E.T. Phone Home

I cast my first presidential ballot in 1972 and began a long career of voting for the loser, in that case George McGovern, badly defeated by Richard Nixon. I’ve always voted Democratic, so at least I have been able to help elect Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But I’ve had some sad election nights during all those Reagan and Bush and Bush II years. 

When I was a local church pastor I was forbidden to endorse any one candidate from the pulpit.  (How do the Catholics and Southern Baptists seem to be immune from that threat to their non-profit tax status?) But I was able to preach the Gospel’s affirmation of the equal worth of every individual in God’s eyes, Jesus’ care for the least of these, and our Creator’s call that we be good stewards of nature.  That made it obvious who I voted for. 

One November Sunday I preached that on Election Day night that previous week I had been too depressed to watch election results and instead caught a rerun of the movie E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (which gave me some great sermon points: resurrection, tolerance, we all want to phone home, and go home.)

I often feel like a space alien in this nation of mine on Election Day.  I’m lost and want to go home.

I admire folks who don’t stay home watching TV but instead try to change things. A few signs of hope:

~ The Occupy Movement.  Here in the US folks occupied public places in towns large and small last fall in support of the 99%, until it got too cold or violent or boring.  But they have regrouped in very interesting ways.

~ Many of my clergy colleagues are actively involved in supporting the Occupy movements in their cities and preaching about it.  Clergy met with Wells Fargo Bank executives demanding an end to their merciless foreclosures and payday loans at 120%.

~ Last week, across the nation, a big push coalition called 99 Percent Spring trained 45,000 people in person, and another 50,000 on line in the practicalities of nonviolent direct action, general economic issues and how to tell their own stories of injustice. Look for news of their planned public actions in May and June at stockholder meetings of companies like GE, Walmart, Bank of America and Verizon.

~ Citigroup shareholders this week rejected an exorbitant pay package for executives. Other disgruntled shareholders followed suit.

~ There are more and more Americans who are getting mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore (to quote another great movie, Network.)

~ Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under Clinton, active political and economic critic and Professor at Berkeley has a new e-book Beyond Outrage where he argues that we need a citizen movement like that of the 30's or 60's to challenge government inaction in a time of crisis.

Reich is a realist, but also refreshingly optimistic. He says getting mad as hell is not enough. He says:

You have every reason to be outraged. Moral outrage is the prerequisite of social change. But you also need to move beyond outrage and take action. The regressive forces seeking to move our nation backwards must not be allowed to triumph.

The point of "Beyond Outrage" is to help you focus on what needs to be done and how you can do it, and to encourage you not to feel bound by what's politically possible this year or next. You need to understand why the stakes are so high, and how your participation - now and in the future - is so important.

In my experience, nothing good happens in Washington unless people outside Washington become mobilized, organized, and energized to make it happen. Nothing worth changing in America will actually change unless you and others like you are committed to achieving that change.

Here in America we live with the outrageous recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people and money is speech. We hear outrageous lies and manipulations from the media. Many folks are just plain cynical and defeatist. I admit I get a lot of my news analysis from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and it's easy to just laugh with them and at Fox News and think nothing will change. But even Stewart and Colbert tried in the past year to go beyond their role as humorists, very cleverly pointing out again and again the folly and gall of politicians. They held a huge "Rally to Restore Sanity" in the capitol and even mounted a sort of real presidential campaign by Colbert to show the ease and dangers of Super PACs.

Stay tuned. The Daily Show and Cobert Report and Robert Reich and the 99 Percent Spring-ers and disgruntled shareholders and US voters are getting mad as hell, are moving beyond outrage, and might just listen to E.T. themselves, and phone home a different message this fall.

We can hope.

Copyright © 2012 Deborah Streeter