Flaming Fundamentalists For Peace

Friday, May 16, 2025

Medical Delay

Due to health problems, today's scheduled posting, Views From The Outside For May 16, 2025, will not be available

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Views From The Left For May 14, 2025

Views From The Left

Articles:

Below is a list of articles from a sampling of leftist websites. The articles listed below express views that will sometimes be divergent from the views of the owner of this blog. Reliability ratings of each source will be in parentheses.

Martin Luther King statement made when speaking against the Vietnam War (click here for source):

'I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.'

Alternet

Common Dreams

Democracy at Work

Democracy Now

Jacobin

Mother Jones

The Real News Network

Socialist Worker

ZNetwork

Factual Reliability Rating

I am using two websites that rate the factual reliability of news sources used by this feature. In comparing the two ratings, Mediabiasfactcheck gives more 'High' scores for various news sources while Adfontesmedia gives reliability ratings that are based more on bias. Also, while some news sources, none of these are listed below, will receive the highest factual reporting rating by Mediabiasfactcheck, that is not the case with Adfontesmedia.

I find that the best way to choose a news source reliability rating is to use the trial and error method. Here, one should count how many times a news information source site posts an article that is eventually shown to be false and compare that count with the factual reliability rating given by sites like Medeabiasfactcheck and Adfontesmedia.

Alternet

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Generally Reliable

Common Dreams

Mediabiasfactcheck : : High
Adfontesmedia. : Generally Reliable

Democracy at Work

Mediabiasfactcheck. : Not rated
Adfontesmedia. : Not rated

Democracy Now

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia : Mixed Reliability

Jacobin

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia. : Mixed Reliability

Mother Jones

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia. : Generally Reliable

The Real News Network

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Generally Reliable

Socialist Worker

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia : Mixed Reliability

ZNetwork

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Not Rated

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Will Americans Sell Their Principles For Profits?

It was a dark and stormy time. A man who, in the past, had used violence in a failed attempt to overthrow the government and gain power, tried again using democratic means to gain a leadership position. Even before he gained power, he scapegoated certain ethnic groups and then used his portrayal of those groups to justify his seeking for more power. In addition, he showed significant disregard for the vulnerable and attacked some of the foundations of his nation's democracy.

And despite his shipping to warehouse particular ethnic groups and dissenters in harsh conditions, his people learned to tolerate, by both forgiving and forgetting, his societal transgressions and his authoritarian ways. And why did his people learn to tolerate him? It was because this man put his country first by fixing its economy.

Except for the very last sentence, which currently remains to be seen, the above description fits two national leaders. One leader is from an ugly past and the other is currently in power. And the question becomes, if the current leader's economic plans bring new riches to his country, will his people, who would be us Americans, learn to forgive and forget his attacks on democracy, on different ethnic groups of people, and on his dissenters.

Of course the man from the past that was described above is Adolf Hitler and the man currently in power is Trump. The point of this article is not to compare Trump with Hitler though some comparisons could easily be made with the Hitler of 1933. Rather, the point here is will we Americans embrace an ends justifies the means attitude towards Trump's plans should his economic plans work? In other words, will we Americans sell our democratic and other principles, which includes beliefs in diversity and equality, in exchange for our material comfort?

That question touches on the influence that our nation's two great institutions have on us. Those institutions are our democracy and the market place. Which institution holds the greatest sway over the affections of American people can be seen in which institution influences the other one the most. If the market place is more important to us than our democracy, then we could expect people to approve of a cutthroat seeking for governmental power and extreme efforts to maximize the centralization of one's power over the government. If democracy is more important to us, then we could expect the market place's distribution of wealth to be more, but not completely, egalitarian. And so is it our democratic principles or our wealth and materialism which are most important to us?

What allowed Hitler to gain and maintain power for some time in Germany? He revitalized the nation's economy. He brought back the good times for many people. He brought prosperity to those who were ethnically pure enough. And because he went beyond just alleviating the economic hardships that his nation was enduring at that time, people closed their eyes to the injustices he was just beginning to commit.

Is that what is happening here? Is Trump revitalizing the American economy with his use of tariffs and other means? Time will tell. But what we Americans need to ask ourselves here is this: Will we tolerate Trump's abuse of power and the injustices he is visiting on both democracy and certain groups of people if he makes the enough of the rest of us rich as he promised to do? We should note that he is currently promising tough times until his policies bear fruit. But will we sacrifice our belief in democratic principles and our concern for the vulnerable if we expect to eventually strike it rich under Trump?

Of course there will be some Americans who refuse to compromise their commitment to democracy even if Trump brings increased prosperity to them. But will enough Americans be so offended by Trump's trampling on our democratic principles and his cutting off of aid to the vulnerable so as to pressure the rest of our government officials into opposing him?

The above question being asked is even more important to us Christians. Why? It is because of all the New Testament passages that speak against the love of money. For example, in his first letter to Timothy, Paul writes the following (see I Timothy 6:9-10):

9 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

How faithful, and note that very few if any of us are faithful enough, will we be to what the New Testament teaches about fairness, equality, and concern for the vulnerable should Trump's promise to make the nation wealthy come true? A measurement, and certainly not the only one, of our faithfulness to what the New Testament teaches about wealth can be seen in how we respond to Trump's agenda. As an old protest chant from the 1960s reminds us, 'the whole world is watching.'

Friday, May 9, 2025

Views From The Outside For May 9, 2025

Views From The Outside

The purpose of this page is to list news stories and reports from mostly Western sources outside of the U.S. You can use Google Translate to translate articles that are printed in another language.

So far, news sources include:

International

Medecins Sans Frontieres

UN News

From Canada

Le Devoir

Le Journal de Montréal

Toronto Star

CBC

From England

BBC

Reuters

From France

France24

Les Echos

Le Monde

From Germany

DER SPIEGEL

From Russian Source

Novaya Gazeta Europe

From Switzerland

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

From Ukraine

UATV English

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Views From The Left For May 7, 2025

Views From The Left

Articles:

Martin Luther King statement made when speaking against the Vietnam War (click here for source):

Alternet

Common Dreams

Democracy at Work

Democracy Now

Jacobin

Mother Jones

The Real News Network

Socialist Worker

ZNetwork

Factual Reliability Rating

Alternet

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Generally Reliable

Common Dreams

Mediabiasfactcheck : : High
Adfontesmedia. : Generally Reliable

Democracy at Work

Mediabiasfactcheck. : Not rated
Adfontesmedia. : Not rated

Democracy Now

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia : Mixed Reliability

Jacobin

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia. : Mixed Reliability

Mother Jones

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia. : Generally Reliable

The Real News Network

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Generally Reliable

Socialist Worker

Mediabiasfactcheck. : High
Adfontesmedia : Mixed Reliability

ZNetwork

Mediabiasfactcheck : High
Adfontesmedia : Not Rated

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

May Day With The Dems

Being a socialist, May Day has a bit of a different meaning for me than it does for many Democrats. For one thing, we socialists have been speaking up for immigrants far longer than the Dems though perhaps with too much of an edge. But that is because we have been aware of what immigrants have had to face long before both the Dems expressed concerned and Trump came to power.

However, not all of us socialists are the same. Some focus also on empowering workers at the workplace regardless of their ideologies while others are pushing an ideological agenda too hard. Stalinists are an example of the latter.

Also, I got introduced to Antifa during a May Day event. I talked with them in person. Though Antifa can stand for being anti-fascist, there is an organized group called 'Antifa' some of whose members told me that they are reliving the street battles that communists were fighting in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

I was just celebrating my first May Day with the Dems and it was very laid back which was both good and bad. While the socialists I've celebrated May Day with have too much of an edge, the Dems have too little of one.

Plus, the Dems have a more narrow view of the workers' needs than socialists do. What socialists see that Dems don't is that workers need to have power in the workplace in addition to unionizing which allows them to enter into collective bargaining to negotiate for both better pay and working conditions. And so unions are there to help prevent businesses from exploiting and abusing workers.

A protest sign at May Day rally. The quote is from the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'. It is response to King Arthur when he identifies himself as the King of England to a couple of peasants.

The Dems approach is to portray themselves as vanguards for workers. That means that the Dems will represent the demands and needs of the workers in government in exchange for their support. But it also means that the Dems are not empowering workers in the workplace. In addition, the Dems are heavily influenced by money from corporations. The result is that the Dems can have a conflict of interest when representing workers.

Socialists enable workers in multiple ways. Not only do socialists work to represent the concerns of workers, they also seek to empower them. Socialists want workers to go beyond what unions do by adding to their collective bargaining rights, positions of power both in businesses and the government. An example of workers gaining power in the work place can be seen in Germany's codetermination laws that allow for a percentage of workers to be placed on a business's executive boards depending on the number of employees a business has.

Without those positions of power, workers have no partial ownership of the businesses that employ them. Such workers have no say in how a business operates and treats its other stakeholders. Workers have no say as to the direction a business will take and where it locates or relocates. And unless workers are also included in Congress, they have less to say as to what regulations, which would protect people and the environment, will be written and passed.

And so the approach taken by the Dems, who are already compromised by corporate money, cannot represent workers like socialists could if socialists were given a chance.

In addition, socialists have justice concerns that extend beyond the borders of their own nations. Socialists are concerned about the injustices that come with American imperialism. Unfortunately, some socialists are so focussed and American imperialism that they let the injustices practiced by other nations, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, fly in under the radar. The same occurs with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where some socialists are so focussed on the injustices practiced by the Israeli government that they give hall passes to Palestinian terrorism. On the other hand, while, for the most part, the Dems are rightly reacting and responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many of them overlook both the injustices that come with American imperialism and with those practiced by the Israeli government.

And so there is a difference between celebrating May Day with my fellow socialists than with the Dems. Both groups have contributions to make and faults to change. But if the Dems want to present a more contrasting and positive alternative to the Repubs, they will refuse to be influenced by corporate money and will keep what they rightly doing while moving closer to how socialists analyze and approach problems and injustices.

In the eyes of many of my fellow socialists, I am slumming it when protesting with the Dems. That is because of the differences, some of which were mentioned above, that exist between socialists and the Dems. I agree with my fellow socialists that we feel significantly offended when the Repubs call the Dems 'Marxists' or 'socialists.' Obviously, the Repubs like to oversimplify life by overlooking the significant differences that exist between socialists and the Dems. The Repubs tendency to over simply things appeal to many of its followers.

At the same time, we socialists will be promoting injustices if we believe, as how Martin Luther King Jr. described the West, while speaking against the Vietnam War, when he said that it believe it had everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them. And so we socialists, and we are a very diverse group, need to look for what we can learn from the Dems, the traditional Repubs, and even from the Trump's Repubs if we wish to avoid being narrow-minded ideologues with very small audiences. Narrow-minded ideologies ming appeal to those of us who embrace authoritarianism, but it also sabotages our efforts to bring change.

Friday, May 2, 2025

News From The Outside For May 2, 2025