Progressive Ponderings: How Can We Be Silent?
by Joe Mayer
"How can be we silent as we turn our eyes away and ignore the poor and broken who lie bleeding in the street? How can we be silent when we're called to serve in the image of Lord Jesus, who has stooped to wash our feet?" This we sang, the third verse of an unfamiliar hymn, at our Sunday service yesterday. So appropriate, I mused, as we Americans transition this week from our Olympic sports entertainment to our Olympian political extravaganza – politics as entertainment.
How can we be silent when the tasers have been purchased, prison space expanded, judges ready to meet concerned citizens practicing their rights to petition their leaders clothed in moneyed campaign-cloth?
How can we be silent when truth is the victim – when lies suffocate politics, untruths precipitate war, science goes on sale, advertising hides dishonesty, media propagates profit?
How can we be silent as we recognize the secrecy of rulers, a secret National Security State, the secrecy of quid-pro-quo lobbying, the secrecy of money flying borderless and moral-less throughout our vast expanse?
How can we be silent in a nation that is corporatized, when a government has been privatized, when the courts have blessed with "personhood" the corporate monster that devours our resources, -- that buys, betrays, threatens governments and multi-locates to the four corners to dominate its human creators?
How can we be silent as our waters are polluted, our air defiled, our soil depleted, our resources privatized and exploited, our planet raped for profit and our heirs left to bear the passion of our theft?
How can we be silent in the mounting inequality; the division of humanity by sex, race, culture, wealth, location, religion, legal status, hierarchical systems – all based on learned and inflamed prejudices?
How can we be silent as fear and hate are used to divert taxes from human needs to a military/industrial/empire-building complex, sowing discord and suffering for profit and for power?
How can we be silent as we see eviction and foreclosure, rising unemployment, inflation, falling dollar, trade imbalance, starvation, homelessness, healthcare crisis, loss of foreign admiration and support, failing infrastructure, energy crisis, global warming denial, debt, debt, debt, war, war, war, and more.
How can we be silent when most religious leaders are silent?
How can we be silent?
"How can be we silent as we turn our eyes away and ignore the poor and broken who lie bleeding in the street? How can we be silent when we're called to serve in the image of Lord Jesus, who has stooped to wash our feet?" This we sang, the third verse of an unfamiliar hymn, at our Sunday service yesterday. So appropriate, I mused, as we Americans transition this week from our Olympic sports entertainment to our Olympian political extravaganza – politics as entertainment.
How can we be silent when the tasers have been purchased, prison space expanded, judges ready to meet concerned citizens practicing their rights to petition their leaders clothed in moneyed campaign-cloth?
How can we be silent when truth is the victim – when lies suffocate politics, untruths precipitate war, science goes on sale, advertising hides dishonesty, media propagates profit?
How can we be silent as we recognize the secrecy of rulers, a secret National Security State, the secrecy of quid-pro-quo lobbying, the secrecy of money flying borderless and moral-less throughout our vast expanse?
How can we be silent in a nation that is corporatized, when a government has been privatized, when the courts have blessed with "personhood" the corporate monster that devours our resources, -- that buys, betrays, threatens governments and multi-locates to the four corners to dominate its human creators?
How can we be silent as our waters are polluted, our air defiled, our soil depleted, our resources privatized and exploited, our planet raped for profit and our heirs left to bear the passion of our theft?
How can we be silent in the mounting inequality; the division of humanity by sex, race, culture, wealth, location, religion, legal status, hierarchical systems – all based on learned and inflamed prejudices?
How can we be silent as fear and hate are used to divert taxes from human needs to a military/industrial/empire-building complex, sowing discord and suffering for profit and for power?
How can we be silent as we see eviction and foreclosure, rising unemployment, inflation, falling dollar, trade imbalance, starvation, homelessness, healthcare crisis, loss of foreign admiration and support, failing infrastructure, energy crisis, global warming denial, debt, debt, debt, war, war, war, and more.
How can we be silent when most religious leaders are silent?
How can we be silent?
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