Sometime back I told you about a little group of student protestors who were standing up for foreign workers. The little group tirelessly nagged the administration of the University of Texas to consider the working conditions of those who made tee shirts and other products for the university. I went to several of their gatherings and was very impressed with their sincerity. They carried pictures of workers who had been killed working in unsafe or inhumane conditions. They brought the stories of these workers to reluctant ears. 18 members of the group were even arrested in one protest.
President Bill Powers was caught in a very difficult position. The University was already a member of one group chartered to monitor labor conditions, but that group wasn’t trusted by labor groups. He would have to justify an expense of $50,000 to join the new group. I don’t even know if it was possible for the University to leave the group to which it belonged. Last week the President announced that the University would use both groups to make sure that Univerity of Texas garb will not be made in sweatshop conditions.
I am grateful to the little group of student activists who would not let the poor be forgotten. I am very grateful to President Powers for his courage to do the right thing in difficult circumstances. All those associated with the University of Texas should be very proud today, as they have declared themselves to be good citizens of the world.
Thanks to Allison Thompson for the story.
To read article, click here.
Noam Chomsky has spent his life trying to call our nation to sanity. While almost every other media source seeks to justify American exceptionalism, Chomsky and a handful of other isolated voices have spoken of forgotten standards like the Magna Charta and the Geneva Conventions. The following article is a bit long, but can be read in parts. Whether one agrees with Chomsky is not the question. The question is whether we can still remember the pillars of human decency, or will continue to make our national decisions in an ethical vacuum.
To read article, click here.
It seems to me that the question of God’s existence or nonexistence is vacuous. One person answers the question “yes,” the other person answers “no.” Neither has the slightest idea what the other means unless they have a respectful chat about what the symbol means to each of them. Believing or disbelieving in a symbol are equal and opposite forms of literalism, and just two ways of misunderstanding what a symbol is in the first place.
Not a pleasant read, but an important one. McKibben stands as a voice in the wilderness crying out a message no one wants to hear. Our planet is changing, and that change will make most of our current problems seem small. Thanks to Bob Jensen for this one too.To read, click here.
I was glad to run across this article. A minister’s letter persuaded Alternet.com to reconsider their constant attack on people of faith. While I’ve gotten use to taking pot shots for being religious and hardly notice anymore, I think the author has a point. Religion has many sins to atone for, but the left would have been poorer if MLK and Gandhi had been rejected from the movement simply because they were religious. Thanks to Bob Jensen, for sharing this.
To read article, click here.
The day after the tragedy in Colorado the web filled up with three predictable positions. 1. “If there had been someone with a concealed weapon, he or she might have saved everyone there.” 2. “The assault weapons used by the killer were all legal. More weapons would have created a cross fire and given the police no idea who to pursue when they arrived. 3. The President said this isn’t a time for politics but a time for prayer.
What makes this conversation so hard is that each position represents an entire worldview. Someone who believes that human beings are essentially violent will reason that only more guns can counterbalance such acts of violence. Those who believe that violence only leads to more violence point out that countries like England have only a fraction of the gun deaths of the U.S. Those caught in the middle believe if we ignore the situation it will somehow all work out.
I fall into the second group and believe that if assault weapons were illegal it would be easier to identify violent and unbalanced people. I don’t believe in taking away all guns, but feel small handguns and military grade assault weapons have no place in a civilized nation. The idea that an armed citizenship could defend itself against today’s military is delusional in my opinion. Just Youtube Iraqi’s armed with such weapons shot down with Apache helicopters from ungodly ranges.
But my point in writing today is not to argue for that one point of view. Instead, I’m hoping as people disagree on what caused the shooting that we not get lost in traditional cliches, but talk instead about what our hopes and fears, and what kind of a world we both want to live in. Is violence the principle that will organize the kind of world we want to live in? Are we becoming safer as we arm ourselves to the teeth, or are we becoming Kafka-like insects? Simplistic arguments will lead us nowhere. Gun advocates are right that we cannot wish violence away, but if the source of this violence is a wound in the soul of our nation, then gun control advocates also have a point: we can’t shoot it away either.
Conversations about whose fault this is will probably be useless. Blaming the NRA or gun control advocates will not answer the question we need to ask. What are the hopes and fears do we share with those with whom we disagree? How can we who disagree fundamentally on specifics and still work together to create the kind of world that is worth living in? If people of good will cannot learn to have these conversations, the Colorado shooting may just be the preview of coming attractions.
I am fascinated with bad religion. As a minister I see people trying to make sense of their lives with duct tape and a prayer. Most have the sense not to say it out loud, but when life isn’t working out, religion can become a kind of self-induced insanity. I would guess George Zimmerman didn’t mean to say that God wanted Treyvon dead. What he was probably trying to say is that nothing happens without a reason, and that he would accept what is happening to him. But such religion assumes a self centered narrative that gives us an ungodly arrogance in the name of God. It makes the believer the center of the story, and the rest of us become props. It also assumes a passivity that amounts to renouncing responsibility for our acts. It is a great gift to the world to purge such bad religion from our hearts and heads. If we do not do purge our thinking in good times, the insanity of bad religion will take hold of our minds when times get bad.
To read article and view video, click here.
The 2012 presidential campaign has started in the gutter and will only go down from there. It looks like the President will run a negative campaign, and Sununu’s attack on the patriotism of President Obama was the most dangerous form of demagoguery, “This guy is not really one of us. He’s someone and something else.”
But when his fellow Republicans went after Huma Abedin, an Arab American who advises Hilary Clinton, claiming she has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, John McCain rose to the floor to protect someone being attacked unfairly because they are from an unpopular or misunderstood group.
No one is fooled by those who question Obama’s loyalties to the country. He is being attacked in this way because he is black. It is one thing to attack his policies, but to say he isn’t really one of us, seems a thinly coded message aimed at a white audience. In the same way, no one is fooled by the attack on Huma Abedin, she is being attacked in this way because she is of Arab descent. I disagree with John McCain on many things, but today I want to thank him for reminding us of an endangered species, a real American who stands up for his fellow citizens who are being attacked unfairly.
To view video, click here.
Most companies that funnel money to attacking women, or blacks or GLBT Americans prefer to wage a stealth war, not Dan Cathy, President of Chic-Fil-A. When asked about such activities by a Baptist reporter he said, “guilty as charged.” While one might appreciate his rare honesty, one must then face the obligation the rest of us have to boycott any business who then uses our money to bully others.
To read article, click here.
The true history of the U.S. will not be written until we have lost the ability to write it ourselves. Our own narrative of a well meaning but misunderstood and bungling giant has been repeated so many times that few dare to question it here in the States. Outside the U.S. there is a very different history being told. The sun is setting on the American Empire, so the sooner we learn what we have really done to the rest of the world, and rejoin the company of civilized nations, the softer our landing will be. Anyone who truly loves America must be willing to learn of our crimes against humanity and cry out for our nation to return to a submission to international standards. Our nation may have been born out of a dream for freedom, but no nation since World War 2 has done more than the US to crush that same dream for those who live in other nations.
To read article, click here.