Past Easter columns, both my own and commentary

Two written years ago, address these Easter themes:
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2015/04/divine-mercy.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2012/04/easter.html
These were originals rather than comments on MSW columns, which are still extensive
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-triduum-of-mercy-national-catholic.html
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-sacred-triduum-beckons-national.html
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2014/04/our-sacred-triduum-national-catholic.html
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2013/04/triduum-national-catholic-reporter.html
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2012/04/easter.html
http://heymsw.blogspot.com/2012/04/what-did-jesus-do-between-good-friday.html

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer

This is case before the Supreme Court where Trinity Lutheran has a playground which needed renovation and submitted a grant proposal. They were ranked number five on the list but lost out because Missouri has a constitutional provision barring religious schools from receiving government funds. Very recently, the state government said it would reconsider because of this case, however that should simply spur the lowest ranking grantees to file suit alleging violation of the state constitution and its Blaine Amendment. Without repealing this provision, there is still a case to be heard, so the SCOTUS should not block it.

The new Justice, Neil Gorsuch has in the past ruled for more freedom for religious organizations, but this will not be a 5-4 case. Five of the justices, including some of the liberals, are Catholic, which may or may not be important because the Blaine Amendments were designed not to oppose all religious funding but primarily funding for Catholic (and Hebrew) schools.

This is a huge issue. If Trinity Lutheran wins the day and Blaine Amendments are thrown out, every Catholic grade school and high school will, at minimum, be able to apply for funding as a normal school (some already do so as Charter Schools) and at best states will be ordered to fund them as if they were public schools. Cases like this are not decided by one vote. The Court likes to form a consensus with as many Justices as possible. Challenging the Blaine Amendment has been on a lot of to do lists for a very long time. It is a bit surprising that a case involving Catholic Schools did not get here first, but unless they try to dumb down the decision, it is likely to be a landmark case.

Many Catholic schools have closed down or have raised there tuition so much that only upper class (Republican pro-life) Catholics could send their children there. This will stop that trend and reverse it, especially public funding brings unionization to Catholic school faculty. Things will get interesting, probably more so than Secretary DeVos realizes. We will start to see by June, but this will take years to shake out.

The interesting question is how to pay for making all these schools taxpayer funded?  There are two options, raising income rates or raising property taxes, preferably installing a higher rate for higher value homes - either one at the same income levels of those people who will get the new subsidy who now pay tuition for sectarian schools.  Of course, when you throw in the tax increase, suddenly the right wing starts talking personal responsibility again.

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Jesus!

April 16 or 17 is the day that Ptolmeic Astrologers calculate to be the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth as it would have attracted the Astrologers from the East also known as the Magi, who followed what was called the Star of Bethlem but was really the astrological configuration proper for the birth of the King of the Jews. Serveral explations of the calculation are available. A good one is https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=69233.0 .
So why did it not stay there? I suspect that the early Church put no faith in astrology. Additionally, Jesus birthday was commemorated on the Winter Solstice, which before adjusting for the progression of the Equinoxes, was December 25th.  This date was Saturnalia (a great party with amble debauchery and drunkenness) and the attempt was made to make it more pious, with Jesus being recognized as the light of the world just as Chanukah is placed in the same time period.
There is another more important reason, which the coincidence of Easter and the true birthday reveal. In early Christianity there were those who were willing to equate resurrection with reincarnation. Having the date of the Easter and Jesus’s birthday closely coincide would reinforce that link and cut short the Easter season. Moving the Nativity feast to June would decrowd the calender, but it still sends a reincaration message the Church fears. Too bad for them. Happy Easter and Happy Birthday Jesus!

My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me!

My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me! is the key to our understanding of Good Friday and Holy Week. The key is why he said it. Was he simply fulfilling Psalm 22 like an actor repeating his lines? I used to think that, but that view makes the passion a sterile ritual. Was Jesus complaining about his lot? If so, he is fighting back against St. Anselm’s punishing God and being a bit of a cry baby. No, his feelings of despair must be real, because their purpose was to feel what we feel when apart from God by sin and blame. The clue to their reality comes in John’s Gospel, when toward the end he gives his mother, who first told him of his divine origins, unto John’s care, telling her he was dead to her and thus giving up that story, and at the same time giving up his mission to save the world by commissioning John (or Lararus) to care for Mary, not baptize the world. His entire psyche being shattered, he calls out to God in despair, just as we do.

Justice Gorsuch

I find that, although I have commented on it on Facebook, I did not bother to do a formal blog entry on our new Justice Gorsuch. The quesiton is, how much of a true believer is he? Is he more of a Scalia, his friend, or a Kennedy, his mentor. I am betting the latter, not that there was ever really a chance of stopping his nomination. If he is a Kennedy, he will let Perry v. Brown (gay marriage), Lawrence v. Texas (sodomy), Gonzalez v. Carhart (partial birth abortion ban legal without overturning Roe) and Roe v. Wade (abortion) stand. He will have seven or eight justices voting his way so these issues will likely never be seen again because the appellate courts follow these precedents. Birth control funding is settled as well, although there may be some religious freedom questions, especially around funding religous schools (which I favor). I have written about judicial nominations by the Republicans before. Time has shown that their argument that electing them will give us justices that will repeal Roe is entirely false. See below:
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2009/05/tests-for-next-justice.html

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2006/02/roberts-court.html
http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/10/judge-alito-new-souter.html 

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/10/ms-miers-withdraws-and-right-is-still.html 

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/10/miss-miers-and-repunkdlican-right.html 

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/09/roberts-hearings-cold-comfort-for.html 

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/08/john-roberts-nomination-and-2008.html 

http://xianleft.blogspot.com/2005/05/senate-confirmation-tricks-pandering.html

Sadly, the links are not working. You will have to copy and paste.

Hegemony How-To by Jonathon Matthew Smucker

At last month’s socialist book club we read Hegemony How-To by Jonathon Matthew Smucker.  It was not a strictly socialist book, but it did provide an interesting perspective on how to build a broad-based movement, which we must do.

Smucker begins by first describing how he became a radical and how insular radicalism can become.  His experience was through religious based organizations, including the DC Catholic Worker House.  After building his skill set he ended up as part of Occupy Wall Street and was instrumental in getting the message out.  His stories are quite interesting on how Occupy failed and succeeded (the 99% meme in particular).  He leaves out the later accomplishments of some of the work group, especially the one that contributed a large volume of comments to the new Consumer Financial Regulatory Board.  He shows why demands are key, probably more key than any action and what happens when you don’t have them.

One of his major concerns is insularity and its need to get arrested in civil disobedience, including property damage, and how that turns off a larger audience.  He spends a lot of time on the organizational culture of movements.  Indeed, this could be a case study using the Cultural Theory of Mary Douglass and Aaron Wildavsky.  He captures egalitarianism well, as well as the despotism and libertarianism of the right-wing.  He also identifies the need for fashion in rebellion.  If we did not have them, I would suggest that DSA get t-shirts or maybe sell them a bit more aggressively.
His mention of elections as an organizing tool is spot on.  Both the Bernie Sanders campaign and the resistance to Donald Trump show how this can be a unifying factor.  Of course, while hard-core radicals

Smucker argues for more inclusion and the making of alliances, even if they don’t buy into 100% of the program.  Whether one is insular or allied is the difference between wide success and self-justification.  For example, my great-grandfather, Silas Locke Allen, helped organize both the Land O Lakes dairy farmer cooperative and the American Farm Bureau Federation.  He took the wider view.  His son, my grandfather, Jerry Brown Allen, had plans for a single Christian cooperative.  He took a small view and it never happened.

The civil rights movement is an example of large scale federations.  I have a few examples to share.  Sometimes movements can be captured by government.  Stand Up for Democracy in Washington DC! was created to do a march in September 1998 to protest the Control Board taking over direct government from the Mayor.  There were a few movements evolving on their own and the local congresswoman created a united front.  After the march, it kept going and she became upset, as did her AA, when we started making demands of her.  This led to the creation of DC Vote! and its cramped agenda for voting rights.  StandUp! still exists and has a list of demands, with Free DC’s Budget being the signature one (my phrase).  A few of them have been met and the new Mayor’s drive to statehood is a good sign.

An older civil rights victory was when the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party got two of its delegates seated at the 1968 convention in Chicago (which was overshadowed by the protests  -  my example).  They won the battle and lost war, as the white segregationists in the party fled to the Republicans.  Not sure that this is a defeat, however.  Good riddance to bad trash. Some coalitions die and deserve to, like the old Democratic one.

The civil rights movement had a problem later on with the question of gay marriage  (my example).  President Obama did not run on this, even though he believed in it.  It took Vice President Biden and a lot of quiet work for the black pastors who are largely socially conservative to move into the pro-side, or at least to let the President do so.  Talk about coalition building! Sadly, the Obama coalition did not help Hillary Clinton.  She did not put someone from his coalition on the ticket and it cost her the election.

 The next frontier in large scale organizing, according to Smucker, is to build a coalition around class issues. How do we do that? I suggest we Occupy Capitalism. This coalition must go beyond political organizing to and form an economic coalition, like the capitalists do.

We can start by radicalizing employee-owned firms, unionized firms (and unions) and cooperatives, farm and non-farm alike. We can educate them on expanding democracy in the workplace, so that both CEOs and supervisors are elected rather than appointed by the hierarchy after an open auction to bid down (rather than bidding up) their wages.

We can educate them about explicit and implicit choices around what to consume, which will dictate what to produce (and what to buy, both individually and cooperatively). These decisions are made implicitly now, it is time to make them explicit. We need to go beyond credit unions and away from banks to emloyee-owned firms, et al, offering direct mortgage and consumer credit at no interest, provided ownership is 100% of employee members. We can offer environmental solutions on housing, transporation and food production that reduce our footprint, carbon and otherwise.

We can unite the coalition of these companies to replace the Taft-Hartley Act and amend ERISA to allow more concentrated ownership of the means of production. We can offer redirecting a portion of the employer contribution to Social Security toward employee stock ownership (with an equal distribution, regardless of wage and insurance fund holding a third of these shares).

We can have cooperative employers pay for all education after sophomore year in college and all technical education, with stipends included, in exchange for s service commitment, backed up by a federal loan program if the employment. We can recommend shifting to stock grants for actual accomplishment, rather than paying knowledge workers more for their education (with further stock grants for educational attainment). From each according to their ability.

We can call for an expanded refundable child tax credit, paid with an employer net business reciepts tax (subtraction VAT) of $1000 per child per month (with indexing for inflation) and dare the pro-lifers to reject it. To each according to their need.

Rather than repeal Citizens United, we can shove it down the capitalists throats until they beg us to repeal it. Maybe after we buy them all out.

The hardest thing, of course, is to get people to notice that there is another way. Once they know, they will join us on the journey. Let’s invite them.

Four Futures: Life After Capitalism by Peter Frase

In Four Futures: Life After Capitalism, Peter Frase uses metaphor from popular culture, for example, Star Trek, to describe what life might look like after capitalism, whether we evolve into each future or have it thrust upon us on two axis: equality v. hierarchy and abundance v. scarcity.

Communism is equality and abundance.  He does not specify how this will look exactly, but he uses a citizens dividend as a possible route to get there (the dividend gives labor a higher supply cost for work, which raises wages and increases abundance as everyone can buy what they need or maybe, if people don't work, less of what they want but don't need).

Increased automation is a possibility I see here, which would give us the same amount of stuff for less work. There is also the problem of professional slaves, like doctors and especially nurses, who are needed and cannot be automated away.  They will begin to resent an idle nation, as would soldiers or astronauts.  There is also the question of whether the dividend was just for adults or will be adjusted for family size. We already have one just for the kids, but it is about twelve sizes too small and some only collect it at year's end rather than when needed at every paycheck.

Rentism is hierarchy and abundance.  The key feature of this future is ownership of intellectual property, both for production and consumption (from branding to bioscience).  This also includes land rent paid by the many to the few.  I support an ownership alternative, where workers own the means of production of their company, including intellectual property.  You could use social insurance collections to buy employee companies, with the contribution equalized so each employee gets the same amount of stock per period.

Going back to the abundance problem, I would develop in-home agriculture (hydroponics and growing meat from stem cells).  These homes would be expensive, so the cooperative would give you no interest loans to buy them and may even build them for you. These cooperatives would buy the land and hold it for their members, solving the problem of land rent.  I would also keep the benefits of creating intellectual property closer to the actual developers rather than giving them to the capitalists and their pet CEOs.  You will get more innovation, not less.

Socialism is where equality meets scarcity. Eco-socialism, which Joel Kovel proposed in his 2000 run for president, falls into this category.  Basement agriculture in cooperative built homes could also be a solution here - one that involves government less (although NASA is developing the whole habitat angle, or was, for a mission to Mars).  Running out of resources is the theme to this future, although I still think Mathus was wrong.  We will always figure out how to grow food, clean water and air and deal with floods (and maybe even control carbon) and will use government, industry and cooperatives to do so.  Currently, there is no urgency, however, because enough of the middle class has been bought off with their toys and wages to ignore the urgency of upcoming scarcity. Socialism is never to be seen as a permanent state - it is the road to eventual communism and abundance.  If cities can rise out of the Arabian dessert, most anything is possible in dealing with scarcity.  The problem is scarcity of distribution, not of actual resources.

Exterminism is where hierarchy meets scarcity.  In this future, the elite separate themselves from society and let society begin to dies off or be killed through prison, police violence, war, environmental disaster (see Flint) and cutting welfare benefits.  The evidence that this is happening now is hard to dispute.  Indeed, Trump seems to champion Muslim exterminism.   Zero population growth, rather than dealing with scarcity is a way to keep poor people from breeding - more exterminism.  How do we fight this?  Blow the whistle and increase that Child Tax Credit that I mentioned above.  In cooperatives, every member is in an enclave and every person could be valuable.  There are many under-educated geniuses out there who have been given poor educations because of their darker skin.  Just look at the drug trade.  These are complex enterprises.  Recruiting everyone ends scarcity.

My impression in reading this book is not that these are four discrete futures, but four trends that are going on simultaneously.  The conclusion of the book states exactly that.  Now that we know, we can start doing something about it.

Another Catholic Voice in the Public Square-April

Last Sunday, the Lay Action Committee at my parish distributed a leaflet on the moral side of end of life and abortion legislation. Four bills were highlighted.

It was reported that the Death with Dignity Act had failed, but specifics on the legislation were not reported. Suicide is illegal in order to assist those who attempt it, mandating that they be treated. It also stops greedy family members from profiting from driving a loved one to suicide. The law does not foresee a compassionate solution that allows a terminally ill patient to end their suffering (including someone with profound permanent lithium intoxication). There is a danger that health care cost minimization might take advantage of such provisions, but safeguards can be included to prevent that. The main objection is religious, not moral, the sovereignty of God over life and death. The fear is that ending one’s life will send one to eternal punishment. This assumes that God is an Ogre. If you drop that assumption, the objection to death with dignity goes away.

The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Act seeks to ban the dilation and cuttage abortion used in the second and third trimesters. President Obama promised to do something about this federally in his second debate with Senator McCain, but he could not get or did not try to get legislative support. Thank you Tea Party and Senator McConnell. This matter will likely not succeed as a state matter, nor should it. The best place for it, like the partial birth abortion act, is federal law with time limits listed for both types of abortions, after which only induction abortions would be allowed. Call it the fetal baptism act.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act seeks to define life at 20 weeks, when the pain receptors in the fetus lead to a reflexive reaction against pain. This is also a measure that cannot be done at the state level, although the Congress could pass it. It makes more sense, however, to simply mandate that fetuses after this time be given pain management and at later stages only be terminated by induction. See above.

Public Health - State Funding for Abortions - Prohibitions and Exceptions essentially extends the Hyde Amendment to state funded Medicaid abortions, which are now allowed. I suspect that the Medical Charities Fund would pick up the slack. Even if it did not, abortions are not expensive. Most self-fund. You are more likely to pay for an abortion by patronizing an establishment with minimum wage workers than by paying your taxes. The amount of any taxpayer’s contribution to any single abortion is so small as to not be morally significant. This is a show victory and I doubt the votes are there to change it.

About a page is devoted to the abortion issue as a whole. It starts from the premise that abortion is the most important moral issue. It may be, but it is certainly not the most important legal or political issue. States have little room to act except to try to provoke an overturning of Roe v. Wade and that is neither desirable nor likely. The goal of ending federal primacy on the issue would end it for all equal protection measures. While this may excite those who don’t like the overturn of bans on sodomy and gay marriage, I find their desire to constitutionalize the tyranny of the Catholic mob repugnant. As for the likelihood, Associate Justice Gorsuch is more likely to follow Kennedy than Scalia on these issues, along with Roberts and Alito (and Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer and Ginsberg). Thomas is pro-life, but does not buy the Federalist Society approach.

The document cites a Gutmacher Institute study on why abortions occur. Less than 7 percent are for the life and health of the mother. The rest are for social and economic reasons, the standard finding being 72 percent economic and the rest social. Social means that women either don’t want to be mothers or be caught in adultery or girls (and their parents) don’t want to let it be known that they are sexually active. The way around both of these is decent childcare for workers and students (including Catholic high schools and colleges) and a living wage (as Pius XI dictated), which the Agriculture Department estimates at $1000 per month for each child. That should be the level of the child tax credit and it should be paid with wages. If you want to get rid of abortion, do that. Also, quit demonizing teen sex, which should seem obvious but is not for moralists, some of whom are more anti-sex than pro-life.

The teaching on abortion is not as cut and dried as the Church dictates. In Torah, abortion is mandated if adultery is suspected. The woman is given bitter herbs to drink. If they cause an abortion, she is to be stoned. This could have happened to Mary if Joseph had insisted. Likewise, it would have happened to the woman caught in adultery if Jesus had not gotten rid of her accusers. Talk about Karma! In the Middle Ages, abortion was allowed until quickening. It was only Pius IX that prohibited it for all of pregnancy. Hardly 2000 years of history. As for conception, the better marker is gastrulation, when twinning is no longer possible, when the central control of development is begun by the mesoderm (and as Aristotle would say, the soul) and when hybrids die before acquiring souls. The moral principle is that you must protect life if uncertain. Gastrulation appears to provide enough certainty.

Maryland rates are likely due to the number of poor people and the number of people who cross state lines to use clinics here. Do something about poverty, as above, and the rate will go down.
Catholics for Choice believe that criminal penalties for abortion are uncalled for. Being pro-choice and pro-abortion are different things. Being pro-abortion is a belief that it is the go-to method of birth control for tees and single women who want to build their futures without a child. Give these women and girls enough money and support (and their partners) and abortion will vastly decrease until only hospitals will be doing the procedure for valid medical reasons. Being pro-choice is to also object to the hijacking of the issue by the Republican Party, who uses it mainly for electoral advantage, with no real thought for the unborn beyond the occasional Quixotic bill and with no consideration of raising family incomes instead.

The issue of the law endorsing abortion or not is based on hierarchical thinking, not reality. I dealt with the funding issue above as did August Fagothey, although he covered paying taxes to a government that allows abortion rather than funding, but his analysis applies well to both. It is not significant enough to damage anyone’s freedom of religion. As for Planned Parenthood, federal funds are well segregated under OMB rules. The pro-life movement and Trump are looking for a cheap win to keep the masses happy. We should not keep endorsing such fraud.
By all means, contract your State and Federal Representatives and Senators, but use these facts instead.

Finding God

I was thinking yesterday about explaining God to my atheistic girlfriend and I noticed the sky. The clouds were far off and beautiful. That beauty can be found throughout nature and part of our humanity is an appreciation of beauty, put there by God so we can recognize the beauty that is a reflection of the Creator. In the same way, we see the truth around us and can appreciate it because of the truth given to us. We see love and can love because of the love that exists around us and within us. When we die, we experience beauty, truth and love in their pure forms, yet it does not annihilate us because God cherishes the beauty, truth and love born within us and the beauty, truth and love that we have created in our lives. If Beauty, Truth and Love are eternal, then we are eternal as well because we share in these things and bring them back to their source, which is God.