It was painful listening to the condescending, ignorant characterizations of the Tennessee lawmakers on Wednesday, late afternoon. Particularly Eric Watson, who mouthed the same elitist disdain for the expression of free speech and expression of outrage that we have been getting from the likes of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Consider this: state Rep. Eric Watson, R-Cleveland, whose office at Continue Reading
Jeremy Johns has written a post for Red Letter Christians that Tony Campolo just tweeted. It expresses some things Chrisatians need to hear, and to adopt for ther own journey (IMHO) What does it mean to be a Christian when organizations like The Family create a Jesus that does not hear the prayers of the poor? An organization that prays Continue Reading
Environmental activist and Sojourners contributor Bill McKibben on OWS Because they didn’t quickly say “we want this bill passed,†commentators have had to grapple with the actual message of many Occupiers: Our economy is unfair. It gives too much power to corporations, who abuse that power for their own ends. They’ve not just cheated us financially; they’ve cheated us out Continue Reading
Ughh. This article is so typical. Bank CEO “talks some sense” into a strawman OWS person. Most #OWS peopel would see this as just the kind of impasse at which we presently find ourselves. http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/47776/what-if-a-bank-ceo-and-occupy-wall-street-sat-down-over-coffee/ Now doesn’t that make sense when you “settle down” and realize that we do this for EVERYONE? Yeah. Right.
I so wish I could be there. Hope someone is streaming. stand in unity with those suffering economic hardship and inequality in our nation http://occupyfaithdc.org/ This “People’s Prayer Breaskfast” is to the “National Parayer Breakfast” as #occupyfaithDC is to what has been communicated by the “go to church on Sunday ” use of the hashtag #occupychurch. A self-absorbed, blow your trumpet Continue Reading
Just watched this impressive conversation between Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges on the situation in the United States re: the “Winner Take All Politics” (to borrow a title from a book whose authors Bill MOyers had on his opening week of his new show recently). I had downloaded a sample chapter of Lessig’s latest book Republic Lost, and now I Continue Reading
It just occurred to me that the SOTU tends to be GNOSTIC in it’s nationalism. It’s the fashion to feature “highlighted” individual stories in the State of the Union. But when it comes to movements, FIRE! BAD! No mention of what the obvious popular movement that has brought the very issues and themes upon which that Obama executed his oratory. Continue Reading
What a dandy swipe at the elite of the elite: If you’re Europe, and your struggling people are called “Greeksâ€, and your rich people are called “Germansâ€, then the World Economic Forum will spend pretty much limitless amounts of time and effort on attempts to understand the dynamics between the two and (doomed) plans to try to prevent it from Continue Reading
Another clueless critique , this time from Chrsi Christie , suggestingthat the Civil Rights movement would have gotten the gains by putting it to a vote. Similarly, there have been people who criticize Occupy saying that there is no need for “the silly protests” because they have the mechanism of voting to speak for them. But that IS why there Continue Reading
From Jesse Jackson op-ed for CNN: Dr. King was an occupier, our country occupied by the vicious and divisive legal segregation. His last great campaign was the Poor People’s Campaign, aimed at occupying the Mall in the nation’s Capitol to address abounding poverty, the demands for a job or an income for all, health care for all. When Dr. King Continue Reading
One of the things for which the Net has been invaluable in my journey of late is to keep me “in the loop” with what is happening amongst the Occupy movement. I hear various people talking about how they aren’t noticing Occupy much of late. Well one, if you depend on the mainstream media, that will be the impression. But Continue Reading
My favorite writer, Elizabeth O’Connor, who wrote accounts of the journey and history of The Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, wrote about envisioning a new world in this selection from the Inward Outward blog (this blog posts daily selections from a host of great theological writings). I thought it very relevant to how interested I have been in Continue Reading
I suspect we will hear nothing about Dr. King’s opposition to the war in Viet Nam. We certainly will not see or hear anything about the Poor People’s Campaign he helped to lead when he was assassinated in April 1968. http://wesleyanleadership.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/mlk-the-church-and-poor-people/
Jarrod McKenna wrote today, on this MLK day 2012, about the big problem so many Americans have in co-opting MLK and making him a “cheerleader” for whatever cause they please. I have heard this over and over from those who oppose the Occupy movement on the basis of “lawlessness” and seemingly the very idea of being critical of U.S. structures. Continue Reading
<A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Ftheoblogical-20%2F8005%2Ff6fdcec6-01e1-491d-84fb-8edf78634575&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A> Be Schofield’s article I blogged about earlier includes this assesment of MLK’s “final campaign” (the Poor People’s March) : King had developed several goals in his final campaign, which may or may not inspire the OWS movement. He had hoped the Poor People’s Campaign would achieve direct employment through a massive public works program, a guaranteed annual Continue Reading