As a Christian who realizes that American politics is a horrible model or template for anything that would help us understand ,  in theological terms,  what the Kingdom of  God looks like,  I am also , at the same time,  drawn to the news (and lack thereof)   about the the platform(s) and articulated aims of the GOP choice,  since it seems to up the ante of our present course,  which is really an accelerated state of the last 30 years in America.  This goes back to my initial immersion into American politics which was late 70’s,  when the “Reagan Revolution” and the “Moral Majority” which leveraged conservative evangelical Christendom.

I am well aware of the lack of  effective  Progressivism in the Democratic Party,  and deeply disappointed in the almost complete failure of the Obama administration to stem the   tide of the regressive economic forces that have gained such a dominant stranglehold on the way politics is operating.  I am very aware that ultimately,  and even temporally,  it is basically naive to place much real hope in National politics,  especially ours in recent years,  from whchever “flavor” or (I hate this term : “side”) .  But that’s most  of the problem:  this Two Options system that pre-empts  any alternative mode of doing politics.

My own situation lends a hint here as to my feelings:  Our son just graduated college this past December.  The last year and a half we received Pell Grant money which helped immensely.  I don’t know where we’d be without that.  Now,  and maybe soon,  the GOP has the Pell Grants,  among numerous other such programs, on the chopping block of austerity.  (And what’s worse,  the “austerity” is all aimed at those things which do NOT benefit the rich directly. They are programs do not touch them.  And so the “austerity” being applied in the name of fiscal responsibility is not calling upon the rich to any semblance of a shared austerity,  or an equitable austerity.  And this I find very scary.

This is a big reason why I am drawn to the Occupy movement,  even as it is,  at least as far as the media is concerned,  “off the radar” right now.  I am of the belief that this is but a temporary state of “off the radar”.  Perhaps on Sept. 17,  about a month from now,  this will shift again and some new conversations,  or  some “renewed” conversation will continue with greater urgency and increased articulation of how to present the contours of our  present crisis.