Ralph Reed and the Bible

 http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/18/christian-leader-says-when-government-helps-the-poor-liberties-are-taken-away/

Ralph Reed says what an awful lot of evangelicals believe, but in a more direct way. The evangelical church is often suspicious that the government can or should assist the poor--because that is their responsibility. Yet, the poor still exist, and the church in the west is wealthier (and more immovable) than one might think it should be in light of Christ's admonitions.

Increasingly, it seems that the evangelical and fundamentalist church groups are more and more suspicious of the "other", and more justified by their theology with bunkering and not sharing with the same until the "other" comes to Jesus.

 I found this one of the major faults of my own worship experience while an evangelical. I was confronted by how the folks and the churches I worshiped with and at were only willing to serve on their own terms, and in within their own safe spaces.

They avoided the places where sinners actually frequented, and often seemed to shrink from anything which would dirty their hands, metaphorically speaking. The phrase "avoiding the appearance of evil" was used to justify being separate from the world. But Christ had told us to be IN the world, but not OF it. That proved to be a difficult thing for most believers to find the truth of, or understand the nuances within.

I was no hero in this regard. I failed to do what I knew I needed to do, but felt justified by being "right". I increasingly felt as though the world was against me, and that their unwillingness to choose Jesus was the reason they suffered. I would often say that Jesus was the answer to every question.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still believe Christ is my savior. I believe in the gospel.

But I don't believe that I should create  a world view around that truth which obstructs or obfuscates. I believe that I am tasked with much more than that. But, I also believe that it is not about me anymore.

The less I believe that it is about me, or my spiritual performance, personally, the more I have felt that I was able to love and serve God in Christ. I am learning to be humble and quiet in the presence of God, and that I should seek the needy where they are, not on my own terms. For God is with me everywhere, every moment, even in the mundane and dingy places of life.

What the 99 percent need...

is increased wages.


No plan on either side of the aisle addresses an increasingly significant core issue of our economic downturn, wage depression. When the average middle class male makes 1,500 less per year now than he made in 1973, we have problems.

Nothing, apart from regulation and health care reform, can restore the take home pay which has been lost. No business will suddenly decide to pay their employees 20% more after a deal is done. So where must we recoup the lost income? We must find a way to lower the cost of benefits so that people are taking home more money.

We also need to see the cost of health care return to the levels they were at pre-2000. People don't spend money if they have less and less discretionary spending. The CEOs and magnates don't understand that because they don't live that way.

Meanwhile, the stability factor our or state and national economy, public workers and their consistent wages and benefits... and therefore stable tax base... have been diminished and eradicated.

So we're operating with less of a foundation than before. The base is gone, the middle-class is non-existent.

The big businesses are making stable profits due to our strained increased productivity and the deregulation and decreased taxation of the Bush era. But they are not willing to relinquish anything that was granted to them, or open their coffers and hire new employees.

All the talk about small businesses is smoke and mirrors. They're of no concern to the plutocrats. If more small businesses fail our nation will become more and more controlled by fewer and fewer entities, like in the food industry. The "Wal-Martization" of our economy helps no small business. Instead, like what that company did to Rubbermaid the year after they were considered the best-run business in USA, they'll be forced by the massive corporate machines to outsource, reduce quality, and lower costs to the point where there is nothing left of what the previous company was--except for the name.

I like some things about Herman Cain,  but he should know that a 9% sales tax would further stunt our economic growth, even with a lower income tax. Sales tax is regressive because the middle class and below spend a larger percentage of their income on goods and services. So they'll pay a higher percentage price for that plan... which will mean that they will be more hard pressed and afraid to spend each dollar they earn.

Somewhat like the impact of Walker's budget bill on my income at the lowest end of the state income spectrum... it means I lost 16% of my total income. Meanwhile, a professor or a state official might see a 5% loss of income. With sales tax, the rich often don't have to pay it--not unlike the way they've got loopholes for corporate taxes right now. A large percentage of companies pay zero corporate taxes.

We need to create a regulation system which makes it very hard to outsource, which restores fiscal sanity to utilities, energy, and health care. We need for the middle class to be paid for their sacrifices, and for their debts... increasingly created by shrinking incomes and promises of future prosperity, should be forgiven.

The year of Jubilee is NOW.

Uncertain Wants

Have you ever made yourself sick wanting something, only to find out that you really didn't want that thing when you acquired it?

GOP Files For Moral Bankruptcy

Recently, an acquaintance replied to a thread with this title by claiming that the left became morally bankrupt "long, long ago."

I was astounded that a Christian could make such a claim, but not surprised. I'm sure he was referring to the two pillars of the GOP religious-right manipulation campaign, homosexuality and abortion. If this friend really believes that the GOP champion these two issues which are often the litmus test of their truncated view of morality, then he ought to ask himself why the GOP hasn't eliminated abortions, and why they're waffling on things like civil unions. They don't care about those issues at all, apart from the entrenched religious-right votes--which are consistently driven by fear and myopic religious fervor.


Sure, if you believe that those two issues are pillars of right doctrine, then you can judge those you vote for by how they think about these issues. But to do so within a Christian context is woefully incomplete. These are ancillary issues of faith, not even discussed by Christ even once in his time on Earth.


It depends what you define as morality, but I have found that there are moral blind spots which are much more immoral on the right side of the fence. The religious right ignores the mandates of Christ himself to serve the poor and heal the sick by supporting the GOP agendas which marginalize more of the poor and eliminate the possibility for the sick to be healed. They espouse beliefs that people should earn these things, even though the central doctrine of their own salvation narrative is that salvation is a free gift which cannot be earned by merit.
The entire message of the christian faith, on whose backs the party has ridden for years without true allegiance, is undermined by the right's lack of compassion. The arrogance of the right is so intertwined with the politics of late that there is little morality to be found at all. The number one thing in Christ's message was love. It was the very reason which he became incarnate and died on the cross. It is what separated the message of Christianity from the pantheon of other world religions. But the small "c" christianity of the GOP undermines that message so that there is little difference, and that the message of salvation is completely individual, and a choice.

This fits with the skewed message of the right. They've pushed a hyper-individualistic message which champions personal responsibility and lacks any pity for those who lack the skills or the resources to make it within that sort of environment. They've pitted the rich versus the poor and given human rights to corporations, which are the most amoral (lately, mostly immoral) entities on Earth. The GOP has lost it's way. There are few Republicans who are doing more than fighting for their political lives right now. They cannot possibly believe that what they are doing is in any way "moral" or "right".

Then again, I guess I have much more hope that people actually take courageous moral inventories regularly of their own lives and values. The 12 steps have taught me, and many folks like me that without being able to hold one's self accountable, and having others to do the same, that we are likely to be moral train wrecks.

The individualism posing as patriotism of the right is the problem. It leads to sin, and hence, immorality. The GOP has lost it's way, and has become a more insidious evil--an angel of light foretold in the Bible as the utmost of evil.

The left is not free from sin and manipulation. They do politics too, but not with the same hatred of the right. The left often legitimately loves, even if imperfectly, and does put forth effort toward filling the gaps within society. They aren't tied to the same level of corporate greed because there's so much less profit to be made while serving the marginalized.

Sure, poverty can also be a big business. But they're often closer to the message of Christ than the right. Still, I think that Milwaukee Sewer Socialism trumps both of them in that category, despite the irrational fear and vinegar which has been spewed behind the term "socialism" in the past ten years. There's always been a strong socialist element as an offset within our U.S. political system, and to root it out now, amidst such a climate of brutal capitalism, would be the end of our great nation.

I mean it. I think that it will doom us to suffer a dismal end. Then again, have any of you noticed that there is no Eagle in the Revelation story? It has always perplexed me that we're not hinted at being part of Armageddon. We'll be the modern epitome of the Roman Empire, it seems. I hope that I do not live to see such things.

God, Liberty, & Capitalists

Ron Paul is right to cite the source of our liberty being from the divine. The Declaration of Independence spells this out quite clearly. 

But one must ask then why corporations are granted the same inalienable rights as individual persons. Doesn't that make the Capitalist who created the corporations GOD?

Ann Coulter's Dangerous Judgement

So apparently Ann Coulter is on a book tour now. She's written a book, 'Demonic', about how liberals have an evil mob mentality, and act out as 'mobs' in many cases.


I think that Ann is more than simply mistaken. She's got it backwards. The actions of the Tea Party, and of her cohorts in the conservative press, Fox News in particular, is quite similar to that of a mob. Whether it's evil is up to God to decide. Here's why.


The thing is that what Coulter says about liberals is the antithesis of reality. It's actually true of her party, particularly in the last ten years. 

The liberal is actually, by nature, more capable of thinking as an individual, even within a crowd. The mentality of the right is often more driven by strong leaders and a pack mentality. 

And, for the religious side of her accusation, mainstream Christian theology teaches that the most effective tool of the demonic forces is for the devil or his minions to pose as "an angel of light". Evil posing as good. 

Conversely, the unforgivable sin noted in the Bible has often been identified as equating evil with the divine. The person who makes such a judgement opens themselves up to hell either way by my count...

Kickstarter

Grasp the gravitas of simplicity.