{"id":692,"date":"2011-10-17T14:30:03","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T14:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/?p=692"},"modified":"2011-10-17T14:30:03","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T14:30:03","slug":"wall-street-protests-a-political-and-spiritual-deja-vu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/10\/wall-street-protests-a-political-and-spiritual-deja-vu.html","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street protests: A political, and spiritual deja vu"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Anger at Wall Street<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The growing anti-Wall Street protests<\/a><\/em> have triggered a sort of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu<\/a><\/em> experience for me.<\/p>\n

It was probably inevitable, when the high school economics teacher was a closet Marxist, that my introduction to the \u201cway things work on Wall Street\u201d was a summary of the history of class warfare, and why ownership of the \u201cmeans of production\u201d<\/a><\/em> could not be entrusted to a few \u201cfat cats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember, this was the late 1960s, when the Soviet Union was still strong, and we were engaged in a losing war against the \u201cReds\u201d in Southeast Asia; where anti-war protests by some of the older members of my Baby Boomer generation were often punctuated by North Vietnamese flags and chants of \u201cHo, Ho, Ho Chi Minh!\u201d<\/a><\/em> along with \u201cHell no, We Won\u2019t Go,” <\/em>or the somewhat milder urging to “Make Love not War.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Draft cards were set ablaze, students were occupying government and college campus buildings. (Some women were burning their bras, but that was a different \u201cstruggle against the Establishment<\/a><\/em>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Mr. Green\u2019s view of Capitalism, therefore, did not seem all that out of place in a small liberal arts college town in Eastern Washington where I went to high school. At Cheney High, we had our own underground \u201cnewspaper\u201d (mimeographed) that would appear in stacks in the lobby intermittently, snatched up by a few of the curious before the vice principal confiscated them. We even had our own \u201csit in\u201d in the lobby, about 30 of us wearing pre-arranged white armbands with red paint splotched on them (you know, \u201cblood\u201d of our brothers dying in the \u2018Nam).<\/p>\n

It broke up after an hour, though, when the vice principal threatened expulsion. After all, there was only so much one could demand of 16- and 17-year-olds, right?<\/p>\n

So, I digress. Mr. Green. Class struggle. Capitalist greed.<\/em> We exchange labor for money, swap money for food, shelter and clothing. Socialist principles were the only reason we also had such things as Social Security, unemployment insurance, minimum wages, eight-hour work days and 40-hour work weeks and had out-lawed child labor, he\u2019d say.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Little Red Book . . . not a page-turner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And on those things, he was arguably right. So, I followed up on some suggested reading: Das Kapital. The Communist Manifesto<\/em>. \u00a0Even Chinese Chairman Mao\u2019s Little Red Book<\/em>, though I stopped with that latter tome when I got to the part about \u201cPolitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It was that pesky upbringing as a preacher\u2019s kid popping up: the example of Christ\u2019s pacifism and returning good for evil, love for hate, seeking change in the spirit, inside, to effect a peaceful revolution on the outside with the individual first, then society.<\/p>\n

Faith, to me, was not just<\/em> the \u201copium of the people,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>as Marx insisted. He saw it as a fictional creation, the \u201csigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world.\u201d That was just half the story; to me, it was all those things and much more \u2013 not just a psychic relief from suffering through some future hope, but the impetus for regeneration now <\/em>through the indwelling of divine Love, and yes. Hope . . . that we can, with God\u2019s empowerment, conquer greed and selfishness in our actions right now, as well as looking forward to what lies beyond.<\/p>\n

Mr. Green? The socialism you espoused recognized the need for a regeneration of human nature \u2013 but without what I came to believe was the only means of empowering it, i.e. Faith.<\/em> You just can expect a cracked and flawed vessel to hold water. That\u2019s what we humans are, cracked and flawed metaphorical pottery.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Repairs needed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We need spiritual repairs — and not mere religion, which with its dogmas, self-interest and hierarchy too soon bog down into morally bankrupt institutions. We need to be remade, individually and then as a society, on the Potter\u2019s wheel. Faith and belief are not the same things, after all.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

You see, we are well able to identify the problems that plague us. To resolve them, though, we must reach beyond the primal cause of those problems \u2013 a schizophrenic and tortured human nature.<\/p>\n

What will come of the anti-Wall Street protests? We\u2019ll see. But ultimately, history has shown<\/a><\/em>, placing faith only in humankind to change human nature has produced little gain, and torrents of death and pain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The growing anti-Wall Street protests have triggered a sort of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu experience for me. It was probably inevitable, when the high school economics teacher was a closet Marxist, that my introduction to the \u201cway things work on Wall Street\u201d was a summary of the history of class warfare, and why ownership of the \u201cmeans…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWall Street protests: A political, and spiritual deja vu - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/10\/wall-street-protests-a-political-and-spiritual-deja-vu.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wall Street protests: A political, and spiritual deja vu - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The growing anti-Wall Street protests have triggered a sort of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu experience for me. 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