MILITARY MASCULINITY

May, 1945. The titles of the stories are intriguing.

Don't blame me. Blame Lapin.

THE MESSAGE: WE ARE HERE, AND WE ARE SINGING OUR SONG

My blogger friends 'got it' before I did. it's margaret, Counterlight, and Rmj at Adventus understood Occupy Wall Street well before I did. My heart was with the demonstrators because I believe the big banks and the finance marketeers do real evil. They manipulate the economies of entire countries and virtually the entire world so they get theirs now and to hell with the consequences for anyone else. And Wall Street symbolizes not only the bankers and financiers, but also the greedy, global corporation giants, who put the bottom line before real people. But, to be honest, when I thought about whether I'd be out there with the demonstrators, I thought I'd have to be clearer about goals. There it rested. I still wondered what would get me there if I were nearer to a demonstration.

Occupy Wall Street has now released an official statement which is posted below.

From PlutocracyFiles at Daily Kos:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

There it is, what I asked for, and I was not overly enthusiastic about the statement, even though it's based on the splendid 'Declaration of Independence'. It's so 18th century. It's long. The 21st century folks with their short attention spans won't get the message. The demands must be expressed in easy-to-understand language, briefly and punchily, to get the point across today.

Sadly, I still did not 'get it'.

And then I read the op-ed by Richard Eskow at The Huffington Post, and the scales fell from my eyes.

Even the sympathizers don't always get it. I'm sure I get a lot of things wrong too, but here's one thing I do understand: Change doesn't begin with policy. It begins with perception. And you don't change things by asking. You change them by acting.

But it begins with perception. "All money is a matter of belief," as someone once said.

In the New York Times, Nick Kristof shows that he understands the #OccupyWallStreet movement more than most of his peers. "The protesters are dazzling in their Internet skills," he writes, "and impressive in their organization."

But like many other sympathetic observers, he misses their most important point when he says "the movement falters in its demands" because "it doesn't really have any."

As movement participant Nelini Stamp told the Take Back the American Dream conference this morning, "We don't have demands. If we make demands of Wall Street, we're saying that Wall Street has the power."

But the fact that the movement doesn't make demands of Wall Street - or Washington, for that matter - doesn't mean it doesn't have demands. It does, but they're not directed at Wall Street, or K Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue. They're directed at you. And at me, and at every other citizen in this country.
....

But the "one demand" that matters most is directed at our society, not our policymakers, and it's much more fundamental than these excellent ideas. The demand is this: "Come back to sanity." That's the underlying demand that unifies all those items on the #OccupyWallSt website. Our culture is insane today, and they recognize that. Create a transactions tax, and they'll simply rob us another way - until we restore our society to sanity.
....

But the main point is: This is a song, not a policy platform, and there's no one composer. Everybody's making it up as they go along, and everyone else is welcome to join - as long as they don't lose the beat.

Please read the entire long, splendid op-ed.

The demand: 'Come back to sanity.' The main point: 'This is a song.'

Yes, I see. Or rather, I think I see, although I could still be getting it wrong. I hope not. What took me so long?

TIME FOR A HUMOR BREAK - MISSING PERSON REPORT

A lady calls the police to report that her husband is missing.

The police arrive and ask for a description. She tells them he's 6 foot 2 inches tall, blonde wavy hair, and has a smile that makes everybody love him.

The police then go to the next door neighbor to verify this report, and the woman next door tells the police, "You can't believe her. He's 5 foot 4 inches tall, has no hair, and he wears a perpetual frown on his face."

The neighbor then goes and asks the lady why she gave the police such a false report.

She replies, "Just because I reported him missing, doesn't mean I wanted him back!"

Cheers,

Paul (A.)

The joke passed my LOL test. What could I do?

TOP 5 FACTS ABOUT THE WEALTHIEST 1%

From Think Progress:

1. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Owns 40 Percent Of The Nation’s Wealth.

2. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Take Home 24 Percent Of National Income.

3. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half Of The Country’s Stocks, Bonds, And Mutual Funds.

4. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Have Only 5 Percent Of The Nation’s Personal Debt.

5. The Top 1 Percent Are Taking In More Of The Nation’s Income Than At Any Other Time Since The 1920s.

See the details and the charts and graphs, one of which is shown above, at Think Progress.

A reading from the Lectionary on the feast of St Francis of Assisi:

Jeremiah 22:13-16

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice;
who makes his neighbours work for nothing,
and does not give them their wages;
who says, ‘I will build myself a spacious house
with large upper rooms’,
and who cuts out windows for it,
panelling it with cedar,
and painting it with vermilion.
Are you a king
because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
says the Lord.

Thanks to Paul the BB on Facebook for the link.

OCCUPY WALL STREET - AN INTERVIEW NEVER AIRED

From Daily Kos:

Fellow Kossack Jesse LaGreca (a/k/a MinistryofTruth) Destroys Fox News Reporter

TRANSCRIPT (ht middleagedhousewife)

Fox: Jesse, so Ray, your partner here, colleague, your commerade, she got, ya know, receieved a protest [unintelligible] here and elsewhere did you guys take your cue from that? Are you hungry to incite ya know certainly what is a lot of attention if not police activity? I know over the weekend, there was over 100 arrests you guys got things fired up. Are you taking your cues from international events in …
How do you want to see this end? What do you what do you if you could have it end in a perfect way, how would that be?

Jesse: Well, I don’t know, it’s really difficult to kind of answer questions leading to those conclusions. I’d say we didn’t take our cues from anybody really, it became more of a spontaneous movement. As far as seeing this end, I wouldn’t like to see this end. I’d like to see the conversation continue. This is what we should have been talking about in 2008 after the economy collapsed. We basically patched a hole on the tire and said, yeah, let the car keep rolling. Unfortunately, it’s fun to talk to the propaganda machine in the media, especially conservative media such as yourself, because we find that we can’t get conversations on the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation of NewsCorporation for which you are an employee, but we can certainly, you know, ask questions such as why are the poor engaging in class warfare. After 30 years of having our living standards decrease while the wealthiest 1% have had it better than ever, I think it’s time for, I don’t know, some participation in our Democracy that isn’t funded by news cameras and gentlemen such as yourself.

Fox:OK, but let me give you this challenge, Jesse,

Jesse: Sure

Fox: We’re here giving you an opportunity on the record with (unintelligible) to put any message you want out there, and give you fair coverage and I’m not going to in any way

Jesse: That’s awesome

Fox: give advice about it. So here’s an exception to the case, because you wouldn’t be able to get your message out without us. [I just have to say, I could not type this without laughing!]

Jesse: No, certainly! I mean, take for instance, when Glenn Beck was doing his protests, and he called the President a person who hates white people and white culture. That was a low moment in America’s history, and you guys kinda had a big part in it. So I’m glad to see you coming around and paying attention to what the other 99% of America is paying attention to, as opposed to just the far right fringe who would love to just destroy the middle class entirely.

Fox: Alright. Fair enough. You have a voice, and an important reason to criticize myself and my company and anyone else. But let me ask you this. In fairness, does this administration, Pres. Obama, have any criticism as to the the financial situation in the country and the … [he sticks the mike in Jesse’s face]

Jesse: I think that myself as well as many other people would like to see a little bit more economic justice or social justice, Jesus stuff as far as feeding the poor, health care for the sick. You know, I find it really entertaining that people like to hold the Bill of Rights up while they’re screaming at gay soldiers, but they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that a for profit health care system doesn’t work. So, let’s just look at it like this: if we want the president to do more, let’s talk to him on a level that actually reaches people, instead of asking for his birth certificate and wasting time with total nonsense like Solyndra (sp).

Cross-posted at Plutocracy Files.

12:37 PM PT: I've been informed by the New York Observer that the reporter who uploaded the video was Drew Grant. She worked super hard to get that information out there. So PLEASE make sure to link to her story:

http://www.observer.com/...

I hope the video goes viral, and I'm doing my small part to make it happen. Thanks to ann v for the link.

FUNNIEST PICTURE I'VE SEEN TODAY

Thanks to Bishop Alan on Facebook.

BISHOP CLUMBER SAYS...

...You know, I'm just an old dog, but it occurs to my canine brain to ask the question which was in Marcus Borg's latest book someplace... "What business is the church in?" My myopic contention is that we are, or at least should think of ourselves, in the communication business.

In an era in which our lives seem completely enveloped in communication, how can the church not take advantage of all the vehicles to do that? The only question is what content should be flowing out... bishop's blogs, youtube videos, audio and video of sermons, Facebook and G+? And I would think the right answer is that we should be trying to use all of them, or at least as many as are practical. And you Facebook users have a responsibility to re-preach the message of the church by "Sharing" good posts to all your friends, whether part of your church or not.

And yet... you can name the blogging bishops on one paw (1 or 2, not sure), you see diocese websites that are boring, boring, boring, that have no messages of the mission of the church, ways to engage in ministry, the excitement that SHOULD be part and parcel of being a Christian alive today...

Churches too often fail this as well, being fairly static and trading on the traditions and ancient ritual of the faith, rather than the here and now life and ministry... Father Moretz sort of got it right, but have you seen videos of his sermons? Where are the people?

Anyway, gotta go get my afternoon nap... you bipeds be good...

From the comments to this post. I thought the canine bishop's words were too good to remain hidden away.

And here's another excellent video from the Episcopal Café created by the Diocese of Texas.



Bravo!

UPDATE: So far as I can discover, the quote 'Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.' is from D. T. Niles in his book That They May Have Life, rather than Robert Munger. As my correspondent on Facebook, Tim Chesterton, told me, 'Niles was a Sri Lankan evangelist and ecumenical leader who deserves to be much more widely known than he is.'

THE MISSION AND MINISTRY OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Mark Harris at Preludium says:

All of which is to say I think we bloggers in Episcopal / Anglican land need to do more videos, even rough and ready ones, with the goal to witness to who we are and what we are about as Episcopalians.

I agree. All too often, we hide our light under a bushel basket. The video below by TECtube (The Church Center Communications folk) is a fine example of what can be done.



Mark posted several other videos worth viewing, some of which are 'rough and ready'. Check them out.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

If you're not on Facebook (Twitter, Google+, etc.), do you even exist?

THE NEW BARACK OBAMA

I like him. I hope he stays around and continues to call the Republicans out on their hypocrisy.

H/T to Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin.