The Great Recession is not just an economic crisis, it is the result of a loss of values, a moral crisis. And to say that it is a moral crisis is also to say that it is a spiritual crisis.
But who is Jim Wallis? According to Huffington Post
The Washington Post wrote in November, 2006: Wallis’s book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 2005 and became the catalyst for his budding effort to revive progressive Christian politics. Throughout the book, Wallis argues that liberals have lost touch with the faith that defines much of American life. In the values debate, nearly all of which stems from differing perspectives of religion and moral absolutes, Democrats have traditionally been on the trailing end since the devout Jimmy Carter lost churchgoing voters to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Bill Clinton significantly narrowed the gap in 1992 by winning the Catholic vote, but even with his ability to speak comfortably about faith, by 1996, the gap widened again. Four years later, George W. Bush brought Catholic and Protestant regular churchgoers firmly into the Republican camp.
But who is he really?
A recent column in The Christian Review called: Jim Walis: Obama’s “Red” Spiritual Advisor , they discuss Jim Wallis’s ties to South American Marxist movement leaders and regimes. The Christian Review lays it’s case out this way:
First, Jim Wallis has had relationships with the communist Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).
Second, his “Witness for Peace” was an attempt to defend the Nicaraguan Sandinistas! Wallis, together with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s former pastor of 20 years) “rallied support for the communist Nicaraguan regime and protested actions by the United States which supported the anti-communist Contra rebels” (Family World News, February 2009, p. 7).
Third, Wallis and his Sojourners community of fellow-travelers believe Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua and the other revolutionary forces “restructuring socialist societies” are the communist paradises the United States needs to emulate in order to establish “social justice.” Writing in the November 1983 issue of Sojourners, Jacob Laksin notes, “Jim Wallis and Jim Rice drafted what would become the charter of leftist activists committed to the proliferation of communist revolutions in Central America” (Laksin, “Sojourners: History, Activities and Agendas” in Discoverthenetworks.org., 2005).
The ugly truth is Wallis wishes to see the destruction of the United States as a nation and in its place “a radical nonconformist community” patterned after the progressive, socialist commune he established in Washington, D.C., in 1971 (Laksin, Ibid.).
See what “Discover the networks” says about Wallis here.
Obama hasn’t changed, still taking advice from the Black Liberation cult, only this time in the form of white socialist, Rev Jim Wallis of Washington D.c, according to IBD Editorials. He is currently the Usurper’s advisor for faith-based initiatives.
He preaches the same anti-American, anti-capitalist, message, one of redistributive
wealth for the sake of “social justice.” He and Rev Wright have rallied together to support the Communist Sandanistas decades ago. In fact,at the 2008 ACORN convention (6/25), while he was being introduced, the Acorn Hostess, slipped up and started introducing him as “Rev. Jeremiah..” Of course, that was just shortly after Obama threw Wright under the bus.
He is also from Chicago, like Obama and published a paper called “Post-American.” He has been associated with Marxism for some time, even though he does some window-dressing to cover up the big word “Communism.” He has close ties to Marxist Dr. Cornell West and, in the past, to James Cone.
His group in WashingtonD.C. is called Sojourners. He has called America “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs…(and is) fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free-market system. “Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth,” Wallis has said. “They have failed the creation,” according to The Obama File.
For Wallis, who leads an antipoverty group called Sojourners, it was just the beginning of another long day of power politics. An afternoon interview at his Washington office was cut short so he could hop on a conference call with President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Then he was off to dinner with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
In more than three decades in the capital, the 60-year-old Wallis has never been so much in demand. As a politically progressive evangelical, he had long been an outcast in both evangelical and progressive political circles. Agitating for a greater government role in fighting poverty and promoting world peace, he pushed an agenda that was at odds with the Christian-right leaders who purported to speak for American evangelicals. Wallis decried those leaders’ fixation on fighting abortion and gay rights. His own politics lined up closely with the Democrats, but the party had little interest in consorting with evangelical pastors.
Now, all that has changed. Many evangelicals, particularly younger ones, have broadened their political agenda beyond hot-button issues to embrace causes like combating climate change. Many of the Christian right’s top leaders have died or lost influence. And Democrats all the way up to the White House are now embracing religion’s role in politics and are actively wooing evangelicals. Seemingly overnight, Wallis has gone from outside agitator, arrested 22 times for acts of civil disobedience, to inside player, talking with presidential aides a few times a week. “I’ve been 40 years in the wilderness, and now it’s time to come out,” Wallis says. “This is a new experience for me.”
…But Wallis’s lefty credentials are well established. In the early 1970s, he faced pressure to leave TrinityEvangelicalDivinitySchool in Illinois because his anti-Vietnam War activism was scaring off the school’s benefactors. Wallis left by choice and helped start a commune to live out his “kind of Marxist” beliefs, which included living close to the poor and pursuing social justice activism full time. (Wallis has since disavowed Marxism.) The commune disbanded after it moved to Washington to advocate on social justice issues. But the name, Sojourners, lives on in his current organization and its monthly magazine.
…For now, though, Wallis is less focused on arguing the orthodoxy of his views than on turning them into policy. A Washington veteran, he has learned that political power can be fleeting. His invitations to the Clinton White House ceased after he opposed welfare reform. President Bush consulted him on faith-based initiatives, but his team froze Wallis out for opposing the Iraq war.
Obama is the first president Wallis knew well pre-White House. In the 1990s, both participated in a years-long dialogue on community engagement led by Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam. “He was self-consciously Christian like I was,” Wallis says of Obama then. “But we were progressively Christian in the era of the religious right.” Now, Wallis is eager to partner with his old friend to prove that a new, progressive era for religion and politics has arrived.
You don’t have to take it from me. Here it is in Jim Wallis’s own words. Wow!:
In a column he did in 2007 he lays out how the progressive movement can gain ground moving through religious organizations and churches throughout the country. By perverting the scripture to their own agenda, they can aid social justice and further redistribution of wealth in this country.
Recently, his organization, The Sojourners have launched a campaign against Glenn Beck:
Tell Glenn Beck: I’m a Social Justice Christian
Glenn Beck recently told his listeners to leave any church that teaches social justice, and to report its pastor to church authorities. Since Sojourners’ mission is “to articulate the biblical call to social justice,” we thought we’d better turn ourselves in. But before reporting to any church hierarchy, we’re going to report ourselves to Glenn Beck.
Whether you’re a church leader, a church member, or a church seeker, if you’re a Christian who believes in the biblical call to social justice, we invite you join us. Once you turn yourself in, you’ll get a chance to encourage your pastors, fellow church members, or fellow seekers to report themselves too. Send the message below (change it if you like) to Glenn Beck, and let him know that the biblical call to social justice is good news–not fodder for “code word” scare tactics.
I keep telling you this is indeed our second civil war, and I truly believe it is. Unlike our first, this does not involve guns and ammo, but rather, at this point anyway, is a war of words and ideals. The majority is lulled into silence by busy lives, mind numbing television shows and left leaning media. Please help rally our troups and bring this information to their attention. We must begin to alert all. With lies and manipulation being hurled at us in such a rapid fire manner, keeping up is increasingly hard to do. That’s how they play, attempting to make us watch one hand while they continually stab us in the back with the other. I will continue to do the best I can to bring information to your attention, but I need your help in disseminating the information.
Other blogs have written about Jim Wallis as well:
These are very important videos, each about 7 1/2 minutes. This will explain how Government is getting around typical channels to restructure, redistribute our “wealth”.
Some, you know of – The Federal Reserve, Fannie-Freddie. You can see these are not working out very well. However, they are escalating the pace at which these vehicles are being utilized at breakneck speed. Please educate yourself so that we can stop it here and see how the UN is gaining One World Order.
We’ve been telling you for months about how Cop 15, and global warming alarms in general, are nothing more than socialist (or worse) scams to redistribute wealth.
Socialist dictator Hugo Chavez leaves no doubt.
Rather than blaming his and other corrupt governments around the world for their troubles, they of course, blame the US. Even though we have given billions and billions of our own money to help these countries, the majority of it goes to line the pockets of wealthy, evil dictators, such as Chavez.
The progressives in Washington, however, side with the socialists on this. They feel it appropriate to pay the lions share of the one hundred billion dollar annual pay off.
Our government is complicit. When not stealing on behalf of the banks, when not throwing money away on pet pork projects, when not commondeering our corporations and delivering regulatory and financial suicide bombs to our small businesses, they are simply handing our money over to those who would do us harm.
Americans must get educated as to the actual facts, get involved, or simply pour another glass of grape kool aid. Bottom’s up.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s speech on climate change to COP15 meeting in Copenhagen:
From: Links.org – international journal of socialist renewal
President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez:
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, friends, I promise that I will not talk more than most have spoken this afternoon. Allow me an initial comment which I would have liked to make as part of the previous point which was expressed by the delegations of Brazil, China, India, and Bolivia. We were there asking to speak but it was not possible. Bolivia’s representative said, my salute of course to Comrade President Evo Morales, who is there, President of the Republic of Bolivia.
[Audience applause]
She said among other things the following, I noted it here, she said the text presented is not democratic, it is not inclusive.
I had hardly arrived and we were just sitting down when we heard the president of the previous session, the minister, saying that a document came about, but nobody knows, I’ve asked for the document, but we still don’t have it, I think nobody knows of that top secret document.
Now certainly, as the Bolivian comrade said, that is not democratic, it is not inclusive. Now, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t that just the reality of the world?
Are we in a democratic world? Is the global system inclusive? Can we hope for something democratic, inclusive from the current global system?
What we are experiencing on this planet is an imperial dictatorship, and from here we continue denouncing it. Down with imperial dictatorship! And long live the people and democracy and equality on this planet!
[Audience applause]
And what we see here is a reflection of this: Exclusion.
There is a group of countries that consider themselves superior to us in the South, to us in the Third World, to us, the
underdeveloped countries, or as a great friend Eduardo Galeano says, we, the crushed countries, as if a train ran over us in history.
In light of this, it’s no surprise that there is no democracy in the world and here we are again faced with powerful evidence of global imperial dictatorship. Then two youths got up here, fortunately the enforcement officials were decent, some push around, and they collaborated right? There are many people outside, you know? Of course, they do not fit in this room, they are too many people. I’ve read in the news that there were some arrests, some intense protests, there in the streets of Copenhagen, and I salute all those people out there, most of them youth.
[Audience applause]
Of course young people are concerned, I think rightly much more than we are, for the future of the world. We have — most of us here – the sun on our backs, and they have to face the sun and are very worried.
One could say, Mr. President, that a spectre is haunting Copenhagen, to paraphrase Karl Marx, the great Karl Marx, a spectre is haunting the streets of Copenhagen, and I think that spectre walks silently through this room, walking around among us, through the halls, out below, it rises, this spectre is a terrible spectre almost nobody wants to mention it: Capitalism is the spectre, almost nobody wants to mention it.
[Audience applause]
It’s capitalism, the people roar, out there, hear them.
I have been reading some of the slogans painted on the streets, and I think those slogans of these youngsters, some of which I heard when I was young, and of the young woman there, two of which I noted. You can hear among others, two powerful slogans. One: Don’t change the climate, change the system.
[Audience applause]
And I take it onboard for us. Let’s not change the climate, let’s change the system! And consequently we will begin to save the planet. Capitalism is a destructive development model that is putting an end to life; it threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.
And another slogan calls for reflection. It is very in tune with the banking crisis that swept the world and still affects it, and of how the rich northern countries gave aid to bankers and the big banks. The U.S. alone gave, well, I lost the figure, but it is astronomical, to save the banks. They say in the streets the following: If the climate were a bank it would have been saved already.
[Audience applause]
And I think that’s true. If the climate were one of the biggest capitalist banks, the rich governments would have saved it.
I think Obama has not arrived. He received the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day that he sent 30 thousand soldiers to kill more innocents in Afghanistan, and now he comes to stand here with the Nobel Peace Prize, the president of the United States.
But the United States has the machinery to make money, to make dollars, and has saved, well, they believe they have saved the banks and the capitalist system.
Well, this is a side comment that I wanted to make previously. We were raising our hand to accompany Brazil, India, Bolivia, China, in their interesting position that Venezuela and the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance firmly share. But hey, they didn’t let us speak, so do not count these minutes please, Mr. President.
[Audience applause]
Look, over there I met, I had the pleasure of meeting this French author Hervé Kempf. Recommending this book, I recommend it, it is available in Spanish – there is Hervé – its also in French, and surely in English, How the Rich are Destroying the Planet. Hervé Kempf: How the Rich are Destroying the Planet. This is what Christ said: it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is what our lord Christ said.
[Audience applause]
The rich are destroying the planet. Do they think the can go to another when they destroy this one? Do they have plans to go to another planet? So far there is none on the horizon of the galaxy.
This book has just reached me, Ignacio Ramonet gave it to me, and he is also around somewhere in this room.
Finishing the prologue or the preamble this phrase is very important, Kempf says the following, I’ll read it:
“We can not reduce global material consumption if we don’t make the powerful go down several levels, and if we don’t combat inequality. It is necessary that to the ecological principle that is so useful at the time of becoming conscious, ‘think globally and act locally,’ we add the principle that the situation imposes: ‘Consume less and share better.’”
I think it is good advice that this French author Hervé Kempf gives us.
[Audience applause]
Well then, Mr. President, climate change is undoubtedly the most devastating environmental problem of this century. Floods, droughts, severe storms, hurricanes, melting ice caps, rise in mean sea levels, ocean acidification and heat waves, all of that sharpens the impact of global crisis besetting us.
Current human activity exceeds the threshold of sustainability, endangering life on the planet, but also in this we are profoundly unequal.
I want to recall: the 500 million richest people, 500 million, this is seven percent, seven percent, seven percent of the world’s population. This seven percent is responsible, these 500 million richest people are responsible for 50 percent of emissions, while the poorest 50 percent accounts for only seven percent of emissions.
So it strikes me as a bit strange to put the United States and China at the same level. The United States has just, well; it will soon reach 300 million people. China has nearly five times the U.S. population. The United Status consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil a day, China only reaches 5-6 million barrels a day, you can’t ask the same of the United States and China.
There are issues to discuss, hopefully we the heads of states and governments can sit down and discuss the truth, the truth about these issues.
So, Mr. President, 60 percent of the planet’s ecosystems are damaged, 20 percent of the earth’s crust is degraded, we have been impassive witnesses to deforestation, land conversion, desertification, deterioration of fresh water systems, overexploitation of marine resources, pollution and loss of biodiversity.
The overuse of the land exceeds by 30 percent the capacity to regenerate it. The planet is losing what the technicians call the ability to regulate itself; the planet is losing this. Every day more waste than can be processed is released. The survival of our species hammers in the consciousness of humanity. Despite the urgency, it has taken two years of negotiations for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and we attend this event without any real and meaningful agreement.
And indeed, on the text that comes from out of the blue, as some have called it, Venezuela says, and the ALBA countries, the Bolivarian Alliance say that we will not accept, since then we’ve said it, any other texts that do not come from working groups under the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention. They are the legitimate texts that we have been discussing so intensely over the years.
[Audience applause]
And in these last few hours, I believe you have not slept, plus you have not eaten, you have not slept. It does not seem logical to me to come out now with a document from scratch, as you say.
The scientifically substantiated objective of reducing the emission of polluting gases and achieving an agreement on long-term cooperation clearly, today at this time, has apparently failed, for now.
What is the reason? We have no doubt.
The reason is the irresponsible attitude and lack of political will from the most powerful nations on the planet. No one should feel offended, I recall the great José Gervasio Artigas when he said: “With the truth, I neither offend nor fear.” But it is actually an irresponsible attitude of positions, of reversals, of exclusions, of elitist management of a problem that belongs to everyone and that we can only solve together.
The political conservatism and selfishness of the largest consumers, of the richest countries shows high insensitivity and lack of solidarity with the poor, the hungry, and the most vulnerable to disease, to natural disasters. Mr. President, a new and single agreement is essential, applicable to absolutely unequal parties, according to the magnitude of their contributions and economic, financial and technological capabilities and based on unconditional respect for the principles contained in the Convention.
Developed countries should set binding, clear and concrete commitments for the substantial reduction of their emissions and assume obligations of financial and technological assistance to poor countries to cope with the destructive dangers of climate change. In this respect, the uniqueness of island states and least developed countries should be fully recognized.
Mr. President, climate change is not the only problem facing humanity today. Other scourges and injustices beset us, the gap between rich and poor countries has continued to grow, despite all the millennium goals, the Monterrey financing summit, at all these summits as the President of Senegal said here, revealing a great truth, there are promises and unfulfilled promises and the world continues its destructive march.
The total income of the 500 richest individuals in the world is greater than the income of the 416 million poorest people. The 2.8 billion people living in poverty on less than $2 per day, representing 40 per percent of the global population, receive only 5 percent of world income.
Today each year about 9.2 million children die before reaching their fifth year and 99.9 percent of these deaths occur in poorer countries.
Infant mortality is 47 deaths per thousand live births, but is only 5 per thousand in rich countries. Life expectancy on the planet is 67 years, in rich countries it is 79, while in some poor nations is only 40 years.
Additionally, there are 1.1 billion people without access to drinking water, 2.6 billion without sanitation services, over 800 million illiterate and 1.02 billion hungry people, that’s the global scenario.
Now the cause, what is the cause?
Let’s talk about the cause, let’s not evade responsibilities, and let’s not evade the depth of this problem. The cause, undoubtedly, I return to the theme of this whole disastrous panorama, is the destructive metabolic system of capital and its embodied model: Capitalism.
Here’s a quote that I want to read briefly, from that great liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, as we know a Brazilian, our American. Leonardo Boff says on this subject as follows:
“What is the cause? Ah, the cause is the dream of seeking happiness through material accumulation and of endless progress, using for this science and technology with which they can exploit without limits all the resources of the earth.”
And he cites here Charles Darwin and his “natural selection”, the survival of the fittest, but we know that the strongest survive over the ashes of the weakest.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, we must always remember, said that between the strong and the weak, freedom is oppressed. That’s why the Empire speaks of freedom; it’s the freedom to oppress, to invade, to kill, to annihilate, and to exploit. That is their freedom, and Rousseau adds this saving phrase: “Only the law liberates.”
There are countries that are hoping that no document comes out of here precisely because they do not want a law, do not want a standard, because the absence of these norms allows them to play at their exploitative freedom, their crushing freedom.
We must make an effort and pressure here and in the streets, so that a commitment comes out of here, a document that commits the most powerful countries on earth.
[Audience applause]
Well, Mr. President, Leonardo Boff asks… Have you met Boff? I do not know whether Leonardo might come, I met him recently in Paraguay, we’ve always read him.
Can a finite earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it.
Then Boff asks us, what might we expect from Copenhagen? At least this simple confession: We can not continue like this. And a simple proposition: Let’s change course. Let’s do it, but without cynicism, without lies, without double agendas, no documents out of the blue, with the truth out in the open.
How long, we ask from Venezuela, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, how long are we going to allow such injustices and inequalities? How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order and prevailing market mechanisms? How long are we going to allow huge epidemics like HIV/AIDS to ravage entire populations?
How long are we going to allow the hungry to not eat or to be able to feed their own children? How long are we going to allow millions of children to die from curable diseases? How long will we allow armed conflicts to massacre millions of innocent human beings in order for the powerful to seize the resources of other peoples?
Cease the aggressions and the wars! We the peoples of the world ask of the empires, to those who try to continue dominating the world and exploiting us.
No more imperial military bases or military coups! Let’s build a more just and equitable economic and social order, let’s eradicate poverty, let’s immediately stop the high emission levels, let’s stop environmental degradation and avoid the great catastrophe of climate change, let’s integrate ourselves into the noble goal of everyone being more free and united.
Mr. President, almost two centuries ago, a universal Venezuelan, a liberator of nations and precursor of consciences left to posterity a full-willed maxim: “If nature opposes us, let’s fight against it and make it obey us.” That was Simón Bolívar, the Liberator.
From Bolivarian Venezuela, where a day like today some ten years ago, ten years exactly, we experienced the biggest climate tragedy in our history (the Vargas tragedy it is called), from this Venezuela whose revolution tries to win justice for all people, we say it is only possible through the path of socialism!
Socialism, the other spectre Karl Marx spoke about, which walks here too, rather it is like a counter-spectre. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don’t have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world. We say this from Venezuela, which because of socialism faces threats from the U.S. Empire.
From the countries that comprise ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance, we call, and I want to, with respect, but from my soul, call in the name of many on this planet, we say to governments and peoples of the Earth, to paraphrase Simón Bolívar, the Liberator: If the destructive nature of capitalism opposes us, let’s fight against it and make it obey us, let’s not wait idly by for the death of humanity.
History calls on us to unite and to fight.
If capitalism resists, we are obliged to take up a battle against capitalism and open the way for the salvation of the human species. It’s up to us, raising the banners of Christ, Mohammed, equality, love, justice, humanity, the true and most profound humanism. If we don’t do it, the most wonderful creation of the universe, the human being, will disappear, it will disappear.
This planet is billions of years old, and this planet existed for billions of years without us, the human species, i.e. it doesn’t need us to exist. Now, without the Earth we will not exist, and we are destroying Pachamama as Evo says, as our indigenous brothers from South America say.
Finally, Mr. President, and to finish, let’s listen to Fidel Castro when he said: “One species is in danger of extinction: Humanity.”
Let’s listen to Rosa Luxemburg when she said: “Socialism or barbarism.”
Let us listen to Christ the Redeemer when he said: “Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, we are capable of not making this Earth the tomb of humanity. Let us make this earth a heaven, a heaven of life, of peace, peace and brotherhood for all humanity, for the human species.
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much and enjoy your meal.
Let’s Take A Look At Mark Lloyd, FCC Diversity Officer (Czar), and Where He Stands On Issues by Desiree Paquette
Last Friday news broke which suggested a new agenda for the Federal Communications Commission, the government entitiy which issues licenses to broadcasters and broadcasting companies throughout the US. Under the Obama Administration, there is a new position at the FCC called the Diversity Officer. The Diversity Officer has the ability to put into place new regulations. Our new Diversity Czar has an agenda all his own, formulated over several years. This agenda entails creating a new license fee for private broadcast compaines, EQUAL TO THE ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET OF THAT COMPANY, then redistributing those fees to public broadcast stations to hire, in effect, minority talent and minority owned broadcast entities. There is not one entity who could survive paying their entire annual budget as a new tax, thus as the vast majority of privately owned broadcast entities promote and give voice to middle America, this overwhelming majority of the public would be left with NO VOICE and certainly NO DISSENTING VOICE for the policies and programs put forth by the minority far left segment of the population.
Let’s take a closer look at our new “Diversity Czar”, shall we?
Mark Lloyd has a very distinctive pedigree which cerrtainly fits the bill for a Diversity Czar. His history shows him to have started in broadcasting at NBC and CNN, then moving on to degrees from U of M and Georgetown University. According to his bio posted online at http://www.netcaucus.org/biography/mark-lloyd.shtml
Mark Lloyd is a senior fellow at the George Soros funded Center for American Progress focusing on communications policy issues, including universal service, advanced telecommunications deployment, media concentration and diversity. From the fall of 2002 until the summer of 2004, Mr. Lloyd was a Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught communications policy and wrote and conducted research on the relationship between communications policy and strong democratic communities. He also served as the executive director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan project he co-founded in 1997 to bring civil rights principles and advocacy to the communications policy debate.
Let’s take a closer look at his past positions. According to Civil Rights.org The Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, it deals with.. The rules that govern the National Information Infrastructure concern and impact us all. Communications policy will determine whether all citizens will be able to participate effectively in the political process, have access to the public airwaves, share in the fruits of publicly-funded research, or maintain their privacy. Communications policy is a civil rights issue. The Civil Rights Forum works to bring civil rights organizations and community groups into the current debate over the future of our media environment. The Forum is a project of the Tides Center, a national non-profit organization which manages hundreds of projects that promote change toward a healthy society — one which is founded on principles of social justice, broadly shared economic opportunity and a robust democratic process. The twin goals of the Forum are to introduce civil rights principles and advocacy to the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and to reframe the discussion over the role of media in our society around the needs of communities and the rights of citizens.
An article posted at zimbio.com at http://www.zimbio.com/The+Searched/articles/H7FW6nnt-NU/Mark+Lloyd+New+Chief+Diversity+FCC+Draws+Fire shows the newly appointed assoiciate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission, is having a rough time of it during his first days on the job. Lloyd has come under fire from some right-wing media sites, after two an article Lloyd authored in 2007 urging liberals to file complaints against conservative talk radio stations came to light.
In “Forget the Fairness Doctrine,” Lloyd writes that conservative radio stations have abonded the bottom line as their primary motivator, and are purely ideological organs. He argues, however, that ressurecting the Fairness Doctrine, which forced radio and television stations to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, is not the answer. He does, however, suggest the private radio broadcasters, due to the fact that they use public airwaves, should be required to donate and support public radio.
In 2009 Center for American Progress’s Progressive Media project emerged as a major communications war room on behalf of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda and CAP became a strong advocate for escalation in Afghanistan. Progressive Media is run through the Center for American Project Action Fund, the more political 5014 arm of CAP. It coordindates closely with the Common Purpose Project, an effort to create message discipline among the pro-Obama organizations, with a direct tie to the White House. The Center for American Progress — which has emerged as perhaps Washington’s most influential idea factory in the age of Obama — is launching a major new war room, to be staffed by nearly a dozen people, that will focus on driving the White House’s message and agenda, I’m told. … The new war room – which is called Progressive Media – represents a serious ratcheting up of efforts to present a united liberal front in the coming policy wars. The goal of the war room will be to do hard-hitting research that boils down complex policy questions into usable talking points and narratives that play well in the media and build public support for the White House’s policy goals. … The war room – a joint project of CAP Action Fund and Media Matters Action Network — will be headed by well-known liberal operative Tara McGuinness, who worked on John Kerry’s presidential campaign and was a major player in the anti-war movement during the Bush years.” Jennifer Palmieri is the project’s communications director.
Mark Lloyd has served on the boards of directors of dozens of national and local organizations, including the Independent Television Service, OMB Watch, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. He has also served as a consultant to the Clinton White House, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Smithsonian Institution. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is a 501(3) “non-profit public policy organization dedicated to promoting the democratic potential of today’s open, decentralized global Internet,” according to its website. CDT’s stated mission is “to conceptualize, develop, and implement public policies to preserve and enhance free expression, privacy, open access, and other democratic values in the new and increasingly integrated communications medium.” In 1994, Jonah Seiger “helped found and served as Communications Director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. “CDT pursues its mission through research and public policy development in a consensus-building process based on convening and operating broad-based working groups composed of public interest and commercial representatives of divergent views to explore solutions to critical policy issues. In addition, CDT promotes its own policy positions in the United States and globally through public policy advocacy, online grassroots organizing with the Internet user community and public education campaigns, and litigation, as well as through the development of technology standards and online information resources.”
At an article from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/10/pub-fccs-new-hire-previously-targeted-gop-radio-stations/ comes the following: The FCC’s new chief diversity officer laid out a battle plan two years ago for liberal activists to target conservative talk radio stations, and critics say they are concerned that he now will want to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine.” Mark Lloyd, who was named the associate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission last month, is under attack for authoring a June 2007 report entitled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” and a subsequent essay, “Forget the Fairness Doctrine”. “What he lays out is a battle plan to use the FCC to threaten stations’ licenses with whom they do not agree with politically, and now he’s at the FCC waiting to take their calls,” Motley told FOXNews.com. “This is not about serving the local interest, it’s about political opposition.” In February, a report in the American Spectator said aides to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., met with FCC staff to discuss ways to re-enact Fairness Doctrine policies and to apply them to the Internet as well. Both the FCC and Waxman’s office denied the report.
Bought and paid for “Community” organizations such as ACORN, far left wing organizations such as Apollo Alliance, Tides Center and Center for American Progress, and corruption in the form of SEIU, are quickly taking the place of the Constitution of The United States of America. Please take a few moments to watch this video, in which Glenn Beck explains the interconnectivity and undue influence these groups are having on the Obama Administration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7Yc858QdXo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftherealbarackobama%2Ewordpress%2Ecom%2F2009%2F07%2F29%2Fthe%2Dapollo%2Dalliance%2F&feature=player_embedded#t=29 The above video also details how the Apollo Alliance developed what became the Stimulus Bill.
Our government is turning into a Chicago style scam. Please, look for yourself and become aware. They would have you believe it’s Democrat vs Republican. IT IS NOT! It’s much different than that. Most democrats would not endorse the coruption that is gripping our government. Neither would Independents, Libertarians, Republicans.
Free speech is turning into free speech only if it agrees with the Administration’s view point. The majority of the population is being dismissed. Opportunities for citizens to speak out are being filled instead with paid operatives (see help wanted ads in column from 08/14/2009), SEIU and ACORN members, while the authentic public is locked out and left standing in the street.
There is no substitute for knowledge. Your country is being taken away from you on a daily basis. It is important that you realize what is going on. If you condone it, do nothing. If you DON’T, please do what you are able to do. Pass along informative emails, attend a local tea party. If you can afford to do so, JOIN US 09/12 for the march on Washington. details at http://912dc.org/
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watchdogcentral.org
History Repeats Itself
"Their final objective toward which all their deciet is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection" - Henry A. Wallace, US VP 1941-45
Up until a few years ago, I was happy filling my life with personal issues of family, work, home. Then, I began to notice our once great country is run by a government which has no respect for the Constitution and no respect for us, it's citizens. I realize now it is up to folks like me to change this. I am only one person, but through this blog it is my hope to point out to ordinary Americans how our rights, our liberty, is being threatened. My belief is by shining a bright light, we as a people can begin to peacefully remove the power hungry, self serving autocrats running our government. This is not about one party or another. This is about the very foundation our country was built on. Our foundation is crumbling. Please help me shore it up! Do not be afraid to Speak Out Loudly! Of the people, by the people, for the people. That is how we will get our country back! Please visit our sister site www.WatchdogCentral.org to check up on your government officials - national, state and local.
Soldier For Liberty 