Every morning as I scan for news stories I shake my head at the powerful political movement that has successfully convinced the American middle class that they were robbed by the poor and not by the rich. It takes an incredibly clever campaign to convince frustrated workers that their misery doesn’t come from the people making record profits but who refuse to give them fair wages. Instead, they are told and believe that they were robbed by people who have nothing to show for it. If you were looking for horse thieves, you wouldn’t arrest the people travelling on foot. You would look for the new Paul Revere’s who are riding around pointing at everyone but themselves.
And now for some happy news. The Hubble telescope has produced a beautiful photo of the Tarantula Nebula.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/tarantula-nebula-hubble_n_1773453.html
We live in a culture where getting on television makes you a celebrity, and being a celebrity makes you an expert. Joe the Plumber has stretched his fifteen minutes of fame into a political campaign. Apparently, speaking on Youtube has prepared Joe the Plumber to run for Congress. Last Friday he made the statement quoted above, saying we should put a fence across the entire border of Mexico and start shooting at the immigrants who try to get across. According to this article, at the same event, another Republican candidate pointed a gun at a reporter. And, of course, what rally would be complete without an expert on Obama’s fraudulent birth certificate?
This plunge into political insanity by the fringes of the Republican right may be good for the careers of comedians like Jon Stewart, but it is hard to imagine how democracy can long endure such barbarism. In the light of recent shootings, such gun waving seems incredibly inappropriate. If you want to know what coversations in terrorist camps sound like, just translate this kind of rhetoric into an another language and imagine we are on the other side of the fence.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/joe-the-plumber_n_1773590.html
This is an interesting article on a topic I had not considered. In the story a worker for one candidate checked on Facebook that he liked the other candidate. When he was fired, he took his former employer to court saying his right to free speech was being violated. The case opens up a whole new discussion of what free speech means in a virtual context. Could “liking” someone on Facebook could be considered harrassment in some circumstances? Could something you say online ever be considered a verbal contract? What does privacy even mean in a world where all the information is interconnected?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/a-facebook-court-battle-is-liking-something-protected-free-speech/2012/08/08/538314fe-e179-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html?wpmk=MK0000200
In the best selling “Left Behind” series on the end of the world, the Anti-Christ was presented as someone from the United Nations who would seek world peace. Watching that movie, I remembered again how so much hate and xenophobia can slip into American churches.
The American people, and we Christians in particular, are taught to be arrogant from the cradle. We are taught that we are God’s favorites. We remember as sacred those dates when we were attacked and consider it un-American and un-Christian to remember our own crimes against humanity. Most American Christians have never read one page of another’s religion’s scripture, nor do most of us know as much as as one full page of another nation’s own version of history.
I do not understand that patriotism that sees its own nation as superior simply because its citizens were born on one side of a river and not the other. I do not understand any religion that says that God is universal, but has whispered into its ear alone. I count as great every nation and religion that serves the common good, and count as evil every nation or religion that does not.
It has been said that Africa is the one continent on earth with the richest resources and poorest people. The problem, of course, is centuries of colonial exploitation, but do not expect that story to be a part of the official explanation given by any empire, including our own. No empire has ever said to its people that it was invading another nation for its spoils. Instead, every empire invades to be helpful, or to protect itself from threats that may never quite present themselves.
The U.S. has identified the little nation of Eritrea as a destabilizing force in the Horn of Africa. The tiny nation of about 6 million has been accused of helping the resistence fighers in Somolia, although hard evidence has never been produced. It is possible that they have been convicted of a more serious charge- the crime of neutrality. They won’t play ball with the African front groups of the American Empire like AFRICOM.
I do not claim to know what is happening with U.S. policy in Africa, but we do know enough to say the official U.S. version, as expressed in the corporate media, should be tested up against other interpretations like this from Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report:
“The U.S. is stalking Africa like an imperial predator. Eritrea is on the short list of who’s going to be attacked next. Eritrea, says the U.S., creates instability. However, “it is not little Eritrea that is destabilizing the Horn of Africa, but the United States, which has made the region a front line in its so-called War on Terror.”
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/where-will-us-strike-next-africa
Evolution is a necessary topic for any student of human nature. The science of evolution is older than the art of making sense out of what we now know. While religion has no role in saying what the facts are, religion, for me, is how we take the raw timber of science and build a habitable abode in a world too big and complex to ever be understood completely.
The following article is a great starting place for a conversation on evolution and sharing. Some speak of a “selfish gene” and see natural selection only taking place at the level of the individual. Others, as represented by this conversation, believe that we also have been selected to care for our group as well.
This topic has much to say about what it means to work for peace. We cannot fight and overcome our instincts, but can we tame and broaden them so that we can move from fearing each other, to mutual co-operation against the things that really do threaten our existence like disease, poverty and pollution?
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/13/paul_seabright_on_evolution_salpart/
I have a request.
I would like this site to be a place where people of different minds can come to be challenged and respected at the same time. I would like us to model respectful disagreement.
Now, obviously, I am liberal. And I’m not against sites where liberals or conservatives can come together with others who feel the same way and blow off some steam. But, I would like this to be a place where we can speak passionately from our hearts and still see those who disagree with us as human beings worthy of respect.
I think the balance we need is to be tough with ideas, and gentle with each other. If any of us take pot shots at people from another group, it will feel like all of us are laughing at all of them. At the same time, if we don’t stand up for our beliefs we have failed in our duty to teach. So we need critical analysis of actions and words of certain groups, and hospitality toward the people from those groups. To criticize a conservative or liberal position can be helpful, but to ridicule conservatives or liberals isn’t.
We cannot change the world if we only speak to people like ourselves. I started my blog with a hope of sharing ideas not usually covered by the mainstream media. I obviously have very strong opinions I want to share, but the blog has grown into a community that includes conservatives who disagree with what I am saying, but come every day to be challenged. They are honored guests here. I wince when I see my liberal mates ridiculing them.
All of us will slip sometimes and say things that are unfair, but think what a wonderful gift we will give the world if our conversation models how intelligent people can reach across the divide and discuss together how to make this a better world.
What follows is a NY Times article trying to make sense of Romney’s VP choice. My own guess was that Romney would choose a tea party approved religious right hero. Romney will likely deliver the business side of the Republican party, but as a Mormon he may need some help getting solid support from the extreme elements of the religious right. Romney went with Paul Ryan who will be loved by fiscal conservatives, but Romney already had those votes. Basically the author of this article feels that with Obama being so far ahead this early in the race Romney needed a “game changer.” Whatever else we think of the choice, it will definitely change the equation.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/a-risky-rationale-behind-romneys-choice-of-ryan/
My nun crush continues. On Friday the “Leadership Conference of Women Religious” rejected Vatican plans to rebuild the organization representing 56,000 U.S. nuns. The Vatican hoped to send a group of men to take over leadership of the women’s group recasting it in a manner more pleasing to the male leadership in Rome. In particular, the Vatican hoped to move the nun’s focus from human rights and new theological possibilities to a more orthodox focus on charity for the poor and criticising homosexuality and abortion.
The nuns have responded that they will not surrender leadership of their group to the men, but offered to continue dialogue. As I’ve said before, the hopes of the American Catholic church are in the tender hands of these very strong women.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/11/american-nuns-reject-vatican_n_1766852.html