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FOCUS: Bill Moyers | A Time for Heresy

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FOCUS: Bill Moyers | A Time for Heresy

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042306X.shtml

 

 

Bill Moyers argues that American democracy is threatened by

perversions of money, power, and religion. Money has bought our

elections right out from under us. Power has turned government " of,

by, and for the people " into the patron of privilege. And Christianity

and Islam have been hijacked by fundamentalists who have made religion

the language of power, the excuse for violence, and the alibi for empire.

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Moyers | A Time for Heresy

By Bill Moyers

TomPaine.com

 

Wednesday 22 March 2006

 

Bill Moyers is President of the Schumann Center for Media and

Democracy. This is the prepared text of his remarks delivered on March

14 upon the establishment by Marilyn and James Dunn, of the Wake

Forest Divinity School, of a scholarship in religious freedom in the

name of Judith and Bill Moyers.

 

When Dean Bill Leonard asked James Dunn to join him here at Wake

Forest's new Divinity School, my soul shouted " Yes! " These two men

personify the honesty and courage we need to meet the challenge of

faith in the fundamentalist dispensation of the 21st century as

radical interpretations of both Islam and Christianity seek, in the

words of C.Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, " to take over the

government and use cause structures to advance the ideology,

hierarchy, and laws " of their movement.

 

James Dunn and Bill Leonard are Baptists. What kind of Baptist

matters. At last count there were more than two dozen varieties of

Baptists in America. Bill Clinton is a Baptist. So is Pat Robertson.

Jesse Jackson is a Baptist. So is Jesse Helms. Al Gore is a Baptist.

So is Jerry Falwell. No wonder Baptists have been compared to jalapeno

peppers: one or two make for a tasty dish, but a whole bunch together

will bring tears to your eyes.

 

Many Baptists are fundamentalists; they believe in the absolute

inerrancy of the Bible and the divine right of preachers to tell you

what it means. They also believe in the separation of church and state

only if they cannot control both. The only way to cooperate with

fundamentalists, it has been said, is to obey them. James Dunn and

Bill Leonard are not that kind of Baptist. They trace their spiritual

heritage to forbearers who were considered heretics for standing up to

ecclesiastical and state power on matters of conscience. One of them

was Thomas Helwys, who, when Roman Catholics were being persecuted by

the British crown, dared to defend the Catholics. Helwys went to jail,

and died there, for telling the king of England, King James - yes, of

the King James Bible - that " Our Lord the King has no more power over

their [Catholic] conscience than ours, and that is none at all. "

 

Baptists helped to turn that conviction into America's great

contribution to political science and practical politics - the

independence of church and state. Baptists in colonial America flocked

to Washington's army to fight in the Revolutionary War because they

wanted to be free from sanctioned religion. When the war was won they

refused to support a new Constitution unless it contained a Bill of

Rights that guaranteed freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

No religion was to become the official religion; you couldn't be taxed

to pay for my exercise of faith. This was heresy because, while many

of the first settlers in America had fled Europe to escape religious

persecution at the hands of the majority, once here they made their

faith the established religion that denied freedom to others. Early

Baptists considered this to be tyranny. Said John Leland: " All people

ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that each can best

reconcile to their own consciences. "

 

It was all about a free conscience in a free state, and James Dunn

has spent his life as a champion of both. No one in my time has been a

greater defender of " soul freedom " - the competence of each man and

woman to interpret their own experience of God in the light of faith

and reason. When James stood up against fundamentalists who would have

the state recognize their literal reading of the Bible as the

foundation for public policy, they smeared him. They demonized him.

They tried to fire him from his denominational position. But they

couldn't silence him. He stood against them when they set out to turn

the Southern Baptist Convention into a monolith of dogma run from the

top down by a cabal of credalists demanding doctrinal conformity. He

riled them when they sought to turn the pews of their churches into

precincts of partisan politics. He infuriated them when he opposed

their plotting with the White House to draft a Constitutional

amendment that would trivialize prayer by reducing it to a perfunctory

ritual approved by the state. Said James Dunn: " The Supreme Court

can't ban prayer in school. Real prayer is always free. " When the

fundamentalists and their obliging politicians claimed that God had

been expelled from the classroom, Dunn answered: " The god whom I

worship and serve has a perfect attendance record and has never been

tardy. "

 

I think of people like Dunn as primal Baptists. Traces of their

mindset go all the way back to the story of Jacob wrestling with the

angel in the book of Genesis. I relish the interpretation of this

ancient story of Davidson Loehr, a former carpenter, combat

photographer, and scholar who is now a minister in Austin, Texas. He

reminds us that technically Jacob's adversary was not an angel; it was

the local deity who stood guard at the boundary beyond which Jacob was

not supposed to venture. Local gods were everywhere in those days,

protecting parochial fiefdoms. This one told Jacob he couldn't leave,

to turn around and go back. But Jacob wouldn't turn back; he had miles

to go and promises to keep. He was called to discover his destiny,

move out to the great world awaiting him. If he turned back he would

spend the rest of his life in a place too narrow, with a god too

small. So Jacob had to go to the mat with this presumptuous authority

figure and they wrestled all night. It must have been a terrible

struggle because when morning came and Jacob had pinned the god for

the last time, his leg was on fire with pain. He crossed the river and

on the other side he got a new name - now he would be known as Israel

- but for the rest of his life Jacob walked with a limp. Pain comes

with freedom - it's just the deal. The little gods don't want you to

grow, learn, think for yourself. But you have to test their truth

claims against your own life's experience - against your own faith and

reason. To cross over to freedom you have to show the bogus gods at

the border that you have a mind of your own.

 

It's fascinating what is revealed to you. Joseph Campbell told me

a story (also recently recounted by Davidson Loehr) about the

Australian tribe that used the bullroarer to keep people in awe of the

gods. The bullroarer is a long flat board with notches, or slits, at

one end, and a rope at the other. When you swing it around your head,

the action produces a musical humming. The sound struck the primitive

tribes as other-worldly, causing them to tremble in fear that the gods

were angry. So the elders would go into the forest and come back with

word of what it would take to placate the gods. And the people would

oblige.

 

Now when a young boy in the tribe was ready to become a man, a

ritual took place. Wearing masks, the elders would kidnap him and take

him into the woods, tie him down, and with a flint knife slice the

underside of his penis. It was painful, but the medicine man said this

is how you became a man.

 

It meant shedding one's innocence. At the end of the ritual one of

the masked men dipped the bullroarer in the boy's blood and thrust it

in his face, simultaneously removing his mask so the boy could see

it's not a god at all - it's just one of the old guys. And the

medicine man would whisper, " We make the noises. "

 

Ah, yes - it's not the gods after all. It's just the old guys -

Uncle George, Uncle Dick, Uncle Don. The " noise " in the woods is the

work of the old guys playing gods, wanting you to live in fear and

trembling so that you will look to them to protect you against the

wrath to come. It takes courage to put their truth-claims to the test

of reality, to call their bluff.

 

We need such courage today. This is a time for heresy. American

democracy is threatened by perversions of money, power, and religion.

Money has bought our elections right out from under us. Power has

turned government " of, by, and for the people " into the patron of

privilege. And Christianity and Islam have been hijacked by

fundamentalists who have made religion the language of power, the

excuse for violence, and the alibi for empire. We must answer the

principalities and powers that would force on America a stifling

conformity. Either we make the heretical choices that will inspire us

to renew our commitment to America's deepest values and ideals, or the

day will come when we will no longer recognize the country we love.

 

Here's what I mean.

 

Two years ago, the American Political Science Association produced

a study entitled Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality . The report

said people with wealth - privileged Americans - are " roaring with a

clarity and consistency that public officials readily hear and

routinely follow " while citizens " with lower or moderate incomes are

speaking with a whisper. " The study concluded that " progress toward

realizing American ideals of democracy may have stalled, and even, in

some places, reversed. "

 

The following year - 2005 - the editors of The Economist, one of

the world's most pro-capitalist publications, produced their own

sobering analysis of what is happening in America. They found great

and growing income disparities. Thirty years ago the average annual

compensation of the top 100 chief executives was 30 times the pay of

the average worker; today it is 1000 times the pay of the average worker.

 

They found an education system " increasingly stratified by social

class " in which poor children " attend schools with fewer resources

than those of their richer contemporaries. " They found our celebrated

universities increasingly " reinforcing rather that reducing " these

educational inequalities.

 

They found American corporations no longer successful agents of

upward mobility. It is now harder for people to start at the bottom

and rise up the company hierarchy by dint of hard work and

self-improvement.

 

The editors of The Economist studied all this evidence and

concluded - and I am quoting a pro-business magazine, remember - that

the United States " risks calcifying into a European-style, class-based

society. "

 

Let that sink in: The United States " risks calcifying into a

European-style, class-based society. "

 

In 1960 I heard John F. Kennedy promise that " a rising tide lifts

all boats. " He was right then. He would be wrong today. Just this past

weekend The Washington Post, in a lead editorial, called for a second

look at the old belief " that anyone who works hard and plays by the

rules can attain the American dream by sharing in the fruits of

economic progress. " As great wealth accumulated at the top, the rest

of the country is not benefiting proportionally. Across the country

working men and women are strained to cope with the rising cost of

health care, pharmaceutical drugs, housing, higher education, and

public transportation - all of which have risen faster than typical

family income. The economist Robert J. Gordon, quoted in The Financial

Times (another pro-business publication), says there has been " little

long-term change in workers share of U.S. income over the past half

century. " The top ten percent of earners have captured almost half the

total income gains and the top one percent has gained the most of all

- more in fact, than all the bottom 50 percent.

 

We are witnessing a marked turn of events for a nation whose DNA

contains the inherent promise of an equal opportunity at " Life,

Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. " We were not supposed to be a

country where the winners take all. The great progressive struggles in

our history were waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just

the rich, share in the benefits of a free society. Today, however, the

majority of Americans may support such broad social goals as

affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people,

safe working conditions, a good education for every child, and clean

air and water, but there's no government " of, by, and for the people "

to deliver on those aspirations. America is no longer working for all

Americans.

 

How did this happen? By design. For a quarter of a century now a

ferocious campaign has been conducted to dismantle the political

institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual,

cultural, and religious frameworks that sustained America's social

contract. The corporate, political, and religious right converged in a

movement that for a long time only they understood because they are

its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries.

 

Their economic strategy was to cut workforces and wages, scour the

globe for even cheaper labor, and relieve investors of any

responsibility for the cost of society. On the weekend before

President Bush's second inauguration, The New York Times described how

his first round of tax cuts had already brought our tax code closer to

a system under which income on wealth would not be taxed at all and

public expenditures would be raised exclusively from salaries and wages.

 

Their political strategy was to neutralize the independent media,

create their own propaganda machine with a partisan press, and flood

their coffers with rivers of money from those who stand to benefit

from the transfer of public resources to elite control. Along the way

they would burden the nation with structural deficits that will last

until our children's children are ready to retire, systematically

stripping government of its capacity, over time, to do little more

than wage war and reward privilege.

 

Their religious strategy was to fuse ideology and theology into a

worldview freed of the impurities of compromise, claim for America the

status of God's favored among nations (and therefore beyond political

critique or challenge), and demonize their opponents as ungodly and

immoral.

 

At the intersection of these three strategies was money: Big Money.

 

They found a deep flaw in our political system and zeroed in on it.

 

Our elected officials need huge sums of money to finance their

campaigns, especially to buy television. The average cost of running

and winning a seat in the House of Representatives - the so-called

" People's House " - now tops one million dollars. The chairman of the

Federal Election Commission said just this weekend that anyone who

expects to run for the nomination for president - the nomination - in

2008 will need to have raised one hundred million dollars by the end

of 2007. That money isn't going to come from regular folks - less than

one half of one percent of all Americans made a contribution of $200

or more to a federal candidate in 2004. No, the men and women who have

mastered the money game have taken advantage of this fundamental

weakness in our system - the high cost of campaigns - to sell

democracy to the highest bidder.

 

Some simple facts:

 

The number of lobbyists registered to do business in Washington

has more than doubled in the last five years. That's 16,342 lobbyists

in 2000 to 34,785 last year. Sixty-five lobbyists for every member of

Congress.

 

The total spent per month by special interests wining, dining, and

seducing federal officials is now nearly $200 million. Per month.

 

But it's a small investment on the return. Just look at the most

important legislation passed by Congress in the last decade.

 

There was the energy bill that gave oil companies huge tax breaks

at the same time that Exxon Mobil just posted $36 billion in profits

in 2005, while our gasoline and home heating bills are at an all-time

high.

 

There was the bankruptcy " reform " bill written by credit card

companies to make it harder for poor debtors to escape the burdens of

divorce or medical catastrophe.

 

There was the deregulation of the banking, securities, and

insurance sectors, which led to rampant corporate malfeasance and

greed and the destruction of the retirement plans of millions of small

investors.

 

There was the deregulation of the telecommunications sector which

led to cable industry price-gouging and the abandonment of news

coverage by the big media companies.

 

There was the blocking of even the mildest attempt to prevent

American corporations from dodging an estimated $50 billion in annual

taxes by opening a P.O. box in an off-shore tax haven like Bermuda or

the Cayman Islands.

 

In every case these results were driven by the demands of Big

Money in the form of campaign contributions and the cost of lobbying.

 

And in every case, the religious right was cheering for the winners.

 

You've heard about Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, I'm sure. Let me

tell you a little more than what you might have heard.

 

Tom DeLay was a small businessman from Sugar Land, Texas, who ran

a pest extermination business before he entered politics. He hated the

government regulators who dared to tell him that some of the

pesticides he used were dangerous - as, unfortunately, they were.

DeLay got himself elected to the Texas legislature at a time the

Republicans were becoming the majority in the once-solid Democratic

south, and his reputation for joining in the wild parties around the

state capital earned him the nickname " Hot Tub Tom. " But early in his

political career, with exquisite timing (and the help of some videos

from the right-wing political evangelist, James Dobson) Tom DeLay

found Jesus and became a full-fledged born-again Christian. He would,

in time, humbly acknowledge that God had chosen him to restore America

to its biblical worldview. " God, " said Tom DeLay, " has been walking me

through an incredible journey Š God is using me, all the time,

everywhere Š God is training me. God is working with me Š. "

 

Yes, indeed: God does work in mysterious ways.

 

In addition to finding Jesus, Tom DeLay also discovered the power

of money to power his career. By raising more than two million dollars

from lobbyists and business groups and distributing the money to

dozens of Republican candidates in 1994, the year of the Republican

breakthrough in the House, DeLay bought the loyalty of many freshmen

legislators and got himself elected majority whip, the number three

man in Newt Gingrich's " Gang of Seven, " who ran the House.

 

Here's how they ran it: On the day before the Republicans formally

took control of Congress on January 3, 1995, DeLay met in his office

with a coterie of lobbyists from some of the biggest companies in

America. He virtually invited them to write their own wish list. What

they wanted first was " Project Relief " - a wide-ranging moratorium on

regulations that had originally been put into place for the health and

safety of the public. Soon scores of companies were gorging on his

generosity, adding one juicy and expensive tidbit after another to the

bill. On the eve of the debate 20 major corporate groups advised

lawmakers that " this was a key vote, one that would be considered in

future campaign contributions. " On the day of the vote lobbyists on

Capitol Hill were still writing amendments on their laptops and

forwarding them to House leaders.

 

Watching Tom DeLay become the virtual dictator of the House, with

the approval of party leaders and the blessing of the Christian right,

I was reminded of the card shark in Texas who said to his prey, " Now

play the cards fair, Reuben; I know what I dealt you. " They were

stacking the deck against the people.

 

Consider what they did to the bill for Medicare prescription drug

coverage. As the measure was coming to a vote, a majority of the full

House was sympathetic to allowing cheaper imports from Canada and to

giving the government the power to negotiate wholesale drug prices for

Medicare beneficiaries. But DeLay and his cronies were working in

behalf of the big pharmaceutical companies and would have none of it.

So they made sure there would be no amendments on the floor and they

held off the final roll call a full three hours - well after midnight

- in order to strong-arm members who wanted to vote against the bill.

 

There are no victimless crimes in politics. The price of

corruption is passed on to you. What came of all these shenanigans was

a bill that gave industry what it wanted and gave taxpayers the shaft.

But when the deeply flawed bill passed in the wee hours of the

morning, the champagne corks popped in the offices crowded with

lobbyists for the big drug and insurance companies. They were about to

be richer on the backs of America's senior citizens.

 

When Tom DeLay worked the system to reward the rich and powerful,

he had come a long way from Sugar Land, Texas. The people who had

voted for him had the right to expect him to represent them, not the

big lobbyists in Washington. This expectation is the very soul of

democracy. We can't all govern - not even tiny, homogenous Switzerland

practices pure democracy. So we Americans came to believe our best

chance of responsible government lies in obtaining the considered

judgments of those we elect to represent us. Having cast our ballots

in the sanctity of the voting booth with its assurance of political

equality, we go about our daily lives expecting the people we put in

office to weigh the competing interests and decide to the best of

their ability what is right. What do they do instead?

 

Well, as Tom DeLay became the king of campaign fundraising, The

Associated Press writes " He began to live a lifestyle his constituents

back in Sugar Land would have a hard time ever imagining. " Big

corporations provided private jets to take him to places of luxury

most Americans have never seen - places with " dazzling views, warm

golden sunsets, golf, goose-down comforters, marble bathrooms, and

balconies overlooking the ocean. " The AP reports that various

organizations - campaign committees, political action committees, even

a children's charity established by DeLay - paid over $1 million for

hotels, restaurants, golf resorts and corporate jets used by DeLay.

There were at least 48 visits to golf clubs and resorts; 100 flights

aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists; and 500 meals at fancy

restaurants, some averaging $200 for a dinner for two.

 

Spreading a biblical worldview kept DeLay on the move and on the

take. But he needed help to sustain the cash flow. He found it in a

lobbyist and fellow ideologue named Jack Abramoff, who personifies the

money machine of which DeLay, with the blessing of the political and

religious right, was the mastermind. It was Abramoff who helped DeLay

raise those millions of dollars from campaign donors that bought the

support of other politicians and became the base for an empire of

corruption.

 

Just last month Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud, tax

evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials. It's a spectacular

fall for a man whose rise to power began 25 years ago with his

election as chairman of the College Republicans. Despite its innocuous

name, the organization became a political attack machine for the far

right and a launching pad for younger conservatives on the make. Karl

Rove had once held the same job as chairman. So did Grover Norquist,

who ran Abramoff's campaign and would become the most powerful

operative in Washington for advancing the movement's strategies. At

their side was a youthful $200-a-month intern named Ralph Reed. Over

the next several years they would yoke politics and religion to turn

the conservative revolution into a rapacious racket.

 

Ralph Reed found Jesus and wound up running Pat Robertson's

Christian Coalition. Time magazine put him on their cover as " the

Right Hand of God. " Reportedly after seeing " Fiddler on the Roof "

Abramoff became an Orthodox religious Jew who finagled fake awards to

provide himself with credentials in the new piety-soaked world of

conservative Washington politics. One of those bogus awards named him

" a distinguished Bible scholar. " He received the " Biblical Mercantile

Award " from an organization which laundered money for Tom DeLay's

junkets to plush golf clubs.

 

It's impossible to treat all the schemes and scams this crowd

concocted to subvert democracy in the name of God and greed. But here

are two examples.

 

Abramoff made his name, so to speak, representing Indian tribes

with gambling interests. As his partner he hired a DeLay crony named

Michael Scanlon. What they had to offer, of course, were their

well-known connections to the political and religious power structure,

including friends at the White House (Abramoff's personal assistant

usefully became Karl Rove's personal assistant), members of Congress,

Christian right activists like Reed, and right-wing ideologues like

Norquist (according to one report, two lobbying clients of Abramoff

paid $25,000 to Norquist's organization - Americans for Tax Reform -

for a lunch date and meeting with President Bush in May 2001.)

 

Before it was over the Indian tribes had paid them $82 million

dollars, much of it going directly into Abramoff's and Scanlon's

pockets. But some of the money found its way to the righteous. Ralph

Reed, for one, had his hand out. Reed was the religious right's poster

boy against gambling. " We believe gambling is a cancer on the American

body politic, " Reed had said. " It is stealing food from the mouths of

childrenŠ [and] turning wives into widows. " Reed was right about that,

of course, but his distaste for gambling was no match for his desire

to make himself some moolah by helping to protect Abramoff's gambling

interests. When Reed resigned from the Christian Coalition - just as

it was coming under federal investigation and slipping into financial

arrears - he sent Abramoff an email: " Now that I am leaving electoral

politics, I need to start humping in corporate accountsŠ I'm counting

on you to help me with some contacts. "

 

Abramoff came through. According to published reports, he and his

partner Michael Scanlon paid Reed some $4 million to whip up Christian

opposition to gambling initiatives that could cut into the profits of

Abramoff's clients. Reed called in some of the brightest stars in the

Christian firmament - Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson,

Phyllis Schlafly - to participate in what became a ruse in Abramoff's

behalf. They would oppose gambling on religious and moral grounds in

strategic places (Texas, Louisiana, Alabama) at decisive moments when

competitive challenges threatened Abramoff's clients. Bogus Christian

fronts were part of the strategy. Preachers in Texas rallied to Reed's

appeals. Unsuspecting folks in Louisiana turned on their radios one

day to hear the voice of God - with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson

doing the honors - thundering against a riverboat gambling scheme

which Abramoff wanted defeated because it threatened one of his own

gambling clients. Reed even got James Dobson, whose nationwide radio

" ministry " reaches millions of people, to deluge phone lines at the

Interior Department and White House with calls from indignant

Christians. In 1999 Abramoff arranged for the Mississippi Choctaws,

who were trying to stave off competition from other tribes, to

contribute over $1 million to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform,

which then passed the money along to the Alabama Christian Coalition

and to another anti-gambling group Reed had duped into aiding the

cause. It is unclear how much these Christian soldiers, " marching as

to war, " knew about the true purpose of their crusade, but Ralph Reed

knew all along that his money was coming from Abramoff. When he

fiddled, his brethren on the Christian right danced.

 

It gets worse.

 

And here we get to the heart of darkness.

 

One of Abramoff's first big lobbying clients was the Northern

Marianas Islands in the Pacific. After World War II the Marianas

became a trusteeship of the United Nations, administered by the U.S.

government under the stewardship of the Interior Department. During

World War II thousands of Marines died on the Marianas, fighting for

our way of life and our freedoms. Today, these islands are a haven for

tourists - first-class hotels, beautiful beaches, championship golf

courses. But that's not the whole story. The islands were exempted

from U.S. labor and immigration laws, and over the years tens of

thousands of people, primarily Chinese, mostly women, were brought

there as garment workers to live in crowded barracks in miserable

conditions. The main island, Saipan, became known as America's biggest

sweatshop.

 

In 1998 a government report found workers there suffering severe

malnutrition and health problems and subjected to unprovoked acts of

violence. Many had signed " shadow contracts " which required them to

pay up to $7000 just to get the job. They also had to renounce their

claim to basic human rights. They were forbidden to engage in

political and religious activities, to socialize or to marry. Some of

the biggest names in the retail clothing industry were enabled to slap

" made in the USA " labels on the clothes and import them to America

while paying the workers practically nothing.

 

When these scandalous conditions began to attract attention, the

sweatshop moguls fought all efforts at reform. Knowing that Jack

Abramoff was close to Tom DeLay, they hired him to lobby for the

islands. Conservative members of Congress lined up as Abramoff's team

arranged for them to visit the islands on carefully guided junkets.

Conservative intellectuals and journalists, for hire at rates

considerably above what the women on the islands were making, also

signed on for expense-free trips to the Marianas. They flew

first-class, dined at posh restaurants, slept in comfort at the

beachfront hotel, and returned to write and speak of the islands as " a

true free market success story " and " a laboratory of liberty. "

 

Abramoff took Tom DeLay and his wife there, too. DeLay practically

swooned. He said the Marianas " represented what is best about

America. " He called them " my Galapagos " - " a perfect petri dish of

capitalism. "

 

These fellow travelers - rightwing members of Congress, their

staffs and their lapdogs in the rightwing press and think tanks -

became a solid phalanx aimed at any and all attempts to provide

workers on the islands with a living wage and decent living

conditions. When a liberal California Democrat, George Miller, and a

conservative Alaskan senator, Frank Murkowski, both indignant at the

" appalling conditions, " tried to raise minimum wages on the islands

and at least prevent arbitrary deportation of the workers, they were

stopped cold.

 

After the 2000 election, when the spoils of victory were being

divided up, Abramoff got himself named to the Bush transition team for

the Interior Department. He wanted to make sure the right people wound

up overseeing his clients in the Marianas. He enlisted Ralph Reed, who

said he would raise the matter with Rove, to stop at least one

appointment to Interior that might prove troublesome. It was about

this time that Reed wrote an email to Enron's top lobbyist touting his

pal Abramoff as " arguably the most influential and effective GOP

lobbyist in Congress. I share several clients with him and have yet to

see him lose a battle. He also is very close to DeLay and could help

enormously on that front. raised $ for bushŠ[sic] "

 

For his services to the Marianas Jack Abramoff was paid nearly $10

million dollars, including the fees he charged for booking his guests

on the golf courses and providing them copies of Newt Gingrich's book

 

To this day, workers on the Marianas are still denied the federal

minimum wage while working long hours for subsistence income in their

little " petri dish of capitalism " - " America at its best. "

 

There are no victimless crimes in politics. The cost of corruption

is passed on to the people. When the government of the United States

falls under the thumb of the powerful and privileged, regular folks

get squashed.

 

We are dealing here with a vision sharply at odds with the

majority of Americans. These are people who want to arrange the world

for the convenience of themselves and the multinational corporations

that pay for their elections. With their fundamentalist medicine men

twirling the bullroarers in the woods, they would turn America into

their petri dish - a replica of the Marianas, many times magnified: A

society " run by the powerful, oblivious to the weak, free of

accountability, enjoying a cozy relationship with government, thriving

on crony capitalism, " in the words of Al Meyeroff, who led a

class-action suit in behalf of the worker on the Marianas and learned

what they were up against. Let this, too, sink in: If the corporate,

political, and religious right have their way, we will go back to the

first Gilded Age, when privilege controlled politics, votes were

purchased, legislatures were bribed, bills were bought, and laws

flagrantly disregarded - all as God's will.

 

So, my friends at Wake Forest, there is work to do. These

charlatans and demagogues know that by controlling a society's most

emotionally-laden symbols, they can control America, too. They must be

challenged. Davidson Loehr reminds us that holding preachers and

politicians to a higher standard than they want to serve has marked

the entire history of both religion and politics. It is the conflict

between the religion of the priests - ancient and modern - and the

religion of the prophets.

 

It is the vast difference between the religion about Jesus and the

religion of Jesus.

 

Yes, the religion of Jesus. It was in the name of Jesus that a

Methodist ship caulker named Edward Rogers crusaded across New England

for an eight-hour work day. It was in the name of Jesus that Francis

William rose up against the sweatshop. It was in the name of Jesus

that Dorothy Day marched alongside auto workers in Michigan, brewery

workers in New York, and marble cutters in Vermont. It was in the name

of Jesus that E.B. McKinney and Owen Whitfield stood against a

Mississippi oligarchy that held sharecroppers in servitude. It was in

the name of Jesus that the young priest John Ryan - ten years before

the New Deal - crusaded for child labor laws, unemployment insurance,

a minimum wage, and decent housing for the poor. And it was in the

name of Jesus that Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis to march

with sanitation workers who were asking only for a living wage.

 

This is the heresy of our time - to wrestle with the gods who

guard the boundaries of this great nation's promise, and to confront

the medicine men in the woods, twirling their bullroarers to keep us

in fear and trembling. For the greatest heretic of all is Jesus of

Nazareth, who drove the money changers from the temple in Jerusalem as

we must now drive the money changers from the temples of democracy.

 

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