Christianity and Communism

An excerpt from Milan Kundera's The Joke:

"Of course the Communist movement is godless. Though only those Christians who refuse to cast out the beam in their own eye can blame Communism itself for that. I say Christians. Yet where are they? Looking around me, I see nothing but pseudo-Christians living exactly like unbelievers. But being a Christian means living differently. It means taking the path Christ took, imitating Christ. It means giving up private interests, comforts, and power, and turning toward the poor, the humiliated, and the suffering. But is that what the churches were doing? My father was a working man, chronically unemployed, with a humble faith in God. He turned his pious face to Him, but the Church never turned its face to my father. And so he remained forsaken amidst his neighbours, forsaken within the church, alone with his God until he fell ill and died.

"The churches failed to realize that the working-class movement was the movement of the humiliated and oppressed supplicating for justice. They did not choose to work with and for them to create the kingdom of God on earth. By siding with the oppressors, they deprived the working-class movement of God. And now they reproach it for being godless. The Pharisees! Yes, the socialist movement is godless, but I see in this a casting of divine blame on us, on Christians. Blame for our hardheartedness toward the poor and suffering.

"And what am I to do in this situation? Should I be shocked at the drop in church membership? Should I be shocked that the schools are bringing the children up in an antireligious frame of mind? How silly! True religion does not need the favour of secular power. Secular disfavour only strengthens faith.

"Or should I fight socialism because we made it godless? Sillier still! I can only lament the tragic error that led socialism away from God. All I can do is to explain this error and work to rectify it.

"In any case, why this anxiety, brother Christians? Everything that happens happens according to God's will, and I often wonder whether it isn't God's design to let mankind know that man cannot sit on His throne with impunity and that without His participation even the most equitable order of worldly affairs is doomed to failure and corruption.

"I remember those years when people here thought they were but a few steps away from paradise. How proud they were: it was their paradise, they were on their way to it with no need of anyone in heaven above. And suddenly it melted away before their eyes."

Why I Write

I thought I had something to share with you, but I have encountered a block. This happens to me frequently. I can never seem to find the right words to express myself. This isn't a fun thing to experience. I can't even write properly, I feel like such an idiot, and in my home, my sanctuary, no less. Imagine how I feel while in the wilderness. Imagine how stupid I feel when I can't string together a sentence while speaking with my boss or my colleagues or anyone I meet, for that matter.

- pause -

If I met you for the first time, you wouldn't hear very much out of my mouth. If you asked me a question, you would hear half a sentence repeated three or four times because, the moment you put me on the spot, three or four variations of the same phrase race through my head and I can't decide which one to use. As you can tell, this doesn't make for very good boardroom talk, nor does it work very well at any social gathering.

Everything has to be delivered fast. Society doesn't have time to sit and wait for you to illustrate your point. If you can't outdraw your opponent, you can forget landing that job or winning her affection. It's back to the closet for you, young man; you simply can't keep up. Image is everything, and yours just isn't up to snuff.

Maybe they're right. Maybe I am stupid. The race is over before I can complete a single lap.

This is why I sit alone on the computer and write. I write because I'm lousy at talking.

Homelessness Revisited

Pathways to Housing was established in 1992 to do what no government of ours - we're more or less America Lite - has been able to do in recent memory: provide homes for the homeless. You can read Mother Jones' interview with Dr. Sam Tsemberis, founder of Pathways to Housing, here. Oddly enough, Dr. Tsemberis happens to be my mother's first cousin, although I have never met the man himself, but I digress. I wish to share some of Dr. Tsemberis' remarks:

"We were trying to get them into housing programs, but there was a huge wall because the housing providers wanted people to be clean and sober for a period of time. They wanted them to be taking medication. The homeless people were somehow supposed to be stabilized before programs would even consider them to be eligible tenants. And these are program that were designed to house the mentally ill! But with so many homeless and mentally ill people and so few program slots, the housing providers have fallen into the habit of picking from among the applicants the ones who were the best tenants. And we couldn’t persuade, beg, or in other ways entice the providers to accept these referrals."

...and...

"You can’t really pay the rent with a minimum-wage job. Minimum wage has not kept up at all with the cost of living. People are making six and seven dollars an hour where just to be able to afford a place you have to be making 12 or 15. So a lot of the people who are working at the minimum-wage jobs, even with two jobs, have a hard time paying the rent, especially if there are kids involved –- they need a bigger place."

...and here's the kicker...

"All you need to solve homelessness in the country is about $10 billion; you would solve homelessness permanently in the country."

Ten billion dollars is all that's required to ensure every last person in the United States has a roof over her or his head. Ten billion dollars - roughly two percent of the annual national defence budget - is all it will take. Two percent of what America spends on death can literally save millions of lives in its own backyard, but don't tell the Republicans or the Democrats, as they need every last red cent of your tax dollars to maintain the Empire in all its misery.

I wish America's Uncle Sam was a lot more like my Uncle Sam.

Only when you stop worrying about who you're supposed to be will you learn to have faith in who you are.

Having been raised an Orthodox Christian, I have had my faith tested frequently during my short time on Earth. As a lad, I was taught that the Church was the only path to righteousness, that getting dressed in my Sunday best and making a weekly pilgrimage to the altar to pray for my own salvation was key to being a good person.

Having been brought up in pristine Suburbia, I was taught, both by my elder family members and the scholastic system in which I was being groomed, the virtues of having a job paying well enough to afford a mortgage on some property, on which I could have a large house and multiple automobiles in the driveway, and that all I needed to achieve nirvana was to attain superior grades, get myself a degree and adopt a clean-cut, business-friendly image. I was taught by many of my peers that, if I lacked charm, decorum and a zest for the fruits of popular culture, no one who mattered would accept me, nor would any woman sleep with me.

Since time immemorial, society's educators have shaped young minds to conform to what it feels to be the ideal. These young minds are trained to view parents, teachers, employers and clergy as the authority on what constitutes "right" and "wrong", on what it means to be an upstanding citizen in the community. As I near the end of my twenty-seventh year as a human being, I reflect on my upbringing, on the upbringing of my peers, and am left to ask the following:

How many have taught us to have faith in ourselves?

Society thrusts its ideals upon us because it feels we are too dumb to know any better. We're taught to discard our hopes and dreams and fall in line, else face the consequence of being left behind in the rat race. My parents and educators sang my praises after seeing a string of "A" and "A+" values on my report card and felt I had a promising future of amassing capital for myself. What those closest to me slowly realized was the fact that I had no faith in myself to do anything of value with my life. What many of them fail to see, to this very day, is the fact that rarely did I receive any words of encouragement to dissuade me from believing I was capable of nothing beyond the status quo. People around me were determined to fit me into a mold while I was trying desperately to break free from it, and I do not doubt for a millisecond that many others can attest to my sentiments.

I say forget what society thinks we should be! If we are destined for a role on this planet, let us be masters of said destiny! Neither the Church, the State, nor the Family provides us with the knowledge to assess "right" from "wrong"; life does. We know we value life enough to not want another to take it from us, so we do not harm nor kill. We know we value life enough to want a helping hand when we are down, so we assist those who need it. We know who we are; more importantly, we know who we are not, and, for the vast majority of us, we are not what society believes we should be, seeing as how society grooms us to kill and maim in the name of its ideals. We are caring, compassionate people who wish to love and be loved, but end up becoming products of our cruel, repressive environment.

Let us live!

The Phoenix Rising

Chavez to seek unlimited terms in elected office

Each day I see Mr. Hugo Chavez in the news, I grow more concerned over what "utopia" means to him. Already, I've learned of his plan to nationalize the Venezuelan economy, not that I'm sad to see the defeat of Capitalism, but does anything really change for the people under Communism? All that happens is the transfer of power from the wealthy to the State; in essence, the State becomes the lone corporate entity, its citizens act as employees. The State needs to stoke the economic fires somehow, add to that the need to address the inevitable military threat of the global business community.

All ideology aside, alarm bells ring when I hear talk of abolition of term limits in office. I hope he's right when he says, "If the majority of the people reject it, I will be the first to applaud that. The important thing is that the people will make the decision." I hope the people are able to make an informed decision. I hope, for everyone's sake, this isn't the road to have himself declared President for Life. While I'm glad someone has the chutzpah to take on the corporate hand, I worry when an individual or small group of individuals wields great power. I think I'll be dead in the ground before a politician earns my trust.

Particularly worrisome are mentions of "pass[ing] bills by decree to accelerate economic reform", "state property", and using Marx, Lenin and the Bible to model his Paradise. That's right; the peasants will cease tilling corporate land for alms and begin tilling State land for the same alms, while their garnished resources will be used to fund the arsenal necessary to defend the State's vast oil wealth. And, after reading the Book of Genesis, I learned how women use cunning and deception to make up for their physical weakness, thus it is best to keep them subservient to the ever-virtuous, ever-righteous men, so imagine what the Bible will do for society. Behold: "socialism Venezuelan-style".

The people may have elected the man, but they don't make his laws. We here have elections, and look where they get us: forever controlled by a State for sale. I don't mean to negate the good that has come out of this movement, but we all know what power does to people. I'd like to believe this isn't the case here, that the people will have enough faith in themselves, in each other and in the collective good to keep the elite in check, but I'm often let down.

Mr. Chavez has to decide if he favours the people over his power.

Another Victim of the Heavy Artillery Economy

By now, many of you have learned of the shooting death of Darrent Williams, a defensive back with the Denver Broncos and a rising star in the National Football League, cut down at the age of twenty-four, meaning I have already outlived him by two years. Jemele Hill, in a column written for ESPN, highlights the alarming trend of Black youth in America dying violently, citing popular culture's love affair with the "gangsta" lifestyle as the primary culprit.

As I was reading Ms. Hill's piece, one particular statement jumped out at me:

"While America is generally a violent place, no culture in this country glorifies violence more than the African-American community."

I can state, with confidence, that this assertion that African-Americans stand second to none when it comes to "glorifying violence" is incorrect, to say the least. You may say differently when you see 50 Cent rhyming about bitches and guns on MTV, but, last I checked, Black men didn't flood the market with firearms, nor do they have the ultimate say on what constitutes MTV's content. Sure, the White establishment may have a few Black foot soldiers among its ranks, but it remains the White establishment.

Still not convinced? Then riddle me this: who waged war on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan? Who was the authority on the various overt and covert operations usurping heads of state overseas, designed to expand America's economic and strategic interests? Who slaughtered this continent's indigenous population upon its arrival? Black people? Are Black people supplying each other with handguns in the streets of any American city and assault weapons in most of Africa? Are Black people supplying the "free world" with the latest in intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology? How about advanced fleets of aircraft? Yet Black people are the ones "glorifying violence"?

The way I see it, the death of this young man sums up the plight seen by America's impoverished Black youth: the only ways out of the slum are through a record contract, a sports contract or a gun. Forgive me if I painted too broad of a stroke while trying to make sense of this situation, for I am not a Black man, nor did I grow up in poverty, but you can appreciate why I say society is such that only the hustlers get ahead. To simply cite the Black community for allowing machismo to speak on its behalf, to indoctrinate its young minds, does not begin to address the issue at hand, for this economy depends on the spilling of blood. As long as journalists such as Ms. Jemele Hill choose to draft puff pieces in order to prolong a lucrative career writing for the elite, youth of colour will continue to kill each other in the streets of America, as they are doing to each other all over Africa, as they are doing in Afghanistan, in Iraq and throughout the world, so that the White establishment can continue to sell guns.

Darrent, as I said before to Ms. Jane Creba, may you one day rest in peace.

Requiem for the Dying World

I closed the book on 2006 in the same manner I end every day - since I did not matter to the world around me, I thought I'd boycott the latest in its series of empty holidays. Fuck it, I thought, I'd rather drink myself to sleep than have spoonfuls of your "Happy New Year!" shit shoved in my face and be expected to smile as I swallow each one. Good riddance to another shitty year on the calendar!

I entered 2007 as I have entered each day as of late: fully-clothed under a blanket having to pee in the wee hours of the morning. Failing to return to my state of slumber, I stumbled down to the living room and threw myself into a daze before a variety of late-night televangelism. Why sleep when you can rejoice over the coming Year of our Lord! My housemates were certainly rejoicing, or, for those whom society rejected, were trying. As one of them wished me a happy New Year, I, too, wished we could finally see a happy one.

After finally being able to amass some sleep, I managed to drag myself outside to bask in the spring-like January weather - these are fine days to be making your living outdoors! For some, the party was still going; for others, it showed no signs of slowing. After many hours of many days mulling over the state of the world beyond my immediate field of vision, there they were, staring me square in the eye, the cracks in my own foundation. My own world is sliding into chaos, and every one of us is laughing all the way down.

Today, this first day of the new Year of our Lord, number Two Thousand Seven, is not a happy one, nor should it be, for the world is dying. We can spend year after year celebrating the night away to forget, but the world will continue to die. Over the course of my twenty-six-and-three-quarter years among the living human beings, nary a single happy New Year has been seen by our species as a whole, yet each and every year, I have been led to believe this next year will be joyous. Judging by the few people on this planet who cared for my company last night, no matter how loud I scream, the jet-set status quo wishes to spend yet another year as such.

New Year. Same old shit. Let the grieving continue.