The Clash Of Ironies

What America is plagued with today is war between the Immoral Right vs the Intolerant Left. This is the clash of ironies.

Btw, I hasten to add that my use of the term 'Left' is breaking one of my cardinal rules here. For I have always distinguished between Liberals and Leftists. But in the context of this discussion, the distinction does not necessarily hold.

Why is the battle between the Immoral Right and the Intolerant Left a class of ironies. It is simply because the conservatives have for a long time portrayed themselves as champions of moral values whereas the Left has portrayed itself as champions of tolerance--especially tolerance of the marginalized. And what do we see today? We see that because many conservatives have reduced the pro-life label to that of opposing abortion, it has embraced the breaking of other moral values such as the murder and theft that occurs in our wars and interventions as well as in our domestic policies that favor the wealthy over all others. And when Christians do this, they show a flagrant disregard for Church history. For in the past, when Christians, especially Christian leaders, align themselves with wealth and power, as they did just prior to the French, Russian, and Spanish Revolutions, they brought unnecessary persecution on the Church and greatly damaged the reputation of the Gospel.

Likewise, as the Left has often portrayed itself as champions of tolerance, quite lately it has shown itself to be highly intolerant of  free speech for conservatives. Here we should note that conservatives do have a significant amount to contribute to our nation's discussions on issues. However, the Left has used specific points of conservative hypocrisy and bad history to portray conservatives as a monolithic group. 

The American Left has no excuse for the above behavior because one of its past champions is Martin Luther King Jr. And painting an opposing group as a monolith and then not allowing them to say their peace in public is not something that King would do. But then again, today's Left, is, for the most part, devoid of any disciplined study of King. And with that, the Left has joined conservatives in making any remembrance of King merely superficial, symbolic, and self-serving.

Unfortunately because the Left is correct in accusing the Right of immorality and the Right is correct in accusing the Left of intolerance, they both have an extra reason for ignoring the charges being brought against them besides the plague of tribalism. That those legitimate charges against the other has destroyed the ability of the members of each group from engaging in self-criticism.

Neither group can win this clash. For in fighting each other while denying the truth about themselves, it is the rest of us who turn out to be losers. That is because such fighting turns too many of us off from even wanting to learn about the issues promoted by each group. And because each group also has valid concerns, when we ignore the concerns of one or both group, we only ensure that we will be ignorant of our own demise until it is too late.

Of course there is one more irony. That in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that we seem to stuck in our ways to adapt to an ever changing future.





 

The Political Defining Of Social Problems

Imagine if the game of baseball allowed for a variable strikezone where the strikezone for each batter was determined by each batter's own wheelhouse. Well, that is analogous to how our political leaders and their entourages define and address many of today's social problems. These problems are described only in terms of how each side sees its own strengths. 

For liberals, their strong suit is government and so our many of our most prominent social problems are defined by what government can do to address them. For conservatives, especially religious ones, their claim to fame is promoting personal responsibility. And thus they define our social problems by how individuals must change themselves in order to be more responsible. And since laws often fail to produce those changes, conservatives often resist using legislation to address many of our social problems.

So when we see a problem like gun violence. Liberals define the problem by what gun control laws could be passed while, on the other hand, conservatives reject the liberal definition and solution and opt for viewing the problem as one that revolves solely around  individual responsibility. Those who are responsible follow the existing gun laws while there is nothing anyone can do to prevent those who are irresponsible from breaking the existing laws. Thus, if there is nothing one can do regarding gun violence, it is no longer considered to be a social problem.

Now of course, liberals don't approach all  problems by using government control nor do conservatives do the same by appealing to individual responsibility. Abortion and the same-sex marriage crisis has shown us that. 

In addition, there are some areas where what is perceived as the wheelhouse for both liberals and conservatives is shared. Consider many of today's world problems. Because of their reliance on the power of our military, a good number of both liberals and conservatives define most foreign problems and, of course, threats strictly in terms of our possible military response.

So what we see in our elected officials and their respective political parties and ideological affiliations is a trend. Though their strikezone may vary from issue to issue, it is based solely on what they consider their strengths or our greatest resources to be. As a result,  we end up with elected officials and their cohorts who do not listen to and/or play well with others. In addition, their attempted solutions to our problems tend to be shortsighted and unbalanced and thus producing more problems than they solve. And why does this happen? It is because our elected officials and friends will acknowledge no other strikezone than what they consider to be their own wheelhouse. Thus, all other pitches are not worthy to be swung at.

What does all of this lead to? It leads to a barometer test for all candidates and some others.  If people are seeking power, this includes but is not restricted to elected offices, they might be using their definitions of social problems as a way to get that power. Thus, the more one excludes the concerns and thinking of others on a given set of social problems, the more one claims to provide the only solution to those problems and thus the only one who can solve our social problems. This is as true with conservatives and Republicans as it is with liberals and Democrats as well as with all others.

To give an example from my leftist perspective, Marx called for the proletariat to replace the bourgeoisie in ruling over others. He did this because he reduced all social problems to that of being caused by the bourgeoisie and their control of the state and society. So Marx called for a proletariat dictatorship and, of course, the only way to wrestle power away from the bourgeoisie was for the proletariat to conduct revolutions. Many who followed Marx identified with either the actual proletariat or some idealized notion of who they should be. Thus, people like Lenin and Stalin used Marx to seek power for themselves and their scapegoating the proletariat was not just the way they interpreted the status quo, it was their way of pursue power for themselves.

Those who advance the Free Market or who oppose gun control work in a similar way as just mentioned in that they defined the social problems associated with unregulated markets or gun violence as problems revolving around individuals being personally responsible. This allows them to gain power by appealing to those who stand to gain from a lack of government oversight. Those who state that the problems that arise from a lack of regulations on both our financial markets and the purchasing and owning of weapons played the other side of the same coin. They gained their power by appealing to those who, though may not have understood the characteristics of good regulations, would follow any candidate promising to pass laws to regulate the markets and the purchase and ownership of weapons.

Those who claim to have a monopoly on understanding our social problems usually have one-dimensional views of our problems such as illustrated by the above examples. Yes, legitimate gun ownership involves being a responsible individual, but we need limits to partially control the actions of those who are not responsible people. Thus, we need to balance individual responsibility with reasonable gun control laws.

And yes, we need the protection of private property in order to be successful in the business world. But the business world has responsibilities to the other parts of society and thus property rights must be balanced with regulations that control how businesses  treat other businesses people as well as the rest of us. In addition, businesses must pay for the infrastructure resources they consume which are provided by the state and society. Such includes paying for the kind of humane society in which businesses can be successful and that includes helping those in need.

So the one word that is not sponsoring the campaigns of those seeking power is the word 'balance.' In other words, many of our social problems require that we define and approach them using the concerns of multiple perspectives. Thus the word 'balance' applies because we mix and match competing concerns and perspectives. For example we have to allow for property rights, regulations, and taxes when creating laws and a cultural ethic toward conducting business. And often, achieving balance requires that we surrender some of the power we would use to advance our own agenda.

So from all what has been written here, are there any candidates for public office from either the 3rd parties, the Republicans, or the Democrats who are applying a balanced approach in both defining our social problems as well as in proposing solutions to them? If you know of any, please leave a comment on this blogpost.


  

Should Revolutions Include The Writing Off Of Moral Debts

In an interview with Euronews, Noam Chomsky stated that the Greek debt should be forgiven (click here). The failure to do so, as Brussels is doing, hurts Greece. We should note here that for practical purposes, Brussels serves as the financial capital of the European Union. 

We should understand that one of the reasons why some believe that the Greek debt should be forgiven has to do with the tradeoffs between Greece paying off such a large debt and having the debt forgiven. Only the latter, according to some, allows Greece to have hope for the future. Other than that, the debt is too stifling for Greece to both pay it off and to grow economically. 

Using Greece's need as a model, those of us who clamor for revolution need to ask ourselves this question: Should we call on the public to punish those we blame for the world's ills or should we recognize that, owing such a high moral debt to the world, we need to encourage such people to feel free in having a change of heart by being willing to forgive them for their past sins and abuse of power? That instead of looking to give those we blame what we think they deserve, we should dream that they should have a change in heart and join us. Why shouldn't we let many sinful bygones be bygones if those who sin against us are willing to change? And if we remove the threat of punishment for past sins, we might make it easier for at least some elites to go through a change in heart.

Every group has scapegoats for what is wrong with the world. Those on the Right conflate liberals and leftists into one group and blame society's ills on their relative morality, lack of personal responsibility, and atheism.  Liberals tend to blame those on the Right for their imposition of personal religious values on society as well as the Right's support of business. And those of us on the Left blame the Rich. In each case, to win, the scapegoat must be overcome and conquered. But in addition, there is the implication that evil will stop when one's own group is in charge. History does not share that assessment. Sometimes we need our opponents to provide a check on us and our designs.

Rather than working with the current divisions of the Left, Liberals, and Conservatives, perhaps we should start with the division Martin Luther King Jr did. In his speech against the Vietnam War, King specified one of the real divisions between people when he said:

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.

That division is between those who are thing-oriented and those who are person-oriented. Also note what King regards as being thing-oriented from that which is person-oriented. Finally, the orientations King identifies shows one of the major divisions between people.  

The emphasis on the individual and one's property rights is championed by those on the Right. And we need to help those on the Right to see that progress cannot be first measured by profit, buildings, and possessions. 

Liberals need to see that mere modifications of the current system that so favors property rights can never produce a society that becomes person-oriented. 

At the same time, we need to add a further distinction for both the Left and the Right. That distinction is between those who are ideological-oriented and those who are person-oriented. For a danger that is faced by both those on the Left and the Right is the ability to scapegoat and even dehumanize those who do not follow one's own ideology. The part of Leftist ideology that blames the Rich and sees them as being incapable of changing implies that we should treat the Rich as being less than human. And the part of the ideology of the Right that regards all who are nonconservatives as being moral lepers does the same.

When we believe that others have nothing to contribute or cannot change, we begin to give ourselves permission to regard and even treat them as being less than ourselves. This is why we cannot afford not to try to win our opponents over. And in winning them over, we should not necessarily try to win them over to our particular ideology--for me that would be a Leftist ideology. Rather, we should try to win them over to being person-oriented rather than thing-oriented or ideological-oriented. That though things and ideologies are important, we need to regard people, whether they side with us or not, as being most important.  And we cannot regard people as being most important if we feel compelled to conquer them. 

Yes, there might be a time where we should seek democratic controls over the behavior of those who insist on putting things or ideologies before people. But we must first and continually try to win over such people.

We know that the moral debt some have incurred from how they treat others is too high for them to admit their sins. And the more we insist that such people pay that debt, the more defensive they become. At this point, we must remember how we have all treated others unjustly. We should also think about how we would want to be reached out to if our moral debt for how we have treated others was exorbitant. It is with this in mind that we need to personally engage our opponents and invite them to change. We need to help them see that for all of us to survive, we must put people first.

The Real Dr King Is The One Telling Us To Change

Martin Luther King Day has just past and you know what that meant. It meant that he, like other cultural icons and authority figures, was remade and shaped so that if he were alive today, he would jump on the bandwagon of our concerns and causes rather than inviting us to join his. That is because he is in an elite group of people, like Jesus and Gandhi, whom we use to make us look better rather than study so we can become better. Thus, the irony here is that King has become so important that, in death, he has lost control of who he was. Instead, we must be in charge here. For if we are not, we would have to change to save face. So we must preside over what he looked like by painting revisionist portraits him. Some of these paintings show parts of him missing or amputated while others so disfigure him that his likeness will be barely recognizable if at all.  

Who was Martin Luther King Jr? King was a man of three messages, two methods, and one theme. He had a message for each of the three evils which he could identify in his time and he saw these monstrosities as being intertwined. In other words, one couldn't pick and choose when addressing these crimes and still do justice to King's message.

Against Racism

Of course, King's first message was against racism. We have heard this and yet we often act as if we have not. Some of us will point with pride about how we no longer harbor prejudice against Blacks but we seem very fearful of Muslims and Arabs. And many of us are very accepting of all Israeli actions against the Palestinians while being so critical of their resistance while others will do just the opposite.

And if we don't discriminate against others based on race, we'll find other reasons. The current cultural war over same-sex marriage yields slippery slope arguments that make horrendous and fallacious comparisons between gays and others. These comparisons say more about those making them than about their targets. 

And if our bigotry is not based on race or sexual orientation, then we feel free to zero in on people because of their ideologies. In particular, we wear the labels of 'Conservative,' 'Liberal,' and 'Leftist' so hard and tight that we claim that there is nothing to be learned from the other groups. In other words, many non-Conservatives believe that the Conservative view of personal morality could not contribute to society. And many Conservatives fear that the Liberal's view of those with wealth sharing benefits with those in need will kill our economy, freedoms and our morality. And Capitalists believe that all Leftists, because of their opposition to capitalism and support for collectivism, support tyrannical regimes such as those that existed in the Soviet Union or Red China. Nobody believes that those from the other groups have nothing to contribute to any politico-economic discussion.

Chris Rock said something to the effect that those who are conservative or liberal in everything belong to gangs (click here). Their minds are made up before listening to the issues and thus they are acting on blind loyalty. And Mr. Rock could not be anymore correct. Those who are prejudiced against people from other ideologies need to hear King's speech against the Vietnam War (click here for quote) when he spoke about the following:

The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

So each group paints the others as monoliths and thus they see no need to listen to them. Yes, as a Leftist I have strong disagreements with Conservatives and Liberals about politics and the economy, but does that mean that I can't learn anything from them? The Conservative emphasis on personal morality can help raise our society upwards though their judgmental attitude against those who live by different standards tears apart societies and countries by allowing for the persecution of others. And the Liberal emphasis on a more libertarian society with regard to personal morality allows for some to overlook the humanity of the unborn and for others to look down on or even persecute Conservatives. And the Leftist opposition to Capitalism pushes some to see no redeeming qualities in either Conservatives or Liberals.

Thus, too many of us think that as long as the Black person is not a target of our fear and scorn, that we have healed ourselves of racism and bigotry. Those who think that way are in too much of a hurry to justify themselves and show either an inability or reluctance to escape literalism. 

Against Economic Injustice

King did not preach against racism alone, he also spoke against economic injustice. He believed that we should have a guaranteed national income that lifted everybody from poverty. He believed in non-poverty wages for full-time work. But such are rather concrete ideas. His ideas of racial equality spread to his ideas of the economy and personal dignity. Overall, he was against an impersonal economy that revolved around consolidation of wealth by some and the distraction caused by new technology all of which is at the expense of people in general and the poor in particular. And when King talked about the poor, though he mentioned them by race, he didn't divide them that way. He considered all of the poor to be his brothers and sisters.

We should note that when King talked about economic injustice, he described it in speeches where he also spoke against both racism and violence. We can see this in his speeches from 1957 to 1968. We should also note what Martin Luther King Jr was doing when he was assassinated. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, campaigning for economic justice for the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. 

What King said about economic justice challenges everybody. To the Liberals who try to legislate benefits and to the Conservatives who put all of the impetus for escaping poverty on the poor, which basically blames only the poor for their poverty, King declares that we also need to examine the edifice that puts people into poverty. That means that we shouldn't just accept the status quo, but that we should be willing to change the current economic system. And it isn't just our system, it is our basic ethic of putting people last before money and things which needs to reordered.

But with all of this, Leftists, like myself, can't assume that our system will provide enough of a fix. For Leftists who believe in worker-owned and democratically run workplaces, without a spirit of collectivism in the people, we could end up with similar results to what we have today. People might then ask, what good is the Leftist position? The Leftist position of extending democracy to places like where people work disperses power rather than consolidates it. The dispersing of power keeps exceptionally abled individuals from accumulating it and thus helps prevent them from using power to abuse others. The extension of democracy provides a structural checkpoint for wealth and power that the current system cannot do.

So we should note here that to understand what King was saying about economic injustice we must realize that no particular side or ideology can claim to have a monopoly on representing his views or to be above reproach.

Against Militarism

Much of what King said against militarism can be found in his speech against the Vietnam War (click here). It is here that, going back to economic injustice, he said that when profits, machines, and property rights are more important than people, then the evils of racism, "extreme materialism," and militarism cannot be defeated. That was toward the end of his speech. Toward the beginning of his speech he stated that those who honored him for his fight against racism but were perplexed over his opposition to the War never knew him. Why?

King listed most of his reasons in that speech. He knew that the more that was spent on the military and the war, the less that would be spent on helping those in need at home. He was against militarism because the war he opposed asked Blacks and Whites to kill, be wounded, and be killed together. He opposed militarism because it provided a role model for resorting to violence to solve problems to the young men in our cities. He opposed the Vietnam War because it sickened America's soul and compromised any integrity we claim to have for life. He opposed militarism and the Vietnam War because he believed in the brotherhood of man regardless of their nation, race, or creed. And he believed in this brotherhood because he believed that Christ died for His enemies. But he also opposed war and militarism because of the ominous future such brought us in the nuclear age.

King stated that we now of a choice between "nonviolence or nonexistence" in both 1960 and 1968 (click here and there). He picked nonviolence not just for how we should protest and promote social causes, but for how nations conduct themselves too. And it is in this latter sense that we see where King opposed militarism.

In addition to his 3 messages, King restricted himself to using two methods in promoting his causes. Those two methods were trying to win over his opponents and to be involved.

Winning Over Opponents

The goal for King's activism and words were not just to win concessions, but to facilitate reconciliation and win friendship, as was stated in the Montgomery Bus Protests (click here). The goal was not just to gain rights and dignity that were long denied to Blacks; it was to bring Blacks and Whites together in the spirit of brotherhood. This is the essential reason why King chose nonviolence. For even when violence wins the day, it causes bitterness and resentment afterwards. 

All of this is because for King, the enemy did not consist of the people who were enforcing an unjust system, but the spirit of the system itself. King wasn't battling Whites but injustice. And as much as the Left would love to adopt King as its own, this is where we have fallen dreadfully short, at least we have in the Occupy Movement.

In separating the 1% from the 99%, our goal was to conquer rather than to win over the 1%. This is where King would confront and oppose us. And he would do that, not because we were wrong about what 1% was doing, but because we wanted to defeat and humiliate them. As a result, they used their resources to shut down the encampments and to carry on as usual with little public opposition. The Left's message was correct in analysis but dreadfully wrong in design. The design flaw was that the Left tried to create an extended democracy for the 99% only. A full democracy requires 100% of the people. And though we have had some legal victories here and there, the status quo remains and the global downward spiral continues.

Central to King's goal of winning people over was his preaching against violence. But King upped the ante here. He did that by opposing two kinds of violence. King opposed the most obvious kind of violence, external violence. Such is easier to do than what King added to the subject of nonviolence. King added that we must abstain from internal violence. He said that we cannot even afford to hate or insult those who are hurting us. Why? First, such people deserve dignity because they are people. Second, it is because we cannot castigate others and win their friendship at the same time. Again, King's strategy in defeating unjust systems was to be reconciled and win friendship. This did not mean that his tactics relied on libertarianism. He felt that the law was important in controlling the behavior of those who would not control themselves. But the end game was to win people over.

To Be Involved

We could summarize King's other method for promoting his messages was to get everybody involved. Those who did nothing were complicit in the evil of the status quo. Martin Luther King Jr. stated that when he said (click here for quote):

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

King also stated this principle when he interpreted Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan (click here). King understood the reaction of the priest and the Levite as being "what will happen to me" if, on this dangerous road, I stopped to help this man. According to King, the Good Samaritan reversed the question. The Good Samaritan got involved because he dared to ask, "what will happen to him," if he neglected the man who was beaten and robbed. This kind of thinking went into King's discussion of the poverty of India (click here) and how we are all interrelated.

There are a number of ways to be involved with those in need and individuals from all of the groups mentioned here do help others. And though we don't see eye-to-eye on what that involvement should consist of, we should acknowledge how those who are from other groups try to help those in need. Perhaps this is another reason why we should not look to conquer others.

King's One Theme

We could sum up King's messages and methods into one very short statement. That statement is: Everybody counts. This everybody includes the wealthiest of the 1% to the poorest of the 99%. It includes everybody from one's own creed to everybody from all of the other creeds. It includes everybody from one's own race to everybody from all of the other races. And, what should be noted in our present time, it includes everybody from one's own ideology to everybody from all of the other ideologies. The same is true about those from different nations.

That King's theme of everybody counting does not mean that the road together or our dialogue will always be smooth and conflict-free. But this theme should be our theme too even when we realize that nobody carries out this theme perfectly, not even King carried out this theme perfectly. Nonetheless, that is the theme of his message and those who would use a partial or distorted picture of King so as  to get street cred for being like him need to be corrected. But those who correct others must also realize that to encounter the real Martin Luther King Jr. is to be confronted with a myriad of one's own personal and group's faults. This is true for every person and every group.

One Man's Dream Is Another Man's Nightmare

The good news is this week is the 50th anniversary of the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom. But the same is also bad news because of how we use Martin Luther King's words. For rather than letting his words challenge our hearts to change, we use his words to exercise our fingers. Yes, unfortunately, it seems that many of God's children in America, Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats, and children of all colors, creeds and classes, use King's teachings to point the finger of blame at their opponents while raising the finger of pride because of their inflated views of themselves.

Before his speech, King was introduced as "the moral leader of America." But it is the approach of the pharisee from Jesus's parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14) who interprets a message from a great moral leader as a personal communiqué of congratulations.  And, to adapt the words of Spock, it is only human arrogance that would assume that voices appealing to values and principle can condemn others only. But this is how King is celebrated by many today. Too many who commemorate him on birthdays and anniversaries are the self-righteous who claim to share his dream while King would call their dreams his nightmares.

In his 1967 book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?, King summarized what he had been saying all along. He said that as long as things, profits, and property rights were more important than people, we could never abolish the real threats to our well-being. Those threats are "racism, materialism, and militarism." Note that each of these threats is an ism that possesses those who embrace them which leads them to oppress, threaten, and kill. And also use King's criteria listed here when examining the claims of following King's Dream made by others. Do they value things, profits, and property rights more than people or do put the welfare of others first?

What my fellow Leftists and Occupy Movement members and I must remember about King is that as much as he had opposed the previously mentioned threats, he had a passion for winning over his opponents as well as preaching against and abstaining from using violence, both external and internal. These passions of King are where we have failed horribly. Whether it is by our war of words waged against the police or the scapegoating of the 1 percent, not only have we shown ourselves to be ignorant of King's words and spirit, we have preferred targeting opponents for wrath rather than trying to change the world by longing for their repentance and conversion. And though we might legitimately lack affection for those who have brutalized us with batons and slandered us with false accusations, trying to win our opponents over is a mandate from King's dream, not an alternative strategy. 

And by scapegoating the 1 percent, we have sabotaged our efforts to make a new world possible. For a new world must include 100 percent of the people and not just 99 percent. In addition, though we might not be caught up in the sins of the 1 percent, we should not conclude that we are better people. It could be that we are innocent of those sins because we lacked opportunity. 

Regardless of why we don't share the sins of the 1 percent, we should note that we have sins of our own and thus need the compassion and patience of others to continue to change. And if that is what we need from others, shouldn't we show the same to our adversaries without compromising our message and diluting the legitimate complaints we have?

This approach of exercising compassion to win over the 1 percent may seem counterintuitive to what is needed to get what we want. For historically speaking, elites who abuse the rest must be compelled by pressure and demands in order to change. But why must we make winning over and pressuring to compel change an exclusive-or choice? Why can't we try to win over whom we can and peacefully pressure the rest?

To the conservatives who have either claimed to join King's cause or attempted to provide expert testimony as to why King's dream has failed, I would like to ask these questions. How much of King have you read? Do you realize that for as long as you make the plight of Blacks King's only concern, you have adorned his vision with myopia? 

And have you read his statements on economic justice? Do you realize why he predicted that the programs of "social uplift" initiated by President Johnson would fail? Do you know that, according to King, they started to fail when LBJ escalated the war in Vietnam? Did you know that King believed in a guaranteed income for all? Do you really think it was welfare, which would be supported by King, by itself that hurt Blacks and not the absence of additional programs that kept Blacks down?

Furthermore, why are you silent about the role that the private sector has played in sabotaging King's dream? Do you really believe that King himself would be a supporter of neoliberal capitalism  regardless of the content of the character of its managers? Haven't you noticed from the outsourcing of jobs, the exploitation of foreign labor, and the destruction of the environment, that when you maximize profits, you sacrifice people? And have you ever read King's criticism of capitalism in general? He said that that capitalism denies the reality of collectivism.

Neoliberal capitalism, which is the capitalism du jour, seeks to sever almost all social, economic, and moral responsibilities of both big business and the rich from the rest of society. At the same time, it seeks to prohibit government from serving its people so that private sector elites can profit by filling the void. Were these disconnections ever a part of King's dream? What did King say about things and profits being more important than people? And how does the neoliberalism inspired disregard for the environment fit into King's dream? How does free-trade policies that destroy the ability of smaller nations to produce their own food by forcing their local farmers to compete with our subsidized Big Agribusiness fit into King's dream?

And what about all of the wars you supported in the name of patriotism? Did you think King was bragging or lamenting when he called the U.S. government the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world"? How could those who share King's dream so wantonly wage war let alone do so while declaring that they are accountable to nobody? And how could those who share King's dream justify a rush to war based on lies? Didn't you read where King told us that our choice is not between "violence and nonviolence" but between "nonviolence and nonexistence"?

But we have to give some conservatives credit for stressing the importance of personal morals. And we have to give all conservatives credit for not being liberals. For most of what can be said about conservatives and their love for neoliberal capitalism can also be said about liberals except that liberals try to cover their tracks. And this is why liberals bear a greater judgment than conservatives. For while liberals consistently claim to champion King's dream, they disguise their passionate embrace of neoliberal capitalism and American imperialism by tossing a few social justice issue bones out to us dogs just to prove that they are a faithful master. 

But consider the attacks on the Occupy encampments, the war on whistleblowers, the expanded wars in the Orient with its climbing civilian death toll, America's increasing imperial reach into Africa, the forever failed promises to close Gitmo, the failure to criminally prosecute those from the financial institutions who committed fraud and money laundering, and the soaring claims to more authority and power paired with the even greater urge to void themselves of accountability. When liberals combine all of that with their love of neoliberal capitalism, realize that they are using a magic mirror when they tell themselves that they and King have the same dream.

We all have questions of conviction to consider when we read or listen to King's messages. We all have questions because we have all played sabotaging roles in derailing The Dream. Sure, some of us have also contributed to The Dream's realization. But if we are honest, we must admit that all of us have too many failures to point the finger of blame at others only.  I know for myself that how I conduct myself in debates, especially on blogs, sometimes employs an internal violence that King opposed. I also need to be more involved with people in the area where I live. 

If we really want to realize King's Dream, the first step we will take will be to look at our own failures and sins. And then we can reach out to help our fellow saboteurs who are also failing.

Why I Am Taking My Christian Fundamentalist Views Into The Voting Booth

All too often, we have heard an undiscerning, one rule fits all mantra against religion and politics. That rule says that religion and politics don't mix except for the extremists. It matters not whether the extremist is a Christian, Jew, or Muslim;  one cannot afford to vote with one's faith.

There is good reason to join in the chant. For we see the effects of many who do vote according to their religion. And the first effect we see is intolerance. Those who are of a different faith than that of those in power all too often suffer oppression. This is as true in the West as it is in the East. It is true whether  the religion of those in power is Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. When religion dominates politics, people suffer.

In America, a legitimate fear is expressed by those who are afraid that Conservative Christians will run the country on "Biblical" values. These values cannot be reduced to a particular abortion position. This is because there are some Conservative Christians who want to dictate how the poor will or will not be helped, what rights those who have different religious beliefs can have, what gender can marital partners be, and what foreign policies we should pursue. Some legitimate concerns cause others to claim that such Conservative Christians makeup the "Christian Taliban" referring to the harsh and brutal Taliban rule that existed in countries like Afghanistan.

But those who want religion and politics to separate might be wearing blinders here. For one only needs to point out that the political reforms that Martin Luther King advocated were based on his religious views. And who could object to laws based on King's belief in equality and the dignity of human life?

So for many nonconservatives, it is important to note that the religious values that they wish not to control the law of the land are conservative religious values. So where does that put a religious conservative like me?

I will only quickly comment on a few Scriptures and how they, IMO, obligate us to advance certain kinds of policies. The first Scriptures we should consider are Isaiah chapters 58 and 59. Chapter 58 tells us how it isn't the shortage of religious ritual behavior that concerns God, it is that this behavior has been used as a veneer to coverup living selfishly rather than living selflessly. Isaiah 58 tells us that people practice fasting, but it is not to the glory of God. In contrast to merely fasting or following other practices, God wants His people to take care of those in need. To do so is to experience personal salvation. To continue to live selfishly is to promote the distopia rid of all justice described in chapter 59. "Truth has fallen in the streets" because everybody seeks to use deception in administering the law.

How should Isaiah chapters 58 and 59 determine whom I vote for? It is rather simple. It determines the key question I will ask before voting. This question is not am I better off than I was four years ago. Rather, the question for the Christian, like myself, must become are the least of these better off than they were four years ago.

One way to answer the latter question is to quip, if misery loves company, then the answer must be yes. This is because we have more people who are living in or near the poverty level since Obama has become president. And we should only note that, in 2008, candidate Obama never expressed a concern for the poor. His claim to fame was to be a defender of those in the Middle Class though he was more dependent on the upper class for campaign contributions.

Isaiah chapters 58 and 59 are all too clear. That until we go out to help those who are in need, regardless of our religious claims about ourselves, we are in darkness. And at this point, we need to consider what Martin Luther King said when talking about the Vietnam War. He stated that it was not enough that we toss a little money to those in need. We must challenge the system that causes all of the hardship.

If what King said is valid, how can I vote for any Republican or Democratic candidate who wants to maintain the current socio-economic system that makes so many people suffer? For most of the Republicans are in favor of making the current system even more coldhearted than it is today. Meanwhile, Democrats only want to take the edge of the current system rather than changing it. Thus I will vote for either the Socialist candidate, Stewart Alexander, or the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.  No other candidates want to make the necessary changes to the current system that put the right priority on those in need Alexander and Stein.

Likewise, I will use my Christian Fundamentalist beliefs to dictate what foreign policies my country should have too. What beliefs am I talking about here? I am thinking specifically of the 2nd chapter of Romans where we are warned not to judge others because we are practicing similar, if not the same, sins.

Many times has Noam Chomsky described the above problem with regard to U.S. policies. Specifically, Chomsky states that we must follow the principle of universality by refraining from doing to others what we consider them doing to us is wrong. That is, we must all abide by the same set of rule. Such a view faces off the belief in American Exceptionalism.  And here again, I find that my Fundamentalist beliefs preclude me from voting for either Romney or Obama because both believe in such exceptionalism. In fact, a belief in American Exceptionalism  has deceived President Obama into believing that he can create a kill list that he can use to execute anyone else without sinning.

Certainly Obama is not the only candidate who believes in American Exceptionalism, Romney might even prescribe to a stronger belief than Obama. That means that Romney could very well conduct even more egregious sins than Obama has.

There are other religious beliefs to consider than the two I just mentioned. But they seem sufficient. For if I carry these religious beliefs with me into the voting booth, I will be required to vote for someone other than anyone who belongs to the two major parties