WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
William Blake wrote, “Imagination is Evidence of
the Divine” and I agree totally, but must add that genuine Compassion is a Manifestation of The
Divine.
All of the Koran's 114
chapters except one begins with the phrase "Allah [which is Arabic for God] is merciful and compassionate."
A true Muslim recognizes the brotherhood of man and
will respect and treat even a non-Muslim as a brother.
All true Muslims understand that compassion and charity, is serving God.
The Koran states, "No
man is a true believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires
for himself.”
The cult of ‘Christian’ Zionism is what the concept
of the Anti-Christ is all about.
This heretical theology of Premellenial Dispensation worships a god of
Armageddon and not the God of love, forgiveness and compassion that Jesus/AKA
The Prince of Peace modeled even while being nailed to a cross.
The Left Behind series of fiction is the epitome of what millennium of
theologians have always understood to be what the term anti-Christ is truly
about.
The term “Antichrist” only appears five times in the Bible, but a cult not
based on sound theology has created an urban legend that seeks Armageddon.
The
term “Antichrist” never appears in John’s Revelation or Daniel, two disparate
works of literature written three centuries apart and under very different
circumstances, yet the Left Behinder’s weave them together.
The small texts that mention the “Antichrist” were written to attack the
Gnostic understanding of who Christ was. A Gnostic relies on intuition and not
on dogma and doctrine. Gnostic’s were most certainly free spirits and most all
of the writings we have about Gnostics, have been the attacks upon them. That
all changed when the Nag Hamadi Library was translated and published, for what
had been deemed heretical by those in power in the fourth century can now be
read in most every language.
Biblical scholars today agree that many books of
the Bible were written by others in the name of an apostle, for the quickest
way to gain credibility is to trade on another’s reputation. We may never know
if the author who coined the term “Antichrist” was actually the apostle John
who wrote I John and 2 John-the only sources where the term appears.
John also say’s much more: “Dear Children, as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many have come.”- I John 2:18
“This is how we know who the children of God are not: anyone who does not do
right; nor anyone who does not love his brother.”-I John 3:10
“If anyone has material possessions and see’s his brother in need but has no
pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Let us love with actions
and in truth.”-I John 3:17
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. There is no
fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear because fear has to do with
punishment [and God is love].”-1 John 4:18
The theology promoted in the Left Behind fiction is a theology based on fear
and punishment. These misinformed Christians worship a punitive father as God.
They do not have eyes to see that nature is God’s primary temple, and war the
greatest abomination.
During the time when John was writing about the spirit of Antichrist,
Gnosticism was still in its evolution and far from the intricately developed
system of the second and third centuries when the church and its institutional
hierarchy became firmly established. During the time John was writing against
false teachings, the Gnostics were by and large libertines who denied Christ’s
humanity. Some Gnostics claimed that Christ only appeared to have a body;
others said the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at his baptism and left him
when he died.
The Gnostics left no testimony in their behalf, so all we have to go on is what
was written against them until the discovery of the Nag Hamadi Library. These
Gnostic texts offer no new information, they provide no answers, but they do
illuminate us to the fact that 2,000 years ago that follower’s of Christ were
very diverse and engaged in lively debates on who he was and what was his
purpose.
The Armageddon groupies believe they will be lifted out of the misery of the
world, and neglect to reflect upon the Antichrist within their own heart. The
term anti/against Christ means to be anti/against his teachings. A neglected
and ignored fact is that Christ is quoted in Matthew 12:31-32, Mark
3:28-29, and Luke 12:10 which are all simpatico with the Gnostic gospel of
Thomas saying 44:
Jesus said: “Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, whoever
blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the
Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven.”
The Holy Spirit has always been understood to mean the spark of the Divine
within all beings, for the spirit of God is within all created things.
One
should wonder what spirit is driving those that want to bomb another, for just
who would Jesus bomb? Just who would Jesus torture?
NO ONE!
Jesus has been hijacked by the right wing fundamentalists and the time has come
to liberate him. Christ was no Christian, that term was not even coined until
three decades after he walked the earth. But, Christ was a social justice
radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose
up/intifada and challenged the job security of the temple priests by claiming
there was no need for ritual baths and animal sacrifice to be OK with God, for God loves all, just as they are!
Jesus was crucified because he disturbed the status quo of the
occupying forces
of Rome by teaching subversive concepts such as all people are equal
and
valuable. Christ taught that to be his sister and brother one must
forgive to
be forgiven and that one must love ones enemies. He modeled that one
must
always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning
violence
with forgiveness and compassion as he did while being nailed to a
cross. Christ always dealt compassionately with sinners and outcasts,
but hypocrites
received his wrath.
Compassion, which is sorrow for the suffering of others
accompanied by the urge to help, is what should define the Christian attitude.
If there is no compassion within a Christian, then it is the spirit of the Antichrist that rules.
Christian Zionists desire to convert the Jews to
Christianity or leave them behind to perish in a nuclear holocaust, for they
believe that is Gods desire.
A short history on where this corruption of Christ’s message came from:
In 1891, Christian fundamentalist and lay-preacher, William Blackstone appealed
to President Benjamin Harrison to help establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
Blackstone was a disciple of Dwight L. Moody and they both were influenced by
the father of premillenial dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby.
Darby had great success in connecting with the post-Civil War survivors and was
able to transmit his new heretical theology into the heartland of America.
Despite the horrifying news of Czarist pogroms that could have been the
catalyst to establishing a Jewish state before the Holocaust, the Christian
fundamentalists moved onto the Scope’s Trial and forgot about the Jews for a
while.
Fifty years later and after six million Jews and five million other innocents were cold-bloodily murdered
because good people did nothing for a very long while-and only after the
British Mandate ran out, Israel was born.
Most evangelicals interpreted the establishment of Israel to be the fulfillment
of -how they understood and interpreted- certain prophetic scriptures. They
interpreted the Israeli victory in the 1967 War and the capture of Jerusalem,
the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights to be an act of God and never
considered the fact of Israeli superior military might and USA Intelligence.
The American Bi-Centennial in 1976 was a watershed year for the religious
right. While mainline churches declined evangelical fundamentalist churches
became the fastest growing sector of American Christianity. TIME magazine named
1976 as The Year of The Evangelical and suddenly they became a legitimate
political and religious force.
Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign
aid and military budgets, becoming the ‘western pillar’ of the USA strategic
alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East...During this period AIPAC
and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA
foreign policy. The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations
began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them
closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question. Pro-Israel
organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to
court the conservative Christians.
In 1977, when President Carter stated “The Palestinians deserve a right to their
homeland,” the Christian fundamentalists and Israeli lobby responded with full
page ads stating: “The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their
belief in biblical prophecy and Israel’s divine right to the land...and affirm
our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people.”
The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and
Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and
the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing.
Falwell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal
travel...When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister
Begin called Jerry Falwell -before he called Reagan- to ask him ‘to explain to
the Christian public the reasons for the bombings.
In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17
evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of the illegal colonies in the
West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under
sovereignty of Israel.
The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: “Christians
Call for a United Jerusalem.” They ignored the fact that they were in
conflict with American policy and the Oslo process as well as a direct attack
on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with the Churches for Middle
East Peace that called for a Shared Jerusalem.
“The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty,” Hagee wrote in 2006, in
the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. “Israel and America must confront Iran’s
nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For
Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide.”
The theology of the fictional Left Behind series is the epitome of the spirit
of the anti-Christ: which is the evil within ones own heart that leads
one to fear “the other” and compels them to violence.
Thomas Jefferson did America and the world a great service when he penned The
Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth which
illuminates just how far these Christians have strayed from the message Christ
delivered and modeled with his life:
Which was consistently compassionate and nonviolent and to be just: for justice
comes from virtue which comes from the heart.
To treat people the way we want to be treated.
To always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning
violence with COMPASSION.
To consider valuable the things that have no material value.
Do not judge others, do not bear grudges, be modest and unpretentious.
To give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid and that
being true to ones self is more important than being loyal to ones family,
And those who think they know the most are the most ignorant.
According to Christ, to be his follower, one must do what the Father requires.
The Hebrew prophet Micah summed it up best: “What does the Lord require? He has
already told you o’man: Be Just, Be Merciful and walk humbly with your God.”
-Micah 6:8:
To be just is to be fair and reasonable.
To be merciful means to treat all people the way we want to be treated.
To be humble is knowing oneself; the good and the evil, for both cut through
every human heart.
Christ taught that the only way to resist evil is with good and he modeled that
one must always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning
violence with compassion and forgiveness. Jesus did just that, even after being
mocked, whipped and nailed to a cross for he prayed: “Father forgive them
for they do not know what they are doing.”
Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to
begin the world again."-Tom Paine
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish
American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming
Visitors since 07.22.05
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"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel