Jul 06 2005
A Funny Thing Happened
A funny thing happened on the way to Omaha and back. We went to one of those Grassroots Solutions training camps (Camp Connealy, named for a State Senator and recent Congressional candidate). It was very informative, and very motivating. As an unanticipated consequence I’m seriously exploring a run for the Nebraska State Legislature.
Nebraska’s legislature has only one house (the “Unicameral”) with 49 Senators. 20 of those districts lose their incumbents next year to term limits and ours is one of them. This district is in far the southwest part of the state. These eight and one half counties have a population of 33,000 with 25% registered as Democrats, though elections for the Unicameral are “non-partisan”. The top two vote-getters in the May primary, regardless of party, move on to the general election Nov 7, 2006.
It will have to be a truly bi-partisan effort, but that is an idea Connie and I find quite attractive. It does not mean we are embarrassed to be known as Democrats. Quite the opposite; and thanks to the behavior of the current administration this may turn out to be a good time to be running as a Democrat. Still, it will be fun and a challenge to reach out to and partner with a lot of Republicans who know I’m a Democrat. A professional with the state Democratic party said this is the “worst” district up this cycle as far as Dem / Rep ratio – but if I can raise $73,000, and knock on every door twice, it might be do-able.
So, hmm. Lots of questions for you all. What do you think? Is this the kind of thing a Christian should do?
Since many of us are so bothered by a certain type of religious political activism that is common in this country – how should a Christian be a politician, or a public employee, if at all?
Does it matter? Can you do spiritual ministry in such a non-religious (appropriately so!) context? Is this the kind of thing maybe this particular Christian should do? Can this be a Divine calling?
Of course we have opinions on these things or we wouldn’t be considering it so seriously, but it’s very helpful to get input from brains other than your own. So comment away, if you please!
[I'll be off at camp (see prior post), but will check back in on Saturday evening.]
NEXT AND PRIOR POSTS:
« Open Thread July 15
By the way, the bankruptcy picture applies to states and municipalities throughout the US. It is a house of cards, with all the parts about to collapse as one.
Some 15% of major municipalities have now declared bankruptcy. This was the reason in part for the recent Supreme Court decision to enlarge the powers of eminent domain to include private interests seizing people’s assets for reasons other than public works. This is because Scalia and the rest of the judges know the real estate bubble will explode, and they want to clear the way for all the broke municipalities to clean up on all the defaulted mortgages which soon will happen. Right now 16% of US mortgages are in foreclosure.
Your government knows the score, knows how bad it all is. But if you think Washington cares about us, guess again. They are running the administration with boilerplate CIA techniques, beholden to confusion, fear, terror, and destruction. They‘ve been practicing up all over the world for 60 years, and now that George Sr. has a little puppet in the White House, we are experiencing what the CIA‘s victims did for all those years.
Their primary art form is terror and confusion. We will see more of that on every front, particularly with the economy. This is a snare. We now have a CIA-style government (ask around in South and Central America…). They mean us harm. It is how they get things done. All the better to keep us quarreling about abortion and gay marriage while they rob the coffers.
It will also be the worst in the US, where 2/3 of the people live 1,00 – 2,000 miles away from food production areas. We will see this nation-state fold for bad logistics. Never has a nation-state been so poorly set up, to allow a possibility of complete collapse due to the masses’ lack of proximity to food. We rely on trucks to bring us food, and most people don‘t know how to grow food anymore in the US. Kids think milk and eggs are made in factories. Once some “terrorist” event stops trucks from rolling, what happens when a couple hundred million people who have guns but not food take to the streets? This will be ugly, guaranteed. And I wish I were wrong, but it is far too late to legislate. It is high time for Christians to know and tell the truth. Jesus said to watch… and He didn’t mean to watch the choir.
Anonymous “bitter fruit� here… Larry, if it were two or three years ago, you’d have a chance to do some good. But it’s too late. The money’s gone! How can you administrate anything in politics without money? You can’t do a thing when you’re broke, and by the time you could get into office, there won’t be a budget. Our economy has already disintegrated that much.
“Bitter fruit?â€? This entire country, indeed the world economy, is very quickly going to come apart like a cheap suit. The only thing sustaining the planet’s economy right now is US consumer spending – which is being financed mainly by US citizens borrowing against the value of their homes. 25% of mortgages over the past five years are “interest onlyâ€? mortgages, which are about to be eliminated from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs. Not only that, but people who have those mortgages will be required by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to pay interest and principal, effectively doubling payments on those mortgages – scheduled to take place in September. Properties will flood the real estate market, the “bubbleâ€? will burst, values will tank, banks will demand more collateral from people with mortgages and they won’t have it. This will make the great Depression look like a simple rainy day by comparison.
In other words, the secular realm is reporting more grim economic and social realities for the US than the Christian church. The church, evidently, will be the very last to catch on to the fact that our world economy is already drowned in a sea of red ink otherwise known as deficit spending. Such is the cost of Bush’s war, and his father’s 50 years of wars vis a vis the CIA. We paid for it. We US people partied hard and slept through it. Should it be a surprise, after the CIA went around assassinating democratically elected leaders and overthrowing governments all over the earth since WWII, that one day the dark arts of the Bush family should come back to our own shores in the farce that was 9/11? Does anyone REALLY think that 800 billion dollars can’t catch one man on a donkey (Bin Laden)? Come on, attacking yourself and scapegoating others is an old trick, not even original. We have been conquered here by what one wag calls a “cryptocracyâ€? – a secret government hidden within a government. And this government has utterly robbed the US people of every last dime.
What I’m telling you, Larry, is that you are doing a fantastic ministry right now on this website. If you divert your energy and time to run for public office (never mind financing a campaign), by the time you get into office to do your good work, you will look like someone showing up to mend a broken dam by scooping dirt with a Dixie cup. This economy, in a couple years’ time, will be so splintered you won’t recognize it. It is simply too late. And I know you’re a guy who does not believe in a “rapture� which will save the US from its troubles.
Then there is the government. This is a fascist state. The Homeland Security business, the Patriot Act, and many other surreptitious dealings have utterly supplanted the constitution. This is intentional.
Want a prediction? This regime will cause another “terrorist� attack very soon, so they can scapegoat imaginary terrorists. Then when the world economy flies to pieces, they will infuriate the US public against those “bad terrorists� who “ruined the economy� (never realizing that warfare deficit spending was the cause). The government will scapegoat the internet somehow too as a reason to forbid us to communicate about the government. Expect it soon. And I do not say this as a “prophet.� I say this on good advice of secular writers who are arduously observing what is going on today.
Why would Bush destroy the world economy? Because then they can implement that infamous cashless economy, which is a well-publicized effort going back for decades.
This may mirror dark images of the Bible, but every bit of this can be supported by the many internet writings of responsible secular writers. What is being predicted by the few who are truthful (and you can’t believe Kudrow, or the many Bush regime shills) about our nation’s economy, pension system and all other social services, makes some of the Biblical imagery look mild.
Bitter Fruit? Jesus is coming back to reign on earth. There will be mortals around, planting vineyards just like the prophets tell. This world will come to good. We will not be the ones who institute this. It will be the Lord.
Do all the good you can now, in this life and at this time, but don’t expect the US to keep afloat for more than 4-5 more years. The government is lying to us all. They have utterly bankrupted us already with deficit spending to make wars.
What bothers so many of us about a certain type of Christian political activism is that they have abandoned many basic teachings of Christ, like caring for the poor, for the sake of their own personal power. In so doing, they have made themselves gods, relying on themselves rather than the power of God. True Christian political activism, like that of Martin Luther King, is something Christians should do. One of the many things that made his ministry so great is that he worked for all of us – he worked for rights for African Americans, but he did so in a way that taught and transformed the rest of us along the way.
I think in some way we all do Christian ministry in non-religious places every time we adhere to our faith in the face of non-religious circumstances. Some of us do it daily in corporate America (I could go off on a tangent about the right’s view of women staying at home, when corporate America could use Christian principles almost as much as politics, but I won’t). And some of us do it in the face of the hypocrisy being passed off as Christianity by the religious right. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it always was ‘hard teaching’.
I’d characterize “anonymous” as A Bitter Fruit Man, who says “The world is evil & the melons ain’t good either.” Well, I’m protestant, I believe God is capable of terrible wrath. But I also believe God lets events play out, & in that I find much hope. It is a difficult process for the world to accept that humanity really does mean the whole world, not just this side of the river. We may well be passing through a darkness now on our way to a great light. As long as a Christian stays fixed on that light, participating in the community large or small is a good thing. But do it as a citizen. After all, one cannot even become even president of The 4th of July Fireworks Committee without an election.
If you were doing this, specifically as a Christian, in the hopes of advancing your particular idea of Christianity, then that political activism you were worried about would be an issue. If you were doing this as an American, who happens to be a Christian, and who brings with you the Christian value of caring about others, I would say that it was an excellent idea. Knowing you, I don’t think we need to worry about ” Christian political activism”.
Can you do spiritual ministry in such a non-religious context? I have seen here that you care about people. You don’t ask them to believe as you do. You just set an example that others may follow if they wish. You already do spiritual ministry in a non-religious context.
Is this the kind of thing maybe this particular Christian should do? Politics is dirty, and you need to be prepared for it to get ugly. I think that you would fit in well on the “Dean’s List�, and can expect support from your blog readers. I just wish you were local, so I could give you my vote too.
Can this be a Divine calling? That’s between you and God. I think that Jesus’ teachings lead you to care about others, and that has a lot to do with you considering this. I think the strength you get from your beliefs will be necessary at times, if you succeed.
To run for office would possibly take a certain conviction: that 9/11 was not a semi-aborted military coup. Or think of the Patriot Act, which has supplanted the Bill of Rights. There is language in that bit of legislation to criminalize anyone.
I can’t agree with the author, that democracy still functions, or is an appropriate response to our nation recently being overthrown by a coup. Remember: Hitler bombed Parliament and blamed it on communists to whip up support for the Nazi war machine. This trick is not even original. If you study the history of the CIA over the past 50 years, it is obvious that 9/11 follows classic CIA strategy.
What to do? Expect a walk to Jerusalem, Christians. Or when did you think Jesus was going to get around to baptizing us with fire? Does anyone here think He didn’t mean it?
And walk is the word. Think of the black songs: when the saints go marching in… there’s no mention of “flying” anywhere in the songs of the slaves, as the recent rapture theory suggests. That’s because their thoughts in song were pretty much boilerplated from the Bible.
We are really close. Look closely at this regime in power. We are coming to the biggest showdown ever, even in the words of all secular forecasters.
Oh that I would be wrong. That democracy still had a chance. here. Read the Patriot Act, if you think so. The snare is tightening around our feet every day. It is an act of sedition to mention by name the corporations which are insolvent in their pension plans. These are many, after Bush/Cheney allowed them in 2001 to contribute stock value insteaed of cash, resulting in a multi-billion dollar deficit in pension systems. Things are not going forward in this country. I’d like to be wrong, but instead I urge you all to wake up to what has happened.