Times Always Uncertain

When haven't times been uncertain?

For the last hundred years, times have always been topsy-turvy … but good government, working with the unions and private enterprise have always taken the bull by the horns and made strong moves.

These days, I think, there is a profound greed at work in our nation, and rather than calling it greed, it's called caution. I don't buy it for a moment.

We have a good President with vision, but a Congress stymied by state's-right obstructionists and a business ethos driven by Wall Street mania. It's time for all of these to work together FOR AMERICA!

Giants Destroying Democracy

I think there's a huge difference between first tier providers of products, like brooms and mattresses - from factory via distributor to store to customer. 

Behind first tier manufactures (usually small industries and small businesses) stand second and third tier conglomerates - huge holding companies that manufacture nothing, but buy, close down and reshape and sell; the giant banks and trading houses, the giant chemical companies that supply plastics, the agribusiness giants like Monsanto and their control of seeds and commodities … 

The little guy has little influence on Capital Hill; it's the giants who have the influence, the giants who are mostly for us just names, not products - boards of directors who share seats with one another on varying boards, grant giant salaries and perks for the few, and their joint efforts to fill government regulatory agencies and influence Congress and the Courts. 

For me, it's not a pretty picture, but a dangerous one threatening the very core of our democratic processes. 

Distressed Reading … Ike, Iran and Guatemala … 1953 and 1954

I've always know this, but never in detail, and it makes me sick.

What we did in Iran in 1953, to support the craven interests of the declining British Empire and it's stranglehold on Iranian oil is so disturbing to me - our CIA, with Ike signing off on it, as he grew increasingly more frightened of the Communist Boogeyman, fomented a "revolt" paid for by American Taxpayers against a democratically elected leader (who had nationalized British petroleum interests - Communist-inspired for sure) and installed the Shah, with a new deal for oil in hand … and everyone was happy, except the Iranians.

Even as this was going on, efforts were underway in Guatemala to remove the democratically elected leader who had instituted land reform (this became proof positive of "Communist" influence); United Fruit Company, with its bananas and tentacles throughout the American Government, cried for help, and got it. "Rebels" were trained, and by golly miss molly, the president of Guatemala resigned and in his place, a dictator. And everyone was happy, except the Guatemalans.

For years, the Iranian deal was carefully hidden from the American People, until the final piece of Ike's diary were declassified May 10, 2010, admitting "covert" involvement. Steven Ambrose, Ike's biographer, had first seen this entry as early as 1984, but subsequent books omitted it.

What's tragic for me is that an otherwise savvy President, who understood colonialism in Indochina and thus refused to save the French, failed to understand British colonialism in Iran and American business "colonialism" in Guatemala. All along the way, folks who wanted to influence Ike glossed over the facts and used the threat of "Communism." Such language didn't work for Ike in Indochina, but it did for Iran and Guatemala.

And what a price we've paid.

As a side note, the Dulles Brothers were legal counsel for United Fruit in Boston; Eisenhower's personal secretary was wife of United Fruit's public relations department; Ike's national security advisor was the banker for United Fruit; CIA soldier of fortune on the ground in Guatemala, E. Howard Hunt, would later spend 33 months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate break-in.

When I finished this chapter in Eisenhower: In War and Peace, I felt dirty - my mind had been dragged through a pig sty. While I have great regard for Eisenhower, he surrendered his ability to think and weigh the realties by succumbing to the American hysteria of the time - a Communist behind every tree and under every bed.

He would have done well to heed the advice of his long-time friend, William Prescott Allen, publisher of The Laredo Times, who visited Guatemala in June of 1954: "Yes," he cabled Ike, "Guatemala has a very small minority of Communists, but not as many as San Francisco."

Those Always-Crazy Republicans

Those always-crazy Republicans …

"The Republicans in Congress had no intentions of giving up their opposition to the federal government just because their party had captured the White House. Eisenhower's principal adversaries throughout his tenure as president were not the Democrats but the calcified wing of the Republican party, which continued to live in the shadow of Calvin Coolidge and to see Communists under every bedstead." p.581 - Eisenhower: In War and Peace.

Folks like Cruz and Ryan are not the exception - they represent a constant wing of the GOP that now seems to have won the day. The GOP has always been a haven for these mavericks of mayhem, but whereas in the past, there were Republicans of wiser bearing, the far-right has now occupied virtually the whole of the GOP.

The media, of course, love them - they're the Steve-Martins of politics, making fools of themselves while purporting to have the facts and insider knowledge. When, in reality, they're but privileged children, given to bullying, lacking sound judgment and pretending to be wise.

Politics - Then and Now

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."

American politics have always been tough, with plenty of meanness and bald-faced lies thrown in for good measure. We ought not to be surprised at anything these days. It's our tradition!

While some decry the harshness of today's political divide, and I'm among them, it doesn't help to pretend that it's been any other way. Perhaps it's a bit more intense these days because of the immediacy and huge presence of news. But it remains to us to sort out the wheat from the chaff, the high-minded from the scurrilous, fact from fiction, truth from lie, as best we can, though "fact" seems to be about as elusive as "truth."

The electorate is fickle, of course, and given to unpredictability. 

For what has been the strongest nation on the face of the earth for some time now, it's surprising how much fear resides in the American psyche, and what a role that plays in our politics.

And for a nation soaked in religion, it's surprising how much ill-will there is, and bashing of the vulnerable. 

Whether it be McCarthy or Cruz, first-term senators, trying to make a name for themselves, embarrass everyone but themselves, and then fade away quickly. Yet, before it's over, imparting to politics a poisonous residue that's hard to remove.

None of us have the option of withdrawal, though it's terribly tempting to retreat into our own little house and world. 

We're all in this together - that's the way it is. And we can only do our best to be responsible in our freedom, mindful of passions that do more harm than good, embracing what history offers in terms of the best (I'm quite confident to say that history gives to us plenty of people who chose the high road and not the low). No one, then or now, is perfectly clear and none are pure. But there are some who seem have a light in their lives, a purpose that's good and even godly now and then. To them, we must repair … seeking their counsel and then making our choices.

With a little luck, maybe divine favor, we might add to the light and make it brighter with our own little flame of hope!

I'd Invent My Own Religion ...

If I owned a company, I'd invent my own religion: against taxes, against wages, against 40-hour work week and vacations, against all benefits, against birth control, so the women get pregnant, and then against abortion, so they have to have their babies, and against maternity leave, so I can fire them when they have their babies. Yup, and no one could touch me, because it's my religion. Woo hoo … oh how I love religion.

When Christians Feel "Persecuted"

From many an evangelical pulpit come the the thundering words: "We are being persecuted by a powerful lobby of liberals and secularists who would silence us and take away our rights. We must stand up as followers of Jesus and defend the gospel and claim our rightful place in in our great land of faith and freedom."

One should rightly ask: Who's persecuting whom, and just exactly how can anyone be sure that, as 1 Peter 4 puts it:

¹²Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is takingplace among you to test you, as though something strange werehappening to you. ¹³But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’ssufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when hisglory is revealed. ¹⁴If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you areblessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, isresting on you. ¹⁵But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, acriminal, or even as a mischief maker. ¹⁶Yet if any of you suffers as aChristian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name. ¹⁷For the time has come for judgment to begin withthe household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end forthose who do not obey the gospel of God?

For many an evangelical Christian, it's comforting to believe in persecution as a badge of honor, a confirmation of faithfulness. 

But is persecution for the sake of gospel, for the sake of Christ, or simply simply because of "mischief" and worse?

From  Psalm 94:

¹O LORD, you God of vengeance,

you God of vengeance, shine forth!

²Rise up, O judge of the earth;

give to the proud what they deserve!

³O LORD, how long shall the wicked,

how long shall the wicked exult?

Thus far, in the reading, there is no definition of the "proud" for whom the Psalmist wishes judgment. 

But the Psalmist doesn't leave us hanging:

⁴They pour out their arrogant words;

all the evildoers boast.

⁵They crush your people, O LORD,

and afflict your heritage.

⁶They kill the widow and the stranger,

they murder the orphan,

⁷and they say, "The LORD does not see;

the God of Jacob does not perceive."

Who are the proud?

They are identified by their deeds:

They kill the widow, the stranger and murder the orphan.

Reminiscent of Jesus when he warms against those "who take widow's houses and then say long prayers" … the very same who then prance around the Temple Treasury throwing in large sums of money out of their "spare change" while creating a system that takes the last few pennies a widow has to live on (Mark 12.38-44).

The widow, the stranger, the orphan - the three most vulnerable social categories of Israel - victims of wealthy interests (for a devastating critique on those "who borrow and never pay back," spend some time with Psalm 37).

What systems in our land create hardship for "the widow, the stranger and the orphan"?

What would the Psalmist says about Food Stamps, Social Security, health care, pensions, children in poverty, crushing debt for college students and a host of other burdens created by the wealthy to game the system in their favor, and why would Christians cheer any of their nefarious schemes in the light of Scripture?

Such Christians, when criticized, are quick to label themselves "persecuted." But I would label them "dupes of the wealthy," many of them, like the widow Jesus notes at the end of Mark 13 - a victim of some of kind of "prosperity message"? - give your last penny to "god," and miracles will come your way. Even as she gave her pennies, she was standing beside the wealthy who perhaps congratulated her, smiled at her, for her faithfulness even as they schemed to take her house.

Evangelical Christianity has been short on compassion for a long time now, a victim of a misconstrued gospel mostly the tool of the powerful to further their own vested interests even as they "say long prayers" or have others do it for them. 

For Scripture, then, there is is a litmus test: the wellbeing of the "widow, the stranger and the orphan," and how well society cares for them!

It is what we own to one another (Romans 13.8-10).