Hey, Zeus, Christos

We just finished watching ‘I, Claudius’ on DVD, and now are trying to complete season 4.0 of Battlestar Galactica before the next episodes start on Friday. An interesting narrative thread that runs through both is the division of their respective societies into polytheistic worship of ancient (Greek) gods, and monotheistic worship.

Just in time I read a post on GetReligion, linking to a two year old article in the Guardian:

‘…It was high noon when Doreta Peppa, a woman with long, dark locks and owlish eyes, entered the Sanctuary of Olympian Zeus…To the astonishment of onlookers, Peppa also began babbling Orphic hymns, before thrusting her arms upwards into the Attic skies and proceeding, somewhat deliriously, to warble her love for the gods of Mount Olympus. But, then, for the motley group of modern pagans coalesced around the temple's giant Corinthian columns, this was a special moment. Not since the late fourth century AD, when the newly Christian Roman state outlawed all forms of pagan worship, had a high priestess officiated on the sacred site.

Armed with white doves, Peppa, a former advertising executive, was not going to hold back - even if it meant defying the furious Greek officials and riot police gathered at the second-century temple's gates, unwilling to stop the ceremony for fear of provoking a violent confrontation. "Sixteen and a half centuries is a very long time to wait," she said. "After so many years of Christian persecution we were finally able to call on Zeus, our king-god, to bring peace to the world ahead of the [2008] Olympics. For us, it was a very, very big thing."

So big, that like a thunderbolt from the deity himself, the one-hour ceremony has achieved the near-impossible task of unnerving Greece's powerful Orthodox church. Since Peppa's performance 10 days ago, hierarchs have redirected the venom they usually reserve for homosexuals, Catholics, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, masons and the "barbaric" Turks at the "miserable resuscitators" of the degenerate dead religion. In fire-and-brimstone sermons priests have slammed the "satanic" New Ageists and fulminated against their idols…’

While this sounds like something out of ‘American Gods,’ the YSEE, an umbrella organization that represents groups seeking a ‘restoration of the Polytheistic, Ethnic Hellenic religion,’ is trying to promote religious freedom in Greece, a country overwhelmingly run by Orthodox Christianity:

‘…For years, we the Ethnikoi Hellenes, i.e. contemporary Greeks who still respect and honour the rites and beliefs of our ancestors, the Hellenes, remained stoically patient when faced with the systematic (and not at all coincidental), negligence and degradation of our monumental and living ethnic heritage by a "Greek" State, which is obviously enslaved by an economico-religious giant whose cultural and logical interests promote the open scorn for our real (i.e. pre-Christian) ethnic Tradition…

Under this new and terrifying reality that we all see being formed against real Hellenism, and as none of the State Officials supposedly responsible for its protection seem sensitive enough, personalities from the community of the Ethnikoi Hellenes have decided to found the Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, which shall aim at the protection and restoration of the real (pre-Christian) Hellenic Tradition. We shall work by all legal means necessary towards awakening the Greek people and securing respect, survival, natural and moral protection, restoration and honour of our monuments, symbols, ideas and living forms of ancient Hellenic Tradition in the forms of cosmoperception, philosophical thought, political perception, ethnic religion, arts, morals and customs, language, mythology, symbols etc…

…Honour and Glory to our Ancestral Gods’

Looks like the Old Gods are fighting back. With the help of a former advertising executive.

Election

I meant to post these, oh, say, two weeks ago when it actually happened and was more timely, but I’ve been rather busy with all of this school and work stuff going on. But the above are shots of the line I stood in for 2 ½ hours to vote. My normal wait time has been 15 minutes or so; this time the line went out the door, down 6th Avenue, around the corner down Berkeley, and down to 5th Avenue, around the corner and towards Lincoln. It’s about a fifth of a mile.

What was also amazing is that the line was there just because of turnout. No problems at the polling place (it was all running relatively smoothly), just tons of people coming out for their franchise. And no one was discouraged by the line. They just got a cup of coffee and a paper and waited along with everyone else.

It’s been hard for me to get motivated about all of this, I confess. While I eagerly hoped that now President-elect Obama would win, most of my wish was based on a fervent desire for Senator McCain not to win. My aspirations for the next presidency have been simply a ceasing of the idiocy and destruction of the previous eight years of kleptocracy. In short, to stop digging the hole. I place no hope, however, on getting the hole filled in – I’m far too much of a cynical realist for that. I would love nothing more for a progressive agenda to be enacted, but that aint gonna happen.

And behold today: Senator “Obama is a socialist” Lieberman gets to keep his Chairmanship. Here’s the fun quote:

‘…Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."…’

Wazzup!!!

More of This, Please

The above is a speech Richard Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, gave back in July to the United Steel Workers. Mr. Trumka is a third-generation coal miner from Pennsylvania. Watch the entire thing - it's powerful.

One Nation, Under God

The debate's tonight. And just in time, Jeff Sharlet gives us a little update:

'...In 1932, James A. Farrell, president of US Steel, tried to persuade then Governor Franklin Roosevelt that economic depression was “caused by disobedience to divine law,” and that the only cure was a mix of spiritual revival and unprecedented powers for corporate leaders. In 1936, Frank Buchman, the founder of the Moral Re-Armament movement—a network of upper crust Christian clubs—announced, “Human problems aren’t economic. They’re moral, and they can’t be solved by immoral measures.” He suggested instead “God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy.” Bruce Barton, a founder of advertising giant BBDO and the author of one of the 20th century’s bestsellers, The Man Nobody Knows (it was Jesus, whom Barton proposed as the greatest CEO in history), won a seat in Congress in 1938 by proposing to a nation battered by unfettered capitalism that it “Repeal a Law a Day.”

The most influential of these businessmen for God was a Norwegian immigrant named Abraham Vereide, founder of an annual ritual of piety and politics that survives to this day, the National Prayer Breakfast. In 1935, Vereide created a “fellowship” of Christian businessmen bound together by the idea that God hates government regulation because it interferes with a believer’s ability to choose right or wrong. He found receptive audiences in private meetings with Henry Ford and the president of Chevrolet, Thomas Watson of IBM and representatives from J.C. Penney. By 1942, he’d moved to the capital, where the National Association of Manufacturers staked him to a meeting of congressmen who would become students of his spiritual politics, among them Virginia senator Absalom Willis Robertson—Pat Robertson’s father. Vereide returned the manufacturers’ favor by telling his new congressional followers that God wanted them to break the spine of organized labor. They did...'

And thus was born the Family, which I've blogged about plenty of times before. Jeff Sharlet's book is a wonderful read on the subject. But what of Governor Palin?:

'...right now they’re loving Sarah Palin, a candidate who has excited the evangelical base like no other since William Jennings Bryan raged against the “cross of gold” at the 1896 Democratic convention, when fundamentalism and populism seemed like a match made in Heaven, not a bait and switch cooked up by the protégés of Karl Rove. Much has been made of Palin’s roots in Pentecostalism; not enough attention is being paid to her penchant for elite fundamentalism, a faith in which “a servant’s heart” is the power source for a politician’s perks and privileges.

Palin is an outsider moving in, rising up from the ranks of popular fundamentalism to join the movement’s leadership cadre. In Alaska, Palin has for the last two years presided over a “Governor’s Prayer Breakfast”—an offshoot of the Fellowship’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington—which declares that its “mission” “is to reaffirm and promote in a Christ-like manner the idea that God has a purpose for and authority over human events.” Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s far more militant son, has been the keynote speaker the last two years...'

Go read.

We Get Letters

Another letter I received, with names redacted to protect the innocent.

'...Hello to you all,

Like many in our country this morning, I am extremely upset over this obscene bailout of the financial markets. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury have made the case that failure to rescue AIG and others with $700 billion will result in extreme hardships for thousands, maybe millions, of homeowners and investors. I am inclined to agree that we really have no choice, but I am very angry that not one word has been said about how the government is going to come up with the money! I have to assume that it will pay for it just like it has been paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: by running up the National Debt. There has been some mention of the debt going up to $11.5 trillion.

Wait just a minute! This giant credit card the Congress is using has got to have a limit and now! If you think the consequences of not bailing out AIG are bad, do you have any idea of how bad things are going to get if Japan, China and foreign banks start worrying about the safety of the U.S. Treasury bills and stop buying them? That will quickly dry up almost all credit. This nation RUNS ON CREDIT! The result is going to be worse than the great depression.

The ONLY right thing to do is for Congress to start being honest with tax payers and tell them that this $700 billion MUST be paid for with severe cuts in programs and increased taxes. So they don't get re-elected? They have to do the right thing!

Finally, why am I so alone in saying this? I would think that there would be millions or our children and grandchildren protesting all over this nation against the huge debt that my generation is selfishly straddling them with...'

Apparently there are many congressman (as well as myself) that do agree with you. Sadly, we got into this crazy mess by turning over our financial system to a bunch of lunatics, and deciding not to regulate it. It's important to remember that the banks which didn't invest in mortgage securities are doing fine. It's the ones that dove in head first into that new and unregulated industry that are sinking the ship. There's a good explanation (with some off-color language) at the SubPrime Primer.

I would agree with you that in an ideal world, people would be protesting much more over this mess. Actually in my ideal world, there would be millions of people with pitchforks and torches heading to the canyons of Wall Street, the White House and the suburban lawns of Greenwich, Connecticut right now. Pillory stocks would be set up, with ample supplies of tomatoes, rotten lettuce and horse apples provided for the populace to hurl at the immoral drek that caused this mess.

Of course, that wont happen. And one of the main reasons, aside from an overall lack of understanding of how this mess came about (securitizing debt is a complex thing to understand), is that this mess really hasn't effected our economy just yet. Massive layoffs haven't occurred, and beer is still cheap and plentiful. Most people are pretty comfortable with their lot, which granted says a lot more about mankinds' unique capacity for self-delusion than anything else.

Still, if nothing's done about this, then the economy may very well be badly effected. And it's sadly true that in the end, the taxpayer funded government is going to have to step in to solve this mess. There are of course many ways to do that. One can buy the crappy securities (as the bailout bill proposes), or insure them (as the House Republicans want to do). But those aren't the only options. Since the securities that are the source of this problem are based on mortgages owned by families, one could set up a program to deal with the mortgages directly, rather than with the securities owned by Wall Street Investment banks. Fix the families' mortgages and the securities will stabilize. It would take time for the results to 'trickle up' but this is all a mess based primarily on a lack of confidence. Ensure confidence in the base of the mortgage securities, and the crisis should resolve itself pretty quickly.

The alternative is the proposed top-down bailout of the mortgage securities, which should never have existed in the first place in such an unregulated way. Support those through a bailout and ultimately you are just putting off the problem.

All Greek to Me

A quick break from MDG blogging. I just finished my first Greek exam; I managed to ace it, Thankyouverymuch. But, alas, my knowledge of ancient Greek can’t help me parse this (via Sadly, No!):

‘…COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and placing it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation…’

Of course, I could be mistaken. Perhaps she’s speaking in tongues again. Here's the video:

Is our Children Learning?

I have my first test in Ancient Greek today. Lucky me. Actually I am, as I was blessed with and excellent primary school education at St. Michael’s, which included classes in Latin in both 7th and 8th Grade. If I do well, it will be in large part thanks to the teachers there.

There are 570 million children enrolled in primary school around the world. 73 million children are not. One of the Millennium development goals is to change that number to zero. But what are the costs?

The World Bank did a calculation of the costs of achieving the goals, and it’s interesting reading. Their estimate is an ongoing additional cost of between $10 and $30 billion a year will enable every single child on the planet to go to school. Oddly enough, that’s the same number I mentioned in the last post of what one would get, in perpetuity, by investing the fabled $700 billion at 4% - $28 billion.

An oddly similar number can be arrived at by looking at the under reported bailout of the auto industries that was just announced an hour ago. $25 billion to the auto industry in loans. Which is, of course, ridiculous on so many levels.

It’s the buyout thing again. If my taxpayer dollars are going to do this, then let’s just buy the damn companies. Some more costs:

GM: $5.81 Billion
Ford: 11.27 Billion
Chrysler: This is a bit more tricky as they are no longer publicly traded. Cerberus (a private company) purchased 80% of the company in May, 2007 for $7.4 Billion, valuing it at $9.25 Billion. Since then shares in both GM and Ford have dropped by 65% and 40% respectively, so let’s value Chrysler at a 50% markdown – or $4.65 Billion.

This totals $21.75 Billion. So it’s actually cheaper to buy the big three outright, then loan them money. The World Bank estimates the annual cost of sending a child to school at $62. So with the leftover $3.75 Billion you could still send 7.5 million children to school for eight years.

The Millennium Development Goals

It’s a beautiful day here in New York City, though I wouldn’t recommend driving anywhere in Manhattan this afternoon, as the United Nations is in full session, focusing on the progress being made to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

There are eight goals, defined at the Millennium Summit in 2001:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental stability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

1.4 Billion People in developing countries live in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than a buck and a quarter a day.) Solving this problem and the others is going to take an enormous effort of will.

But not resources.

It’s astonishing to have the United States host this event in the middle of a political firestorm about how to properly deal with a $700 Billion dollar line item. Should there be oversight? Should it all go to Wall Street and banks, or should only most of it go there?

To put it in perspective, every day around 30,000 children die from hunger and disease in this world. If you invested $700 billion at 4%, you would get an annual return of $28 Billion in perpetuity. Forever. Split that equally among the 11,000,000 children who die every year, and you would have $2,500 per child per year to prevent that from happening. Food, primary education, vaccines.

Alternately, consider that the combined foreign debt of every country in Africa is $200 Billion. Eliminate that, freeing up billions a year for African countries to address these needs, and you still have half a trillion to deal with the Wall Street Shitpile. Half a trillion is still enough money to entirely purchase outright the following companies:

Citibank: $100 Billion Market Capitalization
Bank of America: $150 Billion
JP Morgan Chase: $140 Billion
Wachovia: $31 Billion
Wells Fargo: $114 Billion.

That’s $535 Billion to outright buy and own the five largest banks in the United States. Toss in a few more bucks and buy both Morgan Stanley ($30 Billion) and the part of Goldman Sachs that Buffet still doesn’t own ($45 Billion) and you’ve got a pretty dandy bailout package in the works.

And Africa is debt free.

Witchcraft

If you watch the entire sermon by Bishop Thomas Muthee, you will hear him railing against witches in the educational system and in government (the payoff for the video, recorded by Max Blumenthal, is at the 7:00 minute mark, where Sarah Palin gets on stage and is given loud prayers for protection from the congregation and the bishop, with the laying on of hands, specifically protecting her from witches and witchcraft.)

Where to begin. This video was released today, shedding some light on the media-shy Wasilla Assembly of God Church that Governor Palin attended until 2002; though she still retains close ties. It's notoriously difficult to understand the faith of Governor Palin, and how it guides and motivates her, not only because she is not forthcoming about it but also because the nature of the thousands of denominations of Pentecostalism makes comprehension difficult.

But an excellent place to start is the Talk to Action Website, which has been publishing some helpful primers (part 1 here, covering an introduction to what is being referred to as the Third Wave movement, and part 2 here, covering Governor Palin's churches' relationships to the Third Wave movement.) I'm just getting started in understanding this rather pan-christian international movement, and I'll write more as I understand more.

Third Wave is a branch of dominionism, which mandates that members take 'dominion' over all aspects of society - hence the preacher in the video, Bishop Thomas Muthee of the Word of Faith Church in Kenya, focusing on the seven areas of society to take over. The Third Wave movement is not limited to a single church, either:

'...it is important to again note that this movement is not synonymous with the Assemblies of God or any other denomination. The burdensome terminology of Third Wave/New Apostolic Reformation is repeatedly used throughout this series of articles because the terms represent two slightly different meanings. The term Third Wave was coined over two decades ago to describe a loosely linked network of groups that remained or were reemerging from a movement called Latter Rain that was denounced as heresy by the Assemblies of God in 1949. In recent years these groups have coalesced into a much larger and more institutionalized structure. A central figure in the movement is C. Peter Wagner, founder of Global Harvest Ministries and the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs. In the late 1990s Wagner gave the name New Apostolic Network to his organization which now includes over 500 Apostles under his authority, or Apostolic Covering, in the International Coalition of Apostles. Some of these Apostles also have hundreds or even thousands in their own networks. There are numerous other interconnected apostolic networks around the world tied to this movement by their common belief system and also interconnected activities, conventions, media, schools, and parachurch ministries...'

This movement is end-times oriented, believing that the almost ecumenical nature of this organization is actually the final church of the end of days. Among the activities of the movement is a strong focus on purging demons from societies.

The good Bishop Muthee has lots of experience in this:

'...Can the 'spiritual DNA' of a community be altered?" That's the question posed in a Christian video called "Transformations."

Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee is convinced that it can be. In 1988, he and his wife, Margaret, were "called by God to Kiambu," a notorious, violence-ridden suburb of Nairobi and a "ministry graveyard" for churches for years. They began six months of fervent prayer and research.

Pondering the message of Eph.6:12 ("For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world..."), they prayed to identify the source of Kiambu's spiritual oppression, Mr. Muthee says. Their answer: the spirit of witchcraft.

Their research into the community revealed that a woman called "Mama Jane" ran a "divination clinic" frequented by the town's most powerful people.

After months of prayer, Muthee held a crusade that "brought about 200 people to Christ." Their church in the basement of a grocery store was dubbed "The Prayer Cave," as members set up round-the-clock intercession. Mama Jane counterattacked, he says, but eventually "the demonic influence - the 'principality' over Kiambu - was broken," and she left town.

The atmosphere changed dramatically: Bars closed, the crime rate dropped, people began to move to the area, and the economy took an upturn. The church now has 5,000 members, he says, and 400 members meet to pray daily at 6 a.m...'

More on the Transformations video:

'...The Transformation I video features the story of four cities that the narrator, George Otis, Jr, claims have been transformed through the power of intercessory prayer and the expulsion of demons. The video served the purpose of introducing the revolutionary new evangelizing methods developed by C. Peter Wagner and his colleagues. The use of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare to expel territorial demons is facilitated by Spiritual Mapping and then intercessory prayer and fasting. The World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs developed by Wagner and Ted Haggard [yes, that Ted Haggard, of the gay prostitute fame] houses the computer systems for organizing the prayer intercessors as well as the Spiritual Mapping media...'

Bishop Muthee's is one of the four stories. Another 'success' story is the city of Hemet, California:

'...The third town featured in the movie is Hemet, California. Otis and two local pastors narrate the supposed transformation of this Hemet/San Jacinto area from a center of Satanism, witchcraft, Moonies, Transcendental Meditation, and Scientology. He reports that Hemet had serious gang and drug problems. In this segment Otis describes how Spiritual Mapping was used to direct the prayer intercessors in fighting the strongholds of the enemy. Pastor Bob Beckett of the Dwelling Place Church organized intercessory prayer to save the city. Otis reports,

"The Transcendental Meditation center was literally burned out. Shortly after the intercessors prayed for its removal, a brush fire started on the mountain on the west side of the valley. It burned only the Transcendental Meditation facility and didn't touch any of the buildings on either side."

Consequently Otis claims that the drug trade dropped 75% and many gang members as well as other residents have been saved. Beckett states that the city now has "a professing mayor, a professing police chief, a professing fire chief, and a professing city manager."

The mayor, Debbie Cornett, is interviewed and states,

I feel that God called me to this...I see him opening doors to more churches, more Christians, to really bring them together and say you want Christians in leadership."

Pastor Beckett adds that the city now has an exceptional number of high school teachers, coaches and principals that are believers and that now nearly 85% of staff candidates are Christians. (Beckett also authored a chapter in C. Peter Wagner's book, Breaking Strongholds.) Pastor Gordon Houston states that God has turned the school system around...'

Embedding has been disabled for the Transformations video, so I can't have it in this post, but you can watch the entire thing here.

419

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

h/t

Gender Card

Above video: h/t (en)gender. Last Palin posting for a while. No, really, I promise.

I just finished my first Ancient Greek class at Fordham University today. I'm the oldest student in the class. Actually I'm the only student old enough to legally buy beer. Actually when I became old enough to legally buy beer, none of the other students had even been born yet. Yeah, I'm the oldest student in the class.

My professor said, "Unless you're Siamese twins with a bong this semester, it is impossible for you to fail this class."

I'm older than my professor, as well.