The Land Belongs to God

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Speech to the Union Theological Seminary, Columbia. The focus of my talk today will be Jesus' first sermon and the long background behind it that helps explain what he was talking about and what he sought to bring about. I've been associated with Harvard University's Peabody Museum for over thirty years in Babylonian economic archeology. And for more than twenty years I've headed a group out of Harvard, the International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economies (ISCANEE), writing a new economic history of the ancient Near East. The five colloquia volumes that we've published began in 1994. We decided we have to re-write the history to free it from the modern ideological preconceptions that have distorted much popular understanding. When I began to study Sumer and Babylonia in the 1980s, there ...

Trump Infrastructure Plan = Developer Welfare

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SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore. While protestors and police are clashing on the inaugural parade route in Washington, D.C., the newly sworn-in President of the United States is lunching with the establishment in Washington -- Some of the very people he called out in his inaugural address. Let's have a look. DONALD TRUMP: We are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people. CROWD: (applause) DONALD TRUMP: For too long a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth. SHARMINI PERIES: On to discuss ...