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Want to help refugees in Kansas City? August 27, 2008

Posted by Zack in Kansas, Missouri | 3 comments

This post if for readers who live in the Kansas City area.

Elizabeth and I have gotten involved in the lives of this amazing group of refugees from Burma. They’re from a minority nationality from Burma who have been struggling for survival against all kinds of attacks by the Burmese state and army there for about 60 years. People from this nationality just started arriving in the U.S. two years ago. They have very little support. And almost no one speaks English yet. Most of these families have been living in refugee camps in Thailand for the last 10 years.

They’re really struggling here just to get jobs, make it to the doctor, get immunizations, enroll in school, get dental care for long-standing issues, learn to drive, fill out forms for basic assistance and housing, etc…

About 20 years ago, I hitched hiked through a part of South East Asia just a few hundred miles from where these folks come from, and where a related nationality lived. I’d wind up in a village near night fall, and the village would just get together and decide who would take care of me that night. A family would take me home, feed me, tell me stories (we all spoke about the same amount of Chinese), and give me the best mat in the house to sleep on. I was 18 years old and was so arrogant as to think that I should just be able to walk into villages and have people take care of me. They didn’t mind — they thought it was normal to put themselves out to take care of strangers, even when it could potentially get them in trouble with the government.

And so that’s part of why it’s breaking my heart seeing these families stuck in inadequate housing, with roaches crawling all over everything (not able to communicate with the landlord or pay for exterminators), without enough food half the time, and with hardly anyone lending a hand. But being around these families is an amazing thing. Watching them do church, whether you’re Christian or not, will blow you away. (They got totally missionized in the 1850’s, which is part of why they’re being driven out of Burma, and therefore why we owe them!) Watching them laugh and have a great time even as they’re getting beat up at school, going hungry at home, and being sick and stranded at home without transportation will blow you away too. They’re just awesome people. You should meet them if you live in Kansas City.

Anyone want to help meet some of these needs and get to know these families? Email us at help@revolutioninjesusland.com.

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Just another American Christianarchohippyconservativatarian in the making May 27, 2008

Posted by Zack in Kansas | 7 comments

Over the past five or so years, a really huge number of Christians (in the millions according to some researchers) have had a severe case of ideological whip flash. They haven’t changed course from bring pawns of the GOP to simply being pawns of the Democratic Party (thank God). They are swimming toward much deeper waters than that.

And thanks to the revealing magic of the Blogosphere, we get to watch many of them as they work out the twists and turns of these transformations. I don’t mean that to sound patronizing. The truth is that my own transformation over the past few years has been a whole lot more messy and chaotic than what we see Timothy going through below. (He is essentially stuck somewhere in between Christian anarchism and some kind of Compassionate Libertarianism of his own invention — and Brecht figures in somehow!) But I didn’t want to freak out anyone I work with, so I kept it to myself.

Check out Timothy’s list (I get a shout out at the end). Note the strong influence of Jesus for President. I’ve met a whole lot of people with similarly heterodox lists over the past couple of years. These are just pieces of the full list:

  • I have identified as Republican for as long as I can remember. This has recently changed.
  • I voted Dubya twice, and I don’t regret it.
  • I would not vote for Dubya again
  • Partially, this is because I no longer believe in war. In any circumstance.
  • I don’t even think I believe in force anymore.
  • If I believed in the use of force to stop bad people, I think I would vote for Dubya again, if given the chance.
  • He believes that power should be used to protect people.
  • I do not.

    • …

  • I think non-violent solutions are right whether they work or not.
  • I think anything right is right whether it works or not.
  • This is my definition of an extreme rightist.
  • A extreme leftist believes that only things that work are right.

    • …

  • I am not planning on voting for any of the major three candidates for president in November. (Nor October via absentee ballot. Nor December via being a Supreme Court Justice. Ha ha. Perhaps in January as part of the Supreme Court Justice League’s time travel division. Ok, that would technically be November, so that’s a possibility, I guess.)
  • I am excited about this election.

    • …

  • I am excited about this election for the same reasons the Democratics and Republicanites are scared of it: the possibility of chaos at the conventions: The HILLARY vs. OBAMA quagmire. MCCAIN vs. all the RON PAUL people who went to the trouble of going to the state conventions. That seems like a real political process where people was similar things, but disagree on the how of the thing. But as for after the conventions? I am barely interested.

    • …

  • I am not planning on voting for anyone. Primarily because I do not believe that power is the method by which change happens. I wish this wasn’t a joke.
  • Change happens when people change.
  • Most people do not want change.
  • Most people, even revolutionaries want the status quo. But only if they get to run it.

    • …

  • I don’t plan on voting for OBAMA. I do trust him. Call me a biased ex-Republican if you want. This is nitpicking, but he recently said that America is the world’s last best hope. I do not believe this. I see people hoping in OBAMA as president more than the others. I don’t know if hoping in a guy is good. I think hope is good. Maybe that’ll be good. Doesn’t mean I’m voting for him, though.
  • I don’t plan on voting for MCCAIN. I don’t trust him. Seems more interested in power than policy. I would want to vote for someone who believed more than politicked. Two years ago, he almost defected to the Democratics. I could care less if he did. His voting record seems a little more AMERICAN LEFT than AMERICAN RIGHT. But to do so, or not do so as a political manoeuvre? Meh, says I.
  • The AMERICAN LEFT and AMERICAN RIGHT do not believe they believe the same things. I agree and believe they do not believe the same things. But I do believe they practice the same things to the point that, to an outsider, there is no discernible difference.
  • The way things are going, I am planning on writing in JESUS for President. I don’t think he’s going to win. He doesn’t test well in the young urban professional demographic (not sure they even think he’s real), and his PR people have really dropped the ball over the last 6800 quarters or so. Crosses on shields, indeed.

    • …

  • For some reason I am still hopeful.
  • Some days, I don’t believe anything has ever worked, that everything is a failure.
  • This is probably true.
  • Most days I think everything I do is a failure.
  • I don’t know how that works with the concept of imago dei [the idea that God created us in his image], which I also believe.
  • Ah-ah.
  • I believe in small government. I’m close to libertarian if you have to define me.
  • Quit defining me.
  • I don’t think I’m an anarchist. I don’t know why. It seems almost closer to what I think than libertarianism. Maybe I think people should organize for safety. I would like this to be true.
  • Maybe it’s that I still want decent roads, dangit, and don’t want to pay some company for it.
  • I don’t trust companies any more than I trust governments.
  • I don’t trust any groups of people.
  • I don’t trust people.

    • …

  • Also, clean water would be nice.
  • And laws against slavery and such.
  • How to enforce without force, though . . .
  • A good law is sometimes all an oppressed person needs.
  • A good swift kick in the pants is sometimes all a snotty person needs.
  • My Facebook political views say I am not interested in power.
  • I am interested in power.
  • I do not want to be.

    • …

  • In a series of articles beginning here, that is not yet finished, Zack Exley says that Christians need to go beyond love on the small scale, and can organize to love on the big scale. That large organization does not necessarily mean failure. I don’t know if I believe him yet.
  • In light of that, I would like to define my politics as loving the people I see better than I love myself, and trying to see as many people as possible.
  • I do not live what I believe about politics.
  • Does anyone live what they believe?
  • Is everyone a failure?
  • Likely.
  • I believe that anything that can go wrong, will.
  • I also believe that anything that can go right, can, sometimes.
  • So yeah, I still have hope.
  • I believe in hope.
  • Um, JESUS for President!