Letters from Kamp Krusty

New Advice Columnist! It's "Ask Jim Wallis"

Kamp Krusty welcomes new advice columnist Jim Wallis, of Sojourners!

Q:  Jim, I've noticed my family is having a difficult time making financial ends meet lately.  I'd like to get a new truck, but my wife says we may have to cut back first.  What do you think? -- Strapped in Spingfield

A:  Dear Strapped:   For too long, right-wing Christians have equated their political agenda with God's.  But the prophets of the O.T. made it explicit:  The United States' federal budget must include ever larger increases for education and welfare payments.  It's great to be "pro-life", but it's about time we understood that being truly "pro-life" means rejecting the idea that God somehow endorses a political party.  But He does lean Democrat.

Q:  Jim, my son is planning to marry a woman with serious health issues.  It may even be terminal.  Shouldn't he wait for a more thorough diagnosis before this decision? -- Worried in Waukegan

A:  Dear Worried:   For too long, right-wing Christians have equated their political agenda with God's.  But the prophets of the O.T. made it explicit:  The United States' federal budget must include ever larger increases for education and welfare payments.  It's great to be "pro-life", but it's about time we understood that being truly "pro-life" means rejecting the idea that God somehow endorses a political party.  But He does lean Democrat.

Q:  Jim, my father has abused my mother for years.  It's tearing us apart.  She says divorce should never be an option.  What do you think? -- Concerned Daughter

A:  Dear Concerned:  For too long, right-wing Christians have equated their political agenda with God's.  But the prophets of the O.T. made it explicit:  The United States' federal budget must include ever larger increases for education and welfare payments.  It's great to be "pro-life", but it's about time we understood that being truly "pro-life" means rejecting the idea that God somehow endorses a political party.  But He does lean Democrat.

Confidential to "Abused Spouse in Tulsa":

For too long, right-wing Christians have equated their political agenda with God's.  But the prophets of the O.T. made it explicit:  The United States' federal budget must include ever larger increases for education and welfare payments.  It's great to be "pro-life", but it's about time we understood that being truly "pro-life" means rejecting the idea that God somehow endorses a political party.  But He does lean Democrat.

Let's Hear It for the Me-Meister

They say you can't "love the sinner, and hate the sin."  It's not possible.  If you love someone, you cannot hate how they are to themselves or others.  If you love someone, you must accept the entirety of who he is.  All of it.

As a scholar, equipped with (that's right) a Bachelor's Degree from a Fully-Accredited Institution, I humbly, respectfully, and collegially submit: 

Bull.

Proof?  Exhibit A:  Me.

I hate some of the ways I am, and some of the things I do.  I hate, hate, hate it.  I do not approve.  I cast aspersion.  I think I'm a moral mess.  I should wear the scarlet alphabet, plus some scarlet numbers and maybe some scarlet wingdings.

...but I don't hate me.  No, I'm pretty taken with me, actually. 

I loves me some me.

In spite of my moral failures, in spite of my sin, I still manage to want what's best for me.  I'm rooting for me, big time.  I'm in my corner.  I'm on the me bandwagon.  I carry around a picture of me in my wallet.  I hate some stuff I do, some ways I am, but I'm here to tell you, I still manage to pray for blessings to be poured onto my head.

If there's one person whom I know is a real selfish jerk, it's Me.  I can't know your motives, but I know Me, and I can manage to come off unselfish for selfish purposes.  I know it, you know it, the American people know it.  And you know who I'd like to see win the lottery?  Me, of all people!

Figure this:  There's only one guy whose moral failings are amply displayed in front of me every waking moment.  And I actually put that guy's pants on for him every day.  I shop for him.  I pay for his entertainment.  I try to make him look nice.  I floss his teeth.  I take him to the bathroom.  It's way gross, but I want this guy to succeed.  I'm apparently pretty taken with him.

Yep, love the sinner, hate the sin.  Sounds not only tenable, not only do-able -- it's almost like breathing.

What's Up? Religious Conservatives and Animal Welfrare? Wha?

Those who know me will laugh that I even write this, but those who don't know me don't know it, so I'll say it: 

I'm not a liberal.

What do I believe in, politically?  Here you go:  I believe, with all my heart, in...the miserable failure of ideology. 

Ultimately, this makes me some kind of conservative.   I know this from my time as a talk radio host.  I didn't set out to be "conservative", I'm just going to be considered one.  I'm too pro-science to be pro-choice, and I'm too anti-poverty to be flatly anti-capitalist.

So when I write in support of animal welfare, I'm not coming from where you might suspect.  Don't put me, or in your -- or Rush's -- neat category.

A concern for animals stems from a biblical worldview.  And yet, evangelicals in this country consistently position the welfare of animals against that of other vulnerables, unborn baby humans.   Yes, legal abortion-on-demand is hideous on every level.  It does not follow that we shouldn't care about animal cruelty. 

In fact, it follows that we should. 

Remarkably, we frequently hear about how a child's cruelty to an animal is an indicator of abusive tendencies, ones likely to manifest, or already manifesting, in abuse of humans.  What about cruelty to animals, writ large, by a whole society?  Might that not be reflective of a merciless, selfish, me-first, convenience-idolizing, turn-and-look-away culture?  Sound familiar, fellow pro-lifers?

Come to think of it, the two issues are very entertwined.  Consider the euphemisms heavily employed by both industries, the constantly changing terminology, the de-humanization of the human, the de-pigging of the pig.   

And they meet at a deeper level.  Just as both industries are equipped with vast lobbying resources, both are buttressed with the most powerful human force of all:  the conscience.  The conscience tries desperately to justify what we've already done, and are doing, particularly in arenas like sex and food.  To assuage our guilt, we develop intricate moral "codes" that happen to allow for what we're already doing.

That's why, if you're sexually involved, outside of marriage, you'll fight and scrap and intellectualize -- anything -- to make the dissonance go away.  It may even mean divising a counter-intuitive and counter-logical system that means there's probably no God, anyway.  If it means compartmentalizing to the point of mental illness, you can do it.  You can eventually kill the conscience.  Mission accomplished.  Same thing with food:  You had a diet plan, but justification narratives positively leap out of your head when you approach the Drive-Thru window.  Hey, Wednesday's a special day, so I'll supersize the...

If you dare read what's happening in factory pig -- excuse me, "hog" -- "farms", you will have dissonance.  And justification narratives will jump to the fore.  And, honestly, if you've got a good one, a justification that takes, I'm all ears.  I loves me some bacon. 

Just -- please -- make sure it's better than, "But those animal rights people are crazy, and..." or, "But abortion is far worse, and..."  C'mon.

I'm a conservative who love his bacon, but I'm trying to be a man who also loves mercy.

Moral Majority, Rest in Peace

Give the guy some credit.

Agree with his particular policy prescriptions or not:  Jerry Falwell blazed a trail, in endorsing specific political measures as Christian, aligning with one party, conflating particularistic interpretations of, say, tax policy, with Jesus' agenda for the world, and openly identifying his movement as the truly moral one.   

The trail blazed, notables follow. 

Tony Campolo, Al Gore, Jim Wallis...there are many who come to mind.

Toxic Culture

Britney Spears is out of rehab, yet again, after what the news calls her long stint of "erratic behavior".

Here's what I know without trying, thanks to our culture:  Weeks ago, she shaved her head, gained weight, didn't buckle her child in safely to a car seat, and generally acted far-out.  Late night host Craig Ferguson even said he wouldn't joke about her anymore, someone so clearly messed up should not be his targets.

Uh, America?  Britney was already messed up.  Long ago.  Healthy women do not kiss Madonna on live national TV.  Healthy women do not parade themselves sexually, with a live snake, on MTV's music awards.  Healthy women do not sell themselves as sex objects at all.  Many, many women find their value in public displays of sexuality, but healthy ones?  They just don't.

They call the new Picard 'do a cry for help.  I think posing naked on Rolling Stone was a cry for help.

But we like that.  So we don't call disorder for what it is, until it rears its shaven head.

Fact is, American pop culture loves dysfunction, provided it's sexual.  We applaud it.  And that's why, if Britney is a tragedy -- and she is -- everyone who's applauded her, approved her, emulated her, bought her stuff, concocted ludicrous feminist theory celebrating her public sexual expression?  All guilty, and no less dysfunctional than she is.  (And by the way:  Celebrating the destructive disorder of others is not compassion, and refusing to celebrate others' self-destruction is not hatred.)

I see the headlines scrolling by when I'm on the treadmill.  Just in the past week:  Halle Barry says she tried to commit suicide.  Anna Nicole Smith's death was prompted by nine prescription drugs.     And Britney's family is officially split, her divorce final, while friends worry she's suicidal.  That's last week, and I don't even pay attention to celeb news.

We applaud the publicly sexually-disordered, all the way to their graves, as long as it turns us on.  Then we write "Candle in the Wind", and plaintively wonder what went wrong.  Who saw that coming?

Britney was messed-up long ago, but we loved it.  The real tragedy, to us?  She gained weight and cut her hair.  Now -- she's crazy. 

People Who Pretend to be Other People Have Fun Night!

The people who pretend to be other people gave themselves some awards last night!

And let me tell you something:  The people who pretend REALLY like Al Gore!  The people who pretend said Al Gore is pretty awesome! :)

The people who pretend are pretty upset about the whole world getting too hot, and we're all going to die  :-0

They weren't happy about that.  Our lives of consumption are catching up to us, they said :( 

One lady had a pair of shoes that cost a million dollars with diamonds!  I hope you saw those!  I did! ;)

But the people who pretend were happy that their award show was  "going green"! :)  I thought their limos were super-neat!!!

A guy named Leo DiCaprio, who pretended he was pretending to be "the King of the World!" once, said he also thinks Al Gore is super-double-DUPER neat!

I like how all the pretending people believe the exact same thing!

Kamp Krusty Announces: The ONE (Professor) Campaign to End Poverty

Food for thought, from my venti coffee cup:

The measure of genuine civilization, it has been said, is the quality of life for a nation's poorest and least privileged people. By that measure, we are barbarians. Our current level of inequality cannot be justified or sustained.
--Robert W. McChesney Author, media critic and professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Amen, Professor.  I don't know if he wrote that from his University office, or from his own home in the leafy, Urbana, Illinois neighborhood that we wanted to live in, but couldn't afford to. Doesn't matter.  What is noteworthy is that we have become like those barbarians, who were apparently chiefly noted for their inequalities of income. 

He's right.  But we need to think globally, too. That's why I'd like to propose a new global ONE campaign, a ONE campaign that ends poverty in Africa, one professor at a time.

The ONE (Professor) Campaign to End Poverty

Yes, this can work.  According to the American Association of University Professors, there are 122,000 full professors in the U.S., and nearly 200,000 more assistant and associate profs.  According to the ONE Campaign, if we give $25 bilion to Africa by 2010, we will reduce poverty by half!

The great news:  If American professors give half their gross income for just five years, that's $59 billion dollars -- enough to nearly completely wipe out poverty in Africa!

Yes, that's sacrifice, but not much, really.  Professor McChesney, for instance, hates inequalities, and surrendering half his income will still leave a gaping chasm between his lifestyle and the typical African's.  (Full professors in the U.S. make, on average, $95k per year.  Associates make $67k, assistants $56k.)  His lifestyle would yet be comfy, if perhaps less, relatively, kingly than the one he currently can lead.

It's a simple solution.  It will set a great example for all of us.  ONE professor at a time, ONE commitment to lifestyle change for the poor, and poverty is history.  This will likely mean fewer trips to Europe, yes.  And, in high cost-of-living areas, like Manhattan, forced experiences in communal living, eschewing the bourgeois concept of "private property."  Utopia!

Sure, this does involve a bit of sacrifice, which is somewhat foreign to the original ONE Campaign.  (Click here and see their "action" points, involving such sacrifices as wearing a cool wristband.  Orlando Bloom, does, you know.) 

There is, of course, this small matter:  The ONE approach doesn't tend to, you know, "work".  But let's set that aside for now.  This is simple.  ONE professor at a time, backing up her words with action, eradicating nearly all poverty in Africa by the end of 2010. 

There is reason for concern.  Professors tend to be liberals, and political liberals just aren't generous.  They like to keep their money.  They like nice things, and wind up conserving more stuff for themselves than, say, conservatives.  But when given the opportunity to make a difference on this scale, you know they'll put their dollars where their coffee cup quotables are. 

If they don't, well, we'd have to suspect they really don't believe what they're saying.  Say what you want about Ted Haggard, but he says he's sorry.

After all, making an actual, longitudinal, hope-inspiring difference in the life of a child, through already-existing, grassroots structures run by nationals?  That's thirty-two hard-earned dollars a month.  But "standing up for justice"?  It's priceless.  Literally.  It doesn't cost anything.   

And I know our academics will more than take a stand.  They're no barbarians.  I, for one, welcome our new leaders-by-example, and salute them.

Must-Not-See TV

I won't be watching tomorrow night.  There are two reasons for this:

1) I'm completely turned off to politics, Republicans and Democrats, all, and

2) I can't remember what #2 was.  Make that one reason.

I do think, if you're committed to the Democratic Party view of life, it'll be kind of good news/bad news.  The good news is that more Democrats will be in office come January.  The bad news:  America will still be a sovereign nation for at least awhile.  So it's mixed.

Reporters are wondering if more conservative Christians are turned off from the political process, and from my vantage point, they certainly are.  After years of introspection on might-making-right, many on the Christian Right no longer see politics as a be-all, end-all.  This is good news for those on the Christian Left, who still do.

The abortion issue is not what it was.  I mean, it still is what it was -- violent, unjust, unmerciful to the most vulnerable -- but more and more evangelicals consider it an issue on par with, say, auto emissions.  The central ethical/scientific argument over abortion (Is is human life?) is long over (ultrasounds seem to suggest it's not, say, canine life) but it's just not an issue for the hip.

Ditto for marriage.  If you want a ticket directly out of the hip church crowd, say you're voting for someone because the candidate wants to keep marriage as a coherent legal concept.  There's a high price to pay for its loss, certainly, but we've readily paid the price before for sexual liberty.   Like writer P.D. James says, it's not the adults who pay that price.   And the others can't vote.

There will be silver linings for conservatives.  A resounding Democratic Party resurgence to power might lead to op-ed columns that actually branch out from the standard template of "Aren't Christians stupid/easily-led/idiots/ignorant/racists/fools/hicks/unfashionable/repressed/simpletons?"   Might.  Maybe.

We won't get an immediately-coordinated campaign alleging widespread voter fraud.  Reverse the outcome, and we will. 

Also good:  Democrats in power will actually spend less than Republicans. 

If Kansas votes for the enlightened, we wouldn't get another What's the Matter with Kansas?, asking how dupes could possibly ignore their pocketbooks, and instead vote on values issues.  What kind of truly evolved American would vote according to convictions about issues instead of what lines their pockets? 

Maybe we'll be spared that.  Probably not.  Intellectual energy is tough to recover.  I know this first-hand after Xboxing.

I might TiVo NBC.  I like it when Tim Russert uses that marker-board thing. 

Everything I Needed to Know About the World I Learned from the New York Times

1.  There is no such thing as "evil".  To use the term, or make similar moral denunciations, demonstrates a lack of nuance, and what the French call a "simplisme" that belies the importance of myriad contextual considerations in evaluating human moral behavior.   

2.  George W. Bush is evil.

Theocracy Watch!

Given the raging concern regarding the contemporary perils of Christian theocracy, I thought this blog would be an excellent place to keep you, the fair-minded, Global Citizen reader, up-to-date on the very latest regarding the Christian theocracies in the world. 

Through education and activism, we can convince these countries' leaders to change their laws that restrict religious conversion from Christianity, break into non-Christian worship gatherings with armed soldiers, torture non-Christian religious leaders, and imprison those who criticize Christianity! 

Here's the latest on all the existing Christian theocracies around the world:

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