Black Friday is a plague on our nation. Crazed shoppers fighting over bargain prices should disgust all decent people. This Holiday season matters are worse. For this Thanksgiving a number of big chain stores will be open during Thanksgiving dinner. Even worse, they are mandating that their employees work these hours. All of this is to get a head start on the insanity that is black Friday
This cannot be allowed to stand!
It is crucial to the preservation of close relationships and person well being that working people get to enjoy time off with their loved ones. For this this reason I think we ought to continue to recognize national holidays like Thanksgiving: time off work and time with loved ones
Workers are human beings, not machines or animals. The indignity of robbing them of their Holidays and forcing them to spend Thanksgiving dinner mobbed by Zombie consumers fighting to the death for discounts ought to be criminal; it is clearly morally repugnant.
Let us fight these tyrants!
Boycott the following stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday:
Wal-Mart Kmart Sears The Gap Banana Republic Old Navy Michaels Toys 'R Us Whole Foods
A number of talk
show hosts, most notably Jimmy Kimmel, have had fun lately asking
folks on the street what they think of "Obamacare."
Revealingly people know very little about it:
Polls and surveys find
the same widespread lack of knowledge about what the Affordable Care act (to give the law it's proper name) actually is, and
what change to our health care system the reforms actually make.
This confusion is, I think, largely the result of the fact that The Affordable Care Act is politically very divisive. Rhetoric from multiple sides of the political spectrum has greatly obscured how the law actually works. We must get past the rhetoric and actually take a careful look at the key elements of the new health care law.
I have taught Health Care Ethics at Marquette University and Harper Community College. A key aspect of this course is a careful consideration of how health care systems and health insurance works in the United States and abroad. Because of this I've been given ample opportunity to study the details of the new health care law (The Most reliable information on what is the law can be found at: Kaiser and the AARP)
Here in short are the key elements of the law.
First, two important pieces of information.
1. It is important to note that "Obamacare" is not "socialized medicine." In countries like Canada and England there are no health insurance companies. The government pays the bill. But here in post health reform America, the for-profit private insurance companies that we have all used for decades remain the providers of health insurance for the majority of Americans too young for Medicare, too high income for medicaid, and not receiving Veterans care.
2. For those Americans who receive health care from their employer the law changes virtually nothing. You will still have the same relationship to your health insurance company that you had before. One important change here, however, is that young people can now stay on their parents plans until they are 26.
Where things have changed is the individual private market. The reasons for the big changes here come from the following provisions of the ACA:
1. Guaranteed issue - insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to anyone who applies. For decades insurance companies have denied people coverage due to pre-existing conditions, Beginning January 1, 2014 they will be legally precluded from doing so any longer.
2. The Individual Mandate - with the exception of those whose incomes are too low, everyone must get insurance or pay a tax penalty (if your income is too low and your State accepts the expansion of medicaid that the ACA offers, then you will qualify for medicaid). If you receive medicare, medicaid, veterans care or get insurance through your employer you already comply with this requirement. This is, perhaps, the most controversial aspect of the law. Many people seem to feel that legally requiring us to have insurance violates our personal liberty. It is worth noting, however, that the supreme court upheld the mandate as constitutional in 2012. It is also worth noting that the individual mandate was first thought of by the conservative Heritage foundation, embraced by Republican Presidential candidate Bob Dole, and first enacted by by Republican Governor and most recent Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
3. The Employer Mandate - with some exemptions, all employers with 50 or more employers must either provide an insurance plan to their employees or pay a tax penalty for each employee. Business with fewer than 50 employees are not subject to this requirement.
Other changes that apply to the private insurance market are that annual and lifetime limits on what insurance companies would pay have been abolished. Women can no longer be charged more than men, and individuals who already suffer from an illness cannot be charged more on that account.
Those who buy private insurance on the individual market will do so through either federal or state exchanges which must operate according to strict federal regulations. These Federal guidelines require that all insurance plans cover ten essential benefits (ambulatory patient services; emergency services, hospitalization; maternity and newborn care; mental health and substance use; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care).
There are, in addition, 4 types of plans, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. These plans cover 90, 80, 70, 60 percent of costs respectively. The more costs the plan covers, the higher the premium is. Most Americans qualify for a subsidy which will pay for part of their premiums, thus lowering what they will pay.
Unfortunately the launch of the federal insurance exchange (States who have set up their own exchanges - not all States have - have been more fortunate) has been something of a problem. The web sight is not working properly and most consumers cannot access it. It remains to be seen if this technical problem will result in delaying certain aspects of the law, such as the individual mandate.
The Benefits of the Affordable Health Care law are clear. For many years millions of Americans were denied access to health care because of pre-existing conditions or high costs. Many of these people will finally be able to buy health care that they can afford.
But there are disadvantages as well. Some Americans will see their premiums and/or deductibles rise. Furthermore, because the new law requires all health insurance plans to cover the ten essential benefits mentioned above, some current plans will be eliminated starting next year. These plans will be replaced by plans that cover more, and for most consumers cost less (thanks to subsidies) but to some 3-5% of Americans costs will rise up. There are those who believe that they should be allowed to pay less for their current plans which cover far less. They are not pleased with this situation. For more on this particular controversy see the very helpful piece in the New Yorker.
Most importantly the Affordable Health care Act has, hanging over it, one big question mark. The United States has by far and away the most expensive health care system in the world. It is debatable that the ACA does nearly enough to reduce these huge costs. If we really want to reduce our expensive system, further changes may very well be needed in the future.
For a further quick, comprehensible and comprehensive overview of the Affordable Health Care act in all it's particulars I recommend the following, rather humorous, 9 minute video from Kaiser:
The Integration of
Baseball by Jackie Robinson in 1947 is one of the great moments of
American History. In fact and in legend it defines the radical
injustice of legal segregation and the courage and conviction of
those who dared to defy it. 42
directed by Brian Helgeland is faithful to the power of the legend
and the magnitude of the history. Perfectly cast (Harrison Ford
reaches new heights as Branch Rickey), the film brings all of the
central characters to life. The story is moving, eliciting tears,
laughs, and admiration for Jackie Robinson at all the appropriate
moments. In short, 42
is a perfect Baseball
film and a splendid telling of a powerful story; I enjoyed every
moment of it and the movie already ranks high among my personal
favorites.
Despite enjoying the film
immensely, I must confess that it can be difficult viewing at times.
The racism encountered by Robinson in this film (which is only a
fraction of the suffering the poor man actually had to face) is
rather ugly. The hatred behind racist rants against Robinson, the
refusal to accept him for the color of the skin, and the common use
of offensive racial slurs, is painful to watch. During one particular
seen where the Phillies Manager Ben Chapman is berating Robinson with
constant racial slurs, I was quite literally physically ill. The
hatred Robinson had to deal with will bring tears of pain to your
eyes. This makes parts of the film very hard to watch; very hard, but
worth it. We need to see how ugly racism and other forms of hate are.
We must not shield ourselves from this disgusting and shameful aspect
of human behavior.
As fine a film as 42 is, there
are two aspects to this film that are lacking. First, both Jackie
Robinson and Branch Rickey were devoutly religious men – both were
Methodists in fact!. God was central to each man's life. I would have
appreciated a slightly larger amount of screen time devoted to the
spiritual basis of each man's story. But this is a minor quibble. The
film is made for a mass American audience and it is largely about the
struggle for integration. The second omission is more disconcerting.
Absent from 42 is the large social movement, which existed for
decades before Robinson played the game, to integrate the national
pastime. The film rightly focuses on the courage and heart of Jackie
Robinson, but a nod or two in the direction of the social movement
that gave integration so strong a push would have been nice. Mr.
Robinson and Branch Rickey did not break the color barrier in
baseball by themselves. Despite their remarkable achievements, it
takes a community of people committed to justice in order to truly
achieve it.
Despite these flaws the film is
amazing. Most importantly is provides an opportunity for families and
communities to talk about discrimination, bigotry, and the struggle
for justice. This is must see film for all of us. Jackie Robinson's
battle is our battle; the Battle for recognition of our common human
dignity. To quote from the film “maybe tomorrow we'll all wear 42,
so they can't tell us apart;” perhaps we should.
I teach a number of Ethics courses each semester. These courses are very enjoyable for me, and I hope for my students as well. Each time I introduce an ethical theory I look for its foundational principle: its central proposition from which it determines the rightness or wrongness of particular actions. For instance, Libertarians ground all of their determinations about what is right and wrong in a principle of self-ownership, Deontologists in a list of universal moral rules, Utilitarians in the greatest amount of happiness that can be produced, Human Rights Theorists in some list of basic rights.
The problem with all of this is that it is terribly abstract. Traditional moral theories propose a solution to the problem or right and wrong that fails to take into account the genuine motivation behind human goodness. Conceiving of morality as something like a math problem to be solved by the dry and impersonal calculations of reason, such theories forget that our our initial impulse toward acting morally is concern for and empathy with our fellows.
Compassion for others (be they human or animal) is the fire from which morality burns. The reason we strive to be good is that we care about others. We desire to help them, to keep them from harm, to accord them the same treatment we would like for ourselves. Without this initial compassion for others, the spark of morality fails to ignite and considerations or right and wrong are not possible.
Consider the activities of the most deranged among us: Do mass shooters, serial killers, and other sociopaths care for others? Clearly they do not. Could the SS guards have had compassion for their Jewish prisoners? The American slave-owners empathy for their slaves? Perhaps there was a flicker here and there, but without ignoring, repressing, or just plain not having the natural impulse to feel for others pain and rejoice with them in their happiness, they could not have acted in the reprehensible and inhuman manner that they did.
The origin of morality is feeling, not reason. Furthermore, it is not feeling for humanity in the abstract, but feelings for others that we actually encounter, that we actually have relationships with, that creates morality. Unless we start here, until moral theories take as their departure the central role of feelings and relationships in creating morality, we cannot hope to provide a satisfactory account of right and wrong.
This is not to say, however, that reason is irrelevant or unimportant to morality. Reason is extremely important, It is not enough to feel compassion, we must think out how best to demonstrate our compassion. We will encounter conflicts in our relationships with others and we need reason to manage them.
We cannot figure out how to act morally without reason. But reason cannot provide the initial burst that makes us moral. Without a feeling of solidarity with others, reason is a cold, calculating tool; capable of helping the Nazi gleefully persecute his victims or the serial killer calmly stalk his prey.
Where the feeling of compassion and solidarity with others is absent, there can be no morality. When it is present, there must be.
Can a moral person continue to watch professional football? I have wrestled with this question of late. The prevalence of brain damage from head injuries is well documented, and with the recent death of Junior Seau linked to brain disease caused from injuries I am forced to admit that my entertainment comes at the expense of the health, well-being, and even life of these players. I know the obvious reply: They choose to play the game, knowing these risks. If they choose to play it, then it's fine to watch them.But this simply will not do. I am not suggesting that we make football illegal, or censor it on TV, or even that we tell others to stop watching. I am asking myself, and asking my readers to ask themselves, if it is morally appropriate to derive enjoyment from watching others risk so much damage to themselves. That these players choose to play football knowing the risk, does not mean we are innocent for watching. When a person is objectified, their dignity ignored, their pain made part of our entertainment, we have done something wrong to them, whether they consent to it or not. This is the kind of argument one often hears against going to strip clubs or watching pornography. When one engages in these activities one treats a fellow human being as if they were a mere "thing," and object existing solely for our satisfaction. If that argument applies to exotic dancers and pornographic actors, then it seems to apply to professional athletes just as well. And in this case, we are watching these men play a game that seriously threatens their well-being and health. On the other hand, every profession and every sport carries risks. Sometimes those risk are severe. These men do know the risk and they apparently think it is worth the sacrifice. Furthermore, every time any person renders us a service we use them as a "thing." I doubt we are seriously meditating on the dignity and passion and rights of our garbage collectors, waiters, and other such persons. We do not and cannot always refrain from such behavior. But this is not a matter of simple player choice. Most NFL players make a few hundred thousand a year and only play for a few seasons. Few of these players get high paying jobs after they retire and they are not given health care by the NFL. Furthermore, the NFL does not take necessary and relative simple steps to insure player safety. This means that the NFL itself is exploiting its players for financial benefit. Their bodies are ruined and they are then left discarded and abandoned. All this simply to make a profit for billionaire owners. (returning to the analogy with porn and strip clubs: it is precisely this exploitation of individuals who are often emotionally damaged that is the real objection to pornography, not simply their getting naked and being sexual for the enjoyment of others) So it is not a matter of simply knowing that these players chose a dangerous sport and they can get hurt. That is a choice one can make, and I see no problem being entertained by a game that makes those choices. But the abandonment of its players by the NFL is unacceptable. Perhaps morality does require that we stop watching the NFL until the league treats its players as it deserves? On the other hand, the NFL is so wildly popular and so profitable that one can scarcely imagine sufficient outrage to affect a change. Does this mean we should just throw in the moral towel and enjoy the game? I will be thinking about this very carefully during the off season.
I am increasingly disturbed by the gun violence that plagues our nation. Each year more and more shootings kill more and more people. The carnage piles up, the blood spills, images of body bags flood our frightened imaginations. Every time it's the same sad story: a disturbed young white man from an affluent or middle class background could not get the mental health attention that he needed, but all too easily and too legally got his hands on military firearms, which the then proceeded to pump into innocent lives. All too quickly lives were cut short and tragedy struck again. The unsurprising, although sickening, response from the usual suspects has been to insist on their right to bear arms. Conspiracy nuts have claimed that Obama faked the New Town shooting to seize their firearms and launch a dictatorship, the NRA have suggested arming everyone in order to have shootouts solve the problem. ENOUGH! It is past the time to discuss the issue. It is time to do something. Enough stupidity Military weapons should not be allowed in civilian hands. Yes I KNOW WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS. I get it. I am NOT suggesting that we take away all guns from all people. But for the love of life and decency, let's legislate better background checks, make would-be gun owners pass a psychological exam every couple years, register all guns, ban assault rifles, take guns out of the hands of anyone who is mentally ill or has any kind of criminal past. The right to bear arms has never and should not ever mean the right for any person to own any kind of gun made and get it as easily as possible. The right to life trumps the right to bear arms, and we have far too many deaths from gun violence. Too many young lives lost, to many families destroyed too much death, loss and sorrow. No more nonsense. We need to do what is right here.
There are some on the left of the political spectrum (the real left, not what our media and pundits call the "left") who see no important and meaningful difference betweeen Romney and Obama. Both, they argue, are corporate puppets who don't really represent the needs of poor, working, or even middle class voters. Both are stooges of the Military Industiral Complex that murders civilians abroad and imposes American Imperial Policy on nations all over the globe. My Friends on the left are surely right to see Romney and Obama as tools of the the American Military Empire, the Corporate robber barrons, and the absurdly rich plutocrats. Neither man's campaign or debate performances mention the extreme income inequality, growing poverty, and diminshing resources of our nation's poor. Neither questions American expceptionalism and imperialism at home or abrod. Even worse, neither man seriously addresses the erosion and whole-sale decimation of the American Middle Class. With these points I agree completely. Why, then, do I claim that Obama is not the same as Romney and that this election actually does matter? Here's why: Obama will preserve social security and traditional medicare. Romney, on the other hand, will do away with both, turning them - slowly and carefully no doubt - into privatized and ineffective shadows of their former selves. Romney will slash taxes even more than Bush already has, diminsihing public funds, and resulting in drastic cuts to the social safety net. Far fewer food stamps, less unemployment, even more drastically underfunded schools, an infrastructure that crumbles and erodes even more so than it already has. Romney will repeal Obamacare and pass the Ryan Budget into law. Of course, many on the left are unhappy with Obamacare, seeing it as a sell-out to the Health Insurance Industry. There is merit in that criticism. I share in that dissappointment. Despite my reserveations about Obamacare, however, I prefer a system that eliminates pre-existing conditions, expands medicaid to cover more of the working poor, allows young adults to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26, and provides free vaccines, screenings, and birth control to many who desperately need these services. Whatever Romney would put in place of Obamacare, would include none of this. It is likely in fact, that he will reinstitute the worse of the practices of the private insurance market, and perhaps even make matters worse than they were before. I know that, for us on the left, Obama is not "our man." I know that his foreign policy has been a human rights travesty. Drones, kill lists, suspension of due process, the arrest of Bradley Manning. Yes, these are deplorable. The United States and its leadership ought to be held accountable for all of this; Obama included. But what is to be gained by letting Mr. Romney win? Will he and his party release Bradley Manning? Stop the drones? Be rid of the kill lists? Be serious. If anything they will expand and amplify this and possibly bring back water boarding and other tortures just for good measure. Finally, don't foget that Romney will get to appoint as many as 3 Supreme Court Justices during his Presidency if he wins this thing. If you care about a court that is set to consider same-sex marriage, if you are concerned that Roe V. Wade not be overturned, this is very far from a trivial matter. To vote for Obama is not to support his dreadful - and all too American - imperial foreign policy. Nor is to vote for the clear corporate power structure that he represents. We must vote for Obama to keep what is left of our social safety nets - food stamps, head start programs, unemployment insurance, social security, medicare, etc - out of the hands of Mitt Romney and the right-wing party that comes with him. We must vote for Obama in order to build on that which is good in Obamacare. We cannot return to what existed before it pasts. We must vote for Obama to protect women's reproductive rights and the hope same-sex couples to have their love recognized with legal marriage. Obama may not be the "change we can believe in," he is surely not the progressive champion some took him to be. Despite this, however, we know that his opponents are radical regressives who will undo what is left of the New Deal and the Great Society. On social views that will turn back the gay rights and womens movements, and plunge us backward. If we re-elect Obama we can push his party to the left, we can build up genuine progressive movements locally from the ground up and change the political climate of our nation for the better.We can do this not because Obama is wonderful, or even willing to join us, but because with Obama we can retain enough of the old liberal ideas and institutions to move forward and build. But if we don't defeat Mitt Romney, if we don't win President Obama a second term, it may take us a generation, or even several generations, to undo the damages of the radical, right wing, regressive, and destructive social and economic agenda of Mr. Romney, Mr. Ryan, and a Republican Party now run by openly extremist regressives.
I believe that Paul Ryan's political views are deeply immoral. Because of this I will cast my vote against Mitt Romney and his VP this November. I guess this makes me a values voter of a short; albeit a liberal one.
Of course anyone who knows me or this blog knows that I was always going to vote Obama in 2012. So this post is not really about me, it's about the role that morality does, and should, play in our voting choices.
Many Americans have long held to the troubling position that our personal values and moral concerns should be separated from how we vote and who we vote for. This has never really been the case. If we are honest with ourselves, then we know that we cannot vote against our conscience, against what we think matters. Furthermore, why on earth would we wish do so? Why would we leave our convictions outside the voting booth.
The right wing has understood this for a long time. The left has but slowly and recently become aware of it. But this November the choice of values is sharp and clear.
Mitt Romney has chosen Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan for his running mate. Ryan is best know as the author of the Ryan Budget. This budget deprives the poor of medicaid and food stamps, the elderly of medicare and social security, and in general cuts funding to all forms of aid for poor and middle class Americans, apparently for the sole purpose of giving more tax cuts to the super wealthy.
As Robert Reich explains,
Ryan’s views are crystallized in the budget he produced for House Republicans last March as chairman of the House Budget committee. That budget would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over the next decade. The biggest cuts would be in Medicaid, which provides healthcare for the nation’s poor – forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million low-income people, according to the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Ryan’s budget would also reduce food stamps for poor families by 17 percent ($135 billion) over the decade, leading to a significant increase in hunger – particularly among children. It would also reduce housing assistance, job training, and Pell grants for college tuition.
In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts proposed by Ryan would come from low-income programs.
The Ryan plan would also turn Medicare into vouchers whose value won’t possibly keep up with rising health-care costs – thereby shifting those costs on to seniors.
At the same time, Ryan would provide a substantial tax cut to the very rich – who are already taking home an almost unprecedented share of the nation’s total income. Today’s 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together.
We are , then, presented, first and foremost, with a choice of what we want government to be. Should government work to improve the lives of its citizens, to provide for our basic needs, to help build community, to educate, enlighten, and strengthen civil society, or should government be used as a tool to aid and abet the wealthy few as they hoard more and more of the economic pie?
If you appreciate government roads, public parks, libraries, and rules and regulations that protect you from shady business practices, if you think education is a right and that our schools should be well funded, if you think the elderly are entitled to basic health care, and the unemployed and starving help for their basic needs, then you must vote against Paul Ryan.
Ryan sees the government as a tool to be crafted for the good of rich men like himself. If we stand against that, if we really think government ought to be used to help all people and build a strong and healthy society, then we are morally obligated to cast a vote against Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney this election day.
Should someone be inclined to believe Ryan's claim that his goal is to reduce the deficit, the New Yorker Magazine quickly kills that myth:
Ryan was a reliable Republican vote for policies that were key in causing enormous federal budget deficits: sweeping tax cuts, a costly prescription-drug entitlement for Medicare, two wars, the multibillion-dollar bank-bailout legislation known as TARP. In all, five trillion dollars was added to the national debt
In other words, Ryan's budget has nothing to do with reducing the deficit. It would not do so in any case. The best way to reduce the deficit would be large cuts to military spending and big tax hikes on the super wealthy. Ryan directly opposes both. His real goal, therefore, is crystal clear: helping the filthy rick hoard even more wealth.
The role of government, however, is not the only value forced to the forefront by the Ryan pick.
If we believe that women have the right to determine their own reproductive choices, if we believe that they are fully equal with and entitled to the same dignity as men, then we cannot, in good conscience, vote for Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan is steadfastly for that set of policies and positions that some call "the war on women." If Ryan had his way employers would be free to refuse women coverage for their birth control on the flimsy and bogus grounds of "religious freedom," and states could force women to have trans-vaginal ultrasounds.
Finally, Paul Ryan is a poster boy for those who refuse to see gays and lesbians as equal to those who are straight. Not only does Ryan oppose same-sex marriage, he opposes allowing gay people to adopt, voted to keep "Don't ask, Don't tell," and refused to support anti-hate crime legislation. Those of us who support our homosexual fellows and their full equal rights and dignity must oppose this man.
There are other issues that are just as morally disturbing: From his "A" NRA rating on guns - which in light of recent shootings in Colorado and in Ryan's home State of Wisconsin, is particularly perverse -, to his desire to arrest women who have abortions; from his desire to repeal "Obama-Care," to his strong support for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's destruction of that State's unions, there is scarcely any position held by this Social Darwinist that does not demand that we respond by stating our moral convictions with our vote.
The choice is clear. If you believe government should ensure a fair playing field and a basic standard of living for all, if you believe gay and lesbian people and the love they have for each other should be respected, if you believe that women are human beings with full dignity who have every right to control their reproductive faculties, then you are morally obligated to vote against the Romney/Ryan ticket, and, therefore, to vote for Obama,
If, on the other, hand you are going to vote for Romney and Ryan, then admit to your moral positions. When you vote for them, you vote for a government that exists to make the richer richer at the expense of every one else. A vote for this GOP ticket is a vote that says that women are not really equal to men, that gays and lesbians are sinful and bad, and that people do not have a right to health care, social security, or basic aid when they fall upon hard times.
I really wish I would have thought of something this clever and telling! But alas, I discovered it only recently. Well reading an article on Social Darwinist Romney VP pick Paul Ryan at Mother Jones Magazine, I learned of GOP Je$us. The basic premise of this clever satire is this: what if Jesus were - instead of a non-violent, anti-greed, inclusive preacher - actually like the right wing of the GOP who claim they follow him. I give you, the GOP Je$us and his Tea-Party Gospel, via his Facebook page:
The Me-Attitudes
Blessed are the rich, the reign of this world is ours
. The rich rule the world, and the rest suffer and die, often in misery. Do not let this be you my brothers! Easier to use your riches to genetically engineer very small camels that can fit through the needle's eye…
Blessed are the violent and the invincible, the proud and the powerful, the domineering and oppressive
. We can have it all! And let our status of power be the proof that we are deserving of the fruits of the labor of the middle class and poor…
Blessed are those who show no mercy.
No mercy to the poor, to women and children, the elderly and the homeless, victims, outcasts, enemies, refugees, the hungry, the undocumented, the unborn, those on death row, those who are different, those we don’t like. And of course, those who happen to be in the way of what we want…
Blessed are the warmakers.
Yea I say unto you, if we were not making war, we could not be said to be making much. That is what China is for! Lo, the Lord looked at China and said "Let it be the worlds factory floor," and it was good…
Compare the Me-attitudes of GOP Je$us to the Beatitudes of Jesus of Nazareth, then take a look at the real Jesus' teachings about wealth. The stark contrast between Jesus and the GOP Je$us satire is well done. This brings the heart of the matter home powerfully. One cannot follow the economic philosophy of the right wing and at the same time follow Jesus. The two are irreconcilable and fundamentally opposed.
There are, in my view, two erroneous perspectives on that collection of ancient literature that we have come to call "The Bible." The first, and perhaps most common, is that is is some kind of divinely authored encyclopedia. On this reading, the Bible comes straight from God as is therefore free from any scientific, historical, moral, or other errors.
Anyone who has actually read the Bible knows this is simply not true. The Bible contains every manner of human error. We know that not all of its stories are historical, that knowledge of science does not inform its pages, and that it frequently assumes a tribal and primitive morality that we cannot even begin to find inspiring.
This knowledge, unfortunately, leads some to reject the Bible as a horrid product. Such readers love to debunk and ridicule the Scriptures, pointing with glee to troubling or historically mistaken passages. They are correct that these passages exist, but they too beg the question on what the Bible is and how we should read it.
The problem is that both sets of readers assume that the Bible is either a divinely authored and error free text, or it is pure rubbish. This dilemma is, I suggest, a false one.
The way out of this false dilemma is to understand what the Bible actually is. The Bible is a fully human collection of texts. These texts were written, edited, collected, and canonized, copied and re-copied over centuries. They contain every human error one would expect from so broad and wide a collection of ancient literature. It might help if we ceased to speak of "the Bible" and instead spoke of "the scriptures." This is, after all, a collection of widely different texts from very different authors, in different times.
Far from undermining the Bible however, such an understanding of what it is should enrich our appreciation of it. Were we to believe that God truly authored the texts, we would have to face troubling events, slaying the first born of Egypt, commanding genocide against the Amalekites, stoning twig gathers on the Sabbath, striking Onan dead for the withdrawal method, and so forth. Unless you are willing to look into the face of your firstborn son - and I know I'm not - and think that such a being could deserve God's wrath because of the decision of your nation's leaders, or that God could command that your child be killed just so his "chosen people" could have their promise land, then you simply cannot be a Biblical literalist.
Seen as an ancient human product, on the other hand, we can appreciate the gradual transformation of Yahweh, a tribal war god, into the one universal God of mercy, justice and Compassion. For make no mistake, taken as a literary work, we can follow the Biblical Character of God from his origins as a fiery, vengeful deity who plays favorites (just read the book Judges or 1 and 2 Samuel) to the loving Father in Heaven who teaches Jonah the value of mercy. That transformation is a splendid and inspiring one. There were lot's of little war lord tribal gods, I can think of no other that transformed in to a loving God of universal justice.
Casting our gaze downward from Heaven to the Earth, we find that the Bible is a story of conflict. On the one hand stand the Kings of Israel and Judah. Again and again these Kings, and the elites who serve them, attempt to lord it over the "regular folks," to take their lands, their spouses, even their very lives; to become little dictators in the promised land. But again and again the prophets speak out to condemn them. Pleading for justice, making the case for the widow, the orphan, the resident alien, the poor, and the downtrodden, the prophets consistently equate God with justice and fair play, and religion with treating others, particularly the weak and marginalized, with respect, compassion, and concern.Whether it is the prophet Nathan damning King David for the murder of Uriah the Hittite (not to mention adultery with Uriah's wife!), Elijah defending the commoner Naboath against King Ahab's seizure of the former's vineyard, or Amos crying out to let "justice flow like water," there is simply nothing like the passion of the prophets for justice, equality, and fair play in all of ancient religious literature.
So read the Bible as a flawed, sometimes horrible, human creation. That is, after all, what it is. But in that realization the very power of "the good book" can hit home. A ethic of "the chosen people" turned into a universal ethic of compassion and justice for all people; a petty and jealous tribal god transformed into a loving creator wishing for all to receive justice, mercy, and blessings.
That is something truly inspiration, truly spiritual, and truly astounding, and - just perhaps - truly divine.
"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-PoliticalTreatise 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.
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.
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:
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.
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
The Me-Attitudes
