T3

AIG and the Coming American Bastille Day

AIG, which is now 80% owned by the American taxpayer, just announced (USA Today, 10/14/09) that they will be distributing $198 million in retention bonuses to their financial services employees - the very group responsible for AIG's initial failure. We as people are being taxed to death, with absolutely no help for citizens in the midst of their financial struggles, yet the people who precipitated the mess are being supported by our elected officials with billions in bailouts. Wall Street has this country over the barrel! What will it take for we as Americans to make it known that we have had enough of Multinational Corporations buying our government off to do what they want, at the expense of average Americans? What avenues of recourse do we actually have as citizens anymore? Our government system is totally corrupt and broken. You can't even run for Congress as a citizen representative unless you have access to millions of dollars, and guess where you need to go to get that kind of money ... the big corporations. Our country is run by an elite club of lifetime politicians and corporate executives and our voices are shut out from any genuine influence in the process. Like 18th Century France, when the citizens finally realized that they were being taxed to death with no real representation by an elite Monarchy it ultimately led to the storming of the Bastille. The only language our government understands is money! What if a new American revolution were launched where one year, citizens en mass refused to pay their taxes? What of 50-100 million Americans put their tax money in trust until there was movement toward genuine reform and change. Could the IRS prosecute 50-100 million people in a single year? It is a better solution than taking up arms. This has become a moral and ethical issue of historic proportions. Our nation is so over its head in debt we will never get out unless there is revolutionary action on our part. If nothing happens, we have 50 years at best before we are forced to declare national bankruptcy and become a third-world economy beholden to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. We need to sober up!

Are We All Brain Dead!?

I am wondering what it will take before we as Americans rise up en mass to protest the absolute absurdity that is taking place in our country! Our Congress just signed the largest spending bill in the history of the world, and not a single one of them read the entire bill before voting on it. God only knows what is actually in it! The bailout bill of $800 Billion (which does not include the previous trillion and the trillions in the separate Bank bailout bill) is all borrowed money!! Does that concern anyone? It is absolutely immoral. Why are Christians not decrying this immorality? Economics is not somehow immune from biblical and theological scrutiny ... yet we as Christians seem to have no biblical response to what is going on. What we need to do in the face of this crisis is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! We need to allow the economy to naturally contract, which is what it has been desperately trying to do for the last 40 years; allow the consumer credit market to dry-up; begin living within our means and stop buying stuff we don't NEED with money we don't have; and begin caring about one another rather than simply looking out for number one.

Give Me a BREAK!

I wonder ... if you were a Citibank customer who fell on hard times, do you think they would offer to bail you out of your mess? Yet, they mismanage a huge corporation and then expect us to bail them out! There is something extremely wrong with what is going on economically today. whatever happened to economics for people, rather than economics for big, impersonal, irresponsible, arrogant, mismanaged corporations and their spoiled CEO's

Out of Touch with REALITY!

The Big Three automaker CEO came to Washington asking for a taxpayer handout - flying three separate corporate jets! If ever there was an example of why we are in the mess we are in, this is a perfect example. Multiply this insane example by thousands of similar CEO's, $52 million pitchers (like the Chicago Cub's Ryan Dempster), and millionaire ministers, and you begin to scratch the surface of the greed and self-interest that have served as the engine of a broken economic system.  Why is it we vote to approve taxpayer subsidized stadiums for pro sports teams and their insane multimillion dollar payrolls and wealthy owners - only to have the very same shaft us with unbelievable ticket prices! Shame on us! Why do we pay college football coaches millions of dollars to produce athletes who cannot write a complete sentence when they leave college? In many ways we only have oursleves to blame for the system that we have passively allowed to reel out of control. We need to make our voices heard and let the proponents of the status quo know that we are not going to allow it any longer. If no one showed up at the stadium, the ballpark or bought an American made car, maybe things would begin to change.

World on Fire!

Amy Chua, Professor of Law at Yale University entitled her penetrating and critically acclaimed 2004 book, “World on Fire.” According to Chua, the world is currently facing a plethora of burning issues on a global scale as never before.

 As this is being written Wall Street has just experienced one of its most devastating blows in decades with the bankruptcy of 150-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers, a venerable Wall Street institution. The failure has resulted in the loss of more than 25,000 jobs worldwide, jeopardized the financial stability of tens of thousands of individuals, sent stock markets around the world reeling, including the Dow Jones which saw its sixth largest drop in history – 504 points in one day, obliterating over $700 billion in wealth. Yet, as the financial chaos compounds, its CEO, Richard Fuld, waltzed away with more than $60 million in compensation.  Global insurance giant, AIG, Merrill Lynch, and other global financial institutions teeter on the brink. The world is on fire!

Today in South Africa, more than a decade after the end of apartheid, a child is orphaned every 30 seconds as a result of the rampant HIV/AIDS epidemic. Though the world celebrated Mandela’s peaceful revolution, which brought an end to more than half a century of brutal apartheid rule, before he or his ANC could take office, the outgoing National Party had negotiated away the economic future of the country, making a Faustian bargain with the shock doctrine proponents of Chicago School style, unbridled, free market economics, leaving the new government responsible for transformation, but economically powerless to bring it about. Today, for the vast majority of black Africans, the economic present is worse than the apartheid past.  The world is on fire!

In spite of more than enough resources to adequately care for every person on the planet, two thirds of the world’s inhabitants are forced to eek out an existence on two dollars a day or less. In this world of plenty, 30,000 children die every day around the globe from a lack of clean drinking water, while we in America care more about keeping our golf courses green and our suburban yards flourishing.  The world is on fire!

We live in a tinderbox of global conflict on an unprecedented scale where the slightest spark could fuel a conflagration the likes of which the world has never seen. The global community is in desperate need of profound reconciliation that strikes at the roots of conflict, not merely pontificating superficial political platitudes and posturing. Israeli versus Palestinian, Sunni versus Shiite, North Korea verses South Korea, the terrorists against the West; China verses Taiwan, and an Iran ambitious for nuclear capabilities versus the rest of an anxious world. The world is on fire!

As America faces its worst financial crisis in decades and recovers from the aftermath of two horrific hurricanes, all in the shadow of the somber 9/11 remembrance ceremonies, the candidates for the highest office in the land call each other names and debate who’s lying about who, as they conduct one the most childish campaigns in recent political history. The campaign would almost be comedic if it weren’t being played out against the backdrop of a world on fire – a world in desperate need of serious solutions to staggering problems. Yet it seems we are still content to fiddle while Rome burns.

In times Like These ...

Just reflecting on all the politicians wagging their tongues these days spouting banality such as, "In times like these we are united." What they are saying is that in the midst of such things as the 9/11 remembrance and the onslaught of hurricanes Ike and Gustav, there is no room for partisan bickering and petty political division which has become the norm in America. The sad reality is that every day,not only in America but around the world, there are burning issues facing us that can only be addressed from a place of unity and mutual respect and collaboration. Poverty, AIDS ( an African child is orphaned every 30 seconds because of AIDS!), Human Trafficking, Nuclear threats, political oppression in places like Zimbabwe, Darfur, Burma, North Korea, to name only a few. Conflict between Georgia and Russia, Palestinian and Israeli, Shia vs. Shiite, Terrorists vs. the West ... and the list could go on and on! And our politicians are so small-minded and idiotic that they think they are really doing something special when they halt their childish personal attacks to "come together" i n the face of tragedy. Someone should tell them that we live in a country and world that faces catastrophic issues every second of every day! Burning issues that will only be solved when we all come together and leave the pettiness of American politics behind for good!

Four World Social Innovation Forum

The 13th century village of Romainmotier Switzerland was the site of the Four World Social Innovation Forum outside of Geneva

Rejoining the Conversation

For a variety of reasons I have been on an extended hiatus from my blog, but have decided to rejoin the conversation - at least periodically. I have been doing a lot of travel for the Doctor of Ministry program I direct as well as for the Ph.D. Research I have been doing. In addition, my teaching load this Fall was barely survivable, so all extraneous involvements needed to be pruned. However, I have missed the daily - or at least weekly - posts I had gotten used to making. The discipline of posting served as a daily deadline of sorts, not unlike what I imagine a newspaper columnist must experience, providing the creative tension that serves as a catalyst for effective analysis and synthesis. And so, I welcome myself back!

Prophet Pat

The Rev. Pat Robertson says God has told him that storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America's coastline this year.The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network has told viewers of "The 700 Club" that the revelations came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January."If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8.He added specifics in Wednesday's show."There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said. Unfortunately, this is the image most Americans and Europeans have of Evangelical Christians. No wonder people flock to Oprah when they perceive Christianity to be the other option. I am convinced that this is one of the dangers of "Christian" television. To keep your audience, there always has to be something new and sensational, so why not a special message from our loving God about impending doom and destruction ... just in time for May sweeps!

Pastor Oprah

Last Thursday's USA Today carried an intriguing story about the power of being Oprah Winfrey and how many Americans (particularly women) see Oprah as a spiritual leader who is changing the world. Here is what actor/entertainer Jammie Foxx said as a guest on her show ...

Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey."

He told her she has "different gears" than most people. "You're on the top of the world, and we really do watch and listen for everything you do and say to kind of get our lives together. It's the truth."

In a November poll conducted at Beliefnet.com, a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture, 33% of 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons.

Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently suggested, "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?"

What do you think? Is Oprah America's new spiritual leader? Does the fact that 33% of 6,600 respondents say the Oprah has had a more profound impact on their lives than their clergy person say more about Oprah or about today's clergy person? Something to think about ...