There are no easy solutions. As I ponder our options, I can’t help but wonder how realistic are the objectives set by the neoconservatives. And let us be clear on this point: The strategy that has been applied is a neoconservative creation.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

This is the first show. It was a bunch of fun despite the kinks that I’ll need to to work out. Republic Affair radio will air live each Sunday evening at 9:00 pm central standard time.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

“When 50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel, it is a match made in heaven. – John Hagee

Christian Zionism, also known as dispensationalist theology, was once a radical fringe group within the larger Christian community. Today, largely due to the birth of the Tea Party, Christian Zionism has grown to become a multi-billion dollar industry, as well as a powerful force in American politics with ties to many powerful pro-Israel groups in Washington.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Chicago Police Display Extraordinary Amount of Restraint During NATO Summit

Republic Affair Photo by Chuck Jines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iit7Ioik0A

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Here’s a short video I put together of some of the sights and sounds of Occupy Chicago protest – NATO Chicago 2012.

Republic Affair Photo by Chuck Jines

This Is What Democracy Looks Like: NATO Chicago, May 18, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3c_4EBPXkM

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmp5a7pCouQ

“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.” ~Barry Goldwater

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgkT3DEonD0

In 1804 Jefferson drafted “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth,” which was the predecessor to the “Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”, i.e., the “Jefferson Bible.” Jefferson made many edits over time, finally completing the small pamphlet around 1820. The purpose of this project was for Jefferson’s own personal use, as the forthcoming quote shows. The final manuscript was composed of forty-six pages. Jefferson only shared the volume with a few close friends, and upon Jefferson’s request, it was never published during his lifetime. The picture Barton paints is in striking contrast.

On his website, Wallbuilders, Barton says:

The reader, as do many others, claimed that Jefferson omitted all miraculous events of Jesus from his “Bible.” Rarely do those who make this claim let Jefferson speak for himself. Jefferson’s own words explain that his intent for that book was not for it to be a “Bible,” but rather for it to be a primer for the Indians on the teachings of Christ (which is why Jefferson titled that work, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”). What Jefferson did was to take the “red letter” portions of the New Testament and publish these teachings in order to introduce the Indians to Christian morality. And as President of the United States, Jefferson signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe wherein he provided—at the government’s expense—Christian missionaries to the Indians. In fact, Jefferson himself declared, “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” While many might question this claim, the fact remains that Jefferson called himself a Christian, not a deist.

The “diamonds in a dunghill” quote mentioned by Barton comes from two different sources; two long and detailed letters from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Adams. The first is from an October 12, 1813 letter, the second from a January 24, 1814 letter. The quote in both instances is directly in reference to Jefferson’s Bible project. The Smithsonian is not distorting anything, as Barton claims.

“In extracting the pure principles which he [Jesus] taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurgos, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves.

There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines, such as were professed and acted on by the unlettered Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers, and the Christians of the first century. Their Platonizing successors, indeed, in after times, in order to legitimate the corruptions which they had incorporated into the doctrines of Jesus, found it necessary to disavow the primitive Christians, who had taken their principles from the mouth of Jesus himself, of his Apostles, and the Fathers contemporary with them. They excommunicated their followers as heretics, branding them with the opprobrious name of Ebionites [Ebionites did not hold to the divinity of Jesus nor his virgin birth] or Beggars.”

“I have performed this operation [the Jefferson Bible project] for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging, the matter which is evidently his [Jesus], and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.” –Jefferson to Adams, October 12, 1813

As I stated in the video, if you read what Jefferson said, there is no doubt that Barton’s account is mistaken. Here’s the second use of the dunghill phrase. There isn’t anything ambiguous here at all. :

“The whole history of the Gospels is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, that we have a right, from the cause to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

Letters:
Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestley, April 9, 1803
Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
Jefferson to John Adams, October 12, 1813
Jefferson to John Adams, January 24, 1814
The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels (Google eBook)

Jefferson’s Secret Bible (VIDEO)

Relatively few people know that along with authoring the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson also compiled his own text, drawn carefully from passages extracted out of the New Testament, that he titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” The book, which focused on the ethical teachings of Jesus, was a private undertaking for Jefferson and never made public in his lifetime. Now, experts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History are meticulously conserving this fragile volume, page by brittle page. Along the way, they discover subtle hidden clues to Jefferson himself.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9seSgJ80aRg

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.