After San Bernadino, Take a Look in the Mirror

What do the following incidents have in common?

Dec 14, 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT, lone shooter, 20 year white male kills 26 people (20 children & six adults) with a gun purchased legally by the shooter’s mother

June 17, 2015 – Emmanuel AME Church, Charleston, SC, lone shooter, 21 year old white male kills 9 people (6 men, three women) with a legally purchased gun

October 2, 2015 – Umpqua Community College, Roseburg, OR, lone shooter, 26 year old white male kills 10 people and injured 7 more with a legally purchased gun

November 27, 2015 – Planned Parenthood Clinic, Denver, CO, lone shooter, white male, 59 year old white male, kills 3 people, injures 11 others with a legally purchased gun

December 2, 2015 – Inland Regional Center, San Bernadino, CA, two shooters, husband, age 28 and wife, age 27 of Pakistani descent, killed 14 people and wounded 17 with legally purchased guns

All of these tragic incidents involved 1 or 2 individuals, all but one under the age of 30, shooting into a crowd of innocent people with a legally purchased gun. Yet only one is called an “act of terror.” The other four are referred to “active shooter incidents.” 

In 2013 the FBI published a study of “active shooter incidents” between 2000-2013. During that time there 160 incidents involving “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area” where 3 or more people were killed. In those 160 "active shooter incidents" 486 people were killed and 557 people were wounded. The number of these incidents have accelerated since this study, and all of them had characteristics just like ones listed above.

Over the past several days I have been trying to wrap my head around the insanity not only of these mass shootings, but the way we talk about them. All of them are tragically sad. All of them involve innocent people dying needlessly violent deaths. Two things stand out to me.

First of all, by calling San Bernadino and not the other shootings an “act of terror” we encourage demagogues like Donald Trump to get air time saying travel restrictions on Muslims coming into the country. Statistically we would do better to detain white males already citizens of this country under 30 if we want to save lives.

Second, President Obama in his speech last Sunday night is right when he says we need to make it difficult for people to legally purchase assault style rifles. It only makes sense. All the people injured or killed would be alive were it not for legally purchased guns.  Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz called Pres. Obama’s statement “political” but a day after the San Bernadino shooting Cruz held a rally at an Iowa gun range saying we stop ‘bad guys” by using our own guns; so who is using the shooting for political gain? At least President Obama was proposing action by Congress to restrict access to the kind of guns used in these mass shootings.Ted Cruz seems to be proposing a mass shootout.

Then of course, we have Jerry Fallwell, Jr, president of Liberty University, a conservative Christian school, propose to his students they start bringing guns to school [Note to self: Steer clear of the unlikely event of being invited to speak or visit large university in Lynchburg, VA]. We have Wayne La Pierre, executive vice president of the NRA who proposed following the Sandy Hook killings that armed police be present in every school and teachers be trained to use guns. We have many states like Florida and Texas that pass laws allowing individuals to “conceal and carry” their guns in public places. Yes that makes sense, let’s just make it easier than it already is to bring guns into public places with lots of innocent people to shoot at.

Because so many of these mass shootings have occurred in educational settings, I have been forced to think about how I would handle a shooting incident in my school or classroom. My first thought would be to get people to safety as quickly as possible, and then the second thing would be to get the gun out of the hands of the shooter. So I find myself wondering, why do we make it so easy for the gun to get into the hand of the shooter in the first place?

Are we so blind as a nation that we cannot see that WE are our greatest security threat, not ISIS. Recently the New York Times published a report, detailing how all of the shooters in these mass shootings secured their guns through legal means.  Interestingly in the FBI study mentioned above the fact that guns were obtained legally is not even mentioned, it is assumed. 

If we are so concerned about terrorism, first of all let’s not use a euphemism like “active shooter incident” when white people commit the crime but terror when it happens to be someone who practices the Islamic faith. A few weeks I visited the memorial to the Oklahoma City Bombings in 1995. At that time our "sworn enemy" was Libya, so it was assumed the bombing was done by a Libyan "terrorist." Turned out it was Timothy McVeigh and a bunch of other white guys who pulled it off. Islam isn't our enemy, self-styled killers are, regardless of ideology, religion or ethnicity.

Secondly, then let’s make it more difficult for people to legally obtain weapons. If you want to stop a killing and you know a clear consistent fact, it only makes sense to work to prevent the easy access to guns. This just  makes sense - why is that so hard to grasp?

Third, let us take a look at ourselves and the cowboy, shoot-em-up culture we have created that is so out of step with the rest of the civilized world. There are more killings in any metropolitan area in the U.S. than occur in  any other country in the world. The Second Amendment may give people a right to bear arms, but it is not a right without restrictions. Moreover, our movies, our gaming industry, our militarism, our way of viewing what strength and machismo look like all support this violent culture of ours. We have reaped the seeds of our own inner turmoil and external violence. The madness starts at home. It starts by looking in the mirror.

I haven’t got a lot of answers to my questions, but these things seem clear.

Pulling the Gun Lobby Out of the Shadows

On Tuesday Pres. Barack Obama concluded his State of the Union speech with a powerful call for Congress to act on proposed gun violence prevention legislation such as strengthening the background check system and banning high powered military assault type weapons and ammunition. He did so by naming recent victims and their families in Newton, CT, Chicago and Oak Creek, Wisconsin and repeating the litany “They deserve a vote!” Rarely do presidential speeches bring tears to my eyes, but that refrain did.

The significance of Obama’s statement is both substantive and symbolic. Calling upon states to supply names of known offenders and those with mental health issues, and requiring all gun sales, including those at gun shows to go through a background check will not only prevent offenders from purchasing guns, but it will send a message to unscrupulous dealers that looking the other way as straw purchases go down is no longer acceptable. Some of those gun dealers will see a significant cut in their profits if that legislation is enforced. Likewise, banning assault weapons will get some of the most deadly weapons, weapons whose purpose is to kill at any costs, out of general circulation will reduce the likelihood of the mass killings we have repeatedly seen. While critics will say about only 1% of gun-related deaths come from such guns, ask the survivors in Newtown or Aurora how much they care about that 1%.

However, the symbolism of Obama’s statement is even more significant in my view, because for over two decades the gun lobby, including the NRA, the Gunowners of America (GOA) and the gun manufacturers have been operating in a shadow world by paying politicians to just be quiet on guns. They don’t have to be pro-gun, they just are not supposed to talk about it because the arguments for nonrestrictive gun laws are emotionally based and largely built on anecdote and myth. Two examples come to mind.

First, several years ago Congress quietly began to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research on the impact of guns and gun violence on public health. Their research decisively showed that the presence of a gun in a home increases the likelihood that someone in the immediate circle of that home (family, relatives, close friends) will be victim of a gun-related incident. This runs directly counter to the myth that people need guns in their homes to protect from intruders. The intruders are not the ones in danger, the people in the home are. By presidential order the president has begun to restore some of the gun-related research, but Congress can do more to allow us to use science rather than myth to determine or national policies on guns.

A second example is a little known bill called the Tiahrt Amendment  that was an amendment to a 2003 federal spending bill that restricts the ability of law enforcement officers to identify the buyers of guns or require gun dealers to do inventories to see if their guns have been lost or stolen or used in a crime. It also restricts citizens from obtaining information on the source and buyers of guns used in crimes in their communities. This bill provides a “cover” for straw purchasers and the unscrupulous dealers who sell to them.

It is these shadow efforts of limiting research and weakening the powers of law enforcement that make NRA rhetoric such as “we don’t need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have” so hypocritical. Even as NRA leaders say such things (and they are still saying them), they are working in the shadows to keep law enforcement from being able to do their jobs.

President Obama’s refrain “They deserve the vote” challenged the gun lobby to come out of the shadows and called on Congress to stop hiding behind their silence. More than his Republican colleagues, the president was calling out his fellow Democrats who since Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election have decided that support for gun prevention legislation was politically unfavorable. So instead of speaking out one way or the other, Democrats, including the President, have remained remarkably silent in the face of recurring incidents of violence in both urban and suburban communities. The president’s message was that Congress can no longer be silent.

The President’s message, though long overdue, was a welcome change. Let us keep the pressure on to make sure that his words will not in themselves merely be symbol, but will move Congress to act clearly and decisively on these issues, and that the members of Congress themselves will have to declare themselves one way or the other on these vital issues

Where will the Pro-Gun Folks Draw the Line?

Like many folks, I am watching closely as President Obama begins his campaign to reform the gun laws in this country. Because most laws regulating the sale and use of guns are legislated at the state level, there are only a limited number of things he can do; nonetheless, those few things are important. In his White House briefing he outlined four major proposals

- Require that everyone who wants to purchase a gun go through background checks (i.e. closing the gun show loophole);
- Ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines;
- Better train teachers and officials on how to respond to shootings at schools;
- Increase access to mental health services

Also through executive order the president called for increased research on gun related issues and mental health.

Even before his proposals had been made public the NRA and its spokespersons in Congress were criticizing them. When Obama indicated in an interview said that he enjoyed skeet shooting, they scoffed, even after he produced a picture of doing just that. I wondered why the president felt a need to even respond to such criticisms, until I realized he wasn’t trying to answer his critics, but rather discredit them in the eyes of the millions of American who feel confused and ambivalent on the gun issue.

However, I recently got a sense of where the battle lines on this issue will be drawn (I apologize for using such a militaristic metaphor, but that is what this feels like) when I received a letter from my Congressman in response to a letter I had sent him calling for an assault weapons ban. Rep. Pat Meehan represents the 7th District of Pennsylvania, which basically constitutes the western suburbs in the Philadelphia metro area. Rep Meehan is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, a darling of many of the Conservative PACS. In response to my letter Re. Meehan wrote the following:

 “… we need to put an emphasis on what works to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. As I’ve previously said, I agree with the President that we can and should strengthen the nation’s background check system, filling the current holes and also requiring background checks at gun shows, regardless of whether the seller is licensed or not. Also it is correct o put a focus on mental health, improving care for troubled young people and the prevalence of violent movies and video games in our culture.”

Compared to previous responses I have received from the Congressman, there are some hopeful signs – Rep Meehan is now on record in support of a robust background check system, even at gun shows, a major source of gun sales. However, what is also noteworthy is what is absent from the Congressman’s proposals; he does not speak on the assault weapons ban, nor does he support the president’s call for more research funding or a strengthening of the ATF, which is has been vastly underfunded for years.

Rep. Meehan is a good litmus test for what political conservatives will or will not support. I think we who want to see more robust gun legislation need to see these are where the lines are being drawn. For some bizarre reason, otherwise intelligent men like Pat Meehan will not support the ban on armor piercing bullets or high powered rifles to the general public. He will speak about “enforcing already existing laws” without voting to provide to make that enforcement possible. And despite numerous incidents like Newtown, Aurora and Tucson he will continue to see this gun problem as a “criminal” issue, rather than an issue affecting everyday citizens caught up in our gun-worshipping culture.

In the political world of compromise and give and take, my sense is that conservatives will give a little on the background check issue, and dig in their heels on everything else, especially reinstating the assault weapons ban. They will use the language of “what works” to reduce crime, somehow having this huge blind spot when it comes to high powered weapons in spite several high profile events using those weapons. They will equate someone’s right to own a gun with the right to use a gun whose purpose is only to kill other human beings in a combat situation.

Because of my long involvement with this issue, people have been asking if I think significant changes will come. I don’t think significant changes will come without a real fight and continued pressure on Congresspeople and a continual discrediting of the lies and deception being promulgated by the NRA and other gun-rights groups. In Philadelphia and elsewhere sales at gun shows and gun shops have sky rocketed because of people’s frenzy and fear that someone all rights to own and use gun will be taken away. I don’t see that happening, nor do I worry about it. What concerns me is that those of us who see a major source of the problem as the fascination with violence at the heart of our culture must be committed to a long, arduous process of transformation that will require dedicated efforts to keep the truth and reality of guns’ destruction before the public and more importantly, our representatives in Congress and the White House.

So I took the letter that Rep Meehan sent me turned it over and wrote my response to his response asking why he has not come out in support of the assault weapons ban. The campaign for commonsense gun legislation continues.

The Politician, The Prophet and the The "Fiscal Cliff"

The news these days is filled with all the predictions and warnings about the so-called “fiscal cliff” that will befall the U.S. economy if the Democrats and Republicans in Washington cannot agree on a debt reduction package. Depending on what pundit you listen to, the failure to reach a deal could lead to a catastrophic recession, a slow decline, or a false alarm. Whatever the term “fiscal cliff” actually means, it is designed to shed fear and trepidation rather than true understanding of what is at stake, distract attention from the  the huge disparities that exist in wealth and power in this country, and will impact the poor far more than the banks or the wealthy. In the end the federal budget is not about money but priorities and people. The amount of money that special interests spent on both sides to sway the election could itself put a sizable dent in the federal deficit, so the underlying issue is not one of money but who gets to call the shots and direct those dollars.

The wealthy and powerful of the U.S. plutocracy have always positioned themselves to make out well no matter what. We forget that after Hurricane Katrina and oil prices shot up because the oil companies supposedly could not refine enough oil, Exxon-Mobil recorded the highest profit margins ever in its history. We forget that while banks were being bailed out during the recession, Goldman-Sachs and a small group of wealthy business types made a killing on that same recession. While the debate rages on about the Affordable Care Act (so called Obamacare), the health costs are not being contained and health insurance companies and drug companies will do just fine whatever way the political wind blows. While the Republicans say they want to balance the budget, they are fighting like hell to protect their wealthy backers, the 1-2% of the population with incomes over $250,000 that President Obama wants to tax at rates when Bill Clinton was president. So the issue is not about a balanced budget, but who calls the shots and who benefits, priorities and people.

The art of politics is compromise, so whatever comes out of these negotiations will be disappointing to anyone who has a strong opinion on the right or the left of this debate. No one group will get what they want, and so one must focus on what is most essential and most critical. This is why there need to be prophets to keep those principles before us.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish philosopher and teacher of the mid-20th century wrote that “prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice of the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world.” He goes on, “The prophet hates the approximate; he shuns the middle of the road…The prophet's word is a scream in the night [and] …the purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner [person] as well as revolutionize history.” [from his book The Prophets]. While Heschel was describing the prophets of the Old Testament, he was also referring to them as a paradigm for the prophets of today.

 Whether or not we see ourselves a prophets in the classic Old Testament sense, people of faith must honor and in some cases seek to speak with a prophetic voice that recognizes the  political necessity of compromise while at the same time “hating the approximate” and “shunning the middle of the road.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reported to have told an activist who supported him in the presidential election: “Now hold me to the promises I have made”. The prophets are the people who hold onto and press the promises.

President Obama was elected on the promise of developing a plan that provides health care coverage to all citizens. He said he would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans. He said the federal government should support public education reform, especially in low income districts. He said we should create the conditions for green jobs, create alternatives to carbon-based energy and oppose the Keystone Pipeline project running down from Canada through the Midwest. With a prophetic voice we need to hold the president to these promises. They represent principles of equity, of a concern for the environment, and a curb on the wealthy powerbrokers. Moreover those principles should move us press President Obama on the places that he has not gone far enough, such as on immigration reform and regulations on Wall Street and financial institutions.

Parenthetically, I acknowledge that there are those on the other side of this debate who are as equally passionate about their issues. I find the America that many on the Right propose is not an America I want to support. And those who espouse a “Christian” position, support a Christianity I cannot endorse. So there are real divides and deep passions which I acknowledge. We as citizens need to have civil dialogue on these differences, not simply on the basis of the issues themselves, but the underlying principles and values that inform our positions.

My  commitments are to the principles of providing equal access to all, holding the powerful and wealthy in check, caring for the environment and providing basic rights for all citizens regardless of color, ethnicity or economic status. How we live out and implement these principles is a matter of practical, political strategy.
The debate over the so-called “fiscal cliff” is at its heart a debate about values and deep principles. While the politicians negotiate, in the prophetic tradition we must press the principles that can make life just and fair for all affected.

Why Race is a Factor in This Year's Election

At the risk of stating the obvious to some and “playing the race card” to others, I believe race is a central issue in this year’s presidential contest. However, I say that not simply or even because Mitt Romney (a white guy) is running against Barack Obama (a mixed race male who identifies as African American). Rather I say that because of what the two men symbolize and what is at stake for the poor and for people of color in this election. In terms of the numbers Obama is estimated to have received votes from 43% of whites four years ago, but is expected to only pull in about 38% of the white vote this year. Now this is not to imply that a vote against Obama means one is racist. However, we contrast that with the fact that 95% of blacks are expected to vote for Obama, and a majority of Asians, and Hispanics are also expected to vote Obama though not to the same extent of blacks. Add to that that according to the PBS special “Race 2012” 90% of people who voted in the Republican primaries this spring were white. Put this together and the picture that emerges is that the Republicans are an overwhelmingly white party, while the Democrats are attracting a diversity of voters. 

Race is a major factor in this campaign.

Now we might chalk this divide up to embarrassing coincidence, but the fact that the Republicans neither can nor care to attract more voters of color is not something we can easily overlook. Oh yes they had Condoleeza Rice speak at the Republican Convention, Michael Steele was chairman of the Republican Party for a couple of years, and Clarence Thomas the only black judge on the Supreme Court was appointed by a Republican President, but that is colorful window dressing that apparently is not speaking generally to the needs and perspectives of people of color. Now I would contend that neither is Barack Obama. Except for his pre-presidency speech on Race during the 2004 Democratic primary and an oblique reference to Trayvon Martin last spring, Obama has not broached the topic of race either; maybe he doesn’t feel like he can, or maybe he chooses not to. Meanwhile he has surrounded himself with advisors who look and talk like the white power brokers that preceded him. However what is interesting is that according Chrystia Freeland author of Plutocracy: The Rise of the New global Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Obama sees himself as one of the plutocrats. (Notice how when he talks about taxing the super-rich, he always refers to “we”; i.e. he recognizes he is one of them.)Yet even so, people of color (and those whites who see themselves as allies) hold out hope that they have a better chance with Barack Obama in the White House than Romney. At least that is what the numbers suggest.

Race is a factor in this presidential election.

Four years ago when Barack Obama was elected president, many pundits in the media wondered out loud if we had entered a “post-racial society.” There is no question that Barack Obama’s election was historic because he broke the white barrier, but I was not among those who thought we had crossed the post-racial threshold. One could sense in conservative white America a fear that in some way Obama might “retaliate” for all the centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination and marginalization faced by African Americans through history. Gun rights advocates feared Obama would take away all their guns. Conservatives feared he would establish a socialist state. Look at the trailer for the recent film “Obama 2016” and you see some even feared he would retaliate for colonialism in Africa. His opponents questioned his credentials and even his birth certificate. The underlying racial fear was palpable if not ridiculous. To his credit Mitt Romney has tried not to play on those fears, but his conservative base still harbors them despite clear evidence that such fears were totally unfounded.

While I don’t think Obama’s election ushered in a post-racial era, as my colleague Nathan Corbitt has pointed out, his election was a “tipping point;” that is, with the election of Barack Obama we were served notice that white control of levers of power were beginning to slip. Now there is no question when we look at who sits around the advisors’ tables and who sits on the boards of major corporations and who occupies most of the CEO positions, white males are still very much in control of levers of power. However, the fact that a black man sits in the Oval Office and can set controls on their power, sends a very clear message that the rules of the game have changed. Obama signals a move toward a more diverse society where the white establishment is no longer in control. His push to provide universal healthcare, and his focus on increased education funding point to a strategy that moves from the bottom up, rather than the trickle down philosophy of Reaganites like Romney.

If one only looks at the policies of conservative governors in places like Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the pattern is clear: programs that serve the needs of the homeless, the disabled, the poor and the mentally ill are being cut, while tax breaks are being given to corporations and the wealthy. Young people of color committing petty theft get jail time, while bankers who defraud people out of millions in their pensions and mortgages get regulations loosened and receive bonuses. The rights of unions are being curtailed, while regulations on corporations are being relaxed (in spite of the actions leading to the 2008 recession). Public Education is increasingly privatized and vouchered, while these same leaders make sure their kids don't have to go to those schools. The issue is clear: do we adopt policies that continue to serve the wealthy and powerful, or do we redistribute to provide basic needs for all?

While the word has rarely if ever been mentioned by the candidates in this election, and only cautiously by the media, let’s not kid ourselves: race is a factor in this election, and the choices we make determine whether we close our eyes and hope for a past that never was to return, or move wide-eyed into the future of a multicultural America where the blessings of this nation are shared fairly and equally.

President Obama – Return to “Hope and Change”

Like most of the folks who voted for then-Senator Obama to become president four years ago, I was sold on the promise of “hope and change.” While I have been politically aware and involved since my college days, I rarely had found a candidate who I could believe in and support like Barack Obama. He talked about bringing a change to government that would be more sensitive to the needs of the poor, and would move past the liberal-conservative debate. However, once in office faced with a huge financial crisis and surrounded by a group of former and present Wall Street bankers and financiers, Obama made some moves that both Democrats and Republicans supported (though now the latter disavow any part in it) to prop up the “banks too big to fail” while the gap between the haves and have-nots grew even widers. Along the way he proposed a revamped health care system, supported gay marriage, provided an avenue for Dream-ers to become legal residents, provided money for projects rebuilding infrastructure and sought to address the sagging public school system. While I have not always support the ways he went about these things, at least they have been on his radar.

Now that the Republicans have solidified their presidential candidate team with Romney and Ryan, there is no question that they have decided on a course of action that will benefit the wealthy and the corporations, deprive basic needs for the poor and indigent, remove regulations on banks and business, return to the flawed policy of primarily supporting carbon-based fuels, and generally run a government that will benefit the few at the expense of the many. Over the last four years, the Republican leadership under pressure from the Tea Party and big money have taken a no-compromise approach to government simply feeding the polarization that was there before 2008. In contrast the Democrats under Obama have sought to find a “middle ground” – either out of a commitment to consensus government or just plain spinelessness – I have never been really clear.

Well, Mr. President, its time to return to hope and change. There are many of us who still embrace your vision of a more inclusive, more just, more compassionate America. The issue for us is not more or less government, but what kind of government: a government that recognizes that poor people are citizens too, that wealthy people need to pay their fair share, that quality education and health care should be a right not a privilege, and that while business is an important part of our economy, government is more than simply about serving the desires of business at the expense of the general population. In a sense Mr. President, we want to hold you to your promises and to the vision that you presented four years ago.

In that way we don’t want you to spend your ad time and campaigning Romney/Ryan bashing, but rather presenting a vision of what you would and could do if given a second term.  Every week I get phone calls, emails and junk mail from the Democrats bashing the opposition; I’m sorry but that’s not what motivates me. Psychologists tell us that fear and anger are short term motivators, but hope and love last over a long time. The change needed to transform this country is long term, longer than your next 4 year term.  We are in a struggle for the future and soul of the country; more than that millions of lives are at stake when we talk about government initiatives in healthcare, poverty reduction, education and the like.

Like Reinhold Neibuhr I recognize that the work of government involves compromise and struggle, and that what government achieves will fall short of perfection. But like contemporary prophets such as Martin Luther King, and the Anabaptist peacemakers thru the centuries, I believe the role of people of faith is to call government, society and culture to a higher standard, even when I recognize it will fall short of reaching that standard. Mr. President, when you spoke of hope and change you pointed us to that higher ideal. I support your original vision – please return and you will have my active support. Continue to run negative ads and you will have my vote, but not much more.

If This is Class Warfare, Who Started the War?

Republican Congressional leaders John Boehner and Mitch MConnell have criticized President Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on people earning over  $1 million per year and called it “class warfare.” The comment would be laughable, if the Republican leaders had not convinced themselves that they really believed millionaires were under siege. It would be laughable that stalwart defenders of free market capitalism are now calling upon a Marxist concept to defend the right of the wealthy not to bear their share of the burden for balancing the nation’s budget. However, it’s not laughable because these guys are serious, and they want us to buy their garbage.

Last week the U.S. Census reported that in 2010 the percentage of people in the United States living under the poverty line rose to 15.1%, the highest rate since 1983 when it was 15.3%. That number rose .8% from 2009 to 2010. Put another way a Northeastern University study estimated that 37% (more than 1 in 3) young families were living in poverty. That’s a family of four living under $22,314. At such a low arbitrary level that means millions more Americans currently live at a level that does not enable them to make ends meet for basic needs. As is always the case, these figures are much higher for African Americans (27% under the poverty line) and Hispanics (26% under the poverty line).

But that’s not the whole story because get this: at the same time more people were losing their homes and jobs and slipping into poverty, the wealthiest 1% of the population (those earning more than $620,00/year in 2008 dollars) increased their income by an average of 7.3% from 2009 to 2010. This group also had an average tax cut of $97,000! Over the last decade the average income of this top 1% group quadrupled from $347,000 to $1.3 million. (This data came from the Coalition for Human Needs -www.cfn.org )

Simple math doesn’t lie – while the masses at the bottom lost money, the top 1% were gaining money. How did that happen? Class Warfare.

However, it didn’t happen last week when Obama announced his jobs and tax plan, it started 30 years ago under President Reagan who espoused “supply side economics” and substantially cut the taxes of the wealthy with the idea that the riches at the top would trickle down to the masses in the form of jobs and benefits (interestingly the last big rise in poverty came during that time). Reagan also went after the unions, particularly the Air Controllers, and framed the issue that the working people wanting better wages – they were the problem; and so unions have continually gotten weaker ever since.

Then along came the first President Bush and Pres. Clinton who pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which made it easier for companies to go to Mexico in search of cheaper labor and less restrictive regulations about workers’ safety and environmental standards. Not only did NAFTA undercut the right of people to advocate for living wages, but it created all sorts of problems for Mexicans which has led to the mass migration north across the border in search of jobs, even if they come under threat of arrest and deportation.

Then came the second President Bush, who pushed through tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the promise that these tax cuts would create jobs. Oops – how is that jobs program coming? O yea we are up to 1983 levels of poverty and unemployment.

Then when Obama proposed universal health care the lobbyists and corporate interest groups flooded the congress with “influence” (read: lots of campaign money), so that the bill that passed (and they still criticize) was gutted of its most powerful provisions for health care for the needy.

At the same time the stock market crashed and the banks “too big to fail” almost did. People lost their homes to funky mortgages, and Presidents Bush and Obama bailed them out so they could help those folks restructure the mortgages, right? Oh no, the banks  gave their top execs those bonuses they had been so long denied for the great job they had done managing their and our money. At the same time along Goldman Sachs and their ilk were making bundles on our suffering and theirs.

Then in 2010, Republican governors like Scott Walker (WI), Tom Corbett (PA) and Chris Christie (NJ) (as well as many others) supported by ultra-right wing wealthy backers like the Koch brothers began slashing state budgets in the name of “fiscal responsibility). Interestingly they still couldn’t tax the rich or the corporations; they just cut public school budgets and social services for the poor and working class.

The really sad thing, is not only did both Republican and Democratic leaders systematically bilk the middle and working classes and pad the pockets of the wealthiest 5% of the population, but they got millions of middle class folks to think this problem was all due to “big government” “socialists and liberals" and “illegal immigrants.” So the Tea Party folks are marching and chanting for policies that literally will slash their incomes and undermine their financial security.

So Obama finally gets the courage to tax the rich, and Boehner and McConnell want to call it “class warfare?” Come on guys our “hope and change” President has finally had enough and he is calling your bluff. The war has been going on for a long time, and we are just getting around fighting back. And I hope we will. I hope we will take to the streets like the people of Cairo and Madison, Wisconsin, and say enough is enough. 

Employers if you want a tax break – create jobs. Rich folks, don’t hide behind the line “it will hurt small business;” we can create tax credits for small business employers. Provide support and incentives for green jobs and local businesses to flourish. Stop giving tax breaks to the Exxons of the world, and let the rich folks man up like Warren Buffett, and say, you know, $97,000 in tax cuts, that’s not needed. Let them show that they care about the financial state of the country. Let them show they want to part of the solution to the debt crisis. Let them bear their part of the financial burden.

Class warfare – yea it’s been going on for 30 years. Let’s just keep in mind who started the war.

Bill O'Reilly, Racism and White People

On Easter Sunday President Obama and his family attended church at Shiloh Baptist Church, an historic African American church in Washington, D.C. The pastor of Shiloh Baptist is Dr. Wallace Smith, who along with his pastoral duties is a faculty member and past president of Palmer Theological Seminary, the seminary connected to Eastern University where I also work. Now whenever the President does anything, it is news, but Bill O’Reilly of Fox News went overboard in seeking to attack Obama; he charged that Wallace Smith was a race baiting pastor in the vein of Rev. Jermeiah Wright, and that Obama exercised poor judgment in worshipping there.You remember that Rev. Wright, Obama’s pastor when he lived in Chicago, made strong statements about the nature of racism in the United States that offended the sensibilities of many in the media. Frankly, I thought Rev. Wright was right on point and said so at the time. Nevertheless then candidate Obama was criticized for associating with Rev. Wright and ended up making an historic speech in Philadelphia on his views on racism and the need for racial reconciliation in America. However O’Reilly made in an effort to raise questions about Obama’s judgment and character took issue with Dr. Smith’s perspective on race in America and so called him “Jeremiah Wright Junior” (which was obviously not meant to be a compliment, but probably was!). 

Now O’Reilly’s charge that Wallace Smith was somehow fomenting racial division and the assumptions that led him to make that charge are so outrageous and ludicrous that my first inclination is to simply ignore them (in fact because I rarely watch Fox News I did not know of it until nearly three weeks after the incident). However, in reality O’Reilly and Fox News have such a wide following among political conservatives, one can not simply pass him off as a quack. But more to the point, even though many might object to O’Reilly’s perspective (and in fact in that same show he had a fellow journalist who disagreed with his assessment), the assumptions behind O’Reilly’s statements are ones that are held by many white Americans, including many people of liberal persuasion. For that reason O’Reilly’s statements bear closer examination.

You may see and hear O’Reilly’s statement here. I encourage you to watch the clip at least 2-3 times to become familiar with his statements and move beyond your immediate emotional reaction so as to be able to take a more reasoned and analytical view of what is going on here. There are so many points one could make, space does not allow me to make them all, but let me highlight just a few.

The charge that Dr. Smith is racist is based on a short clip from a lecture he delivered at Palmer Seminary in 2010 on the topic of racism. In the clip he is talking about Jim Crow (i.e. segregation) practices. His point is that while Jim Crow is technically illegal today, it has become sophisticated and mainstreamed. As Smith artistically put it, Jim Crow has “dressed up in a three piece suit” and has become institutionalized not only in public policy but also media outlets such as Fox News. It is this last statement that O’Reilly takes offense at.

O’Reilly begins by calling Dr. Smith a “race activist,” which I find to be a curious term; I’m not sure what exactly it means. O’Reilly is not going for semantic clarity here, he is putting together two politically charged terms (at least for conservatives): “race” and “activist.” The term “race activist” is meant to convey the same kind of fear that “liberal” or “socialist” or “communist” conveys. It is meant to suggest that Dr. Smith is seeking to make white people feel guilty by talking about race and racism, and therefore is being inflammatory and dangerous.

I am part of a group called New Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (NewCORE) of which Dr. Smith is the co-chair and founder. NewCORE’s mission is to facilitate conversations between groups (particularly faith communities) that are predominantly black and predominantly white. On Martin Luther King Day, I participated in a series of inter-racial conversations that NewCORE organized. The purpose of groups like New CORE is not to propagate white guilt, but rather to raise awareness and understanding across racial and ethnic lines. Now for whites one of the first consequences of greater awareness is often a feeling of guilt. As one who has facilitated and participated in such conversations many times, I have come to see that for most whites, including myself, guilt about race is often just beneath the surface. But the goal of raising awareness is not to cause racial division but to create understanding. So if that is what a race activist does, then I am one too.

O’Reilly then says he is insulted and that in all his years at Fox News he has never met anyone who is racist. Like many whites (and in fact many people of color), O’Reilly thinks of racism only in individualistic terms, that a “racist” is a person who uses the n-word and is overtly hostile to people of other races. So in effect what O’Reilly is saying is that he hasn’t met anybody at Fox who goes around using racist language. However racist language and behavior is only the tip of the racism iceberg. What Wallace Smith refers to in the clip O’Reilly airs is institutionalized racism, that is policies, practices and perspectives, which have become normative and socially acceptable yet in their effect consistently treat people of color in a deleterious way. So while O’Reilly or the head of a government agency may not go around spouting racial slurs, the effect of their actions still can have a racist effect.

What makes institutionalized racism so hideous is that fact that it can be accepted as normative. So for instance, as state governments across the country cut their education budgets, poorer urban and rural school districts are taking the biggest hits. Those districts tend to overwhelmingly serve students of color. Those students of color just happen to live in the communities that most often have fewer libraries, city services, grocery stores and clean parks. And it just so happens that the people in those communities happen to be more unemployed and have less adequate healthcare insurance, if they have it at all. And if they do work, it is not in their community but a community far away from where they live. Moreover, it turns out that the young men in these communities are more likely to commit crimes and go to jail creating what Michelle Alexander has called “The New Jim Crow.”

Now did anyone at any point along this chain of causation say “we’re going to stick it to those n-----s.” Not necessarily, but the negative effect of those policies is disproportionately impacts people of color. In fact in his piece O’Reilly refers to U.S. culture as “race-neutral,” which given the history of race relations in this country seems ludicrous, but beyond that is negated by the impact of policies such as I just described.

As long as white people like O’Reilly only see racism in strictly individualistic and personal terms, they miss the larger issue of how our society is structured in such a way that gives white people like me and Bill O’Reilly privileges and advantages most black and Latino people can not assume. I am not profiled because of my race. I am not denied an interview because of my race. Real estate values don’t go down when I move into a neighborhood. When I make a public mistake, people don’t say I am a discredit to my race. Moreover, I don’t even have to be reminded everyday that I am white, except perhaps when I am in a social situation where I am a racial minority --- which by the way is what people of color face everyday in this society. I don’t have to hear people tell me that I am a “good white person” and so “articulate” for a person of my race.

If the kinds of policies and practices that impact communities of color every day were effecting predominantly white communities, O’Reilly would be crying “foul” and “racist,” but because white communities have been disproportionately protected from such effects, O’Reilly thinks people like Dr. Wallace Smith are “race-baiting” and stirring up trouble for simply pointing the disparities out.

While there is so much more that one could say in response to O’Reilly statements, I will leave it at that. What is so disgusting is that his ignorance is willful. He is not only uninformed, he chooses to be uninformed by choosing not to consider the words of an accomplished scholar and man of integrity such as Dr. Wallace Smith. Instead O'Reilly dismisses Smith because his feelings are hurt and he further twists those feelings into an attack on a president whose views he doesn’t like. While those of us who are white would like to distance ourselves from O’Reilly, I think it is important for us to consider and grapple with the ways in which we may think and respond like him. Moreover, we should use this incident as a way of deepening our understanding of how deeply embedded racism is in our society.

In the words of Shakespeare, O’Reilly “protesteth too much” and in fact proves the very point he seeks to criticize.

[Pictures courtesy of Google Images]

A Pacifist Response to Libya

Monday night (March 28) Pres. Obama addressed the nation explaining his reasons for ordering military action to enforce a “No Fly Zone” in Libya. Essentially, he said that (1) he wanted to prevent the slaughter of innocent Libyan citizens by Libyan government forces and (2) that taking that action was in “our national interest.” While he did not spell out what those interests were, it’s pretty certain that a major factor in the decision had to do with the fact that Libya pumps out a lot of oil.

A few days earlier I was indirectly challenged by two people (a close friend who is clearly states he is not a pacifist, and a former student who is considering joining the Navy) to offer a pacifist response to the current situation in Libya; so here it is.

The root of the word “pacifism” is the Latin word “pace” or peace. In Biblical Hebrew the word for peace is “shalom,” which is a robust word not only meaning the absence of  conflict, but also the restoration of people to each other and to the creation. Shalom is celebrated in the passage from Isaiah where  the prophet writes:

            The wolf will live with the lamb

            The leopard will lied dies with the goat

            The calf and the lion and the yearling together

            And a little child will lead them (Isaiah 11.6)

Shalom is a picture of former adversaries living in harmony and trust, devoid of hatred or fear. As a pacifist I yearn for and work toward this vision of the world, realizing we might not get there fully, but we can get closer than we currently are.

Sam Keen, philosopher and author of Fire in the Belly, comes close to my position on war when he writes: “It would be Utopian to wish that men should no longer kill one another … But a much sounder Utopia is that which insists that murder no longer be legitimized” (p. 114). Applied to Libya it means, yes it may have been necessary to send war planes to bomb military sites and advancing armies in Libya in order to save lives, but let’s not try to legitimize or glorify the fact that we had to do it. The foot soldiers in Qadaffi’s army are as blindly “innocent” as the citizens who they threatened and the rebels fighting against Qaddafi. In war there are no winners.

More importantly we need to look at how we got in a position where it was “necessary” for us to invade Libya. Qaddafi has been in power for 40 years. A little less than 40 years ago in the mid-1970’s the United States faced an oil shortage which caused us to ration gas and wait in long lines to fuel our cars. Then-President Jimmy Carter implored the nation to turn down their thermostats, wear sweaters, drive fuel efficient cars and generally change our lifestyles. We didn’t listen, ridiculed Carter, started driving SUVs, chewed up more and more farmland for suburban neighborhoods and generally ignored the early warning the 1970’s gas crisis gave us. Since then we have had the hostage crises in Iran, two Iraq wars, a war in Afghanistan, ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, various crises in Lebanon, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern countries; and now Libya. Moreover, Colonel Qaddafi didn’t become a tyrant 10 days ago; he’s been a tyrant for 40 years; President Obama admitted as much the other night. So what is the common denominator connecting all of these events over the last 40 years? Our dependence on oil. President Carter was right then and is still right today.

I have no objection to a standing military that helps earthquake victims in Haiti or ferries victims of Hurricane Katrina to safety, or is currently helping the Japanese people cope with their recent earthquake. I don’t even object to the military trying to stop innocent slaughter in places like Bosnia in the 1990’s or Libya today. But when we must continually turn to military solutions, let us see these incursions for what they are: a tragic failure of we who are the wealthy of the world to curb our voracious lifestyles. This invasion would not have been "necessary" were it not for the oil. Qaddafi would have been a minor desert warlord were it not for the oil. He would not have been tacitly supported as the world looked the other way, had we been working to change our lifestyles so that we were not so oil-dependent.

In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor forsook his pacifist stance to take part in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. The plot failed, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned, and was executed for his crime days before the Germans surrendered to the Allies. However as theologian Walter Wink notes Bonhoeffer never considered his participation in the plot a “justifiable action” but rather a sin, and he threw himself on the mercy of God for what he had done. At the time he saw no other option, but he never sought to justify it.

President Obama and the NATO forces are to be commended for the limited role our military has played in the Libyan situation. However, seen in the larger context of our voracious consumptive American lifestyle, and the “interests” we protect to maintain that lifestyle can not be justified. Our continual dependence on carbon based fuels to support our lifestyle continues to lead to wars, destroys the environment, drains resources for addressing desperate needs in our own country, and makes all the world’s people vulnerable to tyrants whose land happens to be sitting over an oil well.

Libya should cause us to heed the call Pres. Carter gave us nearly 40 years ago. The world can not afford us; we can not afford ourselves. A world beyond war, a taste of shalom, can only happen as we not only stop tyrants like Colonel Qadaffi, but also look at ourselves, and ask how are we willing to change so that war does not become necessary to protect our “interests?”

Barack Obama, Guns and People of Faith

This past week Pres. Barack Obama delivered a speech in Arizona in which he proposed that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System be strengthened so as to deny known felons the opportunity to purchase guns. Groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Ceasefire Pennsylvania came out praising the president for calling for this legislation. The irony is that the law already exists; it is just that some states and local jurisdictions don’t abide by the law and faithfully provide the data that is needed. The problem is not the lack of law, but the lack of enforcement. You can bet that those states that have loose gun control laws are also those states that don’t cooperate with this federal law either. Apparently, for the gun lobby any law that might restrict the right of someone, even someone with a history of violent crime, is too much “regulation.” 

If there was any doubt about how far the gun lobby will go to fight any and all gun regulations, following his speech, Pres. Obama invited leaders of the NRA to meet with members of his Justice Department to discuss gun legislation they could agree on. NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre rejected the invitation saying that Obama was only using a “political maneuver” designed to “take away our Second Amendment rights.” However, as Obama pointed out in his speech, his administration has expanded the rights of gun owners, and he now supports the Supreme Court’s specious interpretation of the Second Amendment.  Moreover he waited two years before filling the directorship of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF),  and did not extend the assault weapons ban. Barack has been the best friend the NRA has ever had, Republican or Democrat. However, as far as La Pierre and the NRA is concerned, any gun law apparently is a bad law, even though they apparently have Obama eating out of their hands. 

Recently, I made a presentation on the gun lobby at a conference. In the context of that presentation, I referred to a comment made by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s political advisor in the 1990’s. In 1993 then Pres. Clinton signed the Brady Bill, establishing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (that Obama says we now must enforce), and pushed through the Assault Weapons Ban (which Obama let expire). In the 1994 midterm elections, the Democrats took a beating at the polls much like they did this past year. Carville attributed that defeat in part to Clinton’s support of these two significant pieces of gun control legislation. Ever since that time Democrats have been running scared of the NRA and the gun lobby, backing away from any efforts to enact common sense gun legislation such as requiring more extensive background checks that would include things such as mental health records, and repealing the Tiahrt Amendment a bill that exempts the BATF from releasing data on the gun shops that are the source of the most guns used in crime. By his tepid call to ask states to follow the laws that already exist, Obama and his Democratic cohorts continue in their timid inaction on gun legislation. (To read the full story see Dennis Henigan's book, Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy).

What the Obama and the rest of the Democrats fail to grasp is that any policy of conciliation with the ultra conservatives is fruitless. For the conservatives is no compromise, only hard ball. The gun lobby is not satisfied with the status quo, they are pushing hard for legislation that would allow guns to be carried onto college campuses and on public transportation, and laws that would release the ban on all efforts to regulate the sale of guns of any size or firepower. Only by being as hard nosed and persistent as the gun lobby can those of us who seek to limit the sale of handguns (whose only purpose is to kill and injure other people), hope to see  significant changes need in gun control legislation to be enacted.

Comedian John Stewart has often made fun of the Democrats for being “wimps” on the issues they say are important to them. They have no spine to speak up for strong legislation whether it deals with health care or gun legislation. The truth be told, some of these “wimpish”  Democrats are probably as much in the pocket of the gun lobby as their conservative counterparts. Ironically, Gabrielle Giffords was one of those pro-gun Democrats; look where it got her.

In my presentation, I argued that the only effective response to the insane gun-mania and power of the gun industry and gun lobby is a grass roots movement. Christians and other faith groups can and must play a part in developing that movement.  Just as the gun lobby speaks of the values that support the right to own and use a gun, so too people of faith deal in the realm of values, but only those that speak to the need for peace and harmony among people. While we may not have the money the gun lobby can throw around ($2.1 million int he 2010 elections alone), we can galvanize people to act with their voice and their vote. This is why grassroots, faith based groups like Heeding God’s Call are essential to the gun violence prevention movement. If we wait for our political leaders to act,  even our supposed progressive president, we will be waiting a very long time.

What Else I Wish Obama Had Said

In Tuesday night’s speech President Obama sought to assure the nation that he was on top of the situation with the BP oil spill and that the company would be held accountable. As a result BP has been forced to set up an multibillion dollar emergency fund for victims of the spill. He also used the speech as an opportunity to emphasize the need for the U.S. to push more aggressively toward developing clean energy sources. As far as it went, I was satisfied and impressed with the President’s resolve. So what follows is not meant to be taken as a criticism of President Obama, but I must admit that I wish he said more.

I wish Pres. Obama had taken the occasion not only to push for clean energy, but also for calling us to simplify our lifestyles. While I am not aware of the current percentages, I do know that as 5-6% of the world’s population, the United States consumes well over half of the world’s natural resources. This need for natural resources, such as petroleum, causes us to go to war in the Middle East, to seek resources in previously protected and restricted wilderness areas, and to push further out into the ocean floor for oil. Had the accident that occurred in the Gulf occurred on land, there would have been no deaths, the well could have been capped immediately, and the unfolding environmental disaster in the Gulf would not have happened. The environment and the world at large can not afford us, nor can it afford countries like China and Brazil trying to emulate and catch up to us in terms of lifestyle.

By stopping at calling for clean energy and not also a change in life style, President Obama implied that we can keep on living our exorbitant and wasteful lifestyles, as long as we have “clean” energy. His options in addition to wind and solar energy, are nuclear power, which we still have not figured out how to “safely” store nuclear wastes for thousands of year, and so called “clean” coal, which many experts say is an oxymoron. What the world and the environment need is for those of us in the developed world to reduce our carbon footprint, by driving our cars less, eating locally grown food (rather than having things shipped from all over the world), and building communities that are eco-friendly rather than wasteful.

A few years ago I attended a conference at the University of Pennsylvania with the title “Building Cities After the Age of Oil.” This collection of scientists, architects and urban planners shared ideas and models for building communities that were walkable, and energy efficient, and that utilized clean energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal. They talked about having gardens on the tops of houses, capturing rainwater for cleaning, building more public transportation, relying less on cars, and finding ways to store and save energy in neighborhoods. While much of the technical discussion was over my head, the message at that conference was clear: we know how to build green cities and green communities, what we lack is the political will.

I have no idea if President Obama sees the need for simplifying our lifestyles, but if he did, calling for a reduction of our consumptive lifestyles would be politically risky. I still remember then President Jimmy Carter during the gas crisis of the late 1970’s. He called on Americans to turn their thermostats down to 68 degrees and put on sweaters as a way of reducing our energy consumption. He is still ridiculed for that statement 30 years later, but he was right then and he would be right now.

The world can not afford our lifestyle, nor our pursuits to support that lifestyle. We would have no reason to be militarily involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, were it not for oil and our addiction to it. We would have no need to be drilling further and further out in the ocean, were it not for our need for multiple, often gas-guzzling automobiles. As President Obama contemplates allowing for more offshore drilling, the current crisis should give us pause to ask if that is truly necessary. Now the critics will bring up the economy and the fact that it could be economically disastrous for some. The disaster is upon us, the question is: will we get the message its trying to give us?

There are numerous resources that can help us learn how to simplify. The place to start is with ourselves, to (in Gandhi’s words) “be the change we want to see.” Two resources that I have found helpful are Simple Living.Net and the Sabbath Economics Collaborative , both of which provide practical guides for living more simply, justly and eco-friendly. However, simply Google-ing “simple living” would reveal any number of other resources.

As the experts at the conference stressed, the issue is not that we don’t know what to do, or how to do it; we just lack the will. Every day the oil oozes out into the gulf and pollutes the shore line, we should be reminded that the birds, fish, vegetation, and the world at large can not afford us. It is not just BP that must mend its way. We too must look closely at how we are living.

Big Government or Big Business - Hold Your Nose Because Both Stink!

Last May my daughter graduated from college. Because of the recession, she has not been able to find a full time job. In October she caught a virus (not H1N1 gratefully) and had to go to a hospital emergency room. She had no health insurance. As a single person with no job picking up the health insurance tab, she was on her own. We helped her pay the bill, but it brought home in a deeply personal way, the need for health care reform in this country.

This coming week the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a Health Care Reform bill. While I am in support of passing the bill, I do so holding my nose at the inadequacy of this proposed bill. In my mind it is better than nothing because people unable to afford health insurance will have an option, but the failure of the Congress, particularly the Democrats, to really tackle the problem of exorbitant costs and rapacious profits of the health insurance companies is both damning and discouraging.

For example in an appearance before Congress, Angela Braly, CEO of Wellpoint Health, the parent of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, with a straight face justified a 39% hike in premium costs in California, while she admitted to a nearly $200 million salary. In fact this year was one of Wellpoint’s most profitable.(See a clip of Ms.Braly's testimony here.) While the conservatives are shouting that the health care bill is “big government” because the bill uses taxpayer money, we need to also recognize that the bill provides subsidies to be paid to health insurance companies without any significant effort to rein in their profits and premiums. While I do not doubt the cost to the government in this bill, what is unconscionable is the unprecedented profits to the health insurance companies. Whether the bill passes or fails, the health insurance companies like Braly’s Wellpoint will still come out making billions.

I am reminded of how following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit in 2005, the oil companies jacked up their prices to over $4/gallon because their “refineries were down.” Amazingly, the oil companies posted record profits that year. It was so nice of oil companies to share their pain with us! Now the banks and the health insurance companies are doing the same. The population as a whole suffers and tiny elite profits in ways that are beyond imagining. When companies began becoming “incorporated” in the late 1800’s, part of the understanding with becoming incorporated was that a company would do business with the common good in mind. Tragically, with many companies, especially banks, big business and now health insurance companies, that is no longer the case.

In a recent article Trudy Rubin discussed the government provided health care in several European countries. While the French and the Germans provide health care for all their citizens at 10 and 11% of their GDP respectively, the US spends 17% of its GDP on health care and doesn’t cover everyone. Whereas US health insurance companies generally have 20% overhead (for those bloated salaries, stock options, and other executive perks), France and Germany spend only 5% in administrative costs. France and Germany don’t have to advertise their health care as it is provided to all. However in this country the health care industry invests millions of dollars in is lobbyists and advertisements that obfuscate the true state of our health care system, and redirect our attention away from the abysmal quality of life of millions of people in this country must endure.

Last summer when Pres. Obama started proposing the health care reform bill, it included price controls and the so-called “public option,” which put the for profit companies in competition with a non-profit provider. Now all of that is gone. If the bill passes, it will hopefully enable my daughter to get affordable health care; we’ll see. However, whatever company she chooses to go with, it will not be making any sacrifices to make health care available to her or anyone else.

Yes there will be a big price tag for health care, but let’s be honest and note where those dollars are going --- right into the pockets of the companies that already have been sticking it to us all along…and unfortunately will continue to do so, no matter what. So the argument about big government is only true because big business is ripping us all off.

Seeking Leaders of Grit and Integrity

During our recent trip to Atlanta, my wife and I took the better part of a morning to tour the Carter Center and Library, the presidential library dedicated to preserving the memory of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. What both amazed and troubled us was the current relevance of the words and actions of Carter’s presidency. While his presidency (1977-1981) was overshadowed and ultimately undermined by the Iranian hostage crisis, many of the issues that Barack Obama is seeking to address today, were very much on Jimmy Carter’s agenda in the late 1970’s. Carter was a strong advocate for universal health care reform and energy efficiency (Carter is often remembered and ridiculed for encouraging people to turn down their thermostats and wearing sweaters, and encouraging the auto industry to develop more energy efficient cars). He was a strong advocate for peace in the Middle East, having mediated a lasting peace between Israel and Egpyt. Moreover, Carter presided over an economic recession and called for wealthy people and businesses to contribute their fair share. Carter was also a strong advocate for civil rights and was a man of unimpeachable integrity.

As my wife and I read Carter’s words on these and other issues, we were struck with how little our culture has moved from it’s bellicose, gas guzzling, pro-wealthy strategies. We could not help but see the parallels between the challenges Obama faces today and Carter faced over 30 years ago. When Ronald Reagan was elected president, he removed several of the environmentally-friendly policies of Carter, he released the controls on big business, and ushered in an era of increasing and growing disparity between the rich and poor. So here we are again with Obama addressing the same issues Carter warned us about 30 years ago.

As I walked through the Carter Center I was filled with feelings of appreciation and regret. When Carter ran for re-election in 1980, I did not vote for him; I voted for the third party candidate, John Anderson. Like many people, I was disappointed with Carter’s apparent lack of leadership. What I didn’t realize was that Reagan would so completely undo the good Carter accomplished, and undermine so much of the good he accomplished.

The other day I received a call from the Democratic Party seeking a donation for the upcoming Congressional mid-term elections. I turned them down and said I would focus on my local candidates. At the time I was not sure I was actually going to do that, but after reflecting on my visit to the Carter Center, I realize that we need to find candidates with integrity and with a progressive agenda in regards to health care, economic reform and creative solutions for seeking Middle Eastern peace. So often when I look at what goes on in Congress, all I see is a bunch of hypocrites pointing fingers, while taking contributions from corporations, pharmaceutical companies and other special interest groups. I don’t see many folks who care about the poor or the needs of the marginalized in our society (including undocumented immigrants). I don’t see leaders who are willing to step up and actually make universal health care a reality. I don’t see leaders who are willing to seek creative avenues for peace. However, they are out there; there are occasional politicians of grit and integrity like Jimmy Carter, and like Barack Obama.

I must admit that in recent years I have become cynical about our democracy. It appears that our representative democracy only represents those with the fattest checkbooks. However, I realize anew that I can’t make the same mistake I made about Jimmy Carter. He has done a great deal of good since leaving office, but another 4 years in office might have led to a far different result today. Perhaps we would not still be trying to pass health care reform; perhaps we would be much further ahead in the battle against global warming; perhaps the poor would have more dignity. Touring the Carter Center reminded me that the battle for justice and peace is an uphill battle, and those politicians willing to wage that battle deserve and need our support.

Paradoxical Hope in the Age of Obama

Last year when Barack Obama was running for president the overriding theme was Hope. He had even written a book called The Audacity of Hope that outlined his vision for the United States. Many if not most the people who voted for him saw his election in almost messianic terms in that it was believed that Barack Obama would bring significant changes both in terms of government policies at home and our image and interaction with peoples around the world. Apparently the Nobel Peace prize voters thought so too, as it is widely agreed (even by Obama himself) this being given that award was not so much for what he had done, as for the hope and expectation his election to the presidency represented to the world.

For the last year Pres. Obama has been working to enact the agenda he campaigned on in spite of a crippling economic recession that reached its lowest point just as he assumed office. He has taken or proposed actions to stimulate the economy, hold financial institutions and big business more accountable, challenge people adapt to the realities of global warming, and pass comprehensive health care legislation. His vision and hope for change have clashed head on with the realities of conservative resistance and liberal dithering at home, and the brutality, oppression, and violence abroad.

Most recently Obama made a decision to send 30,000 more troops to fight an unwinable war in Afghanistan. I, like many others believe our approach there needs to be less military and more focused on education, building infrastructure and developing the economy. As Greg Mortenson points out in his book Three Cups of Tea, the best way to fight the Taliban is to build more schools. Our current approach simply kills more innocent civilians and therefore creates more “terrorists” whereas helping the common folks with their basic needs will not only raise their prospects but also draw them in to friendship.

Now to Pres. Obama’s credit, during his campaign he consistently said he would send more troops to Afghanistan. So no one should have been surprised at his decision. That’s why the Nobel Peace prize folks got a speech on just war theory because that is how Obama saw our involvement in Afghanistan. As he was deliberating these past months, I admit I was hoping that he would change his mind, but in the end he did not. So I was not surprised even though I was deeply saddened.

Despite Pres. Obama’s argument to the contrary, Afghanistan is very much like the Vietnam War: an unwinnable war, against a small and illusory enemy, supporting a corrupt government, in an effort without clear and measurable objectives. As Yogi Berra might say “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

All of this has gotten me wondering: Where is the hope we had so counted on and vote for?

Like many Americans I have generally believed in history as progress – that idea that as a nation we are slowly evolving toward higher levels of understanding and functioning that as our politicians often tell us, “Our best days are still ahead of us.” Moreover as a Christian I have generally subscribed to the idea that God is active in human history and moving humankind toward some glorious and positive conclusion, that the Kingdom of God is breaking into our world and at some point God will send Jesus to bring that process to completion.

Not any longer.

I have pretty much chucked those ideas now. I don’t see history as progress, nor do I see God moving us toward some millennium. I now see history, like I see my life, as a series of recurring patterns. The awareness of these patterns gives me the opportunity to learn and possibly change. However, the reality is that those patterns are so deeply ingrained that often change is difficult to achieve, and when it does occur, it is usually partial and inadequate. So for instance in my personal life, I find that the older I get the more I become like my parents in ways I find both rewarding and disconcerting. When it comes to events on the world stage, I see humankind repeating patterns, such as we are with Afghanistan, a pattern that reminds me disturbingly of the tragedy of Vietnam.

The even larger pattern I see is that empires fall. Persia, Egypt, Rome, Great Britain and the Soviet Union once were all great empires that dominated large parts of their world. Today those former empires are shadows of themselves. The United States as an empire is also destined to fall; it is part of an historical pattern. Whether it will happen in my lifetime or the lives of my kids, I can’t say. However, the decision about Afghanistan, along with the worldwide economic crisis triggered by Wall Street, the environmental challenges of global warming, and the growing disparities of wealth and poverty at home point to signs that US empire is beginning to crumble; we are repeating many of the same patterns of empires before us.

Despite these seemingly dire circumstances and my admittedly pessimistic perspective on our nation’s prospects, I still am a person of hope.

I am a person of hope not because I think we will break the pattern, but because I believe we survive and sometimes even thrive as a human race despite those patterns. My hope is not in the United States or Barack Obama or some romantic notion of human evolution, but rather in a God whose very Spirit gives the human race the capacity to somehow endure dramatic and often drastic changes. It concerns and saddens me greatly that millions of people suffer humanity’s arrogance and ignorance, and un willingness to learn from our mistakes. Nonetheless, it is the perseverance of those who struggle, who are oppressed, and who are neglected and maligned by the powers that be, who at the same time somehow are able to celebrate and dance. My hope is in God’s gift of resilience. My hope is in God who has sided with the dispossessed and marginalized against the powers that be, and who remains constant despite the recurring patterns of history.

As Jim Wallis writes : “Hope is the door from one reality to another. Things that seem possible, reasonable, understandable, even logical in hindsight….often seemed quite impossible, unreasonable, nonsensical and illogical when we were looking ahead to them. The changes, the possibilities, the opportunities, the surprises that no one or very few would even have imagined become history after they’ve occurred.” (quoted in Bass, The People’s History of Christianity, p. 310).

In short my hope in this age of Obama is not in our innovative and courageous president, nor a myth of human progress, but rather in the paradox that by grace God walks with us from this reality to next not because of our efforts, but often in spite of them.