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I Owe
Posted by: Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches
on May 7, 2009
So, as a matter of conscience, I keep trying to put my finger on what is so off-putting to me about the Washington policy consensus or “governing agenda” as the centrists so grandly refer to it. I am speaking, of course, of the mildly progressive governing agenda that many ostensibly progressive religious folks have become heavily invested in: a soupçon of policy change here, a dollop of personal behavioral change there, and the festering wounds of the nation will have been magically healed.
What grates about the centrists, I have concluded, is not their sheer windbaggery but the small-change nature of what they have in mind in relation to the big-change agenda that the predator class was able to push through during the past four decades.
Moyers on Bailout
Watch the conversation with William K. Black who gives his analysis and critique.
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I Owe, Therefore I Am
Posted by: Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches
on April 6, 2009
It’s been a long time since anyone paid attention to old Ben Franklin’s preachments on fiscal prudence:
“If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.” “Never forget that credit is money.” “Necessity never made a good bargain.” And my own personal favorite: “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.”
Why the long inattention to basic precepts for wholesome living? May I suggest that apart from finding beady-eyed, thrift-obsessed old Franklin somewhat repulsive today, it is also the case that we also no longer inhabit his mental world in such a way that anything he might have to say about credit or debt makes any sense.
I owe, therefore I am.
That has been our new reality for some time. The question is: how did this happen and who, if anyone, is to blame?
Our Vision:
As Progressive Christians Uniting fulfills its mission, individuals and communities grow more deeply in faith, find strength in one another, and build the prophetic movement for social transformation.
Possibly you saw the photos this past week of the White House meeting between the President and the CEOs of a number of leading credit card companies. It was a classic White House photo op, only something went badly wrong. Mr. Obama’s senior economics advisor—Lawrence Summers—sat in on the meeting and occupied the far end of a table that had Obama sitting directly across from the lenders as he lectured them on their responsibilities. And Larry Summers was visibly sleeping during the meeting.
Our Debtor’s Prison: Progressive Faith vs. Organized Money
by Peter Laarman
