ATLANTA (AP) — Andrew Young’s first thought when he heard the Voting Rights Act had been signed into law was not celebratory. It was strategic.
“Where are we going to get the money to get the country mobilized to register these voters?” he recalled thinking at that momentous time nearly 60 years ago.
Mormon Leaders Demonstrate “Continuing Revelation” on LGBT issues
Flunking Sainthood
Just over three years ago, Mormon leaders touted a controversial LGBT policy as revelation. Now its reversal is also being presented as revelation.
April 4, 2019
By Jana Riess — Religion News Service
(RNS) — In a stunning reversal, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced that it is walking back a controversial 2015 policy that affected members in same-sex marriages and their children.
Continue reading A Hump Day Threefer: Catching Up With Spring, Before It’s Gone
Feb. 5, 2021
Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III signed a memo directing commanding officers and supervisors at all levels to select a date within the next 60 days to conduct a one-day “stand-down” to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.
The Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1325.06, ” Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces” provides the core tenets to support such discussions. Leaders have the discretion to tailor discussions with their personnel as appropriate, but such discussions should include the importance of our oath of office; a description of impermissible behaviors; and procedures for reporting suspected, or actual, extremist behaviors in accordance with the DoDI.
[NOTE: Austin sounded serious: after all, he spoke less than a month after the Jan. 6 coup attempt, when dozens of veterans and active duty military were in the invasion of the Capitol, leaving several dead and more than 150 wounded, disrupting the electoral count, sending members of Congress running and hiding for their lives, and chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” echoing in the supposedly hallowed hallways.
But that was then.
This is now. Or more precisely, about a week ago, May 20, 2023]:
Continue reading You Could See It Coming — CNN: Army ABANDONS anti-extremism effort
From, The New York Times:
By Julia Angwin — May 6, 2023
Ms. Angwin is a contributing Opinion writer and an investigative journalist.
[F]ear is weaponized even more than hate by leaders who seek to spark violence. Hate is often part of the equation, of course, but fear is almost always the key ingredient when people feel they must lash out to defend themselves.
Continue reading “Fear Speech” vs “Hate Speech”: An Important Distinction
There is a deep and growing rift between “the West” and “the Rest” about the need to resist and defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is because it is really a war in defence of sovereignty, which ought to be something every sovereign country can buy into — but Western governments publicly insist that it is a war in defence of democracy Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: Ukraine — The West vs. The Rest