bring on the lovingoverthrow

The French are not Lazy.

 

Ever since I learned that there is a reasonable probability that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by a gang that included mobsters and law enforcment people at the federal, state, and local levels, I have felt compelled to remember this in ceremonies in his honor.  Here is a link to an article that draws an interesting connection between then and now in terms of the silencing of dissent.

This is a very good video that tells the story of consumerism in a clear and compelling way - taking into account the real costs to people and the planet.  I saw this a few weeks ago but let myself get distracted.  Thankfully, my friend Alex got me in gear by putting a link on her blog.  One of the commentators on the Iowa Caucus tonight declared that economic populism would be a theme of the coming election year.  May it be so!

The new year is off to a great start for me with a series of articles and events suggesting the possibility that America will finally wake up to the horror of our economic system.  I already wrote about Naomi Klein and her book on "Disaster Capitalism".  Here are a couple more!

This article is a review of a new book about modern day economic slavery - Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy by John Bowe.  I love its use of the notion of "plausible deniability" to describe the manner in which we behave as if we don't know that every aspect of our lives in the empire is built out of the oppression of people.

Here is another good one, this one about how living in empire makes people crazy. 

Peace within and among us.  Peace upon the planet. 

Naomi Klein's new book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" lays out the most important issue for our time.  Be sure to read about it and watch the interview here on truthout.

It is not the least bit an understatement to say that there will be no justice in the world until we the people understand that the relationship between free markets and free people is actually an inverse one, the freer the markets, the more oppressed the people and the planet.  Capitalism claims to love and, in fact be necessary to democracy but, in fact, prefers and promotes facism - the marriage of corporate and government power.  The language of free market capitalism is a code language deliberately and intelligently designed out of the rhetoric of freedom and democracy to enforce the ability of the very wealthy to use the planet as their private playground.  Naomi is helping to crack this code which must be cracked if the constant manufacture of misery by humans for humans and our planet is ever to be stopped. 

Today I am learning how much more resonance I have with Paulo Freire than I realized.  Here he is saying with such scholarship what I said just recently - "ownership is the only relationship that empire understands":

"Apart from direct, concrete, material possession of the world and of people, the oppressor consciousness could not understand itself — could not even exist.  Fromm said of this consciousness that, without such possession, “it would lose contact with the world” The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination. The earth, property, production, the creations of people, people themselves, time — everything is reduced to the status of objects at its disposal."

I just had the happy circumstance to read some of Paulo Freire's Chapter 2 about the banking concept of education wherein education is just another instrument of oppression.  This is just what I was talking about in my recent post on student loans and usury.  Many cheers for Paulo.

This is a wonderful interview from the Here on Earth radio show on Wisconsin public radio.  Must listen for christians and friends.

My favorite christians are the jesus-lovers who don't claim to be his chosen and yet have an experience of meeting jesus in the world (as brother, lord, savior, christ, prophet, anything).  Jesus-lovers don't demand certain language from people.  Jesus-lovers talk reasonably and lovingly about what it means that greater love than we have yet manifested in human culture is ever-ready to assist all those who choose to live as kindred on the planet. 

I struggle with whether or not to call my self a christian and whether to tell my own jesus story.  I like to say that Jesus would rather his name be forgotten than have what has been done in his name.  So, I was much affirmed and nourished to read about Paul Farmer saying that the lack among "wl's" - white liberals - of a coherent dialog about the needs of the masses left him no choice but to turn to south american catholic liberation theology.  Not that this is such a hard turn to take for lovers of humanity.  I guess I'm saying that I'll not give up god-language so long as it is found liberating by people aching from oppression. 

Military Religious Freedom Foundation

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