Robert McNamara on the just and legal war

Mr. McNamara described the American firebombing of Japan's cities in World War II. He had played a supporting role in those attacks, running statistical analysis for Gen. Curtis E. LeMay of the Army's Air Forces.

"We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children," Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. "LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right. He — and I'd say I — were behaving as war criminals."

"What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" he asked. He found the question impossible to answer."
US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the doco "Fog of War".



"The teaching and actions of Jesus nowhere show a concern for 'social justice'. The reason is that the call for social justice springs from envy rather than from compassion"
DB Knox

Double(bubble) glaze your house for a few bucks

So winter is rolling in properly now. I feel like a bit of a wuss saying that, it's not like we live in the mountains anymore, or live in Northern Europe.
But those guys are set up for the cold, they are ready for it, they have double glazed windows. It hardly seems worth it for our short, not so cold winter.

Well, this genius has figured out how to get cheap, easy, light, replaceable double glazing. Bubble wrap.
Working from the theory of pockets of non-moving air, our internet friend threw some bubble wrap up on some glass doors.
He reckons it has almost better insulating capacity that the double glaze.
Please follow the links, because it really doesn't look too bad.

Get rid of your fridge

The fridge is one of those modern, western conveniences that it is hard to imagine doing without, like flushing toilets or..well, flushing toilets.

But they sure do suck a lot of power.
So here is an interesting (partial) solution.

The basic idea (for those who can't be bothered chasing links) is to use a chest freezer with either a temperature kill switch or a timer.
Chest freezers
-don't lose as much cold air when opened
-have far more insulation
-use heaps less energy (90% less)

Not really practical in a 1 bedroom flat, but maybe next year....

connect...connect...connect Food

One of the joys of Moore College is the weekly fruit and veg co-op.
Every Friday a bunch of students, faculty and hangers on gather together to snap up some cheap fruit and veg, chat and relax. Just what we need.

I've often wondered whether the concept would work outside the hallowed halls of College.

Tonight I stumbled into Sydney Food Connect.
Their goals are
Healthy food that supports local sustainable farmers.

Fair: 40% return to farmers!
Healthy: Organic & chemical free
Local: Food miles ~250km
Direct: Purchased from farmers
Community : Over 16 local pickup points

According to one report, the weekly pick up of veg from the 'city cousins' collection points are a great reflection of triune love!

With all our clamour to connect with our neighbourhood, why dont SydAng churches take up the Food Connect concept.

To be a 'city cousin', you need a largish indoor covered space (most are people's living rooms, so a church hall would be more than ideal), you need to be passionate about good food and justice for farmers (I remember preaching about that once, and the practices of oil companies..heehee), and you need to be able to be available for a couple of hours on a friday. All pretty doable if you ask me. And an awesome way to have legitimate, regular contact with people in your neighbourhood.
Hooray for Food Connect

Henry Kissinger: winner of the 1973 Nobel peace Prize on East Timor

Hooray for truth and freedom and a just war

(From Christoper Hitchens book on Kissenger)





Henry Kissinger on a lecture tour for his book Diplomacy, August 11, 1995, Park Central Hotel in New York, questioned by investigative reporters Allan Nairn and Amy Goodman:
Allan Nairn: Mr Kissinger, my name is Allan Nairn. I'm a journalist in the United States. I'm one of the Americans who survived the massacre in East Timor on November 12, 1991, a massacre during which Indonesian troops armed with American M-16s gunned down at least 271 Timorese civilians in front of the Santa Cruz Catholic cemetery as they were gathered in the act of peaceful mourning and protest. Now you just said that in your meeting with Suharto on the afternoon of December 6, 1975, you did not discuss Timor, you did not discuss it until you came to the airport. Well, I have here the official State Department transcript of your and President Ford's conversation with General Suharto, the dictator of Indonesia. It was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. It has been edited under the Freedom of Information Act so the whole text isn't there. It's clear from the portion of the text that is here, that in fact you did discuss the impending invasion of Timor with Suharto, a fact which was confirmed to me by President Ford himself in an interview I had with him. President Ford told me that in fact you discussed the impending invasion of Timor with Suharto and that you gave the US . . .
Kissinger: Who? I or he?
Nairn: That you and President Ford together gave US approval for the invasion of East Timor. There is another internal State Department memo which is printed in an extensive excerpt here which I'll give to anyone in your audience that's interested. This is a memo of a December 18, 1975, meeting held at the State Department. This was held right after your return from that trip and you were berating your staff for having put on paper a finding by the State Department legal advisor Mr Leigh that the Indonesian invasion was illegal, that it not only violated international law, it violated a treaty with the US because US weapons were used and it's clear from this transcript which I invite anyone in the audience to peruse that you were angry at them first because you feared this memo would leak, and second because you were supporting the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, and you did not want it known that you were doing this contrary to the advice of your own people in the State Department. If one looks at the public actions, sixteen hours after you left that meeting with Suharto the Indonesian troops began parachuting over Dili, the capital of East Timor. They came ashore and began the massacres that culminated in a third of the Timorese population. You announced an immediate doubling of US military aid to Indonesia at the time, and in the meantime at the United Nations, the instruction given to Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan, as he wrote in his memoirs, was to, as he put it, see to it that the UN be highly ineffective in any actions it might undertake on East Timor . . .
[shouts from the audience] Kissinger: Look, I think we all got the point now . . .
Nairn: My question, Mr Kissinger, my question, Dr Kissinger, is twofold. First will you give a waiver under the Privacy Act to support full declassification of this memo so we can see exactly what you and President Ford said to Suharto? Secondly, would you support the convening of an international war crimes tribunal under UN supervision on the subject of East Timor and would you agree to abide by its verdict in regard to your own conduct?
Kissinger I mean, uh, really, this sort of comment is one of the reasons why the conduct of foreign policy is becoming nearly impossible under these conditions. Here is a fellow who's got one obsession, he's got one problem, he collects a bunch of documents, you don't know what is in these documents . ..
Nairn: I invite your audience to read them.
Kissinger: Well, read them. Uh, the fact is essentially as I described them [thumps podium]. Timor was not a significant American policy problem. If Suharto raised it, if Ford said something that sounded encouraging, it was not a significant American foreign policy problem. It seemed to us to be an anti-colonial problem in which the Indonesians were taking over Timor and we had absolutely no reason at that time to pay any huge attention to it.
Secondly you have to understand these things in the context of the period. Vietnam had just collapsed. Nobody yet knew what effect the domino theory would have. Indonesia was . . . is a country of a population of 160 million and the key, a key country in Southeast Asia. We were not looking for trouble with Indonesia and the reason I objected in the State Department to putting this thing on paper; it wasn't that it was put on paper. It was that it was circulated to embassies because it was guaranteed to leak out. It was guaranteed then to lead to some public confrontation and for better or worse our fundamental position on these human rights issues was always to try to see if we could discuss them first, quietly, before they turned into a public confrontation. This was our policy with respect to emigration from Russia, in which we turned out to be right, and this was the policy which we tried to pursue in respect to Indonesia and anybody can go and find some document and take out one sentence and try to prove something fundamental and now I think we've heard enough about Timor. Let's have some questions on some other subject. [applause from audience]
Amy Goodman: Dr Kissinger, you said that the United States has won everything it wanted in the Cold War up to this point. I wanted to go back to the issue of Indonesia and before there's a booing in the audience, just to say as you talk about China and India, Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world. And so I wanted to ask the question in a current way about East Timor. And that is, given what has happened in the twenty years, the 200,000 people who have been killed, according to Amnesty, according to Asia Watch, even according to the Indonesian military.... Do you see that as a success of the United States?
Kissinger: No, but I don't think it's an American policy. We cannot be, we're not responsible for everything that happens in every place in the world. [applause from audience]
Goodman: Except that 90 percent of the weapons used during the invasion were from the US and it continues to this day. So in that way we are intimately connected to Indonesia, unfortunately. Given that, I was wondering if you think it's a success and whether too, with you on the board of Freeport McMoRan, which has the largest gold-mining operation in the world in Indonesia, in Irian Jaya, are you putting pressure, since Freeport is such a major lobbyist in Congress on behalf of Indonesia, to change that policy and to support self-determination for the people of East Timor?
Kissinger: The, uh, the United States as a general proposition cannot fix every problem on the use of American weapons in purely civil conflicts. We should do our best to prevent this. As a private American corporation engaged in private business in an area far removed from Timor but in Indonesia, I do not believe it is their job to get itself involved in that issue because if they do, then no American private enterprise will be welcome there anymore.
Goodman: But they do every day, and lobby Congress.




"The teaching and actions of Jesus nowhere show a concern for 'social justice'. The reason is that the call for social justice springs from envy rather than from compassion"
DB Knox

The World Game we love: wage slavery

The real winners and losers: of the beautiful game

heraldscotland

8 Aug 2009

SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa's 2010 world cup looms amidst a rising tide of anger and protest among the poor majority of South African citizensFrom Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg

South Africa's 2010 World Cup looms amidst a rising tide of anger and protest among the poor majority of South African citizens From Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg IN just 306 days the 2010 World Cup will kick off in South Africa at a cost to the host government and FIFA, world football's governing body, of at least £4 billion. When the month-long football fest is over, South Africans will be left with 10 magnificent state-of-the-art stadiums.

But the expenditure is unlikely to bring much benefit to workers on breadline wages, to some 43% of the population who are unemployed, or to communities which last month turned to violence to demand that their government provide them with proper homes, electricity, toilets, clean water and other basic amenities.

The great fear is that this new wave of worker and township unrest will escalate into unpredictable militancy and violence between now and 11 June 2010, the day of the opening match at Johannesburg's flagship stadium, the calabash-shaped Soccer City.

Tomorrow the country's workers in the national electricity monopoly, Eskom, begin the kind of indefinite strike for increased wages that is the stuff of nightmares for the government, FIFA and the South African Local Organising Committee. Even when the workforce of Eskom, plagued by mass emigration of its top engineers and technicians, is on duty, communities are plagued by power cuts that last for many hours in the short but very cold southern African winter. There will be chaos this week in the absence of Eskom staff, but the disaster will be near-total if there is repeat performance next June.

In the small town of Mbombela - near the border with Mozambique and the Kruger National Park, that is nearly one-third the area of Scotland - the initial euphoria of selection as a World Cup venue has evaporated amid stories of corruption, wages below the poverty line, rapacious land-grabs and the murder of an anti-corruption whistle-blower.

The 46,000-seat, billion-rand (£74 million) Mbombela Stadium, bristling with 21st-century technology and supported by 18 giant pylons resembling giraffes, was built on 118 hectares of ancestral land from which the Matsafeni, a Swazi tribal clan, were forcibly removed and offered compensation of just one rand, or 7 pence sterling (raised to 8.7m rand, or £655,000, after a series of prolonged court cases).

Pretoria high court judge Ntendeya Mavundla told Mbombela's African National Congress-dominated council that its treatment of the Matsafeni was not much different from that of "colonialists who usurped land from naïve Africans in return for shiny buttons and mirrors."

The forced removal, given less international publicity than similar oppressive government actions when South Africa was a white-dominated apartheid state, was only the beginning of Mbombela's troubles.

When the ANC speaker of the Mbombela Council, 44-year-old Jimmy Mohlala, blew the whistle on a 40m rand (£3m) scam between his fellow ANC councillors and the stadium's commercial developers, senior ANC politicians demanded his resignation.

Mohlala refused to step down and was subsequently shot dead by masked gunmen at his home. His assassins have not been caught and police have not investigated the fraud. Former ANC council whip Ngilishi Sambo said Mohlala's dedication to serving the community had cost him his life.

"I have never seen anyone disobey ANC party orders like that," he said. "There were campaigns to ruin his reputation and he survived them all. He was an exceptionally dedicated local politician, but was outnumbered on the council which, as a result, effectively has not done any useful work for the community for years."

While the single rand was still on the table for the Matsafeni land, the stadium developers said they planned to bulldoze two black schools on the site. Once moved from their brick-built schools to prefabricated buildings a few miles away, the Matsafeni schoolchildren burned down their new schools and a library in protest. They said the prefabs were unventilated and extremely hot and humid in the long low-veld summer.

"The politicians and council all promised us a better, bigger brick school, but here we sit in zozo prefab huts," said 16-year-old Tiger Mavuso. "We were kicked out so that the contractors could use our old schools as offices.

"In these zozos up to six pupils were collapsing each day from the heat, and after the mid-morning break the teachers no longer tried to teach because they knew no-one could concentrate.

"The stadium has brought us only misery. Our education and our health are being sacrificed for the 2010 World Cup. The soccer will only last a short time but our lives might be ruined for ever."

Stephen Maseko lives in a corrugated iron and mud shack without electricity, running water or a toilet in the shadow of Mbombela Stadium. He knows his home will be demolished before the stadium hosts the first of its four World Cup matches. "I find it difficult to feel proud that we are hosting this World Cup," he said. "To tell you the truth, I do not have time to think about football. My worries are greater."

Eyesores' such as Stephen Maseko's home are being demolished or hidden across the length and breadth of South Africa before the first of an expected half-a-million football fans begin arriving next year.

Some 70,000 labourers working on the 2010 stadiums, and other World Cup infrastructure such as the new futuristic railway system with British-built engines and carriages, between Johannesburg Airport and the city centre, went on strike last month for better wages. Some labourers on 2010 projects were earning as little as 800 rand (£60) a month. Mildred Mpundu, a single mother of four, was earning 2000 rand (£150) a month with overtime as a labourer at Johannesburg's Soccer City, where the opening and final World Cup matches will be held. Mildred said she could only give her family meat on Sundays, and she added: "People will come to the stadium and think it is very nice. They won't even know that the people who built it can't afford to go inside."

There were angry clashes with police before union representatives thrashed out a new bonus deal and tried to sort out other grievances. Union official Lesiba Seshoga, who oversaw negotiations at Cape Town's Green Point, Durban's Moses Madhiba and Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela stadiums, said: "We welcome the World Cup, but that does not mean workers should be impoverished while millions are being spent on new stadiums. These workers are not going to benefit from the World Cup in that none of them will be able to afford to watch a game."

But the unrest is much wider and more serious than that relating directly to the World Cup. Most South Africans live in grim shack townships and, with apartheid becoming a distant memory, their anger is turning towards ANC politicians, dubbed "kings of bling," whose perks include houses and two top-of-the-range Mercedes or BMWs - one for use at home and the other for use in Cape Town, seat of South Africa's parliament.

Last month there were violent protests in 20 of the poorest townships against local government corruption and the government's failure to provide jobs, electricity, clean water, cheap housing and other services. Angry crowds burned tyres, hurled stones and rocks at police and chased non-South Africans mainly Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Malawians from the townships. Police intervened with tear-gas and hails of thousands of rubber bullets. Although police spokesmen say no one was killed, Dr Richard Pithouse, a lecturer at Rhodes University, has been collating the damage. He said three protesters were shot dead in a township on the fringes of Piet Retief in KwaZulu-Natal and there were many serious injuries, including those to a small girl, shot in the head in the Port Elizabeth township of KwaZakhele, who is in serious condition.

"There are many countries where a single death at the hands of the police can tear apart the contract by which the people accept the authority of the state," said Dr Pithouse. "But this is not Greece.

"Here the lives of the black poor count for something between very little and nothing. When the fate of protesters killed or wounded by the police makes it into the elite public sphere, they are generally not even named."

For the moment, the townships are again quiescent, but people are extremely angry and there is bound to be trouble again sooner or later.

"The government and academics speak about the poor all the time, but so few want to speak to the poor," said S'bu Zikode, president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the growing and increasingly militant South African shackdwellers' association. "It becomes clear that our job is just to vote and then watch the rich speak about us as we get poorer.

"Why are our people being killed by the police, by fire fires frequently sweep through shack settlements, particularly in the dry winter season, by councillors? Why does no one high up seem to care? The will of the poor will soon be done because the poor are the majority of the country and the majority is beginning to speak for itself."

One of the great dangers created by the ANC government of newly elected president Jacob Zuma stems from his whipping up of expectations in the course of a populist election campaign last March. Zuma promised to create half a million new jobs by the end of 2009. Instead, a quarter million jobs have been lost in the first three months of the Zuma presidency and people have become increasingly angry at the lavish lifestyles of top ANC politicians.

In an alarming development, Zuma has reacted to the township violence by appointing as his new police chief a close Zulu friend, Bheki Cele, known for his "gangsta" hats and suits and widely called the "township cowboy." Cele said on appointment that he will instruct his force to "shoot to kill," in an echo of what happened in the townships under white rule in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. If Cele is serious, he will set South Africa ablaze again.

Celi Xaba protested when he was aged 12 against the white minority apartheid government over the lack of water in Tokoza, his township on Johannesburg's northeastern fringe, 20 miles away from Soweto, the Las Vegas of all black townships anywhere in Africa. He is now aged nearly 30 and he is still protesting - and there is still no running water in his section of Tokoza.

Last month he was protesting against the ANC government for freedom from poverty, exploitation and joblessness, joining hundreds of other Tokoza residents blocking roads, looting shops and burning tyres, cars and buildings in protest against the absence of work, decent housing, electricity, water and sanitation. "There's no services here," he said. "No water, no electricity, no toilets. And still there's nothing happening. The people here just feel like animals."

Andile Mngxitama, a columnist for the mass circulation Sowetan daily newspaper, said he fears the 2010 World Cup will turn South Africa into a big fun park, with foreign visitors enjoying levels of comfort, safety and security that ordinary people can only dream of. "When the tournament is over," Mngxitama continued, "we will be sitting with major world-class stadiums in a country that can't feed or educate its people. The truth is we don't need the World Cup. Politicians and their connections need it."



"The teaching and actions of Jesus nowhere show a concern for 'social justice'. The reason is that the call for social justice springs from envy rather than from compassion"
DB Knox

The World Game we love: relocations

Thousands of South Africans are being displaced in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. While Durban completes the finishing touches on its new stadium, thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction. On Saturday, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on Durban’s Kennedy Road, killing at least two people and destroying thirty shacks. We speak to two South African activists who are fighting back.



Guests:

Mazwi Nzimande, president of the Shack Dwellers Movement’s youth league. He has been displaced by this latest attack and is currently in hiding.

Reverend Mavuso Mbhekiseni, member of the Rural Network in South Africa.

JUAN GONZALEZ: We end today with a look at South Africa, which is poised to host the World Cup, the premier international football competition, next year. While Durban completes the finishing touches on its new stadium, thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction by the ruling African National Congress’s, or ANC’s, slum clearance policies.

Late this Saturday night, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on [Durban’s] Kennedy Road killing at least two people and destroying thirty shacks. A thousand people have reportedly been driven out of the settlement. Eyewitnesses say the attackers acted with the support of the local ANC structures. Members of the Durban Shack Dwellers Movement, which brings together tens of thousands of shack dwellers to demand their right to fair housing in the city, were holding a youth camp when they were attacked.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, last month we interviewed a young leader from the Shack Dwellers Movement, eighteen-year-old Mazwi Nzimande. He is president of the movement’s youth league. He has been displaced by this latest attack. He’s currently in hiding. We also spoke with Reverend Mavuso Mbhekiseni from the Rural Network in South Africa. They were in the US speaking out against the anti-poor policies in post-apartheid South Africa.

I began by asking Mazwi to explain the Shack Dwellers Movement.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: The Shack Dwellers Movement is a movement that was made by the poor people, the people who were waiting for housing since 1994. It’s the movement that is made out of poor people only, because the poor people are feeling betrayed, so they decided to join hands together and approach the government and make the government to be aware. They say there are still poor people in South Africa, because they feel that they are the forgotten citizens of the country. The only thing that is being remembered is to build stadiums for the 2010 World Cup. They don’t talk about the poor people anymore. They’re only talking about promoting the country, so the poor people decided to join hands together and approach the government and say, “Hey, we are still existing in the country, so we are still waiting for those houses.”

JUAN GONZALEZ: What is the [Slums] Act? When was it passed? And what has been the impact of it on the poor communities of South Africa?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: The Slums Act was first a bill in 2006, when the Shack Dwellers Movement was invited at the provincial parliament in Pietermaritzburg, when it was still a bill, you know. So we were invited to come and observe while they were introducing the Slums Act. And it has not been good for the shack dwellers, because the Slums Act says you should not resist eviction. If you resist evictions, you might be fined 20,000 rand or being sentenced at five years. So, most of us cannot afford that, because we want to be in our shacks, we want to be close in the city. I mean, that’s what we want. We want the government to provide houses where the people are, close to our working place, close to our schools, close to the hospital. Plus, we have a right to be close to the city.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn’t South Africa unusual in that it has housing as a human right written into the Constitution?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: It does, yes. But now, it seems like it’s working for certain individuals, not for the poor people, because you will be surprised and shocked when you go to South Africa and see thousands and thousands of informal settlements. And then we just don’t understand, because, I mean, since 1994, these people are still on the waiting list. Each informal settlement has about 7,000 people. And in our movement in Durban only, we have fourteen settlements, and each of those have about 7,000, 5,000. And you will just find it so hard to understand why at this time of the year.

AMY GOODMAN: Mazwi mentioned the World Cup. It’s almost the only way we talk about South Africa today in the United States. But what exactly is happening to people as a result of the World Cup, which is watched by over a billion people and is going to be in South Africa for the first time?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: Our government is concerned about developing spaces, not population development. So, as they develop spaces, they move away people. They say people should move away, so to pave way for the development, to help it. So, by building these stadia, they are moving people away from the cities and away from their original places, even in rural areas, because they want to build malls, big malls. They want to build freeways, so that, to us, this World Cup is a mass eviction of poor people. So that’s what is happening in South Africa. We are not going to live and stay in the stadia. We are not going to sleep there. So they are destroying our houses or our homes. Because we can afford those homes, so they say—they call them slums, and so we are evicted. So we are saying this World Cup is accompanied by evictions and destruction of our own—and demolishing of our own homes.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you say they are moved out, does the government—where are they being moved to? Is the government providing them adequate housing where they’re being moved to?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: Government is promising them that they are going to have houses about fifty kilometers away from the cities, only to find that there are no houses. You will be moved to transitional relocation camps, where they say you have to wait for some—it’s ten years before you get housing.

AMY GOODMAN: Give us a historical perspective. Reverend Mavuso, you were there before the first democratically elected government of Nelson Mandela. You were there under apartheid. Compare that to today.

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: There is now a widening gap between the rich and the poor. During apartheid, it was the whites and blacks. So, now that is the type of apartheid that we see now, that people are getting more richer, and people are getting more poor.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever get a chance to meet Nelson Mandela? You’re eighteen years old, but President Mandela is still alive.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: I mean, I didn’t get a chance to see the days of Nelson Mandela, but, I mean, I’m hearing things that he’s such a wonderful man, he’s such a good man. You know, he has that powerful voice. But I don’t believe, because he is still alive, but there are informal—there are shack dwellers in South Africa, but he hasn’t said anything. There is that huge gap. Mandela is up there, and the people are down there, so it’s very hard to, like, get a chance to meet with Nelson Mandela. Even the current president, I haven’t met him, you know, because those people are high up. The only time they come to the communities is when the elections are going to take place. And they come with bodyguards. So, for me, it’s hard to understand why does a man that we must elect as a president come to our community, has bodyguard. That means he fear us, you know. So how can we access the man who comes with bodyguard in our communities? I don’t understand.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And if it’s true, as you say, that there’s been so many problems in terms of the widening gap in the country, why is the ANC leadership still receiving such huge support at the polls?

REV. MAVUSO MBHEKISENI: People were educated, through what we call domestication, that they should love one party, because that party gave them—will give them freedom. This is a majority party of—and it is a black government, so they say if we vote for another party, then it means it will not be democracy. They think democracy comes with the ANC. So they think ANC is democracy.


AMY GOODMAN: Rev. Mavuso of the Rural Network in South Africa and eighteen-year-old Mazwi Nzimande, president of the Shack Dwellers Movement’s youth league. We only have fifteen seconds, but he is now in hiding after a major attack on their shacks this weekend, Saturday night.

Mazwi, what happened? Very quickly, who did this? Who attacked people, killed two and hurt the shacks?

MAZWI NZIMANDE: Thank you. Firstly, we were not there, but on Sunday during the day, we went back to Kennedy Road to check on how things were, how the conditions were. I mean, it became clear when we saw the ANC guys who were there, you know, enjoying themselves, having that gathering. Even the [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds. We have five seconds.

MAZWI NZIMANDE: Even, I mean, so clear, it’s the ANC, because they have mentioned it, that they want the whole informal settlement to be known to the ANC [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: Mazwi Nzimande, we have to leave it there.






The teaching and actions of Jesus nowhere show a concern for 'social justice'. The reason is that the call for social justice springs from envy rather than from compassion"
DB Knox

The World Game we love: Jimmy Mohlala

Jimmy Mohlala, an ANC official in Mpumalanga who blew the whistle on alleged corruption in a 2010 construction project, was shot dead in his Nelspruit house last night.

Mohlala’s death was confirmed by SAPS Captain Philip Fakhude and Mbombela municipality communications officer Bessie Pienaar.

Pienaar did not have further details, but Fakhude said Mohlala, the speaker of the Mbombela municipality, was shot dead outside his house as he tried to run away from two assailants.

His 19-year-old son was shot and wounded.

“He [Jimmy Mohlala] was at his house with his 19-year-old son. They wanted to park a car in the garage. Two suspects came and started arguing with the son,” said Fakhude.

“The son threw the car keys on the ground, saying ‘if you want the vehicle, take it’. They then shot the son in the ankle and Mr Mohlala ran to his garage. They followed him and shot him in the shoulder.”

The two men ran away without stealing anything.

Mohlala died on his way to hospital.

Fakhude said the motive for the killing was not known. “We are not sure. We are still investigating,” said Fakhude.

Mohlala was in the news about a year ago following reports that some African National Congress members wanted him sacked for blowing the whistle on a colleague, Mbombela municipal manager Jacob Dladla.

Shortly after that, the ANC recalled Mohlala but he refused to step down.

At the time of his murder, the party was in the process of taking disciplinary action against him.

The ANC expressed its “deepest felt condolences” at his death on Monday. “It is really hard to come to terms losing a comrade of Jimmy’s calibre. He was one of those cadres who was very talented, skilful and dedicated to working for the upliftment of the standard of lives of our people,” provincial secretary Lucky Ndinisa said in a statement. “His untimely death has robbed us of a cadre whom will be difficult to replace in many aspects.”

The Mail and Guardian newspaper reported last February that Mohlala had blown the whistle on Dladla and said it had reliably learnt that some ANC officials had allegedly attempted to cover up a report on alleged corruption by Dladla.

The local council investigated Dladla on a range of allegations, including the manipulation of tenders in 2010 construction contracts, harassment of council employees, and failure to keep the council updated on progress ahead of the Soccer World Cup, the weekly newspaper reported.








The teaching and actions of Jesus nowhere show a concern for 'social justice'. The reason is that the call for social justice springs from envy rather than from compassion"
DB Knox

Church Army reflects on its move away from academic training

So, Church Army did some rethinking about how they train people so that the least, the last and the lost wold be reached with the good news from Jesus Christ. Recognising that the current church simply wasn't reaching these people, and wasn't about to soon, they CHANGED WHAT THEY WERE DOING. Crazy huh.



"While academic qualifications make Church Army candidates more employable in
local church settings, the demand and delivery style of academic training tends to de-
select mavericks and activists. Unfortunately, these temperaments tend to correlate
with those most suited to pioneering mission among those beyond the reach of the
traditional church.

Further, academic training tends to isolate the trainee from the mission context, and
focuses on ability to work with concepts and propositions in the artificial atmosphere
of the classroom. This socializes students towards the conceptual and away from the
practical - rewarding scholarly, introverted, compliant behaviour. This may lead to
the graduate carrying their college behaviour of studying and presenting theological
verbatim into parish life.

The net result of Church Army’s move towards academia was to socialize students
towards the behaviours and values of the established institutional church and its
clergy, thus preparing them for ministry within the church walls."


Not only that, but it removed the possibility of leadership from the very people they were trying to reach.
We seriously, seriously frown on that as a missionary practice overseas nowadays. The idea that the local church should provide leadership is pretty well entrenched in missionary thinking.
Yet the idea that a small group of people from an essentially alien culture have the sole right of leadership in Australian (and Sydney) churches lives on.
Hmm.
Now, I love College, I love the learning. I love theology. I love thinking. We need theologians. We need theologians on the street.
But there is more than a bit of truth in what they are saying.

Greek and 1 Timothy 2

In koine greek, do conjunctions constrain clauses only, or sentences, or whole units of discourse.
That is, if there is a 'for', and you cant understand it easily from the first clause, why not look at it constraining the whole unit of discourse.
Eg. 'For Adam was formed first' must be referring only to this sentence, not the whole unit?
Again, does an adversive constrain only a clause, or the whole unit of discourse?

Is it ok to ignore the numerical reference in greek, a change from singular to plural?

Eg But she (single) will be saved through childbirth if THEY (plural) continue.... Etc

Crackpots, conspiracies and the crazies

Early in the latest Iraq war, various people who studied international relations, specifically the middle east, told me that the US attack on Iraq was driven by Zionists who had planned it before September 11.
At the time I thought they were crackpots. I didn't ask where they got such an idea.
I'm not a biggie for conspiracy theories, but hey, it is all out in public anyway, check out Douglas Feith, the Office of Special Plans and the "Clean Break" document.

Of course, all our troops are fighting for truth, justice and freedom.

That is ok, it is just war

Church army dont just talk missional, they do it

Church Army Australia are the hottest thing around when it comes to missional church planting (and actually reaching people with the good news of Jesus), especially to the 80% of Australians that are not university educated. Yep, that's right 80%.

Even reading through the headings of their Certificate IV course for missional church leadership is an education in itself.

You can find that here, along with a document outlining why they have taken the training approach that they do.

Ron Sider at Sydney TEAR conference

The annual TEAR conference is on at Stanwell Tops at the end of July.
The main speaker is Ron Sider, who authored the famous "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger". While Ron's views have changed somewhat over the years, his concern for the least, the last and the lost hasn't. If you have the time and cash, it is worth going along to hear someone who has cared and advocated for the poor for decades and has learnt many a lesson along the way.

Brightness of the eternal glory

BRIGHTNESS of the eternal glory
by Robert Robinson (1735-1790)


1 BRIGHTNESS of the eternal glory
Shall Thy praise unuttered lie?
Who would hush the heaven-sent story
Of the Lamb who came to die?

2 Came from Godhead's fullest glory
Down to Calvary's depth of woe;
Now on high, we bow before Thee;
Streams of praises ceaseless flow!

3 Sing His blest triumphant rising;
Sing Him on the Father's throne;
Sing --- till heaven and earth surprising,
Reigns the Nazarene alone.



I like this hymn, I wish it had a cool tune, ala Sufjan Stevens rendering of 'Come thou fount of every blessing'. Come to think of it, you could probably sing it to that tune anyway.

But for you who fear my name

Welcome to the welcome wagon.
Christian music that is white boy folk instead of white boy rock. I like it bettter.

God's gonna cut you down

I've been reading about the British and American removal of natives from the Chagos islands in the 60's and 70's, and the Royal decree to overturn the British High court's decision that it was illegal and they should be able to return in the 2000s.

There is all sorts of unspoken evil that goes on in the world, much of it in our name. Stories that never get told, people forgotten and left to rot.
But the Lord knows.

We should start singing songs like this one in church again.
I know people don't like them because they often represent a puritan moralism against drinkers/gamblers etc. But perhaps we need to spend some time singing about judgment for the real social evils.

Jim Packer: can women teach in mixed congregations

"Teaching, in other words, is a different exercise today from what it was in
Paul’s day. I think it is an open question whether in our day Paul would
have forbidden a woman to teach from the Bible. It is an open question
whether he would have regarded what happened to Eve in the Garden of
Eden as sufficient reason for forbidding a woman to teach from the Bible.
When you teach from the Bible, in any situation at all, what you are saying
to people is, “Look, I am trying to tell you what it says. I speak as to wise
men and women. You have your Bibles. You follow along. You judge
what I say.” No claim to personal authority with regard to the substance of
the message is being made at all. It seems to me that this significant
difference between teaching then and teaching now does, in fact, mean
that the prohibition on women preaching and teaching need not apply."
J. I. Packer

Jim is a honorary canon at St Andrew Cathedral Sydney.

Now, I've heard at least one member of that church say that if anyone says that women can teach, they are a false teacher, a heretic, and should not even be eaten with, they deny the authority of the scriptures, are misleading the church etc etc.
He has come under quite an attack in Canada recently.
So I was really happy to see this affirmation of Jim Packer by ACL president Mark Thompson




The ACL notes with alarm the Bishop of New Westminster’s threat to revoke Professor J I Packer’s ‘spiritual authority as a minister of Word and Sacraments’.

Professor Packer, one of the leading Christian voices of the twentieth century, is amongst those who have voted to stand with authentic and orthodox Anglicans rather than those who have undermined biblical truth over many decades and most recently by their innovations regarding homosexual practice. As one of these he has now become a target for revisionist aggression. Once again the intolerance and anti-liberal heart of liberal Christianity has been exposed.

Professor Packer continues to be held in the highest regard by all those who seek to live in faith and obedience to the Scriptures as the written word of God. As a disciple of Jesus Christ he has provided a remarkable example of faithfulness and steadfastness for more than fifty years. We in the ACL assure him of our love, support, and continued prayer for him at this difficult time.

This latest incident highlights what has been happening to authentic and orthodox Anglican men and women in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom in the past few years. Ministers have been deprived, congregations have been forced to leave their buildings, law suits have been instigated and campaigns of misinformation have been launched in the religious and secular press. Others have simply been threatened with these things and more in an attempt to silence them.

This use of coercion by revisionist bishops has not been publicly addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by those who champion the so-called ‘Windsor Process’. Their silence is deafening and shameful. In the light of this it is little wonder that so many of us have very little confidence in this process or in the resolve of those behind it to focus on the most important issues.

We look to the Lord of heaven and earth, who is more than able to protect his people and vindicate his own word. If even the gates of hell will not prevail against Christ’s church we need not fear ecclesiastical bully-boy tactics.

The ACL also give thanks to God for those who have begun to act to bring about genuine reformation and a renewed vision for the gospel mission in world Anglicanism and eagerly anticipate much good from the forthcoming Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem.

Mark D Thompson
President
Anglican Church League

March 2, 2008.

Graham Cole in Sydney

Graham Cole, former Moore College lecturer(80-92), principal of Ridley and now professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) is giving a lecture on the 'Trinity without Tiers" at St James'Hall Phillip St in the city on Wednesday the 16th of June at 7pm.

I went to Graham's lectures last year (or was it the year before) on the Holy Spirit and on Atonement which were held at college. They were absolutely fantastic. You may have seen his "He who gives life: the doctrine of the Holy Spirit" in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series (the ghastly pink ones), or his new book "God the Peacemaker: how atonement brings shalom" in the shiny silver New Studies in Biblical Theology series.

Graham is one of the sharpest thinkers and godliest communicators around, well worth going to this lecture. He is the headline speaker at the Christians for Biblical Equality conference being held in Melbourne later in the month.

This is a must if you are interested in the discussion about the roles of women in ministry, whatever perspective you hold to.

Apparently you need to RSVP to fandshooke@aapt.net.au by June 11 if you want to come, but I doubt you will be turned away if you come last minute