"Facts" and Subjective Experience

Even as we wrestle with fact-checking and all that, keep in mind that the WAY facts are presented can have a huge impact on how you experience them. Case in point: look at these two electoral maps from the NY Times. They present the same set of facts, but bring the facts to you in a very different experience.  The contrast when looking at the upper Midwest is especially striking.

On Voter ID - #2

Minnesota Public Radio recently evaluated the assertion from the MN DFL that 700,000 Minnesotans could have their right to vote impeded (my term) if the ID Amendment passes.

MPR gave this assessment: "The DFL isn't out of bounds 

for saying that the amendment could make voting difficult for 700,000 Minnesotans. But because there is so much uncertainty about how the new rules would actually work, the DFL's claim remains inconclusive."

To me, that simply invites this question; "Should we write into the Constitution a law with it so much uncertainty in it that we can't even tell whether it could potentially disenfranchise 700,000 of our fellow citizens?"

My answer is no.

On the Voter ID Amendment

Those in favor of the amendment have used the slogan "Protect my vote." But your vote is hardly in danger at all compared to the danger facing the votes of many other citizens, who will almost certainly be effectively disenfranchised if this amendment passes.

Who is going to protect THEIR vote?

I am, for one. I encourage others to do so as well.

July 4^th, 2012

The word of the Lord came to Tim of New Brighton to say;

“There is a God, and God loves all people!  This God showed His face in Jesus of Nazareth, and gave his life as well, so that we could live, and love, like him.”

Additional words also came.  Whether they are also from the Lord or not, judge for yourself.

__________________________

On the morning of July 4^th, 2012, I sat in my easy chair reading the prophet Amos on my tablet, drinking coffee.  I heard these words.

America, America, God has shed his grace on thee.

“God bless America!” the bumper stickers beseech.  Is there any blessing that has been withheld from you?  And what, indeed, have you done with the blessings you have received?

You send your sons and daughters, your fathers and your mothers, out to war.

They lose their arms, their legs, their minds to TBI, PTSD, darkness and depression; wash up on your shore like debris from a red tsunami, and you say; “This beach is icky. I don’t like it.  Let’s go swim somewhere else!”  Homeless veterans are beached beneath the bridges of your cities.  The rumble of your SUV above, driving to the lake; their lullaby.

The debts for their care, and the debts for your war, you put on the National Card.  Out of sight, out of mind, out of the way of your spending on smart phones and flat screens, take out and trips, tablets and coffee. 

Users!  Is there not a responsible adult among you?!  Pay your #&*%+!@ bills!!  You pay them, and you pay them now.  Do not visit your sins upon your own children to the second, and third, and fourth generations.

Does a soldier lose a limb?  No further taxes due – that debt is paid.  Two limbs?  Then the same for the spouse.  Lose life in service to the country?  Your sacrifice shall cover the debts of your children as well.  The rest of the citizens, had they any decency at all, would pick up that tab in a heartbeat.  Or is “The thanks of a grateful nation” just an empty phrase?

America, America.  Land of the free-from-responsibility-for-my-neighbor.  Home of the brave-enough-to-be-selfish-in-public.  “Me the Taxpayer!” tramples “We the People” in parade, carrying the flag of our “Union” so proudly.  Don’t Tread on Me indeed.

You have stretched the rubber band of inequality too tightly between the rich and poor.  Will the bands that unite you snap, and destroy what generations have built?  Will it slip from your grasp, get out of control, and send the two extremes crashing towards each other in conflict?  Little and Much are not your enemies, but Too Little and Too Much will surely kill you in their crossfire.

With false pride and short memory, you angrily protest; “Keep those nasty immigrants out of my country!”

My country?  MY country?!  HOW DARE YOU!  Did you stand up the Rockies on this land?  Wasn’t it I who drew the Mississippi on a lazy afternoon? Or was it you, you mighty ones?  Please pardon me if I have remembered it incorrectly.  I am so old, you know.

I tell you now, in no uncertain terms, that this land is MY land, this is indeed MY country, and those nasty immigrants are my own dear children, your brothers and sisters.  If you insist that newcomers are not welcome, then by all means, let me build the boats for you to sail back home as well.  Even the earliest tenants on my farm should remind themselves of the land bridge I built for them to cross so long ago.

And besides, there are rules in my family for how the children should treat each other.  Another of your siblings once had the gall to ask me if he was his brother’s keeper.  So tell me now you wise ones, have you not yet figured out the answer to that question?  Believe me when I tell you, this will be on the test.

The Cows of Bashan have nothing on the Pigs of Peoria.  An epidemic of obesity?  Can you possibly be serious?  Do you think no one is looking at you from across my globe?  Just what do you think I am hearing, day in and day out, from your brother in Bangladesh and your Sister in Somalia?  Because you will not share, they fear I do not care.  And the size of your bodies is nothing in comparison to your appetites for comforts and distractions.  You are indeed a city on a hill, but you shine a light on the lie that I play favorites with my children.  In so many ways, my own reputation is in your hands.  Well, that can be changed.

So then, what should I do about you, my gifted child, whom truly I do love?  Should I bring catastrophe and calamity to get your attention?  Smack you upside the head and shout WAKE up!!?

Well, why should I punish you when you destroy yourselves?  Why should I bother to discipline you when you throw yourselves off the cliff?  On the high elevations of Mount Cholesterol, you don’t need a push from me to fall to your doom. At the foot of the Tower of Debt you have raised up to the heavens, no need for me to tip it over upon you.  If only you knew who has prevented the falling for so long already.  But then you might be grateful instead of gluttonous.

Is this too harsh?  Does it offend and upset you?  Remember and meditate on this: If I did not love you, I would ignore you.  The one who truly cares is the one who pays the price for confronting you.

Look me in the eyes, now.  Listen to my voice.  All you have belongs to me.  If you refuse to use the blessings faithfully, I may well need to give them to others who will. But at this rate I will not have to.  You are letting it fall from your grasp on your own. 

Turn back. Turn back. Turn back.

__________________________

On the morning of July 4^th, 2012, I sat in my easy chair reading the prophet Amos on my tablet, drinking coffee.  I heard these words.

Rich and Poor in Minnesota; American Blindness

Today in the Star Tribune we have this:

Front Page: "GOP's First Pass: $1B in Trims.  The proposed cuts would fall heavily on local governments, colleges and low-income people."

Variety Section: "Our dogs have vintage crystal bowls..." and "... she houses her extensive collection of Bonnie Cashin bags in a climate controlled lover-level room."

How's that for juxtaposition?

The lifestyle of one household is not the issue of course but the example is emblematic of the choices we are making and affirming as a society.  And while it may seem like the harsh consequences for these choices can be concentrated in the lower classes, it won't stay bottled up there for long.  But the cost of our collective life doesn't just come due at some later date.  Long before the backlash, we pay a price through the erosion of our character as a people.  But this is precisely the thing we can't see - our "group identity" if you will.  This is our American Blindness.  We are so fixated on our lives as individuals that we can barely detect our existence as a community.

Years ago I was in a restaurant with some friends, having a wonderful time in conversation, laughing and being boisterous.  I noticed that our energy level (and our volume) was coming in waves that would rise and fall every few minutes - the laughing and joking would rise to a peak and then fall back down.  Then I noticed that in fact, the ebb and flow of our conversation was in sync with the entire room.  All of the tables were moving together through a rise and fall of humor and energy.  I thought that our conversation was simply following a life of its own in our group, but we were actually being profoundly influenced by the "society" in the room.  We just never saw it.  Had we been the only group in the restaurant, I know our experience would have been much different.

In the same way, is a movie inherently less funny if you see it in a theater with only a few people to laugh along with?

We think our actions and our attitudes, our thoughts and or values are entirely seated within us as individuals.  They are not.  But our American Blindness to our life as a people, a society  and a culture leaves us always surprised by anything beyond our little lives as supposed automatons.  It seems sometimes the best we can do to impersonate a community of shared values is to divide the house into Us and Them so at least some of us get to be an Us at the expense of the Them.  Was I the only one who noticed the irony when one of our parties, which seems to lay claim to being the the one defined by true patriotism, made a point of publicly reading the Constitution which begins with the phrase; "We the People...?"  

We are blind to our common life. That's why we think so little of tearing it apart, whether it's to shred The People into Lefties and Righties politically, or to think nothing of rushing past the divide between the Haves and Have Nots so we can get to the land flowing with climate controlled rooms for our purses and homeless veterans on the street.  If there was a prophet among us, he or she would take a copy of the constitution and tear it down the middle on the floor of the House.  We the People indeed.  

We occasionally note that there's something odd about having our troops dying on foreign battlefields while civilians like myself are almost entirely unaffected by my country being, so they tell me, at war.  The phrase "shared sacrifice?" appears from time to time.  Our ability to live with this tension, or rather, to basically not feel this tension bears witness again to the general absence of our communal identity.  American Blindness.

So back in Minnesota I expect our budget deficit debate will only play out in the terms of costs to poor individuals vs. the rights of individual taxpayers.  That we can't even engage the conversation in terms of the cost to us as a people and the dissipation of our commitment to shared values and communal well-being makes me sad.  But it's easy for us to spend these things and give them away because we simply don't see them as real.  American Blindness prevails.

Those who have eyes to see, let them see.