hey, megalomanaic

I'm very sleepy today. It's afternoon; I'm still not entirely dressed. I woke up just before noon. I have my reasons though, and though it wasn't an exciting match of England vs. the United States that kept me up until all hours, nor watching a movie with friends, I'm rather glad I stayed up.

Last night, I was up watching a stream of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Now, frequent readers of this blog space will know that I do not like Glenn Beck. Or rather, I don't like his philosophy and influence: his rejection of social justice in the church as a front for communism and Marxism is a ridiculous stance I have discussed at length (above).

That said, I also believe in giving those I disagree with a voice, as long as it contributes to productive discussion. So with that in mind, I settled into bed last night, computer on my lap, snarky twitter on full blast, ready to listen and think. (For the record, I tend to respond better to people I disagree with, at least on a political level, if I get all the snark out of the way while I'm listening to them - that way it doesn't color my eventual analysis. This sounds weird, I know, but it seems to work for Glenn Beck and O'Reilly - I'm a Jon Stewart kind of gal).

And what Beck had to say scared me. Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally is an entity that no one is really sure what it was about, other than possibly Beck himself. It's supposedly a non-partisan, non-political, rally to raise money for a charity benefiting ... I think war veterans? But Beck's discussion of it leading up to it confuses things - there is much talk of "reclaiming" the civil rights movement, whatever that means, and "restoring honor" to America, again an unclear term. Many of its attendees clearly thought it was a tea party rally, and the blogosphere often referred to it as such. I'm still not entirely sure what it accomplished, other than giving Beck an enormous platform from which to lay out his entire political philosophy.

However, if there was any doubt of Beck's stance on the line between church and state, no one can wonder anymore after his sermon yesterday. That sermon - one of the longest and vaguest arguments for an American theocracy I've ever heard - should have scared every single one of Glenn Beck's viewers who identifies with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and with Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In short, the man is a heretic.

Here's why.

Beck began the lead up to the rally 40 days ago when he asked his audience to get on their knees and pray - to pray for America, to pray for our government, to pray that we get back on "the right track." Before he took the stage, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's niece, Alveda King (who is not, as she calls herself, a doctor - she has an honorary doctorate, but has not earned the title she uses), spoke about accepting prayer back into the public square and back into schools. There was no doubt that what was meant by prayer is prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition, not any other sort. This is one of the first signs we have of the "America turn back to God" thesis of the rally.

Then Beck stepped up to the plate. No transcript has been posted yet, so I am having to go based on quotes I have culled from other online (reliable) sources, and my own notes. But what he had to say should cause every Christian viewer of his to rethink their lockstep march to his drum.

In the first section of the speech, Beck told us the story of Moses and his fight for the people of Israel against Pharaoh. He repeated several times that we Americans need to "pick up our stick," ostensibly to show the honor of God/America, as Moses did. We need to stand up and listen to what the founding fathers/the burning bush told us to do - it was unclear what exactly was meant as he jumped from burning bush to founding fathers so rapidly I didn't quite catch the connection.

Beck also believes that America is the world's savior. There is no doubt about this, as he said so in his speech. He also commented at several separate points to the extent that "America has set man free," saying so directly at one point. Within the first few minutes, he referred to the Constitution and the founding documents as "American Scripture." He told us in the rally yesterday that we all need to go to "God Boot Camp," so that we can be the Americans who "rush in at the last second to save the world."

It's all beautiful rhetoric - take back the country for God, God wants us to be this and that, America is specially blessed.

But it's all wrong.

Beck would like to imagine us (Americans) as the Hebrews and himself as Moses, pick up the staff that God had touched and rallying his people, shouting at the scary big government, "LET MY PEOPLE GO." Beck's exegesis here, however, is severely lacking. Moses was not reclaiming the people of Israel so that they could get out from under the thumb of big government. He was reclaiming his people so that they could know who they are as God's chosen. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.

Moses's gathering of the people resulted in them being nomads, wandering government-less in the desert for a whole generation. Even after that, the Jewish people have rarely had a time when they had a free country to themselves to rule. Jesus was born into the regime of Herod, after the Jewish people - God's chosen, and the only people who have EVER been identified as God's chosen - were scattered in the Diaspora. Granted, my Jewish history is a little fuzzy (it has been 4 years since my last class on the subject), but I do know that the Jews never really got their promised land - they're STILL waiting, still waiting for that promise of God's chosen to be fulfilled completely.

And let's not forget: we have to keep in mind that when the Jews did have a government, it was a big one - one that dictated taking care of the poor, that used money taken in the form of taxes to help the less fortunate, that, every fifty years, made all private property revert back to the original owners, and celebrated the idea that private ownership is a figment of the imagination - if everything is God's, then I cannot possibly own it.

What Beck has done, then, is ignore all that Jewish history, look at the Moses story, and supplant "Americans" for every mention of "Hebrews." It's some quick sleight of hand, but it's important to note for the rest of his heresy.

With Americans taking the place of the Hebrews, and the Exodus now turned around into the story of getting out from under the thumb of government rather than being reclaimed as God's people under God's law, a dangerous idea begins to take hold. If Americans - true Americans being those who follow an undefined, but probably Judeo-Christian God - then we must reclaim the country for God. America is clearly blessed by God, and our lives show his enriching. Government becomes the evil in the story, rather than the hardness of one man's heart. Government becomes the whipping boy for all that is bad, conveniently forgetting that the Jews then set up a vastly complicated and invasive theocracy in which they were the ruling class. Government is evil, and therefore we must take back the government for God.

America, then, is painted as this divine being that has been shoved off track by those who want to expand the government, by those who want to use the tax money for helping the people on whom this government depends. America becomes both victim and savior.

That's a scary thought.

What Beck has created and espoused here is no less than a civic religion, a nation worship, in which America playing the part of God. The idea that we could possibly have God on our side specially blessing our country, and guiding us to be the savior of all is a megalomaniacal, ethnocentric complex of extensive proportions.

America is just over 200 years old, a baby in western civilization's terms, even if you take the extremely conservative estimate that the Earth itself is only 6,000 years old. Who was saving the world before now?

Oh right. Jesus.

And here is where everyone should have bristled: By painting America as the savior of the world, Beck causes us to forget that kingdoms of this world are transient things, wiped away as so much dust. Massive empires have come before and fallen before, and many will come and fall after us. None of those - many of which were declared to be eternal and live eternally - are still standing. The Babylonians? Gone. The Romans? Gone. The Turks? Gone. The Brits? Failed. The Mongols? Gone. Napolean? Dead and rotting. Alexander the Great? Long turned to dust. Constantine? Dead, ages ago, right along with his government.

Every single Emperor and Empire that has existed before us, and who will come after us, has thought they had God on their side. In Ancient Rome, Caesar is a God.

Each and every single one of those empires is now gone, barely remembered by the high school students who are taught about them, relegated to the study of PhD's as academic interest.

America will be no different. Now, whether we fall in a 100 years or a 1000, there is the one thing that is certain: We will fall. We will become a relic of the empire we once had.

We are not God's kingdom.

We never were. The founding fathers knew that when they were writing - they were smart men - and that is why they attempted to give us plenty of freedoms and to give citizens a voice. They did not seek to install a theocracy, as that was what they just left. And they were just men - they were not the divine hand of God giving us a means to save the rest of the world. Beck's own faith (Mormonism) came after the separation of church and state, a faith that was only allowed to develop because of the separation Beck's beloved founding fathers so carefully set up. Having America be pictured as "the savior of the universe," then, supplants the founding fathers careful declarations with a theocracy of Beck's own choosing.

Jesus tells us quite clearly in John 18:36: "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (ESV).

If we were fighting for an earthly kingdom, as Christians, we could willingly take up arms, install an oppressive theocracy, and invent our own definition of justice, which involves private ownership, prayer in schools, and no abortion.

But that is precisely what Christ cautions against: He does not want us fighting for that which will pass away, as every earthly kingdom does. He does not want us viewing government as anything more than a means to an end, and He certainly doesn't want us to view anything but Him as savior of the universe. He did not come to install a civic religion. Instead, He came to teach us how to love one another, to be peaceable people, and to live for eternity, not for a quickly passing empire.

Glenn Beck: you are not my Jesus, and America is not my God. I will not stand for this civic religion that supplants my all loving, all sacrificing, communal, Trinitarian, personal, timeless, all knowing, and all powerful Lord of the Universe with a piddly government that was created by men and is run by men. My God is so much bigger than your America, and his justice is not yours.

As was oft-quoted by people in your rally yesterday, Mr. Beck, I repeat the words of the big government supporting, freedom shouting, everyone loving, possibly socialist man who would have ended up on your blackboard if he was alive today: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Freedom from government means nothing if you're starving in the street. And in helping that person, whether it be through transforming oppressive institutions that harm their rights, even if it means rejecting private ownership, I will do it. Gladly.

That, Mr. Beck, is where my honor lies. Where is yours?

cabbage and community.

Alex Day, a vlogger on Youtube I follow and find absolutely hilarious [click here for some hilarious stuff on Twilight (language warning in some of the videos)], is being more awesome this week by taking a trip to Zambia with World Vision. The above is his first real update on the trip, and the particularly important part is at the end.

Alex makes the point in the above video that helping out one person ended up helping out an entire community. By changing the life of just one, you end up creating a ripple effect that changes the entire world surrounding that one. Because one child got sponsored, a father was able to start a local business selling cabbage, the community is able to get cabbage from someone they know and trust and are able to feed their families, and an entire area - small as it might be - improves.

Kiva.org works on this same principle - using the ideals of capitalism to create ways to help the less fortunate. Kiva does microloans to people in impoverished countries to help them start their own small businesses. This helps in so many ways: 1. The people are able to be independent and learn not only a trade, but a business, 2. The local economy is helped because it's locals producing goods for locals, allowing the money to stay in the area rather than going off to some random CEO, 3. It cuts into one of the cycles that creates trafficking - poverty and not being able to make money on your own, and 4. It's more dignified than a handout.

Seeing Alex's videos and thinking about these sorts of issues reminds me that there are positive people making positive changes in the world, and that gives me hope. It all comes down to the choices we make every day and the way we decide how to use the resources we've been given. In the internet age, we are more connected, and more in tune with what is going on in our world than ever before. And it's easy - incredibly easy - to focus on the terrible things: the racist comments being flung around by pundits, the oppression of peoples by the very people who are supposed to protect them, the nearly impossible task of finding a company that isn't doing something unethical somewhere, the mindsets of those around you that just say 'haha whatever' when you show them pictures and videos of factory workers living in slums, the rage and yelling of protesters comparing an elected official to Hitler when all he wants to do is make sure that people have access to a doctor.

It can get frustrating and oppressive and sometimes I look at the world and wonder why the hell I fight. Why in the world do I even try? I'm obviously not changing people's minds, and discussion just goes in circles a lot of the time, and sometimes I feel so alone in the fight.

And then I see videos like Alex's, and I'm reminded, yet again, that the community of people working for positive change might be small, it might be quiet, but by God, it's doing some good. And that's the side I choose to be on. That's the side I choose to fight for: The one that says I don't care if you're Muslim, black, white, Jew, Palestinian, Hindu or Shinto. I don't care if you are the very definition of a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. You are human, and are therefore deserving of my love and respect. You have dignity. You deserve a voice.

And I choose to be a part of a community that will give you that voice. That will give you the choices to be educated, to not spend your days doing the same tasks over and over again in a factory if you don't want to. That will help you when you get sick. That will give you the chance to live and learn what a healthy sexuality looks like, rather than being forced into a trade that rips that away from you. That will stand and support your rights when everyone else screams that you're a terrorist. A community that will choose to love you when it seems like no one else will.

And goldarnit, that gives me hope that things can turn out alright.

To close, John Green, another vlogger and author I really enjoy, said in a video a couple weeks ago:

I know it doesn’t feel this way all the time, but we get to choose what we care about and what we spend our resources on. We choose what (or ideally, whom) to lust after. We choose what to watch, what to write, what to build, how to spend to the breaths that we’ve been allotted. And the fact that many of our choices are unconscious - get that handbag, get that Starbuck’s, look at that Snooki - does not in any way make us less responsible for those choices. I’m happiest when I feel like I’m part of a community that makes me choose more intelligently and with greater empathy.

Let's go and be that community, guys.

The "Ground Zero Mosque" or The Right to Be Offended

Note: This blog entry is full of snark.


I cannot stop laughing.

I have to keep laughing at this whole situation, otherwise I will go insane.

There are a number of reasons I think it's perfectly okay to build the "GZM" (for short), most important of which is that objections have absolutely no basis in law. There is no legal reason that can keep them from building that mosque, mainly because of a pesky little thing called the First Amendment.
You see, the beauty of America so many Patriots (with a capital P) celebrate is our freedoms - I have the RIGHT to read that book. I have the RIGHT to play that guitar. I have the RIGHT to use that word.

You do. Within reason. Just like the landmark Supreme Court Case Schenck vs. United States of 1919 determined, you are allowed freedom of speech insofar as it does not bring harm to another person or infringe upon their rights. The famous metaphor used to describe this ruling is not shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, when there is no fire. This puts your fellow citizens at risk.

What appears to be happening now, though, is that we take freedom of speech and freedom of religion to mean freedom from offense. "You can't build that mosque there! It offends me!" "You can't say that! It offends me!" I admit, I may be guilty of the latter (I frequently request that friends don't say "retarded" around me because of the offense), but I'm not going to sue them over it.

Members of both parties seem to misinterpret the idea of freedom of speech to mean either of two extremes: 1. You can't say anything that might offend another human being, or 2. I have the absolute and total right to say whatever the hell I want, and screw you if you get offended.

Finding a balance between the two is damn hard, but I think it becomes easier when we consider it from a "love your neighbor" point of view. While I may not like the racist characterization of Muslims that I find being flung back and forth during the discussion of the misnamed Ground Zero Mosque (more aptly, "the Islamic Community Center [a YMMA, of sorts] that happens to be near ground zero but still a few blocks a way and not at all visible from the site"...but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue), I fully support your right to say them if that is how you truly feel.

Will I encourage you to examine the issue and think about it more closely? (adopting a Palin voice): YOU BETCHA!

Will I attempt to show you in what ways you are wrong? (repeat Palinism).

Will I tell you to shut up because you've "offended me"? No. No I won't. I might stop listening, but I won't tell you to shut up.

And see that's what's ironic about this whole thing: People all over the United States are making the point of how important these first amendment rights like speech, religion, assembly and petition by exercising them in a way that is offensive to others, as they are attempting to block one of the freedoms from a group that is potentially offensive to a much smaller group of people.

After all, the thoughts and very loud opinions of the majority trumps the rights of the minority, right?

Worked for Civil Rights in the South.

Worked for Women's Suffrage in NYC.

Worked for freeing the slaves after the Civil War.

Oh wait.

No, my bad. In each one of those instances, the voice of the minority was shown to be just as valuable, and just as protected as the majority. It seems to me that we're all on equal footing when it comes to these practices of our freedoms and liberties.

Huh. So I suppose this is the America I was born in - one where, hopefully, the voice that is loudest (corporations with deep pockets, the richest 2%, the one with a cable channel with the highest amount of viewers) isn't the one who gets to dictate policy all the time. It's an America where the little man, hopefully, has the same right to state his opinion into the din that is our political discourse. It's an America where the rights of the minority aren't always trampled by an oppressive majority. It's an America where even the people who offend and whom you offend are on equal footing, and each get to have their say.

We are so lucky to have a voice, even if it does produce that awful, awful inexplicably stupid song I posted above.

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing about Voltaire

Help Needed

6 months ago, an earthquake rocked the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, killing thousands, and displacing even more. Relief efforts are still ongoing; millions upon millions were donated, and Haiti was all one heard about for weeks.

Now, a similar terror is raging its way through Pakistan, and I don't know about you, but I haven't heard a whole lot about it. Relief seems to be slow in trickling in, but the death toll is already above 1,400, and expected to grow higher. In the meantime, literally MILLIONS have been displaced from their homes, lost their livelihoods, and are stranded waiting on relief supplies and rescue.

The Huffington Post put together a helpful list of non-profits working in the area you can donate to, and what they are doing to specifically help relief efforts. Please, if you have some spare money, donate. If you have some spare time and are so inclined, pray.

Photo: AP/BK Bangash

riding the subway, strange things happen.

Growing up in South Dakota, transportation was either by car or your own two feet. None of these newfangled "trains" or "subways." My first time ever taking a subway that was of substantial size was in London, at 20 years old. I got somewhat used to working the subways and metro systems while in Europe, but not by much.

I got a little bit better when I went to Boston and NYC with Kim in Spring of 2009 - in those larger cities, subway was the only way to get around.

I like to think I got a little more used to it being in NYC on my own in December, but I would hardly call myself "experienced" at working public transit.

So it's a bit nerve wracking for my first major, every day uses of public transit to come when I'm living in a place where I don't speak the language and can't read the signs. My first time taking the bus was an accomplishment. Taking the subway on my own two weeks ago to go see Inception in theaters was major for me - I got there and back with only one missed train.

As I'm getting more and more experienced about how to get to places via bus and train, I'm beginning to pay more attention to my fellow passengers. I've noticed a few things that tend to happen on Japanese public transport that really don't happen anywhere else, mainly: sleep.

In NYC or Boston, you fall asleep on public transit to your own peril - you probably should have a good grip on whatever personal belongings you have if you want them to make the trip with you.

In Yamaguchi-ken in Japan? Not so much.

I don't know what makes Japan so safe. Maybe it's a cultural thing - being a crook is so looked down upon that it makes it hard for anyone to be one. Maybe it's just that this is a very traditional area and people are more trusting of each other - kind of like small town South Dakota. Regardless, I feel incredibly safe on public transit, though I think it'll be ages before I fall asleep on it.

Now, I tell you this first part so that I may tell you the second:

As the foreigner, I tend to get some weird looks on the trains. People notice when a tall white person walks in. But I've been discovering that that won't preclude them from sitting themselves or their children near me.

Yesterday, I took a trip to Kokura to go shopping for a new travel backpack (and was successful, by the by), and a man boarded the train with two small children. One was probably around 5 and the other around 3 or 4 (I'm terribly about estimating ages though). The smaller of the two took a seat next to me, set his shoes on the floor and sat back. It was the cute little kid sort of sitting where the feet don't quite reach the floor so they're just left dangling over the side.

I smiled at the kids and at the old lady seated across from us, and proceeded to alternate between playing games on my iPod and looking out the window. About halfway to Kokura (a 15 minute ride), I felt something hit my shoulder. I turned slightly to see what it was, and the little boy had fallen asleep and slumped over against my shoulder. I stared at him for a minute, unsure of what to do. The father wasn't paying all that close of attention, and the boy seemed to be fine, so I decided to let it be. Heck, if I can be a temporary pillow for a Japanese three year old, why not?

I looked up to see the old woman across the way smiling. Soon after, the father noticed that something was up, and looked down at his kid. He then tried to wake the boy up and looked apologetically at me. I signaled, as best I could, that it was fine and he could sleep. Our stop was coming up though, so the father persisted in trying to wake up his son.

Have you ever baby sat a little kid and when they don't want to do something, they just go limp?

That's what this kid did. When his dad tried to wake him, he faked being still asleep and just went limp in the seat. At this point, the old lady and I burst out laughing and the father smiled. He eventually managed to get his son cooperative enough to hoist him up piggy back style and carry him off the train.

Even though we didn't speak any of the same language, we were all able to laugh together and understand the humor of the situation. It was one of my favorite moments so far in Japan.

what a beautiful God there must be.

My thoughts right now are a jumbled mess of things.

I was going to go shopping, but then I started doing some reading about sweatshops and production, and figured I didn't need to spend that money today. And then I started watching interviews and reading about evangelical responses to abortion, and that got me going thinking about orphans and adoptions. And then I read a very well written blog about fundamentalism and women in the home, and that got me going off in another related direction. And then I read some in a new book recommended to me by a friend - The Purity Myth, and tried to sort out where I sit between extreme feminism, and the conservative church's stance on modesty.

Sorting out where I stand is a hard thing. I am 24 years and 5 months old, and I'm still trying on identities, figuring out what labels to use for myself. I am pretty comfortable with my "liberal" label, often comfortable with the "Christian" label - except when it connotes in the minds of others a foaming at the mouth rabid fundamentalist. I'm pretty okay with the academic label, perfectly happy to be called a nerd (those are two separate things), and I'm proud when convenient of my "Midwestern" label, though most of the time not proud of the "American" label. Labeling oneself is part of what gives us identity because it associates us with a community, claims other parts of a community as part of our identity, and tells people a general idea of how we think and feel. The problem with labels comes when people only pay attention to the label and don't look below the surface, a mistake I myself have made more than once.

There are the even more controversial labels: "feminist," for one. "Activist" for another. "Liberal Democrat" third, even though this last is not one I would even pin on myself, but instead have been called by others.

These are the labels that have preconceived notions others use to vilify. "Feminism" was created so that "unattractive women [could have] easier access to mainstream society," Rush Limbaugh is so famous for saying. "Social Justice Activists" are a danger to America and society in general, Gloom and Doom commentator Glenn Beck is fond of repeating. "Liberal Democrats" are also at fault.

And then there are the labels I pin on others, and use to vilify them: "conservative," "fundamentalist," "anti-women," etc.

In going through life, I'll try on a lot of different labels. Today has been one step in that process as I try to think through what communities I want to identify with, which communities I think Jesus would identify with. And while I don't have a conclusion yet, I do know this: He wouldn't let labels define him. Even at his worst moment, hanging on the Cross, people were trying to pin labels on him, and none of them fit: "King of the Jews," "Criminal," "weak." And what I do know is that, despite whatever labels people identify with for themselves, Jesus accepts them as they are. The tax collectors, the Samaritans, the poor and the oppressed. Those are the types of labeled people Jesus hung out with. And I hope I can learn to ignore those labels as he did.

So I guess the most fitting label for me right now would be "work in progress."

100 Things - My list

Click to embiggen.
comment on #80: Edit to read: VISIT Alexandria, Egypt, where the library was.