Gone are the days when the kid flipping your burger was putting in ten hours a week to tank up with thirty-nine cents a gallon gas to cruise the main drag. Things have changed.
She grew up, went to school, did all those right things her mom and dad told her to do. Finished her education. Got a good job. Got married and three years down the road she and her husband had a couple of great kids. Bought that starter house. Put away some cash for those first couple years for the kids' tuition. Decades past. Things were looking good.
That's when the offensive matter got flung into the whirling blades of the worst recession since the Great Depression. His job was offshore. She got downsized. Not giving a damn, The First Bank of Calloused Indifference foreclosed.
Well, at least they could move into mom and dad's basement. And there was unemployment insurance; until it ran out. Food stamps; till those cheap-assed SOBs in Congress cut the program by fourteen billion while giving themselves a raise.
I didn't make this up. These are my neighbors; probably yours too. You know them. Your kids played soccer with theirs last summer. They aren't moochers trying to screw you out of your tax dollars. What they had they earned; built from the bottom up. Now they're back down there again. Starting over's a bitch; always has been. But if that's what it takes, they're willing.
They don't need a hand out. Don't want one. They're looking for a hand up. That's why she's flipping burgers at Micky D's for as many hours as they'll give her. He's doing overnights at Wally World restocking aisle four. And there's not a day they don't network, search the ads, looking... and looking... and hoping no one gets really sick because these multi-billion dollar a year corporate greed heads keep their hours just below the line where they'd be required--rightly so--to provide a modicum of health insurance.
These are our neighbors. They deserve more than $7.25 hr. Minimum wage they call it. Good name. Minimum means you just miss pushing your belongings around the square in a shopping cart, if you have relatives who can take you in, and staying out of the soup kitchen but not the parish food pantry. They are our neighbors and they deserve a hand up. They deserve that $10.10 minimum wage. It's not a livable wage but at the very least it's a step in the right direction. We owe them that much.
It's a moral issue. "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?" (James 2:15-16) Like it or not, I am my brother's and my sister's keeper. I may be an atheist, a humanist, a Christian, or Hindu, or Jew, or Buddhist, or Muslim. Truth is, I cannot avoid the ethical fact that as a member of the human race I am obligated to accept moral responsibility for the health and well being of my neighbors.
According to Arindrajit Dube, who released a study produced by U. Mass-Amherst earlier this year, taking seriously that responsibility by facilitating an increase to $10.10 hr. minimum wage; I can help reduce the number of our nation's poor by 6.8 million.
Numbers impress. But what impresses more is knowing each one, each and every one, has a name, a face, a belly to be filled and a body that needs to keep warm at night.
When things get bad, neighbors need to be able to count on one another. That's why I'm doing all I can to push for $10.10 an hour--minimum. Because it's the right thing to do.
The Jawbone
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Friday, September 6, 2013
Tipping Point?
The question mark is most significant. Have we reached a tipping point? That point where a single email, letter, or phone call to our Senator or Congressperson or the White House turns the tide, for at least this once, away from our knee jerk response of letting the missiles fly? We'll know in a few days. For now, let's hope so.
I understand the impulse, believe me. Were some entrepreneur holding a raffle for the opportunity to push the button that blows Assad and his generals to Hell, I'd lay down a twenty in the blink of an eye. "Tickets please!"
Watching children writhing on the floor in obvious pain, foaming at the mouth, mothers and fathers helplessly hovering over them, powerless, filled with a sorrowful rage experienced by far too many in this already too death laden century. There are moments when outrage is the only appropriate emotional response to the madness of one man's will to power. This is one of them. So my gut tells me, go ahead, push the button; let the missiles fly.
But our response to atrocities cannot be guided by anger alone. Though anger is a positive emotion, it can become dangerous when improperly channeled. Anger can be a good servant, spurring us to action, fueling the fires even of righteous indignation, stoking the adrenaline rush that compels us to write that email, make that call, join the marches on the common, swallow our fears and get up on that stump in the public square to make our case. So far so good. Every once in a while we need something to move us to get up off the couch to go and do. Videos of gassed children will do it every time.
If it doesn't, there is something seriously askew in your moral compass. You need to take your soul to the shop. You're empathy isn't firing on all cylinders.
Yet here anger's appropriateness ends. Like a river, even the most appropriate sense of outrage becomes dangerous when it overflows its banks. Like any emotion, anger is a good servant but a terrible taskmaster. When it overflows even the most righteous rage turns destructive. We become the very thing we hate. Looking at the one we most despise, we confront our own darkness. The mirror does not lie. I am no stranger to the monster. What lurks in him, I know, lurks also within me.
Before we push the button, best to push the breaks. Let's slow things down a little, lest we cross the line. (Ever notice how leaders love lines?) Let's consider this, widen the dialogue, ask the people, consult leaders of the faiths, the people on the ground, ask for a show of hands. Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there isn't.
One thing for sure, when indulged the rush to military action most always turns out badly. Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention other graveyards, loom large in the rearview mirror. History runs off the laws of unintended consequences. Missiles are not that precise. At best, they launch with a tag that reads, "To Whom This May Concern." You cannot avenge dead children with more of the same. The Bastard is already moving his armaments into neighborhoods and school yards.
Before the rivers of rage overflow their banks, it's time to call the people to the river to fill a few sandbags, buy some time, let caution prevail. Indecision, though messy, isn't always a bad thing. Public debate, votes in Senate and House, editorials, articles, and blogs and speeches and commentaries; they may not stir the blood but may keep so much of it from being spilt.
Let's hope we've reached that tipping point. The moment when we continue a time of considered reflection before letting the missiles fly or sending in the troops. There are other options. Chief among them finding consensus among a majority of nations to isolate a rogue leader without leaving the country in rubble with even more civilians dead in the streets. There just may be a way forward without bombs and bullets and poison gas.
So make the call, send the email, get up on the stump, join the march, speak your truth to power. Every crisis is an opportunity to find a better way of getting things done. Participate in democracy. The future of the world is too important to be left to the decisions of a powerful few.
The Jawbone
I understand the impulse, believe me. Were some entrepreneur holding a raffle for the opportunity to push the button that blows Assad and his generals to Hell, I'd lay down a twenty in the blink of an eye. "Tickets please!"
Watching children writhing on the floor in obvious pain, foaming at the mouth, mothers and fathers helplessly hovering over them, powerless, filled with a sorrowful rage experienced by far too many in this already too death laden century. There are moments when outrage is the only appropriate emotional response to the madness of one man's will to power. This is one of them. So my gut tells me, go ahead, push the button; let the missiles fly.
But our response to atrocities cannot be guided by anger alone. Though anger is a positive emotion, it can become dangerous when improperly channeled. Anger can be a good servant, spurring us to action, fueling the fires even of righteous indignation, stoking the adrenaline rush that compels us to write that email, make that call, join the marches on the common, swallow our fears and get up on that stump in the public square to make our case. So far so good. Every once in a while we need something to move us to get up off the couch to go and do. Videos of gassed children will do it every time.
If it doesn't, there is something seriously askew in your moral compass. You need to take your soul to the shop. You're empathy isn't firing on all cylinders.
Yet here anger's appropriateness ends. Like a river, even the most appropriate sense of outrage becomes dangerous when it overflows its banks. Like any emotion, anger is a good servant but a terrible taskmaster. When it overflows even the most righteous rage turns destructive. We become the very thing we hate. Looking at the one we most despise, we confront our own darkness. The mirror does not lie. I am no stranger to the monster. What lurks in him, I know, lurks also within me.
Before we push the button, best to push the breaks. Let's slow things down a little, lest we cross the line. (Ever notice how leaders love lines?) Let's consider this, widen the dialogue, ask the people, consult leaders of the faiths, the people on the ground, ask for a show of hands. Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there isn't.
One thing for sure, when indulged the rush to military action most always turns out badly. Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention other graveyards, loom large in the rearview mirror. History runs off the laws of unintended consequences. Missiles are not that precise. At best, they launch with a tag that reads, "To Whom This May Concern." You cannot avenge dead children with more of the same. The Bastard is already moving his armaments into neighborhoods and school yards.
Before the rivers of rage overflow their banks, it's time to call the people to the river to fill a few sandbags, buy some time, let caution prevail. Indecision, though messy, isn't always a bad thing. Public debate, votes in Senate and House, editorials, articles, and blogs and speeches and commentaries; they may not stir the blood but may keep so much of it from being spilt.
Let's hope we've reached that tipping point. The moment when we continue a time of considered reflection before letting the missiles fly or sending in the troops. There are other options. Chief among them finding consensus among a majority of nations to isolate a rogue leader without leaving the country in rubble with even more civilians dead in the streets. There just may be a way forward without bombs and bullets and poison gas.
So make the call, send the email, get up on the stump, join the march, speak your truth to power. Every crisis is an opportunity to find a better way of getting things done. Participate in democracy. The future of the world is too important to be left to the decisions of a powerful few.
The Jawbone
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Cheerios and Voting Rights: Things Have Changed; Just Not all That Much
"Our country has changed," writes Chief Justice Roberts, "and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."
Justice Roberts is right--partly. Things have changed. I am old enough to remember when our local pharmacy had a lunch counter. And why it never occurred to me why I never saw a Black person sitting there. That's just the way it was. Until that night I was watching the evening news, dutifully waiting, I kid you not, for the Lone Ranger to come on, and witnessed Black students being beaten by an angry white mob for doing what I took for granted: setting down at the lunch counter. That's not a scene our girls grew up with. So, Mr. Justice Roberts, you are correct. "Our country has changed..," but only partially so. And not nearly enough. We've a ways to go yet.
Fast forward to MSNBC internet page. Top left corner headline: "Justices strike down key part of 1965 Voting Rights Act." Move down to lower right hand side of the page where there's a picture of this really cute little girl with the caption: "Cheerios ad backlash inspires new campaign for interracial families."
"...Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions." Well, let me suggest that these two articles reflect "current conditions."
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that nine states, mostly but not entirely in the South (it also applies to 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere) with a history of racial discrimination get approval from Congress or a special panel of judges before making any changes to voting rights laws. This is the key provision the Supreme Court tossed out. Wrongly, I think.
Why? Well, the Cheerios ad is telling. Seems the ad brought out the racism that yet remains. The ad, you see, shows an interracial family enjoying breakfast fare that, in my humble opinion, probably doesn't have much more nutritional value than the box it comes in. But I digress. Apparently all sorts of people raised hell about Cheerios daring to portray an interracial family to sell their cardboard.
Really..? Surely, you jest!? I guess I live in a bubble. Surely, we have made more progress than this! Surely the good justice is right. We have changed more than this, haven't we?
Mr. Justice Roberts is right--partly. We have come a long way. No doubt about that. Those of us who came of age in those critical decades that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act remember all too well what was. We know what now is, and what took place over those years to get us where we are today.
Things have changed. But when a cereal ad brings out some of the worst impulses in human nature, things have not changed enough; not nearly enough. This is the point the Court missed, badly.
One day mom and I were having lunch down at that pharmacy. As we were walking the couple of blocks back to our three room apartment my father and grandfather had built beside our grandparent's house down on Princeton Circle, I asked her, "Mom, what did that sign on the wall mean? The one that said something about "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone."
Times change. People, some of them anyway, change with them. Others don't. Relatively speaking, it's easy to take down the sign on the wall. Yet there are those who still let it hang upon their hearts.
Which is why the Court got this one wrong... big time. And why the struggle must continue.
Justice Roberts is right--partly. Things have changed. I am old enough to remember when our local pharmacy had a lunch counter. And why it never occurred to me why I never saw a Black person sitting there. That's just the way it was. Until that night I was watching the evening news, dutifully waiting, I kid you not, for the Lone Ranger to come on, and witnessed Black students being beaten by an angry white mob for doing what I took for granted: setting down at the lunch counter. That's not a scene our girls grew up with. So, Mr. Justice Roberts, you are correct. "Our country has changed..," but only partially so. And not nearly enough. We've a ways to go yet.
Fast forward to MSNBC internet page. Top left corner headline: "Justices strike down key part of 1965 Voting Rights Act." Move down to lower right hand side of the page where there's a picture of this really cute little girl with the caption: "Cheerios ad backlash inspires new campaign for interracial families."
"...Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions." Well, let me suggest that these two articles reflect "current conditions."
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that nine states, mostly but not entirely in the South (it also applies to 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere) with a history of racial discrimination get approval from Congress or a special panel of judges before making any changes to voting rights laws. This is the key provision the Supreme Court tossed out. Wrongly, I think.
Why? Well, the Cheerios ad is telling. Seems the ad brought out the racism that yet remains. The ad, you see, shows an interracial family enjoying breakfast fare that, in my humble opinion, probably doesn't have much more nutritional value than the box it comes in. But I digress. Apparently all sorts of people raised hell about Cheerios daring to portray an interracial family to sell their cardboard.
Really..? Surely, you jest!? I guess I live in a bubble. Surely, we have made more progress than this! Surely the good justice is right. We have changed more than this, haven't we?
Mr. Justice Roberts is right--partly. We have come a long way. No doubt about that. Those of us who came of age in those critical decades that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act remember all too well what was. We know what now is, and what took place over those years to get us where we are today.
Things have changed. But when a cereal ad brings out some of the worst impulses in human nature, things have not changed enough; not nearly enough. This is the point the Court missed, badly.
One day mom and I were having lunch down at that pharmacy. As we were walking the couple of blocks back to our three room apartment my father and grandfather had built beside our grandparent's house down on Princeton Circle, I asked her, "Mom, what did that sign on the wall mean? The one that said something about "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone."
Times change. People, some of them anyway, change with them. Others don't. Relatively speaking, it's easy to take down the sign on the wall. Yet there are those who still let it hang upon their hearts.
Which is why the Court got this one wrong... big time. And why the struggle must continue.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Global Warming: How to Educate a Politician in Severe Climate Change Denial--Not an Easy Task
98% of scientists agree that climate change is real; that is, the earth is heating up faster than we thought. Polar ice caps melting faster, sea levels going up, drought, radically changing weather patterns; you know the drill. You might think this would be enough to convince almost everyone. I mean someone will always look at black and call it white no matter how many well-educated people tell them otherwise. It's just that I wonder about those 2% who seem determined to deny reality despite all the evidence the best of our science can present. I mean who the hell are these people?
Allow me to introduce Minnesota State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen, Republican representative from Glencoe. According to Think Progress, Rep. Gruenhagen claims, in a speech he made recently on the floor of the Minnesota State House, "that there has been no global warming for the last sixteen years." That this whole climate change thing is nothing more--hold on, here we go again--than a vast United Nations conspiracy.
To what end Rep. Gruenhagen chose not to elaborate. We are left to guess. Maybe he thought citing his source would be enough to convince us that he speaks the unvarnished truth. Seems his info comes from the good folks at the Conservative Political Action Committee, otherwise known as CPAC. You know, the folks that once a year bring us the latest from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other science denying luminaries who seem forever to be pontificating the same ignorance--that global warming is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the secret world government to cheat the Koch brothers out of their petty cash pencil fund.
Here's the part the Honorable Mr. Gruenhagen doesn't grasp. According to Matt Kasper, writing in Think Progress, 98% of scientists disagree. "2010 was the hottest year on record and every year of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s average. Over 30 million people were displaced by climate- related extreme weather events in 2012, and it is increasingly likely that many millions more will be displaced in the near future."
Alas! And woe unto we believers in scientific evidence regarding the things of earth, wind, fire, and water! How shall we persuade the skeptics? Our very survival as a species may depend upon it.
Let us recognize the problem. It's not merely that Rep. Gruenhagen has a problem with global warming. The difficulty runs much deeper. He has a problem with science itself. The whole thing. Evidence be damned. This is someone who will swear up is down and down is up no matter how many times he falls off the roof.
But! All may not yet be lost! Allow me suggest the following curriculum.
Let us first take our unbelieving friend to the beach. Ask him to look out upon the horizon, the distant horizon where sea meets sky. "Observe," we say, "observe." This is important. Scientists are really big on this observing thing. Hell, half or more of what they get paid to do is just look at stuff and write down what they saw and I bet they get paid a shit load more than the rest of us for doing it--but I digress.
Suddenly, let's say, a pirate ship appears on the horizon! But wait! How do we know it's a pirate ship? The whole thing isn't visible yet; just the top of the mast. Then, upon further observation--there's that word again--gradually the whole ship, from top to bottom, emerges into clear view. "Damn. It's just David Koch out for a sail in his 3 million dollar sailboat."
Conclusion: the earth is not flat. It is instead round, or at least sort of round, more like an egg than a ball. If all the grey matter is working properly, out goes the old idea and in comes the new. It's not flat. It's round. Cool. Seems a change of mind should be in the offing from our representative. Not so.
Okay, let's try something else. Let's place our legislator under an apple tree. One of us will climb up, sit on a branch, take aim, and drop an apple upon our guest's pumpkin head. Doing this often enough should produce the observation--that word again--that the apple falls down instead of floating off into outer space toward Mars. If the desired change of mind does not follow, we should immediately change to something weightier, say, a brick. Should the sought after change not follow, that is, there is something called gravity, I suggest moving to a fourteen pound bowling ball. But that would have serious spinal implications that would defeat the purpose of our demonstration.
Were it not tragic the whole thing would be comical. But it's no joke that the polar ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet are disappearing at an exponential rate. Sea levels are rising. The ozone layer is damn near shot. Drought is rampant. Millions of refugees are on the move to who only knows where as the climate deniers fiddle while work crews bail water out of Manhattan subways.
This is what we are up against, folks. The 2% who, for reasons unknown to such as myself, are incapable of changing their minds no matter what the best scientists the world over will tell them over and over and over again. This shit is serious. And we're pretty much waist deep in it now and running out of time.
There's only one solution. Come January 1, 2014, every last one of them, from the state house to the outhouse, every last one of them must be voted out of office. Our survival as a species may well depend on it. Happy campaigning.
The Jawbone
Allow me to introduce Minnesota State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen, Republican representative from Glencoe. According to Think Progress, Rep. Gruenhagen claims, in a speech he made recently on the floor of the Minnesota State House, "that there has been no global warming for the last sixteen years." That this whole climate change thing is nothing more--hold on, here we go again--than a vast United Nations conspiracy.
To what end Rep. Gruenhagen chose not to elaborate. We are left to guess. Maybe he thought citing his source would be enough to convince us that he speaks the unvarnished truth. Seems his info comes from the good folks at the Conservative Political Action Committee, otherwise known as CPAC. You know, the folks that once a year bring us the latest from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other science denying luminaries who seem forever to be pontificating the same ignorance--that global warming is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the secret world government to cheat the Koch brothers out of their petty cash pencil fund.
Here's the part the Honorable Mr. Gruenhagen doesn't grasp. According to Matt Kasper, writing in Think Progress, 98% of scientists disagree. "2010 was the hottest year on record and every year of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s average. Over 30 million people were displaced by climate- related extreme weather events in 2012, and it is increasingly likely that many millions more will be displaced in the near future."
Alas! And woe unto we believers in scientific evidence regarding the things of earth, wind, fire, and water! How shall we persuade the skeptics? Our very survival as a species may depend upon it.
Let us recognize the problem. It's not merely that Rep. Gruenhagen has a problem with global warming. The difficulty runs much deeper. He has a problem with science itself. The whole thing. Evidence be damned. This is someone who will swear up is down and down is up no matter how many times he falls off the roof.
But! All may not yet be lost! Allow me suggest the following curriculum.
Let us first take our unbelieving friend to the beach. Ask him to look out upon the horizon, the distant horizon where sea meets sky. "Observe," we say, "observe." This is important. Scientists are really big on this observing thing. Hell, half or more of what they get paid to do is just look at stuff and write down what they saw and I bet they get paid a shit load more than the rest of us for doing it--but I digress.
Suddenly, let's say, a pirate ship appears on the horizon! But wait! How do we know it's a pirate ship? The whole thing isn't visible yet; just the top of the mast. Then, upon further observation--there's that word again--gradually the whole ship, from top to bottom, emerges into clear view. "Damn. It's just David Koch out for a sail in his 3 million dollar sailboat."
Conclusion: the earth is not flat. It is instead round, or at least sort of round, more like an egg than a ball. If all the grey matter is working properly, out goes the old idea and in comes the new. It's not flat. It's round. Cool. Seems a change of mind should be in the offing from our representative. Not so.
Okay, let's try something else. Let's place our legislator under an apple tree. One of us will climb up, sit on a branch, take aim, and drop an apple upon our guest's pumpkin head. Doing this often enough should produce the observation--that word again--that the apple falls down instead of floating off into outer space toward Mars. If the desired change of mind does not follow, we should immediately change to something weightier, say, a brick. Should the sought after change not follow, that is, there is something called gravity, I suggest moving to a fourteen pound bowling ball. But that would have serious spinal implications that would defeat the purpose of our demonstration.
Were it not tragic the whole thing would be comical. But it's no joke that the polar ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet are disappearing at an exponential rate. Sea levels are rising. The ozone layer is damn near shot. Drought is rampant. Millions of refugees are on the move to who only knows where as the climate deniers fiddle while work crews bail water out of Manhattan subways.
This is what we are up against, folks. The 2% who, for reasons unknown to such as myself, are incapable of changing their minds no matter what the best scientists the world over will tell them over and over and over again. This shit is serious. And we're pretty much waist deep in it now and running out of time.
There's only one solution. Come January 1, 2014, every last one of them, from the state house to the outhouse, every last one of them must be voted out of office. Our survival as a species may well depend on it. Happy campaigning.
The Jawbone
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Waiting for the Grey Smoke
Remember Mr. T, the enforcer on the old A Team TV show? You know, the big Black dude with the Mohawk and half ton of bling rumored to be worth hundreds of thousands draped around his neck? Built like a brick outhouse, Mr. T could somekinda kick ass. He could back up his favorite words, "I pity the man; I pity the poor fool who..." What a great model figure for the new Pope, whoever he may turn out to be.
Before the local convent comes threatening to hang me by my genitalia from the nearest steeple, allow me to explain.
Tuesday the Cardinals, most of them anyway, will literally be locked into the Sistine Chapel. They're not allowed to come out until they've elected a new Pope. We on the outside will know they've once again come to that momentous decision when grey smoke begins to billow forth from the ancient chimney erected on the Chapel roof to commemorate the occasion. Thousands upon thousands of nuns, priests, churchmen, churchwomen, and tourists of every sort from all over our shrinking planet will erupt in cheers as they wait to see who appears at the upstairs window as Pope Who or Whatever name he chooses.
Then begins The Great Speculation over whether they have made a momentous or disastrous decision; one that will either move the Roman Catholic Church forward through rethinking the Church's role in the new multicultural, multi-religious millennium, or backward into a new Dark Age of increasing irrelevance to all but the most faithful few. There will be good arguments on either side.
Which is why it's appropriate that the smoke from the chimney will be, not white, but a see-through shade of grey. It hasn't been white for years. Tradition was that when the ballots were taken, if no choice had been made, the guys inside rigged the fireplace to make the smoke black, and vice-versa. St. Peter's, however, has been around a few centuries, and over all those years deposits have built up that render the white smoke a tinted grey. It's a fitting symbol for our new millennium where everything, every moral decision, every ecclesiastical pronouncement, every theology, every economic policy, every political decision is neither black nor white but somewhere in between.
To paraphrase Mr. T, when it comes to being Pope, "I pity the man! I pity the poor fool..!" who has to cope with brining the ancient traditions into a world neither Jesus nor The Twelve could have conceived of in their wildest imaginings. And let's face it; the Church of St. Peter's is in trouble.
Riddled by everything from sex scandals to financial improprieties at the Vatican itself, a shortage of priests, the decline of those entering monasteries and convents and various orders of ministry, the decline of parish attendance, celibacy, to the concerns of the LGBT communities; the new Pope will have a plate full. "I pity the man..!" who gets this job. Then, some guy (well, personally, I would argue that too, but I'm not there) has to do it.
Beginning in the century after Jesus' death (the resurrection is a question of faith, so let's stick to history here), the faithful have been tasked with attempting to live within a creative tension between the past, represented by the Gospels and the teachings of the Church, and the moral and political conundrums of the present.
I would suggest that tradition as valuable as it is, should guide and inform rather than enslave us. Blind obedience to the past is just that, blind. And the blind soon fall into the ditch. The present brings new ethical challenges and, we can always hope, new insights into what it means to be a moral human being. Let's hope the new Pope will be a man capable of keeping one eye on the past and another clearly focused on the radically new predicaments of the present.
For example, take the issue of only men in the priesthood. Let's hope the new Pope catches up with the wisdom of Martin Luther's Reformation and chucks this one out the window when he first appears to the waiting crowd. So what if The Twelve was an old boys club. That was then. This is now. In Jesus' time only men would have been accepted as teachers. Contrary to what in some quarters remains popular belief, Jesus did have women, Mary Magdalene for one, within his inner circle, and was quite probably married as was the custom among Jewish men of the day.
Though much work remains to be done, we have made a bit of progress in the area of gender equality. Of all places, in the church, women should stand on equal footing with men. It's way past time for the Roman Catholic Church to permit, yea, even encourage women to join the priesthood. And I mean a fully endowed with all privileges and powers priesthood, not as second class helpers to their male counterparts.
Face it. For a clergyman to sit across from a female parishioner and dare say, "I understand" may be valid, but only up to a certain point. We need to realize human understanding is limited, defined, informed by and interpreted through our respective gender. There's just no way around it. So let's just admit that and realize that if I can't walk a mile in her shoes then I should bloody well get her to priest of her own gender who can.
As for celibacy, that should be an option, not a requirement. Both celibacy and marriage are sacred expressions of being together in holy community. Neither is superior to the other. If someone wants to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Merton and become a hermit intellectual living on top of a seven storied mountain that should be his or her privilege. Or if they want to follow Martin Luther, get married to a former nun and have seven kids (now that's Reformation!!), then so be it. Let the individual be free to choose how he or she will live by the teachings of Jesus. The Church should be there to help interpret and guide as best as human fallibility allows, not dictate.
Now, Martin, and Pope Who or Whatever you will call yourself; about all those kids. This idea of no birth control needs to go the way of the dinosaur because if it doesn't then the rest of us and our offspring will follow T-Rex and his buddies down the rabbit hole of extinction.
Neither in the time of Jesus nor that of Martin Luther was the human species in danger of overrunning the planet, despoiling nature of every last resource, poisoning the well water by fracking for natural gas, over fishing the seas--you get the idea. Times have changed. Deal with it. It is the utmost environmental irresponsibility to tell people, for whatever reason, they don't have a moral responsibility, to themselves, their children, and to the ecosystem we're all part of to limit their own numbers. Eighty percent of American Catholics deep sixed this idea years ago. It's time the Vatican caught up with the wisdom of its own people.
Change is always difficult. So here's to hoping the Cardinals have the collective wisdom to bring it on. The next Pope must have the wisdom to bring the ancient teachings to bear upon a post modern world teetering on the brink of self-destruction. Let's hope that, like Mr. T, he turns out to be a real kick ass kind of guy.
The Jawbone
Before the local convent comes threatening to hang me by my genitalia from the nearest steeple, allow me to explain.
Tuesday the Cardinals, most of them anyway, will literally be locked into the Sistine Chapel. They're not allowed to come out until they've elected a new Pope. We on the outside will know they've once again come to that momentous decision when grey smoke begins to billow forth from the ancient chimney erected on the Chapel roof to commemorate the occasion. Thousands upon thousands of nuns, priests, churchmen, churchwomen, and tourists of every sort from all over our shrinking planet will erupt in cheers as they wait to see who appears at the upstairs window as Pope Who or Whatever name he chooses.
Then begins The Great Speculation over whether they have made a momentous or disastrous decision; one that will either move the Roman Catholic Church forward through rethinking the Church's role in the new multicultural, multi-religious millennium, or backward into a new Dark Age of increasing irrelevance to all but the most faithful few. There will be good arguments on either side.
Which is why it's appropriate that the smoke from the chimney will be, not white, but a see-through shade of grey. It hasn't been white for years. Tradition was that when the ballots were taken, if no choice had been made, the guys inside rigged the fireplace to make the smoke black, and vice-versa. St. Peter's, however, has been around a few centuries, and over all those years deposits have built up that render the white smoke a tinted grey. It's a fitting symbol for our new millennium where everything, every moral decision, every ecclesiastical pronouncement, every theology, every economic policy, every political decision is neither black nor white but somewhere in between.
To paraphrase Mr. T, when it comes to being Pope, "I pity the man! I pity the poor fool..!" who has to cope with brining the ancient traditions into a world neither Jesus nor The Twelve could have conceived of in their wildest imaginings. And let's face it; the Church of St. Peter's is in trouble.
Riddled by everything from sex scandals to financial improprieties at the Vatican itself, a shortage of priests, the decline of those entering monasteries and convents and various orders of ministry, the decline of parish attendance, celibacy, to the concerns of the LGBT communities; the new Pope will have a plate full. "I pity the man..!" who gets this job. Then, some guy (well, personally, I would argue that too, but I'm not there) has to do it.
Beginning in the century after Jesus' death (the resurrection is a question of faith, so let's stick to history here), the faithful have been tasked with attempting to live within a creative tension between the past, represented by the Gospels and the teachings of the Church, and the moral and political conundrums of the present.
I would suggest that tradition as valuable as it is, should guide and inform rather than enslave us. Blind obedience to the past is just that, blind. And the blind soon fall into the ditch. The present brings new ethical challenges and, we can always hope, new insights into what it means to be a moral human being. Let's hope the new Pope will be a man capable of keeping one eye on the past and another clearly focused on the radically new predicaments of the present.
For example, take the issue of only men in the priesthood. Let's hope the new Pope catches up with the wisdom of Martin Luther's Reformation and chucks this one out the window when he first appears to the waiting crowd. So what if The Twelve was an old boys club. That was then. This is now. In Jesus' time only men would have been accepted as teachers. Contrary to what in some quarters remains popular belief, Jesus did have women, Mary Magdalene for one, within his inner circle, and was quite probably married as was the custom among Jewish men of the day.
Though much work remains to be done, we have made a bit of progress in the area of gender equality. Of all places, in the church, women should stand on equal footing with men. It's way past time for the Roman Catholic Church to permit, yea, even encourage women to join the priesthood. And I mean a fully endowed with all privileges and powers priesthood, not as second class helpers to their male counterparts.
Face it. For a clergyman to sit across from a female parishioner and dare say, "I understand" may be valid, but only up to a certain point. We need to realize human understanding is limited, defined, informed by and interpreted through our respective gender. There's just no way around it. So let's just admit that and realize that if I can't walk a mile in her shoes then I should bloody well get her to priest of her own gender who can.
As for celibacy, that should be an option, not a requirement. Both celibacy and marriage are sacred expressions of being together in holy community. Neither is superior to the other. If someone wants to follow in the footsteps of Thomas Merton and become a hermit intellectual living on top of a seven storied mountain that should be his or her privilege. Or if they want to follow Martin Luther, get married to a former nun and have seven kids (now that's Reformation!!), then so be it. Let the individual be free to choose how he or she will live by the teachings of Jesus. The Church should be there to help interpret and guide as best as human fallibility allows, not dictate.
Now, Martin, and Pope Who or Whatever you will call yourself; about all those kids. This idea of no birth control needs to go the way of the dinosaur because if it doesn't then the rest of us and our offspring will follow T-Rex and his buddies down the rabbit hole of extinction.
Neither in the time of Jesus nor that of Martin Luther was the human species in danger of overrunning the planet, despoiling nature of every last resource, poisoning the well water by fracking for natural gas, over fishing the seas--you get the idea. Times have changed. Deal with it. It is the utmost environmental irresponsibility to tell people, for whatever reason, they don't have a moral responsibility, to themselves, their children, and to the ecosystem we're all part of to limit their own numbers. Eighty percent of American Catholics deep sixed this idea years ago. It's time the Vatican caught up with the wisdom of its own people.
Change is always difficult. So here's to hoping the Cardinals have the collective wisdom to bring it on. The next Pope must have the wisdom to bring the ancient teachings to bear upon a post modern world teetering on the brink of self-destruction. Let's hope that, like Mr. T, he turns out to be a real kick ass kind of guy.
The Jawbone
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Jawbone: Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle
Jawbone: Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle: Six mass shootings already, and we're barely into February. Promises to be one Hell of a year. Prompts me to wonder how many more child...
Guns, Freedom, And the Man in the Middle
Six mass shootings already, and we're barely into February. Promises to be one Hell of a year. Prompts me to wonder how many more child-size coffins will we bury between this evening and the night the ball drops once again on Time's Square. But as with all things human, that's going to be largely up to us.
Like millions of other Americans, I watched the recent Senate hearing on gun violence as it unfolded on morning television. Moving from left to right we had Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark. Either by design or fortuitous fate, in the center, in full dress uniform, James W. Johnson, Baltimore County Chief of Police. Bringing up the far right--both literally and metaphorically--Gayle Trott, representing some obscure think tank the purpose of which, I'm told, is to get more women interested in conservative politics--this despite the well-known position Ms. Trott has taken against--yes, that's against--the violence against women act. (Go figure!) And on the far right of my television screen, Wayne LaPierre, current figurehead of the NRA and puppet voice for the gun manufacturers of America. Each and all facing a Senate panel representing the gamut of political opinion on our current debate on the role guns of every type will, or, will not, have in our future.
Well, there we have it. The entire spectrum of opinions on the role guns, and what kind of guns and how many bullets, and, you know.... all the other issues that become involved in this debate; are going to play in our society.
That morning it occurred to me that I was watching something much more significant, of much greater and far reaching consequence than a debate on gun control, or even the second amendment, or the presumed by the gun lobby right to carry an assault weapon of mass destruction with a hundred round clip. All those are surface issues.
This is a debate about the future; a debate about who we are as a people; and, more, what kind of society we are choosing, and we do choose, to move toward. For the decisions on policy we make today are the ways we project our values into the future. Our decisions, personal and political, betray what kind of society we want to create for our children's, children's, children.
Moving from left to right, there were Gabby and Mark Giffords, gun owners, well respected members of their community, themselves victimized by the mentally deranged lunatic with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine clips. In the center, the representative of law and order, reason, freedom, and responsibility, Chief Johnson. And on the far right, the voices of paranoia run amok; Gayle Trott and Wayne LaPierre, whose only purpose was to convince us that we are rapidly moving toward anarchy; a society Ms. Trott vividly described in her fictional tirade about a mother being attacked in her home, defending her babies with an assault rifle. Women of America, meet Ms. Rambo.
These are two radically different views of the future. One, represented by the Giffords, a responsible society where people may, if they so choose, own such weapons as are necessary to defend their homes. A society governed by law, represented by Chief Johnson. And a society of anarchy, chaos, death and destruction; everyone for him or herself; apocalypse now suburban style represented by the radical fringe of the NRA personified by Ms. Trott and Mr. LaPierre.
So it would seem we have a choice between two visions of the future: one a vision of responsible gun ownership, law and order; and one of anarchy born of a paranoia based upon a survivalist militia mentality. Which will we choose?
Chief Johnson and the Giffords illustrate the more responsible choice. Yes to responsible gun ownership; yes to universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole; yes to the ban on all assault weapons of mass destruction that do not belong in the hands of untrained, inexperienced civilians; yes to the ban on high capacity magazines; yes to law and order and a civil society. No to paranoid militia movements who are convinced they need weapons of mass destruction to defend themselves against their own democratically elected government.
The gun debate is not so much about guns as it is a debate about what kind of society we are going to have, or not have, and, more, how we are going to choose to live together in community. As such it represents both peril and opportunity. We have the opportunity to choose wisely, to decide what kind of weapon a citizen may reasonably be said to require for the defense of his or her home and family.
Or we have the choice offered us by the militia/survivalist movement represented my Ms. Rambo and Mr. LaPierre, along with the extremist wing of the NRA. Arm yourself to the teeth with the deadliest weapons of mass destruction you can get your hands on for the coming war of all against all.
And we need to decide which side we're on; and work to make the vision of our larger society a reality. I prefer the vision offered by Chief Johnson and the Giffords.
Someone should tell the Ms. Trott, Mr. LaPierre, and /the survivalist fringe of the NRA that we are no longer living in Tombstone. Through the rule of law, we are attempting to choose something better.
The Jawbone
Like millions of other Americans, I watched the recent Senate hearing on gun violence as it unfolded on morning television. Moving from left to right we had Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband, Mark. Either by design or fortuitous fate, in the center, in full dress uniform, James W. Johnson, Baltimore County Chief of Police. Bringing up the far right--both literally and metaphorically--Gayle Trott, representing some obscure think tank the purpose of which, I'm told, is to get more women interested in conservative politics--this despite the well-known position Ms. Trott has taken against--yes, that's against--the violence against women act. (Go figure!) And on the far right of my television screen, Wayne LaPierre, current figurehead of the NRA and puppet voice for the gun manufacturers of America. Each and all facing a Senate panel representing the gamut of political opinion on our current debate on the role guns of every type will, or, will not, have in our future.
Well, there we have it. The entire spectrum of opinions on the role guns, and what kind of guns and how many bullets, and, you know.... all the other issues that become involved in this debate; are going to play in our society.
That morning it occurred to me that I was watching something much more significant, of much greater and far reaching consequence than a debate on gun control, or even the second amendment, or the presumed by the gun lobby right to carry an assault weapon of mass destruction with a hundred round clip. All those are surface issues.
This is a debate about the future; a debate about who we are as a people; and, more, what kind of society we are choosing, and we do choose, to move toward. For the decisions on policy we make today are the ways we project our values into the future. Our decisions, personal and political, betray what kind of society we want to create for our children's, children's, children.
Moving from left to right, there were Gabby and Mark Giffords, gun owners, well respected members of their community, themselves victimized by the mentally deranged lunatic with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine clips. In the center, the representative of law and order, reason, freedom, and responsibility, Chief Johnson. And on the far right, the voices of paranoia run amok; Gayle Trott and Wayne LaPierre, whose only purpose was to convince us that we are rapidly moving toward anarchy; a society Ms. Trott vividly described in her fictional tirade about a mother being attacked in her home, defending her babies with an assault rifle. Women of America, meet Ms. Rambo.
These are two radically different views of the future. One, represented by the Giffords, a responsible society where people may, if they so choose, own such weapons as are necessary to defend their homes. A society governed by law, represented by Chief Johnson. And a society of anarchy, chaos, death and destruction; everyone for him or herself; apocalypse now suburban style represented by the radical fringe of the NRA personified by Ms. Trott and Mr. LaPierre.
So it would seem we have a choice between two visions of the future: one a vision of responsible gun ownership, law and order; and one of anarchy born of a paranoia based upon a survivalist militia mentality. Which will we choose?
Chief Johnson and the Giffords illustrate the more responsible choice. Yes to responsible gun ownership; yes to universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole; yes to the ban on all assault weapons of mass destruction that do not belong in the hands of untrained, inexperienced civilians; yes to the ban on high capacity magazines; yes to law and order and a civil society. No to paranoid militia movements who are convinced they need weapons of mass destruction to defend themselves against their own democratically elected government.
The gun debate is not so much about guns as it is a debate about what kind of society we are going to have, or not have, and, more, how we are going to choose to live together in community. As such it represents both peril and opportunity. We have the opportunity to choose wisely, to decide what kind of weapon a citizen may reasonably be said to require for the defense of his or her home and family.
Or we have the choice offered us by the militia/survivalist movement represented my Ms. Rambo and Mr. LaPierre, along with the extremist wing of the NRA. Arm yourself to the teeth with the deadliest weapons of mass destruction you can get your hands on for the coming war of all against all.
And we need to decide which side we're on; and work to make the vision of our larger society a reality. I prefer the vision offered by Chief Johnson and the Giffords.
Someone should tell the Ms. Trott, Mr. LaPierre, and /the survivalist fringe of the NRA that we are no longer living in Tombstone. Through the rule of law, we are attempting to choose something better.
The Jawbone
Sunday, January 27, 2013
From Cigarettes to Bullets: Congratulations to the Marketing Department
Send congratulations to the marketing gurus for upping their game; they've managed to move up the ladder. They couldn't be satisfied with figuring out more creative ways to market cigarettes, otherwise known as "coffin nails," to children and teens. They've decided to up the ante and go for bullets."Now there's something with real marketing appeal! Bet we'll make a fortune off this gig!"
This morning's New York Times carries an investigative article revealing how gun manufacturers, always in cahoots with the most radical fringe of the NRA, you know, that branch of an otherwise respectable organization that thinks it's perfectly acceptable to put an Uzi in the hands of a twelve year old and send her off to middle school with instructions to, "Remember sweetie, if you see a bad man with a gun, remember to squeeze rather than pull." But I digress. The article reveals how the gun manufacturers have chosen to market their wares to teens. According to the article, one ad even portrays a fifteen year old girl holding an assault rifle implying how great it would be to wake up Christmas morning to find good old Santa had brought you one of these!
This, when, as Nicholas Kristoff pointed out in his New York Times article of December 16, that Americans between the ages of five and fourteen are thirteen times, yea, thirteen times more likely to be killed with a firearm than their counterparts in countries. The only exception is countries where there is all out war. And as Ezra Kline of Newsweek pointed out only a couple of days before in his article, fifteen of the last twenty-five mass shootings in the US involved assault weapons.
The NRAs answer is more guns, and better mental health care. Okay, so better mental health care is a winning idea. Certainly a most needed improvement for our society. But how would we work this out? I mean, are we all supposed to be watching one another now? Which brings me to the question, "Where do you draw the line between thinking your neighbor a bit odd and reporting him or her to the local constabulary as a potential mass murderer?"
Just the other day my local paper carried yet another letter to the editor in favor of arming teachers so that "violence will be answered by violence." The couple had been on one of those evangelical mission trips to Guatemala and were praising the presence of armed troops in the streets on every corner. They felt much safer and hoped for the day that the US would catch up with Guatemala by arming teachers. So lets just turn our schools into free fire zones.
News flash. The troops in the streets of Guatemala are not there to protect the citizens but to suppress and intimidate citizens on behalf of the government. Great. So these yahoos want to turn the US into a third world dictatorship. That will solve a lot of our problems.
Senator Feinstein has proposed a bill banning assault weapons. Unlike the previous bill that has already expired, the Feinstein bill gets specific and bans more than one hundred types of these weapons of mass destruction. It's worthy of our support.
Limit the guns. Limit the slaughter of the innocents.
The Jawbone.
This morning's New York Times carries an investigative article revealing how gun manufacturers, always in cahoots with the most radical fringe of the NRA, you know, that branch of an otherwise respectable organization that thinks it's perfectly acceptable to put an Uzi in the hands of a twelve year old and send her off to middle school with instructions to, "Remember sweetie, if you see a bad man with a gun, remember to squeeze rather than pull." But I digress. The article reveals how the gun manufacturers have chosen to market their wares to teens. According to the article, one ad even portrays a fifteen year old girl holding an assault rifle implying how great it would be to wake up Christmas morning to find good old Santa had brought you one of these!
This, when, as Nicholas Kristoff pointed out in his New York Times article of December 16, that Americans between the ages of five and fourteen are thirteen times, yea, thirteen times more likely to be killed with a firearm than their counterparts in countries. The only exception is countries where there is all out war. And as Ezra Kline of Newsweek pointed out only a couple of days before in his article, fifteen of the last twenty-five mass shootings in the US involved assault weapons.
The NRAs answer is more guns, and better mental health care. Okay, so better mental health care is a winning idea. Certainly a most needed improvement for our society. But how would we work this out? I mean, are we all supposed to be watching one another now? Which brings me to the question, "Where do you draw the line between thinking your neighbor a bit odd and reporting him or her to the local constabulary as a potential mass murderer?"
Just the other day my local paper carried yet another letter to the editor in favor of arming teachers so that "violence will be answered by violence." The couple had been on one of those evangelical mission trips to Guatemala and were praising the presence of armed troops in the streets on every corner. They felt much safer and hoped for the day that the US would catch up with Guatemala by arming teachers. So lets just turn our schools into free fire zones.
News flash. The troops in the streets of Guatemala are not there to protect the citizens but to suppress and intimidate citizens on behalf of the government. Great. So these yahoos want to turn the US into a third world dictatorship. That will solve a lot of our problems.
Senator Feinstein has proposed a bill banning assault weapons. Unlike the previous bill that has already expired, the Feinstein bill gets specific and bans more than one hundred types of these weapons of mass destruction. It's worthy of our support.
Limit the guns. Limit the slaughter of the innocents.
The Jawbone.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Newtown: Beneath the Surface
More than a half century ago, the desperado stood on the veranda, red cowboy hat pulled down to shield the sun, showing off his fringed vest and chaps, his six-shooters at his side, ready for action. Hey, even at five, I was a cute little guy!
No one thought anything about it. Not my parents or my aunt taking the black and white picture with that old look down through the top view thing Brownie camera we still have around here somewhere. We live in a gun culture. And our indoctrination begins early.
I am not anti-gun. A few years later my father and grandfather would begin teaching me the difference between those toys and the real thing in the fields and forests around the ancestors' farm in Lithia. My first "real" gun was a bolt action .22. We would put the beagles in the car and rabbit hunting we would go.
Guns weren't toys. Somewhere along the way we learned the difference between playing bang-bang in the back yard and safely handling the real thing. We knew after the backyard games were over everyone would get up and go home when Moms called us in for dinner. With the real thing we knew it didn't work that way.
But things have gotten way out of hand. Maybe a deeper look is necessary.
First, we need to admit we live in a culture that glorifies violence, particularly gun violence. Ours is a culture that revels in revenge. Tv shows, video games, and movies are designed to move us to stand up and cheer when some fake hero blows away the bad guys. Mayhem is the order of the day.
The NRAs answer is to arm everyone, even public school teachers. Give everyone a weapon and let's just all go freakin' at it. I really don't think more guns in school or anywhere else is the kind of answer we're looking for. Even Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, and Doc had enough presence of mind to demand all the cowboys turn in their guns at the edge of Tombstone. Maybe they were on to something.
We certainly don't need civilians having access to assault weapons. An AK isn't designed for deer hunting. No more firearm sales of any kind without proper federal background checks, proper training, licensing. No more gun shows where any escaped felon can buy an Uzi. There is something to the argument that less guns will mean less gun violence. With the possible exception of countries at war, Americans have more guns than anyone else and we kill one another more often than anyone else. But we all know the stats. We've spent the days since Newtown reading them.
I suggest we look a bit more deeply. We tend to define violence as the use of the fist, the knife, or the gun. But that's only just the surface of things; the outward manifesting of something deeper.
In the middle of the last century, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in, if memory serves me, Moral Man, Immoral Society, pointed out there are two kinds of violence: overt, and covert. The overt violence of the gun, the fist, the knife, he wrote, is but an outward manifesting of covert violence. Covert violence like dehumanizing poverty, for example. Granted, Niebuhr was writing about a much larger scale of violence; the causes of WWII and other armed conflicts. But his work leads me to ask whether the same thing might be true of school shootings.
The authors of Rampage, the Social Roots of School Shootings, published in 2005, would tend to agree Dr. Niebuhr was on to something. The editors of the Jan. 7/14 issue of The Nation do a good job of boiling down this research to its essentials. Shooters are responding to the covert violence of social isolation, bullying, exclusion, ridicule, rejection, etc.--pretty much the stuff experienced by those kids in high school that never seemed to fit in very well. You know, the outcasts.
Nothing like Newtown or Columbine happens out of the blue. There are signs. Increasing withdrawal. Depression. Despair. Acting out on an escalating scale. Hostility to authority and a host of others. Rampage... and studies like it need to become part of our curriculum for teachers, students, clergy, counselors; maybe for all of us.
Though I do think assault weapons should, and will, be banned, by itself that will not solve the problem. But less access may stop a few; and less access to large clips and assault weapons will at least limit the carnage.
But we have to do more. What we need to do is, to paraphrase an old source, become a bit more conscientious about becoming our brother and sisters' keeper. We can educate ourselves to the warning signs. We can summon the courage to speak up before the shooting starts. We can resolve in this new year to reach out to the outcasts among us; to the kids who are silently screaming for help. We can teach our teenagers and young adults to be more sensitive to the kids who don't fit the magazine image of masculine or feminine good looks or dress or sex appeal. We can learn to reach out. Because no one--no one--suffering that much emotional pain has the ability to reach out for help on their own.
These issues are complex. And I have only skirted the surface. They are not easily solved. Answers are multifaceted. But it seems to me that the foundation upon which any real solutions must be built is the simple knowledge taught by all the world's faiths. That the answer to the question, "Am I my bother/sister's keeper?" is supposed to be, "Yes."
The Jawbone.
No one thought anything about it. Not my parents or my aunt taking the black and white picture with that old look down through the top view thing Brownie camera we still have around here somewhere. We live in a gun culture. And our indoctrination begins early.
I am not anti-gun. A few years later my father and grandfather would begin teaching me the difference between those toys and the real thing in the fields and forests around the ancestors' farm in Lithia. My first "real" gun was a bolt action .22. We would put the beagles in the car and rabbit hunting we would go.
Guns weren't toys. Somewhere along the way we learned the difference between playing bang-bang in the back yard and safely handling the real thing. We knew after the backyard games were over everyone would get up and go home when Moms called us in for dinner. With the real thing we knew it didn't work that way.
But things have gotten way out of hand. Maybe a deeper look is necessary.
First, we need to admit we live in a culture that glorifies violence, particularly gun violence. Ours is a culture that revels in revenge. Tv shows, video games, and movies are designed to move us to stand up and cheer when some fake hero blows away the bad guys. Mayhem is the order of the day.
The NRAs answer is to arm everyone, even public school teachers. Give everyone a weapon and let's just all go freakin' at it. I really don't think more guns in school or anywhere else is the kind of answer we're looking for. Even Wyatt, Morgan, Virgil, and Doc had enough presence of mind to demand all the cowboys turn in their guns at the edge of Tombstone. Maybe they were on to something.
We certainly don't need civilians having access to assault weapons. An AK isn't designed for deer hunting. No more firearm sales of any kind without proper federal background checks, proper training, licensing. No more gun shows where any escaped felon can buy an Uzi. There is something to the argument that less guns will mean less gun violence. With the possible exception of countries at war, Americans have more guns than anyone else and we kill one another more often than anyone else. But we all know the stats. We've spent the days since Newtown reading them.
I suggest we look a bit more deeply. We tend to define violence as the use of the fist, the knife, or the gun. But that's only just the surface of things; the outward manifesting of something deeper.
In the middle of the last century, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in, if memory serves me, Moral Man, Immoral Society, pointed out there are two kinds of violence: overt, and covert. The overt violence of the gun, the fist, the knife, he wrote, is but an outward manifesting of covert violence. Covert violence like dehumanizing poverty, for example. Granted, Niebuhr was writing about a much larger scale of violence; the causes of WWII and other armed conflicts. But his work leads me to ask whether the same thing might be true of school shootings.
The authors of Rampage, the Social Roots of School Shootings, published in 2005, would tend to agree Dr. Niebuhr was on to something. The editors of the Jan. 7/14 issue of The Nation do a good job of boiling down this research to its essentials. Shooters are responding to the covert violence of social isolation, bullying, exclusion, ridicule, rejection, etc.--pretty much the stuff experienced by those kids in high school that never seemed to fit in very well. You know, the outcasts.
Nothing like Newtown or Columbine happens out of the blue. There are signs. Increasing withdrawal. Depression. Despair. Acting out on an escalating scale. Hostility to authority and a host of others. Rampage... and studies like it need to become part of our curriculum for teachers, students, clergy, counselors; maybe for all of us.
Though I do think assault weapons should, and will, be banned, by itself that will not solve the problem. But less access may stop a few; and less access to large clips and assault weapons will at least limit the carnage.
But we have to do more. What we need to do is, to paraphrase an old source, become a bit more conscientious about becoming our brother and sisters' keeper. We can educate ourselves to the warning signs. We can summon the courage to speak up before the shooting starts. We can resolve in this new year to reach out to the outcasts among us; to the kids who are silently screaming for help. We can teach our teenagers and young adults to be more sensitive to the kids who don't fit the magazine image of masculine or feminine good looks or dress or sex appeal. We can learn to reach out. Because no one--no one--suffering that much emotional pain has the ability to reach out for help on their own.
These issues are complex. And I have only skirted the surface. They are not easily solved. Answers are multifaceted. But it seems to me that the foundation upon which any real solutions must be built is the simple knowledge taught by all the world's faiths. That the answer to the question, "Am I my bother/sister's keeper?" is supposed to be, "Yes."
The Jawbone.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
And So This is Christmas
President Obama is decisively ensconced in his second term. With a slight few more Progressives, Democrats retain control of the Senate. The House remains in the hands of the loyal opposition, but, thankfully, with a few less reactionaries. So this is Christmas 2012. And we are standing in shit rear-end deep to a tall giraffe.
I'm going easy here. This is an excessively tall giraffe.
We have serious problems and we need serious people from both sides of the aisle to solve them. Yet with every passing news cast we are entertained by herds of psycho-pathetic lemmings blindly charging toward the fiscal cliff. Barring the intervention of, say, a particularly vicious large dog that just plain doesn't care for stupid beasts governed by herdspeak that will stand at the edge and bark back the fury tide, the carnage will be considerable. One could argue that we would all be better off if we just let the idiots go over. Problem is they're dragging my economic well being behind them and for the life of me I can't figure out a way to cut the rope.
To say the working people are getting screwed over is an understatement. As I write this, around 10k of my brothers and sisters are gathering at the Michigan capital to protest the governor's signing the Republican right to work for less pay law. And this in an age when executive pay has risen by 275% to the workers measly 18%. Heads have rolled for less than this.
But it's not just the workers. 22% of children live below the poverty line. That works out to around 15.1 million kids. We were always fortunate enough to put something under the Christmas tree for our girls. I can't imagine being a parent, out of a job for a year or more through no fault of his or her own, trying to figure out how to explain to a six year old why they didn't get that $200 video game. So the next time you get a chance, toss a little something into the Toys for Tots bin or write a check to a local organization that's going to help out these families. And as my grandfather was fond of reminding me, "Never pass by a Salvation Army kettle son. Folks need our help."
8.2 million of us are involuntarily part-time workers. We'd like full-time work but, say the bosses, business isn't good enough, despite record profits in some sectors, like the home improvement company I work for--part-time.
There are more systemic concerns. Our highways are plagued with potholes large enough to swallow a Volkswagen. It's not a bad idea to increase your speed when heading for a bridge; if it starts to crumble beneath you the extra speed may help you make it over, EvilKneval style. And this tidbit just in: our electrical grid ranks 32 in the world, just behind Slovenia, for reliability. Stock up on batteries and candles. Air out your sleeping bag and make sure the air mattress doesn't leak. You next camping trip could be to your family room.
Evidence is mounting that all those ads from the natural gas people telling us fracking is safe are outright lies. Check out Elizabeth Royte's feature article in the December 17 edition of "The Nation." In "What the Frack is in Our Food?" she recounts incidents of dead cows, deformed calves, befouled drinking water, and contaminated soil were chemicals used in the process to extract natural gas could well make their way into our food chain. And the FDA as yet is not monitoring any of this. Bon apetite!
So this is Christmas, 2012. Traditionally a time of hope and expectations of something better. But neither hope nor solutions fall from heavenly skies. If there is hope it will come from within the rank and file of workers who are mad as hell and who just plain aren't going to put up with shoveling shit for the top 2% or the fascist corporations who tried to buy every politician in sight. It's time to turn this around.
Signs are good that a turn around just might be coming. It's been a long, long time since this many people have taken to the streets to make their voices heard. And to the voting booth. Despite, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision that allowed democracy to go to the highest bidder; the people fought back with good old fashioned grass roots organization. And we beat the bosses at the polling places. As James Carville said of the billionaires in a recent "Rolling Stone" interview; "never have so many paid so much to get so little."
There are other promising signs. A fledgling movement to amend the constitution to abolish all corporate money in politics. Maybe we should call it "the people's amendment." For the first time a majority of House Democrats will be made up from women and minorities. The states of Washington and Colorado have taken the first steps in getting rid of our ignorant, always doomed to fail, antiquated drug policies by legalizing recreational use of marijuana. Stopping it is impossible. So why not treat it like booze? Regulate it. Tax it. And toss the extra cash into the public coffers. Uncle Sam could use a bit extra.
So this is Christmas; and there is hope. So I'm hoping to head for D.C. on Inauguration Day with a few friends. Sure, it's an historical day. The second inauguration of the country's first Black president, itself a sign that something dramatic has changed. The face of the people's government is no longer all white or even all male or all Christian or Jewish or whatever have you. A good sign that we are finally beginning to live up to the inclusiveness we profess to believe in.
But I'm not going to endure massive crowds, long walks, and god only knows what kind of port-a-potty lines to support the regime I voted for. I'm going to say, with voice and presence, I, and we, are here not merely to support, though that is important. We are here to push, to raise some hell along with some expectations. It's time to turn words and ideas into policies and concrete actions. Get the corporate brigands' cash out of politics. Provide jobs. Make sure those down on their luck aren't sleeping in the street and that our children have a roof over their heads and can at least set down to a plate of beans and wennies a couple times a day. Fill in the potholes and fix the damn bridges. Make sure when I flip my switch the lamp comes on.
November 6th, the people gave their stamp of approval to much of the Progressive agenda. But we are not stopping here. We're going to bring the full-court press. Get it done. Ignore us at your peril.
The Jawbone.
I'm going easy here. This is an excessively tall giraffe.
We have serious problems and we need serious people from both sides of the aisle to solve them. Yet with every passing news cast we are entertained by herds of psycho-pathetic lemmings blindly charging toward the fiscal cliff. Barring the intervention of, say, a particularly vicious large dog that just plain doesn't care for stupid beasts governed by herdspeak that will stand at the edge and bark back the fury tide, the carnage will be considerable. One could argue that we would all be better off if we just let the idiots go over. Problem is they're dragging my economic well being behind them and for the life of me I can't figure out a way to cut the rope.
To say the working people are getting screwed over is an understatement. As I write this, around 10k of my brothers and sisters are gathering at the Michigan capital to protest the governor's signing the Republican right to work for less pay law. And this in an age when executive pay has risen by 275% to the workers measly 18%. Heads have rolled for less than this.
But it's not just the workers. 22% of children live below the poverty line. That works out to around 15.1 million kids. We were always fortunate enough to put something under the Christmas tree for our girls. I can't imagine being a parent, out of a job for a year or more through no fault of his or her own, trying to figure out how to explain to a six year old why they didn't get that $200 video game. So the next time you get a chance, toss a little something into the Toys for Tots bin or write a check to a local organization that's going to help out these families. And as my grandfather was fond of reminding me, "Never pass by a Salvation Army kettle son. Folks need our help."
8.2 million of us are involuntarily part-time workers. We'd like full-time work but, say the bosses, business isn't good enough, despite record profits in some sectors, like the home improvement company I work for--part-time.
There are more systemic concerns. Our highways are plagued with potholes large enough to swallow a Volkswagen. It's not a bad idea to increase your speed when heading for a bridge; if it starts to crumble beneath you the extra speed may help you make it over, EvilKneval style. And this tidbit just in: our electrical grid ranks 32 in the world, just behind Slovenia, for reliability. Stock up on batteries and candles. Air out your sleeping bag and make sure the air mattress doesn't leak. You next camping trip could be to your family room.
Evidence is mounting that all those ads from the natural gas people telling us fracking is safe are outright lies. Check out Elizabeth Royte's feature article in the December 17 edition of "The Nation." In "What the Frack is in Our Food?" she recounts incidents of dead cows, deformed calves, befouled drinking water, and contaminated soil were chemicals used in the process to extract natural gas could well make their way into our food chain. And the FDA as yet is not monitoring any of this. Bon apetite!
So this is Christmas, 2012. Traditionally a time of hope and expectations of something better. But neither hope nor solutions fall from heavenly skies. If there is hope it will come from within the rank and file of workers who are mad as hell and who just plain aren't going to put up with shoveling shit for the top 2% or the fascist corporations who tried to buy every politician in sight. It's time to turn this around.
Signs are good that a turn around just might be coming. It's been a long, long time since this many people have taken to the streets to make their voices heard. And to the voting booth. Despite, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision that allowed democracy to go to the highest bidder; the people fought back with good old fashioned grass roots organization. And we beat the bosses at the polling places. As James Carville said of the billionaires in a recent "Rolling Stone" interview; "never have so many paid so much to get so little."
There are other promising signs. A fledgling movement to amend the constitution to abolish all corporate money in politics. Maybe we should call it "the people's amendment." For the first time a majority of House Democrats will be made up from women and minorities. The states of Washington and Colorado have taken the first steps in getting rid of our ignorant, always doomed to fail, antiquated drug policies by legalizing recreational use of marijuana. Stopping it is impossible. So why not treat it like booze? Regulate it. Tax it. And toss the extra cash into the public coffers. Uncle Sam could use a bit extra.
So this is Christmas; and there is hope. So I'm hoping to head for D.C. on Inauguration Day with a few friends. Sure, it's an historical day. The second inauguration of the country's first Black president, itself a sign that something dramatic has changed. The face of the people's government is no longer all white or even all male or all Christian or Jewish or whatever have you. A good sign that we are finally beginning to live up to the inclusiveness we profess to believe in.
But I'm not going to endure massive crowds, long walks, and god only knows what kind of port-a-potty lines to support the regime I voted for. I'm going to say, with voice and presence, I, and we, are here not merely to support, though that is important. We are here to push, to raise some hell along with some expectations. It's time to turn words and ideas into policies and concrete actions. Get the corporate brigands' cash out of politics. Provide jobs. Make sure those down on their luck aren't sleeping in the street and that our children have a roof over their heads and can at least set down to a plate of beans and wennies a couple times a day. Fill in the potholes and fix the damn bridges. Make sure when I flip my switch the lamp comes on.
November 6th, the people gave their stamp of approval to much of the Progressive agenda. But we are not stopping here. We're going to bring the full-court press. Get it done. Ignore us at your peril.
The Jawbone.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Remember Gordon Gekko? He's Running for President!
Remember Gordon Gekko, that character from the Charlie Sheen/Michael Douglass movie, "Wall Street?" The guy who, according to Charlie's buddy at the brokerage firm, "had an ethical bypass at birth?" As we count down to election day, Mitt and Gordon are starting to resemble one another. Both are Ayn Rand types in that each firmly believes in completely unrestricted, no holds barred, winner-take-all, "let the people eat cake," capitalism. This disturbs me. And here's what bothers me the most.
In her book, "The Fountainhead," Rand writes of her main character, Howard Roark, "Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty... it was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist." Neither Mitt Romney or his fictional counterpart, Gordon Gekko, really see people. And the ability to see people, I mean really to see them as real flesh and blood with real flesh and blood struggles and sufferings and joys and loves and concerns; that, to me, is one of the fundamental principles of ethics. When I hear Gov. Romney set forth his positions, I get the feeling he doesn't see me, my mother, my kids, whole groups of people but most especially those caught between the rock and the hard place. He makes me feel as if I don't really exist.
By one estimate, Gov. Romney's plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program administered by the states, would, within a decade's time, deny health care to thirty-million kids. Does Gov. Romeny really see our children?
Under the Ryan budget, which Gov. Romney supports, a single mother of two earning minimum wage would pay $1500 more in taxes since he proposes to drastically slash the child tax credit. Does Gov. Romney see the that single mother?
What about the unemployed, the under employed? The Romney/Ryan plan, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would destroy 4.1 million jobs. Do either of these candidates really see the unemployed? Hell, have either one of these guys ever experienced, even for a week, what it's like not to have a job when you really want one and will pretty much take anything you can get even if it's flipping burgers to keep a roof over your kids' heads and a box of mac-and-cheese on the table?
Speaking of the poor, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, points out that the Romney/Ryan plan would end up cutting as much as 3 trillion (yea, the "t" is correct) from programs for the poor. "It's ideology run amok," says Stockman. The ideology of Ayn Rand. The ideology of an economic war of all against all where the participants never truly see those less fortunate than themselves where the rich get tax cuts and the poor are left destitute.
Tim Dickinson, writing in "Rolling Stone" a couple of weeks back, summed up this mess pretty well. The Romney/Ryan plan "would roll back clean-air protection, gut both medicare and medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts for billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran's benefits." Do the Republican candidates really see any of these people? Or are we merely abstractions, statistics on a balance sheet?
Message to Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan: Neither I, my parents, my neighbors, my children, nor any of the rest of us working stiffs are mere abstractions, and we will not be reduced to statistics. And we are not invisible. We will be seen.
And come November 6th, we will also be heard.
The Jawbone
In her book, "The Fountainhead," Rand writes of her main character, Howard Roark, "Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty... it was only that he made people feel as if they did not exist." Neither Mitt Romney or his fictional counterpart, Gordon Gekko, really see people. And the ability to see people, I mean really to see them as real flesh and blood with real flesh and blood struggles and sufferings and joys and loves and concerns; that, to me, is one of the fundamental principles of ethics. When I hear Gov. Romney set forth his positions, I get the feeling he doesn't see me, my mother, my kids, whole groups of people but most especially those caught between the rock and the hard place. He makes me feel as if I don't really exist.
By one estimate, Gov. Romney's plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant program administered by the states, would, within a decade's time, deny health care to thirty-million kids. Does Gov. Romeny really see our children?
Under the Ryan budget, which Gov. Romney supports, a single mother of two earning minimum wage would pay $1500 more in taxes since he proposes to drastically slash the child tax credit. Does Gov. Romney see the that single mother?
What about the unemployed, the under employed? The Romney/Ryan plan, according to the Economic Policy Institute, would destroy 4.1 million jobs. Do either of these candidates really see the unemployed? Hell, have either one of these guys ever experienced, even for a week, what it's like not to have a job when you really want one and will pretty much take anything you can get even if it's flipping burgers to keep a roof over your kids' heads and a box of mac-and-cheese on the table?
Speaking of the poor, David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, points out that the Romney/Ryan plan would end up cutting as much as 3 trillion (yea, the "t" is correct) from programs for the poor. "It's ideology run amok," says Stockman. The ideology of Ayn Rand. The ideology of an economic war of all against all where the participants never truly see those less fortunate than themselves where the rich get tax cuts and the poor are left destitute.
Tim Dickinson, writing in "Rolling Stone" a couple of weeks back, summed up this mess pretty well. The Romney/Ryan plan "would roll back clean-air protection, gut both medicare and medicaid, lavish trillions in tax cuts for billionaires while raising taxes on the poor, and slash everything from college aid to veteran's benefits." Do the Republican candidates really see any of these people? Or are we merely abstractions, statistics on a balance sheet?
Message to Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan: Neither I, my parents, my neighbors, my children, nor any of the rest of us working stiffs are mere abstractions, and we will not be reduced to statistics. And we are not invisible. We will be seen.
And come November 6th, we will also be heard.
The Jawbone
Saturday, September 22, 2012
We Are the 47%
Not since that snake-in-the-grass Richard Nixon have we seen a more loathsome political viper than Mitt Romney slither across our political landscape in an attempt to occupy that most powerful plot of real estate. Born of the worst breed of political creatures, he is among the most dangerous and most rightly to be feared. Should he and his Koch brothers' Tea Party backers be allowed to buy the nation's highest office, they will do more damage to the 47% than we can imagine in our most vulgar nightmares. Keep your feet up everybody. It will be snakes on a plane all over again.
It's not his wealth that makes Mr. Romney so dangerous. Like Mitt, Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy were also born with a golden horseshoe up their small intestines. Properly earned and responsibly managed for the larger good, wealth can be a blessing. Or it can be a curse. And it is a curse when it shields its possessors from the plight of the common folk.
If success is determined by the bottom line, then no doubt Mitt has had a most successful business career. But the question must be asked as to how that career affected the larger community. Here is where moral failure masquerades as financial success.
As a vulture capitalist, Mitt Romney was nothing more than a corporate raider, a robber baron of the first order. His tactic was to purchase companies in trouble, run them into bankruptcy as quickly as possible, close them down, then make off with whatever was left in the company safe, leaving the workers standing outside locked factory gates to wonder how someone could have so thoughtlessly destroyed their livelihood. This is public record, not hyperbole; capitalism unfettered to do its worst. This is business by the Golden Rule in reverse: Do unto others before they do unto you.
To be certain, none of the Kennedy boys were saints. Yet they seemed, because, and some times in spite of, their privileged upbringing to be on the right side of history. They were in touch with the everyday realities of those whom they were elected to serve. The working stiffs who know what it is to get up every morning, go to a job they probably don't like very much, for which they are mostly underpaid, so they can sit down at the kitchen table near the end of each month and figure out which bills will get paid and which will have to wait.
The Kennedy's were born to wealth, but Jack could identify with the black man in the South who couldn't vote or even set down for a burger and fries at an all-white lunch counter without getting the living shit beaten out of him. Bobby toured the poverty stricken ghettos and share croppers' shacks, sat at kitchen tables and talked with mothers whose children were forced by law to attend segregated schools. On his way back to the limo, he remarked to a reporter, "I'm going back to Washington and do something about this." Ted made health care for everyone the central focus of his legislative career.
To be on the side of the outcast, the poor, the sick, the hungry, the jobless, of those whom the powerful choose to exclude from the political process by systematically denying them the right to vote; this is to be on the right side of history. This is where Mitt Romney is on the wrong side of history.
We are the 47%, Mr. Romney. And very few of us are irresponsible loafers who choose not to take responsibility for our lives.We are the veterans who stand to lose 11 billion dollars from much needed assistance. We are the elderly having to choose between food and medicine and doctors visits if medicare is replaced with a voucher system. We are African-Americans who marched, demonstrated, and even died for the right to vote; a right Mr. Romney's Republican Party is hell bent to repress. We are women in need of the reproductive health care, the cancer screenings, birth control, and access to safe abortions to whom Mr. Romney would deny funding. We are the college students depending on Pell grants and low interest student loans that will provide us with economic opportunity. We are mothers on medicaid who would love to find more than a minimum wage job waiting tables so we could afford decent day care for our kids and go back to school part-time and get our degree. We are fathers who have stood long enough in the unemployment line. Mr. Romney, we are the 47%; and you right us off at your peril.
And, Mr. Romney, despite your Republican Party's desperate attempts to keep us out of the voting booth, we will show up, and we will vote. Because we are on the right side of history.
The Jawbone.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Why I Will Continue to Support the Salvation Army
I was about seven or eight, if memory serves, and my GranGran and I were walking across a parking lot through an early December snow when we heard the familiar ringing of the bell and saw the uniformed young lady standing beside the little red kettle. "Never pass by the Salvation Army," my grandfather said. "They do a lot of good for folks who are down and out, really poor. Always give them what you can, even if it's only a little." So he'd reach into his pocket and pull out a couple of wrinkled dollar bills, give me one, and we'd each put one into the pot. GranGran would tip his hat to the lady; she'd nod a thanks, and we'd be on our way.
Years later I'd relate that same story to my two daughters as we were walking across some snowy New England parking lot, reach into my pocket, pass out the dollars, or quarters, as I was able, and we'd give what we could. "They help the poor," I'd explain. "People who don't have enough to eat tonight, and maybe even their kids; people without a roof over their heads won't have to sleep out in the cold tonight because you cared enough to help out."
This is the background I bring to the annual controversy that pits the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community against the Salvation Army. A controversy that runs down a two-way street. You see, the Salvation Army is a very conservative Christian organization that firmly believes the LGBT lifestyle is contrary to the SA's interpretation of certain Scriptures. Naturally, the LGBT community holds the opposite view, and calls upon me to withhold my cash in protest.
I happen to have long advocated, in the various denominations I've served as minister, the full rights of inclusion for the LGBT community. And we've made a great deal of progress as witnessed by the Episcopal Church, of which I'm now proudly a full member, having been confirmed by the Bishop just a couple of weeks ago. A few years back the Episcopal Church elected Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is openly gay. Quite a step forward. Progress is often slow. But progress is made.
Yet not every Episcopalian would agree with me. Every year at our annual gathering there is that vocal minority who will get up and rant and rave against ordaining anyone who isn't straight. No doubt it will be so again this year. Equally certain is that their anti-gay agenda will get voted down. Seems the controversy, like the poor, is destined to be always with us.
I think the Salvation Army's stance on LGBT is wrong. But I'm not going to withdraw my money any more than I would withdraw my money from my Episcopal Church. I've seen first hand the good the SA has done and continues to do each year. I don't agree with them on this issue, but if I pulled my pittance out of every organization I can find something to disagree about I'd end up never giving a dime to any charity. So I have to make choices. Or kids sleep in the car and pregnant mothers don't eat.
Change comes from courage within and pressure from without from those who disagree. So I will make my protest known, and encourage a more enlightened approach. Then, some day, probably before long, some long time member of the Salvation Army in good standing will come out of the closet and set off a bonfire of rethinking all the attendant issues. Never fails. So I choose the way of the loyal opposition. That feels like it has more integrity, for me anyway, than the I'll take my dollar and go home approach.
I want that hungry guy on the street corner to have a soup kitchen to go to tonight. And the mom and two kids some chickenshit bank foreclosed on and put out in the cold; I'd like them to have a shelter, and for the kids to get a couple presents this Christmas. I'm funny that way.
The Jawbone
Years later I'd relate that same story to my two daughters as we were walking across some snowy New England parking lot, reach into my pocket, pass out the dollars, or quarters, as I was able, and we'd give what we could. "They help the poor," I'd explain. "People who don't have enough to eat tonight, and maybe even their kids; people without a roof over their heads won't have to sleep out in the cold tonight because you cared enough to help out."
This is the background I bring to the annual controversy that pits the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community against the Salvation Army. A controversy that runs down a two-way street. You see, the Salvation Army is a very conservative Christian organization that firmly believes the LGBT lifestyle is contrary to the SA's interpretation of certain Scriptures. Naturally, the LGBT community holds the opposite view, and calls upon me to withhold my cash in protest.
I happen to have long advocated, in the various denominations I've served as minister, the full rights of inclusion for the LGBT community. And we've made a great deal of progress as witnessed by the Episcopal Church, of which I'm now proudly a full member, having been confirmed by the Bishop just a couple of weeks ago. A few years back the Episcopal Church elected Gene Robinson Bishop of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is openly gay. Quite a step forward. Progress is often slow. But progress is made.
Yet not every Episcopalian would agree with me. Every year at our annual gathering there is that vocal minority who will get up and rant and rave against ordaining anyone who isn't straight. No doubt it will be so again this year. Equally certain is that their anti-gay agenda will get voted down. Seems the controversy, like the poor, is destined to be always with us.
I think the Salvation Army's stance on LGBT is wrong. But I'm not going to withdraw my money any more than I would withdraw my money from my Episcopal Church. I've seen first hand the good the SA has done and continues to do each year. I don't agree with them on this issue, but if I pulled my pittance out of every organization I can find something to disagree about I'd end up never giving a dime to any charity. So I have to make choices. Or kids sleep in the car and pregnant mothers don't eat.
Change comes from courage within and pressure from without from those who disagree. So I will make my protest known, and encourage a more enlightened approach. Then, some day, probably before long, some long time member of the Salvation Army in good standing will come out of the closet and set off a bonfire of rethinking all the attendant issues. Never fails. So I choose the way of the loyal opposition. That feels like it has more integrity, for me anyway, than the I'll take my dollar and go home approach.
I want that hungry guy on the street corner to have a soup kitchen to go to tonight. And the mom and two kids some chickenshit bank foreclosed on and put out in the cold; I'd like them to have a shelter, and for the kids to get a couple presents this Christmas. I'm funny that way.
The Jawbone
Monday, November 7, 2011
Swearing Preachers and the Hijacking of Democracy
"That," as my grandfather was fond of saying, "would make a preacher cuss." As a brief aside to those who have a rather shallow view of our profession, let me say this: If you ever meet a preacher who can't, when the situation warrants, string together a chain of profanities that would make the saltiest drunken sailor hang his head in crimson-faced shame---find another church. Come Sunday morning, only the swearing preachers have anything meaningful to say regarding the political and economic shit storm swirling around us.
In that intentionally irreverent spirit I will go my polling place tomorrow. I go for two reasons. One, voting gives me the right to bitch and generally raise hell about the hijacking of what used to be our democratic process. Two, this is a local, state house, election. What may be the last bastion of something remotely resembling democracy, although that too is disappearing.
My hope for local, state house elections is that they may not be quite as infected with corporate money. I remain idealist enough to still believe that there is, on the local level, at least a chance that a citizen can run for office on a very small budget and still have a chance to win. Rare. But it remains within the boundaries of possibility.
On the national level that is not the case. Here democracy is a thin veneer covering a completely corrupted system. Where is the democracy when both sides are bought and paid for by their corporate pimps? Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows companies like Bank of American and United Health Group and the Koch brothers to purchase candidates with massive amounts of cash. No matter who you vote for, you've already been sold out.
The result is a system made up of two subspecies: whores and whore mongers. The whores need the cash to get elected, but have to sell their votes in the process. The whore mongers are more than happy to provide the cash in exchange for the privilege of screwing the middle class and the poor with impunity. The game is rigged. Which side gets elected is making less and less difference.
Solution? A constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens decision that would ban all corporate money from all elections. No more shadow Koch brother front organizations. Complete transparency and financial accountability. Limit the size of contributions from individuals. Something not likely to happen since the whore mongers will pay their whores ever larger amounts of cash to prevent.
Unless there is a massive public movement against the sham system. The current Occupy Movement has the potential to put together the popular non-violent uprising that's desperately needed. Whether it can evolve into this kind of movement remains to be seen.
The hope lies in the fact that more and more people are realizing voting is not enough in a broken, rigged, system. People need to be in the streets for the whores and whore mongers to fear, and pay attention. The Movement has to grow in size and influence until a tipping point is reached; the point where the whores fear us more than their corporate pimps.
Occupy. Vote. Raise some Hell. Take your hard earned cash elsewhere. Petition. Bring the pressure. Bring the outrage. Demand to be heard, and heeded. There is strength in numbers. And there are more of us than there are of them.
The Jawbone.
In that intentionally irreverent spirit I will go my polling place tomorrow. I go for two reasons. One, voting gives me the right to bitch and generally raise hell about the hijacking of what used to be our democratic process. Two, this is a local, state house, election. What may be the last bastion of something remotely resembling democracy, although that too is disappearing.
My hope for local, state house elections is that they may not be quite as infected with corporate money. I remain idealist enough to still believe that there is, on the local level, at least a chance that a citizen can run for office on a very small budget and still have a chance to win. Rare. But it remains within the boundaries of possibility.
On the national level that is not the case. Here democracy is a thin veneer covering a completely corrupted system. Where is the democracy when both sides are bought and paid for by their corporate pimps? Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows companies like Bank of American and United Health Group and the Koch brothers to purchase candidates with massive amounts of cash. No matter who you vote for, you've already been sold out.
The result is a system made up of two subspecies: whores and whore mongers. The whores need the cash to get elected, but have to sell their votes in the process. The whore mongers are more than happy to provide the cash in exchange for the privilege of screwing the middle class and the poor with impunity. The game is rigged. Which side gets elected is making less and less difference.
Solution? A constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens decision that would ban all corporate money from all elections. No more shadow Koch brother front organizations. Complete transparency and financial accountability. Limit the size of contributions from individuals. Something not likely to happen since the whore mongers will pay their whores ever larger amounts of cash to prevent.
Unless there is a massive public movement against the sham system. The current Occupy Movement has the potential to put together the popular non-violent uprising that's desperately needed. Whether it can evolve into this kind of movement remains to be seen.
The hope lies in the fact that more and more people are realizing voting is not enough in a broken, rigged, system. People need to be in the streets for the whores and whore mongers to fear, and pay attention. The Movement has to grow in size and influence until a tipping point is reached; the point where the whores fear us more than their corporate pimps.
Occupy. Vote. Raise some Hell. Take your hard earned cash elsewhere. Petition. Bring the pressure. Bring the outrage. Demand to be heard, and heeded. There is strength in numbers. And there are more of us than there are of them.
The Jawbone.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Occupy Roanoke, Wall Street, And Just About Everywhere Else
Not being listened to; that feeling that tells you no matter how many petitions you sign, or emails you send, the people on the other end of the line couldn't care less about whether you have a decent job, can make rent, buy food, or buy your kids pens and pencils for school. It's demeaning. It's dehumanizing. And it's infuriating.
If I had a dollar for every petition I've signed, every email, every letter I've sent to my elected officials over the last few years, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be heading out the back door of my Costa Rica beach house, surfboard underarm, aiming to catch the afternoon glass. I'm not quite ready to say petitions and emails and letters don't matter, but when the signs are clear that no one in Washington is taking them seriously, then it's time to take it to the next level.
In that spirit I headed down to Occupy Roanoke. The first thing to catch my eye were the signs. A young college student with an accent I couldn't quite place stood on the curb holding up brown cardboard on which she'd neatly written: "I Can't Afford my own Politician, so I Made this Sign." Now, I thought, there's a sentiment I can get with. Every once in a while she'd flip it over to the backside where she'd written, "Abolish the Fed." Well, I'll have to give that one some thought.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..." that old song from the Five Man Electrical Band began playing in my head.
Have a concern? Here's the paint. Here's the crayons and markers. Help yourself. Make your own. Stand a post. Or pick up one of the pre-made that reflect your sentiments and get over to the curb. Make your voice heard. "Honk if You're One of the 99%" And I heard a lot of horns throughout the day. I picked up the one that said, "Whatever Happened to Shared Sacrifice?"
We were aging radicals from the sixties. And we were middle school students. And college students, environmental activists concerned about climate change. Some of us had jobs. Some hadn't worked in a long while. We were Vietnam and WWII vets. Conservatives. Progressives. Independents. Republicans. Democrats. Homeless folks taking advantage of the free potato soup. Each and all gathered while folk musicians and drummers provided the soundtrack. Diversity was the order of the day.
An organizer stood at the foot of the monument. "It's about time for the two-o'clock march. So here are the rules: be true to our non-violent commitment; be respectful of one another and of pedestrians, they have the right-of-way; if confronted, let the people with the orange armbands move in to diffuse the situation; invite others to join us; we are the 99%"
Off we went. Down the main drag of downtown, passed the big banks, over to the city market and back up to the park. We chanted "We Are the 99%" as passers-by gave us the thumbs up, or just broke into applause. " And "Tell me what democracy looks like.... THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!" with the drummers keeping time.
Speaker time. Want to make yourself heard? Sign up over there. You've got five minutes to make your case. The case for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case for spending that two billion a month to repair crumbling bridges that aren't safe to drive on and pot holes you can lose a Volkswagen in. The case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision that makes the voice of the people null and void in the halls of power. For banning all corporate money in politics to put and end to corporate Fascism and restore representative Democracy. The case for decent jobs for a liveable wage. The case for Rand Paul and abolishing the Federal Reserve. Whatever....
"Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!
And underlying every word, the deep-felt concern, the awareness, the certainty, that nobody in Washington is listening... So this is why we're here. You can't run. You can't hide. We're tired of not being listened to, and we're just not going to take it any more. Ignoring us is about as wise as sitting on a powder keg while smoking one of your fat corporate-bought cigars.
A sentiment I found well expressed by the young man I passed as I left the park to head home. He had the grizzled look of a young mountain man. On his back was a baby pack with a very young child. Above the pack he'd made a frame for his sign: "Fear Us. We've Already Lost Everything."
Now it begins.... more to follow....
The Jawbone
If I had a dollar for every petition I've signed, every email, every letter I've sent to my elected officials over the last few years, I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be heading out the back door of my Costa Rica beach house, surfboard underarm, aiming to catch the afternoon glass. I'm not quite ready to say petitions and emails and letters don't matter, but when the signs are clear that no one in Washington is taking them seriously, then it's time to take it to the next level.
In that spirit I headed down to Occupy Roanoke. The first thing to catch my eye were the signs. A young college student with an accent I couldn't quite place stood on the curb holding up brown cardboard on which she'd neatly written: "I Can't Afford my own Politician, so I Made this Sign." Now, I thought, there's a sentiment I can get with. Every once in a while she'd flip it over to the backside where she'd written, "Abolish the Fed." Well, I'll have to give that one some thought.
"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign..." that old song from the Five Man Electrical Band began playing in my head.
Have a concern? Here's the paint. Here's the crayons and markers. Help yourself. Make your own. Stand a post. Or pick up one of the pre-made that reflect your sentiments and get over to the curb. Make your voice heard. "Honk if You're One of the 99%" And I heard a lot of horns throughout the day. I picked up the one that said, "Whatever Happened to Shared Sacrifice?"
We were aging radicals from the sixties. And we were middle school students. And college students, environmental activists concerned about climate change. Some of us had jobs. Some hadn't worked in a long while. We were Vietnam and WWII vets. Conservatives. Progressives. Independents. Republicans. Democrats. Homeless folks taking advantage of the free potato soup. Each and all gathered while folk musicians and drummers provided the soundtrack. Diversity was the order of the day.
An organizer stood at the foot of the monument. "It's about time for the two-o'clock march. So here are the rules: be true to our non-violent commitment; be respectful of one another and of pedestrians, they have the right-of-way; if confronted, let the people with the orange armbands move in to diffuse the situation; invite others to join us; we are the 99%"
Off we went. Down the main drag of downtown, passed the big banks, over to the city market and back up to the park. We chanted "We Are the 99%" as passers-by gave us the thumbs up, or just broke into applause. " And "Tell me what democracy looks like.... THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!" with the drummers keeping time.
Speaker time. Want to make yourself heard? Sign up over there. You've got five minutes to make your case. The case for bringing our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. The case for spending that two billion a month to repair crumbling bridges that aren't safe to drive on and pot holes you can lose a Volkswagen in. The case for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision that makes the voice of the people null and void in the halls of power. For banning all corporate money in politics to put and end to corporate Fascism and restore representative Democracy. The case for decent jobs for a liveable wage. The case for Rand Paul and abolishing the Federal Reserve. Whatever....
"Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!!
And underlying every word, the deep-felt concern, the awareness, the certainty, that nobody in Washington is listening... So this is why we're here. You can't run. You can't hide. We're tired of not being listened to, and we're just not going to take it any more. Ignoring us is about as wise as sitting on a powder keg while smoking one of your fat corporate-bought cigars.
A sentiment I found well expressed by the young man I passed as I left the park to head home. He had the grizzled look of a young mountain man. On his back was a baby pack with a very young child. Above the pack he'd made a frame for his sign: "Fear Us. We've Already Lost Everything."
Now it begins.... more to follow....
The Jawbone
Friday, September 16, 2011
Should Death Sentences be Chiseled in Stone, or Written with Pencil?
Next Wednesday, Troy Davis may die. An African-American man convicted of killing a Savannah, Georgia, police officer in 1989, Davis is the latest face at the center of the death penalty debate. The operative word here is "may." A petition of over 663,000 names, mine among them, has been presented to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. The petition calls on the five member board, which will meet Monday to decide Davis' fate, to set aside his death sentence. A simple majority is all that's required for the thumbs up, or down.
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Controversy surrounds Davis' conviction. Since the trial, seven of nine witnesses have either recanted or altered their sworn testimony. And Davis has never faltered in his claim of innocence. Given these circumstances, the Georgia Board should commute the sentence. In the face of such uncertainty, caution should prevail, the benefit of doubt given to the condemned.
In all cases, I am opposed to the death penalty. I prefer the sentence of life in prison, without parole. It allows for a bit off leeway in what is, at very best, a system of justice that is imperfect, subject to error. From time to time, we screw up. The prisoner can be released. The dead, whether innocent or guilty, remain forever in the grave.
David R. Dow, founder of the Texas Innocence Project, provides names and faces and stories of justice gone awry. There's Francis Newton, executed for killing her two children and husband; without getting a drop of blood or gunpowder residue on herself. Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, for killing his three children by setting the house on fire. Problem is, four national arson experts reviewed the case, each concluding the fire was accidental. There's Anthony Graves, released after fourteen years on death row, exonerated in 2010. We could go on. But even a single case makes the point.
Certainty is rarely, if ever, possible. DNA? Very useful, to be sure, both in exonerating the wrongly convicted and in convicting the rightly accused. Infallible evidence? Not so fast there. Evidence is gathered by often careful but sometimes careless investigators, processed by usually exacting but sometimes overly fatigued lab technicians. Maybe an inadvertent mistake was made.
Hubris. Any arrogance that refuses to admit the possibility of error is a dangerous thing. Pride goeth before a wrongful execution.When asked in Wednesday night's Republican debate whether he struggled with the possibility that an innocent person had been executed on his watch, candidate and Governor of Texas Rick Perry answered, "Ive never struggled with that at all."
234 executions and counting on his watch; that's some sense of certainty there, Governor. Are you sure a bit of caution might not be a good idea? I mean, the odds alone should give a thinking individual pause. But better not to waver. The Presidency is at stake. And that's what bothers me.
I'm not for coddling violent criminals. I read of crimes so heinous that I give thanks my guns are behind lock and key. At the news of such horrors, I find within myself a rage that would, given the proper time and circumstance, compel me to drop the hammer on the perpetrator myself. Lock and key provide just enough delay to allow more sane thoughts to regain their appropriate place in my psyche.
That pause for reflection is what a justice system is supposed to provide, lest we confuse our concern for justice with our thirst, understandable at times, for revenge.
I hope the Georgia Board will decide in favor of Troy Davis. No criminal conviction should ever be chiseled in stone. Better to write in pencil. That makes it easier to go back and correct our mistakes.
The Jawbone
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Apocalypse Now
I'd just settled into the easy chair at Barnes and Nobles cafe when it felt as though someone had just bumped into the back of my chair. Hmm, some careless barrista banging his cart into the other side of the wall, I thought. Then the growing vibration, the more than occasional bumping, felt through the back of the chair, the floor, the lady over in the corner pulling off her headset, "Do you feel that?" Between strangers, knowing glances asking without words, "When do we run?" A young man at the table in front of me, "It's an earthquake. They're feeling it in Washington."
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
"The Utne Reader" is not a magazine I'd picked up in a while, years, actually. What unconscious prescience had brought me to turn to the article on--check out the current edition for yourself--on nature's apocalypse--specifically, Haiti style? At least that's what I think the article is about. I made it only to the third paragraph before the conversation between author and reader was somewhat rudely interrupted by Mother Nature.
I live a few miles south of the epicenter. Believe me, what we coffee drinkers and readers and laptoppers felt here was nothing close to the twist and shout they got in D.C. and destinations north. For a few moments I was the only one in the room who recognized what was happening. Indianapolis, Indiana sits over a major fault line, the name of which I don't recall. Midera, Madra something or other that sounds like that's the name.
Back in the eighties when our young family was living there, several times we'd be sitting at dinner and notice the wine beginning to move back and forth in tiny waves inside the glass. Such are the moments when our language allows us to mingle the sacred with the profane--Holy Shit! A phrase recognizable to most everyone from the deep South to my beloved New England just a few hours ago.
Earth moves beneath your feet, and something inside you is moved to summon whatever Sacred powers we may hope exist; while we simultaneously recognize the unsavory fragilities of human existence. My mother may not like my using the phrase, but "Holy Shit!" well describes human experience.
Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm driving. Today was no exception, preferring to rock out to a CD I'd just picked up of my favorite live Fleetwood Mac concert, "The Dance." On my day off I much prefer Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks rocking "Go Your Own Way" to one another than having to listen to yet another Rick Perry idiotic misreading of American history. (No, Mr. Perry, the Black experience cannot be likened to the Republican quest for less taxes! But don't get me started.)
I was surprised when I got home and turned on the news to discover that what had been a little rumbling at the book store was in fact much more. And, much, much more. Seems there was more damage than a few cracked walls and fallen chimneys and smashed cars.
I mean, Holy Shit! As if...? I mean, As if an earthquake isn't enough! There's this hurricane that looks like it's trying to make up it's fickle mind whether to slam Florida or cut right and head into North Carolina and Virginia before it goes after my younger daughter and her horses up in New England.
But, wait a minute, CNN is cutting away to Libya because the rebels have taken Gadaffe's compound and no one knows where he is.... Then there's this quick cut back to the House of Representatives guy who's saying our intelligence community and whoever the Hell else is in charge needs to get over there really fast because we need to find a way to make sure the mustard gas and other chemical weapons don't fall into "the wrong hands...."
Okay. Here we go. It's nine pm, my time. Nine pm. Our time. All of our times. The earth has shifted beneath our feet. There's a major hurricane bearing down on us. And a bunch of rag-tag hero freedom fighters who don't know shit from shit about running a country are suddenly sitting on top of God only knows how much Weapons of Mass Destruction stuff that could wipe out half of New York if the wrong fanatics get hold of it.
Damn. I just can't figure out how I keep picking the wrong day to stop drinking!
Let's sort this out. Two events, earthquake and hurricane, are Mother Nature's invention. I can't; you can't; none of us can do squat about whatever Ms. Nature decides to do. It's sort of like that old margarine ad: Mother Nature's back! And, I would ad, She's pissed!! And after everything we've made her suffer through, who could blame her? Nature brings her version of Apocalypse.
Then there's this other situation. Libya. Gaddafi. WMD. Well, I guess we humans have to take responsibility for that. Just as we, as a species--well, what else do you think we are? if not one more species beside the rest of the bugs and bees and grasshoppers and birds and, well, you get it... We bring our own apocalypse... Libya. Washington. Our decisions have consequences. Karma happens. We make history. History makes us. It's always both/and. Apocalypse Now.
When I was a doctoral candidate, my committee chairman, a scholar now well known to all in the field of the history of religions, told me, "Alan, history is a whirlwind. Often, we are caught up in it. But we are never without freedom. We choose how we will respond to the events that sweep us up in histories' storms."
Okay. It's now almost ten o'clock, my time, our time. This is all totally freelance... So I ask... How am I going to respond to all I've experienced today? Tomorrow morning? What kind of attitude am I going to get up with? It's my choice. ?
Hey, it comes down to this: we hit the world with one of two attitudes, life preferences, ways of being in this world.... Either I choose to go out into this world tomorrow morning with.... either an attitude of faith... or fear... I choose faith.
Faith in myself as a moral human being who knows that were it not for my sense of morality, of right and wrong, I could not have written any of this. Faith in the teachings of Christ, and of the Dalai Lama; that is: that compassion for all sentient beings is the highest ethical standard to which any of us can aspire.
Fear cringes. Fear hides in a cave. Fear says I can't do anything that matters. Fear says we are the helpless pawns of blind fate... and nothing besides.
Faith says I will have compassion. Compassion says, I care, and I'll do all I can for the victims of natural disaster.
Faith, the very essence of compassion, says, I do all I can for the victims of man-made catastrophe, like Libya, or.... wherever humanity has used it's freedom to royally screw up.
Okay. So. I mean, Holy Shit! What a day to stop drinking! Natural disasters by the truckload. Human malevolence that could destroy millions! So.... really.... how do I get up in the morning and carry on?
Faith? Fear? You figure it out.... I'm going to bed... But.... See you tomorrow...
The Jawbone
Monday, July 25, 2011
Welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic
"I must confess that the great political movements of our day frighten me with their reckless
certainties and their insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated rather than as ends
for which government exists. Liberalism and conservatism, in their current incarnations, both
possess great ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and fair debate... and great capacities for hatred."
(from Integrity, Stephen L. Carter, 1996, p. 209)
That strange whirring sound you hear when you step outside should alarm you. It's the sound of James Madison spinning in his grave. James, you may remember, was one of those Founding Fathers we seem to be hearing so much about these days. It was Madison who warned, in The Federalist No. 10, against letting our politics be overrun by "factions." Factions, he believed, are by their very nature destructive of authentic democracy.
It seems we've enetered into the age Madison most feared, the age when politics is taken over by factions; welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic.
These insane zealots seem to be everywhere. The Blind Fanatics are easily recognizable. You can pick them out of any crowd. They are certain, absolutely certain, that they are right, and everyone, and I mean everyone else, is wrong. And, lest anyone doubt their righteousness, their position is always endorsed by their particular notion of "God." They harbour no doubt, none, that God is on their side--and no one elses. Anyone who disagrees with their ideaology, whether it be political, economic, moral, or religious, is not merely someone with a different opinion worthy of respect and civil debate, but an enemy to be not only feared, but hated, and, if possible, destroyed, or at very least, driven from the public square.
Make no mistake about it, there is an insanity to this age. Once again, this week we've been reminded of how far the Blind Fanatic will go, so consumed is he by his self-assured, God-endorsed, ideological purity that slaughtering children at a summer camp is not beyond his moral certainty. And, lest we be tempted to point the accusing finger too quickly at others, we need remember only two words: Oaklahoma City. America, too, has its lunatic fringe.
Most Blind Fanatics are not violent, of course. These are truly the lunatic fringe. I use the fringe to illustrate just how crazy all this can get. But there is one idea, one notion, one absolute principle the Blind Fanatic of every stripe, ideology, religion, politics, morals or whatever holds sacred: Compromise is the language of the Devil. To the Blind Fanatic, the very mention of the vile, disgusting, immoral, word compromise means you are the Devil incarnate, the enemy, the traitor who must be eliminated. As we have been reminded, some are a bit more extreme in their understanding of what it means to eliminate the opposition than others.
In the Age of the Blind Fanatic democracy becomes impossible. Because democracy is itself the language of compromise. It works only when those involved are willing to consider that those with other views might---Good God!!---actually have a valid point or two; only when those involved become willing not only to present their position but listen to someone else's.
Just over two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Buddha did some experiementing and came up with this really innovative idea. He tried the high life, denying himself no pleasures. That didn't lead to the happiness he sought. So he tried the other extreme, radical self-denial. That didn't quite cut it either. About that time he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight, the string breaks. Too loose and you can't hit the note. But if you tune it just right, not too tight, not too loose, you can play the instrument. So, being rather a bright sort, he concluded the truth of right living just might be somewhere in between the two extremes. This was the Buddha's "middle way."
The political implications are inescapable. I wonder, What would Buddha do? Would he increase revenues or cut spending? Or would he seek the middle way? Quite probably. And if we are to believe the polls this middle way is what most of us would like Washington to find. The vast majority of us have no desire to live in this Age of Blind Fanaticism, preferring instead a more reasoned approach to our politics.
The middle way is the way of shared sacrifice; the way of shared responsibility for the well being of the least among us--the poor, the young, the elderly, the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the social and economic outcasts.
Demanding anything less from our leadership amounts to a sellout of democracy to the very factionalism James Madison warned us against.
The Jawbone
certainties and their insistence on treating people as means to be manipulated rather than as ends
for which government exists. Liberalism and conservatism, in their current incarnations, both
possess great ideas, worthy of a fair hearing and fair debate... and great capacities for hatred."
(from Integrity, Stephen L. Carter, 1996, p. 209)
That strange whirring sound you hear when you step outside should alarm you. It's the sound of James Madison spinning in his grave. James, you may remember, was one of those Founding Fathers we seem to be hearing so much about these days. It was Madison who warned, in The Federalist No. 10, against letting our politics be overrun by "factions." Factions, he believed, are by their very nature destructive of authentic democracy.
It seems we've enetered into the age Madison most feared, the age when politics is taken over by factions; welcome to the Age of the Blind Fanatic.
These insane zealots seem to be everywhere. The Blind Fanatics are easily recognizable. You can pick them out of any crowd. They are certain, absolutely certain, that they are right, and everyone, and I mean everyone else, is wrong. And, lest anyone doubt their righteousness, their position is always endorsed by their particular notion of "God." They harbour no doubt, none, that God is on their side--and no one elses. Anyone who disagrees with their ideaology, whether it be political, economic, moral, or religious, is not merely someone with a different opinion worthy of respect and civil debate, but an enemy to be not only feared, but hated, and, if possible, destroyed, or at very least, driven from the public square.
Make no mistake about it, there is an insanity to this age. Once again, this week we've been reminded of how far the Blind Fanatic will go, so consumed is he by his self-assured, God-endorsed, ideological purity that slaughtering children at a summer camp is not beyond his moral certainty. And, lest we be tempted to point the accusing finger too quickly at others, we need remember only two words: Oaklahoma City. America, too, has its lunatic fringe.
Most Blind Fanatics are not violent, of course. These are truly the lunatic fringe. I use the fringe to illustrate just how crazy all this can get. But there is one idea, one notion, one absolute principle the Blind Fanatic of every stripe, ideology, religion, politics, morals or whatever holds sacred: Compromise is the language of the Devil. To the Blind Fanatic, the very mention of the vile, disgusting, immoral, word compromise means you are the Devil incarnate, the enemy, the traitor who must be eliminated. As we have been reminded, some are a bit more extreme in their understanding of what it means to eliminate the opposition than others.
In the Age of the Blind Fanatic democracy becomes impossible. Because democracy is itself the language of compromise. It works only when those involved are willing to consider that those with other views might---Good God!!---actually have a valid point or two; only when those involved become willing not only to present their position but listen to someone else's.
Just over two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Buddha did some experiementing and came up with this really innovative idea. He tried the high life, denying himself no pleasures. That didn't lead to the happiness he sought. So he tried the other extreme, radical self-denial. That didn't quite cut it either. About that time he heard someone tuning a stringed instrument. Too tight, the string breaks. Too loose and you can't hit the note. But if you tune it just right, not too tight, not too loose, you can play the instrument. So, being rather a bright sort, he concluded the truth of right living just might be somewhere in between the two extremes. This was the Buddha's "middle way."
The political implications are inescapable. I wonder, What would Buddha do? Would he increase revenues or cut spending? Or would he seek the middle way? Quite probably. And if we are to believe the polls this middle way is what most of us would like Washington to find. The vast majority of us have no desire to live in this Age of Blind Fanaticism, preferring instead a more reasoned approach to our politics.
The middle way is the way of shared sacrifice; the way of shared responsibility for the well being of the least among us--the poor, the young, the elderly, the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the social and economic outcasts.
Demanding anything less from our leadership amounts to a sellout of democracy to the very factionalism James Madison warned us against.
The Jawbone
Monday, July 11, 2011
Progress is Made
There must be some kinda way outta here,
Said the joker to the thief.
There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief...
From All Along the Watchtower
by Bob Dylan
This whole charade makes me want to get into my car, drive up to D.C., park in front of the Capital, get out, calmly jog up those long white steps, bump into the first elected officeholder I meet and, with complete disregard for party affiliation, beat the living shit out of them. Not that I would ever actually do so, at least not this week. But I don't think I'm alone in the frustration.
I am a political junkie. Depending on what time I need to be at work, my day begins with Joe and Mika and Mike, flipping back and forth between MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Today, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning. At our house we have dinner with Chris and Chenk, Lawrence and Ed and Wolff and their guests. But after a while, the constant barrage of almost incomprehensible stupidity, the failure to act, the divisions, the meaningless rhetoric, the endless wars, the body counts, the bullshit coming out of Washington while the rest of us struggle with rising food prices and gas prices and the prices of everything else while the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed becomes overwhelming, and infuriating.
"There must be some kinda way outta here.... too much confusion...." I can relate. There just isn't any good news, a friend said to me not long ago. It certainly seems so.
There are times when I need to get some distance between me and the evening bad news. Times to move out a bit and get some perspective on things. I've found that distance is often the only thing between my sanity and despair. I've always loved that opening paragraph to Moby Dick, that reads, in part:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
There has to be an ebb and flow to my involvement in the affairs of the day. There has to be a balance. There is a time to tune in, sign petitions, help with the campaign, man the phone bank, write blogs and letters, swear at the idiot on television, call my representatives, email, demonstrate and march, meet up and join up and join in.
But all of that has to be balanced with, as Melville says so well, a "time to get to sea as soon as I can." When, like this week, nothing is getting done and we seem governed by a confederacy of dunces advised by dim-witted professional dullards, I need to go sit and watch the waves, and, if the surf's up, ride a few.
I live inland now, so I don't surf as much as I used to. But the spiritual principle is the same. We need time sitting on the mountain, hiking the trail, watching the waves, sitting in the boat with a line in the water, or on the meditation cushion, doing whatever it is we do to touch the Infinite, to breathe, regain focus. Perspective is everything. To be is to do and if we forget to just be we soon have no idea what to do next.
Politics and spirituality meet the moment we ask, How shall we live together? How will we govern ourselves with justice and compassion? And how do we stand up to those in power who clearly don't give a damn about either?
Now, things are a mess. But when I take time to just be, to get in touch with the Infinite, I realize we are in this for the long haul. Change does happen. Progress is made. It just takes a while. There is a direction, an arch to history. As Dr. King reminded us, "it bends toward justice."
When I was in elementary school my mother and I would occasionally walk the couple of blocks down to the drug store. That was the early sixties, when drug stores had lunch counters. One day I was sitting at that lunch counter drinking my favorite chocolate shake. I noticed a sign behind the counter that said, "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone." On the walk back home I asked what that meant. "It means they won't serve Negroes at the lunch counter. And it really shouldn't be that way." It would take a few more years before I had any real understanding of what she meant.
But lunch counters would play a significant role in the Civil Rights movement. Now the sign and the apartheid it sanctioned are gone. Progress is made, slowly. And we have to keep working at it. To see the good news we have to take the long view and not get too bogged down in the confusion of the present chaos. Perspective gives us the hope it takes to wade back into the struggle; the courage to campaign on behalf of those getting the latest raw deal.
It's the only way "outta here."
The Jawbone
Said the joker to the thief.
There's too much confusion,
I can't get no relief...
From All Along the Watchtower
by Bob Dylan
This whole charade makes me want to get into my car, drive up to D.C., park in front of the Capital, get out, calmly jog up those long white steps, bump into the first elected officeholder I meet and, with complete disregard for party affiliation, beat the living shit out of them. Not that I would ever actually do so, at least not this week. But I don't think I'm alone in the frustration.
I am a political junkie. Depending on what time I need to be at work, my day begins with Joe and Mika and Mike, flipping back and forth between MSNBC, CNN, HLN, Today, Good Morning America, and CBS Morning. At our house we have dinner with Chris and Chenk, Lawrence and Ed and Wolff and their guests. But after a while, the constant barrage of almost incomprehensible stupidity, the failure to act, the divisions, the meaningless rhetoric, the endless wars, the body counts, the bullshit coming out of Washington while the rest of us struggle with rising food prices and gas prices and the prices of everything else while the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed becomes overwhelming, and infuriating.
"There must be some kinda way outta here.... too much confusion...." I can relate. There just isn't any good news, a friend said to me not long ago. It certainly seems so.
There are times when I need to get some distance between me and the evening bad news. Times to move out a bit and get some perspective on things. I've found that distance is often the only thing between my sanity and despair. I've always loved that opening paragraph to Moby Dick, that reads, in part:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."
There has to be an ebb and flow to my involvement in the affairs of the day. There has to be a balance. There is a time to tune in, sign petitions, help with the campaign, man the phone bank, write blogs and letters, swear at the idiot on television, call my representatives, email, demonstrate and march, meet up and join up and join in.
But all of that has to be balanced with, as Melville says so well, a "time to get to sea as soon as I can." When, like this week, nothing is getting done and we seem governed by a confederacy of dunces advised by dim-witted professional dullards, I need to go sit and watch the waves, and, if the surf's up, ride a few.
I live inland now, so I don't surf as much as I used to. But the spiritual principle is the same. We need time sitting on the mountain, hiking the trail, watching the waves, sitting in the boat with a line in the water, or on the meditation cushion, doing whatever it is we do to touch the Infinite, to breathe, regain focus. Perspective is everything. To be is to do and if we forget to just be we soon have no idea what to do next.
Politics and spirituality meet the moment we ask, How shall we live together? How will we govern ourselves with justice and compassion? And how do we stand up to those in power who clearly don't give a damn about either?
Now, things are a mess. But when I take time to just be, to get in touch with the Infinite, I realize we are in this for the long haul. Change does happen. Progress is made. It just takes a while. There is a direction, an arch to history. As Dr. King reminded us, "it bends toward justice."
When I was in elementary school my mother and I would occasionally walk the couple of blocks down to the drug store. That was the early sixties, when drug stores had lunch counters. One day I was sitting at that lunch counter drinking my favorite chocolate shake. I noticed a sign behind the counter that said, "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone." On the walk back home I asked what that meant. "It means they won't serve Negroes at the lunch counter. And it really shouldn't be that way." It would take a few more years before I had any real understanding of what she meant.
But lunch counters would play a significant role in the Civil Rights movement. Now the sign and the apartheid it sanctioned are gone. Progress is made, slowly. And we have to keep working at it. To see the good news we have to take the long view and not get too bogged down in the confusion of the present chaos. Perspective gives us the hope it takes to wade back into the struggle; the courage to campaign on behalf of those getting the latest raw deal.
It's the only way "outta here."
The Jawbone
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Putting the Right People in Jail
Depending on how this goes, there may be a few new neighbors on Mr. Madoff's cell block. It's about time. Our criminal justice system is so often tilted against the poor, minorities, petty criminals and addicts who would benefit more from treatment than incarceration, those without substantial means to defend themselves. Sometimes we put the wrong people in jail. Commit a crime in the street, you go to jail. Crime in the suite? The company picks up the tab and you take your high-priced legal beagle to lunch--on the company expense account, of course. Maybe that's about to change, at least a little.
A couple of years back the state of New York fined United Health Group fifty million for failing to properly pay claims. But hey! What's a few measly million when you're making billions? Like, who cares? So what if the business practices are a bit on the shady side? Who cares if the rules get bent a bit? Get by with it, so much the better for the bottom line. Get caught, write it off as a business expense, sort of like taking your client out to an expensive lunch. Anyway, what's a bit of health care fraud among friends, especially when the company is going to pick up the tab?
Well, thanks to a few good folks over at Health and Human Services, that attitude may be in for a change. Seems some of them got a bit frustrated over the way health care industries have been ripping us off--to the tune of about sixty billion a year. Sixty billion a year!!! This at a time when Congress is talking about cutting my mom's medicare? What's wrong with this picture?
Here's what Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the inspector general at HHS, told Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Huffington Post earlier this week: "When you look at the history of health care enforcement, we've seen a number of Fortune 500 companies that have been caught not once, not twice, but sometimes three times violating the trust of the American people, submitting false claims, paying kickbacks to doctors, marketing drugs which have not been tested for safety and efficacy. To our way of thinking, the men and women in the corporate suite aren't getting it. If writing a check for 200 million isn't enough to have a company change its ways, then maybe we have got to have the individuals who are responsible for this held accountable. The behavior of a company starts at the top."
There you go! Now we just might be getting somewhere. So Bernie may be getting some new neighbors. And for most of us, it's about time. I mean, really, who's the bigger crook? The guy who gets busted and goes up state for getting pulled over with three joints in his glove compartment? Or the guy who's spent years ripping off taxpayers for billions in corporate profits, to the extent that it's killing our ability to provide health care for our elderly parents, and never even gets arrested?
HHS is sending a wake up call to the health industry with their case against Howard Solomon, CEO of Forest Laboratories, a big pharma firm that makes antidepressants and other meds. Last year Forest plead guilty to a few justice department charges, and cut a deal with a check for 313 million. Seems they ignored an FDA notice to stop peddling a new drug that hadn't been approved. But, and here's the key point, as usual, all the bigwigs avoided jail time. So where's the incentive for the folks at the top to stay honest?
I think it's time Bernie got some new neighbors. So here's a notice to all you CEOs and other assorted corporate types who are tempted to break the rules every once in a while in the name of big time cash. It might serve you well to hang a sign on the wall across from your desk. A sign that says, "As they say up state: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
The Jawbone
A couple of years back the state of New York fined United Health Group fifty million for failing to properly pay claims. But hey! What's a few measly million when you're making billions? Like, who cares? So what if the business practices are a bit on the shady side? Who cares if the rules get bent a bit? Get by with it, so much the better for the bottom line. Get caught, write it off as a business expense, sort of like taking your client out to an expensive lunch. Anyway, what's a bit of health care fraud among friends, especially when the company is going to pick up the tab?
Well, thanks to a few good folks over at Health and Human Services, that attitude may be in for a change. Seems some of them got a bit frustrated over the way health care industries have been ripping us off--to the tune of about sixty billion a year. Sixty billion a year!!! This at a time when Congress is talking about cutting my mom's medicare? What's wrong with this picture?
Here's what Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the inspector general at HHS, told Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the Huffington Post earlier this week: "When you look at the history of health care enforcement, we've seen a number of Fortune 500 companies that have been caught not once, not twice, but sometimes three times violating the trust of the American people, submitting false claims, paying kickbacks to doctors, marketing drugs which have not been tested for safety and efficacy. To our way of thinking, the men and women in the corporate suite aren't getting it. If writing a check for 200 million isn't enough to have a company change its ways, then maybe we have got to have the individuals who are responsible for this held accountable. The behavior of a company starts at the top."
There you go! Now we just might be getting somewhere. So Bernie may be getting some new neighbors. And for most of us, it's about time. I mean, really, who's the bigger crook? The guy who gets busted and goes up state for getting pulled over with three joints in his glove compartment? Or the guy who's spent years ripping off taxpayers for billions in corporate profits, to the extent that it's killing our ability to provide health care for our elderly parents, and never even gets arrested?
HHS is sending a wake up call to the health industry with their case against Howard Solomon, CEO of Forest Laboratories, a big pharma firm that makes antidepressants and other meds. Last year Forest plead guilty to a few justice department charges, and cut a deal with a check for 313 million. Seems they ignored an FDA notice to stop peddling a new drug that hadn't been approved. But, and here's the key point, as usual, all the bigwigs avoided jail time. So where's the incentive for the folks at the top to stay honest?
I think it's time Bernie got some new neighbors. So here's a notice to all you CEOs and other assorted corporate types who are tempted to break the rules every once in a while in the name of big time cash. It might serve you well to hang a sign on the wall across from your desk. A sign that says, "As they say up state: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
The Jawbone
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