As a Christian living in America, I was surprised recently to hear someone express their distress about the assault on our faith, and I was struck by the very different perspective I have.
Having been raised within and choosing to stay as a United Methodist, I have never felt discriminated against or persecuted because of my faith. I have noticed some changes, such as public schools’ more careful adherence to the separation of church and state. As a country growing ever more diverse and having family of another faith myself, I accepted these changes as proof of our country’s guarantee that all beliefs will be respected in our civic institutions. I took that guarantee as a protection, rather than an assault. When and if I become a minority, I would welcome those protections, wouldn’t you?
And regarding Christmas, how can we complain? Isn’t Christmas the only religious holiday in our country that is written into the federal holiday calendar? Frankly the only war on Christmas I see is the way American business has used it to sell, sell, sell. It is no longer about a celebration of Christ’s birth, but a marketing bonanza. How much junk can we buy and wrap!
Where do these feelings of persecution come from? Whom do they benefit? Because from my perspective, there is no war on Christianity. Instead I feel that others are using the Christian label to separate me from my Jewish, agnostic, Islamic, etc., friends. In fact, I do not label myself.
I have always done this. I think of myself as a person. So in those times in which I have experienced sexism, it has come as a shock. Being evaluated based on someone else’s view of the label “woman” rather than on my skills and abilities as a person limits and demeans me.
This happens every time we attach a label to something – be it to ourselves or others. So I even avoid the term Christian. I think of myself of a “person of faith.” To me, that means I have a working relationship with God. And it allows me to respect other persons of faith, regardless of their chosen beliefs.
And frankly, I fear the label Christian because our history, like all human history, has been a story of abject failures and atrocities as well as triumphs – the Crusades, the Inquisition, our treatment of Native Americans, to just scratch the surface.
Our faith is the story of human struggle. Jesus calls us to love God and one another, and we fail at that every day. Yet it is our sacred responsibility. To be judged by that standard is enormous, and frankly, I fear it. So Christian is not a label I wear easily. Instead, to quote an old hymn, I hope people will “know we are Christians by our love.”
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Is the GOP – just a one-trick pony?
I am so sick of Republicans whining about the deficit and obstructing legislation designed to help their constituents.
"The only thing Republicans have opposed in this debate are job-killing taxes and adding to the national debt," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in an Associated Press story June 25. "What we're not willing to do is use worthwhile programs as an excuse to burden our children and our grandchildren with an even bigger national debt than we've already got."
No, they’d rather burden our children and grandchildren with the debt from two unnecessary wars and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
They continue to deny our own history – when President Franklin Roosevelt responded to a similar economic crisis with government spending to provide benefits to the poor and employment to the jobless. It’s called the New Deal, and it worked.
Go look at the record of tax cuts and economic growth at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities at: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=692. The Republicans are full of baloney. Economics is complicated, and a simple proposal like “cutting taxes and spending” is a sound bite. But apparently it’s all the GOP has.
I’m ready for them to get out of the way and let the rest of us try something new to grow our economy. All they’re proposing is more of the same. This is simply political obstruction over governing; politics over people.
"The only thing Republicans have opposed in this debate are job-killing taxes and adding to the national debt," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in an Associated Press story June 25. "What we're not willing to do is use worthwhile programs as an excuse to burden our children and our grandchildren with an even bigger national debt than we've already got."
No, they’d rather burden our children and grandchildren with the debt from two unnecessary wars and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
They continue to deny our own history – when President Franklin Roosevelt responded to a similar economic crisis with government spending to provide benefits to the poor and employment to the jobless. It’s called the New Deal, and it worked.
Go look at the record of tax cuts and economic growth at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities at: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=692. The Republicans are full of baloney. Economics is complicated, and a simple proposal like “cutting taxes and spending” is a sound bite. But apparently it’s all the GOP has.
I’m ready for them to get out of the way and let the rest of us try something new to grow our economy. All they’re proposing is more of the same. This is simply political obstruction over governing; politics over people.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Open letter to Congress
Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend and Robert Reich, economist and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is writing about the worst employment and wage numbers since the Great Depression. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-news-about-jobs_b_278098.html
Which is why I question opposition to a public option for health care.
I understand the fear of average citizens and their reactionary response. When media sources conflate fear and feed the public lies, they’re going to strike out at the biggest bogeyman they can find – government.
But your cowardice astounds and frustrates me. Where is your leadership? America is about to careen off a cliff, and you’re still playing politics!
The true measure of Washington cravenness is your inability to read the signs our entire economy is about to collapse. Instead, you let corporate executives push to keep their overblown salaries and fight regulation, actions doomed to send them crashing into the abyss, too. Their consumer market is shrinking. Who will buy their crap now? (And the last year has proven it’s crap!)
Members of Congress, particularly Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Dems, saw on the same old ideological platitudes while Rome burns. Meanwhile, corporate media looks the other way because they live in gated communities where everyone is still “doing OK.” Or they’re too dumb to understand the subjects they report on. (Witness Maria Bartiromo interviewing Rep. Ron Weiner about Medicare.)
Congress needs to study American history. When our economy has been at its worst, more government intervention (not less) has been required to stimulate growth and turn things around. This means deficit spending. And it has been government programs like Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill and Medicare that have stabilized the economy and allowed citizens to pursue new business ventures.
Right now, the American business sector is shrinking. This is largely due to rising health care costs. And only a government or public option will be large enough to ensure the competition to drive costs down.
But most disturbing to me is the loyalty of duly elected Congress men and women to the insurance and health care sectors instead of to the American people. Voters on all sides ought to be angry, and instead of shouting at each other, we ought to be taking names. Instead of letting Congress people like Charles Grassley scare the pants off us with comments about “pulling the plug on Grandma,” we should be asking him why he took more than $2 million from health insurers and providers.
You’re supposed to be working for us, and we need help – desperately.
Which is why I question opposition to a public option for health care.
I understand the fear of average citizens and their reactionary response. When media sources conflate fear and feed the public lies, they’re going to strike out at the biggest bogeyman they can find – government.
But your cowardice astounds and frustrates me. Where is your leadership? America is about to careen off a cliff, and you’re still playing politics!
The true measure of Washington cravenness is your inability to read the signs our entire economy is about to collapse. Instead, you let corporate executives push to keep their overblown salaries and fight regulation, actions doomed to send them crashing into the abyss, too. Their consumer market is shrinking. Who will buy their crap now? (And the last year has proven it’s crap!)
Members of Congress, particularly Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Dems, saw on the same old ideological platitudes while Rome burns. Meanwhile, corporate media looks the other way because they live in gated communities where everyone is still “doing OK.” Or they’re too dumb to understand the subjects they report on. (Witness Maria Bartiromo interviewing Rep. Ron Weiner about Medicare.)
Congress needs to study American history. When our economy has been at its worst, more government intervention (not less) has been required to stimulate growth and turn things around. This means deficit spending. And it has been government programs like Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill and Medicare that have stabilized the economy and allowed citizens to pursue new business ventures.
Right now, the American business sector is shrinking. This is largely due to rising health care costs. And only a government or public option will be large enough to ensure the competition to drive costs down.
But most disturbing to me is the loyalty of duly elected Congress men and women to the insurance and health care sectors instead of to the American people. Voters on all sides ought to be angry, and instead of shouting at each other, we ought to be taking names. Instead of letting Congress people like Charles Grassley scare the pants off us with comments about “pulling the plug on Grandma,” we should be asking him why he took more than $2 million from health insurers and providers.
You’re supposed to be working for us, and we need help – desperately.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Reagan was wrong
Probably the most damaging legacy Ronald Reagan left America is his oft-quoted statement: “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” That one sweeping statement rendered our democracy helpless and allowed government leaders to abandon leadership for profit and power.
And we the people fell for it.
Democracy, particularly American democracy, has always been about shared responsibility. In democracies, citizens are responsible for determining who represents them in government as well as for actively monitoring representatives’ work. Yet over the last 30 years, we’ve given up these responsibilities.
“If government is the problem, why vote? Why follow legislation and contact our senators and representatives with our opinions? It doesn’t make a difference.” This is the prevailing attitude.
And so more and more over the last 30 years, U.S. government has been influenced not by the people it was created to serve, but by corporations and wealthy Americans whose agenda is to further enrich and empower themselves. And not coincidentally, our media outlets, responsible for bringing us information about government, have covered less and less policy. Instead, their corporate ownership directs the focus to personalities, social issues like abortion, and deceptively titled legislation like No Child Left Behind or the Clean Air Act.
Make no mistake. This is propaganda, more commonly referred to as public relations in politically correct terms. And we’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
But now that we’re in a real crisis, citizens are beginning to question things. I’ve waited a long time for this, because I believe government, and more specifically democracy, is the solution to our problems – when we all participate.
And that means more than flying your flag and putting red-white-and-blue magnets on your car. It even goes beyond voting. It means reading about local, state and federal legislation, and registering your opinion via phone calls, letters and e-mails. It means stepping up to serve in government if you feel capable. It means advocating for the causes important to you. And most of all it means questioning everything in search of the public good.
Reagan was wrong. Government isn’t the problem, but many of the people we’ve elected are. And with his attitude, he was one of them.
And we the people fell for it.
Democracy, particularly American democracy, has always been about shared responsibility. In democracies, citizens are responsible for determining who represents them in government as well as for actively monitoring representatives’ work. Yet over the last 30 years, we’ve given up these responsibilities.
“If government is the problem, why vote? Why follow legislation and contact our senators and representatives with our opinions? It doesn’t make a difference.” This is the prevailing attitude.
And so more and more over the last 30 years, U.S. government has been influenced not by the people it was created to serve, but by corporations and wealthy Americans whose agenda is to further enrich and empower themselves. And not coincidentally, our media outlets, responsible for bringing us information about government, have covered less and less policy. Instead, their corporate ownership directs the focus to personalities, social issues like abortion, and deceptively titled legislation like No Child Left Behind or the Clean Air Act.
Make no mistake. This is propaganda, more commonly referred to as public relations in politically correct terms. And we’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
But now that we’re in a real crisis, citizens are beginning to question things. I’ve waited a long time for this, because I believe government, and more specifically democracy, is the solution to our problems – when we all participate.
And that means more than flying your flag and putting red-white-and-blue magnets on your car. It even goes beyond voting. It means reading about local, state and federal legislation, and registering your opinion via phone calls, letters and e-mails. It means stepping up to serve in government if you feel capable. It means advocating for the causes important to you. And most of all it means questioning everything in search of the public good.
Reagan was wrong. Government isn’t the problem, but many of the people we’ve elected are. And with his attitude, he was one of them.
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