tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50080412676303723132024-02-07T12:46:10.048-08:00Roomin' House BluesA blog about life on the economic margins of America and the world. The writer will also share personal experiences,and comment on spiritual, economic, artistic and other matters including books, films and music. This blog is heavily influenced by the Catholic Workers Movement. Please share our posts and follow us by email or subscription.
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.comBlogger380125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-43850630590579196092021-05-17T22:14:00.001-07:002021-05-17T22:14:32.675-07:00 Serenading the Donkey<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Over the years I have had many times when I have had to call out others on their words, behavior, or attitudes on race, class or ethnicity and I have used a variety of means to get my point across. The first such incident was when I was 13 years old and my sister and a friend were skipping rope to the rope song that uses the "N_" word. I said we don't use that word in this place and the girls argued with me about it. I just said that if they used that word I would go tell Grandpa, and they complied. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In a high school the teacher had let the discussion degenerate and the topic of "welfare" came up and a girl stated an old stereotype that my Daddy says "All the blacks go pick up their welfare checks in Cadillacs." I wanted that direction of the conversation to end immediately, so I blurted out "Well your Daddy is a racist." There was silence in the room for a couple of minutes and then the teacher changed the subject. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When people have bought up anti-immigrant ideas, I usually felt that the racism and class bias is more subtle than the above, so I often try refuting the matter with factual points. The bias is usually too deep to overcome, but occasionally I get agreement. One of the thing I sometimes say that often gets agreement is that workers like us, regardless of color or immigration status have in common our interests as workers; that we often are mistreated by employers, suffer low wages etc. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I had a graveyard shift job at a convenience store cashier for a while and there were race based incidents that occurred there. The reality of Harlan Ellison's "Invisible Man" novel hit home when a white customer stepped in front of a black customer already in line for the cash register. In that case I chose not to address it as a race issue but to simply say "In this store we wait on the first customers first." Another incident involved a regular who worked at a nearby print shop and was also a musician. An African American costumer had just left the store as he came in and he made a reference to that "N_". Because he was a regular I choose to wait until the next time to speak to the matter which gave me time to think what to say. I knew that he was from Louisiana and I reasoned he would know the names of famous Louisianan musicians, so I would use that to make my approach more subtle. The next time he came in I said, "I know that you are from Louisiana and are a musician. I really like the music from there. Some of my favorite are..." By the time I had named over a dozen African American musicians from his home state, I could tell that he got the point. <br /><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When I was working as a parking attendant a few years later, incidents of racial, ethnic prejudice on the part of customers occurred regularly. It was common for someone to complain to me that the "other parking attendant" didn't speak English, the other attendant being from one of the East African nations, because many East Africans work in Seattle's parking industry. The problem wasn't that the attendant didn't speak English, but that the customer didn't try to understand their accent. Most of the Africans I know in America speak multiple languages--two or three African languages, English and one or more European languages. In Africa there are so many encounters between people of differing backgrounds that becoming a polyglot is not uncommon. So I would tell customers that they did speak English, you aren't trying hard enough to understand their accent and that in fact they speak several languages. <br />In one of the garages I worked in we had drivers out front to park customers cars during events at the nightclub next door. A customer came back late and drunk and was belligerent about getting there car that night. The Valet manager and an African American valet were there and she said "Have your 'boy' " get my car. The Valet manager decided to give her the car despite of her being drunk and it being after closing but went to get it himself, while the other valet waited. When he returned all of us were there so I took payment, remaining polite through the transaction, and then turned to her before she drove out and said "And by the way, in this garage we don't employ 'boys', we employ men. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Another garage I worked in was under a hospital . There are doctors and hospital administrators who treated us with respect, but a few seemed to have a class prejudice against us as inferiors. It's been my experience that some highly intelligent people work in menial occupations, and often times, especially if they are immigrants, they may have a level of education that far exceeds the demands of the job. I was standing by the parking booth talking with an attendant from Eretria, when he spot a doctor walking by to go get his car. My fellow attendant said to me, "That guy always has an attitude that I'm stupid." I knew my friend was well read so I said," When he drives up let's be talking about 'Garcia Lorca.' "The doctor seemed somewhat surprised, just like we planned. I don't think we educated the guy, but I do think we felt better for having done this. <br /><br />I told that last story recently to a African American woman who works in a Goodwill store and has a degree in English. She said "I call that 'serenading the donkey.'" There are a lot of donkeys out in this world and most of the ones I have 'serenaded' will probably remain much as they work, a few may have changed for the better. But I'm going to go on singing my songs because not responding is not an option. </span></p>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-64938273253103297412021-05-12T21:49:00.003-07:002021-05-12T21:49:27.482-07:00<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> Striking at Bourgeois Values with "Free Stuff" </p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Why is it that in middle class neighborhoods no one would think anything of it if you are having a "yard sale" or a "moving sale", spending your entire day selling your possessions at pennies on the dollar, a tenth of what you could get on E-Bay, making less than the federal minimum wage for your efforts, but they would shrink in horror from a "free stuff pile". What is the world coming from that they place so little value on material possessions that they would give it away for nothing. Someone will surely complain that you are doing "illegal dumping", even if you tend the pile and fold things back up. </p><p>Fortunately for me, I live in a neighborhood with a heavy student population, north of Seattle's University of Washington campus, and such a pile is welcome. Having purged the house of unneeded things that aren't worth my time trying to sell (unlike my art, which I will find a way to sell) I see young people steadily going through the pile. I came up behind one young lady with her head buried in the big "free stuff" box and said "Dig deep, the best stuff is on the bottom. <br /><br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ST5HwPByizZ3IxRofA095HaW9yFGHpiVcBKKFEnIyCz_4qupPpEMshx4WdMr62VGNBqg7ASPYSTByfiCIAa9poTkx4ABGa2PDQ81-f3ypyVeGNCJT1vBnyx55_n3oimftyReFuQTU24/s600/free+stuff+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ST5HwPByizZ3IxRofA095HaW9yFGHpiVcBKKFEnIyCz_4qupPpEMshx4WdMr62VGNBqg7ASPYSTByfiCIAa9poTkx4ABGa2PDQ81-f3ypyVeGNCJT1vBnyx55_n3oimftyReFuQTU24/s320/free+stuff+2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv6ZtTrVG9vWmhf60sfFb5m2h26-JAxUrjIJbUqkFTP3y4QVAzQBFwi-ggbCoHQCH2JaksdX9NIg6RjBlsTIGWYypMXkwgU7HiwqDgdLFDe_p9xfmrKo6bOZqlNkK_MxEyp4Ueact7cE/s600/free+stuff+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxv6ZtTrVG9vWmhf60sfFb5m2h26-JAxUrjIJbUqkFTP3y4QVAzQBFwi-ggbCoHQCH2JaksdX9NIg6RjBlsTIGWYypMXkwgU7HiwqDgdLFDe_p9xfmrKo6bOZqlNkK_MxEyp4Ueact7cE/s320/free+stuff+1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We live in a materialistic culture that values possessions more than the labor or the well being of those who made or sold to us the possessions. As I pointed out, even when those items will not bring us the return to make a yard sale worthwhile, to the affluent, it' would seem improper to simply give them away. <br /><br />But there are signs that this attitude towards our possessions is beginning to change. Not only and I not the only one to put things out on the sidewalk marked free in our neighborhood, but down the street and a few blocks from there again there is a "free little library". The "free little libraries" are small privately run libraries people put up on their parking strips. <br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5L8FR6hOnVEyh-bG0KraCgh5GWQd22XfG9d5Pix6lGfo6SAyN1201ufvAOeKZLu_Ih8GToNeminzuzj8cYxu3ryqMJhMIOWKY8-Ryp4KRyK2KWGnEHAo5hCi5rUySTrNdxgb6gKvcL6s/s275/%255Dfree+little+library.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5L8FR6hOnVEyh-bG0KraCgh5GWQd22XfG9d5Pix6lGfo6SAyN1201ufvAOeKZLu_Ih8GToNeminzuzj8cYxu3ryqMJhMIOWKY8-Ryp4KRyK2KWGnEHAo5hCi5rUySTrNdxgb6gKvcL6s/s0/%255Dfree+little+library.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's the world's largest book sharing movement and it's growing rapidly. People build a small shelter for the books, like is show above and supply some of the books, people come along and take what they want, returning when they can. Others leave more books and the sharing continues. Here is the homepage for that effort: <br />https://littlefreelibrary.org/</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is also a more formal way of sharing your unwanted possessions than a "free stuff pile". if you have items worth the effort of someone to come pick them up, there are "Buy Nothing" groups sprouting up all over the place. If you live in a big city, likely there is one in your neighborhood. People post what they have to give away on their buy nothing group page. Someone can then contact the donor about picking it up. Here is the homepage for that effort:<br />https://buynothingproject.org/</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />Also a lot of resource and possession sharing is done by "mutual aid groups". These are voluntary organizations where people come together to help each other, often organizing clothing and food distributions, direct aid to the homeless, sharing of furniture, help to the venerable. While these groups are about more than "free stuff" they do distribute things without charge to those in need. The movement is too decentralized to give you a single go to website, but here is the Wikipedia page about such groups:<br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_(organization_theory)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br />Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-73068115895058038792020-05-05T15:33:00.000-07:002020-05-05T15:33:45.169-07:00Pact of the Catcombs For the Common Home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28px;">“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.” St. John Chrysostom</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs. <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">St. John Chrysostom</span></span><br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #3e3e3e; font-family: "rokkitt" , serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: 0.5px; line-height: 24px;">The original 42 bishops who signed that day in 1965, and the more than 500 who eventually added their names, pledged to “try to live according to the ordinary manner of our people in all that concerns housing, food, [and] means of transport…. We renounce forever the appearance and the substance of wealth, especially in clothing … and symbols made of precious metals.”"</span><br />
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https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2019/10/20/vatican-iis-forgotten-apostle-of-the-poor-stages-comeback-at-amazon-synod/?fbclid=IwAR0j0oA7f7UMwy4R_W-5wjC0Zp2VjGx5oESSUMxOjge26URzb0TnDY5dEik<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: "museo sans cyrl" , "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 28px;">In the document signed on Sunday, the participants of the Synod on the Amazon recall that they share the joy of living among many indigenous peoples, inhabitants of river banks, migrants and suburban communities. With them, they experienced “the power of the Gospel that works in the smallest”. “The encounter with these peoples”, the document says, “challenges us and invites us to a simpler life of sharing and gratuitousness”. The signatories of the document commit themselves to “renewing the preferential option for the poor”, to abandoning “every type of colonist mentality and posture” and to proclaiming “the liberating novelty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. They also undertake to recognize “the ecclesial ministries already existing in the communities” and to seek “new paths of pastoral action”.</span><br />
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Other commitments in the "Pact of the Catacombs for the Common Home" include pledges "to walk ecumenically with other Christian communities" and "to assume before the avalanche of consumerism a happily sober lifestyle". The signatory fathers also promise to recognize "the ecclesial ministries that already exist in the communities" and to seek "new paths of pastoral action".</div>
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"Aware of our frailty, of our poverty and smallness in the face of such great and serious challenges", the signers state, "we commit ourselves to the prayer of the Church"."</div>
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"SEATTLE – Archbishop Paul D. Etienne said he will not live in the 9,000-square-foot mansion on Seattle’s First Hill that many of his predecessors called home.</div>
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In a letter sent to priests and deacons on September 3 — his first day as leader of the Archdiocese of Seattle — the archbishop wrote, “While the Connolly House has been home to the archbishops since 1920, it will not be home for me.”</div>
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“I prefer to live a more simplified life,” he explained, adding that he was “exploring options on church properties” and hoped to find an alternative soon.</div>
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“Meanwhile, a prudent discussion will explore the possibility of selling Connolly House to help fund the great many needs across this archdiocese,” he wrote."</div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-27163385006373330172017-03-04T12:41:00.003-08:002017-03-04T18:42:57.484-08:00The Life of a Political Animal <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My Political Biography </div>
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For various reasons, dear reader, I need to post my political biography before further political activities, This is not intended as a monument to my ego, but for the edification of others I will be working with politically, and my other readers as they can benefit from it. The latter part of my post will deliberately read like a resume, the beginning more literary. </div>
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Aristotle says that man is a political animal and I have been very much a political animal in my life, starting from a childhood infatuation with JFK, my burst of tears on his assassination, an early addiction to newspaper reading, and my rapt attention to the 1964 party conventions. My first practical political activity in the conventional sense was to canvass for a school bond at age 15 to better fund my public school. But I learned I could use leverage at age 14 when I told an unfriendly parish priest that I could resolve the matter at hand by calling a priest I knew at the diocese. I got that idea from reading books on politics. Later, as a high school, when my joint activities with SDSer's to plan disruption of a speech by the Marine Corp recruiters landed me in the Vice Principals office, instead of admitting anything, I told him that this was political persecution for my anti-war activities and I would call a student strike if they did anything about it. It's for things like this that I earned a "You are my favorite radical" salutation in my high school year book. </div>
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Although I have an enduring love justice and greater economic equality, my approach to it has not remained consistent. I have been in my life a liberal, a democratic socialist radical, a hippie anarchist, a communist and finally a communitarian. As to the winds of political change in my life I refer to the political biography of the French writer Andre Malraux. Malraux was the author of many novels that are read to this day, including , most notably "Man's Fate". Man's Fate was a "journalistic novel", a literary form that requires one to have been there and done that. It draws on his experience as a French Communist working in China with the early Chinese Communist Party, in the days when they were still in political alliance with the Nationalists and were simply refereed to there as the Internationals. It remains an insightful guide on the nature of politics and revolution. Malraux eventually returned to France before World War II and after the German invasion of France he made the life changing decision to join the pro-de Gaulle "Marque" resistance rather than his parties resistance. He joined the Marque primarily because he felt that as it was larger, it would be more effective. In consequence he broke with the party. Years later, when he was serving as the Minister of Culture under de Gaulle, he lectured in California and was confronted by a zealous young revolutionary. Dr,, Bruce Franklin of the revolutionary Venceramos Organization tossed a balloon filled with red paint on his as he spoke. Asked later by the press what this was about Malraux magnanimously said merely that "The young man and I have a political disagreement." </div>
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I find myself in somewhat the situation of Malraux. I left behind my seventeen years of activities as a full time cadre and communist working within the National Labor Federation (which was founded by former Venceramos members) over twenty years ago, without a formal resignation. Since then, while busying myself with working for a living, participation in the Catholic church, and my cultural and social life, I have engaged in relatively little political activity. I have been involved some in the pro-life movement, including Democrats for Life and some rosary vigils, etc. I helped with the Jim Cline for City Attorney campaign. I avoided deep political involvement. When Jim asked me to join the American Solidarity Party I came to a crossroads, like Malraux had done. </div>
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The American Solidarity Party is a unique political organization in the American political landscape. (See it's official website at : http://www.solidarity-party.org/). It is molded after the Christian Democratic parties of Europe and Latin America. It should be considered part of the "new pro-life movement" or "consistent life movement" in that it is pro-life and pro-social justice, and it's understanding of pro-life is not merely anti-abortion. It runs through the center of the American political landscape without being merely a compromise between liberals and conservatives. Composed primarily of distrbutists and communitarians, is is largely conservative on social issues and largely progressive on economic and foreign policy questions. While I joined partially out of loyalty to Jim, I had long sought activity that expressed my socially conservative progressivism. </div>
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I am currently preparing to submit my self nomination to run for the board of the Washington State branch of the American Solidarity Party. This post will serve as my long form political biography to supplement the short form I will submit. </div>
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I passionately believe that we cannot abandon the question for justice for the poor, protection for the worker or the search for peace because we want to end the killing of infants in the womb. does it matter whether will kill people on battlefields, death rows, in economic dead ends, in nationalistic mass deportations or in Planned Parenthood clinics? In the end all this is a rejection of the dignity and worth of human life. All this violates in some form "Thou shall not kill." It does not matter if we kill by commission or omission. What matters is, are we just men and peaceful men. </div>
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To return to my political resume I start in the middle of the Vietnam War. In my Freshman and Sophomore high school years of speech and debate classes, tournaments, and high school radio I and shocked conservative listeners with advocacy of socialism. By 16 I was already a full blown radical when the opportunity presented itself to help staff the front desk of out local peace center. For the next few years I made a whirlwind tour of anti-war activities, pro-civil rights activity, the Eugene McCarthy campaign, Peace and Freedom Party, the local Free University and nascent Santa Cruz Switchboard, congressional, presidential and city council campaigns in Santa Cruz, and a Democratic Precinct Captain post. </div>
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I desired a more active leadership role in politics, so I founded the Santa Cruz Tenants Union. this immersed me in the roles of press spokesperson, organizer of a tenants rights hotline, legal researcher, representative to City Council meetings, etc. I participated in a political coalition with revolutionary Vietnam War Veterans and former weather people. I had a reputation skill as an agitator and acumen on political tactics and strategy. </div>
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The political landscape in the world was shifting, with Southeast Asia having already gone communist, quasi-Marxist governments emerging in newly independent African countries and Latin American communists becoming more militant. It looked for a while as if Regis Debray's "Revolution Within the Revolution" was a work of prophecy. </div>
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An affiliate of the small National Labor Federation was operating in Santa Cruz, the California Homemakers Association. They were organizing home care attendants and domestic workers, along with the entire lower economic strata. They were picking Upjohn Homemakers on the grounds that there contract to provide home care service for the county program meant cuts in service and lower wages. It would succeed in ousting Upjohn and raising wages. Some of my Tenants Union organizers gravitated to them, as a struggle on a larger scale. I followed suit and eventually found myself convinced of a communist world outlook, working 17 years as a dedicated full time revolutionary. </div>
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Sincerity and dedication are not a guarantee of correctness, but I cannot countenance a complete political reversal either. I could not become a bitter right wing "anti, anti anti" after spending years coping with the life and death problems of poor laborers, undocumented immigrants, the elderly and disabled poor, etc. </div>
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I spend years doing everything from field organizing, providing benefits to our membership, political action mobilizations and picketing, work with aligned or allied groups, organizational planning, editing and writing newspapers and leaflets, work in a movement print shop and a movement law firm (as a investigator and legal researcher) , security work, and regional administrative work. More than half my "political skill set" came from this, so I will not blanket condemn the experience, although it cost me dearly to dedicate years of my life to it. </div>
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My political skill set includes a great deal of writing and research experience, a very high level of planning and administrative experience, experience with special events of many kinds, running phone banks and information tables, training canvass crews, doing speaking engagements, staffing offices, supervising newer organizers in their work, doing street level fundraising, running food distributions and doing welfare advocacy for members etc. This combines with a lifetime of reading on political and military history, political science and political economy and other related topics. of more recent origin I have acquired a social media skill set running this blog and five Facebook community pages. I have taken classes on writing, journalism, mass media, political science and history. All this I bring to the work I am called to through the American Solidarity Party. </div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-11596622526940603612016-12-04T18:00:00.001-08:002016-12-04T18:53:26.429-08:00Eating the Human From the Inside<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The fall of the human being into distance from God was the fall from what it truly means to be human. We do not sin because we are human, but because we start to become more and more inhuman. And just as we cannot love God whom we have not seen unless we love our neighbor whom we have seen, the more inhuman we become, the more we hate God, the less we love him. When we detach ourselves from the value and dignity of human life and become anti-life, disguised as pro-some "choice" , instead of pro-life, we truly disfigure our humanity. through this our whole culture is becoming inhuman. And that inhumanity is eating, destroying the human from inside.<br />
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Two news stories that touch on this have come to my attention in the last few days. I have chosen to comment on both of them as a temper of our times. </div>
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The first story I found on a blog post on Patheos, and it has been confirmed as a real story. According to the post, under the Netherlands voluntary euthanasia policy, a doctor has terminated the life of a 41 year old father of two, because he found life intolerable as an alcoholic. Rand to means of rather than "do no harm" as a doctor and direct the person to treatment, to AA, to means of getting sober, the doctor chose to say yes, your life has no value unless your our sober, and yes, give up all hope of becoming sober. This amounts to a death penalty for being an alcoholic, even though the victim consents. </div>
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Another voluntary victim of this "mercy killing" was killed because of her PTSD stemming of childhood sexual abuse. To kill the victim of the crime of abuse rather than support her, is an attack on all suffering victims of early childhood abuse. </div>
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<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/catholicnews/2016/12/euthanasia-of-alcoholic-father-sends-dangerous-message/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FBCP-CAT&utm_content=catholicnews" target="_blank">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/catholicnews/2016/12/euthanasia-of-alcoholic-father-sends-dangerous-message/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=FBCP-CAT&utm_content=catholicnews</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129;"> </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="background-color: #f6f7f9; color: #1d2129;"><span class="UFICommentBody">Euthanasia as a legal matter began with that sovereign nation, Germany, in the 30's, first applied to disabled children, then later the mass slaughter of Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents. Millions died. This has begun as voluntary euthanasia for those on the verge of death, but now it is growing to other---The notion that an alcoholic is incurable was debunked by AA, yet here it is used as an excuse to expand the scope of this law. And the Dutch are considering expansion of the of the law to include those who feel they have lead full lives. But the ugly truth about Dutch euthanasia is that as the doctors have become comfortable with killing patients, covert involuntary killings of patients have been occurring more frequently than in the past. So Roy, in fact it is willy-nilly down the slippery slope. Free and independent nations threaten destruction with A-Bombs, etc, use the death penalty widely, kill in abortion and I speak out against all those, so I shall on this as well. When I was a child or young adult, this "mercy killing" idea was only advocated by loose wing nuts. Gradually it became acceptable by the work of spin doctors who relabeled the robbery of human life and dignity as "death with dignity." Euthanasia is eating our humanity from the inside. </span></span></span></div>
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" style="background-color: #f6f7f9;"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;">But this horror is not limited to the Dutch alone. Recently, according to the Churchpop website, France's Council of State has banned the showing of a video on television that shows Downs Syndrome children as leading happy lives. The rationale: that this pro-life video would make mothers who had aborted their Down's Syndrome children "feel bad" about their choice. It is however quite acceptable for medical </span><span style="color: #1d2129;">professionals</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"> to make mothers feel bad about bearing such a child to term. Ac.cording to the article 90% of Down's Syndrome children in Eurpoe and the United States are killed by abortion </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://churchpop.com/2016/11/21/france-bans-pro-life-video-of-people-with-down-syndrome-living-happy-lives/" target="_blank">https://churchpop.com/2016/11/21/france-bans-pro-life-video-of-people-with-down-syndrome-living-happy-lives/</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Liberty of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" goes out the window when it interferes with the process of robbing the dignity and value of human life. Again, we destroy our humanity from the inside. </span></div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-37484622982112858702016-04-30T11:58:00.002-07:002016-05-04T20:12:37.668-07:00Catholic Teaching and the Right of Human Beings to Water<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span data-offset-key="d3kt4-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">One of the greatest looming crisis in the world today is the global water shortage. Both secular and religious social justice advocates are concerned with this and Catholics in particular are applying CST (Catholic Social Teaching for my non-Catholic friends) to this. I have always been concerned with inequality and it's savage effects, as a Catholic child, as a fallen away Catholic, and as a returned Catholic. But returning late in adulthood, and studying CST I have gained a entirely new set of tools to use on this problem. I thank my old Santa Cruz friend </span></span><span class="_5u8u" data-offset-key="d3kt4-1-0" spellcheck="false" style="background-color: #dce6f8; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-offset-key="d3kt4-1-0"><span data-text="true">Kim MacKay</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="d3kt4-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"> for this article and here is my take: Water is becoming a a point of conflict between global capitalism and the poor of the world. It is being treated as private property of investors. Catholic social teaching starts with certain simple premises: the dignity and right to survive of every human being, The "universal destination of goods" (that the good things of the earth are ultimately everyone's, as in Eden), the good of private property (that it protects people) and balancing the three, the Common Good, by which the universal destination of goods and the right of all to survive places limits on the right of private property, sometimes completely overcoming it. Aquinas, for instance, allowed th</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">at with no other remedies available, a person had the right to steal for survival. Nestle, a global beverage company, is asserting it's right of private property against the rights of rural and urban poor and farmers to water for survival. The Catholic church and secular critics are not in agreement, nor am I. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">http://www.newsweek.com/middle-east-water-crisis-spreads-united-states-447401?rx=us</span></span><br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-85480410529941963192015-03-01T20:03:00.001-08:002015-03-01T20:04:16.342-08:00Breast Feeding Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My rosary meditations may sometimes lead me down strange paths. My meditations one the nativity has led me deeper into the relationship between Jesus and Mary. In Rosary meditations my practice, as that of many others is to imaginatively model the behavior and thoughts of a character in the rosary mystery. For those who don't know, the prayers of the rosary are organized into decades of ten Hail Mary's and an Our Father, each with a "mystery" of biblical origin, such as the "Nativity of Jesus" to meditate on while praying. For me, meditating on the nativity leads naturally to the closeness of Mary and Jesus.<br />
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There is no closer moment between a mother and child than the moment of breast feeding Since the Virgin became the subject of painting, the depiction of Mary nursing Jesus has been the way to show there intimacy and union.<br />
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In the Gospel of Luke the good doctor records that Mary remembered and contemplated all the moment of the nativity and infancy of Jesus. As a mother may become as one with the child while nursing, the Virgin was remembering and contemplating her union with God incarnate.<br />
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Through experience and practice at the rosary, and letting the grace of God lead me in my understanding of the words and images the rosary meditation stirs up, I have been able to add a great deal of physical sensation to my identification with the characters of the biblical stories. I believe it it within the reach of anyone who is deep in prayer to do this, and that it is the gateway to the stage none as "contemplation" Contemplation is that stage of prayer were one simply listens to the Word of God" or gazes on the Sacred Images or otherwise moves into higher awareness of of the Divine Presence. I believe some of the painters of Sacred Images were in or moving towards this stage when they painted. this has occurred from the most ancient times to modernity.<br />
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I have been mediating on the experience of Mary nursing Jesus attempting to overcome the limits of my gender experience in identifying with Mary. And through God's grace I have had some limited success in visualizing and physical knowing the act of feeding Jesus. It may seem impossible to some, but while never having had a crown of thorns on my head, I have had some limited experience of the thorns in meditating on them. I advocate the use of this technique to deepen ones prayer.<br />
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Perhaps, as in this painting above, I should imagine Mary's Joy in suckling Jesus. My effort is to enter Mary's union with her child, through her help and God's grace. In the Benediction and Eastern Orthodox traditions of Christianity union with God is the usual described object of contemplation. It is to be understood that as creatures approaching the Unknowable, such unity is never complete, but that it does change us and our relationship to God. This is the experience I seek and urge all you who pray to seek. </div>
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The above is an eastern icon of Mary nursing her child. Icons deliberately exclude anything that might lead someone away from contemplation of God. For instance the eyes are flat and non-reflective. The figures have a graceful simplicity of form so that we are drawn to nothing but there relationship to God. Icons point us to God. One could pray the rosary and and the same time view an icon such as this. The tradition with icons is to begin to commit them to memory so that you can remain in contemplation of them. I believe that it is possible to reconcile the contemplative listening to the Word and the contemplative gazing upon images through such efforts. Finally I leave you with a hymn to the Theotokos, the Mother of God. </div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-12023558933192716262015-02-16T17:55:00.000-08:002015-02-16T17:57:56.639-08:00Catholic Hordes and Catholic Action. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Irish Potato Famine of starting in 1845-1855 started a massive wave of Irish immigration to the United States. The Nativist backlash, sometimes refereed to as the Know Nothing movement because of it's secrecy called the newly arrive "Catholic Hordes. ". The 1.5 million Irish who came during that period were matched by 1.4 million Catholic, Protestant and Jewish Germans. French Canadians, like some of my own ancestors, also added to the largely Catholic "hordes" Later, in the first two decades of the 20th Century, largely Catholic Italians, Eastern and Basques from Spain arrived. By 1910 there were over 16 million Catholics in the U.S. and immigration continued to swell our numbers. It is largely because of this immigration that Catholics today are the largest religious body in then U.S.<br />
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This immigration changed the character of American and build it up, industrially, culturally and spiritually. That was possible largely because of generally tolerant immigration laws, except for anti-Asian laws. The Constitution gave to Congress the power to establish a uniform naturalization law. Later, the 14th Amendment protected the rights of all children born in the U.S. In 1875 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may not pass there own immigration laws, that under the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment, immigration is the province of the federal government. Some of the few limits to immigration were laws excluding lunatics, the illiterate,infection disease carriers and anarchists. Immigration through points of entry, like Ellis island, was usually easy, but becoming a naturalized citizen was a much longer process. The border with Mexico was fluid, with many families having lived, worked and owned land for generations both in Mexico and in the Southwest to the point that it may have been unclear to many of them which country they were citizens of. It was only in the 1920's, after World War I, that the U.S. initiated strict immigration quotas, the Emergency Quota Act. Similar, more complex plans followed. It was largely after this that anything like "illegal" or "undocumented" immigration emerged, largely from the countries with the lowest quotas or in the Southwest from those who continued to go back and forth across the border. during the 1930's depression millions were "repatriated" across the border to Mexico, regardless of their documentation status.<br />
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The Know Nothings, none as the American Party, emerged in the 1850's as the first of many anti-immigration and anti-Catholic organizations. Another secret Society, the American Protective Association was founded in 1887 by Protestants to oppose Catholics and immigration. Various sub-groups, fraternal organizations and splinter groups came out of it. The Klu Klux Klan revived in the 1920's as a nativist and pro-Jim Crow organization. Anti-Chinese racism during this period also created Chinese exclusion laws.<br />
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Angel Island immigrants</div>
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What Was the Catholic Response? </div>
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First from the 19th Century on priests and religious orders were brought from the "home countries" to minister to the new immigrants. Parishes, schools, charitable organizations, mutual aid groups, hospitals and other organizations were created to meet the need. Saint Mother Cabrini founded an order of religious sisters to aid the immigrants. Parochial schools were largely about giving this population an opportunity for advancement. In the 1920's a National Catholic Welfare Conference concerned itself with legislation, education, and social action for Catholics, and started a Social Action Department to aid immigrants this organization eventually became the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference. </div>
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References </div>
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<a href="http://www.catholichistory.net/Spotlights/SpotlightImmigration.htm">Spotlights Immigration</a></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Protective_Association">Wikipedia: American Protective Association</a></div>
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<a href="http://cuomeka.wrlc.org/exhibits/show/immigration/background/immigration-intro">The Bureau of Immigration</a></div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laws_concerning_immigration_and_naturalization_in_the_United_States">Wikipedia: History of Laws Concerning U.S. Immigration</a></div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-77940944703026126852015-02-15T18:24:00.001-08:002015-02-15T18:24:10.243-08:00 Diatessarons of Gospel Films Vs. Film as Icon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Diatessorn? Don't bother running to your Oxford Dictionary for the meaning. I have borrowed it from the title of a mid-second attempt to harmonize the four Gospel--causing deletions, confusion and lack of consistency, and missing the unique purpose of each Gospel--but in the positive creating an easy reference for the essentials of the story. The Diatessorn (made of four ingredients) was composed by Tiatin, a Christian apologist and an Assyrian. Inevitably, to harmonize the four, important parts of the Gospels were excluded, and while consistent within itself, the consistency to the separate accounts is lost. The unique emphasis of each Gospel is muddled.<br />
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As someone who has worked with religious films series and viewed many biblical films, I view the fact that most Gospel films draw on more than one Gospel account and sometimes non-biblical sources as a problem for the artistic and religious value of these films. The harmonization of the Jesus story in film has produced bland Jesus's, mediocre story telling and theological error. Most of the controversy in Gibson's "The Passion" was caused by the inclusion of material from the visions of mystics. Zefferilli's "Jesus of Nazareth" comes closer to a successful harmonization, but it portrays Judas as duped into betraying Jesus. Theological errors creep into such films simply because the directors and script writers are not viewing the Gospels as each being a unique authority, and because there are seemingly contradictory elements in each account that represent parts of the unique message of them.<br />
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"Jesus of Nazareth"</div>
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"The Passion"</div>
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In contrast, some Gospel Films such as John Heyman's "Jesus" (1979) and Pier Passolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" avoid this problem by choosing one account. I haven't seen Heyman's film, but I'll include some of it of it from You Tube. Passolini's film, by contrast, I have seen several times. Passolini was a Marxist, an atheist and a homosexual, and yet his film was, up until Heyman's movie, the most faithful Gospel film. He included absolutely no language not found in Matthew's story. His photographic staging did, however, inevitably color the story somewhat with his belief in Jesus as figure in class struggle, but it was otherwise completely faithful-- to the point where the hard sayings of Jesus hit home and trouble some viewers.<br />
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"Jesus"</div>
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"The Gospel According to St. Matthew"</div>
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There are other films, such as Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" depart even further. It is based on the novel of the same name by Kazantzakis, a Greek writer of Gnostic tendency who used his imagination, and not the Gospels, as his primary source. The sexuality of the novel becomes even more problematic in full splendor on the screen. While even in this film there is a distorted reflection of the gospel Christ, it is faithful to nothing the Gospel's teach.<br />
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"The Last Temptation of Christ"</div>
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When a Gospel film uses multiple texts, perhaps even non-Gospel sources and the imagination of writers, however vivid and creative, they stray from the essential function of a Gospel film religiously and artistically. A mislocation of the function of the art in this context has occurred. It goes back to the ancient purpose of religious painting as defined in the early debates about Icons. In the early church some wanted no depiction of God or the saints for fear that idols where being produced. Besides the matters of who was being depicted, and for what purpose, there was another defense of icons offered. Not only were these depictions of God and his saints as opposed to pagan gods, and objects to promote the Christian faith, but they were designed to refer away from themselves. Icons were not painted to draw one into them as objects of worship or devotion in themselves, but rather were made to point away, towards God in heaven, towards the mysterious and unknowable God. In that sense, Passollini's film perhaps becomes the closest thing to an icon in film.<br />
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References</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatessaron">Diatessaron - Wikipedia</a>,<br />
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<a href="http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?ArticleId=229">The Problem of the Cinamatic Jesus</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon">Icon - Wikipedia</a></div>
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-33274729284598347112015-02-11T20:50:00.002-08:002015-02-11T22:07:06.011-08:00Women In Black<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today Seattle's Women in Black/Homeless Remembrance project held it's monthly vigil for the homeless who have died. There is a world wide Women in black movement composed of diverse and not necessarily affiliated groups who hold vigils to give witness for peace and justice. In Seattle one Women in Black group holds peace vigil's, and the other gives witness to those who have died in or because of the condition of homelessness.<br />
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At the vigil downtown today four who died were remembered:<br />
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Jeffery Davis, 44 by suicide 1/4/2015<br />
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James Carlson, 56 outside, cause of death pending 1/7/2015<br />
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Kevin Guempel, 49 , cause of death pending 1/13/2015<br />
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Juri Skolin, 60, found on Third Ave., cause of death pending.<br />
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According to the Women in Black 45 homeless people died by violence or outdoors in 2014 and since then 5 more. The Women in Black leaflet calls on us to be a community and to support a basic social network including shelter. It calls on us to stand with them and to support the Homeless Remembrance Project. This project is tied to Wheel, a project to organize homeless women.<br />
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A Women in Black vigil 5 years ago:<br />
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To give witness, to hold a vigil, it to be a constant reminder of what is good as against an evil. It calls on all of use for better behavior, most especially on those with power and authority. It prevents us from forgetting a problem. <br />
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It is within the Christian tradition to give witness. Jesus said that he would divide households. This is what witness does. Before we can be united for what is good, some have to divide from something that it not good. In the case of the homeless, someone has to give witness to the fact that the homeless are being dehumanized, robbed of their dignity, and denied basic human needs. The homeless go not only without shelter, but without hygiene and personal security. <br />
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Information on the Homeless Remembrance Project can be found here:<br />
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<a href="http://homelessremembrance.org/">Homeless Remembrance Project</a><br />
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Here is information on Wheel:<br />
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<a href="http://www.sharewheel.org/Home/wheel">Women's Housing Equality and Enhancement League</a><br />
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Here is information on the movement worldwide:<br />
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<a href="http://womeninblack.org/vigils-arround-the-world/">Vigils Around the World</a><br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-50306747588524615802015-02-08T20:58:00.000-08:002015-02-11T22:19:59.961-08:00Living the Rooming House Blues<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One subject I have not touched on much in my writing is the actual manner of life in a rooming house.It is part of the economic condition of the low income students and workers, the unemployed and the disabled who live in rooming houses and shared housing that there is very little home life. Relationships in the home are transitory and most are superficial.Space is limited and communal activities are limited.<br />
I have had some goo friendship develop from contact with roommates, and many who at least remain Facebook friends. but this relationships were cultivated by going against the isolation and difficult living circumstances found in a rooming house.<br />
One of the things I do every year, to attempt to build community, is to try to involve roommates in some kind of Christmas celebration. I put up a creche set, I go by a tree. I break out the decorations and try to get a tree decorating party going with a little music. Maybe we watch a Christmas movie. I can do a little to impart my faith in this while respecting where others come from.<br />
I also make coffee every morning to share with my fellow rooming house denizens. I very the coffee blend to keep it interesting. Sometimes we wind up drinking coffee together and talking. More on rooming house life at a latter date. </div>
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-41124126731676139962015-02-07T12:35:00.001-08:002015-02-07T22:13:44.862-08:00Jean Valjean Conviction Overturned by Appeal to Natural Law<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It has been said that the rich and poor need each other. The poor need the rich to help them, and the rich need the poor for the opportunity to obtain salvation. Jesus told the rich young man that if he wished to reach perfection to shed himself of his wealth to the benefit of the poor (likened to the camel that has all it's goods taken off so it could enter Jerusalem through the gate called the "Eye of the Needle." While we perhaps lose our attachment to worldly goods in the state called purgatory, could we not profitably do this while we are still alive? And do not the poor need the basics of a decent life?<br />
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One of the severe criticisms of Pope Francis is that he (in agreement with prior Popes and the entire body of Catholic Social Teaching, although with more english the ball called solidarity) has repeated called for more help for the poor from the church, from government and from the rich, and further has sought to limit neo-liberalism to the benefit of the poor and the workers. It is far better, some feel, that a Pope should repudiate some of the teachings of Jesus Christ than he should miss part of the Gospel of Adam Smith or the Epistles of Ayn Rand the Atheist.<br />
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Now blogger Mike Flynn in them Dang Commies (later cited and amplified by our friend Mark Shea) notes that Thomas Aquinas, using natural law, made the same point as Pope Francis. What's the matter with this Jesuits that they read Aquinas instead of Rand, you may ask?<br />
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Or you may just ask are you bloggers just taking in each others laundry? Well Flynn did the wash and Shea the rinse, and I felt someone had to stick this in the dryer. Maybe we can get Arur Rosman to fold the stuff up. Back to the subject at hand.<br />
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Aquinas, in the great Summa Theolgicala, for reasons that may appear obscure to those who believe in the Divine Right of Rich Guys, believed that "whatever the rich have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor." Aquinas then said if the need is urgent it can be remedied by any means at hand. Thus a father in a SS camp may properly or even by duty, steal to feed his son. So Jean Valjean, says Shea, was guilty of no sin, secular state aside, and to very loosely paraphrase, unless Ayn Rand be right.<br />
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I'm going to share with you, before moving on to the implications of this for jurisprudence, the two most important things my Grandfather ever taught me. First, one day a bee flew inside our glass window enclosed front porch, and having once been stung it scared me. He took a newspaper, I thought to swat, then wrapped it around the bee, opened the door and released it, then turned to me and said "Always be merciful whenever you can be."<br />
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Second, he told me a story from his days as a home owner in Seattle's Central district. At that time, his family was the only white family on the block and most of the neighboring black families were poor. He had a cherry tree in the backyard, and one day he saw a neighbors kid up in the tree, picking cherries. He approached the tree to chase the child out and then the unawares boy plucked a cherry and dropped it to his mouth with the proclamation "Honey, honey, comes to me honey." This changed by Grandfathers heart, so that he walked away leaving the tot to his repast. This of course, was a different motive for stealing fruit than Augustine ascribed to his boyhood episode in his Confessions. Where Augustine and his pals stole for the pleasure of crime, the boy in my Grandfather's tree clearly took for the pleasure his family could not afford. Thus my Grandfather applied mercy to his property rights.<br />
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Thus in jurisprudence we could approach justice with a benevolent assumption rather than assume that conflict with justice. Jean Valjean's judge could have said that while I must convict you to uphold the property rights of bakers and shopkeepers, I benevolently assume your sisters huger is real and superior to the shopkeepers needs. So I will suspend your sentence, I will direct you to the nearest source of aid, hoping you can obtain it. In the 30th depression, a judge in Canada was disbarred for doing just that, but he had a good defense in the court of heaven.<br />
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In his book Unrugged Individualism, philosopher David Kelly says that benevolence does not conflict with justice. We do not temper Justice with mercy. Benevolence is essential to justice.<br />
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The links to Shea, Flynn and Kelly below. <br />
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<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2015/02/mike-flynn-on-the-dangerous-komminnissism-of-st-thomas-aquinas.html">The Dangerous Komminism of Thomas Aquinas</a><br />
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<a href="http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2015/01/them-dang-commies.html">Them Dang Commies</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Ethics_Benevolence.html">Benevolence</a><br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-16312640293047376982015-02-05T20:39:00.000-08:002015-02-05T20:40:07.045-08:00The Politics of Compassion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today in the Seattle Times, a guest op-ed titled "The Politics of Envy" in print, and prosaically "We have a Fixation on Income Inequality" missed entirely what is really happening in today's economy. . It's author, Richard Davis essentially claims income inequality does not matter.<br />
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He gives the misleading example that if the four richest men in King County moved to Boises income inequality would fall, but we would be not better off. This is utterly misleading for several reasons. We don't measure income using a median figure. The essential problem that some had benefited extensively from the relative poverty of others would remain and the poverty would remain. And lastly, it would only be a matter of time when another handful of individuals would amass the same wealth as the first few. <br />
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Davis says it is better to concentrate on generating employment and income opportunity for the lower income without a recognition of what has made them lower income. It is not generally within the power of workers of resolve extensive unemployment, nor with the tattered condition of the union movement do workers have much leverage over income opportunity.<br />
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He says we must ensure that people have access to affordable quality education. He fails to see that current income restricts opportunity, so that many cannot afford the desired education. They are in the situation of the Real Change salesperson I met st the bus stop. the bus was coming and he was two dollar short of the fair. He could not take the bus unless I bought a copy of real change from him. Too many people in our country are too poor to get on the bus.<br />
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Davis criticizes the proposed new state minimum wage of $12 an hour as something that could not close the wage gap between a CEO and a fry cook. That is true as a single measure, but it points to the essential problem. Wages and benefits for most occupations are stagnant and far to little for the work actually preformed.<br />
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He erroneously suggests that minimum wage increases reduce employment, citing on of the few studies to back this assertion. In fact the overwhelming evidence is that when workers on the bottom get higher wages they generate economic activity by paying bills faster and spending more on goods and services. Any jobs replaced by automation or other efficiencies are more than off set by this activity. In fact automation creates opportunities elsewhere.<br />
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He also ignores that many workers at or near minimum wage are actually often highly skilled. To be a good kitchen worker you must know how to use many food processing machines and hand tools, understand food safety, understand food chemistry , taste and presentation. A janitor has to know cleaning technique, the use of several machines, a certain degree of chemistry and the safe handling of bodily fluids. The same can be said for many occupations not rewarded for their knowledge any more than for their hard work. As a society we over value thr contributions of a elite and under value vastly the efforts of others. It is precisely income inequality that we must adress.<br />
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But this view of income equality is not about envy. It is about human dignity, compassion and justice. And ultimately it is about greater societal happiness. It has been demonstrated that socieities with greater income equality are happier. Even the richer members of a nation are generally happier when their wealth is not vastly greater than it's poorest members. We all seem to get a long much better when equality is greater.<br />
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<a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2025624246_richarddaviscolumnincomeinequality05xml.html">http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2025624246_richarddaviscolumnincomeinequality05xml.html</a><br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-49595569907629173222015-02-04T17:28:00.001-08:002015-02-04T17:38:25.979-08:00The Rooming House Pope<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have been studying the pronouncements, activities and history of Pope Francis with an hopeful intensity since his surprise election. His choice of name and, the simplicity of his of first appearance and his style of behavior became immediate indicators that something was different, but it remained to be seen what wold be the substance of that difference. </div>
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One of the immediate surprises is that after election, he went to pay his hotel bill, and then he moved into the Vatican guest house, Domus Sanctae Marthae, rather than the papal apartments. He freed himself slightly from his staff by this, setting some of his own appointments, lived a in slightly simpler manner and became in my mind "The Rooming House Pope." He had a Rabbi friend come and stay with him in the guest house, invited the Editor of La Republica over for an interview, kissed cleaned and kissed the feet of prisoners on Holy Thursday and did numerous acts that constituted his style. I explored his background. As Bishop he had ridden the bus to work. His parents had been refugees from Mussolini to Argentina. He group up watching the films of Italian anti -fascists. He was conservative on doctrine, but close to the poor and had organized a network to rescue people from the Argentinian Junta. </div>
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His economic pronouncements and advice to the church stirred up opposition from Fox News commentators and certain, mainly American conservative Catholics. Yet other conservatives seemed to like his as much as the liberals. He upheld conservative moral principles and family values while he changed direction in favor of the poor. He presented no new doctrine, yet the difference was greater than style. The difference was an <i style="font-weight: bold;">emphasis </i>on the attribute of Catholic social Teaching that most made him the Rooming House Pope: <i style="font-weight: bold;">solidarity. </i>That we are all brothers and that we most need to help the weakest: the poor, the sick, the refugees. That the Church should become a poor church for the poor. That priest should drive used or inexpensive model cars. That all clergy are first and foremost servants. That religious orders should used there closed monasteries as places for the marginalized instead of for income property. That neo-liberal unregulated capitalism was wrong. That there needed to be greater collegiality among the Bishops. That reform of the Curia and, the Vatican bank was needed. That the church would take certain measures that would reduce the influence of the Mafia in Italy. That continued work relations with the Orthodox and Protestants was needed. That more work on the role of women in the church was needed. </div>
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A simple example: he did not change Catholic teaching about homosexual behavior and marriage, yet he asked, "Who am I to judge?" by that simple question he said the more important consideration was are solidarity with the homosexual, not our teaching regarding sexual matters. He said the church has to act like the emergency room medics, patch up, not worrying about the fine details of health. He saw that the church had to heal and nurture those in need.</div>
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One of his recent steps is to announce that Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, martyr, slain over the altar while saying mass because of his unswerving care for the poor and his call for his nations soldiers to cease killing the populace would be beatified. Here was the martyr hero of Catholics for whom solidarity with the poor was one of the most important duties of the church. </div>
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As a Roomin' House Blues Catholic, in solidarity with the poor, the sick and the lonely throughout the world, I feel comforted by this new emphasis that Pope Francis has placed on certain aspects of Catholic social Teaching. I pray that during his papacy Dorthy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Workers will be beatified. I pray that the church will succeed in influencing the economic policies of governments around the world towards the poor. I pray that my own behavior will grow in solidarity. I pray for the re-unification of Christianity and that the church truly become a poor church for the poor. </div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-91180634867665556932012-10-05T17:31:00.001-07:002015-02-11T22:21:57.240-08:00Seeking the Romance of Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A recent trip back to California, where I spent the middle half of my life (the part between the Seattle bookends) and other smaller events have made me reflective of past events and places. My brothers and I stopped in Santa Cruz, briefly, where I had lived for years, and stopped by a nightclub I had spent time in, the Catalyst, and asked the bartender the current status of local things.<br />
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I found out Club Zayante in the Santa Cruz Mountain had closed. When I got home I researched the Club, which was once of the hottest nightclubs in Central California to learn what happened. I found out the club had closed for financial reasons then burned down. But what I learned about the owner, Tom Louagie intrigued me. He had come out from the east coast on a romantic quest, to find the Cannery Row he had read in Steinbeck. He had the idea of moving there and living a literary dream from the past. He didn't know that that Cannery Row had died when the sardine schools left. He moved up the coast a little to Santa Cruz county, bought a bar and did live music. Later he opened Club Zayante and had a run with one of the most interesting music clubs on the West Coast, in the redwoods under the canopy of stars, near the San Francisco music scene, with a community radio station broadcast greats like Clifton Chenier live from his club. He looked for someone else's romance, which had been dispelled, then created his own.<br />
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Like all of us, my life has involved a quest for available means of survival, but it has also simultaneously followed the quest for romance in life, the dictates of conscience and the desire to help others. the interaction of those four things has shaped my life down circuitous paths. My roads less traveled came through plenty to romance, but like Tom I always found my own romance more interesting than someone else's. But life is change, so yesterdays romance needs to be replaced. To have a love affair with life, it has to always be new.<br />
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When I was a child I saw on television the bravery of civil rights demonstrators. When I was fourteen and newly arrived in California I read of the students in the Berkeley Free speech movement resisting the system. Mario Savio, one of their leaders said <br />
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“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all"</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">And in my high school years I sought to replicate that in my </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">growing</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">participation</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> in the anti-Vietnam War movement. At the age of sixteen I made up my mind that I would apply for </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">Conscientious Objector status from the Selective Service system</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> and that if I was denied I would resist the draft and refuse induction even if it meant going to federal </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">prison</span><span style="background-color: transparent;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">The pangs of </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">conscience</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> telling me the war was wrong coincided with a romantic quest to resist the evil of the system. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">When I turned eighteen my request for "C.O." status was denied. Had it been approved I would have been required to perform two years of civilian alternative service in a non-profit, a hospital, a school, an anti-poverty program, or something of that sort. Some of my friends in the local anti-war movement formed a Summerhill type free school, so I started volunteering there as if my request had been approved. Then I set fire to my draft cards and folded the ashes into a letter to the local draft board that said, "To Whom it May Concern, Somehow my draft card caught fire. Here are the remains." I then failed to show up at my scheduled induction. I fin ished my two years at the school as a personal debt to my country and humanity. Unlike a lot of other young men who resisted I was lucky and the system ground to a halt and never processed me for arrest. That was the point for us of course, to grind it to a halt. That was the romance of a quest for peace and for justice. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">My point here is that there is no romance without risk. Romance for some is falling in love, for others climbing a mountain. Keep seeking it. </span></div>
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-45183490665480702082012-09-25T21:03:00.001-07:002012-09-25T21:03:06.275-07:00America Magazine Benedict XVI weighs in on "Redistribution"<br />
Paul Ryan should perhaps look at the writings of Benedict and other recent popes on redistribution. they are most definitely teaching redistribution to help the poor, as this America article attests.<br />
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<a href="http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?entry_id=5376">America Magazine Benedict XVI weighs in on "Redistribution"</a>: <br />
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<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pengoopmcjnbflcjbmoeodbmoflcgjlk" style="font-size: 13px;">'via Blog this'</a>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-3853184486337414742012-09-07T11:45:00.001-07:002012-09-07T11:45:23.985-07:00Politics or Beatitude<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I recently subjected myself to a political spectrum diagnosis that tried to categorize people along a left-right, Republican-Democratic spectrum using only two sets of issues and a few questions. The issues were the economic questions and social issues, with no foreign policy/military questions of civil liberties/ rights questions. In some cases, such as immigration, I was not sure if the questions were economic or social. The mean computation of my "social issue" questions placed me on the right side of the Democratic party or among the left of the independent centrists. The economic policy questions placed me at the far left of the Democratic Party, and the mean of them placed me closer to the center of the party. Adding foreign policy/military questions or other social questions, such as the death penalty, might have placed me further left in the spectrum. But the entire process raised the question of were I fit, anywhere, any time.<br />
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A Catholic Worker friend raised the problem this way. When she is among people of the left and she says she is Catholic, they avoid her. When she is in a typical Catholic crowd and they find she is of the left, they avoid her. But the problem goes even deeper than that. <br />
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A young intellectual named Michael Harrington was the editor of the Catholic Worker newspaper from 1951 to 1953. He then became disillusioned of religion and drifted into a secular democratic Marxism, becoming famous for writing "The Other America" and for persuading socialists to join the Democratic Party, while retaining socialist caucuses. When he left the Catholic Workers he didn't just leave religion. He left personalism. For Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers it was not enough to make a objective critic of the evils of society. Our thoughts and actions had to be guided by the unique subjectivity we each have as persons. We each are working out our destiny and salvation. It is not a matter of party platforms and actions. So while Harrington made a great contribution to the critic of American society through his description of poverty in "The Other America", no party platform can substitute for the unique relation of each individual to his fellow man. And I, as the Catholic Workers did, believe that unique relation is always God centered.<br />
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As a result where I sit on a political spectrum misses the primary point of why relation to other human beings. More to the point is where do I sit between them and God, or where do they sit between God and I. This is the spectrum not of left and right, but of the Beatitudes.<br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-31505662380052333932012-08-20T20:29:00.002-07:002012-08-20T20:29:40.360-07:00The Glass-Steagall Act<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Glass Steagall Act was designed to protect us from the greed of bankers through regulation. It was passed in the 1930's as a result of the major stock and banking collapse to regulate the financial industry and dismantled later at the prompting of banking lobbyists to allow the kind of activity that lead to our recent financial collapse. Instead of rules to protect the economy, bankers expect to be bailed out when there speculation goes awry. This is a link to apetition asking for The Glass Steagall Act to be reinstated. <a href="http://signon.org/sign/reinstate-the-glass-steagall-5?source=s.em.cr&r_by=1682043&mailing_id=5614">http://signon.org/sign/reinstate-the-glass-steagall-5?source=s.em.cr&r_by=1682043&mailing_id=5614</a> </div>
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-72681559552465182452012-08-18T15:54:00.003-07:002012-08-18T15:54:25.583-07:00Heal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I noticed her walking "The Ave", as the non-avenue, University Street, near Seattle's University of Washington campus is known. Then I saw her sitting at a table in the neighborhood Tully's Coffee Shop. Or perhaps I should saying sitting over, her head and hair hovering over the table as a result of her weak and deformed back. Perhaps an extreme case of osteoporosis, or perhaps something else. I didn't have the medical knowledge to know. An old women with long grey here, hunched over completely, almost as through she could break in two. She looked incapable of standing erect. And old woman in dress and attachments, the classic bag lady. One look at her sufficient to evoke sorrow for suffering humankind.<br />
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Nightly, I do a bible study, inclusive of reading the gospels. That night the gospel spoke to me about her. I opened the pages of Luke and it spoke to me. In chapter 13, v.10-17 it spoke to me about her. There we find Jesus teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. v. 11-13 reads "And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said , 'Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.' He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God." The remainder of the section is a dispute between Jesus and those who think he should not heal on the sabbath, where he triumphs by saying she has been set free from bondage. I prayed for her.<br />
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Another day, while I waited for my morning bus for work and was feeding quarters into a newspaper vending machine, I saw her walking down the street. She was asking people for something, but I couldn't hear what she said. A couple people walked away from her. After I pulled my newspaper out of the machine, I stepped away from it towards her and said, "I'm sorry I couldn't here what you asked." She pushed forward a card in her hand and said, I want to sell my Mcdonalds gift card, because I need money. I said, "I'm sorry, I don't usually eat there", but then I gave her a dollar. Suddenly she rose nearly erect and said "Thank you" before resuming her posture. Heal.<br />
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Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-16950896593270837602012-08-18T14:40:00.000-07:002012-08-18T14:40:04.299-07:00Declensions of Virtue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love, writes the Apostle Paul. In the development of theology in the church these three became known as the theological virtues.<br />
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But while grouped together both in scripture and tradition these three have often been separated by theological disputes and the disposition of believers. Some shout for salvation by faith alone and it's companion--solo scriptura. Some place all their marbles on hope, as if salvation were a gift of humanist psychology. Others, using some mangled near universalism, seize on the smallest charitable act or sentiment of brotherhood as absolute proof that people totally alienated from the gospel are just as saved as the greatest Christian saints, and that what you believe has absolutely no bearing. <br />
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The last is a rootless love, destined to topple as surely as a tree whose roots have rotted through. The sentiment of love without a relationship with God is dying. Faith without hope and love is a dark dead end alley, where we box ourselves in thinking God is there. Hope without faith and love is merely despair on Prozac.<br />
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True faith is a walk, like a marriage; an ongoing relationship that bears fruit. We have to view faith, hope and love in the nature of the Trinity: That the Father loved the Son and the love that existed between them was the Holy Spirit. These three theological virtues are declensions, in human terms, of the relationships within the Trinity, which is always, ultimately, love. Hence, because faith and hope are never divorced from ,love, the three are declensions, each of the other. </div>
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-3241553879307570672012-08-17T14:25:00.001-07:002012-08-17T14:25:13.865-07:00Will you help Farmworkers Today?Since I was quite young I have supported, and will continue to support, the just struggles of farmworkers. Here is a very simply way to help.<br />
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<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/17/1121341/-Ace-Tomato-workers-are-close-to-getting-a-contract-after-waiting-23-yrs-Will-you-sign-the-petition">Tomato workers are close to getting a contract after waiting 23 yrs. Will you sign the petition?</a>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-49705844311633593912012-08-17T13:26:00.001-07:002012-08-17T13:27:43.424-07:00Wyatt Earp and Commonsense Gun Control<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the aftermath of the killings a Colorado theater, a Seattle coffee shop over the past few years at Congresswoman Giffords rally in Tuscon it's time to reconsider our polices toward guns. America has a Cowboys and Guns mythos that hangs over every effort traditionally discuss guns. For many Americans, gun ownership, our most dangerous right, is also considered our most absolute right. Historical untruths and legal fictions abound on the subject and are even accepted by our legislative and judicial leaders.<br />
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The first the Second Amendment right of retaining guns was provided to "The People", not to individuals.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: inherit;">A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."</span><br />
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In the legal parlance of the day, the terms "The People" was a collective, not an individual term, and the practice of the militias reflected that. While in rural areas and small towns, militia members were usually allowed to take there guns home, in large cities armories existed to store weapons. While congress required able bodied men, at one point, to buy a gun for militia duty, the insane and were usually forbidden gun ownership. Most of our founding fathers thought of the right as invested in the collective people, not individuals. The only supreme Court interpretation of the Second Amendment, U.S vs Miller, 1939, held the individual rights to gun ownership provided under the amendment contingent on their usefulness to a civil militia (which have now been replaced by state National Guards). So if any constitutional right to personal gun ownership exists it is under the tenuous ninth amendment, that simply says that other rights that exist, still exist. You have a right, for instance, to mobility, but that don't give you an unlimited right to a drivers licence.<br />
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The second great source of the idea of the right to gun ownership was the ever expanding American west. As pioneers, trappers, traders, farmers, ranchers, etc pushed westward and settled land, the gun went with them. Guns were not not necessarily viewed here as having anything to do with militias, but more with personal protection, hunting and property protection. Even a Quaker pacifist would be ill advised to wander among grizzly bears without protection. If we take a Common Law view of the evolution of rights, we could hold that the practice of the American west established and conferred some right to use guns for these purposes, independent of the second amendment.<br />
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But rights that evolve in this manner also evolve with terms, conditions and limits. In fact the one absolute thing we can say about rights, conferred by document or practice, is that there are no absolute rights.<br />
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In the face of the myth of the free wheeling, gun toting, fire at will American cowboy, let us remember a real American hero, Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp was a true hero of the post civil war west. His older brothers had fought in the war and he sought out being a lawman as a way to live out some of the pro-union values they fought for. Gun slinger image aside, there is one thing that Earp was always insistent on. He was, everywhere he worked in law enforcement, a gun control advocate. In both Dodge and Tombstone he got passed by local government and enforced rules requiring people to park their guns when they came into town. What he saw was that hard working cowboy getting drunk at the local saloon and that guns and booze didn't mix. His famous shoot out at O.K.Corral was all about enforcing the local gun control law against the wishes of an unruly family of free range riders.<br />
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The ammo clips that Jared Loughner used in his killing spree had been previously outlawed under the automatic weapon controls that have expired. The shooters in recent Seattle and Colorado shooting bought weapons and ammo legally, even though there mental health was rapidly disintegrating. Please, in honor of both Wyatt Earp and the victims of this senseless tragedy, let us pass into law legislation to outlaw the kinds of ammo clips and weapons used in these tragedies again them again. Let us lengthen the waiting periods for guns, regulate handgun ownership and private weapons sales tightly, and put better controls on mental health and criminal records issues pertaining to buying guns. If Wyatt Earp were still a law man in Arizona, we might have a fearless advocate for common sense gun control there. Instead we will have to supply that voice.</div>
Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-55618060290394317332012-08-11T16:04:00.002-07:002012-08-11T16:04:14.844-07:00Drought Grows More Perilous<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last week I gave a worst case assessment of the effects of the drought on corn, soy and other crops, and it's potential political effect as hunger grows. Now evaluations of the damage to the corn crop are moving in my direction, but the media is still underplaying it's potential effect on hunger. <br />
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Poverty in this country has returned to the early 1960's level and hunger near that as food stamps, in real dollars, don't stretch to feed low income families. Last month the government said that food prices will increase by 3-4%, now they are admitting to more, but they say it doesn't matter because people will adjust by changing what they will by. With the House trying to cut back on food stamps, I have to ask for poor families to what: white rice and potatoes? Meat and dairy, corn flakes, prepared foods, etc will soon be out of reach for the a wider segment of low income of people.<br />
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Meanwhile 20% of our corn crop is committed to the production of ethanol, when much more efficient sources for ethanol are available. This when PBS reports last night that half the U.S. is plagued by the drought. (<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec12/drought_08-10.html">http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec12/drought_08-10.html</a>)<br />
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Again we call on Congress to increase, not decrease, resources for food and to post pone cuts to farm subsidies, or implement a better, rational system of agricultural management now. In addition we need to reduce the percentage of our grain crop invested in corn and increase the percentage of corn that is drought resistant. For years it has been known that our corn crop was vulnerable to drought by comparison with high desert forms of corn, such as the Hopi Blue Corn and Hopi Red Corn . (See: <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qxUFAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA293&dq=hopi+corn+drought+resistance&ots=TYfk0wPSoC&sig=V-R0cnWvLZcIi_DBCPswTdiIp20#v=onepage&q=hopi%20corn%20drought%20resistance&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=qxUFAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA293&dq=hopi+corn+drought+resistance&ots=TYfk0wPSoC&sig=V-R0cnWvLZcIi_DBCPswTdiIp20#v=onepage&q=hopi%20corn%20drought%20resistance&f=false</a>)<br />
<br /></div>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-70980675490065561212012-08-09T21:02:00.001-07:002012-08-09T21:02:23.284-07:00Giving it Away For Free<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Making life more comfortable in the margins of America depends on a few freebies now and then. I've written about dumpster diving a few times in the past, but there is my passion for free piles, both the giving and receiving ends of them. <div>
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Once I prayed to God for 3 free things that I needed, then went out to the corner the next day and found those three things and only those three with a sign that said "free". Living in the University district when the students move, free piles appear. When I do spring clean I reciprocate. I have been know to dumpster dive and take clothing I didn't need, wash it, and put it out with a free sign.</div>
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And then there are the oddities of freebies. Eventually they will take almost anything, and sometimes sooner than you think. I have an old TV once that "snowed" a little. If you banged it the snow went away. So I put it out with a sign saying, This is a good waiting for your unemployment check to come in TV, but sometimes you have a bang it a little." When I went down with more stuff five minutes later it was gone. I think it was a drive by snatcher, but my sign told the truth...</div>
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My landlord once put out a piece of furniture that had some nice drawer handles on it. It disappeared quickly, but showed up the next day without the handles. That doesn't seem like fair play. </div>
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More and more Americans are redistributing our glut manufactured items to those in need through free piles and free lists on line, or similar means. I encourage such sharing, but be careful to examine furniture and such for little tiny blood spots or small black insect bodies --i.e. bed bug infestation. </div>
</div>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5008041267630372313.post-51969066045037830102012-08-04T12:06:00.003-07:002012-08-04T12:08:18.650-07:00Ravenna Creek<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The rooming house where I live is near Ravenna Creek Park, which was once an old logging area. The park has suffered ecological set backs through the years and is being restored. It includes an entry subset park called Cowen Park, which is an open area suitable for things like frisbee tossing, a baseball area, a picnic area, and lots of hiking trails under heavy canopy. It touches on the Ravenna neighborhood, the University District, Roosevelt and University Park areas. It has two bridges over it.<br />
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I have been taking pictures of the park and surrounding urban area as a wildness/development contrast, looking especially for quirky shots. This doesn't have a lot to do with the theme of the blog, but it's fun.<br />
I'm presenting part 1 of the photo essay here I am also working on a photo essay on homelessness, but that may take more time.<br />
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A neighborhood grocery about a block from the park.<br />
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This grocery/cafe is typical of the relaxed atmosphere in the surrounding neighborhood.<br />
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One of the two bridges over the park, this one is reserved for pedestrians and bicyclists.<br />
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A stairway down from the picnic area to the trail area.<br />
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There are many old gnarled trees with interesting trunks and holes.</div>
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Reflection.<br />
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A side pond.<br />
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A tree fungus.<br />
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Under one of the bridges. </div>Joseph Drakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897551461755264254noreply@blogger.com2