Openness
This story causes me to ask, can we have a free and democratic society when you can not see the face of your fellow citizen? The implications in this story are more than individual freedom of expression or religion.
The not voting option
Yes, it’s an option and no, it’s not unchristian. Here is a view that many have endorsed in the Mennonite Weekly Review,
Elections give us the illusion of choice, but the choices usually are options offered by the “oligarchies,” options shaped by lobbyists and bankrolled by corporations. Candidates make promises but then have no power to keep them. Social change shaped by Christian values usually comes outside the political process.
If you want to know more about not voting as a legitimate Christian position, you may be interested in Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting, edited by Ted Lewis. Not voting in America has a bad reputation among Christians and why should it? Whatever you decide, I do believe that one of the problems is that we think all problems are ultimately solved through politics.
Greed is good
The famous line delivered by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street is now haunting us. As the New York Times reports, “A world of big egos. A world where people love to roll the dice with borrowed money. A world of tightwire trading, propelled by computers..” is coming to an end.
Maybe lost virtues like thrift, sobriety, duty and self-control will see a revival, but I doubt it. These boring protestant virtues have not seen the light of day in a long time, but they are what created the biggest economic engine the world has ever known. What I expect is that with a $700 billion bail-out of Wall Street, the ordinary citizen will be encouraged to carry on, do their patriotic duty and go shopping. That’s because our system is based on consumption and not production. This was a historical change that emerged in the late nineteenth century. What matters is what you can buy not what you can create. We are eating our seed corn and leaving a famine for our children.
It’s a jungle out there…
and Palin is armed. Well, what can I say. I find it very difficult right now to find interesting things on the web to comment on. America is in full throttle political mode. I try to stay out of this but, I can’t help myself. Here is another eye-opening piece from Camille Paglia, my favorite pagan.
Boycotting the Olympics
Why the world has chosen to reward China with the international attention of the Olympics is one of the outrages of the year. This is the first time an authoritarian government has hosted the games. While the Chinese government is guilty of systematic human rights violations including religious oppression, mandatory abortions, economic rape of its most vulnerable citizen in the countryside, and gross disregard for the environment the international media is lavishing upbeat attention. Transnational corporations are seeing the Olympics as another opportunity to sell their products via glitzy ads while ignoring mass silencing of free speech. As this NPR report indicates global companies like Nike and Coca-Cola see human rights as the problem of governments not marketers. Even NBC News is seeing its journalism compromised by a too close relationship with the Olympic committee. Hear this report from NPR. With a heavy investment in the games, NBC is apparently reluctant to embarrass the Chinese. If those who have freedom of speech sell it for profit, who will be left to speak out? I think I will leave the television off.
It’s about time!
I haven’t been blogging lately because frankly the media noise has been so loud that it’s hard to figure out what’s important and what’s just noise. Well, I think this is important. After years in office this is the strongest statement by US Secretary of State Rice regarding violence against women worldwide. Here is another article about how rape is used as a weapon of war. Maybe with only few months left Rice feels like she can afford to speak up in a significant way.
Women’s solidarity
For much of American history women’s solidarity, the way women identified with each other, was grounded in the fact that all women were either mothers or potential mothers. This solidarity drove women’s political and social involvement outside the home. After the reproduction revolution of the twentieth century, women’s solidarity has become significantly eroded. Now, motherhood is strictly an option and potential motherhood is receding in the minds of many western women. The result is that feminism has lost its political traction. What is left of liberal feminism? Check out this article by Utne Reader entitled “Shelf Life: Feminism 2.0″ which surveys the blogosphere for the conversations that are taking place. Twenty first century feminism has become a form of tribalism where every issue is equally valid, and therefore no longer politically or philosophically compelling. Check out the blogs and let me know what you find.
A job an American won’t take
Check out this story about the abuse of a domestic servant. This a why we need to know who is in the country. We can’t protect people we don’t know are here. Women, I suspect, are more hidden than the day laborers standing on the street corner.
Identity politics
Is it race, gender, class or religion that will persuade you to vote for a particular candidate? Oprah Winfrey, the queen of women’s empowerment is learning a hard lesson. See this story (apparently this link is off line right now, here is another.)of the tough time Oprah is having with her audience. After endorsing Barack Obama, Oprah finds she has angered many of her female viewers. Their message? How dare she endorse a black man over a woman, Hillary Clinton. The problem with identity politics is that nobody wins.
In the case of Oprah, I believe many white women don’t see her as black at all. They also don’t see that above all Oprah is a media business woman. Everything she does is calculated to promote her own name and pocket book. There is a reason why her magazine has featured her on every cover. Nobody is perfect. This time she may betting on the wrong thing.
What gets lost in all this are the issues of experience, character, and policy viewpoints. Sometimes one’s best ally may be an unlikely one. Sometimes those who you expect to share your viewpoints actually diverge radically. In politics, like in life, it’s hard to know who your friends are. It’s better to take people as they come than to read too much into the unchosen particularities of their birth.
It’s the stuff
Recently Time magazine featured a story about China’s up and coming me generation. These are the young people who are profiting from China’s new market economy. Reading the article they sound like any educated and affluent person in the West. They like good food, travel, fashion, and consumer culture. They also demonstrate a complete disengagement from politics. As long as they are free to consume what they like, and have the money, they don’t really care about the nature of the government they live under. Even if that government is a source of oppression for millions less well situated than themselves.
This week there was another story on the web noting a survey that measured the willingness of NYU students to sell their votes in the next presidential election. According to the survey, “Only 20 percent said they’d exchange their vote for an iPod touch. But 66 percent said they’d forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they’d give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.” What a relief, at least they weren’t willing to exchange their votes for a Prada bag.
I don’t know if we have ever seen this before. Somewhere the stuff became more important than intangible values like freedom, justice, and compassion. It reminds me of Esau who was willing to sell his birthright for bowl of lentils. It does seem the price for a person’s soul has dropped significantly and that the common denominator among the elites is not intangible values but the stuff. The difference between one person and another is no longer politics, values, or even race. It’s the stuff, who has it or who doesn’t.