[Grovenet] Genesis 4:9

[Walt Wentz]

Carol:
Actually, we'd have to go back to the Aramaic or Hebrew (or 
Babylonian or Akkadian, or wherever the Hebrews got this story from) 
to know the sense of the work "keeper" in this case. I'd always 
assumed it to mean "custodian or caretaker" in this connection, 
rather than "guard or jailor," which is another sense of the word in 
the English of King James' day.

As for ascribing sweeping generalities to whole classes of people-- 
well, that's a tribal thing to do, and man evolved as a tribal 
animal. Although each of us has distinct and individual opinions, we 
still instinctively divide the world into "us" and "them" based upon 
similarities and differences--especially during election years, when 
the spinmeisters and think tanks go into high gear, creating "images" 
of their candidates and caricatures of their opponents, and cranking 
out "facts" and  "causes" that are carefully crafted and phrased to 
evoke strong subconscious reactions-- usually negative ones-- to 
contrived "differences." Take a look at "Don't Think of an Elephant," 
by Lakoff, to see how this is done. We can't consciously transcend 
our monkey-band psychology until we understand how it works-- and how 
easily it can be manipulated. Thus we have the Republican Noise 
Machine denouncing Obama, the former food-stamp recipient, as an 
"elitist---" a chant led by old white millionaries-- while anti-war 
activists tar McCain, an actual military veteran and military hero, 
with the same brush as Bush, Cheny and the rest of that coterie of 
draft-dodgers and service dropouts who got us into Iraq.

It is important to remember that individual people may have honorable 
motives, but political parties are not individuals, but simply 
business enterprises which have no honor and no motive except to 
remain in power. To do so, they resort to falsification, obfuscation, 
deceit and "dirty tricks" which between actual people would lead to 
massive lawsuits for fraud, swindling and libel, or at least to 
fist-fights on the street. Note the proud announcement of "Operation 
Chaos," a political "dirty tricks" department devoted to activities 
which, in ordinary life, we would regard with indignation or 
contempt, but which we greet with blank indifference during an 
election year.

It is, of course, best to categorize other people according to to 
their actions-- "by their works shall ye know them..." since words 
are undependable in an election season. As has been pointed out 
repeatedly, some candidates will apparently abandon or contradict 
their professed ideals to secure large, predictable voting blocks. 
Too often, we depend on "analyses" by pundits who opinions happen  to 
conform to our own. Although it takes more time than most of us have 
to invest, it's best to go over the actual words of the candidates 
themselves to reach a judgement on their motives--bearing in mind 
that some candidates will hedge, quibble, evade, equivocate or 
deflect on sensitive subjects.

I'm delighted to hear from anyone who believes that religion and 
politics must be kept sternly separate. Jefferson, who most clearly 
enunciated the principle,  was a deep and perceptive thinker, and one 
need only to look at nations with an official "state religion" to see 
how thoroughly individual rights and freedoms are constrained by 
them. There is a strong and continuing effort to break down that wall 
of separation in this country, and to legislate a public "morality" 
which is based upon one particular strain of one particular religion, 
fundamentalist Christianity. This effort is, I think, out of any 
reasonable proportion to the actual number of  people of that 
particular faith-- but those people are perceived by party operatives 
as being a monolithic and  dependable voting block, rather than 
unpredictable, thoughtful individuals, and so they are shamelessly 
courted and bribed with promises to impose their "morality" upon 
everyone else, through the full weight of the law-- the prime example 
right now being the overblown furore over "gay marriage."

Just as the label "conservative" has been loaded down with negative 
connotations (it originally meant "one who preserves"), the label 
"liberal" has been systematically poisoned by the Republican Noise 
Machine for many decades. It originally meant "tolerant and 
generous."  Its meaning today has been so carefully and 
systematically distorted that it has become an invective that had 
best be abandoned altogether, and perhaps replaced with "progressive."

Is it best to take care of oneself? Of course it is, particularly 
when the opportunities exist to do so. Yet, if I got mooshed by a 
truck tomorrow, all my opportunities vanished and I had to spend the 
rest of my life as a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of the pieces missing, 
I know I'd rather have a "Liberal" administration in power, which 
mandated decent care for the disabled and the terminally strange, 
than a "Conservative" administration which operated on the assumption 
that nobody was obligated to take care of anybody, particularly not 
through (shudder) TAXES.

Capitalism does equal consumerism, in that successful capitalists 
must persuade people to consume. Do we really need to update our 
computers every six months? But the freedom to endlessly pursue more 
and more personal wealth does not necessarily improve a culture. 
Greed is a force that has been unhealthily emphasized in this nation 
ever since the Puritans, believers in the gloomy doctrine of 
"Predestination,"  equated earthly prosperity with proof of God's 
approval and a promise of heaven to the prosperous one. The old Greek 
concept of "Enough" has been all but forgotten. And there are 
alternatives to the model of greed which are considerably less 
destructive to society, and to the world. Take, for instance, the 
"savage" original inhabitants of the Northwest coast. Many of their 
cultures were quite prosperous, based upon wealth from the sea and 
widespread trading networks in food, goods and slaves. It was 
possible for any energetic young man to become very wealthy, a Tyee 
or "big man." Yet, the real prestige of a Tyee came with that 
celebration called the Potlatch, in which he gave away his wealth to 
everyone in the village and began over again from scratch, thereby 
shaming and humiliating his rivals. The tribesmen loaded down with 
another man's wealth in this fashion, even if not yet rich 
themselves, had to expunge the humiliation by going home and working 
hard so their own potlatches would outshine the previous one.
Naturally, the British invaders were scandalized to encounter this 
"primitive" mechanism for keeping wealth circulating freely 
throughout a tribe, and passed laws against the potlatch. The custom 
continued underground for a time, but today I expect you would find 
widespread poverty among many formerly prosperous coastal tribes, 
even after they have accepted the "civilized" model of Greed as God.
I offer Bill Gates as a modern model of this old, enlightened model of wealth.
Walt