The Christian Role In Toxic American Partisanship

The Article: How Christian fundamentalism feeds the toxic partisanship of US politics by Katherine Stewart in The Guardian.

The Text: Mix It Up at Lunch Day is one of those programs that just seems like a nice thing to do.

The idea is that on one day of the school year, kids are invited to have lunch with the kind of kids they don’t usually hang out with: the jocks mix with the nerds, lunch tables are racially integrated, et cetera. Sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of their Teaching Tolerance division, it arose out of a broad effort to tackle the problems of bullying in the schools and bigotry in society – and it appears to have been effective in breaking down stereotypes and reducing prejudice. Over 2,000 schools nationwide now participate in the program, which is set to take place this year on 30 October.

You can argue about how permanent its effects are, or whether other approaches might be better, but the idea of making new friends in the lunchroom seems utterly benign. Right?

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The Skewed Priorities Of America

It’s a lot easier to pull a trigger than it is to address and improve America’s strained relationship with mental health. For a primary source narrative, check out this great essay in Gawker called “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother“.

Envisioning The Future

Economic ruin, environmental degradation and exploitation. These are some of the many fruits of the capitalistic system.

Six Important Policies Neither Obama Nor Romney Endorsed

The Article: Silences Louder Than Their Words: Effective Economic Policies Neither Candidate Advocates by Richard Wolff in Truth Out.

The Text: This presidential election arrives five years into a severe economic crisis that both Republican and Democratic policies failed to end. The latest unemployment rate (7.8 percent) is not even halfway back to the 2007 level of 5 percent, from the crisis high of 10 percent. Jobs have not recovered, but corporate profits and the stock market did, thanks to huge government bailouts. Average real weekly earnings of most workers fell 2.4 percent from October, 2010, to the present – during what business, media and political leaders enjoyed calling a “modest recovery.” That 2.4 percent real wage drop means that workers lost the equivalent of six days’ wages (one week and one day) per year between late 2010 and now. Income and wealth inequalities thus deepened further across the crisis. No end of these developments is in sight.

Do Obama and Romney (O and R) debate alternative policies to overcome this enduring economic crisis, given the failed policies to date? No. First, they exclude smaller party candidates who do advocate some alternative policies. Second, they exclude key alternatives from their statements and arguments.
Here are a few of those alternative policy options that O and R agree to ignore.

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The Existential Gun Control Debate

Your thoughts?