Lakewood Church: Performance - Production - Personality

On our recent trip south, I visited Lakewood Church in Houston. Joel Osteen is the minister and his wife Victoria also plays a prominent role. I had watched the services on television and was intrigued by the response and popularity of this ministry. Hence, being in Houston was an opportunity to seize the moment and experience this worship-ministry phenomenon. Also, I have always been interested in the question of what it means to be the Church? Lakewood is a "Church".

From the freeway, Lakewood Church looks like a modern business facility. Flat roof, rectangular shape, brownish facade with windows near the top. On one corner are the words LAKEWOOD CHURCH. 90 degrees away is the name: JOEL OSTEEN MINISTRIES with a logo that looks like a flame inside a circle.

Parking was an experience. Policemen and parking directors were everywhere. The church rents parking ramps from local businesses as well as having their own. After parking, people stream towards the church from blocks away, like blood through veins and arteries.

While walking towards the church, I was engaged by a young, single African-American woman who asked me if this was my first time at church? I said yes, that I had watched the service on television and my wife and I were traveling and happened to be in Houston, so I seized the opportunity to experience Lakewood. I asked her how long she had been attending and she said since 2006. I asked her why she kept coming back? She said she felt welcome, there was a feeling of family, and no expectations. You could find your own way. I asked her if the pastors talked about social issues, justice issues in worship. She said "No, they let you make your own decisions about that."

Entering the worship center was like entering an athletic fieldhouse which could easily be re-fitted for basketball, hockey, or football. Comfortable green theatre seating, but no cup holders made for a relaxing time. I asked the young woman if I could join her for worship. She smiled. By 8:30, the crowd filled about half of the center which holds about 18,000. The attendees were diverse, about 35% African-American, 45% White, and 20% Hispanic. Their service days are Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, and one service in Spanish. After worship you can meet with Joel and Victoria for a meet and greet.

There was no cross. Anywhere! Only a flame and circle logo on the lecturn. Only a huge golden globe adorned the front. No altar. No mention of Holy Communion. Water baptism takes place every Saturday evening. Children must be at least five years old to participate.

Bible study is segmented according to age, situation, and gender, every Saturday and Sunday evenings. The theme is: "Get direction for your life".

Music and singing filled 70% of the 1:35 minute service. No organ. There was a worship choir numbering over 100 and a worship band consisting of piano, trumpets, trombone, drums and a few other instruments. Song leaders were multi-racial. All musicians were VERY TALENTED! Songs were primarily up-beat with some gentle songs mixed in to fit the flow of the service. Call it a revival! Come to Jesus! Praise and glory! People standing, raising their arms in praise, clapping, stomping their feet! There were no worship bulletins, only two huge screens filled with announcements, visuals, and words to songs.

Joel and Victoria each spoke. I would characterize Victoria's talk as "fluff and glory", and Joel's more thoughtful. Both used Biblical references. The focus was on personal empowerment, God will change your life, make you a new person, and fill your life with blessings. There was no talk about social concerns, racism, economic justice, environmental issues, other than references to being unemployed or divorced.

A portion of the service was called "Prayer Partners", when people could come forward and have a member of the congregation pray with you. Joel and Victoria were prayer partners. Many came forward to share their prayer concerns. The partners placed their hands on the people or hugged them during the prayers. Visitors were asked to raise their hands. Immediately, ushers came over to give you information on a post worship gathering and to give you business-like cards with the words "Be Our Guest" and a color picture of Joel and Victoria, which you were asked to hand out to other people you meet during the week. Joel said, if you are here seeking to change your life, give Lakewood a year of your life and you will be a new person and will be blessed.

I picked up a four-color bulletin filled with happenings: "Married Life Date Night", CPR Certification and Training, Kids Life Team Celebration, Big Game Party, Generation Hope Project-Washington D.C. (Meet special needs, clean-up parks, feed the homeless, promote literacy), Men's Outreach Encounter (Take a 24 hour time away to deepen your walk with Chrirst), An Evening with Lisa Comes when she will talk about her new book, YOU WERE MADE FOR MORE, Celebrate Recovery Inventory, Friendship "Red Hat" Fellowship, Women's Encounter Retreat, From Stressed to Blessed (Dealing with finances), Honduras Mission Trip, and Prayer Life.

My thoughts? I felt welcome. I was impressed by the inclusive diversity. The upbeat style and contemporary music leadership, along with vocal leadership was warmingly inspirational. It was performance worship at the highest level! The timing of the various elements, Joel and Victoria's entrances, musical and prayerful sections were impeccably timed. No times of silence. Keep it moving. The lighting effects were professionally arranged and timed. Joel and Victoria were well dressed for success and smooth in their delivery. Show time!

Was Jesus present? Apparently yes. Was there reference to the Bible? Yes. Were the songs gospel? Yes. Was there a feeling of family and community? Yes.

But it was all about ME. Lakewood is a "church" based upon "presentation, personality, and performance", focused on ME. I ask: Where is the cross? What kind of Christ is presented? Kiwanis and country club schmooze. This is consumer church. Performance but not prophetic. "Jack me up!" It was "half a loaf" Christianity, with focus on personal, feel good transformation and receiving personal blessings with zero call to discipleship, of entering the suffering of the world. There was not a hint of addressing anything structural or justice oriented. It was all "Jesus will bless you" with no call to lay down your life. No demands, just a comfortable seat, up beat revivalism, and banal enthusiasm. Jesus was dressed for success, complete with golf shirt, a deep tan, and martini in hand.

There are no risks being taken to address or stand against culture, economic greed, a bloated militarism, structural poverty, threats against our democracy, unjust division of wealth, or racism. Just come and receive a blessing so you can get your share of the American pie, or, figure out yourself what you can do to address societal issues. This is church without cross, without demand, without discipleship, without edge, without confession. Success, feel goodism, performance, personality, production, fluff, are its gods.

NEXT WEEK: Bonhoeffer and the meaning of church.

Peace!
Ron

Bonhoeffer and Don Quixote

Bonhoeffer treasured Cervantes' Don Quixote.  He believed the beleaguered idealist was an apt metaphor for the Confessing Church.  He reasoned that the church needed new weapons, a new theology, new strategies to confront the rise of National Socialism.  The established state church reflected an old falsehood, a church which had burned its witness at the stake as the Nazis had burned books in the Bebel  Platz in Berlin.  Now, new "weapons of the Spirit" were necessary.

I led devotions for the Joint Peace with Justice Committee of the Minneapolis Area Synod and St. Paul Area Synod.  We first sang Gordon Lightfoot's song, "Don Quixote", which is based upon Cervantes' book.  The main character, Don Quixote, "takes a battered book into his hand", "takes a rusty sword into his hand", and "takes a tarnished cross into his hand".  He always "shouts across the ocean to a shore, till he can shout no more."  The final lines, after he shouts once more, are:

Then in a blaze of tangled hooves

He gallops off across the dusty plain

In vain to search again

Where no one will hear.

The message, one of many, is that no one is listening because the message was false and the means of communicating the message was outdated.  Says Bonhoeffer: "Here is the immortal figure of Don Quixote... who takes a barber's dish for a helmet and a miserable hack for a charger. [In Germany we have] "an old world venturing to take up arms against a new one or a world of the past hazarding an attack against the superior forces of the commonplaces and the mean."

In Luke 5:37-39, Jesus tells the parable of the new wine and old wineskins: "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled out, and the skins will be destroyed."  One of the meanings is the new MESSAGE of Jesus also means new METHODS of action to be effective.  

Christianity, the Church, the People of God, need to RECLAIM the radical, transforming message of Christ AND discover new ways to give witness. Otherwise, we are only lifting an old battered book, a rusty sword, and a tarnished cross: captive to anemic theology, culturally-captive church, and the pablum of personal I-centered witness.

The Colorado Confession reflects the lessons from Bonhoeffer and Don Quixote.  The Confession calls the faithful to look at reality, to admit to a "dis-ease", to consider the common good, to affirm that all people are created in the Image of God and to demand that we all live like it, to be one with the poor and oppressed, to work so that all people have enough, to care for the earth, to be generous in compassion, to demand equal justice for all, to live nonviolently, to make for peace. 

< We are given Gospel dreams and we must fight to bring them to reality.

There is a song, sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell, called "Make Them Hear You". It comes from the musical "Ragtime".  Some of the words are: "How justice was our battle.  How justice was denied". "Your sword can be a sermon or the power of the pen." "Will justice be demanded by ten thousand righteous men[women]?" "Make them hear you!"

How do we make them hear us? Biblical preaching and Bible study with an ear to balancing personal and political, pastoral and prophetic, global and local, community and congregation. Commitment to active involvement in personal renewal and community action. Commitment to love and justice. Commitment to timely ministry of band aid and being a "spoke in the wheel". Commitment to the possibility of martyrdom. Commitment to working ecumenically. Commitment to marching, sitting in, using Facebook and Twitter, writing a blog, attending meetings, meeting with senators and congresspersons, synod assembly actions, meeting with community leaders, writing letters, making telephone calls, meeting one on one at Starbuck's, and ....

What are we fighting for?  Are we fighting at all?  Are we saying anything? Are we making people hear us? How are we fighting? Are we open to new methods? Can we risk trying something different?  Or, are we just a gathering of solemn assemblies?

Press on!

Ron

Jesus, the Misfit!

Christmas is alive and well!  Consumption is again king and queen, at least for those who have money to spend.  Colorful lights yield beauty.  Carols and secular songs paint musical images of the season.  People fuel up their vehicles, purchase plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets to go home or connect with significant others.  Places of worship are overflowing, necessitating extra services.  Candle light services are especially appealing. Christmas time is an "orgy of activity".

All because of a celebration of the birth of Jesus.  What is it about Jesus' birth that stirs such outpourings?  I would suggest first of all that we need beginnings.  Jesus' beginning was the beginning of something totally renewing and life giving in a broken world.  We are constantly crying out for new beginnings, for the energy to start over, for the hope of new possibilities!  Second, it is because of the totality of Jesus' life, and how his message, his character, his mission transformed history. I heard a quote recently that conveys Jesus' Truth:

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the troublemakers,

the round pegs in the square holes.... The ones who see

things differently - they are not fond of rules.... You can

quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them,

but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they

change things.... They push the human race forward, and 

while some may see them as crazy ones, we see genius,

because the ones who are crazy enough to think they can

change the world, are the ones who do.

These words were spoken at Steve Jobs' memorial service.

As metaphor, they also describe Jesus.  And his actions began at birth.  Jesus was born in poverty during a time of Roman occupation.  The historian Tacitus describes Roman rule: "To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desert and they call it peace." 

Into this desert, Jesus' birth was a life of contrast and conflict with Roman rule: nonviolence instead of violence, justice instead of war, healing instead of the sword, words instead of oppression, forgiveness instead of retribution, grace instead of greed, reconciliation instead of walls, love instead of hate, peace instead of domination.  

Borg and Crossan describe the Christmas story as "a subversive parable."  Subversive stories help us see differently.  They subvert the conventional ways of seeing.  Similarly, parables are metaphors.

I recall a line from the movie "Zorba the Greek".  Zorba is trying to loosen up an uptight Britisher.  He tells the Brit, "You must learn to be crazy!  You must learn to dance!"(or words to that effect).

I think God realized that the world needed this craziness!  Craziness clothed as a misfit.  Misfit swaddled as a child.  Child who would bring to life the words from Isaiah: "Comfort, O comfort my people.... Wonderful Counselor..., Prince of Peace.... The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid..., and a little child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.... Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.... proclaim liberty to the captives.... proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.... for I the Lord love justice." 

Here's to the Misfit! 

A joyous Christmas to all!

Peace!

Ron

Sibylline Wisdom

The SIBYLLINE ORACLES are theological writings of pagan, Jewish, and Christian origin.  They were written between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE.  The following are SO 2.319-24:

THE EARTH WILL BELONG EQUALLY TO ALL,

UNDIVIDED BY WALLS OR FENCES.  IT WILL

THEN BEAR MORE ABUNDANT FRUITS SPONTANEOUSLY.

LIVES WILL BE IN COMMON AND WEALTH WILL

HAVE NO DIVISION.  FOR THERE WILL BE NO POOR

MAN THERE, NO RICH, NO TYRANT, NO SLAVE. 

FURTHER, NO ONE WILL BE EITHER GREAT OR SMALL

ANYMORE.  NO KINGS, NO LEADERS.  ALL WILL

BE ON A PAR TOGETHER.

Apart from the wisdom, justice, peace, and compassion of these oracles, these remarkable oracles are the outcome of the combined wisdom of three traditions: pagan, Jewish, and Christian.  I do not think any of the traditions "sold out" the core of its tradition.  Indeed, the meaning of the SO expresses the character of each tradition.

Two points to consider: 

1) The above SO provide a vision for the preferred direction of national purpose. There is an equality, a common life sense, a power in the hands of everyone, an all for all sense that is community nurturing.  Call it SHALOM.  Eden in Genesis reflects this vision.  When ISAIAH speak of the "wolf shall lie with the lamb", we have a vision of the SO.  Jesus' Sermon on the Mount exudes this spirit.  

This vision is crucially helpful for addressing the inequality in our national and global realities. The social and political inequities between the global north and south are glaringly painful to behold.  Within the north, the similar inequities exist between the growing division among the ultra-rich, the middle, and the lower classes.  Furthermore, the arrogance of the rich and powerful, the corporate priority of profit over people, the influence of greed over generosity, beg for a correction.  The SYBYLLINE ORACLES  provide correction.

Our American political gridlock can also benefit from taking the SO to heart.  Our representatives are elected to move us towards this goal.  Partisan ideology is meant to provide balance not inaction. America at its origins was not intended to be a society of survival of the fittest.  America is a nation where all people are to have an equal chance at creating a future of hope and fulfillment through honest labor, common rights, and adherence to common law, in the quest of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".  America is to be a state of being where the people can all have enough for family and community, which will lead to national and global good.

2)  If the SO can evolve from three somewhat competing traditions, our political parties can also combine traditions to form a common POLITICAL ORACLE, with the point being not to dominate and smother the other, but to combine the best of their ideology which nourish the common good. There is something to be said for the Republican virtues of individualism, initiative, freedom from too much regulation, a respect for states' rights, smaller government, and reasonable taxation.  Similarly, the Democrats' focus on the proper place of government, concern for the common good, we're in this together, higher taxes for the sake of service for all, the need for strong regulatory control, and a heart for the minority, are vital for our national well-being.  Both are committed to a strong military, family values, and both have shades of the other party.

America is a democracy, a cauldron of diversity, where you can win with 50.1%. But this does not mean that the views and lives of the other 49.9% are invalid.  Even though the balance of influence is tipped, the other side must still be honored.  ALL are Americans, ALL are citizens of the world, ALL are created in the Image of God.

Hence, the wisdom of the SIBYLLINE ORACLES: Together, seeking the common ground, taking the best from each other for the sake of the country and the world, and writing a common political and economic oracle.  Defeating and dominating the other side breeds destruction and despair.  We are all losers.  Just take a look around.

Hear ye, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Partiers, Occupy Wall Streeters!  The reality is that you each have good ideas at your core.  Take the best for the sake of the the ALL.  Share your power, practice humility, give and take.  The future of the nation and world are at stake.

Peace!

A Thanksgiving Gift: An Artist and a Song

This Thanksgiving week, I want to thank a friend who lives in Texas and is passionately committed to peace and justice.  He sent out an email which included the web site for an artist and a song for our times.  The artist's name is Makana, and his song is "We Are the Many".  He is the 1960's Bob Dylan of today, with the song reminiscent of "Blowin' in the Wind", "Times They Are A Changin'", and "Masters of War".

Listen to the songs of an era and we can learn the stresses and spirit of that era.  "We Are the Many" is a cry for justice, much like the Psalmist: "Listen to the sound of my cry....", "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord...."; or the prophet Isaiah: "...but you shall cry out for pain of heart...."; or Lamentations:
"... they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry...."  During this Thanksgiving week, I am thankful for Makana and his song.

A backstory sets the context.  Makana is a singer from Hawaii. His full name is Matthew Swalinkavich, but changed to his stage name to Makana, which is "the gift" in Hawaiian.  He has performed at the White House.  He was asked to perform during a sit-down meal for the APEC G-20 meeting a couple of weeks ago.  Dinner music for the powerful.  The story goes that he started his musical set singing traditional Hawaiian-style music. Eventually, he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a t-shirt that said, in handwritten letters, "Occupy with Aloha".

Describing the roll-out of the song, he says: "I started out very cautiously because my intention was not to disrupt their dinner.  My intention was to subliminally convey a message that I felt was paramount to the negotiations.  Eventually, I got enough courage to go for it for an extended period of time.  I ended my show with the line 'the bidding of the many not the few'.  I sang it about 50 times in different ways for them to hear." The lyrics and the melody provide a stirring anthem for the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Check it out and be thankful: makanamusic.com. The accompanying video will touch your heart.

We come here, gather round the stage

The time has come for us to voice our rage

Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage

To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law

The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw

At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw

And until they are purged, we won't withdraw.

CHORUS: We'll occupy the streets

We'll occupy the courts

We'll occupy the offices of you

Till you do

The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right

Of every person to improve their plight

But laws of this Republic they rewrite

And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability

They own it, but they are not like you and me

Their influence dictates legality

And until they are stopped we are not free. CHORUS

You enforce your monopolies with guns

While sacrificing our daughters and sons

But certain things belong to everyone

Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress

We have little to lose, we must confess

Your empty words do leave us unimpressed

A growing number join us in protest. CHORUS

You can't divide us into sides

And from our gaze, you cannot hide

Denial serves to amplify

And our allegiance you cannot buy

Our government is not for sale

The banks do not deserve a bail

We will not reward those who fail

We will not move till we prevail. CHORUS

We are the many

You are the few

Echoing the Psalmist and the prophets, Makana and his song are gifts for which we can be thankful.

Blessed Thanksgiving!

Peace!

Ron

The Injustice of Luck

"How Lucky They Are" is the headline of an article written by Greg Breining of the Startribune.  He writes that a University of Minnesota professor has concluded that "Mostly, extreme wealth comes from luck."  He continues: "In a capitalistic society, extreme concentration of wealth does not arise from extreme differences in work ethic, skills, investment smarts or other virtues.  Nor does it come from connections, cronyism or crookedness."

Carried to its logical end, Joseph Fargione, lead author of the study, states "...the inevitable outcome of unfettered capitalism is oligarchy."  In short, "luck" has significantly created an unequal caste system of division between the rich, middle, and poor, with power resting with a small, wealthy elite.

Fargione quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, who in 1837 warned that the American industrial class is "one of the harshest that ever existed, [which could create] permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy."  Fargione supports de Tocqueville's analysis by referring to Kevin Phillips' book, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, which reads: "[By 2000] the United States was not only the world's wealthiest nation and leading economic power, but also the Western industrial nation with the greatest percentage of the world's rich and greatest gap between rich and poor."

Breining quotes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis who observed, "We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both."

The top 1% of Americans control about 40% of the nation's wealth.  In a recent article in the New York Times, the author reviewed the Social Justice Index study of the 31 participating countries of the OECD. The social justice categories include: poverty prevention, overall poverty rate, child poverty rate, senior citizen poverty rate, income inequality, pre-primary education, health rating, and intergenerational justice rating.  In the "Overall Social Justice Rating", the United States came in 27th, just ahead of Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey.

Unfettered, unregulated capitalism, coupled with a growing separation between the rich and poor, protected by a justice system that protects the powerful, governed by a political system that is irresponsive to the growing economic divide, and controlled by a corporate elite that cares more for profit than people, is crushing the United States and much of the world.  The result is the decline of the West.

If this disparity is primarily because of "luck" as Fargione concludes, the world is truly out of control and the end is dire.  Correction then is to do the opposite of the above analysis: to balance serendipitous LUCK with responsible LAWS, with the goal to provide opportunity and enough for all people, to create a system that allows for wealth and opportunity to be spread around.  Luck is not enough to provide these outcomes.  Actions should include: 1) institute a more just and equitable tax code, expecting all to pay an appropriate amount, yet expecting the more well-to-do to pay more, enacting a transaction tax or "Robin Hood" tax on all Wall Street investments, and eliminating appropriate tax loop-holes; 2) make Medicaid and Medicare available to all people, cutting payments to physicians and making payments dependent on healthy outcomes rather than number of treatments, working with drug companies to control expenses; 3) make appropriate adjustments to Social Security, such as eliminating the contributory ceiling on contributions, and instituting a means test;  4) cut defense spending by eliminating "cost plus" weapons programs, bringing troops home from Europe, Afghanistan, and most of over 700 global bases; 5) create ways to get the odious effects of money out of elections and Washington politics, starting with the repeal of the Citizens United decision; 6) make public education affordable and available to all by eliminating the voucher system and privatization.

Justice ought not be dependent upon luck.  God did not create a world that feeds upon luck for righteousness.  Justice and righteousness have their roots in love, compassion, equality, and opportunity.
Let luck be a by-product of these virtues.  Luck ought to be the cherry on the top rather than the uncertain, occasional, win the lottery, main course.

Peace!
Ron

The Voter ID Canard

The question of making Voter IDs mandatory for elections is a very hot issue as we approach the 2012 elections.  Approximately 34 states will have Voter ID bills on their ballots.  While there is always a need to promote ways to guarantee free, open, and honest elections, this push for Voter IDs is an inappropriate response which will disenfranchise countless times more votes than they will prevent fraud.

Indeed, the Voter ID movement is a canard: a suppressive response to a made up problem.

According to the Christian Century of 26 July, 2011, "Federal prosecutors spent five years during the Bush administration trying to crack down on voter fraud, but their cases were negligible because they could find so few cases.  Fewer than 100 people were convicted nationwide, and almost all the cases involved not deliberate fraud but honest confusion."

The Advancement Project, an advocacy group of civil rights lawyers, describes this push for government issued identification before people are allowed to vote as "the largest legislative effort to scale back voting rights in a century".  Why?

A survey by the Brennen Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that 11% of citizens, 21 million people, do not have a current photo ID.  That fraction increases to 15% of low income citizens of voting age, 18% of young eligible voters, and 25% of Black eligible voters.  Those demographic groups tend to vote Democrat, and Republicans are imposing what they know many will be unable to meet. (New York Times, 27 April 2011).

In the state of Minnesota, the state which has perhaps the cleanest voting record of all states and the highest voter turn-out in the nation, The League of Women Voters reported that there were "0" voter impersonations and only 115 felons who voted.  In Minnesota felons cannot vote.  Of those, approximately 35 registered to vote but did not vote, and the rest voted.  This is a "fraud error of .0000383% in a total vote count of 3 million.  In a survey of all 87 Minnesota counties, of which 80% responded, which comprised 90% of all Minnesota voters, there were NO REPORTED FRAUDS other than the 115 felons, of which there were only 36 convictions.

The ACLU reports that between 2002 and 2007, the United States Attorney General reported ZERO evidence and convictions of impersonational voter fraud.  In Texas, the governor pushed through a Voter ID law even though there were ZERO instances of fraud, according to the Texas Attorney General.

Requiring Voter IDs presents problems: 1) Accessibility to Department of Motor Vehicle locations; 2) Having to accurately fill-out provisional ballots; 3) In some cases the expense of the card.  The people most affected will be those least able to go through the required hoops.

There is significant evidence that the big push for Voter IDs originates from the Republican Right.  Specifically, a Right-wing group called ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), funded significantly by the Koch brothers, is playing a major role in this voter suppression drive.  ALEC has provided model bills for legislators to consider, including Voter ID bills.  I encourage you to Google ALEC.  ALEC is corporate power stifling the democratic process.  In 1980, Paul Weyrich, the founder of ALEC, said: "I don't want everybody to vote."

The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that nearly 5 million "would be voters" may be affected by the passage of these Voter ID bills.  Overwhelmingly, this would benefit the Republican Party.

Making voting more difficult for certain groups is a violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because everyone is guaranteeed the right to vote, and putting up unncessary barriers is a violation of the Constitution.  It is like an old fashioned "poll tax" which prevented many Blacks from voting.

The Voter ID is a canard designed to disenfranchise millions of voters at the expense of Democratic candidates, to the benefit of the Republican candidates.  This is unfair.  Unjust.

I would urge all to speak out against Voter ID cards and vote in opposition.  Voting is the kingpin of democracy.  Democracy requires equal opportunity for participation.  I would also encourage those interested to search Brennen Center for Justice and the ACLU for up to date information.

Democracy for ALL!  Equal participation for ALL!

Peace!
Ron