God's Politics and the Progressive Movement

I'm in the process of reading God's Politics by Jim Wallis. As a Christian, I sometimes get a little pissed off by my leftist compadres when they "shush" me for talking about Christian values in a political venue. I really am tired of hearing "we must be inclusive and respectful of those who don't hold our same religious beliefs". They have no problem with not being inclusive when it comes to the right-wing extemists. So why do they have a problem with inclusiveness within their own ranks?

Well, I've got three words for them these days: "Get OVER it!" I'm no longer going to "shush" when I want to talk about how my faith affects my politics. I've been inclusive long enough, and now it's the politically correct, the atheists, the agnostics, and the "other" religious believers that are just going to have to be inclusive and let me and other Christians have their say. We might actually have a clue.

So here's me, having my say.

I believe that God is a God of light and in Him is no darkness at all (IJohn 1:5). And I don't know, but maybe God evolves, too. Or at least changes his mind. It seems that the God of the Old Testament seemed very "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" leaning. Or maybe that's just what the people wanted so that's what He gave them. After all, God didn't even like the idea of a King, and resisted until the Israelites demanded He give them one. In my book, that says that God doesn't think it's a very good idea for one man or a few men or any men, for that matter, to rule over another, let alone a whole country. I think the right-wing religious fundamentalists overlook that little tidbit of Biblical history.

But God was very explicit when He told the children of Israel, who had always been ruled by priests and holy men, what he expected from the king they would demand. First, God said He would give them a king of His choosing - not of their choosing. (Probably where the kings of old got the "divine right" stuff from, but probably not what God had in mind...) Second, God said the king would not be a foreigner but one of their own (Sorry, Arnold.) Third, God said that the king would not endeavor have alot of women or to make himself rich...yep, that's what He said. Fourth, God said the king should always keep God's laws by putting them in a book and reading them daily, and by respecting and revering God.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very much like any of our current world leaders, and it especially doesn't sound like Dubya and his band of merry fascists.

This stuff can all be found in Deuteronomy 17, but the point is that God didn't really think Kings were such a good idea, He preferred a nation ruled by no one but where grievances were solved by the "priests" of the day, I presume in a non-violent manner. And when He did give in to the Israelites demands for a King, God was very specific about what kind of a man that would be.

God didn't want anyone who would let power go to his head. And to prevent that, God outlined the rules - something those who rule in America today have seemed to conveniently forgotten, if indeed, they ever knew of them.

Back to basics.

I don't believe God ever wants war. Maybe He had enough of it in the Old Testament. Maybe He, as we should, found a better way. All I know is that the God of the New Testament is a "kindler, gentler" God. In the Old Testament the people kept asking for rules and regulations in order to "please" God by obeying them. The trouble was, they couldn't keep all those laws and God knew it. He knew man's nature better than man himself knew it, because God created man (and I don't want to get into the creationism versus evolution argument, because I believe it could be both or neither and it's one of those mysteries that have been lost to the ages and one day we'll know one way or the other. Until then, I'm not seriously going to argue one way or the other. I have a hard time believing we all came from a single cell, though....).

Anyway, for all the laws of the OT, Jesus summed them all us when He said we were to love God first and foremost and love our neighbors as ourselves. (Mt. 12: 30-31). I don't think we think about that much, really, but we ought to.

Jesus also talked a great deal about the poor, the sick, the disabled, the widow, and the orphan. He didn't have alot of good to say about the rich or the religious leaders of His day. In fact, he often "gently" rebuked them and criticized them by saying things like it was better to heal on the Sabbath than to leave someone in need.

So why do the right-wing fundamentalists concentrate only on gay marriage and abortion, when the major theme of God's Word is poverty? If you cut out all the verses in the Bible that have to do with abortion and homosexuality, you'll still have 99.99% of the Bible left. But if you cut out all the verses that talk about poverty, your Bible will be left literally in pieces.

So why don't progressives start putting Jesus on the map for what He REALLY was concerned about and preached about, instead of letting some right-wing nut jobs use smoke and mirrors to take the focus off what really matters to God?

I think that's a good question, and a valid one. After all, the right-wingers have kicked the football of faith onto the playing field, so to speak, and it's up to us progressives to pick up the ball and run with it. If we refuse to learn the rules of the game, how can we expect to play to win?

So I've decided to jump into the game and play to win. I'm a Christian. In another life I used to study the Bible somewhat, and I've probably forgotten more than most fundamentalists will ever know - and I don't say that to be smug; it's that they're just not "getting" it, probably because they're not being taught.

I'm not saying that progressives that don't believe in Christianity should pretend to do so, but I'm sure there are plenty of closet Christians within the progessive movement that have been silent or have been told to "stifle it". I encourage all of you to speak up and out for what you know to be the truth, not as this minority of narrow-minded, fundamentalist right-wingers see it, but for what you know it to be.

It's time.

With A Few Strokes of the Pen

And so it begins. Make no mistake, the radical right-wing extremist agenda is on the march. The question is, will we be able to stop it?

Now that Fuhrer Bush feels he has his majority mandate, the Republican double-speak is in full swing. On NPR today the airwaves were abuzz with Bush's newest budget cuts. I'm sure Frank "sold my soul to the devil for 30 pieces of silver" Luntz had everything to do with Bush's 30-second sound-byte defense -

1. Social programs "sound good" .

This is a frame that says that in reality, social programs aren't good. The problem with this is that most of us know that social programs are not only good, but necessary. But the Bush radical right-wing extremist agenda's credo is that if you can't make it on your own, you don't deserve any help. If you don't work, you don't deserve help. Of course, what is ignored is that you can't work if there are no jobs, if you're sick or disabled, if you're discriminated against because of age, race or gender, etc. In Bushworld there are no excuses. There are no soft edges, no shades of gray. Simply black and white. No matter that many of Bush's elitist "base" (including Bush himself) didn't get where they are today because of their own hard work and efforts. Most of them were born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths. Of course, those that subscribe to Bush's agenda have an answer for that, too. If God wanted you to be born one of the privileged elite, you would have been. Therefore you must be paying for the sins of your forefathers and deserve to be punished. Don't forget that Bush and many of his cronies (Ashcroft, for example) are Christian evangelists, that hard-core group of fundamentalist Christians that preach hell-fire-and-brimstone but forget to read what Jesus said about love, tolerance, and helping the poor. One must wonder if they even bother to read their Bibles or just use them to hit others over the head - "weapons for the Lord".

2. When someone said that the poor and disadvantaged would be most hurt by Bush's budget cuts and asked Bush what he thought about the poor asking why he was making these cuts, Bush replied "The poor should be asking the question of whether the program is meeting its goal(s)".

He's running a con. This is a frame that suggests that the programs aren't doing enough to help the poor and are not meeting the goals of the program or the needs of the people who are depending on it, and therefore should be scrapped. What Bush doesn't say is that there is no plan to replace any of these programs with something that does work, except, of course, the admonition to "get out and work for your living and all will be well with you." Again, there are no excuses. Too old? Disabled? Sick? No jobs? Discriminated against? Gay? A woman? Not enough experience? Too much experience? Might need too much healthcare? (And that's another thing Bush thinks Americans can and should do without unless they can pay for it out of their own pockets, but that's another story.) So Bush is trying to get the nation's poor to actually agree with him that these programs aren't meeting their goals because they're not doing enough to help.

Of course not. They're underfunded and the rolls of the poor increase daily.

Make no mistake, the Bush regime's agenda from the very beginning was to repeal any and every law that protects workers, the poor, the disabled, the sick, those that are marginalized, minorities, women, etc. Why? Because they cost Bush and his wealthy elitist buddies money. Which is why one of the first things Bush did was to cut taxes for the wealthiest elite of this country. The next thing he did was allow this country to be attacked from the outside - and I won't equivocate on this issue - so that he could make an excuse to go to war. Never mind that he invaded the wrong country and went after the wrong terrorist. But the point of this post is that by cutting taxes for the very rich and by taking this country to war, Bush and his regime has succeeded in driving up the national debt and depleting our country of not only the surplus that President Clinton left us as his fiscal legacy, but they have also raided the Social Security funds to finance their own agenda. Which brings me back to another point. Social Security is in trouble, not as much as the Bush regime tries to hype, but it is only in need of tweaking because of the robber barons who stole from it to finance a dirty war.

Bush and his merry band of fascists are waging war all right - they are waging war on every poor American in this country. They are working to roll back legislation protecting labor just as they've repealed every environmental protection law in the last 10 years. They are hacking away at overtime laws and eliminating unions through repealing laws that prohibit intimidation by corporate henchmen.

They are working at so underfunding the educational system in this country that only the wealthy will be able to afford a decent education. Already they have reduced funding for universities and pell grants. State grants have been reduced as they've been forced to go into survival mode. Those states with Republican Governors have been quietly adhering to the same kind of onslaught on our freedoms and services to the needy, as well as labor and education.

The Bush agenda includes world domination through "democratization" of second and third world countries. By invading those countries where he can claim a link to terrorism, he will be able to install puppet governments that will of course be U.S. friendly. It's all about oil and trade. Some countries will agree to play by his rules only to avoid invasion, occupation, and annihilation. Iraq is just practice, and it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

In Bush World, which is his aim, make no mistake, there will be no freedom as most of us interpret it. Even now, in cities where Bush makes appearances, those that disagree with him or seek to expose his agenda are banned from attending. In some cities, protesters have been arrested for carrying signs against the war. In all cities where he or his cronies appear there are "free speech zones", usually in areas that are blocks, even miles, away from the main event. The point is to isolate anyone who disagrees with the mighty Bush. Only those who agree with his agenda are allowed to attend his staged appearances. So the next time you see Bush on TV, surrounded by smiling, clapping and laughing people, many of them women (he must make it look like women agree with his schtick), just remember that these people have been hand-picked, literally. And that those that disagree weren't even allowed within 1-3 miles of Bush, let alone in the same building or room. It isn't that they're worried someone will get in with a weapon, because everybody is thoroughly searched - no, what they are most concerned with is that no one heckles, frowns, makes a face, or even looks like he/she disagrees.

And who does this remind you of? Well, I can tell you who it reminds me of: Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, and the AntiChrist. Take your pick, no matter which you choose, we lose. We lose as individuals, as families, as citizens, as a society, as human beings.

In Bush World there is chaos. There is mass poverty, and people die everyday from starvation, exposure and disease. But, all is not lost.... Because it is inconvenient for the deserving wealthy to have to see this, poverty has been declared illegal. Privately owned prisons have been built and those who "will not" pay their debts are sent there. There are no "excuses". They provide much of the work that low-income people used to perform - they are the ones who pick up our highways, parks, and public lands. They mow the grass and take out the trash. They work in state laundries and make things like license plates. Some of them are trained to do such menial work as planting flowers and mowing the grass for some of the more benevolent wealthy elite who feel sorry for them. It works out well for them, too, of course, because the labor is cheap. The wealthy are so grateful that they actually contribute to these privatized "debtors' camps".

In Bush World those who are sick, disabled, elderly, poor, etc., now live in privately owned "Camps for the Poor, Sick & Disabled". No one visits these camps much, and each camp has their own private cemetary - for convenience, of course. It saves the state so much money because they don't have to bury the poor for free. Of course, most people are cremated - it's cheaper and so that's the way to go. It also saves space. There are doctors and nurses to take care of the poor. Of course, these are privately-owned camps, so there really is not much regulation - states have pretty much done away with all that paperwork. Not much is known about how these people make enough money to keep these places going, but there is some speculation. No one knows how many people die or what kind of medical care they get, but that's none of our business. Better to not ask too many questions.

In Bush World there has also been a resurgence of Orphanages. Parents that are not able to take care of their children are "encouraged" to give them away, and if they refuse or are arrested for public begging or loitering, or found guilty of establishing an "illegal or fraudulent residence", such as in a car, abandoned building, subways, etc., they are forced to give up their children anyway. These laws are based on the Texas statutes, where many unsuspecting parents have lost custody of their children in the past. Of course, these children are much better off. Many of the upper class who either cannot have children or who don't want to ruin their figures can freely adopt these children. Also, since everyone must learn the moral lesson of productivity, corporate farms (there are no more family farms - they lost their "hand-outs in Bush's second term and all farms were eventually bought out by corporations) are allowed to "foster" some of these children, who are in turn taught how to work on the farm and learn what it means to be a responsible citizen. Of course, these children don't receive an education or pay (although they do receive room and board - again, privately regulated) but that is due to their lower class status, as it has been determined that the government is not obligated to provide an education for any citizen.

Of course, there is always the National Service. Some children, those that the government deems fit, can join the National Service once they are 14 years of age. These lucky boys and girls are able to travel all over the world enforcing the global domination by the U.S. that was begun in Bush's second term of office. Of course, there are many casualties, and the life of a soldier is hard. The pay is low and there isn't enough food or armor, guns or ammunition, but it's better than living in the Debtors' Camps. And once a child turns 14, he or she must leave the Orphanage, as they are now considered adults and must work to pay their way. If they can't get work on the Corporate Farms or in the Corporate Factories, either here or in U.S. holdings outside of the country, then they must either join the National Service or face Debtor Camp. Since they cannot afford an education, most jobs are off-limits to them. Of course, those responsible enough to have been born into wealthy families do not have to worry about all of this, as their parents have been responsible and have either earned or inherited wealth and are therefore able to properly take care of their children, as are all "good" parents.

In Bush World, the only people who are educated are the ones who can afford to go to school. There are no more government subsidies for education. The voucher system works well for the wealthier families, although the poor families soon found out that for them the voucher wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, since it only paid a fraction of the cost of tuition and they couldn't afford to make up for the rest. But by that time funding for public education had been cut so much that most schools had closed, and so there was really no alternative. It did tend to create a kind of "slave society", but again, in Bush World, that is just the natural order of things. Those that are superior will survive.

You think some or all of this is far-fetched? Think again. Most of this is just a few pen strokes away from becoming reality. We have a Republican dominated Congress. Bush has already changed the Constitution and he wants to do it again. What he wants is what he gets. Period. What will we do when it is too late to speak up? Consider the changes to our society in the last four years. Is it really so hard to imagine what will happen during the next four? Already they are grooming Arnold to become President. How do you think they will be able to do that, since our Constitution expressly forbids a foreign-born individual to become President? Why, with a few strokes of the pen, of course.