When I read about the caricature of Catholicism represented by William Donohue, president of the so-called Catholic League, in the controversy over the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, I have increased sympathy with our brothers and sisters in Islam who have seen their faith hijacked by their own brand of extremists.
Granted, Catholic extremists no longer behead their apostates and enemies as some Taliban and Islamists still reportedly do — and, as we once did, let us not forget. Instead, in this kinder, gentler version of Christian elimination, they disenfranchise, marginalize, and, when the official hierarchy gets involved, excommunicate them. Same result, except they still have their heads — a considerable advantage, to be sure.
What sparked this is the brouhaha over the exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington called “A Fire in My Belly.” In case you missed it, the exhibit didn’t make the news until a couple of weeks ago when a four-minute excerpt was removed from the larger exhibit because of an 11-second segment depicting a crucified Christ with ants crawling on him. The excerpt was deleted because of objections from conservative Christians, with William Donohue leading the charge.
By the way, it is helpful to know that the Catholic League, headed by Donohue, is a “right-wing publicity mill, with no official or financial connection to the Catholic Church,” as Frank Rich helpfully pointed out in his Dec. 12 NYT column (“Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian”). Still, I don’t recall a member of the official Catholic Church hierarchy, meaning bishops and above, ever repudiating the League’s excesses either, and they have had ample opportunity. For example, Donohue is the one, as Frank Rich again points out in this same column, who defended Mel Gibson against anti-Semitism for his movie “The Passion of the Christ,” by declaring that “Hollywood is controlled by Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.”
Donohue’s surface objection to the National Portrait Gallery was that the depiction of Christ represented anti-Christian hate speech. As I have heard “A Fire in My Belly” explained, it was certainly not that, but rather a spiritual message with the depiction of the suffering Christ as identifying himself with the suffering of humanity in all its forms, including AIDS victims. The exhibit’s artist and filmmaker was David Wojnarowicz, who was raised Catholic and died of AIDS in 1992.
As it turned out, Donohue’s real objection, which apparently surfaced later in his explanation, was the exhibit’s depiction of “pornographic depictions of gay men.” Donohue has had a long history of demonizing gays, going so far as to say the Church doesn’t have a pedophilia problem; it has a homosexuality problem.
Unfortunately, homophobia is still a politically and socially acceptable form of bigotry in this country, as the debate over repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” still agonizingly reminds us. From a political perspective, it is sadly understandable: Pusillanimity is what one expects from politicians. But, from a Christian perspective, it doesn’t make sense at all unless one stakes a belief in a God whose loving embrace does not include gay men and women, and that would indeed make our God way too small.
Gerald E. Lavey
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
With Friends Like These....
“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat,” humorist Will Rogers once famously quipped, and that observation has never been more relevant than today.
Not content with battling the Republicans, the Democrats have resorted to their typical infighting that has hurt them in the past and will make the Party – and the President – easy prey in the 2012 election if they don’t come to their senses.
Saturday, Dec. 4, in a Washington Post Op-Ed, for example, liberal guest columnist Michael Lerner suggests that the best way to get President Obama to become the progressive populist he promised to be is for the Democrats to have a real progressive Democrat challenge him in his 2012 re-election bid. Even E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Frank Rich of the New York Times are grousing about the President’s lack of spine and backbone and portend disaster for his re-election chances if he doesn’t change.
First of all, back to Michael Lerner’s point, presidential candidate Barack Obama did not promise to be a progressive populist. He promised to be a centrist President, a President to unite all the people, and if you read his political blueprint for the Presidency, The Audacity of Hope, written before he was elected, he has largely stayed true to what he has promised. Secondly, politics is the “art of the possible,” as Bismarck reminded us many years ago, or “to govern is to choose,” as President De Gaulle observed, and sometimes that choice is between what the late liberal columnist John Kenneth Galbraith called the “disastrous vs. the unpalatable.”
This is precisely the kind of choice the President is facing with the Bush tax cuts, which seems to be the main focus of the progressive Democrats’ latest ire. Let’s review his options: His position all along — to allow tax cuts for only those families making $250 thousand or less and allow the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire — was effectively taken off the table this past week when the Republicans blocked such a bill in the Senate. This leaves the President two options: take a hard stand against allowing tax cuts for the wealthy or allow a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
If he takes the tough stand against tax cuts for the richest, the Republicans will continue to block an extension of emergency unemployment benefits for those still out of work. Those benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The Republicans are willing to hold benefits for the unemployed hostage in exchange for a tax cut benefiting the rich and, astonishingly, Middle America remains largely silent.
Also, by hanging tough, tax cuts for everyone would expire along with tax cuts for the wealthy. And, Republicans are reportedly willing to let that happen because they know that the President and Democrats will get blamed for allowing taxes to increase during the midst of a recession, and the Republicans can use that as a campaign issue in 2012.
This is the ugly Sophie’s choice the President faces and understandably, from my perspective, he is willing to negotiate with Republicans, hold his nose and allow a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for benefits for the unemployed and those hardest hit by the recession. That does not demonstrate lack of spine, in my judgment, but a profile in courage, as President George H.W. Bush showed when he violated his “watch my lips” policy on tax increases for the greater good during his one term in office.
Also at stake during this lame-duck session of Congress are other important issues on the table that won’t get done unless the tax cuts are resolved. These include ratification of the SALT treaty with Russia, which has been endorsed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and six former secretaries of State. Yet, Republican Senator Jon Kyl is holding it up in the Senate as part of the continuing successful “just say no” political policy of the Senate Republicans.
It is dumbfounding to me that Democrats are starting to distance themselves from the President instead of closing ranks and directing their ire where it belongs. What’s there not to like about this guy? He has a first-rate mind and a first-rate temperament. He is thoughtful and articulate. He has a good family life, with no skeletons in his closet; otherwise his opponents would have long ago found them. He is admired around the world and has helped restore America’s standing with our long-time world partners. He was able to get health care reform enacted, an achievement of historic proportions in itself. Financial reform, extricating our fighting forces from Irag… the list of accomplishments goes on.
When is the last time we had a U.S President with such a combination of personal and professional qualities and attributes, as well as so many accomplishments in such a short time as this President?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of one.
Gerald E. Lavey
Not content with battling the Republicans, the Democrats have resorted to their typical infighting that has hurt them in the past and will make the Party – and the President – easy prey in the 2012 election if they don’t come to their senses.
Saturday, Dec. 4, in a Washington Post Op-Ed, for example, liberal guest columnist Michael Lerner suggests that the best way to get President Obama to become the progressive populist he promised to be is for the Democrats to have a real progressive Democrat challenge him in his 2012 re-election bid. Even E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Frank Rich of the New York Times are grousing about the President’s lack of spine and backbone and portend disaster for his re-election chances if he doesn’t change.
First of all, back to Michael Lerner’s point, presidential candidate Barack Obama did not promise to be a progressive populist. He promised to be a centrist President, a President to unite all the people, and if you read his political blueprint for the Presidency, The Audacity of Hope, written before he was elected, he has largely stayed true to what he has promised. Secondly, politics is the “art of the possible,” as Bismarck reminded us many years ago, or “to govern is to choose,” as President De Gaulle observed, and sometimes that choice is between what the late liberal columnist John Kenneth Galbraith called the “disastrous vs. the unpalatable.”
This is precisely the kind of choice the President is facing with the Bush tax cuts, which seems to be the main focus of the progressive Democrats’ latest ire. Let’s review his options: His position all along — to allow tax cuts for only those families making $250 thousand or less and allow the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire — was effectively taken off the table this past week when the Republicans blocked such a bill in the Senate. This leaves the President two options: take a hard stand against allowing tax cuts for the wealthy or allow a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
If he takes the tough stand against tax cuts for the richest, the Republicans will continue to block an extension of emergency unemployment benefits for those still out of work. Those benefits are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The Republicans are willing to hold benefits for the unemployed hostage in exchange for a tax cut benefiting the rich and, astonishingly, Middle America remains largely silent.
Also, by hanging tough, tax cuts for everyone would expire along with tax cuts for the wealthy. And, Republicans are reportedly willing to let that happen because they know that the President and Democrats will get blamed for allowing taxes to increase during the midst of a recession, and the Republicans can use that as a campaign issue in 2012.
This is the ugly Sophie’s choice the President faces and understandably, from my perspective, he is willing to negotiate with Republicans, hold his nose and allow a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy in exchange for benefits for the unemployed and those hardest hit by the recession. That does not demonstrate lack of spine, in my judgment, but a profile in courage, as President George H.W. Bush showed when he violated his “watch my lips” policy on tax increases for the greater good during his one term in office.
Also at stake during this lame-duck session of Congress are other important issues on the table that won’t get done unless the tax cuts are resolved. These include ratification of the SALT treaty with Russia, which has been endorsed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and six former secretaries of State. Yet, Republican Senator Jon Kyl is holding it up in the Senate as part of the continuing successful “just say no” political policy of the Senate Republicans.
It is dumbfounding to me that Democrats are starting to distance themselves from the President instead of closing ranks and directing their ire where it belongs. What’s there not to like about this guy? He has a first-rate mind and a first-rate temperament. He is thoughtful and articulate. He has a good family life, with no skeletons in his closet; otherwise his opponents would have long ago found them. He is admired around the world and has helped restore America’s standing with our long-time world partners. He was able to get health care reform enacted, an achievement of historic proportions in itself. Financial reform, extricating our fighting forces from Irag… the list of accomplishments goes on.
When is the last time we had a U.S President with such a combination of personal and professional qualities and attributes, as well as so many accomplishments in such a short time as this President?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of one.
Gerald E. Lavey
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Enough Already!
This Thanksgiving, as I read news stories about people in this country out of work trying to pay bills and put food on the table, and countless numbers around the world who are chronically short of food and basic necessities, it’s hard for us with jobs or good pensions, or both, not to be thankful for what we have.
But, then, this depends on what we are satisfied with. The word “satisfied” often suggests abundance, but it actually comes from a Latin word “satis,” which simply means “enough.” How much is enough? That’s a challenging question for members of a society bent on accumulating more things and possessions. But, I suspect for most of us, if we’re honest, it means far less than what we think we need and maybe a lot less than what we already have.
Recently, we had a chance to hear author Michael Schut discuss his book, “Money and Faith: The Search for Enough,” a series of essays he compiled by authors as diverse as Henri Nouwen and Dave Barry. Schut spoke mostly on a macro scale. Among other things, he noted that the U.S. constitutes 5 percent of the world’s population, yet consumes 24 percent of the world’s energy resources and is responsible for 72 percent of the world’s hazardous waste. Yet, getting this country to do something about that imbalance is a tough, almost impossible, political challenge.
Then, there’s the baffling case of tax cuts for the super rich, which apparently Congress will allow to continue because tax cuts for the middle class and the least affluent members of society are being held hostage in the process. This even though, according to one reliable source, the wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34 percent of the nation's net worth, the top 10 percent of families owns over 71 percent, and the bottom 40 percent of the population owns way less than 1 percent. Yet, the Tea Party and other conservatives seem to be okay with this, even though we we’ll have to knock on China’s door again, asking to borrow another $700 billion to pay for the tax cut for the wealthiest.
On the other hand, when the President, out of concern for the 30-40 million Americans who don’t have access to affordable health care, makes that his top political priority and helps usher health reform through the Congress, their anger sparked a political firestorm that wreaked havoc in the last election. Don’t try to get your head around that – it’ll give you a headache.
But, in the spirit of the season, let’s not finish on such a downer. Instead, let’s end with a stunning example of how one incredibly generous person has answered the question of how much is enough. It’s an example provided by Sue Hendon, wife of my long-time friend and former FAA colleague, George Hendon.
In a recent letter, George wrote that Sue was at a Costco store in Kansas City when she ran into an acquaintance, not a close friend, who told her that her husband was approaching renal failure and was looking for a suitable kidney donor. Not one of the seven family members and friends who had volunteered provided a suitable match, the woman said. Sue thought: Well, we can’t allow this to happen. But, she went home and discussed it with George first. Two days later, she had made up her mind. As it turned out, she was a perfect match, and three days after the operation she was home. George says that Sue’s explanation for her selfless act was simple: “If you had two cookies and a good friend desperately needed one, wouldn’t you offer one of yours? Of course, you would.”
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Gerald E. Lavey
But, then, this depends on what we are satisfied with. The word “satisfied” often suggests abundance, but it actually comes from a Latin word “satis,” which simply means “enough.” How much is enough? That’s a challenging question for members of a society bent on accumulating more things and possessions. But, I suspect for most of us, if we’re honest, it means far less than what we think we need and maybe a lot less than what we already have.
Recently, we had a chance to hear author Michael Schut discuss his book, “Money and Faith: The Search for Enough,” a series of essays he compiled by authors as diverse as Henri Nouwen and Dave Barry. Schut spoke mostly on a macro scale. Among other things, he noted that the U.S. constitutes 5 percent of the world’s population, yet consumes 24 percent of the world’s energy resources and is responsible for 72 percent of the world’s hazardous waste. Yet, getting this country to do something about that imbalance is a tough, almost impossible, political challenge.
Then, there’s the baffling case of tax cuts for the super rich, which apparently Congress will allow to continue because tax cuts for the middle class and the least affluent members of society are being held hostage in the process. This even though, according to one reliable source, the wealthiest 1 percent of families owns roughly 34 percent of the nation's net worth, the top 10 percent of families owns over 71 percent, and the bottom 40 percent of the population owns way less than 1 percent. Yet, the Tea Party and other conservatives seem to be okay with this, even though we we’ll have to knock on China’s door again, asking to borrow another $700 billion to pay for the tax cut for the wealthiest.
On the other hand, when the President, out of concern for the 30-40 million Americans who don’t have access to affordable health care, makes that his top political priority and helps usher health reform through the Congress, their anger sparked a political firestorm that wreaked havoc in the last election. Don’t try to get your head around that – it’ll give you a headache.
But, in the spirit of the season, let’s not finish on such a downer. Instead, let’s end with a stunning example of how one incredibly generous person has answered the question of how much is enough. It’s an example provided by Sue Hendon, wife of my long-time friend and former FAA colleague, George Hendon.
In a recent letter, George wrote that Sue was at a Costco store in Kansas City when she ran into an acquaintance, not a close friend, who told her that her husband was approaching renal failure and was looking for a suitable kidney donor. Not one of the seven family members and friends who had volunteered provided a suitable match, the woman said. Sue thought: Well, we can’t allow this to happen. But, she went home and discussed it with George first. Two days later, she had made up her mind. As it turned out, she was a perfect match, and three days after the operation she was home. George says that Sue’s explanation for her selfless act was simple: “If you had two cookies and a good friend desperately needed one, wouldn’t you offer one of yours? Of course, you would.”
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Gerald E. Lavey
Monday, November 8, 2010
Parsing the Punditry
A shellacking it certainly was, as the President described it. The Republicans scored a resounding victory in the House and now hold a comfortable majority. They also substantially reduced the Democrats' majority in the Senate, along with winning a large number of state houses. So, there’s no sugarcoating the results. It was a bloodbath.
Yet, what it all means is far less certain. “Cutting spending and reducing the deficit” is a sure-fire winner on the campaign trail, but how that translates into actual cost cuts is another matter. How do you reconcile that goal with tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans? And, if you exempt defense spending and entitlement programs from spending cuts – as many of the tax-cutters seem to favor – you have taken 85 percent of the Federal budget off the table, leaving only15 percent to deal with.
Do the Republicans have a mandate to repeal health care? It would appear so, judging by the number of candidates who ran on that specific platform. But, were they running against the health care reform legislation or the hideous caricature of it as advanced by the Republicans? Moreover, exit polls showed that while 48 percent were in favor of repealing health care, 47 percent favored keeping it or expanding it. Interestingly, too, “blue-dog” Democrats, most of whom voted against health care reform and distanced themselves from the President during the campaign on that particular issue, were decimated in the election. Their caucus has been cut in half, while progressive Democrats, who voted unanimously for health care, lost only four seats.
Unfortunately, moderates in both parties lost in a big way, which does not bode well for reaching across the aisle. Besides, keep in mind that traditional Republicans held their nose and rode the enthusiasm of the Tea Party to victory, but now they have to deal with Tea Party legislators and that could be divisive and distracting for the Republican leadership. It could be fun to watch. The expression “herding cats” comes to mind.
So, while the overall results for the Democrats were bad, it remains to be seen how events play out over the next year or two. Don’t pay much attention to the pundits who are predicting the end of the Obama reign. Pundits give astrology a bad name. In 1982, after the mid-term elections, they proclaimed the end of the Reagan era, and they did the same to President Clinton in 1994 when Newt Gingrich, Tom De Lay and their gang took control with their Contract with America. In short order, the Republicans overplayed their hand and Clinton coasted to an easy victory in 1996. Moreover, despite the Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton finished his two terms with highest end-of-term rating for any President since World War II.
Don’t underestimate President Obama, either. He is an incredibly intelligent and resourceful person. However, he needs to pick up his game and be willing to show more political fight, or he won’t be able to turn the tables. And, while the problem with the latest election was not just a communications problem, as the President seemed to indicate in his post-election press conference, the administration’s failure to craft a coherent message around his initiatives was a major factor and left it to their Republican and Tea Party opponents to define them. It’s no wonder the basest of charges took root among the electorate, such as death panels and the massive government takeover of health care plus the claim that the stimulus package was a pork barrel roll that did absolutely nothing.
Meantime, as the process unfolds over the next few months, we all need to take a deep breath and relax. If nothing else, it’s going to be amusing watching the Republicans trying to decide what programs need to be cut and what regulatory restrictions need to be eased. Reading a little history helps as well. There’s nothing like an historical perspective to help ease the angst and stinging pain of such a defeat. In politics, two years are like an eternity. Stay tuned.
Gerald E. Lavey
Yet, what it all means is far less certain. “Cutting spending and reducing the deficit” is a sure-fire winner on the campaign trail, but how that translates into actual cost cuts is another matter. How do you reconcile that goal with tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans? And, if you exempt defense spending and entitlement programs from spending cuts – as many of the tax-cutters seem to favor – you have taken 85 percent of the Federal budget off the table, leaving only15 percent to deal with.
Do the Republicans have a mandate to repeal health care? It would appear so, judging by the number of candidates who ran on that specific platform. But, were they running against the health care reform legislation or the hideous caricature of it as advanced by the Republicans? Moreover, exit polls showed that while 48 percent were in favor of repealing health care, 47 percent favored keeping it or expanding it. Interestingly, too, “blue-dog” Democrats, most of whom voted against health care reform and distanced themselves from the President during the campaign on that particular issue, were decimated in the election. Their caucus has been cut in half, while progressive Democrats, who voted unanimously for health care, lost only four seats.
Unfortunately, moderates in both parties lost in a big way, which does not bode well for reaching across the aisle. Besides, keep in mind that traditional Republicans held their nose and rode the enthusiasm of the Tea Party to victory, but now they have to deal with Tea Party legislators and that could be divisive and distracting for the Republican leadership. It could be fun to watch. The expression “herding cats” comes to mind.
So, while the overall results for the Democrats were bad, it remains to be seen how events play out over the next year or two. Don’t pay much attention to the pundits who are predicting the end of the Obama reign. Pundits give astrology a bad name. In 1982, after the mid-term elections, they proclaimed the end of the Reagan era, and they did the same to President Clinton in 1994 when Newt Gingrich, Tom De Lay and their gang took control with their Contract with America. In short order, the Republicans overplayed their hand and Clinton coasted to an easy victory in 1996. Moreover, despite the Lewinsky scandal, President Clinton finished his two terms with highest end-of-term rating for any President since World War II.
Don’t underestimate President Obama, either. He is an incredibly intelligent and resourceful person. However, he needs to pick up his game and be willing to show more political fight, or he won’t be able to turn the tables. And, while the problem with the latest election was not just a communications problem, as the President seemed to indicate in his post-election press conference, the administration’s failure to craft a coherent message around his initiatives was a major factor and left it to their Republican and Tea Party opponents to define them. It’s no wonder the basest of charges took root among the electorate, such as death panels and the massive government takeover of health care plus the claim that the stimulus package was a pork barrel roll that did absolutely nothing.
Meantime, as the process unfolds over the next few months, we all need to take a deep breath and relax. If nothing else, it’s going to be amusing watching the Republicans trying to decide what programs need to be cut and what regulatory restrictions need to be eased. Reading a little history helps as well. There’s nothing like an historical perspective to help ease the angst and stinging pain of such a defeat. In politics, two years are like an eternity. Stay tuned.
Gerald E. Lavey
Friday, October 29, 2010
Be Careful What You Pray For
Like the guy whistling past the graveyard, I am trying to be cheerful amidst mounting fears over the outcome of next Tuesday’s election. We are even going to the Jon Stewart/Steven Colbert rally on the Mall on the Saturday before. It won’t change anything, but at least it’ll make us feel better.
What’s baffling about this election is that the electorate is as unhappy with the Republicans, if not more so according to some polls, as they are with the Democrats. Yet, if the polls are correct, they still want to turn control of the Congress over to the Republicans. “Throwing the bums out” has taken on a curiously capricious turn.
Could the polls be wrong? Here’s my wishful thinking: Poll data is based on responses from likely voters. Right? And how do pollsters get in touch with likely voters? Mostly by calling their landlines. But, younger voters don’t use landlines and they use their cell phones mostly as texting devices. Then, how can pollsters predict what the younger set is going to do in the next election? What if they turn out in unprecedented numbers?
Yeah, I know…. The pollsters have already thought about that. Okay, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Democrats retain control of both the House and Senate, but with a very tiny majority in both, the rosiest scenario I have seen anyone come up with. Is that cause for rejoicing? I don’t see how. That’ll just get us the status quo on steroids.
Although a firm believer in redemption, I can’t imagine the Republicans experiencing a change in heart, taking the election as a sign that they need to start cooperating with the President. After all, Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying in a recent National Journal article that his top priority in the next Congress is to ensure that Barack Obama is a one-term president. Based on his statements, presumptive Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is no less intransigent.
So, I am beginning to think that such an outcome, where the Democrats win both houses, might be the worst outcome of this election over the long haul. That would just put the monkey firmly on the backs of the Democrats and would make them primarily responsible in the eyes of the electorate for the continuing stalemate, as it apparently has done in this election. And, as a result, 2012 could be a debacle to the point that the Democrats could lose not only the House and the Senate but the White House and several key Governorships as well, with all of the pernicious gerrymandering that would bring. So, hoping for a Democratic sweep brings to mind my mother’s gentle warning – be careful what you pray for.
On the other hand, let’s assume the Democrats retain control of the Senate, by a slim margin, but the leadership in the House shifts to Rep. John Boehner and the Republicans, as expected. Will the Republicans then be able to continue their persistence in denying the President and the Democrats any successes? Maybe – it’s worked wonders for them so far — but I rather doubt it.
The Republicans have campaigned on the promise of doing something to create more jobs and getting the economy back on track. So, if they win the House, presumably they will have to show some leadership and come up with new ideas of their own. Otherwise, an unhappy, impatient electorate – with the likely increased influence of the Tea Party — will quickly pivot and turn them out in 2012, just as they are likely to do this year with the Democrats, their “saviors” just two short years ago. On the other hand, if the Republicans use their new power trying to repeal health care reform, and other such mischief, as many rightly fear, a Democratically-controlled Senate and a Presidential veto will stand ready to rebuff their efforts.
Meantime, I still can’t help entertaining the fantasy of the pollsters getting it wrong, comforted by the memory of President Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune after the 1948 Presidential election with a front-page story reporting: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” During that campaign, Truman gained a lot of traction running against a “do-nothing” Republican-controlled Congress. Could that happen again? Probably not, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are vastly improved polling techniques. As indicated, I’m not sure it would be good for the long haul, anyway.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, though, at the very least we’ll get a temporary reprieve from the ugly political ads coming from both sides of the aisle assaulting our eyes and ears and filling up our mailboxes.
Gerald E. Lavey
What’s baffling about this election is that the electorate is as unhappy with the Republicans, if not more so according to some polls, as they are with the Democrats. Yet, if the polls are correct, they still want to turn control of the Congress over to the Republicans. “Throwing the bums out” has taken on a curiously capricious turn.
Could the polls be wrong? Here’s my wishful thinking: Poll data is based on responses from likely voters. Right? And how do pollsters get in touch with likely voters? Mostly by calling their landlines. But, younger voters don’t use landlines and they use their cell phones mostly as texting devices. Then, how can pollsters predict what the younger set is going to do in the next election? What if they turn out in unprecedented numbers?
Yeah, I know…. The pollsters have already thought about that. Okay, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Democrats retain control of both the House and Senate, but with a very tiny majority in both, the rosiest scenario I have seen anyone come up with. Is that cause for rejoicing? I don’t see how. That’ll just get us the status quo on steroids.
Although a firm believer in redemption, I can’t imagine the Republicans experiencing a change in heart, taking the election as a sign that they need to start cooperating with the President. After all, Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying in a recent National Journal article that his top priority in the next Congress is to ensure that Barack Obama is a one-term president. Based on his statements, presumptive Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is no less intransigent.
So, I am beginning to think that such an outcome, where the Democrats win both houses, might be the worst outcome of this election over the long haul. That would just put the monkey firmly on the backs of the Democrats and would make them primarily responsible in the eyes of the electorate for the continuing stalemate, as it apparently has done in this election. And, as a result, 2012 could be a debacle to the point that the Democrats could lose not only the House and the Senate but the White House and several key Governorships as well, with all of the pernicious gerrymandering that would bring. So, hoping for a Democratic sweep brings to mind my mother’s gentle warning – be careful what you pray for.
On the other hand, let’s assume the Democrats retain control of the Senate, by a slim margin, but the leadership in the House shifts to Rep. John Boehner and the Republicans, as expected. Will the Republicans then be able to continue their persistence in denying the President and the Democrats any successes? Maybe – it’s worked wonders for them so far — but I rather doubt it.
The Republicans have campaigned on the promise of doing something to create more jobs and getting the economy back on track. So, if they win the House, presumably they will have to show some leadership and come up with new ideas of their own. Otherwise, an unhappy, impatient electorate – with the likely increased influence of the Tea Party — will quickly pivot and turn them out in 2012, just as they are likely to do this year with the Democrats, their “saviors” just two short years ago. On the other hand, if the Republicans use their new power trying to repeal health care reform, and other such mischief, as many rightly fear, a Democratically-controlled Senate and a Presidential veto will stand ready to rebuff their efforts.
Meantime, I still can’t help entertaining the fantasy of the pollsters getting it wrong, comforted by the memory of President Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune after the 1948 Presidential election with a front-page story reporting: “Dewey Defeats Truman.” During that campaign, Truman gained a lot of traction running against a “do-nothing” Republican-controlled Congress. Could that happen again? Probably not, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are vastly improved polling techniques. As indicated, I’m not sure it would be good for the long haul, anyway.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, though, at the very least we’ll get a temporary reprieve from the ugly political ads coming from both sides of the aisle assaulting our eyes and ears and filling up our mailboxes.
Gerald E. Lavey
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The Long Goodbye
The other night we had guests for dinner, a young couple in their late 20’s or early 30’s. Topics ranged all over the lot. Towards the end of the meal we even got into politics and religion, two areas we normally stay away from. On the subject of religion, the husband volunteered that he had been raised Catholic but no longer considered himself Catholic. His wife told the same story.
In neither case was it anything traumatic, nor one single issue, that drove them away; it was just a slow disillusionment with the Catholic Church and so eventually they quit going to Mass and stopped practicing altogether. A “long goodbye,” in other words, the title of a recent article in Commonweal magazine by Cathleen Kaveny, which typifies the experience of a large number of Catholics who have left the church over the last four decades.
In a companion article, Peter Steinfels, who also serves as a religious editor for the New York Times, cites a February 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that one of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these former Catholics were “to form a single church,” observes Steinfels, “they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.”
What went wrong? Some say it’s the church rigid stand on abortion and sexual matters, including homosexuality. Others cite the church’s treatment of women as second-class citizens, and the refusal to even think about women priests or a married clergy, despite the steady drop in a celibate male clergy. The sexual abuse scandal was a major factor, of course, but the steady erosion of Catholics began way before the sexual abuse scandal came to light. So, my guess is that in many cases, it’s all of the above and none of the above.
Many former Catholics that I have run into over the years told me the Catholic church, no longer “did it for them.” It didn’t provide them the spiritual sustenance and uplift they were looking for, so they left and joined other Christian denominations which better met their spiritual needs. Others, including members of my own extended family, found what they were looking for in Buddhism. Still others are no longer affiliated with any formal religious body.
On a personal note, I’m still a Catholic for reasons spelled out in a confessional piece I wrote recently (“Why I’m Still a Catholic”) and shared with family members and friends, but I can totally understand and respect those who have come to an opposite conclusion and have chosen another path.
As I recall my own journey as a Catholic over the last several decades, I too have become disillusioned with the church hierarchy, with its authoritarian approach and rigid focus on a few moral issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, its treatment of women and its steadfast refusal, as a result, to consider the issue of women priests. Much of the hierarchy, it seems to me, including the majority of U.S. Catholic bishops, has become a nest of Pharisees, running around in their funny hats and dresses issuing excommunications and refusing the Eucharist to those who don’t toe the line. In so doing, they have become the very kind of narrow-minded legalists that Jesus so roundly condemned in his ministry here on earth.
That said, even if much of the hierarchy has lost touch with the church’s vision of striving to be a source of love and compassion and a beacon of hope for the broken and the hopeless, that spirit still burns brightly in many Catholic organizations. Coming to mind are organizations like the Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Catholic Relief Services USA, communities of priests and nuns, and countless other individuals and organizations that are doing the real work of the church in their tireless promotion of social justice for the poor and dispossessed around the world. They are working shoulder to shoulder with other humanitarian organizations to help people of all faiths, or no faiths, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and here in America’s schools and hospitals and inner cites.
That is the Catholic church I admire so greatly, hoping and praying that over time the official, hierarchical church will wake up and catch up with our dedicated Catholic workers in the vineyard who are responding every day to the core Christian call to love and care for one another, especially our sisters and brothers most in need.
Gerald E. Lavey
In neither case was it anything traumatic, nor one single issue, that drove them away; it was just a slow disillusionment with the Catholic Church and so eventually they quit going to Mass and stopped practicing altogether. A “long goodbye,” in other words, the title of a recent article in Commonweal magazine by Cathleen Kaveny, which typifies the experience of a large number of Catholics who have left the church over the last four decades.
In a companion article, Peter Steinfels, who also serves as a religious editor for the New York Times, cites a February 2008 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that one of every three adult Americans who were raised Catholic have left the church. If these former Catholics were “to form a single church,” observes Steinfels, “they would constitute the second largest church in the nation.”
What went wrong? Some say it’s the church rigid stand on abortion and sexual matters, including homosexuality. Others cite the church’s treatment of women as second-class citizens, and the refusal to even think about women priests or a married clergy, despite the steady drop in a celibate male clergy. The sexual abuse scandal was a major factor, of course, but the steady erosion of Catholics began way before the sexual abuse scandal came to light. So, my guess is that in many cases, it’s all of the above and none of the above.
Many former Catholics that I have run into over the years told me the Catholic church, no longer “did it for them.” It didn’t provide them the spiritual sustenance and uplift they were looking for, so they left and joined other Christian denominations which better met their spiritual needs. Others, including members of my own extended family, found what they were looking for in Buddhism. Still others are no longer affiliated with any formal religious body.
On a personal note, I’m still a Catholic for reasons spelled out in a confessional piece I wrote recently (“Why I’m Still a Catholic”) and shared with family members and friends, but I can totally understand and respect those who have come to an opposite conclusion and have chosen another path.
As I recall my own journey as a Catholic over the last several decades, I too have become disillusioned with the church hierarchy, with its authoritarian approach and rigid focus on a few moral issues, such as abortion and homosexuality, its treatment of women and its steadfast refusal, as a result, to consider the issue of women priests. Much of the hierarchy, it seems to me, including the majority of U.S. Catholic bishops, has become a nest of Pharisees, running around in their funny hats and dresses issuing excommunications and refusing the Eucharist to those who don’t toe the line. In so doing, they have become the very kind of narrow-minded legalists that Jesus so roundly condemned in his ministry here on earth.
That said, even if much of the hierarchy has lost touch with the church’s vision of striving to be a source of love and compassion and a beacon of hope for the broken and the hopeless, that spirit still burns brightly in many Catholic organizations. Coming to mind are organizations like the Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Catholic Relief Services USA, communities of priests and nuns, and countless other individuals and organizations that are doing the real work of the church in their tireless promotion of social justice for the poor and dispossessed around the world. They are working shoulder to shoulder with other humanitarian organizations to help people of all faiths, or no faiths, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and here in America’s schools and hospitals and inner cites.
That is the Catholic church I admire so greatly, hoping and praying that over time the official, hierarchical church will wake up and catch up with our dedicated Catholic workers in the vineyard who are responding every day to the core Christian call to love and care for one another, especially our sisters and brothers most in need.
Gerald E. Lavey
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Déjà Vu All Over Again
A persistent strain of scary right-wing looniness keeps resurfacing every generation or so in American politics. There was the Know-Nothing Party, then Fr. Coughlin and his rants against Jews and communists, often conflating the two. Next, Senator Joseph McCarthy emerged warning of Communists infiltrating the Federal government, followed closely by the John Birch Society, which found even Dwight Eisenhower, Republican President and decorated General and Supreme Commander in World War II, as a witting tool of the Communist Party.
Just when you relax, thinking that’s part of our sordid past and the country has finally driven a stake into the heart of this craziness, Glenn Beck appears and the movement appears stronger than ever. It would be one thing if you could dismiss him and his followers as part of a harmless “lunatic fringe” — a phrase that Theodore Roosevelt first used against the far Left of his day. But, it’s quite another matter when the lunatic fringe seriously starts “infiltrating,” to use one of their pet terms, the highest halls of government as they appear poised to do in this off-year election.
The New Yorker magazine, which has alternately entertained, bored, amused, and educated me, for more than 50 years, but has never alarmed me, sent a chill up on my spine with its October 18 issue. In an article “Confounding Fathers,” author Sean Willentz traces the roots of Beck’s philosophy and teaching to Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society and Willard Cleon Skousen. Skousen was considered so radical in the early 1960’s that even avid Communist-hunter, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, put him under surveillance as part of dangerous right-wing anti-communist ring.
According to Willentz, by the time Skousen, a Mormon convert, died, in 2006, “he was little remembered outside the ranks of the furthest-right Mormons.” By that he refers to acolytes of Ezra Taft Benson, a noted anti-Communist who saw conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed. Scary as Benson was, Willentz says that Skousen was the “most outlandish of the era’s right-wing anti-Communists.”
Skousen wrote several books, including “A Naked Capitalist,” “The 5,000 Year Leap,” “The Making of America,” and a “rousing tract” in defense of Robert Welch, called “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society.” I have never heard of these eminently forgettable books, as I suspect none of you have either, and they would have long ago been resting in well-deserved oblivion except that Glenn Beck has resurrected them and put them at the top of his recommended reading list. Beck claims that the “The 5,000 Year Leap” is essential to understanding “why our Founders built this Republic the way they did.” After he touted the book to his large viewing audience — estimated at 2 million or more – and wrote an introduction to the new edition, the book jumped to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. In the first half of 2009 it sold more than 250,000 copies. According to Willentz, Constitutional scholar Jack Rakove, of Stanford, inspected another of Skousen’s books that Beck endorses (“The Making of America’) as well as Skousen’s seminars and pronounced them a “joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.”
Fortunately, in the heyday of the John Birch Society in the 1960’s, there were moderate Republicans who spoke out against this lunacy and could help mitigate its impact. Even columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., was an avid anti-Bircher conservative. But, today, there are no moderate Republicans to speak out — in fact, there are no moderate Republicans — and so Beck has an open, largely unobstructed field and a large bullhorn and platform in Fox News that the John Birch Society could only have dreamed of.
No matter what scary stuff the kids will think of for Halloween, it will be nothing compared to the scary stuff that Beck and his followers might be able to pull on us just two days later.
Gerald E. Lavey
Just when you relax, thinking that’s part of our sordid past and the country has finally driven a stake into the heart of this craziness, Glenn Beck appears and the movement appears stronger than ever. It would be one thing if you could dismiss him and his followers as part of a harmless “lunatic fringe” — a phrase that Theodore Roosevelt first used against the far Left of his day. But, it’s quite another matter when the lunatic fringe seriously starts “infiltrating,” to use one of their pet terms, the highest halls of government as they appear poised to do in this off-year election.
The New Yorker magazine, which has alternately entertained, bored, amused, and educated me, for more than 50 years, but has never alarmed me, sent a chill up on my spine with its October 18 issue. In an article “Confounding Fathers,” author Sean Willentz traces the roots of Beck’s philosophy and teaching to Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society and Willard Cleon Skousen. Skousen was considered so radical in the early 1960’s that even avid Communist-hunter, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, put him under surveillance as part of dangerous right-wing anti-communist ring.
According to Willentz, by the time Skousen, a Mormon convert, died, in 2006, “he was little remembered outside the ranks of the furthest-right Mormons.” By that he refers to acolytes of Ezra Taft Benson, a noted anti-Communist who saw conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed. Scary as Benson was, Willentz says that Skousen was the “most outlandish of the era’s right-wing anti-Communists.”
Skousen wrote several books, including “A Naked Capitalist,” “The 5,000 Year Leap,” “The Making of America,” and a “rousing tract” in defense of Robert Welch, called “The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society.” I have never heard of these eminently forgettable books, as I suspect none of you have either, and they would have long ago been resting in well-deserved oblivion except that Glenn Beck has resurrected them and put them at the top of his recommended reading list. Beck claims that the “The 5,000 Year Leap” is essential to understanding “why our Founders built this Republic the way they did.” After he touted the book to his large viewing audience — estimated at 2 million or more – and wrote an introduction to the new edition, the book jumped to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. In the first half of 2009 it sold more than 250,000 copies. According to Willentz, Constitutional scholar Jack Rakove, of Stanford, inspected another of Skousen’s books that Beck endorses (“The Making of America’) as well as Skousen’s seminars and pronounced them a “joke that no self-respecting scholar would think is worth a warm pitcher of spit.”
Fortunately, in the heyday of the John Birch Society in the 1960’s, there were moderate Republicans who spoke out against this lunacy and could help mitigate its impact. Even columnist William F. Buckley, Jr., was an avid anti-Bircher conservative. But, today, there are no moderate Republicans to speak out — in fact, there are no moderate Republicans — and so Beck has an open, largely unobstructed field and a large bullhorn and platform in Fox News that the John Birch Society could only have dreamed of.
No matter what scary stuff the kids will think of for Halloween, it will be nothing compared to the scary stuff that Beck and his followers might be able to pull on us just two days later.
Gerald E. Lavey
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sometimes a Strange Notion
Occasionally, an idea takes hold of me during the night that I can’t let go of it until I put it down on paper and see if it bears up under the stark scrutiny of day.
First, some background: This nocturnal notion has to do with the lack of jobs which is holding back the economic recovery. When the stimulus bill was passed, the amount of the stimulus should have been larger, many economists argue, but politically, with the Republicans saying no to everything, the idea of passing a stimulus bill that exceeded one trillion dollars was politically not feasible.
The stimulus helped, as we have pointed out here before, mainly by mitigating the impact on the unemployment rate. Without the stimulus, the amount of joblessness would have been twice what it is, although that is not a talking point in the Tea Party and the Republicans campaign literature. Unfortunately, neither does it seem to be part of the Democratic Party campaign arsenal either.
So, clearly, what the economy needs is a new jump start. But, from where and from whom? First, the government is stymied by the current political mood of the country, especially with the off-year election coming up. With the job situation and the economy so uncertain, American consumers are understandably wary and are sitting tight hoping the situation will improve and they can get back to shopping again, including getting in the market for new homes. Small mom-and-pop businesses are virtually in the same boat as consumers, with no room for new investments or creating new jobs. So, no hope there.
So, if logic serves me right, that leaves big business – major corporations and the like. What can they do? First of all, they are sitting on more that one trillion in cash — yes, trillion, not billion — yet unwilling to invest in new jobs and equipment because basically they don’t trust the current administration in Washington. They are afraid of what more may come down the pike by way of mandates – such as the hated health care reform legislation that will force them to provide health coverage for their employees. But, maybe they can get that repealed, they console themselves. Next, the outrage of financial regulatory reform which may put a crimp in their free-wheeling modus operandi, not to mention environmental legislation, which may force them to help the country break its addiction to foreign oil and help clean up the environment. And God knows what other socialist “job-killing” notions the Obama Administration has up its sleeves. So, they are in a wait-and-see mood, meanwhile spending massive sums of money on getting more business friendly Republican politicians back in power so they can conduct business as usual.
So, this is where my strange notion comes in. Let’s say — humor me for a moment while I unfold my fantasy — that some corporate leaders, inspired by the example of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, wake up in the middle of the night and say to themselves: What if we invest some of this cash we are sitting on to create new jobs, jobs that we know we’ll need once the economy is back on its feet again? By doing so, we may be able to speed the economic recovery and help this country get back on its feet again.
Now that I am fully awake, I realize this nocturnal notion will not survive daylight scrutiny because it would never pass the litmus tests of the U.S Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable. But, the nagging thought still persists: What if … just what if some major corporation could break the mold and break out of the pack? That’s the nice thing about fantasy — it removes us, if only temporarily, from the rigors of reality. It’s fun while it lasts. Now back to political reality.
Political reality which is playing out on the campaign trail as we speak declares that tax cuts for big business and the wealthy and a hands-off approach by government in terms of regulations are the only way to get the engine of the economy going again and help create new jobs. Just leave the market alone — it will right itself and all will be well throughout the land, they say in their soothing, siren voice.
I can’t help thinking of Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, I promise this time I will not pull back the football as I did so many times in the past. Promise, Charlie Brown. Honest, this time it will be different, she implores, tears flowing.
My new fantasy is that this time Charlie Brown will not buy it and refuse to go along with Lucy’s little game, but I fear there are way too many gullible Charlie Browns out there with notoriously short memories.
Gerald E. Lavey
First, some background: This nocturnal notion has to do with the lack of jobs which is holding back the economic recovery. When the stimulus bill was passed, the amount of the stimulus should have been larger, many economists argue, but politically, with the Republicans saying no to everything, the idea of passing a stimulus bill that exceeded one trillion dollars was politically not feasible.
The stimulus helped, as we have pointed out here before, mainly by mitigating the impact on the unemployment rate. Without the stimulus, the amount of joblessness would have been twice what it is, although that is not a talking point in the Tea Party and the Republicans campaign literature. Unfortunately, neither does it seem to be part of the Democratic Party campaign arsenal either.
So, clearly, what the economy needs is a new jump start. But, from where and from whom? First, the government is stymied by the current political mood of the country, especially with the off-year election coming up. With the job situation and the economy so uncertain, American consumers are understandably wary and are sitting tight hoping the situation will improve and they can get back to shopping again, including getting in the market for new homes. Small mom-and-pop businesses are virtually in the same boat as consumers, with no room for new investments or creating new jobs. So, no hope there.
So, if logic serves me right, that leaves big business – major corporations and the like. What can they do? First of all, they are sitting on more that one trillion in cash — yes, trillion, not billion — yet unwilling to invest in new jobs and equipment because basically they don’t trust the current administration in Washington. They are afraid of what more may come down the pike by way of mandates – such as the hated health care reform legislation that will force them to provide health coverage for their employees. But, maybe they can get that repealed, they console themselves. Next, the outrage of financial regulatory reform which may put a crimp in their free-wheeling modus operandi, not to mention environmental legislation, which may force them to help the country break its addiction to foreign oil and help clean up the environment. And God knows what other socialist “job-killing” notions the Obama Administration has up its sleeves. So, they are in a wait-and-see mood, meanwhile spending massive sums of money on getting more business friendly Republican politicians back in power so they can conduct business as usual.
So, this is where my strange notion comes in. Let’s say — humor me for a moment while I unfold my fantasy — that some corporate leaders, inspired by the example of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, wake up in the middle of the night and say to themselves: What if we invest some of this cash we are sitting on to create new jobs, jobs that we know we’ll need once the economy is back on its feet again? By doing so, we may be able to speed the economic recovery and help this country get back on its feet again.
Now that I am fully awake, I realize this nocturnal notion will not survive daylight scrutiny because it would never pass the litmus tests of the U.S Chamber of Commerce or the Business Roundtable. But, the nagging thought still persists: What if … just what if some major corporation could break the mold and break out of the pack? That’s the nice thing about fantasy — it removes us, if only temporarily, from the rigors of reality. It’s fun while it lasts. Now back to political reality.
Political reality which is playing out on the campaign trail as we speak declares that tax cuts for big business and the wealthy and a hands-off approach by government in terms of regulations are the only way to get the engine of the economy going again and help create new jobs. Just leave the market alone — it will right itself and all will be well throughout the land, they say in their soothing, siren voice.
I can’t help thinking of Lucy saying to Charlie Brown, I promise this time I will not pull back the football as I did so many times in the past. Promise, Charlie Brown. Honest, this time it will be different, she implores, tears flowing.
My new fantasy is that this time Charlie Brown will not buy it and refuse to go along with Lucy’s little game, but I fear there are way too many gullible Charlie Browns out there with notoriously short memories.
Gerald E. Lavey
Friday, October 1, 2010
Dump the Party -- Keep the Tea
It’s way too easy to make fun of the Tea Party. Clownish Tea party-backed candidates for public office, such as Sharron Angle in Nevada and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell invite caricature and parody. So does the stereotype of the Tea Party rank and file – a virtually all-white, over-50 crowd, donning baseball caps. They’re easy prey.
But, to dismiss the Tea Party movement out of hand, on the assumption that it’s led by a bunch of clowns and based on a platform of unfocused anger that will shortly fizzle out, is fraught with peril — for two reasons. The first, most immediate danger is that regardless of how the movement does long term, it’s highly unlikely it will lose steam before the November election. So, after November, we may well be referring to the objects of our ridicule as Senator Angle and Senator O’Donnell. Secondly, regardless of how the current Tea Party does in November, there is a danger of overlooking the underlying angst, anger, and dissatisfaction, which even centrist Americans are feeling about the direction of the country and who believe they have nowhere to turn except the Tea Party.
On that note, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes an important distinction between the current Tea Party faithful getting so much public attention, which he calls the “Tea Kettle Movement” because it just blows off steam, and this other much larger group whose agenda is still largely amorphous and unfocused, but real. They want someone who can summon us to greatness again, claims Friedman, and all they are looking for, he says, is a leader who can tap into that and galvanize their support.
As a strong Obama supporter, I could easily make the case that we already have that type of leader and point to the President’s accomplishments over the past two years. Education reform, increased funding for research and development, including alternative forms of energy, financial regulatory reform, tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, not to mention health-care reform which is designed to finally enable the U.S. to match what other major industrialized nations have been doing for decades. Currently, in the category of richest nations, the U.S. ranks among the worst providers of health care even though we spend significantly more than the others in terms of percentage of GDP. We also have one of the highest poverty rates compared to other major nations, a dubious record we held even before the recent recession. Any country that ignores these matters cannot legitimately lay claim to greatness.
So, people like me can make a strong case for the President’s agenda, I believe, but we’re lonely voices crying in the wilderness. On a good day my readership barely breaks into double digits. We need the Party leadership to make the case and frankly, to date, they have done a miserable job of framing this story in simple terms that ordinary people can understand. Even though the President is making a surge at the 11th hour to rally the base, it may be too little too late.
Besides, Democratic candidates, facing the rising tide of support for Tea Party candidates are running away from the President and refashioning their separate narratives to address public fear and anger in their states and districts. To be fair, they have the unenviable job of running on a platform of “here’s what would have happened if we had not” and “here is what financial regulatory reform, health reform, and research into renewable forms of energy will do over the long term.” That’s a tough sale at any time. It’s easy to trump a long, discursive explanation with a clever one-liner that fits on a yard sign. Besides, to a society used to instant gratification, it just doesn’t play well generally.
My nephew Kevin, also an Obama supporter, sees broader factors at play. “People feel so overwhelmed about how life works in the late 20th and early 21st century,” he writes, citing a number of factors that contribute to these feelings, that “they want their president to provide comforting myths that assuage their sense of estrangement. Ronald Reagan, rather than the great communicator, was, to me, the great myth maker,” says Kevin. “Bush, clumsier, managed to do the same thing in his walk tall, shoot from the hip, sneer at pointy heads’ demeanor. Obama is the transformational man, and the country isn't ready for him. Americans say they want straight talk, but don't talk to them about needing to change."
Sadly, I fear Kevin may be on to something. But, if we are not ready for a transformational leader now, then when? How long can we kick that can down the road? How long can we be seduced by the “gain without pain” philosophy enshrined most recently, for example, in the Republican’s vacuous “Pledge to America.” Or the call by various Tea Party candidates for dismantling much of the Federal government, including the IRS? Or cutting funds for education and research in favor of tax cuts for the rich? Or continuing to buy into the long ago discredited “trickle down theory” based on the idea that if we take care of the wealthy with tax cuts and eliminate regulatory restraints on special interests, the benefits will trickle down to the needy? Sounds to me like the scriptural story of the scraps from Lazarus’s table writ large. Besides, we saw that it didn’t work under President Reagan or during the George W. Bush presidency when the average earning power of the middle class fell steadily despite massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Do we really want to go back to that, now that we are on the road to economic recovery, revitalizing long-neglected programs for education and research, and regaining the respect of our allies around the world? There’s a real chance we will because, as history attests, the electorate’s short-term memory is woefully deficient and the soothing siren song of the Republicans can be very tantalizing, making us easily forget what got us into this mess in the first place.
But, to dismiss the Tea Party movement out of hand, on the assumption that it’s led by a bunch of clowns and based on a platform of unfocused anger that will shortly fizzle out, is fraught with peril — for two reasons. The first, most immediate danger is that regardless of how the movement does long term, it’s highly unlikely it will lose steam before the November election. So, after November, we may well be referring to the objects of our ridicule as Senator Angle and Senator O’Donnell. Secondly, regardless of how the current Tea Party does in November, there is a danger of overlooking the underlying angst, anger, and dissatisfaction, which even centrist Americans are feeling about the direction of the country and who believe they have nowhere to turn except the Tea Party.
On that note, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes an important distinction between the current Tea Party faithful getting so much public attention, which he calls the “Tea Kettle Movement” because it just blows off steam, and this other much larger group whose agenda is still largely amorphous and unfocused, but real. They want someone who can summon us to greatness again, claims Friedman, and all they are looking for, he says, is a leader who can tap into that and galvanize their support.
As a strong Obama supporter, I could easily make the case that we already have that type of leader and point to the President’s accomplishments over the past two years. Education reform, increased funding for research and development, including alternative forms of energy, financial regulatory reform, tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, not to mention health-care reform which is designed to finally enable the U.S. to match what other major industrialized nations have been doing for decades. Currently, in the category of richest nations, the U.S. ranks among the worst providers of health care even though we spend significantly more than the others in terms of percentage of GDP. We also have one of the highest poverty rates compared to other major nations, a dubious record we held even before the recent recession. Any country that ignores these matters cannot legitimately lay claim to greatness.
So, people like me can make a strong case for the President’s agenda, I believe, but we’re lonely voices crying in the wilderness. On a good day my readership barely breaks into double digits. We need the Party leadership to make the case and frankly, to date, they have done a miserable job of framing this story in simple terms that ordinary people can understand. Even though the President is making a surge at the 11th hour to rally the base, it may be too little too late.
Besides, Democratic candidates, facing the rising tide of support for Tea Party candidates are running away from the President and refashioning their separate narratives to address public fear and anger in their states and districts. To be fair, they have the unenviable job of running on a platform of “here’s what would have happened if we had not” and “here is what financial regulatory reform, health reform, and research into renewable forms of energy will do over the long term.” That’s a tough sale at any time. It’s easy to trump a long, discursive explanation with a clever one-liner that fits on a yard sign. Besides, to a society used to instant gratification, it just doesn’t play well generally.
My nephew Kevin, also an Obama supporter, sees broader factors at play. “People feel so overwhelmed about how life works in the late 20th and early 21st century,” he writes, citing a number of factors that contribute to these feelings, that “they want their president to provide comforting myths that assuage their sense of estrangement. Ronald Reagan, rather than the great communicator, was, to me, the great myth maker,” says Kevin. “Bush, clumsier, managed to do the same thing in his walk tall, shoot from the hip, sneer at pointy heads’ demeanor. Obama is the transformational man, and the country isn't ready for him. Americans say they want straight talk, but don't talk to them about needing to change."
Sadly, I fear Kevin may be on to something. But, if we are not ready for a transformational leader now, then when? How long can we kick that can down the road? How long can we be seduced by the “gain without pain” philosophy enshrined most recently, for example, in the Republican’s vacuous “Pledge to America.” Or the call by various Tea Party candidates for dismantling much of the Federal government, including the IRS? Or cutting funds for education and research in favor of tax cuts for the rich? Or continuing to buy into the long ago discredited “trickle down theory” based on the idea that if we take care of the wealthy with tax cuts and eliminate regulatory restraints on special interests, the benefits will trickle down to the needy? Sounds to me like the scriptural story of the scraps from Lazarus’s table writ large. Besides, we saw that it didn’t work under President Reagan or during the George W. Bush presidency when the average earning power of the middle class fell steadily despite massive tax cuts for the wealthy.
Do we really want to go back to that, now that we are on the road to economic recovery, revitalizing long-neglected programs for education and research, and regaining the respect of our allies around the world? There’s a real chance we will because, as history attests, the electorate’s short-term memory is woefully deficient and the soothing siren song of the Republicans can be very tantalizing, making us easily forget what got us into this mess in the first place.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Don't Blame the Doctor
Anyone who has had major surgery can understand the pain and frustration that follow the surgery itself. The pain is often greater than expected and the recovery may take longer than the doctor first indicated. Even if the surgery was successful and saved the patient’s life, that is sometimes small comfort to one who is still experiencing severe pain and sleepless nights.
That analogy occurred to me last evening as I was listening to neighbors at a civic association meeting complaining about the miserable state of the economy. When it is explained that things would have been far worse without the “surgery” — the patient could have died, for example — they don’t want to hear any of it. They are angry and have made up their minds that things are going down the tubes because of this wretched “doctor” and that’s that.
Ironically, the people complaining the most are usually not the ones who had to undergo the surgery. Many of them have good paying jobs or are retired and have the benefit of a good pension. But, if logic were to hold sway, they apparently want to go back to the pre-surgery days when the country’s financial condition was moribund. Or they want the doctor to stop the pain and make things better immediately. Not tomorrow, or next week, but now. That’s an interesting ironic twist in itself, considering that many of these complainers think government in general is absolutely useless.
For the sake of perspective, let’s take a look back and see where things stood when the “doctor,” a.k.a. President Obama, took office in early 2009. Robert Samuelson, a respected columnist who writes about financial and economic matters for the Washington Post and Newsweek, among others, says that when Obama took office, “the economy and financial markets were in virtual free-fall.”
Samuelson, who is anything but a shill for the White House — in fact, later in this same column he faults Obama for not wanting to extend the Bush cuts across the board — claims that “only a rabid partisan can think that Obama’s policies had nothing to do with the reversal.” And, he cites the much-maligned “stimulus,” the rescue of the automobile industry, and the “stress test” for large banks as critical moves helping to pull the country back from the brink.
Without government’s aggressive response, he writes, “gross domestic product (GDP) would have dropped 12 percent instead of 4 percent and 16.6 million jobs would have been lost instead of 8.4 million.” Those are not Samuelson’s own estimates — they are estimates of respected analysts Alan Blinder of Princeton and Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. And, they are consistent with figures I have seen elsewhere.
Yet, during the Q&A portion of the civic association meeting last evening, when a local resident called the stimulus nothing but a pork barrel disaster and a waste of money and the local Congressman dared to disagree, using statistics to buttress his argument, the resident threw up his hands and walked out.
Health-care reform gets the same reaction. A government takeover of the “best health care system in the world,” claims House Minority John Boehner. Sure it’s good, if you’re a Congressman or a retired civil servant, as I am. It’s great. But what about the estimated 30-40 million Americans who don’t have health coverage because they can’t afford it or they have a pre-existing condition? And what about the fact the current system is unsustainable over time, claiming an estimated 40 percent of GDP by 2050 instead of the already high 17 percent today?
But, silly me, why introduce logic? Logic doesn’t matter in today’s “civil” discourse, any more than it does in sports, such as trying to convince Boston Red Sox fans that the Yankees are better, or vice versa. Team or party affiliation is essentially tribal, often having nothing to do with reason. As a former Nebraska Senator famously said during the Watergate scandal: Don’t bother me with the facts; I have made up my mind.
This is apparently the mood of a large segment of the population — as exemplified most dramatically in the Tea Party movement — and many politicians are working hard to stoke these fires to keep fear and anger alive. That leaves few options for those of us who believe that the economic recovery, however slow, is moving in the right direction and that we have the right doctor on duty. At a minimum, we should make sure we vote and encourage like-minded friends to do the same. Maybe even pick up a few independents in the process.
If we throw up our hands and do nothing, we’ll deserve what we get.
That analogy occurred to me last evening as I was listening to neighbors at a civic association meeting complaining about the miserable state of the economy. When it is explained that things would have been far worse without the “surgery” — the patient could have died, for example — they don’t want to hear any of it. They are angry and have made up their minds that things are going down the tubes because of this wretched “doctor” and that’s that.
Ironically, the people complaining the most are usually not the ones who had to undergo the surgery. Many of them have good paying jobs or are retired and have the benefit of a good pension. But, if logic were to hold sway, they apparently want to go back to the pre-surgery days when the country’s financial condition was moribund. Or they want the doctor to stop the pain and make things better immediately. Not tomorrow, or next week, but now. That’s an interesting ironic twist in itself, considering that many of these complainers think government in general is absolutely useless.
For the sake of perspective, let’s take a look back and see where things stood when the “doctor,” a.k.a. President Obama, took office in early 2009. Robert Samuelson, a respected columnist who writes about financial and economic matters for the Washington Post and Newsweek, among others, says that when Obama took office, “the economy and financial markets were in virtual free-fall.”
Samuelson, who is anything but a shill for the White House — in fact, later in this same column he faults Obama for not wanting to extend the Bush cuts across the board — claims that “only a rabid partisan can think that Obama’s policies had nothing to do with the reversal.” And, he cites the much-maligned “stimulus,” the rescue of the automobile industry, and the “stress test” for large banks as critical moves helping to pull the country back from the brink.
Without government’s aggressive response, he writes, “gross domestic product (GDP) would have dropped 12 percent instead of 4 percent and 16.6 million jobs would have been lost instead of 8.4 million.” Those are not Samuelson’s own estimates — they are estimates of respected analysts Alan Blinder of Princeton and Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics. And, they are consistent with figures I have seen elsewhere.
Yet, during the Q&A portion of the civic association meeting last evening, when a local resident called the stimulus nothing but a pork barrel disaster and a waste of money and the local Congressman dared to disagree, using statistics to buttress his argument, the resident threw up his hands and walked out.
Health-care reform gets the same reaction. A government takeover of the “best health care system in the world,” claims House Minority John Boehner. Sure it’s good, if you’re a Congressman or a retired civil servant, as I am. It’s great. But what about the estimated 30-40 million Americans who don’t have health coverage because they can’t afford it or they have a pre-existing condition? And what about the fact the current system is unsustainable over time, claiming an estimated 40 percent of GDP by 2050 instead of the already high 17 percent today?
But, silly me, why introduce logic? Logic doesn’t matter in today’s “civil” discourse, any more than it does in sports, such as trying to convince Boston Red Sox fans that the Yankees are better, or vice versa. Team or party affiliation is essentially tribal, often having nothing to do with reason. As a former Nebraska Senator famously said during the Watergate scandal: Don’t bother me with the facts; I have made up my mind.
This is apparently the mood of a large segment of the population — as exemplified most dramatically in the Tea Party movement — and many politicians are working hard to stoke these fires to keep fear and anger alive. That leaves few options for those of us who believe that the economic recovery, however slow, is moving in the right direction and that we have the right doctor on duty. At a minimum, we should make sure we vote and encourage like-minded friends to do the same. Maybe even pick up a few independents in the process.
If we throw up our hands and do nothing, we’ll deserve what we get.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Beyond the Pale
This political season has no monopoly on lunacy or dirty tricks, to be sure, but it’s got to rank pretty high on that all-time list — or low, depending how you look at it. The examples are numerous — but let me pick just one off the top.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is reportedly a smart, visionary fellow, but you would never know it sometimes by the loopy things that come out of his mouth. You tend to expect more intelligent things from Gingrich, but sometimes he slips off into an ethereal region all his own. For example, he and others have recently been reported to have charged that President Obama is surrounded by Keynesian nitwits, or words to that effect. That’s a strange charge in any political season because most people don’t have a clue what “Keynesian” means.
On the surface, it supposedly refers to the economic philosophy of John Maynard Keynes, the noted British economist who has greatly influenced economic policy throughout the world. For one thing, he advocated using fiscal and monetary measures to alleviate the impact of recessions and depressions. Both Democrat and Republican administrations have turned to Keynesian policies when the economy went into a tail spin. Most of us think only of the actions taken by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and President Obama in the recent Great Recession. But, President George W. Bush also turned to Keynesian measures with his tax cuts in 2008 to stimulate the economy and with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP as it is better known, also enacted during the latter part of the Bush Administration.
So, why use that charge against President Obama and his team? I suspect the real reasons are more sinister than first meet the eye. First of all, as noted earlier, “Keynesian” is unfamiliar and sounds foreign, so to many people it must mean something bad, reminding me of the campaign tactic attributed to the late Senator George Smathers from Florida who once allegedly accused his opponent of practicing monogamy and his actress wife of being a thespian.
Then, just this morning it occurred to me that the word “Keynesian” sounds like “Kenyan,” as in somebody from — you got it — Kenya in Africa. Too much of a stretch, you say? Don’t forget, a ridiculously high percentage of Americans still believe President Obama wasn't born in this country and is therefore an illegitimate President. So, there is fertile soil out there for sowing such seeds. More to the point, Gingrich and others picked up on the charge by the conservative thinker Dinesh D’Sousa that the reason Obama doesn’t “get us” real Americans is because he is really a frustrated Kenyan anti-colonialist. I am not making this stuff up. It’s all there in print and TV for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Like the George Smathers’ incident, it would be funny if it weren’t so sick and pathetic. This is an important election coming up in November and with the U.S. still in a troubled economy and facing other huge problems, domestically and around the world, it’s no time to turn to xenophobes who are fanning the flames of fear and bigotry to help “take back America.” Take it back to “where” is not clear. Apparently, back to some utopian America that existed at some time in the misty past. If so, I missed it. I go back 72 years and the good ol’ days weren’t all that good. Trust me —I was there.
\
This country needs to move forward, not backward, and this election is about the proper roles of government and the private sector and which party has the best chance of taking us there under the current circumstances. To me, that’s an easy call.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is reportedly a smart, visionary fellow, but you would never know it sometimes by the loopy things that come out of his mouth. You tend to expect more intelligent things from Gingrich, but sometimes he slips off into an ethereal region all his own. For example, he and others have recently been reported to have charged that President Obama is surrounded by Keynesian nitwits, or words to that effect. That’s a strange charge in any political season because most people don’t have a clue what “Keynesian” means.
On the surface, it supposedly refers to the economic philosophy of John Maynard Keynes, the noted British economist who has greatly influenced economic policy throughout the world. For one thing, he advocated using fiscal and monetary measures to alleviate the impact of recessions and depressions. Both Democrat and Republican administrations have turned to Keynesian policies when the economy went into a tail spin. Most of us think only of the actions taken by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression and President Obama in the recent Great Recession. But, President George W. Bush also turned to Keynesian measures with his tax cuts in 2008 to stimulate the economy and with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP as it is better known, also enacted during the latter part of the Bush Administration.
So, why use that charge against President Obama and his team? I suspect the real reasons are more sinister than first meet the eye. First of all, as noted earlier, “Keynesian” is unfamiliar and sounds foreign, so to many people it must mean something bad, reminding me of the campaign tactic attributed to the late Senator George Smathers from Florida who once allegedly accused his opponent of practicing monogamy and his actress wife of being a thespian.
Then, just this morning it occurred to me that the word “Keynesian” sounds like “Kenyan,” as in somebody from — you got it — Kenya in Africa. Too much of a stretch, you say? Don’t forget, a ridiculously high percentage of Americans still believe President Obama wasn't born in this country and is therefore an illegitimate President. So, there is fertile soil out there for sowing such seeds. More to the point, Gingrich and others picked up on the charge by the conservative thinker Dinesh D’Sousa that the reason Obama doesn’t “get us” real Americans is because he is really a frustrated Kenyan anti-colonialist. I am not making this stuff up. It’s all there in print and TV for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Like the George Smathers’ incident, it would be funny if it weren’t so sick and pathetic. This is an important election coming up in November and with the U.S. still in a troubled economy and facing other huge problems, domestically and around the world, it’s no time to turn to xenophobes who are fanning the flames of fear and bigotry to help “take back America.” Take it back to “where” is not clear. Apparently, back to some utopian America that existed at some time in the misty past. If so, I missed it. I go back 72 years and the good ol’ days weren’t all that good. Trust me —I was there.
\
This country needs to move forward, not backward, and this election is about the proper roles of government and the private sector and which party has the best chance of taking us there under the current circumstances. To me, that’s an easy call.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Will We Ever Belong?
Sadly, that’s what many Muslims are asking themselves these days, according to a Sept. 7 New York Times article. This as a result of the furor over the proposed Muslim Cultural Center near Ground Zero and a recent New York Times poll, which showed that even the diverse, cosmopolitan city of New York harbors a discouraging high level of suspicion of Muslims, about the same level as that following 9/11.
Along with this is the rising level of vandalism at mosques and harassment of Muslims around the country. According to the Times, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, suggests the level of violence is probably higher than reported because victims are “reluctant to go public” with these kinds of hate incidents for fear of retaliation. So, instead, many Muslims are low-keying it, staying inside, and asking themselves: Do we belong here?
Not surprisingly, some politicians are shamefully fanning these flames of fear and mistrust while their timid counterparts are sitting on their hands saying nothing for fear of being hurt politically. Regrettable, but hardly surprising. Moral courage is not a hallmark of politicians.
But, where are religious leaders? Why aren’t they speaking out and condemning this outrage? What do they have to fear, except perhaps a dip in the Sunday collection? The U.S. Catholic bishops, for example, are not reluctant to speak out when it comes to other moral issues they consider important, such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. Then, why aren’t they raising their voices in support of the moral and constitutional rights of Muslims, who are in the same boat as Catholics were just a few decades ago when Catholics’ loyalty to this country was being seriously questioned?
N.Y. Archbishop Timothy Dolan has offered his services to help mediate a compromise between those proposing to build the Muslim Cultural Center at Ground Zero and those opposing it. What’s there to compromise? Religious liberty? Sounds like surrender or defeat to me.
Once you start compromising on such essential matters as religious liberty, it’s a slippery slope and ultimately no one is safe, bringing to mind the famous statement of Pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power: “They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Meantime, the political purveyors of fear and bigotry are having a field day fanning the flames, with only a few religious leaders from other faiths willing to rise up in opposition. Unfortunately, that’s the way it always seems to be, as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats so wisely observed years ago in his poem The Second Coming: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Along with this is the rising level of vandalism at mosques and harassment of Muslims around the country. According to the Times, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, suggests the level of violence is probably higher than reported because victims are “reluctant to go public” with these kinds of hate incidents for fear of retaliation. So, instead, many Muslims are low-keying it, staying inside, and asking themselves: Do we belong here?
Not surprisingly, some politicians are shamefully fanning these flames of fear and mistrust while their timid counterparts are sitting on their hands saying nothing for fear of being hurt politically. Regrettable, but hardly surprising. Moral courage is not a hallmark of politicians.
But, where are religious leaders? Why aren’t they speaking out and condemning this outrage? What do they have to fear, except perhaps a dip in the Sunday collection? The U.S. Catholic bishops, for example, are not reluctant to speak out when it comes to other moral issues they consider important, such as abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. Then, why aren’t they raising their voices in support of the moral and constitutional rights of Muslims, who are in the same boat as Catholics were just a few decades ago when Catholics’ loyalty to this country was being seriously questioned?
N.Y. Archbishop Timothy Dolan has offered his services to help mediate a compromise between those proposing to build the Muslim Cultural Center at Ground Zero and those opposing it. What’s there to compromise? Religious liberty? Sounds like surrender or defeat to me.
Once you start compromising on such essential matters as religious liberty, it’s a slippery slope and ultimately no one is safe, bringing to mind the famous statement of Pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power: “They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Meantime, the political purveyors of fear and bigotry are having a field day fanning the flames, with only a few religious leaders from other faiths willing to rise up in opposition. Unfortunately, that’s the way it always seems to be, as the Irish poet William Butler Yeats so wisely observed years ago in his poem The Second Coming: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Monday, August 30, 2010
Shades of Elmer Gantry
Listening on C-Span radio to most of Glenn Beck’s speech at the religious rally he staged at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, I couldn’t help but think of Sinclair Lewis’s “Elmer Gantry,” a satirical novel about religious hypocrisy in 1920’s America. Make no mistake; Glenn Beck is no Elmer Gantry, the overdrawn character of satire later played by Burt Lancaster in the 1960 movie based on Lewis’s novel. But, there are disturbing, if muted, similarities.
Forget about the outrageous appropriation of Martin Luther King, Jr’s civil rights legacy; that falls on its own merits. But, many of the words and themes that Beck enunciated resonate with me, and I am sure with many people. Unfortunately, they clashed with many of the positions and statements he has made, not just before but also after the rally. Just this past weekend, on Fox News, for example, Beck reportedly apologized for calling President Obama a racist. That’s admirable and right in line with the healing message he enunciated at the August 27th rally. No argument there. However, there were no apologies for comparing Obama to the Nazis or for alleging he is a Communist. It’s hard to figure how a person could be both a Nazi and Communism, two competing ideologies, but let’s not quibble. Besides, it’s probably difficult for Beck to recall all the epithets he’s hurled at the President over the last 18 months, and even before he was elected.
My guess is that Beck and his prime movers now realize that using the overt, savage attacks that Father Coughlin used against Jews and Communists (to Coughlin they were redundant) in the 1920’s and 1930’s and later by Senator Joseph McCarthy, Senator Richard Nixon, and others more recently, no longer work with Beck’s born-again role as healer. So, instead, he has softened his tone and has adopted a more subtle, nuanced approach, reminding me of what a Civil Rights worker in the 60s once told me. She said that dealing with the dogs and hoses was in many ways a lot easier than the tactics used by contemporary racists. At least you knew who your enemies were.
So, using a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, Beck claimed in an interview over the weekend that most Christians can’t relate to Obama’s “liberation theology,” which is the core of the President’s Christian beliefs, says Beck.
Now here’s the cleverness and subtlety of that charge. It’s not a term easily found in the lexicon of American political mudslinging. “Liberation theology” is mostly associated with Catholic priests and nuns in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, who took seriously Vatican II’s “preferential option for the poor” and worked hard to improve the social and economic condition of the poor, only later to be smacked down by the Vatican for being too closely associated with Marxist philosophy. Also — and here’s the clincher — liberation theology is a core theme of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s preaching.
So, there you have it: Two birds with one stone or, to mix metaphors, to have your cake and eat it, too. You can once again link up Obama with Reverend Wright, in case people have forgotten, and there’s a better than even chance that Fox will replay the tape where Wright has God damning America, in case viewers have forgotten. It makes no difference that candidate Obama denounced Wright’s excesses and disassociated himself from him. — again, let’s not quibble. And, on top of that, you remind Catholics that Obama is not in sync, as he and some of his supporters claim, with so-called official Catholic social teaching. He’s probably a Marxist to boot, as evidenced, of course, by his big-government programs like health care reform, the stimulus package, and financial reform, among others.
Sound like a stretch? I don’t think so. When you have billionaires like Rupert Murdoch of Fox News and the Koch brothers bankrolling right-wing causes, Beck and his cohorts can afford first-class researchers and spinmeisters to dig up whatever they can, leaving no stone unturned. In the August 30th New Yorker, Jane Mayer profiles the Koch’s who, she reports, have quietly given more than one hundred million dollars to right-wing causes. “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight for industry — mostly environmental regulation.”
No wonder that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin consider Barack Obama’s social agenda heretical and anathema to their type of Christianity, which is all about turning to God. But, as the Scriptures — both Old Testament and New — tell us over and over again, you can’t ignore the poor and the disadvantaged in the process of turning to God. They go together. And, as President John F. Kennedy also reminded us in his 1961 inaugural address, while we turn to God and ask His blessings on our work, we must realize at the same time that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Forget about the outrageous appropriation of Martin Luther King, Jr’s civil rights legacy; that falls on its own merits. But, many of the words and themes that Beck enunciated resonate with me, and I am sure with many people. Unfortunately, they clashed with many of the positions and statements he has made, not just before but also after the rally. Just this past weekend, on Fox News, for example, Beck reportedly apologized for calling President Obama a racist. That’s admirable and right in line with the healing message he enunciated at the August 27th rally. No argument there. However, there were no apologies for comparing Obama to the Nazis or for alleging he is a Communist. It’s hard to figure how a person could be both a Nazi and Communism, two competing ideologies, but let’s not quibble. Besides, it’s probably difficult for Beck to recall all the epithets he’s hurled at the President over the last 18 months, and even before he was elected.
My guess is that Beck and his prime movers now realize that using the overt, savage attacks that Father Coughlin used against Jews and Communists (to Coughlin they were redundant) in the 1920’s and 1930’s and later by Senator Joseph McCarthy, Senator Richard Nixon, and others more recently, no longer work with Beck’s born-again role as healer. So, instead, he has softened his tone and has adopted a more subtle, nuanced approach, reminding me of what a Civil Rights worker in the 60s once told me. She said that dealing with the dogs and hoses was in many ways a lot easier than the tactics used by contemporary racists. At least you knew who your enemies were.
So, using a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, Beck claimed in an interview over the weekend that most Christians can’t relate to Obama’s “liberation theology,” which is the core of the President’s Christian beliefs, says Beck.
Now here’s the cleverness and subtlety of that charge. It’s not a term easily found in the lexicon of American political mudslinging. “Liberation theology” is mostly associated with Catholic priests and nuns in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, who took seriously Vatican II’s “preferential option for the poor” and worked hard to improve the social and economic condition of the poor, only later to be smacked down by the Vatican for being too closely associated with Marxist philosophy. Also — and here’s the clincher — liberation theology is a core theme of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s preaching.
So, there you have it: Two birds with one stone or, to mix metaphors, to have your cake and eat it, too. You can once again link up Obama with Reverend Wright, in case people have forgotten, and there’s a better than even chance that Fox will replay the tape where Wright has God damning America, in case viewers have forgotten. It makes no difference that candidate Obama denounced Wright’s excesses and disassociated himself from him. — again, let’s not quibble. And, on top of that, you remind Catholics that Obama is not in sync, as he and some of his supporters claim, with so-called official Catholic social teaching. He’s probably a Marxist to boot, as evidenced, of course, by his big-government programs like health care reform, the stimulus package, and financial reform, among others.
Sound like a stretch? I don’t think so. When you have billionaires like Rupert Murdoch of Fox News and the Koch brothers bankrolling right-wing causes, Beck and his cohorts can afford first-class researchers and spinmeisters to dig up whatever they can, leaving no stone unturned. In the August 30th New Yorker, Jane Mayer profiles the Koch’s who, she reports, have quietly given more than one hundred million dollars to right-wing causes. “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight for industry — mostly environmental regulation.”
No wonder that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin consider Barack Obama’s social agenda heretical and anathema to their type of Christianity, which is all about turning to God. But, as the Scriptures — both Old Testament and New — tell us over and over again, you can’t ignore the poor and the disadvantaged in the process of turning to God. They go together. And, as President John F. Kennedy also reminded us in his 1961 inaugural address, while we turn to God and ask His blessings on our work, we must realize at the same time that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Monday, August 23, 2010
The World is Watching
America’s reputation for religious tolerance and decency has taken a terrible hit with this brouhaha over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. It is a self-inflicted wound, aided in no small part by the Tea Party and the fear-mongers at Fox News who never miss an opportunity to summon the darker aspects of our nature for political purposes. All this in the name of a higher patriotism, of course.
For all its supposed love of America and its Constitution, it’s interesting that the far Right seems to limit its coverage to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, and conveniently ignores other provisions of the Constitution such as the protection it provides for freedom of religion, not just for Christians, but for all religions, even for those who chose not to profess any religion at all.
First of all, a clarification: It’s not a mosque that is being planned for the site near Ground Zero, not that it makes any difference, but a Muslim Cultural Center, very much like YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers that dot the land all across America. There would be a Muslim prayer room at the center site, but there’s also a Muslim prayer room where American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on 9/11. But, those distinctions are inconvenient for those whose aim is to stir up fear and hatred for political gain in November and eventually oust that Muslim-in-hiding from the White House.
The Tea Party also fails to make the distinction between the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, whose religion was hijacked by 9/11 and the terrorists who perpetrated the atrocity. This nuance would only muddy the ugly narrative the Tea Party folks and their spokespersons at Fox are trying to foist on the public.
When President Obama joined the fray and upheld the constitutional right of the Muslin center’s developers, the far Right saw this as further proof that the President is Muslim, not Christian as he claims. Here at home, mosques around the country are receiving threats as a result of this shameless appeal to the fears and latent bigotry of many Americans. In fact, if you scratch below the surface of the Tea Party, there lies a strong strain of religious bigotry and racism, and it shows up time and time again, including most notably in the debate over immigration.
It would be one thing for us to air our dirty political laundry in public, if only we Americans were observing the squabble. But, we’re not. The whole world is watching and the Islamic terrorists must be delighted with the recruiting tool we just handed them on a platter. It only just goes to show, the jihadists will maintain, that the “war on terrorism” is bogus. It’s really a war again Muslims, they will claim in their continuing false narrative, and all Muslims must join the battle.
Has the Tea Party and its adherents and sympathizers no shame, you might ask? Apparently not. A further case in point -- the recent move by Glenn Beck, with Sarah Palin in tow, to stage a “Restoring Honor Rally” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28 – 47 years to the day that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s not even a subtle nod and a wink to racists, as was President Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in the late 60’s. It’s bold and breathtakingly cynical, but it’ll probably work for a fairly sizeable segment of the voting public and be a factor in the November elections.
Unless, of course, we do something about it and other Tea Party pandering by getting politically involved. We need to recall — and act — on the words of Edmund Burke that inspired the original Tea Party revolutionaries: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Gerald E. Lavey
For all its supposed love of America and its Constitution, it’s interesting that the far Right seems to limit its coverage to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, and conveniently ignores other provisions of the Constitution such as the protection it provides for freedom of religion, not just for Christians, but for all religions, even for those who chose not to profess any religion at all.
First of all, a clarification: It’s not a mosque that is being planned for the site near Ground Zero, not that it makes any difference, but a Muslim Cultural Center, very much like YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers that dot the land all across America. There would be a Muslim prayer room at the center site, but there’s also a Muslim prayer room where American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon on 9/11. But, those distinctions are inconvenient for those whose aim is to stir up fear and hatred for political gain in November and eventually oust that Muslim-in-hiding from the White House.
The Tea Party also fails to make the distinction between the vast majority of peace-loving Muslims, whose religion was hijacked by 9/11 and the terrorists who perpetrated the atrocity. This nuance would only muddy the ugly narrative the Tea Party folks and their spokespersons at Fox are trying to foist on the public.
When President Obama joined the fray and upheld the constitutional right of the Muslin center’s developers, the far Right saw this as further proof that the President is Muslim, not Christian as he claims. Here at home, mosques around the country are receiving threats as a result of this shameless appeal to the fears and latent bigotry of many Americans. In fact, if you scratch below the surface of the Tea Party, there lies a strong strain of religious bigotry and racism, and it shows up time and time again, including most notably in the debate over immigration.
It would be one thing for us to air our dirty political laundry in public, if only we Americans were observing the squabble. But, we’re not. The whole world is watching and the Islamic terrorists must be delighted with the recruiting tool we just handed them on a platter. It only just goes to show, the jihadists will maintain, that the “war on terrorism” is bogus. It’s really a war again Muslims, they will claim in their continuing false narrative, and all Muslims must join the battle.
Has the Tea Party and its adherents and sympathizers no shame, you might ask? Apparently not. A further case in point -- the recent move by Glenn Beck, with Sarah Palin in tow, to stage a “Restoring Honor Rally” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28 – 47 years to the day that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s not even a subtle nod and a wink to racists, as was President Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in the late 60’s. It’s bold and breathtakingly cynical, but it’ll probably work for a fairly sizeable segment of the voting public and be a factor in the November elections.
Unless, of course, we do something about it and other Tea Party pandering by getting politically involved. We need to recall — and act — on the words of Edmund Burke that inspired the original Tea Party revolutionaries: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Gerald E. Lavey
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Audacity of Nope
The close votes on recent major legislation have underscored once again how critical it was in the first year of the Obama Administration to have a filibuster proof Senate. Despite a solid, unwavering bloc of “nay” votes from the Republicans, the President was able to get a stimulus bill passed early in his term that enabled the country to avoid a deeper and more prolonged recession— perhaps, as several noted economists feared, even another Great Depression.
Likewise, he had to rely on his strong majorities in the House and Senate to ram through comprehensive health care legislation because Republicans chose to sit on the sidelines and sulk, rather than get in the game and propose reasonable alternatives. To their credit, three Republicans had the courage to break ranks and cast a vote for common sense and the public good on the financial reform bill.
In his fascinating, and instructive, book on the first year of the Obama Administration (“The Promise: President Obama, Year One”), author and national affairs analyst for Newsweek, as well as political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Jonathan Alter reminds us just how deeply entrenched the Republican opposition was — and is — no matter what the issue or the cause. On the stimulus package, for example, when six Republican Senators wanted to cooperate with the Democrats to get legislation passed, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell “made it clear that any cooperation with Obama was prohibited.” House Minority Leader John Boehner was equally adamant in his opposition and the House ranks held firm for him. This despite the fact that the stimulus bill, as passed, gave middle income taxpayers the largest tax cut since the Reagan Administration.
Alter says the Republicans’ logic, from a purely selfish political point of view, made sense. If the Republicans cooperated and Obama got what he wanted, he would get all the credit. If they cooperated and he failed, they would be tagged with failure as well. But, if they didn’t cooperate and he failed, then they would be home free. Some kind of logic. The same logic applied to health care and the other legislative initiatives the President put forth. And, from all indications, it doesn’t appear the Republicans will budge in their opposition to other major legislation to be put forth by the President coming up this year, including immigration reform and energy and climate change legislation. Their agenda is clear. They are not interested in helping the White House govern the country; they simply want to make sure that Obama doesn’t succeed. Period. At least you have to give them an A+ for doggedness and clarity of purpose.
Where are the Everett Dirksens and other moderate Republicans of yesteryear, who fought hard for Republican core principles, but were willing to join with the Democrats when matters of national importance were at stake? Sadly, there are none left. They became an endangered species with the rise of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and now, because of the likes of Tom DeLay and his type, they have become virtually extinct. As a result, when Democrats gain control of the White House and Congress, as they did in 2008, they have to amass an overwhelming majority just to get anything done. That’s not what the forefathers had in mind.
It is not surprising that the electorate, which voted for change overwhelmingly in 2008, giving President Obama the largest majority for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, is frustrated and is looking around for scapegoats. But, it’s ironic that they want to throw everyone out and start anew, egged on by the Tea Party with its call to “take our country back.” Back from “whom” and to “where” is not clear, but it sounds ominous coming from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.
How this will play out in November and in 2012 is still anything but clear. But, wouldn’t it make more sense for voters, frustrated with the lack of action and cooperation in Washington D.C., to target those most responsible for the stalemate? It doesn’t take much to figure out who they are if one pays scant attention to any news outlet other than Fox News and right-wing radio. As President Obama once said plaintively, “Can you imagine how much we could have accomplished with a little help from the other side?”
Gerald E. Lavey
Likewise, he had to rely on his strong majorities in the House and Senate to ram through comprehensive health care legislation because Republicans chose to sit on the sidelines and sulk, rather than get in the game and propose reasonable alternatives. To their credit, three Republicans had the courage to break ranks and cast a vote for common sense and the public good on the financial reform bill.
In his fascinating, and instructive, book on the first year of the Obama Administration (“The Promise: President Obama, Year One”), author and national affairs analyst for Newsweek, as well as political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, Jonathan Alter reminds us just how deeply entrenched the Republican opposition was — and is — no matter what the issue or the cause. On the stimulus package, for example, when six Republican Senators wanted to cooperate with the Democrats to get legislation passed, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell “made it clear that any cooperation with Obama was prohibited.” House Minority Leader John Boehner was equally adamant in his opposition and the House ranks held firm for him. This despite the fact that the stimulus bill, as passed, gave middle income taxpayers the largest tax cut since the Reagan Administration.
Alter says the Republicans’ logic, from a purely selfish political point of view, made sense. If the Republicans cooperated and Obama got what he wanted, he would get all the credit. If they cooperated and he failed, they would be tagged with failure as well. But, if they didn’t cooperate and he failed, then they would be home free. Some kind of logic. The same logic applied to health care and the other legislative initiatives the President put forth. And, from all indications, it doesn’t appear the Republicans will budge in their opposition to other major legislation to be put forth by the President coming up this year, including immigration reform and energy and climate change legislation. Their agenda is clear. They are not interested in helping the White House govern the country; they simply want to make sure that Obama doesn’t succeed. Period. At least you have to give them an A+ for doggedness and clarity of purpose.
Where are the Everett Dirksens and other moderate Republicans of yesteryear, who fought hard for Republican core principles, but were willing to join with the Democrats when matters of national importance were at stake? Sadly, there are none left. They became an endangered species with the rise of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and now, because of the likes of Tom DeLay and his type, they have become virtually extinct. As a result, when Democrats gain control of the White House and Congress, as they did in 2008, they have to amass an overwhelming majority just to get anything done. That’s not what the forefathers had in mind.
It is not surprising that the electorate, which voted for change overwhelmingly in 2008, giving President Obama the largest majority for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, is frustrated and is looking around for scapegoats. But, it’s ironic that they want to throw everyone out and start anew, egged on by the Tea Party with its call to “take our country back.” Back from “whom” and to “where” is not clear, but it sounds ominous coming from the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.
How this will play out in November and in 2012 is still anything but clear. But, wouldn’t it make more sense for voters, frustrated with the lack of action and cooperation in Washington D.C., to target those most responsible for the stalemate? It doesn’t take much to figure out who they are if one pays scant attention to any news outlet other than Fox News and right-wing radio. As President Obama once said plaintively, “Can you imagine how much we could have accomplished with a little help from the other side?”
Gerald E. Lavey
Maybe It’s the Hats and Dresses
Recently, in a quick visit to New York, Queen Elizabeth of England was shown on television and in news photos wearing her traditional flowery bonnet and a conservative print dress. Not surprising for a person her age – she has been Queen since 1952 – she looked matronly. But, more than that, she looked quaint. So, yesterday, as Carly Fiorina might say.
Nothing wrong with quaint. It can even be charming, as it is in the case of Elizabeth II. The monarchy in England is a mere remnant of a long-gone era, and the Queen as figurehead has played her ceremonial role impeccably for almost six decades. Today all the real power in the U.K. is vested in the Prime Minister and the Parliament. The only time we hear anything about the Queen is when one of her children is naughty and the tabloids get all breathless and atwitter.
Too bad the Vatican can’t get the flick that Elizabeth understood from the time she was crowned Queen more than a half century ago. Nothing more quaint than the Vatican — from the Pope and the Cardinals on down to many of their hand-picked bishops and archbishops throughout the world. All of them wear funny looking hats and dresses, too, but presumably they think these trappings are a sign of real power and authority, a power they are desperately clinging to in the face of growing indifference on the part of the Catholic faithful, especially in Europe and the United States.
Sadly, they are mistaken. They have become quaint and so yesterday, and they seem to be the only ones who don’t know it. Hoping to avoid a schism and hold the Church together as it was in some mythical bygone era, they don’t realize that a major schism has already occurred. The only difference these days is that dissidents no longer tack their theses on cathedral doors. They just shrug their shoulders, walk away, and get on with leading their Catholic lives as they see fit, paying scant attention to the anathemas and excommunication threats of the Vatican, cardinals, and bishops. The Vatican has largely squandered its moral authority, and virtually every week it seems to get worse. When I read about Vatican spokesmen equating the moral gravity of priestly pedophilia with ordaining women as priests, I shudder with sadness and embarrassment, wondering how these presumably educated people could become so clueless.
Perhaps the hidden grace in all this upheaval is that over the last few decades the locus of power has shifted in the Church and the laity is realizing more and more that we are the Church and we must carry out our responsibilities without looking to higher authorities for inspiration and moral guidance. Not all Church authorities, of course. Many priests and Catholic writers, for example, are serving the Catholic community extraordinarily well, but you need to shop around because from where I sit these appear to be more the exception than the rule.
Ultimately, I hope and pray that the Vatican one day wakes up, sends its funny hats, dresses, and other trappings of bygone power to the Vatican Museum, and begins to refocus its attention on the unfinished agenda of love and compassion that Jesus so clearly left in our hands.
Gerald E. Lavey
Nothing wrong with quaint. It can even be charming, as it is in the case of Elizabeth II. The monarchy in England is a mere remnant of a long-gone era, and the Queen as figurehead has played her ceremonial role impeccably for almost six decades. Today all the real power in the U.K. is vested in the Prime Minister and the Parliament. The only time we hear anything about the Queen is when one of her children is naughty and the tabloids get all breathless and atwitter.
Too bad the Vatican can’t get the flick that Elizabeth understood from the time she was crowned Queen more than a half century ago. Nothing more quaint than the Vatican — from the Pope and the Cardinals on down to many of their hand-picked bishops and archbishops throughout the world. All of them wear funny looking hats and dresses, too, but presumably they think these trappings are a sign of real power and authority, a power they are desperately clinging to in the face of growing indifference on the part of the Catholic faithful, especially in Europe and the United States.
Sadly, they are mistaken. They have become quaint and so yesterday, and they seem to be the only ones who don’t know it. Hoping to avoid a schism and hold the Church together as it was in some mythical bygone era, they don’t realize that a major schism has already occurred. The only difference these days is that dissidents no longer tack their theses on cathedral doors. They just shrug their shoulders, walk away, and get on with leading their Catholic lives as they see fit, paying scant attention to the anathemas and excommunication threats of the Vatican, cardinals, and bishops. The Vatican has largely squandered its moral authority, and virtually every week it seems to get worse. When I read about Vatican spokesmen equating the moral gravity of priestly pedophilia with ordaining women as priests, I shudder with sadness and embarrassment, wondering how these presumably educated people could become so clueless.
Perhaps the hidden grace in all this upheaval is that over the last few decades the locus of power has shifted in the Church and the laity is realizing more and more that we are the Church and we must carry out our responsibilities without looking to higher authorities for inspiration and moral guidance. Not all Church authorities, of course. Many priests and Catholic writers, for example, are serving the Catholic community extraordinarily well, but you need to shop around because from where I sit these appear to be more the exception than the rule.
Ultimately, I hope and pray that the Vatican one day wakes up, sends its funny hats, dresses, and other trappings of bygone power to the Vatican Museum, and begins to refocus its attention on the unfinished agenda of love and compassion that Jesus so clearly left in our hands.
Gerald E. Lavey
Stand By Your Man
It’s hard to get a fix on the Tea Party movement It's all over the lot. Its supporters just seem to be mad – period – and in a nasty anti-government mood. From what I can gather, the one common complaint among its diverse backers is their outrage over soaring Government spending and the growing deficit.
The irony of that is rich and abiding. In 1980 when Reagan ran on a ticket of increased defense spending, cutting taxes, and balancing the budget, he won going away. I recall my friend Tony Morris and I standing in the kitchen of a neighborhood friend who was hosting an election night party. The rest of the crowd was in the front room cheering Reagan’s victory while Tony and I, beers in hand, scratched our heads and said to each other: It’s not possible to do what Reagan promised. Of course, the math didn’t make any sense then, and it still doesn’t. Not surprisingly, Reagan ran up record deficits for the time, and we didn’t hear a peep from the Tea Party folks, who are just right-wing Republicans in new garb, that’s all.
Likewise, in 2000, George Bush fils “won” the Presidency on a platform of compassionate conservatism and promises to cut taxes. He barely “won” and proceeded to cut taxes even in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the face of two wars, asking no one but the troops to sacrifice. For the rest of us, he asked us only to go shopping. Even though he inherited a massive surplus, he managed to squander that and created massive budget deficits that in no time dwarfed Reagan’s by comparison. What’s did we hear from the Tea Party types? Not a word.
But, then, Barack Obama comes to town, inheriting the challenge of a major recession. He and the Democratically-controlled Congress enact a stimulus package that keeps the country from plunging into another Great Depression. They also pass health care legislation, which was at the core of his campaign, and which several Presidents starting with Teddy Roosevelt at the beginning of the 20th century had tried in vain to accomplish.
Health-care legislation was not just a big-spending, do-good, social program, as conservatives are alleging. Every serious economist and budget analyst of any political stripe agreed that the current health care system in America was broken and was unsustainable over time from a budget perspective. The President’s budget director, who had been head of the Congressional Budget Office, said that within a relatively short time the country would be paying so much in health care costs, Medicare and Medicaid, that it would overwhelm the Federal budget, leaving virtually nothing left for anything else, except for Defense and Homeland Security.
So, difficult as the timing was, health care reform was critical to long-term budget health and time was running out for us to continuing to kick that can down the road. Moreover, the health care legislation provides 30 million more Americans with health care, prohibits insurance companies from rejecting those with pre-existing conditions, and keeps children on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. These are just a few of the immediate benefits with other major benefits kicking in later. All this, plus reducing the costs of insurance premiums which had become so expensive that millions of American citizens could no longer afford them. When these people got sick, they had the option of getting treatment or going bankrupt.
So, what did we hear from the Tea Party movement? Outrage – full throated outrage. Give them tax cuts, throw in a little old time religion, show a bit of the flag, and they’re content. But, ask them to sacrifice to keep the country from going off the rails and to help 30 million of their fellow citizens? Well, that’s another matter altogether. The irony is hard to miss. Here is a segment of society that is largely church-going, that professes to believe in the Bible, will fight to get prayer in the schools restored, and will be the first to join rallies against abortion and same-sex marriage. Yet, they draw the line when it comes to spending public money to help the poor and the disadvantaged in our society, conveniently forgetting that helping the poor is the greatest single moral mandate in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. No other mandate comes even close.
I fear we are becoming a voting population of consumers rather than citizens, and both mainstream political parties are aiding and abetting the decline. The one, with perfect pitch for the worst instincts in all of us, appeals to our selfishness, resentment, and greed. The other party, timid and afraid it will lose the next election, trims its sails, distances itself from the President, and fails to speak out for the core principles that made the Democratic Party such an attractive force for good in our society and the world. If Profiles in Courage were written today, I fear it would have precious few chapters.
Gerald E. Lavey
The irony of that is rich and abiding. In 1980 when Reagan ran on a ticket of increased defense spending, cutting taxes, and balancing the budget, he won going away. I recall my friend Tony Morris and I standing in the kitchen of a neighborhood friend who was hosting an election night party. The rest of the crowd was in the front room cheering Reagan’s victory while Tony and I, beers in hand, scratched our heads and said to each other: It’s not possible to do what Reagan promised. Of course, the math didn’t make any sense then, and it still doesn’t. Not surprisingly, Reagan ran up record deficits for the time, and we didn’t hear a peep from the Tea Party folks, who are just right-wing Republicans in new garb, that’s all.
Likewise, in 2000, George Bush fils “won” the Presidency on a platform of compassionate conservatism and promises to cut taxes. He barely “won” and proceeded to cut taxes even in the aftermath of 9/11 and in the face of two wars, asking no one but the troops to sacrifice. For the rest of us, he asked us only to go shopping. Even though he inherited a massive surplus, he managed to squander that and created massive budget deficits that in no time dwarfed Reagan’s by comparison. What’s did we hear from the Tea Party types? Not a word.
But, then, Barack Obama comes to town, inheriting the challenge of a major recession. He and the Democratically-controlled Congress enact a stimulus package that keeps the country from plunging into another Great Depression. They also pass health care legislation, which was at the core of his campaign, and which several Presidents starting with Teddy Roosevelt at the beginning of the 20th century had tried in vain to accomplish.
Health-care legislation was not just a big-spending, do-good, social program, as conservatives are alleging. Every serious economist and budget analyst of any political stripe agreed that the current health care system in America was broken and was unsustainable over time from a budget perspective. The President’s budget director, who had been head of the Congressional Budget Office, said that within a relatively short time the country would be paying so much in health care costs, Medicare and Medicaid, that it would overwhelm the Federal budget, leaving virtually nothing left for anything else, except for Defense and Homeland Security.
So, difficult as the timing was, health care reform was critical to long-term budget health and time was running out for us to continuing to kick that can down the road. Moreover, the health care legislation provides 30 million more Americans with health care, prohibits insurance companies from rejecting those with pre-existing conditions, and keeps children on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. These are just a few of the immediate benefits with other major benefits kicking in later. All this, plus reducing the costs of insurance premiums which had become so expensive that millions of American citizens could no longer afford them. When these people got sick, they had the option of getting treatment or going bankrupt.
So, what did we hear from the Tea Party movement? Outrage – full throated outrage. Give them tax cuts, throw in a little old time religion, show a bit of the flag, and they’re content. But, ask them to sacrifice to keep the country from going off the rails and to help 30 million of their fellow citizens? Well, that’s another matter altogether. The irony is hard to miss. Here is a segment of society that is largely church-going, that professes to believe in the Bible, will fight to get prayer in the schools restored, and will be the first to join rallies against abortion and same-sex marriage. Yet, they draw the line when it comes to spending public money to help the poor and the disadvantaged in our society, conveniently forgetting that helping the poor is the greatest single moral mandate in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. No other mandate comes even close.
I fear we are becoming a voting population of consumers rather than citizens, and both mainstream political parties are aiding and abetting the decline. The one, with perfect pitch for the worst instincts in all of us, appeals to our selfishness, resentment, and greed. The other party, timid and afraid it will lose the next election, trims its sails, distances itself from the President, and fails to speak out for the core principles that made the Democratic Party such an attractive force for good in our society and the world. If Profiles in Courage were written today, I fear it would have precious few chapters.
Gerald E. Lavey
“Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely”
This now famous phrase was coined by Lord Acton, a prominent 19th century British Catholic scholar and sometime politician, in a letter to a Catholic bishop expressing his deep concern over the Church’s doctrine of papal infallability that was adopted by the Vatican Council of 1870.
Lord Acton was dead right then, and his observation about ecclesiastical abuse of power is equally applicable today. Not necessarily in the form of ex cathedra pronouncements from the Pope or a Church council, but in the form of wrong-headed, obtuse behavior by bishops and other members of the church hierarchy, including Vatican spokesmen. Weekly, even daily, we are subjected to inane reactionary statements from Church leaders, usually in response to the priesty abuse scandal or about abortion or gay marriage, the only other two issues they seem to care about.
As a long-time practicing Catholic, I used to be embarrassed, even apologetic, by the official Church’s statements, even willing to believe press coverage often betrayed an anti-Catholic bias in American society at large, but the pathetic reaction by the hierarchy to the priestly abuse scandal changed all that. Now, I am heartened by the news media throwing the spotlight on this idiocy in hopes that the hierarchy will become embarrassed enough seeing its statements in the press to wake up. But, there’s no hope on the near horizon, as far as I can tell.
The latest episode of the Phoenix bishop underscores just how bad things have gotten. In case you missed it, check out Nicholas Kristoff’s Op Ed piece in the May 27 New York Times, which thankfully brings the situation to light for a national and international audience. Basically, the bishop excommunicated a hospital nun, Sister Margaret, because as a member of the hospital’s ethics committee, she assented to terminating the 11-week pregnancy of a woman whose life was in danger if she had continued the pregnancy. As a hospital statement reads, “This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee.”
Why did the bishop single out the nun for “automatic excommunication” when presumably other Cathoics served on the Ethics Committee and also assented to the decision? Because he could. Pure and simple. Nuns have always been the whipping posts of the clergy, abused and treated as second-class citizens. The most recent evidence of this are the two Vatican investigations. One, called an "apostolic visitation," is looking into the quality of life" in sisters' religious communities. The other reportedly targets the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 95 percent of the nation's 59,000 nuns. Both of these investigations were launched, albeit rather quietly and mysteriously, at the height of the publicity over the priestly abuse scandal.
Over the years, no single group in the Catholic Church has distinguished itself and covered itself with more honor than nuns. They are the people quietly going about the work of the Gospel, caring for sick and elderly in hospitals and nursing homes, running first-rate elementary schools in inner cities, serving the poorest of the poor in this country and around the globe.
So, the irony of this misplaced focus by the Vatican couldn’t be more breathtaking in its hypocrisy and moral obtuseness. To paraphrase General Omar Bradley: “It’s the wrong focus, at the wrong time, against the wrong enemy.” For all its presumed learning and knowledge of Ethics and Moral Theology, the Church leadership has still not learned a fundamental step toward honest self-awareness that Pogo taught us many years ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Gerald E. Lavey
Lord Acton was dead right then, and his observation about ecclesiastical abuse of power is equally applicable today. Not necessarily in the form of ex cathedra pronouncements from the Pope or a Church council, but in the form of wrong-headed, obtuse behavior by bishops and other members of the church hierarchy, including Vatican spokesmen. Weekly, even daily, we are subjected to inane reactionary statements from Church leaders, usually in response to the priesty abuse scandal or about abortion or gay marriage, the only other two issues they seem to care about.
As a long-time practicing Catholic, I used to be embarrassed, even apologetic, by the official Church’s statements, even willing to believe press coverage often betrayed an anti-Catholic bias in American society at large, but the pathetic reaction by the hierarchy to the priestly abuse scandal changed all that. Now, I am heartened by the news media throwing the spotlight on this idiocy in hopes that the hierarchy will become embarrassed enough seeing its statements in the press to wake up. But, there’s no hope on the near horizon, as far as I can tell.
The latest episode of the Phoenix bishop underscores just how bad things have gotten. In case you missed it, check out Nicholas Kristoff’s Op Ed piece in the May 27 New York Times, which thankfully brings the situation to light for a national and international audience. Basically, the bishop excommunicated a hospital nun, Sister Margaret, because as a member of the hospital’s ethics committee, she assented to terminating the 11-week pregnancy of a woman whose life was in danger if she had continued the pregnancy. As a hospital statement reads, “This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee.”
Why did the bishop single out the nun for “automatic excommunication” when presumably other Cathoics served on the Ethics Committee and also assented to the decision? Because he could. Pure and simple. Nuns have always been the whipping posts of the clergy, abused and treated as second-class citizens. The most recent evidence of this are the two Vatican investigations. One, called an "apostolic visitation," is looking into the quality of life" in sisters' religious communities. The other reportedly targets the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization that represents 95 percent of the nation's 59,000 nuns. Both of these investigations were launched, albeit rather quietly and mysteriously, at the height of the publicity over the priestly abuse scandal.
Over the years, no single group in the Catholic Church has distinguished itself and covered itself with more honor than nuns. They are the people quietly going about the work of the Gospel, caring for sick and elderly in hospitals and nursing homes, running first-rate elementary schools in inner cities, serving the poorest of the poor in this country and around the globe.
So, the irony of this misplaced focus by the Vatican couldn’t be more breathtaking in its hypocrisy and moral obtuseness. To paraphrase General Omar Bradley: “It’s the wrong focus, at the wrong time, against the wrong enemy.” For all its presumed learning and knowledge of Ethics and Moral Theology, the Church leadership has still not learned a fundamental step toward honest self-awareness that Pogo taught us many years ago: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Gerald E. Lavey
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