Letters

Sojourners, Nov/Dec 1998

GOOD WORKS

I WOULD LIKE to suggest some follow-up on your September-October 1998 issue dealing with the church and labor movements ("Good Works") with research into Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese Christian who was active in organizing labor movements, first in the slums of Tokyo and then with the agricultural workers throughout Japan before WWI. One of his meditations speaks directly to his involvement with the movements in Japan, probably somewhat defensively because of persecution, but it goes like this:

"I enjoy poverty. Many possessions are to be deplored. If one has nothing one's troubles are few. By this I do not mean that I want to lack the bare necessities of life. If in some way I can manage to live, a grand house is no attraction. Rather give me a hut among the trees. While the snail, the killifish, and the lotus leaf are my friends, I have not desire to be rich.

"For this reason the labor movements with which I relate myself to do not demand large possessions. They have but three demands-a chance to live, a chance to work, and a chance to show the marks of a man. I have no desire to participate in labor movements motivated by greed."

Robert Vincent

Lima, Peru

BIG LABOR AND BIG BUSINESS

I CAN'T BEGIN to tell you how deeply disappointed I was in your "Good Works" treatment of organized labor. It is unfortunate that a magazine that is ordinarily so scrupulous and thoughtful would jump on this tired old bandwagon so uncritically.

My grandfather organized labor unions, for which he earned not a few bruises and long years on the HUAC blacklist. Yet in his later years, he was so embittered (and rightly so) by big labor's betrayal of all that he worked for that he voted against candidates that had union endorsements because they had them. My own 20-plus years working in and with voluntary mental disabilities service agencies has borne out my grandfather's assessment, witnessing a consistent pattern of labor unions putting the most narrow self-interest ahead of the needs of the fragile people they were supposed to serve.

While the need for organized labor is indisputable, the truth is that big labor and big business are the same creature with different faces. Both are wedded to a win-at-all-cost, show-methe-money mentality that is antithetical to Christianity. Both are "principalities and powers" and neither deserves the kind of cheerleading that is so uncharacteristic of Sojourners. It's not 1930 anymore and the AFL-CIO doesn't care about people any more than does Lee Iacocca. They care about preserving the status quo, with them on twin peaks of green. Mark J. Lukens East Rockaway, New York

NOT IN THE PAST TENSE

"THE POWER OF ALLIANCE" (by Bill Wylie-Kellermann, SeptemberOctober 1998) was an excellent, insightful call to careful analysis, then action, supporting legitimate and creative correction of injustice that upholds processes instigated by Christ rather than union or management thuggery.

Regarding the Interfaith Pilgrimage in "Between the Lines" (by Jim Rice): Such time and effort would be better spent to change the hearts of people who are currently benefiting from and being affected by slavery, wholesale slaughter, and other forms of atrocity. In parts of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, whole groups are blatantly subjugated under one pretense or another.

Shirley A. Loden

Hanford, California

READY, AIM. . .SURF

WHILE I AGREE wholeheartedly with Danny Duncan Collum's critique of the wasteland that is contemporary television ("What Would Elvis Do?" September-October 1998), I haven't reached the point (yet) where I'm ready to trade in my remote control for a semi-automatic. This sentiment, of course, is subject to change once I see the new fall line-up.

Television certainly weakens our social skills and alienates us from each other, from our selves, and ultimately from God; while producing a profound void in our lives, it simultaneously fills it with a heap of broken and insubstantial images. However, as someone born in the '60s and plugged into TV for as long as I can remember, I believe if we can learn to "read" television, it provides us the positive function of being a cultural barometer.

In the '70s, although the "revolution" would not be televised, the cultural aftershocks of collapsing social barriers were felt (however briefly) in prime-time sitcoms about race, poverty, women's rights, etc. The triumph of image and jingoism during the decade of Reaganism and MTV indicated that we as a nation were quite content to retreat into preferred realities no larger than our TV screens. And today the vapidity of postmodern sensibilities, along with mega-conglomerates converting their television subsidiaries into marketing tools, have made television the bland cultural landfill it currently is. Because the barometer is registering the prevailing winds of our national mood and social realities, the fault for this blandness lies not in our television sets, but largely in ourselves.

As progressive Christians, we need to continue creatively engaging mass culture and generate social changes powerful enough to shake the barometer of TV. One need only watch conservative Christian networks to see how our brothers and sisters on the other end of the spectrum are doing so quite successfully.