A Partial Return Of The Blog

I had to shutdown the blog for health concerns. I spent part of that time trying to get in the best shape for surgery, and now I am spending time recovering from surgery with which there were complications.

Last year, I spent quite a bit of time talking about the threat of the other pandemic: authoritarianism. That time was spent on this blog as well as in my comments on other blogs. The threat of authoritarianism around the world is real and growing. In the U.S., it is politically most pronounced in today's Republican Party, especially in its leaders like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It is also exhibited in groups like Moms For Liberty and results in many of the state laws passed regarding voting and gender transitioning. Religiously, it is most pronounced in those fellow religiously conservative Christians who are Christian Nationalists. Those working for such a nation are being driven by authoritarian sentiments more than by biblical concerns as seen in the sources they use to prove their claims.

In discussing authoritarianism, we can further define it by its alternative: democracy. For with authoritarianism comes hierarchy while with democracy comes equality. The hierarchy that comes with authoritarianism can manifest itself in terms of the power of a single leader, the power of a small group of elites, or the power of an ethnicity and/or an economic class. With the last classification comes the notion of a shadow nation. A shadow nation is where a given nation is seen as belonging more to one ethnicity and/or economic class than it belongs to the rest of its citizens. Evidence of a shadow nation can be seen in the laws passed by a nation's government. Do they favor a specific economic class more than the other economic classes? If so, and they do so here in America (click here and there), then we could classify a nation as a classocracy. If the laws passed by a nation give a privileged position to a given ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation so that there is a diminishing of the equal rights of other ethnic groups, there is an ethnocracy. Totalitarian regimes can also be ethnocracies and/or classocracies. There are at least two ethnic groups vying to establish an ethnocracy in America or parts of it: whites and every form of Christian Nationalism. And what makes every form of Christian Nationalism a Biblical problem is that it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position of 'lording it over others.' And it puts all of us Christians in the inevitable position having privilege and supremacy over the group to which we are to preach the Gospel. Is it unreasonable to suppose that many to whom we preach the Gospel will have already stopped listening because they first noticed the inferior position in society they have to us?

Starting this year, I will try to focus on the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below even with a partial return of the blog. It is partial because I will be posting at the most one article per week except for the first week. On the first week I will also post one article showing comments that were blocked on conservative blogs that same week. I will provide other posts like the one on blocked comments on a regular basis when I am able to.The King quote is below (click here for the source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. 

If we were to apply King's statement, we find that it speaks to us as individuals, to our institutions, to our businesses, financial institutions, and corporations, and to the nation as a whole. As consumers, we are so easily sold on the latest technological gadgets. We are also hyper aware of what our expenses, including taxes, are compared to our income. We are even more conscious of what others get, especially from the government, in comparison to what we receive. But we are not a monolith.

Some know all of the above from the perspective of deprivation. Others know it from a treading water status. While others know all of the above as the results of having done well  and some of them have succeeded by exploiting others. It is natural and right for those from the first two categories to speak out because they are doing so for survival. 

But what about those who done well? What about those including both individuals and businesses of all kinds who are wealthy? Do they have the right to complain when their taxes pay to assist those who are from the first two categories? Do they have the right to complain about paying taxes that would benefit the education of the children whose parents are from those first two categories? Do they have a right to complain when some fellow citizens work to change our economic structure so that there are fewer people who are either living in deprivation or are just treading water?

And for those who have done well, do they really think that their own charitable giving is enough? If they do, then they should read the next two quotes.

The first quote is from King. It is a continuation of the quote given above. King said (click here for the source):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

Now below is a quote from Vlad Lenin. Generally, I don't like Lenin. He acted as a prototype to Stalin and the structure of his government, as Rosa Luxemburg noted, was based on a bourgeoisie dictatorship model rather than a socialist one. But the following quote from Lenin coincides significantly with was just quoted from King (click here for the quote):

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation...But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze,   in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

Another way of saying what Lenin said is that, for many of the wealthy, charity can become an indulgence that removes the guilt that comes from either directly exploiting others or a system in which people are economically exploited. Again, charity is a bandaid used to cover the wounds of a the disease of economic exploitation. And so for the wealthy who would believe that giving charity is all that is morally required, they must realize that they need to go farther. They need to remove the structures and policies by which their abundance of wealth is due to taking advantage of others. 

And isn't that what King is saying too? It isn't enough to give charity and to help individuals or even groups. We need to change the structure of our economy so that there are fewer and fewer victims and beggars on the road on which we all travel in life. 

We should note that our current form of Capitalism, is not the form of Capitalism that was employed in America and around the world after WW II. That form was called the Bretton-Woods System. The Bretton-Woods System was a form of economics that, while employing a significant measure of Capitalism, gave national governments more control over their economies. And in a democracy, that translates giving the people, who elected those leaders, more control of their own economy.

Our current form of Capitalism, which was introduced to some nations through manufactured crises, is called Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism eliminated many of the powers that were reserved for the government. As a result, private investors, sometimes even those who are from other nations, gained more power in determining a given nation's economy. And many of those private investors religiously followed the maximize profit ethic, which is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all of its peers. And as a result, disparities in wealth and income, both between the economic classes and the races, have continued to increase for the past few decades. Can we now see how the economic road on which we all travel needs to be changed so that there are fewer people in need? 

BTW, we also need to see that Neoliberalism has both a domestic side and a foreign side. That distinction was made in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While Clinton favored trade agreements that would give more control of our economy to foreign investors, Trump favored tax and regulation cuts that gave American corporations and financial institutions more control over our economy. Only Trump successfully obscured the fact that he was still promoting a Neoliberal capitalism.

Not all in our society have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society rather than a person-oriented society. And not all who have preferred to be part of a thing-oriented society do so to the same degree.  Certainly the Democratic Party is a mixed bag in terms of caring more about people than it does about profits and property rights. Some third parties and individuals try to promote a person-oriented society to varying degrees.

In contrast to those who are working to advance a person-oriented society, there is Wall Street. Clearly, Wall Street favors profit motives and property rights over people as do many from corporate America. And here we should note that the "wokism" promoted by many in corporate America does not imply that a corporation is promoting a person-oriented society over a thing-oriented society. That is because many in corporate America can favor certain woke causes that do not interfere with the economic policies they lobby for that make profits and property rights more important than people's need to be able to earn livable wages, the needs that people have for government assistance, and/or regulations that protect people and the need to protect the environment.

The Republican Party under Trump has cared and continues to care much more about profits and property rights than it does about people. That was shown by the policies of Trump that decreased the financial and social responsibilities of corporations and financial institutions in order to increase their immediate profits. And their increase in profits also contributed to a spike in the deficit.

Today's Republican Party under Trump has become the political home for Cain when he rhetorically asked God, 'am I my brother's keeper'?Of course, one could retort that at least that such a question is Biblical, but it is Biblical in the same way of how Pharaoh treated the Hebrews who were being led by Moses. Despite that, today's Evangelical support for the Republican Party under Trump is continuing a conservative Church tradition over the past few centuries of siding with wealth and power. Such was done in France, Russia, and Spain before their respective revolutions. 

We should note that the Church paid dearly both during and after those revolutions. And the reputation of the Gospel has been harmed because of the oppression and abuses that were logical consequences of Christendom. Both Critical Theory and Post Modernism have accurately pointed out the failures that came with Christendom and other sources. That oppression from and brutal treatment by those who claim to have an exclusive knowledge of the truth is part of the history that Critical Theory and Post Modernism is directing our attention too. Sadly, neither Critical Theory nor Post Modernism have provided viable solutions to what Christendom wrought. And worse, those who want to bring back Christendom, with the promise that they can do domination right, are speaking louder and louder and are stirring up a growing audience because the Christians in that audience are in fear from anticipating the coming of a real persecution as secularism becomes more pervasive.

The New Testament tells us that 'the love of money is a root for all sorts of evil' (click I Timothy 6:10 for the source). That is true not just for the individual Christian, it is true for everyone. And it is true not just for individual people, it is true for businesses, corporations, financial institutions, society, and the nation. It's not that profits and property rights are not important, they are necessary for economic survival. It is that when gadgets, profit motives, and property rights are more important than people to our institutions, businesses, society, and nation, we are all forced to merge onto a highway leading to self-destruction.

At the same time, it is not enough to point out the failures of others. James 3 tells us that 'we all stumble in many ways.' Paul tells us in Romans 3:9 that both the person who denies the existence of God and the religious person are equal in sin and are thus in the same boat. And so to the best of our ability we need to point out those failures in the same way that we want others to point out our own failures. We need to point out those failures as fellow sinners. We need to point out those failures not as those who are morally superior to sinners or as a way of tearing others down, but as a way of offering an alternative way to live. We need to point out those failures not as authoritarians who are virtue-signaling by seeking to punish others. Instead, we need to point out those failures as peers in sin who want people to change for their own benefit so that they can be better than ourselves. I have not mastered that way of pointing out the faults of others. In fact I am still trying to begin to learn how to do that. At the same time, some things must be immediately pointed out.

So, hopefully, the importance of not just distinguishing a person-oriented society from a thing-oriented society will be the focus of this blog during this year, but the importance of promoting the former society over the latter one will also be emphasized.