Born on 9-11

A Post to Keep You Posted

2009-11-08T10:46:00.000-08:00

I still have plans for this Blog. It remains "under construction." As my search for gainful employment continues, and I establish myself as a freelance writer who actually makes a living from my work, blogging has fallen by the wayside.

There's a need for the out-of-the-box perspective of a left-leaning libertarian. As the Democrats prove themselves nothing more than a pale reflection of the Republicans -- corporate toadies, all -- those of us who feel we are "neither of the above" still recognize the need for change to be something more than merely a presidential campaign slogan.

There have to be at least a few blogs dedicated to that proposition. Actually, many more than a few. And mine is one of them.

I intend to explore some of the topics that interest me in the months ahead. For example, what does it mean to be an "independent," a third-party devotee, or simply someone who must check the box marked "none of the above" when all that is offered "above" is Republican, Democrat or something vaguely and generically labeled "Independent" -- and we want our voice to be heard to say something more emphatically distinct?

The reason for this Blog's name remains. We all, indeed, live in a century "born on 9-11." This continues to be relevant not only, to me, because I was born one long-ago and faraway September 11th, but because the world in which I now live dates its life from that momentous 9-11 of 2001.

Our economy was wrecked by the ruinous wars we've waged since those fateful attacks. We all still deal with that reality daily. What does that mean for us? The official version, served up to us by the corporate-owned mainstream media, is not only a lie, it is useless. Only the alternative media is willing to find the truth and tell it, and blogs like this one are a part of that process.

So again, I encourage all interested parties to "watch this space." I haven't forgotten you. And I hope you haven't entirely forgotten me.

I'll be posting from time to time, hopefully less and less gradually as I figure out exactly what I want to explore here. Most of my posts here will continue to test out ideas I will explore more fully elsewhere, on matters of progressive politics and progressive faith.

So in the words of the Terminator, "I'll be back." Not to terminate, but to continue. I persist in my ambition to build a readership here -- and to make this Blog a living, active part of the media that matters because it deals with what really matters.

Life goes on, for me and for all of us. And as it does, "Born on 9-11" will be right there with it.

Watch This Space...

2009-06-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

For the next few weeks, my posts will be sparse and very basic. I'm gearing up to try to make a living yet again, after months of unemployment. That, and my other writing duties, will right now take up most of my time.

I'll be depending upon three separate streams of income: freelance writing, temp-work and advertising sales for a newspaper, The Arizona Democrat, for which I also write. These three income streams will all be weak, at first. But once I'm on track -- God willing -- with all of them, I hope to be able to make it very nicely without ever having to take another eight-to-five, big-corporate job. This is, indeed, a longtime dream I now finally hope to fulfill.

I intend to find ways to improve this Blog and build up its readership. Everything else I write is pretty widely read (or, in the case of my plays, performed) and it is difficult to keep my focus on a format I'm not sure many people are currently reading.

I'm going to make this Blog bigger and better. But first, I need to make sure I can go on eating regularly. That concern obviously eclipses all others.

I'll try to go on posting here every Wednesday. Perhaps I'll write about my adventures in survival during this Great Recession. I hope that at least a few of you will keep on watching this space. And that, in the near future, you will be joined by many more.

Have a happy Wednesday, and God Bless...

California Secedes From the Union

2009-05-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Now that the California Supreme Court has ruled to uphold Proposition 8, it is official: they don't want the United States of America anymore. They have rejected the U.S. Constitution, once and for all.

The rights of ALL Americans are guaranteed under the United States Constitution. It says NOTHING about the people's basic rights being subject to the whims of the voters. What this ruling by the California Supreme Court does is establish a new precedent. Now the rights of ANY minority group can be restricted by a voting majority.

Our Founders must be spinning in their graves. This wacky ruling basically nullifies the very principle of equality under the law. We are now, if we are members of ANY minority, officially separate and unequal.

We didn't need the Nazis or the Soviets to take us over. We did this to ourselves. Did none of those who voted in that election realize they were voting on whether they wanted to keep the U.S. Constitution -- or scrap it?

If ANYONE'S rights are threatened, EVERYONE'S rights are in doubt. I thought we had already learned this. The California Supreme Court's ruling imperils the very possibility of equal rights, and equal protection under the law, in this country.

This is a dark week for America. The very survival of the United States, as we have known and loved it for over two hundred years, is now endangered.

How can they put the genie back in the bottle? I have no idea whether it is even possible.

Of course the measure will go back on the ballot in California. The people there will, one way or another, be participating in mob rule. Congratulations, California Supremes. You have accomplished what the Nazis and the Soviets were never able to do.

If the mob really wants to restore the U.S. Constitution, it will vote not only to repeal Proposition Hate but to impeach every state "justice" who ruled to overthrow the supreme law of the land.

"Between a Rock and a Hard Place"

2009-05-20T13:38:00.001-07:00

Around the blogosphere, I still hear lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth about President Obama's inaction on LGBT issues. Lots of people seem surprised, though I don't know why.

As I've said before on this Blog, President Obama is going to disappoint us. He is a politician, and he's already thinking about reelection. All Democratic officeholders are politicians. Again, where is the surprise here?

One of gay conservatives' favorite games of obfuscation is to conflate "Democrat" with "progressive" and vice versa. As if all Democrats were progressives, and all progressives Democrats. No one familiar with the American Left and Center is dumb enough to believe this. In fact, a good many progressives will have nothing to do with the Democratic Party, and all too many Democrats are anything but progressives -- as they themselves would be the first to tell you.

It is not President Obama's job to lead on LGBT issues. That's right; you heard me. That isn't his job, it's ours.

He will do whatever we make him do. Progressives elected him. We couldn't have done it without the centrists, or the moderates, or whatever they're calling themselves these days. But right-wing Republican "culture warriors" had virtually nothing to do with his election -- that is, besides disgusting the rest of the country into turning toward Obama and away from right-wing "culture wars."

President Obama knows that. He will not cave in to that crowd. Like most Democrats, he seems to be enamored by the notion that "the center" is where it's at. How will he know better if we don't show him?

Again, that's OUR job.

All too many Americans are stuck between the "rock" of timidity and the "hard place" of despair. Both of these are passive, helpless, whiny, cowardly positions. Neither is a place of strength, much less of the hope for which we voted.

The "conventional wisdom" says we must be careful not to upset "the center." But the "center" does not determine itself; its position is determined, almost entirely, by the movers and shakers on the Right and the Left. WE are the ones who will decide where the center is. The Right has so completely lost all credibility that we have the rare opportunity to determine this practically by ourselves.

We do need for there to be some sort of a "center," to keep us from sliding too far to the Left. If we scare the hell out of everybody and make nuisances of ourselves, we will empower the Right to make a resurgence. It is, in fact, the only hope they've got. But the "center" can function only as a brake; it can never, ever be an engine. We on the Left must be the engine.

To passively sit by and expect Obama to do everything for us will lead to nothing but more of the sort of whining we now hear. It will get us nowhere. Engines don't whine unless they're broken.

On the other hand, to give up and despair of ever accomplishing anything because Obama hasn't waved his magic wand and automatically transformed the country into exactly what we want it to be won't help either. This is a representative democracy. Obama's job is to follow OUR lead.

We need to dig ourselves out from between the "rock" and the "hard place." And we need to get busy. We now have an unprecedented opportunity to get the country moving -- once again -- in a progressive direction. If we fail at it, we'll have nobody to whine at about it but ourselves.

Another Word from Your (would-be) Empress

2009-05-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

I get questioned, regularly, on why I am no longer a libertarian. And when I remind those who know me that the most I ever did was briefly flirt with libertarianism (it was where I happened to be at the time I started this Blog), my questioners are not moved. They note that I still refer to myself, on the masthead, as a "libertarian-leaning liberal." My answer to that is that I still am.

If I were the Empress of America, this would be a land of minimal government and a strong and energetic progressive spirit. It would voluntarily move -- in a libertarian sort of way -- in a progressive direction. I would, however, still see a governmental role in regulating commerce. And I would not allow the chartering of large corporations. Then again, if I were an empress, I don't suppose any libertarian nation would ever let me reign in the first place.

Enough of fantasy. Libertarian philosophy, as I have said before, is nearly perfect on paper. But we don't live on paper; we live in the real world. And in the real world, as libertarians would be the first to assert, all power needs to be checked and counterbalanced. The only way to establish such a counterbalance of power, concentrated in the hands of large corporations, is by government regulation. "Libertarians" who fail to see this have a fatal blind spot.

In Lori-land, NO organization would be permitted to grab too much power: neither the government NOR big business. But in the real world, mega-corporations now wield a power even Stalinist Russia, Red China and Nazi Germany could only dream of. And that power was handed to them, on a silver platter, by the very governments who claim to support free trade. Free enterprise is not even possible under big-corporate capitalism. Far from being the same thing as genuine free enterprise, corporate gigantism (itself a product of government, as ALL corporations are the creatures of government) is actually the enemy of free enterprise.

Libertarianism, in its delusionary conviction that ALL business is automatically an effective counterbalance against government regulation, fails to recognize this. And again, it is a fatal flaw.

Big government and big business need each other, and they work hand-in-glove. Big ANYTHING quickly becomes too powerful and strangles individual liberty. For the record, I'm opposed to both forms of tyranny. When given free reign by the governments that profit from them, gigantic corporations can do as much harm as the most despotic states.

Bust up the big corporations, give all a fair chance, and make sure we all play by the same rules. I love baseball, but because I do so love the game, I am quick to see the need for umpires. I love free enterprise, but just as baseball could not survive without umpires, neither could free enterprise last very long without at least some governmental oversight. I love peace, but we would not enjoy it for very long without an army to defend us. I love order, but without the police we would have nothing but chaos.

This is why, though I think libertarians are the ones who should be -- need to be -- robust opponents of government excess, I nonetheless count myself as a libertarian-LEANING liberal instead of as a pure libertarian. Idealism has its limits, and in political reality, the "perfect" is the enemy of all achievable good. I've said most, if not all, of this already. And if I have to, I'll explain it again and again.

It's too important for us to fail to understand it. Just take this as another word from your (would-be) Empress.

"Workin' for da Man"

2009-05-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, I have gotten at least three more "phishing" emails. In this Great Recession, it's quite clear that instead of robbing rich bankers, the desperate are turning on their fellow commoners. And posing, ironically, as bankers themselves. They now completely identify with the oppressors. In the most literal sense, they are "workin' for da Man."

It is probably lost on these lost souls exactly what they have done. They have betrayed all solidarity with their own kind -- have, in a very real way, betrayed themselves. They can slap all the bank logos they want on their phony emails. They will never be a part of that world. And they have exiled themselves from the only world in which they ever could belong.

The beneficiaries of this trickery are not those who may eke out a few hundred, here or there, defrauding suckers online. They are the criminals in the big corporations these small-time hustlers so long to emulate. It suits the bigshots just fine when we turn against one another and steal from each other. It means we have totally given up on the very concept of justice.

The "phishers" are utterly hopeless. They are absolutely whipped.

Instead of stealing from each other, we should be standing up and demanding justice. There are vastly more of "us" than there are of "them." Indeed, the only way they can defeat us is to turn us against one another. They can escape our justice by getting us to give up on the very possibility of justice. If we really, persistently, undyingly believe in justice, then we will settle for nothing less.

I refuse to give up on justice. Not only will I not be victimized, but I will stand up and do all I can to demand justice -- to work for it. To devote myself to the fight for it. I know who my enemies are, and I will never turn on my friends.

"Phishers" and other crooks who prey upon innocent, law-abiding, hard-working people are nothing but pathetic losers. And they have sold their shrivelled little souls for nothing.

No ballads will ever be sung for them, no movies made about them. They are "workin' for da Man." Very likely, they will end up going to prison for him, too.

Who Says You Can't Herd Cats?

2009-04-29T12:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago, at our Progressive Democrats of America meeting, the topic of discussion was the difficulty of getting progressives to cooperate with each other on a cohesive agenda. Although I didn't hear this expression at the meeting, it was basically the old lament that "You can't herd cats."

Now, I don't know how good an analogy that is. I herd my cats every day: whenever I feed them, and whenever I go to the bathroom. Then, all four of 'em always run right along behind me. They never miss a meal, and they like to gather around the potty to bond with Mommy. To them it is not a private moment, but very much a family affair.

The complain about progessives is that we're all over the place. That we don't ALL agree on anything. And while we probably do really agree on most matters, it's certainly true that each of us seems to have our own burning, non-negotiable issue. Some insist we must all turn vegan, others that we must either accept or reject religious faith, while still others care mainly about reproductive choice, or gender equity, or labor empowerment, or whatever else. Of course this fragmentation is a legitimate cause for concern; we really do need to come together to work and fight for progress in a bigger, broader sense.

I, of course, have my own opinion as to what is most important -- what the overriding principle of the Left should be. Of course I do. My vote for primary necessity goes to the freedom of conscience. Whether this takes the form of religious faith -- as it does with me -- or simply of conscience in a general, non-religious sense, freedom of conscience is the essential basis, I believe, for all else.

The Right Wing, now led by the fanatical "Christian" Taliban, is hell-bent on the destruction of freedom of conscience for that very reason. The fact that they try so hard to hide their real agenda behind a counterfeit crusade for "religious freedom" -- meaning, for them, religious freedom for no one but themselves -- only underscores the evil here. These people would sully and corrupt the very values in which they so loudly claim to believe.

It is time for us to rally behind the one cause that MUST succeed if progress is to be achieved -- or the civilized world to be saved from destruction. May the misguided souls who want to drive people of faith out of the public square come to their senses about this before it is too late.

We need to learn how to herd cats. I've had a lot of practice at it, and even some real success. I'll do all I can to show the way.

"Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam..."

2009-04-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Even armed with state-of-the-art filtering software, every day I find my email inbox cluttered with spam. Increasingly, not only in the "Spam" box, but in my regular inbox. It is as if Yahoo has been bombarded with so much of it, it is getting too exhausted to put it in its proper place.

Surfing the Internet, I find myself, more and more, playing Whack-a-Mole with advertising pop-ups. There are some sites I will no longer even visit because I know how bad the harrassment will be.

The desperation of the sales pitches -- the sheer, hysterical aggressiveness of them -- is unnerving. With all the dollars concentated so heavily, now, at the top, those underneath must scratch and scramble for every loose penny simply to survive. This is worse than degrading; it is insane.

Is it any wonder that, to some of the Fourteenth-Century dwellers in the Middle East, modernity seems like a scary thing?

What makes the situation worse, for nine-tenths of humankind on this planet, is that the richest ten percent "must" take so much more than it needs, or even knows what to do with. The entire situation is totally unsustainable. And it is long since past time for the ninety percent to take control.

Global warming, ozone depletion, famine, flooding, terrorism and war will only increase if this is not done. We are now getting only a tiny, frightening, peek-between-the-fingers glimpse at the Apocalypse to come.

Perhaps most troubling of all is the fact that those who claim to be trying to save us from that Apocalypse -- the rabidly, reactionarily religious of every sort -- are actually those who are cooperating the most slavishly with the forces bringing it all on. Because of terrorism, we're told we need to wage an endless "war on terror." Which only leads to more terrorism in reaction. Those who claim, in the "Christian" West, to be battling against the Antichrist -- in whatever sense they see this conflict taking shape -- actually are antichrists, themselves.

No matter how many teabaggy tantrums these people throw, the rest of us are now beginning to recognize this. Their increasingly-desperate political propaganda is no more substantive -- and contains no more truth -- than most of the spam-scams that daily clog our email inboxes.

It is time for us to hit the "delete" button on them all.

Healers, Heal Thyselves

2009-04-15T11:24:00.001-07:00

Alcoholics Anonymous has become pretty welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender folks. Which is a good thing, because there are a lot of drunks in the GLBT community. I should know, because I'm one of them. And I know a hell of a lot more than one.

The organization has a ways to go, however, when it comes to understanding how to make us FEEL welcome.

Mind-numbed, Bible-thumping dogmatists are not our favorite people. A lot of us have problems with mind-numbed, Big Book-thumping dogmatists, too. Some of us have even become them.

The Big Book is the A.A. "Bible." And it really is a lifeline to untold numbers of people. It is read and quoted, by many, with the same devotion with which legions of Christians rely upon the Bible. It really is a wise, reassuring, challenging and empowering book. I now read my Big Book every day -- right along with my Bible, the current version for me being "The Recovery Bible."

A friend, also in recovery, has warned me about "the thumpers." Not the Bible-thumpers, but the Big Book-thumpers. And he's right; they truly are scary, scary people.

Some folks, when they became involved in A.A., seem to have been assimilated into the Borg.

I had a conversation, a few nights ago, with two lesbians who are in A.A. They knew virtually nothing about me except that I was in A.A., too, and that I had only recently returned to regular meetings.

For all they knew, I could have been sober for twenty years. It's actually only been two and a half, but whatever the case may be, my clear implication, in the little I did reveal about myself, was that I was not an active drunk and that, in fact, I had been sober for some time.

For reasons quite unclear to me (and probably even to themselves), they insisted on assuming I was only two or three tottering steps away from the halfway house.

One of them informed me -- with all the self-assurance of an expert -- that I "had not yet accepted that I was an alcoholic." And how had she reached this conclusion? Because I said I wanted a sponsor who actually cared enough about me to get to know me.

Heresy! Burn me at the stake, and hold a Big Book before my eyes as I roast. I'm not sure why it's heresy, but a mind-numbed dogmatist basically told me so.

It was obviously very important to her that she knew more than me, and that I was helpless. I recognize this sort of attitude; I grew up with a recovering-alcoholic father. It is the behavior of a classic dry drunk.

My temporary sponsor (and believe me, she is temporary) tends to treat me the same way: very bossily and condescendingly -- almost with contempt. Dry drunks, who are, of course, recovering alcoholics who's still got a lot of recovering left to do, seem to transfer contempt for themselves into contempt for those who happen to be at an earlier stage of recovery than they are.

I need a sponsor who has been sober long enough -- and who has recovered sufficiently -- to share her recovery with me, instead of her sickness. Only someone who isn't very smart, or very honest, could smugly diagnose my desire for a healthy healer as any unwillingness, on my part, to admit that I'm in need of healing.

Thank God, not every A.A. member's eyes glaze over into otherworldly obsessiveness when I speak with them. Some are farther along in their recovery than others. I hope and pray I'll find a regular sponsor at least a little farther along than I am. One, in other words, who can actually be of help to me.

I shouldn't be surprised that in A.A., there are a lot of sick people. In A.A., we're all sick people. But just as the Bible can be used as an excuse to keep from growing in holiness, the Big Book can certainly be used to keep from growing in health.

Thumpers of either Book need to stop their thumping and get back to their reading. It's especially unbecoming for straight dry drunks to lecture gay ones about God (as my temporary sponsor is prone to do) as if we could never possibly have heard of "Him" before. They need to be part of the solution, instead of being part of the problem.

Healers, heal thyselves.

"Barney" People

2009-04-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. For me, watching old reruns of The Andy Griffith Show is a spiritual experience. It's not as goofy as it sounds. There are actually churches that do Bible studies based on the show. At this particular time of my life, living in the house where I grew up -- and where my father died -- I find it strangely comforting to spend some of my evenings in Mayberry on TV Land.

Indeed, I live alone with ghosts. They may be only in my mind, but they seem very real. I'm following in my father's footsteps, now, by staying sober. Like many recovering alcoholics, I get a lot of support from friends also in recovery. We share our stories, and we often laugh at all the common themes.

It seems, to this Andy Griffith fan, that there are basically two kinds of folks. There are "Andy" people, and there are "Barney" people. The "Andys" are self-confident, secure in their egos, comfortable in their own skins. The "Barneys" are always full of bravado, trying to prove themselves, but shadowed by self-doubt. Recovering drunks are almost always "Barney" people.

Oh, we're not all as funny as Barney. Some of us aren't very funny at all. But, like Barney, we're full of blarney. We've all just endured eight years of a recovering drunk: a classic "Barney" guy. Now we seem to have elected an "Andy." There's a new sheriff in town, and I think we can all see the difference already.

For years, we strutted and blustered around the planet, issuing macho ultimatums and telling people they were "either for us or against us." We proclaimed that our "mission" was "accomplished" -- and then the war went on and on. Our new "Andy," in contrast, goes abroad making friends, settling disputes and smoothing ruffled feathers. He understands that God can love us -- and everybody else at the same time. And Barney can keep that bullet in his pocket where it belongs.

Coming out as a lesbian was also, for me, a highly spiritual experience. And it was transformative, because it showed me just how powerful honesty can be. God loves me as I am, and I can see that now. Andy always knew that God loved Barney, which is why, for so many years, he so gently and compassionately put up with all those crazy antics.

Being "out" helps transform our inner Barneys -- our insecure egotists -- into Andys. Very much the same way that sobriety does. Gradually, we come to realize that we are loved, and accepted, as we are. "If God is for us," as Scripture says, "then who can stand against us?"

There's a reason why so many of us turn to alcohol or drugs to sustain us. We're filled with insecurity, loneliness and pain. Many of us feel that no one really understands us -- or would love us if they did. But God is the Ultimate Andy. God knows us, and accepts us, inside and out.

I couldn't stay sober without God's help. In fact, without it I couldn't accept myself at all. But I'm done with booze, with closets and with being Barney. And so -- thank God -- is the country. There's a new sheriff in town.

Phishin' With Bonnie and Clyde

2009-04-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

We keep being told that we're in the worst hole we've been in since the Thirties. Though it's too early to tell if this is a bona fide depression, it's being widely hailed (by those media minions who still have jobs) as "The Great Recession."

Gotta have a catchy name for it. Not that it makes the whole thing any easier to take. But hey, at least we know what to call it!

Among the many parallels between This One and That One, nearly eighty years ago, there's the surge in desperate crime. Not as violent, perhaps, as the gangland gunbattles of yore, but certainly just as banjo-twangingly, depravedly, folksily bold. For sure. No big names are likely to come out of these. Our Bonnies and Clydes are all anonymous.

I don't suppose what happened to me yesterday morning, when I checked my emails, was exactly the same as having a gun stuck in my face and my wallet demanded of me, but it was only slightly less bothersome. I got one bearing the Bank of America logo and informing me that there had been three unsuccessful log-in attempts to my online banking account. They said, therefore, that they "needed" my personal information verified (i.e. given to them), so they'd know that I was really me. If they did not receive this, they threatened, my account would be closed.

"Stick 'em up! Your money or your life! Don't talk back, and you won't get hurt!"

I called Bank of America, understandably mystified, since I don't do any online banking. (And this is probably why.)

When I read the email to the lady from the bank, she had a good laugh. This missive was the product of a mind bereft of even an eighth-grade education. "It's all about your security," it concluded. The education of the author seems to have come almost entirely from TV commercials.

"Yo, dude...it's all good!"

The bank lady advised me to forward the email to their fraud department so they could check it out. I did, and an impressively short time later, they sent a message telling me that this was, indeed, an attempt at "phishing." They were polite about it, but they basically said they hoped I hadn't been dumb enough to give those creeps the information they were seeking.

Nice to know Bank of America is looking out for us. Especially since, thanks to our tax money, they are now wholly a subsidiary of us.

Thank you, no, I gave the creeps nothing. Usually, when I get something like this, I shoot back a reply wishing them "Happy phishing!" This time, I restrained myself from such small satisfactions.

I could almost hear those banjos dueling. This has been happening more and more often to me lately. An indication, I imagine, of desperate times.

The question that must be asked, of course, is the same one people probably used to ask the bandits of the Thirties: "Wouldn't it just be easier to look for a real job?"

Easier, maybe, but I guess not as much fun.

I don't think the corporate bigshots who've been robbing us all are having very much fun right now, because we have figured out their racket. More than a few of us are even trying -- on a much smaller scale -- to copy it. Too many of the small-fry will get away with it. But I don't guess too many more of the big phishies will.

At least in the old days, the gang-bangers robbed the people who were robbing everyone else. This is a part of what I'm getting at when I compare the morality of our response "now" to the people's response "then." The Bonnies and Clydes of today had just better remain anonymous. Were they to come out and proclaim themselves, We the People would tear them limb from limb.

The crooks aren't the only people getting desperate. And there are mega-many more of "us" than there are of "them."

We'll get all this sorted out together. The Great American Kleptocracy is going down, and it's going down hard. If we're able to bring this about soon enough, perhaps our "Great Recession" will lead not to another depression, but to a new, better and fairer prosperity.

Let's do some "phishing" of our own. Let's catch these crooks and nail 'em to the wall. All of 'em, of every size. We all know what happened to Bonnie and Clyde. May the big-time looters meet justice in an only slightly less bothersome way.

Welcoming Miracles

2009-03-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past decade, I've been something of a wanderer. I was, for a while, estranged from my family. I left my longtime church and went through a long search for another one. Several close friends moved out of state. Then my longtime therapist (also a good friend) passed away -- shortly before first my father and then my mother also died.

I have tried to face too much alone. Now that I have -- at last -- found the church I've been searching for all these years, I'm finding it easy to make friends. I've begun reaching out and finding support -- building community -- and as I get more involved in church, politics and life, I'm feelin' the love again.

Now that, once again, something I greatly feared turned out to be groundless, I can admit this. For a long time, I was afraid that if I reached out for fellowship and support, everyone would yawn, shrug and turn away. What actually did happen is what I should have known would happen. People have been wonderful. A good many of them -- more than I could have hoped for -- have responded with great warmth and generosity of spirit.

People are better than I thought they were. There's much more goodness in them than I realized. I'd gotten pretty jaundiced in my estimation of human nature. We're not devils (at least, most of us aren't). And we do have better angels in our nature.

I've also been worried about how we, as a nation, would respond to the economic crisis we're all living through. Would we be at each other's throats, tearing our fellow human beings to shreds? Would we still be capable of pulling together and treating each other with compassion?

It's too early to know for sure, but I can only base my guess on my own, personal experience of late. In times of need, people will rally. We really WANT to care about others. Indeed, it seems to be a big part of who God made us to be.

And God is the key here. As I began actually reaching out for help and personal support, I made my need for this part of my daily prayer-life. As I poured out my need to God in prayer, I truly believe that "He" heard me.

Boy, did "He" ever! I asked, and I have received. Knocked, and the door was opened. Blessing has been poured out in abundance. My cup truly runneth over.

God has answered my prayers before, of course. It's happened so often that if I had any sense, I would no longer be surprised. Because God knows exactly what I need, "He" seems to prompt me, in fact, to know what I should pray for -- and to have the guts to go ahead and ask.

Everything good comes from God -- both inside of us and from without. That's true for us as individuals, and it's true for us collectively, as well.

I've been praying for us to come together now as a nation -- and as a world. I believe God put it into my heart, as "He" has into the hearts of so many others, to ask for this. Just as God has given us the will to pray for this -- so right, and so very, very crucial to us all -- God will certainly answer these fervent prayers of ours. The miracle is coming. Let's be sure we're ready to welcome it with arms wide open.

Ship of Fools

2009-03-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

As happens whenever the Religious Right's rampages flare to supernova magnitude, a major backlash is boiling. Many, many people at the Left and Center are angry -- VERY angry. The predictable cries now ring loudly again for religion's total, surgical removal from the public square.

Of course we don't study history anymore, so many of us seem unable to put what's going on in any intelligent perspective.

This is a regular cycle: the fundamentalist zealots get too big for their britches, they manage to convince the majority in society that they are the only "real" people of faith and their version of faith its sole legitimate form, everybody else gets good and heartily sick of them, there is a large-scale strangle-the-last-priest-with-his-own-entrails revolt against all things religious, and we enter another period of sterile secularity. Then, when people realize how -- well -- sterile this overreaction really is, in rush the fundamentalist zealots again to convince us how much we really need to get religion. Their brand of it, of course.

This is like keeping an ocean liner afloat by rushing madly, pell mell, back and forth from starboard to port. Just as the ship is ready to capsize in one direction, we ALL have to run over to the other side -- until it's about to flip over that way -- when we all head back over to the side opposite.

My grandfather was a deep-water diver in the Coast Guard, stationed on the Great Lakes, in 1915 when just such an event happened for real. The Eastland, a big pleasure cruiser, was on its way out of the harbor for a holiday jaunt. Everybody ran over to the side closest to the crowds on shore to wave at them. But they didn't get the chance to switch sides before the boat capsized. My grandfather pulled hundreds of dead people out of the water.

If we keep this nonsense up, that may eventually happen to our entire society. In part of the Middle East, it may be happening already.

Spiritual aridity always -- ALWAYS -- leads to spiritual excess. Human beings are incurably spiritual. This can be suppressed for a while, but it always, and inevitably, comes roaring back with a vengeance.

The progressive religious movement (Christian, Jewish, Muslim and whatever other tradition may be capable of progress) is an attempt to end this cycle and bring lasting spiritual health. It tries to spread us all out over the ship so we're more equitably distributed and the vessel can proceed in stability and safety. Not as exciting, perhaps -- but a lot less traumatic.

The antidote for bad religion just may be better religion, instead of none at all.

It seems that those at either extreme view religion only in stark terms of either/or. You're either a red-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth fanatic, convinced that God is telling you to set the whole world afire, or else you're so sane and reasonable you allow yourself to believe in nothing.

The hardcore skeptics have the same attitude toward progressives that the fundies do. They are violently allergic to reasoned restraint, mutual respect or thoughtful, tolerant faith. We progressives are "flaky" or "wishy-washy," they scream. And we are, for the most part, too polite to tell these lunatics to calm down and stop screaming. To just stop scrambling back and forth from one side of the ship to the other and making us all pitch and roll along with it.

Do we really need all this drama? Must we allow extremists to shout past us and shove us around?

Again, folks, PLEASE try to evolve. We're supposed to be intelligent beings. Whether we all want to admit it or not, we are spiritual beings, too. We don't all have to believe the same things. But we also don't have to drown ourselves and everybody else.

Sucks to be Us

2009-03-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

My main worry about this economic implosion -- for the country, I mean -- is not merely economic. It's moral and, deeper still, spiritual. This was primarily not just an economic crisis in the first place. It's been moral and spiritual from the start.

We got into this because thirty years of glorifying selfishness and greed as virtues have corrupted us almost beyond recognition. This isn't ordinary human sinfulness; it is sinfulness on steroids. Which is exactly what a stunted-into-perpetual-infancy society on steroids is bound to become. So much for our big swing to the political and religious "Right."

The last time conservative Republican idiocy led this country to near-ruin, we had at least some residual decency left to pull us together, help us recognize our common humanity and see us through. It hasn't been "liberalism" that has corrupted us. These past three decades -- over which conservatives have been so insistent to have sole rule -- have nearly destroyed our ability to recover.

Everyone who still has a job, and a house, and a functioning life, looks at those who seem to be losing everything and thinks, "Oh, well...sucks to be you."

Frankly, it sucks to be ALL of us.

Not only because it could be anybody tomorrow, and perhaps all of us the next day, but because we no longer even seem to realize how connected we are to each other -- whether we want to be or not.

Human beings did not survive, from the stone age all the way 'til the space age, merely by "competing" with other human beings. That alone would, sooner or later, have driven us into extinction. No, human beings made it this far by cooperating and figuring out how to get along. By recognizing that a situation dangerous to one might very likely be one that endangered all.

Of course there must be some competition between us in order to make us strive to be our best. But if that isn't healthily balanced with cooperation, it will...well, it will lead to what's happening right now.

Our only hope is the sharp veer to the Left -- and back to sanity -- those in the nation who have not completely lost their minds are now attempting. Of course the barbarian children are trying to stop us. And of course we can't let them.

It does indeed suck to be them. But it doesn't have to suck, after all, to be the rest of us.

Yes, we evolved from apes. But we're not just apes anymore. God got us here how "He" got us here. And if we truly believe that Jesus revealed Who God is, then we need to remember what that has to mean for us. We have evolved into beings who are moral and spiritual, as well as animal.

I will make this perfectly clear. It is impossible to genuinely live according to the conviction that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh and yet support -- or even condone -- letting society function like some gigantic jungle.

It's time to free Jesus. The barbarian children have been holding Him hostage.

Too bad they don't understand that according to God's scheme, it doesn't have to suck to be anybody.

Some Corrections I Wish to Make (But Evidently Can't)

2009-03-04T11:32:00.001-08:00

Dear gentle reader, please excuse the sorry state of this week's post. I cannot find ANYTHING in Blogger to tell me (A) how the spacing of the paragraphs got screwed-up in the first place or (B) how to fix it.

I am not a computer whiz, to say the very least. It would be so peachy if there were, at some point, somewhere in the universe an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING to consult about technical difficulties like these.

I think the post below is a good one. I hope you'll overlook its squished appearance and give it a read anyway.

Please see below the link to the Andrew Sullivan "Daily Dish" post to which I refer. It was when I tried to insert that link in this week's post that all hell broke loose on the spacing of the paragraphs.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/03/neuro-soul.html

Unforgettable...That's What We Are

2009-03-04T11:18:00.000-08:00

"Pure science is always secular and horizontal in its references, and cannot express the vertical tendencies in culture which refer to the ultimate source of meaning in life."

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

Andrew Sulluvan seems concerned that anti-science fundamentalists are next going to attack neuroscientists the way they've already made war on evolutionary biologists. Thus far no major volleys have been fired, but I suppose it is possible. Rather odd, however, for a Catholic like Sullivan to be siding with those who would deny the existence of the soul. Strange as it may seem, for a fellow gay Christian -- who is no fan of the fundies, either -- I can rather see what might be the "evangelical" crowd's point.

When scientists extrapolate on their latest theories -- however plausible, interesting and possibly true -- once they state that this-or-that-one "proves" there is no God (or, in this case, no life hereafter), they are bringing on the fight.

I have already gone on record that I believe in God, also believe in evolution, and see the two concepts as not only compatible but complementary. But as illogical as fundamentalists can be about evolution, that was a war they didn't exactly start.

I remember sitting in science classes, in public school, and actually being told that evolution "proved" there was no God. And as a Christian, I didn't like it, either. Many scientists are openly antagonistic toward religion, and go out of their way to pull Christians' whiskers every chance they get. They asked for the antagonism, so they sound pretty silly crying about it.

If they start taunting us about how their latest neuroscientific studies supposedly "disprove" the possibility of an afterlife, they are definitely shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater. And they will deserve all the grief they get.

Okay, so when we die, our brain activity totally ceases. And while we're alive, all of our mental, emotional and -- apparently -- even spiritual functions are utterly dependent on our brain's neurochemical activity. Excuse me, but "duh!"

This is new?! Have we not pretty much always known that? Maybe I'm just slow, but this seems to be what the vast majority of the human race has always taken for granted. If, indeed, there is

no God, then there probably is no afterlife. But if -- as I and many other people still stubbornly affirm -- God is real, then there's absolutely no reason why "He" can't work around the neurochemical aspect of the situation.

Those who die, as the Bible says, "die in the Lord" (Rev. 14:13). If there really IS a Lord, then I fail to see the problem. What did people expect, that the human soul was like some tiny, fetus-like creature with a gigantic head who perched somewhere behind the cerebral cortex and plugged it all into a computer? Or the guy behind the screen in "The Wizard of Oz?" Puh-leeze, folks.

We continue always to live, I do believe, in the Mind of God. Nobody has ever been able to prove we didn't start out there in the first place, so there's no way they can prove we don't end up there, as well.

God never, ever forgets us, and God goes on forever. What is that, if not eternal life? It may not sound like much to some, but the memory of God is not likely to be as perishable as that of our loved ones here on earth -- who'll die like we will -- or even that of an entire civilization, which will one day inevitably crumble and be swept away. The Mind of God has called into being all that ever was, is now and ever will be. That seems, to me, to be a pretty secure place to be.

God's thoughts are so enlivening that they created us. They can certainly sustain us, too.

Christians need to stop worrying about things that cannot begin to be problems for God. We need to stop bragging about our great faith and begin living like we actually have it. No more

letting all the scoffers pull our whiskers. If we didn't make it so much fun for them, they'd go pick on somebody else.

To God, we're unforgettable. And that's good enough for me. As long as "He" never forgets us, our eternal survival is assured. Now, it's HOW God remembers us that determines what sort of an eternity we will have.

Corporate Kabuki

2009-02-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

I can now totally understand how Nazi Germany happened. Not to mention the Salem Witch Trials, the Spanish Inquisition, the Stalinist Purges and every other noted instance of mass insanity. Over a decade of having worked for major corporations has taught me all I need to know. Like these other eruptions of evil, our corporate age has brought out human nature's very worst.

Job-hunting, in these troubled times, heavily embroils us in a ritual I can only call Corporate Kabuki. It is an elaborate mummery, totally removed from reality: the domain of pisspot tyrants. And it demands, from those dependend upon it, nothing less than mindless and degrading fealty.

When you apply for a corporate job, the stupid grows like fungus on the process from the start.

"What are your aspirations for a career in Acme Enterprises?" you are asked. And of course, you are expected to tell them something grand. "I just need a damn job," would be the real answer. But that's the one you're not allowed to give.

You are expected to grovel. And certainly, when you play along with their little game of debase-ball and enthuse, with manufactured excitement, about your glorious potential future in widgetry, that is exactly what you are doing.

They know that, even if you're foolish enough to actually dream of climbing the widget ladder, they're only going to keep you 'til the next downsize and then dump you back on the street -- cheating you out of even a minimally-decent severance and, if at all possible, with absolutely no advance warning.

Either that, or -- and this is infinitely worse -- they will keep you for twenty-nine years, eleven months and three days, cutting you loose a matter of weeks before you were set to retire and collect whatever insultingly piddly pension they'd have condescended to give you.

Why do they do this? Why, simply because they can. They're frightened, cruel little people, and their only joy in life comes from lording their petty power over their underlings. The only difference between these soul-dead droids and the Nazis, or the Inquisitors, is one of opportunity.

They think they're frightened because the world is such a cold, hard place. But they have, by their own consent, become part of the problem instead of the solution. They are working to make the world even colder and harder than it has to be. They delude themselves into thinking "that's just the way it is" and that they have no choice. But of course they have a choice -- and of course they've made it.

That people like these continue to get hired and promoted -- just by playing the game -- when they have not a spark of originality, or even real humanity, to offer their employers, speaks volumes about how this situation got to be the way it is in the first place. If these are the sort of people they hire, then no wonder corporate executives hold their workers in such contempt.

The fakery goes on and on throughout the process, from the initial job-search on through to the Big Dump -- whenever it comes. And why? Because they want to get all they can out of us, giving as little as possible in exchange.

It is this that MUST be changed. And the only way we can change it is by WISING UP.

We don't need to devote ourselves to our corporate overlords the way medieval monks and nuns devoted themselves to the Church. We can hire out for a time -- as long as the arrangement remains mutually beneficial -- and then say "sayonara" when we've found something better. We know good and well we don't have any glorious future in widgets. But then again, why the hell would we even WANT one?

They've lost us. They no longer deserve our loyalty, and they never did deserve our dreams, our identities or our very lives. At one time they did deserve our loyalty, and it is entirely by their own treachery that they have lost it.

Wouldn't it be better if we COULD simply be honest with them, and they with us? Then we'd all know pretty much what to count on and what not to. The kabuki routine serves nobody. It has turned corporations and their workers into mortal enemies.

When the kabuki finally comes to an end, we will be able to work out a system that is fairer and more honest for both sides. Dishonesty brings out nothing but evil. It can never truly serve the good.

They've got to stop punishing those who tell them the truth. They've got to stop rewarding mindless conformity and moral cowardice. In the end, they're punishing themselves far more than they are us.

The curtain is coming down on the kabuki. But real life will go on.

Evolve, Already!

2009-02-18T10:04:00.000-08:00

As we pass the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, we hear the usual plaudits of him from the rational Left and irrational shrieks against him from the Christianist-infested Right. The stupidity of Christianist superstition has so taken over this country that polls show a frighteningly high percentage of the populace unwilling to "accept" evolution.

If these people were sincere -- if they had any principles at all -- they'd refuse to accept all the benefits that have accrued from agriculture, pharmacology, medicine and genetics.

Wait -- they can't do that. It would be impossible. Nearly all modern biological science is irrevocably based upon evolution.

New discoveries in genetics are verifying evolutionary theory every day. "Just" a theory? Sure. But without question, evolution is the best-attested scientific theory in human history.

Let's just go ahead and call Christianist crap science exactly what it is. It is atheism too cowardly and dishonest even to call itself by its right name. It is an insult to the God Who made us -- spitting right in "His" face -- because it is, in its self-indulgent fear, unwilling to appreciate the way God actually chose to make us.

Faith? It has absolutely nothing to do with faith. It is the anti-faith of people too feeble to believe.

If God is real, then truth need never be feared. Ever. Whether it leads in the direction people's pointy little heads expect it to or not. God did not "have to" make us the way all too many of us would have been more comfortable believing that "He" did. Sorry. Get over it, and get over yourselves if you don't like it.

"Intelligent Design?" Of course it is. The problem, for fundamentalists, is that they have confused themselves with God. They can't figure out how -- or why -- God would work to create through the slow, hit-or-miss process of evolution instead of simply going "zap!" and blinking everything into being, the way Samantha did on Bewitched.

But that is their problem -- not God's. Nor need it be anybody else's.

The anti-evolutionist know-nothings claim that evolution, if universally accepted, would make us more animal-like. Actually, and quite ironically, they use "creationism" -- whatever they want to call it -- to accomplish the very same purpose. It is used, by this crowd, as an excuse to behave like beasts instead of people.

If God just zapped us all here, then we "have to" keep carrying on like selfish, fearful, hateful, avaricous animals. We have no responsibility to keep on growing and learning. This is why these biological anti-Darwinists are, paradoxically, such fervent and devoted social Darwinists.

The only problem for those who are "Christians" -- as most of such people claim to be -- is that "creationism" would render the Gospel of Jesus Christ totally meaningless. It would reveal that God's relationship to human beings was entirely mechanistic and dictatorial -- that we were, to "Him," nothing more than puppets or robots, bearing little or no responsibility for how we lived our lives or what we were capable of becoming. The entire teaching of Christ, in Whom Christians believe that God can be most clearly seen, can be summed up in one urgent exhortation: "Evolve, already!"

Not only does science verify evolution, but evolution verifies the Christian faith. That's right -- it does not disprove it, but actually verifies it. It shows us that God's very mind, in "His" means of creating, works in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

So, indeed, Jesus is Lord. And someday, when sanity prevails, Charles Darwin will be recognized as the prophet he really was.

Evolve, already!

Taking Care of Bidness

2009-02-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

As I look for another job, I can't help but notice that the opportunities are drying up out there. Why are there so few available jobs? The real question, I believe, is why do we, as a society, have so little use for human beings?

We are fast approaching a world in which most human beings will be obsolete.

In any sane system, the people first to be laid off in a crunch -- especially one of this magnitude -- would be the CEO's who caused the problem in the first place. They have screwed up the economy, already having done more damage to the country than the terrorists did on 9-11, and if they were axed, we would save enough money for a great many jobs (the jobs of the people who actually do the work, anyway) to be saved. If these corporations honestly wanted to trim the fat, they would start at the top, not at the bottom.

The injuns and the chiefs do not, by any means, bear equal responsibility for our economy's woes. The overwhelming bulk of the blame belongs to those who held all the power and insisted upon making all the decisions.

If we entrust all power and authority to cheap, weak, cowardly, childish people -- people who refuse to assume any responsibility or accountability for the power they wield -- then we are surely doomed. We can afford this folly no longer. Especially since they're pilfering our tax money to bail themselves out of it.

An alternative economy is now urgently needed. Indeed, on a small scale -- flying under the radar -- there has long been one. Farmer's markets, independent bookstores, mom-and-pop shops, non-chain restaurants, cooperatives, independent contractors, freelancers -- we're all out there. And we will be the salvation of the economy. Perhaps even of our entire society.

People must be able to make their own way in this world. They certainly don't need to do it alone. We can form cooperatives, put on festivals, come together in collaborative associations and creative ventures of every kind. The possibilities are endless.

We must, however, preserve and protect our right to exist, to earn our own daily bread, and to transact the business necessary to do it. The big corporations, and their toadies in the Republican Party, have done everything possible to crush us. Totally contrary to their grandiose claims, they are the enemies of true free enterprise.

I now hope to make my living as a freelance writer and a temporary office worker. At some point in the future, for a time, I may again take a regular office job -- probably in insurance, as this is the field in which I have toiled for must of my adult life. But eventually, I hope to work totally as a writer, either for myself or for a larger organization.

As long as I am working at a clerical or administrative job for a large company, it will, indeed, be a temporary position -- no matter what they choose to call it. There are no "permanent" jobs, any more, in the corporate world. I know that now. I forgot it for a while -- but I will never forget it again.

People, we must take care of ourselves -- and of each other. If we don't, absolutely nobody else will.

We need to organize -- to unionize, whenever possible. We need to share information about how companies treat us, whether well or ill. We need to make sure that no company that treats its employees indecently or unfairly can any longer attract quality personnel. We don't need to belong to unions in order to accomplish that.

They have every right to expect an honest and reliable day's work from us for every honest and reliable day's pay. They do NOT have ANY right to expect any more than that. And they have made it pretty clear that neither do we. They deserve exactly as much loyalty as they are willing to give -- but not one iota more than that.

Our survival is up to us. We must fight for it every step of the way -- and in order to fight, we must unite.

We must, as one of this nation's founders once said, all stand together -- or we will all hang together. Let the new American Revolution begin!

Stimulate This!

2009-02-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

So now President Obama has placed a cap of half a million dollars on each fat-cat financial executive's salary. And of course, we can expect those on the clueless "Right" to whine.

They are playing childrens' games with the stimulus package. It is one of the bitterest ironies in the history of humankind that these people talk so much about "morality." They are, almost to a man and woman, utterly depraved.

My own experience with my most recent employer is living proof of this. Both my former manager and supervisor pride themselves on their "Christianity" -- and both are pretty much standard Right-Wingers. One is Catholic, the other Evangelical Protestant, but both subscribe to a supposedly-conservative moral theology. It has turned them both into moral idiots.

When I was "let go," as they put it, they told me it was because my "skill-set" didn't match my position. I then applied for unemployment insurance. When the Department of Economic Security investigated my claim, these same moral midgets -- my sterling former employers -- told the DES they'd "fired" me for "insubordination."

That was the first I'd heard of it. Not only had they never warned me that I was, in any way, "insubordinate," but they gave not even the slightest indication that I was doing anything wrong.

Of course the DES asked them for documentation of this. As the company was lying through its teeth, it could provide none.

Thank God for the DES. Justice was done, at least in this case. They have awarded me my unemployment compensation.

Whenever people contradict themselves, they are lying -- at least once, and perhaps (as in this case) even twice. I don't believe either of the two totally-different stories the company has told. As my former position has yet to be posted as available, over a month after I was sacked, it is pretty clear they simply wanted to "downsize" by disappearing one individual at a time so as not to cause a panic. How very, very noble of them.

If the Right-Wingers have their way, they will destroy every form of government protection we now count on to keep us safe from exploitation. I'm pretty sure my former manager and supervisor are now cursing the DES. But again, I am thanking God for them.

The Republicans in congress are quite hunky-dory with a government that spies on people, imprisons them without trial, tortures and murders them, and sucks them dry to finance immoral wars on innocent civilian populations. But now they want to lecture us all on "fiscal responsibility." Responsibility of ANY sort is totally a foreign concept to them.

And again, the brand of religion they use to try and glue it all together turns them into moral idiots.

All I got out of this incident (besides my unemployment compensation) was a lesson I intend never, ever to forget. Put quite basically, the Left is right and the "Right" is wrong. I forgot that for a while, but I will never forget it again.

People, let's put all the pressure we can on the Repub thugs in congress who want to kill our President's stimulus package, or to corrupt it beyond recognition. These are our lives they're playing games with. In 2010, we're going to need to flush even harder to get rid of them.

Cross Currents

2009-01-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

Of all the things gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians need most right now, perhaps the main need we have is fellowship. Solidarity. Just as the wider GLBT community is fractured into a bewildering array of small and divided fragments, so, too, are those of us who are of the Christian faith.

This new era of progressive reform must include unity, in the midst of diversity, if it is to survive. The recent bad feelings between the gay community and the Black community over California's Proposition 8 have made that clear. In the ensuing storm, Christians who are both GLBT and African-American have suffered from this alienation more than anybody else.

Some friends and I are starting a group, in the Phoenix area, to address the need for GLBT solidarity and fellowship. We're calling it Cross Currents, and we hope it will be a means for bonding and healing between us. We will welcome those of all races and gender identities, and we hope that, if our group is successful locally, this will lead to other chapters being formed elsewhere.

There will be no litmus tests imposed upon would-be members, whether these might be denominational, political, racial or ethnic. Of course those who do not support GLBT equality in the Church need not apply -- again, we seek unity, not division -- but those still struggling to come out and live honest lives will be fully included and supported.

Belonging to Cross Currents would enable members to attend any church they chose, without the fear of isolation and loneliness. Old friends long separated could reconnect, and connections made would not need to be broken as members moved to different churches. Thanks to the Internet, we could cross-pollinate the country as we moved to new locales.

Though we cannot allow Cross Currents to become a "meat market," it would also be an excellent way for singles to find mates with whom they were "equally yoked" in faith. Instead of worrying about whether there were any eligible single women or men at a church that interested them, they could concentrate on finding a congregation that was right for them in every way.

This organization would also help us share important information about developments in the various churches and denominations, both good and bad. It is harder for injustice to be perpetuated when we are not isolated from one another. In unity, there is strength.

While this would not be a political organization, we could discuss and keep abreast of the issues of the day. Individual members would be free to connect with one another to work more actively for social change.

It is our hope that no GLBT Christian need ever be alone again.

I'll post more here as we get rolling. Watch this space -- and watch us grow.

"Under the Bus..." Aaaaaargh!

2009-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

If I hear one more person say that President Obama is "throwing gays under the bus," I may scream. I won't throw them under the bus because I'm not a violent person. Besides, I use public transportation, and it doesn't run very well with people under the wheels.

President Obama. I so love the sound of that. I love to say it. I love to write it. Even thinking it makes my toes wiggle with joy.

I can guarantee you I wouldn't feel this way, boys and girls, if I thought President Obama was going to "throw us under the bus." (There -- I got to write it again!)

Why, oh why, is it not enough for some people that President Obama is the most gay-friendly President in history? President Obama has promised that he will be, and he gives every indication of being sincerely committed to keeping his word. President Obama has already stuck his neck out on this to a degree that he can never live down -- even in the eyes of the huge, hairy homophobes the naysayers in our midst think he is so afraid of.

There, I got to write it three more times.

Now, he isn't going to let us push him around. He isn't going to let anybody push him around. That is what so many in our community are really bitching about, but let's stop to think about that for a moment. In a President, that trait is a quality. If he did let people push him around, he would be no good to anybody but bullies -- and we've already had enough so-called leaders like that.

First of all, "throwing us under the bus" is a dumb expression, and it makes us look like idiots when we keep using it. If you want to, try saying something at least a little more original -- like "kicking us off of the bridge" or "holding us under the water." You'll still be wrong, but at least you won't be so damned tiresome.

If President Obama chose to stick us on the back burner (another stupid and very tired cliche), he would probably suffer no significant political fallout from most Democrats for doing so. Nor, however, would he gain any more support from the wingnuts, who will hate him just as much no matter what.

The lesson Bill Clinton's "triangulations" have to teach us is that the wingnuts can never be appeased. They made his administration a living hell no matter how much he tried to make them happy. President Obama is a smart man. I'm sure that lesson has not been lost on him.

The middle-grounders -- especially the younger generation President Obama most needs -- are moving increasingly in our favor. The people who hate us are gradually dying off. More gradually than we'd like, perhaps, but their demise is, nonetheless, inevitable.

So take a pill and chill. Keep the pressure up, by all means. But don't despair. "Waaaaah! He's throwing us under the bus!" is NOT an expression of power. And it only leads to more despair.

If you do succumb to despair, I'll kick you off of the bridge and hold you under the water.

Not really. I'm not a violent person. I'll just say "President Obama" three times, click my ruby-slippered heels together, and keep on hoping and working for change.

Cursing the Darkness

2009-01-14T12:25:00.001-08:00

I used to wonder how the Nazis became the way they were. Surely they were evil, in a way that normal people aren't. I wondered how it was that I could have been related to them -- however distantly. Had I sprung from a race of monsters?

The past eight years have answered that question. Actually, and with frightening rapidity, we have seen it develop over these last thirty years. As has so often happened over history, we have become what we once conquered.

Those who dispose of their fellow human beings, even professionally, for the sake of profits would -- if asked to -- as easily send them to concentration camps as they would fire them or "downsize" them out of their livelihood. They are "just following orders." And in the process, they have lost all contact with what it means to be children of God.

Listening to their ringleader, their Fuhrer, in his final presidential press conference, I hear an eerie disconnect between power and responsibility. We have surrendered the power over our lives just as laboratory rats give themselves over to the technicians who use and eventually kill them. Our corporate lords and masters feel no greater compunction about making life-and-death decisions about us than those white-coated functionaries do toward those small rodents. Their universe has no room for God. They are gods unto themselves.

We must fight this, just as the resistance movement in Europe fought the fascists of yesteryear. This is the moral task of our age. And it need not be done in hostility or anger; it can indeed be a positive, loving and life-giving endeavor.

If we, as a society, do not pull together now and stop behaving like jungle beasts, we will destroy each other -- and ourselves. Like the Nazis, our oppressors would keep us alienated from each other and from our very selves. We have to give a damn about each other, because a world that is a cold, hard, howling wilderness for others can never be anything better for us. To make a world we want to live in, we must make a world in which others want to live, too.

This is not about making "Heaven on earth," as the wingnuts would claim. It's about keeping the world from descending into Hell.

This is God's work for me -- and for all who would serve God in this world. I need to figure out how to live this mission more completely in my own life. Merely eking out a living -- a bare subsistence -- will never be enough for me again.

Times are tough -- there's little chance I might forget that. But the only way they'll ever get any better is if we all pitch in and help.

We can either light a candle or curse the darkness. But if each of us lights a candle, we can fulfill the mission Christ has given us to help Him light the world.

Left for Dead

2009-01-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

What if we simply refused to die, when others were ready to finish us off? Let's face it -- our corporate lords and masters need for most of us to die when it's convenient for them to be rid of us. There are far too many of us to suit their purposes. In the future, corporations will be unable to use most of us as employees; in fact, we've probably already reached that point. They haven't figured out that if they ever did manage to disappear all of us as employees, we'd be gone as consumers, too.

When I was let go a few days before Christmas, my now-former company was, in a very real sense, leaving me for dead. They seem to have figured out a way for our department of four people to be staffed by three, instead. Last hired, first fired. You get the story. Far too many of you are living it, yourselves.

It's clearly time for me to do some serious reevaluating here. Do I intend to die -- conveniently for them -- or am I determined to live on? And what, exactly, does living mean?

I have learned that I cannot let what I do for a living define who I am as a human being. I am a child of God, created for eternity, but forced, temporarily, to live in a world that must make use of me, like a cog in the great, man-made machine, or else cast me aside.

I've never totally accepted that. It makes me a rebel -- a misshapen cog -- and I not only accept this, I now know that I must learn to embrace it.

As must we all. We must refuse, for the sake of our very souls, to crawl off and die when the lords of the corporate empire refuse to recognize our value. We not only need to live -- we need to matter.

The rulers of the world have forced our entire society to the brink of disaster. They are anti-human being and anti-human life. They are also anti-God, despite the pious pretensions of so many of them. It is now clear that unless they are overridden by common sense and decency, they will destroy even themselves.

If no one can afford anything, no one can buy anything. The captains of industry, in their blind greed, are well into the process of impoverishing themselves. This is insanity. In their refusal to recognize that employees are also consumers -- even-two dimensional beings (Heaven forbid they would see us as fully-dimensional human beings) -- they are cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.

Only a system that recognizes the humanity of all people can survive.

I will continue to live a fully human life, in spite of them. I will minister to others, and make my voice heard. I will be of use to humanity -- and to God. I will never define myself as merely a cog in the machine. And I will not rest until I have found an occupation in tune with my vocation.

It may take a while. But I will never forget this resolution. Either the corporate world can find a place for me to be me, or I will gladly go to a nonprofit, to a social-service agency of government, a small company that counts every person in its employ, or a labor organization. God has a place for me somewhere. God has a place for each and every one of us -- somewhere.

They cannot leave us for dead, because though they may have been the source of our living, they are not the source of our life. God made us. And we do not live for the lords of the corporate world. We live for God.

As I write this, my faithful cat, Buster Kitten, lies dying at the age of nearly nineteen. He has been with me, very literally, since his birth. His brother and litter-mate, Punkin, stands vigil over him, meowing his heart out. Animals care more about one another than most humans do. And I care vastly more about my little cat than my former employer does about me.

Together, we can remake this world. There are more of us -- many, many more - than there are of them. We can't degenerate into soulless droids if we insist on living as complete human beings. They are trying to make us -- but we can't let them.

Let's all refuse to die -- and really begin to live.

Getting Real in 2009

2008-12-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

2008 will be remembered as the year we, as a nation, slid all the way to the edge of the abyss. 2009 will be defined by whether or not we go over it.

Just thought that, on this day when we're all reflecting, I would clarify things a little.

The national attitude -- on both Left and Right -- worries me. It seems to be, "Well, now we've elected Obama, and it's up to him to save us."

It's up to us -- all of us -- to save ourselves. And it always has been.

Just like Candidate Obama, President Obama will only do what he thinks the voters want him to do. He has not been elected King, and he certainly isn't a superhero.

I don't care how many gays, or women, or Blacks, or Latinos he has in his cabinet. Nor do I care who he gets to pray at his inauguraton. I care about what he does afterwards. I care how his administration impacts our lives in the years to come.

That's where WE come in. He will do what we tell him to. IF we vote, and work hard at the grassroots, and continue to make our voices heard.

Slavery existed, as an institution in this country, for three hundred years. This was because the people permitted it. When enough of them got tired of it, they got rid of it. Lincoln's help was, indeed, invaluable when the moment came. But the moment came because the people (or at least enough of them) decided that they were ready for it.

Progressives will always be in the minority. We've just spent a year commemorating the Democratic National Convention of 1968. What was that all about? Hello -- the conservatives held all the power, and they tried to keep the progressives out in the cold.

Those who gripe about this situation now (and I have been guilty of this myself) are forgetting history. This situation is not new. In '68, the people depended too much on the outcome of the election, and when Nixon came in, they let the movement stall.

Hello again -- what can we learn from that?

No matter who had been nominated by the Democrats that year, or who had been elected, I'm afraid the story would have been pretty much the same. IF we, the people, had continued to change hearts and minds, we could have transformed the country (even more than we did) from the grassroots up.

Riots and temper-tantrums do not change things in any positive way. They are the actions of those resigned to being on the outside, and they GUARANTEE that those people will stay there. These are nothing more than a form of terrorism, and like terrorism, they bring nothing but grief -- and guarantee further powerlessness.

We are displeased with the selection of Rick Warren to pray at Obama's inauguration, and we should be. The President-Elect knows that now. Let's see what he does with that knowledge, and let's make sure he does the right thing with it.

If he doesn't deliver for progressives over the next four years, I will vote next time for somebody else. I don't care if he or she is a Democrat or a member of the New Turnip Party. Let's be inside that party convention hall four years from now -- and inside of the Republicans', too. Let's study '68, figure out why we were left outside, and work to change that. And by all means, let's begin in '09.

Had it been up to those running the Republican Party today, we would still have slavery in this country. The progressives have been shut out of the Party of Lincoln, too.

A hundred and fifty years ago, progressives refused to be silent. On Election Day 2008, we also demanded to be heard. But now we're sitting passively back again and hanging on every word out of our new messiah's mouth.

Well, I have only one Messiah, and He is Jesus Christ. I am a progressive because Christ was a progressive. No matter how loudly and persistently the Right-Wingers slander us, they cannot change the fact that this is true.

Let us resolve, together, that we will not sit down, we will not shut up, we will not go away, and we will not succumb to the helplessness of impotent rage. Let us resolve, here and now, that we will stand up, we will speak out, we will stick around and we will fight our battles from the inside -- where we rightfully belong.

If we don't, then not only our country, but our civilization will be over.

We belong at the grownups' table. We belong inside the convention hall. We belong inside the voting booth, as well. The Obama people are already looking ahead to 2012. But we voted once, and we must vote again.

Let's make 'em deal with 2009 first. This year was the year we halted our mad rush to destruction. Let's make next year the year we begin to turn it all around.

Let's get real in 2009.