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Totally sure (Obama/Romney) is evil

Posted on October 25, 2012, 4:12 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

Some on the left think Obama is evil because he kills and terrorizes innocent civilians with drones.  Some on the Buchanan right think Romney is evil for wanting to arm Syrian rebels while the neocons say Obama is evil because he won’t arm the Syrians.  The left has been painting a damning caricature of Romney for months, while the right is sure Obama is the incarnation of evil.

Why do Americans like to take such extreme positions?  Something in us loves to paint others as evil while excusing the foibles of those in our in-group.

Many of us are sure we know who will be the best President.  We know better than to trust the predictions of the most highly trained meteorologists about the weather, but in our far more complex political-economic system, we are sure our predictions are accurate.

Who would have predicted that a bipartisan Governor with little foreign policy experience would become a polarizing leader who initiated two trillion dollar wars?  Yet that’s what Bush did.  Maybe we’ve got the same type with Romney, but who knows?

Who would have predicted that Obama would not close Guantanamo, would kill Osama and Ghaddafi when Bush couldn’t, and would rain down bombs on isolated villages with drone attacks?  Who would have predicted that Clinton and Bush both would sell out American manufacturers to China and enable the emasculation of Glass-Steagall leading to the 2007-8 financial meltdown?

Our basic problem is that we don’t look at trends and forces impacting the future.  Instead we put our faith in single individuals.   We are sure we know Obama/Romney is the answer.  We confuse symptom and result with cause.

We can’t predict what the weather will be, yet in a much more complex system (the world’s political economy) we are sure we know who can change it for the better.

Most concerned Americans are fundamentalists.  Whether on the right or left, they are absolutely sure their basic principles are right and the other side is wrong.  Any politician who doesn’t come down on their side is evil and politicians who can’t conveniently be placed on either side are wishy-washy flip-floppers.

Sadly, because our political operatives are so polarized and fundamentalist, they can’t and won’t admit that each of their perspectives has inherent flaws.  Until we come to that realization, we won’t be able to make any basic improvement in our political economic system.  Our polarizing narratives have led to what systems theorists call a wicked mess.  Wickedness occurs when people are totally sure their values and ideology are right and unchangeable.  A wicked mess arises when polarization on assumptions occurs in extremely dynamic, complex, chaotic situations.

The way out is to find more basic, stabilizing assumptions which lead to converging narratives.  Until then, our future will be controlled by those who are not limited by any principle but greed.  They will likely succeed, as they usually do, in manipulating and controlling whoever is elected.

Someday, if we are lucky, we may find a leader who knows a truth beyond the platitudes preached by the right and left.  He may then lead both sides to recognize they have common interests and common beliefs.  On that solid foundation we can build a more sustainable America.

Without it, we will waste our energy fighting over who will have the best deck chair on the sinking Titanic.

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Bully professor

Posted on October 23, 2012, 6:52 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

A bully disguised as a professor is an evil we have all encountered.  He uses his brains and verbal skills to belittle and make fun of others.  He believes he is smarter and better than everyone and demonstrates it at every chance.  I was a farm boy at the University when I first encountered these bully professors.  They knew a hick when they saw one and were determined to put rubes like me in my place.

When these bully professors gain political power, however, we have real problems. Just like the playground bully, the professor bully is a dictator.  But the playground bully has only physical strength.  The politician bully can have unlimited tools to impose his will.

It’s easy for politicians to become bullies.  Power corrupts.  Give a pea-brained President the power of a strong military and he will foolishly waste American lives in invasion after invasion.  When the world is united in support of America (as after 9-11). he will bludgeon his enemies (and ignore damage to innocents) instead of adroitly deploying his power.  When the pea-brained bully leaves office we all cheer for hope and change.

But when a professor bully becomes President, get ready for even worse trouble. The pea-brained President knows he is not the smartest.  The professor bully President is convinced that everyone is less skilled and capable than he is.  Since we are all beneath him, he isn’t really concerned with our petty problems.  He will impose his will on the nation, no matter how the nation is suffering.  He cares not for anyone except himself, so he’ll leave a huge mess others have to clean up.

He may be anti-American at heart, but he will appropriate the language of patriotism and use it to justify his anti-American acts.  He will use his verbal skills to weave a web of deceit to hide his selfish goals.

The bully professor loves to use ridicule to shake his opponent.  No matter how false and misleading, he never hesitates to ridicule.  Humiliation is the goal of the bully.  He needs everyone to be submissive to him.

Pity the nation that has to live with a bully narcissist as President.  We’ve had enough of them.  How can we avoid having them in the future?

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War-mongering millionaire for President?

Posted on October 20, 2012, 8:06 am, by Jim Worstell and received Comments Off.

How did Barack blow it?  Romney got filthy rich by exporting jobs to China and Barack can’t beat him?  Romney seems to want war with Russia and Syria and Barack can’t beat him?

The good news for Democrats: we’ve had a rich nice guy as president before and George W. Bush lasted only one term.

We’ve also had a trigger happy President who started horrendously expensive wars in several countries.  George Bush the Second  is now routinely denounced by his own party.

Next time, maybe the Democrats will not nominate a gay rights advocate, but I doubt it.  Maybe the Democrats won’t nominate someone whose foreign policy is based on apologies, but I doubt it.  Maybe the Democrats will realize that taxing job creators is not the best idea when the economy is in the tank.  But I doubt it.

We’ve still got the motions of an election to go through, but the experienced organizer is going to win.  Not the community organizer who only successfully organized political campaigns.  Instead, it’s the fellow who learned to organize by developing profitable businesses and then gradually learned how to organize political campaigns.

The big lesson: negative charges don’t stick when their target comes across as a nice, moderate, smart and competent guy.  Barack was that kind of candidate in 2008 and Romney is that kind of candidate today.  Meanwhile Barack seems a little less nice, a little less moderate and a whole lot less competent.

Of course, by being one of the few to project a Romney landslide, I’d better be willing to lick the egg off my face.  Events can overwhelm trends.  Especially when you’re up against the most powerful person in the world.

But if that person really doesn’t want the hassle for another four years, then he’s unlikely to authorize anything which will force him to stay in the White House.  He’ll have a nice life writing a series of autobiographies, playing golf and basketball and giving well-received seminars in Europe.

Meanwhile, in January, we’ll be left with someone who doesn’t seem to realize that:

  1. the Russians don’t have to be our enemies,
  2. US manufacturing will never rebound until Chinese manufacturing has to live up to US environmental standards, and
  3. the best option to appeasement is not threats of war.

But we’ll have more pressing problems in January.  See what happens when 96 percent of black Americans vote for Obama and he loses.  Then watch how long it takes the rioters to listen to millionaire white guy who thinks they are lazy and detests their dependency.

I may well be licking egg off my face.  The world does look a little different when you live in the woods with only a handful of neighbors between you and the closest town 15 miles away.   From here, a Romney landslide seems obvious.  We’ll see.

 

Romney landslide?

Posted on October 19, 2012, 9:53 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

“The countermessage—God damn America—­is an old one, and is surprising only to people unfamiliar with the politics of black life in this country. Un­fortunately, that is an apt description of large swaths of America.”

What will the imminent Romney landslide do to America?  The continuing demonization of Reagan after his landslide in 1980 and the overwhelming victory of Obama in 2008  indicate Romney won’t have any lasting effect on those who hate the American project.   Their insidious infiltration of higher education and government will not be stopped by the election of one person.  They believe that America is controlled by a racist and anti-woman elite who must be stopped at all costs.  They have plenty of evidence of the destructive effect of this 1% on native Americans, the third world, people of color, and the environment.

Preaching the evils of this 1% (and the ignorant and slovenly Christian fundamentalists who enable them) has resulted in a system of higher education which produces leaders who destroy American jobs and college graduates who can’t perform the few jobs left. A government/university cabal is happily presiding over the slow decline of American living standards.   They know they are right and are smart enough to reinterpret any facts which challenge their worldview.  Superpowers are always vulnerable to this virus because their bureaucracies are not challenged by any external threat.    This virus empowers universities and other government agencies to undermine the society and civilization which provide their lifeblood.

The Byzantines so perfected this system that their very name conjures up a society controlled by pervasive labyrinth of government bureaucrats and regulations which eventually weighed down and destroyed the Ottoman civilization.   Byzantium (and similar empires in China, Rome and Greece) differ from the American version.  The vast American bureaucracy is infected by anti-white, anti-male, and anti-Christian assumptions.

So if Romney’s October momentum results in a November landslide, nothing fundamental changes in the university/government cabal.  They will be disappointed in the performance of their leader but they will promote another.

As long as their bureaucracies maintain control, their basic assumptions are not challenged. They will continue to indoctrinate students, control government employees, and influence the thinking of more and more Americans.

Until their basic belief system is effectively challenged, America’s decline will continue.   We must expose it and root it out wherever it exists and replace it with a belief system which is more sustainable.

The unwitting ally in our effort is the anti-American radical Muslim challenge.  A byzantine parasite bureaucracy survives only until a strong outside force challenges it.  The Bengazi attack of September 11 is emblematic of such a challenge.  Appeasement, the natural response of government bureaucrats in any declining empire, emboldens the challenger.

The Soviet Union served the role of challenger in the last half of the 20th century.  The appeasement, and attendant malaise, of President Carter led to the triumph of Reagan and the destruction of the Soviet Union.  Radical Islam presents no nation that Romney can challenge, unless he is willing to take on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others exporting radical Islam around the world.

But even such an attack at the source of radical Islamic beliefs will not change the decline of America.  Until an alternative narrative supplants the anti-white, anti-male belief system, elimination of external threats only makes it easier  for the university/government cabal to transform the US into Byzantium.

The anti-American university professors and government bureaucrats are right in criticizing American destruction of the environment and reluctant abolition of slavery.  But America is also the source of the environmental movement and abolitionism.  Both environmental destruction and serfdom dominate most of the rest of the non-Western world.  Because of their reflexive anti-America impulses, the new university/government cabal ignores such facts.  While Red Chaina is creating the worst environmental destruction and serfdom the world has ever seen.

As we learned from the Reagan years, any Romney administration which fails to inculcate an alternative narrative will fail to make long term change in America.  Can a pro-environment perspective be united with a vision of a learning, renewing and perfecting society based on a Christian, patriotic worldview?

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Quote from “Fear of a Black President” in  www.theatlantic.com

Good Christian liberals

Posted on October 13, 2012, 8:38 am, by Jim Worstell and received Comments Off.

Conservative Christians and liberal atheists can be a lot alike.  At least when it comes to helping poor people.  A poor lady comes to your door obviously needing help, you have pity on her and you  ”loan” her some money.  Both conservative Christians and liberal atheists often think that is the right thing to do.

Conservative Christians and liberal atheists find common ground in building schools and digging wells in poor countries.  I’ve seen Christian aid agencies digging wells and building schools in Senegal, Malawi, Gambia, Haiti, Bolivia.  I’ve seen avowed atheists working hard to build schools and dig wells in Zimbabwe, Haiti, Philippines.  Whether run by Christians or atheists, most such projects were abandoned when the agencies running the projects left.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has tried for 10 years to win hearts and minds by providing roads, dams, buildings and electricity.  Nearly all of these projects failed in spectacular fashion.  Why?  Because you have to have something more substantial than buildings to win hearts and minds.  We don’t win Moslems over if we don’t offer anything  deeper and more substantial than buildings.

In the United States we spend billions every year trying to help the poor (a trillion a year according to one recent estimate).  Yet poverty rates are climbing.

The common belief behind all these efforts: giving poor people money and material things is good.  Good conservative Christians–who know money given to a homeless person will usually be spent on liquor–will donate money to help Christian relief organizations feed poor people overseas.

Sooner or later many people wake up.  Recently a good friend of mine did after her purse stolen by a poor person she had been giving “loans” to for years.   Some wake up after seeing how American aid dollars are wasted overseas.

Why is it so hard to quit giving money to poor people and good causes?  It just feels good.  It feels good because we have altruism in our genes.

Any great empire is built on the foundation of altruism.  A society grows strong when its people will sacrifice for each other and their nation.   It’s just a part of any successful people.  If parents don’t sacrifice themselves for the benefit of their children, the society dies.

An atheist may be able to convince himself to reject God, but its not as easy to reject altruism.  Because altruism is in his genes.

But this wonderful, constructive impulse which is the foundation of civilization has been hijacked.

It has been hijacked by the ad men. Millions of people around the world make a living by preying on the altruistic.  Malawian hospitals are staffed by altruistic Europeans while trained Malawian nurses work for more money in hospitals in the US.

It has been hijacked in the US by those who barely give anything to the poor from their own money, but are always ready to spend our tax money for government programs meant to help the poor.

The businessman who pays wages for dozens of jobs producing useful products does far more good than the politician who taxes businesses so he can give money to those who do not work.  Yet the businessman is often derided while the politician gets reelected by the interest groups he supports.

If only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.  If your only tool is tax dollars budget, every problem is solved by money.

As we focus on satisfying material needs, we forget the needs of the spirit.  So many palatial mansions are filled with lost souls, crying out for spiritual sustenance.

Yet, if we aren’t altruistic, if we don’t give of ourselves, our souls shrivel and our nation declines.  What is the answer?  How do we maintain our altruism and not encourage dependency?

 

Cuddly Russian bear

Posted on October 9, 2012, 8:19 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

Russians have a fascination with Americans.  In my experience, people in the former Soviet Union are eager to see and talk to Americans.  Large attentive audiences come to hear US experts because they appreciate American ideas.  Ordinary Russians contend our nations should be friends.  They respect our inventions, our entrepreneurial spirit and, especially, our victory over them in the Cold War.

After we beat Germany and Japan, they became our friends and improved the world by becoming like Americans in invention and entrepreneurship.  Ordinary Russians would love to do the same.

Russia and the US have similar histories and face similar challenges.  Both nations spread over thousands of miles of sparsely populated continents, bringing Christianity and order to squabbling tribes.  Both have traditions of intellectual might and technological achievement.  Both of us face ravenous enemies–China and radical Islam–which would gladly destroy us.

In both countries there is a strain of reckless adventurism common to all vibrant, expanding countries.  I’ve exercised that impulse with Russians in cold plunges after hot saunas, in jeep rides across rugged mountains, in careening along snowpacked roads.

Russians like to test you.  If you like their brand of fun, you go along with them and make friends for life.  They call such friends мой друг  (moi droog) and contend such friendship is closer than a husband and wife could ever be.  If you take their tests as threats, then you become the enemy.

Romney seems to see Russia as a threat.  He is rightly trying to wipe out  a few years of appeasement with a stronger stance.  But you can accomplish that without treating Russia like an enemy.   He could try this approach:  Russia is a proud nation with a long and glorious history.  We can learn much from them and they are eager to learn from us.

I work in agricultural development.  For the last ten years, I’ve concentrated  mostly in the former Soviet Union.  I’ve watched cocksure American experts come in sure they had all the answers for the former Soviet Union (Ukraine or Moldova or Turkmenistan)–and they all fail.  Anyone who is sure they have all the answers is bound to fail in a new situation.

The first thing I do on a new assignment is figure out what’s going on.  What are the primary drivers of activity in the system?  What is motivating people?  When you figure that out, you have a chance of improving the system.  This is the opposite of what we are doing with Russia.  Politicians with no direct experience with Russians are convinced they should be viewed as the enemy when they are just testing us to see if we can become мой друг.

Russia is hardly a cuddly bear.  But why assume they are the enemy?  Some say they prove it by their support of regimes like the Assads in Syria.  My Russian friends tell me that Russia supports the present Syrian regime because Russia has a port on the Mediterranean in Syria.  Russia doesn’t want to lose that port.  We could tell them they can keep the port as long as they keep the peace in that area while we, the Kurds and the Turks resurrect peace in the rest of the country.  Russia could become a friend embarking on a new adventure with us.

That’s the sort of solution we could come up with.  It won’t happen as long as we keep the “my way or the highway” attitude.

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When good intentions become seeds of destruction

Posted on October 8, 2012, 7:04 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

My Tohono O’odham friend introduced me to his tribe’s land (formerly called Papago Indian Reservation) and others in Arizona.  I love the grandeur of their landscapes–the Grand Canyon, the Navajo mesas, sandstone hoodoos,  the White Mountains.  Up close, they are not so pretty.  The junk cars and trash argue against any belief that American Indians are somehow more respectful of nature.  Yet many Americans and Europeans who have never been on a reservation or even seen an Indian are convinced that Europeans invaded a peaceful society living in harmony with nature.

So Columbus, whose holiday we celebrate today, becomes evil to some.  He is seen as bringing destruction to peaceful, nature-loving people and their paradise.

In fact, nearly every tribe in America was at war with several other tribes and only secured the land it had when Columbus arrived by taking it from some other Indian tribe.  They’d been doing this ever since they arrived in North America from Siberia.  When not fighting each other, they had been busy exterminating huge and fascinating species such as relatives of the horse, the camel, saber-tooth cats, American cheetahs, giant beavers, mammoths and many others.  American Indians were  certainly no more in “balance with nature” than any other tribes.

As most Americans became aware of the environmental destruction wrought on North America, a myth of noble, natural savages took hold and still hold many in thrall.  It is taught as fact in our school systems. That the belief is demonstrably false does not diminish its power.

This belief is one of a constellation of beliefs which must be eradicated from our American educational system.  They are seeds of destruction which must be eliminated if we are ever to revitalize America.

One fruit of this particular seed: gambling spreading to every part of America.  Because we feel guilty over how we treated the noble Indians, we gave them reservations and let them create their own laws.  They decided to legalize casino gambling and many got rich, enticing many states to legalize this destructive enterprise.  The gambling addiction has swept into nearly every town in America, making it easy for even the poorest American to follow the government advertising and  throw away the grocery money on lottery tickets.

Who would have predicted that the mistaken belief in the pure, noble American Indian would have led to this destruction of American families?  Similarly the mistaken belief in the pure, noble African savage has led to a belief that its OK to discriminate against European people with affirmative action.

No surprise that lower class whites have actually dropped several years in life expectancy since 1990.  When the conventional wisdom is that they are the cause of destruction of the noble Indians and the noble blacks, discriminates against them in hiring and education, and permits scourges like drugs and gambling to tempt them, what else could we expect?

But its not just the lower class whites who are suffering.  America as a whole ranked 5th in the world in life expectancy in 1950 and today ranks 49th.

Eliminating slavery and fighting greedy businessmen to protect the environment were such worthy goals.  How did these worthy impulses get transformed into the seeds of destruction of American society?

And why do we permit these seeds of destruction to bear their poisonous fruit throughout our education system?

OK, the above is just something that I needed to get out on this beautiful fall morning in Arkansas. We need something positive to replace these seeds of destruction.  These seeds are more like the rhizomes of  quackgrass in my garden.  They are impossible to get rid of by pulling them up.  Some little segment of rhizome is always left and revives the stand.

This year I planted some African gourds which have smothered out the quackgrass.  We need positive beliefs which will smother out the beliefs that Northern Europeans should be eternally punished for the plight of American Indians and Africans.  We need to promote pride in American achievement.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie should all be praised, not denigrated.  We should glorify the American freedom of expression, optimism, and inventive spirit which attracted Albert Einstein and hundreds of other scientists and permitted George Washington Carver and Jim Thorpe to flourish.

It’s so easy to point out the human failings of all great men and women.  Those who would destroy America are good at it.  Let’s smother their promotion of false and destructive beliefs with a pride in American inventors and heros.  And let’s start by recounting the marvelous story of Columbus.

And don’t forget that 1492 was also the date that the Muslims were driven out of Spain after 500 years of dominance.  It is no coincidence.

 

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Greedy businessman or community organizer: epiphenomena

Posted on October 3, 2012, 11:17 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

Who will do more harm to America: a greedy businessman or a community organizer?  Since neither address the root cause of American decline, maybe “four more years” could be good.  Maybe all things work together for good.

My Democrat friends are sure that’s true.   They know they are making a valiant stand for a better and more just society.  My Republican friends can only hope the liberals see the error of their ways.  Maybe four more years will finally drive the last nail into the coffin of government by appeasement and for dependents.

The right can hope “four more years” will wake up those mesmerized by hyper-confident folksy preaching with minimal content. Maybe four more years and everyone will realize that a coalition of America-haters, government dependents, and selfish interest groups leads only to ruin for any nation.  Even true-believing interest group bosses can be convinced, right?  Oh how I wish it were likely.

About as likely as a greedy businessmen decreasing his profits willingly or not taking out a competitor when he can.  The greedy businessman sees a declining nation and makes his investments elsewhere, while maintaining control of any aspect of government which could affect his bottom line.

The slick, hyper-confident pundits with blind faith in unregulated markets will never admit they are the cause of the decline of America.  Neither party proposes any significant restrictions on the financial elite which is creating the need for appeasement and dependence.

We are a nation in decline on nearly any standard measurement.  The core beliefs of those presiding over any declining nation are: appeasement of the powerful, government largess for the weak, and faith in the ability of the elite to manage this appeasement/dependency.  As a nation declines, the elite become cynical, contemptuous of the average citizen, and increasingly aware of the power and ability of foreigners.  The average citizen seeks security in a declining country and looks to the government to provide it.   The elite provide bread and circuses to keep the masses happy and get their votes. Rome, various Chinese and Indian  dynasties, Babylon, Byzantium,  and most recently Britain are all examples of how long such appeasing elites and their willing dependents can hold on.

What most miss is: the appeasement/dependency crowd only gains traction when decent middle class private sector jobs disappear.

The greedy financial elite makes almost inevitable the rise of an academic/government elite which espouses dependency and appeasement.  Progressive Republicans once fought against this financial elite and some Democrats still try.   Neither party does.  Both give lip service at election time to fighting, for example, illegal imports, but neither follows through when in office.

Prohibiting imports from illegal and polluting industries is the only way of increasing manufacturing in this country.  And increasing domestic manufacturing is the only way to reverse the economic decline of the country.  But the financial elite doesn’t want to give up their profit centers.  And they make sure neither party does anything to hinder them.

Economic decline will continue as long as it benefits the financial elite.  As long as economic decline continues and productive work does not provide enough income to sustain families, those who espouse assistance from the government will rise in power and influence.   As long as the financial elite can continue to hollow out the manufacturing economy, the more they create dependency on government and empower the academic/government elite which profit from it.

What can halt the codependent dominance of this academic/government elite and the financial elites?  Will the American people realize what these elites have done to the country before the enemy is actually frolicking on Capitol Hill?

Those who doubt the power of these two elites should look at the candidates in this election.  The academic/government elite is the soul of one candidate and the financial elite could find no better candidate than his opponent.   Voting out the appeasement/dependency crowd alone does not solve anything.  They will rise again as the financial elite succeeds in hollowing out the US economy.

Some would love to see the epitome of the financial elite get his hands on the machinery of Washington.  His opponents say: “He’ll destroy important government programs and safety nets!”  ”He’ll destroy the environment!”  And they are probably right.  What they don’t realize is that the success of the financial elite in turning middle class Americans into paupers creates the conditions for the rise of the appeasement/dependency crowd.

To halt the decline of any nation, people must  realize that creation of good paying manufacturing jobs, is the only way to create a sustainably strong economy.  By permitting import of illegal and polluting manufactured goods from countries such as China, we are destroying jobs in the US and creating conditions for the rise of the appeasement/dependency crowd.  Faced with a powerful China and no good private jobs in the US, pushing for government work and appeasing foreigners increasingly will seem to be the only rational approach.

Why support either the result or the cause of America’s decline: the appeasement/dependency crowd or the financial elite? Pray for the emergence of people strong enough to combat both these elites and revitalize America.

Pandering to the lost elite

Posted on September 19, 2012, 4:01 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

One candidate derides the working class as bitter people who cling to guns, religion and racism.  Another says  the lower classes will never “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Their common motto: Extremism in deriding the poor is no vice.

In these comments, we have a couple of rich guys talking to other rich guys and they all agree that poorer people are just not very smart and motivated and pretty much deserve to be and always will be poor.  Both scorn the poor.  One wants to give them government welfare as long as they vote for him.  The other seems to just dismiss them as worthless.

Both our candidates forgot, when they talked to their contributors, what one non-candidate once said:   God chose those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

Diehard Republicans and Democrats will use anything to demonize their opponents.  But the comments reveal a common underlying belief which is far more damning: those who are poor are inferior to us and deserve to be denigrated.

My namesake apostle said it much better:

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom,  because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.

 

Action vs complaint against Chinese imports

Posted on September 18, 2012, 2:35 am, by jimworstell and received Comments Off.

Persuasive speakers know to use action words.  Such is often the case with American Presidents and Presidential candidates who want to appear tough on China.  Both Obama and Romney gave the requisite anti-Chinese campaign speech yesterday.  But unless they manage to reverse history, neither will take any substantive action against China in the next four years.

The last President to really take action on China was Nixon.  At Kissinger’s behest and Deng Xiopeng’s approval, Nixon opened up American markets to cheap Chinese imports.  Every President since has talked tough and acted just the way the Chinese want.   A few greedy American businessmen like that.  They import goods made cheaply by polluting the world’s air and water.  They have gotten rich and most Americans have gotten poorer because American products can’t be manufactured with the polluting methods the Chinese use.

Meanwhile, a few Chinese and the Chinese government have grown rich and the Chinese factories spew out more pollution than the rest of the world combined.  People of Chengdu, one of the oldest and most fascinating Chinese cities, say: “When the sun comes out, the dogs bark.”  The Chinese government has allowed rampant air pollution to block out the sun nearly perpetually in nearly all Chinese cities.  Chinese rivers run red and black with pollution.  The major source of air pollution in many American west coast cities is China.The Scandinavians and Germans, which tough Republicans deride as weak socialists, keep imported Chinese goods at a minimum through tough environmental laws.

If any American President really wanted to help the environment, ease global warming and improve income of American workers, he would stop all Chinese imports until each factory proved it was meeting at least American environmental standards and preferably German.

I won’t spend a lot of time detailing how to implement such a program because no American  President can stand up to the either the Americans making millions on Chinese imports or the Chinese government holding billions of American debt (actually over a trillion US dollars).  Stiff environmental requirements for manufacture of any product entering the US would do more than anything else to heal the planet and improve the American economy.

Anything else we do to the American economy is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  We have a huge gaping whole in the American economy.  Jobs and dollars are gushing out into China.  In return, we all get world-destroying pollution.

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