, for religious reasons, refused to comply with a Colorado law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Court’s holding in Masterpiece was quite narrow, and was widely viewed as an effort to dispose of the case without deciding the broader question of whether people with religious objections to homosexuality have a right to defy laws banning LGBTQ discrimination. Nevertheless, the narrowness of this decision can probably be chalked up to Justice Anthony Kennedy — a relatively moderate conservative who is sympathetic to both religious liberty plaintiffs and gay rights. With Kennedy no longer on the Court, and his seat occupied by the much more doctrinaire conservative Brett Kavanaugh, it is likely, if not entirely certain, that a majority of the Court now supports a broad exemption from LGBTQ discrimination laws for religious objectors. As a lower court judge, Kavanaugh criticized several of his colleagues for not being more sympathetic to a religious liberty case involving the Obama administration’s efforts to accommodate employers who object to contraception. Both Hosanna-Tabor and the sort of religious liberty suits that are likely to grow out of cases like Masterpiece are limited in scope, however. That is, religious liberty protects religious liberty. Secular employers cannot invoke doctrines intended to protect people of faith to justify their own discrimination. A third case is also relevant to Payne-Elliott’s suit against the archdiocese. In its 2000 opinion in Boy Scouts v. Dale, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects a right of “expressive association,” and this right permitted the Boy Scouts to forbid gay scoutmasters. “Forcing a group to accept certain members may impair the ability of the group to express those views, and only those views, that it intends to express,” Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in Boy Scouts, adding that “[f]reedom of association...plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.” Yet the Boy Scouts opinion is also limited in scope. Rehnquist distinguished between traditional “public accommodations laws,” which ban discrimination in “places where the public is invited,” and laws that apply to “membership organizations such as the Boy Scouts.” In private membership organizations, Rehnquist argued, “the potential for conflict between state public accommodations laws and the First Amendment rights of organizations has increased.” Thus, Rehnquist appeared to limit the scope of Boy Scouts to anti-discrimination laws that govern who can be made a member of a private organization. Which brings us back to the Trump administration’s brief in Payne-Elliott. That brief argues for a broad right of “expressive association” that could potentially be invoked by secular employers. Briefly, the Trump administration’s view is that an organization can claim a right to defy civil rights laws if it “engages in ‘expressive association’” and if prohibiting the group from discriminating “would significantly affect the [group’s] ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.” Under the Trump administration’s position, moreover, courts must “give deference to an association’s assertions regarding the nature of its expression.” Thus, the mere fact that the archdiocese says that it opposes same-sex marriage, and that it feels like this message would be undermined if a Catholic school employed a teacher in such a marriage, is enough to immunize the archdiocese from suit. Significantly, the Trump administration draws no distinction between for-profit and nonprofit employers who claim to engage in expressive association. Nor would its rule necessarily be limited to the unusual facts of Payne-Elliott, where an umbrella organization threatened to disassociate with an employer within its umbrella unless that employer fired a particular employee. Consider Chick-fil-A, the fast food chain that emphasizes its conservative religious values — and whose CEO is on record touting his opposition to marriage equality. Under the Trump administration’s rule, Chick-fil-A could almost certainly demand that one of its franchises fire a gay employee. And it could probably also claim immunity to state anti-discrimination laws if its home office fired a direct employee for being gay. Or consider Ollie’s Barbecue, the restaurant at the heart of a landmark 1964 civil rights case. Ollie’s, according to the Supreme Court, “refused to serve Negroes in its dining accommodations since its original opening in 1927” though it had to end that practice after Congress banned such discrimination in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet, under the Trump administration’s rule, Ollie’s could have potentially immunized itself from that law by announcing that it is a mission-driven restaurant, and that its mission is to advance white supremacy by serving barbecue in its dining room to whites only. Thus, it would violate Ollie’s right of expressive association to force it to associate with black customers. Whatever you think of cases like Boy Scouts and Masterpiece, the courts have thus far limited those decisions to prevent them from swallowing up entire civil rights laws. The Trump administration, however, did not show the same caution in its Payne-Elliott brief. And if the courts show a similar lack of caution when they decide this case, businesses throughout the country could gain a broad new right to discriminate. | Ian Millhiser | https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/30/20890045/trump-justice-department-constitution-discrimination-lgbtq-catholic-church | 2019-09-30 17:20:00+00:00 | 1,569,878,400 | 1,570,221,934 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,086,471 | vdare--2019-10-20--Beto O’Rourke Urges Selective Law Enforcement—But For Patriots, It’s Already Here | 2019-10-20T00:00:00 | vdare | Beto O’Rourke Urges Selective Law Enforcement—But For Patriots, It’s Already Here | It’s not surprising that Robert “Beto” O’Rourke wanted to apply an ideological test on churches, it’s just surprising he felt so comfortable saying so. Even liberal journalists admit stripping tax-exempt status from churches that oppose homosexual marriage is unconstitutional. However, there has been a concerted effort in the Main Stream Media from the New York Times on down to strip organizations they don’t like, notably your humble servants at VDARE.com, of tax-exempt status on political grounds. Some random kritarch could decree it at any moment. What’s more, selective law enforcement is not some forthcoming nightmare, but an existing reality of American life. If it wasn’t, Leftist churches and organizations that already engage in illegal activity would be suffering a price. Beto O’Rourke is making open promises of repression a staple of his failing campaign. First it was, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” [O’Rourke’s debate-stage vow: ‘Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, by Paul Steinhauser, Fox News, September 12, 2019]. Then, in a CNN/"Human Rights Campaign" LGBTQ Town Hall, in response to a question about whether religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage should lose tax exempt status, he said, “Yes, there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights of every single one of us.” [N.B. “anyone”—VDARE.com emphasis added] Of course, “human rights” no longer includes things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or due process, all of which journofa seem to associate with “Nazis.” Yet let’s be fair. O’Rourke’s open totalitarianism was too much even for the MSM, which almost unanimously decried O’Rourke’s plan as blatantly unconstitutional or simply wild. • CNN: “Legal precedent is pretty clear in determining that denying tax-exempt status based on a group’s viewpoint would be in violation of the First Amendment” [Fact check: O’Rourke said he would support removing tax-exemptions for religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage. Is that legal? by Holmes Lyband and Tara Subramaniam, October 11, 2019]. • Slate: … [A] position tantamount to declaring war on Catholic parishes and evangelical congregations across the country, not to mention any number of Orthodox Jewish and Muslim groups” [Beto O’Rourke is turning into a human straw man for conservatives, by Jordan Weissmann, October 11, 2019]. • Los Angeles Times: “In answering yes to [CNN’s Don] Lemon’s question, he has enabled religious conservatives to claim vindication for their apocalyptic view that marriage equality inevitably will result in an erosion of religious freedom” [Opinion: Beto O’Rourke’s ‘church tax’ idea plays into conservative paranoia about same-sex marriage, by Michael McGough, October 11, 2019]. Of course, it’s not “apocalyptic” if there really are people out to get you. Pat Buchanan has long predicted civil disobedience from committed Christians (and, presumably, other faith groups) on this issue. The LA Times’ McGough and others just seem frustrated because O’Rourke is saying too much, too quickly; they’d rather see the conservative boiling frogs lulled into a false sense of security rather than leaping out of danger. We at VDARE.com have no such illusions. Journalists are already coming for us brandishing their knives. The New York Times has already featured law professors arguing that “white supremacist” groups (meaning anyone they don’t like) should have their tax-exempt status revoked because of their “odiousness.” They base this claim on the ill-conceived and unanimous declaration against “white nationalism” the majority-GOP Congress pushed through after the Democrat-sponsored riot in Charlottesville in 2017. To them, this constitutes proof that white advocacy is counter to public policy. The New York Times did not allow VDARE.com’s Peter Brimelow and American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor a full response to the charge of “white supremacy,” only grudgingly printing a Letter To The Editor. In fact, these same two professors, Samuel Brunson and David Herzig, had also made the explicit argument that this approach can be used against religious institutions that “discriminate” [A Diachronic Approach to Bob Jones: Religious Tax Exemptions after Obergefell, Indiana Law Journal, February 3, 2017]. National Review’s editors claimed “Beto Proposes to Oppress Church with State” [October 11, 2019]. Well, like it or not boys, you’re in the same trench as us. Ben Shapiro went full-on fedposting, saying he’d meet O’Rourke with a gun if he tried to force his child into “LGBQ indoctrination.” (As a moderate conservative, I disavow such rhetoric.) That got publicity, but many reporters overlooked that Shapiro also said he might leave the country. Easy for him to say, he has somewhere to go. What about us? Walter Olson at CATO (hardly a group friendly to VDARE.com) noted last month that the IRS can’t engage in viewpoint discrimination. What’s more: [I]f the IRS were to begin revoking groups’ tax exemptions based on their exercise of speech that is not protected, such as libel or incitement of immediate criminal conduct, it would be obliged to apply such a policy neutrally as to content — which means a lot of groups quite different from the one targeted in the test-case controversy will find their ox gored. The legal precedents have developed in cases involving a wide range of both progressive and conservative litigants, and understandably so, because if principles in this area are to be principles, they must protect speakers of many different points of view, not just the popular or emollient. Either that, or they will in effect protect none. As The Week’s Bonnie Kristian noted, despite the applause from the audience at the debate, “Beto’s” proposed policy would have effects not “limited to white, Republican Protestants” because it would also affect black churches and perhaps even “some of the very gay Americans whom O’Rourke purports to protect” [Why Beto O’Rourke’s gay marriage idea collapses under scrutiny, October 11, 2019]. Reason added that “viewpoint discrimination” is a dangerous tool because it’s already been used against homosexual groups, the same people who now want to wield it [The legal-historical amnesia of using tax exemptions to punish political beliefs, by Dale Carpenter, October 11, 2019]. These are solid, well-grounded arguments made in good faith. They are also irrelevant. They are examples of what I call the “what, not who” fallacy. They presuppose that the law will be equally applied. However, in today’s system, “Who? Whom?” are the only questions that matter. There’s no question that on present course America’s increasingly Third World courts will simply eventually declare that because of the inherent evil of whiteness, certain groups must be stripped of legal protection. We’re already operating in a post-legal environment, where the letter of the law and constitutional guarantees are irrelevant. Judges can simply create policy out of whatever they want. Already, if the ban on explicitly political activity was enforced against black churches, Democratic Get-Out-The-Vote efforts would be gutted. At the same time the Obama Administration was selectively targeting Tea Party groups, it coached the Conference of National Black Churches on how to be politically active and keep their tax exemption. Many churches have simply become tax shelters for far-Left causes, having long abandoned actual religious belief. This often includes sheltering illegal immigrants. One naïve, pro-immigration American was killed by an illegal immigrant who was charged with “careless driving resulting in death” and driving with a revoked license [Colorado immigration advocate killed in crash with Salvadoran who once sought sanctuary in church: report, by Lucia Sang, Fox News, August 9, 2019]. He had previously been sheltered by the Unitarians. Everyone reading this, from the Leftist vigilantes monitoring us to the most stalwart patriot, knows that the law simply does not apply to some people. If it did, we wouldn’t have an illegal immigration crisis. Until the entire system is changed, the best we can do in this environment is fight for the constitutional guarantees we still have. Mainstream and religious conservatives who normally virtue-signal against us have a stake in our fight, whether they like it or not. We are the shield that is guarding religious conservatives from IRS action. If they think they will be permitted to make a separate peace, Beto O’Rourke just told them they are sadly mistaken. James Kirkpatrick [Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc. | [email protected] (James Kirkpatrick) | https://vdare.com/articles/beto-o-rourke-urges-selective-law-enforcement-but-for-patriots-it-s-already-here | Sun, 20 Oct 2019 14:21:48 -0400 | 1,571,595,708 | 1,572,533,642 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,078,321 | usnews--2019-11-14--Long Island Catholic Diocese Challenges NY Child Victims Act | 2019-11-14T00:00:00 | usnews | Long Island Catholic Diocese Challenges NY Child Victims Act | NEW YORK (AP) — Catholic officials on Long Island have filed a legal challenge arguing that the Child Victims Act that loosened statutes of limitations on molestation cases violates the New York state constitution. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville said in a court filing Tuesday that a provision of the law enacted this year violates the due process clause of the state constitution. “A basic tenet of every legal system, including New York’s, is that statutes of limitations protect a fundamental right of repose that benefits both potential defendants and society at large by ensuring that individual rights are protected and the courts can function properly,” the motion filed in Nassau County state Supreme Court says. Jennifer Freeman, an attorney who represents plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused as children, says the diocese is “moving to shield predators” and “hide the heinous crimes that occurred under their watch.” “With this motion, the Diocese of Rockville and officials within the Catholic Church are demonstrating their cowardice, hypocrisy, and refusal to do what is right,” Freeman said. The Child Victim Act, passed earlier this year, extended the state's statute of limitations for onetime victims of child sexual abuse to file criminal charges or civil lawsuits. The law also created the one-year litigation window, which lawmakers said was needed because before the change this year New York had one of the nation's tightest statutes of limitations. More than 400 cases were filed on the first day of the litigation window in August against defendants including religious institutions, public and private schools and the Boy Scouts of America. Freeman said the Rockville Centre diocese’s motion is apparently the first to directly challenge the constitutionality of the law. “When they are proven to be wrong it will confirm the propriety of all these cases,” she said. “We’re not scared by this.” The diocese’s motion challenges the one-year window to file lawsuits over allegations of past abuse. Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the diocese, said Thursday that the diocese “is asking the court to rule on the legislature’s authority to revive formerly time-barred claims.” Dolan said the diocese “will continue to respect all orders of the courts as they decide this motion and as they interpret and apply the laws of this state.” The Rockville Centre diocese has taken a harder line on the issue of abusive clergy members than many other Catholic dioceses around the country. The diocese has so far declined to release a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Dozens of dioceses including the Manhattan-based Archdiocese of New York have released lists of accused priests. About 80 lawsuits have so far been filed against the Rockville Centre diocese under the Child Victims Act. | Associated Press | https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2019-11-14/long-island-catholic-diocese-challenges-ny-child-victims-act | Thu, 14 Nov 2019 22:56:35 GMT | 1,573,790,195 | 1,573,779,386 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,074,189 | usatoday--2019-10-11--Beto O'Rourke criticized by conservatives for comment about tax-exempt status and LGBTQ rights | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | usatoday | Beto O'Rourke criticized by conservatives for comment about tax-exempt status and LGBTQ rights | WASHINGTON – 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is being criticized by conservatives for his stance, expressed during CNN’s LGBTQ town hall Thursday night, on religious institutions and their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage. The former Texas congressman was asked, "Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities, should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?" “Yes,” O’Rourke answered, receiving applause from the town hall audience. "There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us." "And so as president, we're going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans," he continued. Conservatives quickly voiced their criticism and dismay at O'Rourke's view. “You want a culture war in this country, you damn well have it,” conservative political commentator and the Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro responded. Shapiro continued that if O’Rourke was going to try to “indoctrinate his kids” at religious schools and churches “nationally” he would be forced to either “leave the country” or “pick up a gun.” "Beto O'Rourke does not get to raise my child. And if he tries, I will meet him at the door with a gun," he reiterated. Donald Trump Jr., President Donald Trump’s eldest son, also commented on O’Rourke’s statement, saying in a tweet that the “left and their agenda… only believe in religious liberty if it’s on their heavily dictated terms.” "Does your church preach the Gospel? Then Beto O'Rourke wants to take away its tax-exemption," tweeted former GOP presidential candidate Hermain Cain. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., called O’Rourke's proposal “bigoted nonsense” in a statement, writing that, "This extreme intolerance is un-American. The whole point of the First Amendment is that, no matter who you love and where you worship, everyone is created with dignity and we don’t use government power to decide which religious beliefs are legitimate and which aren’t.” Franklin Graham, son of legendary late preacher Billy Graham, who is known as an evangelist, social conservative activist and supporter of President Trump, said he “will not bow down at the altar of the LGBTQ agenda nor worship their rainbow pride flag.” Graham has previously called on South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is another 2020 Democratic presidential contender, to repent for the 'sin' of being gay. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., called O'Rourke "the most honest Democrat running for President – he admits they want to shut down churches if they don’t adhere to his beliefs," and continued that Democrats "don’t care about religious liberty." Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who is also running to be the Democratic presidential nominee next year, sidestepped directly answering the same question about tax exemptions at the CNN event. “I’m not saying, because I know this is a long legal battle. I’m not dodging your question. I’m saying I believe fundamentally that discrimination is discrimination," Booker said. "And if you are using your position to try to discriminate against others, there must be consequences to that. And I will make sure to hold them accountable using the DOJ or whatever investigatory. You cannot discriminate." But, O'Rourke stuck with his comment Thursday night, reiterating on Twitter that "there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution or organization in America that denies the full human rights, and the full civil rights, of everyone in America." More: Supreme Court is divided over gay, transgender job bias in civil rights case More: SCOTUS ruling could completely alter lives of LGBTQ Americans | Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY | http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~/607690338/0/usatodaycomwashington-topstories~Beto-ORourke-criticized-by-conservatives-for-comment-about-taxexempt-status-and-LGBTQ-rights/ | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 22:04:14 +0000 | 1,570,845,854 | 1,570,833,207 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,048,491 | truepundit--2019-03-05--Kavanaugh Warns Of Pure Discrimination As Supreme Court Denies Church Bid For Historic Preservatio | 2019-03-05T00:00:00 | truepundit | Kavanaugh Warns Of ‘Pure Discrimination’ As Supreme Court Denies Church Bid For Historic Preservation Grant | The Supreme Court refused Monday to decide whether religious institutions may be disqualified from public historic preservation funding, after a New Jersey court forbade local officials from dispersing $4 million to 12 churches. “Barring religious organizations because they are religious from a general historic preservation grants program is pure discrimination against religion,” Kavanaugh wrote. “At some point, this Court will need to decide whether governments that distribute historic preservation funds may deny funds to religious organizations simply because the organizations are religious.” Morris County, New Jersey, awards grants for the maintenance of historically significant structures. Several churches dating back to the colonial period have received public support through that program since 2012. The case at issue Monday arose in April 2016, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and a local taxpayer brought a lawsuit claiming the Morris County program violates New Jersey’s constitution. The state constitution provides that no person shall be “obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches.” The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously sided with the FFRF. Morris County said its case is broadly similar to a Missouri dispute the Supreme Court resolved in 2017. In that case, Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, a seven-justice majority said Missouri was wrong to exclude churches from a state program that provided public funds for playground safety. In legal filings at the high court, the county said the New Jersey court’s decision was contrary to Trinity Lutheran, arguing the Court’s reasoning in that case clearly extends to preservation awards. Though the Court decided not to hear Morris County’s appeal, Kavanaugh said that the New Jersey court’s ruling was “in serious tension with this Court’s religious equality precedents,” citing cases in which the justices said public officials could not deny school space to religious groups or disqualify clergy as delegates to constitutional conventions. Still, Kavanaugh said the Court was right to reject the Morris County case due to factual uncertainties about its program. Americans United for Separation of Church and State commended the high court’s decision to deny the appeal, but called Kavanaugh’s opinion troubling. “Justice Kavanaugh appears to be considering requiring taxpayer funding for religious uses, in ways never before permitted by our Constitution or our courts,” said Richard Katskee, legal director for Americans United. “This view suggests a hostility toward our fundamental American value of church-state separation, which has protected religious freedom for all,” Katskee added. The justices are deciding another church-state separation case this term. The Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case that asks whether a 40-foot veterans’ cross on public land violates the Constitution. A decision on that matter is expected by June. | Staff | https://truepundit.com/kavanaugh-warns-of-pure-discrimination-as-supreme-court-denies-church-bid-for-historic-preservation-grant/ | 2019-03-05 14:50:31+00:00 | 1,551,815,431 | 1,567,546,858 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,043,336 | theweekuk--2019-12-17--Pope Francis lifts ‘pontifical secret’ rule in abuse cases | 2019-12-17T00:00:00 | theweekuk | Pope Francis lifts ‘pontifical secret’ rule in abuse cases | Pope Francis has announced that the rule of “pontifical secrecy” will no longer apply to the sexual abuse of minors, in a move described as “epochal”. As part of a bid to improve transparency, the Pope has called time on the days when the Church conducted sexual abuse cases in strict secrecy. He said that information in abuse cases should still be treated with “security, integrity and confidentiality” but has told Vatican officials to comply with civil laws and assist civil judicial authorities in investigating such cases in the future. The move comes after several church officials criticised the previous arrangement during the historic Vatican summit in February, which focused on combating clergy sexual abuse. The BBC’s religion editor, Martin Bashir, said the reform is “the latest attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to address the scourge of clerical abuse that has manifested itself across continents and in a range of religious institutions”. Charles Scicluna, the Archbishop of Malta and the Vatican's most experienced sex abuse investigator, described the Pope’s move as an “epochal decision that removes obstacles and impediments”. Speaking to Vatican News, he added that “the question of transparency now is being implemented at the highest level”. Mattias Katsch, a campaigner for abuse victims said the change is “overdue,” adding that “for a long time, representatives of victims/survivors from all over the world have demanded that papal secrecy be lifted in cases of sexual abuse of children by priests”. In an accompanying move, the Pope has also expanded the Church's definition of child pornography, raising the age in which one is considered a child from 14 to 18. The new definition will come into effect in January 2020. The Daily Mail notes that the announcement came on Francis' 83rd birthday, “as he struggles to respond to the global explosion of the abuse scandal, his own missteps in dealing with the issue, and demands for greater transparency and accountability from victims, law enforcement and ordinary Catholics alike”. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– For a round-up of the most important stories from around the world - and a concise, refreshing and balanced take on the week’s news agenda - try The Week magazine. Start your trial subscription today ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– | chas | https://www.theweek.co.uk/104927/pope-francis-lifts-pontifical-secret-rule-in-abuse-cases | Tue, 17 Dec 2019 16:13:54 +0000 | 1,576,617,234 | 1,576,671,878 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
1,006,270 | thetelegraph--2019-05-02--Child sex abuse inquiry widens scope to other religions outside Christianity for first time | 2019-05-02T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Child sex abuse inquiry widens scope to other religions outside Christianity for first time | Religious organisations across the country will be investigated for the first time, as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) announced it was widenening its scope. Faiths including Buddhism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists and religious settings such as mosques and synagogues will all fall within the scope of the newly announced probe. This marks the 14th strand in the investigation into child protection in religious organisations and settings. The IICSA was set up in 2015 to investigate institutions which failed to protect children from sexual abuse. Prior to the announcement yesterday the investigation has only dealt with Christian cases when probing religion. The new investigation will be separate from the investigations into the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches and will review the current child protection policies, practices and procedures in religious institutions in England and Wales. | Gabriella Swerling | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/02/child-sex-abuse-inquiry-widens-scope-religions-outside-christianity/ | 2019-05-02 19:45:55+00:00 | 1,556,840,755 | 1,567,541,391 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
998,152 | thetelegraph--2019-02-03--Israeli mosque prayer caller fired over bodybuilder photos | 2019-02-03T00:00:00 | thetelegraph | Israeli mosque prayer caller 'fired over bodybuilder photos' | A prayer caller at a mosque in the Israeli city of Acre is appealing for his job back after being fired over photos posted online of him in a revealing outfit at a bodybuilding contest, he says. Ibrahim al-Masri said he lost his job as chief muezzin of the Al-Jazzar Mosque after local officials came upon the photos of him at the state bodybuilding championship in 2017. "Each sport has a specific type of clothing. Football has its own, tennis has its own, swimming has its own. Same thing for bodybuilding," Mr Masri said, referring to the wire-thin briefs competitors typically wear. "I never dreamed this would happen. Because I know that Israel is a democratic country, and if someone makes a mistake, they can fix it," Mr Masri said. "But to fix a mistake with another mistake? It’s not right." Around 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Arab. Mosques and other non-Jewish religious institutions are supervised by local officials who report to the Interior Ministry. | Reuters | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/03/israeli-mosque-prayer-caller-fired-photos-bodybuilder-outfit/ | 2019-02-03 17:26:52+00:00 | 1,549,232,812 | 1,567,549,763 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
911,047 | therussophileorg--2019-12-27--The MEK in Albania | 2019-12-27T00:00:00 | therussophileorg | The MEK in Albania | The following is an interview I conducted via email with Osli Jazexhi, an Albanian-based, Canadian-Albanian historian who specializes in the history of Islam, nationalism and religious reformation in Southeastern Europe. His interest covers nationalism, radicalism, religious and ethnic identities in the Balkans. The interview was conducted between December 17 and 19. How popular is MEK in Albania? MEK is a terrorist cult that resides in Albania, and which struggles to overthrow the government of a country that has done nothing wrong against Albania. As a result, the majority of the Albanians have no sympathy for this organization whose job is to wage war and terrorism against a foreign country. What MEK does is criminal and punishable according to the Albanian Penal Code and the Constitution of Albania. MEK was brought to Albania by deception. Albanian politicians like Pandeli Majko, Fatmir Mediu, Sali Berisha etc., asked the Americans to host them in Albania without asking the Albanian people first. This is like as if German politicians were to take into Germany the ISIS army and command, and host them in their country without asking their citizens first. The first members of MEK came to Albania in 2013. However, the bulk of them were brought in 2016, when the then US Secretary of State John Kerry announced their massive landing in Tirana. The coming of MEK created big fears in the country where many media, security analysts, journalists and the public opinion condemned the deception through which MEK was brought. From 2016 to 2018 the media in Albania has written and produced many debates against the MEK and ISIS fighters. Even the office responsible for fighting extremism classified them as an extremist organization in January 2018. The weird nature of MEK which operates as a messianic jihadi cult, whose members are mujahedeens, live isolated from the world, refuse civilian life and make continuous calls for jihad against Iran, and create fear among the peace-loving Albanians in the same way ISIS does for many people in the world. For this reason in the past years many journalists and activists have criticized the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama by blaming it for turning Albania into a safe heaven for terrorists. In the past three years MEK has gained notoriety in Albania for its attacks against journalists, the media and any person who questions their activities. MEK defectors and their revelations have appalled the Albanians who hate the Stalinist past of their country, when they were indoctrinated and isolated like MEK does at present with its members. When MEK first came to Albania they were housed in Tirana. Many of their members, who for many years had been kept in isolation in Iraq, started to defect en masse. Some were caught by the border police for trying to smuggle themselves into Western Europe. The stories that defectors presented to the Albanian public, which showed the brainwashing and radicalizing tactics of MEK against their members, shocked the Albanians. 2016 and 2018 have been critical for MEK, since it faced many defections and scandals from many family members of MEK jihadis who came to Albania trying to rescue their relatives from the organization. To stop this, the MEK leadership took the following steps: 1. They removed their members from Tirana and housed them in the paramilitary camp of Manza known as Ashraf 3, where they are kept locked in and not allowed to walk out of the camp. 2. They asked American and British politicians to intervene in Albania and ask the Albanian authorities to not allow any family member of MEK jihadis to come to Albania and meet their relatives. Their family members were branded as agents of Iran and the Albanian government was ordered to stop their entry in the country. 3. They spread fake news in Albania and Europe by claiming that Iran is sending terrorists to kill them and for this reason forced the Albanian government to keep them in total isolation from the outside world and discourage the media from investigating them. 4. They have asked from all the local media to never interview and investigate them, not to reveal their names and activities, by claiming that if interviewed the media will send out facts which will be used by Iran to kill them. While they succeeded in silencing the Albanian media, they failed with the Western media who have exposed them a lot. 5. They secured the shameful collaboration of the UNHCR office in Albania and Albanian government agencies through which any MEK member who escaped from the jihadi camp and wanted to de-radicalize himself was to be punished by the UNHCR and the Albanian authorities by having his / her social assistance cut, their political asylum rejected, and left without working and traveling documents. In few words, if the mojahedens abandon the jihadi organization, they were to be starved to death. 6. They co-opted some Albanian media like News 24 TV and Vizion + and paid their journalists to support their cause and propagate the fake MEK claims that Iran is a terrorist state which wants to kill them. The owners of News 24 and Vizion + did not allow any debate in their TV stations about what MEK does, how it spreads fake news and attacks their opponents without facts. Journalists like Sokol Balla who covered their events, even produced a documentary showing the jihadis as freedom fighters. 7. They demanded the Albanian authorities to close all Shia religious institutions of the country connected to Iran, block their bank accounts and expel all the Iranians from Albania. The Albanian authorities complied. A Quran foundation, a private High School and Rumi philosophical foundation that were cooperating with religious institutions and universities in Iran were all closed down. Hundreds of Albanians lost their jobs, students lost their education, many Iranians were deported back to Iran and many research projects and book publications were canceled. The Bektashi Community of Albania and other Sufi Tariqas who historically had very close relations with Iran have all been forced to severe their ties with Iran and not invite Shia religious scholars in the country anymore. How much in the public are Maryam Rajavi and Massoud Rajavi? Do they have much support in Albania? Massoud Rajavi, the founder of MEK is nowhere to be seen. People who study MEK believe that he is dead, probably because of an injury that the Americans inflicted on him in Iraq when MEK was on the side of Saddam Hussein and was considered a terrorist organization by the United States. Maryam Rajavi the widow of Massoud, who leads the cult-organization, does not make public appearances. She never comes out in streets and few Albanians know where she hides. It is believed that most of the time she stays with her cult commanders who run the everyday life of the mojahedins and their subversive activities against Iran and probably Iraq. Maryam Rajavi works mainly behind the curtains. Time after time she releases pictures of meetings with Albanian politicians, where she asks for favors and pushes them to stop the media from reporting on human rights violations that MEK does against her members. The story that MEK and Maryam Rajavi conveys to those Albanian media who have agreed to spread their fake stories is that MEK is ‘the democratic opposition of Iran’, that people in Iran live in a dictatorship and are being killed by the ‘regime’ and they are all waiting for Maryam Rajavi to go and save them from the Mullahs. MEK tries to play the victim in Albania and the West by spreading fake news against Iran and claiming that Iran is ready to conduct a major terrorist attack and kill the ‘democracy loving’ mojahedins. On the other hand, as the Albanian Deputy Minister of Interior Besfort Lamallari have accepted in a TV show, MEK, contrary to Albanian laws, runs its own secret service agency in Albania and serves as a major tool to direct Albanian policies towards Iran. In a few words, MEK has taken over Albanian foreign affairs in regard to Iran in the country, and apart from its foreign fight against Iran, conducts espionage activities inside Albania against Albanian and foreign citizens. Even thought they spend a lot of money to counter their negative image, the Albanian public opinion and almost all the journalists and security analysts do consider MEK, at least privately, a violent terrorist organization which is hosted in Albania because the Americans have ordered it to be. MEK has been trying hard to buy a number of Albanian politicians and NGO activists on their side by inviting them to their events in Albania and in France, and connecting them with American and European politicians. They spend a lot of money even with peasants who live in the vicinity of their village of Manza in order to recruit them on their side. There are reports that MEK is teaching its jihadi ideology to young children in the village of Manza; however, the Albanian government has done nothing to stop this dangerous indoctrination. Nevertheless, the Albanian public opinion including the politicians do not take MEK seriously for what they do and say. MEK’s desire to do jihad and establish a utopian Rajavi cult-like regime in Iran does not make any sense for the Albanians who for 50 years lived under a MEK-like Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha. No Albanian would ever want to live even for a day in the paramilitary camp of MEK or under the totalitarian ‘Utopia’ of Maryam Rajavi. I do not believe that any Albanian will be cheated to join the jihad of MEK against Iran as many did when they joined DAESH in Syria. The only use that Albanian politicians have with MEK is the connections that MEK has with high neo-con politicians in the United States. Since the US Embassy has the absolute say about many things that happen in our country, having good connections with MEK for the corrupt Albanian politicians means that they will have access to the Americans and probably save themselves from being sent to jail for their crimes. For this reason, many Albanian politicians, including our president, participate in MEK meetings. One Albanian deputy who used to seat in Albania’s Security Council in 2018 told me that ‘We know that MEK is a terrorist organization. But the Americans brought them here, and they and our British friends told us to keep them, and we are keeping them because we are told so.’ Is MEK growing in numbers and influence, or diminishing? Why do you think that is? When the Obama administration brought MEK to Albania, the idea was that they will build an asylum where MEK terrorists will retire and die by escaping justice for their past crimes against Iran and Iraq. MEK was brought to Albania, probably as part of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Iran and Iraq did not want them in their region and the Americans had to do something in order to save them from justice. As a result of their past terrorism, no country wanted to host them. Even the Americans did not want them in the United States. The only country which accepted them was Albania. Albania was a good choice since our country is run by criminal groups and does not have a functioning legal system like the United Kingdom, Italy or many countries in the West have. By being a lawless country with very weak legal institutions, a corrupt leadership and where the US Embassy has the final say on everything, the Americans made the right decision to bring them to Albania. The other option for MEK would have been the Guantanamo Bay. Many American senators who have visited Albania during the past years have told Prime Minister Edi Rama to protect MEK at any cost and do not allow them to be charged for the murder and crimes they have committed in the past. If MEK was to be located in the United States, United Kingdom, France or Italy, many of its members would have gone to court by now. After coming to Albania, many MEK members have changed their names and ID-s. Last year, when a Canadian family of Mostafa Mohammady wanted to save their daughter, Sommayeh Mohammady, who is being held in the MEK camp – Mostafa revealed to the media that many MEK commanders who appeared in the media parading his daughter in Iraq had other names. Mostafa and other defectors have revealed that some of the commanders who are today in Albania, in the past have committed crimes and even killed people. This fact has shocked the journalists and the public, but no investigation has been opened by the office of the general prosecutor. The only court case that is ongoing at present against MEK in Albania is the case of Gjergji Thanasi, an Albanian journalist who has been accused for being an Iranian spy by commander Behzad Safari. Thanasi has sued Behzad Safari for slander, libel and defamation and is asking compensation for the damage that MEK fake accusations have made against him. While during the days of Obama administration MEK kept a low profile, their influence and profile has changed during the beginning of the Trump administration. John Bolton, the National Security Adviser to president Trump, has been instrumental on radicalizing and promoting them as ‘the democratic opposition of Iran’ and promoting them as the ISIS or Free Syrian Army version of a future war against Iran – which would bring regime change in Tehran. In the last three years MEK has transformed its profile in Albania – from an asylum seeking organization who begged Albania to host and ‘save them from Iran and Iraq’ into a militant organization which together with the US administration has pushed Albania to undertake hostile actions against Iran; like the expulsion of the Iranian Ambassador in December 2018. In the past two years MEK and Maryam Rajavi have aggressively demanded from the Albanian government to cut all ties with Iran, expel Iranian diplomats, and has been involved in a huge campaign of spreading fake news against Iran. The Edi Rama government, who at first was surprised by their demands and was hesitant to please them, in the past year has been forced to give them support on the fake news that they spread and in their attacks against MEK defectors. However, after the sacking of John Bolton and the investigations that have started against President Trump and Rudy Giuliani in the US, MEK seems to have gone mute. In the past months they have been less aggressive in the Albanian media, and have launched only sporadic attacks against some foreign media outlets like the BBC, Der Spiegel or Albanian journalists like me and Gjergji Thanasi who have reported on their weird activities and organization. MEK is very vicious against the media. Unlike ISIS or the Taliban who kill the journalists, MEK who cannot do such killings; in Albania, the attacks against them are through character assassination by accusing them of being agents of Iran and working for the Mullahs. This is how they have attacked the BBC, Channel 4, the Guardian, Al Jazeera and many journalists who dare to speak and investigate them. When they attack the media, they do not use their names. They post their attacks in anonymous websites who cannot be traced where they are located. As a result, journalists like me have difficulty to sue them in courts. But the case is different with Gjergji Thanasi, who was attacked by Behzad Safari, a notorious commander of MEK who has to justify his lies in court. The hate that MEK has against the media is partly because Maryam Rajavi and her commanders live in a totalitarian utopia. They brainwash their soldiers with fake hopes about the imminent victory of their utopian regime change in Iran. Albanian politicians like Pandeli Majko have also fallen pray to MEK radicalization. Two years ago, Majko believed that before 2019 he and Maryam Rajavi would eat ice cream in Tehran after overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Iran. However, while the people of Iran hate MEK and their regime change has never materialized, MEK hates the media and perceives them as its greatest enemy. MEK behaves like the Communist Party of China. Their camps are not much different from the Xinjiang Concentration Camps where Uyghur Muslims are brainwashed to believe that chairman Xi Jinping is the leader of the great Chinese revolution. Like the CCP, which hates the media and have placed Xinjiang in a total lockdown, MEK does the same. Journalists are not allowed to enter in their camps to investigate their members, and the only time when ‘friendly’ journalists and guests are invited they are allowed to film MEK jihadis singing and praising Maryam Rajavi. Exactly what CCP does with its imprisoned Uyghurs in the concentration camps, who when presented to the media are told to sing and dance. However, after the sacking of John Bolton and Donald Trump’s declaration of retreat from Syria and his abandonment of the Kurds, the MEK leadership seems to be having a very hard psychological time in Albania. Some defectors have told me that MEK fears that Trump will abandoned them like he did the Kurds and this will mean the end of MEK. The Saudi money which is believed to be funding MEK’s existence will cease, and without money its members who now stay in the Manza camp or Ashraf 3 will escape and defect en mass towards Western Europe. Maryam Rajavi will be forced to close her 50-year old jihadi organization and Albania and Europe will have to deal with MEK at the same way as they are dealing with the returning ISIS fighters. Albania will be in the position of Turkey with its 3 million Syrian refugees, while the Americans will discharge the MEK problem to Europe as they are doing with ISIS returnees at present. How strong is the international support for MEK in your estimation? MEK had a lot of support when John McCain was alive and John Bolton was advising the White House. MEK was perceived as the Iranian version of ISIS and Free Syrian Army by American neo-cons. However, with the death of McCain and dismissal of Bolton and troubles for Rudy Giuliani, MEK seems to have lost some very important supporters in the United States. MEK is not a military asset for the United States against Iran. They are a bunch of old terrorists, many suffering severe illnesses, who no longer have tanks and cannons like they had under Saddam Hussein. From Albania they cannot easily conduct terrorist attacks against Iran like they were doing from Iraq. The best that they can do in the great regional war between Iran and the Axis of Resistance on one side and Israel and the United States on the other, is to spread lies and disinformation against Iran or to stage false flag attacks in Europe. MEK has been quite successful on that. Many ‘terrorist’ attacks that the media attributed to Iran in 2018, have in fact been faked by MEK and its members. To date not a single Iranian or Iranian-linked individual or organization has been found guilty in Europe during the past years, even though MEK and Israeli media keep on repeating that Iran is about to mass-terrorize the Europeans. MEK is being used by Israel and certain elements of the American deep state to serve as a poisoning tool in the relations between Iran and Europe. Their organization, which is believed to have around 3000 members, needs a huge budget to run. Each MEK member used to take around 500 EURO / month to survive in Albania from UNHCR. The minimum budget that MEK takes to sustain its members and camp is around 1.5 million EURO per month. It is believed that this budget comes from Saudi Arabia. In a year they need at list 18 million Euros, without counting here the money that they spend for building their facilities and hosting periodic events where they invite retired and second-class politicians from the West who get free hotel, food, airplane tickets and some stipends for their attendance. Coming back to your question how strong is MEK’s international support I could say that they have the support of some countries that are hostile to Iran, like the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. But no European government loves them, and the European Union despises them since they perceive them as a security threat. The Italians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, the Turks, the Russians etc., all observe MEK with great concern. MEK tries very hard to create the impression that it has mass international support. In its periodic conferences it invites retired Europeans and Americans, students, workers etc. who, in exchange for their free holiday trip to Albania, are required to go into their gatherings and spend a few hours in photographic meetings that Maryam Rajavi does with them. MEK stages shows in its camp like the CCP does in its concentration camps in Xinjiang with foreign journalists and diplomats. China invites foreigners who receive first-class treatment and in return are expected to lie about Xinjiang and not to investigate what is going on with the Muslim detainees. MEK’s invitees do the same. They do not interrogate MEK members who do not want to do jihad and want to escape from the camp. The invitees in most of the cases are happy to sell to the world a fake story by declaring that MEK is not a terrorist cult which wants to do jihad against Iran, but it is the ‘Iranian opposition’ who ‘wants to bring democracy to Iran’. However, some brave journalist like the brave Alice Taylor who have visited the MEK camp, have revealed to the world how MEK tries to fake its image and use the paid journalists for this fake make up. Are there any actions in Albania to oppose the MEK? If so, do those actions come from the government, or from individuals? When MEK came to Albania, their presence was rejected overwhelmingly by many civil society groups, the media and the public. There were many calls for their immediate expulsion from the country. However, in the past two years MEK, with the support of many American and Western politicians, has been able to buy many individuals and silence the media criticism on them. They do this by blackmailing the media who report on them, by character assassination of journalists, or when they cannot silence the media they try to buy them by offering money. Many journalists are paid when they go to MEK camp and produce fake stories on them. MEK never accepts open debates about what they do. They do not know how to act in an open society. Since MEK is seen as an organization which the United States supports, no politician or religious personality in Albania dares to talk about them in public. Many journalists who have opposed them in the past have been told not to do so anymore. Many media have chosen to ignore them since they know that by speaking against MEK they put themselves into trouble, and as MEK commanders say to many journalists – they will ruin their career. Do you think MEK is a well-organized group, or is it in disarray? MEK has three types of members. Some who are fully indoctrinated and follow the ideology of Maryam Rajavi blindly and believe that she is some kind of Holy Person who will establish an utopian Marxist – Rajavist regime in Iran. Some who know that her totalitarian ideology is non-sense, but keep quiet because they know that if they leave the cult, now that they are too old they will not be able to survive and will die in poverty. The third type of their members, who are mainly youths, hate the organization and wait for their moment to escape and live in freedom. MEK does anything in its power to keep its members isolated and scared from the outside world. The majority of its members, especially the youth, are not allowed contact with their families, the media and the outside world since this will give them the connections to escape into freedom. MEK runs as a paramilitary organization. It has a well-organized command structure, while the rest of its members are treated as simple jihadi soldiers. Some MEK defectors who live in Tirana have told me that there is an open mutiny among the soldiers and when foreign delegations visit the camp, many members are kept locked indoors and are not allowed to attend the mass events. They want to abandon the camp where they live isolated like in prison. MEK members undergo psychological brainwashing very much like the Uyghurs in China’s concentration camps. Camp members are forced to undergo indoctrination classes every day. They do not have access to telephones, the internet and are not allowed to communicate with their families. They are kept under constant supervision, radicalized with ideas of violent jihad and monitored by surveillance cameras. Defectors have told me that Maryam Rajavi rules over them with fear. She and her command scare the mojahedins by claiming that if they leave the camp they will die of hunger or Iran will kill them with its agents. For as long as MEK receives a budget of millions of dollars and is protected and allowed to isolate its members and abuse their human rights, it will manage to survive for a few more years as an anti-Iran warmongering organization and center of espionage. If Washington or Tel Aviv would need, some of its still-able members will be also used to commit terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe. However, if the organization will be left without money, Maryam Rajavi will not be able to pay ‘international supporters’ like Bolton and Giuliani for her cause and its members who will be hungry will riot and abandon the cult like many of their comrades have done in the past. If Iran reaches a new comprehensive and long-lasting deal with the United States, MEK will very likely lose its sponsors and the organization will either be sent back to Iran or it will dismantle by itself. But even if these things do not happen, in the coming 10 to 20 years the organization will cease to exist since many of its members will be dead by that time and Maryam Rajavi, if she is still alive, will not have the chance to abduct and brainwash new jihadis against Iran. | Robert Fantina | https://www.therussophile.org/the-mek-in-albania.html/ | Fri, 27 Dec 2019 09:04:52 +0000 | 1,577,455,492 | 1,577,450,158 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
317,647 | mintpressnews--2019-12-10--Yemenis Know Firsthand the Extremist Underpinnings of the Pensacola Shooter | 2019-12-10T00:00:00 | mintpressnews | Yemenis Know Firsthand the Extremist Underpinnings of the Pensacola Shooter | SANA’A, YEMEN — The attack on U.S. Naval base in Florida exemplifies the harsh reality of life in Yemen where Saudi pilots routinely kill “nonbelievers” according to an extremist Salafi ideology that serves as the central building block of the Saudi government, and by extension, the Saudi military. With a cracked skull, a ruptured intestine and severed foot, 35-year-old Meshal Ali Saeed, a Yemeni father, died in a shabby Sadaa hospital on Sunday. His injuries were caused by a bomb dropped by a Saudi pilot in a crowded residential area in the district of Shada in Sadaa province near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia, where Meshel, a farmer, lived. Meshel was one of the dozens killed immediately or wounded in the attack, the latest casualties of the Saudi Air Force in the Arab world’s poorest country. Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force called the United States a “nation of evil” before carrying out a mass shooting at a U.S. Navy base in Florida, killing three people, including a Yemeni-American trainee, and injuring eight more before being shot dead by police. The shooting incident at a naval base in Florida has sparked angry reactions amid Yemenis who have asked the United States to reconsider supplying U.S.-made bombs, warplanes, and training programs to Saudi Arabia. The United States, they said, is now drinking from the same glass that thousands of Yemenis have been drinking since 2015 when the war on Yemen began. 32-year-old Shrog Khalid, whose daughter was killed when a Saudi pilot dropped a U.S.-manufactured and supplied bomb on their family home in al-Jeraf district in Sana’a in 2015, said, “as the tragedy reaches American families, we hope their country will feel our suffering caused by their weapons and Saudi pilots trained in U.S. bases.” Shrog still has fractures in one of her legs from the bombing. According to a recent report by the Intisaf Organization for Women and Children Rights, Saudi pilots, along with their coalition partners, have killed and wounded at least 7,500 children in over 1,700 days, leaving more than 800 children disabled and 8,000 others suffering from multiple types of psychological and neurological conditions according to Yusef al-Hadhari, a spokesman for Yemen’s Ministry of Health. Amnesty International warned in a recent report titled, “Yemen: War and exclusion leave millions of people with disabilities in the lurch,” of the increasingly dire situation faced by the millions of people living with disabilities in Yemen. The report called on the international community to address the suffering of at least 4.5 million disabled Yemenis amid the bloody Saudi-led war. Yemen’s Ministry of Health says that around three million children under the age of five are also suffering from malnutrition, 400,000 of whom are suffering from severe malnutrition and are at risk of death every ten minutes if they do not receive appropriate medical care. Health Ministry spokesman al-Hadhari also said that the closure of the Sana’a International Airport has prevented approximately 320,000 Yemenis from traveling abroad to receive medical treatment, resulting in 42,000 people losing their lives, 13 percent of whom were children. Fares, a recent graduate who lost his entire family in a Saudi attack, hoped that the attack on the U.S. Navy base in Florida would serve as a wake-up call for Americans, spurring them to cease their ongoing support for Saudi Arabia. Mohammad Ali, who was wounded during a Saudi attack on a funeral in Sanaa, described the attack as justified revenge for the thousands of Yemenis who were killed by Saudi pilots trained at the base. According to the family of Meshal Ali Saeed, Meshal was a victim of American training programs that provide Saudi pilots the skills and ability to carry out deadly attacks. Many of Yemen’s civilians who spoke to MintPress expressed concern over U.S. training programs for members of Saudi-led Coalition, which they say gives extremists the ability to kill their children. The Pensacola Naval Air Station, an early training center for naval pilots from a myriad of U.S.-allied countries, is known colloquially as the “cradle of naval aviation.” It is the crown of the U.S. Navy’s foreign military training program, established in 1985 specifically for Saudi students before being expanded to other nationalities. There are 852 Saudi nationals receiving training in the United States’ under the Pentagon’s security cooperation agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Most, if not all, of the Saudi pilots who fly a variety of warplanes, including F-15 fighters and C-130 cargo aircraft over only the Yemeni sky, strike civilian targets including schools, hospitals, markets and infrastructure, are trained in the United States. Over the course of the nearly five-year-long war in Yemen, Saudi pilots, along with their coalition partners, have launched 250,000 airstrikes, dropped half a million bombs and missiles — including 6,000 a phosphorous and cluster bomb — on Yemen according to the Yemeni army. The vast majority of those strikes were on civilian targets. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman telephoned U.S. President Donald Trump to denounce the shooting, claiming that “the perpetrator of this heinous crime does not represent the Saudi people,” according to the official Saudi Press Agency. According to officials, Saudi Air Force officers undergoing military training in the U.S. were intensely vetted, hand-picked, and often came from elite families in the Kingdom. Although Saudi Arabia has sought to distance itself from the incident of the Naval Air Station in Pensacola and from hundreds of deadly attacks against civilians in Yemen, the Saudi government has continued its support for hate speech espoused by clerics who preach the extremist iteration of Islam known as Salafism which originated in the Kingdom. Salafi doctrine preaches hate against religious minorities, the United States and anyone disloyal to the Saudi royal family. It is the same ideology practiced by ISIS, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. Despite its outward-facing diplomatic charm offensive, Saudi officials have so far done little to curb the use of textbooks and a public education system that preaches Salafist doctrine. This despite that fact this it is the source of hateful propaganda and for the radical causes that help indoctrinate Saudi military members who view other faiths as an abomination. Like the Saudis who were involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks, Saudi military members are brought up in a country rife with extremism supported by both the royal family and Kingdom’s religious institutions. It is precisely that same ideology that was espoused by Pensacola shooter Mohammed Alshamrani. In Yemen, Saudi forces target civilians based on ideological underpinnings, a fact morbidly demonstrated by the large number of civilian casualties in the country. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), more than 100,000 people have been killed in Yemen since March 2015. Saudi troops captured while fighting in Yemen recounted how they were told by Saudi princes and Imams alike that the (Saudi) King Salman Bin Abdulaziz brought them there to defend the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. They will die on the path of God and go to heaven, they were told repeatedly. Yemenis, whether soldier or civilian, are all Rafidah (infidels). Many Yemenis describe Donald Trump as an accomplice to Saudi Arabia. A hypocrite who justifies crime after crime of his Saudi allies. After all, the Saudi pilots that pulverize Yemeni people in markets, wedding parties, hospitals, roads, and schools are trained in the United States and use American weapons. In the wake of the Pensacola attack, Trump said just moments after being briefed on the situation that Saudi King “Salman said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people.” Trump, known for his quick-handed responses to terrorist attacks around the world, didn’t label the Saudi gunman a terrorist, as he usually does following such attacks. Instead, he assured Americans of Riyadh’s position before the result of any investigation into the attack had even been released. Feature photo | Saudi soldiers parade during a concert titled “mettle to the top” at the green hall theatre marking Saudi 89th National Day celebrations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sept. 21, 2019. Amr Nabil | AP Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media. | Ahmed Abdulkareem | https://www.mintpressnews.com/yemen-know-extremist-underpinnings-pensacola-shooter/263346/ | Tue, 10 Dec 2019 19:37:01 +0000 | 1,576,024,621 | 1,576,022,657 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
329,568 | nationalreview--2019-01-21--The Coming Test Acts Will Challenge Religious Freedom | 2019-01-21T00:00:00 | nationalreview | The Coming Test Acts Will Challenge Religious Freedom | And the pressure they bring to bear will be a major test of faith for Christians. Think of a country where leading politicians question whether members of a long-established religious minority are fit for public office. Or where the head of state attacks the legal protections that allow minority religions to choose their own leaders without state interference. Think of that country’s press, which has deep ideological and financial affinities with the ruling class’s prejudice, whipping up scare stories about that minority’s schools. Maybe you were thinking of Hungary. But all of these are recent examples of American secularism. And if news of recent weeks is any indication, the pace is only going to pick up. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People,” John Adams wrote, “ It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Well, Americans stopped being a “religious People” quite a long time ago. And they are becoming progressively less attached to organized religion by the day. Consequently, the accepted meaning of the First Amendment has been changing. And the Constitution is becoming inadequate for the defense of religious people and their institutions. Instead of allowing the flourishing of various religious bodies in a democratic republic, the language of the First Amendment is used to cultivate a special disgust and suspicion of religious people when they act in public or in the civic space. Its “restriction” of religion is now widely interpreted as a license for America’s best and brightest to establish ideas and ideologies so long as those ideas are detached from religion. Even when those ideas trespass on the free exercise of religion. One strategy for reducing religious liberty is for politicians and the press to generate fake outrage, to treat the normal everyday realities of religiosity as suspicious and controversial. Senators Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris recently questioned whether a candidate for a federal judgeship was unfit because of his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a long-established Catholic fraternal organization and charity. The vice president’s wife, Karen Pence, took part-time work at a Christian school, which, like most religious schools, has a code of conduct or statement of faith obliging teachers to uphold the religious ethos of the school. News outlets treated this everyday fact of life as if it were a novel provocation and spent days documenting the “outrage” it generated. Really, they generated it. A column at CNN described the school as “a real-life setting for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’” This story (and others like it) are tactical moves in an effort to “condition the environment” for situations when nominees to federal courts are revealed to have been involved with/sent their children to schools that have policies in place that reflect the abovementioned norms. Second, this story (and others like it) are tactical moves in an effort by opponents of school choice to — having largely lost the battle over the “statist monopoly or parental choice?” debate — cripple voucher and other school-choice programs by pushing legislatures (and enlisting business boycotts and pressure to push legislatures) to exclude from voucher programs those schools that “discriminate.” The campaign to stigmatize Christian institutions is also seen in the ACLU’s sudden willingness to sue Catholic hospitals and health groups for refusing to provide abortions or transgender services. It will come to Evangelical colleges that have dorm or conduct policies that reflect their convictions about marriage and sex. One can predict with near certainty that in a few years a handful of real stories of neglect or abuse will be used to create a general moral panic about religious homeschoolers. The cumulative effect of these campaigns of legal and social harassment will be something akin to the English Penal Laws and Test Acts, the very laws that the America’s Founders wanted to escape. Those laws threatened employment and restricted the political action of those dissenters who could not endorse the established opinions of the state. And the pressure they bring to bear will be a major test of faith for Christians themselves. At America’s founding, it would have been obvious to all statesmen that definitions of marriage and the recognition of marriages trespassed into the domain of religious doctrine, an area they tried hard to avoid. It would have been obvious that the religious practice that schools and seminaries obliged on their students and teachers were not the government’s business. But it is no longer obvious to those who would urge Catholic and Evangelical institutions toward the revised moral practice of Episcopalianism. Their doctrines travel under the name of egalitarianism, and so these advocates feel themselves free to demand universal loyalty to them. Passing the coming test will require great reserves of moral courage from the administrators of religious institutions. The legal tests will drain and waste away great gobs of money from ordinary believers. And it will test our patience, and even our patriotism. The spirit is willing, but our legal protections are weak. | Michael Brendan Dougherty | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/test-acts-will-challenge-religious-freedom/ | 2019-01-21 16:50:38+00:00 | 1,548,107,438 | 1,567,551,476 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
329,690 | nationalreview--2019-01-28--Amanda Spielmans War on Religion in Great Britain | 2019-01-28T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Amanda Spielman’s War on Religion in Great Britain | In the name of ‘British values,’ French-style secularism is being imposed on religious schools in England. Karen Pence has come under fire for her job at a Christian school, because the school in question follows orthodox Christian views on sexual relations outside of wedlock. This has spurned a whole wave of online discussion lambasting such schools; while of course abuses and mismanagement in Christian schools ought to be brought to light and addressed, this is quite a different matter. Should private, religious institutions be allowed to dissent from secular worldviews? The question has become a heated one across the pond. Amanda Spielman was an odd choice for England chief regulator of schools. Spielman, who comes from the private-equity world, was staunchly opposed by the Education Select Committee in Parliament. Its chairman, Conservative Neil Carmichael, described her responses as “particularly troubling,” leading the committee to “call on the secretary of state not to proceed with Ms. Spielman’s appointment.” Carmichael noted that such opposition is unusual but maintained that the “seriousness of [their] concerns” warranted a report. Nicky Morgan, education secretary in the Cameron government, confirmed her over their objections, and Spielman has served in the role at Ofsted (the Office of Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) since January 2017. Her performance since has confirmed the fears of committee members. She has waged a war against religious schools of all dominations for the past two years— and has justified that in the name of “British values.” The claim, and her behavior, require unpacking. In 2014, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government in Britain published guidance directing all schools to “actively promote” the “British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.” This seems innocuous enough and perhaps par for the course, but the word “promote” is key. Until that point, schools had been required to “respect” these values. What’s the difference? Perhaps a good place to look for the root of this initiative would be the Lib Dems’ platform for the 2010 election. Nick Clegg held that faith schools must promote homosexual relationships. These, one assumes, fall under the umbrella of “different beliefs” enshrined in the British-value guidance. But there’s an immediate tension there, because toleration, properly understood, does not mean supporting every behavior or belief. To the contrary, it entails coming to terms with difference, respectfully. And, furthermore, the ability of religious groups to tailor the non-academic elements of their schooling to the ethical codes they follow is part of English liberty itself. The language of the guidance is quite broadly defined. By its very nature, this means that the regulator has considerable leeway for interpretation. Spielman’s predecessor at Ofsted was Sir Michael Wilshaw, a lifelong educator. Wilshaw founded and led a high school in one of the most deprived parts of London, with a largely poor student body, and led the students to some of the highest academic performance in the nation. For this, he was widely hailed, and presumably it is why he was named the chief inspector at Ofsted in 2012. Under his tenure, even after the new guidance was issued, inspections proceeded in a normal manner. After all, he was an experienced hand at these things. But once Spielman took the reigns, the dangers of the government’s ill-defined education directive became obvious. In summer 2017, the Vishnitz Girls School, a private Jewish institution in Hackney, failed a third Ofsted inspection in a row for its deficiency in teaching a “full understanding of fundamental British values.” If a school receives a grade from Ofsted that is less than “good,” it is subject to future inspections that will fail it if it does not “improve” in whichever criteria were cited. Vishnitz’s failing mark was despite the fact that in Ofsted’s own report, the school was described as having knowledgeable teachers, high-quality resources, and a school culture “focused on teaching pupils to respect everybody, regardless of beliefs and lifestyle.” To me, that sounds exactly like what a parent would want out of a school. Which key element of British heritage did the school deny its students? Was it the Magna Carta? Ofsted states it outright in its report: The school did not teach pupils about gender reassignment and sexualities, thereby restricting “pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development” and rendering them unfit for “present-day society.” That is quite a claim, considering that the school is for girls under the age of eight. Apparently, such information is such a fundamental part of what it means to be British that prepubescent children have to be taught it. (It really makes me wonder how we got by all of these years, lacking component so crucial to Britishness.) Six other faith schools were hit with similar sanctions at about the same time. The move found an immediate and eager reception in Britain’s secular-humanist crowd, who called for “proper sanctions” on such schools. At several Jewish, Christian, and Muslim schools, the building is effectively both a boys’ school and a girls’ school with shared facilities (though some schools are co-ed for primary-school students.) These also came under attack from Ofsted for, yet offending “British values”. Boys’ schools still exist in Britain, as do girls’ schools — yet when religious schools adopted a version of that system, they were engaging in subversion. The High Court had ruled that to be fine, but Spielman’s Ofsted appealed, citing the “Equalities Act” of 2010 (despite the fact that they had passed inspection after the Act, but before Spielman), and the ruling was overturned. Now these schools are faced with the choice of shutting down or finding the funding to split into two fully separate schools. This too met with glee by secular humanists, who called the schools’ arrangement “gender apartheid.” Spielman’s language in her first annual report sounds more Soviet than British: “It is right that we use compulsory education to make sure children acquire a deep understanding of and respect for the British values” even if they are “in tension with parental wishes or with community norms.” The state, in Spielman’s view, emphatically knows more than the family when it comes to what’s best for children. Noting that “Ofsted has found schools that deliberately [resist] British values,” she gives examples of some of these horrors, such as school leaders’ “naïvely” asking conservative clergy for advice on accommodating their religious students. It is truly a wonder that education in England has survived all these centuries without Spielman’s arrival to save it. Chaya Spitz described Spielman’s first year in power in the Jewish Chronicle: At the parliamentary level, there are some promising signs. Spitz wrote last year of a visit by Sajid Javid, who was then the communities secretary and is now home secretary, to Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School, a high-performing Jewish school that had been a frequent target of Ofsted,. Students and staff alike described their harassment by Ofsted inspectors, with an eleventh-grader describing the questions as being similar to the bullying she experienced in childhood. Javid said to the students, “You embody British values. You are British values. This government will protect you.” Javid’s statement is quite right, but Ofsted’s project of coercive secularism is still very much in effect. Its new proposals do very little to change its conflict with religious schools, which will continue to perform poorly in its inspections, even when they produce well-rounded and academically talented students. Ultimately, the only lasting solution to the problem is to remove the 2014 “guidance” entirely, which would have to be done at the government level. Its vaguely defined scope and forceful mandate have together allowed the school-inspection system to be whatever Ofsted’s chief inspector wants it to be, and when that inspector is someone like Amanda Spielman, it means a sustained attack on religious freedom in Britain. But for both the long and the short term, sacking Spielman and replacing her with someone like Sir Michael, whose career has been devoted to education from the ground level, would be a good start. | Jibran Khan | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/amanda-spielman-religious-schools-england-secularism/ | 2019-01-28 11:30:39+00:00 | 1,548,693,039 | 1,567,550,497 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
331,518 | nationalreview--2019-06-30--The Catholic Film Alliance and a Rebirth of Religious Patronage of the Arts | 2019-06-30T00:00:00 | nationalreview | The Catholic Film Alliance and a Rebirth of Religious Patronage of the Arts | Christians should create their own cultural touchpoints that are just as excellent as the best Hollywood has to offer. The Hollywood “culture war,” it would seem, has been an emphatic loss for the religious Right. When a film such as Fifty Shades of Grey can flow effortlessly into the mainstream, one would be hard pressed to claim that the fight is still alive. Most religious viewers have come to expect modern movies and TV shows to embrace a distinctly godless doctrine, one that spits in the face of religious institutions and traditional family structures, preferring instead to exalt basic hedonism and the destruction of tradition. What was once a fiery debate has turned into an apathetic shrug Now, I am by no means advocating for the Legion of Decency to reemerge and dictate a filmmaker’s creative process (although there are certainly pros to such a scenario), but film on the whole seems to be an arena where the distinctly religious has not fared terribly well. While religious music, painting, sculpture, and architecture have expanded into the 21st century, the same cannot be said for cinema (save for a few gems, of course). Perhaps this drought can be attributed to the fact that overtly evangelistic movies are notorious for being aesthetic disasters. God’s Not Dead, the infamous Pure Flix portrayal of the perils of a Christian student forced to defend his faith at a godless university, received a whopping 13 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, while its successor, God’s Not Dead 2, received an even more impressive 8 percent on the almighty TomatoMeter. Pure Flix, the self-described leading studio of “faith and family media,” has managed to create oodles of movies with the same artistic and didactic stylings of the gospel tracts handed out by your local street-corner evangelist. Not to say that their methods are entirely ineffective in spreading the good news, but they certainly work to confirm the hypothesis that American Christianity must needs be artless and unrefined. Certainly there are films such as Martin Scorsese’s Silence and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed that are distinctly religious and distinctly beautiful. Imbued with Christian themes, both exemplify a simultaneously charitable and critical comprehension of the faith. The problem is, despite overwhelmingly positive reviews, the films underperformed at the box office — in a consumer-driven market, it comes as no surprise that base entertainment value is preferred over cinematic substance and spiritual themes. However, there may be hope yet — a shift brewing in the movie industry, in the way movies are resourced, produced, and distributed, may provide an opportunity for a renewed method of producing countercultural cinema. For a behemoth piece published by the New York Times last week, “How Will the Movies (As We Know Them) Survive the Next 10 Years?,” reporter Kyle Buchanan asked dozens of big wigs in Hollywood about the future of film in a market swamped with streaming services. From his collection of interviews there emerged a resounding conclusion: The movie industry is approaching a unique kind of financial crisis. While major blockbusters such as Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars: The Force Awakens astonish with box-office numbers in the billions of dollars, such bounty is not shared by all. Owing to the overwhelming supply of content continuously available through the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, it has become increasingly challenging for smaller productions to make a decent profit. In short, Hollywood’s market is flooded — while movies are still immensely expensive to create, the massive increase in supply has forced down their value. For those seeking to create spiritually meaningful, more artistically minded movies, the current market is fairly unforgiving and the future is uncertain. This disruption caused by streaming services raises a larger question: How are we (and how should we be) funding artistic endeavors in films? I think it is fair to say that at no other point in history has an art form become so aggressively commoditized. In terms of the spiritual and the cinematic, is it a good idea to subject religiously minded films to the raging desires of a characteristically godless market? A new organization founded this year, the Catholic Alliance for the Film Arts, has a distinct vision to address the dilemma. According to its website, the “Catholic Alliance for the Film Arts is an association of Catholic organizations united towards the financial stewardship and promotion of films of excellence.” Their mission: to “raise funds and facilitate awareness around quality filmmaking consistent with the Christian creative vision.” Their first project, currently underway, is to raise the funds for Five by Flannery, a proposed anthology film of five of Flannery O’Connor’s cherished short stories, with the final product structured something like the Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Flannery O’Connor, a devout Catholic and renowned author, captured the mystery of faith through deeply human stories of rural, mid-century America. Her work would certainly be ideal for a project seeking to place the sacred and the cinematic in conversation with each other. What I find most interesting about CAFA’S project, however, is its approach to raising funds. Taking a crowdfunding approach, CAFA hopes to raise $10 million (with $3 million as its minimum to start production), for Five by Flannery, from regular folk with an interest in faith and film. Having raised $571,000, it has a way to go before it can get the project off the ground. Although its vision is perhaps more hopeful than realistic, using an angel-investor approach of sorts could serve as a model for a new age of patronage in religious art. If Christians are to take up the Pope Benedict’s call for a “new evangelization,” an approach that integrates faith with art and culture and teaches the “art of living,” patronage of the arts seems like a good place to start. To the reader concerned with the secularization of young America, a new age of patronage in religious art, especially in the cinematic arena, could be exactly what is needed for the Instagram generation. For the Christian Millennial (or any religious Millennial, for that matter), there exists a substantial divide between the culture of her generation and the tenets of her faith. Instead of waiting for Hollywood to produce a spiritually enriched unicorn every few years, Christians should take up the call to create their own cultural touchpoints that are just as excellent, moving, and beautiful as the best Hollywood has to offer. | Kayla Bartsch | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/christian-films-religious-patronage-of-arts/ | 2019-06-30 10:30:05+00:00 | 1,561,905,005 | 1,567,537,455 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
332,341 | nationalreview--2019-09-11--Jerry Falwell Jr Shows How the Advance of Christendom Can Harm Christianity | 2019-09-11T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Jerry Falwell Jr. Shows How the Advance of Christendom Can Harm Christianity | Our wealth can be great. Our influence can be vast. But it is for naught if our commitment to Christendom supersedes our commitment to Christ. If you haven’t read Politico’s lengthy investigative report on Jerry Falwell Jr.’s conduct as president of Liberty University, published earlier this week, I’d urge you to do so. It’s a sordid tale of the self-dealing, personal ambition, and extreme intolerance for dissent that’s long been an open secret at Liberty and beyond. It’s also an extraordinarily familiar tale for any person who’s spent any time around institutional evangelicalism. Time and again, powerful Christian men create or nurture powerful Christian institutions — only to fall prey to the temptation to equate the advance of those institutions and their own power with the advance of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. In other words, the zeal for the advance of Christendom harms the practice and witness of the Christian faith. Some readers will read that sentence and immediately think, “Ahh, Kierkegaard.” I was reminded of Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon Christendom by Matt McManus in his fascinating essay about the challenges Christians face in an increasingly secular age. McManus invokes Kierkegaard and the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor to note that “as the course of secularization deepens — many traditionalist-Christians can be convinced that only worldly power can prevent the world from sliding into irreligious darkness.” The Evangelical analogue to the state religious establishments of years past — the “Christendom” that all-too-often redefined the faith as a kind of cultural and legal conformity, a rote adherence to external religious dictates — is the creation of a series of extraordinarily wealthy, powerful, and influential institutions that not only reach and influence Americans by the tens of millions, but also shape the course and conduct of the domestic and foreign policy of the most powerful nation in the history of the world. A form of Christendom is necessary and important. That form should not be state-sanctioned Christianity, but rightly oriented private institutions that facilitate the spread of the Gospel and the compassionate works of the church. I’ll never forget the kind and loving Catholic social worker from Catholic Charities of Tennessee who helped my Calvinist family adopt an Ethiopian Orthodox child. Moreover, rightly oriented institutions can impose the necessary theological and spiritual discipline that prevents churches from spinning off into apostasy and error. If a church proclaims that it is Southern Baptist or a member of the Presbyterian Church in America (my denomination), that has to mean something. But it is the very importance of these institutions that can lead Christians astray. The institutions of Christendom are a means of advancing Christianity. Liberty University is valuable not because it exists, but rather because at its best it can and absolutely still does deepen and strengthen the genuine faith of its students and faculty. At the same time, the imperative that “Liberty must prosper” is not the same thing as declaring that the “Gospel must advance,” and the very moment that those two concepts start to conflict, then the institution must yield to the Gospel. Take the extreme (but unfortunately common) example of how the defense of Christendom can damage Christianity: the often-reflexive institutional defensiveness in the face of sex-abuse allegations in both Catholic and Protestant religious institutions. Has any secular force harmed the church more than the church has harmed itself by its defensive response to the terrible crimes and horrific sins in its midst? “We must protect the church” is an impulse that can directly contradict the imperative to seek justice and care for the souls of those who are wounded by abuse and exploitation. I expect that Jerry Falwell Jr. could look you in the face and declare with extraordinary sincerity that his work and ministry has been an unmitigated success. Liberty is far wealthier than it was when he took control. It educates tens of thousands more students. He’s welcome in the halls of power, including even in the Oval Office. On his watch, Christendom has advanced. But has Christianity? When we study declining faith in America, especially among America’s younger generations, we hear time and time again that hypocrisy and corruption within Christian institutions alienate American hearts and minds. We don’t want to hear that message. We claim time and again, often with justification, that we’re defamed in the media. “We’re better people than they say,” we think. “If only you truly knew us, then you’d feel the warmth in our hearts.” But those with eyes to see can plainly view Jerry Falwell Jr.’s thumbs-up picture in front of a Playboy cover. They can recognize double standards, including Franklin Graham’s righteous anger at Bill Clinton’s lies giving way to his emphatic declaration that Trump’s infidelities and illegal payoffs are “nobody’s business.” They can see in their own communities when faith leaders cover up abuse or engage in the petty intolerance or self-dealing that Politico exposed at Liberty. And they also can hear when people of faith justify hypocritical alliances, double standards, and even blind ambition by arguing that it “protects the church.” No, it protects Christendom, and there are times, sadly, when Christianity retreats even within the heart of Christendom itself. The practice of Christianity requires faith and courage. It often requires believers to do what’s counterintuitive and utterly contrary to worldly logic. We gain our lives by losing our lives? The last shall be first? There are times when every single earthly impulse will be screaming at you to compromise, to forsake the hard path, to “trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong.” Christianity thrives when you resist that impulse, when you trust in the seemingly upside-down truths of scripture. Our wealth can be great. Our influence can be vast. But it is for naught if our commitment to Christendom supersedes our commitment to Christ. | David French | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/jerry-falwell-jr-shows-how-the-advance-of-christendom-can-harm-christianity/ | 2019-09-11 18:17:20+00:00 | 1,568,240,240 | 1,569,330,377 | religion and belief | religious institutions and state relations |
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