Episcopal Church Real Estate Mammon and Occupy Wall Street

To the surprise of many, the Episcopal diocese of New York owns a lot of real estate going back to land grants given by the Stuarts more than 300 years ago. Since then its property portfolio has grown fatted like the biblical calf.

During the two months Occupy Wall Street squatted at Liberty or Zucotti Park within a stone's throw from Trinity Church on Wall Street, the Episcopal church allowed occupiers bathroom privileges and bestowed upon them the mansuetude of its Christian calling.

Once OWS was chased out of Zuccotti park by Herr Bloomberg's storm troopers in November 2011, occupiers have been looking for a spot to regroup, gird battle scarred wounds from New York police, and a piece of land to carry out its campaign to stigmatise and bring the one percent of the US population who feast royally on the body of the 99 percent. In plain English, make the rich and the superrich who own in wealth as much as 140 million Americans pay their fair share and end feeding off the middle and working classes and the poor.

OWS found such a haven at Duarte Park on the edge of sprawling Chinatown and the rim of the posh Tribeca, on the junction of Canal Street and the Avenue of the Americas, also known as Sixth Avenue. The land is owned by the Episcopal diocese of New York; it is prettified with shrubbery and some benches. To OWS petition to use this minuscule pinch of land of one of New York City's largest landowners, the Church came down on the side of Mammon and refused permission that was backed up by New York's police ever itching to crack OWS heads.

Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as other bishops and Episcopal clergy sided with OWS, but the Church firmly held to its firm refusal. And thus, opened marches, civil disobedience, and unwanted publicity on the Church's vast real estate holdings in New York City.

On one hand, had the Church authorities negotiated with OWS on the dos and don'ts if it allowed protesters to squat at Duarte Square, confrontation and bad publicity could have been avoided. On the other, for the Church thinking in dollars and cents and not Christian charity and as Christmas tide approaches in the message of its founder Jesus Christ, it put out a sign 'No room at the inn'. More practically speaking, such things as lawsuits, assurance, legal responsibilities and the like do come into play, yet good lawyers on both sides could have come to a reasonable understanding. The Episcopal diocese thought otherwise, placing its chips on the side of the true string pullers and power elite of New York--the real estate mafia and the banks who got away with plummeting the world in 2008 in a global recession that has not ended yet.

OWS does recognise that Duarte Park could never replicate Zuccotti Park but at least it would have a presence and a visibility the plutocracy and Herr Bloomberg and his storm troopers headed by Raymond Kelly want to deny it. The powers that be think 'out of sight, out of mind' would do quick work of OWS. How wrong they are!

As for the Episcopal church, money means more than the Christian message of charity. How easily is it for these good, fat cat clergy to forget: 'though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal...and without

charity I am nothing'. To OWS, at Christmas time, the Church has answered resoundingly with a 'bah, humbug!'

Customer service

Ah, customer service. It is a service to cater to customers, seemingly.

The plain two cents truth of the matter is that the service you pay for buys you cold comfort no matter how good and loyal customer you are.

The companies do not care, simply put. Complain, threaten, gather steam in stress and headaches, the service you get on the other end of the telephone is: suck up and get over it. Read: the companies that sop up your money, fees & the like, do give a bloody damn!

The push a pie in the face attitude of poor service comes down to the companies you rely on for service do not care one whit whether you like it or lump it.

And recourse is limited, so they think. You need us more than we need you, they say with insouciance. Is that true? Our diminishing buying power translates into a slimmer bottom line, higher bonuses of senior manager notwithstanding.

Well, tickle me Elmo! If you're not satisfied with the service you're getting...you've a choice. And if you can live without it, simply cancel your subscription or put your money on another horse.

In a society which relies heavily on the consumer, the consumer is king. It's is high time for customers to form a 'union' of their own and vote with feet and purses. If that doesn't improve service, well, the company is the loser and down the tube will it go.

More on Zionist fundamentalism

Egypt's Salifists have nothing over Jewish fundamentalists living illegally on occupied Palestinian West Bank in trashing a religion they hate. In Egypt, the Copts are the target; in occupied Palestine, its the Arabs Muslims or Christians.

Lately the Jewish extremists trashed and defaced a mosque in Ramallah. 'Bibi' Netenyahu's government could only come up with 'crazy' to explain what had happened.

The explanation is not good enough: it is owing to the Zionist state core beliefs that foster and encourage Jewish extremism in the hopes of driving Arabs off their land so that a 'greater Isreal' will come into being from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. No rocket science here.

Like it or not, Zionism takes a leaf out imperialist expansion of the 19 century; it is root and branch founded in racialism which the Jews found themselves victims in Hitler's plans of 'lebensraum'. Today, Israel is carrying out its own 'lebensraum' [living space], to clear occupied Palestine of its inhabitants for Jewish settlement.

There is an element of truth in equating Zionism with racism. Netenyahu & co. have much to answer for. Ultimately the spread of Zionist fundamentalism is eroding the very foundations of Zionism in favour of a theocracy based more on politics than religion.

No, the defacing of the mosque in Ramallah is not 'crazy', it is part and parcel of Zionism itself.

One only has to think of the Brooklyn born Baruch Goldstein who with his Uzi to kill and wound the faithful inside the Ibrahim Mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994.

Goldstein was a follower of Brooklyn born Meir Kahane who elaborated a philosophy which can only best be described as a page out of Nazi ideology. That poison has infected Zionist fundamentalism...how could it not, the more especially since its wood is cut from the same tree.

Almost 50 percent of Americans are poor or low income

Three cheers for the much abused 'Occupy Wall Street' movement that shone light on the growing inequality in the US.

And now, the latest US Census data not only confirm that assertion but indicate that soon more than half the US population will fall into poverty or diminish income brackets which mean the same thing.

Listening to the dim and delusional Republican candidates jostling for the nod to the Elephant's party's nomination for president in 2012, the poor only have themselves to blame.

Listen to Newt: abolish child labour laws; let the young learn what it means to work! as he feeds high on the hog on lavish government handouts and falls all over himself to please his much young, third wife in bathing in holy water and sucking up to the reactionary Catholic hierarchy.

And then there's Mitt who has experience in running a company: go tell that to the Marines. You bought and sold companies and whistled all the way to the bank with millions whilst you destroyed companies and threw thousands out of work with little to fall back on.

The US is watching the last gasp of the baby boomers who with age have turned to religion and hold tenaciously to privileges they're unwilling to pass on to the next generations. Children of parents who suffered through the Great Depression, they, too, are victims to the balm of the one percent or one tenth of one percent who own a good 40 percent of the country's gross domestic product. And they willing become the plutocrats' cat's paw as they are assailed by an economy that takes no victims unless they are from the ruling class.

Yes. Virginia there is a Santa Claus for the rich but not the poor.

Israel cracks down on the religious extremists settlers

The chickens have come home to roost in Israel: the Zionist state's policy to remove Palestinians from their own land in favour of illegal land grabs and settler colonies has backfired.

The extremist religious zealots have now attacked the Israeli army which has over 44 years of occupation of the West Bank has done everything to come to their aid and comfort.

Right wing Likud head 'Bibi' Netenyahu has to find it galling to his vision of an Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River that he is viewed by Jewish terrorists who dare attack the iron fist of the Zionist state--the 'Tsahal'.

Now Netenyahu & co. have decreed that the same laws that apply to Palestinians will and shall apply to Jewish extremists. The kid gloves are off, it seems.

Forced into this decision, Israel is weathering a further indication of the decline of the Zionism: is it a bellwether of the implosion of Israel?

US leaves Iraq militarily but leaves a light on

No matter how much spin Barack Obama puts on the 'stupid war' GW Bush & co. visited on Iraq, he cannot escape the fact that it was the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. In four words it best can be summed up: it was a colossal failure.

It weakened the US militarily, economically, and what's more corrupted its 'democratic' soul. Today's 'New York Times' tells a horror story of the degenerate and dehumanising behaviour of American troops [and hired mercenaries], based on documents which the departing US military threw away for dashing for an early exit.

Accounts of the no holds bared interrogations, torture, and violent death of innocent Iraqi civilians, in the name of a civilising mission which was anything but high minded or refined or morally elevating. They are testimony to rise of a mercenary state, a terrorist state that tarted up in the language of hype and spin and in this year end holiday season of wet dreams of sugar and spice and everything nice.

Obama's welcoming home the troops is an example of 'I am alright Jack!'. A cheer for a job well done and all that jazz.

Yet the US leaves behind an embassy fortified by the presence of 16.000 Hessians motived by private gain and fat salaries the impoverish US man on the street without work and a prayer of ever finding one has to sustain and support. And for what? To tart up a botched failure of a war and to protect access to Iraqi oil and maintain an imperial presence in the Arab world which will further bankrupt America.

Let's face it: America's imperial Rome aspirations and pretensions are unsustainable as the country teetered on the rim of depression. The US' need to dominate is not so surprising mimicking Hitler's policy of 'gleichanshaltung', a policy of imposing a tightly coordinated and no wiggle room totalitarian rule on all aspects of American society. Consider the trampling of the Bill of Rights [which today are 220 years old!], the enacting of the Bourbon kings' 'lettres de cachet' whereby any American can be thrown into the slammer for good and with the key to his cell thrown into the drink.

Such are the dire consequences of the demands of US corporatism!

Lee Kwan Yew's bilingualism journey

Launched at the end of November 2012, the aging and ailing power behind the throne of Singapore Lee Kwan Yew's latest musing has appeared in Chinese and English: 'My lifelong challenge Singapore's bilingual journey'.

On one hand raised in a household where English and Malay were spoken, English educated Lee struggled as head of the People's Action Party to learn Chinese--a dialect Hokkien and Mandarin. For him, learning them as an adult, no matter how fluent he became, psychologically it challenged a man of strong ego like him that he never was complete master of his Han ancestors' languages.

On the other hand, in 2009, he openly admitted that he was wrong to impose mastery of English as a common language for the plain and simple truth the Chinese young had become alienated from their language. Before imposing English as a common language which eminently made good common sense since not all Singaporeans are of Chinese origin. To create a new nation and a national identity, the PAP had to consider the Malays and Tamil speaking Indians who also are Singaporeans.

Lee's apology shrouds even more the hidden history of early Singapore. One to break the hold of the Chinese left wing and cultural nationalists, he suppressed the use of dialects in favour of Mandarin as a second language for Chinese. By doing this, he broke with his allies in his own party and adopted the recommendations of the British colonial authorities faced with a growing militancy among the Chinese educated who had funded and supported the Chinese language Nanyang University which Lee as prime minister emasculated and turned it into another university following the paradigm of bilingualism.

Now Singapore is beset by a falling birthrate among its own, reliance on infusions of Chinese from Communist China is a major source of keeping the dominance of the Chinese in Singapore. From here to there, it is not surprising to hear Lee crow eloquent about bilingualism and embrace of Mandarin. It has to be a crushing blow to his ego that as his 10 decade of life looms large, he has to made a volte face on Mandarin and encouraging a better Chinese educated Singapore--a goal he forcefully fought against to attain and maintain PAP dominance of Singapore's power elite.