Monthly Archives: June 2014
This Night..
This Night..
A Modern Day Slave Plantation Exists, and It’s Thriving in the Heart of America
By Laura Dimon May 8, 2014It was 1972. Thousands of American troops were battling communist forces in Vietnam. Nixon had won re-election by a landslide, but Watergate would soon usher in his demise. Space travel and technology were advancing rapidly.
Change was brewing across America, but one place stood still, frozen in time: Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola. When Robert King arrived that year, he felt as though he’d stepped into the past.
Angola sits 50 miles northwest of Baton Rouge. It’s the largest maximum-security facility in the United States and one of the country’s most notorious prisons. In the book The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, the authors wrote, “Tough criminals allegedly broke down when they received a sentence to Angola. … None of them wanted to be sent to a prison where 1 of every 10 inmates annually received stab wounds and which routinely seethed with…
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WHAT TO EXPECT FROM [TODAY’S] BENGHAZI HEARING
The Blaze
May 7, 2012
The House Oversight Committee has released excerpts of their interview with Gregory Hicks, one of the two high-profile whistleblowers who will be testifying at tomorrow’s hearing. From what we have heard thus far from Hicks, his account of the events that took place between high level security and State Department officials on September 11, 2012 as a U.S. consulate in Libya was under siege differ drastically from what we have been told by the Obama administration.
CBS News reports:
According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound “when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight ……
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Captured Benghazi Mastermind Says Attack Was Revenge For Video
Stock Photo
The GOP doesn’t want to give the POTUS credit for anything. So they will declare that this is a planted lie by the Obama administration or say the captive is lying.
Liberals Unite
So one of the things that has been driving Conservatives absolutely nuts is anyone suggesting that Benghazi had anything to do with a video. It seems that the mere mention of the word “video” in a Benghazi discussion sends them right over the edge.
But from the beginning, the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton have been saying that initially they thought that the terrorist attacks in Benghazi could have been fueled, at least in part, to an anti-Islamist online video that was made in the United States. That is why Susan Rice went on to all of those Sunday morning talk shows immediately following the attacks and mentioned it.
Now since then, Republicans have…
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Tolkien Roundup – June
Sorry, George W. Bush, but this whole mess is still your fault
(Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing)
Salon
Like clockwork, the Republican noise machine is blaming Barack Obama for the crisis in Iraq. And like clockwork, they’ve got everything wrong again.
The man to blame for what’s happening in Iraq is not President Obama — it’s President Bush.
Contrary to Tony Blair’s latest protestations, the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq — under deliberately fraudulent pretenses – had a great deal to do with enabling the current emergence of a Sunni terrorist military power in Iraq, but it goes much deeper than that. The recent success of ISIS — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is exactly what Osama bin Laden had hoped that the 9/11 attacks would lead to. And thanks to Bush’s spectacularly foolish responses, bin Laden’s dream has come true.
Before 9/11, bin Laden was a terrorist and could only dream of becoming the “holy warrior” he imagined himself to be…
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Light Versus Darkness
There is a lot going on in the world. My sister Amy is not healing well after her surgery. Her pain is terrible and she keeps getting headaches. I am taking her an hour away (the other side of Cleveland) for another appointment with the surgeon. She insisted, because I insisted. I am doing ok from my procedure. One of my sons in law was in Oklahoma City and last night an earthquake knocked him from the bed to the floor.
The world is a mess in many ways. Racism, bigotry, intolerance, meanness, unkindness. I am stopping here because there are pockets of love and caring all over the world. There are places where people try to understand and accept each other. I believe that blogging is a wonderful way to expose yourself to new people and new ways of thinking. In America, we are being sorted. Many Americans live with people who look like them. They work with people who think like them. They spend leisure time with people who are like them. Without exposure to others we become insulated and all we experience reinforces what we see, hear and think. But we need to be open. We need to listen to people who look and sound different.
There are many people all over who want to control what we do and how we live and love. We can’t let it happen. Many things have been rewritten and are not true. People of different faiths are everywhere. There are misconceptions. Jesus was not a white man. He was Jewish. He lived in the Middle East. He never advocated war, he never turned his back on anyone who needed help. This Jewish man, who was raised Jewish, interacted with Arabs, Romans, Bedouins, Syrians, and Persians. He taught what he believed to everyone including the Jews. Was he right or wrong? Was Mohammed, Buddha, Zoroaster, Sufi mystics, Shiva, or any other cherished facets of Divinity right or wrong? We all have our beliefs and we should. What they have in common is love, forgiveness, respect for the sacred, and tolerance for all the Aspects of God/Goddess/Divine Energy.
I would ask each of you who read my blog to help make peace, tolerance, love, acceptance, understanding in your world. Your special place in our world. I would ask that for one day, everyone lives by these principles and see if you don’t feel renewed. Finally, I am sharing this video because no matter how bad life can appear, there are always pockets of such brilliant loving goodness that they outshine the deep darkness that seems to be everywhere. It isn’t. I repeat, it isn’t. It never will because whatever aspect of God/Goddess/Divine Energy you believe in it is stronger than the sadness and darkness in the world. Every prayer, of any kind helps, every act of kindness, every act of forgiveness, every moment of generosity shines so bright that it chases away the darkness. Namaste.
Angelic woman working for peace
A brief hiatus
Hello again, this is Barbara’s Sister, letting you know that the Rebel will be taking a brief hiatus while she recovers from injections in her back.
She is doing well after the procedure, but sitting up for extended periods of time is temporarily uncomfortable, so she will not be blogging today, and possibly for a couple of days after.
On the plus side, she’s already walking better and the medication made her so silly she giggled all the way home. To be honest, so did I!
This will be happening again in 2 weeks and frankly, I can’t wait for her to have permanent relief, and to hear that silly giggle again.
idealisticrebel 