Archive | Great Revaluing RSS feed for this section

Black Preaching, the Church, and Civic Life

14 Nov

I can’t say that I’ve even thought of that topic until a two or three weeks ago. Now it’s been much on my mind. What got me thinking about black preaching in the first place, of course, is my recent church visit. But how I got from that visit to this more general issue, black preaching and civic life, that takes a bit of explaining. Where I’m going is that, if we’re going to make substantial changes in how this country, these United States of America, goes about its business, if we’re going to forge a more just and more sustainable union, we’ve got to be grounded in something, something that doesn’t quite exist. Perhaps black preaching has a role to play in that something.

Civics 101: Legitimizing the State

Let’s start with the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

As I’ve observed in another post:

In Jefferson’s formulation the government gains its power by grant from the people. The people, in turn, gain their power, their unalienable rights, from their Creator. This reverses the logic of legitimization prevailing in traditional European monarchies. In those governments the rulers got their legitimacy from God and their subjects, in turn, got their rights and obligations through their relationship to the ruler. In that scheme democracy is implausible. Jefferson, and the new nation, emphatically rejected that scheme in favor of a different one.

In this new system the separation of church and state secures two ends, religious freedom and, even more fundamentally, the state itself. The first is obvious, and has occasioned much discussion. The second seems obvious as well, but is somehow more subtle. How can the people legitimize the state unless their authority is itself independent of that state? The only way to guarantee that independence is to guarantee the separation of church and state.

And that, I suggest, may be why religion has been so important in American society. For a large fraction of the population, though not for all, it has been the ground of capital “B” Being on which their sense of themselves-in-the-world depends.

The rest of that post elaborates on that last paragraph and its implications. I assume that argument for the rest of THIS post, but I have something different in mind.

What has happened in this country is that, while we the people retain the nominal power of legitimizing the national government through our votes, both for the President and for congressmen, that power has become only nominal. Whoever we vote for we get a government that’s run by the corporations, for the corporations, and over we the people. Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

Sisters of St. Francis, the Quiet Shareholder Activists – NYTimes.com

14 Nov

Wonderful!

In 1980, Sister Nora and her community formed a corporate responsibility committee to combat what they saw as troubling developments at the businesses in which they invested their retirement fund. A year later, in coordination with groups like the Philadelphia Area Coalition for Responsible Investment, they mounted their offensive. They boycotted Big Oil, took aim at Nestlé over labor policies, and urged Big Tobacco to change its ways.

Eventually, they developed a strategy combining moral philosophy and public shaming. Once they took aim at a company, they bought the minimum number of shares that would allow them to submit resolutions at that company’s annual shareholder meeting….That gave them a nuclear option, in the event the company’s executives refused to meet with them….

“You’re not going to get any sympathy for cutting off a nun at your annual meeting,” says Robert McCormick, chief policy officer of Glass, Lewis & Company, a firm that specializes in shareholder proxy votes. With their moral authority, he said, the Sisters of St. Francis “can really bring attention to issues.”

via Sisters of St. Francis, the Quiet Shareholder Activists – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

The New Progressive Movement – NYTimes.com

13 Nov

OCCUPY WALL STREET and its allied movements around the country are more than a walk in the park. They are most likely the start of a new era in America. Historians have noted that American politics moves in long swings. We are at the end of the 30-year Reagan era, a period that has culminated in soaring income for the top 1 percent and crushing unemployment or income stagnation for much of the rest. The overarching challenge of the coming years is to restore prosperity and power for the 99 percent.

via The New Progressive Movement – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Penn State, my final loss of faith – Guest Voices – The Washington Post

13 Nov

Has Tom Brokaw’s “greatest generation” failed its leadership responsibilities? This man thinks so. He’s a veteran of Iraq and went through  Sandusky’s Second Mile Foundation, successfully and happily. But too many of his elders have failed to lead.

One thing I know for certain: A leader must emerge from Happy Valley to tie our community together again, and it won’t come from our parents’ generation.

They have failed us, over and over and over again.

I speak not specifically of our parents — I have two loving ones — but of the public leaders our parents’ generation has produced. With the demise of my own community’s two most revered leaders, Sandusky and Joe Paterno, I have decided to continue to respect my elders, but to politely tell them, “Out of my way.”

They have had their time to lead. Time’s up. I’m tired of waiting for them to live up to obligations.

Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

For those of us in our 20s and early 30s, this is not the world we are inheriting.

via Penn State, my final loss of faith – Guest Voices – The Washington Post.

The Inequality Map – NYTimes.com

11 Nov

This is an amusing piece by David Brooks. As you can see, it takes the form of advice to a foreigner about what kinds of inequality are acceptably displayed in America and what kinds must be hidden. On a quick read the advice appears to be reasonable. And so Brooks opens:

Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?”

After cruising through this that and the other, Brooks gets to the what surely is the heart of the piece:

Income inequality is acceptable. If you are a star baseball player, it is socially acceptable to sell your services for $25 million per year (after all, you have to do what’s best for your family). If you are a star C.E.O., it’s no longer quite polite to receive an $18 million compensation package, but everybody who can still does it

That, of course, is NOT what the Occupy Wallstreeters are saying. Notice how he defuses the issue. His first and primary example is that of a star athlete. Everyone knows the best of the best get paid outlandish sums of money, and everyone knows THAT’s not what’s being protested. It’s the corporate CEOs—thanks for mentioning one, David—and bankers. And what’s bothersome is not simply the huge sums of money, but the sense that it’s not earned. What’s bothersome is that these folks have distorted the system so they get piles and piles of loot without really earning it. But then, Brooks doesn’t want us to think about THAT, does he? No the whole purpose of this piece is to make us forget that.

Then more examples of this and that until Brooks reaches his acceptably bland conclusion:

Dear visitor, we are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other. Have a nice stay.

That is, just business as usual. NOT. Business as usual is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE. Deal with it, Mr. David “Flim Flam Man” Brooks. And have a nice day.

via The Inequality Map – NYTimes.com.

Tags:

Welcome to the “augmented revolution” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com

6 Nov

Simply put, the terms “real” and “virtual” to describe the physical and digital worlds are inadequate: Facebook is real as the rest of the world grows increasingly virtual. It is this massive implosion of atoms and bits that has created an augmented reality where properties of digitality — information spreads faster, more voices become empowered, enhanced organization and consensus capabilities — intersect with the importance of occupying physical space with flesh-and-blood bodies.

via Welcome to the “augmented revolution” – Occupy Wall Street – Salon.com.

Tags: , ,

Panetta Weighs Military Cuts Once Thought Out of Bounds – NYTimes.com

6 Nov

Mr. Panetta, a former White House budget chief, acknowledged in an interview that he faced deep political pressures as he weighed cuts to Pentagon spending, which has doubled to $700 billion a year since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He said that meeting deficit-reduction targets might require another round of base closings, which could be highly contentious as members of Congress routinely fight to protect military deployments and jobs in their communities.

via Panetta Weighs Military Cuts Once Thought Out of Bounds – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Gates offers G20 a lesson in philanthropy – The Globe and Mail

6 Nov

It’s nice the Bill Gates is devoting all this time and money to good works. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t also be a self-important arrogant dorkwad!

To confront the concerns of protesters who call themselves “the 99 per cent,” the G20 decided to invite a member of the 0.000000001 per cent.

Mr. Gates laughed at this comparison, but had little time for the new inequality protests.

“Good old Occupy Wall Street! I will certainly be glad to print up signs for them if they want to hold them up saying ‘More bed nets!’, ‘More vaccines!’, ‘More agricultural research!’ ” Mr. Gates said. “I’ve never met any of these people … but I haven’t seen them holding any banners speaking up on behalf of the world’s poorest.”

Mr. Gates was invited because he has a reputation for getting things done: His foundation played a key role in getting the African AIDS crisis under control, and was the key actor behind the successful development of vaccines against meningitis and malaria.

via Gates offers G20 a lesson in philanthropy – The Globe and Mail.

Tags: ,

Our Reckless Meritocracy – NYTimes.com

5 Nov

What you see in today’s Republican primary campaign is a reaction to exactly these kinds of follies — a revolt against the ruling class that our meritocracy has forged, and a search for outsiders with thinner résumés but better instincts.

But from Michele Bachmann to Herman Cain, the outsiders haven’t risen to the challenge. It will do America no good to replace the arrogant with the ignorant, the overconfident with the incompetent.

via Our Reckless Meritocracy – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Occupy Wall Street: America HAS a Ruling Class

5 Nov

The OWS movement recognizes that America is divided into a ruling class and a class of servants.

Yes, America DOES have a ruling class. It’s not a hereditary ruling class, like the old European aristocracies. It’s permeable. One can enter it from below, and one can be thrust out of it too.

Of course the existence of this ruling class contradicts official doctrine, which says that American is ruled by the people and for the people. Members of this ruling class, therefore, will deny its existence. Certainly, the politician members MUST deny it.

Just what these rulers say among themselves, at the Bohemian Grove, in board meetings of for-profit corporations (e.g. General Motors, Goldman Sachs) and not-for-profit (e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ford Foundation), in private clubs of various kinds, that’s a different matter. On that, I suspect, some are frank about being among The Rulers while others persist they are still of the people.

Nor do non-member Americans recognize the existence of this ruling class. Well, some of us do, some of us don’t. It’d be interesting to see whether recognition of the ruling class is stringing among non-voters than among voters. After all, if you do see that there’s a ruling class, what’s the point of voting? You vote doesn’t matter. At the same time, one might vote out of identification with and affirmation of that very same ruling class. After all, maybe you too will be tapped to enter into the sacred halls of the ruling class.

All of which is to say that, while a ruling class exists, though not a classical ruling class, class consciousness is weak, on both sides of the divide.

Outing the Class Divide

And THAT’s the biggest service that is being performed by Occupy Wall Street: identifying the class divide in America. The 1%, that’s the ruling class. The rest, no matter how many things otherwise divide us, we are the 99%. Continue reading →

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →