"... we are being censored ... it is a threat to everyone's free speech" --C.E. Carlson
"If you do not like ... embedded news reporting you will not like content censorship of the Internet." --C.E. Carlson
Friends,
Charles E. Carlson is a Protestant minister in Arizona. His so-called Straight Gate Ministry runs an energetic campaign opposing support for U.S. and Israeli aggression in the Middle East by right-wing evangelical fundamentalist churches.
The campaign includes large-scale e-mailing that reaches (I remember reading) over a million people a week. On several occasions the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) refused service, illegally according to Carlson. I believe he is correct in seeing this as an illegal threat to free speech.
We can help his campaign stay "on the air" by subscribing (at no cost) and letting him know if we get his mailings. I am doing that.
Here are parts of the most recent e-mail I got from him, which tells about the "censorship" problem It also has some information about his campaign to try to change the beliefs of Christian Zionists, who are a big chunk of the Bush electorate.
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Subject: Report on Censorship on the Net, and Other Issues
From: Charles E. Carlson <ccarl@straitgateministry.org>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 18:11:14 -0700
To: <george.salzman@umb.edu>
Report on Censorship on the Net, and Other Issues
Charles E. Carlson
... we are being censored ... it is a threat to everyone's free speech.
We share this headache with you because it is vital to free speech. The censoring of mail is a vigilante practice encouraged by the largest backbone providers and which has little, if anything, to do with law. We now know for sure our domain @whtt.org is being censored by service providers. We are asking each why it is trashing or spam labeling our mail.
A controlled test produced non-receipt reports from 36 readers on our "Subscribe" only list. We can tell this sample represents a much larger number who have not yet answered our request. Several major service providers are clearly trashing or labeling our Pharisee Watch "spam" instead of delivering it to their paid customers. These include Earthlink.net, Bellsouth.com, Juno.com, Netzero.com, and about 20 others we are not yet sure of.
Mailing from this address goes only to contributors and customers so there can be no excuse for another business to censor We Hold These Truth's mail to you. We invite those who saw our "first time" test, but did not yet respond to do so now. Your freedom of speech is on the line.
We are preparing a letter to go to all the ISPs who are the subject of these complaints asking each one to tell us by what authority they have placed us in the "spammer" category, and we ask them to remove us from all blacklists. We suggest you also complain to Abuse@yourprovideraddress.something. If you do not like the result of embedded news reporting you will not like content censorship of the Internet.
This letter will be again sent to you twice, once over our control network, where you should get it for sure. The second send will be marked "control" and if you do not get both your mail is being tampered with. Answers are useful ... your surname or address will not be disclosed without your permission.
It is most encouraging to see one of our older stories republished in a news journal or magazine ... Judaized-Christianity long ago abandoned the path to the Strait Gate in favor of a more comfortable, less responsible "end times" fantasy that requires war as the glue for its thesis.
One of our pivotal articles, The Source of the Problem in the Mid East - Part II, Why Judeo-Christians Support War, is freshly published in Dublin, Ireland's, The Handstand Magazine, which calls itself "The anarchic online journal for authors of political enquiry, poetry, philosophy and art." It has focused its May issue on the Palestinian problem.
"Anarchism" means something that is out of place where you find it. Handstand is artsy, sometimes irreverent, and very emotional, and while few would agree with its every story, I love this issue. Admittedly part of my reason it is that it likes what we say. The Handstand published "The Source of the Problem in the Mid East" in a section it calls "Word of God." I suggest that you go to The Handstand and read it there after you finish this letter.
Also found under Word of God is "Red Easter" by Israel Shamir, the remarkable Israeli, former Russian-born Jew ... now a follower of Christ. It's about his former USSR and his adopted Israel. Author Shamir closes "Red Easter" with these words of truth:
"The divine spark in Man's soul is not easy to extinguish, the Spirit will win as sure as Christ is Risen." Note Shamir capitalizes "Spirit" for a very good reason.
Please also read the touching lead story "When is Our Mother Coming Back?", a plea of Philistine [Carlson prefers the term Philistine to Palestinian - G.S.] children whose parents have both been arrested. This is the kind of story that could have been written by publicists, especially publicists in our own USA like Karl Rove and Bill Kristol. We live in an era of tarnished reporting where our everyday news is filtered through "imbedded reporters" who are not allowed to report, and garnished with "photo-ops" of events that almost exist.
But we need not doubt the truth of "When is Our Mother Coming Back?" In the land of the Philistines, the people with walls around their non-country, it is all too true. There are thousands of parentless children whose fathers cannot come back ... ever.
Worth Reading:
The Handstand Magazine http://thehandstand.org
The Crucifixion of the Palestinian People, part 2, Generation of Warriors (Carlson)
http://www.whtt.org/whtt.shtml?articles/Suicide2po
st.htm
We Hold These Truths
Strait Gate Ministries (www.whtt.org)
P.O. Box 14491
Scottsdale, AZ 85267
480 947 3329
Not a regular on our list? It is free at: http://www.Straitgateministry.org
To be DELETED from future mailings please respond with, remove. (It only works if you write it in the Subject line)
