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It is important for well to do Americans who read scripture to realize that, in the Christmas story, we are not so much like the poor immigrant couple Joseph and Mary as we are like the Romans. Our children are not born in barns. Those Middle Eastern people who look like the figures in our nativity scenes now cower under our occupying armies and drones.

It is also important, when we read the story of the Exodus, to realize we are not so much like Moses and the Israelites as we are like Pharaoh and the Egyptians. We are the ones who hide behind the pride of empire to justify our works of oppression. The enslaved people in the story are now to be found working in our sweatshops and rotting in our prisons. So the message we must hear when we read scripture is not that we are the chosen ones. The message we must hear is “let my people go!”

For profit prisons are an abomination, but they are a natural extension of capitalism without conscience. The following article from truthout.org briefly describes America’s move from the direct form of slavery so named, to the modified form of slavery we call “for profit prisons.”

“Thanks to (Ronald) Reagan elevating profit to a religion, between 1980 and 2009, the state and federal prison population in the U.S. increased by over 700 percent.

Since the for-profit prison industry started aggressively buying Congressmen 15 years ago, the number of people thrown into for-profit prisons has exploded. 

And Americans sitting in jail make a very exploitable, very profitable, slave-like labor force.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the minimum wage for a prisoner who works in the UNICOR program, the federal government’s prison industries program, is 23 cents an hour.  The maximum UNICOR wage is $1.15 an hour. 

…And some states, like Georgia and Texas, are completely upfront about their slave-labor camps. They pay absolutely nothing to prisoners.”

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18168-what-do-you-do-when-you-no-longer-need-your-slaves-or-your-workers

“Fifteen-year-old Anthony Stokes has less than six months to live unless he receives an emergency heart transplant. But his family has been told that Anthony doesn’t qualify for the transplant list because he has a “ history of non-compliance” — partly due to his history of earning low grades and having some trouble with the law.” –Tara Culp-Ressler

Whenever patients ask to receive a heart transplant, they are evaluated for factors like age, health and how well they will co-operate with their doctors.  Such screening is necessary, but it introduces an ambiguity into the process that makes it hard to distinguish discernment from societal stereotypes.

I would hate to make the decision of who receives a heart transplant. I can see from one side how young Anthony Stokes may not have been the best candidate. But I am haunted by the possibility that a young black kid may have been going through a hard time in his life, and before he could find himself, he was sentenced to death for having an uppity attitude.

http://www.alternet.org/dying-black-teen-denied-heart-transplant-due-partly-low-grades-and-trouble-law

Any two state solution in the Middle East will include both safety for the Israelis and land for the Palestinians. The U.S. brokered peace process that currently amounts to releasing Palestinian prisoners at the same time Israel announces it is building new settlements on disputed land is the worst possible compromise. Such an approach ignores both the crimes of Palestinian terrorists against the people of Israel, and the the crimes of of the state of Israel against the people of Palestine in the form of perpetual land theft. We can disagree on many specifics of the conflict, but no one is serious about peace in the Middle East who does not denounce both of these crimes.

Col. Paul Dodd is honorably retired from the army. He is trying to petition the military to choose chaplains that will serve all the troops. In other words, will honor soldiers who are not Christian, soldiers who are not heterosexual, and troops that do not fit the stereotypes of religion in this culture.

The petition calls for chaplains who will serve:

“Diverse communities of belief in the military are properly seeking recognition. Many of these communities not only include but celebrate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service members. Humanists and Wiccans seek to join Buddhists, Hindus and other diversity groups who already have recognition and representation in our military.”  

The petition is being sponsored by gay rights groups, humanists, atheists and several seminaries. It’s goal is to call for chaplains who will serve all the troops, not just straight Christians. If you would like to sign on, the link below will lead you to the petition. Thanks to Paul Dodd for the heads up.

http://forumonthemilitarychaplaincy.org/resources/time-to-embrace-a-chaplaincy-for-all-the-troops/

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.” James 5:1

A study from the University of Exeter seem to confirm the biblical prediction that rich people’s indifference to the plight of the poor sets them up for a shared fate. In particular, the study found that while the rich are not being poisoned by the same chemicals they dump upon the poor, they are being poisoned non-the-less.

The study found unsurprisingly that because the poor are more likely to live near landfills and suffer from consuming certain pollutants like lead and cadmium, the rich are also being poisoned by eating more seafood (mercury) and using products like sunscreen (benzophenone-3).

In the words of the study”

“The results of the analysis came as a surprise. Although around half of the 18 chemicals linked to income were associated with lower socio-economic status (as anticipated), the other half were more prevalent in wealthier individuals.

People with higher socioeconomic status had higher levels of serum and urinary mercury, arsenic, caesium, thallium, perfluorooctanoic acid, perfluorononanoic acid, mono(carboxyoctyl) phthalate and benzophenone-3.

Our research suggested that eating more fish and shellfish contributed to an increase in mercury, arsenic, thallium and perfluorononanoic acid. We also demonstrated that the use of sunscreen is an important factor in the accumulation of benzophenone-3, with people from higher socioeconomic groups more likely to use products containing the chemical.

Lower socioeconomic status was associated with higher levels of serum and urinary lead and cadmium, antimony, bisphenol A and three phthalates (substances mainly used in plastics to increase flexibility and transparency): mono-benzyl, mono-isobutyl, mono-n-butyl.”

Translation: While the poor are more likely to be poisoned by the pollution dumped upon them by the rich, the rich are also being poisoned by pollution that comes around in different chemicals. Maybe the biblical prophets were right when they said that rich people’s indifference to the suffering of the poor opens the door to their own misery as well.

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/8599/20130804/chemicals-body-show-whether-youre-rich-or-poor.htm

A pro-choice organization in Virginia has finished a year long investigation of Virginia crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) and claims that women are consistently given false medical information in them.

Over the course of the year the group claims to have heard the following tall tales from CPCs:

“Hormonal contraception will make your hair fall out.” 

“Condoms are naturally porous, so they don’t protect against STIs.”  

“Taking the birth control pill is like putting a 

small child on steroids.” 

“Sometimes the IUD grows into the tissue of the 

uterus.” 

“Abortions are performed with hooks.” 

“The rhythm method is scientifically proven to be the most effective form of contraception.” 

If they are really passing out this kind of medical misinformation, it is particularly disturbing because these CPCs are also publicly funded through the sale of “Choose Life” license plates.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/08/09/naral_virginia_catches_crisis_pregnancy_centers_lying_about_abortion_and.html

Talk about good timing! I mentioned last week that I am hosting an open house for Worker’s Defense Project this Tuesday at 6:30 at 5604 Manor Road. Over the weekend the organization got a very nice write up in the New York Times. If anyone else would like to join us Tuesday evening to learn more about this remarkable organization, we would love to have you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/business/the-workers-defense-project-a-union-in-spirit.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130811

When the issue of women in leadership comes up, I always think of a fossil I once saw of a bird that never gained use of one of its wings. It dwelt on the ground because it was never able to stretch out both wings and so gain flight. It’s exciting to think of the discoveries yet to be made as the female half of our humanity moves into science and into power. It is as if we have discovered that our species has a wing we have never fully honored.

To me, feminism isn’t just about justice, it’s about an awakening for our entire species. It is as if, like the fossilized bird, we have dwelt upon the ground because we never fully extended one of our wings. How many cures and discoveries never happened because we only listened to half of our wisdom? How many bloodbaths might have been avoided if we had known our feminine strength?

There is a coming day when and women will come together not to determine who is leader and who is servant, but as two wings of one organic being. When that happens, perhaps for the first time in our long sad history, we human beings will know what it feels like to fly.

When I eat at restaurants near high tech firms here in Austin, I am used to being surrounded by other men. Many people assume when it comes to engineering or physics, those topics and those careers are primarily for men. Some even claim that men are naturally better at those fields.

Catherine Riegle-Crumb is a sociologist at the University of Texas who decided to explore the gender gap in high school physics classes as a way of finding out why there are fewer women in certain fields.

 “What we found is that in communities that had a higher percentage of women in the labor force who are working in science, technology, engineering and math, that in those schools, girls were as likely as boys to take physics, or even more likely.”

In other words, the study found that what many young girls are lacking is not intelligence or skill, but role models. The study revealed that countries with greater gender equality show balanced math scores for boys and girls.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/08/09/210251404/why-arent-more-girls-attracted-to-physics?sc=17&f=1001