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Memorial Day:

Memorial Day has grown to mean more than recognizing the service of the fallen, it has also become a time to recognize those Veterans who served, survived and have passed on.  GlennDL

Memorial Day  occurs every year on the final Monday of May. Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.  Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century, Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died while in the military service. On Memorial Day the flag of the United States is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.* The half-staff position remembers the more than one million men and women who gave their lives in service of their country. At noon their memory is raised by the living, who resolve not to let their sacrifice be in vain, but to rise up in their stead and continue the fight for liberty and justice for all. For many Americans, the central event is attending one of the thousands of parades held on Memorial Day in large and small cities all over the country. Most of these feature marching bands and an overall military theme with the National Guard and other servicemen participating along with veterans and military vehicles from various wars.  In keeping with what some call a secular "civil religion" - one with no association with any religious denomination or viewpoint - that has incorporated Memorial Day as a sacred event.

With the Civil War, a new theme of death, sacrifice and rebirth entered the civil religion. Memorial Day gave ritual expression to these themes, integrating the local community into a sense of nationalism. The American civil religion, in contrast to that of France, was never anticlerical or militantly secular; in contrast to Britain, it was not tied to a specific denomination, such as the Church of England. The Americans borrowed from different religious traditions so that the average American saw no conflict between the two, and deep levels of personal motivation were aligned with attaining national goals.*

Wayne Horn

Herschel Hampton

JD Littrell

  Joe Stafford

Resources:

• United States Code, 2006, Supplement 1, January 4, 2007 to January 8, 2008.   
• Robert N. Bellah, "Civil Religion in America", Daedalus 1967 96(1): 1–21.

Opal Imogene ‘Gene’ Hampton Littrell”

JD & Gene Hampton Littrell

View Full Album

What really happened at St. John’s Church on Easter Sunday

By Brian Schoeneman | Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 | Politics

“…Our church sits next to the White House, so we have the honor of hosting the President a few times a year.  He joined us again on Sunday for Easter.  And, as usual, he brought with him two things that are ubiquitous of the presidency – press and controversy….”

“I spent Easter Sunday the way my family has spent Easter Sunday for the last six years – attending services at our church, St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square.  One of the reasons we still attend St. John’s, rather than finding a parish closer to our home in Fairfax that doesn’t require a 20 mile commute every Sunday morning, is the Rev. Luis Leon, our rector…”

“…In his sermon, Luis made reference to “captains of the religious right,” and it was reported in many places that he accused the religious right of wanting to keep blacks in the back of the bus, wanting to keep women in the kitchen, and immigrants on their side of the border.  Conservatives erupted in outrage.  The news was originally reported by the Weekly Standard, hit Drudge’s front page and was picked up by Breitbart.com and a number of other outlets.  The story was basically the same – look at this guy race baiting on Easter, pandering to the President.

That’s not what happened.  It’s a mischaracterization of what Luis said, and it was certainly not what he meant.  But that didn’t stop people from jumping to ridiculous conclusions and vilifying him, our church, and Episcopalians in general.

Sunday night, I perused the blogs after an excellent Easter dinner and saw that my pastor – my friend – was being accused of being the next Jeremiah Wright.  They called him a “dunce,” an “oaf,” and a “clown,” even going so far as to say that he’s a “false prophet,” or a “fake Christian” pastor, and that he was preaching “Satan’s deception.”

This isn’t a joke.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the vile hate and disgusting nonsense that came out of people on Easter because of what they thought my pastor said.  Can you imagine someone saying that about your pastor?…”            read the full unedited article at the “BearingDrift blog, “Virginia’s Conservative Voice”

This incident, like many others, is reminiscent of the edited video of Shirley Sherrod speech that led to a right-wing feeding frenzy in 2010: 

• Maligning What Should Have Been An Inspirational Story: Posted by Glenn Littrell

Maligning What Should Have Been An Inspirational Story:

by Glenn Littrell

UPDATED and REPOSTED from 7-25-2010:

In another indignant outrage over a misrepresented account reminiscent of both the Rev. Wright and Shirley Sherrod(below) incidents the right wing has gone bonkers over the misrepresentation of an inspirational Easter Sunday Sermon. Why the attack on the Reverend giving the sermon? Two reasons:

1. The Reverend is the Presidents current minister and the President was in the building, and
2. The Reverend mentioned the ‘right’, in the case the more specific ‘religious right’

Obama, plus a Reverend, plus a comment that could be misquoted, misrepresented or edited for convenience = a right-wing feeding frenzy.

Fortunately there was one Conservative blogger who was in attendance at the sermon who has stepped forward and called out the attackers in a sensible and responsible manor:

• Obama Pastor Quoted Accurately About 'Religious Right' In Easter Sermon

• What really happened at St. John’s Church on Easter Sunday

Original Post::

In relating a story of personal awakening and realization Shirley Sherrod was targeted and maligned by the right-wing in there never-ending quest to incite fear and hatred to further their ideological agenda.

Faced with continued criticism of racist elements in their loose coalition of ‘Tea Parties’ the right-wingers and Tea Partiers sought to defend themselves from those criticisms, not by dealing with those criticism or the elements mentioned, but by repeated attempts to paint their critics as even more racist. In these attacks the right-wing propaganda machine known as FOXNews and the right-wing bloggers and conservative radio host continue to prove that they’ve never met a smear, unchecked fact or deceptively edited video they couldn’t use.

The Tea Party itself is currently a very diverse and broad-based group*. There is little doubt that it pulls much of its support from disenchanted conservatives but it also contains a fair share of disenchanted Democrats, moderates and even African-Americans, so to call the Tea Party as a whole racist is at the least, debatable. On the other hand there is little doubt that racist behavior has been observed and it is in response to these observation that the NAACP and others have demanded that the Tea Party purge themselves of these elements or openly denounce them. It never ceases to amaze me that the hardest thing for some organizations to do is to acknowledge the possibility of extremist in their ranks and denounce them. In response to the NAACP’s demand instead of denouncing racist behavior Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express posted a vile and racist letter, supposedly as satire, in which he denounced the NAACP as racist. Almost immediately Mark Williams and the Tea Party Express were no longer considered part of the Tea Party movement. Since this was not the first questionable event by Mark Williams wouldn’t the Tea Party have been better served to denounce his previous activities and save themselves this embarrassment? In the wake of Mark Williams obviously racist letter where was the instantaneous condemnation by FOXNews?

note: For the Tea Party the irony is that it is presently experiencing a problem common to the Democratic Party in that their wide ranging diversity has opened the door for the fringe element to move willy nilly amongst the more sane but equally impassioned element of the party. This is complicated by the fact that it is governed by the tactics and laser focus of the Republican Party which relies on the use of fear tactics to rally their base by arousing the more extreme elements of the right-wing. In other words the racist elements are there and will continue to embarrass the movement. This embarrassment, along with the inevitable narrowing of the Tea Party’s platform, will soon cause it to loose its broad base and become just another element of the right-wing. The question is when? This November? Before 2012?

All words, names and phrases highlighted and in bold are links to background, evidence or related articles and information. just click them.

Mark Williams demonstrated the moronic tactic of answering an accusation of racism with the childish and repetitive chant of ‘no I’m not, you are’. Accusing the accuser to divert attention from the original accusations. It appears that it isn’t important whether or not they’re racist as long as they can find someone who is more racist. This may explain why FOXNews has never met a case of ‘reverse racism’ it didn’t like. This is why they get more upset over an accusation of racism than they do an act of racism. It isn’t that they are upset over being called a racist as much as they are being the only ones called a racist.

This debacle was then followed by another right-wing blogger who, instead of defending the Tea Party, sought to issue the same childish chant of ‘no I’m not, you are’.   Andrew Breitbart, of BigGovernment [a blog] announced and posted an edited video of Shirley Sherrod’s speech to demonstrate the presence of racism in the NAACP. This is the same Andrew Breitbart, who posted edited video to support attacks on ACORN. The difference this time is that Andrew Breitbart did not have access or control of the unedited version of the event and as a result he and FOXNews ended up with egg on their face when the full version of the video came out. Also facing embarrassment from there own knee-jerk reactions were the NAACP, the USDA (Sherrod’s employer), Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack,(her boss) and by connection the White House.

While I sometimes consider MSNBC nearly as extreme as FOXNews [in the opposite direction] I believe these two videos will better explain the nature of FOXNews and its brand of ‘News’.

The hatefulness, fear mongering and demonizing that passes for journalism and conversation on FOXNews and conservative radio has to stop. This is not the first time FOXNews has promoted a story that, along with the facts that where used to distort it, was later revealed to be untrue. The irony is that because of the knee jerk reaction of the USDA it then becomes OK for FOXNews to criticize the Whitehouse for Mrs. Sherrod's quick dismissal, even though we all know that if they didn’t respond quickly, if there had been any hesitation, FOXNews would be criticizing them for moving to slowly as they have done in the past.

And don’t think it stops here. After repeatedly slamming Sherrod before the truth came-out the right-wing/FOXNews propaganda machine has already forgotten about their deceit and gone after Mrs. Sherrod again for… well… not disappearing fast enough after they slandered her.

When faced with an accusation of Racism there are only two kinds of people that would defend themselves by trying to accuse others of racism.

One is a fool and the other is a racist.

To view the full, unedited video of Shirley Sherrod click here.

by Glenn Littrell

Wolf Park Visit:

Pictures and video from last weeks visit have been posted and updated.

click the picture to view.

reposted from Nov-2010

Inspiration On 4 Legs:

KLEENEX ALERT! This beautiful story is about what we all want -- to be encouraged to discover who we really are... to be accepted... to find our life purpose... and to be celebrated for being different. Each person who watches this video finds an individual message that touches them on many different levels, bringing them to tears. It's about the power of being YOUnique, staying true to yourself, adjusting expectations, being empowered, overcoming challenges, looking at obstacles as opportunities, transformation, inter-connectedness, authenticity, and that anything is possible if you follow your heart.
Ricochet has connected with millions of people all over the world as she delivers messages of inspiration with no words needed, in a language left unspoken. Please help her paw it forward & share this video with anyone who could use bit of encouragement and inspiration.
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