Politics
Entries related to things political.
100 Days of Political Gratitude
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/17/2014 - 19:50The other day, I was talking with a friend about political campaigns and social media. He commented that all he was seeing in a specific candidate’s social media political posts was negativity. I see a lot of that as well and it struck me that perhaps what is needed is politicians who will post for 100 days, things they are grateful about.
There are less than 80 days left until this year’s election, so even doing it until election day would be a big thing. Such posts could reflect the values of the candidates in a much more beneficial manner.
The 100 days of gratitude, or sometimes 100 days of happiness is a popular challenge going around the internet right now, so making it 100 days of political gratitude isn’t a big stretch. Also, with the ice bucket challenge going around right now, social media challenges appear to be the thing, although I know some are beginning to weary of such challenges.
So, to all my friends running for office this year, are you up for a 100 Days of Political Gratitude challenge?
The Undoing Racism Challenge
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/17/2014 - 13:42It may be that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is close to running its course. More and more, I see people criticizing it, asking not to be tagged, etc. A friend who runs a rescue farm wrote about not having time, ice or money, and I thought, we need a farm chore challenge. Muck out a stall, feed some horses, and share a video of it online, or contribute to an animal rescue.
It made me think of another challenge, which I’ve been trying to get a chance to write a few thoughts about for the past couple weeks, the 100 days of gratitude challenge. One such gratitude I might post is about being able to safely let my twelve year old run around outside after dark with friends screaming and laughing and having fun. Not everyone gets to do that. In fact, far too few people get to do that.
It made me think of my friends who have black kids and the talks they have to have with their kids.
Today, another friend posted, “I love that the ALS challenge is capturing attention, wish we could create a Michael Brown Challenge....” Many friends replied and I started to reply there, but I thought it might be better as a blog post.
The power of the Ice Bucket Challenge is that it is something lots of people can participate in and share virally. Many of us may be too cash strapped to be able to contribute to the ALS Association, but we can at least help share the message with a video. What might be a good simple thing many people could do to help spread the word about undoing racism?
Since I had just gotten home from church, my thoughts started off in that direction. The church I currently go to is very diverse. It is one of the things I love about my church. However, at other times, I’ve attended churches that are very homogenous.
I remember years ago, when I was in college, a friend of mine invited me to go to church with him. We walked along the road together, and a car pulled up and asked if he was going to church. He said he was and that I was coming with him. We both climbed in the car and headed off to church.
As we walked up the steps, Ronnie introduced me to many of his friends. One, an older woman, looked me over closely and said, “I’m surprised you want to come to church with us.” I looked at her, puzzled. “Really?” I asked. “Why?” She got all flustered and apologized and said maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. I looked around for a clue as to what that was all about, and it slowly occurred to me. I was the only white person there.
During the service, there was a time for guests to get up and introduce themselves. I felt awkward and insecure as the eyes of a hundred black churchgoers looked at the only white person in the congregation.
For me, a white person who was not accustomed to being in the minority, it was an enlightening experience. I wondered if that was how some of my black friends often felt.
My first thought was that the undoing racism challenge for white folks might be something like going to a setting where they experience being in a minority. Yet getting people to take pictures of that and share it online might be a challenge, limiting the potential to go viral.
Instead, what if we made it simpler. Post a picture of yourself hugging someone from a different race or ethnicity and challenging your friends to do the same, and then perhaps attending some sort of undoing racism training or contributing to an organization aimed at undoing racism.
I realize it isn’t much of an ask, and I can imagine some of my racist friends who talk about how even one of their best friends is black, might participate to convince themselves they aren’t racist, but it is small enough and simple enough to be doable.
Thoughts?
Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 07/16/2014 - 09:37Today, I submitted a comment on the FCC website concerning proceeding 14-28, Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet.
I wrote
To the extent that the FCC is accepting comments on Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet via the Internet itself, it would seem that the Internet is a core part of our democratic process that should be protected against discrimination or allowing one group of persons perferred access above and beyond another group of persons. As such, it seems obvious that the Internet must be considered a common carrier and any efforts to give one group of persons perferred access such as faster delivery of packets, is determinental to our democracy.
For more information about submitting comments, see How To Tell The FCC Exactly What You Think About The Proposed Net Neutrality Rule.
The FCC has extended the filing deadline since the amount of comments they were receiving crashed their website.
Hobby Lobby and the Church at Laodicea
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/06/2014 - 09:04Last Sunday at Church, the priest spoke about the challenges mainline Christians have today. In our modern secular society, we don’t talk about religion, except for talking about the extremists, whether they be Muslim extremists or Christian fundamentalists. God call to us to love everyone created in God’s image too often gets lost. A friend had shared that last Sunday was #SocialMediaSunday and so I was sharing posts about the service online.
I thought of my friends who are people of faith online, some Christian, some Muslim, who often share their belief online, not as an effort to proselytize, but as living examples of being in a loving relationship with God, Allah, and the people around them. People who share prayer requests as well as moments of sadness and moments of joy.
At coffee hour, I talked with a friend about the Church in Laodicea. I’ve always been struck by Revelation 3:15-16.
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
Has the mainline Christian Church in the United States become too much like the Laodicean church? Neither cold nor hot, afraid to offend members of secular society, or become too much like the extremists?
I thought about this when I heard about the Hobby Lobby decision. It has been a major topic amongst many of my friends online. One of the first articles I read was about how the decision was bad for religious people in the United States. It increases the power corporations, which do not have souls, over the people of the land in the name of religious freedom. It casts religion in a more negative light for many. In such an environment, it becomes more difficult, and more incumbent for mainline Christians to stand up and proclaim the Gospel of God’s loving kindness to all God’s people. I believe that showing God’s love is the deeds that Laodicean church lacked, and the real lukewarm church of modern day are those, like the people at Hobby Lobby who use their religion as an excuse not to show God’s love to all people.
This came home to me recently when I read a comment on Facebook. Middletown, CT Mayor Dan Drew shared a link to an editorial in the Middletown Press, "Increased patrols in Middletown show proactive approach". One person commented "Why'll your at it keep those freaking crazy Muslims out of Middletown."
Mayor Drew responded, " I feel badly for you, Mr. Salonia, because you're guided by fear and xenophobia. Judge people by how they treat others - not by their religion. There are billions of peaceful Muslim people throughout the world. Instead of fearing the "other," let's remember our common humanity and the fact that we all have so much more in common than not. I hope and pray that you find it in your heart to love rather than hate. We are all brothers and sisters."
I do not know Mayor Drew’s religious beliefs, but I find his words more in line with my understanding of God’s call to us than the actions of the folks at Hobby Lobby.
Independence and Interdependence
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/04/2014 - 10:53We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
Happy Independence Day. The past few weeks have been fairly trying and I slept late this morning. When I awoke, I glanced at a couple discussions on Facebook. My eldest daughter was asking if believed there could be such a thing as a just war. Friends were discussing the implications of the Hobby Lobby decision. There is probably enough material in the Hobby Lobby decision for several blog posts, so I’ll save that for a later day.
Tomorrow, Mairead will be a facilitator in a discussion, “America and Japan: Talking About Peace” in Kobe Japan. She says that “probably the reinterpretation of the Japanese constitution to allow for collective self-defense will be a big topic”.
As we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence today, I suspect many would suggest that was a just war. To the victors go the spoils of war, and after the fact, I suspect most Americans believe the revolution was a just war and a good thing. However, this does not seem to have been the thinking in colonial times.
The most common piece of evidence cited in numerous books about the Revolution is a letter of John Adams indicating that one third of the Americans were for the Revolution, another third were against it, and a final third were neutral or indifferent to the whole affair.
See more at: http://hnn.us/article/5641.
I’m interested in genealogy and know that I have ancestors that fought on both sides of the war. So, how do we determine if this, or other wars are just? Perhaps a useful, but maybe slanted viewpoint can be found in the section of the Declaration of Independence quoted above.
While we call this the Declaration of Independence, it is really talking about our interdependence. Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, to protect our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The problem is that one person’s pursuit of happiness may threaten the life, liberty of pursuit of happiness of others, so we need to seek ways to find balance between different peoples pursuit of happiness.
Those supporting the revolution felt that King George’s pursuit of happiness, for himself and his friends, was done at the expense of the colonists, that the form of the British Government had become destructive to the rights of the colonists.
A just war, would then be considered a war that seeks to protect the rights of the oppressed. Those arguing for war are bound to frame their arguments in this context, even if the war is about land or access to natural resources, and both sides will try to wrap themselves in the mantel of protecting the oppressed.
In all of this, it seems like the underlying issue is not individual independence, but corporate independence, the independence of one group of people from another group to find ways to work together to protect the interdependent rights of all the individuals in the group.
Unfortunately, too much of the American dialog these days is about individual independence at the expense of the individual independence of our family, friends and neighbors. I hope that as people in Japan think about collective self-defense, they focus on what they are defending and whether or not such a defense is truly justifiable.
