Sept 23
To Larry Eskridge and his blogpost review of Ken Burns’s documentary on the Vietnam War. This appeared in the Gospel Coalition website.
Healing the nation from a past trauma is one thing, but removing the scars that resulted from the trauma is another. And that is the question I see raised as I read reviews of Ken Burns's documentary on the Vietnam War.
When it comes to war, the term 'noble sacrifice' is sometimes nothing more than a marketing tool. It is created so that making such sacrifices in the future continues. It was created so that people of noble intent believe that intent alone is necessary to fight for one's country. The use of that term excuses us from being responsible for following the orders of those who tell us to go to war.
Burns, according to a Newsweek article, does tell us about the decision to be involved in Vietnam. It was made in 1945 when we decided to help the French recolonize Vietnam after the war. Vietnam itself was divided in order to facilitate the expulsion of the Japanese. After the French failed, the Geneva Accords called for elections to decide on whether to reunite the divided country. What was decided in Geneva was rejected by the then current ruler of South Vietnam and the United States. BTW, that ruler, who the last emperor from the Vietnam ruling family, was replaced by the US in rigged elections with a dictator. And along with the emergence of the domino theory and our nation's bipolar political approach to the world, our fate in Vietnam was sealed.
Yes Burns shows multiple sides of the war but so does BBC documentary on the European theater of WW II called The Nazis: A Warning From History. Will Burns's documentary on Vietnam focus more on warning us in order to prevent other Vietnams or will it attempt to help us understand multiple sides of the war to heal any existing divisions and thus remove an old scar?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sept 26
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost on Romans 13 and obeying the civil authorities. This appeared in Heidelblog.
While I fully agree that my fellow social justice people who want to abolish the police are totally wrong, the last paragraph is meant to rationalize the American Revolution because it is being done by a group Clark identifies with. For if we are going to judge theonomists and those social justice workers who want to abolish the police as well as all others by Romans 13, why are we resorting to Calvin to judge those who who perpetrated the American Revolution? It isn't that we shouldn't consult Calvin here, it is that we should use the same standard to judge all. In addition, the Continental Congress was an authority that was under British rule. So using Calvin to justify the American is like saying a local government can rebel against a higher government if that higher government is run by tyrants. Such would, in the minds of some, also justify the attempts at secession by the Confederate states. And it isn't that we shouldn't resist tyrants; it is that we should use the same standards to judge all.
What we should note is the different contexts that exist between now and the time of the Apostles. Such does not justify going a totally different path than what they taught, but those changes in context do have an effect on how we carry out and implement what Paul says in Romans 13 as well as what Peter wrote.
We should that there are 2 significant changes between then and now. Whereas in Peter's and Paul's day, governments were run by dictators, today, we have democracies. Why that is significant is because while dictators give commands and their subjects obeyed or are punished, democracies command that people participate and participate in ways in addition to voting. This makes the people more responsible for the actions of their government. In addition, whereas in Peter's and Paul's day, the Gospel was not associated with the policies of any government because the Gospel was new and limited in the number of people it reached; the same cannot be said today. And we should note that one of the concerns of the Apostles in their command to obey the authorities was the reputation of the Gospel and how that was affected by the behavior of Christians.
And yet we have one more variable to factor in here. How much of the behavior of the OT prophets should carry over to how we respond to governments, especially unjust ones? The OT prophets were not shy pointing out the sins of the state and its leaders and challenging them to repent. That kind of behavior was also exemplified by John The Baptist as he challenged Herod.
We should note that Calvin was not the only one in Church history to write about unjust rulers. Augustine did as well. And he compared a kingdom without justice to a gang of thieves. And so if we now return to Romans 13, which weighed on Martin Luther King's mind as he thought about how to respond to unjust laws and rulers, we have some real thinking to do. King's solution was this, he agreed with Augustine who also said that unjust laws are not real laws. And so King concluded that we must resist unjust laws. But in order to follow Romans 13 and to deny anarchy a place at the table, he stated that when it is necessary for justice's sake to refuse to submit to unjust laws, then those who disobey must accept the consequences laid out by those unjust leaders. According to King, such an approach showed more respect for the authorities God had put into power than to blindly follow and/or enforce unjust laws. BTW, just as some who work for social justice believe in abolishing the police, others follow King's teaching here. Some of King's approach was practiced by Christians in Acts who were commanded not to preach the Gospel. So why shouldn't that approach also be practiced to challenge unjust laws?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Joe Carter and his blogpost, accompanied by video, claim that Capitalism reduces poverty. This appeared in the Acton blog.
The video endorsing capitalism glosses over so many details that it becomes extremely disingenuous. We should note that we are employing a different form of Capitalism today than what was employed immediately after WW II. That form, which was called the Bretton-Woods system, oversaw the greatest egalitarian growth in America. But the global reduction in poverty didn't start, according to the video, until 1970. Here we should note that it was in the 1970s that today's form of Capitalism, which is called Neoliberalism, began to be employed. And one of the first nations in which it was used was Chilé. But that could only occur after a military coup overthrew a democratically elected government and produced a military tyrant as the nation's ruler.
So before the 1970s, we had Capitalism that was not dominated by globalism. Rather, governments had more control over their nation's economic resources and such was an advantage for the people whose governments functioned as working democracies. But as globalism became dominant through neoliberalism, so was the offshoring of jobs where the protections workers enjoyed here were not experienced by workers in the destination nations. Rather, workers were exploited. So some were paid more because they had no jobs in the first place, the hours and working conditions alone show a gross absence of concern for the workers' welfare and rights. And the poverty statistics measure neither these other factors for people who were now employed nor the losses suffered by those who lost their jobs. Here we should note that companies often moved factories to places where they were least burdened by regulations that protected workers and the environment.
We should also note that free markets themselves revolve around the needs of those with wealth than with the remaining stakeholders of neoliberal capitalism. Here we should note that the traditional definition of stakeholder consists of all who are impacted by activities of a given business. Thus residents of communities in which businesses were located, vendors, customers, and workers were included as stakeholders of a business. Today, stakeholders are equated with major stockholders. And a maximize profit ethic, which cannibalizes all other ethical and moral concerns, has caused companies to offshore jobs in order to maximize ROI for shareholders regardless of how it has hurt both workers and the communities they lived in.
We should also note that the bar for what is considered poverty is rather low according to the video. More people, according to the video, are living on more than a dollar a day--and that is consistent with offshoring jobs and paying poverty wages to those who may not have had wages at all. But enabling people to live on more than a dollar a day does not mean that fewer people live in poverty. Yes, poverty has been reduced in most areas of the world. But how much and at what price?
What we should note is that with the current form of capitalism being employed today, the Gini coefficients, when using an absolute, not relative, measures indicate that wealth disparity is increasing both within many capitalist nations, including the U.S., and between nations. And since power follows money, we should note that it isn't just wealth that is being consolidated under today's neoliberal capitalism, it is political power. And perhaps that is one reason why the U.S. is now classified as an oligarchy by some, rather than a democracy (see http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ). Let alone we should note the state of the world's environment, especially as it pertains to the climate since neoliberal capitalism has affected the climate.
And we should also note that not all nations that have seen a reduction in poverty employ capitalist economies. Though there are elements of capitalism in China's system, it can hardly be called a Capitalist economy.
This comment features just a sample of problems with the video that claims that Capitalism reduces poverty. Certainly not all experience it that way and some of those who do, pay a high price in other areas.
No comments:
Post a Comment