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Actions of the Day for Progressive Armchair Activists

Actions of the Day for Progressive Armchair Activists

We come in peace (shoot to kill): Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator

Some actions for my fellow armchair activists. Click on the links for more information and to take action.

Non-JWs in a JW Family

Non-JWs in a JW Family

From the “Ask a Former JW” mailbag…

I’ve been reading your dialogue with JWs. I have no advice, though I have experience being married to a JW.

I have been told I have a distorted view of the Bible, that I am part of the great (?) Babylon. My parents haven’t seen my son in 1 year – they also are part of Babylon – and they live only 1 hour away.

I’ve been told that God doesn’t hear my prayers because I don’t use his real name, not to have a cross in the house as it may be a roost for some sort of demon. When she and my son are reading their watchtower stuff, she closes the door so I can’t hear the discussion ( we just don’t want to bother you.).

I have been screamed at when my mother sent my son a Christmas card with a cardinal in the snow, and only the words ‘happy holidays’ on the inside (don’t you know he may not survive Armageddon if he celebrates Christmas?). My mother walked through many aisles looking for a non offending Christmas card. I could go on and on.

Am I being critical ? Of course ….but this is just an “eye of the camera” report. I’m afraid to go where my real feelings have been shoved down for some 12 years….

So – that’s your ‘eye witness’ on JWs in the household —–I guess the love comes out at the Kingdom Hall.

Speaking of being visited in prison …..I’d like one of those loving and concerned JWs to come visit me in this one.

– Juree

Hi Juree!

“Babylon the Great” or “the Whore of Babylon” is based on the book of Revelation (esp. ch. 17-18). It is usually identified with whatever (corrupt) superpower reigns at the time (biblically, it’s probably Rome), but JWs see it as representing the worldwide empire of false religion (and most especially Christendom). They are, of course, interpreting themselves as being the only true religion. Many groups have interpretations of the Whore of Babylon and Babylon the Great – but JWs seem to refer to it more than other groups do.

On the issue of the Christmas card, they believe that the holiday is too pagan-affiliated in its customs and history to be celebrated, even if Jesus has not said to celebrate his death rather than his birth. I’ve not heard of any but the most fanatical JW invoke Armageddon at the sight of a holiday card, but it doesn’t surprise me either. Their sense of priorities is seriously skewed at times, and some are incapable of receiving the good wishes in the spirit in which they were meant. They might at least have explained their reasons – they will normally take any opportunity to do so.

On the cross issue, I have to say I haven’t heard the “demon roost” theory before (grin). Sounds like your family took some messages and cross-wired them in their fear. They do believe in demon attacks, and there is a lot of urban lore about smurfs and such, but that’s not the problem with the cross. JWs believe that Jesus was tortured on a stake, not a cross, so they don’t even use the word “crucifixion.” The other thing is that the symbol links the household, however distantly, to the above-mentioned “Babylon the Great.” One thing that we were told to explain out in service is that to wear a cross would be like wearing a gun when the person you loved most in the world had been shot with one. It has a certain appeal as an argument, but there are problems with the analogy.

Love and kindness are often reserved for members, as you have experienced. Family, especially non-JW family, are often treated worse than strangers (i.e., potential converts).

If there is a God, he/she/they/it hears your prayers. God is there for all, according to the central message of Christianity. I don’t know why you are in prison, but I do feel – always – that while there is life, there is hope. Find your freedom within, with curiosity and humor and forgiveness of yourself and others. Face your anger and hurt, talk with others, accept what you can accept, and move on to the next stage for you.

Don’t wait around for JWs to come and visit (lol), but do talk to the spiritual and psychological counselors that might be available to you. You can write to me privately too, if you need to rant someplace safe.

Catch up? Let go?

Catch up? Let go?

I’ve been feeling a certain amount of (self-imposed) pressure to keep up with every action and every political development here. Obviously, I can’t do that. There are people who actually receive a salary to do so, and you can find them all over the web. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I would be disappointed in McCain and others for caving on the torture provisions, that I would probably rant on the strategy of seeming to attack the Geneva Conventions directly (knowing it wouldn’t fly) only to “settle” on grandfathered pardons for CIA torturers and the introduction of “alternative procedures” and the ability to label anyone they want to as a terrorist – which is what they wanted in the first place. America the beautiful, torturer in chief. So on and so on. A lot has been happening.

And of course, I have a number of backlogged announcements in my email. Attorney General Gonzales actually stood up to defend the actions of the US in the false imprisonment, rendition to Syria, and torture of an innocent Canadian. Baghdad’s Camp Cropper, which started out as a bunch of tents, is now a $60 million “state-of-the-art” prison, paid for by us. Another industry anti-regulation ideologue (Susan Dudley) has been nominated by the White House for a position that requires the opposite concerns of the person nominated. This time it’s at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an office that makes decisions about the safety of the air we breathe, the cars we drive, the medicines we take and the water we drink. Top housing official (Alphonso Jackson) has been instructing staff to cut out Democrats when awarding HUD contracts – in violation of the law, of course. Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) gets to keep his congressional pension after he serves his prison time for selling his votes for money. Government auditors responsible for monitoring leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover more than $30 million from energy companies that were cheating the government. The National Black Republican Association is running an ad accusing Democrats of starting the Ku Klux Klan. They also say Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Sigh. Medicare physician payment rates are set to be cut by more than 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2007, and by nearly 40 percent over the next nine years, just as Baby Boomers are starting to retire. The FCC destroyed their own study when it proved media consolidation reduces local news coverage. Yada yada.

I can’t keep up with the landslide of these kinds of stories, and even if I could, I’m not sure that it really makes much difference. So you may notice some changes in the blog. I’m not going to try to cover the whole range. I’m just going to address what I’m thinking about that day. It might be political, or cultural, or religious, or creative, or just silly. We’ll see.

I’m still looking for a full-time job, and increasingly disappointed that my Ph.D. hasn’t allowed me to net a job here. I’ve not limited my search to the fields of my training. I’ve not limited my search even to academia. I’ve always worked part-time, even while I was in graduate school, but I don’t have a “last salary” to enter on an internet form. I would be an asset in many ways, except perhaps in accounting or sales (it’s a little too much like “witnessing” for me). I’ve been applying for several jobs a week over the last two years. Bupkis! – a big nothing.

I’m just a bit discouraged. However, I have a lot to be happy about, too. One great thing about getting older is that you get better at dealing with life’s oddities.

Here’s the thing, though. Just when you might be feeling that you’re doing pretty well (all things considering), the big black boot in the sky appears to smash into your head. “Wake up and pay attention! Time to grow again! It’s GOOD for your CHARACTER!” It’s been a while since I really felt existentially shaken, and I guess it was time for me to take some kind of next step. It’s strange the way some things can affect you more than others. Sometimes, I’m calm and collected in the middle of chaos and disaster. Other times, something that doesn’t look like such a catastrophe can knock me down on my butt.

I’ve been knocked down in a way that has been affecting the way I respond to everything for the last couple of days. I’ve got to find a better way through it. It’s a challenge, something much more difficult even than I would have thought it would be (if I had thought about it). A family member has acquired some mistaken and surprisingly negative ideas about me. I spent much of yesterday trying to respond to an email that made me burst into sobs whenever I looked at it. I’m not normally much of a weeper – I’m more of a stoic, or maybe – in extreme situations – a cocoonist. The assumptions and views that were expressed – and what they implied – deeply, deeply hurt me in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. I don’t know whether or not we will be able to work out the problems and misunderstandings, and the repercussions of not doing so would be very sad for both our families. I’ve responded as best I can, but I suspect that it won’t make much difference. It feels like a fundamental loss, a kind of death. It might even be just mourning for something that was never really there in the first place. Right now, I couldn’t say for sure.

I’m blown back, yes, but there are other aspects of my life now that can’t be ignored or abandoned just because I got a big electric shock. That’s a funny image, but that’s what it felt like – one of those cartoons where a character gets hold of a wire or something, and big lightening-bolt images fly from their contact. I could almost hear the sound effect. ZAP-zappp-booOOOm.

So I’m just taking it a bit slower for the next little bit, taking those walks and baths and meditations that I often recommend to others. I’ve done what I can for now, and how it all turns out will be what it will be.

My reaction to the State of the Union Address

My reaction to the State of the Union Address

I somehow made it all the way through the State of the Union address last night. Much as I disagree with the Bush administration, I even found him unusually appealing.

I actually had the thought, “Well, maybe most of this administration’s ugliness is Cheney. Maybe Bush means some of what he is saying here.” I thought he really tried to appeal to our hopefulness at a very sour time – that showed some good leadership. But that’s about it.

So many platitudes, so little straight talk.

He opened with the death of Coretta Scott King. At least he kept his remarks short and honored her as best he could, considering everything.

Isolationist? I haven’t heard anyone advocating that America should be isolationist or retreating from the world. I guess everyone can get behind that – attack a position no-one holds. Actually, it seems that this administration might benefit from more open debates on how to engage with the rest of the world in more effective ways. The costs of our invasion of Iraq – all the costs (ethical, diplomatic, financial, etc.) – have yet to be justified. I sincerely hope that his view of Iraq is not as simplistic as his few comments suggest. Probably just dumbing down.

Ditto for terrorists, but this is even more troubling. He seems to view the terrorists as a singular force, when it is really a mutating, changing and global set of loose alliances. He hasn’t got at what it will take to defeat them if he is concentrating on nations.

Interesting that he went back and forth from inaccurate representations of Democratic views to words about bipartisanship and working together. He suggests that they are soft on terrorism? Please. In my darker moments, I wonder how far this administration would go to bolster those claims.

The Rule of Law – I can’t believe he’s trying to wrap his illegal surveillance of Americans in 9/11 again. The claims he is making on the NSA spying scandal are pretty much to be expected – and really it’s probably all he can do right now. Of course, everything he said is problematic from a variety of perspectives, but that’s all playing out elsewhere. Personally, I believe this president violated federal law, but feels secure enough about it to brag. Bad sign.

“Human-animal hybrids”? What? Is there some room from O Lucky Man hiding in North Carolina? Is there an island of Dr. Moreau off New York? Maybe they mean Plum Island?

Well, good to see the value of life expressed. I think about the lives of those people who died in the aftermath of Katrina, the lives of the people of Fallujah or in Gitmo or Abu Ghraib or in our huge domestic prison system which still carries out barbaric if sterile executions, or the lives of people around the world who get HIV for lack of real educational programs beyond “just abstain” and die from it for lack of support for generic drugs. It’s easy to see the values of “life” in cutting anti-poverty programs, in cutting education, in cutting healthcare. Or maybe the value of all our lives is measured in terms of profits and cannon fodder. I felt sorry for that military family standing there. I felt sorry for that soldier’s wife and his parents. What did he die for? Invasion and occupation wasn’t the only option. I’ve now heard rumours of dropping nukes on Iran. Evidently civilian killings are planned to represent our support of their liberty too.

I liked the “switch grass” – it added spice, although I’m not sure where the marshlands could be retrieved for growing it. Can you see the slogan? “Grow Grass for Bush.” Actually, I think the clean reliable and safe energy he’s planning on is primarily nuclear energy. Has that really registered? Do we really want to give terrorists even more underdefended targets here?

I’m not sure I can really believe that an administration so closely tied to oil and gas (and who always supports industry over consumers) will be the ones who will move us out of a petroleum-based economy. He said that the US would replace 75% of our Middle East oil imports by 2025, but only 20% of our imports come from the region anyway, and he gives it about 20 years to happen. The White House has been against efforts to tighten fuel economy standards, and the tax system actually gives SUV drivers an incentive. He pledged support for alternative fuel technologies in previous State of the Union addresses, too, just like every other President I ever remember. Let’s see how it pans out.

Line item veto? Maybe it was a joke? He did grin. Anyway, that power was granted to Clinton but then overturned by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

On the economy, let’s remember that he inherited a $281 billion budget surplus that is now a $400 billion deficit. The national debt is up 44% (trillions and trillions of dollars, folks), but he wants to keep those tax cuts to the rich. The gap in America between the rich and the poor grows.

We’ve created “more jobs than Japan and Europe combined”… and they are all at Halliburton. Seriously, I don’t know if the claim about job creation is true or not, but it is my understanding that in both Japan and most of Europe, there is healthcare whether or not you are employed, a free college education, weeks and weeks of vacation, and generous pension plans. Part-time jobs at Walmart don’t really compare. Let’s also compare the worker populations. I wonder how many new workers entered the market in that time? No mention of how many jobs India or China have created in the same amount of time…. Anyway, there was a reason he didn’t cite the figures from the beginning of his presidency – it would have cut his total by more than half. 2 million jobs over a five-year period isn’t really much to brag about, especially when you look at the jobs.

Healthcare. Again, Bush would rather cut Medicare than allow, for example, negotiated drug prices. A closed-door session just gave away another $22 billion benefit to insurance companies, and some $140 million was spent by drug and insurance companies to lobby Republicans on the Medicare drug benefit alone. How about looking at some of the systemic issues?

Yes, we need to have a debate on healthcare, one that bases decisions on the common good of all Americans – is he really going to have that debate? I hope so. We need everyone’s ideas on this one. He didn’t really make any move toward fixing the current mess that privatizing the drug benefit (or is it “penalty”?) has caused. There seems to be no move (while he’s in the mood to cut needed programs all over, like Pell Grants and Medicare), to optimize or reform the healthcare system or to watchdog the health/drug/insurance industries. Any administrative assistant at any healthcare facility in the country can tell you where the fat is, where the corruption is. How about this as one small measure – insurance companies have to pay bills within 30 days, like the rest of us. Don’t wait around to hear such measures suggested by the Bush administration.

The Patriot Act? How about if we lose some of these provisions, such as the criminalization of protesters (carrying punishments of up to ten years in prison)? Or perhaps the Congress should consider cutting back on the wholesale authority to wiretap your phone, monitor your e-mail and demand your medical, financial and student records from banks, vendors, doctors‚ offices, and libraries – those required to turn over your records are prevented from ever telling you, even if the records turn up no wrongdoing.

The Bush administration has worked hard – to subvert America’s laws regarding open government while it infringes on your constitutional rights. This administration has done everything in its power to block and stall and hide from investigations into 9/11, the way we entered into the Iraq war, the Katrina aftermath, and the outing of Plame. It is a very very secretive administration. It has promoted cronyism at such levels as to have become actual security threats to our nation, and blocked meaningful debate by simply shutting down the conversation.

Just the little detail that adds insult: Cindy Sheehan was arrested and taken away in handcuffs for the crime of wearing a teeshirt that said “2245 How Many More?”. She was an invited guest. She wasn’t the only one in trouble either. Beverly Young (wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee) was removed from the gallery for another teeshirt considered to be a “protest.” It read, “Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom.”

So while I feel the President has, with practice, improved on his speech delivery skills, we’re still just being had.

Of course, I wasn’t that impressed with the Democrat’s response either, which had a few good points but was dumbed-down wayyyy too much.

I did like the brief comments I saw from Barack Obama. Maybe he should run in 2008. I’d vote for him over anyone else at this point.

So here’s his statement, which makes me a lot more hopeful than any words from this President’s speech:

Tonight, the American people know our union should be stronger. They know we can defeat terror and keep our shores safe. And they know that we can be competitive in a 21st century economy where every hardworking family prospers, not just some.

But the American people are wondering if this Administration can lead us there. Because after five years of the same timid solutions to great national challenges, Americans are more anxious about their future and more uncertain about the direction of the country we love.

They’ve seen their wages go down as their medical, gas, and tuition bills go up. They’ve seen jobs go overseas and wonder if our children will be prepared to compete in a global economy. And they’ve seen scandal and corruption take hold of a Washington that helps high-priced lobbyists at the expense of hardworking families.

Americans everywhere want a leader who speaks to their hopes for a better future and then acts on them.

But tonight, the President barely mentioned his health care plan for people who can already afford health care, ignoring bold, bipartisan proposals that can guarantee affordable and available health care for every American.

He identified America’s addiction to oil, but ignored his Administration’s addiction to oil-industry giveaways that won’t free us from our dependence on fossil fuels.

And after forty-six minutes of speaking, the President used less than sixty words to tell us how he’d clean up Washington and restore the American people’s faith in a government that works for them, not just big donors.

We can have this kind of government in America, face the future with hope, and move our country in the direction of progress. But we need strong leadership to get there – leadership that isn’t afraid to think big, try new ideas, and reach out to Americans of all political stripes. This is how we will restore the American people’s faith in our union and truly make it stronger.