Conspiracies and Friends

Confronting Truth

Recently I had a friend write to me lamenting the loss of friendship over politics and conspiracies. There was a time when friends could disagree over politics and still be friends, and still have respect for each other. For some, that has become impossible. My friend wrote that their Trumpian politics caused a divide that had become a chasm. He's mourning the loss.

I wrote him this response:

I've found the only thing I can really do when I get into a conversation with a conspiracy theorist is listen. I'm still firm on my points, but confronting them with the facts won't change much. They need to reach a point of critical thinking on their own. For some, reaching that point may be too late. Think about how COVID is decimating the unvaccinated. The realization comes in the moments before death.

80 million eligible persons remain unvaccinated because of deliberate misinformation. The rate of infection is now the highest it has ever been. These are people who believe there are alternative facts.

Booker T. Washington had an understanding of the sad truth behind populism.

  

"A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.”

Our friends from Ripon have no excuse. Our experience at a liberal arts college was supposed to make us critical thinkers. Did they waste that opportunity? Now, their views have broader implications because they're putting all of us at risk.

Community Service/Community Support

 

Who or what are you serving?

I was perusing audience shares in my market. I know, kind of geeky.  I noticed a public station I once competed with and then work for was going through a significant loss of audience share in our market. The drop seem precipitous, so I contacted the station's director (CEO). The response was a little defensive. "We're aware of the problem." "The PD is looking at the figures." We use three year trends." I'll give them that last one. I only saw four months of AQH share data. Their share is now around a half point. It once was around 2.5%. 

I was trying to share some cautionary advice about making  hasty changes. The response was odd. "We remain committed to Classical programming in Greater XXXXXX, and northern XX with our hosts." 

Maybe you're thinking, "Sounds right to me." They're on a glorious mission to educate America about classical music. It's the noble cause. What's missing from the response is mention of the audience and service to the community. I've worked with music directors and station managers who thought this way. They said, "What we need is more early music." "What we need more is more harpsichord music." What we need to ban baroque music from the air." "What we need is more Mahler on the air." My question, "Is this what the audience wants?" Their answer, "We're going to change the way the audience thinks about the music and how they use radio!" Really?

The Audience Decides

Your programming serves no purpose if nobody is being served. This station, with their huge signal, should have the classical audience pretty much to themselves. I'm not sure what's happening, but for some reason, they are losing that audience. I'm hoping the dismissive answers were just annoyance at my questions. I'm pretty sure they're working on improving their appeal to their audience. The folks who run this station are really smart people. I also hope that if you find yourself in the same situation, your response will be all about who you are serving, not what you are serving.

Climate: On the edge

Devine Intervention 

To you, O Lord, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.

- Joel 1:19


I understand Joel's plea for Devine intervention, but that's not how it works.

We are still looking for some greater power to step in and save us today. It's part of the appeal of Donald Trump. "Only I can fix this." It's the fantasy and appeal of the Marvel Universe. In that universe, super heroes step in and save us. It's not going to happen.

Looking to God to justify or save us from our perilous state is an excuse to do nothing. We're shifting the blame to a much greater force when the blame lands squarely on our shoulders.

Maybe God is calling all of us to do something about this. We can overcome our plight if we work together. After all, we created this mess.

According to the climate change report put out by the UN, "Humans are "unequivocally" to blame, the report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. Rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could limit some impacts, but others are now locked in." The report goes on to say, "Unless immediate, rapid and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold within 20 years."

Republicans complain any action we take will cost jobs. Weigh that against the very real possibility that waiting will have lethal consequences.

The point is, we can no longer wait for intervention. We must act. It may be the ultimate act of loving our neighbor.

Voice of the day (Sojourners)
Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (August 2021)

Fighting Extreme Poverty

 A Problem of Global Proportions

The World Bank defines “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1.90 per person per day. If you think this is just happening in the fourth world...somewhere out there, in countries that hardly ever touch our lives, we may need to rethink this. "Global extreme poverty rose in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years as the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the forces of conflict and climate change, which were already slowing poverty reduction progress. About 120 million additional people are living in poverty as a result of the pandemic, with the total expected to rise to about 150 million by the end of 2021." Due to COVID-19, 150 million people may slide into extreme poverty in 2021. 

Poverty rates in the United States were mitigated by the CARES act, but not evenly. According Frontline, "before the pandemic, the monthly poverty rate for white individuals was 11 percent, versus nearly 24 percent for Black and Hispanic individuals. While the estimated poverty rate crept up to 12.3 percent for white individuals in August, it increased to 26.3 percent for Black individuals and 26.9 percent for Hispanic individuals that same month. In other words, the poverty gap between white people and Black and Hispanic people widened during the pandemic."

“We’re seeing in the data that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to have lost their jobs,” “They’re less likely to be able to work from home.”

“Those living in poverty are the very source of all human ideals. It is through injustice that humanity discovered justice; through hate, love; through contempt, dignity; through tyranny, the equality of all human beings.”

JOSEPH WRESINSKI, 

Who was Father Joseph Wresinski?

Joseph Wresinski was an ordained priest. He served in industrial and rural parishes, and right from the beginning he had a special connection with the most deprived families. Joseph's bishop assigned him to be chaplain to 250 families in an emergency housing camp in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris.   

What did he accomplish?

Wresinski’s action has had far reaching political effects around the world, reflected in the many achievements of the organization he founded. Among these achievements are:

• universal health care in France;
• free access to school in Guatemala;
• the United Nations Guiding principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights which recognizes that extreme poverty is a violation of human rights;
• the concept of “Leave No One Behind” as a cornerstone of UN Sustainable Development Goals.

His work continues through The Joseph Wresinski Center, JWC.

Over the years the JWC received hundreds of requests and visits from people living in extreme poverty, students, actors in the field and academics. These requests are testament to the various objectives being achieved:

• Overcoming the neglect and denial of poverty, dispelling misconceptions about it and making the many different aspects of poverty in the past and present better understood.
• Making all these struggles and actions more widely known and learning from them to break out of the vicious circles of well-meaning or right-thinking schemes that are never designed nor assessed with the people who live  in extreme poverty
• Enabling researchers in disciplines such as history, sociology, political sciences, philosophy, medicine and education to construct knowledge and develop ways of thinking based on the outcomes of more than 60 years of struggles and research conducted by ATD Fourth World.
• Supporting the creation of books, testimonies, works of fiction, comics, films and exhibitions that detail the significant efforts towards eradicating poverty and encourage people to become involved.

Source material from   -https://www.atd-fourthworld.org

Debunking The Myths About Reparations

Think about racism as a systemic sin

Michael Woolf and Michael C.R. Neighbors, two pastors from the Illinois city of Evanston, are leading their congregations because they believe Evanston is prepared to talk about and carry out  reparations. The entire community has been working on issues of race and justice for years.

What I find appealing about their efforts is how these two pastors from Evanston use the bible to promote positive change and inclusiveness, and a just society, as opposed to condemnation and exclusion. Their efforts also take on the systemic racism that permeates our country. Click on this link to read the entire article in Sojourners.

How two pastors in Illinois have been addressing their churches’ concerns about reparations.


"When Jesus stands up to preach his first sermon in Luke 4:16-20, he asserts that he has come to liberate the oppressed; we believe reparations aid in the spiritual and economic liberation described in that sermon."

Are reparations actually in the Bible? Yes!

"When the Hebrews are liberated from their bondage under Pharoah, they receive gold and silver from their former oppressors as reparation (Exodus 12:35b-36). Likewise, later in the biblical narrative, Jerusalem receives reparations when the people return after exile: King Darius uses the royal treasury to fulfill the reparations even though he was not the king who forced them to abandon their homeland (Ezra 6:1-12). It was not King Darius’ personal wrongdoing that caused him to offer reparations. Rather, it was his recognition that his nation had committed a sin against the people of Israel. Repeatedly in scripture, reparations establish equality and enable new futures (Deuteronomy 15:12-15; Ezekiel 33:15; Proverbs 6:30-31; Luke 19:1-9)."

Aren't reparations the opposite of grace?

"While forgiveness and grace are God’s prerogative, such gifts do not free us from taking responsibility to restore broken relationships and systems (James 2:17; Matthew 5:23-24). To argue otherwise is to advocate for a cheap grace, which Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted is not grace at all. True grace is costly. Perhaps the best example of costly grace is found in the story of Zacchaeus who is so overwhelmed by the grace of God that he is compelled to make restitution with those he cheated (Luke 19:1-9)."

Their churches have played a part, as they've joined together in studying James Cones’ The Cross and the Lynching Tree, creating social programs, and leading community conversations about reparations. They are committed to continuing that work of repair through preaching and teaching in our churches, and developing long overdue initiatives that will promote equity among our people so that our children and grandchildren will see and live in a better world.

I find their use and interpretation of the Bible positive and life affirming. It is preferable to those who use the scriptures to condemn, discriminate, justify greed, slavery, and genocide and use the Bible to exclude people based on race and gender identity. 

Abuse by the Ruling Class

 

The Conceit of the Ruling Class

Recent revelations of boarding schools for Native Children sent me searching for the reasons the US Government and their Christian partners used to justify this cruel practice. Focus now is on the mass graves of kids who were abused and tortured in the name of God. When they died from cruel neglect, they were buried without thought for their parents. But then, their parents were seen as inept and unimportant. The practice of separating children from their parents continued up to just a couple of years ago in South Dakota. In 2017 the ACLU reported since 2010, more than 1,000 Native-American children in Pennington County, home to Rapid City, have been removed from their families by state welfare workers and placed in foster care, disproportionately in non-Indian homes.

Oppression is always cruel

The colonizers justified their cruelty, their oppression, by invoking God’s will. They saw themselves as benevolent overlords. The enslaving of native people, the spread of smallpox, the barbarity of war, were all signs that God was on their side. It was pre-ordained. It was manifest destiny that this land was given to white Christians. Crystal Pardue brings the issue into focus.

It gets worse

"The European colonizers and conquerors did not misinterpret the bible. They did not twist the bible’s words. No, their actions were truly supported by biblical commandments, because the bible is violent and the Abrahamic god is “the most unpleasant character in all fiction,” fittingly described by author Dan Barker. The bible calls for, and Jehovah-God advocates for righteous violence — precisely what empowered the conquerors and colonizers to attack the First People."

Literal translation -A King James justification

Among conservatives in the Church is the desire to take the bible literally. The belief is, the words were all handed down through God to the men who wrote the books in the bible. The preferred translation among literalists seems to be King James Version. Conversely, I grew up in the Wesleyan tradition that encouraged interpretation of the bible through discussion and study.

Three Passages

“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; . . . Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.”¹⁵ (Deuteronomy 17:2 KJV:)

Psalms 2:8 states “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

Romans 13:2 says, “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

 

Taking these children away from their parents, and then burying them in unmarked graves comes from the conceit of the upper caste. Their whiteness and ethnicity (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), they thought, gave them God’s endorsement. The Catholics were complicit in this lie by taking on the task of running these schools.

Maybe Christians aren’t listening

The bible is still used today to inflict widespread oppression and cultural cleansing throughout the world, all in the name of “saving souls.” Churches feel righteously justified to “spread the gospel” — but that will unavoidably mean the cleansing and eradicating of cultural practices that do not align with biblical doctrines (living in nakedness, matriarchies, and same-sex relationships, just to name a few). As a society, we need to talk about the ugly truth behind the world-wide spread of the gospel — a truth that includes genocide, a truth that includes oppression, a truth that includes racism, and a truth that includes silencing. - Crystal Pardue Christian Devils: How the Bible Was Used to Mobilize Oppression of Native Americans


The interpretations used to justify stealing children from their parents run up against contradictory passages within the Bible. The simplest is this one: "A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." - Jesus of Nazareth  My understanding is, there are no exceptions.

Your COVID politics can be lethal

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. - Ephesians 4:25

 It Makes No Sense

We have a raging pandemic. Now is the time to put political differences aside for the health and well-being of everyone. But not if you've sipped the Kool-Aid of Trump's Republican Party. Loyalty to the Trump line is of paramount importance to these people. And...The needs of the individual trump all needs, even if such assertions are against their best interests. 

I didn't have to go back too far to find precedent for the desire to die of COVID for a political cause.

One of the key takeaways from the 2016 election was the frustration of a widening group of lower middle income white Americans. Trump's message was particularly appealing to this group. There is a growing unease as the middle class is excluded as more wealth is concentrated in the upper caste. The stress is having a negative effect. Life span expectancy has dropped two years for white males.

In the book Caste, written by Isabel Wilkerson, asserts the widening gap is causing an increasing group of disaffected Americans. 

From the book: 

"Exclusion cost lives, up and down the hierarchy. The physician Jonathan M. Metzel, who has conducted research into the health of disaffected whites in middle America, has measured the life and death consequences of state decisions to withhold benefits seen as helping undeserving minority groups. In the state of Tennessee he found restrictive health policies may haver cost the lives of almost 4,600 African-Americans between 2011 and 2015, but also cost the lives of as many as 12,000 white Tennesseans, more than double the loss sustained by black residents."

"In his book, Dying of Whiteness, Metzel told of the case of a forty-one-year-old white taxi driver who was suffering from an inflamed liver. His life obviously threatened. Because the Tennessee legislature had neither taken up the Affordable Care Act nor expanded Medicaid coverage, the man was unable to get the expensive, lifesaving treatment that would have been available to him had he lived across the border in Kentucky. As he approached death, he stood by the conviction that he did not want the government involved."

"No way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens, he told Metzel." Ain't no way I would ever support Obamacare or sign up for it. I would rather die."

"And sadly, so he would." 

We see the same sad consequences playing out in red states today. Refusal to wear mask, refusal to keep social distancing, and refusal to get the vaccine. The Delta Variant is making the unvaccinated very ill. Yet, so many are sticking by their decision to refuse being vaccinated. A decision reinforced by misinformation fired by social media posts and conservative 'news' outlets. The argument might be something like, "If they make us take the vaccine, they'll be coming for our guns next!" 

Even Mitch McConnell is alarmed. He urging his constituencies to get the vaccine or risk shutting everything down again. Missing from this quote is mention of needless suffering , and needless death. I don't think they're listening.

The nation as it is currently constituted has never dealt with a yesterday or tomorrow where we were radically honest, generous, and tender with each other. - Kiese Laymon, Heavy (2018)