“Capital in the 21st Century” is a game-changer

Another book to purchase on Kindle and read on my iPad. I am increasingly concerned about the shrinking middle class in the US and how the economic prescriptions of both primary parties utterly fail to address it.  It should be the biggest concern of the electorate and ties into the power of the moneyed oligarch's to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg.  We must find workable remedies and I will be voting for people and policies that address it with priority.



Welcome to the Piketty revolution: “Capital in the 21st Century” is a game-changer (even if you never read it) - Salon.com



"Piketty is a symbol of the increasing consensus among academic economists and political scientists about inequality and democracy. This consensus, which has been demonstrated in innumerable studies, reports and books already, establishes a few propositions: Inequality has been increasing in the United States over the past three decades. This inequality has been defined particularly by an explosion among the very top, be it the 1 percent or the 0.1 percent (or even the .01 percent). This concentration of economic power has coincided with an increase in political power for the wealthiest Americans. There are still some ideologues who dispute these points, but there are ideologues who still disputeevolution and global warming — best to move along.

Second, Piketty puts conservatives in a rather awkward position. Conservative values, like “opportunity,” “family” and “tradition” — which are broadly supported by Americans — were once the backbone of the Republican Party. Today, that tradition has been jettisoned by the GOP in favor of becoming a subservient vessel for the richest of the rich. Some conservatives have argued that inequality isn’t a problem because government transfer programs — Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare — reduce inequality. This is certainly true, but these are the same transfer programs conservatives are so eager to cut! So if conservatives wish to make this argument, they must implicitly accept that transfer programs work to alleviate inequality, and therefore that cutting them will increase inequality." -- Sean McElwee

On Gay Marriage, Intolerance Cuts Both Ways - or does it?

On Gay Marriage, Intolerance Cuts Both Ways | RealClearPolitics



This is an intriguing emerging perspective and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Should the SBC been held to account for their historical support of slavery and, subsequently, segregation?  I believe so.  Their moral authority to speak to the current marriage equality debate is critically compromised precisely because of this history.  They were wrong on people of color. They have been and continue to be wrong about women in society and the church.  They're wrong about LGBT people and marriage equality.  Why shouldn't their feet be held to the fire as a matter of moral accountability? How does that get defined as "intolerance"? Seems Orwellian double-speak to me.



I think that opposition to marriage equality is fundamentally rooted in bigotry, however it is rationalized and justified.  I see no essential distinction between religious arguments in support of opposite-sex only marriage and the religious arguments in support of slavery and segregation.  Ultimately the arguments are repugnant and do a disservice to the very Gospel they purport to serve.  Using those religious-based arguments in the civil arena is especially a no-go. So, being on the business end of this kind of discrimination, we're supposed to simply let it go and not call the perpetrators to moral account?  I don't get that.



On a minor note, reading about what was happening behind the scenes of the 2004 presidential campaign is endlessly fascinating.  The public persona of President Bush apparently simply didn't match his private beliefs.  Politics at it's worst.

Leviticus Defiled: The Perversion of Two Verses | Scribalishess

"When you use a biblical book only to condemn but ignore it otherwise, that’s bibliolatry. You are defiling God’s word by using it wrongly and selectively. When you ignore a book filled with important (but difficult) theology only to appeal to it when it’s convenient, you are abusing it. This is biblical pornography—putting selected verses on display in a way that defiles them and uses them for your own perverted purposes..."



and later on



"Isn’t it interesting, that when Jesus quoted Leviticus, he quoted a verse about love (Lev. 19:18)? Maybe, if we’re going to pick one verse out of Leviticus to plaster on signs, that’s the one we should choose."



Leviticus Defiled: The Perversion of Two Verses | Scribalishess

by scribalishess

Mother of two beautiful kids; professor of Old Testament and Hebrew (Ph.D); gadget lover, Mac enthusiast, fountain pen collector and user, photographer, Fellow-Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.