the biggest text book for economic justice
a march for economic justice
Originally uploaded by dream awakener.
according to multiple news sources, tens of thousands, and as many as 200,000 today marched for economic justice. "the marchers dressed in white and formed a human chain around scotland's capital on saturday, echoing the musical call of the live 8 concerts", according to the guardian unlimited.
not only that, but correspondents in philadelphia, according to rueters, just reported that "more than 26.4 million people from around the world have sent text messages in support of the LIVE 8 campaign to cancel the debts of poor countries, setting a world record." the previous record, according to the reuters article of the most text messages sent on a single day for a single event was around 5.8 million for an episode of american idol. ralph simon who was coordinating the text messaging campaign in philedelphia, said, "what this means is bono and bob geldolf can to to gleneagles in a few day's time and say we have created the world's biggest text book."
the article aslo states that "aol.com, whichs streamed video of the concerts, also claimed a world record, saying more than five million logged on globally to watch, making it the biggest streaming event ever."
my hope is that we will continue to sing songs of justice, long after the conference and the G8 conference. continue to read the next articles to learn how.
live8
posted by J.R. Woodward @ 7:05 PM
6 Comments:
I want to make a post, but I have a strong mix of emotions in doing so. I suspect that my heart and motives will be judged if I say anything even remotely negative about the G8 conf. and the Live 8 concerts. Nevertheless, I feel that I must (at least make the post, that is).
I guess my thoughts are more in the form of questions:
Should it be the focus of Christians to "make poverty history" or "create new economic realities"? I wonder if Jesus was serious when he said, "You will always have the poor among you" (John 12:8).
Why is a quest to ease the suffering of poverty called "social justice"? Is it unjust for someone to be poor? Is global communism what Jesus died for? Why don't we call it social compassion? That seems more accurate to me.
Is it the proper role of government to end poverty? Is it appropriate for the government to tax it's citizens who work hard for their money and give it away to others? Wouldn't it be better to call upon the individual to exercise compassion upon the needy? Isn't that the model Christ left us? To take personal responsibility to ease the suffering in the world.
The Roman Catholic church and many mainline denominations have made poverty a priority by formulating what is called the "social gospel". The idea that Jesus died on the cross so that economic and political oppression would cease. Is that true? Jesus seemed to make it clear that he came to preach the good news that the Kingdom of God has come and to be a light to the world and give sight to the blind. (Mark 1:15, John 9:37-39, John 12:44-46).
So am I saying, "to hell with the poor"? By no means! I am asking sincere questions that I have about the degree of emphasis and the methodology of solving the poverty problem.
I am happy for Live 8. I am far happier for Kairos taking personal responsibility to deliver physical and spiritual food to those stranded in poverty in Africa. We need both to live.
Tim
Tim:::
check it!
http://slimcontact.blogspot.com/2005/07/live-8-and-its-impact.html
when i get some time i would love to respond to your concerns
"do we want that cup of coffee in the morning? What if we knew what it costs another family in Africa to produce that coffee?"
And if we stopped buying this coffee, we would crush the meager economy that produced it.
"How about that cheap blanket you bought at Wal-Mart? Did the person making that get paid according to her (and its usually a her) amount of work?"
The point is they got paid, which they may not have otherwise... fair is a relative term. Would you or I work for those wages? Probably not. Would they? They certainly do, and thus provide income they otherwise wouldn't have.
Check this:
http://www.mattandnancy.org/archives/2005/07/make_developmen.html
Tim
Ooops, that link didn't cut and paste right. Here it is again:
http://www.mattandnancy.org/archives/matts_external_brain/index.html
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