politics

Michael Moore’s "Letter to God"

/ barryweber / 4 Comments

I’m not the fan of Michael Moore, the documentary film maker, that you might expect me to be. Egomania and sarcasm are simply not the mix that holds my attention for very long. And despite his great editing and data retrieval skills, Moore’s focus on himself soon becomes (for me) grating.

But he sometimes has a twisted way of revealing truth that is hard to ignore, and this prayer, published yesterday, is one such revelation:

Sunday, August 31st, 2008
An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson’s ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson’s prayers — except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don’t blame You, I know You’re angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an “Act of God” — when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized — and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush’s FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again!”

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven’t been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America’s “wholesale slaughter of unborn children.” His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don’t do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven’t sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time — they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don’t know what, Bush’s head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government’s response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W’s to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It’s done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I’ll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

President Obama

/ barryweber / 1 Comment

It could happen. I don’t know whether it actually will, but the important thing right now- today- is that the real possibility to have an African-American president of the United States does exist.

We’ve come part of the way, baby.

The candidacy of Barack Obama has already affected some very important changes in our American collective consciousness (it seems to me). And changes in consciousness always grow. Once doors open in our individual and communal awareness, they never close- they only open wider over time. That is true in both our evolution as a human species and within our national consciousness.

To be sure, changes in consciousness are always accompanied by cultural, religious, and political reactions to those changes. Just as fundamentalism within Islam is growing in reaction to the larger international movements for democracy and equal rights, so are we seeing evidence of some fundamentalist reactions against the idea of a black person being president here in the United States. We’ve all overheard comments the like of which have not been heard openly in many years: “I don’t believe we’re ready for a black man to be president” and “If he gets in, the n—–s will be lined up in front of the White House with their hands out.” (I heard both of those at our local Democratic precinct caucus in March.)

But we’ve also seen those sentiments expressed in voting demographics and heard them through various disguised comments from the other Democratic candidate and that candidate’s family. And as ugly as those realities are, that they are being expressed- that Obama’s candidacy is causing them to be expressed- is a good thing. Here’s why:

When Light shines on darkness, Light always wins. A good way to get rid of mold, is to expose it to sunshine.

Overt racism has lain dormant in America for several decades. Actually, “dormant” is a misleading word- lethally hidden would be a better description of it’s state of being.  That Obama has been a catalyst for its being expressed more openly has been a good thing. Racism is being acknowledged and talked about honestly today in ways that will eventually spread to local morning gatherings for coffee  and to corporate boards of directors.

And, also eventually, that consciousness-raising kind of talk will move from heads to hearts. That’s how awareness works: it always makes things better than they were. To be sure, there will be reactive and ugly bumps along the way. But the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings among us are driving road graders that are leveling out the ditchy and pot-holey messes us older folks have been benignly and denyingly walking around for far too long.

No matter what else is happening, in other words, hope is happening.

America’s Open Wound

/ barryweber / 6 Comments

For those with open ears, open eyes, and open hearts, the bleeding wounds of racism in America are evident everyday- every hour and every minute for many. It is a complex, jagged, and deep wound which, because of neglect or intentional denial, has spread throughout the entire body of our country, and has been bending us for so long that few of us recognize the extent of deformation it has caused not only in our corporate body and mind, but within our American soul.

I am racist. I say that in the same way that I am honest about the fact that I have arthritis, or that I want- at some point everyday- to salve my ravenous emotions with the balm of Jim Beam. Those are just facts, realities about myself with which I must live and compensate for with the best of my awareness and abilities. I don’t know specifically where and when arthritis first began to grip my spine; nor do I know when the diseased defaults to racist attitudes began that I still am so easily able to display from time to time. Both of those things (along with the continuing desire- after fifteen years of abstinence- for an alcoholic fog to soften the day) are infestations I had no control over at the time they entered my being.

I’ve managed all of them, to an extent. I intentionally do not not drink and do what I can, with others, to keep Jim Beam and his sidekick, Bud, at bay. I swallow pills daily to keep my over-active anti-inflammatory systems in check. Racism, however, is probably the most difficult infection to deal with because of the daily reinforcements and affirmations that pour onto it, like gasoline on a fire. It flares at times, it sizzles often, and is always a (usually benign) ember that burns within me.

I don’t want it to be there. It is much, much smaller than it once was. And if I try to justify its presence based on a comparison of it to the hot coal which burns in others then, indeed, it was never very large. But it is there, and I hate that it is there. I want it gone.

I know the hope for its complete eradication is still generations away, for myself (i.e., my children and their children) and my country. I am not able to say I will die one day with nothing but a cold ash of racism within me. But I do hope, and will act on the possibilities of seeing that hope manifested as soon as possible in all the ways I can, whenever I can, wherever and however I can. My children are already less burdened (not only because of me, by any means!) of my various afflictions than I will ever be, thank God.

And I do thank God for that, and a whole long and glorious line of my fellow Americans who have been courageous enough to reveal the wounds of racism to be no mere reality which are harmful to some, but that are crippling, festering, killing wounds that are endemic to all of us. The blessing of being 58 years old in America is to have been alive in the same place, breathing the same air, as some of these past and present healers.

Two of them, of course, as they have been, are, and will be for so many Americans (and wounded people everywhere) are Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. In fact, the first piece of American literature that I would recommend to anyone- even above The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Grapes of Wrath– is King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Soon after that, I would urge anyone to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley. Many people my age or older will remember Malcolm X in the fiery contexts of the early 60s, a time of frightening cultural change. Read him again, in the light of the forty years of history we have lived through since his death, and you will find yourself mourning his murder.

As of yesterday- and, yes, it is the reason I’m writing all of this in the first place- we heard a a speech by Senator Obama that may one day find itself in the same heady categories as the two pieces of literature mentioned above. Because of his unique cultural stance, he was able to elaborate on racism in America in a way that no one before him has personally been able to do. In black and white, African and American terms, his genetic voice and his intellectual honesty and wisdom have provided content for years of discussion and action and- most importantly- real social and soulful change. Whether a person is a supporter of his candidacy for president or not, this speech deserves to be read, studied, and pondered. In fact, I would urge those who are most opposed to that candidacy to read it most contemplatively.

And I say that not because it might change your vote, but because it might change you. I’ve overheard too many conversations about why someone is a Clinton or McCain supporter to not also have heard heart-breakingly racist statements being made in the guise of political or ideological language. Not all of those supportive statements for other candidates are racist, by any means, but enough are for anyone to know, if their eyes, ears, and hearts are open, that the blood and pus of racist wounds are still running fresh.

Read Senator Obama’s speech here.

The Rapture

/ barryweber / 18 Comments

Born in the bowels of early-19th Century religious fervor, the notion of imminent Rapture has diverted, and continues to divert the attention of many Christians from the presence of Jesus Right Now. A by-product of the Second Great Awakening in America, the Rapture cult is focused on what-is-about-to-happen, causing many to not only turn a blind eye to current events, but to even stand by anxiously, encouraging and applauding natural and human-caused catastrophes.

Rapture theology surfaced again this past week as one of the presidential candidates repudiated (or at least tempered) the endorsement of John Hagee, pastor of San Antonio’s Cornerstone Church and popular expositor of the Rapture and its meaning for the world. The whole Rapture theory is a complicated set of scriptural proof-texting and “special revelations” that Hagee is particularly and skillfully adept at translating into easily accessible, simplistic statements that bear the stamp of ancient authority.

In doing so, I believe Hagee also appeals to some of the worst instincts in human nature as well. I watched him several weeks ago. I took notes just after I heard him say the following because it epitomized everything that disgusts me about this Jesus-perverting teaching of Jesus’ soon-to-be arrival to rescue his beloved from the jaws of the Antichrist:

[After the Rapture] ..”we’ll have have front row seats as we watch the Valley of Armageddon fill with the blood of the enemy.”

Key words in that statement:”We” and “the enemy.”

The Rapture cult is all about ‘us’ and ‘them.’ That is one of the universal characteristics of ALL fundamentalist systems; i.e., there is an “us” on the inside, and a group of “them” outside the accepted orthodoxy, whatever brand of orthodoxy it is which is being espoused. This is something basic to the darker nature of humanity, it seems- the need to be counted among those who are saved and the ability to determine who is not saved. Sales organizations do it, some Muslim factions do it, many American Christian groups do it, and even towns do it during football games with their main rivals. Amway people are ready at a moment’s notice to point out the flawed ingredients used by Proctor and Gamble. Islamic Jihadists need “The Great Satan” in order to exist. And Springfield hates with a vengeance those cheaters from Smalltown who suck up to the the referees.

The need to identify an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ on the part of Hagee and the Rapture Ready cultists is an old and ancient tradition that has led to countless wars and much torture. The need for such separation among people does not arise from Christian impulses; it rises from the human ego- the need to be “better than” someone else. And the desire to see others- even the so-called ‘enemy’, swimming in their own blood- well, that comes from the most debased of human values.

All of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus have made the mistake from time to time of projecting our own personal characteristics onto the person of Jesus. It’s why Jesus is often unrecognizable when one tries to compare what they’ve learned about him with what the gospels say. Both capitalists and socialists can claim him as their own, just as slave-owners and abolitionists once did. Right now, it simply happens that many who are fearful of the modern world in which they find themselves, and who are having many old and traditional “truths” kicked out by science from underneath their clay feet, are retreating into the gnosis of the Rapture, as a means of ultimate escape.

So be it. They can be wrong with a host of others, beginning with the Apostle Paul, and extending now into the Rapture profiteers like Hagee and the Left Behind authors, and all the ancillary businesses that their mistaken beliefs have given rise to. They can keep their eyes aimed at future clouds in the East if they want to; I’m just afraid they might miss Jesus walking among them in the meantime. That’s the real tragedy of this dismal doctrine.

Here’s Hagee, explaining the Rapture as he sees it. Let me know if you hear anything about God’s grace during the presentation:

Fundamentalism: Jesus is "One of Us"

/ barryweber / 2 Comments

“Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us!” (chant from closing scene of “Freaks”, the 1932 Ted Browning film)

Separation plays well in fundamentalist circles. The drawing of doctrinal lines in the shifting sands of culture, and the interpretation of those lines’ widths and exclusionary powers, makes the “them and us” game an especially appealing fundamentalist pastime.

Fundamentalist Characteristic #3: There is a “Them” and There is an “Us.”

I just read an article from last week’s Wall Street Journal about various Christian churches who have become re-involved with something they call “church discipline.” Church discipline involves privately confronting congregants with their perceived sinful behaviors, and then castigating, then shunning them publicly if they fail to repent. Sinful behavior, in the article, ranges from drunkenness to gossip about the pastor, with an emphasis, it seems, on the latter.

Unfortunately, local church separating practices only reflect larger, institutional blinders that are gleefully worn by those who know, without a doubt, that Jesus is on their side, and that they will have ringside seats in heaven when the bloodbath of Armageddon begins here on Earth.* It is so easy to hate others  from the center of the In Crowd, or to be absurdly defensive when one perceives the Out Crowd being discriminatory (Happy Holidays!).

It’s easy for US to declare war on Them. (irony noted) It’s easy to pass laws favoring US, protecting US, and institutionalizing US into a semi-permanence that cultural evolution would eventually destroy without the safeguards of law.

It makes those who are at the bottom of the economic and education barrel feel good to know that they are spiritually “better than” those high-falutin’, girl-getting, nice car-driving, good job-having, rich guys who are headed to hell in a handbasket! (heh, heh, heh, heh)

Listen to their selfish prayers for the Rapture to come quickly, even as they decry the millions of folks who are “unsaved.” What they are really saying with their “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” prayers is “the hell with them sinners. I’ve got mine; too bad you didn’t get yours!”

John 3:17 (from The Message, which I am purposely using because the fundies hate it!) “God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”

That, of course- actually helping someone– involves a little work. It might even involve sharing money, time, and- OMG!- love. But that’s more difficult than circling the wagons and singing self-congratulatory songs about the sweet by and by. Bottom line: it’s easier to follow church rules and doctrines than it is to move around the edges of society where Jesus said he would be most easily found. (Matthew 25)

Out there at the edges, you know, where there’s a lot of gray areas and where the US’s and THEM’s are not so easily discerned.

*actual scenario, which I heard salivatingly prophesied by John Hagee, one of the primo experts on who is them, and who is us.

Fundamentalism: The ‘Good Old Days’ of Jesus

/ barryweber / 1 Comment

Fundamentalist Characteristic #2: A Belief in the Supremacy of a Bygone Era

Question: How do you know you’re talking to a fundamentalist?

Answer: His mouth is pointing toward 1955.

Of course, if you’d have been talking to that same fellow in 1955, he would have been extolling the virtues of some pre-Roosevelt time frame-  before Big Government took over and the Welfare State had taken root, etc., etc., on back to whatever set of days upon which he could most comfortably project his own historical fantasies.

As Modernism began to push at the borders of ancient Israel, in the form of Babylonian hordes, the time and person of King David began to be touted as the pinnacle period of Jewish history. Everything good and worth preserving about Judaism was located in the reign of David, “a man after God’s own heart.” Oh yeah, Moses was still important, but King David was a fighter, a military man, a defender of the faith. And when encroachment is perceived at the borders, that’s the kind of leader who takes center stage in the hearts and memories of those who believe they are being encroached upon. 

The desire for America to “go back” to a time when prayers were rammed down the throats of schoolchildren, before Roe v’ed Wade, and when everyone went to church in real Sunday clothes, is one of the most prominent themes in fundamentalist preaching and political activity. The 1950s seems to be the magic time that those fearful of today’s perceived Modernism are pining for, although it’s easy to see that they really are speaking of a mythological time when you try to pin them down to specific years of their supposed Golden Era.

But, oh! The glorious memories of those days in the 1950s when we were still a Christian nation! Back when:

* African Americans still had to drink at special fountains, eat in the kitchens at restaurants, pay a poll tax, pass a literacy test to vote, go to separate and woefully unequal schools, and sit in the back seats of public transportation in most of the South.

*Women were at fault when their husbands beat them, had no control over their man’s urges to procreate, and were fed amphetamines  by family doctors to lose weight while they stayed at home working and waiting for their allowances.

*Men were not men unless they looked like every other man in gray flannel suits.

*Girls could look forward to being wives, nurses, or teachers.

*Boys had better be able to play football or baseball, or find a dark and lonely closet to hide in.

*J. Edgar Hoover could wear his tu-tu while he was ripping apart the careers and lives of countless thousands of people and casting aspersions and suspicions on hundreds of thousands more, while his Senatorial counterpart Joe McCarthy, was preparing the way of the Lord with sneering, drunken vengeance. 

Such a fat underbelly exists on any body of time, no matter how glorious the memory of that time may be. It is human, not prophetic or divinely inspired, to wax nostalgic. But it is evil to pretend that for one brief, shining moment Camelot was anywhere, or real , and then to legislatively, shamefully, and coercively force others into that fictional fantasy land.

The primary motivation of fundamentalists in this regard seems to me to hinge on their overuse, and blatant misuse of the word Christian. They love the adjective itself, while merely putting up with him from whom the word was derived. They have made Jesus, the Christ, into a caricature of their own dark selves: he is an Islam hating, W Bush supporting, moralizing, tight-assed and uptight prig in his present adjectival incarnation who is concerned above all else that is wrong with the world, that two people of the same gender might possibly be able to enjoy the legal benefits of a state-sanctioned, contractual marriage.

“Follow me,” Jesus said. When he said that, he could not have imagined the eventual transformation of his life into a set of rules, regulations, dogma, and doctrines preceded by the institutionally mandated imprimatur Christian. If he were here physically right now, I think he might even be looking about for a whip to drive the profit-loving, status-lusting, power-wanting, people-separating, science-ignorant, lust-suppressing , 1955 time travelers  from the portico of his Daddy’s Temple.

Which is what I think as many of us as possible to should be willing to help him do. You know- follow him for a while, instead of his self-appointed, self-righteous, self-perpetuating spokesmen.

Why I Think Religion Is A Bad Bad Thing..

/ barryweber / 2 Comments

Two news items today form an envelope around the many, many reasons why religion should be scoffed at, run from, and seen for the parasitic phenomenon that is:

Priests brawl at Bethlehem. Read it; Armenian and Greek Orthodox were swinging mop handles and fists at each other yesterday, over whose ladder was resting on whose part of the Bethlehem stable floor.

When my brother and I were kids, in the back seat of Dad’s ’53 Chevy, we would fight over exactly the same thing: Space. We’d draw imaginary lines down the middle of the seat then we’d each push on that imaginary line by leaning toward it, edging comic books to the edge of it, or intentionally putting a knuckle’s-worth of finger on the other side of it.

“Mommy, Denny’s not staying on his side!”

“Daddy, make Dave stop!”

Later on, at some point in the post-toddler, pre-pubescent years, we stopped that particular type of spatial competition. Apparently, there are priests who have never been out of the back seat. They like it there so much, in fact, that they won’t even give up their seats to Jesus.

Benizir Bhutto killed in attack. Even Allah is not allowed to be powerful enough to fight Islamic factionalism. Muhammed (blessed be his name, as I spit on the ego-driven doctrines of some of his so-called followers) unified the various warring tribes of Arabia. But then, just as happened with the Jesus movement, the institutionalists moved in and a religion developed to protect, preserve, and defend the rules and regulations that his early followers devised to protect, preserve, and defend their positions of power.

Now, one of the symbolic personages of Muhammed’s original intentions of unification has been killed by one who was more comfortable following human egos in the name of his religion, than he was in following Allah or the prophet.

There are many more such stories in the naked city of rotten religious relics: like this, this, and this.

As a follower of Jesus, and as one who respects the genuine unifying motivations of Muhammed, the Buddha, and other spiritual leaders, I’m not left with much choice: I must do what I can to eradicate forever the imaginary lines drawn by self-centered children riding in the back seat of the Planet.

If we’re not successful doing that- you and me, and soon- then we are bound for a stupefying crash.