Spinozoan Spirituality

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings." ~ Albert Einstein


The 17th century rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza is not usually regarded as a spiritual or religious thinker.  On the surface this fact is odd. Spinoza writes of "God" so frequently that the romantic poet Novalis dubbed him "that God intoxicated man." But Spinoza's God is not the divine lawgiver and potentate of traditional western theism. 


For Spinoza God is the infinite and eternal substance of which all finite things are but temporary expressions. His God is not person-like, not a law-giver nor a judge of human actions. Furthermore, his God did not create a world out of free will. For Spinoza the world is nothing more than the totality of all of God's necessary self-expressions. In fact, Spinoza goes so far as to identify God with nature itself - at least with nature understood as the active and creative power that is "reality as a whole", though not simply with the total collection of things in the world. Because of this, many have claimed that Spinoza's non-personal and absolutely non-supernatural God is really no God at all. This deity surely could never inspire us to dance, pray, love, or die for it.


And yet, there is much in Spinoza's writing to suggest that he is filled with a profound personal piety and deep spirituality toward his God. In part five his masterpiece the Ethics Spinoza argues that the ultimate fulfillment of human life is the love of God. This love fills the mind with peace, calm, and serenity. The greatest joy we can know comes from knowing God and loving God.


Commentators as diverse as the Catholic Father Copplestone and the atheist Steven Nadler have claimed that we can't take Spinoza's words too seriously here. All he really means, they argue, is that we should have an awe and appreciation of the rationality and order of nature. Spinoza, so they say, means by love "nothing more" than the joy that comes from understanding the natural world; he is not speaking about a personal relationship with a heavenly Father. 


They are right of course. Spinoza does think of loving God solely in terms of understanding and appreciating the workings of the natural world. He says as much, "He who clearly ... understands himself an his emotions loves God, and so much more in proportion as he more understands himself and his emotions." (E5P15) I must confess, however, that I fail to see why this disqualifies Spinoza's thought as spiritual.


It is certainly true that Spinoza's God is not the God of popular level Judaism and Christianity. It is also true, therefore, that Spinoza's understanding of "spirituality" cannot mean love for a person-like supernatural being who can love me back in the same fashion (indeed, Spinoza specifically says that God cannot love me in any human fashion (EVP18-P19)). But are we really going to insist that spirituality and even religion must be restricted to a relationship with a supernatural and person-like being? If so, then I fear we will have to qualify a great many Buddhists, Taoists, and even many Western mystics from our definition.


Spinoza is spiritual in the sense that Carl Sagan understood that term. In Sagan's words:

When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.

Albert Einstein expressed much the same sentiment when he claimed that: 

"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of  human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection."

This captures Spinoza's attitude perfectly. Awe, humility, reverence and deep appreciation. These are the only conceivable feelings in one who has grasped the order, unity, and sheer rationality of reality itself. Furthermore, when we understand that we are are one with reality, a finite and temporary expression of that infinite and eternal power and process, we cannot help but rejoice in that. If such emotions are not spiritual, if such attitudes are not religious, then I have no idea whatsoever what they are. 


Appreciation of reality as a whole, joy in understanding our place in and unity with it, humble love for the power and awesome order of it: this is the heart of Spinozoan Spirituality. But it is not the whole of it.


In his Theological-Political Treatise Spinoza carefully argues that the truths of traditional religions are not ontological or historical, but moral. Religion is true to the extent, and only to the extent, that it teaches justice and charity. A religion that encourages a society where all are treated fairly, where everyone has a decent standard of living, and every person shows compassion to those in need is a true religion. A religion that teaches and preaches the opposite of these is a false one. 


For traditional Judaism and Christianity this moral imperative derives from being children of God. We love each other as God loves us. Spinoza would not put it that way. For him justice and charity arises out of recognition of the deep unity and interconnection of all things as expressions of one and the same underlying infinite and eternal power. Furthermore, it is our powerful connection to one another, our being "like each other" that compels us to be good to one another. 


This connection with each other, this connection with reality, this moral imperative to care for one another and treat each other with justice, charity, and compassion is the expression of true religion in actions, just as awe, humility, reverence, and joy are the expressions of true religion regarding that infinite and eternal ground of being. In both these senses, Spinoza is a deeply spiritual and truly religious man.


In our time when the conventional forms of our religions no longer satisfy many, perhaps the spirituality of Spinoza can speak to us. The alternative to traditional Western spirituality and religion need not be the secular atheism of Camus and Sartre. Unlike such emotionally unfulfilling  existentialism, Spinoza's brand of naturalism has a great deal to offer us. 


Samuel Beckett would have us believe that we are waiting for a Godot who will never arrive, searching for a meaning that simply is not there. Baruch Spinoza claims, on the other hand, that Godot is not what we thought, and meaning is not where we thought it was. We don't need to accept the tedium and meaninglessness of godless and horrid existence. On the contrary, we need to reconsider what God, meaning, and existence are.

A Den of Thieves - The Real Meaning of Jesus in the Temple

In the schedule of Holy Week, Monday is the day that Jesus "Cleansed the Temple." For those who don't quite recall the details of that event, here is the incident as described by the earliest gospel Mark:

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers. (11: 15-17)

There is a long-standing, but misleading, tradition that sees Jesus as acting out of anger. On this view, he is angry that commerce is defiling the Holy Temple. Scholarship has largely discredited this common misreading of Jesus' action in the Temple. 

Rather than throwing a "temple tantrum," Jesus is acting out a deliberate demonstration against the temple and its authorities. The commerce performed by the merchants was necessary in order to keep up the sacrifices. You had to change impure Greek and Roman coinage for pure Temple coins. This was a legitimate and proper function for Temple sacrifice. The temple could not work without these merchants. 

In other words, by tossing over the tables of the money changers and prohibiting entrance to the temple (this would have had no real effect, given the temple's size. It is a symbolic protest), Jesus is symbolically destroying the Temple. His actions indicate that it's function is invalid. Jesus, acting in the name of the God of Israel, declares by his deeds that the temple and the authorities running it are null and void. They do not speak for God. They do not have legitmate status in the God of Israel's eyes.

But why would Jesus do this?

The Temple authorities were the native ruling elites who made a fortune by cooperating with Roman rule and power. As such, they profited by helping Rome exploit and demean the Jewish peasantry. In particular, Roman commericial agriculture robbed many Jewish peasants of their land, and pushed far too many people to the margins of society and beyond. Roman rule defied the Torah's notion of land ownership, and the distributive justice of the Jewish God. 

For many Jewish peasants, the Priests and the Temple, no longer represented the Jewish God of justice, but rather his opposite, the gentile overlords who harmed the great majority of Jewish Peasants.

So in the name of the Jewish God of liberty and justice, Jesus condemns the Temple and its leaderships. He declares that far from speaking for the God of Israel, they speak against him; as do their Roman masters.

The meaning of Jesus' Temple actions was not lost on the Temple leaders, nor on Pilate. They quickly arrested him and crucified him. They got the message and promptly tried to destroy the messenger.

It is clear to me that those of us who follow Jesus today must do as he did. We must stand against the power structures in our own society that, like the Roman Empire of old, exploit the masses of the population in order to benefit the wealth and power of a narrow few. 

For me that means we need to involve ourselves in Occupy Wall Street. This, in the United States today, is the true democratic movement (or at least has the potential to be) of our times. The 99% movement identifies the real problem, Plutocracy and Corporate power, calls it out, and seeks to find solutions to it. 

Let's do as Jesus did: let's toss the money lenders from the Temple and condemn the "den of thieves" for the crooks they are.

American Individualism: That Dangerous Delusion

I begin this post with two discussions. First a discussion between a group of mothers who don't vaccinate their children and a Public Health official (watch it from 45 seconds to 3:56) :



The assumption that these mother's make is that whether or not they choose to vaccinate their children is their decision alone. The possible health risks to unvaccinated, at risk groups are irrelevant - in their minds - to that decision. They either refuse to believe that there are such risks, or refuse to believe that they have a responsibility to take these risks into account. Thinking in terms of the individual apart from the community, these mothers insist that their responsibility is to themselves and their children alone; others are, presumably, responsible solely for themselves in the same manner.

The Public health official protests that when we affect the community, we cannot help but affect ourselves. If we introduce illness into our society, our own risk of illness increases as well. If we don't help take care of each other, we cannot even take care of ourselves.

The second discussion I heard today on NPR. The Supreme court is currently discussing the Constitutionality of "Obamacare." Specifically, the court is hearing arguments to rule on whether the individual mandate - which requires Americans to buy insurance or pay a fee - is permissible according to the Constitution. Whatever the fate of that particular position, some of the arguments against it put forward by the conservative Justices have a particular flavor. Listen to the following:

NPR: Health Care Mandate before Supreme Court

And this:

NPR: For and Against the Health Care Mandate

Just as the mothers did in the first clip, the Justices appeal to the individual first and foremost. The claim is that we cannot require this or that individual to "bear the costs" of other individuals, and that to do so eliminates (or at least greatly diminishes) their freedom of choice.

The opposition to these Justices argues in much the same vein as the Public Health Official in the Vaccine discussion did. Health care decisions never affect me solely as an individual, what happens to me directly affects what happens to others. If I don't get health insurance, and I am rushed to the ER for a heart attack, the hospital must treat me. When I can't pay, they must raise prices, insurance responds by raising premiums, and State Governments by raising taxes. To think of health insurance as nothing but an individual choice without any communal impact is not only naive, but entirely fails to consider the facts.

Behind the reaction of both the Justices and the mothers is the myth of the self-made individual. The myth holds, in spite of common sense, that whatever happens to me in life is the result primarily (perhaps even solely) of my own effort and achievement. If I get sick, that's my fault. If I'm not rich, I did not work hard enough. If I lose my home, can't afford chemotherapy, or find myself buried in debt, then I have no one to blame but me. Even worse, this myth seems clearly to advocate the position that the responsibility I have to others is negative; that is, I must not steal from them, murder them, or physically assault them, but I owe them nothing more than that.

The myth of the self-made individual is sheer nonsense.

We all owe a great debt to others for who we are and what we have achieved. We were taught to walk, talk, and even use the toilet by parents (or some caretaker). We were taught to read, write, and do arithmetic by teachers. Our character, personality, loves, likes, hates, preferences, values, and even our talents, are shaped to large degree by coaches, employers, coworkers, teammates, friends, lovers, and even casual acquaintanceships.

We are who we are because we are related to and interconnected with other people, other members of our communities.

But it's more than that. We are not little islands roving about an vast expanse of sea. What we do affects our society, and that society affects us. If we support policies that cut funding to education, cut aid to those living in poverty, dump people into prison for non-violent crimes, and fail to acknowledge the divisions of race and class that rip our society asunder, then we will be hurt by living in a less content, more violent, and less cooperative society. What we do or fail to do for our society, we do or fail to do for ourselves.

In economics the myth of the self-made individual is all too well known. Many of the super rich and their supporters argue that they must not be taxed at higher rates than the rest of us. They claim that to do so is nothing short of stealing what they rightly own.

Behind this idea is the assumption that wealthy people are solely responsible for their wealth. The help and assistance that they have received from others is marginal and negligible. They see themselves as "self-made" heroes whose hard work and intelligence has earned them their success.

The fact that many of these so-called "self-made" individuals were born wealthy, received government loans, grants, and other funding, use public roads, rely on employees who are publicly educated, depend on consumer protection laws, police, fire fighters, and other public services is not taken into account.

Furthermore, that how much money one earns depends on arbitrary factors - like being born with certain natural talents rather than others, being born in a time period in which one's talents pay off, and having one's talents, somewhat randomly favored by society - is never recognized by these self-professed heroes and their allies.

That a professional athlete, or a hedge fund manager, is paid so much more than an elementary school teacher, or a nurse, is simply a matter of the way society structures its economy; not a result of how hard these individuals work, or the result of some moral worth or inherent greatness that they posses.

We have to start thinking of ourselves as related to others, not merely encountering them like passing ships in the night. We are a community, not a collection of atomistic egos. What we do or fail to do for the broader society, we do or fail to do for ourselves.

Justice for Trayvon Martin

This Picture of me in a hoodie is my expression of Solidarity with the family of tragically slain teen Trayvon Martin. Many of us in America support justice for this poor kid and our hearts go out to his family. All too often young black men are killed because of "mistaken identity" or just plain racism, and it is shamefully common for their killers to escape any punishment for their crimes.

If you don't yet know much about the tragic murder of Trayvon Martin, Here is the tragic tale as reported by Mother Jones Magazine (if you click on the link you can see updates, comments, video and audio):

On the evening of February 26, Trayvon Martin—an unarmed 17-year-old African American student—was confronted, shot, and killed near his home by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman has not been charged with a crime. Since Martin's death and the revelation of more details, the case has drawn national outcry and sparked hot debate over racial tensions, vigilantism, police practices, and gun laws.

What happened to Trayvon?

Martin, a Miami native, was visiting his father in Sanford and watching the NBA All-Star game at a house in a gated Sanford community, the Retreat at Twin Lakes. At halftime, Martin walked out to the nearby 7-Eleven [1] to get some Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea. On his return trip, he drew the attention of Zimmerman, who was patrolling the neighborhood in a sport-utility vehicle and called 911 to report "a real suspicious guy."

After discussing his location with the dispatcher, Zimmerman exclaimed, "Shit he's running," and the following sounds suggest he left his vehicle to run after Martin."This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something," Zimmerman told the dispatcher. "It's raining, and he's just walking around looking about." The man tried to explain where he was. "Now he's coming towards me. He's got his hand in his waistband. And he's a black male...Something's wrong with him. Yup, he's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands. I don't know what his deal is...These assholes, they always get away."

"Are you following him?" the dispatcher asked. Zimmerman replied: "Yep."

"Okay, we don't need you to do that," the dispatcher warned.

Several minutes later, according to other callers to 911 in the neighborhood, Zimmerman and Martin got into a wrestling match on the ground. One of the pair could be heard screaming for help. Then a single shot rang out, and Martin lay dead.

Are the 911 recordings available to the public?

Yes. After public pressure, the city of Sanford played the tapes for Martin's family, then released the audio recordings. Here are some excerpts. You can also read a full transcript of George Zimmerman's initial police call here, along with an examination of whether he used a racial epithet, as some listeners have suggested.

What happened to the shooter?

So far, not much. Zimmerman told police he'd acted in self-defense. ABC News reports [8] that he had wanted to be a police officer, and Sanford police didn't test him for drugs or alcohol after the shooting (such tests are standard practice in homicide investigations). He was licensed to carry his gun, and police initially told Martin's father [9] that they hadn't pressed charges because Zimmerman was a criminal justice student with a "squeaky clean" record.

That wasn't entirely true, however; in 2005, Zimmerman was arrested for "resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer"; those charges were dropped. Media investigations and Martin family attorneys suggest [1] that Zimmerman was a vigilante with "a false sense of authority" in search of young black men in his neighborhood. Police records show Zimmerman had called 911 a total of 46 times [1] between Jan. 1 and the day he shot Martin. (Florida guidelines for licensed gun owners [10] state: "A license to carry a concealed weapon does not make you a free-lance policeman.")

How are Florida's self-defense and "stand your ground" laws key to this case?

Zimmerman may have benefited from some of the broadest firearms and self-defense regulations in the nation. In 1987, then-Gov. Bob Martinez (R) signed Florida's concealed-carry provision into law, which "liberalized the restrictions that previously hindered the citizens of Florida from obtaining concealed weapons permits," according to one legal analyst. This trendsetting "shall-issue [11]" statute triggered a wave [12] of gun-carry laws in other states. (Critics said at the time [13] that Florida would become "Dodge City.") Permit holders are also exempted from the mandatory state waiting period [14] on handgun purchases.

Even though felons and other violent offenders are barred from getting a weapons permit, a 2007 investigation by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel[15] found that licenses had been mistakenly issued to 1,400 felons and hundreds more applicants with warrants, domestic abuse injunctions, or gun violations. (More than 410,000 Floridians have been issued concealed weapons permits.) Since then, Florida also passed a law [16] permitting residents to keep guns in their cars at work, against employers' wishes. The state also nearly allowed guns on college campuses last year, until an influential Republican lawmaker fought the bill [17] after his close friend's daughter was killed by an AK-47 brandished at a Florida State University fraternity party.

Florida also makes it easy to plead self-defense in a killing. Under then-Gov. Jeb Bush, the state in 2005 passed a broad "stand your ground [18]" law, which allows Florida residents to use deadly force against a threat without attempting to back down from the situation. (More stringent self-defense laws state that gun owners have "a duty to retreat" before resorting to killing.) In championing the law, former NRA president and longtime Florida gun lobbyist Marion Hammer said [19]: "Through time, in this country, what I like to call bleeding-heart criminal coddlers want you to give a criminal an even break, so that when you're attacked, you're supposed to turn around and run, rather than standing your ground and protecting yourself and your family and your property."

As Melissa Harris-Perry has noted this kind of tragic killing of young black men is all too common. And sadly, it is almost equally as common that their killers go unpunished. This is simply intolerable. We have to take a stand and stop this. Let's make the world a more just place, let's fight to end tragedies like that of Trayvon Martion

Sign the Petition to Forgive Student Loan Debt

The Following email explains it all and tells you where to sign the petition. This is a crucial issue. Student loan debt is unfair and crippling. Something must be done to protect education as a public good!

Since 1980, average tuition for a 4-year college education has increased an astounding 827%. Since 1999, average student loan debt has increased by a shameful 511%.

In 2010, total outstanding student loan debt exceeded total outstanding credit card debt in America for the first time ever. In 2012, total outstanding student loan debt is expected to exceed $1 Trillion.

In short, student loan debt has become the latest financial crisis in America and, if we do absolutely nothing, the entire economy will eventually come crashing down again, just as it did when the housing bubble popped. Reasonable minds can disagree as to the solutions, they cannot, however, disagree on the existence of this ever-growing crisis, as well as the unsustainable course we're on towards financial oblivion.

As a result of more than 30 years of treating higher education as an individual commodity, rather than a public good and an investment in our collective future, those burie d under the weight of their student loan debt are not buying homes or cars, not starting businesses or families, and they're not investing, inventing, innovating or otherwise engaged in any of the economically stimulative activities that we need all Americans to be engaged in if we're ever to dig ourselves out of the giant hole created by the greed of those at the very top.

Now for the good news: there's finally hope on the horizon! Representative Hansen Clarke of Michigan has just introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, in the House of Representatives - legislation designed to lend a helping hand to those struggling under massive amounts of student loan debt.

For a brief summary of H.R. 4170's main provisions, please copy & paste this URL into your browser: http://tinyurl.com/7akydbk

To read the full version of the actual bill itself, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/6txure8

To read answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, please go here: http://tinyurl.com/8xh4csd

Student loan debt has an undeniable and significant suppressive effect on economic growth. The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 directly addresses this enormous boot on the neck of the middle class and represents a glimmer of hope for millions of Americans who, with each passing day, find that the American Dream is more and more out of reach.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, respectfully request that Congress bring H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, up for consideration and commit to holding a straight, up-or-down vote on it this year. Thereafter, we, the undersigned, respectfully request that President Obama sign this legislation into law.

That's why I signed a petition to Rep. John Kline (MN-2), The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Barack Obama, which says:

"Total outstanding student loan debt in America is expected to exceed $1 TRILLION this year. Millions of hardworking, taxpaying, educated Americans are being crushed under the weight of their educational debts, while the economy continues to sputter. Support a REAL economic stimulus and jobs plan. Support the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (H.R. 4170)."

Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name:

http://signon.org/sign/support-the-student-loan?source=s.fwd&r_by=3447221

Thanks!

Morals, Taxes, and the Welfare State

There are two primary types of arguments offered to support the Right-Wing agenda of deregulation, cuts to social welfare programs, and tax cuts for the wealthy. The first type of argument is consequentialist. Advocates of this approach claim that cutting taxes on the wealthy, deregulating markets, and slashing social welfare programs are better for everyone. These moves will, they argue, make us all wealthier.

This is line of argument is absolutely false. The empirical data is unequivocal: the Right-Wing economic agenda benefits the very wealthy only. Wealth never trickles down, deregulation never helps main street, cuts to social welfare programs never help the unemployed and working poor. These policies have been implemented since the late 1970s, and all that has happened is that poverty has increased, middle class and working people have seen no rise in income, but have lost their pensions, their health insurance, and become buried in debt. Fewer and fewer people can own a home, send their kids to college, or pay their medical bills.

The consequentialist arguments are demonstrably, empirically, and indubitably wrong.

The second kind of argument is a moral one. The following video clip of Fox News' Stuart Varney provides a good example:

According to Varney and those who think like him, it is immoral to take more from the rich. They are entitled to what they have earned, and they are better off than the rest of us because they "worked harder" and "made themselves."

There are several problems with this type of argument:

1) The wealthy have not, as a class, worked harder than anyone else. That's just plain false. Working class people often work themselves to exhaustion and even death, and wealthy people sometimes can go years without breaking a sweat. No economic class, as a group, is divided from others on the basis of how hard they have worked.

2) There are no self-made individuals. In point of fact, there is a great deal of empirical evidence that persuasively demonstrates that, in nearly every case, the very wealthy have become so with the help of (a) being born and raised with wealth and privilege and (b) the assistance of government services and subsidies - usually more so than the rest of us. Or, as Elizabeth Warren nicely sums up in the following video:

Finally, 3), as John Rawls persuasively argues, to claim that one morally deserves X one must demonstrate that one has earned X chiefly through one's own moral or individual efforts. But this is simply not possible in the case of wealth. How much personal wealth one accrues depends on a number of arbitrary factors. First, and most importantly, wealth is often a mere accident of birth, some of us are born more or less fortunate than others. Second, often our income level is determined by our natural talents. But, although we can develop these, we cannot create them. If I do not have a talent that can earn me a great deal of money, then I will not earn a great deal of money. Third, which talents pay best is based on the arbitrary preferences of society. In our society talk show hosts and professional athletes make millions, whereas school teachers make, on average, 43,000 a year. Does a talk show host, say Oprah Winfrey, deserve to be extremely wealthy in some moral sense that a teacher does not? Hardly. The difference between her wealth and theirs depends on the arbitrary whim of society. It is, therefore, not reasonable to claim that the wealthy are morally wronged if they are taxed at higher rates than those who earn less.

The moral arguments for the Right-Wing agenda fail, just as the consequentialist arguments did.

Now turning from the Right-Wing agenda to the Progressive one, can a good case be made for the Progressive agenda of high taxes on the wealthy, strong social safety nets, and powerful government spending on the public good? Yes they can.

On consequentialist grounds the Progressive agenda is clearly a good idea. Imagine the reduction in crime if far fewer Americans lived in poverty, were well-educated, had good jobs, nice retirement plans, and access to affordable quality health care! Imagine how much better the United States would compete in the world if our schools were properly funded - not to mention the moral satisfaction in being sure that our society provides for those who are suffering, who are down and out.

Furthermore, the most prosperous time in our nation's history was the period after WWII into the mid to late 70s. During that time our income inequality was at it's lowest, unions were at their strongest, regulations at their most intense, and taxes on the wealthiest 1% of income earners was never below 70%. Coincidence? If so, then explain the fact that this boom did not exist before these policies, and failed to exist afterward. Explain the occurrence of the same trends in Europe.

More importantly, however, is the moral case for a strong welfare state. As a society we need food stamps and unemployment insurance for those who are poor, health care for all, good public schools, good public roads, parks, libraries, and community centers. We need all of these because our society is a healthier, happier, safer, and much better place when we have them in all their strength. Even those who are wealthy enough to get by with their private schools, gated communities, and personal Islands, are safer and more secure in a society where those around them benefit from good social services and programs.

Consider an analogy: Vaccines prevent deadly diseases. Not everyone, however, can be vaccinated for every disease. The elderly, the very young, some people with chronic illness or disabilities, cannot take certain vaccines. In a population where the vast majority of people are vaccinated, this is not a problem. Those who cannot be vaccinated are protected by what is known as herd immunity. Because so many people are vaccinated, the feared disease cannot enter the population and the unvaccinated persons are safe. Having myself or my child vaccinated, in other words, is not merely of benefit to me and my child, but is a public good, from which we all benefit. A community without measles or polio is much better off than a community with these dangers.

Unfortunately an increasing number of parents refuse to vaccinate their children. These parents fear that vaccines are dangerous and may even cause autism. Science has conclusively refuted these fears. Many parents, however, refuse to believe the scientific community and don't vaccinate any way. The result is that diseases like whooping cough and measles have returned. The unvaccinated have suffered because of this, often even dying as a result.

The Right-Wing agenda for economics is as irrational and as dangerous as parents who won't vaccinate their children. Because an increasing number of Americans have come to believe over the last 35 years or so - in spite of the empirical facts! - that the wealthy both morally deserve all their wealth and will benefit the rest of us by keeping it (and getting more), we have seen our social welfare programs slashed, our public services eviscerated, our social contract torn to shreds.

The result is a less educated, less secure, less healthy, more impoverished, and increasingly divided society. This is a recipe for total disaster that can, in the end, finish only with widespread rebellion, despair, and disaster.

We must now either wake up to the failure of the Right-Wing economic agenda, or watch things get much worse.

Feminism is not a dirty word

The victories of the women's movement have caused many to question whether it is still needed. So great is the skepticism for its continued role that "feminism" has become a dirty word. Feminist are generally portrayed and ridiculed as "man haters," "feminazis," and "ideologues." This is an unfortunate and inaccurate caricature.

A feminist is committed to the following three claims: 1) women and men ought to be moral, political, social, and economic equals, 2) societal perspectives, institutions, and power structures have and continue to prevent full equality of men and women, at the expense of women (patriarchy), and, 3) justice requires that we work to change the patriarchal systems that place women in a position below men. Other than a broad commitment to justice for all people and activism to ensure it, one need believe nothing in addition to these three claims to be a feminist. When that is understood, can anyone not say that feminism is correct? Bell Hooks is right "feminism is for everybody."

Recent events make it all the more necessary for those of us who truly believe in working for a world in which men and women are really equal. The time has come to proudly reclaim the feminist label.

Some extremists on the right wing of the political divide are waging a kind of war on the rights and dignity of women. Angry Catholic Bishops shout out that they will not pay for birth control. All male panels testify to congress about their "religious freedom" - the freedom to refuse to cover women's family planning!. Republicans in a number of states attempt to force pregnant women to undergo a transvaginal ultra-sound if they want an abortion; even if the woman was raped!

If all this were not bad enough, when women and those of us who love them protest these draconian measures as disregarding women's rights, we have people respond that women should just put aspirin between their knees like the good old days! Meaning, sadly, that if women don't want to get pregnant they should just never have sex. Even worse, some clueless pundits, with more contempt for women than brains, claim that transvaginal ultra-sounds cannot be invasive since "they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy."

This is all familiar right wing moral fanaticism. It's nothing more than a way of attempting to control women by implying that they are "sluts" and "deserve it" if they have an unwanted pregnancy. It's nonsense. But the fact that so many still think and speak this way is proof that feminism is very much still needed.

But what of those who reject the puritanical moralism of the right? What of those who fancy themselves free, open, and non-censorious about sexual mores? Unfortunately many of these types are no better. Not only is there a massive market for Internet porn that overwhelming portrays women as violently dominated by men but "shock jocks" like Howard Stern, whose entire career is almost nothing but demeaning and insulting women, are more popular than ever.

To take a very recent example, Stern spent a large segment of an interview with Adam Levine, trying to figure out why Christina Aguilera has gained weight. He lamented the fact that she was no longer "hot" and called her "plus sized," clearly repulsed by the Cuvier-than-before pop star. Aguilera is a beautiful and talented woman, and it serves Stern's misogynistic purposes to try and put her down so crudely ... not to mention the ongoing image problems and eating disorders among women that he and his brood revel in.

The moral of the story is simple. We do not live in a world where women are fully equal with men. We should, but we don't. Patriarchy is working, much more overtly recently, not only to keep women down, but to push them back.

The women's movement must fight on!

Sign the Petition to overturn Citizens United

Click on the image above to go to the petition and sign it. Watch the video of Sen Sanders below if you are not sure why you should

The Truth about Unions and Their enemies

Please watch the following Episode of Fault Lines in order to understand. 1) What Unions are, 2) How they are being threatened, and 3) Why we have to fight for them:

Milwaukee is featured prominently in this episode. I lived in Milwaukee for 7 years and I've taught there for 8. It is, as the above video notes, the 4th poorest city in the country and the second most segregated city as well. Living and working in Milwaukee I can tell you first had, the policies that have been destroying this nation for over 30 years now are on full display in all their horror in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

Bloodletting, Snake Oil, and Tax Cuts

A word about the long abandoned but even longer widely used medical treatment of Bloodletting.

According to the PBS documentary Red Gold

Phlebotomy, or bloodletting, is the longest-running tradition in medicine. It originated in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece, persisted through the Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods, flourished in Arabic and Indian medicine, and lasted through the second Industrial Revolution. The practice continued for 2,500 years until it was replaced by the techniques of modern medicine. Doctors bled patients for every ailment imaginable. They bled for pneumonia and fevers, back pain and rheumatism, headaches and melancholia; even to treat bone fractures and other wounds. Yet there never was any evidence that phlebotomy did any good.

You get the idea, a medical practice that no one had any reason to believe worked was frequently employed anyway. In fact, as everyone now knows, bleeding a sick person harms them.

It seems clear now that Republican elected officials, party leaders, and pundits are modern day Bloodletters. Even worse, given the financial meltdown of 2008, they are rather like some professional Bloodletter plying his trade after the discovery of vaccines and antibiotics!

Republican elected officials and pundits continue to argue that the economy can be fixed and jobs created only if we cut taxes further and deregulate markets and banks more. If we do so, they claim, the wealth will trickle down making us all well-off, employed, and living the good life.

This is nothing new. The "prosperity gospel" has been the official doctrine of the right wing since the mid 1970s. What I find perplexing about this dogma, however, is that such policies have been enacted - with barely a pause or a counter policy - for 35 years. Tax cuts have never created jobs (even in the Reagan era jobs were only created by Tax raises) and never boosted the economy.

The wealth has not trickled down. In fact, as all data shows only the super rich (the 1%) have benefited from these policies. The rest of us have lost our homes and our retirements, seen our health care costs soar, our policies cover less, our personal debt explode, and our incomes stagnate or even decrease. Don't believe me? Just look at the following chart:

If you still have doubts, read the information on income inequality gathered here and here. The data is absolutely clear and perfectly comprehensible: The rich gain, everyone else loses. The most dramatic deregulation and tax cuts in our history (the Bush Tax cuts, and the repeal - under Clinton - of Glass-Steagall) far from fixing, preventing, or even alleviating this trend have caused the greatest economic and job crisis since the great depression.

And, no surprise here, the last time the super wealthy had taxes this low was the roaring 20s. Take a look at one more chart and see it for yourself:

Low tax rates combined with minimal regulation right before the great depression. The exact same combination leading up to 2oo8. Mere correlation? Both in the 20s and the decades leading up to 2008? Not likely.

Ok. I can hear some right leaning readers refusing to believe me. So one last bit of evidence. Watch the Following episode of Fault Lines (Aljazerra News) on the top 1%:

And some people think - or at least claim to think - that more of these same policies will fix things!!!???

Either these folks are modern day Bloodletters or modern day snake-oil salesmen. Take your pick.

Climate Skeptics Peddle Fallacies as Science

Recently the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) came out with an article "No Need to Panic About Global Warming," claiming that "distinguished scientists" have concluded that Global Warming isn't really happening after all.

Filled with fallacy heaped upon fallacy, this op-ed piece has the intellectual horse-power of "My Little Pony". Take, for instance, the claim that:

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth.

Since no climate scientist has ever claimed that CO2 is a pollutant or that the mere presence of CO2 causes Global Warming, this argument is what is called, in logic, a straw man.

The actual science of Global warming is pretty basic, but vastly different then this sad parody.

Just watch the following video, it makes pretty clear how Global Warming actually works:

Even worse, these "scientists" rest their main argument for denying that human-produced Climate Change is real on their (false) claim that the planet has not warmed over the last ten years at the rate that Global warming advocates had predicted.

This argument commits no obvious fallacy. Unfortunately for these skeptics, it contains more rubbish then your local dump. To begin with, that Climate Change is real, caused by human activity, and poses a serious threat does not require some specific set of exact temperature predictions for each decade. And it does not appear that many climate scientists make such exact predictions. But even more damning for the deniers is the following: In a rebuttle to the original op-ed, a group of top rate climate experts reply to this absurdity as follows:

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Finally, when one claims that "experts" are arguing a position. One should probably use genuine experts. According to Media Matters of the 16 "experts" who pinned the original denier op-ed piece:

no more than 4 have published peer-reviewed research related to climate change, according to the Scopus database. While they may be prominent in their own fields, their credibility on the science of global warming is not comparable to that of researchers who specialize in this area. For instance, Jan Breslow is a physician, Burt Rutan is a retired airplane designer, Harrison Schmitt is a retired astronaut and former Republican politician, and Edward David is a retired electrical engineer, among others whose expertise lies elsewhere.

Even more disturbing, the lead name on this list, and ringleader of the pack of "concerned scientists," is one Claude Allegre a well-known fraud and hack who has published no peer reviewed papers refuting androgenic climate change.

"No need to Panic," also bristles with the kind of rhetoric and paranoia typical of pseudo-science: Allegations of conspiracy, attributing an almost superhuman power on part of the "Climate Change promoters" to silence dissent, a victim complex, and so forth.

To return to the Rebuttle of the original op-ed referred to above:

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science. ...Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses.

In Short, "No Need to Panic" appeals to the false authority of faux-experts regarding Climate Change, makes use of factually incorrect statements and fallacious arguments to claim that what the overwhelming majority of true experts in the field assert to be fact, and even explains their consensus as the product of a "conspiracy;" it fails on every level.

King John Economics

According to many versions of the Robin Hood legend, King John was in the habit of taking all of the peasants' Meager resources for his own ends. The very epitome of injustice, the vile king legalized robbery and forced the peasants into misery. He did all of this simply to make himself even wealthier than he already was.

The contemporary United States is clearly following the King John Model of Economics. We have created a system that enables a very small few to become obscenely wealthy as the direct result of policies that harm a great many of the rest of us.

Before addressing that injustice,however, we all must agree on indisputable facts. First among those facts is the massive inequality in our present American economic system.

To see just how unequal our system is consider the following chart from Bill Moyers web page:

The obvious thing to notice is that most American's incomes have not changed much over the last 30 years. The top 1%, however, has seen a massive explosion in their wealth. This is not, furthermore, a bit of good luck or hard work. The top 1% has profited directly from changes in public policy. Their taxes have been cut, slashed, dropped, and cut again ... they now pay but a fraction in taxes compared to what they did in the 1970s. Furthermore, the top 1%, consisting of largely financial industry fat cats, has made a bundle on deregulation of the banking industry. Many more examples could be cited, but you get the point: public policies have, almost without exception been geared to favor the extremely wealthy. The system has been rigged to make the richest among us even richer.

The primary defense of such a system is that allowing the top 1% so much wealth is better for all of us. It is claimed that all that wealth will eventually trickle down and find it's way into all our pockets. If the wealthy have more money, they will create more jobs, and invest in building communities. (another possible defense is to claim that it is unfair to tax the wealthy any more than we do. I have addressed this objection in another blog post, read it here)

But we have had these tax slashing, deregulating policies for over thirty years now. The wealth has NEVER trickled down. As the above chart shows, only the wealthy have seen their wealth explode greatly, the rest of us are not particularly better off regarding our income. Nor have policies created jobs. On the contrary, The American manufacturing industry has been all but destroyed, as jobs were outsourced overseas. Communities have not been rebuilt or restored, but eviscerated. We once had small family restaurants and little local book stores. Now we have only Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonalds. Small main street cities have become ghost towns, or perhaps just Walmart storage facilities.

And the cost for the 99% of us who have not benefited from the tax breaks and deregulation is that far fewer of us have health insurance, or if we do have it, it costs far more and covers much less. Not very many of us have pensions or reliable savings accounts. We are buried in debt, losing our homes, and seeing the retirement age pushed up as the amount of social security we will one day receive falls down.

There is only one truly reasonable conclusion we can reach. The massive profits of the 1% are the direct result of the huge losses for the 99%. By scamming us in the housing markets, stealing our money in the banks, denying us needed health care, wiping out our retirement, and burying us in debt, the richest have prospered almost beyond imagination.

These same wealthiest 1% drove the economy into the dust and, rather than be punished for all of the jobs they cost us, the homes they lost us, and the debt they piled on us, our government took our tax dollars and handed them over to the financial elite so they could pay bonuses and take spa days. Of course that's hardly surprising, given that our elected officials run campaigns financed by the 1%, and are thus beholden to their wealthy masters.

History tells us that the nobility of King John's age forced him to sign Magna Carta; to share much of his power and resources with them. The would not longer suffer personal injustice for the benefit of the King alone.

We are called today to force those who run our system to something far more far reaching than Magna Carta. Any system that benefits the few at the expense of the many is an unjust and immoral system. Because our system, more than most in the contemporary democratic world, greatly benefits a very few to the detriment of nearly everyone else, it is deeply unjust.

In itself, this realization does not tell us what economic system is most just; importantly, however, we know that we are obligated to change the system we have.

Premier of the New Bill Moyers Show

Moyers & Company Show 101 SD from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Why I don't Tebow: A Problem with Prayer

Why do we pray?

Those of us who do pray do so for several reasons. We pray to contemplate, to give thanks, to release stress, to focus our minds, to come closer to God, and to ask for things. We pray publicly and we pray privately. There is nothing wrong with any of this.

Now enter Tim Tebow.

For those who may not know. Tim Tebow is the quarterback of the Denver Broncos. As far as NFL quarterbacks goal his skills as a passer are, so far as I can tell, average at best (although he is a good "running" QB). Yet, somehow, this average-at-best quarterback is the talk of the nation. For better or worse as much of the talk about Tebow is about his religious beliefs and behavior as it is his prowess (or lack of it) on the football field.

Tebow's faith is a standard fundamentalist/evangelical one. He is pro-life, anti same-sex marriage, registered and votes Republican, believes in an infallible Bible and that only Christians go to heaven. Full disclosure: I reject, emphatically, each of these beliefs (though I have much sympathy with pro-life positions), so I'm not exactly prone to view Tebow's beliefs in a positive light. That said, my problem with Tebow is not his fundamentalist religious beliefs or his public admittance of them.

My problem with Tebow, rather, is his ostentatious public prayer, which have come to be known as "Tebowing." For those who don't know, Tebowing looks like this:

I have several problems with this behavior.

To begin with I find petitionary prayer problematic. If God really answered our requests then there would not be so much pain, sorrow, and loss in this world. Also, would God refuse to say, heal Grandma Joe, unless the right person asks? Do our requests determine the actions of an all-knowing and all-powerful being? I find that impossible. But I won't quibble over this factor. I'm not bothered by people in need asking God for things. When your loved ones are hurting or our pain is deep you tend to call out for a higher power to aid you. This is understandable. And if Tim Tebow were offering up these kinds of prayers, there could be no objection to his doing so. I might dispute the efficacy of such prayers, but I'm not bothered by people offering them.

My real problem with Tebow is what he prayers for: Tebow prays to win football games. He asks God to let him win. In one notorious example, in overtime against the San Diego Chargers, Tebow actually knelt down and asked God to make sure that the Chargers' kicker missed his field goal attempt!

This is sheer tribalism!

To ask God to favor your team or to in anyway intervene in football games is not merely silly, but evokes the notion of a petty deity who plays favorites and rewards those who grovel before Him sufficiently.

Does Tebow actually believe that God will ignore prayers to heal people from cancer, but make sure that Tim Tebow wins a football game? Does God care most of all about how often we praise Him and grovel before Him?

The god of such prayers is no different from a narcissistic despot!

In short, my problem with Tebowing is that it insults those who pray for more serious matters and presents an insulting picture of divinity.

Finally, however, my biggest problem with Tebow is that he is deliberately "showy" about his prayers. He presents himself in such a way that everyone sees him on one knee and every sees how "holy" he is. The whole thing comes off as rather self-righteous.

I know, of course, that many will tell me that Tebow has a right to show his faith. Others will argue that he is a "good guy" and therefore it is wrong to "hate" him. But this is all irrelevant. Tebow may be a loyal friend, devoted son, and great neighbor. He may be a nice as Mr. Rogers. And surely he does have a right to express himself in the way he does.

But Tim Tebow is being held up as a model of what a good clean American should be. There are those who call him a "great American" and a "force for good" simply because he asks Jesus to help him win football games and score touchdowns. His ostentatious and tribal prayer and piety is held up as a heroic model to imitate.

But this is no model for people of real faith.

What would be such a model?

Imagine a quarterback who prays as often as Tebow. But there is nothing showy about his faith. He quietly and unassumingly makes his requests of God. Imagine further that he does not pray for his team's victory or the other team's kicker to miss a field goal. Suppose, rather, that he prays that each and every player do his best, that all on the field be safe from injury and humiliation, and that the best team wins.

Would not this be a model of faith that we should imitate? Rather than a showy kneeler who asks God to win one for him on account of his righteousness?

That is why I don't Tebow.

Christmas Reflections: Light only Shines in Darkness

Christmas is - and has long been - a predominately commercial holiday. In other words, it is marketed, increasingly early and more forcefully with each passing yuletide, in order to make people buy things.

Because of this the holiday is typically presented as pure happiness; everyone feels good, everyone sings, and everyone has a great old time. I suppose that advertisers have long realized that a holiday bereft gloom, loss, struggle, and pain is a holiday best able to sell all manner of trinkets.

The fact is, however, that Christmas, like any other time of the year, has it share of sorrow, loss, and pain. Loved ones die, people divorce, homes are foreclosed, and jobs are lost.

Christmas (as marketed) cannot handle these tragedies. It's sappy sentimentalism and consumer driven "feeling good" is simply not equipped to deal with real suffering in life. People who are seriously soul searching and struggling with real human experience are at lot less inclined to consume.

This is Ironic.

Christmas is, both in symbol and in origin, a celebration of light in the darkness, warmth in the winter, hope in the shadow of fear. Ancient pagan festivals from which Christmas evolved, like Yule, Solstice, and Saturnalia, were all filled with symbols of triumph, joy, light, and life in the midst of a winter filled with death and darkness.

Coming at the darkest time of the year (in the northern hemisphere at least), when the world is cold, the trees bare, the ground frozen, and the elements harsh, Christmas is a reminder that in the face of death life persists, in the dark of night light can still be found, and that in the death of winter, there is still food to eat and warmth to warm us.

We have chosen to use only half of the holiday symbols. We think of the joy, the light, the warmth, and the cheer. But there is no joy without sorrow, no warmth without the cold, no light without darkness. In order to truly celebrate Christmas, we are going to have to keep the other aspects of the season before us.

One may argue, of course, that the holiday is meant as some form of escapism from the dark side of life. Sure, many think of it that way; the advertisers revel at that fact.

In reply I simply appeal to the history behind the holiday, both pagan and christian. We can reject those. We can buy into the the Christmas that makes retailers a fortune and drives us crazy with commercial-induced stress. But if we do we are leaving something deeper and more significant, for something sappy, cheaper, and far less meaningful.

By embracing the pain, suffering, and grief symbolized in the dark side of Christmas, we are leaving aside the shallow "cheer" of consumerism and cheap tinsel, for the deeper joy that results from what some might call a "tragic-optimism" or even, perhaps, a "tragic-romanticism."

To clarify what I mean, let us compare tragic-optimism and tragic romanticism, with their commercialized counterparts. The commercial brand of optimism tells us that all things are right with the world, that only "grinches" get sad during the holiday, and that if we just spend enough of our money at Hallmark and Target, Christmas will warm our hearts with its eggnogy bliss.

Commercial romanticism tells us that if we just put up the right decorations, buy the right "goodies" and follow the formula, we can have the kind of Christmas we had when we were 7 years old.

What I mean by tragic-optimism, on the other hand, is a view that life is hard. People die, dreams are broken, prospects fail to materialize. The tragic-optimist understands that great sorrow is an inescapable aspect of life, and we would be fools to deny that. But, despite this, the tragic-optimist finds existence ultimately joyful. Life is good, being is good, it is all worth it. In spite of all the pain and suffering, life is filled with joy. And this joy is not experienced in spite of pain and sorrow, but somehow, in part, because of it.

This is where tragic-romanticism comes in. Tragic-romanticism, as I understand it, is the appreciation that pain, sorrow, suffering, and grief can add to the joy of life, by making there opposites all the more potent and complete.

In searching for a Christmas image or song that exemplifies what I'm trying to express, I found myself drawn to the Judy Garland performance of "Have yourself a Merry little Christmas." [the story of this song fits in well with my position here, check it out] The song is filled with pain. And yet, somehow, one cannot miss the hope and triumph in Garland's voice.

Real optimism should never be confused with the attempt to delude ourselves that nothing bad is going to happen. Bad things will happen to us all. We cannot, and we ought not, downplay that. But hope, as opposed to delusion, is the conviction that it is all worth it. Despite the tragedies we must encounter in life, living is a beautiful and joyous thing. It is this kind of optimism, this genuine hope that Christmas should really be all about.

Christmas is indeed about being joyful and triumphant. But to know joy, we have to know pain, and to be triumphant we must conquer something, presumably the tragedy and pain in our lives