Faith Priorities

by Jim Wallis

In 2008, the kingdom of God is not on the ballot in any of the 50 states as far as I can see. So we can’t vote for that this year. But there are important choices in this year’s election — very important choices — which will dramatically impact what many in the religious community and outside of it call “the common good,” and the outcome could be very important, perhaps even more so than in many recent electoral contests.

I am in no position to tell anyone what is “non-negotiable,” and neither is any bishop or megachurch pastor, but let me tell you the “faith priorities” and values I will be voting on this year:

With more than 2,000 verses in the Bible about how we treat the poor and oppressed, I will examine the record, plans, policies, and promises made by the candidates on what they will do to overcome the scandal of extreme global poverty and the shame of such unnecessary domestic poverty in the richest nation in the world. Such a central theme of the Bible simply cannot be ignored at election time, as too many Christians have done for years. And any solution to the economic crisis that simply bails out the rich, and even the middle class, but ignores those at the bottom should simply be unacceptable to people of faith.

From the biblical prophets to Jesus, there is, at least, a biblical presumption against war and the hope of beating our swords into instruments of peace. So I will choose the candidates who will be least likely to lead us into more disastrous wars and find better ways to resolve the inevitable conflicts in the world and make us all safer. I will choose the candidates who seem to best understand that our security depends upon other people’s security (everyone having “their own vine and fig tree, so no one can make them afraid,” as the prophets say) more than upon how high we can build walls or a stockpile of weapons. Christians should never expect a pacifist president, but we can insist on one who views military force only as a very last resort, when all other diplomatic and economic measures have failed, and never as a preferred or habitual response to conflict.

“Choosing life” is a constant biblical theme, so I will choose candidates who have the most consistent ethic of life, addressing all the threats to human life and dignity that we face — not just one. Thirty-thousand children dying globally each day of preventable hunger and disease is a life issue. The genocide in Darfur is a life issue. Health care is a life issue. War is a life issue. The death penalty is a life issue. And on abortion, I will choose candidates who have the best chance to pursue the practical and proven policies which could dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America and therefore save precious unborn lives, rather than those who simply repeat the polarized legal debates and “pro-choice” and “pro-life” mantras from either side.

God’s fragile creation is clearly under assault, and I will choose the candidates who will likely be most faithful in our care of the environment. In particular, I will choose the candidates who will most clearly take on the growing threat of climate change, and who have the strongest commitment to the conversion of our economy and way of life to a cleaner, safer, and more renewable energy future. And that choice could accomplish other key moral priorities like the redemption of a dangerous foreign policy built on Middle East oil dependence, and the great prospects of job creation and economic renewal from a new “green” economy built on more spiritual values of conservation, stewardship, sustainability, respect, responsibility, co-dependence, modesty, and even humility.

Every human being is made in the image of God, so I will choose the candidates who are most likely to protect human rights and human dignity. Sexual and economic slavery is on the rise around the world, and an end to human trafficking must become a top priority. As many religious leaders have now said, torture is completely morally unacceptable, under any circumstances, and I will choose the candidates who are most committed to reversing American policy on the treatment of prisoners. And I will choose the candidates who understand that the immigration system is totally broken and needs comprehensive reform, but must be changed in ways that are compassionate, fair, just, and consistent with the biblical command to “welcome the stranger.”

Healthy families are the foundation of our community life, and nothing is more important than how we are raising up the next generation. As the father of two young boys, I am deeply concerned about the values our leaders model in the midst of the cultural degeneracy assaulting our children. Which candidates will best exemplify and articulate strong family values, using the White House and other offices as bully pulpits to speak of sexual restraint and integrity, marital fidelity, strong parenting, and putting family values over economic values? And I will choose the candidates who promise to really deal with the enormous economic and cultural pressures that have made parenting such a “countercultural activity” in America today, rather than those who merely scapegoat gay people for the serious problems of heterosexual family breakdown.

That is my list of personal “faith priorities” for the election year of 2008, but they are not “non-negotiables” for anyone else. It’s time for each of us to make up our own list in these next 12 days. Make your list and send this on to your friends and family members, inviting them to do the same thing.

Save Our Republic

Dear Conservative America:

I am reaching out with a warning to you that is as heartfelt as the one I have been bringing my fellow citizens for months. But you are the most important audience of all for this, because you hold the key to whether or not we can save our republic in time.

I have been arguing that we are seeing the classic building blocks being laid for a police state: My thesis in The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is that we are seeing the classic 10 steps being set in place that always underlie a violent police state. My argument in its sequel, Give Me Liberty, is that we must rise up as tactically and effectively as patriots to stop this suppression of freedom.

I hope to persuade you of the profound moral repugnance a true conservative should feel for the plans that are afoot in this nation.

What is the newest news? The Army Times declared that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the (1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division) will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" ... "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."

They are tasked to help with "civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack …"

What this means is that U.S. citizens can now be "controlled" by the military on our streets through technologies -- such as Tasers and rubber bullets -- that terrify and torment and stun but do not usually kill citizens the way that citizens in Iraq are terrified, tormented and stunned by U.S. military forces.

Who will be "subdued," according to the blueprint, if and when this military unit takes to our streets? The first group of Americans to be subdued is likely to be protesters; then, going by the blueprint, you will see the military using Tasers to subdue people who ask whether there is a warrant permitting agents to burst into their home, as happened at the RNC. People could be Tasered while protesting when voters are turned away by the wholesale purges of quarter-millions of voters from the rolls that Robert Kennedy Jr. has been documenting; or, there is likely to be Tasering and other kinds of subjugation of people protesting corrupted voting machines.

Why does this undermine American freedom? Federal laws, most notably the Posse Comitatus Act, have prohibited the military from being deployed within the United States for 200 years. Yet the Army Times reports that "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one."

The founders sought to keep soldiers off our streets because they knew how easily a standing army could subdue a population. That's why the National Guard is answerable primarily to the governors of states and hence to the people of the United States. But the military is answerable to the commander in chief. These are the president's troops. The president now has a personal army. One definition of a police state is when the leader has seized control of the military to police citizens domestically.

Why listen to me? Not because I am a genius, but because this blueprint is so very predictive. Listen to me because everything that I warned would happen, according to the historical record, has happened, and I have documented the borne-out evidence of the crisis in Give Me Liberty.

I warned that the executive would soon simply start to subvert the rule of law. See what the administration has done in response to congressional subpoenas.

I warned that the torture we saw in U.S.-held prisons was certainly directed from the top -- a fact that Jane Mayer and others have fully documented since.

I warned that within six months we would see the definition of "terrorist" expanded so that the "terrorists" in the news would soon look like heartland, mainstream Americans. We now hear that mere protesters at the RNC in Minnesota have been charged as terrorists.

Another definition of a police state is when the leader seeks to seize control of big chunks of the national economy -- with no oversight or accountability. Sound familiar?

Consider this, conservative business leaders: What matters to a would-be dictator -- look at Latin America -- is that the leader is able to intervene in the economy and essentially use his clout and his cronies to intimidate competitors or manipulate the economic playing field. Dictators do not care if there is no middle class anymore in their countries, or no upper-middle class. Indeed, they are well served by the kinds of economies you see all over Latin America in which the cronies of the regime vacuum up wealth and intimidate their less-connected peers, in which the middle and upper-middle classes sink into misery while the poor simply suffer with little infrastructure to support them.

The coup has already taken place in terms of the laws that have been passed. With wiretapping, the mass arrests of protesters and the directive that allows the executive to seize control of all systems of government in the event of an emergency, the coup is in place, ready only for activation.

Is the Bush team seeking to calm or whip up fear in the face of the economic meltdown? Look at how many times Bush, McCain and Palin use the phrase "We're in crisis mode." Then think of FDR, with nothing to fear but fear itself.

The only way to stop the Rove-Cheney cabal from moving ahead with this coup without the headlines will be a principled and patriotic Republican revolution against this plan. That is why resistance from Republicans to the Paulson "rescue" was so very heartening.

It will take Republicans to understand that criminals have seized control of the White House -- and I don't use that term rhetorically: There are distinct crimes this regime has already committed, and deploying our military to police us is yet one more.

It will take Republicans across America to consider the lessons of history: In a police state, your politics do not protect you.

How will commerce proceed in such an America? How will capital flow? How will elections unfold? How will liberty be anything more than an echo of a fair and valiant recent past? This is not a liberal nightmare. This is the nightmare of any true conservative patriot.

Please speak to one another about this crisis. Please see it for what it is. And please join our transpartisan rebellion against the paper coup which is all too soon to materialize as boots hit the ground in the United States for the first time in a century. Please stand up for true conservatism, and stand up for a free America.

Naomi Wolf

Powell Supports Obama

by Maureen Dowd

Colin Powell had been bugged by many things in his party’s campaign this fall: the insidious merging of rumors that Barack Obama was Muslim with intimations that he was a terrorist sympathizer; the assertion that Sarah Palin was ready to be president; the uniformed sheriff who introduced Governor Palin by sneering about Barack Hussein Obama; the scorn with which Republicans spit out the words “community organizer”; the Republicans’ argument that using taxes to “spread the wealth” was socialist when the purpose of taxes is to spread the wealth; Palin’s insidious notion that small towns in states that went for W. were “the real America.”

But what sent him over the edge and made him realize he had to speak out was when he opened his New Yorker three weeks ago and saw a picture of a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her son, a 20-year-old soldier who had been killed in Iraq. On the headstone were engraved his name, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, his awards — the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star — and a crescent and a star to denote his Islamic faith.

“I stared at it for an hour,” he told me. “Who could debate that this kid lying in Arlington with Christian and Jewish and nondenominational buddies was not a fine American?”

Khan was an all-American kid. A 2005 graduate of Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, N.J., he loved the Dallas Cowboys and playing video games with his 12-year-old stepsister, Aliya.

His obituary in The Star-Ledger of Newark said that he had sent his family back pictures of himself playing soccer with Iraqi children and hugging a smiling young Iraqi boy.

His father said Kareem had been eager to enlist since he was 14 and was outraged by the 9/11 attacks. “His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go,” Feroze Khan, told The Gannett News Service after his son died. “He looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.”

In a gratifying “have you no sense of decency, Sir and Madam?” moment, Colin Powell went on “Meet the Press” on Sunday and talked about Khan, and the unseemly ways John McCain and Palin have been polarizing the country to try to get elected. It was a tonic to hear someone push back so clearly on ugly innuendo.

Even the Obama campaign has shied away from Muslims. The candidate has gone to synagogues but no mosques, and the campaign was embarrassed when it turned out that two young women in headscarves had not been allowed to stand behind Obama during a speech in Detroit because aides did not want them in the TV shot.

The former secretary of state has dealt with prejudice in his life, in and out of the Army, and he is keenly aware of how many millions of Muslims around the world are being offended by the slimy tenor of the race against Obama.

He told Tom Brokaw that he was troubled by what other Republicans, not McCain, had said: “ ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?”

Powell got a note from Feroze Khan this week thanking him for telling the world that Muslim-Americans are as good as any others. But he also received more e-mails insisting that Obama is a Muslim and one calling him “unconstitutional and unbiblical” for daring to support a socialist. He got a mass e-mail from a man wanting to spread the word that Obama was reading a book about the end of America written by a fellow Muslim.

“Holy cow!” Powell thought. Upon checking Amazon.com, he saw that it was a reference to Fareed Zakaria, a Muslim who writes a Newsweek column and hosts a CNN foreign affairs show. His latest book is “The Post-American World.”

Powell is dismissive of those, like Rush Limbaugh, who say he made his endorsement based on race. And he’s offended by those who suggest that his appearance Sunday was an expiation for Iraq, speaking up strongly now about what he thinks the world needs because he failed to do so then.

Even though he watched W. in 2000 make the argument that his lack of foreign policy experience would be offset by the fact that he was surrounded by pros — Powell himself was one of the regents brought in to guide the bumptious Texas dauphin — Powell makes that same argument now for Obama.

“Experience is helpful,” he says, “but it is judgment that matters.”

This Bad

No one could have coached McCain to be this bad. His criticism of Obama on trade: bye, bye Ohio. His decision to talk about how he repeals the tax deduction for health coverage: McCain got squashed again. "Senator Obama voted against Justice Breyer": it was in 1994 and Obama wasn't even in the Illinois State Senate, let alone the US Senate. And if he thinks this election is about school vochers, he really is a nitwit.

When it isn't sad, it's sinister. McCain isn't a candidate anymore, but a negative research dump -- a heedless purveyor of distortion and untruth, a man who started off running on his experience, but ends up now as a right-wing caricature stumbling toward defeat with dishonor.

--Bob Schrum

Craven, Servile, and Cowardly

Obama has always served his corporate masters. He opposed Rep. John Murtha’s call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and supported continued funding for the war. He voted in July 2005 to reauthorize the Patriot Act. He did not support an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872, which allows mineral companies to rape federal land for profit. He did not back the single-payer health care bill HR 676, sponsored by Kucinich and John Conyers. He advocates the death penalty and nuclear power. He backed the class-action “reform” bill—the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)—that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms, which make up Obama’s second-biggest single bloc of donors. CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits. Workers, under CAFA, would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations. CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges.

Obama’s support for the bailout, however, is his most egregious betrayal. He had a brief, shining moment to prove he could lead, to capitalize on a popular revolt that cut across the political spectrum. He never attempted to address or mobilize the aspirations and passions of the vast majority of Americans. He was as craven, servile and cowardly as the party he represents.

--Christopher Hedges

The Burden of Debt

The stock markets were rocked again on Monday, and the need to stabilize the financial system is obvious. But the U.S. economy is never going to be really healthy until the country figures out how to provide work at decent pay for all, or nearly all, of the men and women who want to work.

We’ve been living for years in a fool’s paradise atop a mountain of debt. The masters of the universe on Wall Street lost all sense of reason, no doubt. But most of us have been living above our means through the magic of easy credit, ever lower taxes, ever rising property values, stock market bubbles and the gift of denial, which we used to assure ourselves that the bills would never come due. We’ve even put our wars on a credit card.

The burden of debt for a typical middle-income family, earning about $45,000 a year, grew by a third in just the few years from 2001 to 2004, according to the Center for American Progress. The reason for this unsustainable added weight was the rising cost of such items as housing, higher education, health care and transportation at a time when wages grew only slightly or not at all.

In other words, work was not enough.

--Bob Herbert