(no subject)

Every now and then, I happen to read a book at the precise moment in my ongoing inquiry that it does me the most benefit. Such is the case with Schuessler Fiorenza's Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation. This is the book I needed to read at this moment.

A politics and ethics of meaning requires that any presentation of Jesus, scientific or otherwise, must own that it is a "reconstruction".... It must do so in order to open up its historical models or reconstructive patterns to public reflection and critical inquiry. (p. 59)

A rhetorical-political model of historical reconstructive memory understands its methodological approach as different from either liberal or neo-orthodox Jesus research in the following points:

1. It does not place Jesus the great individual charismatic leader at the center of attention, nor does it understand language and text either as window to the world or as reflective of reality. Instead it conceives of them as rhetorical-constructive. It does not take sources... as "data" but understands them as perspectival interpretations and retellings. ...

2. Historical-Jesus reconstructions can claim only probability and possibility but not normativity and plausibility. Jesus scholars must reason out why their own reconstructive proposals are more adequate to the sources and more probable than alternative scholarly discourses. However, they may not adopt the criterion of plausibility because what is considered plausible depends on what is considered "common sense," which in kyriarchal societies is always shaped by relations of domination. ... (pp. 78-79)

( Read more... )

(no subject)

The AFL-CIO splintered on Monday, spooking some Democratic Party leaders and the ranks of organized workers, their futures in the hands of labor rebels who bolted the 50-year-old federation vowing to reverse the steep decline in union membership. "Our goal is not to divide the labor movement but to rebuild it," said Andy Stern, president of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union. He and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said their unions would leave the AFL-CIO, paving the way for other unions to follow.

Their action drew a bitter rebuke from AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who called it a "grievous insult" that could hurt workers already buffeted by the global economy and anti-union forces in Congress.

... His Change to Win Coalition consists of seven unions, four of which boycotted the AFL-CIO convention: The SEIU, Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers and UNITE HERE, a group of textile, hotel and restaurant employees. Labor officials expect the UFCW and UNITE HERE to leave the AFL-CIO later. Those four unions represent one-third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members. The SEIU and Teamsters alone account for more than $20 million of an estimated $120 million AFL-CIO budget.

Much of that money goes to Democratic candidates and to political operations that benefit the Democratic Party. Stern, Hoffa and their colleagues in the Change to Win Coalition pushed the AFL-CIO to shift focus from such political activity to recruiting new union members, contending that a growing union movement would naturally increase its political and bargaining power.

"They said no," Hoffa said at a coalition news conference held a few blocks from the AFL-CIO convention site. "Their idea is to keep throwing money at politicians."

... Some Democrats cast the breakup in apocalyptic terms. "It's the worst thing that could happen to us as a party," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist with long ties to labor.

Others welcomed the challenge to the status quo. "The approach represented by progressive reform organizations like the SEIU represents the future — they grow in size, they have fresh ideas, they understand message in the media age, they connect with the middle class," said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane. "These groups are on the right side of history."

from AFL-CIO Splinters, Spooking Some Democrats

I see this as a very good sign for United States progressives. We've been taken for granted by the Democrats for too long. Now they're going to have to work for our vote. This might actually save the Democratic Party. Either that, or progressives will begin to realize en masse that they have to look elsewhere to find politicians who are going to work for them.