Good morning.

I’m Jeffrey Spencer, senior pastor at Niles Discovery Church. In our traditions (the UCC & the DOC), pastors are free to speak as their consciences dictate, and so I speak today to share what my conscience has to say.

I’m a Christian, so what Jesus said matters to me.  And if you turn to Matthew 18:21-35, you’ll find a record of a story Jesus told.  Here’s summary of the story; you can check out Matthew’s version in his gospel.
A king decides to settle his accounts. He calls in a servant who has a humungous debt. There’s no way he can repay, so he begs for leniency and the king, who could have sold him and his family into slavery, but forgives the debt.
Then this forgiven servant goes out to collect some money that’s owed to him by another servant and when the second servant can’t repay this relatively speaking small debt, the forgiven servant and the second servant thrown in jail. When the king hears about how the first servant showed no mercy to the second servant, the king has the first servant thrown out into utter darkness.

Story is totally on point.
American Banks received huge bailouts that protected from collapse.
Then these banks turn around and foreclose on relatively speaking small debts.

I’m not interested in throwing the banks into the utter darkness.  I am interested in justice. That’s why I stand in solidarity with the Occupy movement.

How do we achieve that justice? Well, here are 6 things the Occupy movement is calling for that I completely support and that I think will move us toward justice:
1. An end to corporation personhood.
2. A reformed tax system that demands that those who can most afford to pay taxes pay the most.
3. Some legal accountability of those who caused the Great Recession.
4. Define any business that is deemed “to big to fail” as being a monopoly and break it up.
5. Transform from a fossil fuel, consumption based economy to a clean energy economy.
6. Strengthen Wall Street regulations.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, there another story that Jesus tells.  It’s a story about how our lives will be judged, and it boils down to this: Our lives will be judged based on how we cared for or failed to care for those who are most in need, who are least powerful.  Let’s build a society that truly cares for those who are most in need.

Thank you.

I am also troubled by the need to honor veterans.  I think that need is very real.  We (as a country) send young men and women (and increasingly middle aged men and women) off to foreign countries to fight wars.  We ask a great deal of them and offer little in the way of compensation (particularly for enlisted personnel).  No wonder we feel a need to honor them.  But wouldn’t it be better if we didn’t fight wars like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan?  If we didn’t send the men and women of our military off to fight in those wars we wouldn’t need to honor them, and I would argue that those wars have done little if anything to protect our freedoms.

I say all this knowing that I chose to serve my country in ways other than serving in the military and so, I turn the rest of this blog post to Nathaniel Brooks, a World War II veteran.  What follows is a sermon he preached on Sunday, November 13, at the Unitarian Universalist church in Nashua, New Hampshire.

+     +     +     +     +

November 11 was set aside to honor those who served in our nation’s wars.  The date commemorates Armistice Day when, in 1918, the guns went quiet to end WW1. I was merely five months old then but WW1 had already played an important part in my life. The war had begun in 1914 and for the next three years Americans debated whether to get into it.  At a rally opposing entry, my mother and father first met and lo, I am here. But despite the opposition, the U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Wilson calling it “the war to end wars”.

In my later childhood I came to understand that the war had been simply a contest for dominance in Europe, no more moral than a gang war; and how bloody it was – of 65 million combatants 37 million were killed or wounded. This knowledge first shaped my feelings about war, and those feelings were confirmed by subsequent wars in the 1930’s. I learned to be skeptical about declarations by governments and to question the motives of their power elites. So for some years I joined with other students to work for peace.

Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor!  Two weeks later I volunteered to serve in the Army. At that point, I thought it was a necessary war and to be true to myself I should get in promptly. Along with 16 million others I served in the Armed Forces until 1946.

Now, as a veteran, a UU and an old man who has seen much, I would like to share some thoughts with you as we consider Veterans Day 2011. A bit of history – Armistice Day, whose message was primarily “promote peace so we never have war again,” was renamed as Veterans Day in 1954, a time of Cold War, and honoring military service became the central theme.

We, in the national organization, Veterans for Peace say: thanks for honoring those who served and honor them further by working to end wars.  Unfortunately the holiday is sometimes misused to glorify militarism and war. Politicians say words like “our heroes who have kept us free and safe.”  In my view none of this statement is true. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were no threat to our safety; wartimes made us less free and our soldiers are not heroes – not for lack of bravery, many are very brave, but because the task they were assigned and required to carry out is evil and ugly, not heroic. I don’t fault the soldiers, indeed I deeply care for their well-being. But I am angry with those who sent them to kill and perhaps be killed – and then employ flowery phrases to mask their guilt and entice a new crop of young people.

We have been told that American troops will return from Iraq “with their heads held high, proud of their success…” Heads held high?  Yes, they will be happy to be home and we hope they are well. Many of the soldiers who already returned have had severe and sometimes crippling injuries. It is estimated that half of them have brain injuries or are suffering from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. They come home to find a depressed economy with few jobs available. So I say “We sent them and now we owe them the best care and support we can provide.”

Proud of their success?  In what ways did the invasion of Iraq succeed?  For no reason that can stand the light of day, that country, that people, was torn apart and heavily destroyed. Considering our most basic UU value, “The inherent worth and dignity of every person”, war is the greatest obscenity and an intolerable offense to morality.

So where does one begin?  To bring change to any established way of doing things it is important to understand who benefits from the status quo and who loses by it.

So who benefits from our wars?  Clearly, the corporations that provide the war materials and services; and also multinational corporations that gain favored access to foreign markets, cheap labor and natural resources (oil for example).

On the other hand, what does it mean for our general population – the 99 percent? Sons and daughters sent to war; deaths, injuries and long-term health problems; and taxpayer costs in the trillions for wartime and after-war costs.  While some jobs are created to meet military requirements, economists say that if the same dollars were spent on peacetime needs, considerably more jobs could be created.  More importantly, while dollars spent on war are blown up or otherwise wasted, they could instead be used to improve our economy and quality of life through renewable energy, clean air and water, high-speed rail, well-equipped schools and more. Instead of such advances, war costs increase the deficit and create pressure to cut spending on social needs.

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates retired in June he said we need to decide “what is the kind of role the American people – accustomed to unquestioned military dominance – want their country to play in the world”? A good question!

Do we want to continue maintaining and expanding an empire; spending as much on our military as all the other nations of the world combined; manning hundreds of bases around the world; viewing ourselves as the ultimate judge and police in international relations?

Recently we see new forms of warfare – drones, preventive assassinations, so-called “humanitarian” wars; what do we think about these?  How to deal with the lurking dangers posed by nuclear weapons and the possible militarization of Space also challenges us. In our congregation we should create opportunities to learn and talk together about such complex and urgent questions.

And very importantly, we need to talk with our youth, who are the prime target of militarists and also our best hope for new thinking and change. Help them to think about bravery, heroism, patriotism – how these qualities may be expressed in times of peace, and how they are distorted in wartime.

People ask: can we hope for a more peaceful future?  I believe we can because human beings are intelligent, and if they are not swept away with manufactured fears they will increasingly come to realize that war is not the answer – and for a real danger they will seek every reasonable course other than military conflict.

A greater readiness to challenge war emerged during the Vietnam War, when popular opposition reached unprecedented levels. For decades following, Washington spoke of “the Vietnam syndrome” as though the people’s unwillingness to start another war was an illness.

More recently, while the American public was misled, there were massive demonstrations around the world opposing an invasion of Iraq.  Today the majority of Americans want out of the current wars.

The ultimate goal of abolishing war may seem beyond reason.  Consider however, that slavery, which was part of human existence for thousands of years, was eventually declared intolerable. And while there are still occasional examples of people being enslaved, they are considered a violation – not just of international law – but of human morality. The same is true of chemical warfare and I think torture and then capital punishment will follow in this century. I may be too optimistic but as our minister might say – “So may it be!”

On Monday, November 21, I posted:

When I saw video of a UC Davis police officer using pepper spray on demonstrators, I almost immediately asked myself, “Why wasn’t that lieutenant charged with assault and battery?”
As I’ve thought about the situation more (and as I’ve read friends comments here on Facebook), I’ve asked myself, “If I was on the jury (in a case where the lieutenant was charged), what would I want the state to prove?”
I don’t have an answer to the second question, but I know I want the UC Davis police to answer these questions:
a. What are standard police guidelines about the use of pepper spray?
b. What are “best practices” regarding police use of pepper spray?
c. When is it legal for a civilian to possess and/or use pepper spray on a UC campus?
d. What was the threat – to police and/or public safety – that caused the necessity to move the protestors?
e. Why was using pepper spray the appropriate IN THIS CASE?

This elicited several responses including this response:

A very interesting essay by a Andrew Sullivan reader about the pepper spraying incident at UC Davis: The thing that strikes me in the UC Davis video is the posture of Lieutenant John Pike, the man who directs pepper spray into the faces of those students at point blank range. Pike’s visor is up and his manner is completely relaxed – this is not a man who is concerned about a threat of imminent violence against him. He looks like someone spraying a weed with Roundup.
Let’s call the pepper spraying incident what it was: punishment. There was no threat of danger to the police. No, those students were punished by the police for refusing to obey. When they tried to protect themselves, the police ensured that they received the full dose of punishment, literally down their throats.
The thing is, punishment is a government act that is controlled by the Constitution. Three separate amendments in the Bill of Rights apply. Under the Fifth Amendment, government punishment cannot be meted out without “due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment requires a fair trial before punishment. Under the Eighth Amendment, “cruel and unusual punishments” cannot be employed no matter what kind of “due process” is given. All of these Amendments apply to the Davis police force and Lieutenant John Pike through the Fourteenth Amendment, which applied these duties (and the First Amendment) to the states. This act was not just evil, but a violation of our most sacred Constitutional precepts.
The Davis police website even indicates that the force has a “Professional Standards Unit” that is required to “ensure the department complies with current law, community needs and industry standards.” Of course, I don’t think I’d get very far with that approach. The name directly above the description of the “Professional Standards Unit” is Lieutenant John Pike.

And this response:

It would be hard to say that having a hazardous substance directed (in close range) at vulnerable mucous membranes was completely in the name of self defense, in that particular instance. I do think it’s a bit off-target for us as a public to latch on to Lt. John Pike’s ‘casual,’ ‘bored’ or ‘indifferent’ application. Having worked closely with people applying serious force, such as Tazers, I would far prefer the officer for whom force was a duty, rather than an amusing pastime. With that said, the expression on ones face may not betray the content of their heart. He may have been filled with dread, loathing, or the boredom people interpreted. However, it’s only his actions we can judge. (In my humble opinion.)

And another friend pointed me to this piece from The Atlantic [that I also think is worth reading]:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/why-i-feel-bad-for-the-pepperspraying-policeman-lt-john-pike/248772/

Later on Monday, November 21, I posted:

It seems to me that there are various levels of group protest. For instance, there is the group organizing a letter writing campaign, there is holding a legal rally to voice opinions, there’s holding a non-violent act of civil disobedience, there’s holding a violent action (violence against property), and there’s holding a violent action (committing violence against people). [I do not think this is an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. Let me also add that I think the violent choices are morally bankrupt.]

The first two acts are legal and mostly non-disruptive. Unfortunately, sometimes disruption is necessary to get the point across. Sometimes disruption needs to be great enough that it forces uninvolved people to take notice, inviting them to take action, so that eventually the desired change takes place.

It is important to recognize, however, that when a person or group choose a more disruptive course of action, when they choose civil disobedience, they are choosing to be *disobedient.* That is, they are choosing to break a law. And when someone chooses to break a law he/she should expect to be arrested.

The question in the UC Davis case is, I think, did the police use excessive force in arresting the persons who were breaking the law?

The video that I’ve seen and the eye witness reports I’ve heard suggest that excessive force was used. Excessive force is also a criminal act and cops who perpetrate it should expect to be sanctioned for it.

I’m looking forward to what others have to say about this POV.

I got responses, including this on from a friend who once worked in Probation:

In watching the video on the news, it did not appear that any of the protesters that were sprayed were offering physical acts of violent resisting arrest. They just sat and linked arms in classical non-violent protest. To have at hand the much pepper spray, means to me, that they officers were planning to use it. There is not question from the video that excessive force was used, and that the officers that used the spray should be charged with a felony. Do understand that they were suspended, but the whole thing shows the mind set of a department. A real problem on a campus of a university, the campus police will do that to students.

And this:

I think you are too charitable to disruption. If I sit in traffic because of a group choosing to block a road, that’s annoying. If a thousand people are stuck in traffic caused by a group blocking a road, that’s a bit more than annoying. What percentage of those people needed to be somewhere? How many of them had to pay out extra cash because they couldn’t get to the normal pickup time for their kid’s daycare or babysitter? What it some of those folks were sick and needed to be home to rest, vomit, sit in warm water, or relax? Then sitting in traffic is a cruelty, not just an annoyance. What if an ambulance is delayed by protesters? They can call themselves magnanimous by allowing emergency vehicles to pass their protest, but they need to get to the protest first, which is made harder and slower.

Traffic happens and we deal. Some are inconvenienced and some are harmed. And some folks die in transit to a hospital when they might otherwise live. That’s life. But when it happens because of a conscious decision, then there is culpability to bear. The rhetoric from the protestors that I hear is that they do not care about the inconvenience they are causing. The rhetoric I hear is that we deserve it because we do not pay them sufficient attention.

The occupy movement is not being ignored. They should not employ the tactic of mass disruption. Occupying a bank lobby, occupying a college quad, these are all fine. Occupying one of the four bridges in Seattle … now you’ve lost me.

And my response to this last comment:
I think Chuck raises an interesting point about the tactic of using non-violent civil disobedience — that there are different ways to do it and different levels of disruption that can be caused. Sometimes some actions gain supporters (or at least gain notice) and sometimes some actions lose supporters. However, I think that the pictures of the water hoses and dogs helped the cause of the Civil Rights movement as much or more than the sit-ins at Woolworth lunch counters.

On Wednesday, November 23, I posted:
Here’s Billy Nye (the Science Guy) explaining what climate change is all about … and why we need to cut through the lies and denial NOW.

And I’m not sure which of these should be my “Pic of the week.”

FINALLY, a use of the pepper spraying cop meme (not sure if that’s correct grammar) that actually made me laugh!

Obviously, we need to write our signs a little more slowly.

Well, BROKE ain’t the problem.  Watch:

From Thursday, November 17:
RT @billmckibben: amazed and gratified to hear that delaware fracking put on hold! extreme engagement beats extreme energy! http://t.co/xlOR7BNL

From Thursday, November 17:

From Friday, November 18:
I am becoming increasingly concerned about the privatization of America.
It started with reports of Blackwater providing mercenaries for the war in Iraq. More recently, I’ve been reading headlines about abuses (including sexual abuses) being perpetrated in private immigration detention centers by the staff.
Today, I started reading this report from the ACLU [about the privatization of prisons] and my anger and sadness grew. If we think it is necessary to lock people up, shouldn’t WE do it? Shouldn’t WE be running the prisons we deem are necessary? Why would we think it’s okay for a corporation to make money on this?
Oh, and then there’s this article in the Huffington Post [about how the evictions of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park is the privatization of liberty].

And here’s my Pic of the Week:

1.  Once again, Global Warming and Climate Change topped the content of my posts on Facebook last week. 

I began the week wishing I could be in DC to participate in the Keystone XL Pipeline protest that surrounded the White House, with a link to photos of the event.  Then on Thursday, I started celebrating the Obama Administration’s decision to delay the decision on the pipeline by at least a year.  I encouraged people to write to the Whitehouse to say “thank you” and to sign this petition calling on the administration to simply say “no” or to really start over in examining the pros and cons of the pipeline.  The petition reads:

Delaying or rerouting the Keystone XL does not solve the problem. Reject this project now. If you will not, then direct the State Department to start over clean with an evaluation conducted by a truly independent contractor, that takes into account the global warming impacts of this pipeline, and that is free from the influence of lobbyists.

I also posted a link to this article on the impact, degree by degree, of global warming on our climates and living situation.  It’s pretty scary!
And there was the link to this article on how we know that human beings are causing global warming.

2.  There were bunches of posts about “Mission: 1,” a nation-wide effort by the United Church of Christ to address hunger and hunger justice.

3.  And then there’s my favorite picture of the week:

Here’s what I suggest you do:

REDUCE SPENDING by:
* Cut the Department of Defense budget by 15% (with the guarantee that there would be no cuts to enlisted personnel salaries).
* Increase retirement age for full Social Security benefits for people born in 1961 or later (that includes me) to 70 years of age or until disability requires retirement.
* Reduce Medicare costs by:  requiring competitive bidding for durable medical equipment; using electronic eligibility, claims processing, payment; restraining high tech diagnosis/treatment that is NOT more effective; moving to effective pharmaceutical bulk purchasing and lower per unit costs in all public programs as we now do with the VA; ending ‘fee for service’ that encourages over-testing and inefficient billing and go to Acute Care Episode payments that bundle acute and post-acute care.

ABSOLUTELY NO CUTS TO Medi-Cal and TANF!

INCREASE REVENUE by:
* End practice of accelerated depreciation for plant CLOSING and “cash back” to closing businesses that choose to shut down
* End supports for shipping production overseas
* Support the “Buffet Solution” of taxing the most wealthy with a small surtax
* Allow Bush tax cuts for those making (NETTING) over $250,000 to expire — this alone obtains $1.2 TRILLION.
* Close offshore tax avoidance with a “territorial” tax base on all a US corporation’s income.
* End tax breaks and loopholes for corporations and high income individuals.

You can write to the Super Committee, too.  Go to their website and click on the “Write to us Today” button.

From Wednesday, November 2:
Even if it turns out to be an urban legend, this is pretty cool:
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it and really mess it up, but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty it was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bullies another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever.

From Thursday and Friday, November 3 and 4, I posted this video and these links about global climate change:
If you’ve ever wondered why 350 is the most important number on earth, this may help you understand.

More bad news:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2122683/monster-2010-greenhouse-gas-rise-largest

I’ve been preaching this for over a year … maybe two …
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/blogs/leaked-report-confirms-climate-change-and-extreme-weather-connec
[In fact, on Saturday, October 29, I posted:
NEWS: An early snowstorm hits the east coast.
As oxymoronic as it seems, this is actually a sign of global warming. You see, warmer air holds more moisture. When that warmer, wetter air moves up to cooler areas, that moisture comes out of the air – in the form of rain or (if that cooler area is cold enough) snow.
Globally, things are getting warmer and this warming is causing more extreme weather – snowstorms on the east coast of the US, flooding in Thailand, drought in Texas and Oklahoma. When these extreme weather patterns happen frequently enough, they will become a new normal – or put another way, the climate will have changed.

From Wednesday and Thrusday, November 2 & 3, I posted links to two Paul Krugman columns about wage inequality in the U.S.:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/a-mind-is-a-terrible-thing-to-lose/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/inequality-trends-in-one-picture/

1.  From Thursday, October 27:
This is a (slightly edited) RT … but I had a math teacher who taught me how to check that the this is accurate.
Teachers’ “hefty” salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year. It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do – babysit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning – that equals 6½ hours).  Our communities should pay $19.50 a day per child for these teachers to baby-sit our children.  Since class sizes are now running around 30, that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year. I am not going to pay them for any vacations. LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year.
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute … The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.78/per day. Divide that by 30 students=$9.26/student. Divide by 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student – a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE our kids.

2.  From Thursday, October 27:
The “Liberal Media” are hard at it again, ignoring the news from this Koch brothers funded scientist who examined the evidence and concluded that, sure enough, “global warming is real.”
Click here for Jon Stewart’s amusing take on this.

Seriously, I think this is a very important news story that we need to know about so when people deny the reality of global warming, we can point to an oil-funded study by a skeptical scientist that concludes that global warming is real.
On Monday, October 24, I posted:
‎”The Koch Foundation, founded by the billionaire oil brothers who have been major funders of the climate-denial machine, gave BEST a $150,000 grant.” BEST (the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project) discovers that the climate scientists are right. The earth is warming.
And this link.

3.  Throughout the week I had several posts about Occupy Wall Street, especially after the fiasco in Oakland.  Here are a few of the pictures I shared: