[Peace-discuss] Guess the author (no googling)

Sat May 8 21:19:45 CDT 2010

I don't want to disappoint John W.,
but I just don't have any esoteric puns handy right now.

To keep the light of peace burning,
I offer a small bottle of Chinese definition.

"Socialism means eliminating poverty.
Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism."

- Deng Xiaoping

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: "E.Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigs.ag>
Cc: <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>; "Stuart Levy" <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 2:53 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Guess the author (no googling)

> And everyone knows what their parents meant when they said, "We'll see..."
>
> In an acute passage in his new "Christianity: The First Three Thousand 
> Years,"
> Diarmaid MacCulloch discusses G. Gutierrez'"seminal book, 'A Theology of
> Liberation'":
>
> "It is notable that in Gutierrez's discussion of poverty, he did not look 
> back,
> as did some liberation theologians, to the history of Christian purposeful
> poverty since the first monks and hermits of the Church, as an act of 
> solidarity
> with those who had not chosen to be poor.  Having surveyed the biblical
> discussion of poverty, he simply declared material poverty as a 'subhuman
> situation' and 'scandalous condition', and dismissed notions of spiritual
> poverty as unhelpful diversions" (p. 976).
>
> --CGE
>
> On 5/8/10 6:10 AM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
>> The principles of mathematics and physics hold true no matter what one
>> claims their philosophic and ideologic adherence to be. "2 + 2 = 3 for 
>> small
>> values of 2".
>>
>> "...on the principle of equality; in the present time your abundance for
>> their lack, that their abundance may be for your lack, so that there 
>> should
>> be equality. According as it is written, He who gathered much had no 
>> excess,
>> and he who gathered little was nothing short." (2 Corinthians 8.14-15, 
>> the
>> writer, Paul, quoting Exodus 16.18 )
>>
>> "...Fear came on every soul...all those who were of the faith kept 
>> together,
>> and had all things in common; And exchanging their goods and property for
>> money, they made division of it among them all, as they had need. And day 
>> by
>> day, going in agreement together regularly to the Temple and, taking 
>> broken
>> bread together in their houses, they took their food with joy and with 
>> true
>> hearts, Giving praise to God, and having the approval of all the people; 
>> and
>> every day the number of those who had salvation was increased by the 
>> Lord."
>> (from Dr. Luke's account in Acts 2.42-47)
>>
>> Many of the Christians in the revival of the late 70's and early 80's 
>> loved
>> to quote and talk about God's provision for their personal prosperity and
>> often said "Jehovah-Jireh", "God will provide". While that is true, the
>> concrete meaning of Jehovah-Jireh is "God will see."
>>
>> Hence the fear that God would see the attitude of their hearts, that they
>> could trust and give and be concerned about not giving and be concerned
>> about having a thankful and giving heart.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
>> <galliher at illinois.edu>
>>  To: "E.Wayne Johnson" <ewj at pigs.ag> Cc: <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>;
>> "Stuart Levy" <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2010 11:22 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Guess the author (no googling)
>>
>>
>>> And surely not to be recommended. But the remarkable unwillingness of
>>> supporters of the administration even to hear the complaints of people 
>>> like
>>> Stack is the real problem. The willingness of the bien-pensant simply to
>>> dismiss them is outrageous and even dangerous.
>>>
>>> Stack wrote, "The communist creed: From each according to his ability, 
>>> to
>>> each according to his need. / The capitalist creed: From each according 
>>> to
>>> his gullibility, to each according to his greed."
>>>
>>> We don't make progress toward the former by acquiescing in the latter.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 5/7/10 10:01 PM, E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>>> Bombs and flamboyant suicides like immolations and other violent acts 
>>>> are
>>>> one way of getting a message out.
>>>>
>>>> They are very high cost and very high risk. There is no guarantee that
>>>> the message will be heard correctly and there are usually no second
>>>> chances.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook"
>>>> <galliher at illinois.edu> To: "Stuart Levy" <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> Cc:
>>>> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2010 8:49 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Guess the author (no googling)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Yes, Chomsky. And he's not saying that Joe Stack's response is anodyne
>>>>> - specifically, it killed him and at least one other - but that it's
>>>>> understandable. There are real issues there that can't be dismissed.
>>>>>
>>>>> "It is easy to ridicule how Joe Stack and others like him articulate
>>>>> their concerns, but it’s far more appropriate to understand what lies
>>>>> behind their perceptions and actions at a time when people with real
>>>>> grievances are being mobilized in ways that pose no slight danger to
>>>>> themselves and to others."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 5/7/10 7:24 PM, Stuart Levy wrote:
>>>>>> Yeah, saw this a couple of weeks ago. Chomsky, right?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Encouraging anti-tax sentiment has long been a staple of
>>>>>>>> business propaganda."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Right. As with Proposition 13 in CA, whose main beneficiaries were
>>>>>> businesses, as their property taxes were cut even more than
>>>>>> homeowners'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is easy to ridicule how Joe Stack and others like him
>>>>>>>> articulate their concerns, but it’s far more appropriate to
>>>>>>>> understand what lies behind their perceptions and actions at a
>>>>>>>> time when people with real grievances are being mobilized in
>>>>>>>> ways that pose no slight danger to themselves and to others.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Note that he's not saying that the Tea Party's current direction is
>>>>>> harmless.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, May 07, 2010 at 04:32:31PM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>>>> On Feb. 18, Joe Stack, a 53-year-old computer engineer, crashed his
>>>>>>> small plane into a building in Austin, Texas, hitting an IRS
>>>>>>> office, committing suicide, killing one other person and injuring
>>>>>>> others.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stack left an anti-government manifesto explaining his actions. The
>>>>>>> story begins when he was a teenager living on a pittance in
>>>>>>> Harrisburg, Pa., near the heart of what was once a great industrial
>>>>>>> center.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> His neighbor, in her ’80s and surviving on cat food, was the
>>>>>>> “widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked
>>>>>>> all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with
>>>>>>> promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of
>>>>>>> service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward
>>>>>>> to in his retirement.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> “Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the
>>>>>>> incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the
>>>>>>> government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement.
>>>>>>> All she had was Social Security to live on.”
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> He could have added that the super-rich and their political allies
>>>>>>>  continue to try to take away Social Security, too.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stack decided that he couldn’t trust big business and would strike
>>>>>>> out on his own, only to discover that he also couldn’t trust a
>>>>>>> government that cared nothing about people like him but only about
>>>>>>> the rich and privileged; or a legal system in which “there are two
>>>>>>>  `interpretations’ for every law, one for the very rich, and one
>>>>>>> for the rest of us.”
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The government leaves us with “the joke we call the American
>>>>>>> medical system, including the drug and insurance companies (that)
>>>>>>> are murdering tens of thousands of people a year,” with care
>>>>>>> rationed largely by wealth, not need.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stack traces these ills to a social order in which “a handful of
>>>>>>> thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities — and when
>>>>>>> it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their
>>>>>>> gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal
>>>>>>> government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if
>>>>>>> not hours.”
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stack’s manifesto ends with two evocative sentences: “The communist
>>>>>>> creed: from each according to his ability, to each according to his
>>>>>>> need. The capitalist creed: from each according to his gullibility,
>>>>>>> to each according to his greed.”
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Poignant studies of the U.S. rustbelt reveal comparable outrage
>>>>>>> among individuals who have been cast aside as state-corporate
>>>>>>> programs close plants and destroy families and communities.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> An acute sense of betrayal comes readily to people who believed
>>>>>>> they had fulfilled their duty to society in a moral compact with
>>>>>>> business and government, only to discover they had been only
>>>>>>> instruments of profit and power.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Striking similarities exist in China, the world’s second largest
>>>>>>> economy, investigated by UCLA scholar Ching Kwan Lee.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Lee has compared working-class outrage and desperation in the
>>>>>>> discarded industrial sectors of the U.S. and in what she calls
>>>>>>> China’s rustbelt — the state socialist industrial center in the
>>>>>>> Northeast, now abandoned for state capitalist development of the
>>>>>>> southeast sunbelt.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In both regions Lee found massive labor protests, but different in
>>>>>>>  character. In the rustbelt, workers express the same sense of
>>>>>>> betrayal as their U.S. counterparts — in their case, the betrayal
>>>>>>> of the Maoist principles of solidarity and dedication to
>>>>>>> development of the society that they thought had been a moral
>>>>>>> compact, only to discover that whatever it was, it is now bitter
>>>>>>> fraud.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Around the country, scores of millions of workers dropped from work
>>>>>>> units “are plagued by a profound sense of insecurity,” arousing
>>>>>>> “rage and desperation,” Lee writes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Lee’s work and studies of the U.S. rustbelt make clear that we
>>>>>>> should not underestimate the depth of moral indignation that lies
>>>>>>> behind the furious, often self-destructive bitterness about
>>>>>>> government and business power.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In the U.S., the Tea Party movement — and even more so the broader
>>>>>>>  circles it reaches — reflect the spirit of disenchantment. The Tea
>>>>>>>  Party’s anti-tax extremism is not as immediately suicidal as Joe
>>>>>>> Stack’s protest, but it is suicidal nonetheless.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> California today is a dramatic illustration. The world’s greatest
>>>>>>> public system of higher education is being dismantled.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’ll have to eliminate state
>>>>>>> health and welfare programs unless the federal government forks
>>>>>>> over some $7 billion. Other governors are joining in.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Meanwhile a newly powerful states’ rights movement is demanding
>>>>>>> that the federal government not intrude into our affairs — a nice
>>>>>>> illustration of what Orwell called “doublethink”: the ability to
>>>>>>> hold two contradictory ideas in mind while believing both of them,
>>>>>>>  practically a motto for our times.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> California’s plight results in large part from anti-tax fanaticism.
>>>>>>> It’s much the same elsewhere, even in affluent suburbs.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Encouraging anti-tax sentiment has long been a staple of business
>>>>>>> propaganda. People must be indoctrinated to hate and fear the
>>>>>>> government, for good reasons: Of the existing power systems, the
>>>>>>> government is the one that in principle, and sometimes in fact,
>>>>>>> answers to the public and can constrain the depredations of private
>>>>>>> power.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> However, anti-government propaganda must be nuanced. Business of
>>>>>>> course favors a powerful state that works for multinationals and
>>>>>>> financial institutions — and even bails them out when they destroy
>>>>>>> the economy.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But in a brilliant exercise in doublethink, people are led to hate
>>>>>>> and fear the deficit. That way, business’s cohorts in Washington
>>>>>>> may agree to cut benefits and entitlements like Social Security
>>>>>>> (but not bailouts).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> At the same time, people should not oppose what is largely
>>>>>>> creating the deficit — the growing military budget and the
>>>>>>> hopelessly inefficient privatized healthcare system.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is easy to ridicule how Joe Stack and others like him articulate
>>>>>>> their concerns, but it’s far more appropriate to understand what
>>>>>>> lies behind their perceptions and actions at a time when people
>>>>>>> with real grievances are being mobilized in ways that pose no
>>>>>>> slight danger to themselves and to others.
>>>>>>>
>
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