Last night I was on The Daily Show again with Jon Stewart to talk about my new book. It's always a fun show. I enjoyed the back and forth with Jon about values, economics, and the bad morality play of banks, bailouts, and now bonuses. I think Stewart is doing more than anybody else in the media to try and change the script. If Twitter comments are any indication of public sentiment, my suggestion that the bankers give their massive bonuses to Haiti resonated with lots of people. You can watch the interview and get a free download of the first chapter of my book, "Sunday School with Jon Stewart."
This a.m., I got up to do Morning Joe on MSNBC. The timing could not have been better, because today is the day that Goldman Sachs announces its record revenues and bonuses ($16.2 billion in compensation this year). My favorite moment was hearing the title of Goldman's new charity giving program: "Goldman Sachs Gives." I told Morning Joe how reassuring that is to me, and in response to a wry comment from commentator Mike Barnicle that they must be doing "God's work," I suggested that I was sure God really appreciated this public relations gesture on the part of the big banks. But then I said that these bonuses in the midst of such suffering in America were more than a scandal and a shame -- they are a sin of biblical proportions.
I reminded everyone on the show that the bonuses are merely a symptom of a deeper erosion of societal values and spoke of the new maxims that have overtaken us -- Greed is Good, It's All About Me, and I Want It Now. Those values wreak havoc on economies, cultures, families, and our very souls. In contrast I suggested that we need to rediscover some new/old spiritual virtues like: Enough is Enough, We're In This Together, and learn to employ the Native American ethic of considering the consequences of decisions today by their impact on the seventh generation out. That would change the "short-termism" that has come to dominate our economic decision-making. I also learned that some people think "class warfare" only breaks out when the people who are having a war waged on them (us) get mad at the people who started the fight in the first place (Wall Street). Interesting.
Now we head to Chicago for a forum tonight with the city's business and civic leaders.
Stay tuned.
Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street--A Moral Compass for the New Economy, Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.
Follow Jim Wallis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jimwallis
Jim Wallis: 'Rediscovering Values': A Book I Didn't Expect to Write
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“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” - Plato
I'm ready to believe you if you can tell me just who it was that "chose" this "capitalist Society " Certainly not the millions that are currently enslaved by it...
This is a capitalist Society by choice, and these are the consequences of a Capitalist Society.
Bush/Cheney knew what he was doing when he loaded the Supreme Court with Conservatives.
We the People elected Bush once, the Court elected him the second time.
These are the consequences of Free and Fair elections in a two Party System.
Now, everybody moans and groans about how the money migrates to the top of the pyramid..
Bank Bailouts being a prime example of this.
(next time try giving everybody in the Country $50 000 to pay down their debt or mortgage...Oh the Banks wouldn't like that now would they?)
Redistributing wealth..ie Socialism, should be the new mantra of the Obama Admin'
Shout it loud and let everybody know they have a fair shot at a decent life.
What causes these feelings of want? It is the valuation syndrome, where prescribed values for every conceivable thing are determined, not by consensus, or even majority, but by some arbiter of assessment, usually in the hire of those who would profit from such valuations.
Physical and psychological manipulation of the stress factors that dominate almost all humans are most easily achieved by those lizard kings who are entirely sociopathic in behavior.
Who is granting the huge bonuses at GS and elsewhere? Only the mega-elite can do so. Those on the receiving end are the best of the best of the wannabe sycophants.
Fear of want controls everything, real or imaginary.
You lose me when you speak of "Biblical proportions" and "Native American seven generations out". These are nonsense descriptions with no foundation in the here and now. Stick to pragmatics and you'll make a better case.
We need to reset to standards of pay for such persons to more like that of Europe and Japan. In other countries, they use their tax laws on individuals, regulation on corporations and other polices as well as respect cultural beliefs to hold down compensation to more reasonable limits.
Perhaps too we need to end the glorification in the media of the rich, those that paid stupid money to play a game, or of being rich with money it itself.
The side of religion, that I think religion is suppose to be about. Helping the less fortunate, humbleness, sharing, tolerance.
As Jim clearly states today the Conservative base has hijacked the Christian religion and turned it upside down. Like he says, today Greed is good, intolerance, selfishness, hate and fear resonate very well with the FOX news crowd, justified with their sense of false religion, pro-ignorance, denial, and false patriotism in the name of money!
Keep up the good work Jim.
Heaven and Hell does not come after death, it is now. It is in your intent to do harm or to help others while you are living!
http://www.richmonk31.blogspot.com
It's actually deceit and duplicity in the form of stealing, fraudulence, and phony accounting all of which are criminal. You can't prosecute greed but we could send a lot of these crooks to jail if our gov't was not dishonest itself with it's lack of enforcement. Although they may go hand in hand, Dishonesty is a far greater culprit here than is Greed. I think we miss the point and let people off the hook when we emphasize the latter. It makes it sound like everybody just got carried away rather than engaging in calculated, controlled, deliberate, and premeditated acts of predatory fraud.