Witness

Taking notes is very important when 90% of what your teacher says in lecture is going to be your test. So naturally, it would be during the lecture that my pencil tip would break. There I was, frantically digging through my backpack trying to find a pencil that still had a point, and after about 30 seconds of digging in the murky abyss that is my backpack, I found IT. Of all the pencils to still be intact, it would be this one. It’s a GARISH green and yellow, with some red, and it’s at LEAST 4 years old, and it looks every second of it. That was bad enough, but the REALLY bad part was what is said. :points down:

<3 JESUS LOVES YOU!! <3

I mean COME ON. My initial thought was to keep digging, but I knew there weren’t any other pencils in my backpack. So I ignored it as best I could, and went back to writing my notes, hoping my classmates wouldn’t notice – as I did NOT want to have to defend my use of a pencil like that.

After about 30 seconds I started to feel kinda silly. I mean really, what was so bad about it? sure it may not look great, but I’ve seen worse. As I sat there, I started to feel convicted about my reaction – that I was ashamed to be holding a pencil that said “Jesus loves you.” I couldn’t help but think of what Jesus said, that “he who denies me before men, I will deny before my father in heaven.” Maybe I wasn’t explicitly denying that I was a Christian, but it was definitely a bad sign that I was reluctant to hold a pencil of all things.

I’ve always viewed “Fads” and “buzz words” of the Christian community as something to ignore – I’ve never wanted to be one of those Christians who go up to random people and say “HAVE YOU GOT JESUS???” and I’ve always viewed stuff like the WWJD bracelets or the pencils or stickers that say “Jesus loves you” as over the top and unnecessary. Maybe my reaction wasn’t so bad – but after thinking about it, my refusal to use items like that is a denial of Christ. I don’t have to be over the top, but I do think that there should be SOMETHING that says, “Hey, I know a God who loves you and died on the cross for your sins” and it doesn’t have to be a pencil – it could be a crucifix, a ring, a bracelet, maybe a Tshirt if you’re feeling bold enough. But I feel convicted that there should be something that proclaims my savior. I think I’ll get a Crucifix personally - but for now, I have my favorite pencil.

Motivation

I wrote this earlier in the year, before Saddam’s execution, but I only made my blog 3 days ago. so this might be a little late but hopefully it’s worth reading…

“I recently saw an article titled “Saddam Sentenced To Death.” While the thought of the man being executed was not pleasant, It was certainly what justice demanded. But as I was reading the article, I ran across this:“Before the session began, one of Saddam’s lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the trial a travesty.” Hold on. A former Attorney General defending Saddam Hussein? The job of  a US Attorney General is to prosecute crime. And here was a former Attorney General defending someone as brutal and obviously guilty as Saddam Hussein. What was he thinking? So I looked him up, and found a couple of interesting facts about him. First of all, he is a hypocrite.

This is from  http://www.slate.com/id/2131405 “Clark used to be Lyndon Johnson’s attorney general and in that capacity tried to send Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, and others to jail for their advocacy of resistance to the war in Vietnam.”

He was later criticized for those actions, and all the suspects were exonerated. However, after he stepped down from his post, he became a strong antiwar figure, even going so far as to visit North Vietnam. And what’s more, he is remembered almost as fondly as they remember ”Hanoi” Jane Fonda. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin, a former Colonel in the NVA, said “Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.”

Keep in mind that the US never lost a battle in Vietnam . In every major engagement, we routed the enemy. True, we lost men to ambushes and booby traps, but the NVA lost far more men than the US did. This is from Harry G. Summers, The Vietnam War Almanac. Novato CA : Presidio Press, 1985.
US KIA, died of wounds, died of other causes, missing and declared dead - 57,690.
South Vietnamese military killed - 243,748.
The Vietnam People’s Army and NLF (combined) - 666,000.
In the end, the American peace movement was responsible for the US pullout of Vietnam . The American peace movement that Marshall supported so strongly. So not only was this man a hypocrite, he was also a traitor. I do not understand why they (he and Fonda) were not charged with treason, especially since Treason is, as the  US constitution defines it, Treason against the United States “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” I would say that both he and Jane Fonda fall under the category of, “adhering to their (the USA ) enemies” and “giving them aid and comfort”. The case could easily be made that at the very least they were providing “comfort” if not outright aid.As if there wasn’t already enough damning evidence against the man, this is a partial list of the people he has defended in court;
Nazi concentration camp commandant Karl Linnas
Nazi War criminal Jack Reimer, charged in the killings of Jews in Warsaw.
Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a leader in the Rwandan genocide. (estimated  800,000 to 1,071,000 people murdered)
PLO leaders in a lawsuit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer. This was the incident where, “On the afternoon of October 8, 1985, four Palestinian militants, who had hijacked the ship, shot Leon Klinghoffer in the forehead and chest while he was sitting in his wheelchair. He was 69 years old. The militants then forced the ship’s barber and a waiter to throw his lifeless body and his wheelchair overboard.”
Camilo Mejia, a US soldier who deserted his post in March 2004 in protest against the US war against Iraq . (In case anyone is wondering what’s so bad about that, in the Civil war you were executed by a firing squad for desertion.)
Radovan Karadžić, accused Yugoslav war criminal.
Slobodan Milošević, former president of Yugoslavia , accused war criminal
Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq and convicted war criminal
Lori Berenson, currently serving a 20 year sentence in Peru for plotting with militants to kidnap members of the Peruvian congress.

He offered himself as pro bono (free) legal counsel in a substantial number of his cases.  My question is, why?  Why continuously defend people like these? and why do it for free?  At least, in most cases, the defense lawyer is motivated by the need to earn a living. Or in the rare case, a firm belief in the criminal justice system’s due process. But Marshall is doing it for free. Again, why?  Why defend people who are guilty as sin, have committed unspeakable crimes, and are unrepentant to boot?  

Beta Testing Until Further Notice!

Hey there! you are looking at a blog with NO real information on it yet. I’m still fooling around with settings and such, and as I am fascinated by the sheer number of options, it will be some time before I start posting. Check back in a couple days. Who knows, I might not waste all of my time and there could be something worthwhile to read!