May 19th, 2012
Listening to the preaching from the conservative and fundamentalist churches, with their anti-government sermons in the pulpits and protests in the media, I am reminded of a powerful, powerful sermon once preached by a pastor I respect. Strangely enough, though, the right wing does not seem to appreciate this pastor’s preaching.
Maybe you can help me figure out why.
This pastor was a good pastor– he cared for his flock, and challenged them to live in the world Monday through Saturday by the values they celebrated on Sunday. His people, in turn, loved their pastor. This pastor was also respected in the urban community in which his congregation was located. Even folks who were not only not part of his church but also had no use for religion respected this pastor, because he loved his people and his community.
And this pastor was a preacher. No, he was a Preacher.
Once upon a time, this Preacher spoke about where we put our trust. He built his sermon around Luke 19:37-44, where the Pharisees complain about the cheers on Palm Sunday from the crowd acclaiming Jesus as king. “Tell them to be quiet” say the Pharisees, but Jesus — looking out over the capital city of Jerusalem — wept. He wept over the city, but even moreso over the Pharisees whose faith in God had been blinded.
The sermon started quietly, but it soon built in strength. The Preacher creatively used modern imagery and language to describe the ancient situation. Speaking of the crowds, he said
These people had, in Luke 19, an occupying army living in their country. Jesus in verse 43 calls them their enemies – say enemies; their enemies had all the political power. Remember, they had to send Jesus to a court presided over by the enemy; a provisional governor appointed by their enemies ran the civic and the political affairs of the capital. He had backing him up an occupying army with superior soldiers – they were commandos trained in urban combat and trained to kill on command. Remember, it was soldiers of the Third Marine regiment of Rome who had fun with Jesus, who was mistreated as a prisoner of war, an enemy of the occupying army stationed in Jerusalem to ensure the mopping up action of Operation It’s Really Freedom; these people were blinded by the culture of war. . . .
They wanted their King to get this military monkey off their back – they wanted a “regime change”, if you will. And look what they called Jesus, look at it in verse 38, they called Jesus the “King”. Look at it, look at it, look at verse 38. They call him the King. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” They wanted their King – see, their King – they saw God the Lord getting ready to do something about this situation. Blinded by the pain of their situation, they could not see the things that made for peace, y’all. So Jesus cried.
“Preach it,” said the congregation. “Make it plain. C’mon with it . . .”
And he did.
Let me help you with something. Let me help you, let me help you. The military does not make for peace. The military only keeps the lid on for a little while. The military doesn’t make for peace, and the absence of armed resistance doesn’t mean the presence of genuine peace. Somebody needs to hear me tonight, you’re not hearing me. War does not make for peace. We said at the eleven o’clock service “Fighting for peace is like raping for Virginity”. War does not make for peace, war only makes for escalating violence, and a mindset to pay the enemy back by any means necessary.
“Amen,” said the congregation.
But that’s only how the sermon opened. Our problem, said the Preacher in what followed, is that we are like those crowds of old and like the Pharisees. We put our trust and our hope in the wrong places. Note, please, the pronoun: that’s *our* problem, said the preacher. Not “his” problem or “her” problem or “their” problem, but our problem.
He laid out how we do this, in detail, with flair, with prophetic directness, and using the vernacular of the neighborhood:
Jesus said “how can you see the speck in your brother’s eye and can’t see the log in your own eye?” Well, I submit to you we can’t see it first of all ‘cause we don’t see nobody who don’t look like us, dress like us, talk like us, worship like us as brother – and Jesus calls them brother. We demonise them and that makes it all right to kill them because our God is against demons. Then we can’t see the speck most of all because we equate our Government with our God. We confuse Government and God.
And then the preacher really got rolling, and the last line above became a refrain to the sermon as he outlined how governments lie and how governments change, all to justify the killing and looting and subjugation of anyone they choose to demonize. Over and over and over again, with governments both ancient and modern, he spelled it out and made it plain.
Then came the turn, the transition that offered a way out for his hearers.
Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I’m through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate – the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!
Let us pause here for a moment, because this Preacher’s preaching sounds very familiar. As I listen to the right wing rail against Obamacare and a dozen other things, I hear them preaching variations on that last line over and over and over again:
- God damn America as long as the government forces us to buy insurance.
- God damn America as long as the government forces us to pay for contraception that goes against our moral beliefs.
- God damn America as long as the government allows abortions.
- God damn America as long as the government tries to act like God.
Yes, says the right wing, beware the government that wants to take the place of God.
But let’s go back to that Preacher again. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Maybe you’ve even read the whole sermon, or listened to it yourself. [UPDATE: the link goes to the transcript, but the audio link from that site is now no longer active.] The Preacher was in the news four years ago thanks to the right wing, and seems to be getting a little publicity again from the right wing these days.
And not in a good way.
But given how well the Preacher’s message fits with what some of them preach, it has to make you wonder why the right wing holds him up as a demon. If he’s preaching against trust in government, if he’s preaching that government lies and changes, you’d think they’d be falling all over themselves to cheer him on.
But they’re not.
I guess their problem with the preacher isn’t really his message. I wonder what it could be . . .
(photo: franklin_hunting/flickr)
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May 19th, 2012
The situation in Greece seems to be coming to a head, with the Greek people near-united in opposition to austerity, but not apparently sufficiently united on an alternative. The mainstream left has lost ground to a coalition of far-left parties which are totally opposed to austerity. Even the fascists are crawling out of the woodwork, as they typically do at times like this. Meanwhile, the Greek government’s credit rating has fallen from B- to CCC, which is basically a move from “Pretty dodgy” to “Don’t make eye contact”. You’d have to be a born gambler to buy Greek debt now. There’s even a risk of a bank run, and as we all know that never ends well.
It would seem that Greece is, to use the technical parlance of financial analysts, in deep doo-doo. As it stands, if the president cannot form a government, he’ll only have just enough time for a new election before the government runs out of money. That means that Greece will soon find itself in the same position New Zealand was in around 1984, out of money with a brand new government. Only it doesn’t seem likely that things will go as well for Greece, and it wasn’t like it was a smooth ride for us either.
The new leaders of Greece, whoever they may be, will be faced with a stark choice: 1 – Agree to the austerity programme offered by the rest of Europe in exchange for bailouts, 2 – default, or 3 – exit the Eurozone and repay their debt in freshly-printed New Drachma.
Option 1 isn’t really feasible politically, the entire brouhaha in Greece right now is out of the Greek electorate’s opposition to this deal.
Options 2 and 3 are really only different if you have a Credit Default Swap for Greek sovereign debt. Either way bond holders will receive back a small fraction of what they are owed. The morality of sovereign default is of little interest to me (if only because trying to hold a sovereign nation to any kind of moral standard is futile); what I care about is the effect it will have. And the primary effect will be to ensure that the Greek government’s name will be mud in the international bond markets (borrowing with a D credit rating is problematic to say the least), which means under options 2 or 3 the Greek government loses access to credit markets and has to close their primary deficit anyway.
At this stage it’s probably worth emphasising that there are no good options open to Greece. The right way out of this mess was to start raising taxes and/or cutting spending back in 2005 when the economy was still working. But the problems weren’t urgent then, so the Greek government kicked the can down the road. And now there is no more road left.
There are a couple of other possible outcomes, but I’m not numbering them because they amount to “and then a miracle happens” type flights of fancy. The ideal solution would probably be for France and Germany to offer a loan with deferred repayment in exchange for no austerity for another 18-24 months. But sovereign governments can’t form binding commitments and even if France and Germany were willing to play ball, I can’t realistically see the Greek people accepting austerity, even once the economy recovers, assuming the Greek economy actually can recover while it has the Fiscal Sword of Damocles hanging over it.
So if Greece isn’t going to escape collapse, what will happen? The best case scenario is probably: Greece defaults, engages in austerity, and eventually (meaning years) the riots die down and the economy levels out. The worst case scenario probably involves Greece descending into some kind of Zimbabwe-esque hellhole as its government tries increasingly foolish methods of increasing its revenue stream. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Zimbabwe is especially likely, but Greece could still end up a sick man of Europe for a long time. On top of that there’s the prospect of what will happen if Greece leaves the Euro. Since that would be totally unprecedented (there’s not even a legal mechanism to allow it to happen), I’m not even going to speculate on what that could do to their economy, or to Europe.
Finally, I’d like to dwell on what lessons Greece holds for the rest of us. Recall that the best method of getting out of a Greece-type situation is to avoid getting into it. That doesn’t mean European (or American) governments need to starting cutting right now, but every government running a deficit should be thinking about how it is going to balance its budget out, and some countries have less time than others. There is a wide range of tax rates and government spending that are stable, but all of them fall on a high-tax, high-spend vs. low tax, low spend continuum. This is one instance where the long run will arrive before we’re all dead.
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May 16th, 2012
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May 16th, 2012
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By Paula Hancocks
(CNN) — It’s a South Korean car crash that has been viewed online 2 million times over the past week and has sparked a government-led investigation.
A couple in their 60s were driving to a department store in Daegu, 238 kilometers (148 miles) south of Seoul, when their car suddenly accelerated. Their son, who wants to be identified only by his surname, Kwon, posted the video from May 6 onto an Internet forum, he says to prove his father was not at fault.
Kwon told CNN, “My father said he heard an odd noise from the car. He thought there was something wrong, then felt the vehicle suddenly accelerating. He twisted the car wheel to the left as he was trying to avoid the cars in front of him, and that is when the vehicle accelerated at a crazy speed. He continued to avoid traffic and people but in the end, there was nowhere else to dodge, and he crashed into a car.”
The footage from a camera attached to the rearview mirror — a common practice in South Korea — shows that the car also drove through two red lights before it crashed into the stationary car at a speed believed to be 80 mph (129 kph). You can hear the couple saying, “Oh my God, what is happening, what is wrong?” The wife screams “Oh no” just before impact.
Kwon says his mother, 63, had an operation for internal bleeding and is awaiting a second operation on her back. His father, 65, suffered a fractured finger and fractured ribs.
The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs says it is investigating the claim of sudden unintended acceleration. Sohn Young-sam, an official at the ministry, told CNN that 80 claims of such acceleration have been investigated since 2003.
Hyundai declined a CNN interview request but sent a statement saying, “The vehicle is being investigated by the Korean National Forensic Service. There is no time estimate for the conclusion of the investigation.”
CNN’s K.J. Kwon contributed to this report.
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May 16th, 2012
Photo by Steve Rhodes
The Obama administration has been quick to criticize governments that interfere with cellphone usage by protesters in their countries. But the government has the authorization to do exactly that in Chicago next week when protesters are expected to hit the streets during the NATO summit there.
Short URL: http://reportergary.com/?p=24778
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May 13th, 2012
ij.org License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing is the first national study to measure how burdensome occupational licensing laws are for lower-income workers and aspiring entrepreneurs. The report documents the license requirements for 102 low- and moderate-income occupations—such as barber, massage therapist and preschool teacher—across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It finds that occupational licensing is not only widespread, but also overly burdensome and frequently irrational. On average, these licenses force aspiring workers to spend nine months in education or training, pass one exam and pay more than $200 in fees. One third of the licenses take more than a year to earn. At least one exam is required for 79 of the occupations. Barriers like these make it harder for people to find jobs and build new businesses that create jobs, particularly minorities, those of lesser means and those with less education. License to Work recommends reducing or removing needless licensing barriers. The report’s rankings of states and occupations by severity of licensure burdens make it easy to compare laws and identify those most in need of reform.
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May 13th, 2012
The Obama administration has the worst track record when it comes to prosecuting whistleblowers. Obama once claimed he’d work hard to have a transparent government, but many have faced retaliation for revealing controversial government information. Sibel Edmonds, who is a whistleblower, waited 340 days for FBI clearance of her memoir but finally released it on her own. Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, joins us for more. Like us and/or follow us: twitter.com www.facebook.com
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May 13th, 2012
Writes Patrick Hatten
My wife, daughters, and I made a trip from North Florida to New York to visit family. I noticed while driving up [I don't fly thanks to the porno-scanners and groping from the TSA] that as we got further north, all of the government-”provided” “services” got worse. States like New York, New Jersey, and Maryland have heavy taxes and roads are in worse condition than those in the South. Gas prices rise substantially and these crummy roads have added toll taxes on top of everything else. To the naked eye, it should be easy to see that the more control the state has in a service, the worse that product will be. As people drive over their government roads, which almost cause the engines to drop out of their cars or cause two hour delays on simple 20–30 minute drives, they should realize that they have a different option; privatized roads [and not "privatized" in the conservative way; see Walter Block]. Don’t get me started on the boondoggle that is the Washington, DC, roadways…Like the politics and libertarian think tanks there, everything gets crappier once it enters DC’s orbit (not counting Ron Paul, of course).
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May 13th, 2012
ISTANBUL // Secularist critics of the religiously conservative government in Turkey say Ankara is putting pressure on the arts by withdrawing state financial support for theatres and issuing warnings against a popular TV drama …
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May 10th, 2012
your lawmakers are voting more then once for the same bill, they are actually voting for their buddies and are even blatant enough to cast other lawmakers votes for them when they have their back turned! these clowns need to be in jail not tomorrow, not after breakfast NOW! PLEASE SHARE THIS VID WITH EVERYONE AND DEMAND JUSTICE! What would happen to you if police caught you on video fraudulently voting? Would cops quickly arrest you and throw you in jail, only to have the District Attorney immediately charge you with fraud? What would happen to elected government officials if they were caught doing the same? Absolutely nothing? In fact, our representatives in the US government have become so brazen, that they commit fraud in plain view, on a daily basis, while at the same time trying to pass laws that would further restrict and criminalize the public for doing the same. This is a clear sign of excessive government, when the government is so large and overwhelmingly powerful that it’s agents can abuse the civilian population without any sense of guilt, remorse, or fear – when government officials deny charges of illegal conduct made against themselves as a matter of semantics, and when agents of the government expect and get immunity from any of their actions; actions that would be criminally prosecuted upon any other citizens. The few standing up for freedom, liberty, and the Constitution, such as Congressman Ron Paul, who has been called the Thomas Jefferson of our day <b>…</b>
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