Goosebumps

It gives me goosebumps, all this attention being given to what’s happening in Russia.

Yes, I am concerned about the people who are and who have been affected by violence or the threat of violence. It has always struck me as odd that people who believe in God are so eager to get into war with others, killing innocent people.

But what gives me goosebumps is that America, which has so many examples of treating people fairly or just, is so indignant at the possibility that another country might be doing the same.

America’s violence against its citizens isn’t as dramatic as what we have seen in Egypt and Syria and others, meaning, there are no tanks rolling through cities, running over and gunning down innocent people.

But metaphorically, America has “run over” and “gunned down” innocent people throughout her history. Beginning with how America decimated Native Americans in this, THEIR country, moving on to black people, the interring the Japanese …Americans have violated the human rights of large numbers of her own citizens.

I recently heard a report on National Public Radio (NPR) of a car load of Muslim-Americans who were detained and harassed by American border guards. Apparently that goes on quite a lot.

There is the reality of people being incarcerated for 20 years for non-violent, primarily drug offenses. America incarcerates more people than any other modern nation in the world…Michelle Alexander says in her book, The New Jim Crow, that America “has not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” Incarceration is a form of racialized control which will only get worse because of the emerging and growing Prison Industrial Complex, created to bring huge profits to those who run it.

There are children who are dying of preventable disease because of their lack of accessibility to health care, and too few people seem to care. There is a feeling of disgruntlement amongst some law makers as government attempts to help those who are struggling; they see that as government helping the lazy remain lazy, even as the powers that be outsource jobs that many of these people used to have access to. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney said last week that President Obama would “rather give food stamps than build a strong military.” (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/dick-cheney-pentagon-budget-food-stamps-103906.html).

What are unemployed people supposed to do to survive? And why don’t so many lawmakers seem to care? Why don’t the lawmakers who were instrumental in outsourcing jobs to which many Americans formerly had access…care? If they don’t get help from the government, if they don’t have money or time to go back to school to get the skills they need to get the high-tech jobs that ARE available here…what are they supposed to do to survive? How is the cold-heartedness of our lawmakers any different from what rulers of other nations are doing?

I get goosebumps because America has a human rights violation problem …but will not own up to it or fix it. I get goosebumps because America has ALWAYS had a human rights problem…but has ignored that problem while she has gone traipsing all over the world to help other people who are suffering. That help would be noble if America would just hear the cries of her own people.

Perhaps I am too cynical but I feel like if America is helping people in other countries, it’s not because she cares about the suffering of the people, but it’s because there’s some economic gain in it for America.

Can a world power remain in power acting that way? Don’t world powers who disintegrate into money and power grabbing entities eventually self-destruct? When nations, world powers, don’t care about the masses, doesn’t that eventually mean their power is curtailed or forever altered?

It doesn’t seem to me that a nation can be concerned about everyone else but which ignores its own suffering can survive, ultimately. Eventually, the oppressed rise up and fight back. Isn’t that what we’re seeing in other countries?

I get goosebumps. Can’t write much more about it right now…but I get goosebumps.

It’s a troubling candid observation …

Is God Absent?

Yesterday I heard a program on NPR where people from Texas were being interviewed about that state seceding from the Union. Following the re-election of President Barack Obama, a petition began circulating requesting that the Lone Star state be allowed to secede. It has over 100,000 signatures thus far, with more coming, it is said. Texas Gov. Rick Perry does not support secession, but not even his voice can stop the groundswell of support for secession.

One of the leaders of the movement explained that the movement began because Texans are troubled by the nation’s policies. Said that leader:told Politico that “Obama’s reelection was a “catalyzing moment” for his group’s efforts to leave the United States. He insists, “This is not a reaction to a person but to policy” and what they see as a federal government that is disconnected from its constituents.” (http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/should-texas-be-allowed-to-secede-from-the-union/?iref=allsearch)

While I don’t believe for one moment that what’s going on in Texas is not about a person, namely President Obama, I am very concerned and confused as I listen to people, from Texas and from elsewhere, who say that we now live in a “Godless” country – a statement one of the callers made on the NPR program.

A pro-secession guest agreed with her, saying that America is no longer the America they have known, which means that God used to be here, but is now absent? Is that what people think?

When did God leave America? Does God do that?

OK, I know that in the Hebrew scriptures, God, disappointed with the fact that the Israelites did not keep the covenant they had made with God, they disobeyed God continually, they worshiped idols, they continually did “what was wicked in God’s eyes,” as is stated over and over in the Bible – but haven’t we in America always done that? Haven’t we always been a stubborn people, refusing to listen to God? If that is so, why would God wait until now to …turn on us and leave us?

Is discrimination pleasing to God? I mean, discrimination against black people, Native Americans, women, the elderly, gays and lesbians… Was God with the signers of the Declaration of Independence and did God ordain the signers’ misrepresentation of their intentions when they wrote “all men are created equal” when they knew in their hearts they didn’t mean “all” men, but just a privileged few?

Do people think God is absent because the demographics of this country are changing, making us a truly pluralistic nation? What? God doesn’t want a pluralistic nation? Is God absent now because more and more non-white people are going to the polls and making their voices heard, which is different from the voice of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants?

I know people are upset about same-sex marriages, but has God left America because of that becoming a new normal? Has God left us because our government has tried to help people survive who were devastated by the recent recession? Was the government supposed to do nothing and let the people just wing it? Did God not approve of the intervention made to help people who used to be self-sustaining but were swallowed by our horrible economy?

When does God leave God’s people?

If we were to list the grievances God has against us, what would be the first three on God’s list?

I am really trying to understand why people think America is a godless nation now, as opposed to before when so many other things were going on which were a violation even of the Greatest Commandment, which says that we should “love the Lord our God with all our minds and with all our hearts and all our souls…and our neighbors as ourselves. If God demands that, and we as a nation clearly have not done that, then why would God leave now?

What would a nation in which God still resides look like? What should America look like today? Are racism, sexism, militarism all right with God? Didn’t Jesus tell us to reach out to “the least of these?” So if the government is doing that, is the government offending God?

I am confused. What is America’s theology? What is it as opposed to what people think it should be? Because if God is absent from America, we are in big trouble, and we need to get right with God, quick and in a hurry.

A candid observation …

Talking “Stuff”

It is the day after Thanksgiving, and Black Friday sales have lured shoppers into stores. Some people finished dinner yesterday and then went shopping. It is an American tradition – this Black Friday thing, and it is the love of almost everyone – to shop.

After President Obama was re-elected, Bill O’Reilly, apparently disappointed about the outcome of the election, said ” “It’s not a traditional America anymore, and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama.”

Is that accurate, about the percentage of Americans wanting “stuff?” Doesn’t everyone want “stuff?” Don’t wealthy people want “stuff,” too, and the more “stuff” they are able to purchase, the more they want to purchase? Isn’t the knowledge that people want “stuff,” stuff they do not need, the driver behind capitalism? Isn’t the desire for stuff the reason wealthy people buy the most expensive clothes, buy as many homes as they want, and engage in collecting art and jewelry. and cars. Stuff. And the more they can get, the more stuff they want to get.

O’Reilly was criticizing the president’s base, that “50 percent” which, he says, is the proof that we don’t have a “traditional” America anymore. These people, he says, feel entitled to “stuff” from the government, things like health care, mortgage assistance, provision to make it easier to go to college. Said O’Reilly: “The voters, many of them, feel this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You’re gonna see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things — and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

Everybody wants stuff. When it comes to some of the entitlements that are so expensive, the government helping “the least of these” is making fiscal conservatives worried and angry. I understand the worry…but if the government did not help those who are suffering unduly because they are poor, what kind of government would we be? While we are engaging in wars all over the world to help people attain “freedom,” what does our “freedom” here look like? I heard yesterday that there ought to be a distinction made between those who are “rich” and those who are “wealthy.” This economist said that the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us is getting larger and larger, making us look like the oligarchies of Third World countries that we criticize.

I don’t do Black Friday. I like “stuff” too, but I don’t have a need or desire to buy “stuff” just for “stuff’s” sake. We capitalistic system teaches us to want stuff; we are manipulated by skillful marketing to look at “stuff” so that we keep making the rich richer. Our spending is what keeps capitalism rolling along. And that spending and desire for “stuff” is not limited to 50 percent of the populace who voted for President O’Bama.

I hate it when the masses of people are criticized for wanting what the elite want. We all see the same commercials, and yearn for “more and more.” Elite as well as commoners are deeply in debt. The majority of people want to live beyond their needs.

It’s the desire for “stuff” that keeps everyone spending, and keeps the rich, or perhaps the wealthy, as comfortable as they are.

It’s human nature, Mr. O’Reilly. It’s not Democrat or Republican. It’s not black, Hispanic or white, male or female It’s human.

O’Reilly wants America to stop giving what he thinks are hand-outs to people in need. There is nothing wrong with wanting health care, or wanting a college education to be more affordable, with wanting to be able to make it in America. It’s the American way. The people out shopping now are going to be using credit cards, keeping credit card companies in the black. Retailers are salivating, hoping more and more people will come out for “stuff.” The purpose of being in business is to make money, make a profit. Companies don’t care where people spending money got their money. They just want the money. They want us to want …stuff.

Mr. O’Reilly, your comment was one of the most ignorant I have heard in a long time.

A candid observation…

The Poor Be Damned!

It hit me that the complaint from Conservatives about taxes is partly a complaint by them that their tax dollars are paying for the poor to live off their hard-earned money.

Duh. For the longest time, I was thinking that the resistance against paying higher taxes was just because they want to hold onto more of their money, as do we all.

But a columnist, Brion McClanahan, wrote in The Daily Caller an article which expressed his, and, I would suppose many others’, resentment that people on government assistance are living high on the hog off the backs of “hard working tax payers.”

Food stamps, complained McClanahan, are abused; “people use their food stamps for necessary items, then use their money for their smokes, beer and munchies.” (http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/28/damn-i-just-want-some-jam/?print=1) He writes:

These are fine examples of what many Americans witness on a regular basis. The other day, while my family and I were waiting in a check-out line at Wal-Mart, I noticed that the woman checking out in front of us was texting on her $200 cell phone (which probably costs at least $100 a month in service fees and may have been paid for by the government as well) and holding what my wife says was a $100 designer purse, with a stack of junk food, beer and cigarettes on the belt behind a line of subsistence products like milk, cheese, cereal and meat.

People pay for “necessary” items with their EBT government debit cards and then use cash for their smokes, beer and munchies. Yet, I have to fork over my hard-earned dollars for every item in my cart (and in essence theirs as well, since I pay taxes while they probably get “refunds” every April). Something is wrong here. Why is the average taxpayer both screwed by the system and forced to watch his tax dollars being wasted on people who abuse the system?

He goes on to suggest that people on government assistance ought to lose their right to vote, ought to be limited to shopping in government-run stores that have less than quality merchandise, and not be allowed to shop in major food stores or drug chains. Everything they would have access to would be blatantly tagged as being provided by the “government.” People on government assistance are “slaves” to the government, and ought to be treated as such.

After I caught my breath, it hit me that what this man wrote is probably the foundation of the cry against new taxes. The belief by many is that only the poor abuse the system and siphon tax dollars away from “honest tax payers.” There is not this kind of resentment for the rich who also take advantage of the system, at the expense, again, of “hard-working Americans.” The double standard is amazing. The difference between what those rich or poor intent of taking advantage of the system is that what the poor do seems to be more readily visible to ordinary Americans, while the abuse of the system done by the rich is more sophisticated and is blanketed by their ability to use their wealth and status to their advantage.

I wonder if Brion McClanahan is aware of the peonage system used by people in this country for years after the Civil War, where African-Americans, and some others from other races who were poor enough, were blatantly exploited by the rich and the wanna-be-rich, who wanted to make money and did so off the backs and labor of people they barely paid. It’s recorded; McClanahan should read Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon. It’s all there, what was done in this country. Should those people who so exploited others have been vilified? Should they have lost their voting rights?

Ah, no…because they were not “slaves of the government.” They made slaves of others with the consent of the government. Now I get it. Now, I finally get it.

Thanks to McClanahan’s article, I will never hear the complaint against higher taxes the same again. The complaint is rooted in resentment that we in America don’t want to be our brothers’ keepers.’ Higher taxes, for many, merely means that we are paying into a social system that creates “lazy” Americans, and dag nammit, we don’t like that! We would rather they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even if our government has taken their boots from them.

Now, I get it.

And it makes me sick.

A candid observation….

Girl Talk: Poor Women Have Breasts, Too

I am stunned, no, angry, at the decision of the Susan G.Komen organization not to award grants to Planned Parenthood anymore. Their reason is because they oppose abortion, and, despite Planned Parenthood’s assertion that no Komen funds are used for abortions, the Komen folks aren’t buying it.

The fallout is that poor women whose only way to get mammograms was through Planned Parenthood are out of luck.

Interestingly, this happened at the same time that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said he’s “not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net.” He mentioned the usual – food stamps, Medicaid…

He says they have a safety net even as his party is working to dismantle the same.

But…back to the decision by the Susan G. Komen organization…do they not know that poor women …have breasts, too, and that they, too, need to get screened for breast cancer?

Reports say that money from the Susan G. Komen Foundation provided enough money via their grants to Planned Parenthood over the past five years to pay for 170,000 clinical breast exams, which were particularly helpful for women in rural or in underserved areas.

The Komen grants were given specifically to pay for these breast exams. I know enough about grants that grant recipients are mandated to use the money for the purpose stated in the grant application.

Apparently, though, the Komen Foundation powers-that-be do not like the fact that Planned Parenthood clinics will do abortions. That makes them mad, so, what the heck? Who cares about poor women with breasts who need to be tested for breast cancer so they can perhaps get treated, too?

It is infuriating.

Many who in the past have walked in a Komen event, or who have supported Komen in its efforts, including myself, are going to stop. I suppose Komen’s donations could suffer, but they also could increase, because the topic of abortion and contraception are such hot-button issues for Americans.

But my concern is for the innocent women who depended on the work of Planned Parenthood to get these very important clinical breast exams. Where will they go? How will they get the care they need?

It feels more and more like we live in a “let them eat cake” society, with the rich not caring about the number of people who struggle to survive. It feels more and more not only like they are blamed for being poor, but are scorned because they depend on help in order to make it.

Something is wrong with this picture.

The Bible says that the love of money is the root of evil. I am supposing that some very wealthy political type said to the Komen folks that if they didn’t stop funding Planned Parenthood that a big chunk of money that they normally get might not be…available anymore.

So, as is usually the case, the poor get the boot in order to make a political point.

Poor women have breasts, too. Poor women count.

I guess the Komen folks forgot those facts…or worse, they don’t care about those facts.

A candid observation …