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Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna is now moderator for TheRationale.com. It's mission is to sort out the changes in the "evolution" of religion for the sake of the common good which has lately been subject to the "greatest good for the greatest number" which means that number could be only a few out of a million. The primary objective is to prompt the biblical saying - "do unto others as you would have them do to you" to touch the workday where so many find it difficult to connect their spirtuality with their work. Hopefully a new "Solidarity" of self, work and society can be initiated. All former posts by the past moderator will be kept but are not necessarily the view of Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna
Many people who live with complicity in the destruction of other human beings " do not know it and do not want to know it." - James Baldwin

As we previously noted, we concluded that labor and workers are the stepchildren of philosophy and religion. Christians and people of good will have been wearing blinders now for years relating to Free Trade and Globalization. There is a line of communication of the educated ruling the process. The gap between the rich and the poor is not only an economic one. One percent of the nation richest households has 40 percent of the country's wealth and the language of the educated and the communicated messages by the media lock out the voice of the working poor class. It took Hurrican Katrina to expose and exploited underclass in the USA living in a silent depression. It took a radical storm to reveal the realities of the streets. However after the storm passed not much changed. As Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement in Poland who rose from the ranks of labor to the highest position in his nation, says - I am only a consumer and I know very little about business and economics, but I do know that something is very wrong when 10 percent of the population controls 100 percent of the wealth. And Aristotle said making money on mone is unnatural. We know how Jesus reacted to the money changers in the temple too.

Yet the Christian community and people of good will hide from these facts. James Baldwin once wrote, that many people who live with the complicity in the destruction ot other human beings "do not know it and do not want to know it.

Since 1973, the yearly wages of those without a high school degree have declined 23.3 and in the poverty stricken areas of cities, about 50 percent of the young can not find jobs. High school graduate wages are down 17 percent. As we reported before government policies played a large role in the most massive dislocation of jobs in U.S. history. It was the US Government that sponsored and funded the moving of factories outside the USA.


Tthe mass media fails to cover the inequities that mean great profits for some and great misery for many others. Mainstream media hide how investors and faceless corporations keep feeding their bottom lines at the expense of a vast working poor class and millions of other missing in action from any kind of real reporting of the situation. The unemployment rate reporting is a sham compared to the past.

The worst part related to this commentary is the fact it could be dated 1988. 1998 or 2008. The years pass by but the degradation remains the same snaking its way into more and more lives .

James Baldwin, added to the above refrain " But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.
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Free Trade is actually abusive to labor and workers. Free Trade is not really trade either. It was fashioned by the U.S. Government and Big Business. As we reported before the U.S. Government triggered it. The U.S. sponsored the moving of factories outside the USA starting in 1953. It was announced as a temporary measure to help out the Central American and Mexican economies while providing cheaper goods for U.S. consumers. The program never ended and it evolved into the maquiladora factory system.

By the 1980s, hundreds of factories were moved to Mexico alone. President Reagan and the elder President Bush acted as the set up men for the process. President Clinton followed and put the process at warp speed. The free-trade zones, were promoted by the Reagan and Bush administration and financed to a great extent by U.S. tax dollars. It proved to be a bonanza for U.S. companies , but the human toll was and is unconscionable.

The maquiladora factory program evolved to a point where a company did not even have to move their production to Mexico. Companies could just close down their production in the USA and fire all their workers and under the maquiladora program, they could contract the entire operation for a cost that included everything - building, workers and machinery.

The President of Fruit of the Loom after he closed his last factory in the USA, said he had no choice. He said there was no way he could affort paying workers just $9 an hour and survive. Consumers in the USA put on blinders about the unconsionable assault of human dignity in the workday. The U.S. companies that benefit from the near-enslavement of their workers, pretend not to know about the abuses in the factories and many hide behind the contract operations of third party independent companies as noted above where they wipe their hands like Pilate did with Jesus.

Many Christians in the USA looked the other way too with many being investors in the process. Aristotle said making money on money is unnatural. Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple. Christians and people supposedly of good will, look the other way as they shop and invest in a war on workers everywhere.

Because so many of the workers are young, the scene outside the factories resemble a schoolyard. Some of the workers are actually driven to the plants in traditional yellow buses. Attempts to form a union is futile and in some country deadly. Senatator McClain is going to visit Columbia where hundreds have been killed trying to unionized. Columbia holds the record for the most being killed trying to form unions.

John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man , tells about the many deals forced on other nations by the U.S. Government. It is all about making money on money with the unconsionable use of cheap labor down to the lowest levels of wage slaves and children.

Charles Kernaghen, who participated in human rights work in Central America during the Reagan years reports how the maquiladora sysem was developed, detailing how the Reagan-Bush administration had channeled over a billion dollars through the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ) to Central America and the Carribean basin to set up industrial parks designed to subsidize and facilitate the movement of US manufactures away from the US workers to the phenomenal cheap, union-free labor pool o the third world. His independent reporting confirms what John Perkins said in his book years later.
( (The Catholic Worker March/April 1993 edition) , ( John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was first published in 2004

In 1995, after President Clinton led the way in getting both NAFTA and GATT trade agreements passed, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation made available a hundred million dollars of financial insurance and over five million dollars in loans to U.S. businesses in the maquiladora system in Haiti alone. Exploitation of workers became an economic disease across the globe

About 500,000 US apparel workers lost their jobs with 99,000 cut soon after NAFTA was passed. 70 percent of the $178 billion worth of clothing sold in the U.S. in 1995 alone was produced outside the USA.

American shoppers shop their way out of their jobs at places like Wal-Mart. The average wage of a German apparel worker was $16 an hour: for Italian workers, it was $12 and hour. U.S. workers were making only $9 an hour. Compare this to sthe maquiladora workers who routinely work over 12 hours a day with no change in pay rate at wages ranging from 69 cents an hour in Guatemala to 30 cents and hour in Haiti.

The National Labor Commitee, a tiny New York based labor and human rights group has amassed loads of documentary evidence on the maquiladora system. It shows a massive history of abuse, legal and illegal. The investigations and interviews are conducted secretly since workers risk being beated and/or fired and/or blacklisted. Most of the blacklists are computerized and apply on a country-wide basis. In Honduras, child labor seesms widespread with the legal age lowered to 14 . However, there are reports of 12 year old laborers everywhere.

And this is only one industry. How can any Christian or others of good will let this happen and let it continue. We live in a brutalize world with different kinds of wars. The main war of our times is the war with ourselves. And directly in the USA, the immigrant laborers come and work at less than minimum wages while everyone looks the other way. More than 4,000 fomer U.S. factories are in Mexico and this did not stop the massive migration of workers. Someone should tell President Bush that there are jobs in Mexco that Mexican workers will not take. God help us now as we watch Tiger Woods and Lebron James wear the NIKE emblem in turn for millions of dollars in payments. The NIKE emblem is not a symbol of modern slavery.








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By Ray Tapajna, Tapart News and Art that Talks Editor and Artist

What would Jesus do about usury interest rates?

For years now, American people have endured high interest on their debts. In the 1990s, a report said that 47 percent of small business people maxed out their credit cards. And it is impossible to stay in business if you have to pay off high interest rates. A small business person can end up paying three times the amount of the loans and still have the principle amount left. In 1997, while President Clinton proclaimed a statistical prosperity, business failures surged 16 percent with a total of 83,384 businesses failing. Also 72,000 family farms disappeared between 1993 and 1999. Clearly, Clinton led Free Trade did not deliver prosperity to U.S. farmers. In addition, the newspaper headlines reported record breaking foreclosures. We provide you this background to show that the President Bush era was not the beginning of all the downturn although politicians and the media try to make it look that way.

Usury interest rates have been around a long time. President Bush says Jesus was his favorite philosopher but he certainly does not act out his beliefs in office. The only time Jesus seemed to have lost his quiet temperament is when he chased the money changers out of the temple. He was not silent as many were victimized with heavy financial burdens.
Shockingly, Christians leaders are silent and passive about the millions losing everything due to usury interest rates. Even those who have lost everything seem to have accepted their lot as something normal. Free Trade and Globalization has fostered a new wage slave trade and subsequently a permanent indentured servant class. Millions have lost their jobs during the most savage dislocation of workers in U.S. history with many losing everything in the process. Reportedly, of all those over 55 years of age who lost their jobs, one third never found another one. Imagine what this does to a family. At 55, the children are getting married or are in college. The head of the house had to find ways to survive and unfortunately did not expect that the foundation of what they knew all their lives was torn away from them. They were surprised by events and the many changes.

Most likely they cashed in their life insurance policies first and then they start charging more on credit cards to survive. It took time for the realization of their plight to sink in. They thought they could just find another job of equal value. The interest rates on their credit cards went over 18 percent. After missing a payment or two, the rate shot up to 24 percent and as bankruptcy loomed, the interest rates radically up to 34 percent predicting the doom of bankruptcy. The bankruptcy rate has broken records for years now. If Jesus was told he had to pay 18 percent interest or more, he may have taken a whip of cords to show his disapproval.

The Congress blamed consumerism with people wanting to buy too much and put a restriction on bankruptcy. People going bankrupt now have to take two courses before and after going bankrupt. Imagine someone who enjoyed a successful business for many years, subject to these assumptions by their government. What would Jesus do during an bankruptcy hearing of one of his apostles having to declare bankruptcy because they could not compete in their fishing business. Free Trade has stolen many businesses away forever.

Today many say it is the buyer's fault for buying a home above their ability to pay - including the high interest rates. These buyers should have anticipated the bubble in the housing market. Alan Greenspan, the head of the Federal Reserve, liked the bubble. He thought the rising values in housing which allowed a vast home equity loan market was a good financial product. However, it turned out to be funny money as other money products are today.
We call this Financialism. See Financialism and the oil money standard running on empty. The U.S. economy is now based on money as the major product instead of actual products made or farmed in the USA. Many of these money products can only survive on debts. Today this funny money market is collasping with many losing their homes. In Cleveland more than a 100 homes have been put on fire by arsons. The American Dream is literally Burning.

"Nice guys" with Christian manners in the media and politics wear blinders and hide from it all. Many promote this funny money climate.

However, in places like Italy, The Italian Anti-Usury Consultancy offers guarantees to banks or technical assistance to free possible victims of being charged excessive interest rates. Pope Benedict says it is a deplorable social plaque. In 1999, Pope John Paul called usury interest rates a serious social evil. In 1997, Bishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith said it was time to publish a new encyclical on the subject of usury and the use of money in general. He also related this to the problem of debts among nations which find themselves unable to pay off the international loans. According to John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, the USA money games are set in place in order to control other nations flow of money.

Throughout history, even before the birth of Christ, usury has been denounced. Aristotle called the birth of money from money " unnatural". Today the Federal Reserve prints paper with numerical images and calls it money. The only standard applied today is a value based on speculation which is led by oil in the global economy. After that the debt game starts with values based on who owes what to whom.

Some of the founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson called banks "more dangerous than standing armies." Andrew Jackson told a group of bankers they were a "den of vipers and thieves."

And Jesus reacted this way -- " And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When he had made a whip of cords, He drove them from the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured outthe changers' of money and overturned the tables" ( John 2:14-15 ) - and President George Bush says Jesus is his favorite philosopher as he backs up the money changers of our times.

Sources : Tcrnews2 Com Usury and our own Bizarre Politics site at Transformer Money Toy Economy



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Panhandler hustler or Jesus (LINK)

June 4th 2008 18:27
In Cleveland Ohio, we have a problem with panhandlers in the downtown area. There are also many homeless in the small parks and even lying on the ground near the sidewalks. Dick Feagler, top editorial writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote once that the bums prosper like software salesmen from the Silicon Valley. With more than a million workers losing their jobs in the computer industry, some of the bums may be former salesmen from the Silicon Valley. However, the downtrodden seem to all look alike.

There was a time when the downtown area hosted many international corporate offices. A salesman could stay downtown for days just calling on all the accounts. Even during those days, we had many panhandlers and homeless. It was not like it is today, but they were in ample supply back then too. I spent many of days doing business downtown and the sidewalks were filled with people. The panhandlers would stand near the buildings and so I tried to walk in the curb area to avoid their pursuit. For some reason, many would cut through the crowd to get to me. I wondered why but my wife says I have that kind of face. I would give a dollar to almost all who would approach me because I never knew who really needed help and who did not.

More recently, my wife and I went downtown on a Sunday for dinner. We could not find parking near the restaurant and so we parked blocks away. The homeless were everywhere but none were pandhandling. We actually had to walk off the sidewalk to get past one or two lying on the walkway. The experience was overwhelming relating to the past when we thought things were bad then. However compared to today, the problem is massive.

Back then, after going to noon mass one day with a friend at the downtown cathedral, a pandhandler asked us for some money for food. I was ready to give him my normal dollar contribution but my friend who happened to be my boss was new at the game and insisted on taking the panhandler for a cup of soup in the church's cafeteria. Our new friend agreed and we took him into the cafeteria but soon we were surrounded by the workers there and we were quickly ushered out of the cafeteria. My boss was dismayed at this response at the main cathedral in he city. We took our new friend with us to find him help. We spent the next hour or so driving around seeking a place to leave him. We ended up a Stella Maris, an agency that helps the downtrodden. They knew our friend as a past client who went through rehab more than once. They took him in again while they smiled at us for our complete naivete about the situation, but thought we had at least gave it try. They told us our guest would have most likely thrown up the soup in the cafeteria if we were successful in getting the soup for him after he was drinking for some time.

Soon after this encounter , I experienced another situation that profoundly affected me forever. I was backing out of a parking lot on a very busy street downtown. I had to wait at the curb trying to break into the traffic with my window rolled down when I saw in the background a new friend coming down the side walk headed directly for me. I could not get out into the street in time and the panhandler leaned over and asked me for some money as our faces met each other at a very close range. My wallet was in my back pocket and I would have had to get out of the car to get to it for a usual contribution of a dollar. And so I just slowly pulled out into traffic and told him I would pray for him. He shouted back - That's right , you do the praying and I will do the walk . He kept repeating this in a loud voice as I drove away shouting the phrase over and over again - That's right, you do the praying and I will do the walk. As he faded away into the background his dirty gray sillhoutte slowly turned into a bright light color as the sun broke through the high office buildings. I suddenly realized how someone else did the walk for me. It was of course - Jesus!

I still do not know what to do or how to discern a professional pandhandler from a person in real need. The homeless population keeps growing downtown while the crowds of people doing business has dwindled. The top newspaper writers write the same way and the politicians still talk about controlling the situation with little results. The flow of "clients" have new places to seek handouts. The flow of the general population around the old cathedral has diminished too. However, the new professional basketball arena and the new baseball stadium are now centrally located downtown. The new "cathedrals" are dedicated to professional sports and I surmise that many budget a dollar for contributions when they come downtown to attend the "sports liturgies" of our times. And they have to be careful they do not park far away from the sports facilities.

The question of what to do about the panhandlers and homeless remains. I do not think Jesus attends the sports events but under the circumstances, he may just do that hidded in a face of one of the "unnetted". And we really do not know who is doing the walk while we talk - do we? In the global economic arena, more are losing than winning. Work and labor remain to be the stepchildren of philosophy and religion.

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Free Trade is a savage response to Populism. In our recent The Rationale post, Global Corruption Spreads , we noted that 299 unionists were killed worldwide during the late 1990s with 160 of them being from Columbia. We thought this was bad until we found out more than 800 trade unionists have been killed in Columbia over the past six years, by goverment count, with hardly none of the murders solved.

Columbia is the major South American trading partner of the U.S. President Bush praises their leaders for this while Chavez of Venezuela is cast as an enemy. The Populist Morales of Bolivia drives forward for democratization and yet his he is presented as a leftist ready to take over Bolivia's vast natural gas reserve. The dominate pattern in both the U.S. and Latin America has been the resistance of the dominant white communities to sharing in the financing of public investments in the "human capital" (health and education) of the black and indigenous communities. In Bolivia, 55 percent of the population reflects a indigenous population and mixed race people account for another 30 percent. Bolivia's shift from military rule to democratic politics has gradually grown for the last 20 years - bringing empowerment to more an more people. It's democracy on the move. In Peru, Alejandro Toledo is that country's first indigeneous president. The dynamics of freer societies is alive but the U.S. tends to ignore these things while ignoring the murders of 800 trade unionists in Columbia. U.S leaders use the communist are coming refrain instead.

Columbia is the deadliest place in the world to be a labor organizer as President Bush praises President Alvaro drive towards Free Trade. A federal judge in Alabama ruled that a civil suit could go to trial against Drummond Co Inc, whose local president is alleged to have played a role in the killings of three mining union leaders in 2001. The suit says two union leaders were taken off a Drummond bus and shot to death by assassins hired by the company while a replacement union leader was also gunned down by paramilitaries.

Where is Philosophy and Religion in all of this. Why is labor and work the stepchildren of Philosophy an Religion? The Philosophy directories online will not even note this post on their sites as being related to Philosophy.

The Phillipines are also a bloody place for labor activists. The Philliphines is the second most lethal environment for union activists next to Columbia.

Marco Tulio Ramirez was the fifth Guatemalan labor leader murdered this year. The U.S. ignores this too in the passing of Free Trade agreements like CAFTA. Abuses are common across the Guatemala economy, especially in textile factories known as maquilas, where workers put in long hours for little pay. Activists say companies often close factories whe workers try to form unions. In January, Pegro Zamora, head of Guatemala's port workers union, was murdered in front of his two sons in the middle of contentious negotiations between the union and company bosses. Two leaders of the municipal vendors union were killed a month later.

Free Trade and Globalization play off the killings in a new war on labor and work. When will Philosophy and Religion counter this?

References include PBH Columbia, The Tyee, a feisty one online, Reuters and Economist View plus Tapart News and Art that Talks by Ray Tapajna See Tapsearch Com Globalization



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Franklin Roosevelt said - economic diseases are highly communicable. In the last post we told about the spread of global corruption.

The story continues from an article on the business pages of the Cleveland Plain Dealer May 27, 2008 :

Exec admits slush fund - Siemens AG accused of bribery for orders

(Before telling this story, lets put a personal touch to it. Are you saying to yourself right now, this is nothing new, it goes on all the time ? Where does the dark side of situation ethics start if not with you and me. Is it only something out there that is going on or is it closer to home? What is happening in your workday? Is Sunday church service just a hobby practiced on Sundays and curtailed for the duration of the week on Monday when work begins? ).........

Reinhard Siekaczek, a former manager at the ICN fixed-line telephone network division ( of Siemen ), is the first to go on trial over the company's corruption scandal that came to light last year.

Siekaczek, 57, is charged with 58 counts of breach of trust. Prosecutors allege that he set up a complex network fo shell corporations that he used to siphon off company money over several years. The money was allegedly was used as bribes to help secure contracts abroad by paying off would-be-suppliers, government officials and potential customers. ( Note the chain of all involved- not just one but a circle of contacts. ) Siekaczek acknowleged having set up the slush funds.

" The whole sectoral management was naturally informed that this function was carried out by me," ( note the underlined comment - all of management knew what was going on. ) He said he used a system of money consultants ( note again the spread of the economic disease to other third parties. ) "I saw no other possibilties," he said. " I myself derived no benefits," he said. ( Note he did not mention the benefit of his survival in an economic jungle. )

Breach of trust carries a maximum possible sentence fo five years in prison. The trial is scheduled to last through July. Siemens has acknowledged dubious payments of up to $2 billion in the wider corruption case uncovered last year.

The company, which makes everything from wind turbines to trams, agreed in October to pay a $317 million fine to bring an end to some legal proceedings in Germany related to the scandal.

Reference: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nation and World, Business section, May 27, 2008 - newspaper


Special note: Siemens U.S. corporate offices are in New York City. They employ 70,000 with sales of 21,4 billion in the USA. Their total sales worldwide in 2006, was 107.4 billion dollars and employ 480,000 in 190 countries. ( Economic diseases travel far.)

( During the beginning of my sales career, I was told to put a bottle of good scotch whiskey in a shoe box and send it back to the purchasing agent while waiting for our appointment. I was told I would lose the account if I did not do it. I refused to do it and lost this major account but I knew that once I started the process, it would never end and it would be the birth of many economic sins. As President Roosevelt said, economic diseases are highly communicable. )

Anyone who has done business with others in the world , know that economic diseases are more universal in a global economic arena. What was once decentralized is now global in nature.
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Globalization makes corruption universal. What was once compartmentalized is now globalized. Philosophy and religion seems to be mute about the problem. Ethics in the business world is something strange in the class rooms of our universities. Labor and work continue to be the stepchildren of philosophy and religion.
Unspinning the News
Dark side of business corruption in Global economic arena


During the last few years, there were cases of corruption which gave the media enough scandal to write about for months. In the U.S., the Enron collapse and the subsequent collateral damage to Arthur Anderson, was the last corruption covered in any large fashion. In Europe, the plight of companies like Siemen and Volkswagen caught with top executives charged with bribery is ignored in the USA even though in the global economic arena all are affected. Bribery affects the poorest members of a community, damages the strength of supply chains and push investment into weak markets. The bribery charges against Siemen's and Volkswagen centered about the control of unions. In comparison, bribery in Europe is tame when it comes to what is happening in other places.

In the late 1990s, 299 trade unionists around the world were murdered for standing up for their rights. The U.S. closest trading partner in South America is Colombia. There 156 unionists were recorded as murdered alone. The call for more free trade goes on while these victims are ignored. In the USA, top corporations in the U.S. have other ways in destroying or preventing union representation too. Higher paid workers are now openly fired and cheaper workers are hired in their place. It is now part of the business and financial reporting of our times.

Here are some scandalous statistics about the edtical conduct in the business world.

46 percent fo top managers believe rule bending goes on in their business, while 93 percent believe that their business should comply with regulations.

France, Germany and the UK have had at least 15 major corruption scandals in the last year. ( 2006).

Up to 40 percent of businesses have lost out on new contracts because of rivals paying bribes.

76 percent of companies in Hong Kong believe they have lost business due to bribery.
-- -- --

Globalization breeds corruption because what was once decentralized is now centralized with universal corruption surfacing everywhere. In the process, the weaker or more honest channels are crushed. A culture of dishonesty flourishes in the global economic arena where survival of the fittest reigns. Who will tell our children why we let Globalization rob so many of their human dignity in the work place and the corporate board room.
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U.S. Labor standards degraded (LINK)

May 24th 2008 01:07
Workers Locked out of their jobs- Bearing their Cross - by Ray Tapajna

Workers Locked out of their jobs bearing their cross
Workers Dignity attacked by U.S. elite


This Art-that-Talks artwork by Ray Tapajna tells the story of our times. It is symbolic of all the millions who have lost their jobs due to so called Free Trade. Free Trade is not really trade. It is about moving production from place to place for the sake of cheaper labor. The main variable in this economic arena is the cost of labor. Workers are the main commoditiies being traded. They are put on a world trading block to compete with one another for the same jobs in a new kind of wage slave competition. A Congressman in Ohio, made a deal this way and this points to the core of the problem. We are being used in our quest for economic survival in more ways than one. The Congressman consented to voting for the CAFTA Free Trade agreement providing Cleveland would maintain their largest Federal Government agency in the city. ( The Federal Government is now the largest employer in Cleveland and 46 percent of union workers in the AFL-CIO are government workers which makes a farce out of unionism in general. It is also nonsensical when you consider private sector production workers pay the taxes to support the government workers. ) This made news. It showed the Congressman saving jobs for government workers while opening the way for more private sector production jobs being lost. Human Dignity in the work day is the victim with workers being used against one another without any voice in the process.

The artwork shows the steel workers who were locked out of their jobs for more than three years in Mansfield Ohio. Cheaper replacement workers were hired while company police enforced the lock out. Imagine the turmoil this caused in many families. This is only one example with it being repeated across the U.S. in similar situations. The above started during the Clinton years and the same company locked out workers again in the Bush years. This all comes after more than 700,000 workers lost their jobs related to the steel industry with the same happening in other industries too. More than 400,000 workers related to the auto industry lost their jobs too. Now states like Indiana pay Honda millions of dollars to build an assembly plant in their state - to create 5000 jobs while about 20,000 auto parts workers lost their jobs in the state during the same time. Other states have paid or are paying millions to foreign auto makers to build their assembly plants in the USA. About 300 million in support has been given to Toyota in Kentucky in recent years.

Today, the firing of higher paid workers and the hiring of replacement workers is out in the open. Circuit City did it publicly announcing they were firing about 8 percent of their work force to hire cheaper labor right here in the USA. Their stock value increased immediately. IBM announced it will cut up to 150,000 American workers and outsourced their jobs to cheaper labor markets like India. The stock market responded and IBM stock rose in value with the announcement. In the beginning of the computer era, IBM quietly layed off 10,000 highly trained workers to stock the need for computer expertise in corporations and this open the door for doing it the IBM way for many years. Then In the Clinton years, IBM layed off their first 150,000 employees.

This is the state of human dignity in the workday and no one seems to care !
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Father Jonathan Morris and suffering (LINK)

April 28th 2008 18:46
I just finished reading The Promise - God's purpose and plan when life hurts by Father Jonathan Morris. His father is my close friend. We have shared Jesus together for years.

At the same time, Reverend Father Joseph Schell S.J. died at the age of 93. Father Schell was my professor who taught me Logic and Metaphysics at John Carroll University. He was also my spiritual advisor for a time and a spiritual advisor for my daughter fourty years later. He was President of John Carroll University from 1967 to 1970 and seemed to be too gentle for the job. The testimonies of his saintly ways are flowing now after his death.

Back then I lived in two different worlds. I worked at several factories while attending college. I went from Father's Metaphysics class to spot welding transformer cases later in the day . The void between the factory floors and the college class rooms was vast and I never escaped it. This is why I pursue the study of dualism relating to labor and work even now and call labor and work the stepchildren of philosophy and religion.

Father Schell tended to many suffering calamities in their lives even after their graduation.
He made God real in large and small ways. He lived his life the same way.

Today, with he in me - more than any other teacher I ever had , I agree with Terry Pluto, a top sports writer at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who surrender all his contractions with the Lord as his father was dying with this prayer - OK God, get me through this. It took him a long time to pray that particular prayer but after reading Matthew 26:38 with Jesus saying - My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death, he prayed it and the Lord absorbed him in that prayer and got him through the heavy stuff. See The Rationale - Suffering - is live worth living

A young mother who is close to our family, weakened by years of chemotherapy, now likes to go and watch her daughter play soccer. She watches sitting in her parked car being too weak to watch any closer. It reminds me of Jesus living in the resurrection. After rising from the dead, he seemed to just want to spend time with his friends.

Another very close friend, who died from pancreatic cancer, left his hospital bed during the last stages of his disease to attend a funeral of a close business associate. It perhaps hasten his own death but no one could talk him out of doing it. I visited him in the hospital just a few days prior to that. I was wondering what I could do to help him and make him change his mind. After praying about it, I found myself in a usual debate we had about the importance of sports in our lives. I lived the resurrection with him during these moments and got him going on his favorite subject after making my usual comments about the movie the Field of Dream. Hopefully, he forgot about his condition for a time after our usual debate. Perhaps friendly irritation can be a healing agent too. At least, I hoped I armed him with his last journey in the world.

Another very close friend with whom we shared many years in the business years, walked with me a few months before his death and he was trying to confess to me things I would not accept as sins. His head was bald and scarred from a brain tumor operation. His confession was minor compared to what he was ready to give the Lord - his own personal cross.

Soon after both of these friends deaths, their wifes followed them quickly. I never knew what to say to them. The one wife told me a Jewish Rabbi gave her the best advice. He told her to wail and wail as much as she could for about six months and stop. This did heal for awhile but the pain of losing her husband proved to be too much and as the priest at the funeral said, she went to join her husband at home.

Now Father Jonathan Morris, a young priest, writes a book about suffering and offers not only a deeply spiritual answer but also a practical one to this most fundamental of human questions: Why do we suffer? I liked Father Morris's attempts at practical solutions. Too many of us hide in the spritual and neglect living in the resurrection just working with normal solutions while we let God do His thing.

Father Morris says the best thing we can do for the general community in an order of things is to surround us with tools to meet the challenges related to suffering and evil happenings . He says the best thing to do is to say nice things about others.

I was surprised when I was chosen my my sister in law and her family to lead the funeral services for my brother-in-law. I had the unique moment in time to pray over him for his salvation and did it. It was the last time I saw him alive. At the service I found myself deeply involved with acting as his defense attorney in front of the Lord. I also wanted to sell my brother-in-law's grandchildren that life is worth living as my Zorba the Greek brother-in-law did. What good is life, if you live it hidden in fear. He led me to be bold in my presentation. My boldness in front of the heavenly courts suprised even me.

( I wrote the healing prayer for my close friend that died from pancreatic cancer - perhaps you could end this post with it - See The Healing Prayer We suggest the reading of The Promise by Father Jonathan with this prayer fastened in your heart and soul.

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A Prayer for Healing - for Spiritual and
Physical Healing - from Psalm 23


The 23rd Psalm - The Lord is my Shepherd
Flood me with your Grace

Lord, I picture the lush green fields of the 23rd Psalm swaying in the gentle breeze caused by choirs of angels and saints praising our name. I am your Lamb and you are my Shepherd. I lie down in the field and face the heavens. I am wounded and tired from a long journey. I look to you for comfort and peace as promised in the 23 Psalm. I see you in the heavens as the Father and Fear You, but now You send your Spirit who mixes with Man. A cloud passes and a bright sun shines on me. It also glistens and bounces off every blade of grass around me. It touches very circumstance of my life. The bright light is the Spirit of the Father who comes into me like a knive of fire in Divine Surgery of both my body and soul. I ask for forgiveness for my sins. The darkness within me now vanishes and my sins are forgiven and vanish like smoke in the air. I ask for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and they flowed into me instantly or slowly as I yield to each of them. The Angels and Saints intercede in by behalf.

I now picture the quiet stream of gentle flowing water nearby. It go to it and drink from it and wash myself in it. It refreshes by whole being. The Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm comes over to me and shows me the source of the stream. The source flows from the open wound of the crucified Jesus. God as Man became a Lamb to be sacrificed for me. He took my place and there is no futher sacrifice for the Lamb completed God's plan. It is finished now. The Blood was shed and only the water flows now. I turn and see a red rose growing in the field. It is the Blood that now has become a rose. I pick the rose and breathe in its most beautiful aroma and give it to the Shepherd. There is nothing else that I can do of my own for the Shepherd. The Shepherd embraces me and holds me close. He annoints all my old wounds with oil and they too vanish. Now all my old scars of life are gone. I am fresh and new. I turn and see the Cross. I know now that I must take up my own Cross and follow Him. I try to carry it. I manage only a few steps. It is just too heavy for me. I look for the Shepherd for help but He has gone off somewhere. I run to find him and come around a mound and suddenly I am dazzeled by even greater lights than before. The lights are bursting out from the mouth of a cave. It is the place of the Ressurection itself. A man just like myself rose from the dead. I must enter into the cave myself. I go to the mouth of the cave and stand in a bursting shower of lights. I now know the Shepherd is also my God and my Redeemer from all the ages. He is the God of the Old Testament and the Son of God of the New.

All of a sudden the Shepherd is by my side again. He say - Be now in Joy and be healed. The Father needs no new sacrifice. He needs no untimely deaths. However, you must know that you are from another place and earth is not your everlasting home. Also know - that I am your Shepherd and will be with you all the days of your life. Goodness and Mercy shall follow you until you come home to the place I am preparing for you. You can live in the Resurrection while in the body and beyond as St Paul said - I do not know if I am in the body or outside the body but I do know God is in me now.

Come Lord Jesus Come. We pray with the angels and saints to Come! We pray with your Mother Mary who crushed the serpents' head when she said - YES! - Let it be. Come now Lord and heal us all. Come with the Second Touch too that the Bible tells us about. For where else can we go but to you alone. No matter what- I want you Jesus above anything else. Come in and reside in me. Amen

(Dedicated to the Wagar AC 10/30/1990 by Ray Tapajna )

The 23rd Psalm - A song

Antiphon 1
My shepherd is the Lord, nothing indeed shall I want.
Antiphon 2
His goodness shall follow me always to the end of my days.
Antiphon 3
The Lord is my shepherd, nothing shall I want:
he leads me by safe paths, nothing shall I fear.

The Lord is my shepherd;
there is nothing I shall want.
Fresh and green are the pastures
where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
to revive my drooping spirit.

He guides me along the right path:
he is true to his name.
If I should walk in the valley of darkness
no evil would I fear.
You are there with your crook and your staff;
with these you give me comfort.

You have prepared a banquet for me
in the sight of my foes.
My head you have anointed with oil,
my cup is overflowing.

Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me
all the days of my life.
In the Lord's own house shall I dwell
for ever and ever.

See Amplified version of the 23rd - adds more shades of meaning directly from Hebrew
Author of God's Psychiatry prescribes 3 deep readings per day for a mental and spiritual renewal or tune up.
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