It's All of The Same...

Back in the day when I taught Neo-Fascism (high school economics)-

Oh that's right I was a high school social-sciences teacher. You didn't know that? Oh well, I was. Isn't that something? Good times.-

So, back then, it was a challenge to get the private Christian high schoolers to see the meaninglessness of the label "liberal" as far as our economics or politics was concerned. One of the things we did to that end was investigate how WorldCom collapsed. Remember that? WorldCom. It was a current event at the time and though it happened on W's watch, it was easy to pin on Clinton, so the little right-wingers could get into it and it taught an important lesson.

Anyway, we looked at WorldCom's apparent growth and collapse, and one of the things that was plain as anything to them, was the state made the legal arrangements that made conflicting interests no longer conflict. They understood that commercial and investment banks merging benefited "someone" and with my heavy-handed browbeating they learned that someone was the Wall St. bankers who gave money to the lawmakers who made the legal arrangements that made these new banks possible. These new banks could buy the stocks of companies like WorldCom as an investment bank with money from their commercial bank side and then inflate its value and use this inflated value to buy other "telephone" companies inflating the value even more and then do this over and over again with the new bank handling each deal and collecting fees for doing so. This could go on and on and on forever. It was a win-win. Until it wasn't. Except for those for whom it still was.

The kids could see that this was no accident or flaw in the machine but a design of the machine. In fact, I got some of these kids into hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal before hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal was cool (if only because young people love to hate people who get to take advantage of unfair situations even if they don't hate unfairness itself). None of us saw this coming- the great fake money collapse of the 21st century- but we could see that where and how the cogs of the legal machine were set, they were set in such a way as to benefit those who set them.

Duh.

But even back then it was about fake value, fake money. But that fake money represented the possibilities of real power to those that made and benefited from the legal arrangements that made the fake real.

This wasn't about liberal or conservative.* Those labels only mean something to class collaborators and fat cats. (Okay take it easy, Karl) This was about wealth and the way it manifests itself- making politicians rebel and keep the company of thieves, and all that. It reveals a little bit of what's hidden behind a veil of legitimacy.

Anywho... If any of that was a candle, this is a flood light. I know, I know, he uses bad words and doesn't show proper deference to religion. What are you gonna do?

Here, at least read this:

"People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations."

This is prophetic work for our dispensation- for good, bad, or other.

* Though I might add it was about big government. The lack of government oversight made the bad worse, both in terms of the lack of governmental oversight or concerted citizen power acting as a check on the dismantling of existing banking regulations and the creation of new ones that made the financial arrangements that led our present crisis- but they are kind of the same thing, aren't they?

So in this case, it would make sense to do what your gut might tell you: blame Clinton
Idioteque- Radiohead
Anywhere's Better Than Here- The Replacements
What's Behind the Mask- The Cramps
The National Anthem- Radiohead
Baba O'Reilly- The Who
I Ain't Got no Home- Bruce Springstein
Soul of A Man- Beck
Summertime Rolls- Jane's Addiciton
Don't Talk- The Beach Boys

An Ideological Hammer Forging the Chains of Our Slavery

skybalon: Ugh, Obama's health care proposals are driving me nuts.
The Qweenbean: Hey don't say anything bad about Obama... He's my W.

Orange or Green Today?

So my wife is, somewhere in her ancestry, Irish. We play along a bit with the St. Patrick's Day, mostly by punching each other. Hey-ooo!

Anyway, the whole color thing- she's protestant, so orange, right?

But she comes from a long line of folks who embodied poverty and cultural exclusion. That seems green to me.

But her more immediate ancestry has bought in and is very much a part of the hegemon... So... orange?

Of course the embrace of stereotype and the idea of Irish sort of transcends concerns about orange and green.

I guess that makes it very much a matter of white.

Once again... Hey-ooo!

I Say Collateral Damage, You Say Terrorism, I Say War Hero, You Say War Criminal...

"Washington -- The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of Al Qaeda captives 'constituted torture,' according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document."

LA Times

-This again? This doesn't matter any more, it's done with.

-No, no, no. You don't understand, they're only war crimes when bad guys do them.

-Right. And we're the good guys, so what we do is good, even if it is regrettably gruesome.

-Besides, we couldn't be who we are if we didn't do this.


All things considered, I wouldn't think beating a dead horse would be a problem for us, but perhaps there is little left to say about it.

Perhaps, from now on, when it comes up, all I will ask is this:
What kind of god do we serve if this is not necessarily confessed and confronted in our churches?

It Takes One to Know One

"The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies."

Billy Wharton of the Socialist Party USA in the Washington Post.

Told ya.

While You Were Sleeping

If we have another child it will be named Jonathan Stewart [skybalon]


or

Rachel Maddow[nominalized] [skybalon]

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Barring that possibility, they ought to be declared Servant of God*. God knows the church can use the inspiration.

* Without their needing to be dead- we're not Catholic after all.

BOOOOOO

Have you ever received a "bill" for a hospital or doctor's office visit itemizing the cost of each little thing you were offered or that was used in your treatment? For example, when I tried to chop off my thumb, the statement I received for the subsequent treatment showed the cost of the exam, the sutures, the whole vial of numbing agent (though they didn't give the whole bottle), the syringes, etc... It was incredibly expensive.

Typically they have some indication on them that they are not bills. Usually something like "THIS IS NOT A BILL". That's very clear.

A friend of mine learned a fun little secret about those "statements".

They're lies.

He received an itemized statement from his insurance company that a.) did not include the THIS IS NOT A BILL clarifier and b.) itemized things he was sure he did not receive or use, so he called the hospital to give his insurance info and make sure he, or his insurance company, was not being overcharged, and he called his insurance company to find out why he was being charged for things his insurance was supposed to cover.

Turns out, the hospital had already been paid, and the statement he received from his insurance company was, in fact, one of those THIS IS NOT A BILL statements.

Phew.

But the itemized things he didn't use?

It wouldn't be right if someone was being charged for goods or services that weren't used, no? After some bureaucratic back and forth, he was told it was okay if there were a few things overlooked or added to the statement because the amounts on the statement are not what what the insurance company pays. They actually paid about a third of what was listed so there was no need to worry about being overcharged. Thanks for his concern, have a nice day.

Isn't that good news? Isn't that lucky?

The insurance company can negotiate and contract for set rates because of its size and market control, so they pay less than what might otherwise be the market rate* for those goods and services injured and sick people might need.

Bully for them.

I wonder though, why send a statement indicating they paid X when they actually paid less than X? What's that bit of deception for?

A cynical person might say it's meant to make you extra thankful for your insurance company taking the hit. Maybe, if you're doing an analysis of what your insurance costs against what you receive, it's meant to make you think you're getting a better deal. (That sounds like fraud.) Maybe it's meant to make you think "Healthcare costs are out of control", while you shake your fist at the sky.

I don't know.

Here's something else I don't know. If item A really only costs $500 (for example), what's the big idea of charging the uninsured $1500? That's odd, too.

What I do know is that the idea of mandating universal insurance coverage is nonsense. Especially because a.) the above is the kind of garbage insurance companies are up to and b.) insurance companies do not exist to provide health care but make money for their shareholders by minimizing expenses, i.e. paying for your health care.

President Obama (nickname pending) thinks this nonsense makes good sense. That's awful; it's more awful when you consider that before he was President Obama (nickname pending), he understood that the best approach to healthcare was a single payer system.

Oh, but why worry about that? You'll be dead soon and never have to worry about being sick or hurt again. Well, maybe not soon, maybe after a bitter and long battle with a terrible disease brought on by your poor eating and exercise choices, then you'll be dead. Still, it seems political, and you're not political. You're just some schmo who's gonna die from heart disease or cancer. What do you care about health care?

Oh I shouldn't assume. Maybe you're not the kind to be pacified by the sweet release of death. If this is something you are interested in, you should get behind H.R. 676. Contact your representative, and tell them to co-sponsor it. Maybe donate to the Citizens Alliance for National Health Insurance.

* That seems confused. Insurance companies get to bypass the market? That's fundamentally not free-market, isn't it?

I Was Saying Oboooma
Indie via iTunes

Building and Repairing Bridges is Liberal?

If you put up with me all the way to the asterisks in the last post, kudos to you.

I am ready to believe that this bundle of thumbs approach to Republican argument is a strategy meant to further move a corporatist state agenda. (Here comes my unique cuckoo.) Tying Obama to a leftist agenda and describing his policies as socialist obscures what is actually left.

Subsidizing insurance companies and calling that healthcare reform is not socialism. Indefinitely occupying Iraq with tens of thousands of whatever-euphemism-is-used military forces is not leftist liberalism. Escalating the war in Afghanistan is not socialist. Taking our money and giving it to banks in the hope they lend it back to us is certainly not socialism (though that policy began under a "conservative" president). Continuing Bush administration secrecy is not being a good pinko. I don't write this as a disillusioned Obama supporter, I write this as a person who values leftist politics.

Obama's not a leftist. Or, if he is, he's a leftist in the same way President Jesus was a conservative. And just like dum-dum support of President Jesus pushed thoughtful, genuine conservatism off the table, calling Obama's overarching ideologies socialist confuses what is socialist. That's fine if that's what you're after- in fact, it seems strategically brilliant if that's what you're after, but it seems like you would only be after that if you were The Man and if you're reading this you are very likely not The Man.

Calling Obama's agenda socialist makes sense if a.) you're a dummy or b.) you're trying, for whatever reasons, to co-opt the label to limit the possibility for leftist reforms. Wether that's good or bad to you consider this, the President Jesus years saw so many "conservatives" hop on a band-wagon loaded with such glaringly non-conservative baggage that Ron Paul could seem presidential.* Real advocates of a small government, fiscal tight-fistedness, and anti-imperial foreign policy could only stand by with their hats in their hands while being a conservative came to be a matter of clobbering homosekshuls with the KBR version of the Bible. That may be a lot of things- stupid, shallow, plutocratic, anti-Chrsitian, what have you- but it is not conservative. So while conservatism was hobbled we had a country that could pursue an imperial vision, unchecked executive power, illegal spying on its own citizens, torture, kidnapping, TARP, etc. That is some coup.

So where will we be if we have a similarly confused notion of what is socialism or what is liberal? Will politics largely be a matter of aesthetic choices? We'll allow Obama to continue with the above but everyone will know we're liberals because of our Shepard Fairey-ized pictures. Blah blah blah, point being, I'm the kind of paranoid/crazy that could believe entrenched corporate interests only benefit from Joe The Plumber conservatives on one side and Apple® liberals on the other (as if it were a matter of sides).

Maybe the upshot of this is Dennis Kucinich will someday seem presidential.

* At this, you should shudder like Sideshow Bob getting whacked in the face with a rake handle.

You're Fighting the Last War, Pops

Long time readers of my webworld diary risk alienating friends and family but may also recall my brilliant assessment of the previous presidential campaign's race-based strategies. In short, I said I thought the racial "othering"* of Obama wouldn't be the success it had been for Republicans in previous campaigns because the "signifiers,"* when compared to the actual Barack Obama, just didn't stand.

I think the same applies to the use of "socialist" among those lunatics and intellectual cripples trying to tie some vague fear of the misunderstood to Obama's social and economic policies. So just as the clumsy use of racism backfired (in the US, against a black man, of all things), I think the "socialist this" "socialist that" nonsense won't fly and may, in fact, backfire.

First, when one describes any of the present policies as socialism, and means that as an argument against them I think, "This person's a bit silly, they're just not someone I can take seriously on this matter, perhaps I should change the subject to building pigeon traps".

In order for this bit of crazy to carry any weight, I'd have to be of a like-kind of crazy. I'm not, so it turns me off and leads us to something else. It's the kind of point that can only be a point for those who see it as a point, as such it's the kind of thing that builds the walls of stupid higher and reduces the possibility of reaching anyone not already comfortably settled in that garden of dumb.

See. It's self-defeating in its self-buidling.

Secondly, like the "I guess I'm not that scared of black people if Barack is black people" phenomenon that won over enough white folks, the concrete comparisons that may follow from "It's Socialism, BOO!" may have the effect of opening people to socialist policies that the rest of the western industrialized world finds good and helpful.**

There's no Evil Empire, Joe Mc Carthy. Your clicks and clacks invite comparisons to Sweden, Canada, England, and Germany rather than the Soviet Union.

The what?

Exactly.

"You mean socialist like our allies? Okay... That sounds pretty good."

"You mean a single payer healthcare system could be like the fire department? That's not scary. That just sounds like good social and economic policy."

* Wonk wonk wonk
** Though Obama's policies are not socialist so what they're actually open to may be something else cleverly disguised as the socialism they think they're open to. What? Maybe I'll come back to that.

Let The Market Monitor Volcanoes...

The kids say, "Fail".

Now...?

I just can't stay away.

I tried. Oh how I tried, but nothing could fill the void. Religion, family, booze? Nothing could fill the blog-shaped hole in my heart...

So here my netlog waited. Reliable. Unwavering. Good and faithful little diary. Of course I couldn't leave you forever.

And you, dear, little lambs. Was I gone too long? Had I left you wondering if there was something you had done to keep me away? You might've, but I'm so gracious I won't bring it up now. Let's just savor the sweetness of this reunion and get to what matters, no?

And what matters? You do.

I have something for you. Well, maybe not all of you- those of you for whom my harping about nonsense like torture and war seemed like... harping- I want to share something that will wipe the scales from your eyes.

For some of you it may now seem natural to oppose the occupation of Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. CIA kidnappings are newly awful to you. Torture is suddenly torture. It is no longer un-American to challenge and question US policy.

Good?

Maybe your conversion is a bit like showing up at AA meetings to get dates*, but who knows where the wind may blow?

For others though, some vestigial principle stands in the way. After securing your salvation with secret prisons all over the globe, torture, and the sacrificial murders of Afghan taxi drivers you're too committed to your dhimmitude. Perhaps, you've surrendered so much of your soul to make sense of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation", "extraordinary rendition", and "detainee", you're unsure how to proceed in a world where those are nonsense.

I am here for you. Actually, this is here for you:

"The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes."

In case you missed it "the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality". That means sticking things in people's butts.

No I know you're one not likely to make sharp distinctions about homosexual practices. In fact, you're probably someone for whom the phrase "homosexual practices" means something and as such distinctions aren't a part of the calculus. The upshot is this probably counts as gay.

There you go. You can augment your commitment to torture with the fear of the love that dare not speak its name. Never mind that it's not love- it's probably gay enough for you.

Now, with news that the Obama administration is maintaining Bush administration practices and that Binyam Mohammed was tortured in Guantanamo as recently as a month ago you can shake the dust from your outrage (out of practice outrage is still outrage, little lamb) and put it to use.

Apply sexual assault and violence and I'm sure whatever truth or sense of decency has been hindering you will magically melt away.

You're welcome.

* See? I could have written "laid". I am so kind to your delicate sensibilities.

Nations Sign Cluster Bomb Treaty

Well, some nations anyway.

"The first of more than 100 countries have begun signing a treaty to ban current designs of cluster bombs, at a conference in Oslo, Norway.

Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.

But some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China, are not among the signatories. "

BBC News

This isn't the kind of thing that affects you negatively, is it? I mean, you're not likely to come across a bomblet so you can easily avoid injury. You could probably go your whole life without meeting anyone effected by a bomblet so you'll never have the awkward experience of trying not to stare at some kids stumpy legs or arms.

Besides, we couldn't be who we are without using cluster bombs, could we? And we like us don't we? You at least like you, right?

Yeah.

I thought I was upset by this. I almost called the Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 to do some ranting, but no... I think we'll be okay here.

We're All Mormon Now

Long-time readers of my series-of-tubes-log risk developing hemorrhoids but may also remember I've mentioned the silliness of Protestant, specifically Evangelical, notions of scriptural authority as stated in most Evangelical statements of faith.

As a Christian, I don't disagree with the idea of the Bible's authority, but as I've said before, the insistence upon a capital W "word" seems blasphemous in those statements of faith. And I've said before, it seems a bit odd to claim the Bible to be more authoritative than it ever does itself, let alone thinking that it is the kind of text that "makes claims". And it's silly the way the whole thing is often conceived and practiced with a wink. Sure there are better and worse ways of doing the bit- it can be sophisticated, responsible, thoughtful, and honest to varying degrees. To wit, someone has a concern, imagines there is a single word that deals with said concern, finds every instance of the Bible mentioning that concern and then creates a prescription for it from the pile of verses gathered. Something like that would be of the least degree. I know, I know, the horse isn't getting any deader, but I mention this as background and intro to where we are now.

"Where is that?" you ask.

Well, I'm glad you asked, but once I tell you, you may be unhappy.

We are now under the auspices of the Mormon Magisterium- or whatever the interpretive authority among LDS is called.

What?!

It's true. I bet you didn't think that would happen, but it did.

I'm guessing folks who think the Bible says something about homosexuality and marriage and that something is "gay folks can't get married" did not think through one of the more troubling implications of voting to eliminate that right. In their eagerness to make the state (in their minds "the world" as a whole) correspond to the world they imagine ought to exist in relation to some metaphysical template they find in scripture, they decided to traipse along with a Mormon and Christian Reconstructionist understanding of the world vis-a-vis scripture.

Huh?

The matter of same sex marriage is hardly settled among Christians- even among Bible believing Evangelical Christians. Of course for some, that one is not particularly settled on it belies one being a Bible believing Evangelical Christian. Whatever- the point is, it's not settled. Churches ostensibly decided what counted as marriage, who could get married, what criteria had to be met, etc... A pastor didn't think a Buddhist and Christian should get married, they didn't marry them. One partner was a member the other wasn't? No church marriage for them. A divorced partner and a first-timer? No way. Same sex marriage was a similar matter- subject to the criteria of a given congregational context. You like the stability, cohesiveness, commitment to love, discerning a life in community, togetherness, and loyalty marriage requires and fosters but not if it means banging sticks? Great, you don't allow same sex marriage.

I'm sure some of us think we dodged a bullet; the state addressed the issue so we don't have to. Our minds were nagged- even as some denominations formally settled the matter. We knew that while one body of Christians prohibiting same sex marriage existed side by side with another that received it, it could not rest. And what's church for if not settling into easy and familiar ruts? I think we thought this could lock us easily into those grooves.

So what does this have to do with being subject to scriptural authority and LDS?

Well, back in the day, when there was just one church (we'll pretend that actually was the case), that one church was the authority. We would all settle where the church said we ought to settle. But those were dark times and we're Protestants now. We say, "The church doesn't tell us how to think or understand things, only the Bible can do that, and when we read the Bible we all think the same thing we've always thunk". I know, that's silly, but we're ham-handed. So we say it's the Bible alone and ignore all whatever else that goes into our saying what we say the Bible says about what we do.

The larger point is that we're trying to say the matter is finally settled by virtue of some authority and what we've shown that authority to be is the state wielding power for a Mormon or Christian Reconstructionist understanding of the world.

It's not just troubling (to those who are troubled) that some unnamed gay person wants to love and marry some other gay person. The scarier concern (for those who are scared) is the confusion that churches reading the same Bible walking such different paths causes. Thankfully (for those who are thankful),the state offers security. Mormons have shown themselves willing to step up and be the point of stability we've been asking for.

Isn't that great?

They Can Have My Gold When They Pull It From My Cold Dead Teeth

I've noticed the reemergence of a golden thread running through the various paranoid media outlets I visit. (I hate myself.) If you're a certain type of paranoid, now is the time to invest in gold.

Well... I suppose you don't have to be paranoid to turn to gold to offset currency instability, but I'm sure this ad is meant to appeal to a specific someone:

Someone not necessarily concerned with inflation or currency exchange. Someone that still has foodstuffs left in their Y2K stockpile. Someone who generally feels haunted by some vague fear but who is also much more terrified now than they were of even Y2K.

I've said before that we have experienced a kind of apocalypse, and now we see it is a zombie apocalypse- Obama seems to be raising the Clinton dead for his administration. So sure, I can see why you'd be afraid. But gold?

I've never understood why gold is so valuable generally, but it seems especially worthless if things are about to go horribly wrong.

Like so much of contemporary Conservatism, I think hyping gold is a move to squeeze a little more blood from REAL AMERICANS (thick-skulled rubes) who are only too happy to dig their own graves if they think it means they're taking the next guy's plot. (I should think of a more artful way to construct that image- it seems like a good one.) The fear on which selling gold depends seems not only a scam but also a misdirection. When there's a run on gasoline and bullets... and football pads, S&M gear, mohawks, dune buggies, and Tina Turner anthems- then we'll know it's all over. But by then it'll be too late, and who's going to want your shiny yellow rocks then?

What Was The Phrase I Like Girls Used- "'Something' Kill"?

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

The above is from a speech Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at a church a year before his murder. You probably don't know it. Saying stuff like this makes you less cuddly and gets you killed.

So there's a rash of MLK-Obama merchandise hitting the streets and following that is a move by the King estate to make sure they get paid. I suppose that seems right. I suppose it also seems right to tie the two men together. Actually, it must seem right because folks all over the place were using some sort of "content of character" "color of skin" "dream this or that" construction to color the historic significance of Obama's election.

Sure, I am all farklempt by Obama's election. I think it marks the possible end of one world and the dawn of another. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but try to imagine this happening a generation ago. There is something significantly different about America simply because of the color of our president elect's skin. But at the same time, Obama's not magic simply because of the color of his skin. To be more pointed, he did not/will not, as the convention goes, come along to magically make "white people" better for the sake of their narrative. White people still largely went for the erratic, intemperate, injudicious McCain over Obama. Was it because McCain was white? Maybe. Was it because Obama was black? I want to say "yes". But that's only slightly here or there.

The symbolic significance of Obama's victory is not in the magical transformation of racist folks to not racist folks but it is in the transformation it portends for the face of a nation. Nationally, white people voted more often for McCain. I am not saying every white person that voted for McCain was a racist (not any more than the average American anyway). I am saying, the majority of white people did not vote for the brown guy. The election of a person with dark skin to the White House does not indicate the end of racism (duh), so let's not be too back patty about what Obama's election means in that regard. But there is a transformation worth mentioning: the old, rural, white people that voted for McCain are dying and the browns are participating in greater numbers. Simply stated, the group among whom Obama did the worst is not long for this world. That, along with the conceptual shift does signify a change worth noticing. Still, white folks voted for the white guy, brown folks voted for the brown guy- not really a "dream fulfilled" moment. But, there was a brown guy for brown folks to vote for, so...

But to the Martin Luther King, Jr. point. Again, though there were obviously plenty of people who could look past skin color to some type of content, it's hard to describe this as a dream fulfilled. I recognize that it is something new and in a world of "at leasts" it is something good. But that seems a bit secondary and we ought to be careful about how much MLK dust we apply in this case.

It was not King's goal to get a dark-skinned person elected president. While that occurrence could mean something to and for what we might call the soul of our nation, King's call was to the revolutionary power of the Gospel, not the attrition of racists.

But, But, But, But...

So last night, as a change of pace, our Quaker Peace Fellowship group went to see/hear Christopher Hitchens. I thought it would be helpful to hear his articulation and understanding of how we work towards a stable, responsible, international community- especially because he sees imperialism as a good thing. I don't think he represents the majority of folks in that. Not that we don't endorse imperialism. I think most folks just don't think about the consequences or manifestations of our militarism as imperialism. He does. He calls it what it is, and endorses it. For whatever else you can say about the guy, you can't say he doesn't try for some sense of responsible thought about geopolitical concerns. That thought process seems important, especially because the majority of folks don't.

I'm not saying I endorse an imperial approach to stability or security. Only that it's important to know what thoughtful folks might say about such a thing.

For the most part I enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed how much the hipster college kids who came to hear him rail against theism were disconcerted by his support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Of course I had my own moments of embarrassment. No evening of Christopher Hitchens would be complete without some anti-theism. I have no problem with that per se. My embarrassment came from how shallow his anti-theism can be. There is nothing new, and little clever or very interesting about his case against God. Why should there be? He has no reason to be any more thoughtful about his position than he is. Most often, the God that we demonstrate as true is a pathetic laughable mess.

We demonstrate belief in a God... why am I doing that? We demonstrate belief in a god that is hardly worth the argument. That Hitchens' job is so easy is an indictment of the church.

What we do as the church reveals what we say about the god we believe in. It is that, that determines the nature and meaning of our existence and that we are able to live such shallow, petty, self-righteous, desperate lives, all the while clinging to hollow statements about the "bigness" of some Santa Claus on the other side of the moon is argument enough. We believe in a straw man.

We should thank God Hitchens is there to point that out.

ed.- The majority of folks don't seem important to me? Is that what I meant to say? Edit, man, edit.

Someday You'll Thank Me For All This Scary Love

We like to say our thoughts on sex, or more accurately our rules regulating sexual behaviors, are rooted squarely and surely in scripture. I think, as Christians of a certain type anyway, we like to say that about everything, but these days, sex especially.

I don't happen to think Christianity is about regulating behaviors, but let's say for a moment it is, and let's then say that the Bible is the source for those regulations.

We know what to do and not do based on what the Bible says (not what we say the Bible says), and there are things that the Bible says we ought to do or not do and those things are tied to whether one gets to be a Christian and from that whether one gets to go to heaven. This is important to remember.

It's easy to make those opposed to THE GAY into a God Hates Fags caricature. Of course it's made all that much easier because of a tendency to see the complexities of desire and attraction as an absurd simplification called gay or straight, but let's resist the tendency to both caricaturizations. Could that be any less clear? Point being, it's easy to forget that those who imagine there is some thing called GAY and oppose it however it is manifest may do so out of a sincere desire to offer what is best for the one who is gay.

If I supremely care for the condition of your soul- read "I don't want you to go to hell", then I would want to make sure you are not being or doing something that may send you to hell. Forget for a moment that that set up depends on a way of knowing the world at odds with a Gospel narrative, but if I say being and doing gay, whatever that may be, is something that will send you to hell, then the idea of putting up barriers around the possibility of gayness makes sense. Good sense.

It's not hate, at least not the kind of hate that rolls up to campus with a Confederate Nazi flag (seriously- what was up with that guy?). It's a kind of love- a kind of distorted, crazy, self-serving love, but a try at love. That's something, no? And to my more delicate readers I apologize for putting the words but and love so close together.

So it's not hate, not always anyway. But being a distorted, crazy, self-serving love doesn't make it good. Maybe sympathetic, to a degree, maybe understandable, but not good. It is something that ought to be exposed to light, overcome, and redeemed, at least if one buys into being a Christian.

Monster Machine and I Were Briefly Discussing Whether Slipknot Was More Motorhead or The Misfits for Its Attachment to a Certain Comic Teen Aesthetic. What say You?
Sister I'm a Poet- Morrisey
We Are 138- The Misfits
Cosmopolitan- Nine Black Alps
No New Tale to Tell- Love and Rockets
Mr. Hurricane- Beast (If Jamiroquai and The White Stripes had a baby, it would cry like this)
Brazil- Pink Martini
Cut Your Hair- Pavement
Think- Aretha Franklin
Suzie- Boy Kill Boy

Our God Has Given Our Enemy Into Our Hand

Three things.

First.
I'm guessing if the No on 8 folks had early on clearly identified what and who was behind the Yes push- Mormon and Ahmanson money- it would not have passed. Consider that the present constitutional revision passed by a much narrower margin than the 2000 ballot measure that proved unconstitutional, though it was organized and well funded. We could say it's just a matter of a few more decades before these remaining folks are dead or at least outnumbered and a referendum is put to voters. Or we could recognize that the No campaign, a campaign that did not call out the kooks behind Prop 8, a campaign that let distortion and misrepresentation stand, a campaign that didn't make this about real people, and had to deal with Gavin Newsom's boorish soundbite, did as well as it did. Not that that is a great consolation, but if it had countered or done those things earlier, I think it would have passed- especially if the whole theocratic agenda of the financiers was clearly laid out. When most "straight folks" realize this is as much about their protection under the law, they will be less inclined to slouch along with Mormons and Christian Reconstructionists. Unless of course I'm wrong about that, and the vast majority of Californians would actually like to live in a Rushdoonian Mormon Bible-based paradise in which we wear magic underwear while stoning homosexuals* and adulterers.

Two.
Since passing Prop 8 was the great ecclesial call of this generation, since we successfully averted the flood they said was a'comin', could we as the church now maybe do one or two of the things Jesus actually talked about as recorded in the gospels? We could even say, "It's about the children" if we must, but how about 100 days of prayer and 40 days of fasting for something actually attributable to Jesus Christ if one is going to call one's self a follower of the guy? At least as a show of sincerity- "No hard feelings, homos, we take everything this seriously. High five? C'mon, sport, don't leave us hanging."

And D.
Now that THE CHURCH, at least in California, is safely ensconced in the security of the state, thoroughly protected by the power of legislation from any threats of strangeness or difference, insulated from any thing that may threaten its self-certainty, I wonder what will become of folks like me who seemed so suited to ministry until it was learned we didn't know how to properly read the Bible. Are we now bound with the bronze fetters of the law and so may be safely put to the wheel?

* As if the Bible says anything about homosexuality.

It's Nothing Personal

So there you have it, fags. TRADITIONAL VALUES... well Mormon values anyway, cut the legs out from your homosexual agenda. Decent, righteous upstanding Californians were able to tell queers they don't know that they can't marry.

Oh, and of course I don't mean "fag" or "queer" in any disparaging way. Just like no one means anything disparaging by saying you are inherently incapable of doing or being what is necessary to marry. You're fine, really. This was always all about THE CHILDREN. And since this was always about what marriage means for kids, it's only a matter of time until we make minimum income and education requirements before allowing people to have children. We won't allow divorcées with children to remarry because that really screws up a kid. We'll probably reconsider interracial marriage as well- that just seems like it's inviting problems. What else... who knows? I mean, there's all kinds of things we need to do for THE CHILDREN now that we've got this ball rolling.

And as far as THE CHURCH's responsibilities in the matter, we can show how seriously we do take marriage by telling straight couples that we won't allow them to get married because they don't meet some random serious and consequential set of criteria. We can have church committees monitor the sex lives of congregants to make sure they're not doing anything to violate nature or tradition. Ministers will no longer hire themselves out to "perform" weddings. In fact, we could probably go to some type of arranged marriage system- all in all, that just makes sense.

So in short, no hard feelings, right homos? We just really really love marriage... and children. Don't forget to think of THE CHILDREN.

Excellent

President Obama is satisfying but if I can wake up tomorrow knowing that I can marry a man when the Qweenbean and I are forced to divorce, it will be a perfect world.

Update- Nov. 5th, 9:30 AM

Great. Thanks for painting me into a corner, California.

So now there's a Democrat majority in Congress and a socialist headed to the White House, but just when I think I get to have a gay terrorist Muslim divorce on a burning American flag fetus and be single again, I won't be able to marry a man.

I was going to marry Seth Rogen, he seems soft and fun.

Thanks a lot.