Is it time for the Year of Jubilee?

I don't pretend to understand the economy. But about a month ago, John Stewart of The Daily Show had what I believe is a rather brilliant idea- a Trickle Up Theory. Rather than giving all this money to the banks, why not give it to those who owe money? The money could only be used to pay off their debts to the credit card companies and banks. The banks are happy because they have the money. The people are happy because they have less debt, or no debt.

Strangely, there's been very little discussion of this proposal- even to refute it as outlandish and stupid. Gwen didn't really respond. A segment on Gwen Ifill's show, Washington Week, repeated Stewart's suggestion, but without comment. A search of the web for "John Stewart" and "Trickle Up Theory" provides only 31 hits, and most of those are simply blogs like this one. For some reason the talking heads aren't discussing this. If it was a bad idea, you'd think they'd at least point out why it's a bad idea. Of course, if it's a bad idea for those in power, they wouldn't be talking about it.

We have here a unique opportunity. We have a president currently who is one of the most devout Presidents in recent memory, squarely grounding his beliefs and policies in the politics of Jesus, namely social justice. He is perhaps the first President to not be raised in a Christian home, but to have had a conversion experience as an adult, and he came to that place through his commitment to social justice while a community organizer. So this proposal is right up his alley.

There was this idea among the ancient Hebrews. It was installed to keep those in power from taking too much power, to stop the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few, to give rest for the people, to give them hope that they would not all their lives be in slavery or debt. It was a recognition that economics and justice are intimately connected, and was to take place every 49 or 50 years, depending on how you read the instructions. It was called the Year of Jubilee. And from the best of our records, it was never actually put into practice, save perhaps once, under King Josiah.

There were a number of aspects to this year. For our interest, you were not to permanently sell the land, for it belonged to the Lord. Every 50 years, if land had been sold since the last Jubilee, it reverted to the previous owner, if he'd been unable to buy it in the interim. On the Year of Jubilee, all slaves were to be released, for slavery at the time often occurred because a man had lost all his money, and had no other way to sustain himself. It is in this context that the Hebrews were counseled not to take advantage of their countrymen by charging interest on loans. Later, Deuteronomy expands on the Jubilee notion, suggesting that every seven years, all debts are to be released and forgiven! Most scholars believe this was what was referenced in the central notion of Jesus' ministry here on Earth, when he gave out his great mission statement, that he had come to bring release to the captives, good news to the poor, and, using the code words, "the acceptable year of the Lord's favor".

Now, obviously, our culture is significantly different from that of the ancient Hebrews. But is it truly too much of a stretch to suggest a resetting of the clock? In a land where we have never had a Year of Jubilee, is it too much to suggest that we now have a modified form of this, but in a capitalist manner in which everyone gains? The banks want their money, and they need it to remain viable, that we can continue to have any economy at all. We get that. But the people need not only money, but spending money, that they can continue to put that money into the economy and invest it. Without the people, the economy collapses as well. Let us then apply this rather central Biblical concept, and give the money to the banks, by eliminating the people's debt. Let us truly now do something new. Let us be the change we have been looking for.

Yes, we can.

How Can She Fool Everyone?

Hillary has managed to convince, it seems, the entire nation. Again and again, working class whites are voting for her, because she's one of them. She speaks of not accepting money from large donors. And she has convinced the nation that Obama is an "elitist".

But this is a woman who regularly accepts money from lobbyists, unlike Obama, who everyone acknowledges is the first viable candidate in American history to accept money only from small donors, and never from lobbyists (except as individual contributions).

This is a woman who, with her husband, is worth 100 million. This is not to say Obama is poor- but being worth millions is different from being worth tens of millions. Indeed, Obama is the poorest of all the top Democrat and Republican candidates in the race to date, and got his millions only in the last few years. I'm not saying Obama is poor, or even close to it. But how does a woman who has 100 times the money get off saying the less wealthy guy is less in touch with the working class?

Perhaps it's their histories. Perhaps one of them grew up poorer, and that's how Hillary is able to say this.

From Wikipedia:

She was raised in a United Methodist family, first in Chicago, and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.[1] Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a child of Welsh and English immigrants who managed a successful small business in the textile industry.

Not a wealthy lifestyle, to be sure. Not poor either. More...middle class.

How about Obama?

Obama wrote his first book, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, before he was in politics. Lest you get confused, the inheritance he gets has nothing to do with wealth.

He states:

A few months after my twenty-first birthday...the apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn't work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.

Later Obama shares of growing up in Indonesia, where the family was not the poorest of the poor, for they had their own house- but certainly would be considered poor by American standards. He describes the people around him:

I didn't tell [Grandma] and Grandpa about the face of the man who had come to our door one day with a gaping hole where his nose should have been: the whistling sound he made as he asked my mother for food. Nor did I mention the time that one of my friends told me in the middle of recess that his baby brother had died the night before of an evil spirit brought in by the wind -- the terror that danced in my friend's eyes for the briefest of moments before he let out a strange laugh and punched my arm and broke off into a breathless run. There was the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came, the stoop in their shoulders as they wandered barefoot through their barren, cracked fields, bending over every so often to crumble earth between their fingers; and their desperation the following year when the rains lasted for over a month, swelling the river and fields until the streets gushed with water and swept as high as my waist and families scrambled to rescue their goats and their hens even as chunks of their huts washed away.

Obama's experiences are not that of a typical American, middle class or even working class. Perhaps some in New Orleans can relate, but for most of us, what he's experienced, what he's seen, is a level of poverty far lower than the poor of America. Obama may be out of touch, not because he is too elite, but because most Americans have experienced and seen less extreme poverty than he has!

And not to take delight in his relative poverty, but if Clinton is going to take out the measuring stick, does she have some sort of comparable experience in poverty when she was also nine years old? Or at any time growing up in suburban Illinois, is there something that would help her more greatly identify with the plight of the poor and working class?

I have no disagreement with the concept that Hillary did not grow up in the upper class. I affirm that she's solidly middle class in upbringing. And Obama is working class, in upbringing. Sadly, in this election, as in all others, we again and again hear about the needs of the middle class, and the working class, who do not vote in as large numbers, get ignored. And so Hillary can get off with saying she is in touch with voters and not elitist, because she grew up middle class.

What about his experiences makes Obama elitist? What could Hillary possibly be referring to?

One gets a sneaky, very disturbing feeling that it's because of where Obama went to school - Harvard (like Hillary's Yale). That's a fairly elitist school. But if so, then what she objects to is when those of the working class pull themselves out of their situation through hard work and education.

Long before this controversy came up, I liked Obama for many reasons. One was that, for the first time in a long time, I felt like here was a candidate who could identify with the situation of the lower class. I'm lower class, and proud to be so. I want a candidate who can understand it. I want a President who understands what it's like to try to make ends meet. I want a President who has a heart for the poor and the disenfranchised. I do not want a candidate who tries to put one over on the lower class, thinking we are all rubes, and will believe her when she says she's in touch with us because she grew up with more money than we're likely to have, and now has tens of millions more money than we'll ever have. I do not want a candidate who will call me elitist because, though I grew up in poverty, I went to a good school. Hillary Clinton, start speaking Truth.

12/9/07

I think it's important to speak truth. To do it parabolically, and provocatively, as Jesus did, so that people are willing to think new thoughts.

I used to have a beautiful green Hyundai, covered with bumper stickers. I had to give it up when I went to Morocco. But through the wonder of photos, I was able to retrieve all of my old bumper stickers, and then some. (Minus the one that said, "Reelect Gore in 2004.") And I was worried there wouldn't be room on the back of an American car- but I've even got space for two more!

A silver T-Bird just doesn't scream Abdul Muhib. But this back does. Now my baby's got back.

Some bumper stickers I just couldn't find, like one saying President Obama. But that's the magic of Makestickers.com. (Thank you Anne!)

Since you can't see some of them, I'll translate with hovertext:

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Hard to get ΙΧΘΥΣ with feet. Unless you write it in with white-out.

I got inspired from some of the posters I've been putting up for my church, and created a couple others at Make Stickers.com. I could choose between a picture of Bush or Ossama. I went with this- I think we have a greater need to see an Arab Muslim terrorist as in the image of God.

I do believe that we should be willing to speak the truth of love, even if there is danger involved. And that, far too often in America, we stop in speaking the truth because we are concerned with fitting in with the culture. Yes, we should do that- but in form alone. Our content should be that of the Kingdom. And there is, I firmly believe, less persecution in America because we have been less of the Church. If the blood of the martyrs is truly the seed of the church, then woe to that church that no longer is willing to pick up its cross.

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This isn't about being killed. It's about following Christ- which must involve the willingness to potentially face the ultimate sacrifice, and the ultimate reward.

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So, I've been having a contest, to find out which of these will get me killed first on the freeways. Also, what the date will be. You can't take Dec 9th- I've already got money on that one. Winner gets my life insurance policy.