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If there is such a being as the Anti-Christ, he or she will have a lot to learn from Monsanto.

Mansanto is a biotech corporation that has patented genetically modified seeds. They have perfected the global practice of flooding markets with cheap seeds, prohibiting anyone from replanting those crops without paying for it and, after there is no competition, jacking up the price. As a result of such practices, in the US, the price of soybeans has risen 325 percent. Corn is up 259 percent.

In other parts of the world the situation is much worse. India has had tens of thousands of farmer suicides as a result of corporations like Mansanto first cornering the market, then increasing prices and eventually bankrupting family farmers who would resist their monopoly.

http://www.alternet.org/food/what-it-means-monsanto-holds-patents-life

Yesterday, Hugo Chavez passed away. Although he was usually presented as a villain in the United States, for the poor of Venezuela he was a friend in high places.

The facts speak for themselves: the percentage of households in poverty fell from 55% in 1995 to 26.4% in 2009. When Chávez was sworn into office unemployment was 15%, in June 2009 it was 7.8%. Compare that to current unemployment figures in Europe. In that period Chávez won 56% of the vote in 1998, 60% in 2000, survived a coup d’état in 2002, got over 7m votes in 2006 and secured 54.4% of the vote last October.  Oscar Guardiola-Rivera

For Conservatives, Chavez was an easy target. He could be cast as evil because he hoped to wean poor countries in South America from exploitation by the United States. For neo-liberals, he was an even worst nightmare, someone who actually did what they preach- supporting labor and actually protecting the people from corporate predators.

Chavez was not perfect by any means, but he will be an abiding if enigmatic figure in history- a Marxist who modeled populist democracy.

Texas Freedom Network is an organization started by Cecile Richards (Daughter of Ann) to counterbalance efforts by the religious right to take over education and other aspects of Texas life.

The organization had a briefing yesterday that was very informative. There are bills coming before the state legislature that would:

Cut health care funding to school districts like Pflugerville that give domestic partner benefits.

Bar schools from prohibiting the Ten Commandments.

Protect Texas from Islamic (Sharia) law.

Withhold funds from colleges and universities that do not allow student organizations to discriminate because of race, religion or sexual orientation.

Not allow colleges or university to screen out professors who teach non-scientific theories like creationism

The extreme religious right is always hard at work planting worms deep in the heart of Texas. It is good to know there is an organization like Texas Freedom Network that wants something better for the people of Texas. And, it was good to be in a room filled with clergy who want something better too.

This is how a real democracy works. It Switzerland where the people can actually vote on the issues that most affect their lives the people have spoken. Their new initiatives would:

limit the mandate of board members to one year

ban certain kinds of compensation, including the so-called golden handshakes or golden parachutes given to executives when they leave a company.

This may be hard to believe, but the Pilgrims did not come to a new continent seeking a flat tax. Once upon a time the American Dream was not about getting rich.

There were some greedy people in early America, of course, but according to this article in the Boston Review, amassing great wealth was not the life goal of our founders. The article lists a census from 1860 where Lincoln listed a home worth $5,000 and a home worth $12,000. That was his personal propertry.

Not only was great wealth an aberration in Lincoln’s time, but even the idea that the accumulation of great riches was the point of a working life seemed foreign. Whereas today the most well-off frequently argue that riches are the reward of hard work, in the Civil War era, the reward was a “competency,” what the late historian Alan Dawley described as the ability to support a family and have enough in reserve to sustain it through hard times at an accustomed level of prosperity. When, through effort or luck, a person amassed not only a competency but enough to support himself and his family for his lifetime, he very often retired. Philip Scranton, an industrial historian, writes of one representative case: Charles Schofield, a successful textile manufacturer in Philadelphia who, in 1863, sold his interest in his firm for $40,000 and “retired with a competency.” Schofield, who was all of 29 years old, considered himself “opulent enough.” The idea of having enough frequently trumped the ambition for endless accumulation.

(Thanks to Donna Ramsey for the link.)

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.1/richard_white_gilded_age_wealth_inequality.php

I love Richard Dawkins when he is singing his nontheistic hymns to evolution and to the cosmos. I find much of his work truly inspiring. He would never call it worship, and if he heard this he might resent my saying it, but a scientist in awe of the universe is the modern version of Moses before the burning bush. As a religious person who wants to learn from him, I wish he spent more time singing hymns that illumine our world and less time attacking his jaundiced and ill informed image of religion. For him to spend his time debating creationists is like a great ballet dancer leaving the stage to have fist fights with fools in the ally.

I was copied onto a website yesterday where most of the conversation focused on ridiculing religion. No one ever defined what they meant by the word “religion.” Instead, most of the people on the site used the word like some conservatives use the word “liberal,” and some liberals use the word “conservative.” It was an ill-defined grunt meaning “stupid” or “evil.”  I am equally weary of religious people ridiculing their cartoon version of atheism, and of atheists who ridicule a cartoon version of religion.

Religion remains one of the hardest words to define in any language. There are theist and non-theist religions. There are religions of unchangeable tradition, and religions of explosive spontaneity. There are religions of belief, and religions of blistering skepticism. It is our duty to criticize all religion, but it is a dereliction of that same duty to merely ridicule each other instead.

If some future cult began to take Shakespeare literally, I am sure some other cult of rationalism would assume that anyone who turned to Shakespeare took his writings in the same ridiculous way. They might form a community forged by the bonds of mutual contempt for all things Shakespearean. They might have a long list of Shakespeare’s scientific errors and ethical short comings. They might keep a list of great villains who liked Shakespeare. Both cults would have more in common with each other than they would with the mass of humankind trying to live a decent life and trying to get along.

I am so glad that the people on this blog, atheists and non-atheists alike, can get along and respect one another. We are focused on working together to heal our world, not on laughing at each other. For that mutual respect, I am deeply grateful. I do not have the slightest concern whether people believe in God. To me religion isn’t about believing, it’s about caring. Our world is in crisis. I refuse to make any human being my enemy who will join in the struggle to make it better.

We have a duty to rescue each other from magical rituals, but we also have a duty not to lose the art of living.

We have a duty to purge the earth of hierarchy and oppression, but we also have a duty not to lose compassion.

We have a duty to purge human thought of superstition, but we also have a duty to be humble and to rejoice at the mystery undergirding it all.

Some time back, I was asked to write a forward to a book on meditation. The author wanted to explore the idea of mediation as transformation of one’s self and one’s world. In the introduction I discussed the difference between more Eastern ideas of enlightenment and the more Western ideas of repentance. I thought a bit of that forward might be a good Sunday morning blog.

Every religious practice has strengths and weaknesses.  There is no path on earth from which we cannot learn something, nor is there a path upon earth that will not require our stopping to check the map and, often times, backtracking.

“Transformation” is a metaphor expressed differently in different religious practices.  Christianity speaks of transformation in terms of “repentance.”  Other faiths speak of transformation as “enlightenment.”  Some spiritual people even think of transformation as “revolution.”  Transformation should have all of these qualities if it is to serve both the seeker and the species.

The Hebrew word for repentance simply means “to turn.” The Greek word is more evocative. It is “metanoia” which literally means a transformation of the mind.

Because the word “repentance” has been used to shame so many people, it is understandable that many progressives avoid the word altogether. But, some kind of “repentance” is necessary to the balanced life because there is suffering in our world and we all play a part in hurting each other.

It is nice to dwell on the positive side of life, but the work of undoing our addictions and prejudices is a hard and sometimes unpleasant work.  To merely dwell on positive affirmations can be a way of numbing to those feelings and memories that are not so pleasant.  Mediation, to be transformational, cannot just focus on the positive aspects of our world.  Reality is beyond what is positive or negative for us as individuals.  We may not want to be burdened with an idea like repentance, but we cannot transform the world if we ignore the pain and suffering we are bringing to the world and to ourselves.

“Enlightenment” can also be a helpful image because we need to awaken to a wider world.  Transformation should never be confused with private or personal development.  We are cells in the common body.  If you and I perfect ourselves in isolation, we will have to tear out and rebuild those foundations when we try to live peaceably together.  Much of the work of transformation is relational.

Finally, transformation needs to have something revolutionary about it. Talking about “success” or “abundance” must never numb us to the fact that much of our culture has been built upon the misery of the poor.  Revolution is not essentially violent, but it is essentially political, which means it really must change our world.  Sitting in meditation is wonderful preparation for changing our world but we do not change the world by hoping or wishing alone.  We change the world, as Gandhi said, by being the change we want to happen in our world.

Thank you for taking up the important work of spiritual transformation.

In case anyone has forgotten, the President delayed discussion of the Keystone Pipeline until after the election. Obama’s true believers said the delay was imposed because the  President was going to oppose the pipeline, but wanted to wait until after the election. More cynical voices doubted that a candidate would hold back on an issue that was popular with his base. More likely, the scallywags contended, opposition to the pipeline was doomed to go the way of the President’s opposition to Guantanamo. Obviously, not to lose votes from his base, it was important to wait until after the election was over.

In what may be early spadework in administration support of the Keystone Pipeline, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement this week saying that the Keystone pipeline, which will move 800,000 barrels oil a day and cut through thousands of miles of habitat is “unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the environment.

It is hard to believe the State Department is releasing such a report in opposition to the President’s future policies on the issue, but we’ll have to wait and see how the plot unfolds. Still, the announcement reminded me of an old joke on environmental protections from the days of the Bush administration:

Question: “How many Bush Republicans does it take to change a light bulb?”

Answer: “Bush Republicans don’t change the light bulb, they just change the definition of darkness.”

Nice to know, if we just change the names of the political parties, we may be bringing that great joke back, .

Matthew Fox was a Catholic priest and theologian who now serves as an Episcopal priest. As a Catholic, Fox wrote many books popular among Catholics interested in a mystical, ecological and social just faith. His is a theology based on creation, not the fall. Fox was prevented from teaching liberation theology, creation spirituality and feminist thought by Cardinal Ratzinger who later became Pope Benedict. After 34 years of service he was eventually expelled from the Catholic priesthood.

Matthew Fox was recently interviewed by Democracy Now. Fox contends that Pope Benedict essentially re-established the office of the inquisition in the Catholic Church to fight against the changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council. In addition to Fox’s work, the new inquisition banned over 100 other books exploring new theologies or issues of justice. In the interview, Fox was asked to describe his impression of the the current state of the Catholic Church. Understandibly, he was less than impressed:

“It’s become a viper’s nest there, obviously—the Vatican is.”

Fox contends that the former pope know about the cover up of pedophile priests.

And you can see it everywhere: Cardinal Mahony in Los Angeles; this cardinal in Scotland; Cardinal Law, who was elevated after he left Boston, given a promotion, running a fourth century basilica in Rome; and this pope himself, the recent documentary that came out a year—a week or two ago from HBO about how the buck stopped with him. We’re hearing these horrible things that went on at a school for the deaf in Milwaukee, where over 200 boys, deaf boys, were abused by a priest, and Ratzinger knew it. There’s Father Maciel, who was so close to the previous pope that he took him on plane rides with him, abused 20 seminarians, and he had two wives on the side and abused four of his own children, and Ratzinger knew about this man for 10 years. That document was on his desk, and he did nothing until the year 2005.

Fox also expressed his believe that repressive agents of the church and repressive elements of government conspired to crush liberation theology in South America.

I think all of Christianity can get back more to the teachings of Jesus, a revolutionary around love and justice. That’s what it’s about. And that’s why there’s been such fierce resistance all along from the right wing. The CIA has been involved in, especially with Pope John Paul II, the decimation of liberation theology all over South America, the replacing of these heroic leaders, including bishops and cardinals, with Opus Dei cardinals and bishops, who are—well, frankly, it’s a fascist organization, Opus Dei is. It’s all about obedience. It’s not about ideas or theology. They haven’t produced one theologian in 40 years. They produce canon lawyers and people who infiltrate where the power is, whether it’s the media, the Supreme Court or the FBI, the CIA, and finance, especially in Europe.

Fox believes that the true nature of the Catholic Church was expressed by Vatican Two.

Pope John XXIII called the council in the early ’60s, and it brought together all the bishops of the world and all the theologians, many of whom had been under fire under the previous papacy, Pope Pius XII. And it definitely was a reform movement, and it gave inspiration to the poor, especially in South America. And after the council, the movement of liberation theology, which had a principle of preferential option for the poor, this really took off, and it created base communities, which was a new way of doing church where everyone had a voice, not just the person at the altar.

And this non-hierarchical, this far more horizontal and circular approach to Christianity and to worship was a big threat, of course, to certain people in Rome, but it was even a bigger threat to the CIA. When Reagan was elected, two months later there was a meeting of his National Security Council in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to discuss one thing: How can we destroy liberation theology in Latin America? And they concluded: We can’t destroy it, but we can divide the church. And so they went after the pope. They gave him lots and lots of cash for solidarity in Poland. And in exchange, they got the permission, if you will, the commitment on the part of the papacy, to destroy liberation theology.

It is clear that Matthew Fox has not given up on the Catholic Church.  He recognizes the Cardinals now gathered to select the next Pope, were themselves selected by the last two Popes, and so will probably choose another reactionary Pope in the same mold as Pope Benedict. But Fox would argue that the real Catholic Church is the one that produced liberation theology. He believes the real Catholic Church is the one that produced the feminist “nuns on a bus.” He would argue that it was the real Catholic Church which produced Matthew Fox, himself. So while the immediate future appears bleak, faithful Catholics now in living in captivity to the Vatican should remember  a cardinal rule of church history: it is the heretic and martyr of one generation that becomes the saint and foundation of the next.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/former-catholic-priest-popes-war-and-clergys-child-molestation?paging=off