Donald Trump, Howard Beale and “Network” Revisited

 Last night I decided to watch the 1976 award winning film “Network”starring Peter Finch as the crazed, mad-prophet newscaster Howard Beale. Both Finch and Faye Dunaway won Academy Awards in 1976, as did the screenplay. The movie begins with Howard Beale being informed that he was being replaced as the anchor for the evening news program of the fictional television network UBS.  The economy is in a slump, oil prices are rising, there is an air of uncertainty throughout the country and political leaders are not trusted (this is at the time right after the Watergate era and the Vietnam War). As Beale announces that he will be stepping down as the anchor in two weeks, he also proclaims that on his final show he will commit suicide on the air. This causes an uproar among the management of the network. After some back and forth, management decides to give Beale another chance to sign off appropriately and this time he announces that everything he has been talking about for the past 11 years has been bullshit. When he is given a third chance, he asks all of his viewers to go to their windows and shout as loud as they can “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!” Millions of people across the country do as he suggests and overnight Howard Beale has become a cultural sensation.

Meanwhile the young, aggressive director of programming Diana Christenson (played by Faye Dunaway) is watching this. She realizes Howard Beale is a hot commodity and so convinces her bosses to keep Beale on the air as "the mad prophet of television." So night after night Beale goes on ranting and raving about everything from the politicians to the oil companies to berating his viewers for being non-thinking robots who do whatever the people in charge tell them to do. He rants for a couple of minutes and then he feints night after night.  Ratings go through the roof. This show goes on for months until it reaches a crisis that brings the movie to an eerie and troubling climax. I won’t spoil the plot by giving the ending away, only to say that when it was over, I realized that 40 years later “Network” is still a powerfully relevant movie.

In 1976 “Network” was a statement about many things that were going on in the 1970’s, not the least of which was the complete control a few major networks controlled on what was news worth reporting. However, as I watched Beale rant and rave and stir up anger across the land, I could not help but think of Donald Trump and the violence that has begun to characterize his political rallies. Just the day before his campaign had to cancel a rally in Chicago due to the presence of so many protestors. A few days earlier in North Carolina a 78 year old Trump supporter sucker-punched a protestor as he was being led out by police. When asked about such incidents Trump either would say the protestors deserved it or as he said just today, he blamed supportersof Bernie Sanders for the violence; anything but taking responsibility for his divisive, polarizing, hate-filled rhetoric throughout the campaign.

In 1976 the message of “Network” was basically that the media was no longer interested in providing reliable and newsworthy information to the general public, but was about providing entertainment in the guise of news and making money by putting anything on the air that would get people to turn the channel to their station. Likewise the Trump campaign has not sought to offer reasonable solutions to the challenges facing the nation. Trump's  success has been built on his ability to provide a regular stream of outlandish statements and outright lies that made good headlines.

Early on in the primary season, I kept wondering why Trump was getting so much free air time. Then I remembered that long ago I realized that the reporting on political campaigns was not about the issues or fact-checking politicians’ assertions; no, political reporting was about winners and losers and focus on the most extreme and controversial things any politician said.

• Have you ever wondered how a candidate can be “gaining momentum” leading up to a vote, when no vote has been taken?
• Have you ever wondered why there is a new poll out almost every day as to which candidate is gaining or losing ground when no vote has been taken?
• Have you ever wondered why newscasters will report what a candidate has said without actually checking if there is any truth in it?

It is because the media is not helping viewers make informed political decisions when they enter the voting booth; the media sees politics as entertainment and so the more outrageous, the better!

Just like Howard Beale, Trump is cultural phenomenon who has tapped into the frustration, disillusionment, and anger of a certain segment of the population. He makes outlandish statements like he will deport all undocumented immigrants, cause all Muslims to be registered, and “bomb the hell” out of ISIS, as if these are reasonable positions, much less constitutional or remotely feasible. Then he directly and indirectly encourages his followers to violence and blames someone else for the violence when it happens.

Howard Beale was a fictional character 40 years ago, but 40 years before Beale there was a real figure named Adolf Hitler who likewise stirred a nation to anger and insanity, and eventually dragged the whole world into a World War. Adolf Hitler’s end was tragic, as was the end for Howard Beale. What will happen if Trump continues on?

Mainstream Republicans are worried that Trump will become “their candidate.” However, if he does will they seek to stop him, or in the end will they fall in line like lemmings? And will the rest of us sit easy while a mad man stirs many of our citizenry to madness? By speaking out against Trump, I am not painting any other candidate as flawless, but Donald Trump has revealed an ugly side to our country that cannot be ignored.  Regardless what happens to his candidacy, the fact that he has gotten this far is an indictment against all of us who failed to stop him and a media industry that has allowed him to get this far.

Prayer and the Power of Politics

During the week I was on my seven day silent retreat, several pivotal world events occurred: the Supreme Court decisions preserving the Affordable Care Act and the legalization of same-sex marriage; the coordinated bombings in France, Tunisia and Kuwait; Pres. Obama’s eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and the burning of seven African-American churches in South Carolina. Given that I had set aside this time to pray and reflect, I gave these events a dedicated time each day for prayer. However, the issue that consumed most of my attention then and still now was and is the budget negotiations in Harrisburg regarding the proposed increase in funding for public education (which the Democrats and governor proposed and to date the Republicans have opposed).

I was specifically focused on this issue because I knew that while I was at the Retreat Center, fifteen folks had dedicated themselves to fast and maintain a presence on the Capitol steps for the ten days from June 20 to June 30 promoting the adoption of a fully funded formula for public education in Pennsylvania. A few months earlier, I had been part of a group that had developed the idea of a 100 day “Fast for Family Values” across the state, and then worked on the idea of a “Moral Takeover” in Harrisburg focused on a 10 day fast in the final days of the budget negotiations. I had joined about 150 others on June 20 initiating the fast, as we anointed the Capitol doors and laid hands literally and figuratively on the “Harrisburg 15” who would maintain a constant presence on the Capitol steps. During the ten days various groups came each day to support the fasters, but because of my prior commitment to the retreat, I was not among them.

Having been part of the planning up to that point, I was upset and troubled that I was not able to be to support them. As an alternative, I dedicated myself to pray for the fasters and for the negotiations each day. On the retreat grounds was a labyrinth. I didn’t know much about the tradition of praying a labyrinth, nor had I ever done it before in any sort of serious way. The labyrinth is a sort of maze on the ground, which is a tool for prayer and meditation used by many religious traditions. As one author says: “Walking the labyrinth is a way of praying with the body that invites the divine presence into an active conversation with the heart and soul. By engaging in this walking meditation, we are fully engaging our minds, bodies, and spirits at the same time.” On a few evenings I walked the labyrinth thinking of the budget negotiations and praying the words from the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What struck me was that just as the labyrinth was circuitous route from the outside of the circle to the center, so too the ways of God usually do not
follow a straight path and often surprise us when our prayers are answered.

At other times I physically pointed my body in the direction of Harrisburg, even holding out my hands, seeking to reach out to the Capitol with longing and intention. In the morning and again at evening I read the latest news on the negotiations and added that information to my prayers. On a few occasions, I broke my internet silence enough to shoot off a brief email to my legislators, one of whom is the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and therefore a key player in the ongoing budget discussions. All in all I felt at one with the fasters and others advocating and protesting at the Capitol even though I was over 50 miles away.

All of this got me thinking about the power of prayer and the power of politics. Given the choice between joining in a protest or a march versus praying, I would always choose the former, so praying at a distance was different place for me. However, the more I prayed the more emboldened and hopeful I became, and I came to believe that however circuitous the route, justice for the school children of the state and of Philadelphia in particular would prevail. How I didn’t know, but it would prevail.

In their book Faith-Rooted Organizing authors Peter Heltzel and Alexia Salvatierra write “In faith-rooted organizing, we believe we can answer the question, ‘How do we want the world to be different because of our efforts?’ by casting a common vision rooted in God’s vision” (p. 29). Drawing from the examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, liberation theologians and others who rooted their protest in their faith, these authors challenge people of faith to use the tools of faith and their inherent trust in the God of justice to work for positive social change. Those of us involved in the fight for educational justice had done just that in calling for a fast, anointing the Capitol doors, laying hands on the faster and maintaining a prophetic presence. From afar, I was doing the same thing with my labyrinth walks and prayers toward the Capitol. In so doing I felt I was engaging the issue not just at the level of politics, but at the level of what the apostle Paul called “the principalities and powers” (Romans 8) undergirding the political system.

On one level, one might say, “Who are you kidding? Political power will win every time over praying.” Yet I don’t know. I remember Cory Aquino and the People Power Revolution in the Philippines when in 1986 masses of people marching and praying peacefully brought down the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. I have read of Cesar Chavez’s fast for farmworker justice. I have read of the powerful transformation that took place in South Africa with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Maybe prayer and spiritual power is more than we, at least I, think it is. As I write this, there has been no dramatic change in state funding for education, yet for the first time in a long time, I have begun to feel that the sacrificial power of prayer could win the day, and persistent work backed and accompanying prayer might just prove to be too much for legislators to ignore. We can only wait and see, and of course, pray.

[Pictures by the Author; Labyrinth from Google Images looked very much like the labyrinth I walked]

Review of Dog Whistle Politics by Ian Haney Lopez

When I heard Bill Moyers' two part interview with Ian Haney Lopez, I knew intuitively that what he was saying was true. This book by Lopez not only confirmed that intuition but added depth and detail to my understanding of the way racism has become endemic to politics in the U.S. Simply put, Lopez's thesis is that since the early 1960's conservative politicians in the Republican party and the Southern wing of the Democratic party (when Democrats had a majority in the South) have used racial code words and images to invoke race-based fear and tension in White voters to garner votes. In response liberals (largely Democrats) have shied away from talking specifically about race for fear of alienating white voters, and instead have adopted the language of post-racialism, which says we seek "universal" solutions to the nation's problems rather than race-targeted solutions (such as Affirmative Action).

Beginning with the 1964 presidential election campaign of Barry Goldwater going thru the current presidency of Barack Obama, Lopez documents in detail how "dog whistle politics" (talking about race without mentioning the word) has been used by both parties. Harking back to the words of his Harvard Law professor and originator of Critical Race Theory, Derrick Bell, Lopez shows that while racism is a permanent fixture in American life it has evolved and changed, and the ways of addressing racism must also change. The tactics of the 1950's and 60's largely do not work today, so that addressing racism today must take into account the commitment to colorblindness and post-racialism at work in the Republican and Democratic parties respectively. Lopez concludes the book with a number of suggestions for politicians, foundations, unions, civil rights organizations, educators and ordinary citizens to talk about race openly and demonstrate how the use of dog whistle politics not only injures people of color, but also a large majority of middle class and low income whites.

My one concern and criticism of the book is that Lopez clearly sees the path to racial justice running through a return to the liberal policies of FDR's New Deal. His criticism of liberals is not just that they have avoided talking about race, but also that they aren't liberal enough. However, Lopez has romanticized the FDR/New Deal era and seems to have overlooked that many of FDR's reforms excluded blacks initially and only when A. Philip Randolph called for a March on Washington in 1941 (an idea that never died and was resurrected in the famous 1963 March at which MLK gave his famous Dream speech), that FDR relented and began opening up opportunities for blacks. Haney assumes that the white liberal is the friend of the person of color, but history does not support that assumption. What is needed is a far more radical solution than a return to liberalism. Many of his suggestions will move the country in the right direction, but unless race-based policies (such as the way public schools are funded) are not completely overhauled, the structural inequities that plague the US will only morph and change some more.

The other thing I wished he had addressed, but perhaps this is the responsibility of others, is the way in which white progressives can be allies in the efforts to uncover and undermine dog whistle racism. Lopez shows how "common sense racism" operates in many all white settings, but leaves unanswered how whites committed to anti-racism, can respond to and counter the self-defeating and racially tinged assumptions that lead many whites to vote for policies that would greatly benefit them, while also helping people of color.

That being said, Lopez has provided us with a new window in which to look at the nature of racism in our society. Like Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Dog Whistle Politics is a must read for anyone wanting to understand and then dismantle the racist practices and policies at work in our society today.

Ebola Hype and the Government We Deserve

There is no question that the Ebola epidemic is a tragedy that deserves our care and concern as Americans, as people of faith, and as compassionate citizens of the world. The rising toll of deaths from this dread disease in West Africa, especially Liberia, is staggering.

Yet the response by American politicians to the handful of cases now reported to have been discovered in the U.S. has been excessive. While the disease is indeed deadly, health officials have made clear that Ebola only occurs when one is exposed to bodily fluids of one who has the disease. Thus medical personnel – nurses, doctors, aides – are the most vulnerable and have to take the strictest precautions. However, for Pres. Obama under pressure from the media and the Congress to appoint an Ebola czar, and for now Republican politicians calling for closing off our borders to travelers from certain countries speaks of political hype, and overkill.

Contrast that to these same leaders’ non-response to the ongoing problem of gun violence with thousands of deaths each year. Father Michael Phleger, a Roman Catholic priest and prophetic voice from South Chicago, recently posted these words on Facebook:

Ok, so, two Americans get the Ebola and just the fear of an epidemic has Sen. Mark Kirk say we Must Ban ALL West African Countries from coming to the US.. and the President appoint an Ebola Czar......OVER 30,000 people get killed each Year from Gun Violence, which IS an epidemic....but there is NO VIOLENCE Czar....and Mark Kirk won't even vote to have Common Sense Gun Laws.....or Ban Assault Weapons..........Interesting.........Oh, that's right, most of those killed by gun violence are Black and Brown.......silly me.....

Somehow Second Amendment Rights trump everything else, even the overwhelming death and  violence due to young people’s access to guns, which Harvard professor of Public Health Debra Prothrow-Stith has long called an “epidemic.” But then perhaps Fr. Phleger has it right when he says that the majority of victims from this violence are Blacks and Latinos, and so their situation demands no such pull-out-the-stops response.

The superficiality and political opportunism of our political leaders’ response to the Ebola crisis is made evident by the contrast to their continued unwillingness and inability to address ongoing and extensive issues of human suffering in our country from gun violence to immigration to underfunded public schools to economic disparity to health care, and so much more.

Yesterday, I was part of a group  knocking on doors in West talking about pressuring politicians to adequately fund public education in Pennsylvania. There are times I wonder if it really matters when we engage in social activism or urge people to vote on certain issue like raising the minimum wage or for a fair and full funding formula for public education or reform of the nation’s gun laws.  Then I realize that if I/we don’t continue to work and press for justice, we will get the leaders and the government we deserve.  Thankfully there are folks like Father Phleger  who remind us that if we don’t raise our voices, we can be certain that the charade in government will continue. I don’t think any citizen deserves that.

[Images provided by Google Images]

An Open Letter to Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey

Note: The following letter was set to both candidates and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

For those outside Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak (Democrat)and Pat Toomey (Republican) won their respective primaries and will face off in the November's election for the U.S. Senate now held by Arlen Specter.

Congratulations gentleman, on your respective primary victories. Though I did not vote for either of you, I am now left with the two of you as the principal candidates in this fall’s Senate election. So I have a request: please keep the campaign focused on the issues.

Mr. Sestak, you ran a campaign that basically had the message “I am a Democrat and Arlen Specter isn’t.” You rarely discussed your own positions because despite Specter’s recent change in political party, you were not substantially different than him. So you played misleading ads that highlighted Specter’s Republican connections and implicitly (by virtue of the images you showed) reminded people of Specter’s age and recent battles with cancer. It was a disgusting and disappointing campaign. In your acceptance speech you exclaimed that “Democracy works!” However, your campaign represented the worst of what democracy has become in this country, and it needs to stop.

Mr. Toomey, because you did not have a serious challenger, you did not have use such tactics in your primary campaign. Furthermore, your political strength in the Pennsylvania Republican Party was significant enough to drive Arlen Specter from the party he had served for 30 years. Your pushing him out was the first nail in his political coffin, Sestak’s victory was the second.

Even so, you now represent a party that’s recent claim to fame has been “We are not Democrats.’ Republicans have become the part of “no” – no health care reform, no banking reform, no taxes, no government. Moreover, your party has exploited race and class divisions in a manner Eduardo Bonilla-Silva calls “colorblind racism:” (Racism Without Racists, 2009) not speaking of race, but using code words race and class to turn white folks against President Obama and his agenda.

Both of you, prominently display your young children on your websites and your political ads. So here’s a proposal: Conduct yourself in this fall’s campaign in the same way you would expect your children to behave on the playground. No name calling. No dirty tricks. No misleading or dishonest statements.

Instead why not focus on the issues, since there are significant differences between you on a variety of concerns from health care reform to environmental issues to education to the role of government to gay and lesbian concern to women’s issues to immigration, and so on. Talk about those things. Let your ads focus on what you believe and how it is similar or different from your opponent. If your opponent chooses to make misleading, personal attacks, don’t take the bait. Call him out for his bad behavior. We voters are sick of the misleading attack ads; all they do is make us disrespect you more.

At the end of each day until November, before you go to bed, ask yourself this question: In my words, decisions, and behavior today was I living an example I would want my child to follow?

Believe me, if at the end of each day you can answer that question in the affirmative, we will all sleep better.

Obama and My Hope for True Democracy

I am voting for Barack Obama to be the Democratic presidential nominee and rooting for him to be the next president, and here is why: in my mind he brings me hope that as a nation we can experience true democracy. As much as President Bush and leaders in both major political parties talk about how they love democracy, it’s not true. What they like is game they call democracy where they get to write the rules and determine who gets to play, and what the outcome will be. True democracy places its trust in the power and wisdom of the people to decide, not leaders of the party. That is why the leaders of both parties prefer primaries to caucuses. In primaries you can limit the game to leading players, but in caucuses you get regular folks coming together to debate the issues and the pros/cons of the candidates. In caucuses regular folks actually think they know something about policy and leadership and they make up their own mind. They distrust the veteran politicians and listen to what makes sense to them, and the party leaders can’t stand it. What has happened this primary season is that somehow the political hacks let things get out of hand and they ended up with a McCain, a Huckabee and an Obama sparking people’s interest in actually speaking their minds, and the Clintons, Romneys and Fred Thompsons of the world are being left on the sidelines.

The fact is even the founding fathers didn’t believe in true democracy. That’s why when they set up the Constitution they limited voting power to white males of Anglo descent who owned land. Women, blacks, Native Americans, Germans Irish and poor folks were excluded from voting. That way they could control the game and predetermine who got what. Despite 200+ years of amendments that have allowed blacks, non-Anglos, women, and poor folks to vote, the game is still rigged. The other day on NPR I heard a report of all the “special interests,” such as lawyers, educators, unions, entertainers and corporate PACs that are pouring money into the campaigns of Clinton, Obama and McCain in hopes of “getting something in return.” Why should they have more access to power than the poor schmucks who are just trying to make a living and can’t give a contribution, or volunteer for a candidate? For all his talk about “exporting democracy,” George Bush doesn’t believe in democracy either. In the Gaza strip Hamas won free and fair elections, and immediately he discredited them and cut them off from any support. Furthermore, he can’t stand Hugo Chavez, the duly elected president of Venezuela, who happens to be socialist.

So why does Barack Obama give me hope? Obama came to politics as a community organizer. In his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, Obama describes his education into the needs of the working class, mostly African-American folks he got to know on the South Side of Chicago where he worked as a community organizer. Community organizers by training and orientation believe in grassroots politics. Their job is to help people identify the important issues facing their community, bring folks together around those issues, and devise ways to bring pressure on the power brokers to make changes. Community organizers trust that people can make wise and effective decisions when given the power and opportunity to do so. If you notice, in his speeches Obama uses the language of “we” and “us” a lot, and speaks of his campaign as a movement. That’s organizer language, and while it may be just a set of good political slogans, I’m hoping that it is more than rhetoric.

Clinton and McCain came through the ranks of the established political system. They talk about heir experience and how they will get things done on the first day in the job. It’s all about what they will do because “Hey, I’ve got the experience and I know how the system works.” That may be true, but the system is what is wrong. The system favors the few who either have survived the cutthroat political game or who have the money to influence the players. The game is that we call it “democracy” (the rule of the many) when it is in fact oligarchy (the reign of the few).

So I am putting my hopes on Obama. I may be wrong. The moneychangers and the power brokers may get to him. He may be pulling the wool over our eyes. But his words and actions, plus his past experience, make me want to believe that he actually wants grassroots democracy to flourish, even if it challenges his views, even if it is messy at times , and even if the big boys and girls get pushed a bit to the side.