Monday, August 31, 2009

Beating Back Bigotry in Five Minutes Per Day

Tired of listening to anti-immigrant bigotry on the airwaves or reading it in the op-ed pages? Want to do something about it? Then consider participating in Eric Ward's Seven Days to Beat Anti-Immigrant Bigotry. By participating, Ward promises that "you can take a bite out of bigotry in less than five minutes a day!" That's right, by just taking five minutes out of your busy schedule each day for the next seven days, you can help to stop anti-immigrant bigotry cold in it's tracks. Check it out!

Monday, August 17, 2009

War Resistance in Killeen, Texas

An article published in truthout tells the story of soldiers from Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, who have found one another through their mutual conviction that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are morally wrong and unjustifiable. They are part of a newly connected group of people in Killeen who have determined that they must take a stand against the war. Two soldiers, Spc. Victor Agosto and Sgt. Travis Bishop, have faced court martial for their refusal to deploy.

One of the outgrowths of this developing community of war resistance has been a coffee shop just down the street from Fort Hood, called Under the Hood. Members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War, soldiers, and families of Fort Hood military personnel have found refuge and strength for their convictions in this new gathering place.

The Resistors from Casey J Porter on Vimeo.



The following quotations are excerpts from the truthout article.

Sgt. Travis Bishop, who served 14 months in Baghdad with the 3rd Signal Brigade, faces a court-martial this Friday for refusing to deploy to Afghanistan.

Bishop is the second soldier from Fort Hood in as may weeks to be tried by the military for his stand against an occupation he believes is "illegal." He insists that it would be unethical for him to deploy to support an occupation he opposes on both moral and legal grounds and he has filed for conscientious objector (CO) status.

Spc. Victor Agosto was court-martialed last week for his refusal to deploy to Afghanistan.

* * *

Bishop told Truthout he was inspired by Agosto's stand and had chosen to follow Specialist Agosto's example of refusal. Both his time in Iraq, the illegality of the occupation and a moral awakening led to his decision to refuse to deploy.

"I started to see a big difference between our reality there and what was in the news," Bishop explained to Truthout about his experience in Iraq, but went on to add that morality and religion played a role as well.

When he received orders to deploy to Afghanistan, Bishop said, "I started reading my Bible to get right with my creator before going. Through my reading I realized all this goes against what Jesus taught and what all true Christians should believe. I had a religious transformation, and realized that all war is wrong."

Bishop received his orders to deploy to Afghanistan in February, but at the time "didn't know there was a support network or a way out at all. I thought GI resistance was something archaic from Vietnam."

As his deployment date approached, he met with other soldiers at a GI resistance cafe, "Under the Hood", in Killeen, Texas.

"They told me not only do I have a choice, but I have a support network backing me up," Bishop explained, "I told them my thinking, and they said that I sounded like a CO. They put me in touch with (James) Branum and when I learned from him what a CO was, I knew I couldn't go."

* * *

Bishop hopes his refusal to deploy will inspire soldiers to search their consciences.

"My hope is that people who feel like me, that they don't have a voice and are having doubts, I hope that this shows them that not only can you talk to someone about this, but that you actually have a choice," he said.

"Choice is the first thing they take away from you in the military," Bishop added, "You're taught that you don't have a choice. That's not true. And not wanting to kill someone or get killed does not make you a coward. I hope my actions show this to more people."
There is a video documentary linked below, for those who want to learn more about Under the Hood Cafe. Be warned that there is some rough language used by some persons who are interviewed.


Mike Broadway

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Racism and healthcare reform

As someone who lives in the South and who is currently working for healthcare reform, I've been interacting with some people who are deeply suspicious of the President's push for healthcare reform and who believe the myths about it. Most people I've talked to DO support healthcare reform, (of course we're talking to mostly registered Democrats) but they haven't yet been as publically vocal as the right-wing.
Last year during the election, we talked to so many white 'Democrats' in Louisiana who said they would not vote for Obama for reasons that seemed to be related to race in some way. I guess I just thought that once Obama was elected, white Southerners would have to deal with that fact and would be stretched by it once they realized the world hadn't ended because we elected a black man as president. But right now there is this very vocal minority that is behaving as if Obama is singlehandedly destroying the country. This post at Daily Kos has a really good analysis of the racism underlying the teaparty, birther, and anti-healthcare movements.
I don't know how we begin to try to counter this conservative backlash, but I believe that understanding the racial logic behind it is crucial. It goes to show that the struggle against racism in this country is ongoing. In light of this backlash, we need to recommit to work for healthcare reform, because this fight is about peoples' lives.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Pay to Play: Health Lobbies Buy Their Access

"This is not a democracy. It's an auction." Those are the words of a bumper sticker we stuck on a car I used to own. The obscene amount of money that are spent to elect and influence government officials keeps growing because it works. Money keeps buying access. If you might have money to give, then candidates and incumbents want to talk with you. If you already gave money, they want to keep the relationship for next time. And savvy lobbyists know what kinds of assistance and treatment specific legislators want. They also know how to sway the direction of corporate news and the TV-watching and talk show-listening public. In U. S. politics, money makes the world go 'round.

Michael Winship of truthout reports that enormous amounts of money have been spent on lobbying against health care reform in the second quarter of 2009: over $133 million in three months from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital corporations alone. This does not include spending by other organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and political action groups which is also on a grand scale.

According to community organizing, there are two kinds of power: organized money and organized people. Theodore Lowi, in The End of Liberalism, wrote that organized money had managed to dominate U. S. politics so heavily that we now operate by a de facto new constitution. Representative government flows from powerfully organized lobbies. Theologian John Howard Yoder warned Christians not to be fooled by the rhetoric of democracy, the rule of the people, when the U. S. polity is better described as a plutocracy, the rule of the wealthy.

There is faint hope in that community organizing has experienced a renaissance in the past quarter century. But grassroots movements still have most of their influence at the local level, and occasionally at the state level. There are ambitions for more national power from grassroots groups, but for now the organized money is in the lead.

I'm going to keep on asking folks to demand that Congress listen to the people and get us a universal health care plan that cuts costs and promotes preventive care. We may be a voice crying in the wilderness, but the voices of Isaiah and John both made a difference when they stood up for the truth.

Who Would Have Picked It? A Worst to First Story

by Stan Dotson

This week's Primary Passage (Matthew 20:1-19) transports us to some intense labor negotiations at the vineyard, where some cotton-pickin' grape pickers are getting nit-picky with the boss about the deals they made. Jesus is flat-pickin' to beat the band as he throws down one of his many parables (the Greek word for "parable" literally means to throw alongside) that turn the world system--this time the economic assumptions of the world--on its head. It's hoe-down time in the Kingdom of God, and given the economic twist Jesus throws on it, would more appropriately be called the Commonwealth of God.

The landowner (literally, the house-ruler) in Jesus' reel is engaging in some quirky home economics as he employees day laborers to bring in the grape clusters and get them ready for the foot-stomping. He hires some street corner workers early in the morning and promises them a day's wage--enough for them to live on and provide for their family for one day. He goes back to the corner throughout the day and finds more idle folk, hiring them on the promise to "do them right." When the whistle blows, the laborers line up for their just reward. The home economist turns the line around, and puts those who did the least work at the front of the line and those who worked the longest at the back. If this isn't bad enough for the wore out early birds, every last one of the workers winds up with the same wage. The beasts of burden who bore the brunt of the full day's work begin to grumble, and the bossman responds, Buddyroo, you got what was coming to you. I treated you fair. If I want to be generous with what I have to make sure everybody has food in their bellies tonight, that's my business. So go on and take your wage, and don't spend it all in one place.

Labor economists would have a field day analyzing this story. The main question would be, what happens the next day? What incentive do the workers have to show up early? Won't they all lay around watching the tube until mid-afternoon, and show up for an hour of work to put their daily bread on the table? It all boils down to a question of motivation. Economists theorize about the intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) motivations for work. External motivations tend to dominate the debate in our capitalist system--it's all about the money. Jesus here is tossing that aside and is banking instead on the power of intrinsic motivations--the internal call to be at work in God's field. It's about loving the work so much that it feels like play and pleasure.

Now exactly how is this story illustrative of the reign of God? Followers of Jesus are intrinsically motivated by the overwhelming generosity of God's mercy, a mercy so thorough that it ignores all human merit. Those who deserve it least go to the front of the line. Those who think they deserve it most go to the back. Does that mean that some will try and snooker God, and rely on a cheap grace by sinning boldly and trusting God to forgive it all in the end? Of course there will be some snookerers. Pity them, because they may never know the peace and pleasure and priceless joy found in following Jesus, not for some external reward but in response to the love displayed on the cross.

An old Latin hymn writer put it best, My God I love thee not because I hope for heaven thereby, nor because they who love thee not must burn eternally. Thou O my Jesus Thou didst me upon the Cross embrace, for me didst bear the nails and spear and manifold disgrace. Then why O blessed Jesus Christ should I not love thee well? Not for the hope of winning heaven nor of escaping hell.

Pickin' and grinning my way to the line, be it front, middle or end,

Stan