[Mb-civic] U.S.A. is a grinch + The politics of the Christmas story

Fri Dec 24 12:14:38 PST 2004

Everybody is giving gifts. Big gifts. Little gifts. We give these gifts as 
tokens of our love. We're sending and receiving cards, cards that 
express our common yearning for peace on Earth, goodwill to all, 
tidings of kindness and joy.
And so it is doubly disheartening at this time when the spirit of 
Christmas is in the air that we open the newspaper to find:
"U.S. Cutting Food Aid Aimed at Self-Sufficiency" 
It turns out that while the number of the world's people who go 
hungry is rising for the first time in years, the Bush administration 
can find no better way to reduce spending than to cut $600 million 
from global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people 
climb out of poverty.
That belt-tightening of $600 million doesn't make much of a dent in 
a federal discretionary budget of $965 BILLION (it's 0.0001 
percent), but in the developing world it's emergency food to prevent 
the starvation of millions, and long-term agricultural development to 
help people feed even more people themselves.
Or put another way, it's 1/60th of the $35 BILLION that remains in 
the budget to maintain America's Cold War nuclear 
weapons”equivalent to 150,000 of the bombs that destroyed 
Hiroshima.
This is so outrageous that there's now a BIPARTISAN effort in 
Congress led by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Missouri) to convince the 
administration that global food aid should not be cut.
Let's make our voices really count this Christmas and give the most 
important gift we can, the gift of life for millions of our hungry 
brothers and sisters around the world.
And we can make it happen. Forward this e-mail far and wide so 
that we flood Congress with faxes and so the world and our 
government will know that it's really Christmastime and that many of 
us are heeding Jesus' haunting words: "Truly I tell you, just as you 
did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, 
you did it to me."
If you are a member of TrueMajority, just click "Reply" and "Send" in 
your e-mail program, and we'll send a fax (text below) to your 
senators and representative. If you'd like to edit your letter or if this 
e-mail was forwarded to you,click this link to send a message .
Merry Christmas from all of us at TrueMajority, with love and 
appreciation for allowing us to give voice to your voice.
Aaron, Andrew, Barbara, Ben, Darcy, Dave, Duane, Dusty, Ed, 
Elliot, Emily, Gary, Jack, Jason, Marian, Matt, and Natalie
====================================================
=======
Here's the letter we'll send to your senators and representative:
Dear [Senator/Representative]:
It was recently reported that a last-minute deal cut $600 million out 
of programs that help desperately poor people around the world 
become self-sufficient. This was a tragic mistake.
In the coming weeks you will vote on a supplemental appropriation 
to fund the continuing war in Iraq. The relatively small sum needed 
to fully fund these antipoverty programs will strengthen our nation's 
security and I ask you to make sure it is included in this bill. 
Furthermore, it appears the president may continue or even deepen 
these cuts in next year's budget proposal. No matter what the initial 
proposal, please work to fully fund these programs.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Sincerely,
(We'll put your name and address here.)

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The politics of the Christmas story

By James Carroll  |  December 21, 2004
The Boston Globe
<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/
12/
21 /the_politics_of_the_christmas_story/>

THE SINGLE most important fact about the birth of Jesus,
as recounted in the Gospels, is one that receives almost
no emphasis in the American festival of Christmas. The
child who was born in Bethlehem represented a drastic
political challenge to the imperial power of Rome. The
nativity story is told to make the point that Rome is
the enemy of God, and in Jesus, Rome's day is over.

The Gospel of Matthew builds its nativity narrative
around Herod's determination to kill the baby, whom he
recognizes as a threat to his own political sway. The
Romans were an occupation force in Palestine, and Herod
was their puppet-king. To the people of Israel, the
Roman occupation, which preceded the birth of Jesus by
at least 50 years, was a defilement, and Jewish
resistance was steady. (The historian Josephus says that
after an uprising in Jerusalem around the time of the
birth of Jesus, the Romans crucified 2,000 Jewish
rebels.)

Herod was right to feel insecure on his throne. In order
to preempt any challenge from the rumored newborn "king
of the Jews," Herod murdered "all the male children who
were 2 years old or younger." Joseph, warned in a dream,
slipped out of Herod's reach with Mary and Jesus. Thus,
right from his birth, the child was marked as a
political fugitive.

The Gospel of Luke puts an even more political cast on
the story. The narrative begins with the decree of
Caesar Augustus calling for a world census -- a creation
of tax rolls that will tighten the empire's grip on its
subject peoples. It was Caesar Augustus who turned the
Roman republic into a dictatorship, a power-grab he
reinforced by proclaiming himself divine.

His census decree is what requires the journey of Joseph
and the pregnant Mary to Bethlehem, but it also defines
the context of their child's nativity as one of
political resistance. When the angel announces to
shepherds that a "savior has been born," as scholars
like Richard Horsley point out, those hearing the story
would immediately understand that the blasphemous claim
by Caesar Augustus to be "savior of the world" was being
repudiated.

When Jesus was murdered by Rome as a political criminal
-- crucifixion was the way such rebels were executed --
the story's beginning was fulfilled in its end. But for
contingent historical reasons (the savage Roman war
against the Jews in the late first century, the gradual
domination of the Jesus movement by Gentiles, the
conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century)
the Christian memory deemphasized the anti-Roman
character of the Jesus story. Eventually, Roman
imperialism would be sanctified by the church, with Jews
replacing Romans as the main antagonists of Jesus, as if
he were not Jewish himself. (Thus, Herod is remembered
more for being part-Jewish than for being a Roman
puppet.)

In modern times, religion and politics began to be
understood as occupying separate spheres, and the
nativity story became spiritualized and sentimentalized,
losing its political edge altogether. "Peace" replaced
resistance as the main motif. The baby Jesus was
universalized, removed from his decidedly Jewish
context, and the narrative's explicit critiques of
imperial dominance and of wealth were blunted.

This is how it came to be that Christmas in America has
turned the nativity of Jesus on its head. No surprise
there, for if the story were told today with Roman
imperialism at its center, questions might arise about
America's new self-understanding as an imperial power. A
story of Jesus born into a land oppressed by a hated
military occupation might prompt an examination of the
American occupation of Iraq. A story of Jesus come
decidedly to the poor might cast a pall over the
festival of consumption. A story of the Jewishness of
Jesus might undercut the Christian theology of
replacement.

Today the Roman empire is recalled mainly as a force for
good -- those roads, language, laws, civic magnificence,
"order" everywhere. The United States of America also
understands itself as acting in the world with good
intentions, aiming at order. "New world order," as
George H.W. Bush put it.

That we have this in common with Rome is caught by the
Latin motto that appears just below the engraved pyramid
on each American dollar bill, "Novus Ordo Seculorum."
But, as Iraq reminds us, such "order" comes at a cost,
far more than a dollar. The price is always paid in
blood and suffering by unseen "nobodies" at the bottom
of the imperial pyramid. It is their story, for once,
that is being told this week.

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------

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