Posts from — October 2008

Continuing on from my last post, I will reiterate my belief that the current financial meltdown is not due simply to people and institutions overextending themselves  financially. This meltdown is a consequence of attitudes which have included a chronic indifference to the wasted potential of our own people.

As a result of that indifference, the G.O.P. has won election after election, dominated Congress with its ideas, and advanced its agenda of steadily ridding the nation of social programs. It has convinced Americans to object to any tax or plan which does not benefit them directly and in concrete terms. Yet we are not islands. We are linked. What happens to others affects us all, as we are seeing now.

For instance, people need jobs – good jobs. With good jobs people buy goods and services, send their kids to college and pursue their dreams. Hundreds of thousands of good jobs could have been created by pursuing green technologies. That’s why Germany’s economy has been thriving.

Likewise, a quality public education has long been recognized as a great equalizer.

Yet we keep electing candidates put forth by the G.O.P. who seek to undermine and de-fund public schools. With the long-term goal of total privatization in mind, they have, likewise, rejected the need to change our economic model or recognize the dangers of pollution and Global Warming. 

They have been elected with massive help from the middle classes who have abandoned progressive thought even though progressive thought – which includes ideas about our human entitlement to equal opportunity, a living wage, quality education, a free and robust press, and the separation of church and state – brought their classes into existence and made their prosperity possible.

Yet the lower classes have done no better. They have consistently betrayed their own economic interests by not bothering to vote.

While we may not be aware of our complicity in our own poverty or in the poverty of others, our Spirits always know and this creates a great spiritual hunger, a yearning for spiritual authenticity and a need for congruent action. 

So we may be called to change. We may be called to be more generous. We may be called to do something, such as work for social justice. We may think about writing letters or making phone calls. We may think about talking to friends and family, about joining an organization, about committing our time and energy to some cause that does not appear to be of economic or social benefit to ourselves.

Yet we may choose to ignore these impulses. We may ignore the poor, ignore the “small voice within” that urges us toward compassionate action, and betray the love in our own souls. 

Yet should we have the time and the means and the ability to help even in a small way and still resist that call, then a part of us will be ashamed and feel guilt. This is what happens when we know we have the power to effect change, yet do nothing. It is not in our nature to be easy on ourselves, no matter how it looks from the outside.

Psychologists tell us that incongruence between identity and beliefs creates inner conflict. Inner conflict almost always leads to some kind of self-sabotage.

I would maintain that the economic problems we are having are the result of that self-sabotage. It is the consequence of being a wealthy nation that has been entirely self-absorbed.

[Read more →]

Is our financial crisis the fault of the wealthy?

This is the first of four posts addressing this question. 

Most people believe the wealthy are to blame or, rather, the greed of the wealthy and the wannabee wealthy.

After all, greed caused both banks and ”flippers” to over extend themselves. Greed caused people, like the couple infamously satirized by SNL, to bundle billions in questionable mortgages and offload them on banks like Wachovia.  Greed inspired lobbyists to get Congress to roll back legislation  that had required downpayments and more stringent lending parameters. And the greed of stockholders who will dump any stock that doesn’t keep showing growth caused banks to cut corners for greater profits and higher share prices.

Yet, from a spiritual point of view, we know that scapegoating any person or group is a mistake. We’re all in this together and we created it together.

Bah, you may say. Why would we create an economic meltdown?

Consciously we wouldn’t. Yet when we are not being congruent with the higher aims of our souls, something has to break, and it won’t be the soul. In this case there has been powerful incongruency between what we say we are about as Americans and how we walk our talk. I suggest these words as clues to our current situation:  

• lack/inequity
• guilt/shame
• spiritual hunger 
• self-punishment

First, let’s consider the twin issues of lack and inequity. 

There are more poor in the world than most people can imagine. At this writing nearly two billion people are experiencing some degree of starvation.  Around fifty million Americans live in poverty. There are American children who go to bed hungry and who will suffer lifelong neurological impairment as a result. We have, however, repeatedly elected politicians who state their intention to kill all social welfare programs that serve our most vulnerable citizens. We also laud our capitalist system and the globalized system of trade and food production pushed by our nation across the world which promotes hunger and starvation.

Our willingness to allow others to live in poverty has steadily been poisoning our own consciousness with guilt and shame. This has resulted in another economic piece of “lack” in this puzzle: that  working-class and middle-class jobs don’t pay what they once did, families have been falling behind instead of getting ahead and, as a result, these Americans looked to their real estate to make up the difference.

Hence we witnessed an epidemic of home equity loans that served to fund the illusion of being able to buy everything that we are told we must want as part of The American Dream.

Yet the American Dream is not and has never been just about buying things. The American Dream has been about fulfilling one’s potential. It’s been about having an idea or a dream and being free to pursue it and  make it come true. It’s been about visualizing an outcome and seeing it manifest. 

That dream, however, has never existed for millions of Americans, and has turned into a house of cards for millions more who will never have even a glimpse of what they might have become or done. Instead they will spend their lives struggling just to survive. So, from what I can see, the fact that we overreached economically is not the primary causation for the current financial meltdown. The meltdown is, instead, a consequence of attitudes which include a chronic indifference to the wasted potential of our people.

More in my next post.

For just six dollars, you can change Congress – completely change Congress for the better. Let me explain.

Today, if you want to run a campaign to get a seat in the United States House of Representatives, you must raise a minimum of $1,000,000.00. Most of us cannot conceive of doing this.

Right now a private candidate with personal wealth can, essentially, buy an election. The big bucks always win. Yet when we provide voluntary public financing and raise it to the level needed – around $6 per American – this will completely change the election landscape. Citizens will begin to believe in our democracy again.

For instance, everyone complains about “pork” yet most of it is hidden and linked to campaign contributions. By eliminating the need to raise campaign funds, we could demand transparency for earmarks which, alone, are running in excess of $100.00 per U.S. citizen. (Earmarks are those virtually untraceable spending bills that are commonly referred to as “pork” and which are too often the “informal” repayment for campaign financing contributions.)

We would also get the service for which we are paying our Congressional representatives.

We pay high salaries to Congress, provide them with many extra benefits and perks, including free world-class quality health care.

Yet they spend 30% to 50% of their time raising money for their campaigns and their political parties instead of attending to business.

On an average day, the U.S. Senate is virtually empty. The founder of Just Six Dollars quotes a Senator as saying:

“You can’t believe what it’s like. On an afternoon in the United States Senate, when you have a bill in front of a committee the next day – the next morning – and you can’t bring together the five or six sponsors of the bill with you.”

“You know where they are? They’re downtown with the lobbyists at the Hilton or the Mayflower, and say, ‘Oh, the shrimp was delicious.’ Or they’re in Detroit of Houston and taking the jet home that night.”

U.S. incombents spend a minimum of 30% of their time raising money. some say it’s as high as 50%. This costs us hundreds of billions in lost productivity and backroom deals and results in representatives voting on legislation that they have not read. It produces bad legislation and bad policy that affects every American.

We can change the way politics works in this country, for just six dollars. And this money would come from – get this – licensing and broadcast fees. No American would have to shell out $6, although I would gladly hand over six dollars right now if we could make this happen sooner.

This is the system we need in place in order to clean up politics once and for all, to cleanse it of arrogance, meanness and corruption. Watch the video, research the issue and see for yourself what it could mean for us to take back our government so we – ordinary Americans – again have a voice elected officials listen to.

Dear God,

There is one God, yet many traditions. Many languages contain words that try to express the inexpressible. The word “Namaste” is a beautiful attempt.

Dear God,

I have to wonder: Was the bailout passed by atheists?¹

Because it’s clear from everything handed down as the philosophy of Jesus, that Jesus was all about helping the poor. Jesus did not exhort us to help the money lenders because they are experts at helping themselves.

Yet the bailout that has just been passed – supposedly by Christians since you cannot find a single atheist in Congress – ignores the poor and bails out the rich.  So let’s look at the practical implications of the bill. [Read more →]

What’s more worthy of our time and effort? Advocating for social justice or engaging in religious arguments about religion vs evolution? How about arguing with others over whose beliefs or worship practices are best? And which activity do you think God would prefer we pursue?

Before we can answer that, perhaps we need a definition of “social justice.”

According to Wikipedia:

Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of “social justice” was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli in 1840 based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

[Read more →]