Revealed: How the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy

New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: A totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent

by Naomi Wolf
Guardian.co.uk,
December 29, 2012

It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police.

The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves –was coordinated with the big banks themselves.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, in a groundbreaking scoop that should once more shame major US media outlets (why are nonprofits now some of the only entities in America left breaking major civil liberties news?), filed this request.

The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world:

Six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).

As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a "terrorist threat":

"FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country."

Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it "police-statism":

"This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The documents show stunning range: in Denver, Colorado, that branch of the FBI and a "Bank Fraud Working Group" met in November 2011 – during the Occupy protests – to surveil the group. The Federal Reserve of Richmond, Virginia had its own private security surveilling Occupy Tampa and Tampa Veterans for Peace and passing privately-collected information on activists back to the Richmond FBI, which, in turn, categorized OWS activities under its "domestic terrorism" unit. The Anchorage, Alaska "terrorism task force" was watching Occupy Anchorage.

The Jackson, Michigan "joint terrorism task force" was issuing a "counterterrorism preparedness alert" about the ill-organized grandmas and college sophomores in Occupy there. Also in Jackson, Michigan, the FBI and the "Bank Security Group" – multiple private banks – met to discuss the reaction to "National Bad Bank Sit-in Day" (the response was violent, as you may recall). The Virginia FBI sent that state's Occupy members' details to the Virginia terrorism fusion center. The Memphis FBI tracked OWS under its "joint terrorism task force" aegis, too. And so on, for over 100 pages.

Jason Leopold, at Truthout.org, who has sought similar documents for more than a year, reported that the FBI falsely asserted in response to his own FOIA requests that no documents related to its infiltration of Occupy Wall Street existed at all. But the release may be strategic:

"if you are an Occupy activist and see how your information is being sent to terrorism task forces and fusion centers, not to mention the "longterm plans" of some redacted group to shoot you, this document is quite the deterrent."

There is a new twist:  

"the merger of the private sector, DHS and the FBI means that any of us can become WikiLeaks, a point that Julian Assange was trying to make in explaining the argument behind his recent book. The fusion of the tracking of money and the suppression of dissent means that a huge area of vulnerability in civil society – people's income streams and financial records – is now firmly in the hands of the banks, which are, in turn, now in the business of tracking your dissent."

Remember that only 10% of the money donated to WikiLeaks can be processed – because of financial sector and DHS-sponsored targeting of PayPal data. With this merger, that crushing of one's personal or business financial freedom can happen to any of us. How messy, criminalizing and prosecuting dissent. How simple, by contrast, just to label an entity a "terrorist organization" and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

Why the huge push for counterterrorism "fusion centers", the DHS militarizing of police departments, and so on?

It was never really about "the terrorists". It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens – it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you.

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
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‘Fiscal Cliff’ Distracts As ‘Fiscal Abyss’ In Japan, UK and U.S. Cometh

by Tyler Durden  

12/28/2012

From GoldCore

‘Fiscal Cliff’ Distracts As ‘Fiscal Abyss’ In Japan, UK and U.S. Cometh

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,658.75, EUR 1,259.68 and GBP 1,031.37 per ounce.

Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,655.25, EUR 1,247.65 and GBP 1,022.96 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $30.16/oz, €22.97/oz and £18.79/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,533.70/oz, palladium at $701.00/oz and rhodium at $1,040/oz.

Gold climbed $4.10 or 0.25% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,664.20/oz. Silver slipped to $29.685 in London, but it rose to a high of $30.466 in New York and finished with a gain of 0.8%.

Currency Ranked Returns in US Dollars – (Bloomberg)

Gold pared back early gains and edged down on Friday and tick tock goes the US “fiscal cliff” clock as time is running out for the somewhat irrelevant New Year’s deadline. 

Gold bullion prices are on target for their first weekly gain in a month after the sharp fall in December (-3%)  led to bargain hunters buying the dip. Gold bottomed on December 29th last year prior to very strong gains in January 2012 and we believe a similar pattern may be seen again this year. 

The yellow metal looks set to rack up its 12th straight year of gains on low to zero interest rates, concerns of the eurozone debt crisis and diversification into bullion by central banks.

2013 should see global gold demand grow on further strength from China and a recovery in India, helping the precious metal continue its bull run into its 13th year, according to the World Gold Council. 

U.S. CFTC commitment of traders’ data is at 1930 GMT today.

President Obama meets congressional leaders from both parties regarding the fiscal cliff and if a deal isn’t struck it will likely fuel safe haven buying of gold. 

Negotiations to avert the ‘fiscal cliff’ offer great political drama, but they won’t solve America’s looming budget and debt crisis and may cast the nation into another recession or worse.

A deal is likely to be done but any deal will be another cynical exercise of kicking the can down the road while failing again to address the root causes of the debt crisis which is too much debt at all levels of American society.

Gold Spot $/oz, 1 Year – (Bloomberg)

The political and media side show that is the so-called “fiscal cliff” will soon be overshadowed by the appalling and rapidly deteriorating situation regarding the U.S. national debt. 

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has alerted Congress that the nation will once again hit the debt ceiling on Monday, but that his department can take “extraordinary measures” to keep paying the bills for another few months.

Incredibly, the debt ceiling was raised from $14.294 trillion in August 2011, to its current level of $16.394 trillion. Thus in the span of only sixteen months, the Obama administration has added a whopping $2.1 trillion to the national debt.

Silver Spot $/oz, from Oct. 2011 – (Bloomberg)

The U.S. federal deficit is now exceeding $1 trillion dollars every year —up from $161 billion in 2007, the last year before the financial crisis. Spending is up some $1 trillion, as outlays for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements have increased by an amount equal to the entire 2013 military budget – a budget which may again surpass the combined military expenditure of every other nation in the world.

U.S. unfunded liabilities are now estimated at between $50 trillion and $100 trillion and by the end of the decade (in less than just 7 years), runaway entitlement spending will require shutting down the military or crippling many other vital domestic spending programs to head off massive deficits that will likely lead to a dollar crisis and significant inflation.

No matter what deal is eventually agreed, whether before or after the new year, it will at best nibble at the edges of the trillion dollar annual deficits that are being piled up.

While all the focus has been on the so called U.S. ‘fiscal cliff’, amnesia has taken hold and many market participants have forgotten about the far from resolved Eurozone debt crisis – not to mention looming debt crisis in the UK and Japan.

Cross Currency Table – (Bloomberg)

In Japan, the national debt is seen topping ¥1 quadrillion by the end of March 2013. A policy of money printing pursued for a decade has failed abysmally and now politicians look set to pursue currency debasement in an even more aggressive manner – with attendant consequences.

The UK is one of the most indebted countries in the industrialised world - the national debt now stands at more than 1 trillion pounds ($1.6 trillion) and total debt to GDP in the UK remains over 500%. 

Gold is traditionally sought out as a safe-haven and inflation hedge that investors diversify into in times of trouble. This is because throughout history, those who own physical gold have been protected from financial, economic and monetary crisis.

Also, much recent academic research has shown gold is a proven safe haven asset.

Gold has lately been behaving like any risk asset. However, buyers should continues to focus on the long term as gold ownership will protect people from the fiscal abyss facing major economies and currencies internationally in the coming years.

Source:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-28/%E2%80%98fiscal-cliff%E2%80%99-distracts-%E2%80%98fiscal-abyss%E2%80%99-japan-uk-and-us-cometh

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“Full Disclosure: Is There A Connection Between Libor Scandal and School Shootings?” 

by Ben Swann
Liberty Crier
Full Disclosure
December 20, 2012

 Ben Swann takes a look at reports in alternative media that the fathers of Adam Lanza, the alleged Sandy Hook shooter and James Holmes, the alleged Colorado theater shooter, were both supposed to testify in the Libor scandal.


Source:
http://libertycrier.com/front-page/full-disclosure-is-there-a-connection-between-libor-scandal-and-school-shootings/
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One of the painful ironies of Friday's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Conn., is that a new security system was installed there not long ago. 

Principal Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, who was killed along with 25 others had overseen the installation of a new security system requiring that every visitor ring the front entrance doorbell after the doors locked at 9:30 a.m.  Once buzzed into the front office, parents and other visitors were asked to produce photo identification.

There is no way to provide 100% safety. It just is not possible. Like many parents, they don't want their children going to school in a prison, but also do not want them coming home in a casket.

So, we have to make some choices.

Would a couple plain clothes officers/guards really make it look like a prison?  Would the kids really understand that the glass in the windows and doors are bullet proof and not regular glass and that the doors are metal and not wood? 

Would they even understand why the security doors are there or that they are locked while class is in session?  How many kids leave school while class is in session?

Have the plain clothes officers/guards and teachers outside while the kids are coming to and leaving school.  Have them all inside the building while school is in session.

Recess is a tougher issue, but I am sure we can think of something to make such an atrocity tougher for the assailant short of fences, razor wire, and/or a moat.

Snip from a security article on Sandy Hook

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4 Secrets Republicans Are Keeping About Medicare to Convince Us That $600 Billion in Cuts Are Necessary

This entire Medicare debate's being held under false pretenses.

 

By R.J. Eskow

Alternet

December 10, 2012
 

The Republicans are demanding $600 billion in Medicare cuts over the next ten years. Their only concrete proposal is to deny Medicare coverage to Americans during what is now their first two years of eligibility, at ages 65 and 66. But their official offer isn't even that specific. It just throws out that figure: $600 billion.

But you can't get there from here.

At least you can't do it their way - not without causing enormous hardship, and not without costing the publictwice as much from other sources as would be saved in government spending.

In fact, there are only two paths to $600 billion in savings. One's macabre and morbid, and is offered here only to make as a Swiftian "modest proposal." The other would take a chunk out of corporate profits.

Which path do you think the GOP would prefer?

This entire Medicare debate's being held under false pretenses. Here are four multibillion-dollar Medicare secrets they don't want you to know - along with that funereal "modest proposal":

1. Runaway corporate profits are squeezing medicare.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker echoed the party line today when he said that cutting "entitlements" was needed in order to "save the nation." But benefit cuts aren't where the money is: profits are.

We did some rough calculations to show you just how much profit's involved:

Roughly $200 billion in Medicare spending will go to drug company profits in the next 10 years. (We got that figure by averaging the profit margins for large pharmaceutical corporations by projected Medicare drug expenditures.) And yet the Republicans have blocked legislation that would allow the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate for a better deal. So the drug companies can charge us whatever they want - and we pay it.

Medicare has reportedly underpaid for hospital services at times. But for-profit hospitals have an average profit margin of 5.5 percent. What they're not receiving from Medicare is 'cost-shifting' to private health insurance. We pay for that, too -  in insurance premiums and tax concessions for employer-sponsored coverage.  With Medicare hospital expenditures likely to approach $2.5 trillion in the next ten years, that's costing society a fortune.

And that doesn't include high margins in the non-profit hospital field, where CEOs frequently earn more than a million dollars as a reward for maximizing revenue. Nor do these figures include the profits received by all sorts of other for-profit health providers ranging from diagnostic centers to ambulatory surgery clinics.

2. We receive far too much unnecessary care, and are often fraudulently billed for the care that is given.

Then there's what may be the most expensive effect that greed has on Medicare: over treatment.

A series of exposés (some of which we discussed in "Sick Money," a review of Bain Capital's health investments) have revealed gross patterns of fraudulent Medicare overcharging.

Even worse tis the over treatment that's done to boost profits. Unnecessary procedures are difficult and uncomfortable at best, and at worst they can lead to pain, disability, even death. This overtreatment's been documented in both academic studies (John Wennberg's Dartmouth Atlas is a great resource) and some excellent journalism.

And it's getting worse.

Now hospitals are buying physician practices and exerting financial pressure on doctors to perform more surgeries. But the truth is that doctors have always been under financial pressure to overtreat. They graduate from medical school with tons of debt and must then maintain a profitable practice, including everything from equipment to office staff.

And yet Republicans have beaten back attempts to control this over treatment with their "death panel" hoax. That  myth is only slightly less believable than "black helicopters." There are death panels - but they're manned by insurance executives, not bureaucrats.  Republicans have fought Medicare by telling us that doctors shouldn't be "employees" of the government. Now they're employed by MBAs who want a fat bonus.

Does over treatment research interfere with our right to choose our own care?  I want to make an informed choice - and I don't want anybody cutting me open if it isn't absolutely necessary.

3. Seniors are already being hit hard by medical costs.

People who aren't covered by Medicare and don't know much about it often assume it covers all, or most, medical expenses. But the average person on Medicare pays roughly $4,600 per year in out-of-pocket medical costs, and that figure can be much higher for those who are severely or chronically ill or who have suffered a serious injury.

Boehner's figure of $600 billion over 10 years is a reduction of approximately 7.8 percent from current projections. But Medicare enrollment will increase from 49 million people to 85 million over the same period. Assuming that these Republican cuts are made permanent, that means that Medicare's per-person budget will have been cut by more than 15 percent by the year 2022.

4. Chronic conditions and end of life illnesses are extraordinarily expensive.

They're not proposing to do anything about Medicare's biggest cost problem: the care that's provided to the severely ill, especially in the final year of life.

As the Dartmouth Atlas reports, "Patients with chronic illness in their last two years of life account for about 32% of total Medicare spending." That comes to nearly 2.5 trillion dollars over the next ten years, based on current projects. And yet the GOP is proposing to slash, not increase, funding for research that might help us provide end-of-life care more effectively and humanely.

The elderly are particularly prone to other costly chronic conditions like cancer and diabetes, which can be treated much more effectively - and much less expensively - if they are caught early. Instead, their plan to deny Medicare to people aged 65 and 66 will lead to less early diagnosis and intervention, making us sicker and driving up Medicare's costs.

It's Your Funeral

That leads us to our "modest proposal." Any way you look at it, we're going to be seeing an increase in the number of funerals if Medicare benefits are cut. Research has shown that the survival for seniors in this country increased by 13 percent when Medicare was introduced in the 1960s.

It's reasonable to assume that those survival rates will begin to fall again - and death rates will rise - if we impose mindless benefit cuts, instead of taking an intelligent cost management approach that focuses on expense drivers such as overtreatment, overbilling, and excessive profiteering.

The Republicans want drastic cost reductions without disturbing corporate profits. Using their logic, they shouldn't take away our first two years of Medicare coverage. They should take away the last two years.  That would cut Medicare expenditures by more than a third.

And what do they care about one more funeral here or there - as long as it's not theirs?

RJ Eskow is a writer, business person, and songwriter/musician. He has worked as a consultant in public policy, technology, and finance, specializing in health care issues, domestically and in over 20 foreign countries. 

Source:

http://www.alternet.org/4-secrets-republicans-are-keeping-about-medicare-convince-us-600-billion-cuts-are-necessary

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'Stay true' to free press urges Nigel Farage MEP on Leveson

by Daniel Mason
Public Service Europe 

November 29, 2012 

The leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, has described as "chilling" comments by a European Union official suggesting that rebutting untruths about the EU - published by British media outlets - was made difficult by the limited remit of the newspaper industry's system of self-regulation.

The remarks were made ahead of Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations today – made on the back of a 16-month inquiry into press standards – that the self-regulation of the media, currently conducted by the Press Complaints Commission, should be strengthened and backed by legislation.

Marie-Madeleine Kanellopoulou, a political officer for the European Commission based in London, was earlier reported as saying: "We are following the Leveson Inquiry to see the outcome. In the United Kingdom we have to deal with a very eurosceptical British public and that's not helped by the hostile audience in the British press".

"We want to engage with the media, with stakeholders and non-governmental organisations … but repeated misrepresentation in the media was making communication of the true facts about EU policy difficult." She added: "We are trying to rebut EU myths in the press but it is not easy because the PCC has a limited remit."

But Farage – who was among the victims of phone hacking, the illegal practice that led to the setting up of the inquiry – warned of the "very real danger in having statutory regulation of the press". In a statement he said: "Powerful organisations will want to use it to stifle debate and close down differing points of view. A threat to press freedom could create a real threat to freedom across the board".

"We must stay true to our belief in an untrammelled free press in order that we can have real, cut and thrust debate about all aspects of public policy. These comments from the commission are frankly chilling." However, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the EU commission, has in the past described press freedom as "sacred".

On the publication of the Leveson report, Farage tweeted that the conclusion drawn by the judge appeared to be "not as bad as it could have been". Publishing his 2,000 page analysis today, Leveson said that his proposed law would "for the first time" enshrine a "legal duty on the government to protect the freedom of the press" – with an independent regulator backed up by a statutory body such as broadcast watchdog Ofcom".

In his report, which also looked at the relationship of the press with politicians and the police, Leveson wrote: "This is the seventh time in less than 70 years that the issues which have occupied my life since I was appointed in July 2011 have been addressed. No-one can think it makes any sense to contemplate an eighth. The ball is now in the court of the politicians." Parliament will debate the recommendations this afternoon.

Nick Pickles, from the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, responded: "The media must abide by the law, of course, but it must also be fearless in holding power to account. Even a slight diminishing of its undaunted view of power will bring comfort to those who seek to evade and avoid scrutiny."

And Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute for Economic Affairs in London, said there was "no-place for so-called statutory underpinning of press regulation in a free and open society". He added: "Parliament should resist Leveson's call for statutory change. If they do not, the free press in the UK should take a courageous stand and refuse to sign up to these arrangements."

Read more:  

http://www.publicserviceeurope.com/article/2798/stay-true-to-free-press-urges-farage-on-leveson#ixzz2DwqL2GRd

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War on Christmas? 
Sign This Minister Up 

The God Article 
Nov. 30, 2011

 Ah.... I LOVE this time of the year!

Some people wait with baited breath for duck season, some for deer season, but for me it is all about Christmas season. That's right I'm one of those lefty, liberals that have declared a War on Christmas. That's right! Sign me up for the War on Christmas! … but maybe not for the reasons you might imagine.

You see, while I am signing up to help in a War on Christmas, I'm not on, what by default gets called, the “non-Christian” side. I’m also not signing up for the side that news pundits falsely purport as the “Christian” side. If anything, I’d make the argument that the dominant face of Christianity, as it is seen on television and promoted through news programming, is itself far from what Christianity is supposed to be about. It is a sort-of white-washed, sanitized version of Christianity that every year presents an increasingly cleaned up version of the Christmas story to the viewing public.

You see, the baby we remember this time of year, was not part of the dominant culture the way the religion he started now is. The religious stories that were told in those days were told under the shadow of the dominant culture. They were stories of oppression and hardships, stories of overcoming unthinkable odds, stories of hope for a people living in times and cultural positions that – well, quite frankly felt hopeless.

But today, our stories are told from places and positions of power. Today, Christianity is the dominant culture.  So, instead of story of a olive skinned middle-eastern, unwed, pregnant mother, who was seen as little more than property, giving birth to what the world would surely see as an illegitimate child who was wrapped in what rags they could find and placed in a smelly, flea infested feeding trough in the midst of a dark musky smelling animal stall… instead of that story, we end up with a clean, white skinned European woman giving birth to a glowing baby wrapped in impossibly white swaddling clothes and laid to rest in a manger that looks more like a crib than a trough in the midst of a barn that is more kept and clean than many of our houses.

So, “War on Christmas?,” sure sign me up. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer the elimination of what our modern “celebration” has become to the increasingly white-washed version we hear every year.

The Christmas story has been hijacked by a dominant culture. Places of power and positions of prestige have warped the comeuppance sensibilities of the original Christmas story. God’s vision of liberating the oppressed, the down trodden, has been slowly replaced year after year with a story that no longer brings fear to the Powers that Be, but rather supports the big business agendas of profit and mass consumerism.

“War On Christmas?” – come to think of it – they’re right. There is a “War On Christmas,” but it is actually waged by many of the very people who think Christmas is getting squeezed out of our culture in the name of plurality and other religions. If the Christmas they support wins – well, I for one, would have to say all is lost.  So, yes, there is a “War on Christmas” and we Christians have been supporting it. If the present day, white-washed version of Christmas continues to be the dominant version, then I believe a great darkness will smother us in a sea of privilege and perverse oblivion to the struggle of those most in need – the oppressed, the downtrodden.

If the Christmas Present, with it's full on worship of consumerism, continues to masquerade as Christmas Past, our Christmas Futures will increasingly become a time when we give out of our abundance rather than out of a response to need and out of a response to God’s love – the kind of Christmas where we give to those who already have abundantly while the oppressed, the downtrodden, watch our overindulgence and rightfully judge us by actions that run contrary to our words of a child born to bring light into the dark corners of the world.

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Isaiah 9:2 – “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.”  That should be the dominant message of the Christmas narrative. Is it? Does the way we celebrate Christmas bring light into the darkness? Does it bring hope to the hopeless? Does our modern day Christmas celebration bring justice to those who have been treated unjustly?

If your answer is “no” then, whether you knew it or not, you too believe that the Christmas Past has been white-washed by the Christmas Present.

During this season, as we remember not only the birth of the light of the world, a child sent to enlighten the darkness, we also remember his words, “No greater love has anyone than this, that they lay down their life for a friend.” As we remember the humble, unassuming way he came into this world, let us not forget that he left this world among thieves, as outsider hanging on a cross in an attempt to teach us something about God’s love.

A child born in a manger, no crib for his head – sent into this world to teach us something about the value of every human soul – sent in as the least-of-these, born to a poor woman in a borrowed animal stall – sent to teach us that “the least-of-these” is simply a human construct created by the insiders to define themselves over and against people they see as somehow less than themselves – sent to show us what a life looks like when it starts from the assumption that all people are worthy of God’s love.  

This Christmas I wish for you and for me light in the darkness of the Christmas Present. I wish for us enlightenment from God – an enlightenment that helps us see clearly the love for all people that laid in a manger some 2000 years ago – an enlightenment that encourages us to be the light to those trapped in the darkness of hunger, homelessness, oppression, poverty and war – an enlightenment that allows us to see we too have darkness in our lives – an enlightenment that helps us see beyond the cleaned up Christmas of the present to the humble, unassuming beginnings of our religion – a baby King, born to an outsider – born to save the world from darkness.

War on Christmas? A war on what Christmas has become? A war on worshipping consumerism in the sacred halls of Target and Best Buy while the world is swallowed up in the darkness of not having enough food to eat, a place to live, clean water to drink, access to reasonable health care? Sign me up, because I refuse to let the story of my faith be co-opted by corporations who only wish to convince us that we are privileged and we do deserve what we have more than other and we should revel in our abundance...even as we celebrate the birth of the child who laid in a feeding trough, who lived his life with no place to lay his head, who told us that “just as you do it unto the least of these so to you do it unto me".. who gave up his very life that we might understand what true love looks like.

War on Christmas? Indeed. Where do I sign up?

Source: 

http://www.thegodarticle.com/7/post/2011/11/war-on-christmas-sign-this-minister-up.html 

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