All Those Expendable People, Where Do They All Come From?

In the wake of the court decision in the Florida case of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, I wish humanity could “wake up” and realize that all people are in need of and deserving of respect, no matter where they come from, what they look like, how intelligent or not they may be. The planet is not likely to survive very much longer, unless respect is bred and nurtured so that all people know they are needed and wanted.

There are so many people of various religious or social orders who feel they can say they are better than other people and that people who don’t believe what they believe or who don’t come from where they come from are outsiders, even worse, people who are no better than dogs. Such people are the vilest of hypocrites.

You are to treat the resident alien the same way you treat the native born among you—love him like yourself, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.  (Leviticus 19:34)

We all live on a fragile planet that would work for us better and longer if we were good stewards. The place to begin is for us all to realize that all life is integral, and perhaps even more symbiotic than the material lifestyles we fret about and foster.

Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. (Exodus 22:21)

Since the beginning of human existence, there has been injustice and inequity. Throughout the ignoble and iniquitous social history of humanity, women, children, the aged and ill, people with varying preferences of all sorts, foreigners and travelers, the highly intellectual, the mentally incapacitated and those who have been crippled or maimed, have each been over-run exploited, exiled, oppressed, trafficked or enslaved. In these cases, race might or might not be a factor, but most certainly, domination, generally by power hungry males of the species has been the common factor involved.

The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. (Psalm 146:9)

The same moral dilemma exists now, as ever. Is it right to oppress and suppress any group of people? Rhetorically, we know the answer to be NO, OF COURSE NOT. Every exemplar throughout time has advised that it is better to be good. Every monster throughout history has laughed in that person’s face and sentenced that person to death, invoking the “I can do anything I want because I am stronger than you are, so I don’t have to be good” logic of the sociopath.

If you come with us, we will share with you whatever good things the LORD gives us. (Numbers 10:32)

How can it be explained to controlling people, unscrupulous dictators, corrupt business leaders, hypocritical gurus and demagogues that human beings are the biggest natural resource on the planet? And in no way do I mean in terms of expendability. This is the cardinal error of the control monger, the bank executive, the authoritarian, the mob boss; the common thread of thinking, based on common actions and the results of such actions, is that people are expendable, that it is okay to use them, abuse them, even to use them up and dump them.

…when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are an expendable, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.; I changed “a Negro” to “an expendable” and added emphasis.)

Here is a truly radical statement: If we each cared about ourselves enough to extend that caring to everyone and everything around us, the entire world would be better off.

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world... (Imagine, John Lennon)

Simplistic? A Pipe Dream? Or could it be an environmentally sound economic plan?

Right now, there is an amoral rationale among a jockeying and ever smaller group of people we might call “the Elite”—certainly these people think of themselves as such, and all the power they have and the decisions they make that affect your life and my life and the lives of people all over the world—who don’t seem to be related to us by anything other than an overwhelming powerlessness—follow the formula that says: use it up, use it all up, now and until there isn’t anymore. This is the formula of expendability. Natural oil reserves, once gone are gone forever. The drill, baby drill and frack, baby frack ethos has created a daisy chain of natural disaster waiting to happen—doesn’t anyone remember that the liquids in the ground are like joint lubricant? Pump it out, use it up, it's gone.

By the same token, we are sold and fed foods that are bad for us, so that we become unhealthy and in need of expensive medical care and drugs that frequently have known or unknown side-effects and unforeseen consequences. We are taxed on income and further taxed on homes, on transportation, infrastructure, indeed we are taxed because we are alive. This is more in the unbroken chain unsound economics; once we are pumped out, used up and gone, what next? Homelessness and worse is the answer to that question for a lot too many people.

I could be a bit in the nutty side—I’ll just go right ahead and admit that—but I think that we could build a better and more equitable community if we work the stewardship angle, where we do the very best we can do for ourselves and other people. If we keep the water clean, and make it available for everyone; if we grow natural food and make it available for everyone to purchase for their families; if we educate people for the sake of educating, rather than money; if we develop urban farming and new housing alternatives, not just here (wherever “here” is for you), but everywhere, we can create jobs that help the environment. Heck, even if all we did right now was to hire people to answer phones, we would improve the quality of life.

Do you see where I am headed? Right now, it is all about shooting down, cutting, eliminating, taxing, spending, expending, ravaging and stealing, diminishing, extinguishing.

Maybe the world would be different if we understood economic growth to be about all people equally (and responsibly) engaged in creating, making, growing, educating, earning, upholding, maintaining and sharing. If such a model were to emerge, it must work top-down as well as bottom-up; all need to be willing, invested and engaged. People: This is how you maintain your tax-base as an infinite resource, not just for earnings and for upkeep, but for GOOD!

If we lived in that kind of world, a man like Zimmerman might not have felt threatened or tweaked by the presence of a man named Martin, and we would be celebrating life, rather than arguing and rioting over laws that do not protect, legal decisions that allow people and governments and corporations to kill and steal, a way of life that makes us all expendable.

… time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now is, and has always been, the time; not just here, but everywhere.

If not now, when?

© 2013 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Jesus: Capitalist or Humanist?

I have to confess that I struggle mightily with the notions of conservatives, and particularly conservatives who identify themselves as Christians, who talk about having money, but not about using money for public good—who, in fact, will fight to keep themselves from having to pay taxes and also to keep public money from going into programs that help people.

I have heard many homiletic distortions on the subject of Jesus and money… I have heard and read rants in the media, from people I would have to consider irrational and even insane, on the topic of money. After hearing modern money-mongers and religious zealots on the topic of money, I must say that I continually come to the same conclusion: Jesus is not a Suze Ormon type of financial guru! And, also, that many of the rich who claim to be faithful to a supreme deity are deluded hypocrites. Is it really a person's God given right to accumulate wealth? Gosh, I haven't read any passages in scripture that assert that.

When Jesus speaks of the widow’s two mites, he really is saying that her offering was the greatest simply because it was all she had to give and she gave it all. In another story, the rich man Jesus “sent empty away” (and sorrowfully he sent the man away) precisely because he was not at all willing to give all he had to give, which was much, and could have been really helpful to many in need. 

Jesus seemed always to encourage an unencumbered life, one without anything more than one needs.  Jesus told the disciples not to have stuff, and only to take what was needed where it was offered freely. I read an article a few years ago about a tent city in Washington; one of the people interviewed said that if Jesus were alive, he would be living there, not in a suburban home, much less a luxury penthouse.

With regard to giving, the passage where Jesus speaks of the rendering of what is Ceasar’s unto Ceasar, what is God’s unto God, is an interesting passage for this reason: Jesus is pointing out that God does not make money and there is no money that has God’s image on it. Jesus is not at all telling people to tithe, he is telling us that God does not ask for or need money! (Have you ever heard that preached? I sure haven’t.) The implication that seems more proper is this: if God wants something from us, then what God wants is something more along the lines of giving of ourselves, with mind, body, spirit, where what we are or what we have is something needed to keep creation moving forward in a healthy way, to benefit people and planet. We pay tribute to God by in the most consistent and holistic way by giving of ourselves when what we have is needed elsewhere in God’s Garden, even if all that is needed is a smile.

Matt 6:19-21 “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” is completely consistent with this notion of rendering.

The miracle of the five loaves and two fish, found in all the gospel texts, could be understood as a story about sharing, akin to the old Stone Soup story. The disciples have two fish and five loaves, but who is to say that more food isn’t being hoarded among the crowd? The miracle might be less one of five loaves and two fish being divided among 5,000 people and more that the crowd understood that it could and should bring forth what food there was among them, for the common good.

When we tithe to our religious communities and when we pay our taxes, we must invest in the notion that keeping the organization running serves that requirement of giving of ourselves, a giving that is not just for us and our own benefit, but for the community at large, where our organized existence might serve to meet the needs of those who have less, or have nothing at all.

That is to say, we must invest our treasure and our hearts in God where God is and is needed most, which is, of course, everywhere. Those wealthy and apparently religious individuals who claim otherwise are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and sinners.

Thank you, Warren Buffett, for being real and for pointing out the obvious:  People with extreme wealth can afford to contribute more in taxes—and should. 

*** 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=buffett%20and%20taxes&st=cse

Business As Usual: When Public Goes Private, Non-Profit Becomes For-Profit

We are living in a world that should be getting smaller in all the good ways (e.g., labor-saving devices that will allow people more free time, improvements in public health delivery, less pollution, organic food, longevity ensuring pharmaceuticals, access to all that is needed, work that is suitable and sustaining, the list is endless) as a result of something called progress. Things are supposed to be getting better for everyone.

[I hesitate to begin this next paragraph with the bubble-bursting word instead, but there it is, and there is nothing for it.]

Instead, what is really happening, and this becomes clearer as the days go by, is that human mentality seems to get smaller and more isolationist and mean. To match that, the hubris of the entitled is becoming daily more brazen and daring in its agenda of owning as much of the world as possible before it all falls apart.

In the 1990s, there was a lot of talk in the United States about the Global Village and hope that there would be a renaissance of cultures that would make us all be friends. After September 11^th 2001, however, we have heard very little about that, while much about the necessity of defense spending, about decentralization of government, lowering of taxes and the impossibility of maintaining any public programs, ostensibly because they are too expensive.

Let me unpackage some of this for us.

The “necessity” of defense spending means that most of our tax dollars are being spent on weapons of mass destruction, whose sole purpose is to intimidate, kill and destroy. The United States has had, for more than 50 years, a stockpile of weapons and artillery that could destroy the planet more than a hundred times over, and so it is hard to believe that anyone could need more of the stuff, much less the very latest in death and destruction technology. And yet, the generals want more, and so do the private defense contractors, who rake in billions of dollars by manufacturing death. The budget for upkeep of existing nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal alone has been reckoned enough to provide every person on the planet with food, safe drinking water and shelter, annually. Think about it.

Decentralization of government means that the bureaucracy is being transferred from the public to the private sector. This move is touted as a cost savings to government, but this cannot not possibly prove true in financial analysis. It may save the government money, but it doesn’t save you or me anything! The money still comes from our pockets. When we move from public to private, we move from a non-profit situation to a for-profit situation. Our rights then have a retail cost. If we cannot meet that for-profit cost in the marketplace, then we are out in the cold. Alarmist, you say? Well, if the Governor of the State of Arizona can take people off waitlists for organ transplants because their economic condition will not allow them to pay for the procedure, and if firefighters in Tennessee can standby and watch someone’s home burn to the ground because the member of the public that owns that dwelling allegedly did not pay some very small local fee, then what do we have, here? Think about it.

Voters are asked to vote for candidates based on candidates’ promises of “no new taxes”. This happens first, of course, at the federal level. Responsibility for the public welfare is then removed from the federal level to the state level, where voters are asked to vote for candidates based on the candidates’ promises of “no new taxes”. Responsibility for the public welfare is then removed from the state level to the local level, where voters are asked to vote for candidates based on the candidates’ promises of “no new taxes”. But, then, of course, local officials, once in office, say, “shucks, darn it! We have to raise taxes so that we can uphold the public welfare and basic infrastructure!” And the only way the local yokels have to do this is by having the community vote to mandate a parcel tax premium over the regular property tax. Moreover, the people and businesses with the most money do not contribute according to what they have. The burden falls on the average tax payer, trying to make it in a wavering economy. Think about it.

“Citizen’s Initiatives” are placed on local and state level ballots by big businesses and special interest groups funded by big business, not just your everyday citizen, to get voters to mandate what is good for big business: guaranteed jobs and tax payer money to pay for these jobs. The average person cannot manipulate the system in this way to get a job. What is an example of such a program? Well, the voters of the State of California mandated R&D for stem cell research. Instead of funding public schools (public education is mandated by the State, you know), the State of California is funding stem cell research with taxpayer dollars. To date, this program has sucked in billions in public funds, but has been a complete bust as a business enterprise—while, of course, a few people have been making a lot of money. Meanwhile, who does this publicly mandated program benefit? This public program does not benefit the average Californian as much as it benefits Big Business Pharma Industry. This public program has not created a whole lot of jobs, because it is a highly scientific specialty. Look up the articles on the internet. Think about it.

Such maneuvers have become commonplace, to the extent that I wonder how the average person can possibly be surprised by them. But we are.

I assert that we are being sold into a kind of slavery, and we don’t even realize it.

This is unthinkable, but I want you to think on it.

When your local police and fire departments become privatized, who will be in charge of them? Will your local government have oversight? If you have not paid your local taxes, will the firefighters park across the street from your burning house and watch you and your home go up in flames, while carefully monitoring that it does not spread next door, where they did pay the local tax? Think about it.

Since when did government have to turn a profit to be successful? What happened to By the People, for the People? Think about it.

Since when did big business know better how to run government agencies, hospitals, schools and prisons? Did you know that Dick Cheney owns prisons? Look up the articles on the internet. Think about it.

This is, Dear Reader, all food for thought. I do not have answers. Obviously, more examples could be brought into this discussion; space here is limited. But I can say this: if our government and business leaders had not been gambling and losing with public tax funds and your pension and everyone’s real estate, and if our government agencies hadn’t bonded us all into indebtedness on the basis of future tax earnings that would often (particularly in the case of redevelopment, but probably elsewhere, also) not be realized until 40 years into the future, the world would not be experiencing the dreadful financial collapse that now imperils the lives of so many.

This has not been progress, People. This has been, and continues to be, business as usual. Moreover, it has been and continues to be robbery. Think about it.