“God does not call us to be successful. God calls us to be faithful.” Prathia Hall

I learned this wisdom from Prathia Hall, an African-American preacher/teacher/civil rights activist/scholar friend. She was my predecessor in Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. I was also privileged to spend time with her at the end of her life in 2002 when I moved to the Boston area to teach at Andover Newton Theological School. Again, I was arriving as she was leaving.

It was Prathia Hall’s “I Have a Dream” prayer that was the inspiration for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ” I Have a Dream” speech. Prathia Hall was of the generation that cleared away much of the conceptual resistance to the idea of black-woman-as-scholar that made my way in the world easier. She knew from her experience as a trailblazer that the path of progress is long and hard, and that we would have to fight the same battles over and over again. She constantly reminded me that our duty is to keep on keeping on, to be faithful in our love and in our work even though it may not seem at the time that we are having success. The goal is justice, including economic and social justice.

Faithfulness is the steadfast, immovable, determined, loyal, conscientious, commitment to a standard, an ideal, or goal. Many of us who believe in God believe that God, transcendence, Divine Love, compels us to a particular work. We feel an irresistible mystery urging us on. The question for many of us is whether this “call” is from something outside of us, or rather an expression of something within, a deep desire that is also a mystery. That divine command, the imperative placed on our lives, could be a combination of both.

Protesters in Chicago abjam77/Creative Commons

I’ve noticed a meme beginning to fester among liberal insiders who are positing that the Occupy Wall Street movement is starting to “distract” the citizenry from the wicked machinations of Republicans of the legislative class. Nonsense.

The OWS movement is not a distraction from – but serves as an alternative to – the disingenuous theatrics staged by the political hacks of this faux republic. Conversely, movement members have grasped that it is the hollow grandstanding – the modus operandi of the present U.S. political system itself – that serves as distraction from the realities of the day.

Those drawn to the OWS movement realize this: Vast sums of money are required to get the attention of, and gain influence over the entrenched class of self-serving political insiders who hustle their wares in Washington, D.C.

Year after year, election cycle after election cycle, Washington’s political class has revealed whose interests it serves. Accordingly, let the one percent and their political operatives continue on their present myopic, society-decimating course. By doing so, they will just bring more outraged people into the streets and hasten their own undoing.

A take on the pepper spray meme. CC/JoeInSouthernCA

The recent pepper spraying “incident” at the University of California at Davis represents more than an opportunity to create a cleverly photoshopped, viral meme. The act is part and parcel of a larger collective mindset-a proclivity towards authoritarian overreaction now deeply internalized in daily life in the U.S.

To cite only a few examples, by means such as, “zero tolerance” policies in public school systems, to “no knock” warrants, to snooping on and control over employees private lives by corporate employers, to the war on the Bill of Rights that is the so-called war on drugs, to the brutal suppression of constitutionally granted rights to free assembly and free expression by militarized police forces, to the unconstitutional killing of both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals abroad by predator drone attacks-daily existence within the nation has become more repressive, less inclined to the acceptance of the moments of creativity and uncertainty inherent to freedom. In fits and starts, by law and deed, the U.S. has moved closer in the direction of a panopticon-prone, brutality-leveling, waking authoritarian nightmare than a democratic republic devoted to erring in the direction of the ideals of justice and liberty.

As the global economic downturn continues into its fifth year, growing dissatisfaction among the public with our malfunctioning economic system has changed the tone and agenda of American political discourse. A number of economists and commentators are asking questions about the future of that economic system and are considering rather unorthodox approaches to address its current failings. NYU economist Nouriel Roubini recently wrote a piece, “Is Capitalism Doomed?,” in which he claims that Karl Marx was “right in arguing that globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct.” Roubini recommends investment in “human capital, skills and social safety nets” to prevent economic catastrophe, including “unending stagnation, depression … and massive social and political instability.” Writing for Bloomberg financial news service, George Magnus, a senior economic adviser at UBS Investment Bank, says we ought to “give Karl Marx a chance to save the world economy.” He approvingly cites the “paradox of over-production and under-consumption” which roots economic crises in the “poverty and restricted consumption of the masses.”

Magnus agrees with Marx that an economic crisis will erupt when capitalists are unable to sell their goods at their original values because the low wages on the part of workers restrict the volume of commodities they can buy. Every capitalist has an incentive to lower wages because this both increases his individual profit and permits him to invest in additional capital. But, if capitalists as a whole succeed in reducing the wages of workers, then they will be unable to sell the goods that their firms produce. This is the “paradox”: capitalists have an incentive to lower workers’ wages, but in the long run lowering wages undermines the position of capitalists. What secures their conditions of existence has a tendency to also undermine them.

Carwill/Flickr

Now in its eleventh day, there has only just begun to be reports and discussion about the occupation of Wall Street in mainstream media. The reasons are related not to the organizational efforts of the occupiers or their lack of conviction or numbers, but to the relationship between our channels of information, our business and corporate sector and our politically empowered. This begs the question of if instead of Wall Street, the occupiers were gathered in Tehran or Sana, would the news of their demands and challenge of the status quo be included in our mainstream news headlines? The answer is yes. Although the American media did not create the protests or uprisings that comprised The Arab Spring, their attention to the social unrest in the Middle East undoubtedly stoked the determination and numbers of those participating in the protests that irrevocably changed the social and political landscape of the region. It is therefore the responsibility of critical and compassionate thinkers to spread the words and actions of the occupiers – most of whom are college age or in their early twenties and thus the future of the American economy and social fabric.

Glenn Beck supporters gather for his "Restoring Honor" rally on the National Mall on August 28, 2010. Photo courtesy of FlickrCC/theqspeaks.

As one who has been vilified by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, I had to tune in Saturday and listen to his speech in Washington, D.C. (almost as one who cannot help but to look at a car accident as they drive by on the freeway). During his “revival,” Beck gave his usual banter regarding the beauties of Capitalism and runaway consumerism, the dangers of anything with the word “social” in it, and how we should fear the coming financial apocalypse by “battening down the hatches” and “get everything you can while the getting’s good.”

However, it was not his usual verbosity that gave me pause — that caused me to be in “shock and awe,” if you will. It was his statement on civil rights:

We are the people of the civil rights movement. We are the ones that must stand for civil and equal rights. Equal justice. Not special justice, not social justice, but equal justice.

Equal justice? Standing up for Civil Rights? How can Glenn Beck — a man who makes millions of dollars as a purveyor of fear and, in a McCarthy-esque fashion, labeling those who disagree with his point-of-view (including us progressives) as “Marxists” and “Nazis” — even begin to talk about equality or justice while there still exists the poor, the homeless, the falsely accused, and the disenfranchised within our own backyard (much less the world)?

Q: What’s the difference between cheap, clean, plentiful energy from nuclear fusion and the final and utter collapse of capitalism?

A: None. Both are always ten to twenty years in the future.

If we know anything about the Left it’s that it has always seen the failures and brutalities of capitalism clearly, and has always failed to appreciate its adaptability and powers of survival.

Jared Diamond

Now here comes Jared Diamond, the brilliant eco-historian (of Guns, Germs and Steel) whose last message to us was about how civilizations collapse, telling us in today’s NYTimes that big corporations may save us all. What gives? After all, Collapse was a book that nourished the imminent-end-of-capitalism theme in many a lefty’s heart.

You could dismiss this as what happens when a professor who has been immersed for decades in studying birds in New Guinea, and then in thinking big thoughts about how geography does (and does not) determine history, gets lionized in high society and bedazzled by the smooth talkers of the corporate elite with whom he now serves on various high level boards. They do their greenwash talk and hope rises in his chest. After all, the entire title of that book was Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and which of us does not want ours to succeed?

Be my guest if that mode of dismissing Diamond works for you. But it doesn’t for me.

I’ve noticed that increasingly I’ve been getting irritated with friends when they refer to me as “retired”. They seem, fairly enough, puzzled by this. Wasn’t it Peter who held a wonderful online retirement party when he stopped teaching high school in 2003, who happily lives on the pension with which the Ontario Teachers Pension fund continues to supply him, and who collect Canadian Pension payments from the federal government? Most of all it puzzles them because I described myself as retired. And now all of a sudden I’m bridling and sputtering that I’m not retired? How does that work?

I’ve been wondering when Tikkun Daily would start talking about global warming, environmental degradation, resource shortages, etc. I’ve been worrying that maybe I’M supposed to bring up the topic, since I’m the ecofeminist blogger. I’ve even been thinking that all our talk here about other issues is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titantic. And now I know why I haven’t written about the emergency we face.

Today I read “Humanity at the Crossroads” by Graeme Taylor in Tikkun and freaked out. I knew all the facts he collected in his essay, but reading it altogether in one place really got to me. I meditated. And my meditation was interrupted over and over again by fears, fears, and more fears. It IS an emergency we face. We have to change things fast. And that’s pretty darn scary.

But what I realized when I finally took my walk — noticing how summer is sliding into fall, how some leaves are turning brown around the edges — was that “Where there’s fear, there is power/Passion is the healer/Desire cracks open the gate/When you’re ready it will take you through.” Starhawk, probably the best-known practioner of Wicca, wrote this chant many years ago, and it has guided my life through many turbulent times. Usually I need the help of this song when I’m having personal difficulties, but it seems to apply to this much more political situation as well.

Naomi Klein has a fine prophetic piece in The Progressive this month. She laments the economic recovery that is now likely under way, because it is happening before we got around to completely changing our economic system. We are wasting the crisis. As a result full-growth capitalism will resume its destruction of the planet’s ecosystems. But it will happen in a meaner way than before, because it wasn’t just water that was bailed out to save the ship, it was people, and many of them will never recover. Her last word:

Capitalism can survive this crisis. But the world can’t survive another capitalist comeback.

Yes, well. What did we expect?

It seems that what we need are more small and medium scale catastrophes caused by global warming to get us off our backsides. Lacking them, we may slide into the the full scale huge catastrophes that may truly devastate us.

Really Really Free Market in San Francisco

Yesterday I went to the monthly East Bay Really Really Free Market (a.k.a. Hella Free Day), which is on the north side of Lake Merritt. It’s a non-commercial, mutually supportive event. People bring things to share to which anyone is welcome — objects they don’t want anymore, skills, their presence and company. The idea is that through convening non-commercial and mutually supportive events, our social fabric can be transformed — oh yeah, and it’s fun, too.

The Really Really Free website lists some platitudes that express what Really Really Free Markets are reacting to, and what they aim to create. Why have a Really Really Free Market?

Because there is enough for everyone

Because sharing is more fulfilling than owning

Because corporations would rather see landfills overflow than anyone get anything for free

Capitalism is primarily about profit, as we know, and we are in desperate need of a New Bottom Line, which is all about creating a loving and sustainable commonwealth. But let’s first give capitalism its due, and understand why it is so appealing to our spirits as well as our pockets (if we are doing well). If we don’t, we won’t understand its strength.

For a minute, think about the past not the future: the ways the rule of the merchant and moneylender was better than what came before. Comparing capitalism’s bottom line with that of traditional societies dominated by religion, it’s clear the pragmatism of the $ opened up new space.

Example: it was commercial freedom that enabled gay bars, baths, magazines and districts to grow in the relative freedom of great cities (made huge and anonymous by the industrial for-profit economy), which enabled gay culture to flourish. Then it was Disney (of all companies) and IBM who were among the first big institutions to give spousal benefits to same sex partners. Societies run by traditional ideology would not have countenanced that. But a growing number of businesses run by straight people were so unmoved by traditional morality in their business lives, so given over to Mammon, that they actually rented space to gay enterprises, or sold paper to, or advertised in, gay publications (though they wouldn’t have been seen dead in the Castro, San Francisco’s gay district, in their personal lives, nor would they have let gay people into their church).

Substitute any minority status for “gay” above and the same kind of argument can be made. Wages (as opposed to subsistence farming), cities, commercial freedom to expand one’s own meeting places and speech, plus access to the education a commercial society requires: those gave the oppressed a few dollars in the marketplace and space to use them to grow their own cultures. Desire for crass monetary gain by straight white businesspeople helped break down aspects of traditional patriarchy and white privilege. We owe them thanks, don’t we?

Now it’s increasingly clear that the marketplace in religion is breaking down traditional religion itself. People are shopping for elements of religion. Yoga from here, meditation from there, weddings and funerals in church, kabbala for spice. Clark Strand laid it all out this week in a post called “i-Religion: Spirituality as Playlist.” Apparently, it’s all about what religion can do for me, not what I have to do to meet the requirements of my religion.

Me, I don’t know if that’s self-centered and bad, or self-actualizing and good. Most revolutions are paradoxical and two-edged.

But it does all sound similar to the long slow break-up of patriarchy to me: positive in what it makes possible, but depressing in so far as commercial values become the long-term winners. Why did the capitalists allow traditional patriarchal morality and privilege to break down? Could it be because their bottom line didn’t really need it? Was it just a set of prejudices they had that they were actually better off (in dollar terms) without? Yes, they had to be brought into the more equal world kicking and screaming–they are only human after all. But gradually, have they not understood that a true commercial commodification of every part of the people’s life, and absorption of all the smartest business types into running it, is only possible if everyone is equal before the dollar, and equally in thrall to it?

The liberation movements (whether black, gay, feminist, whatever) in their early stages typically embrace ideals of solidarity and dreams of a better world where all people care about each other as worthy for their own sake. But over time as they get their place at the table, and start eating all the goodies on the table, a lot of newcomers tend to mute their wholesale critique of the table, and start looking more and more like the people who were at the table all along. That’s fair: newcomers should not be expected to be more elevated in their ideals and lives than oldsters. I’m a straight white male, one of the oldsters, and hardly a paragon of spiritual activism, so who am I to preach?

But once all the passengers are the same class on the Titanic, it doesn’t mean the Titanic isn’t going down. So after capitalism, we need the caring commonwealth, to save the ship and our souls. And for that, we need to prioritize real caring and other centered and interdependent values in our lives. Will marketed spirituality and i-religion enable that? Or will the market values win, not the spiritual or caring values?