People often ignore, in this time of advent, the political landscape in which Jesus came into the world.  

We ignore the fact that the reason that Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem simply because they were forced to live their life under occupation, and the occupying force demanded them to Bethlehem.  

We often ignore the fact that Mary was an unwed mother.  That it was worse that just shameful to be pregnant and with child.  And even worse that Joseph knew that the baby was not his.

An Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq

Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The Appeal messages will be delivered to members of Congress at the time of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2007.

The wording of the Appeal for Redress is short and simple. It is patriotic and respectful in tone:

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

I have written a ton about the war in Iraq over the last few years.  I was strongly opposed to the war from the start, both from my pacifist ideologies and from a realist look at foreign policy and the threat that Iraq never was.

[Ed note: This was originally posted at Random Ravings, and has some blog specific comments. but I thought it was best to just post it in its entirety. I also know that there is another similar post, but I felt like we were taking different angles.]

As many of you know, I have spent a lot of time writing about the Stanley "Tookie" Williams case. Some would ask why - why the death penalty? And why Tookie?

Thanksgiving to me is somewhat like Columbus Day. It is a day to celebrate events related to the alleged origins of the nation. Of course we completely ignore the fact that there were people long before "the white man", and we are basically celebrating the destruction of these people and their culture and heritage.

But other than that Thanksgiving is great.

Well...and the fact that we all become gluttonous buffoons...

This is spin off from my relationship with God post.

Do you "experience" God? How so? What are some examples?

Most Evangelical Christians talk about having a "relationship with God", and I simply do not know what it is.  Having grown up in a nice megachurch, I heard about it constantly.  Yet to this day I still have no idea what it means.  And the ironic thing is that few others can talk about what it means, even those that say that have a relationship with God.

2,000 United States soldiers have died in Iraq. This is supposed to be a big deal. And I guess in some ways it is. The actions of the United States government has led to the loss of 2,000 of the nations men and women. And the loss of life is a terrible thing. I am not attempting to minimize the life of the 2,000 Americans who have died.

Often we hear that people are poor because they "deserve it".  People argue that the poor make bad decisions or that they are simply lazy.  And while this may be the case in some situations, it is clear there are clearly institutional problems that create a cycle of poverty.  Often poor decisions or simply bad circumstances may place a family at a disadvantaged state, which inevitably leads to a cycle of being disadvantaged.  Too often children are impacted by their parents' lack of economic resources, especially in the area of education.

Here is an example under the fold of the institutional problems that lead to inequality in our society:

I have something better.  A church that would rather die than kill.

--Stanley Hauerwas - Theologian, Duke University

As I have already mentioned, in taking a look at opposition to the death penalty it really needs to be looked at from two different directions.  First, one must examine how the death penalty, in practice, fails in its quest for "justice".  It simply is biased, arbitrary, and unfair.  The discussion on the practice of capital punishment is located here.  

But the second point is even more important, and that is discussing the death penalty in theory.

I have observed that it never does a boy much good to shoot him.

--President Abraham Lincoln

This weekend is the National Weekend of Faith in Action, an annual project coordinated by the Program to Abolish the Death Penalty.  This is as good of a time as any to give a brief explanation for my opposition to the death penalty.  If any of you have read through my many posts and comments regarding the death penalty, you should have an idea why I oppose what I consider to be a very evil practice.  There are many, many reasons to be opposed to the death penalty; while in turn (at least in my mind) there are very few reasons to support such a practice.  I will address a few of the main reasons for my opposition to the death penalty.  I am going to break this into two different posts - one on the death penalty in practice and one on the death penalty in theory.  This post is long, but please read the entire thing.

This is a long "essay" that came out of an innocent post regarding support for the anti-war protests this past weekend. I apologize for the length of the post - it was impossible for me to truly respond in a less lengthy manner. It is long, but I would love it if you read the whole thing.

My support of anti-war protests does not mean that I believe that we must pull troops out tomorrow. This line of thought is clearly irrational, and it is often expressed by those that are somewhat ignorant of what is means to be in a military conflict (and this does not mean that I know much more). Yet at the same time that does not mean that we cannot push for withdrawal as soon as possible. But what I truly love about the anti-war protests is that there is a growing sentiment in this nation that our actions in Iraq were not the proper mode of action.