America. Seriously, while I don't think we've really delved all that deep into their policies, given the tendency of both candidates to hammer home key talking points on taxes, the environment, the war, health care and the economy.
All told, though, we have an idea about these two guys that we wouldn't have otherwise had. Most of us don't get to a political rally. Most of us only hear from these fellows in their ads and that usually only at the end "I'm [John McCain/Barack Obama] and I approve this message." Even as mediated an experience as this was (as we are not in the room with these guys, we have to rely on the camera angles and cuts, the lighting and the quality of the sound system to help us understand what is happening), we still saw more than we may otherwise ever see. This is certainly true of the loser of Nov. 4. At what other time are you going to see over 2 hours of one of these guys again (unless you are a C-SPAN junkie)?
We know that John McCain seems like an angry guy. "Seems" is operative, though, as we must recall Al Gore's robot impersonation from 2000. John McCain may be a barrel of laughs, but you wouldn't know it from these debates.
Conversely, Barack Obama seems like a pretty chill guy, able to take whatever someone's dishing out without getting too rattled. Is he overly smart? Some people might feel that. Keep in mind, "smart" people aren't always right, after all. (Socrates made mincemeat out of such as these in the agora back in Athens, right?)
We also saw that McCain probably is a fighter. Heck, he was fighting while he was sitting at the table next to Obama. That can be a crucial quality in a scrap.
Obama is a diplomat, always trying to see how he can bring the two sides together.
While part of me loves the fighter (who doesn't like a good scuffle every now and then), the adult in me (the one with three kids who fight too much anyway and a lovely wife with whom keeping the best of relations is always to be desired) appreciates the diplomat. At this point in our history, too, I'd have to say that it is the diplomat who I belive is most direly needed to lead us out of this, a guy who can bring all the sides to the table and get them talking.
I don't mind McCain, really (Palin, on the other hand . . . .), but Obama is what we need. I think his brand of politics, his brand of transcendence (compared to McCain's) couldn't come too soon. And I think we saw why over the past 3 debates.
Blessed are the peacemakers, after all . . .
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Obama's closing
These last 8 years have sucked. Really sucked. And failed.
We need change. Fundamental change.
It’s a fundamental thing, basically.
Tax cuts for the middle class.
Lifting wages, middle class.
All of us need to come together, spirit of sacrifice and responsibility.
We need change. Fundamental change.
It’s a fundamental thing, basically.
Tax cuts for the middle class.
Lifting wages, middle class.
All of us need to come together, spirit of sacrifice and responsibility.
McCain's closing
Healthy discussion.
America needs a new direction.
I’ll take on any party. [Give me a party and I’ll take it on.]
Yes, it’s no doubt that he’s a deficit hawk. It’s true.
Do you trust us?
I spent my life serving.
America needs a new direction.
I’ll take on any party. [Give me a party and I’ll take it on.]
Yes, it’s no doubt that he’s a deficit hawk. It’s true.
Do you trust us?
I spent my life serving.
on Education
We spend the most but are falling behind. What should we do?
Obama: This is about our economic future.
We’ve got to get education right: reform and more money.
College is no longer affordable. (Preach it, brother!) $4,000 tuition credit in exchange for service. That is kind of cool. Parents need to step up.
McCain: it’s the civil rights issue of the 21st cent. What is the advantage of sending to a failed school? We need to spank the bad teachers. Charter schools. Don’t throw money at the problem. Reward good teachers.
We must improve education. A realistic repayment schedule.
Schieffer: Fed gov’t’s role?
Obama: Fed gov’t needs to help local schools. Money has been left behind in No Child Left Behind. I doubled charter schools in Illinois.
McCain: vouchers are the best things since sliced bread, no matter what you say. It’s not about spending money. Sarah Palin knows about autism [that’s why she left her kids to go back to work after three days.]
Obama: This is about our economic future.
We’ve got to get education right: reform and more money.
College is no longer affordable. (Preach it, brother!) $4,000 tuition credit in exchange for service. That is kind of cool. Parents need to step up.
McCain: it’s the civil rights issue of the 21st cent. What is the advantage of sending to a failed school? We need to spank the bad teachers. Charter schools. Don’t throw money at the problem. Reward good teachers.
We must improve education. A realistic repayment schedule.
Schieffer: Fed gov’t’s role?
Obama: Fed gov’t needs to help local schools. Money has been left behind in No Child Left Behind. I doubled charter schools in Illinois.
McCain: vouchers are the best things since sliced bread, no matter what you say. It’s not about spending money. Sarah Palin knows about autism [that’s why she left her kids to go back to work after three days.]
on Justices
McCain: it doesn’t matter what they think, so long as they adhere to the constitution (but that’s the rub isn’t it). No litmus test, though.
Obama: No litmus test. Justices are some of the biggest decisions we make. Roe v Wade was right. Abortion is a moral issue, about which we can disagree. Women need to be able to make that decision. States shouldn’t be able to invade rights of privacy.
Pay discrimination, now. Courts need to stand up when nobody else will.
McCain: we need to change the culture. Obama voted against something that was beautiful and good. Obama’s extreme. Loves killing babies. If only there were more for him to kill, he’d be all over that.
Obama: If it sounds incredible, it’s because it’s false. I believe in a ban on late-term abortions, but the right won’t allow any exceptions in case of women’s life. There’s common ground, right, on preventing unintended pregnancies, allowing single mother’s keep their babies safely. It’s always tragic.
McCain: health of the mother means ANYTHING. We adopted children, but still have to protect the unborn.
Obama: No litmus test. Justices are some of the biggest decisions we make. Roe v Wade was right. Abortion is a moral issue, about which we can disagree. Women need to be able to make that decision. States shouldn’t be able to invade rights of privacy.
Pay discrimination, now. Courts need to stand up when nobody else will.
McCain: we need to change the culture. Obama voted against something that was beautiful and good. Obama’s extreme. Loves killing babies. If only there were more for him to kill, he’d be all over that.
Obama: If it sounds incredible, it’s because it’s false. I believe in a ban on late-term abortions, but the right won’t allow any exceptions in case of women’s life. There’s common ground, right, on preventing unintended pregnancies, allowing single mother’s keep their babies safely. It’s always tragic.
McCain: health of the mother means ANYTHING. We adopted children, but still have to protect the unborn.
McCain on Joe the Plumber
He loves that plumber.
He’s raising the specter of socialized health care.
What’s gold-plated insurance? Where can I find this? What does that even mean?
Choosing your future.
Fundamental differences: Obama wants gov’t to control your life. I’m for getting rid of the government.
Now, it’s democrats in charge of Congress, yikes.
He’s raising the specter of socialized health care.
What’s gold-plated insurance? Where can I find this? What does that even mean?
Choosing your future.
Fundamental differences: Obama wants gov’t to control your life. I’m for getting rid of the government.
Now, it’s democrats in charge of Congress, yikes.
Obama on health
It’s only the large businesses that pay for health care or are required to provide health care.
[Obama is letting McCain call the shots, responding to his talking points. I’m not sure if this benefits Obama or not. Perhaps it shows that he’s willing to get along.]
McCain is taxing benefits. Insurers are restricted by state law, but that would go away.
[Obama is letting McCain call the shots, responding to his talking points. I’m not sure if this benefits Obama or not. Perhaps it shows that he’s willing to get along.]
McCain is taxing benefits. Insurers are restricted by state law, but that would go away.
McCain on health care
Costs are escalating, inflicting pain. We need to put health records online. Obesity. We need nutrition programs. Practice wellness.
Joe the plumber is McCain’s buddy, now. Really? Joe doesn’t want to pay a fine.
Who does?
Joe the plumber is McCain’s buddy, now. Really? Joe doesn’t want to pay a fine.
Who does?
Obama: Health insurance
[Please, please, please let’s get lower cost health insurance. Everyone benefits.]
Is Obama is going spend some more money?
Is Obama is going spend some more money?
Obama: I do understand Columbia
Labor leaders are dying. Workers should be able to organize. The Peruvian trade agreement was well structured. Need to understand the benefits and detriments of trade agreements.
Auto industry: we need to do loan guarantees with the agreement that they start innovating. We can create new jobs, retooling plants.
Green should be creating more “green.”
Auto industry: we need to do loan guarantees with the agreement that they start innovating. We can create new jobs, retooling plants.
Green should be creating more “green.”
Obama on energy
High fuel-efficient car should be built here. Yes.
NAFTA: any trade is a good trade agreement, according to Bush and McCain, says Obama.
NAFTA: any trade is a good trade agreement, according to Bush and McCain, says Obama.
McCain on Biden
Biden’s idea of having semi-autonomous zones based on ethnicities in Iraq are cockamamie? Hmm. I wonder.
Obama: on Palin, now
Autism requires real funding. If McCain’s in office, spending freeze. Sorry, kids.
McCain on Palin
Palin is a model for women. (A swimsuit model?--Joking, of course)
She’s a reformer, through and through. A breath of fresh air (that stinks of moose stew, though).
She’s a reformer, through and through. A breath of fresh air (that stinks of moose stew, though).
Obama on Biden
Oh, wait, now he’s talking about the economy again, not about Biden (and certainly not about Palin). Oh, it’s because Biden agrees with him.
McCain: the fact is we don't know you, Obama
My campaign is about jobs and the economy, right? Oh, of course.
Obama on ACORN
ACORN has nothing to do with me.
I associate with Buffet and Volker. I like Biden and Jay Jones, dems and GOP that will advise.
Rock on.
I associate with Buffet and Volker. I like Biden and Jay Jones, dems and GOP that will advise.
Rock on.
Ayers was bombing when Obama was 8
But Obama probably still loved it. He wanted to but just like him when he grew up. Right? RIGHT?!
McCain: I respond to people attacking Obama
McCain is taking EVERYTHING personally. He’s so abrasive.
Obama: People are saying Kill Him at Palin's campaigns
Can Lewis not respond to this? Obama responded to this. McCain is saying that Obama’s got to repudiate. Obama is saying that we can’t focus on the issues.
McCain: John Lewis made me cry
Suck it up, baby. Come on, you were tortured in Vietnam but you can’t take some comments by a politician?
Obama standing up to party
Booyah, McCain. Sorry, he totally answered that. Even Fox news disputes the $42,000 tax increase claim by McCain. Ouch.
McCain will balance the budget
Come on, do you really think so? In four years?
After 8 years of deficits. Seems pretty unlikely.
After 8 years of deficits. Seems pretty unlikely.
Government spending by Obama
(McCain just looked at Obama. He “manned up” as it will.) Earmarks. Cut off all of them and no one will know where any of the ears have been, will they?
Surplus to deficit since Bush entered office.
Surplus to deficit since Bush entered office.
Gov't spending
McCain knows how to save money (so does Obama). Get rid of Ethanol subsidies. McCain wants a line item veto (isn’t that unconstitutional).
What won't Obama do . . .
Obama is saying that investing now in health care, education, conservation, etc. will save in the future. He’s talking about spending now, right? Should he?
Deficits going up, I'm sure
Oh, I’m sure deficit spending won’t end. That’s the only way we can invest in these changes to the economy that Obama wants to see.
Should we be raising anyone's taxes?
That is a key question. But if the richest people in the world have been running away with the profits, shouldn’t we figure out how to actually get them to pay their share?
Tax breaks
John McCain on redistributing wealth. “Class warfare” was declared when when GWB was elected, pal. And it was the workers that have been the cannon fodder.
Tax cuts
Wow, if only I made over $250,000 a year, I would get angry about Obama raising my taxes. If only I was that lucky.
McCain talking about Joe
The plumber. John’s going to help Joe. The plumber. His brother is Joe Sixpack. I think.
Worst financial crisis since Great Depression
Obama’s focusing on the Middle Class and hitting on the “fundamentals” being weak. For those who are living on a wage, we all know this. It’s not just home loans. That’s one part of what’s going on here.
Americans are hurting and angry
I know this now because McCain said so. But it’s not just Fannie and Freddie, hello? Are you stupid. Two companies (no matter how huge) could never do this. Could they? Let’s be real here?
They are actually sitting next to each other
Do you think that McCain may actually look at Obama tonight?
Thursday, October 09, 2008
I totally agree. Now, what exactly do you mean?
That's pretty much how I've been feeling about the economy and the
various analyses and recommendations I've been reading. Whether it's
Doug Henwood on Behind The News and his always-provocative guests or
George Soros
as explained in the New York Review of Books, even Paul Krugman
(sometimes), I keep finding myself in agreement with them over how I
understand the situation and possible remedies, only to come up short
when I ask myself to put in my own words just what it is that they are
saying.
various analyses and recommendations I've been reading. Whether it's
Doug Henwood on Behind The News and his always-provocative guests or
George Soros
as explained in the New York Review of Books, even Paul Krugman
(sometimes), I keep finding myself in agreement with them over how I
understand the situation and possible remedies, only to come up short
when I ask myself to put in my own words just what it is that they are
saying.
I feel a little like I imagine my children must feel as they sometimes
read aloud to us from books that are slightly above what they can
readily grasp. They pronounce the words correctly, only they don't
seem to quite understand what they all mean when put together, let
allone what the words are also implying.
I wonder how many people feel this way, like a child in a roomful of
adults, wanting so badly to understand and add something to the
chatter all around but always missing the point in some crucial way.
Let's hope we can grow up faster than we'd probably like to so to act
like the grown-ups we truly need to be right now.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
A Speech is NEVER Just a Speech
John McCain gave a speech tonight. Barack Obama gave one last week. Inevitably, they will be compared. While Freud may have said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, at no time is a speech ever just a speech.
The right's been all over Obama for his gilded tongue, his oratorical skill. It's a backhanded compliment, of course. The insult masked in the praise is that it is all sizzle and no steak (shout out to Nebraskans with the beef reference).
On the one hand, hearing someone say something gives us a sense of the meaning that no transcription ever could. We hear the timber of the voice, the cadence and rhythm, the emphases and lighter notes. We "understand" in a way that we otherwise could not have.
Or do we? Are we so taken with all those techniques and skills that he could be reciting the telephone book and we'd jump up and cheer when he got to the cross-listing for Computers under Appliances-Electronic?
That's the fear, isn't it. It goes back to the old distrust of rhetoric, maybe, which is too long a discussion to really delve into. The term "smoke and mirrors" nicely conjures up the basic suspicion: we're being duped by stagecraft and vocal dexterity.
(It might be easy to point to George W. Bush as the antithesis of this, a plainspokeness that verged on unintelligible and incoherent. That's a mistake, I think, because there is something in the way Bush basically broke down the rules of language, making what he said and even how he said it signify nothing, that might be even more dangerous.
After all, it's one thing to say that someone is so good at something, makes it look so easy and convincing, that we are fooled into thinking we understand what they are doing or saying, like thinking you "get" diving from watching the Olympic finals. It's something all together different to so badly misspeak or misfire on a performance while still having the attention of the world and the media there to blithely interpret (as though for some Rain Man kind of idiot-savant), that it calls into question whether being able to speak or do something well is even necessary.
The latter, the possibility that following no implicit or explicit rules may be better than demonstrating flabbergasting expertise, is what scares me silly. It plays into the whole American mind-set that we need to have a president that is just like us, i.e. not overly bright. [I won't go into this. I'll save it for later.])
McCain's speech was not as good as Obama's. Clearly, Obama is a better communicator. Remember the last "great communicator" we had, it was a Republican who managed to create a class of voters identifiable by their binomial nomenclature which featured his name preceeded by the name of the party to which he was not affiliated. Who knows, perhaps Obama will win todays equivalent of the Reagan Democrats.
In the end, though, people would rather hear someone that communicates well than doesn't. After all, we like things that make sense. It's naturally satisfying to a species particularly adept at recognizing patterns. When things make sense and logic is employed, our sense of the rightness of the world, of its inherent symmetry, is reinforced. The cirlce is unbroken, if you will.
Anyway, that's why the speeches of both men are not just that. They get to the heart of who each man is in the grain of his voice.
The right's been all over Obama for his gilded tongue, his oratorical skill. It's a backhanded compliment, of course. The insult masked in the praise is that it is all sizzle and no steak (shout out to Nebraskans with the beef reference).
On the one hand, hearing someone say something gives us a sense of the meaning that no transcription ever could. We hear the timber of the voice, the cadence and rhythm, the emphases and lighter notes. We "understand" in a way that we otherwise could not have.
Or do we? Are we so taken with all those techniques and skills that he could be reciting the telephone book and we'd jump up and cheer when he got to the cross-listing for Computers under Appliances-Electronic?
That's the fear, isn't it. It goes back to the old distrust of rhetoric, maybe, which is too long a discussion to really delve into. The term "smoke and mirrors" nicely conjures up the basic suspicion: we're being duped by stagecraft and vocal dexterity.
(It might be easy to point to George W. Bush as the antithesis of this, a plainspokeness that verged on unintelligible and incoherent. That's a mistake, I think, because there is something in the way Bush basically broke down the rules of language, making what he said and even how he said it signify nothing, that might be even more dangerous.
After all, it's one thing to say that someone is so good at something, makes it look so easy and convincing, that we are fooled into thinking we understand what they are doing or saying, like thinking you "get" diving from watching the Olympic finals. It's something all together different to so badly misspeak or misfire on a performance while still having the attention of the world and the media there to blithely interpret (as though for some Rain Man kind of idiot-savant), that it calls into question whether being able to speak or do something well is even necessary.
The latter, the possibility that following no implicit or explicit rules may be better than demonstrating flabbergasting expertise, is what scares me silly. It plays into the whole American mind-set that we need to have a president that is just like us, i.e. not overly bright. [I won't go into this. I'll save it for later.])
McCain's speech was not as good as Obama's. Clearly, Obama is a better communicator. Remember the last "great communicator" we had, it was a Republican who managed to create a class of voters identifiable by their binomial nomenclature which featured his name preceeded by the name of the party to which he was not affiliated. Who knows, perhaps Obama will win todays equivalent of the Reagan Democrats.
In the end, though, people would rather hear someone that communicates well than doesn't. After all, we like things that make sense. It's naturally satisfying to a species particularly adept at recognizing patterns. When things make sense and logic is employed, our sense of the rightness of the world, of its inherent symmetry, is reinforced. The cirlce is unbroken, if you will.
Anyway, that's why the speeches of both men are not just that. They get to the heart of who each man is in the grain of his voice.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
If loving is right, I think I might be wrong
How seriously do we take the Bible?
Jimmy Carter took it pretty seriously when he said that he has committed adultery in his heart. He was looking seriously into the sermon on the mount, where Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter, that adultery is not about an act: its about what happens to you that makes that act possible. Essentially, it is about the internal struggle to be perfect.
Lots of us are good at being perfect on the outside. We’re yelling and screaming one minute and the next we’re pulling into the church parking lot, ready with a smile. Or we’re exploding at home and answering in our mildest voice on the phone. However we might define “outside,” whether in a public setting or any place outside of our thoughts, we strive for and value some degree of control of the surface.
Oh, but inside, inside all kinds of half-formed desires, all manner of self-destruction, all types of vice is being conceived and aborted before it ever sees the light of day. Who are we really? Why the great conflict? Are we the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways? Does the conflict mean we are still bound by the law, not yet truly freed from its fulfillment? Does this internal cold war with all kinds of proxy wars waged with our kids, spouse and co-workers mean that we’re still enlisted and serving in the Lord’s army?
Whose side are we on? Why is it so easy to feel like a double agent? Why is the law of love the hardest one to follow? Why does it have to be first?
Love is something we do, actively, but not just externally. That’s the problem. It’s easy to give yourself over to some form of action. Look at Mother Theresa. All right, “easy” is not the right word. Rather, it is an act like exercising or choosing the salad over the burger. It is changing what you do. But to actually like the salad, enjoy the work out (not just its benefits) and love others (rather than just help them), these things don’t just happen, do they? They are something you feel or something you are.
The big fight for me is this: do I do what I think I should do to become who I think I should be or do I become who I think I should be to do what I think I should do? Free the mind and the body will follow or free the body and the mind will follow?
Where your treasures are, so will your heart be also. That’s why we store up treasures in heaven. Perhaps that’s it. It starts by acting in good faith. At the same time, we are to pray for guidance that this act bears fruit. I can’t wait to be perfect before I start living right. But the fear of failure is so strong . . . and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Fear and inertia must be the two strongest forces in my life. I’m not really sure that they are surmountable.
This whole line of thinking started by watching American Psycho. (Notez bien: If you watch it, keep in mind that it’s satire.)
Jimmy Carter took it pretty seriously when he said that he has committed adultery in his heart. He was looking seriously into the sermon on the mount, where Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter, that adultery is not about an act: its about what happens to you that makes that act possible. Essentially, it is about the internal struggle to be perfect.
Lots of us are good at being perfect on the outside. We’re yelling and screaming one minute and the next we’re pulling into the church parking lot, ready with a smile. Or we’re exploding at home and answering in our mildest voice on the phone. However we might define “outside,” whether in a public setting or any place outside of our thoughts, we strive for and value some degree of control of the surface.
Oh, but inside, inside all kinds of half-formed desires, all manner of self-destruction, all types of vice is being conceived and aborted before it ever sees the light of day. Who are we really? Why the great conflict? Are we the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways? Does the conflict mean we are still bound by the law, not yet truly freed from its fulfillment? Does this internal cold war with all kinds of proxy wars waged with our kids, spouse and co-workers mean that we’re still enlisted and serving in the Lord’s army?
Whose side are we on? Why is it so easy to feel like a double agent? Why is the law of love the hardest one to follow? Why does it have to be first?
Love is something we do, actively, but not just externally. That’s the problem. It’s easy to give yourself over to some form of action. Look at Mother Theresa. All right, “easy” is not the right word. Rather, it is an act like exercising or choosing the salad over the burger. It is changing what you do. But to actually like the salad, enjoy the work out (not just its benefits) and love others (rather than just help them), these things don’t just happen, do they? They are something you feel or something you are.
The big fight for me is this: do I do what I think I should do to become who I think I should be or do I become who I think I should be to do what I think I should do? Free the mind and the body will follow or free the body and the mind will follow?
Where your treasures are, so will your heart be also. That’s why we store up treasures in heaven. Perhaps that’s it. It starts by acting in good faith. At the same time, we are to pray for guidance that this act bears fruit. I can’t wait to be perfect before I start living right. But the fear of failure is so strong . . . and objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Fear and inertia must be the two strongest forces in my life. I’m not really sure that they are surmountable.
This whole line of thinking started by watching American Psycho. (Notez bien: If you watch it, keep in mind that it’s satire.)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Is it Really so Wrong to be Wright?
Oh, the jeremiads of Jeremiah Wright! How will America ever survive if Obama is elected and brings his "liberation theology" to the White House? Let alone the fact that it's not far in the minds of most voters from "liberation" to "liberal," giving the former term the taint of the latter, is liberation theology really the threat to democracy that some have suggested? I thought the Electoral College was a threat to democracy. Or a school funding system that punishes people that live in the wrong neighborhoods. Or the widening gap between rich and poor. Or a national infrastructure that is literally cracking at the foundations. Or the high cost of fuel and the associated spikes in the cost of nearly everything else (being an economy and a diet whose "food pyramid" has light sweet crude as its major component). Or a government that, despite being the richest nation on earth, must borrow from other countries to keep itself afloat.
But no, it's got to be the raving black man. He's the real threat. After all, remember the race riots of 1968. The footage from Detroit? Burning storefronts, the National Guard, looting? Hello?! That is scary. All it takes is one black man with clips on YouTube to make it all happen again. Or, worse still, the pastor's parishioner and friend to find himself at the helm of this ship of democracy. Who knows, such a captain may let the rats take over, consume all the cargo and start putting on airs of being something they are not. (Well, Bush did the same things with his friends in oil, but let's let sleeping dogs die peacefully on Jan. 20, 2009.)
In any case, the truth is that the Bible is like the Saturday night special of bad theologians: always the weapon of choice for taking cheap shots. Consider the way slaveholders wielded it over slaves or bloodlettings. Consider the way end-times prophets (profiteers?) make hay with Revelation. Consider how the Geneva Bible contains 400 instances of the word "tyrant" and King James Bible none while the KJB even renders the unspeakable name of God as LORD in small caps, emphasizing a kind of feudal hierarchy. Consider the admittedly lousy thinking behind the liberation theology that came out of Latin America.
But if the Bible can and will be used as a weapon, in whose hands is it the most dangerous? In whose hands does it least belong? It is used by the powerful and moneyed (the "ruling class" or its apologists) to support their power. It has also been used by the powerless and the poor to seize power. Which is scarier? Or, maybe the better question, which better fits the message of the Gospels?
If you all will turn with me to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7). It is a topsy-turvy sermon, where the old order is toppled. Everything you thought you knew is wrong or at the very least woefully incomplete. First of all, the powerless are held up and glorified, but the laws are also questioned, made matters of the heart--the thinking and feeling part of us--rather than matters of hand--the acting part. Of course, there is no one that is not depicted to some extent in verses 20 - 21 of chapter six in which Jesus exhorts us to forget about earthly wealth in favor of treasures in heaven, "for where your treasure is, there will be be your heart also." However, it's hard not to imagine that this seems to apply more to someone who actually HAS treasures than to someone who doesn't.
Regardless of what Jesus says, most of us grow up learning to obey authority and show deference to our betters. Most popular forms of patriotism hit both of targets pretty squarely: "My country, right or wrong." So if we are to have our bad theology, most of us would rather it come to us by way of the ruling class, the modern day Pharisees that rule the airwaves or megachurches. And they kind of have to be white. Maybe brown or black, so long as they don't rock the boat and say anything that will capsize the prevailing order. But as soon as a brother (and they are our brothers in Christ, right? aren't we all children of God, even the black sheep of the family?) speaks "truth to power," watch out.
That's what bothers me most about this whole situation: the inherent racism of our response to Wright's comments. We might say that we're trying to expose the racism of what he's saying, but in truth we are mostly reacting to hearing uncomfortable truths about the black experience in America. If we want to stop hearing such truths, let's change the truths that can be spoken. Let's make America a place that lives up to its ideals. Perhaps putting Barack Obama in the White House is a necessary step toward changing the truths about America and giving Wright one less jeremiad.
But no, it's got to be the raving black man. He's the real threat. After all, remember the race riots of 1968. The footage from Detroit? Burning storefronts, the National Guard, looting? Hello?! That is scary. All it takes is one black man with clips on YouTube to make it all happen again. Or, worse still, the pastor's parishioner and friend to find himself at the helm of this ship of democracy. Who knows, such a captain may let the rats take over, consume all the cargo and start putting on airs of being something they are not. (Well, Bush did the same things with his friends in oil, but let's let sleeping dogs die peacefully on Jan. 20, 2009.)
In any case, the truth is that the Bible is like the Saturday night special of bad theologians: always the weapon of choice for taking cheap shots. Consider the way slaveholders wielded it over slaves or bloodlettings. Consider the way end-times prophets (profiteers?) make hay with Revelation. Consider how the Geneva Bible contains 400 instances of the word "tyrant" and King James Bible none while the KJB even renders the unspeakable name of God as LORD in small caps, emphasizing a kind of feudal hierarchy. Consider the admittedly lousy thinking behind the liberation theology that came out of Latin America.
But if the Bible can and will be used as a weapon, in whose hands is it the most dangerous? In whose hands does it least belong? It is used by the powerful and moneyed (the "ruling class" or its apologists) to support their power. It has also been used by the powerless and the poor to seize power. Which is scarier? Or, maybe the better question, which better fits the message of the Gospels?
If you all will turn with me to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 - 7). It is a topsy-turvy sermon, where the old order is toppled. Everything you thought you knew is wrong or at the very least woefully incomplete. First of all, the powerless are held up and glorified, but the laws are also questioned, made matters of the heart--the thinking and feeling part of us--rather than matters of hand--the acting part. Of course, there is no one that is not depicted to some extent in verses 20 - 21 of chapter six in which Jesus exhorts us to forget about earthly wealth in favor of treasures in heaven, "for where your treasure is, there will be be your heart also." However, it's hard not to imagine that this seems to apply more to someone who actually HAS treasures than to someone who doesn't.
Regardless of what Jesus says, most of us grow up learning to obey authority and show deference to our betters. Most popular forms of patriotism hit both of targets pretty squarely: "My country, right or wrong." So if we are to have our bad theology, most of us would rather it come to us by way of the ruling class, the modern day Pharisees that rule the airwaves or megachurches. And they kind of have to be white. Maybe brown or black, so long as they don't rock the boat and say anything that will capsize the prevailing order. But as soon as a brother (and they are our brothers in Christ, right? aren't we all children of God, even the black sheep of the family?) speaks "truth to power," watch out.
That's what bothers me most about this whole situation: the inherent racism of our response to Wright's comments. We might say that we're trying to expose the racism of what he's saying, but in truth we are mostly reacting to hearing uncomfortable truths about the black experience in America. If we want to stop hearing such truths, let's change the truths that can be spoken. Let's make America a place that lives up to its ideals. Perhaps putting Barack Obama in the White House is a necessary step toward changing the truths about America and giving Wright one less jeremiad.
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