The Bible’s Bias and Billionaires

I grew up as an Iowa farm boy in the late 40's and 50's.  I was raised in what we considered to be a very conservative family.  Things were different back then.  Conservative meant responsibility for family, community and nation, and for following the Bible.  Good Christians were those who worked hard and shared their often meager resources with neighbors and also strangers in need.   "Gay" meant happy and none of us kids knew what an "abortion" was.   People seemed much less interested in the sex lives of others.  Maybe we were all so busy on the farm that there wasn't much time for speculation.  It could also be that we had a different standard about what was just none of our business. 

It seems like more recent conservative preoccupation with these personal issues has led us off track.  When you read the New Testament it's easy to see that a bulk of admonitions and guidance are related to social justice and care for vulnerable families, not reproductive issues.  It concerns me that we allow the modern conservative movement to claim that the biblical prohibitions against homosexuality and abortion are to be government enforced by public law when they comprise so few verses.  Then the same groups claim that the extensive Biblical exhortations for a fair economy, to treat the poor with compassion and justice, are none of the government's business but to be performed by private charities. 

 

The American Bible Society has recently published "The Poverty and Justice Bible" as a companion to its new translation, "Contemporary English Version." A total of more than 2000 verses are highlighted, condemning cheating the poor, unjust wages, and greedily depriving the earth, animals and workers of their God-given right to Sabbath rest. These highlighted scriptures promote God's way of doing economics and government, calling humankind to repent and work out God's salvation. The Bible's agenda of poverty and injustice thus competes with the modern Christian agenda based on microscopically fewer words. Human survival, as well as that of our families and nation, depends more on obeying God's dominant moral teachings, as written. That's been my opinion for decades. I know this opinion runs against that of most conservatives today, many I consider good friends. So I was astounded to read a NewsMax article last week shaking my perception that modern conservatives have abandoned the Bible's dominant agenda.  

 

Conservative media sources, led by "NewsMax," have discovered that Wall Street has conned both political parties into legislating a deregulation regime, creating an unprecedented wealth gap in our economy, and bringing our nation to the brink of economic disaster.  Check out this enlightening article: "Nobel Economist Steiglitz: Wealth Gap Causes All of America's Woes. " I was surprised at the apparent abandonment of their pet trickle-down economics.  It seems that modern conservatives are starting to accept that accumulation of wealth among a few is not what creates a common good strong enough to meet needs of our poorest citizens. 

 

Steiglitz makes a powerful point that inequality has always been justified based on the concept that people with the most money actually create wealth for others.  The recent financial crisis has clearly illustrated this to be a myth.  Those who brought the economy to ruin are the same people who have walked away with billions of dollars. Welfare corruption at the bottom end of the national wealth spectrum doesn't hold a candle to the taxpayer paid excess going to the top end. Here in Big Horn County, we'll be paying the bill to recover from their greed for generations.  I doubt those with the money will be doing anything to stimulate our economy.   Is there hope for change this election year? My guess is our burden will continue of working hard to pay both our own living expenses and simultaneously that of America's richest corporate class's excesses. Maybe it will be eased slightly if the Democrats win this November.  I only wish the Republicans would seize the moment and make this a big difference with the Democrats. It's a simple matter of siding with the 99% of us, which would scare the Democrats spitless. It would be an impossibly huge policy change, wouldn't it?

 

Let's hope realists in the conservative camp, like those exploring these issues cited in the Steiglitz column, don't get debunked, branded liberal class warfare extremists, and silenced by the big money media censor mill. From my own conservative roots, I claim their findings as squarely in the center of the conservative philosophy into which I was born in a farmhouse in Iowa in 1942.

 Here's Steiglitz, featured in NewsMax, from his new book, "The Price of Inequality," referring to the major 2008 meltdown, and inadvertently reflecting the Bible's prominent agenda in America today: 

"It may have been a prosperous two decades. But it wasn't like we all shared in this prosperity.

"The financial crisis really made this easy to understand. Inequality has always been justified on the grounds that those at the top contributed more to the economy — 'the job creators.'

"Then came 2008 and 2009, and you saw these guys who brought the economy to the brink of ruin walking off with hundreds of millions of dollars. And you couldn't justify that in terms of contribution to society.

"The myth had been sold to people, and all of a sudden it was apparent to everybody that it was a lie.

"Mitt Romney has called concerns about inequality the 'politics of envy.' Well, that's wrong. Envy would be saying, 'He's doing so much better than me. I'm jealous.' This is: 'Why is he getting so much money, and he brought us to the brink of ruin?' And those who worked hard are the ones ruined. It's a question of fairness."

As quoted in the newsmax link: Nobel Economist Stiglitz: Wealth Gap Causes All of America's Woe

Or try this link: http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Stiglitz-wealth-gap-inequality/2012/08/09/id/448084?s=al&promo_code=FB98-1

These new (to conservatives) ideas are the focus of a video by Newt Gingrich, Lou Dobbs and others marketing a new investment strategy to maintain personal wealth in this ruinous economic environment. So one can watch the video with either the goal of protecting ones' six figure investments, or with the goal of understanding and remedying the growing citizen suffering for these errors (sins?) in our national governance, both by the elected government and the governing business sectors.

The video presenters have chosen the first goal. But Steiglitz and these conservative leaders are now at least acknowledging the foolish and immoral errors causing our American problem of poverty and injustice. That's the focus of the Bible too, but with healing and hope instead of protection of personal wealth. Read the Bible for the one side, and watch the video for the other.  Either way, it's time the truth gets out on what's wrong with our economy today.  http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/dr-krugman-schools-flabbergasted-rand-paul-govt-employment-going-down-under-obama?akid=9369.144927.vOoj86&rd=1&src=newsletter707734&t=3

On the same lines, here is Jeremiah Goulka. He writes about American politics and culture.  His most recent work has been published in the American Prospect and Salon.  He was formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation, a recovery worker in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. He has recently switched from committed centrist Republican to the Democratic party. Read this link and wonder: Could the above information bring him back to the Republican Party fold?  http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/political-awakening-republican-i-had-viewed-whole-swaths-country-and-world-second?paging=off

David Graber

Hardin, MT  59034

graberdb@gmail.com

www.greenwoodfarmmt.org