This original form of Christianity, the church of the first generation after its founder Jesus and even most of the first three centuries, was a religion of pacifists, oppressed women, orphans, those forced into prostitution, despised people of all stripes and others of those called “the least.”

It wasn’t until the late Fourth Century that St. Augustine wrote the first Christian Just War Theory (CJWT), making legitimate, in certain rare circumstances, killing by Christians in wartime, which had been long forbidden to the followers of Jesus.

Soon thereafter, Christianity became a religion of justified violence, contrary to the teachings and modeling of Jesus, and it remains that way until this very hour.

Critics of Christianity should start challenging the churches to go back to their roots where evil was not allowed to run rampant, but rather was aggressively and courageously resisted using the nonviolent methods of Jesus and his inspired disciples like Tolstoy, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, A. J. Muste, Martin Luther King, the Berrigan brothers, John Dear, Kathy Kelly and a multitude of other courageous prophetic voices.

The major motivation for the legendary civil disobedience of those modern-day prophets was their commitment to Jesus and the way he lived his life as pacifist (not passive) active resistor to evil.

The followers of that very real Jesus should be courageously “going to the streets” and saying “NO” wherever and whenever fear and hatred raise their ugly heads and try to provoke violence — no matter if it is coming from the US Congress or the Parliament in London, the Oval Office or #10 Downing Street, in the Knesset or in the headquarters of Hamas, whether in Tehran or in Baghdad or in the Vatican or in Colorado Springs or in the bowels of the 700 Club – or from within the local parish.

[Excerpt of an article by Gary G. Kohls, MD]

“There is nothing in the Quran that justifies honor killings. There is nothing that says you should kill for the honor of the family,” said Taj Hargey, director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford in England.

“This idea that ‘somehow a girl has besmirched our honor and therefore the thing to do is kill her’ is bizarre, and Muslims should stop using this defense,” he said, arguing that the practice is cultural, not religious in origin.

“You cannot say this is what Islam approves of. You can [only] say this is what their culture approves of,” he said.

Yet several Arab countries and territories, including Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, have laws providing lesser sentences for honor murders than for other murders, Human Rights Watch says. Egypt and Jordan also have laws that have been interpreted to allow reduced sentences for honor crimes, the group says.

Nadya Khalife, a researcher on women’s rights in the Arab world for Human Rights Watch, agrees that the practice should not be blamed on Islam. “It’s not linked to religion; it’s more cultural,” she said. “There have been several Islamic scholars who have issued fatwas against honor killing.”

Irshad Manji, the author of “Allah, Liberty and Love: Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom,” said there was another conflict at work in “honor murders”, a term CNN uses in preference to “honor killings” because the latter phrase does not properly describe the crime.

It is “a tribal tradition that emphasizes the family or the tribe or the community over the individual.” Although the practice may not be Islamic, she said, not all Muslims understand the distinction.

“It is a problem within Islam because of how Muslims often confuse culture and religion,” she said. “It’s Muslims who have to learn to separate culture and religion. If we don’t, Islam will continue to get the bad name that it gets.”

On the other hand, honor murders are not a problem in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. “No such a practice can be found among Indonesian Muslims,” said Azyumardi Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Taj Hargey, the director of the Muslim Educational Centre, said violence was sometimes the result of painful transition. “Muslims are in a state of flux,” he said. “They are between two worlds: the ancient world and the new technological age,” he said. “Women are getting rights and the ability to choose their own spouses. [Especially Muslim families living in the West don’t] know how to respond to this: the conflict between the discipline of children and the new reality.”

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service has an expert devoted to prosecuting honor-based violence, Nazir Afzal. Convicting perpetrators can be difficult, he said. “There is a wall of silence around this, and people are not prepared to talk,” he said.

And along with the Islamic scholars and human rights advocates, he rejected out of hand the idea that religion justified it. “At the end of the day, murder is murder. There is no faith on Earth, no community on Earth that justifies this,” he said.

“Abrahamic faiths say ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ” he pointed out. “At the end of the day, nobody should die for this.”

Nadya Khalife of Human Rights Watch says reliable figures of the number of honor murders are hard to come by, but she pointed to a United Nations Population Fund estimate of 5,000 per year.

2. The median net worth of black households in the US is $2,200. What is the median net worth of white households in the US? $4,400? $44,000? $97,000?

3. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development issues a national survey every year listing fair market rents for every county in the US. HUD also suggests renters should pay no more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. In how many of the USA’s 3068 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage pay 30% of their income and find a one-bedroom apartment at the fair market rental amount? 19? 368? 1974?

4. How much must the typical U.S. worker earn per hour to rent a two-bedroom apartment if that worker dedicates thirty percent of his income, as HUD suggests, to rent and utilities? $9.39? $14.63? $18.46?

5. The wealthiest 1 percent of the US has a net worth which is how many times greater than the median or typical household’s net worth? 50? 150? 225?

6. Which of these countries puts the highest percentage of their people in jails and prisons? China? Iran? Iraq? Germany? Russia? USA?

7. In 2012, the US will pay out about $620 million for old age Social Security benefits to 45 million families. How much is budgeted for military spending by the US in 2012? $310 billion? $620 billion? $836 billion?

8. The US is number one in the world in military spending. How much more does the US spend compared to the top 15 countries in the world in military spending? More than any 2 other countries combined? More than any 5 other countries combined? More than all the rest of the 15 top military spending countries combined?

9. How many people in the world live on less than $1.25 a day? 150 million? 500 million? Over 1 billion?

10. How many people in the world live without electricity? 500 million? One billion? One and half billion?

11. The US government donates over $30 billion a year in official development assistance (foreign aid) to poor countries. Where does that rank the US government in percentage of giving among the richest 23 countries? First? Tenth? Nineteenth?

12. The US government donates over $30 billion a year to poor countries. How much do US consumers spend on pets and pet supplies each year? $10 billion? $30 billion? $67 billion?

13. The poverty rate among children in the US is over 20 percent. How does US compare with the rest of the 30 nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development? First? Tenth? Twenty-sixth?

Answers to Social Justice Quiz 2012:

1. The combined pay of the top 299 CEOs is enough to support 102,325 average jobs. Source: Corporate Paywatch.

2. The median net worth of white households in the US is $97,900. Source: Economic Policy Institute.

3. Except for eleven counties in Illinois and another eight in Puerto Rico, there is no county in the US where a one bedroom fair market rate apartment is available to a person working full-time at the minimum wage. Source: The National Low Income Housing Coalition.

4. The typical worker must earn $18.46 an hour to rent a two bedroom apartment. Source: National Low Income Housing Coalition.

5. In the last numbers reported, the top 1 percent had net worth 225 times greater than the median or typical household’s net worth, the highest ever recorded. Source: Economic Policy Institute.

6. The rate of incarceration per 100,000 people is: USA 730, Russian 534, Iran 334, China 122, Iraq 101, and Germany 86. Source: International Centre for Prison Studies, University of Essex.

7. $836 billion. Over $713 billion on military programs and another $123 for veterans affairs. Source: US Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 2012.

8. The US spends $100 billion more on our military than the next highest 15 countries combined. More than China, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Canada and Turkey combined. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2011 Yearbook.

9. 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. Source: United National Development Program, Human Development Report 2010.

10. One and half billion people, more than one of every five people in the world, live without electricity. Source: United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2011.

11. US government ranks 19th out of 23 countries in assistance to poor nations, giving about two-tenths of one percent of US gross national income to poor countries. Source: Global Issues: Foreign Aid for Development Assistance.

12. US consumers spend $67 billion each year on pets, pet products and services. Source: US Census Bureau 2012 Statistical Abstract.

13. The US poverty rate among children ranks the US 26th among 30 nations in the rate of poverty among children. Source: Poverty among children. OECD.

[By Bill Quigley and Sam Schmitt]

The first potential scenario in the context is that the current standoff would eventually escalate into a war. The US forces in the Gulf area currently number 40,000, plus 90,000 are deployed in Afghanistan, just east of Iran, and several thousands of support troops are deployed in various Asian countries.

The Strait of Hormuz which is the maritime chokepoint of the Persian Gulf is regarded as the epicenter of the coming new war. It serves as the avenue for oil supplies from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and is therefore being closely monitored by all likely parties to the conflict. According to the US Department of Energy, the 2011 oil transit via the Strait of Hormuz totaled 17 billion barrels, or roughly 20% of the world’s total. Oil prices are projected to increase by 50% if anything disquieting happens in the Strait of Hormuz.

An alternative scenario also deserves attention. The EU sanctions would surely hurt many of the European economies – notably, Greece, Italy, and Spain – by a ricochet. In fact, Spanish diplomacy chief bluntly described the sanctions decision as a sacrifice.

The opposition mounted to the plans underlying the military scenario by China, Russia, and India seems to hold the promise of an alliance of countries seeking to tame the US hegemony and raging unilateralism. Stratfor analysts have a point saying that time is not on the US side, considering that the BRICs countries have some opportunities to influence the situation in the potential conflict zone by launching joint anti-terrorism and anti-piracy maneuvers in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf etc.

In essence, a war against Iran – up to date a secret war – is underway. The problem the parties involved are trying to resolve is to find a way of prevailing without entering the “hot” phase of the conflict.

[Full article by Leonid Savin]

In addition, according to a poll by Time Magazine, 86% of Americans held the conviction that Wall Street and its lobbyists exert undue influence over the U.S. political class.

Still, both major U.S. political parties remain unmoved by the opinions of their constituents and unresponsive to their needs. To vote for either a Democratic or Republican candidate (i.e., the well vetted stooges of the 1%) is to cast a vote in favor of the only political party allowed in the rigged process–The Big Money, Perpetual War Party.

Believing that replacing one of these candidates with the other…is in any way propitious is analogous to believing that the hanging of new wallpaper within a house with a rotted-out foundation constitutes renovating the structure.

[Excerpt of article by Phil Rockstroh]

Obvious examples include those portions of the three major war-justifying religions of the world: fundamentalist Islam, fundamentalist Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity.

I use the term fundamentalist in the sense that the religious person, who ascribes to a fundamentalist point of view, believes, among other dogmatic belief, that their scriptures are inerrant and thus they can find passages in their holy books that justify homicidal violence against their perceived or fingered enemies, while simultaneously ignoring the numerous contradictory passages that forbid violence and homicide and instead prescribe love, hospitality, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Behind the scenes, of course, there are hidden elites — amoral, politically and financially motivated operatives who are embedded in these religious organizations — who, through the strength of their political power, can easily manipulate the followers into clamoring for war, not against their enemies, but rather against the enemies of the ruling elites: the politicians, the financiers and the other exploiters of natural resources.

But I do have to take exception to the blanket condemnation of the entirety of the religion by pointing out one reality — that the original form of Christianity, the church of the first generation after Jesus and even most of the first three centuries was a religion of pacifists, oppressed women, orphans, those forced into prostitution, despised people of all stripes and others of those called “the least.”

Though this history has long since been forgotten or ignored, the earliest followers of Jesus rejected violence, tried to return good for evil, fed the hungry, did acts of mercy and unconditional love and tried to make friends out of their enemies (by caring for them, feeding them, praying for them and certainly refusing to kill them).

[Excerpt of article by Gary G. Kohls, MD]

Yes, that’s right, the Fed is actually not in the business of printing money. The actual, physical printing presses are owned and operated by the Treasury Department…not the Fed.

So the Federal Reserve is actually not in the business of printing money…. the Fed does however control the money supply.

Think of the Fed as a bank — but just for other banks. The Fed lends money to banks, which determines the rate which banks charge the rest of us for everything from car loans to mortgages to credit card rates and pretty much every other loan you can think of (and some fees only a banker can dream up.)

By setting the rate banks can borrow from the Fed, non-ironically called “the discount rate”, the Fed helps determine whether rates are high or low for the rest of us. And those rates help determine whether people want to borrow money or not.

Another way the Fed controls the money supply — again, which is different than the actual amount of dollars in circulation — is via its “open market operations”, through which it buys and sells bonds in the open market. If you’ve read news stories about the Fed buying Treasuries to help boost the economy, that’s an example of ‘open market operations’ in action and is an example of “quantitative easing” or QE. When it buys bonds, the money supply increases because the banks exchange their bonds for cash and then have more money — aka liquidity — to lend to businesses or individuals. The opposite occurs when the Fed sells bonds to the banks, who typically can’t refuse any offer from the Fed.

In addition, the Fed controls the money supply by raising or lowering “reserve requirements,” which is the amount of money banks are required to keep “on reserve” at the Fed, sort of like a rainy-day fund for the banking system. Raise those requirements and banks have less money for other stuff — like lending; the opposite is true when the Fed lowers reserve requirements…or keeps them low as has been its recent practice.

So while the Fed doesn’t technically (or actually) print physical dollars, it has an enormous impact in the amount of money and credit in our economy.
The real scandal is the banks pretty much have to do what the Fed wants, which makes Ben Bernanke the equivalent of a “Godfather” figure in the world of high finance.

And you thought Wall Street was powerful?

[Excerpt of Daily Ticker article by Aaron Task]

There’s simply too much truth in that headline; it says a lot about how Wall Street and Washington have colluded to create the winner-take-all economy that rewards the very few at the expense of everyone else.

The story behind it is that Jack Lew is President Obama’s new chief of staff — arguably the most powerful office in the White House that isn’t shaped like an oval. He used to work for the giant banking conglomerate Citigroup.

His predecessor as chief of staff is Bill Daley, who used to work at the giant banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase, where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House.

Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein and Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported eighteen and a half million dollars.

The new guy, Jack Lew – said by those who know to be a skilled and principled public servant – ran hedge funds and private equity at Citigroup, which means he’s a member of the Wall Street gang, too. His last job was as head of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, where he replaced Peter Orzag, who now works as vice chairman for global banking at – hold on to your deposit slip — Citigroup.

All this brings back memories of Hank Paulson, doesn’t it? Hank Paulson, the $700 million man who became secretary of the treasury for President Bush. Paulson had been head of Goldman Sachs, the rich investment bank. As his successor at Goldman Sachs, Paulson chose Lloyd Blankfein. Several times, according to Bloomberg News, Rolling Stone, and Paulson’s own memoir, the treasury secretary made sure Blankfein and Goldman got privileged inside information.

President Obama may call bankers “fat cats” and stir the rabble against them with populist rhetoric when it serves his interest, but after the fiscal fiasco, he allowed the culprits to escape virtually scot-free.

And get this. It turns out, according to The New York Times, that as President Obama’s inner circle has been shrinking, his “rare new best friend” is Robert Wolf. They play basketball, golf, and talk economics when Wolf is not raising money for the president’s campaign.

Robert Wolf runs the U.S. branch of the giant Swiss bank UBS, which participated in schemes to help rich Americans evade their taxes.

And so it goes, the revolving door between government service and big money in the private sector spinning so fast it becomes an irresistible force hurling politics and high finance together so completely it’s impossible to tell one from the other.

[Excerpts of article by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Public Affairs Television, Inc.]

The U.S. is an occupied territory that could more accurately be described as the Corporate States of America. The systems of power do not allow the voice of working people to be heard or their collective will to be acted upon.

Despite the subterfuge of freedom and democracy, the rights of corporations have consistently superseded the sovereign rights of the individual and those of the community. Labor history and a litany of environmental catastrophes bear this out.

For instance, government agencies, ostensibly created to protect the public welfare, are allowing hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus shale, even when it poisons municipal drinking water and causes incalculable harm to the environment. Our diverse forests are commodified, measured in board feet to be clear-cut and off-shored at prodigious bargain rates, like a liquidation sale.

The world and the people who live in it are treated like products to be exploited. We are told that nothing is sacred, save for the dollar and markets.

Through lifelong indoctrination, Americans are persuaded that self-interested greed is in their best interest. The rich and powerful have decreed that corporate profits, the Holy Grail of American capitalism, are more precious than life itself.

We are literally sacrificing the Earth’s life support systems and mortgaging the future, while attempting to satiate the greed of a few grotesquely wealthy individuals. Nevertheless, it is an inescapable fact that no human being, including corporate CEOs and members of Congress, can live without potable water or breathable air.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich of Meriden, Conn., led the Marine squad in 2005 that killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha after a roadside bomb exploded near a Marine convoy, killing one Marine and wounding two others.

It was a stunning and muted end to a case once described as the Iraq War’s version of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

The incident in Iraq is considered among the war’s defining moments, further tainting America’s reputation when it was already at a low point after the release of photos of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

Eight Marines were charged with killing the Iraqis, with Wuterich facing the possibility of life behind bars. In the end, seven Marines were acquitted or had charges dropped, and Wuterich pleaded to the single, minor charge.

The killings still fuel anger in Iraq after becoming the primary reason behind demands that U.S. troops not be given immunity from their court system.

In case you missed it:
Ten-year-old Iman Walid witnessed the killing of seven members of her family in an attack by American marines last November.