A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold Bible studies in their home…
The county employee notified the couple that the small Bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of County regulations, according to Broyles.
Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” — a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
When you say “number of ways that money is being drained out”, do you mean squandered or are we talking outright theft?
Do you know of anyone out there who is really focused on this issue…at the municipal level?
Keep digging, Bert. You are going to be amazed at what you find. And, I will bet you that there is a lot more that is not showing up in the CAFR. The number of ways that money is being drained out will take your breath away. The HUD and FHA budgets were a perfect example. Kelly O’Meara wrote a series on the courts in LA and all the games being played. Amazing. If the citizens dig in and treat the municipal budgets like their household budgets the revolution is possible.
I am currently reviewing the Statement of Net Assets (page 28) from the latest Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the state of California, year ending Jun 30th, 2008.
http://www.sco.ca.gov/ard_state_cafr.html
Total Current assets are listed as approximately $55B, with Total assets listed at approximately $182B (these figures include Government & Business-type activities).
Did CA spend the $55B in current assets over the course of the last year? Are there no more current assets we can leverage during this annual budget crunch?
When I last looked at this figure in 2000, Net current assets for California was approximately $100B, so CA hasn’t been burning more than $10B per year in current assets. Is California really in the dire straights that it’s been portrayed to be?
Of course, no one is mentioning the CAFR balance sheet when discussing the economic shortfalls.
just in case you want to know… for all the 23 years i have been one of Jehovah’s witnesses, we have met in private homes once a week … (we also have two other meetings per week at our Kingdom Halls) … this was being done on a worldwide basis, that is to say- all of Jehovah’s witnesses, worldwide participated in this arrangement- meeting in private homes…
However as of January of this year, this arrangement was, by bizarre coincidence or act of God (you choose), this arrangement was terminated. Now we only have 2 meetings per week and they are both at the Kingdom Halls… the meeting that was previously held in private homes has been combined with one of the other meetings.
also the public editions of Watchtower and Awake! magazines are now being published only once a month instead of two times per month. However the circulation has soared to 40 million per issue, far and away the most widely circulated magazines in the world, and this is all being done without advertisements.
Every single institution is under a dialectical attack, until the American people don’t know which end is up, and become immersed in a world view that Paulo Freire refers to as “Magical Thinking”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOmD_bFPa2c
How do we attain “Conscientization” for the masses and avoid this trap of “Semi-Intransitivity”?
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Freire described these key concepts as follows:
“Conscientization” is learning to accurately perceive social, political and economic contradiction and to take actions against the oppressive elements of reality. (“critical consciousness”).
Semi-Intransitivity: In this state, discernment is difficult, People confuse their perceptions of the object and challenges of the environment, and fall prey to magical explanation because they cannot apprehend true causality (“magical thinking”).