Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Moral Legislation
"Woe to you legislators of infamous laws...who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan" (Isaiah 10:1-2, Jerusalem Bible).
There are moments in every generation when a society must decide on its real moral principles. This is one of those moments in history: When our legislators put ideology over principle, it is time to sound the trumpets of justice and tell the truth.
In the early hours of the morning before leaving for their Thanksgiving break, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that cuts $50 billion, including essential services for low-income families. Funding for health care, food stamps, foster care for neglected children, student loans, enforcing child support orders - all fell to the ax. If the House bill prevails, more than 200,000 people will lose food stamps, people already struggling to make ends meet will have to pay more for health care, and low-income students will find it harder to pay for college loans. When they return, the House also plans to pass a tax cut bill benefiting the wealthiest people in America.
Let's be clear. It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget bill that diminishes our compassion. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our political leadership. "Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss" (Proverbs 22:16).
The religious community has already helped influence the Senate - its version of the budget cut about $35 billion, with virtually no cuts in services to low-income people. The decision to protect low-income families in the Senate was a bipartisan decision - supported by both Republicans and Democrats. The House decision to sacrifice the poor was a victory of the extreme Republican leadership over all the Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted against the harsh and punitive House bill. Congress now faces a stark choice that requires moral clarity and outrage. The differences between the House and Senate bills have to be resolved in a joint conference committee, and the result brought back to each body for a final vote in mid-December. The convictions of the religious community must be brought to bear in these next few weeks - a final bill containing the House cuts that are an assault on poor families and children must not be passed. Budgets are moral documents that reflect our priorities. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values. It's time to act.
Contact your legislators Call your senators and representative during their recess and over the next two weeks and demand they refuse to pass a budget cutting services for low-income people.
And it's time for an altar call to Washington, D.C. Come to Washington: On Tuesday evening, Dec. 13 - as the budget bill is being debated in Congress - religious leaders, pastors, and church workers from around the country who serve the poor day after day will gather for a worship service and training session. The next morning, Dec. 14, we will kneel in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to proclaim the Word of God and to pray for people in poverty. We will pray for those in our own neighborhoods who are under assault, and we will call our nation's political leaders to repentance - recognizing the Bible's insistence that the best test of a nation's righteousness is how it treats the most vulnerable among us. We will pray for poor families and children and for the courage of our political representatives to protect them from the budget assault. And we also hope our prayers will shame those who would sacrifice the poor for political gain and the benefit of the wealthy - and hope to change their minds. Specifically, we will pray that the principle of the Senate's bipartisan bill to protect low-income people will prevail and the efforts of an ideological House leadership to neglect the poor will fail. This act of prayer is likely to result in peaceful arrests for those who are willing. Our prayer will be an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights movement led by black churches. We believe that this moral battle over the budget can still be won. The punitive House bill passed by only two votes: Hearts can still be changed. We must lift up another voice - a voice in prayer that speaks the truth of God's Word. "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you¿and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).
We urge you to prayerfully consider joining us. For more information go to www.sojo.net/capitol. If you plan to participate, you must sign up on the Web site. If you cannot join us in Washington, I urge you to plan and join vigils at local congressional offices across the country in order to magnify our prophetic voice, and to send representatives or a delegation of faith leaders, service providers, and low-income people to join us in Washington. See tomorrow's e-mail for more details about how to organize a vigil near you.
There are moments in every generation when a society must decide on its real moral principles. This is one of those moments in history: When our legislators put ideology over principle, it is time to sound the trumpets of justice and tell the truth.
In the early hours of the morning before leaving for their Thanksgiving break, the House of Representatives passed a budget bill that cuts $50 billion, including essential services for low-income families. Funding for health care, food stamps, foster care for neglected children, student loans, enforcing child support orders - all fell to the ax. If the House bill prevails, more than 200,000 people will lose food stamps, people already struggling to make ends meet will have to pay more for health care, and low-income students will find it harder to pay for college loans. When they return, the House also plans to pass a tax cut bill benefiting the wealthiest people in America.
Let's be clear. It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget bill that diminishes our compassion. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our political leadership. "Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss" (Proverbs 22:16).
The religious community has already helped influence the Senate - its version of the budget cut about $35 billion, with virtually no cuts in services to low-income people. The decision to protect low-income families in the Senate was a bipartisan decision - supported by both Republicans and Democrats. The House decision to sacrifice the poor was a victory of the extreme Republican leadership over all the Democrats and moderate Republicans who voted against the harsh and punitive House bill. Congress now faces a stark choice that requires moral clarity and outrage. The differences between the House and Senate bills have to be resolved in a joint conference committee, and the result brought back to each body for a final vote in mid-December. The convictions of the religious community must be brought to bear in these next few weeks - a final bill containing the House cuts that are an assault on poor families and children must not be passed. Budgets are moral documents that reflect our priorities. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values. It's time to act.
Contact your legislators Call your senators and representative during their recess and over the next two weeks and demand they refuse to pass a budget cutting services for low-income people.
And it's time for an altar call to Washington, D.C. Come to Washington: On Tuesday evening, Dec. 13 - as the budget bill is being debated in Congress - religious leaders, pastors, and church workers from around the country who serve the poor day after day will gather for a worship service and training session. The next morning, Dec. 14, we will kneel in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to proclaim the Word of God and to pray for people in poverty. We will pray for those in our own neighborhoods who are under assault, and we will call our nation's political leaders to repentance - recognizing the Bible's insistence that the best test of a nation's righteousness is how it treats the most vulnerable among us. We will pray for poor families and children and for the courage of our political representatives to protect them from the budget assault. And we also hope our prayers will shame those who would sacrifice the poor for political gain and the benefit of the wealthy - and hope to change their minds. Specifically, we will pray that the principle of the Senate's bipartisan bill to protect low-income people will prevail and the efforts of an ideological House leadership to neglect the poor will fail. This act of prayer is likely to result in peaceful arrests for those who are willing. Our prayer will be an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the tradition of the civil rights movement led by black churches. We believe that this moral battle over the budget can still be won. The punitive House bill passed by only two votes: Hearts can still be changed. We must lift up another voice - a voice in prayer that speaks the truth of God's Word. "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you¿and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7).
We urge you to prayerfully consider joining us. For more information go to www.sojo.net/capitol. If you plan to participate, you must sign up on the Web site. If you cannot join us in Washington, I urge you to plan and join vigils at local congressional offices across the country in order to magnify our prophetic voice, and to send representatives or a delegation of faith leaders, service providers, and low-income people to join us in Washington. See tomorrow's e-mail for more details about how to organize a vigil near you.
# posted by ErinW @ 3:07 PM
Monday, November 28, 2005
Why Buffy the Vampire Slayer Matters...
Hey check out this new book that is getting rave reviews. A cultural study of the TV Show Buffy the Vampire Slayer called: Why Buffy Matters. So interesting to anyone doing cultural/media studies!
# posted by ErinW @ 7:54 AM
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Inventing Popular Culture - Comments
This book quoted a lot and was hard to follow in some points. I found some fascinating stuff in different parts and will endeavor to discuss those...
Page 16
" the invention of popular culture as mass culture was in part a response to middle-class fears engendered by industrialization, urbanization, and the developement of an urban-industrial working class..." This is a response to people wanting to better themselves and others wanted to continue class distinctions. Residential separation (suburbs to urban areas) kept compounding this separation. The middle class asserting itself as the mass culture to be distinct from the lower class mass culture meant a weakening of social authority and a dismantlement of cohesion in culture. Popular culture in this framework seems to be the new elite. We will create our own middle class culture to differentiate ourselves from the lower/working class.
Page 18-19
Matthew Arnold defines the "inequality" of races and cultures as on sort of a continuim. There is a basis that our human natures have in common between aristocracy, middle class and working class and that is evolutionary in nature. Therefore the lower class are just not as "far along" as the upper class. Education for the lower class is to help them function and civilize them to be overpowered by the elite and middle class. Their role is "subordination, deference and exploitation." So for him having a culture spring out of the populace or "working class" is in itself anarchy. It is taking power from the power elite. As disturbing is this is I think much of it still pervades our culture.
Page 48-starting
Democracy's practice of hegemony is not only to rule the society but the dominant classes in democracy leads it through this exercise and therefore universalizes the upper class. In other words we all experience what the upper class experiences. They are our voice. They lead us through the understanding of the collective. Which makes sense as why racism, classism and exploitation of the poor is not mentioned. If the upper class doesn't experience it or think it is important then it is not mentioned. I found this so true! Even as many Christians come into the moral elite this also becomes true. The voice of those in the lower classes are not heard and definately not collectivized. We lived through a modern world in the west dominated by experiences of the white upper class male. Now many people want a voice in postmodernity.
Page 81 - starting
The discussion of the roots of cultural identities being in the "collective memory" I found fascinating. We confirm what we remember through the memory of others. However, this is not an exact science. Post event information and eyewitness testimony play a fascinating role in constructing meaning from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels do what memories do "bring the past into the present." But they do so from the collective identity of those telling the story. The Gospel authors believed Jesus was who he said he was. That framed their memories and arguments and stories. This was an internal process. However, since we have devices to record things now... memory is a more external endeavor. Our memory is not so much internal as a picture, video or sound played back for us. It is outside ourselves. So is this memory really a part of ourselves?
Page 100-101
Then to the argument of cultural views on art. High art vs. low art. I have always found that so interesting. There are certain films or books that are popular culture in nature and they are somehow not seen as fully "artistic." It seems unless it is created by people of the dominant class it is not really art. Art is funded by the elite and has deference to politics. Michaelangelo was bound to the Medici family who were basically the mob of their day. Shakespeare's "historical" plays payed homage to Queen Elizabeth and her family line and not always historically accurate to be pleasing to her grace.
Page 16
" the invention of popular culture as mass culture was in part a response to middle-class fears engendered by industrialization, urbanization, and the developement of an urban-industrial working class..." This is a response to people wanting to better themselves and others wanted to continue class distinctions. Residential separation (suburbs to urban areas) kept compounding this separation. The middle class asserting itself as the mass culture to be distinct from the lower class mass culture meant a weakening of social authority and a dismantlement of cohesion in culture. Popular culture in this framework seems to be the new elite. We will create our own middle class culture to differentiate ourselves from the lower/working class.
Page 18-19
Matthew Arnold defines the "inequality" of races and cultures as on sort of a continuim. There is a basis that our human natures have in common between aristocracy, middle class and working class and that is evolutionary in nature. Therefore the lower class are just not as "far along" as the upper class. Education for the lower class is to help them function and civilize them to be overpowered by the elite and middle class. Their role is "subordination, deference and exploitation." So for him having a culture spring out of the populace or "working class" is in itself anarchy. It is taking power from the power elite. As disturbing is this is I think much of it still pervades our culture.
Page 48-starting
Democracy's practice of hegemony is not only to rule the society but the dominant classes in democracy leads it through this exercise and therefore universalizes the upper class. In other words we all experience what the upper class experiences. They are our voice. They lead us through the understanding of the collective. Which makes sense as why racism, classism and exploitation of the poor is not mentioned. If the upper class doesn't experience it or think it is important then it is not mentioned. I found this so true! Even as many Christians come into the moral elite this also becomes true. The voice of those in the lower classes are not heard and definately not collectivized. We lived through a modern world in the west dominated by experiences of the white upper class male. Now many people want a voice in postmodernity.
Page 81 - starting
The discussion of the roots of cultural identities being in the "collective memory" I found fascinating. We confirm what we remember through the memory of others. However, this is not an exact science. Post event information and eyewitness testimony play a fascinating role in constructing meaning from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels do what memories do "bring the past into the present." But they do so from the collective identity of those telling the story. The Gospel authors believed Jesus was who he said he was. That framed their memories and arguments and stories. This was an internal process. However, since we have devices to record things now... memory is a more external endeavor. Our memory is not so much internal as a picture, video or sound played back for us. It is outside ourselves. So is this memory really a part of ourselves?
Page 100-101
Then to the argument of cultural views on art. High art vs. low art. I have always found that so interesting. There are certain films or books that are popular culture in nature and they are somehow not seen as fully "artistic." It seems unless it is created by people of the dominant class it is not really art. Art is funded by the elite and has deference to politics. Michaelangelo was bound to the Medici family who were basically the mob of their day. Shakespeare's "historical" plays payed homage to Queen Elizabeth and her family line and not always historically accurate to be pleasing to her grace.
# posted by ErinW @ 4:56 PM
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