Children of a Lesser God

Increasingly I find that more and more of my friends are not like me.  This I think is a good thing.  I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve learned to let go of the certainty of my own opinions.  More simply – I’ve learned to listen.  I could say perhaps that listening leads to understanding… not so.  I mean – not listening obviously will benefit you not one bit when it comes to understanding where others are coming from, but to be honest, the more I really listen – the more I realize I have absolutely no idea what other people go through, or as a result, how they feel in response to certain situations and events.

Take the news one morning this week.  A tech piece covered Apple I think it was who will be providing an expanded and more inclusive (presumably) range of either Avatars or Emoji’s – or maybe both – I couldn’t tell you the difference.  Anyway, Apple apparently is updating something on their devices or such (again – I wouldn’t know – I don’t really own an iAnything) to allow you to use an Emoji that is more like you – various shades of color skin and presumably hair (or even no hair perhaps), no doubt other distinguishing features.  Never occurred to me this would be important to some people – why would it – I’m a straight white male, married, two kids, two dogs and a house in the burbs.  Well – that and as I said – I don’t have an iAnything…

A little superficial perhaps?  How about this then.  A friend, more specifically and to use a label (and I’m not big on those), a transgender friend shared something this week that really rocked me.  The article he shared was not that surprising, not anymore, which is sad in itself.  But it was his introduction to the article from the Huffington Post that really got to me…

“My name could be on this list.  One misstep, one person poorly trusted, one really bad day and…”

Stop Letting Trans People Die

This is messed up – I mean living with that shadow always kind of there – trying to get on with life like it isn’t – and yet it is.  I have absolutely no idea what that could possibly feel like – and I’m sorry – no amount of listening will get you there – not all the way.  This is not abstract to him – it is very real.  But listening does do something he pleaded for – it increases my awareness – and perhaps by my sharing this, yours also.

And then last week, there was a similar gut-wrenching story, again – the story itself, sadly – no longer surprising.  This sort of inhumanity – this appalling notion that we can treat other humans like they are somehow less than – that they perhaps are some sort of cosmic mistake – to use the title of this post, children of a lesser god.

Call it what you will – but hatred – whether it be based on race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, your incapacity to be anything but a homeless person begging to get by, your so called immigrant status, whether that be here in a country we stole much of from those we dare to call illegals – or the inhumane internment and other treatment of refugees in my native Australia - basically hatred of someone for not being like you is NOT ACCEPTABLE.  It cannot and should not be tolerated!  And I’m not sorry if this offends you – but if that sort of hatred is part of your nature – you better think twice before judging the guys in black outfits performing all sorts of atrocities driven by the same sort of twisted hatred in the Middle East right now – you are in my eyes, not so different to them.

Last weeks story concerned the refusal of a pediatrician to treat a newborn because the parents were a same sex couple.  I don’t swear all that much, but really – how F***ed up is that???  And yet, especially in America – not that surprising.  I mean – when wearing leggings is questionable moral behavior and certainly a call to judgment should you be the self-righteous and judgmental type – then we should of course be nor surprised to see discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation different to our own… 

What got me deep down however was that my friend Kimberly has to deal with this sort of fear in a lot of day to day situations.  Not surprisingly, one of the most agonizing being the question of whether her being transparent and open about her own sexual orientation could result in denial of care to her children in a moment of need.  That fear that I could not help my children – now that I can relate to – but not because I might tell a doctor for example, I was a follower of Jesus.  Get me lost somewhere in Syria and maybe that would be a problem – maybe – no screw maybe – probably for sure I would then like Kimberly deal with some amount of self-loathing for denying who I am to protect the welfare and wellbeing of my children - even if my denial was only to the extent I was not fully open and fully honest – you know – just hiding it a little.  But that situation is so far from any reality I can imagine – I just can’t fully comprehend how that must feel for so many people I know.  And again – before last week – the fear of such discrimination – not the discrimination itself, was something I would never have even imagined, much less comprehended.

The article Kimberly shared was from a local Fox station.

Doctor refuses treatment of same-sex couple's baby

This is not some apology or epiphany on white male privilege.  Far from it – it is someone with that privilege saying this is not OK.  I don’t really know what it feels like for my friend who is transgender, or my many friends who are gay, or any other number of friends who fall into categories subject to hatred and discrimination.  But I can continue to listen to their stories – and I can say as I stand with them - this is NOT OK.

"To the Lakota, to the Indian, when you listen, you're praying. That's a form of prayer, when you listen."

- Russell Means

Does god have favorites when it comes to football?

So a good friend of mine posts this meme this morning – not just any friend mind you, but a pastor and a really – a good Christian man. 
 

Now I know he is only getting on board with team spirit, and of course, there are similar memes for the local team, the Broncos – stuff like god and the color of sunsets and such, but I was oddly disquieted by the whole idea as I headed off to fellowship.  And once there, surrounded by a sea of orange – I began to ponder – what exactly does god think about all this.  There were only two people I saw in something else – both Dallas cowboys fans so clearly god was unimpressed by their low attendance in church as they lost.  However I suppose in Texas there were churches full of white and bluish colors if like us they don’t have formal dress codes. 

And then there’s the whole praying thing on the fields, extra prayers after touchdowns and such – and I’m not offended by that – people should have the freedom to honor who they want – but what are they praying for in such a public way – I don’t ever remember praying before a hockey or cricket match in Australia – either as a player or a spectator.  Does the team with the best prayers get a leg up somehow?  I doubt it would intimidate me if I was an opponent of less or no faith.  You want intimidating – the All Blacks famous Haka – now that’s intimidating.

However what really troubled me as I pondered the sea of orange in the church assembly this morning was how do we disconnect the ever present reality of a significant part of what football “culture” is and what they believe?  How do you reconcile a business (call it a sport if you must) that tacitly endorses (is two faced about at best) rape, general violence against women and children, misogynistic behavior in general, violence in general (both on and off the field), the bullying, and then of course you have the general failings we all struggle with more commonly – greed, arrogance and so on. 

Now I’m not saying ALL people involved in football have these failings.  Nor am I saying NFL football is the only sport or that US major league sports are the only ones that have these problems.  Clearly there are some really standup guys in the staff and playing the game throughout the sport and often singled out for their good example at the professional level.  But there is no shortage of evidence than many of these problems start at high school level, and with a wink and a nod, just become more entrenched for those who are so inclined as they move through the levels.  And move through the levels they will.  Very rarely will the college system and especially the NFL uniformly pass on a player with great on-field potential because of his poor off-field behavior.  And in the rare instances where a team washes their hands of a problem player, more often than not, if he is good enough, someone else will pick him up.

How do we separate the knowledge of the reality through the week and what we sing and pray about on Sunday morning and then revel in on Sunday afternoon?  I really don’t know – I have no answers.  I know I mostly pay attention and are happy to see the Broncos do well because it affects the whole mood of the town I live in – but other than that if I’m being really honest – I couldn’t care less.  As I’ve said before – I don’t even rate NFL football as a sport.  I think of it more as war games dressed up as a sport at best – which might explain a lot of the behavioral issues.  But I had to wonder – and have no idea how this works out in the minds of those so affected…  if I were a woman who had been the victim of rape or something similar at the hands of a football player or players, or if I were gay and the victim of collective harassment and bullying to the point of violence and assault – how would I feel walking into church to a sea of football jerseys…

Christmas 2014

So I haven't written much of late - at least not on paper - it is what it is.  As has been my tradition however, I generally share my efforts at keeping friends and family informed with our annual Christmas missive.  Which this year was actually more of a New Years letter - it is what it is.

So some will have already received this in the mail.  Others may still be on the way - and the rest - well - this is your brief look into my one page look back at the year that was - 2014.


And then there were three…  Reflections on 2014 from the Christensen family in Colorado

SO… our year was busy – so busy in fact especially toward the end we decided early in December that we would be getting caught up with you all in early January.

For us 2014 seems to have been the start of a profound shift as a family.  The girls are growing up so fast – too fast it feels someday, and we are looking over the horizon at the next phase of our lives, with today being the start of the year we become empty nesters.  This brings an intense spectrum of emotions.  But all in all, we are ready – we are ALL ready – and so it’s OK.

Mallory is now in her junior year at the University of New Mexico and still making the most of her college experience.  Always blazing a path less travelled, this past semester saw her take on an internship with Plant with Purpose, a nonprofit she first encountered on a summer service trip to the Dominican Republic a few years back.  The internship was in San Diego, and she set it all up herself.  I drove out with her, and we had a great time over the Labor Day weekend at the end of August.  Both Jilly and Joy also got to spend weekends there, and her experience was fantastic, with Mal taking several online classes to maintain her full time status and scholarships.  It all came to an end in early December with her boyfriend Cole flying to San Diego to bring her home – to Albuquerque.  That sounds kind of odd – but it feels like home for her for now.  So we make the most of the visits home, which this Christmas was for a short but joy filled week.  Mallory headed back to Albuquerque this past Sunday – and then there were three…

Jilly has entered her senior year of high school.  Her year has included of course lots of hockey, with her high school teammates completing a remarkable third straight undefeated season culminating again in a state championship.  Other extracurricular activities have included choir and mock trial which she seemed to really enjoy.  Choir has featured several special events featuring a wedding at the famous Stanley hotel (The Shining) in Estes Park.  The focus is now firmly on the next phase – COLLEGE!  Most of the applications are in, one school has already accepted her and another offered her a spot on the field hockey team.  With three other applications pending and perhaps two more in the works, this girl who sometimes dislikes making decisions has some big ones coming!!!

Joy and I sometimes just sit back, breathe, and take it all in – sometimes with a calming adult beverage.  We celebrated our 21^st anniversary in July with a fun day exploring various parts of Denver.  I, of course, was making the most of celebrating the whole year as my 50^th year, which culminated in a fabulous surprise gathering with family and friends at “our local” – Jake’s.  We have enjoyed travels with both of our girls, little getaways together, and still date as often as we can.  Our travels this year were mostly extensions of something the girls were doing – trips to San Diego, Memphis extending to Myrtle Beach, Boston and finally Las Vegas tacked on to Palm Desert for Thanksgiving.  We also enjoyed getaways into the mountains with day trips and a week in Breckenridge.  Although Jilly’s choir performances are impressive, our entertainment highlight of the year had to be seeing Fleetwood Mac!

So from us to you, our friends and family, we have loved being a part of your 2014, and we look forward to what 2015 has in store - sharing in both the good times and the hard times and growing closer together.

"I said to the man, who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'  And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'" - Minnie Louise Haskins

Love always – Peter, Joy, Mallory & Jillian

 

Oh - and there were an assortment of happy snaps some online service graciously (and inexpensively) assembled into a card.  Joy does that artsy stuff and who knows if we even have an image of the final product so this will have to do - it is what it is :)

 

 

 

 

A walk in the snow

I went for a walk in the gently falling snow.  Light, spitting, “popcorn” snow we call it.  The larger pieces which don’t melt on contact with the ground crunch lightly under my boots before succumbing to the residual warmth as it was after all in the mid 20s (or 70s if you have not caught up with the modern world) only yesterday.

There is a beautiful stillness in the snow.  If we get the 3-6 inches forecasted, then noise gets soaked up as though the snow were a sponge.  As I put on my boots, wishing rather than suburban footpath they could find their way over dirt paths and dead leaves that struggle vainly to hold back the new growth of spring.  To walk among trees smelling the fresh smell of moist undergrowth and soil that is pure oxygen to the lungs of a farm boy. 

And I realized the best I could do without driving somewhere was a small covenant community within our sub-division. It doesn’t really belong in our ticky-tacky box neighborhood with the cedar shingles and some less than pleasing architecture, but they were wise enough to put mini green belts with walking paths throughout.

 

I thought about a lot of things as I walked.  I thought about Palm Sunday a few years back – wondering if it was wrong that the words of a song by Pink resonated in my mind as I was driving to the service.  In my mind, it was fine – it resonated in me that morning as perhaps a soliloquy of Jesus in the later part of the Passion Week.

No I don't believe you

When you say don't come around here no more

I won't remind you

You said we wouldn't be apart

No, I don't believe you

When you say you don't need me anymore

So don't pretend

To not love me at all

Pink - I Don't Believe You

It felt good, walking in the snow.  Like walking in the rain, but cold and dry.  I so wanted to be somewhere other – the woodland I yearned for earlier.  I closed my eyes, hoping desperately perhaps that when I opened them like the transformation in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I would find myself in that different place.  Didn’t work.  But I heard the birds more clearly.  I sat for a while on a bench and watched some ducks in a small pond.  The water levels are down – spring cleaning in progress I think and with all the decaying leaves and mud, there was that familiar, not unpleasant odor of rotting vegetation.  The ducks seemed to quite like whatever they were digging out of it – weird huh.  I started to wonder why it was I yearning for an even greater absence of people.  And I guess in short, the answer was, people are messy.  I mean, when everything is going great, they are a lot of fun, but sometimes…

A friend of mine shared publically her struggles with the church and Christianity this week.  You can go all over the place with the issues she raises, our failings (and there are many) to reflect the nature of the person whose name we claim, how she feels, how she is responding, how we should respond.  But at the end of the day, perhaps only one thing really matters…

And there is a deep and oozing wound in my soul. 

Leaving church to search for Christ

It really sucks that she feels this way, so much so she feels she does not want to be labeled as a christian.  And it’s really hard when you see her try to not be judgmental even though she is constantly judged and condemned; try to love unconditionally and people are hateful and spiteful in return.  Because against all natural understanding, you know God loves those same people that make her feel this way.  Some days I struggle with that.  Some days, I am judgmental and hateful.  Nobody’s perfect.  People are messy…

You think on Palm Sunday Jesus didn't know that?

The snow was coming down harder now. Perhaps we will get that 3-6 inches. I hope so. Our dry soil in this semi-arid high mountain desert can use it all. Perhaps I’ll come out again later and trudge through the snow, enjoying the stillness and silence.

 

For a good part of the walk, I followed the path.  I don’t know why - because it was there, because I’m never really sure if the homeowners in this neighborhood really like nonresidents wandering through their little strip of nature.  Perhaps because we feel safe on the path?  Perhaps because we are not sure if we trust people who don’t follow the path?  I stepped off the path and found different ways.  It felt so good, the grass and rocks of formed watercourses beneath my feet.  I closed my eyes again and this time, I was almost there, in that other place, the bush around the farm I grew up on, the wilderness of West Virginia, even the wide open spaces of the southwest where trees are scarce, but sage and other vegetation that hugs the dry soils of the desert is still abundant.  Where you can walk for miles without any sign of another human being.

 

I didn’t go to church this Palm Sunday.  I took a different path.  I went for a walk in the gently falling snow… and God was there.

We All Should be Feminists.

Epilogue/Prologue:

Here’s the thing – this only tangible linkage between this post and International Women’s Day is that the NPR piece that got me thinking MAY have been on air yesterday in some may marking this day.  

What I would note is the commemorative aspects of the day in and of themselves were unremarkable to me, other than the Google doodle.  What is interesting in the post analysis of this, and recognizing this in some way may contribute to discussions around the theme of International Women’s Day (this prologue being added to the original post a few hours later), is that some of the material I’m recommending you listen to in this blog now hits home harder on the subject of my and male generally blindness in some ways, or simply inability to see in others, how different certain things are for women than they are for me.

My mind went off on an odd tangent (as it is slightly prone to) the other day discussing a critique of another of the “Modest is Hottest” campaigns with a friend.

My concern shifted from worrying whether or not males could control themselves or harming girls outlook by leading them to believe they are sexual object that must be covered.  Because at the root of it all, the message is still about “being hot” – just doing it one way versus another.  In other words, what is still important here is wanting to be sought after by boys/men.

“We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments — which I think can be a good thing — but for the attention of men.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

So I guess what prompted me to write this morning and more than anything I could say was to draw your attention to a recent TED speech by this incredible lady.

We should all be feminists: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I was drawn to find out more about this woman and her amazing story listening to an NPR interview yesterday.  You might want to check that out too – it explores quite different themes, but also well worth the half hour of your life.

Americanah' Author Explains 'Learning' To Be Black In The U.S.

As an interesting aside, one of the starts from the acclaimed movie “12 Years a Slave” will also star in the movie production of another book by Adichie, “Half of a Yellow Sun”.

To wrap up what will be a short post – for me anyway, another thought provoked by this speech.

“Now, marriage can be a good thing. It can be a source of joy and love and mutual support, but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?”

One wonders whether if this were not the case, and it very much is, whether the failure rate of marriage would be much lower?  No deep answers – just a question.  Enjoy your day…

 

Imago Dei - Image of God

This post is the result of the collision of several different trains of thought. 

I have been posting on various days as we have moved from Thanksgiving to Christmas, art in various forms as my “hymn” for the day.  For, Christmas Eve, I had in mind to share a clip from one of our traditional family Christmas movies, The Family Stone.  Simple right…

But this whole thing this past week over Duck Dynasty, and extending back maybe a little further, the debate on whether or not Santa and even Jesus is white, it has been frankly, a little irritating.  And I say this carefully.  There are many people I know well who are quite incensed at what was said initially by Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.  This to them is very personal, and they have every right to be upset.  I am not irritated because they are upset, or even because others are jumping to his defense.  What irritates me is that much of the conversation is diatribes from both sides, doing little by creating more fires of hatred, fanned on by a sickening media hungry for controversy.  We have lost it seems the necessary grace and patience for civil discourse – we are not interested in discovering the position of others because we are to firmly entrenched in our own.

And then the morning of Christmas eve in the gym, I find myself watching a piece on the remarkable transformation in the papacy.  Video and images of Pope Francis doing and saying things that are not only shaking up the church he leads, but getting people across the Christian faith to take a good look at themselves through the prism of what the bible says about what we should be like as followers of Jesus.  I’m no expert on other faiths, but I suspect he has earned quite a bit of respect and has unleashed some soul searching there also.

And as they showed again, images of the pope embracing a man terribly disfigured by what I don’t know, it occurred to me…

Imago Dei - Image of God

The creation story in the Christian bible, probably quite similar in the Jewish Torah instructs us that God made us in the image of God, that we reflect the nature of God, even that we are godlike.  The problem is, we don’t really believe this, not about ourselves much of the time, and certainly not about those who are radically different to us, who do not look like us, do not think like us, or do things we find unspeakable horrors…

As a good friend of mine, Nar Martinez has said, “If the God you serve is always for everything you like and against all the things you hate, you've simply made him up.”

 

Imago Dei – Phil Robertson was made in the image of God, before and after he apologized for the hurtful, but deeply held personal beliefs he shared

Imago Dei – Syrian refugees, not just white Christians were made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – Regardless of how we were coming into this world, or have become, we were made and remain in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – Megyn Kelly and all who have had fun publically mocking her for the silly things she said – yes – all of them – made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – the least amongst us, and those who are unaware of them – again, made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – these three boys, now facing murder charges for killing an Australian baseball player “for the fun of it” – also made in the image of God

 

We want God to be just like us, well mostly anyway.  But God is not so limited.  Most simply as I see it, all of us are like God – if not, God is not like us at all?  God is so immense, it takes all of creation, and all of humanity as the jewel of that creation to gain just a hint of what God is like.

And so back to The Family Stone, and why it had particular significance as my mind wandered this Christmas.  The Dinner scene as it is described on the DVD and generally can be found in searches holds for me a pretty darn good image of why God decided to intervene in such an extravagant way as unfolded that first Christmas.  And it also contrasts in the same character, our human limitations.  I am not tech savvy enough to extract a more focused segment, but the whole five minutes is worth the watching to understand the whole story and probably makes more sense anyway. 

After the stiff, starchy and quite conservative Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) fumbles around and through what I perceive as ignorance and insensitivity (as opposed to hate) insults and belittles gay people in particular, but also black people, Sybil (Diane Keaton), the matriarch of the family says and signs to her deeply hurt deaf and gay son, “I love you”.

Dinner Scene - The Family Stone

 

God’s love for us is not predicated on whether we are black or white, male or female, adherents of the Christian, Muslim or any other faith, gay – straight – lesbian - bi-sexual or transgendered, powerful and privileged or poor and marginalized.  We were created in the image and likeness of God, and yet right from the outset, different, yet no indication of inequality.  And so that is my takeaway, and I hope also perhaps one of yours this Christmas – that God Loves You.  And if God loves you, as Pope Francis shared insightfully and wisely this year, “who am I to judge”.

 

Genesis 1:26-28, The Message (emphasis mine)

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them

        reflecting our nature

    So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,

        the birds in the air, the cattle,

    And, yes, Earth itself,

        and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

    God created human beings;

        he created them godlike,

    Reflecting God’s nature.

        He created them male and female.

Thank God for Goldman Sachs – Mother Theresa alone really doesn’t amount to much…

No - this is not an article from The Onion – so not surprisingly this is what no small number of people really think and believe... 

I’m also surprised I had not seen it at all somewhere on the social media traffic on the interwebz.  Must have been off the grid for a spell a month or so ago.

Give Back? Yes, It's Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%

Yep – if you read this, that is what the author is proposing.  Hard to believe?  Lets think about this then.

Now I'm not one who argues the merits one way or the other of the whole 99 vs. 1% thing.  It is in my opinion pointless and like most such discussions fails to grasp the many different circumstances people on both sides of that divide find themselves in.  But I do unreservedly reject the notion that the 99% in fact owes more to the 1% than the other way around.

It is time to combat the notion that people who have great wealth are somehow smarter or work harder than those who are not.  It is certainly true in some instances but equally untrue in many others.  In a good number of cases, quite possibly the only difference is the aversion to taking risk, and perhaps built on that, the better understanding of some of how to take risk with other peoples money.

The person who develops a business around an idea rarely works in isolation.  In some cases, the transaction of cash and other benefits for labor and the profit gained from that labor are fair, and in other cases they are not.  To make teachers for example a poster child for fairness in value received is beyond absurd and only the most brain-dead of right wing conservatives do not know this to be true. 

As if for example the Henry Fords, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would have achieved everything they proved ultimately capable of without this key developmental phase of their lives.  I’m sure based on their very nature, they would still have been successful, but does at the current average cost per public school pupil of around $10,000 per year (in the USA), I think they have come out significantly on the plus side of the ledger here.  And teachers are probably in many cases more like the example of the mother described in this article – who does what she does out of love for her children.  It is most certainly not a commercial transaction.  If it were we might see teachers paid in royalties from those they helped to fashion.  I suppose in the eyes of the author of this article, they are really just other workers who benefit from the wealth their prodigy students will go on to create.  They just don’t happen to be on the payroll directly. 

Of course I’m biased as you know if you read my last post on teachers -

Thank you for your service

So onto the proposal of not taxing those who make over a million dollars a year at all as it is immoral?  I guess this is the ultimate gambit in trickle down economic theory.  I mean, I could get this a little if you were saying let’s do this to further encourage people to achieve greatness and strive to earn over a million dollars a year – except taxes are not the reason the vast majority of people who are not making a million dollars a year are not doing so.  But taxing them is immoral? WTF!!!

But coming back to economics, here is the ultimate kicker for me.  If in fact there is nothing to give back (by the 1%) because as write says and I quote:

Each particular individual in the community who contributed to a man’s rise to wealth was paid at the time–either materially or, as in the case of parents and friends, spiritually. There is no debt to discharge. There is nothing to give back, because there was nothing taken away.

Then why should the 99% pay and not the 1%?  Haven’t they already paid as well?  Surely they topo have “no debt to discharge”?  Well, although I think Obama was (and generally is) full of BS when he asserted the only reason for a business persons success is the roads and infrastructure built by others, I suppose someone has to pay for this stuff.  After all, they aren’t going to just build themselves.   And if you are going to just be a user, a worker drone who contributes nothing to society more than the 8 hours you are paid for, then you probably should pay your own way to get to and from work.  This after all is why we shouldn’t have public transport in this country as the working poor who use it really are not paying their fair share and should probably be riding bicycles to and from the factory – on bike paths they pay for.  Also under the current system, you could argue the difference between a living wage and what a number of corporations pay people is getting paid by the wealthy indirectly through social programs they fund with their taxes – so there is that to consider.  Certainly governments waste money so get rid of the middle man I say – the cost of passing through the difference between the minimum wages many subsist on and a living wage will come way down if they just pay it directly to the workers and not pay times to get it to them through taxes and social programs.  And that difference my friends, is PROFIT!!!

So on that whole morality thing.  I mean, if you come from a mindset that proposes the head of Goldman Sachs has done infinitely more for mankind than Mother Theresa, then clearly you believe the 99% are indeed what the system is being increasingly geared to create – an underclass of working drones, for whom the biggest argument is whether or not the notion of a living wage should be entertained.  Maybe we should go back to the days of servitude and indentured servants that Benjamin Franklin (a person possibly highly admired by the author of this piece – although despite being a founding father, he was embarrassingly liberal) found so abhorrent in England he came to firmly believe in the virtues of the movement for American independence.

Seriously??? 

For a start, reading this article provided me with the name of the head of Goldman Sachs – one Lloyd Blankfein.  But to be fair, I am well aware of the entity that is Goldman Sachs.  I’ve even indirectly (probably more times than I know) done work for them through their subsidiaries.  And seeing as how in the USA a company is in fact a person, then knowing Goldman Sachs is more or less the same as knowing the person who runs it (all on his own do you suppose?).  So comparing the value to the world of Goldman Sachs against Mother Theresa – and finding that it is not even close based on the billions of dollars in profits generated by Goldman Sachs, suggests that indeed the people who work for the 1% are indeed nothing more than human capital.  What they think, feel or dream, how they change the world to be a better place is indeed of no consequence, and they should presumably just be grateful that they have 401K plans gaining wealth courtesy of Mr Blankfein.

Certain other inspiring people who have left an indelible mark on the world – indeed have left it a better place are not mentioned.  Probably could have been used to make the authors point.  I mean let’s see, people like Harriet Tubman and so many others who were part of the movement away from slavery.  Hard to argue profits would not have been better if we could have kept this long standing practice in place – in fact given it goes on more or less in many other countries now, all we have done is placed ourselves at a disadvantage.  Or folk like Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela.  I mean look at the troubles those countries have struggled to overcome.  Surely this could all have been avoided had the British ruling class kept running India, or minority rule stayed on in South Africa.  Despite their troubles, I wonder if the people there feel better off because of those folk.  And let’s not get started on the whole mess left by Martin Luther King and others through the civil rights movement.

OK – rant over.  I think I’ve answered my own questions here – hope it was helpful to you.

Now to read or not to read another post by the same author… “Insider Trading Is A Right: Don't Shackle The Knowledge-Seekers”.  I think the only reason he has Al Capone or Bernie Madoff on his shit list is there were SO MANY ways they could have got rich just working the system, within the law that is…

 

The article shared lest the self-proclaimed philosopher who wrote it feels I am somehow gaining wealth from his efforts was authored by Mr. Harry Binswanger, and published in Forbes Magazine, September 17, 2013.