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01.26 Local Democrats Invited to Brainstorming Session on Sun., Jan. 31
Ref. : Local Newsbriefs
02.04 'The Power of Nightmares': Underwear vs. Reason
Ref. : Letters to the editor
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries
02.03 Drugmaker Got Kickbacks for Nursing Home Patients
01.18 Drugmaker Got Kickbacks for Nursing Home Patients
02.04 Err-America
02.03 The Right Gets Itself 'Wired'
Ref. : The Daily Howler
01.25 Thinking About Fictions
01.24 US Democracy's End of the Road
01.22 Editorial: U.S. Supreme Court Nails Down the Coffin of Democracy
01.22 Security Fools
02.09 Palin, Psy-Ops & 'Condescending' Libs
02.09 Growing Hunger in America
02.08 The US Government has Lost its Reason for Being
02.08 Thinking About Oracles
02.06 No Direction Home: Pakistan and the Imperial Principle
02.04 Howard Zinn and the State of the Union
02.04 The US Supreme Court: Vanguard of Friendly American Fascism?
02.04 The New War Against Money
02.04 David Brooks Goes After Greedy Geezers
02.02 Obama's Budget Ducks Pentagon Cuts
02.02 Budgets, War and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite
02.01 Thinking About Definitives
02.01 Remembering Howard Zinn (1922 - 2010)
01.29 American History 101: We Are Devo
01.29 Obama's Outreach to Americans: Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual
01.28 The Supreme Court's Partisanship
01.27 Freeze Frame: Flopsweat and Farce in the Hollow Halls of Power
01.25 Granny D on Campaign Finance Reform
01.25 S.C. Republican’s Plan: Starve the Poor So They’ll Stop “Breeding”
01.23 It's Time for Kucinich, Conyers, Feingold and Other `Progressives' in Congress to Take a Stand
01.21 Massachusetts' Message of Stupid
01.21 Terrorism Defined: Bill Clinton Lights Our Way to Truth
01.21 How Obama Lost His Way
01.21 Political Earthquake Rocks Massachusetts
01.20 Obama Cuts Deal that Will Reduce Social Security, Medicare and all Entitlements
01.20 Critical Mass: Dem Agenda Opens Right-Wing Doors
01.19 Outsourcing War: The Rise of Private Military Contractors
01.25 The Silence and the Shield: Depraved Indifference to the Atrocities of Power
01.19 Dark as a Dungeon: A Brutal System Stripped Bare
02.07 AIG-Gate: The World's Greatest Insurance Heist
02.06 The Free Market Fetish
02.04 The Crisis is Not Over
02.03 States Face Worsening Recession with Health Care Funds on the Chopping Block
02.02 Rule by the Rich
01.29 The Battle of the Titans: JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs
01.27 State of the Union: Obama’s “Automatic IRA” Plan Could Make Bush’s Wildest Dreams Come True
01.26 Obama, Read Your Reagan on Capital Gains Taxation
01.24 Funding Public Health Care with a Publicly-Owned Bank: How Canada Did It
01.18 Thinking About Accelerants
02.08 Aafia Siddiqui: Victimized by American Injustic
02.07 Annals of Liberation: Obama Surge Driving Thousands From Their Homes
02.05 Human Rights Abuses in Israel and Occupied Palestine
02.03 Child Slavery in Haiti
01.30 Blood is His Argument: Tony Blair's Gentle Cuddling at Iraq "Inquiry"
01.28 Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning
01.27 Haiti's Earthquake: Natural or Engineered
01.26 Helping Haiti’s Elders
01.26 Focus on Israel: Harvesting Haitian Organs
01.25 Focus on Haiti: Washington's Militarized Takeover
01.22 The Lessons of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
01.18 Disaster Capitalism Headed to Haiti
COMMENTARY:
What Ann Coulter Would Learn If She Actually Studied the Bible
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.”
A wise choice on Ann’s part. There’s nothing in the Bible to comfort a free-marketeer who believes society magically benefits from his wealth, or someone looking for a portrait of Jesus as a moral crusader. Open up the New Testament, and what you actually find is this socialist-sounding claptrap about loving your enemies, and your neighbor as yourself.
How disheartening that must have been for our intrepid commentator. What’s more, America's basic tenets, the right to a government that does not encroach on personal freedom, the individual's right to pursue happiness, “let a man live his own life,” are not in the Bible. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Not at all. It’s just not appropriate to doll them up in church language. I think Thomas and Benjamin and George would agree with me.
Now, Ms. Coulter may feel a little uncomfortable roaming around the Good Book to support what she’s saying, but me? I got noooo problem with it. The Christian’s first religious duty is to help the poor:
Jer. 22:3. Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
Is. 58:10. "And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday.
Luke 12:33. "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys."
Luke 6:20-21. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
Is. 58:66ff. Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Mt. 5:42. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
Yes, I’m a wild-eyed liberal, and I go to Bible studies, fairly fundamentalist ones, at that. And contrary to Coulter’s book, liberals are not bent on transforming America into some sort of pan-sexual Amsterdam. We don’t preach abortion as birth control, nor do we think the ACLU should busy itself with protecting quirky behavior at the expense of common sense. We don’t think courts should take over the rightful role of parents, and surprise, surprise, our opposition to the war in Iraq is just as motivated by the death of American soldiers as it is by the death of Iraqis.
That Bible study I go to represents a spectrum, where we each place differing emphasis on private vs. public morality. You might say a liberal Christian places more emphasis on decisions made as a society: “We ought not to go to war.” “We ought to take care of the poor,” whereas a conservative Christian shifts the emphasis to private life, “A woman ought not to have an abortion.” “A man ought not sleep with another man.” But these are not absolutes. There are plenty of conservative Christians who think Bush’s policies in Iraq are disastrous (it makes it harder to preach the Gospel abroad), and quite a few liberals who don’t appreciate seeing women on TV parade around in their underwear.
Of course there is a division in society, a divide along church and class lines that Coulter’s writings help to foster, but it is not a natural one. First, a little background:
What caused the division was urban migration, but mostly, the Scopes Trial. The attorney that prosecuted the Tennessee science teacher for teaching evolution was William Jennings Bryan, three-times presidential candidate and the greatest orator of his time. A fervent Christian as well as an early believer in a world body to arbitrate disputes, he was appointed Secretary of State under Wilson, but resigned to protest the growing drumbeat to enter WWI. His Cross of Gold speech is considered to be one of America’s top oratory masterpieces. Bryan’s faith represented the prevailing “pitchfork populism,” that put justice and morality on equal footing, and was broadly represented across America.
But when called upon to prosecute Mr. Scopes, Mr. Bryan was clearly past his prime. During the trial, he frequently sounded befuddled. The science was a little above him, and his opponent was the sharp and urbane Clarence Darrow, who was content to let Bryan’s ignorance do the talking. The trial, broadcast daily over the newly-minted medium of wireless radio to an audience of millions, left a bad taste in people’s mouths. Mr. Darrow, with his big-city arrogance and snobbish condescension, appeared to take pleasure in publicly humiliating a great American icon, smirking while a hero twisted in the wind. Mr. Darrow lost that day, won on appeal, but lost the hearts and minds of regular Americans. Pretentious, know-it-all book-learning had bested simple heartland faith. But the Scopes Trial was only battle one of what we now call the Culture Wars.
Seeing Coulter’s books for sale makes you wish humans were born with a built-in crap detector, something inside us that buzzes when commentators use phrases like, “they always,” “they never,” “they all hate America.” At such times, it should kick in: “What do you mean ‘all’? Where did you learn that? How many liberals have you really met, sat down with and talked to?”
There exists reasonable commentary that suggests American supremacy is not such a horrible thing, just as there are books on my side of the fence that warn of America’s conservatism without sounding like some goofy spy novel. One thing’s for sure. Our nation is at a crossroads, at a critical juncture deserving of better guidance than Coulter’s simplistic rants.
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This story was published on July 28, 2006.
