The Democratic party in the USA is the winner of last year’s elections. It is the biggest party. It includes President Barack Obama.
Left critics of the US Democrats describe it as one of two parties of Unites States big business. Maybe willing to make some minor pro worker changes in US capitalism; but certainly unwilling to replace capitalism by a fairer society.
Now, a Chistian fundamentalist university in the USA, with a reputation of racism, calling itself, of all things, “Liberty University“, is taking away the right of free speech from the student branch of President Obama’s party. Apparently, they think a two party system with both parties pro capitalism is not dictatorial enough, as they want a one party system.
One shudders when thinking of what happens to communist students, socialist party students, anarchist students, etc. etc. at such universities at the hands of extremist religious wingnut petty tyrants.
From the Young Democrats of America in the USA:
The administration of Jerry Falwell‘s Liberty University this week disbanded the Young Democrats chapter on campus. I have no doubt that this letter will speak for itself so I have included it in full below. If you believe, as I do, that these students deserve the same opportunity as the College Republicans and every other student group on campus to express their First Amendment rights, please sign the petition and make a contribution to show your support for the Young Democrats at Liberty University.Democratically yours,
David Hardt
YDA President———————————————
Sent by Liberty University VP for Student Affairs, Mark Hine
I must inform you that the College democrats’ club is no longer going to be recognized as a Liberty University club. We are unable to lend support to a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by Liberty University. I expressed these concerns when we met, earlier in the spring semester.
The Liberty Way states, “It is the duty of every student to respect Liberty’s Statement of Doctrine and Purpose. They may not engage in any activity on or off campus that would compromise the testimony or reputation of the University or cause disruption to Liberty’s Christian learning environment.”
The Liberty University School of Law had been working on a policy to govern their clubs and organizations for quite some time. They have now completed that policy and we have adopted it for Liberty University as well. Now that it has been adopted and will apply to all clubs and organizations, it is clear that this club does not comply.
Below is a copy of the policy which governs clubs and organizations at Liberty University. This policy is posted on the website.
“STUDENT CLUBS AND ORGANIZATIONS POLICIES
Student clubs or organizations must request and receive permission from the Liberty University administration before they may meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use any University facilities for their activities or events. All such clubs or organizations and their activities or events must be consistent with the University’s mission, and must be and remain in compliance with the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, and any policies or procedures promulgated by the University. The University reserves the right to refuse the use of its facilities for any reason to any student club, organization, activity or event.
Consistent with the Honor Code, all students, student clubs and organizations, faculty and staff of Liberty University, have a responsibility to uphold the moral and ethical standards of this institution and personally confront those who do not.
No student club or organization shall be approved, recognized or permitted to meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use University facilities if the statements, positions, doctrines, policies, constitutions, bylaws, platforms, activities or events of such club or organization, its parent, affiliate, chapter or similarly named group (even if the similarly named group is not the actual parent, affiliate or chapter) are inconsistent or in conflict with the distinctly Christian mission of the University, the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, or the policies and procedures promulgated by the University.”
Even though this club may not support the more radical planks of the democratic party, the democratic party is still the parent organization of the club on campus. The Democratic Party Platform is contrary to the mission of LU and to Christian doctrine (supports abortion, federal funding of abortion, advocates repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, promotes the “LGBT” agenda, Hate Crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc). The candidates this club supports uphold the Platform and implement it. The candidates supported are directly contrary to the mission of LU. By using LU or Liberty University and Democrat in the name, the two are associated and the goals of both run in opposite directions.
We are removing the club from the Liberty website and you will need to cease using Liberty University’s name, including any logo, seal or mark of Liberty University. They are not to be used in any of your publications, electronic or internet, including but not limited to, any website, Facebook, Twitter or any other such publication.
If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
Mark Hine
VP for Student Affairs
Liberty University
See also here.
Falwell university’s tax-exempt status questioned after banning Democratic club: here.
Liberty University Seminary President Accused Of Fabricating Life Story: here.
Liberty University Dean Demoted After AlterNet Investigation: here.
Jerry Falwell-Founded Liberty University Gets Half a Billion in Federal Aid, Teaches Creationism: here.
USA: Free Speech in Rhode Island? Gotta Register: here.
EARTH MEANDERS 2.0
This Memorial Day: Should We Arrest Cheney and Bush, Impeach Obama?
Democratic consumption is an irredeemable political/economic system that has proven itself unable to justly and equitably allow all global citizens to live in peace, abundance and sustainability.
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth’s Newsdesk, http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
http://www.ecoearth.info/earthmeanders/
It has been awhile since I have written how U.S. militarism to prop up an unsustainable way of life is destroying both Earth and freedom. As Obama induced “hopenosis” starts wearing off, it is clear that on several key issues — war, civil liberties and climate change — we are getting “Bush Lite” policies from President Obama that differ little from his criminal predecessor. Military commissions to try those illegally held for years will occur after all, and some may be held forever without charges. We continue to be spied upon. Obama is escalating the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and drawing out the criminal occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile the real Earth and society crushing crises of climate change and global ecosystem collapse remain woefully unaddressed. Heil Bush! Heil Obama!
After nearly a decade of criminal rule, America continues under new management to careen forward, wounded and flailing in vain attempts to return to a state of excessive democratic consumption. On the economy, the President has borrowed (stolen?) trillions from our children to rescue a dying industrial and speculative capitalistic shell game built upon usury, greed and unsustainability. And we are getting an inadequate climate change policy that cherry picks token measures to be seen as acting while coddling coal and tar sands which we know must end to survive. America’s might makes right, damn the truth and consequences, mind set is destroying civilized society and our one shared Earth.
Democrats and Republicans are two faces of the same imperial American war machine, hell-bent to destroy Earth for one last fix of economic growth. Happiness and meaning is always having more stuff, damn the consequences for the Earth and poor. President Bush is a known war criminal that a truly just, law-abiding, democratic system would bring to justice. Torture, rigged elections, unprovoked illegal and imperial wars, spying on law-abiding citizens — President or not, these are illegal behaviors. As are the current weak (and orders of magnitude insufficient) climate bill, subsidizing coal and its mountaintop removal mining, and continuing a state of unjustified perma-war when a great nation and its peoples are going bankrupt — both financially and morally.
Charge War and Climate Criminals Starting with Cheney, Bush and Further Down the Chain of Command
On this Memorial Day, consider the following. Ex-president Bush (thank Gaia), high ranking associates and some soldiers have substantively violated the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act (penalties which can include death), the international Third Geneva Convention of 1949, and the 1987 UN Torture Convention. For almost a decade, climate science was willfully ignored placing our shared survival at imminent risk. Why are the war and climate criminals not being charged and their actions undone?
And responsibility for the state of affairs is diffuse and wide-ranging. The Uniform Code of Military Justice makes clear soldiers have an obligation and a duty to only obey lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders. These include Presidential orders that do not comply with the Code, the constitution and international law. Further, it was established by the U.S. at the WW II Nuremberg war trials that “following orders” is not justification for war crimes. There is no moving forward until we acknowledge that, in fact, many American soldiers are war criminals — including Bush and Cheney — and must be tried for their crimes.
Apparently there are two sets of laws in America, one for the rich ruling elite and their well-armed minions, and the other for working, thinking men and women. Torture is against the law and immoral. Unprovoked war is against the law and immoral. Spying on your citizens is against the law and immoral. A state of perma-war against terrorism, which is a tactic and not an enemy, rather than taking coordinated international actions to police terrorism is just plain dumb and ineffective. Rather than fully reversing course and investigating and charging those that broke laws, Obama appears bent upon de facto pardoning and even continuing some of these egregious policies. Thus withers what remains of American ideals.
Obama’s Free Ride Is Over: End the Wars, Sufficiently Address Climate Change
It is treacherous and unforgivable that President Obama does not fully support a truth and reconciliation commission. It is up to President Obama to end Bush’s holy wars, embrace a foreign policy based upon human rights and ecological sustainability, and make peace not war, in order that we can address the real threats to our security which include unsustainable industrial capitalism and collapsing global ecosystems. There are other choices for governance than a two party system where both find truth anathema, and seek to grow the economy until its ecological foundation crumbles and falls.
It is sadly becoming clear that this Presidency will continue militaristic foreign policy and inadequate token climate policies. The new President has shown his true color, as apologist for the ruling elite’s war-mongering, growth machine — intent upon liquidating ecosystems for endless wealth for the rich and a few token jobs for the rest. The ruling elite and fossil fuel oligarchy find the new management to be perfectly fine, as long as U.S policies of raping the Earth for growth at the point of a gun are maintained.
Like many, I am beginning to question Obama’s hopenosis — the hypnotic rhetoric of change and hope. Either he is committed to undoing Bush’s military fascism and Earth destruction, or he is not. You can’t half make war or half address climate change. Either your policies are sufficient to bring peace and sustainability, or they are not. Either you uphold American ideals and rule in a law-abiding manner, or you don’t.
If you do not and willingly lead America and the world to ruin, you have in effect abdicated, and lost the legitimacy to rule, including being the only lawful user of political violence. Obama should not yet be impeached, but he had best start living up to his rhetoric and lead strongly on issues of imperial perma-war, civil rights and ecological sustainability; which do not respond well to half-measures and compromise.
Time to Regain Moral Compass, Lead on International Law and Environmental Conventions
It is not the American government’s job to keep us save at the expense of global self-evident truths of freedom, liberty, justice and ecological sustainability. Some 3,000 people died tragically on 9/11. This is the same number of children that die DAILY from preventable dirty water, a problem that could be fixed globally with one-time $25 billion expenditure. Their lives are no less valuable than stockbrokers. America played right into the terrorist’s hands with a disproportional, non-nuanced militaristic response which placed our economy and commitment to social and ecological issues at stake.
So what to do now? Wage war endlessly, killing hundreds of thousands in retribution, without setting up legitimate long-term international institutions to stop terrorism and the exploitation and military adventurism which are its causes? It is time to gain some perspective and move on to climate change, water scarcity, extreme poverty, ocean and land ecosystem collapse, sustainable jobs and the myriad of other emerging and merging ecological and social crisis that truly threaten all of our very beings. Earth is dying and America is still immersed in vengeance for past U.S. foreign policy blowback.
Virtually the only chance to address these looming global ecological and social crises is to sue for peace, negotiate global military demobilization (as was the norm before the World Wars), dismantle the military industrial growth complex, and divert these resources towards energy conservation, efficiency, renewable energy, and equitable sustainable development. It is unfathomable that billions live on under $2/day while good portions of the rest are obese and remain dissatisfied with their material lot in life. There can be no lasting peace or ecological sustainability until there is more just and equitable sharing of Earth’s bounty.
It is better that America lives up to its ideals of liberty and freedom — the only thing that truly does make America exceptional — and have a slightly higher chance of a terrorist act occurring, than become a barricaded nation of affluence for awhile longer on a crumbling Planet. It is not our wasteful standard of living that makes America great, it is the belief that all men and women are created equal and free. Should that be jettisoned to protect ourselves from vicious, lunatic religious thugs? The way forward is commitment to international laws, universal disarmament and a sustainable Earth for all her creatures and peoples.
It will be difficult if not impossible to bring an over-populated and inequitable consumption plagued world into a state of long-term global ecological sustainability. There can be no lasting security unless America sheds its militarism and once again engages in global measures to establish sufficient international law and environmental protections. It is not military power or excessive lifestyles that make America exceptional, it is our flawed yet dogged advancement of the ideals of freedom, liberty and justice; without which there is nothing special in the American dream.
Don’t you dare tell me I don’t love my country. I am a true blooded, liberty loving American (including the sometimes ugly part) through and through. I just love being — the Earth and all her creatures and peoples — more. We are all one human family and these false national, tribal divisions are relicts of a bygone era. Enlightened global citizens know we are all one human family on a fragile, collapsing Earth habitat. We will fully commit to peace, freedom and sustainability, including a possible Earth uprising if all else fails; or we will all share a horrific ride together, at each other’s throat, towards global self-immolation. Clearly America and world’s political economy is failing both Earth and freedom.
Comment on this essay: http://www.ecoearth.info/blog/2009/05/earth_meanders_this_memorial_d.asp
Dear Young Democrat,
Last week I asked you to take action in response to the outrageous decison by the ironically named Liberty University to ban the Young Democrats of America chapter on their campus. In just 48 hours nearly 3,000 of you did so, and the university is paying attention, but unfortunately they aren’t listening.
Despite initially citing a major reason for the ban was the club’s support for “socialism” — an unfair, untrue, and purely partisan claim — the university is changing their story. In true conservative fashion, the adminstration of Liberty University has tried to make this about Women’s rights, LGBT rights, Democratic candidates, and the audacious claim at socialism. We have stood firm in our message of only wanting equality for Democratic students on campus.
If we want their rights reinstated … we need to keep pushing.
Sign on today! We will be delivering the petition THIS FRIDAY, so lets get going!
http://action.yda.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=489
In solidarity,
David Hardt
YDA President
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