Financial equality, gun control and health care were among the topics discussed recently by Senator Bernie Sanders during a rally held for Lubbock residents.
On March 10, Sanders spoke at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center to encourage the Democratic population of Lubbock to vote and help change the political ideologies that impact most of the state.
Sanders, the United States senator from Vermont, was a candidate during the 2016 presidential election. As a Progressive, Sanders has acted on many issues, such as global warming, income equality and universal health care.
In August 2016, Sanders founded Our Revolution, an organization aimed toward educating people about the Democratic platform and the changes they intend to initiate. Through many OR chapters across the nation, Sanders has spread his Progressive ideologies and supported candidates with similar ideals.
The event was hosted by Our Revolution Texas (ORT), the local OR chapter, whose aim is to end societal issues by fighting for a minimum wage of $15, Medicare for all and equality for everyone within the United States.
During the rally, which began with musical performances by Andy Wilkinson and Bob Livingston, T.G. Caraway, candidate for Lubbock County Commissioner Precinct 4, promoted ORT and introduced other speakers, such as OR President Nina Turner, Jim Hightower, former Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, and Michael Lighty, Director of Public Policy for National Nurses.
Throughout the majority of the speakers’ discussions, many issues, such as the inequality among social classes, the criminal justice system and the costs of being a United States citizen, were acknowledged countless times. But the need for Texans to vote, especially the liberal population of the state, was also discussed.
Encouraging people to vote and to take a stance on political issues are a few things that Hightower said that ORT is helping to achieve.
“ORT is bringing us mutts and rebels into the political sphere,” said Hightower. “ORT is not organizing to protest government. We are organizing to become the government.”
Through ORT and its sponsored events, Hightower said people will be able to come together and impact political decisions.
Fighting against the corporate elites was one thing that Sanders said will help relieve many problems. One major topic Sanders acknowledged was the difference in hardships between the wealthy and the working class.
“Since the Wall Street crash of 2008, 50 percent of income goes to the top 1 percent,” said Sanders. “I have a feeling in Texas you got people with two jobs and low wages to pay the bills.”
The need for affordable tuition and child care are among the many reasons why Sanders said he believes wages need to be higher for all people.
“People understand that $7.25 wage an hour is a starvation wage,” said Sanders. “We need to raise that to 15 bucks an hour. If senators can vote for a tax break for the wealthy, they can vote for free colleges.”
With the Democratic Party’s desire for a prosperous lifestyle and the wealthy not paying enough taxes, Sanders said people need to fight for legislation such as universal health care.
There are many disadvantages that result from not expanding Medicare to everyone. Due to unaffordable prescription drugs and the high cost of doctor appointments, he said he believes many Americans are suffering.
“All over this country, thousands and thousands die because they don’t go to the doctor,” said Sanders. “The USA is the only major country to not guarantee health care as a right. Together, we will change that. Expand Medicare for all.”
Considering recent events, such as the mass shootings and hurricanes, Sanders also regarded the need for a ban on assault weapons to reduce the risk of violence and the need for awareness of climate change and its detrimental consequences.
“The Democratic Party has not stood up like it should for the American people,” said Sanders. “Our job is to come up with a Progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of the working people. Take that agenda to friends, families who don’t vote.”
Through this event, ORT can continue to push this Progressive agenda and incorporate people across the nation. Turner, a former Ohio state senator, constantly addressed the need for unity within the small Democratic population in Texas during the Lubbock event.
This conference is something that Turner said brings people together to start a conversation and encourage people to act.
“Progressives have policies to lift this country,” said Turner. “Other folks may have money. But we have people power.”
Division within the Democratic Party is something Turner mentioned to be an obstacle that hinders the Progressive movement.
The consequences of climate change, lack of gun control, financial inequality and the need for health care are things that are said to be resolved through the unity of people throughout the nation. These matters are things that Sanders said that can be settled with solidarity.
plaintextnotes | I believe we're all human becomings. I write to celebrate life, living, and being-with.
Today was a hard day. I was acutely aware of all the things in my life that I wish were different from the way they are. I have lists of things that I’m working on, and that I struggle with. Mostly that’s work that happens alone, the way it does for everyone. The weight of some of it is suffocating. I can stay there for hours, too. It’s not fun. At one point late in the day I noticed there were large swathes of blue sky above me. I’d been outside, and I hadn’t noticed. I missed the sunset, too. I know there was one. They happen every day. Catching a sunset can redeem a day.
I’ve spent parts of the last few days looking for flowers. I haven’t seen any. The shoots of the crocuses my neighbor plants around several trees have started to show, but only barely. It’s not enough. I need to be surrounded by the colors of Spring, to stand underneath any one of a number of magnolia’s and breathe in their fragrant scent. After this long winter, I’m ready for Spring, and ready for what I know it will do with me.
I want to talk about the reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ, what Christians call the Atonement. I don’t intend to look at the different theories of atonement, about which there are many books. No. I want to introduce the sense of Jesus as the scapegoat who liberates us from the need for any other scapegoats. Is that two posts, or three? I’m not sure. We’ll see what happens. If I’m lucky I’ll pass along a thought or two that are helpful. As for tonight? Here’s something to chew on.
James Alison in a marvelous essay about atonement, is quick to point out that before there were theories of atonement, it was a liturgy.
“Now that doesn’t sound like too much of a contrast in our world because we tend to have an impoverished notion of liturgy. And we do not realise how much our dwelling in theory complicates our lives. That in fact having atonement as a theory means that it is an idea that can be grasped – and once it is grasped, one has got it – whereas a liturgy is something that happens at you.”
The contrast Alison offers is similar to the experience–and you’ve had this I’m sure–that it’s easier to work out in our heads all the reasons why someone is angry with us, than it is to ask them directly what is going on. When we do–or at least when I do–their responses are typically very different from the tidy theories that existed in my head. Alison, in his book Jesus the Forgiving Victim: Listening for the Unheard Voice wants us to put ourselves in the shoes of the Hebrews of the First Temple–which the rite of Atonement dates back to–so that we can get past the “theories” about atonement that we already have in our heads:
“Given our modern imagination of such things, it might have seemed as though the purpose of the Temple was a place into which certain rather specially dressed people went in order to sacrifice to God, who dwelt mysteriously and invisible at the center of it all. Nevertheless that would have been a mistake. . . . The whole point of the Temple was that it was a microcosm of creation, because it was not a god who was being worshipped, but God the Creator. So the Holy of Holies [at the heart of the Temple] was taken to be the place of God “outside” of creation, and so outside of space, of matter. This was a “space” that was beyond place, prior to the foundation of the world, forever.”
The key point there is that our sense of the sacrifices at the Temple were a price that was being paid to God, owes more to our understanding of Aztec sacrifice than what’s in the Bible. The flow of that is backwards, that way of thinking says we’re trying to stop God. The rite of Atonement wasn’t a way of appeasing God, it was the opposite. It illustrated, if you will, the movement of God towards us.
“The key idea was that God. YHWH, would come into materiality, vesting himself in the flesh of the High Priest . . . who will become YHWH for the day, [and] come through the veil from the Holy Place, out into the court of the Temple and offer sacrifice on the Altar of Sacrifice–YHWH coming out of heaven towards us, as it were. And the purpose of this rite will be the happy occasion in which the Creator restores creation.”
In this way the idea of what’s happening is bigger than individual sins. People get stuck their sin. I did that tonight. Instead, the rite of Atonement is about God pulling us out of the muck, so that we can appreciate the wonder that surrounds us all of the time, if we would only notice it. Alison has a nice turn of phrase saying it’s “as though God were a divine Drano, coming in to clean out the sluice system from within and getting it all to flow open and out again.” The ancient rite isn’t fundamentally about sin, it is about God coming to us and unleashing our experience of the full potential of creation.
I thought I’d go back to the beginning of my last post, and try to do a better job of spelling out what I was trying to do there. Since I start these late at night–for example, I’m beginning this one a few minutes after midnight–the late hour in a way limits my ability to polish these. With polish comes clarity. That said, since it’s after midnight, this might not be much clearer. Caveats. There are always caveats.
Anyway I started by juxtaposing a sampling of hot button issues which I purposely tried to present in the way someone who believed whatever side they did, would recognize. The examples are limited, yes. There are rarely only two sides to any issue. Still, one of the things that keeps us from being able to have civic dialogue in the U.S. is that we reduce too many issues to two views. We’re very black and white, very either-or that way. It limits our ability to hold an opposite view to our own with any regard. Recently in conversation, a friend of mine told me that she’s taken to staying silent, rather than hear another friend say a version of “how can you believe that?” Hearing her say that I thought of Carol Gilligan, and a quote that I think is from her book In a Different Voice, where she said: “The hardest times for me were not when people challenged what I said, but when I felt my voice was not heard.” There’s no greater treasure than a person’s voice. We’re shutting each other down. Shutting each other out, and in what might be a greater sin, we demonize those who hold views opposite our own.
Why do we do that? As I said a few weeks ago, I like the anthropology of René Girard and his ideas about Mimetic Rivalry. Girard, says that desire is mimetic. People want what they see others as already having. The whole idea of the need to “keep up with the Joneses” points to this. You’re driving a seven year old car in great shape, and that you’re perfectly happy with. One day you see your neighbor has purchased a new car. What happens next? You start wondering if you should get one too. Before your neighbor made their purchase, you had no need. Suddenly you do. That’s what he means.
At a social level this rivalry can get so heated that it leads to violence. Of course, your new found desire for a new car that you may not be able to afford may not lead to more than an argument with your spouse, or your boss about your pay. Then again, there are bunches of ways the story of Cain and Abel can play out in our society. To avoid social violence, Girard says, societies developed the “scapegoat” mechanism as a relief valve. That’s why you see in many early religions that an innocent victim is chosen, and after the sin of the community is assigned to them, and they’re sacrificed. It’s under the guise of appeasing the gods/God, but what’s really happening is that the pressure towards violence is released.
Since Liberals scapegoat Conservatives, and Conservatives scapegoat Liberals–that’s how badly things have degenerated–it’s almost impossible to recognize that a person who holds a view different or opposite from our own has come to hold it as true through a process that is as genuine, honest, and legitimate as the way we’ve come to hold true what we do. We can’t get there. At the same time, there is common ground.
Here’s when I made the leap that’s hard to do because we’re entrenched the way we are. While we may not be able to see a view opposite our own has having value–that’s where the phrase “morally equivalent” comes in–this week in Christian circles we’re all, Conservatives, Liberals, Green, Libertarian, Black, White, rich and poor Christians are celebrating the murder of Jesus in the celebration of Easter.
For Christian theologians–and regular folk like myself–what makes Easter transforming, is that Jesus becomes the scapegoat of everyone. That’s where shouting “Crucify him” as we read the Passion is an act that can help us get in touch with the way we we’re still scapegoating people, and cultures different than our own. That’s a hard thing to grasp. You might say, I’m not doing that. I can’t see that. It’s at this point that I think invoking Matthew 25 is appropriate:
41 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 44 Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ 45 He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’
Anyway. It’s one. I’m running on fumes. I hope that’s a little clearer. Tomorrow if I’m lucky I’ll dive a little deeper with the idea of Jesus as the scapegoat who forgives us. It’s a very different way of thinking about atonement. It’s a way–despite the way the passage I just mentioned reads–without an angry God.
Modcloth is a major American retailer of indie and vintage-inspired clothing for women. This year’s spring collection by Modcloth includes an impressive variety of wrap dresses, sundresses, tea dresses and kimono style dresses. If you are reading this, I hope you want more options to choose from. In this post, I’m going to share some of the best places to buy spring dresses online at affordable prices.
Available in XS, S, M, L and XL sizes, this stunning dress is one of the top-rated pieces in the entire spring collection by Lulus. The company offers free shipping and free returns on most orders. For a limited time, Lulus is also offering up to 70% discount on selected items.
Slightly expensive than Modcloth, but I’m sure that you’ll enjoy your trip to the official website of eShakti. The best thing is that, every dress offered by eShakti is highly customizable. eShakti is one of the few women’s clothing companies in the world that offer size 0-36W and custom size. Check out the floral print spring dress shown in the image.
From bodycon to billowy and strapless to backless, Free People offers perfect spring dresses for every taste and shape. Click Here to check out the One Bird Paradise Maxi Dress shown in the image or visit Free People to browse the latest spring collection with the perfect touch of bohemian elegance.
The price range and quality of products at Torrid is comparable to Modcloth. Torrid has recently introduced an impressive variety of plus size spring dresses in a variety of styles e.g. chiffon, knit floral and lace. Click Here to check out the tie dye chiffon skirt knit top maxi dress shown in the image or browse the complete collection of spring dresses by Torrid.
In addition to its in-house products, this UK based company also features sensational day and evening dresses from hundreds of world-famous brands. Dorothy Perkins offers free shipping on orders above $50. Check out the floral print midi skater dress shown in the image or visit Dorothy Perkins to take a look over the latest spring collection.
I hope you’ll agree, Banana Republic doesn’t need and introduction. And the good news is that, for a limited time, Banana Republic is offering up to 40% discount on its spring and summer collection. Click Here for sizing guide and detailed description of fit-and-flare spring dress shown in the image.
Featuring a midi silhouette, high neck and flute sleeves, the spring street floral dress is one of the top-rated pieces in the entire collection of Nasty Gal. moreover, a great variety of cold shoulder, tiered ruffles and peplum waists ensure that Nasty Gal has something for every taste and everyone.
Loft is famous for its one-and-done outfits for every day and every season. The spring season is no different. For a limited time, Loft is offering 40% flat discount on everything (use coupon code SUNNY to avail discounts). Click Here to learn more about Lily Ruffle Tie Waist dress shown in the image.
Charlotte Russe is an affordable alternative to Modcloth. Charlotte Russe is also a good place to buy plus size spring dresses at very affordable prices. Click Here to read more about the floral maxi romper shown in the image or visit Charlotte Russe to buy spring dresses under $30.
Last but certainly not the least, Venus! Whether you need something comfy to hang around the house or you are looking for a perfect dress for a special event, Venus will never disappoint you. Click Here to find the embellished print dress shown in the image. For a limited time, Venus is offering free shipping on orders above $100.
If you are a fan of Modcloth, I hope you’ll also like these alternatives. Would you like to share some other good places to buy spring dresses online? Please share your favorite brands and clothing retailers in the comments section.
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