This page lists reports and commentary from earlier in May, 2005

The letter, signed by more than 800 faculty members, alumni, students and friends of the school, was published as a full-page ad in the Grand Rapids Press. 

Here's the full text of the letter:

Open Letter to George W. Bush; Signed by 823 students, faculty and alumni of Calvin College

Dear President Bush:

We are alumni, students, faculty and friends of Calvin College who are deeply troubled that you will be the commencement speaker at Calvin on May 21st. In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate many deeply held principles of Calvin College.

Calvin is a rigorous intellectual institution, and a truly Christian one. Since its inception in 1876, Calvin has educated its students to use their minds and hearts to transform the world into a "beloved community" where no one is an outcast and all of God’s children are cared for. Calvin teaches its students to work for peace and justice, and to be good stewards of God’s creation.

By their deeds ye shall know them, says the Bible. Your deeds, Mr. President—neglecting the needy to coddle the rich, desecrating the environment, and misleading the country into war—do not exemplify the faith we live by.

Moreover, many of your supporters are using religion as a weapon to divide our nation and advance a narrow partisan agenda. We are deeply disappointed in your failure to renounce their inflammatory rhetoric.

We urge you not to use Calvin College as a platform to advance policies that violate the school’s religious principles. Furthermore, we urge you to repudiate the false claims of supporters who say that those who oppose your policies are the enemies of religion.

See the full-page newspaper ad, including all the signatures >>
Thanks to Steve Cross for tracking down this ad.

The Washington Post carries a report on the President’s commencement address

The Detroit Free Press tells more about the protest.

After years of hard work and an incredible victory for Taco Bell tomato pickers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has announced their new target: the Fast Food World, including McDonalds and Burger King!

Read the AP report in TruthOut or the New York Times >>

And don’t forget the PBS NOW special on the CIW airs this Friday, May 27, and features the CIW, Yum Brands, as well as members and national staff from the PC(USA). Check www.pbs.org for local times and listings and spread the word!

For sample letters you can send to Burger King, McDonald's, and Subway, encouraging them to work with the CIW, visit www.pcusa.org/fairfood.

TrueMajority is encouraging people to speak out against military recruiting through our schools, which is facilitated by provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act.  You can do this by sharing a song that gives voice to the concern, by registering your demand that information on your child not be released to recruiters, and by supporting a bill in Congress that would require that parents explicitly permit the release of their children's information to recruiters, rather than requiring them to opt out.

Four years after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, human rights are in retreat worldwide and the United States bears most responsibility, rights watchdog Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, it said.

"The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide," Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International's 2005 annual report.

From the Washington Post:

Breakthrough Pact Unlikely to End Battle

Dan Balz sees the agreement reached by 14 US Senators to avert the "nuclear option" as a clear victory for the "center," but he sees it as only "a cease-fire in the judicial wars," which will continue.

"For a night at least," he concludes, "politics did seem to take a back seat to comity and cooperation. Whether the center can continue to hold is far less clear."

Read the full story in TruthOut or The Washington Post.

Read our earlier reports on Sen. Bill Frist's campaign to overturn the Senate's system of filibusters as a means of protecting the voice of the minority:

We recently posted a link to the speech by Bill Moyers’ address at the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis.   Our earlier note >>

We received this note expressing appreciation of the speech, and urging more attention to it.

I was delighted to find your publication of Bill Moyer's speech in St.Louis on your website. That speech is one of the most direct examinations of what the administration is seeking to do to damage the freedom of the press in the U. S.

As a Presbyterian and surgeon, I would encourage you to move it up to one of the headlines on your website. We need to make the truth of what the administration is trying to do to silence dissension in the press available to all who will read.

William B. McCullough, M. D.

Read Moyers' speech >>

Joan Chittister: We need better news reporting, with less pressure for speed

Another reader has called our attention to a recent article by Sister Joan Chittister, who takes note of the reporting problems of Dan Rather and Newsweek, along with the efforts by Kenneth Tomlinson, chairperson of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to press for "balance" in the reporting by NPR. "Balance" -- toward the right, apparently. Too much reporting, she says, becomes shallow and even inaccurate because of the pressure of time, and the urge to get a story out first.  Reality gets distorted by the pressures of competition as well as political pressures.

You’ll notice that this article appears in the National Catholic Reporter, which takes note sorrowfully that the recent "forced removal of Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese as editor of America magazine is tragic. He was forced from his position by his Jesuit superiors after five years of pressure from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

Read her article >>

The note from Chris Baker:

I read this this morning, and felt it could use wider distribution. She strikes a very compelling, and unsettling, nerve.

Five more Presbyterians have been commissioned by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Colombia Network to accompany Colombian church, union and displaced leaders who are threatened by death squads for their work in human rights.

What Should Liberal Christians Do?

Religious groups from left to right have been deeply concerned about the genocidal killing that continues in Darfur, in the western area of Sudan. The US government has joined many others in the UN in calling for an end to the killing – so far, to little effect.

Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice now reports (based on earlier reporting by the Los Angeles Times) that "the CIA, with the blessings of the Bush administration, is closely connected to the horrifying government of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, the head perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Darfur." So while the White House offers humanitarian aid, it has not supported stronger action against the Sudanese government because it is working in partnership with Bashir to gain more intelligence information in its "war on terror."

Flying home from New York a few days ago, we found ourselves sitting in front of a couple accompanied by six kids ... enough to make us pay attention.

Turns out they were on their way home for a visit after three years of working with orphans and micro-development projects in Uzbekistan. Hearing their stories, we came to share a bit of their concern for that isolated bit of the former Soviet Union that has suddenly turned up in our news headlines.

So this may be overly reflective of your WebWeaver’s immediate concerns, but we offer just a couple perspectives on what seems to be the sudden violence there, showing that – as is often the case – the problems are deep-rooted. And some of the roots reach to Washington.

The Shalom Center explores the links between the US government and the authoritarian regime of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan.

They post an article by Craig Murray, who was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004. He reports that unflagging US support for the government of Uzbekistan has ---

>> ignored its notorious use of ultra-torture -- except for sending people there whom the US wants tortured beyond even the levels acceptable to the Bush Administration;

>> sited military bases there not for support of US troops in Afghanistan but to ring the oil-rich Caspian with US troops, in order to control the flow of oil into the oil-addicted US society;

>> and is downplaying or condoning well-founded reports that thousands have been killed in recent government crackdowns, on the grounds that those demonstrators were "Islamist extremists."

For the full story >>

The Presbyterian Church has repeatedly called for various measures by the US government (and others) to ease the crushing burden of debt on many developing nations.

In 1996, for example, the 208th General Assembly "call[ed] upon all governments, all multilateral lending institutions, and commercial banks . . . to strive to insulate the poor of indebted countries from the costs of debt repayment and to consider seriously debt forgiveness or debt relief for the most heavily indebted and poorest countries."

See a sampling of other PC(USA) statements:  Click here, then type "debt" in the search box at the top of the page.  The first result ("International Trade and Investment") will give you plenty to start with.

A new study paper from Foreign Policy in Focus reports on "how 100% debt cancellation for poor countries--now being debated by wealthy nations--was transformed from an implausible demand into a winning issue, and what barriers lie ahead for the debt relief movement."

But now, back to a few bits of news for progressive Presbyterians -- and lots of others too!

Frederick Clarkson, an observer of the religious right, will appear on NPR’s Fresh Air along with Christian Right leader D. James Kennedy

Dr. Clarkson, who was one of the team that produced A Moment To Decide in 2000 as part of his ongoing study of right-wing religious-political movements, sends this note:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I will be a guest on National Public Radio show, Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Wednesday, May 18th.
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13

The first half of the show includes an interview with Christian Right leader D. James Kennedy, the head of Coral Ridge Ministries. The second half is an interview with me. The general themes are separation of church and state, Christian nationalism, and theocratic movements in the U.S. Kennedy was, in 1973, one of the leaders of the conservative schism that became the Presbyterian Church in America.

To find out where and when you can hear the program in your area, here is the station list and program schedule. Times vary. http://www.npr.org/wheretohear/?prgId=13

-- Fred

Rescheduled for Friday, May 27th

This Friday evening, May 20th, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Yum Brands and the Presbyterian Church will be featured on the PBS news show, "Now."

Farm workers from the CIW, Yum Brands executives, church members and national staff of the PC(USA) will discuss the boycott of Taco Bell, how the victory for human rights was achieved, and the next steps of extending this landmark agreement throughout the fast food industry.

Don’t miss this informative program! For details on precise times and listings, visit www.pbs.org and search for the program "Now."

Visit www.pcusa.org/fairfood to learn more and for sample letters you can send to McDonald’s, Burger King, and Subway urging them to follow Taco Bell’s lead.

Witherspooner Bill LeMosy sends this note: "Here's a must-read for anybody concerned about public broadcasting. While the neo-cons rage, the prophets still speak."

In his first public address since leaving PBS six months ago, journalist Bill Moyers responded to charges by Kenneth Tomlinson - the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - of liberal bias and revelations that Tomlinson hired a consultant to monitor the political content of Moyers' PBS show "Now." Democracy Now! broadcast an excerpt of Moyers' closing address at the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis, Missouri. Their web site provides a rush transcript of the broadcast.

Read the excerpts here >>

The Oakland Institute, a progressive think tank, provides a detailed look at reasons why CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) is a bad arrangement both for US workers and for those in Central America and the Dominican Republic.

Mothers Cry for Peace

Witherspooner Arch Taylor shares with us a peace sermon he delivered on Mother’s Day, 2005.  He traces the links between the establishment of Mother's Day and the movement for world peace, and shows how Christ offered not only inner peace, but peace for the nations as well.  He reminds us of warnings from Air Force Gen. Lee Butler of the religious - and idolatrous - nature of our nation's belief in military power. 

Two Presbyterians and former mission co-workers, Ross and Gloria Kinsler, are deeply involved in work for fair trade as a way of reflecting the biblical principle of Jubilee in our global society.

Journalist Naomi Klein offers a sharp analysis of what the US is doing in Iraq. She says that our "rebuilding" efforts, limited as they are, are really directed toward making over the Iraqi nation in the image of "the radical free-market policies that the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute dream about in Washington, D.C., but are only able to impose in relative slow motion here at home."

As Congress begins to deal with the issues surrounding Social Security, we offer some resources you may find helpful.

A collection of thoughtful articles in Insights, the journal of Austin Seminary (our Presbyterian seminary in Texas), finds the popular books to be based on a misinterpretation of the Bible. 

SPIRITUAL PROGRESSIVES:
A Dialogue on Values and Building a Movement

Are the words progressive and faith polar opposites? Of course not. But in America, the word "religious" seemingly has become synonymous with conservatism. The fact is that the religious right has spent 30 years melding Christian language with conservative political ideology. And they have been very successful. The influence of extreme right-wing religious organizations in politics and public discourse has taken America backwards, and has contributed to a divisive and coarsened politics. It has overshadowed progressives who are also people of faith. And it has created a divide of alienation between secular and religious progressives. We say enough is enough. 

Erik J Mason of Santa Fe, NM, returned to the US a month ago after spending 5 weeks in Colombia as part of the PC(USA) effort to provide North American Christians to accompany sisters and brothers in Colombia whose lives are threatened because of their work for peace and human rights.

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches gathered for its 24^th General Council in Accra, Ghana, in August, 2004. We reported earlier on that important assembly, but as we prepare and plan for the Witherspoon Society’s conference on global mission to be held next September at Stony Point, NY, we want to call attention again to the Council’s statement of that commitment.

It provides a statement firmly rooted in the Reformed tradition, which looks at "the signs of the times" in our world, and calls for attention to the two major challenges of our time: structures which oppress many of the world’s people, and our destruction of the natural world.

The statement then gets quite specific:

This crisis is directly related to the development of neoliberal economic globalization, which is based on the following beliefs:

-- unrestrained competition, consumerism, and the unlimited economic growth and accumulation of wealth is the best for the whole world;

-- the ownership of private property has no social obligation;

-- capital speculation, liberalization and deregulation of the market, privatization of public utilities and national resources, unrestricted access for foreign investments and imports, lower taxes, and the unrestricted movement of capital will achieve wealth for all;

-- social obligations, protection of the poor and the weak, trade unions, and relationships between people, are subordinate to the processes of economic growth and capital accumulation.

We encourage you to look at a report on the adoption of this statement, which was not supported unanimously.

The Report of the Message Committee of the Council tells more of the story

"For all of Professor Tilford’s pontificating, I am not surprised that he likes the new pope."