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archives | newquaker.comSaturday, October 11, 2003
Christian eugenics. George W. Bush said in 2001: "My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers." [CNN, September 16, 2001] As coming from the mouth of an evangelical Christian, this was a declaration of a man who would use his elected office to carry out a program of death not unlike eugenics programs encouraged by bio-social engineers. Anti-terrorism campaigns should then take on the look and feel of something so acceptable and commonplace as a Planned Parenthood promotional. Two years later, this is surely the accepted American form of response to terrorism in the world.
Why have we forgotten Jesus' words? He said, "My kingdom is not of this world." [John 18:36] He taught his disciples to pray thus: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." [Matt 6:9-10] Our will is always to be subservient to the will of the Father, and it is not our place as Christians to decide who are deserving members of the kingdom and who are not. We ought therefore to find an alternative—an alternative pleasing to our Lord—that does not take on as a matter of our social will the elimination of the world's "evil-doers." That is not a part of our station and its duties.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 12:05 AM
All that is wrong with America's electoral system was made evident in the recent California recall election. Not only did it confirm once again Duverger's Law, but it tells us how disingenuous it is of a contemporary US administration to encourage American democracy in a country like Iraq.
American democracy is a great thing, but our current form of democratic government seems no longer able to serve the very ideals from which it pretends to be derived. When a politician begins talking about exporting our democratic form of government, his excited, quivering lips say: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And this is of course what all trampled peoples want to hear. But what is actually expelled from his mouth is "The wealthiest will rule, special interests must be served, and the common man's voice cannot be heard above the din of greed's magnificent obsession." We may laugh that it can happen in California, but look—we are laughing in a mirror.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 12:00 AM
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
What do these four events all have in common?
Answer: The multinational corporation responds only to profit and the lack thereof and, like a wild animal, will maul you if threatened. We live in a fallen world. No multinational corporation nor any wild animal makes a good pet.
- Timothy Treadwell, co-author of Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska, and a companion were found fatally mauled in a brown bear attack in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve. [MSNBC, October 7, 2003]
- Antoine Yates, trying to recreate a modern Eden in his New York City apartment, was hospitalized after his 20-month-old, 425-pound Siberian-Bengal tiger tore open his leg to the bone. Police arrested Yates and removed both the tiger and a 5-foot alligator from the apartment. [October 5, 2003]
- Illusionist Roy Horn, of the "Siegfried & Roy" show, was critically injured when his 7-year-old, 600-pound white Siberian tiger bit him on the neck during a Las Vegas performance and dragged him off the MGM Mirage nightclub stage. [October 4, 2003]
- The Carrier Corporation announced that it will close its two air-conditioning manufacturing plants in Syracuse, NY, and lay off 1,200 workers. It will move those operations to Singapore, China, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. Carrier, the region's largest manufacturer, has been in Syracuse since the Great Depression. [New York Times, October 7, 2003]
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 10:29 PM
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Despite a hint of revival in the job market, the debate continues as to why unemployment is still moribund. Entering into that debate now is the exact number of American jobs lost to "offshoring." Of the 2.81 million jobs lost in the US in this cycle, 15% are going offshore—and these are the most conservative estimates. The Democratic Party's Progressive Policy Institute is also entering the fray with an estimate of jobs lost overseas at 800,000. Looking forward, some private-sector research analysts say that we could lose 3.3 million jobs to globalization by 2015. [See New York Times, October 5, 2003]
And why should this be a surprise? The big-business model, especially that of the publicly-held corporation, favors the maximization of profit over any other stakeholder interest. If the business cannot achieve higher profits through greater productivity, then it will seek it in lower costs and will therefore takes its highest cost unit—labor—to the place of lowest cost. It is therefore only doing what its nature dictates. Asking the Chinese the raise their currency so their labor becomes too expensive, as the Bush Administration is doing, is like asking a country to destroy its food supply so as to repel our stalking, devouring behemoth.
Alas, this will continue until Americans are restored to the value of the small-business entrepreneur and the American Church stops praying to the god of stock dividends.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 1:23 PM
© Merle Harton, Jr. All rights reserved. Biblical references are NIV® unless otherwise noted.
