The Main streeters who propelled Mr. "with all due respect ,it's not the Kennedy's seat or the Democrats' seat but it's the people's seat" Brown into the late Sen. Kennedy's former seat in Massachusetts put the fitting capper on a week that will surely go down in infamy.
They will now have to deal with the fact that it is not their seat, but a Republican seat, and that, in the wake of the Supreme Court's latest piece of rampant judicial activism, that seat ultimately will belong to the corporate interests most interested in keeping the gambling casino we call Wall Street out of the range of their populist anger.
Within a few days of the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court, this time a bare 5-4 conservative majority, has perpetrated on the American political landscape one of the worst cases of judicial activism on record, second only to Roe vs. Wade itself. Deeply ironic, in that it comes from jurists steeped in anti-activist court history. I can only wonder what rejected Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, the poster boy for Republican strict constructionists, might say?
As it did in 1973, the court has taken a small case, on which it could have ruled narrowly (and by all that is legally right, should have, given 100 years of legal and judicial precedent) and has overturned an entire body of law that, until this week, prevented corporations from directly funding political campaigns. The parallels with Roe vs. Wade should make it one of the most astonishingly and unexpected political reversals of this century, just as Roe vs. Wade was in the last.
What we now have is this unspeakable dichotomy:
A human, because it is alive and kicking but has the misfortune still to reside in its mother's womb, is not a person, but a corporation, which is a legal fiction for tax purposes, is. A corporation is now accorded full constitutional rights as a human being.
That "person" is now free to spend other people's money (the investors' cash) to promote a politcal agenda without having to ask the investors. Republican Newt Gingrich, with a logic that is best described as tortured, was thrilled by the decision. He defended this state of affairs by saying that all we need is to have corporations report on the Internet how much they spend and for what, and that that would make it fine. Never mind how that would make it fine. Mr. Gingrich imagines a world that will never be. Who will require this of them? The Supreme Court decision makes no mention of reporting obligations. More important, Who would oversee such reporting, ensuring that it is accurate and complete? Any liberal attempt to make the U.S. government the watchdog on corporate political contributions will be shouted down by Mr. Gingrich and his anti-Big Government cohort.
It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. And what makes it sooooo tragic is that this is a common sense issue that any preschool kid could rule on: Put before a four-year-old a mother with child and a stack of incorporation papers. Ask the child to examine both. The child will be delighted to put its hand to the mom's belly and feel the strong kicks of the little life within. But she or he will be briefly puzzled, at best, by the stack of paper, in part, because the child can't read, but also because that little pile is so obviously ... lifeless. Asked which is a human being, the baby not yet born, or the corporation represented by the stack of paper, could there possibly be any doubt about what the child will say?
You have to be an adult, and apparently also a Republican, to see it the other way around.
Even John McCain, was moved out of lockstep with his fellow Republicans. He briefly took up his "maverick" persona (so quickly jettisoned after his election defeat) to express worry about the effects the decision will have. Good luck with that. Now the corporate political contribution, like abortion, is a sacred right, protected by the First Amendment, any new law you pass will be struck down as unconstitutional.
You Teabaggers? Guess what? The moneyed fat cats just did an end-run on you. While you were electing your truck-driving, pretty-boy Republican (whose previous claim to fame was that he posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine), his Republican pals on the highest court were hijacking the electoral process, using the same tactics they've loudly opposed since 1973.
In one 10-day period, the already remote possibility for any meaningful health care reform and the likelihood that any truly meaningful reform of Wall Street banking practices were struck mortal blows by one local election and a single court decision. Gone with them is the likelihood that Main Street can ever again (if it ever could) count on Mr. Brown, Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama or any other politician to truly represent their individual interests.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You're the same folks who sit everyday with your faces glued to your TV screens, letting the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks and other talking heads — show-business personalities, for God's sake — define and dictate the terms of public policy debate. You're the same folks who consider Conan O'Brien, who is walking away a very, very fat cat, with his $30 million severance from the Tonight Show to add to the millions he's already made on late-night TV, a folk hero.
Hell, people, don't you get it? Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Conan O'Brien — they're all rich people. They're not Main Streeters. They have a vested interest in keeping money and power to themselves.
Do you really still think that the Republican party cares a fig what you think?
This is the party that controlled Congress and, for eight years, the White House, during the time that your Main Street jobs were exported to Mexico, China and Malaysia by corporations.
This is the party that resisted with all its might any effort to develop alternative energy technologies that could be creating millions of new jobs right now had President Reagan not defunded the research back in the 1980s. ("Drill, Baby, drill" was the "maverick" Republican position in the last Presidential election, so we can only guess what diehard Republicans and their oil & gas corporation pals might have been shouting). Oil companies are among the largest of the corporations that will hugely benefit from the Supreme Court's decision!
This is the party who calls the Obama Administration's extensive and largely successful effort to encourage an effective multi-lateral campaign, so far, against the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan "soft on terror." President Bush, for all his trying, couldn't do even that in eight years.
This is the party that, for those eight years under Mr. Bush, quietly privatized a good deal of U.S. military capability. Blackwater (recently in the news because several of its operatives were suspected of murdering civilians in Iraq) and other private contractors now conduct roughly half of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. These corporations now collect billions of dollars from the U.S. defense budget. (You didn't know that, did you? Sorry, it's quite true.) Anybody care to guess what might happen if some of those billions are spent influencing the electoral process? Do we really want a political process in which the military (public or private) can buy an election?
This is the party that still believes Republican President Herbert Hoover's "do-nothing" economic policy would somehow have prevented the Great Depression when, in fact, the banking crisis of 1932 (just like the banking crisis of 2008-2009) was a direct result of government inaction?
This is the party that has made its single policy goal in 2009 the failure of the American presidency.
This is the party that, this month, finally betrayed its true allegiance for all to see, using one of the most egregious examples in American history of what it for so long rightly decried as "legislation from the bench" not to protect your interests, but to sell them out to the folks you swore in Mr. Obama just one year ago to oppose. How convenient. What a self-betrayal. It's truly stunning. One cannot overstate the enormity of it.
Now corporations won't just control the elected officials with its phalanx of lobbyists who bribe, blackmail and sleep with Senators and Representatives inside the Beltway. They'll control the elections themselves. The beauty of it is, they don't even have to control them all. As Mr. Brown's victory this week in Massachusetts demonstrates. they just need to make a few examples. The insurance industry, for example, could go after a single high-profile U.S. senator favorable to a provision they didn't like. They spend a pot of money to fund thier own candidate and drown out the incumbent's campaign with attack ads. They only need to take out one long-standing committee chair. A Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi. A John McCain. The rest of the Senate gets the clear message, and votes accordingly.
And if you remain as guileless and gullible as you are now, my Main Street Teabagger friend, they'll control you, too.
One thing's sure. Things are looking up:
Your taxes will go up, because the corporations aren't going to be too wild about shifting the tax burden from you to them.
Your health insurance premiums will go up, and the number of uninsured will continue to climb, probably at a much faster pace, because corporations will make sure they're unburdened from the trouble of supplying you insurance as a benefit.
The number of companies "too big to fail" will go up, because the larger the corporations become, the easier it will be for be for them to dictate state and local legislative changes that will tip the competitive playing field in their direction. Ultimately, inconveniences like anti-trust legislation will go by the boards. If the corporate execs can't get Congress to overturn it soon enough — in the very unlikely case that some legislators actually grow backbones and oppose them — they can always just hit the delete button with a first amendment ruling from the high bench. How soon we forget that had it not been for populist legislation like the Taft-Hartley Act, we'd long ago have had the corporate hegemony that the Supreme Court just made possible. (Teabaggers claim to be following in the footsteps of a great movement in U.S. pre-history, but precious few of them seem to be at all acquainted with that history.)
The cost of the next bailout will go up, and there will be one, because there will be nothing to stop Wall Street from designing inventive ways to tempt investors to gamble with money they can't afford to lose and corporations who were too big to fail this time will be even bigger. The bubbles will continue to come and burst, and you Main Streeters will foot the bill for the clean-up, one way or another.
And your cost of living will go up, because, of course, corporations have to protect their investors by showing profitable quarterly reports, so you'll soon see those few corporations that gobble up their weaker competitors and come to dominate the economic landscape inch your prices up, ensuring that you're ever in debt — and more to the point, in their debt.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Climate Change Conundrum
In one sense, I'm neutral in the climate-change debate. I have no access to the data, so I don't "know" what is true. But in the run up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming, I followed the news frenzy surrounding it with great interest, because I'm convinced that at no time since the Cold War's period of nuclear brinksmanship have the stakes for humanity as a whole seemed higher on a single use.
Based on geological evidence and climate data (temperature and other measurements recorded around the world since 1850), a large majority of climatologists have come to two stark conclusions. First, that we are in a period of global warming. The primary cause for this warming, they say, is an increase in "greenhouse gas" (primarily carbon dioxide or CO2) levels in Earth's atmosphere. Second, although geological evidence indicates that our world has been subject to periodic warming and cooling cycles, climate experts say this particular period of warming is, to some degree, fueled by carbon dioxide emissions generated by human technology coupled with human destruction of natural carbon storage mechanisms, such as rain forests.
The pace of warming and the degree to which the resulting climate change might alter our world is a matter of scientific conjecture — enlightened and informed conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless. We have no human record of another time like this in recorded history. Therefore, we have no precedent to which we can appeal. Hence, we face a conundrum.
People don't like conundrums, they prefer certainties. So as a political issue, global warming is proving to be difficult to manage in the public square. Those for and against the climate-change theory have drawn some predictable battle lines:
A large group of about 30,000 scientists and environmentalists (including a few tree-spikers who would rather see a lumberjack than a tree cut down) now believe that climate change is primarily the result of human agency. They point out that the average global temperature has recently, if I heard correctly, risen by one degree. Although that single degree sounds like "not much" to the lay person, these same scientists warn that a couple of degrees higher, on average, is likely to raise the ocean levels several meters and radically alter the climate. Some even predict utter disaster, spinning scenarios of domino-effect environmental crises — drought, famine, huge displacements of animal (including human) populations, pandemic disease, and finally, massive extinctions of plant and animals — that will lay waste to the planet's ecosystem and human civilization as we know it.
On the other hand, some scientists, inside and outside the climatology community (including a few funded by those most likely to lose if the battle goes the wrong way, such as oil companies) have cried foul, claiming variously that global warming is a fraud or, at best, a misreading of the data. Many attempt to discredit climatologists' climate-change research and/or discredit their conclusions. They have been joined by a motley crew of self-styled populists, including right-wing politicians and pseudo-libertarian TV performers, who add climate change to a long list of items that Liberals, Big Government and Obama have foisted on Main Street.
One of the roots of the debate is whether or not humans have the right to consider themselves more important than the other species in earth's ecosystem. For many environmentalists, our ecosystem is fragile, and its delicate balance must be maintained. To many of them, humans are the villains, aggressors who upset that balance and are to blame for most of the eco-ills we now face. Things for some have taken on the tone of a religious crusade: For the radical environmentalist, it's only a matter of time before Gaia herself rises to smite we human transgressors in just retribution if we do not radically change our ways. A smaller number, much like the most radical Islamists, aren't waiting for Gaia to do her work. They're ramming Japanese whaling vessels and performing other acts of eco-terror. No surprise, then, that some global warming apologists call those who disagree "deniers" — an obvious, calculated effort to set those who doubt climate-change science alongside those who doubt the reality of the Holocaust.
For naysayers, the earth is not so fragile, but is instead an ever-shifting, adaptive system that readily adjusts to what they argue is inevitable change. They cite a growing number of instances in which scientists have been wrong: Famously, the snail darter, a point of contention between eco-protectors and naysayers a while back, did not suffer extinction as eco-scientists predicted but instead flourished when their native habitat was "ravaged" by a hydroelectric project. These folks argue that Nature herself uses catastrophic change in positive ways: Notably, the lessons learned by foresters in the great Yellowstone Park fire. Foresters now use "planned" burns and "thinning" techniques to preserve the health of forests. Evidence such as this, the naysayers contend, shows that the eco-saviors are often wrong, and therefore, their "science" cannot be trusted.
What is undeniable is that global warming conundrum is a global issue. Representatives from more than 190 countries attended the Copenhagen congress — a meeting most who were there now admit was an almost abject failure. But the attention paid to the event, alone, indicates that the issue of global warming is the 21st Century's first great cause celebre. As in all such instances, the publicity surrounding it has directed outsized attention not only to those who compiled the data and published the conclusions on climate change but also to those who promote and castigate those results. There are papers to publish, speaking tours to negotiate. Talk show appearances. Egos and reputations are on the line. And, yes, there are paydays. Climate-change proponents and naysayers together have spawned a huge industry. It has generated books, TV programs, movies and become the substance of political careers.
There is considerable pressure to fan the flames of controversy when there are so many careers and dollars at stake. Controversy sells newspapers, and hype boosts the ratings of TV news organizations (their editors are desperate to save media models that in the Internet age might have outlived their utility). That does not make the climate change theorists or their detractors right or wrong, but it does whip up more than a little crusading zeal among the partisans. All this should prompt us Main Streeters to consider carefully and weigh with some skepticism the claims made on both sides.
The naysayers got a bit of a boost from the recent revelation of e-mails and other documents (3,000 or so, in all) hacked from the computers at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. The hacker's timing couldn't have been better, with Copenhagen just around the corner.
I find it particularly puzzling that no one seems to be interested in finding out who released those e-mails. You'd think the people whose e-mails were exposed would be howling for an investigation. Hacking is a crime. And discovery of a "denier" behind the hack would help level the public-relations playing field for the beleaguered e-mailers, two of whom have had to temporarily relinquish their posts pending investigations into their conduct by their respective universities.
The two gentlemen appear now to be in a bit of a pinch. The e-mails suggest there was an effort to evade requests for data disclosure under Freedom of Information laws in the U.K. and U.S. Refusing to honor a properly filed request under the Freedom of Information Acts also is a crime. I've begun to wonder if the "hack" was actually the work of a climate-change insider, (a disaffected climatologist?) who might be portrayed by "deniers" as a whistle-blower. Time will tell.
In any case, when the stakes in the debate are so high, it is tempting to bend the rules and plot the demise of the opposition — a temptation I think might have been too much for the scientists behind the e-mails. The paydays, influence and accolades continue only so long as the data support your conclusions. Scientists who are critical of current climate science are not being unfairly critical to suggest that there might also have been attempts to deny other scientists the right to publish. The quality of scholarship that results from a peer review process is, like anything else, dependent on the honesty of those who control the process. I think obstructionist activity in peer review should give all of us pause.
The e-mails made abundantly clear that the climate-change folks aren't interested in making their data public. Why? What possible harm could come from releasing all the raw data to anyone who requests it? If the raw facts, such as temperature measurements, support the claim that we are, indeed, warming, that would only help their cause. Right?
Well, maybe. Trouble is, the old saw, "Let the facts speak for themselves," is an attractive maxim, but has little basis in fact. In the real world, facts are just facts. Consider the recently hacked e-mails: The various news reports and commentators quoted identical texts of an e-mail verbatim but from there, it was difficult to believe they're talking about the same data. Some saw a plot to deceive the larger scientific community and us plain good folk on Main Street. Others saw nothing more than the crass side-comments of good scientists who privately betrayed that they, too, are human and can make bad decisions under duress. Each group found what it was looking for.
Add to that that much of the raw climate data is just ... numbers. I've had several friends who have been forced to take statistics courses in college. They've each told me the same story. Day one, the statistics prof stands up and says statistics are just statistics. They don't say anything. They must be interpreted. And often can be interpreted in many ways. The science of statistics is, well, actually a very difficult art. Thus, there are, as one e-mailer noted, "tricks" to help hide inconvenient statistical truths.
Just as the pols and pundits drew different conclusions from the data the hackers unearthed, so scientists have drawn different conclusions from the statistical climate data. We shouldn't be surprised by this: It's inevitable when folks come to the fray with political, social and, yes, metaphysical predispositions that no doubt cloud objectivity.
On that note, I am puzzled by a paradox of no small proportion: A number of religious folk have aligned themselves with the doubters, primarily out of a general distrust for science and anything else that smacks of "secular humanism" or is tainted by Darwinism, while many atheists are numbered among those prepared to call for unprecedented sacrifice to prevent a holocaust that in no way impacts an eternal future in which they don't believe they'll have any share. I would have imagined it the other way around. I continue to ponder this strange reality with awful wonder.
Although there are the deniers — those who refuse to believe we're warming at all, there is a growing group of naysayers (Ms. Sarah Palin is one), who don't deny that global warming is a fact, but insist that humans aren't the primary cause. Oddly, Ms. Palin and friends aren't telling us that we could survive three degrees of temperature change without some sort of catastrophe. Given that the dire predictions go unchallenged, Ms. Palin's assurances that I'm not the cause would be small comfort. If warming is simply the inevitable result of an unavoidable global cycle — something we cannot control — then my great grandchildren could be dead no matter what I do. Neither a happy thought nor a very tenable political position. Frankly, the possibility that we are at fault offers some hope, because it leaves us humans the option to stop it.
As I've said before, I have no problem with the general populace believing that global warming is a threat and that it is primarily a human problem. Whether global warming is real or not, we can't afford to wait until the conundrum becomes a certainty. It'll be too late. Despite the East Anglia e-mails, its hard for me to imagine that thousands of climate scientists in at least three independent working groups would conspire to use fraudulent data to foist on the world a lie of such frightening proportions just to cash in on speakers fees and become celebrities. Even if the climate scientists are dead wrong, the science that has demonstrated the realities of human-generated pollution and the fact that we are depleting our natural resources is indisputable. And both are reason enough to take the precautions climatologists are suggesting.
Ironically, polls almost universally show that "belief" in global warming is eroding in the U.S., and has been in decline since long before the East Anglia furor. Pollsters are not sure why, but one possibility is that the same short-sightedness and lack of will that brought on our recent massive financial meltdown (which reverberated around the world), and put off meaningful reform of the U.S. health care system — both huge contributors to the massive national debt we will pass on to our children — is now blunting the U.S. population's will to solve a problem to which we have, for most of recent history, been the largest contributor.
If I am a Christian in truth, I need to stop pursuing personal comfort, pleasure, prestige and wealth at the expense of others and our shared environment. And I need to urge those around me to do the same. We do need to care about this Earth, because it is our home and God's creation and because our children deserve better. For those who believe there is Someone beyond this world to whom we must give an account, inaction is the unthinkable option. Any possible avenue that could forestall or reverse such an outcome should be taken.
As a Christian, the health of the community is no less important that my own health. I do not have the luxury to chose between the individual and the collective, for my God affirms and loves both. Jesus Christ sacrificed himself to save his community. That's the standard. So I'd far rather drastically reduce my contribution to pollution, the hole in the ozone layer and the wholesale waste of natural resources and then find out later that I was mistaken. The alternative is to plug my ears, eat, drink and be merry, and then stand before God and answer for my dying great-grandchildren.
Neutrality — even in the face of a conundrum — really isn't a Christian option.
Based on geological evidence and climate data (temperature and other measurements recorded around the world since 1850), a large majority of climatologists have come to two stark conclusions. First, that we are in a period of global warming. The primary cause for this warming, they say, is an increase in "greenhouse gas" (primarily carbon dioxide or CO2) levels in Earth's atmosphere. Second, although geological evidence indicates that our world has been subject to periodic warming and cooling cycles, climate experts say this particular period of warming is, to some degree, fueled by carbon dioxide emissions generated by human technology coupled with human destruction of natural carbon storage mechanisms, such as rain forests.
The pace of warming and the degree to which the resulting climate change might alter our world is a matter of scientific conjecture — enlightened and informed conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless. We have no human record of another time like this in recorded history. Therefore, we have no precedent to which we can appeal. Hence, we face a conundrum.
People don't like conundrums, they prefer certainties. So as a political issue, global warming is proving to be difficult to manage in the public square. Those for and against the climate-change theory have drawn some predictable battle lines:
A large group of about 30,000 scientists and environmentalists (including a few tree-spikers who would rather see a lumberjack than a tree cut down) now believe that climate change is primarily the result of human agency. They point out that the average global temperature has recently, if I heard correctly, risen by one degree. Although that single degree sounds like "not much" to the lay person, these same scientists warn that a couple of degrees higher, on average, is likely to raise the ocean levels several meters and radically alter the climate. Some even predict utter disaster, spinning scenarios of domino-effect environmental crises — drought, famine, huge displacements of animal (including human) populations, pandemic disease, and finally, massive extinctions of plant and animals — that will lay waste to the planet's ecosystem and human civilization as we know it.
On the other hand, some scientists, inside and outside the climatology community (including a few funded by those most likely to lose if the battle goes the wrong way, such as oil companies) have cried foul, claiming variously that global warming is a fraud or, at best, a misreading of the data. Many attempt to discredit climatologists' climate-change research and/or discredit their conclusions. They have been joined by a motley crew of self-styled populists, including right-wing politicians and pseudo-libertarian TV performers, who add climate change to a long list of items that Liberals, Big Government and Obama have foisted on Main Street.
One of the roots of the debate is whether or not humans have the right to consider themselves more important than the other species in earth's ecosystem. For many environmentalists, our ecosystem is fragile, and its delicate balance must be maintained. To many of them, humans are the villains, aggressors who upset that balance and are to blame for most of the eco-ills we now face. Things for some have taken on the tone of a religious crusade: For the radical environmentalist, it's only a matter of time before Gaia herself rises to smite we human transgressors in just retribution if we do not radically change our ways. A smaller number, much like the most radical Islamists, aren't waiting for Gaia to do her work. They're ramming Japanese whaling vessels and performing other acts of eco-terror. No surprise, then, that some global warming apologists call those who disagree "deniers" — an obvious, calculated effort to set those who doubt climate-change science alongside those who doubt the reality of the Holocaust.
For naysayers, the earth is not so fragile, but is instead an ever-shifting, adaptive system that readily adjusts to what they argue is inevitable change. They cite a growing number of instances in which scientists have been wrong: Famously, the snail darter, a point of contention between eco-protectors and naysayers a while back, did not suffer extinction as eco-scientists predicted but instead flourished when their native habitat was "ravaged" by a hydroelectric project. These folks argue that Nature herself uses catastrophic change in positive ways: Notably, the lessons learned by foresters in the great Yellowstone Park fire. Foresters now use "planned" burns and "thinning" techniques to preserve the health of forests. Evidence such as this, the naysayers contend, shows that the eco-saviors are often wrong, and therefore, their "science" cannot be trusted.
What is undeniable is that global warming conundrum is a global issue. Representatives from more than 190 countries attended the Copenhagen congress — a meeting most who were there now admit was an almost abject failure. But the attention paid to the event, alone, indicates that the issue of global warming is the 21st Century's first great cause celebre. As in all such instances, the publicity surrounding it has directed outsized attention not only to those who compiled the data and published the conclusions on climate change but also to those who promote and castigate those results. There are papers to publish, speaking tours to negotiate. Talk show appearances. Egos and reputations are on the line. And, yes, there are paydays. Climate-change proponents and naysayers together have spawned a huge industry. It has generated books, TV programs, movies and become the substance of political careers.
There is considerable pressure to fan the flames of controversy when there are so many careers and dollars at stake. Controversy sells newspapers, and hype boosts the ratings of TV news organizations (their editors are desperate to save media models that in the Internet age might have outlived their utility). That does not make the climate change theorists or their detractors right or wrong, but it does whip up more than a little crusading zeal among the partisans. All this should prompt us Main Streeters to consider carefully and weigh with some skepticism the claims made on both sides.
The naysayers got a bit of a boost from the recent revelation of e-mails and other documents (3,000 or so, in all) hacked from the computers at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. The hacker's timing couldn't have been better, with Copenhagen just around the corner.
I find it particularly puzzling that no one seems to be interested in finding out who released those e-mails. You'd think the people whose e-mails were exposed would be howling for an investigation. Hacking is a crime. And discovery of a "denier" behind the hack would help level the public-relations playing field for the beleaguered e-mailers, two of whom have had to temporarily relinquish their posts pending investigations into their conduct by their respective universities.
The two gentlemen appear now to be in a bit of a pinch. The e-mails suggest there was an effort to evade requests for data disclosure under Freedom of Information laws in the U.K. and U.S. Refusing to honor a properly filed request under the Freedom of Information Acts also is a crime. I've begun to wonder if the "hack" was actually the work of a climate-change insider, (a disaffected climatologist?) who might be portrayed by "deniers" as a whistle-blower. Time will tell.
In any case, when the stakes in the debate are so high, it is tempting to bend the rules and plot the demise of the opposition — a temptation I think might have been too much for the scientists behind the e-mails. The paydays, influence and accolades continue only so long as the data support your conclusions. Scientists who are critical of current climate science are not being unfairly critical to suggest that there might also have been attempts to deny other scientists the right to publish. The quality of scholarship that results from a peer review process is, like anything else, dependent on the honesty of those who control the process. I think obstructionist activity in peer review should give all of us pause.
The e-mails made abundantly clear that the climate-change folks aren't interested in making their data public. Why? What possible harm could come from releasing all the raw data to anyone who requests it? If the raw facts, such as temperature measurements, support the claim that we are, indeed, warming, that would only help their cause. Right?
Well, maybe. Trouble is, the old saw, "Let the facts speak for themselves," is an attractive maxim, but has little basis in fact. In the real world, facts are just facts. Consider the recently hacked e-mails: The various news reports and commentators quoted identical texts of an e-mail verbatim but from there, it was difficult to believe they're talking about the same data. Some saw a plot to deceive the larger scientific community and us plain good folk on Main Street. Others saw nothing more than the crass side-comments of good scientists who privately betrayed that they, too, are human and can make bad decisions under duress. Each group found what it was looking for.
Add to that that much of the raw climate data is just ... numbers. I've had several friends who have been forced to take statistics courses in college. They've each told me the same story. Day one, the statistics prof stands up and says statistics are just statistics. They don't say anything. They must be interpreted. And often can be interpreted in many ways. The science of statistics is, well, actually a very difficult art. Thus, there are, as one e-mailer noted, "tricks" to help hide inconvenient statistical truths.
Just as the pols and pundits drew different conclusions from the data the hackers unearthed, so scientists have drawn different conclusions from the statistical climate data. We shouldn't be surprised by this: It's inevitable when folks come to the fray with political, social and, yes, metaphysical predispositions that no doubt cloud objectivity.
On that note, I am puzzled by a paradox of no small proportion: A number of religious folk have aligned themselves with the doubters, primarily out of a general distrust for science and anything else that smacks of "secular humanism" or is tainted by Darwinism, while many atheists are numbered among those prepared to call for unprecedented sacrifice to prevent a holocaust that in no way impacts an eternal future in which they don't believe they'll have any share. I would have imagined it the other way around. I continue to ponder this strange reality with awful wonder.
Although there are the deniers — those who refuse to believe we're warming at all, there is a growing group of naysayers (Ms. Sarah Palin is one), who don't deny that global warming is a fact, but insist that humans aren't the primary cause. Oddly, Ms. Palin and friends aren't telling us that we could survive three degrees of temperature change without some sort of catastrophe. Given that the dire predictions go unchallenged, Ms. Palin's assurances that I'm not the cause would be small comfort. If warming is simply the inevitable result of an unavoidable global cycle — something we cannot control — then my great grandchildren could be dead no matter what I do. Neither a happy thought nor a very tenable political position. Frankly, the possibility that we are at fault offers some hope, because it leaves us humans the option to stop it.
As I've said before, I have no problem with the general populace believing that global warming is a threat and that it is primarily a human problem. Whether global warming is real or not, we can't afford to wait until the conundrum becomes a certainty. It'll be too late. Despite the East Anglia e-mails, its hard for me to imagine that thousands of climate scientists in at least three independent working groups would conspire to use fraudulent data to foist on the world a lie of such frightening proportions just to cash in on speakers fees and become celebrities. Even if the climate scientists are dead wrong, the science that has demonstrated the realities of human-generated pollution and the fact that we are depleting our natural resources is indisputable. And both are reason enough to take the precautions climatologists are suggesting.
Ironically, polls almost universally show that "belief" in global warming is eroding in the U.S., and has been in decline since long before the East Anglia furor. Pollsters are not sure why, but one possibility is that the same short-sightedness and lack of will that brought on our recent massive financial meltdown (which reverberated around the world), and put off meaningful reform of the U.S. health care system — both huge contributors to the massive national debt we will pass on to our children — is now blunting the U.S. population's will to solve a problem to which we have, for most of recent history, been the largest contributor.
If I am a Christian in truth, I need to stop pursuing personal comfort, pleasure, prestige and wealth at the expense of others and our shared environment. And I need to urge those around me to do the same. We do need to care about this Earth, because it is our home and God's creation and because our children deserve better. For those who believe there is Someone beyond this world to whom we must give an account, inaction is the unthinkable option. Any possible avenue that could forestall or reverse such an outcome should be taken.
As a Christian, the health of the community is no less important that my own health. I do not have the luxury to chose between the individual and the collective, for my God affirms and loves both. Jesus Christ sacrificed himself to save his community. That's the standard. So I'd far rather drastically reduce my contribution to pollution, the hole in the ozone layer and the wholesale waste of natural resources and then find out later that I was mistaken. The alternative is to plug my ears, eat, drink and be merry, and then stand before God and answer for my dying great-grandchildren.
Neutrality — even in the face of a conundrum — really isn't a Christian option.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Interesting Article on Prayer
Found this article in the NY Times Magazine on prayer, entitled "The Right Way to Pray?." It's an interesting commentary on our need for "proper technique," as if God were a puzzle to solve, a labyrinth to walk or a secret to discover. Author Zev Chafets, not a religious man, visits with a number of folks who sell a variety of approaches to prayer, and ends his story with a description of his visit to an old-fashioned Assemblies of God church, a place where people simply believe that God is, God is good, God loves them and the people around them and is disposed to respond if they ask (pray is the Old English word for ask) for help.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Mr. Wilson's Breach of Decorum
Far too much has been said already about this Representative's outburst during President Obama's speech the other night. I wouldn't add to it were it not for the fact that much of what is being said is so ... shallow and ignores the fundamental issue that Mr. Wilson's behavior raises.
It's the character issue, of course. No one likes this subject because even most of those who write about this stuff don't like to be held accountable for their lack of it. But this needs to be said, whether anyone likes it or not.
First, character really is important. Before a watching world, populated in part by young, impressionable school children, a man elected to high government office shouted at the President (who had the floor) and called him a liar. To President Obama's eternal credit, he displayed for the watching world the good character to ignore the outburst and move on with the important business at hand. Mr. Wilson's statement was disrespectful, to say the least. And let's make sure that we understand that when Mr. Obama used the "lie" word, with respect to untruths circulating about his health care plan, he did not name names or impugn the character of any individuals. And on the other hand, he was careful to give credit for the ideas he was presenting to those who deserved it (including his rival for the Oval Office, Mr. McCain.)
What people in high places do sets the tone for our entire society. If we cannot model healthy discourse before a watching world, particularly the younger and more impressionable part of it, then we have already lost the battle for the future. Unfortunately, we've come to expect disrespectful talk from rappers, late-night talk show hosts, self-styled political pundits and the like. So its no surprise that elected officials are getting into the act. Mr. Obama, in contrast to Mr. Wilson, was an example of how to make a strong, forceful statement without being personally disrespectful.
Now the free-speech lobby will have a hey-day with that. They don't think it right to impede speech of any kind. So let's move on.
Second, the reasons Mr Wilson's outburst is an example of bad character go far beyond the issue of disrespect. His friends could argue, "Well, it's true. Obama is lying." Well, let's suppose thy could prove that (I don't for one minute believe they can, but let's just suppose, for sake of argument.) What of it? The House rules specifically forbid any House member to call the sitting President a liar in the House chamber. It's a breach of House decorum. Mr. Wilson and all his colleagues swore — they took an oath — to abide by the rules of the House. For that and that alone, the House was bound by oath to discipline Mr. Wilson (it should have been a unanimous vote) and, if he were a man of good character, he would accept the rebuke and apologize to his colleagues for breaking the rules to which they all solemnly agreed. We're not big on oaths today. We're not bound by our word anymore. But people of good character are. If we care about our future, so should we all be bound.
Here, we also go beyond the issue of character to the issue of respect for law — something we have far too little of these days. If you want your constituents to respect and abide by the laws you create, then Mr. Wilson, you first must set an example. You didn't, and you owe your colleagues and the American people something better.
Third, Mr. Wilson's behavior made yet another large contribution to America's truly pathetic addiction to "15 minutes of fame." Mr. Wilson's behavior deserved to be ignored during the speech, disciplined quickly afterward and briefly mentioned on the news the next day. But Mr. Wilson has become a star. The media made him one, and the surge in his campaign coffers the next few days indicated that the cult of celebrity, even negative celebrity, has permeated just about every walk of American life. Why should anyone be respectful or follow rules of civil discourse when it's far more effective to be infamous for disrespect? (The only bright side to the news on this was that Mr. Wilson's opponent raised more money. I guess that's something.)
The media decision makers share a large proportion of the blame here. Pundits (left and right) have had a field day with this adolescent outburst, and news editors have allowed coverage of Mr. Wilson's new found right-wing stardom to overshadow coverage (again, as they did with the town hall disruptions, earlier) of the substantive issues Mr. Obama was attempting to address. The American people deserve something far better than this, too.
Mr. Wilson now joins the guy who who threw his shoes at President Bush in the negative celebrity Hall of Fame. The message to our kids? Being bad works. Disrspect sells (look at the multi-millionaire rappers, for example.) Disrupt a town hall meeting. Shout obscenities during speeches. Tell your teacher to go to hell. That'll show 'em.
And when you "grow up," you can graduate to taking a semi-automatic to a high school library or flying an airplane into a tall building.
It's the character issue, of course. No one likes this subject because even most of those who write about this stuff don't like to be held accountable for their lack of it. But this needs to be said, whether anyone likes it or not.
First, character really is important. Before a watching world, populated in part by young, impressionable school children, a man elected to high government office shouted at the President (who had the floor) and called him a liar. To President Obama's eternal credit, he displayed for the watching world the good character to ignore the outburst and move on with the important business at hand. Mr. Wilson's statement was disrespectful, to say the least. And let's make sure that we understand that when Mr. Obama used the "lie" word, with respect to untruths circulating about his health care plan, he did not name names or impugn the character of any individuals. And on the other hand, he was careful to give credit for the ideas he was presenting to those who deserved it (including his rival for the Oval Office, Mr. McCain.)
What people in high places do sets the tone for our entire society. If we cannot model healthy discourse before a watching world, particularly the younger and more impressionable part of it, then we have already lost the battle for the future. Unfortunately, we've come to expect disrespectful talk from rappers, late-night talk show hosts, self-styled political pundits and the like. So its no surprise that elected officials are getting into the act. Mr. Obama, in contrast to Mr. Wilson, was an example of how to make a strong, forceful statement without being personally disrespectful.
Now the free-speech lobby will have a hey-day with that. They don't think it right to impede speech of any kind. So let's move on.
Second, the reasons Mr Wilson's outburst is an example of bad character go far beyond the issue of disrespect. His friends could argue, "Well, it's true. Obama is lying." Well, let's suppose thy could prove that (I don't for one minute believe they can, but let's just suppose, for sake of argument.) What of it? The House rules specifically forbid any House member to call the sitting President a liar in the House chamber. It's a breach of House decorum. Mr. Wilson and all his colleagues swore — they took an oath — to abide by the rules of the House. For that and that alone, the House was bound by oath to discipline Mr. Wilson (it should have been a unanimous vote) and, if he were a man of good character, he would accept the rebuke and apologize to his colleagues for breaking the rules to which they all solemnly agreed. We're not big on oaths today. We're not bound by our word anymore. But people of good character are. If we care about our future, so should we all be bound.
Here, we also go beyond the issue of character to the issue of respect for law — something we have far too little of these days. If you want your constituents to respect and abide by the laws you create, then Mr. Wilson, you first must set an example. You didn't, and you owe your colleagues and the American people something better.
Third, Mr. Wilson's behavior made yet another large contribution to America's truly pathetic addiction to "15 minutes of fame." Mr. Wilson's behavior deserved to be ignored during the speech, disciplined quickly afterward and briefly mentioned on the news the next day. But Mr. Wilson has become a star. The media made him one, and the surge in his campaign coffers the next few days indicated that the cult of celebrity, even negative celebrity, has permeated just about every walk of American life. Why should anyone be respectful or follow rules of civil discourse when it's far more effective to be infamous for disrespect? (The only bright side to the news on this was that Mr. Wilson's opponent raised more money. I guess that's something.)
The media decision makers share a large proportion of the blame here. Pundits (left and right) have had a field day with this adolescent outburst, and news editors have allowed coverage of Mr. Wilson's new found right-wing stardom to overshadow coverage (again, as they did with the town hall disruptions, earlier) of the substantive issues Mr. Obama was attempting to address. The American people deserve something far better than this, too.
Mr. Wilson now joins the guy who who threw his shoes at President Bush in the negative celebrity Hall of Fame. The message to our kids? Being bad works. Disrspect sells (look at the multi-millionaire rappers, for example.) Disrupt a town hall meeting. Shout obscenities during speeches. Tell your teacher to go to hell. That'll show 'em.
And when you "grow up," you can graduate to taking a semi-automatic to a high school library or flying an airplane into a tall building.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Obama on Wall Street
Word's out, of course, that Wall Street execs weren't any too pleased with the scolding they got from President Obama in his recent speech. I doubt any Wall Streeters ever frequent my low-rent end of the blogosphere, but, just for the record:
Sorry, folks. You'll get no sympathy here. You're lucky Wall Street still exists. It was a scolding well deserved. You made your bed, and now you get to lie down in it.
Your right-wing Republican pals, strangely enough, would have let you drown like rats. Seems they're so committed to limited government, they'd rather see another depression than admit it might be necessary for the government to step in.
As Mr. Obama made clear, you Wall Street folks owe the American people (who are, after all, the government). We bailed you out. We are your creditors. And you put yourselves in that position.
Instead of resenting the sermon on responsibility, you'd be wise to heed it. You're being asked to help craft new rules that would prevent your own financial demise. And ... you're whining? You're complaining that your pay's gonna be a bit short? That "creativity" will be stifled?
In my book, you're getting off awfully easy. Some of the shenanigans pulled on your watch were every bit as deceptive — and as damaging — as Mr. Madoff's ponzi scheme.
Maybe you'd like to join your pal Bernie Madoff in jail? Maybe next time, we should send you Wall Street execs to ... oh, I don't know. Guantanamo? Seize all your assets and redistribute them to the American taxpayers? Give your homes away, in a lottery, to poor families?
Despite the delusional ravings of your right-wing pals, Mr. Obama has suggested nothing of the sort. What he has suggested sounds pretty darn reasonable to me. I'd take that deal and the comparative wrist slap that goes with it and be very, very grateful. You don't get second chances on stuff like this.
Sorry, folks. You'll get no sympathy here. You're lucky Wall Street still exists. It was a scolding well deserved. You made your bed, and now you get to lie down in it.
Your right-wing Republican pals, strangely enough, would have let you drown like rats. Seems they're so committed to limited government, they'd rather see another depression than admit it might be necessary for the government to step in.
As Mr. Obama made clear, you Wall Street folks owe the American people (who are, after all, the government). We bailed you out. We are your creditors. And you put yourselves in that position.
Instead of resenting the sermon on responsibility, you'd be wise to heed it. You're being asked to help craft new rules that would prevent your own financial demise. And ... you're whining? You're complaining that your pay's gonna be a bit short? That "creativity" will be stifled?
In my book, you're getting off awfully easy. Some of the shenanigans pulled on your watch were every bit as deceptive — and as damaging — as Mr. Madoff's ponzi scheme.
Maybe you'd like to join your pal Bernie Madoff in jail? Maybe next time, we should send you Wall Street execs to ... oh, I don't know. Guantanamo? Seize all your assets and redistribute them to the American taxpayers? Give your homes away, in a lottery, to poor families?
Despite the delusional ravings of your right-wing pals, Mr. Obama has suggested nothing of the sort. What he has suggested sounds pretty darn reasonable to me. I'd take that deal and the comparative wrist slap that goes with it and be very, very grateful. You don't get second chances on stuff like this.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Next Supreme Court Nominee?
This federal judge mentioned in today's lead piece in the NY Times might make a good candidate.
District Court Justice Jed S. Rakoff seems to have the ability to cut through the lawyerly lingo to the real issues, and doesn't mind giving both governmental entities and powerful businesses a good kick in the pants, when it's needed.
In his ruling, Judge Rakoff overturned a settlement between Bank of America and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives just before the bank took over the securities house last year. The bonuses were not disclosed to stockholders before they voted to approve the buyout. The $33 million settlement “does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality,” he wrote, criticizing the fact that the fine levied against Merril Lynch for the nondisclosure would be paid by the bank’s shareholders — yes, by the folks who were injured by the lack of disclosure.
The proposed settlement, according to Judge Rakoff, “suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth.”
Apparently, this isn't the first time this judge has called out cozy regulator/offender dealings — this judge presided over the Worldcom debacle (Remember the Enron "cooking the books" scandal, and all that, a few years back?), and sent the government and Worldcom execs to the woodshed on that one, too.
I think we need more regulation of Wall Street, but first, we need regulators who actually want to regulate (rather than merely appear to do so) and we need more judges who are willing to call bullshit by its proper name and are willing to call out those who dish it up to the American public.
Mr. Obama, I respectfully suggest that you give this guy a look, if you get another shot at the Supreme.
Having made that request, please pardon my cynicism if I also add that I'm sure he'd never be approved for the highest court, here. (Especially if they change the campaign finance laws so corporations, which now have to get the cash to candidates through more surreptitious means, will be able to openly buy and sell Senators and Representatives.) The business lobbyists wouldn't let them. They'd figure out a way to "Bork" him, and if that didn't work, they'd no doubt try to find a way to "Clarence Thomas" him.
In many other countries, he'd be a marked man. So, I guess we should be thankful for that much. (Please hear the sarcasm. It's intended.)
But I'd still like to see him get nominated. If only for the fact that America needs some heroes right now. And they're out there, but the religious conservative Republicans who keep keeping getting caught in extra-marital dalliances (or feel thy have to shout "You lie" at the President), and the left-wing Democrats who are wringing their hands over who will fill Teddy's filibuster-proofing seat in the Senate (or blurting out that they're communists) keep distracting the media from matters of substance.
A dramatic Supreme Court nominee approval process would, at least, get the glare of the spotlight onto a person of substance who has earned the attention.
District Court Justice Jed S. Rakoff seems to have the ability to cut through the lawyerly lingo to the real issues, and doesn't mind giving both governmental entities and powerful businesses a good kick in the pants, when it's needed.
In his ruling, Judge Rakoff overturned a settlement between Bank of America and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives just before the bank took over the securities house last year. The bonuses were not disclosed to stockholders before they voted to approve the buyout. The $33 million settlement “does not comport with the most elementary notions of justice and morality,” he wrote, criticizing the fact that the fine levied against Merril Lynch for the nondisclosure would be paid by the bank’s shareholders — yes, by the folks who were injured by the lack of disclosure.
The proposed settlement, according to Judge Rakoff, “suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth.”
Apparently, this isn't the first time this judge has called out cozy regulator/offender dealings — this judge presided over the Worldcom debacle (Remember the Enron "cooking the books" scandal, and all that, a few years back?), and sent the government and Worldcom execs to the woodshed on that one, too.
I think we need more regulation of Wall Street, but first, we need regulators who actually want to regulate (rather than merely appear to do so) and we need more judges who are willing to call bullshit by its proper name and are willing to call out those who dish it up to the American public.
Mr. Obama, I respectfully suggest that you give this guy a look, if you get another shot at the Supreme.
Having made that request, please pardon my cynicism if I also add that I'm sure he'd never be approved for the highest court, here. (Especially if they change the campaign finance laws so corporations, which now have to get the cash to candidates through more surreptitious means, will be able to openly buy and sell Senators and Representatives.) The business lobbyists wouldn't let them. They'd figure out a way to "Bork" him, and if that didn't work, they'd no doubt try to find a way to "Clarence Thomas" him.
In many other countries, he'd be a marked man. So, I guess we should be thankful for that much. (Please hear the sarcasm. It's intended.)
But I'd still like to see him get nominated. If only for the fact that America needs some heroes right now. And they're out there, but the religious conservative Republicans who keep keeping getting caught in extra-marital dalliances (or feel thy have to shout "You lie" at the President), and the left-wing Democrats who are wringing their hands over who will fill Teddy's filibuster-proofing seat in the Senate (or blurting out that they're communists) keep distracting the media from matters of substance.
A dramatic Supreme Court nominee approval process would, at least, get the glare of the spotlight onto a person of substance who has earned the attention.
Friday, August 28, 2009
A New Low in T-shirt "Evangelism"
I wasn't going to dignify this church's anti-Islam T-shirt campaign with a post, but one of the things I'm most upset about in the Christian church is how its intolerance always seems to end at its own door. So let me be clear:
I'll also bet that in the entire history of Dove Church in Gainesville, there has not been nor will there ever be a "conversion" of a single Muslim. Can you possibly guess why that may be?
Why would a Muslim want to come anywhere near the place? What about "Islam is of the devil" communicates God's love for Muslims? What about Dove's "Islam is of the Devil" campaign is remotely likely to attract a Muslim to the church or convince him or her that he or she might find something better at Dove church?
It's easy to galvanize a group against something. This pastor has taken the classic pastor's easy way out: Appeal to the worst in human nature. (Second only to building programs, which American Christians have a particular fondness for, because its a concrete mark of success, anti-whatever movements are the best way to get people to forget their differences and pull together in a fight against a perceived threat.) Did I mention it is lazy? Hypocritical?
Used to be Christians took pot shots at each other. That's why there are literally hundreds of denominations, many of which believe they, alone, are the true worshipers, the true bearers of God's image in the world, and that all others are headed to hell or fall far short of heaven. I sat under a Protestant pastor for a few years, who believed the Catholic church was of the devil (The Roman Catholics, he thought, were the great Harlot mentioned the book of Revelation). That was one of the many reasons I left that particular church.
Now, I guess we've tired of waging wars of words with each other and have turned our sights outward to the watching world. Now everyone can see what only those of us on the inside have had to witness for so many years.
In the Scriptures, the only folks Jesus ever identified with the devil were the hyper-religious folk who thought they had a corner on righteousness and therefore had the right to pass judgment on others. I always thought there was a message there for us. I just can't imagine Jesus with an "Islam is of the Devil" T-shirt on. But then again, I'm no Bible scholar.
At times like these, I wonder why I stick around. I have lots of friends who no longer go to church. They're Christians, but they've disowned the organized church. They are embarrassed by it.
I still hang in there. Christian churches aren't all like Dove, of course. But they all get tarred with the same brush every time something like this happens. Unfortunately, there lurks in every one of them that awful tendency to look out at the world (and each other) not with love but fear, and therefore open the door to hate, which is the classic coping mechanism of choice for the fearful. Pastors are always calling the flock to "take a stand" against that which they do not understand and, therefore, greatly fear. Leprosy, these days, takes many forms.
The apostle John said, "Perfect love casts out fear." We Christians have always had a tough time with that one. Hopefully, Dove is, if nothing else, a teachable moment for the rest of us. Who knows? Maybe Dove World Outreach Center itself will come to its senses and aspire to live up to its name. I still believe in miracles. I just haven't seen very many lately.
Mr. Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center do not speak for me. If I may be permitted to say so this strongly, I do not think he and his church speak for Jesus, either. Not the Jesus I've come to know, anyway.The irony is enough to make you cry: A church named after the symbol of peace making money on a T-shirt that defames the belief system of one third of the world's people. (I was kind of hoping we'd gotten past the bumper-sticker Christianity stage, but I see now that we've only graduated to the T-shirt stage.) Has anyone at the Dove church has ever actually spoken to a Muslim, let alone tried to find out what Muslims really believe?
I'll also bet that in the entire history of Dove Church in Gainesville, there has not been nor will there ever be a "conversion" of a single Muslim. Can you possibly guess why that may be?
Why would a Muslim want to come anywhere near the place? What about "Islam is of the devil" communicates God's love for Muslims? What about Dove's "Islam is of the Devil" campaign is remotely likely to attract a Muslim to the church or convince him or her that he or she might find something better at Dove church?
It's easy to galvanize a group against something. This pastor has taken the classic pastor's easy way out: Appeal to the worst in human nature. (Second only to building programs, which American Christians have a particular fondness for, because its a concrete mark of success, anti-whatever movements are the best way to get people to forget their differences and pull together in a fight against a perceived threat.) Did I mention it is lazy? Hypocritical?
Used to be Christians took pot shots at each other. That's why there are literally hundreds of denominations, many of which believe they, alone, are the true worshipers, the true bearers of God's image in the world, and that all others are headed to hell or fall far short of heaven. I sat under a Protestant pastor for a few years, who believed the Catholic church was of the devil (The Roman Catholics, he thought, were the great Harlot mentioned the book of Revelation). That was one of the many reasons I left that particular church.
Now, I guess we've tired of waging wars of words with each other and have turned our sights outward to the watching world. Now everyone can see what only those of us on the inside have had to witness for so many years.
In the Scriptures, the only folks Jesus ever identified with the devil were the hyper-religious folk who thought they had a corner on righteousness and therefore had the right to pass judgment on others. I always thought there was a message there for us. I just can't imagine Jesus with an "Islam is of the Devil" T-shirt on. But then again, I'm no Bible scholar.
At times like these, I wonder why I stick around. I have lots of friends who no longer go to church. They're Christians, but they've disowned the organized church. They are embarrassed by it.
I still hang in there. Christian churches aren't all like Dove, of course. But they all get tarred with the same brush every time something like this happens. Unfortunately, there lurks in every one of them that awful tendency to look out at the world (and each other) not with love but fear, and therefore open the door to hate, which is the classic coping mechanism of choice for the fearful. Pastors are always calling the flock to "take a stand" against that which they do not understand and, therefore, greatly fear. Leprosy, these days, takes many forms.
The apostle John said, "Perfect love casts out fear." We Christians have always had a tough time with that one. Hopefully, Dove is, if nothing else, a teachable moment for the rest of us. Who knows? Maybe Dove World Outreach Center itself will come to its senses and aspire to live up to its name. I still believe in miracles. I just haven't seen very many lately.
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