Outward Journey / Inward Journey

Hello folks.  So I’ve finally gotten around to setting up a new blog.

Brooklyn Street Theology.

This blog is closed to business.  Please update your links!

First, I would like to note that due to my own sloth and lack of a computer (the latter situation being now rectified; the former, probably not so much) I haven’t blogged at all lately.  Sorry about that.  Furthermore, I have arrived at the conclusion that the general ‘theme’ of this blog suits me no more.  I originally set this up so I would have a place to post my writings and findings as I attempted to discern God’s vocation for me as I kibbitzed about the country.  Hence ‘Outward Journey, Inward Journey.’

However I have arrived at a point both inwardly and physically (wonderful dichotomy, that) where I feel that I have by God’s grace am better able to discern and live into what I feel He is calling me to over the next significant portion of my life.  I am no longer moving around the country, and my living situation now is such that I am able to start laying the groundwork for a new church development.  In short, I am now living in a radical community in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, and the ways in which a church plant will materialize are quickly being revealed to me.  This new life situation has prompted me to reconsider whether this blog now suits my needs, and my answer is ‘no.’  Soon, I will be launching another blog, probably entitled ‘Bushwick Street Theologian.’  I will post a link thereto when the time comes.

Secondly, I want to write about capitalism’s present crisis.  Clearly, it is possible to surmise that capitalist interests are the beneficiaries of economic precarity.  High unemployment causes lower labor costs and higher margins for the parasitic class of bosses, who, producing nothing, command and control the means of production. Furthermore the current crisis has been transparently a means through which capital has been redistributed upwards — while the banksters cut jobs and foreclose, they pay themselves billions of dollars in executive bonuses from federal monies.  The claims that Obama is promoting ’socialism’ are farcical, if by socialism we mean the redistribution of wealth to the working class.

Even though the Recession itself is being manipulated by capital to suit its own ends, nevertheless I am hopeful.  In fact with each new twist in the downturn, with each bank loss totaling billions of dollars, every time the stock market takes yet another significant plunge, I react with some glee. Why? Because it opens up the opportunity to the anti-capitalist movement to significantly escalate our tactics. Indeed, I believe that measured escalation must be the principal goal at the moment. Specifically I think that eviction and foreclosure resistance would be a particularly fruitful tactic right now. Falling city and state budgets will lead to decreases in police budgets, leaving them less able to enforce the will of banks and landlords, and rising public anger will make them less inclined to do so. We should be developing ad hoc direct action networks of people to turn up at a home slated for eviction, occupying the house, thereby protecting the family who would otherwise lose their home. The worse the economic crisis becomes, the more people will be subject to this fate, and the more angry and radicalized the public will become.

It is only a small step from eviction-resistance and widespread squatting to the occupation of workplaces in the same manner as the occupations of 1968 France (although we should not fall into the trap of making reformist demands that they did), in which 10 million workers, from students to astronomers, occupied their workplaces in solidarity with the student revolt in Paris. Eviction-resistance also, if widespread, could lead to the organization of armed neighborhood defense committees. The former would be a giant leap forward in seizing the means of production from the bosses for the producing workers. The latter would establish at least semi-permanent autonomous zones from which the power of the capitalism-propagating State would be excluded.

As I stated, I believe the Recession poses an opportunity which we may not see again in our lifetimes. The longer it lasts, the better, for it allows for us to purposefully organize, and the more prone to radicalization people will become. Likewise, the deeper the Recession gets, the more opportunity to radicalize entire sectors of the public.

There are also signs that the anti-capitalist movement may actually, contrary to all past expectations (!) be rising to meet the challenge. For instance the Left Forum here in New York actually seems successful in bringing together communists of various varieties, democratic socialists, and anarchists together to the same event. This is an accomplishment.

Further, I believe that a sustained attack on capitalism will be tremendously powerful if the Christian Church is able to come to terms with the fact that capitalism’s ills are the direct result of its flawed and inherently sinful foundation: ones of greed, pride, idolatry, oppression of the poor, and the failure to recognize the inherent dignity of every human person. It is irreformable because these dreadful vices are inherent to it: without them the entire intellectual and economic system tumbles. The Church has been held in bondage by the ideology that a humane capitalism is possible: the idea is contradictory because the moment the economic system begins to be truly humane (rather than making pantomimes of humanity), it ceases to be capitalism.

Let us strive on, demanding that our political and economic system strive toward the model of the eschatological Kingdom of God, which although we are unable to achieve and which will be the work of God, we can use as our example and inspiration. Organize, agitate, escalate. Organize, agitate, escalate.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.

-Buenaventura Durriti

“This is your farewell kiss, you dog.
And this is for the widows, the orphans, and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Thx @ Talking Points Memo for pointing out this interesting op-ed from the Los Angeles Times:

But there is another rendition of the story of modern conservatism, one that doesn’t begin with Goldwater and doesn’t celebrate his libertarian orientation. It is a less heroic story, and one that may go a much longer way toward really explaining the Republican Party’s past electoral fortunes and its future. In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn’t run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn’t likely to be expunged any time soon.

[...]

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That’s why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama’s relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

Thanx @ a diary at Dailykos, here’s a list of the top 25 underreported news stories you’re unlikely to hear about on CNN, MSNBC, or FOX in 2009.  Courtesy of Project Censored, a training project in media and the First Amendment at Sonoma State University.

Here are some excerpts from one:

In August 2007, one of the biggest and best-known American charity organizations, CARE, announced that it was turning down $45 million a year in food aid from the United States government. CARE claims that the way US aid is structured causes rather than reduces hunger in the countries where it is received.

[...]

CARE’s 2006 report, “White Paper on Food Aid Policy,” points out that the current food aid program is motivated by profit rather than altruism. The policy, which dictates that donated money be used to purchase food in the home country, results in a program driven by “the export and surplus disposal objectives of the exporting country” and not the needs of people in hunger.

The US policy implements the practice of monetization, a food aid policy in which the US government buys surplus food from American agribusinesses that have already been heavily subsidized, and ships it via US shipping lines (generating transport costs that eat up much of the $2 billion annual food aid provided by the US government) to aid organizations working around the world. The aid organizations then sell the US-grown crops to local populations, at a dramatically reduced cost. The aid organizations use proceeds from these sales to fund their development and anti-poverty programs. But several groups, with CARE at the forefront, have pointed out that this policy has the effect of undermining local farmers and destabilizing the very food production systems that aid organizations are working to strengthen.

[...]

“We are not against emergency food aid for things like drought and famine,” CARE spokeswoman Alina Labrada said, “but local farmers are being hurt instead of helped by this mechanism.”

I’m not even being hyperbolic.

January 20th can’t come fast enough.

Also: Down the tubes.  Another prediction correct.

It turns out that my predictions were pretty accurate.  Obama carried all the states that I predicted he would, plus Florida and Indiana, which I did not predict (not that I’m complaining).  I predicted that the electoral count would be 326 to 212.  With the results from Omaha still in question (Nebraska splits its electoral votes), the electoral count will either 364 to 174, or 365 to 173.

There are still votes to be counted, but for the moment, DailyKos is putting Obama’s popular vote percentage at 52.4, which is outperforming my prediction by .9.  McCain is at 46.3 percent, outperforming my prediction by 4.3 percent.

My predictions for the Senate races were largely accurate, although Minnesota and Alaska are still up in the air.  So is Oregon, although the largest newspaper in that state has called it for Jeff Merkley, the Democrat.  Georgia will indeed go to a run-off, as the Republican there fell just short of the required 50 percent of the vote.

In House races, there are several seats still up in the air so it’s too soon to tell if I was on target but it’s looking as if the Democratic majority will pick up upwards of twenty seats.  I stand by my prediction that we are seeing what is now a more-or-less permanent Democratic majority in that chamber.

The Democrats did indeed take control of the New York State Senate, narrowly, as I predicted.  They now have a one seat majority in that body.

What we witnessed last night was more than a return by the Democratic Party to the reigns of power.  I believe it was their restoration as the natural party of government in this country.  Within Democratic politics, Obama’s election is a repudiation of the failed center-right, Republican-lite, DLC-style of politics in favor of the old standbys of populism and participation by increasing turnout.  I was impressed by the efficiency of the Obama voter turnout-and-protection operation in Philadelphia: it was remarkably disciplined.  In places like Philadelphia, we are building a new machine politics, one led by young people of all colors, and one which will necessarily supplant the one currently in place.

The task of the progressive movement is to steer that machine.  The must not use our majority and our Administration merely for the purposes of achieving and maintaining power.  We have to ensure that the new, durable majority is for something, enacting policies that will make the economy more humane and democratic, healthcare available to all as a matter of right, and reflect a worldview that is cosmopolitan and positive to the rest of the world.

I will write more about the election results once I have gotten some sleep.

Right.  So if everything bodes well (c’mon SallieMae), I will be departing the city for Philadephia on Thursday evening to volunteer for the Obama campaign and be a poll observer on Tuesday, in case the Nasty Party tries to stop anyone from voting (read this).

In exactly one week from now, the networks will be preparing to make their projections about the winner of various elections.  Even though I know no one cares, I thought it might be fun to attempt to predict the outcome.

In the Electoral College, I predict that John McCain will be defeated by Barack Obama by a vote of 326 to 212:

Bush (2004) states carried by Obama, West to East:

Nevada
New Mexico
Colorado
Iowa
Ohio
Virginia
North Carolina

Kerry states carried by McCain:

Zilch.

In the popular vote, I predict Barack Obama will beat John McCain by 7.5%, 51.5% to 42%, with record-shattering turnout.

In the Senate, I predict that after next Tuesday we will know that the new make up will consist of 57 Democrats, 40 Republicans, and two independents.  I think it’s quite likely that Joseph Lieberman will either bolt or be expelled from the Democratic caucus soon.

Democratic pickups, West to East:

Alaska
Oregon
New Mexico
Colorado
Minnesota
Virginia
North Carolina
New Hampshire

Republican pickups:

Nada.

I further predict that the Senate race in Georgia will go to a run-off.

I predict that Democrats will pick up 25 to 27 seats in the House, setting the stage for a majority in that body which may last a generation.

Finally I predict that Democrats will take control of the New York State Senate, narrowly, for the first time in many, many years.

As it stands, I’m optimistic, but cautiously so.  I think the battle over Proposition 8 in California is a toss-up, although there have been encouraging signs for the ‘no’ side.

We’ll see house this pans out.

To take the holy scriptures and read them is the first thing we have to do to open ourselves to God’s call.  Reading the scriptures is not as easy as it seems since in our academic world we tend to make anything and everything we read subject to analysis and discussion.  But the word of God should lead us first of all to contemplation and meditation.  Instead of taking the words apart, we should bring them together in our innermost being; instead of wondering if we agree or disagree, we should wonder which words are directly spoken to us and connect directly with our most personal story.  Instead of thinking about the words as potential subjects for an interesting dialogue or paper, we should be willing to let them penetrate into the most hidden corners of our heart, even to those places where no other word has yet found entrance.  Then and only then can the words bear fruit as seed sown in good soil.  Only then can we really “hear and understand” (Matthew 13:23).

-Henri J. M. Nouwen (1966) Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.  Doubleday, New York.  135-136.

I have been reposting from other blog a lot lately, with little original content.  Sorry about that.  This is probably because I am preoccupied with learning Greek, memorizing the order of rulers of ancient Babylon, and still settling into our latter-day Babylon.  Hopefully this situation will improve.

This is from Out of Ur.  The more I read him, the more impressed with Scot McKnight I am.

Somewhere between 6pm and 8pm, Central Time, on November 4th, 2008, the eschatology of American evangelicals will become clear. If John McCain wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical has an eschatology of politics. Or, alternatively, if Barack Obama wins and the evangelical becomes delirious or confident that the Golden Days are about to arrive, that evangelical too has an eschatology of politics. Or, we could turn each around, if a more Democrat oriented evangelical becomes depressed and hopeless because McCain wins, or if a Republican oriented evangelical becomes depressed or hopeless because Obama wins, those evangelicals are caught in an empire-shaped eschatology of politics.

Where is our hope? To be sure, I hope our country solves its international conflicts and I hope we resolve poverty and dissolve our educational problems and racism. But where does my hope turn when I think of war or poverty or education or racism? Does it focus on November 4? Does it gain its energy from thinking that if we get the right candidate elected our problems will be dissolved? If so, I submit that our eschatology has become empire-shaped, Constantinian, and political. And it doesn’t matter to me if it is a right-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Republican wins, or a left-wing evangelical wringing her fingers in hope that a Democrat wins. Each has a misguided eschatology.

Now before I take another step, it must be emphasized that I participate in the election; and I think it makes a difference which candidate wins; and I think from my own limited perspective one candidate is better than the other.