What is an Artist Worth? A Letter to My Young Cousin

My cousin's 16 year old son and I got into a conversation over on fb after I posted a meme of Bernie Sanders congratulating LA for raising their minimum wage. This is a continuation of that conversation.

Dear Isaiah, 

Because I am no economics genius :), I thought it makes more sense to map out my position by giving you the coordinates of my values first, and to at least touch on how your assumptions feel foreign to those values. Please understand that these are not points in a political position. They are my deeply held and deeply felt core values and way of seeing the world. Many different streams contribute to this pond of values:  almost a half-a century (one more year, grrrr.) of life experience: being born into and spending my early childhood in dismal, impoverished, abusive circumstances; growing up in the chaos of a liberal, laissez-aller, and deeply dysfunctional foster family; many, many of my own mistakes, failures and wrong choices; some successes;  experiencing the often pivotal effect in my life of other’s generosity; traveling around the world and living for longer periods in several different cultures; co-parenting a family of three kind, loving and generous children; living in and leading a community; living with pain and disability; extensive reflection and evaluation of these experiences and of the good and bad role-models and examples that have figured in my story; lots and lots of books, and stories, and movies; reading and reflecting on the abundance of Christian tradition and literature, not least of all the Bible itself; profiting from the fruits of other’s scientific observation, experimentation, information gathering, discoveries, inventions etc; the years I have spent studying conflict; and perhaps most importantly, experiencing grace and being so often transformed by this mysterious and unexplainable and unforeseeable reality I would call the Spirit of God. 

So, here are things I have come to believe and hold to be true, often fail miserably to live out, but keep coming back to as a worthy compass. 

I deeply cherish the story of creation in the Bible. 

(I don’t care, whatsoever, about the creation - evolution debate.) 

For me the opening chapters of the Bible establish a change in paradigms, the understanding of which takes on a whole new depth once you have lived in an animistic culture like PNG, as I have. What I take away from the creation story is this:

1.) The planet we live on is part of a Time-Space matrix, which is not a hostile, unknowable, unpredictable, untamable “Hunger Games” arena ruled by unappeasable gods and ancestor spirits, nor by simple randomness, but rather its foundations are knowable, and it has been given to us as a great big canvas, or playground and garden; it is inherently valuable, and we should care for it and protect it.

2.) We are all Artists: I believe that this is the core of our human identity. We were created in the image of a creator (all we know at that point of the text!), the Alpha Artist to be artists ourselves! It is the foundation of human dignity, the basis of every single person’s fundamental worth, and it is the fountain of their inexhaustible potential. It establishes a baseline for the respect due to everyone, no matter their circumstances or what they have done or failed to do, for the debt we owe to every man, woman and child, to love them and let them live in dignity.

 

3.) We are all Screw Ups: In all of my years, I have never met anyone who was perfect, who never messed up, or who had a spotless record or character. Not a single one. Ever.  

4.) We are diverse: Each person is unique (and screws up in his/her own unique way). Each one of us show up somewhere on a spectrum in any given point of what we think, believe, have, look like, what we can or can’t do, where we are from, and no two people overlap in all points exactly, ever.  Unfortunately we tend to divide up and evaluate each other, favor or neglect, esteem or hold in contempt, empower or exploit, according to these four categories: a) Bodies (gender, race, disability/ability, age) b) Geographical location (which influences ethnicity, culture, language, sports team) c) Ideology (politics, religion (tho it is often connected to location, people can and do switch) d) Economic class (what we have/don’t have in wealth, property, opportunity, mobility, education, skills, and status symbols)

Because of these last two points,

5.) Conflict is an inevitable part of life: After eating, relieving oneself, and sleeping, conflict is the next thing on the list that make up our lives the moment we live in a human plural. Our ways of dealing with conflict can either be constructive or destructive, and that will depend on whether we respond with shame/hubris or guilt/grace when differences arise.

- Shame Leads to Competition, Isolation, Exploitation, Exclusion, and Violence,

- Guilt is empathic and leads to authenticity and vulnerable truth-telling (confession), restitution (Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1-10), and can lead to reconciliation, justice and deep community

6.) I believe in, have experienced, and work towards Redemption:  People (and things in a way) who have been broken by their own or other’s shortcomings, who have been rolled over by the consumer and domination systems of this world and have been isolated, exploited, excluded or violated, or who have done these things, can be resurrected, reclaimed, re-created, and reinstated in community, through grace, forgiveness, and a renewed investment in their inherent and potential value.

7.) Capitalism vs. Kingdom of God: Though the domination systems of this world are wreaking havoc all over the globe for the love of mammon, and in the name of “progress”, or purity, or glory, and tho the destruction and cruelty and suffering often seem so utterly hopeless, I do still hold on to the belief that it is never in vain to believe in, pray for, and work toward Shalom, Ubuntu, “God’s kingdom, His will on earth as it is in Heaven,” the culture of faith, hope, love, peace and justice, interdependence, mutual flourishing for everyone and all of creation and in this life, which God intended from the beginning.  

“The free market system,” capitalism, or America are no proxies for God’s Kingdom. They are not “baby sitters” until the time of judgement. They are corrupt systems of this world, which we must find someway to live in with integrity, but must never mistake for the Kingdom of God. My first allegiance is to live these “kingdom” values and culture here on earth, as part of the world wide body of Christ, and in my experience, that is usually done outside of, despite, in subversion to, and circumventing the “free market systems.”

8.) Concretely for me, this means doing the things that God does in this world:

- creating

- nurturing

- protecting

- empowering

There is no dividing these up, that some people should do one or some of them, and others something else. If you leave any one of these things out, things get messed up, people become exploited machines, get neglected, become enslaved, or are disenfranchised of rights and responsibilities as an interdependent member of community.

Everyone has been called and given the responsibility and authority to live that way. EVERYone.

10.) However, not everyone has the same amount of power at their disposal.

• Though some of that power/advantage might be self wrought (i.e. the parable of the Talents, the ones with more money did actually invest it to profit), no one is born into a vacuum. No one, anywhere, gets to greater advantage purely on their own steam and merit. Attitudes of entitlement are dangerous and out of place in the economics of God’s Kingdom.
• Always where there is a greater amount of power, there is a greater responsibility to use that power to be creative (innovative), to nurture, to protect and to empower those with less power. Contempt for those in positions of less power and advantage is never warranted. (“There, but for the grace of God, go I”)
• Even in a position of less or very little power, there are creative, nonviolent ways to circumvent and subvert abuse of power by the systems of domination and work toward mutual flourishing. (i.e. see all the Gospels)

  

11.) Sabbath, tithing, Gleaning and Jubilee: Because of all these things above, I believe that we don’t have to “go over our fields twice”, trying to squeeze every last drop of profit for ourselves, take every advantage, maximize the bottom line to the expense of other values and other people, or work seven days a week to get ahead, but that we can “leave some” for others, rest, quiet our ambitions, realign ourselves with our core values, give back and pay it forward. Jubilee addresses the devastating injustice of generational poverty, children paying for the sins, mistakes, misfortune, or outright victimization of their parents and grandparents, their ethnic group, their race, or their bodies, and gives people a clean slate, a chance to start over, an outside intervention to break this otherwise inescapable cycle of poverty, self-destruction, and, often, violence. 

So, that is where I am coming from. What follows is my breaking down how your comments and arguments sound to me, where they strike a nerve, and where they appear to collide with my values.

Assumption #1: Brain over Brawn: Cognitive labor over manual labor. White collar vs. Blue collar jobs. The “years you spent training” your brain to understand and perform complicated computer codes (time & attention) is inherently more valuable and deserves more reward than the personal cost of physical labor. So much more, in fact, that the latter does not even deserve a living wage for the time and effort he/she actually spends working.

• It is true that at different times our society needs different things and rewards those things with more money and acclaim. After WWII tenacity, hard work, practicality, elbow grease were needed to rebuild a bombed out Germany, but now that it has built a strong economy, we need creative, innovative thinkers more than ever to help solve problems in the ever more complicated world we live in: sustainability, conflicts in pluralistic, over populated societies, energy crises, etc. But those skills are not more valuable in an absolute sense. Nor does it mean that other skills become irrelevant or unnecessary. This should go without saying, but service, agricultural, educational, and industrial jobs (building infrastructure) are the backbone of a society. The unfortunate fact is, our society tends to reward those jobs the most that not only contribute little to no real value or product, but actually harm and degrade and destroy it. Think Wall street, porn, celebrities, cigarettes, alcohol, etc. It doesn’t take long to see who our free market pushes to the top. 

Assumption #2: That flipping burgers takes “0” skill. Not just less skill, or little skill, but “0” skill. 

• I hear contempt: “0” skill means “0” value, “0” respect, “0” slice of the shalom. 
• I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that this is hyperbole, and that what you really mean is “less” or “little” skill. 
• I have not “flipped burgers,” but I have bussed tables, served desserts, hosted and waited on tables, and worked with line cooks, bakers and dishwashers, and am alive to tell you, that it was the hardest, most stressful job I have ever done. It was my first boot camp of life and I had to really scramble to learn to multitask, know and recite the entire menu and wine list by heart, remember orders (an utter nightmare for me), be speedy (as in yesterday already!), be organized, balance trays, carry heavy trays, walk at least 5 to ten miles during shifts, be cordial and diplomatic while taking crap from nasty and upset people, constantly get hit on and hear rude, sexist remarks, work in a team, do math (ugh!). And I made 2,15 an hour (plus fluctuating, unreliable tips). I would get negative pay checks at the end of the month! The work was so hard, that it literally broke my back and gave me a handicap that I have had to live with the rest of my life. 

Assumption #3: “Flipping burgers is a stand in for every low wage job on the market, and therefore, these low wage jobs are equally “unskilled” and therefore less-rewardable.

• Of course there are many more factors to figure into calculating someone’s wage than the amount of skill involved. Risk of injury, danger, health risks, labor intensity, discomfort, amount of intrinsic reward, necessity to a functioning society (trash-men are paid relatively well here in Germany). Here is a list of the 10 worst paid jobs in America: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119269/ten-worst-paying-jobs-america-what-they-are-who-has-them  (Hard to believe that life guards are paid more than farm workers, and that parking lot attendants are paid more than personal care aids) 
• “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 22 percent of Americans hold one of the lowest paying jobs that the agency categorizes.” 
• In addition to working in restaurants,  I have worked as a receptionist,  cleaned houses, worked in daycare, taught in schools, and worked retail, among other things, and none of those jobs paid a living wage, or even what the sacrifice, time, effort and, yes, skill deserved.

Assumption #4: Any such job is/should only be regarded as a stepping stone. Anyone who stays in such a low-wage job does so because they are too lazy to move themselves forward, to get themselves on the train of progress. It is their own fault (“poor life decisions down the road,” “lack of character,” “he has a disease” ), if they stay in these jobs past their teenage years.

• This is such reductionistic thinking, that I hardly know where to begin. 
• I think of the people who love to cook, and want to be cooks (even will spend their own money to do it).
• I think of my brother who is highly skilled and gifted at making homes beautiful, who does what he loves with excellence and is just barely keeping his head above water (as a single guy!).
• I think of the people who love young children, and want to be child care workers.
• I think of someone I know who is barely surviving, supporting a family, being a self employed hairdresser (not to mention the poor souls who are exploited by large chains!), who is fantastic at what he does and is a blessing to me (the cliche is totally true of hairdresser-priest-psychologist in our case, and I end up crying every time I'm in his chair): Why is that less valuable than what you do? Where should he climb to from there? He works long and hard, values excellence, wants to live creatively in charitable community doing what he is gifted to do and provide for his family. Why isn’t it enough to do those things with dignity? Why should he struggle, not to live in luxury, but to just barely scrape by?
• But beyond that, there are myriads of reasons why people don’t, can’t or choose not to move out of what you consider to be “stepping stone,” menial labor jobs. Sure laziness, hopelessness, and lack of courage are probably the reasons for some. But to assume that you know the motivations, circumstances, opportunities, roadblocks, and pressures that 22% of Americans face is uncharitable and unworthy of you. 
• I believe we are interdependent, and that everyone has something different to contribute, and that the eye should not say to the nose, “You shouldn’t just be a nose, you should strive to be an eye,” because then the thing would be a cyclops and that would be gross. (I Corinthians 12:12-18)

Assumption #5: That a free market society (pure capitalism) is the cat’s meow. That it is fair and somehow is immune to man’s sinfulness, greed and lust for power, and everyone has the same chance at making it work for them if they only tried.

• See #7, 10 and 11 of my values.

Assumption #6: Not only that, but the free market is actually a good tool for disciplining and educating and bringing about good character, motivating the bottom feeders to progress to the next rung on the latter.

• I did not make a change in my life, sign up for college, after three years of waitressing because it paid too little. I would not have stayed in the job if it had paid a decent, living wage (one where I could work just 40 hours and still pay rent, eat, not be naked). I knew that I needed to move on. I was not satisfied or fulfilled being a waitress. Maybe for someone else, that is the thing, but I was neither gifted in doing it, nor did I draw any meaning from it. These last 20 years I have been doing things that do have meaning for me and for what I am better gifted, and I have made almost no money doing them (tho, that is another bone to pick).  
• I also would not have been able to move on, if it were not for the foresight and generosity of your great grandfather, my grandpa, who steered me back in the direction of college, when it seemed like that door had closed to me, AND who covered ALL of my expenses! Talk about Jubilee! Grandma and Grandpa were my Jubilee!!!!

Assumption #7: money corrupts poor people, but not the “successful”

• see value #3 “we are all screw ups”

Assumption #8: “successful” = progress, only progress leads/should lead to more money, progress is the premium value.

• Hmmm… doesn’t look too good for a certain Nazarene I know...
• How does God measure success? I can think of several passages in the Gospels, where Jesus holds up very unlikely people as examples for the disciples.
• I would say that deep connection and charitable community are the bottom line.

Assumption #9: People only change when they hit rock bottom, so it is good to have an economic system that has a “rock bottom” built into it. 

• This has been shown not to be the case with addiction. People are more inclined to change, when they think there is a hope and a possibility that they will be able to.
• Tell that to Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10), who after years of being punished for his sins with shunning and exclusion from the Jewish community to no effect, instantly responded to the kindness, respect and inclusion that Jesus showed him with repentance and restitution and was re-instated in the community of God’s children.

Assumption #10: That the value of hard work, which your parents instilled in you, is the full extent of the privilege you enjoy.

• Really? 
• In just about every category I mentioned in value#4 you come out a lap ahead of the rest. 
• And so does my son. 
• Location, Body, Ideology, Class … do I really need to take you through a head to head comparison with some of the people I have met in my travels? ‘Cause, I will if you want me to.
• None of that is your fault, nor is it something anyone has the right to try and take away from you or make less of. But many of the things that give you and my son an advantage in this world came to you the very day you were born and could do absolutely nothing about. To look at the distance between you and someone far, far behind you and pat yourself on the back for it makes me wince. 
• Gratitude. That is the only appropriate response. Gratitude and a commitment to create, nurture, protect, and empower those who have not been dealt a full house in the grueling economics of this world.
• This is a truth that has touched our son in a profound way during his time in PNG. In the many Skypes we have had with him, he must have told us dozens of times, that he keeps asking himself, with tears, “How did I get so lucky? Why was I born in Germany? Why was I born into such a great family? How did I get so lucky to have the best parents? (see what I did there?). I pray and hope that this realization and gratitude of his also translates to a life-long commitment to create spaces of justice, feed the hungry, give living water to those who are thirsting for meaning and relevance, clothe the naked with dignity, and give strength and confidence to the weak to live in the fullness of their rights and responsibilities as Artists on this earth.

Assumption #11: That you are smarter than Bernie Sanders.

• Um… I am not smarter than Bernie Sanders, so...
• :-)

Argument #1: That the wage raise will, must be, passed on to the consumer.

• Or not - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/gravity-payments-raise_n_7061676.html

Argument #2: Wage raise for some will mean job loss for others.

• Nope -
• “Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.
• Not true: A review of 64 studies on minimum wage increases found no discernable effect on employment. Additionally, more than 600 economists, seven of them Nobel Prize winners in economics, have signed onto a letter in support of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016.”

Argument #3: Wage raise will lead to product devaluation/inflation (??)

• Think again:
• Myth: Increasing the minimum wage is bad for the economy.
• Not true: Since 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times. For more than 75 years, real GDP per capita has steadily increased, even when the minimum wage has been raised.

Argument #4: There are alternative ways to betterment (self, community, environment), which circumvent the current capitalistic and consumer addicted society. (retooling a computer you found in the trash).

• YEAH!!!!!  We agree on something! Yippy! Only my most favoritest thing ever! My house is full of “trash,” things, furniture, appliances (Jan got my espresso machine from the street! No fixing needed!), that we found on the street, in flea markets, or thrift stores, hand-me-downs, give aways, and cheapo finds at the 2nd chance corner of Ikea. My #1 hobby is refurbishing and repurposing such furniture finds. But then, hey, Peter and Sharon are your Grandparents and my favorite Aunt and Uncle, so what else can you expect? :) (but you can literally chase me out of a room by opening up and doing surgery on a computer! I can’t even look at it or my brain will blow a fuse)

Osama Salad

Yesterday, “couch-potato” was on the calendar.

Completely spent after going all out For Charis’ big day on Sunday, I was hoping to just sleep it off. Tune out everything and at the most just watch the winter return outside our bay window.

But someone had to go and shoot Osama bin Laden!

Thanks for that.

So I wake up to weird fb status quotes… bible verses about not rejoicing over my enemies death; or in another vein, “I wish I had pulled the trigger. May he rot in hell.” (speaks volumes for the friends and family I have on fb!).

Obviously I had missed something.

“Thank God I don’t have a tv. Actually, I’ll thank myself for that.”

The bare facts and the endless fb, twitter commentary are more than enough fodder for that half-asleep-trying-to-ignore-my-bladder-and-stay-in-bed-at-least-another-half-an-hour state of mind. In this groggy, grey, morning SDDS (self-directed-dream-stage), when my internal computer was still booting up, I processed the news of Osama bin Laden’s assassination.

“oh.”

“Never thought that would happen.”

Then I was in this abnormally long train station, and I couldn’t find the bathrooms.

“What does this mean?” “Does this mean anything to me?”

I was desperately trying to find the train to take me to that gorgeous Hawaiian Island, that I would love to go back to… the one with toilets right next to the beach...

… but instead my thoughts took me back to Goroka, PNG, where we got the news about the Columbine shootings. My son was about 2 or 3 years old, and I remember thinking, that the worst thing that could ever happen to me, is if my son grew up to be a murderer, worse still, a mass murderer. What an utter nightmare that would be.

Well, obviously the next link in that chain of thought was finding myself, not on some Hawaiian beach, but in a Burka in some hut sitting on a dirt floor throwing dust over myself and wailing… wailing for my son, Osama bin Laden, the mass murderer.

Then there was someone playing the same iphoto presentations that I had played for Charis on Sunday, only with pictures of Osama growing up, with the lovely and sad song 10,000 Miles, by Mary Chapin Carpenter, which I had used for one of the slide shows, playing in the background. They were the same pictures I had shown: as a baby just after delivery, a smiling child on the swings, playing in the water, mucking around with his brothers and sisters (all 49 of them), crying while getting a hair cut, in silly costumes… and I, now his mother, was wailing and weeping, “where had my little boy gone? He was so bright and passionate, full of conviction and a thirst for justice. He had so much potential! What had eaten away at his soul and carried him into darkness?”

Then other pictures were mixed in, and it was clear that those were the people lost in the towers, and the embassies, and soldiers… their families. There were slides of them on the swings and mucking about, making funny faces into the camera with their moms and dads and sisters and posing with their friends. Multi faceted gems reflecting the full spectrum of the colors of life: joy and fear and sadness and humor and anger and disillusionment and desperation and hope and determination and wit and vulnerability and a fierce longing for a better version of reality. They were all gone… 10.000 miles and maybe more….

And the frustrating thing was, that this hut too, had no bathroom.

So I went outside and began looking for justice.

But I didn’t find it in the planes that flew into the Towers.

And I didn’t find it in the tanks in Afghanistan.

And I didn’t find it in the drones in Pakistan.

And I didn’t find it in the bullet that killed Osama.

I didn’t find it in the myth of redemptive violence.

I found it in the rain that falls on us all irrespectively.

I found it in the sun that shines for everyone, hoping to grow good things in our gardens, leaving us to weed and tend to our fruit and flowers.

I found it in the idea, that we do not all get what we deserve (whew!!),

but that we should strive to give everyone what they need to grow and flourish in harmony and peace and dignity.

I found it in the dandelion growing in the crack of a concrete sidewalk.

I found it in the time that has healed old wounds.

I found it in the rebalancing of power, through creative, self-sacrificing, persistent and patience protest.

I found it in the handshake of persecutor and persecuted.

I found it in the embrace of enemies

Eating leftover chips and salsa with my now 15 year old son at 10pm yesterday evening, he asked, “Mom, what do you think of Osama’s being killed?”

hmmmm. “I think if his name had been David, we might evaluate it all in another light.”

Jonathan, “hunh?”

“I was just wondering, how much the two have in common.”

We started to list ways they were different and ways they were the same.

“David was just a shepherd boy, not the son of a construction tycoon,” he said.

Yes, I said, “but if the United States was Goliath, even the 17th son of a billionaire, seems pretty small in comparison.”

“and in one sense, David also was hiding out exercising “terror” attacks on occupants of a country.”

“Yeah, some of those stories are pretty harsh! Can’t really wrap my head around destroying the whole city of Jericho and everything in it, men, women and children,” Jonathan confesses. (not a David story, but we can add Joshua to the “terrorist watch list”).

Weighing the unimaginable hugeness of America’s military strength, the enormous sums we spend on it, and the ferociousness with which the arms industry protects and propagates its interests, I will admit, that it was always hard for me to emotionally perceive Osama as the Powerful tyrant in the equation bin-Laden vs. United States of America, and I am sure he saw the planes as his lucky sling-shot stone that brought down the giant Goliath, much to his own surprise.

So, perhaps the names have all changed, the heavy-weights and the underdogs have different faces, but the cycle of violence and the rhetoric that fuels it is that same ole lion crouching at the door to devour us.

I can’t help to mourn for what might have been had we Americans poured the same amount of time, money and manpower into humanitarian efforts in that region of the world and at home among our own instead of unleashing this hungry lion of war. Call me a daughter of the 60’s, a naive, hippie flower-child, but I can’t help thinking that maybe we could have killed the terrorist and saved Osama’s mother’s son.
And that would have been a beautiful thing.

What REALLY Scares Me!

I'm aware of the terror warnings here in Germany.

I've read about the strike on S. Korea.

It appears that Ireland is going to pull all of Europe down the tube.

But nothing since 9/11 has turned my stomach with dread like the news of the Naked Scanners and the forced pat downs... uh, gropings of intimate areas.

HELLO! Have we gone completely insane?

I don't even know where to begin to tear this apart... just me trying to imagine traveling back into the States with my family, teenage boy and two girls and my very European looking husband, and watching anyone of them be so violated is more than I can take. That is just not going to happen!

What more blatant proof do we need, that fear gives licensee to barbarity of all kinds and robs us of the one fundamental thread in the fabric of a functioning society: trust!

God help us!

Bad Liberal Europe

The following is a response to a posting on facebook : Understanding the heart of Conservitism by Graham Dennis.

Hi there, it is me writing over here in "liberal Europe!" I can't quite share your enthusiasm about this piece by Graham Dennis. I've been living outside the states for 17 years now (not including the year in 88') and for most of that time in Europe (including England, Germany and Sweden). And tho I must admit, that there are sooo many things that I have pulled my hair out about as a Christian and an American, I did find myself needing to come to Europe's defense (wow, this is a first!) while reading this. The most striking incongruence is the statement he reiterates in point 4 (having said the same in point 2). about universal health care. "Once a government run health care system is put in place, the ideological promise of equal care... becomes impossible to deliver on. It becomes a “noble lie." First of all, not all European countries have a governmental health care. Germany does not. The health care systems and policies vary significantly from country to country. Second, these countries with a comprehensive health care management may not meet a perfect egalitarian record of treatment for all classes, races etc, but people are getting the care they need...I have never heard of ANYONE not being treated for an illness, not being able to afford medicine, being turned away because they are not insured or not being able to care for their children. Having experienced first hand the contrast of not being able to afford medical treatment because I was not covered to that of not having to worry about it AT ALL, I cannot express enough the importance of this issue to national politics. So I might not always get a private room in a hospital, but at least I get a room. There is so much propaganda out there about the inequality, bad service, lack of individual choice of doctors, etc, etc in “European” health care, which is simply not true. What is true is that people are not having to sell their homes to pay for cancer treatment, nor are they prematurely released from the hospital and left helpless. The “Europeans” I know gasp at the horror stories that come out of the states. And no one would want to trade!! On this issue, the States should exercise humility and take notes. Then it should do what it is good at: stealing an idea (like pizza or Tacos) from another country and making it even better!!  

It is also ill-advised to lump all of Europe (and I assume Scandinavia and Great Britain and Canada?) into one bag. Each of these countries has answered the healthcare issue differently, and of course struggles to overcome or counter the pitfalls or draw backs inherent within their own system, which, I agree, are partially the result of unlimited availability and an increasingly geriatric population. Yes, Germany has a declining national birthrate, but that is certainly not true of every European country. My husband just called over to me that he recently read, that in fact, the french are quite out doing us here! (France has a birthrate of 2,1 % to germany 1,34 %) Not to mention the countries that your brother also named, Poland, Ireland, Spain. (and wouldn't the numbers in the states look as dismal if it weren't for the large hispanic and immigrant population?) And, yes, this too puts a strain on our health care system (and would do us in a lot sooner if it weren’t for our own immigrant population).  

But also to fault for the growing burden of health care, are the extremely high costs of more advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies. I have had 3 MRT’s in the last half year...that might not have been possible even 10 years ago. So of course that brings with it enormous ethical questions: how much care and for whom? While I am getting 3 MRT’s here at an astronomical cost, young children are dying of illnesses in Africa which could be treated for a few dollars. In addition, the prenatal care, hospital stay (5-10 days), and required postnatal care (including postnatal house visits by the midwives) covered by German insurance companies are costs which fall away with a declining birthrate. Anyway, I think it is an over-simplification to say that “European health care needs have derived largely from it being a “stagnating population.”  

Surely France and Germany loose many of their top experts abroad. However, this is occurring across the board and is not a phenomena limited to medical researchers. Sometime ago Time ran an article just on this subject. The basic tenor of the article was that most brilliant researchers in Europe get bogged down in bureaucracies, which slow up funding, suffocate “free thinking” and can douse the motivation of even the most determined minds. Whether in sports, astronomy, physics, archeology, engineering, theater, supermodels, even Cornelia Funke moved to California!! But not until she could afford to pay her hospital bills herself! No, having lived here in Germany almost as long as I have lived in the states, I have experienced first hand the mind set which can and does again and again stifle creative, innovative and adventuresome pursuits. I think I can safely say, it is not a result of universal health care, nor necessarily the social conscience that gave rise to it, nor strictly of Liberal Humanistic thought. It is much, much too easy to duck our own social-political responsibility to care for our neighbor and dismiss those, who are in some respects doing a better job of it than we are, by nailing them in a coffin with this label on it.  

I can’t really follow the logic in his argumentation contrasting the “intellectuals in Europe” who were “smitten with the path of revolution” with “our founders deep and prudent reflection upon the limits of the political,” Our founders were revolutionists!! They also understood the limits of “religion” and sought to ensure that this sword could in future not so easily be wielded as an instrument of intimidation and domination. Granted, they seemed to have more successfully “let out the bath water, while retaining the baby” by removing the administration of religious profession and practice from the Governmental body, but keeping it as a matter of personal and communal profession and practice. The “French” revolutionaries seemed to be sick of the whole dirty lot of it, and could no longer make the distinction between religious tyranny and the kingdom of God. But who can fault them for it? They now must live with the dirty bath water of their own making. And for trying to get them to take the baby back? I think America has long since sullied her own diapers and lost any position of moral authority it may have at any point had.  

“Part of the limitation of the city of man is that it cannot eradicate the natural selfishness of man. To create an ideological place-holder for common interest (the state or the government) is to assume something about the state that I don’t assume. This is what scares me about Obama. He, like the French and many other Europeans, doesn’t understand how self-interest works vis-à-vis the city of man. It’s not that self-interest should be turned into a religious principle, but rather than the state herself is incapable or eradicating it. Only the city of God can perfectly eradicate self-interest. This creates the need for a check upon the government (the principle established by our founders). That check is, in part, self-interest. The Pollyanna hope that it could be eradicated by the “common interest” of the state, is a very French (humanist), progressive European political ideal. I think it is extremely dangerous.”

I am sorry, but i find this quote to be... completely nonsensical. ...”but rather the state herself is incapable of eradicating Self-interest.“ But isn’t that exactly what conservative Christians want, when they clamor for Government to legislate pro traditional family values, against abortion, gay marriage, etc, etc.? From my view over here, it seems like there are a lot of very loud conservatives, who believe just that; that the state can eradicate the self-interest of mothers choosing a “better” life over the life of their child, and of Gays choosing a same sex partner instead of a fruitful heterosexual one. And isn’t that exactly what Obama has been saying? “There are limits to how the State can prohibit our Self-interest choices? Especially in those areas, which are extremely difficult to enforce. I think it is precisely the false “hope” of the conservative base in state legislation, which has paralyzed and preoccupied them, keeping them from exploring more creative and effective ways of bearing witness to the sanctity of life. Obama has again and again maintained that he will focus on those areas where State not only has an obligation to litigate, but also a fighting chance at success in its implementation. 

And “(Obama), like the French and many other Europeans, doesn’t know how self-interest works vis a vis the city of man.” Is this for real???? I don’t think there is a person alive in the developed countries, who doesn’t know how self interest works!! There is a much shorter term for “self-interest vis a vis the city of man”; it’s called capitalism! And because America has proven to be the heavy weight in all things capitalistic, honing its “self-interest” skills to a sharp edge, does not automatically send all of Europe to the far corner of socialism. If America has been good at exporting any values at all on the greater community, especially the European neighborhood, than it is the value of Capitalistic self-Interest. And hasn’t that been the mantra of republicans since yea and yea, that any perceived economic or social slack in the country be met with more self-interest? I am sure it is not the objective of any candidate to “eradicate self-interest.” My suspicion is that the republicans want to continue to fan the self-interest flame much in the strain of Adam Smith, who proposed that the best result comes from everyone in the group doing what is best for himself (which America as a case study has proven does not work for a gross majority of the country or for the larger community of which America is also a part). Nash’s mathematically substantiated theory of governing dynamics has overthrown Smith’s, however, proposing that the best result will come by everyone doing what is best for himself AND for the group (or participants in the group). And isn’t that exactly what Jesus told us to do? “Love your neighbor AS yourself”? We are not to love our neighbor to the neglect and denial of self interest nor are we to love ourselves to the exclusion of our neighbor. May I suggest that the former smacks of the communist ideal and the latter of the renegade capitalist ideal? I think each country in Europe has tried in its own way, with its own resources to find this equilibrium in its governing capacity, to lesser or greater success.  

“Lastly, this tendency to think of the state as the “family” has also led to a profound denigration of the family. Why? Because the family is suspiciously viewed as an arena of “private interest.” Normalizing people to the infrastructure of the state, then, becomes one of the central goals of liberal humanism. This is why public schooling is so important.” I wish i could just let this slide by, because it is late and I have already spent way too long on this, but the oversimplification just nags at me. I am wondering which European country he is referring to? Yes, we are constantly trying to defend the value and sanctity of the family (and not just the cell family, but the extended family as well) and feel the tug and pull in so many directions to abandon it. But your brother is shooting at the wrong enemy, or indeed aiming too high. I do not believe that there is a liberal humanistic conspiracy to rot out the “private interest” of the family, at least not here in Germany. I do believe that the state more often than not cooperates with the forces at work in the world, which undermine the strengths of the family, but those forces are even more base than liberal humanism.  

I believe this force to be as ancient as history itself, and to be the only real counter philosophy that Jesus ever named (by the way, to put Jesus in a list of conservatives is silly; Jesus took pitches from both sides of the field and hit all the balls out of the park. Didn’t he say something like, “a good teacher uses both old and new stuff” (ok, i can’t find the quote right now, but it is really one of my favorites). A shorter verse that i am able to remember (not one of my favorites): “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Consumerism, the number one leading religion in our world. It infiltrates any philosophical, political or religious system and morphs it into an instrument of consumerism. Consumerism (Mammon) can make a currency out of anything. So a communist country, with the high ideals to pursue the good of the community, quickly becomes a country of consumerists who use Communism as a commodity to pursue self interest. And a christian country (group, church) with the high ideals to love God and their neighbor as themselves, quickly becomes a consumerist country using their religiosity, religious symbols and piety to pursue personal gain.  

It’s an old story, dating back long before the French revolution. The church got their first and only spanking in the book of Acts for this very thing. Ananias and Saphira were using the pious, “selfless” act of selling their home and “giving” to the community as a commodity, as a means of “gaining” something: the regard of the community. They were trying to “sell” themselves to the church. So whatever one means exactly by throwing around the term “liberal humanism,” have no fear, I am sure, this threatening philosophy has long been morphed away into our ancient enemy, much like the bad guy in The Matrix. And whatever is left of it in Europe is being rapidly shoved aside by capitalism. I would suggest then that we recognize our true enemy and stick to fighting him at our own address. (Didn’t Jesus say something like that, about sticks and stones...ah, splinters and beams!). After all, america has the staggering murder count: America uses most of the worlds resources; America has citizens living in 3rd world squaller, obesity, higher infant mortality rates, by far more people in prisons, a disreputable primary and secondary education system, and if I understood Graham correctly, it sounds like America (not the liberal humanists) has the most liberal abortion laws. Way to go for the sobering effects of self-interest. just wanting to keep the straw men from the table, lee

Obama Speech

I've been trying to keep up with the Hillary, Obama race as best I can on internet resources.   And I must say, the more I hear Obama, the more impressed i am with him.  Just got this link  Obama speach: race relaions  www.drudgereport.com/flashos.htm to a speech he gave (where, when i don’t know). I cried while reading it!! What a mature and honorable way to respond to the media magnified "association" accusations with his pastor. Not only does he not let himself get backed into a corner, but he uses this situation as an opportunity to really lead the nation to a higher discourse on this very relevant subject. I am fascinated, not only by his personal story, which is simply amazing, but by what appears to me to be the deep calling and gifting to integration that comes from this history. 

Hillary, although perhaps more polished and savvy, has neither been able to gain my trust nor inspire me.  I've never been a Clinton fan, tried to read her autobiography (never finished the whiny, self-defending, explaining away all the mistakes of their time in office book), and of course i haven't followed her political career from over here, so I am certainly no judge of her character or competence, but there is just something missing that is crucial to me for the trust issue.  And whatever that is, Obama seems to have it.  It is all through this speech.  Humility, transparency, not putting himself at arms length to the things that might be political disadvantages, but embracing his rather odd story and identity wholly and unabashedly.  And quite honestly, his manor alone (and of his wife) is enough to win me over.  I feel like I could just sit down over a coffee with him and have a conversation...the kind where both listen and are interested.  With Hilary, I have the feeling I better have some good one liners on hand or I will be served for dinner.  And of course there is the word that I am certainly not the first to use of her, but which does capture my impressions so far:  Polarizing!  

Well, I hope I figure out a way to vote this year.  For the first time in many elections, I actually want and am inspired to.   lee