Off Center

I’m not the only one to notice a disturbing trend over the last half century in America. It seems we’ve begun desensitizing ourselves in all aspects of our lives. We’ve slowly been removing opportunities to encounter other humans in a meaningful, personal way. Now it’s happening in our spiritual lives as well.

As with most social ills, there’s no single cause for this trend, but rather a sort of perfect storm of societal developments. There was the gradual suburbanization of our cities that started in the 1950’s. Over time what we had once called neighborhoods had become subdivisions where the streets curved around into and endless maze of cul-de-sacs. Many of these newer developments have no sidewalks at all since the people who live there apparently drive everywhere they go. The unfortunate side effect is that nobody knows their neighbors and there is no sense of community.

In some regions the fear and paranoia have led to ‘gated communities’ – large sprawling fenced-in residential fortresses designed to keep out the huddled masses. In many ways it’s what’s happened to society at large – we’ve built walls to keep each other at a comfortable distance. If we don’t interact with each other there’s no opportunity for fear, embarrassment or conversation.

The American car culture that bloomed in the decades following World War II led to further distancing ourselves from each other. The nation became so enamored with our vehicles that we didn’t want to get out of them even when we reached our destination. Suddenly the urban landscape sprouted drive-in and drive-thru everything’s – restaurants, liquor stores, movie theatres, pharmacies and even churches.

Over time Americans began to shun walking almost anywhere – even a few blocks. Being able to drive across town to save a few cents on provisions meant the end of the neighborhood grocery store. Without the local traffic created by the grocer, and with civic zoning laws, other local icons began to die off. Soon there were no more barber shops and hair salons, doctor and dental offices, filling stations, magazine stands or restaurants. The neighborhood as community was dead.

Strip malls began to dot the landscape and soon everywhere you went in America looked a lot like anywhere else in America. A street corner between a K-mart and a McDonald’s in Massachusetts looks pretty much the same as a street corner between a K-mart and a McDonald’s in Mississippi. As the shopping districts moved away from the traditional downtowns, towns lost their local flavor.

Civic leaders, in an honest attempt to save their downtowns, demolished many classic structures hoping to mimic the shopping malls by building modern glass and concrete monoliths. Instead, they destroyed the very character of their home towns.

Television, and now the Internet, have played no small part in our further desensitization and homogenization. We’ve begun to believe that different is bad. We find it easier to belong to a global village then the one outside our own door.

How far has it all come? Do we really leave our homes, drive around town, do all of our shopping and arrive at our destination having never pulled the cell-phone from our ear? How many people did we avoid interaction with by never putting that thing down? And how rude is that?

When was the last time you smiled at a stranger? If you did, did they look at you like you were insane? And when did lending a helping hand become such an oddity as to cause distrust?

And now we have God-Marts springing up all over America. We’re living in the age of the super-church – massive evangelical monuments to Christianity. Huge God malls where you can fill all your spiritual prescriptions without ever having the inconvenience of any real participation. Many of them now have espresso shops, bookstores, medical clinics, music stores… everything a good Christian needs to fend off the cluttered, dirty, uncomfortable world outside those walls. What was it Jesus did to all those merchants in the temple?

There is a new trend called ‘New Urbanism’. The concept is to build small self-sufficient communities, within larger urban areas, complete with stores, pharmacies, restaurants, churches and everything else we lost in the last 50 years surrounded by a balanced mixed of single and multi-family homes. Everything is built within walking distance to encourage a sense of neighborhood and community. I hope it’s not too late. We seem to have forgotten how to be neighbors.

First let me clarify what I mean by ‘war’. I’m referring to the so-called ‘War On Terror’. War was never officially declared in Iraq and although there is a ‘War on Drugs’, as far as I can tell, that’s not going so well either.

The War On Terror is already lost and it happened some time ago. It happened long before we invaded Iraq, before all the deaths and atrocities that go along with any war. It happened on October 24th, 2001 when, in a rush to ‘do something’ about terror the 107th Congress of the United States voted HR 3162 into law – the so-called Patriot Act.

To understand how and why we lost the war almost before it got started we have to understand what terrorism is. Websters defines terrorism as “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.”

We often wonder why people resort to terrorism as a tool. This leads me to question the desired outcome of terrorism. I’ve often heard conservative loudmouths screaming ‘they hate us for our freedoms’. If that’s true why did we so readily give them up in the Patriot Act? Wasn’t that a declaration of surrender? Al Qaeda won when they scared us so badly we signed a whole bill into law taking away our own rights.

As we often do in America we found a way to solve a problem by ignoring it and creating new ones. Instead of finding ways to improve relations in the Middle East we declared war on them. It’s like a turkey thermometer – instead of turning down the heat on the oven, when it gets too warm we just pull out the thermometer.

Have you wondered where all that Bush tax refund money is coming from? You should – it’s coming out of your other pocket. My research is based on the document ‘Major Savings and Reforms in the President’s 2007 Budget’ available on the White House website.

I thought I’d take a magnifying glass to the list and pull out some
interesting tidbits that might be of interest to those of us living in
the FM region – many of the cuts will hurt largely rural states like North Dakota and Minnesota the most. There are also some other common threads that you notice when you look at this list – many of these programs benefit low-income, mentally ill and elderly American’s (It’s easy to pick on people that can’t fight back). The remainder affect education and national security – which the President touted as his priorities in the 2006 State of the Union address.

Programs to be terminated under the Bush Administration 2007 budget:

Rural Fire Assistance (Terminated) - provides grants to rural fire protection districts that serve communities of less than 10,000.

Community Oriented Policing Services Technology Grants (Terminated) – program provides grants to State and local law enforcement for technology and equipment to assist with crime fighting.

Homeland Security Office of Grants and Training (Terminated) - provides grants, training, and other assistance to enhance the homeland security capabilities of State and local governments.

Oil and Gas Research and Development (Terminated) - program
develops technologies that industry can use to reduce the cost of
exploration and production of oil and natural gas reserves.

Safe and Drug-Free Schools State Grants (Terminated) – provides
formula grants to States and school districts for an array of
activities intended to reduce youth crime and drug-abuse.

Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Operations (Terminated)
- provides technical and financial assistance to local communities to
plan, design, and construct flood prevention, water supply, and water
quality improvement projects.

National Veterans Business Development Corporation (Terminated) – created with the mandate of helping the nation’s veterans access technical assistance and develop small businesses.

Small Business Administration Microloan Program (Terminated) -
program provides small loans to start-up and growing small businesses
through intermediaries, which also receive Small Business
Administration (SBA) technical assistance.

Community Connect (Broadband) Grants (Terminated) – the Community Connect Program provided broadband Internet service to rural, economically-challenged communities and their schools, libraries, education centers, health care providers, law enforcement agencies and public safety organizations.

Commodity Supplemental Food Program (Terminated) – a federal food distribution program in which the participants are pregnant, breast-feeding, and postpartum women, children, and elderly persons who meet income and residence guidelines.

Educational Technology State Grants (Terminated) - program provides funding for States and local school districts to utilize technology to improve instruction and student learning and was mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Even Start (Terminated) – combines early childhood education, adult education, and parenting classes into “family literacy” programs for low-income children and their parents.

Vocational Education State Grants (Terminated) - provides grants to States to support high school and community college activities related to vocational and technical education, as well as national-level assessment, evaluation, dissemination, and technical assistance.

Women’s Educational Equity (Terminated) - supports activities promoting educational equity of girls and women.

Foundations for Learning (Terminated) – provides grants for comprehensive services to help children under seven who have multiple at-risk characteristics – including exposure to violence or abuse, low birth weight, and cognitive deficits – be prepared to enter school.

State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders (Terminated) - provides formula grants to State correctional agencies intended to assist and encourage incarcerated youth to acquire functional literacy skills and life and job skills.

Perkins Loan Cancellations (Terminated) - provide loan forgiveness to certain Perkins Loan borrowers in exchange for undertaking certain public service employment, such as teaching in Head Start programs, full-time law enforcement, or nursing.

Teacher Quality Enhancement (Terminated) - provides support for grants to recruit and train teachers to serve in high-need schools and grants to States for reforming their teacher preparation and accreditation systems.

Centers for Disease Control Preventive Block Grant (Terminated) – program supports chronic disease prevention, public health infrastructure, access to healthcare, injury reduction, prevention and services for sex offenses, immunizations and infectious diseases, and other activities.

Real Choice System Change Grants (Terminated) - These grants were established to help States develop improvements to provide community-based supports for individuals with disabilities to provide more home and community-based services,

Community Services Block Grant (Terminated) - services targeting employment, housing, nutrition, and health care programs for low-income populations.

Community Economic Development & Low-Income Job Opportunities (Terminated) – programs award grants to private community development corporations, which sponsor enterprises offering employment, training, and business development opportunities for low-income residents.

Land and Water Conservation Fund State Recreation Grants (Terminated) - provides matching Federal funds for State and local governments to acquire lands or make improvements to State and local parks.

National Drug Intelligence Center (Terminated) – support Federal, State, and local drug enforcement efforts through intelligence reports, technical assistance and national, regional and State drug threat assessments.

America’s Job Bank (Terminated) - an Internet-based listing of job openings nationwide, supported by the Department of Labor (DOL).

Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers Training Program (Terminated) – provides competitive grants that are intended to fund job training, employment, and other services to help economically disadvantaged farm workers and their families to achieve economic self-sufficiency by strengthening their ability to gain stable employment.

Reintegration of Youthful Offenders (Terminated) - provides employment and training services to ex-offenders under the age of 35.

Railroad Rehabilitation Financing Loan Program (Terminated) – program offers low-cost loans to railroads for infrastructure improvement projects or refinancing debt.

National Civilian Community Corps (Terminated) - a community service program for young adults ages 18-24 and operates five campuses primarily in former military bases. Members serve on projects that include environmental clean-up, disaster relief, tutoring, and other community needs.

President’s Freedom Scholarships (Terminated) - program to recognize high school students who complete 100 hours of community service and demonstrate exemplary leadership with a $500 scholarship.

Postal Service Forgone Revenue Appropriation (Terminated) – program reimburses the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for its prior years’ lost revenue from legislatively mandated reduced rates for non-profit mailers.

If you take the time to read the document linked above you’ll notice that in many of the program descriptions the White House claims that many of these programs are no longer needed or can obtain funding from other sources. Further investigation, however, shows that the programs that would pick up the slack in funding are already under-funded themselves and in a few cases don’t even exist.

Is this how you want to pay for your tax cut?

It was the night before the start of the Iraq War and I was tucking my son in bed. At the time I didn’t know that the war would begin the next day but, because all attempts to find an alternative solution had failed and the build-up of forces was complete, the war seemed imminent. As I said prayers with my little boy I started to tear up – I suddenly pictured that somewhere in Iraq a man my own age was tucking his children into bed that night not knowing if any of them would survive the night.

Three years later and all that I had feared and worse have come true. We’ve never found those ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that were just moments from being launched at the United States. The ‘mobile biological weapons labs’ turned out to be milk trucks. We were never greeted by the throngs of newly-freed Iraqis. Thousands of American men and women are dead and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as well. None of us are any safer than we were that day the first bomb dropped.

I heard something some time ago that troubled me deeply. Watching one of the thousands of political pundits – who along with the defense contractors are the only ones to really benefit from this war – I heard something that sent a chill down my spine. He said the irony of the Iraq war, and all that has transpired because of our ‘War on Terror’, was that the Iraqi people now had more freedom than Americans. I suddenly realized that we weren’t just on the wrong track but that we’d jumped the tracks and were now barreling down the side of the mountain.

During my lifetime the United States had lost a bit of it’s credibility around the globe but in the last 6 years it’s been destroyed altogether. In the past, for every person who looked at America as an evil giant there was someone who saw it as the shining light of freedom. Now they look upon us as unstable and untrustworthy. They’d as soon trust us to do the right thing as they’d trust a mentally unstable person to watch their children. Our leadership in Washington doesn’t seem to care.

I never thought I’d remember the days of lifelong bureaucracy and entrenched political leadership as being the ‘good old days’ but in comparison to the current state of our Washington leadership it actually seemed to have the best interest of our nation in mind. Occasionally a vote would cause the party line divisions to be exposed but for the most part the two-party system worked. Now there are no checks and balances and there is such an extreme polarization that nothing at all is getting done.

The sad truth is that I think the last few decent men who decided upon a life of public service will soon retire in disgust and leave us all at the mercy of the party faithful who are only concerned with furthering the cause. It’s been three years of lies, three years of running roughshod over the Constitution and three years of pocket-lining.

What is the real cost to us all? What price can you put on losing honor and trust around the globe while China and the European Union are growing into economic superpowers? What price can you put on the damage we’ve done to the global environment that we’ll be leaving for our children’s grandchildren to clean up? What price can you put on the lives of the servicemen and women who died in Iraq who trusted us to not send them needlessly to their deaths and we’ve failed them. We’ve failed them all. God help us.

George W. Bush is not a conservative. Unless you “drank the kool-aid” – meaning that you’ve already resigned yourself to the fact that you’ll approve of whatever the President does tomorrow – you’ve probably questioned the conservatism of at least some of the actions of the Bush administration. With the current monstrous deficits, fractured military and failed attempts at restructuring federal social programs there’s not much a true conservative can hang his hat on.

To meet me now you would probably never guess that I was once a Young Republican. I grew up seeing Nixon leave the White House in shame, watching Ford stumble about without any effect and finally Carter’s great dreams dashed against the rocks of the real world. I came of age under Reagan and it was an exciting moment in history.

I was young and the Republican Party seemed to hold the same values I did – get rich and look good doing it! But somewhere along the road to riches I started noticing who was being pushed off the wagon to lighten the load – the disadvantaged, the less fortunate, the mentally ill and the disabled veterans. All the people my Christian upbringing had taught me I should be looking out for.

I can remember, as a prepubescent boy, sitting in church on Sunday trying to stay awake during my Dad’s sermons. I’d imagine that the place was being attacked by masked terrorists (not the 2006 fundamentalist kind, but the late 70’s cinema variety with their vaguely European accents) and I would swoop down from the balcony to save the whole congregation. I’d of course earn the admiration of all the young ladies and a few appreciative handshakes from the elders. I guess I always had a bit of a bible-oriented superhero complex. I suppose that is why I have always felt a compulsion to help those that can’t help themselves – something of a Super Jesus Democrat.

But I always held my friends from the Party of Lincoln in high regard. After all, at a point in history after the Civil War, it was my party who struggled to bend the law to continue the pre-war oppression of the recently freed slaves. There were many great conservatives who demonstrated their great love for our nation with great works and deeds that had benefited all Americans. Republicans weren’t evil; they just saw things a bit differently. Usually if we talked long enough we could find some common ground. We were all Americans after all.

Sometime shortly after the Republicans swept back into power in the 90’s with their “Contract with America”, a new kind of hawk could be found at the center of every conversation at every party in Washington. They were the neo-cons – The New Conservatives. The roots of the movement dated back to the Eisenhower days but really began to gain momentum during the Reagan years. Neoconservatives embraced a proactive foreign policy, reduced social programs and expansion of the military.

Somewhere between the flower power generation, the sexual revolution and Mr. Clinton’s blue-dress infidelity the nation was due for a moral backlash. The neoconservatives found a solid base of disgruntled evangelical Christians and blue-collar Americans and, through alliances with the Christian Coalition and Ralph Reed and with the political genius of Karl Rove were able to convince America that George W. Bush would bring a return to “traditional values”. They twisted false patriotism, fear and a yearning for something more substantial than a big-screen TV and an IRA into a political movement. Talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter tied themselves to the fortunes of the movement – giving a harsh voice to the darkest corners of peoples fears and prejudices all the while creating a nice pile of cash for themselves selling advertising, books and how-to-be-a-good-American videos.

Unfortunately, this union of neo-conservatism, born-again Christians and corporate leadership formed a new breed of right-winger that I call the Neo-capitalists. Neo-capitalists believe the government should be run like a large corporation – cutting costs (social programs), provide a revenue-producing service (spreading democracy through war) and provide a dividend to investors (tax cuts that benefit the wealthy who helped get them elected).

This new strain played the ultimate shell game with the American people. They promised a return to the good old-fashioned Christian values of the Grand Old Party. Instead they’re pulling an Enron – raping the treasury while lining their own pockets. If the country wasn’t so filled with rage at itself it might notice that the President and his posse have probably committed at least a handful of impeachable offences all the while shedding off anyone within its tight circle who dares to question a policy.

The appointments of a couple of right-wing Supreme Court Justices will be all that the neo-cons and Christian right will have when it’s said and done. Most of Middle America, where Bush and company found its voting base, will be left with little more than a nagging suspicion that the fox spent eight years in the henhouse and they were the ones who opened the door and let him in. That should give them something to ponder while they’re helping pack up their own jobs and sending them off to Asia. Unfortunately there won’t be any social programs left to support them while they search for work.

I miss the old conservatives.

Attention fiscal conservatives – $40 billion in cuts to low-income assistance programs to pay for tax cuts that benefit 3% of the richest Americans – and yet the defecit, which this bill was supposed to fix, actually INCREASES!

On Wednesday, February 1st, our Congress passed the the 2006 budget reconciliation bill which the Senate had passed in December of last year – Vice President Cheney, the president of the Senate, returned from a diplomatic trip to break the 50-50 Senate tie. The bill, which passed in a 216-214 vote, included $40 billion in cuts to a whole range of low-income programs. All house Democrats, the lone Independent and 13 Republicans voted against the bill.

The bill includes the following cuts that will be harmful to many low-income families:

• Medicaid: According to the Congressional Budget Office, increases in Medicaid co-pays and premiums and reduction in benefits will total a gross of $42 billion over 10 years, affecting many individuals and families (including many disabled Veterans) just above the poverty line. None of these changes were included in the Senate bill passed Nov. 3. These cuts will affect all of the 28 million children who receive health care through Medicaid, many working poor families and many citizens with mental and physical disabilities.
  

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: Only an additional $1 billion is provided for child care funding—$11 billion less than the CBO estimates is needed to cover costs to states for higher work requirements and to ensure current child care funding levels are not scaled back. As a result, some 255,000 children in low-income working families will not receive child care assistance. In North Dakota this will affect 2,885 families and in Minnesota it will affect 28,463 families.

• Federal student loan programs will be cut by $12.7 billion over five years, further reducing the chances of low-income students being able to afford higher education.

• Child support enforcement: Funding for these programs is reduced by $1.5 billion over five years and $4.9 billion over 10 years, resulting in nearly twice that amount in support payments going uncollected over that same period, affecting primarily low-income single mothers and their children.

• Supplemental Security Income (SSI): Disabled individuals owed back benefits from the government would have to wait an additional year to receive those benefits. Most on this list are elderly and low-income individuals and families.

To add insult to injury – over three-fourths of the nearly $100 billion in tax cuts that were paid for by this bill go to the richest 3 percent of people in America.

Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had this to say about the bill:

"We were appalled that these cuts were proposed in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans, and that the deficit would actually increase, contrary to the stated purpose of the reconciliation process. As people of faith, we found tax cuts for the rich paid for by slashing safety net programs to be immoral.

People living in poverty across the United States will see shrinking Medicaid benefits coupled with increased out-of-pocket costs many will be unable to afford. Less money spent on child support enforcement means less child support money going to the children who need it. And cuts to student loans will prevent many from breaking the cycle of poverty through the pursuit of higher education."

North Dakotans and Minnesotans are good hard-working people. We need to look at what our real priorities are. Are we willing to let our social programs spiral away to give tax cuts to 3% or our richest neighbors? Will this provide long-term security to us all?

What follows is a transcript of remarks made by U2 lead singer Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast. In attendance were the President, Congressional leaders and leadership of the nations churches. His words are worth reading:

If you’re wondering what I’m doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I’m certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It’s certainly not because I’m a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I’m here because I’ve got a messianic complex.

Yes, it’s true. And for anyone who knows me, it’s hardly a revelation.

Well, I’m the first to admit that there’s something unnatural…something unseemly…about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert…but this is really weird, isn’t it?

You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.

Mr. President, are you sure about this?

It’s very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned – I’m Irish.

I’d like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I’d like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws…but of course, they don’t always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you’re here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here – Muslims, Jews, Christians – all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it’s odd, having a rock star here – but maybe it’s odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was…well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land…and in this country, seeing God’s second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash…in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical…not about God, but about God’s politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick – my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world’s poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord’s call – and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic’s point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

‘Jubilee’ – why ‘Jubilee’?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord’s favor?

I’d always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…

‘If your brother becomes poor,’ the scriptures say, ‘and cannot maintain himself…you shall maintain him…. You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.’

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he’s met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn’t done much…yet. He hasn’t spoken in public before…

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he says, ‘because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’ And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).

What he was really talking about was an era of grace – and we’re still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate – in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club… it wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions…making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn’t miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children…even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move.

Mercy was on the move.

God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet…conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS…soccer moms and quarterbacks…hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!

Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.

It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened – and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even – that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying…on AIDS and global health, governments listened – and acted.

I’m here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."

It’s not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here’s some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world’s poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it’s true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund – you and Congress – have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.

But here’s the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.

Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.

And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.

Because there’s no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we’re honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It’s annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, ‘equal,’ that’s what it says here in this book. We’re all made in the image of God."

And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews – but not the blacks."

"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."

So on we go with our journey of equality.

On we go in the pursuit of justice.

We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans…Left and Right together… united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King – mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market…that’s a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents…that’s a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents…that’s a justice issue.

And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.

That’s why I say there’s the law of the land?. And then there is a higher standard. There’s the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it’s OK to protect our agriculture but it’s not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?

As the laws of man are written, that’s what they say.

God will not accept that.

Mine won’t, at least. Will yours?

[ pause]

I close this morning on…very…thin…ice.

This is a dangerous idea I’ve put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God…vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.

And this is a town – Washington – that knows something of division.

But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.

This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.

‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.

‘Righteousness is this: that one should…give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.’ The Koran says that (2.177).

Thus sayeth the Lord: ‘Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.’ The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.

That is a powerful incentive: ‘The Lord will watch your back.’ Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it?. I have a family, please look after them?. I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.

Get involved in what God is doing – because it’s already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what he’s calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:

I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing…. Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

What is 1%?

1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than 1% now. We’re asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives – but not just that and I say this to the military men now – to transform the way that they see us.

1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.

These goals – clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty – these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.

Now, I’m very lucky. I don’t have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don’t have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don’t have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:

To give 1% more is right. It’s smart. And it’s blessed.

There is a continent – Africa – being consumed by flames.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not to – to put the fire out in Africa.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

From the Forum (Wednesday, December 28, 2005):

N.D. bans intelligent design debate: First in country
"The North Dakota High School Activities Association won’t allow
students to debate the role of intelligent design in public school
classrooms. Some
parents and administrators feel the topic is too controversial, said
Robert Hetler of the state’s high school activities association."

As usual this hot button topic has triggered some interesting
responce from the right. In listening to and reading the responces this morning I was amused to find confirmation of a long time
suspicion – not only do fundamentalists not know how to debate, they
also don’t know what debate is.

A debate by definition requires an exchange of concepts. Websters defines it as follows:

1. To consider something; deliberate.
2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points.
3. To engage in a formal discussion or argument.

Competitive debate [wikipedia]
does not revolve around the issues debated but rather around the
concepts of debate – forming a logical argument for both sides of an
issue and then going head to head in a regulated format and being
judged on the ability to argue effectively. The issue being argued
isn’t graded and doesn’t matter.

The reaction this morning
has been this in a nutshell – " So now the Activities Association is
going to decide what our children should be thinking about?". The
arguements and the backlash have been keeping me amused all morning
because most of the people responding either don’t understand the
wording of the ruling or didn’t bother to even read the article. The
Forum headline was misleading to some degree and this might have been a
factor but there’s no excuse for not reading an article or listening to
a question before responding.

If the Activities Association allows the topic to be debated it would
mean that debate team members would have to develop an aguement for
BOTH intelligent design AND evolution. What the Activities Association
was trying to do was avoid having a
parent complain that their child was being forced to argue FOR
evolution but so far the attempt has backfired.

Take for instance this exchange I heard between Jack Sunday (Host of Noon Day on WDAY AM) and a caller:

Jack – David?

Caller – I want to talk to you about Intelligent Design. You opened the floor up on that a little bit ago?

Jack – Yeah, but what I was interested in was this determination that ND schools debate clubs not be able to debate the issue.

Caller
- That’s not right. You know Jack, we’re giving into the minority. It
seems kind of ironic that since 9/11… every step of the way, the
liberal courts – the liberal judges – thier mentality – they want to
take everything away. You know Darwin confessed on his deathbed that he
went too far…

Jack – Hold on David. The issue, though…
high school debate is such that, participants in a high school debate -
as sanctioned by the National Forensics League – have to argue both
sides. If you had a child in debate would you want him to go up and
publicly argue against intelligent design and say there is no
evidence…

Caller – I’d argue for it.

Jack – I know you would but in order to participate in high school you have to do both sides.

Caller – I couldn’t argue, myself Jack, in something I don’t believe in.

Jack
- Well then you wouldn’t be in debate so that… that is why they don’t
want to argue it because they want the students to debate. They don’t
want them not debating.

Caller – Well maybe… maybe, then
again, if I could see what I was doing maybe I would. Maybe I’d show
the absurdity of evolution.

Jack – No, no no… See that’s
the point. In high school debate you have to convince on both sides. I
don’t think you would and I don’t think a lot of people would allow
thier kids…

Caller – I can see what you’re saying

Jack – …kids to do it.

Caller
- Well the whole thing seems kind of funny that… I’ll just close with
this: If we ever need some substance, something that’s real, I think we
need it now. All you have to do is look around.

There’s
the problem. Everybody, fundamentalist and progressive alike, have a
tendancy to jump on the soap box before they hear the question – before
they research and issue or understand the root of a problem. Maybe we
need to learn how to debate before we start argueing.

Originally posted in response to a post in the Northern Conservative blog stating that Howard Dean, in comments made a recent interview, was turning his back on the troops by questioning their tactics in Iraq:

I’m
really trying to figure out how those of us against the war are supposed to voice
our opposition – as we’re prone to do in a free and open society. If we
actually say anything negative about the war, based on facts as Mr. Dean did,
we’re either labeled as anti-American or against the troops.

I
believe Mr. Dean was simply suggesting that we need to stop making more enemies
with the civilian populace with our in-country activities and find a way to
transition out of Iraq
quickly – which is something I think we all can agree needs to happen and maybe
is happening already.

Over
half the American population is either against this war or has reached a point
where they are questioning it. Silence would be the only option for that
majority so as not to demoralize the troops? History has proven that silent
opposition is about as effective as pouring gasoline on a fire to extinguish it.

I
think a better way to ‘support the troops’ would be to find a way to get them
home quickly. I’m sure they’d be just as happy to be at home with their
families as hearing that the folks back home ‘support’ them.

I’m
former military and I know these young men and women (and some not so young)
are intelligent, well-rounded citizens. They understand that our fine nation is
built on the principles of freedom of opinion and know that publicly
questioning the Commander In Chief does not infer a lack of support for the job
they’re doing.

You
may say that by questioning our Iraq
policies and tactics that I’m somehow putting the troops in harms way by
fueling their enemies or demoralizing the troops themselves. I’d say that I’d
rather have the discussion and get them home quickly rather than to continue to
put them in danger in combat without a clear understanding of the mistakes of
intelligence that got them there in the first place and a clear plan to get
them out of there in the near future. I think it’s a lot less dangerous for
everybody to have open discussions about the mistakes and mismanagement of the
war, and find solutions to those problems in a timely manner, than it is to
blindly follow a non-existent or at least unclear war plan that keeps the
troops on the front line.