Are Christians Right? (Or Vice Versa?)

This one was written Monday, December 03, 2007, as the 2008 Presidential campaign was beginning to ramp up. I had barely heard of that young senator from Illinois at that point, and figured the race would be between Senator Clinton and one of these Republicans; my concern was, how bad would the GOP candidate be, and would we be stuck with her?

Let's recap some recent events, just so we're all on the same wave:

*My mom sent me a hoax chain email about atheists trying to ban Christian broadcasting. Here's a link to one site with several religious-themed urban legends. Here's the Snopes take on the tale.

*MA Governor Mitt Romney, tired of facing concerns about his fitness for U.S. President, plans to give a speech defending his Mormon faith to the nation some time this week, as AR Governor Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has emerged as a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination..

*A British teacher in Sudan is convicted of insulting Islam because she allowed her students to name a class teddy bear Muhammad.
Nov 30 - story from NPR.org (note the Muslim organizations speaking out)
Dec 3 story of her pardon (note the Muslim organizations speaking out)

Now, listen: there are number of conclusions about me that people draw when they hear me talk about Christianity in a political context. The first misconception is that I either have something against all Christians, or that I will automatically oppose anything a Christian supports. In reality, I admire much about the various Christian faiths and the many good things they have done over the last 2,000 years. And the vast majority of my family belong to what many would define as "fundamentalist Christian" churches. I may disagree strongly with some of the conclusions they draw from their scriptures and the world around them, but I still love them.

Sadly, many people who identify themselves as Christian - especially in the realm of politics - misrepresent Jesus Christ and the teachings he left behind. Whatever you believe about his divinity (and I refuse to take a position on that publicly) you have to admit that he essentially advocated the Golden Rule and extremely liberal attitudes towards tolerance and forgiveness.

The second misconception is that I know nothing about Christians or their varied beliefs. Bear in mind that until I was 17, I was a Southern Baptist, and a rabidly devout one at that. Not devout enough to ignore the questions that eventually led me to abandon any kind of public faith, but devout enough to enjoy regular Bible study and Christian radio from early in my childhood. Dr. Dobson, in fact, used to be one of my favorite speakers, and I was a regular listener to his "Focus on the Family" program. To this day, I still recommend much of his advice for parents on maintaining fair and consistent discipline.

The problem I have is not with the faith of the people who are lumped together and called the "Christian Right". Rather, it is with the parties that cynically pull on their political puppet strings, turning their deep feelings over complicated issues like abortion into hot-buttons on a huge Voter Vending machine. That distress is expressed better in this Essay by Garrison Keillor. (You can also preview 4 chapters of his book, Homegrown Democrat here.) However, unlike Mr. Keillor, I feel that the Democrats are just as guilty of fueling that fire and pushing those same buttons; and I feel it is just as wrong for them to do so as it is for the Republicans to do it.

I am also deeply offended by the consistent equation of the Christian Right with something called "moral values" - a phrase purposely calculated to imply that anyone daring to disagree with their collective political positions must be "immoral". (Ann Coulter has made a career out of stressing this concept.) Maybe I don't know what the compromise solution is when it comes to issues like abortion, but I do know that solution will not be achieved by declaring anyone who varies from the party line to be a murderer. Nor will it be accomplished by insisting that one persons' rights are superior to another person - however many cells that person may have.

And since I always seem to hear them mentioned in the same breath, I have to say that the close association between abortion and the other hot-button "moral values" issue, gay marriage, is positively un-Christian. I don't care how grossed out you might be by the thought of two men on their honeymoon or raising children together, it has nowhere near the same "moral weight" as the debate over whether removing a first trimester fetus is murder. It is more accurate to compare homosexuality with another Biblical sin that called for death by stoning: the consumption of shellfish. The near constant association of homosexuals with a variety of grotesque sins is uncivil, unfair, and is the opposite of what Jesus taught. You remember that silly old line of his... "love your neighbor as yourself"? One thing about Jesus, he usually put it pretty plainly.

So what does any of this have to do with email hoaxes, Republican presidential candidates or Muslims in the Sudan? Well, it's all about the idea of tolerance.

Republicans in particular have fought hard to introduce intolerance as a guiding principle of our society over the last twenty years. They've lobbied to make "multi-culturalism" seem like the next communism. They've yanked hard on the previously mentioned puppet strings of the Christian Right, and they've used their media platforms to push the buttons sure to cause outrage in otherwise non-political middle-Americans. "You good Christian people are under attack from people who are different from you," is the consistent message.

The "atheists are trying to ban Christian broadcasting" bit is not just an old hoax, it is also easily disproven by a quick Google search (which brings up the link above, and can also turn up the the official FCC denial). And yet, the hoax persists, because people are primed to believe that "others" are trying to steal their rights. Growing up, we used to hear similar claims that Christianity was under attack all the time; from Communists, from atheists, from Catholics... and from Mormons.

And now Mitt Romney wants to ask for the tolerance of the Christian Right as he tries to set himself up as the defender of their conservative values. I almost find it funny; except that the only way to prove himself is to "out-conservative" the other candidates. Which brings us to Huckabee; as a Baptist minister, he has a wordless counter-argument working in his favor among that segment of the base. He doesn't have to pay more than lip service to the puppet strings and push buttons, thus risking total alienation if he faces the Democrat nominee later on. He only has to stand up and not be Mormon.

And I have the distinct displeasure of having to face my own biases now, because he is the only candidate stumping for the one real solution I see to many of our long-standing economic and political problems: the FairTax. Do I overlook all of the positions on which I might disagree with him? Do I assume that his lip service is just that; or do I risk supporting a candidate that will really try to enact ruinous policies in the name of his religious beliefs... like Bush has? I have been asked already: how can you seriously consider supporting a Republican after the last six years? I don't have an answer for that; how much tolerance do I show to people who believe things that I don't? Where is the line between sound judgment and reactionary bias?

Which brings me to the Muslims in the Sudan. Here we are in the midst of a quandary about how much tolerance we can muster for the religious beliefs of our leaders, and the Sudanese give us yet another object lesson on the dangers of intolerance. Certainly, with "Mohammed" being the single most common given name for human males, the offending Teddy Bear couldn't possibly be named after anyone other than the Prophet; and for such tenuous "crimes" there were strident calls in the country for the execution of a foreigner who was there with the intention to help.

Fortunately for Ms. Gibbons, President Bashar saw reason - after two Muslim Members of Parliament traveled from the UK to plead her case. Muslim groups in America and England spent that tense week expressing outrage at the violent reaction, and condemning the conviction publicly. The result was a small victory of reason over fanaticism, and illustrated the point that Muslim groups have been trying to make since 9/11: that a small percentage of Muslims acting badly have given the other billion an unfairly blighted image. Much the way self-proclaimed Christians behaving badly in 15th century Spain, Nazi Germany, and the antebellum South give the other billion a bad reputation.

That's a long way to travel to get to the title question, and I thank you for wallowing through this far. So what am I asking? You tell me. How far do we go when we claim to be tolerant of different points of view? Do we tolerate even intolerance for fear of looking hypocritical?

The whole circus makes me wonder, too, how real these alleged demographics are, anyway. We've been told about the Christian Right being "owned" by the Republican party for so long, I think Christians need to ask themselves: do you really belong in that box? Do the values demonstrated by the right reflect the values taught by Jesus? Do you really know?

I think about it a lot, and I haven't got a good answer. But I think it's a great question.

Recycle Your Box

This one pissed a few people off. Posted Saturday, November 24, 2007, I still pretty much feel this way, and I am still hoping for an opportunity to demonstrate that I am as Centrist as I feel I am. Perhaps I should write a follow-up about that...

It is not easy being one of us. Whatever it is that I am, that is. One of the non-branded, non-affiliated, un-marketed.

I know I confuse people with my opinions. No one really understands what it means to reject the options that are forced upon us, and ask for something better. Everyone is constantly trying to fit us into one of their pre-defined, factory stamped, UPS-coded boxes - because then they feel safe and in control.

My tendency is to blow off the trappings of the Boxes, and deal with the substance of things. I don´t pay attention to the clues I give off when I express my distaste with things of a political nature, especially. That is probably why I was recently accused of being a Democrat. Yuck.

I can see where someone would make that mistake. After all, I spend a great deal of time criticizing the current American regime; the Republican controlled Congress that has worn the country down since 1994; the misguided incompetence of the Bush Administration; the mystifying workings of the Supreme Court. But all of this easy criticism means that the so-called opposition never gets equal time, and as FOX News has programmed us to believe, if I am not spending equal time bashing Ted Kennedy, then I am somehow biased... Heaven forfend.

Well, yes, I guess I am biased. So what? Find me someone without a bias, and I will show you someone without an opinion. But no one bothers to figure out what my biases actually are; instead, they determine that I am disagreeing with them, and therefore must be on the so-called Other side.

I find it to be extremely disingenuous that the same people who will dismiss my criticisms as biased often follow their dismissal up by telling me - proudly - that they get all of their information from extremely biased sources: FOX news, Talk Radio (tm), or some similarly slanted publication. They will often compound the blow to their credibility by telling me that Bill O´Reilly is not a conservative, or that NPR - my choice for news on my commute - is a leftist organization. If you believe either of those statements then you seriously need to go check out Political Science for Dummies or something, because you don´t understand what the words ¨conservative¨ or ¨leftist¨ mean.

What I find ridiculous about these arguments is that the people arguing with me are so busy attacking what they see as ¨my group¨, that they never seem to recognize that I have not aligned myself with a group. Rather than addressing the substance of my criticism, they put me in a box with their perceived enemies, and waste my time trying to convince me that their box is better than mine. They don´t get that my point is often, ¨Hey, these boxes are convenient for framing bubblegum poll questions and building colorful graphics on the TV news, but if we are going to solve any of our problems, the boxes need to go.¨

It is really easy to tell when someone is boxing you, rather than listening to you. You might learn that the President is lying about something, and express disgust; they will respond that Hilary is trying to take away your money and give it to brown people. This is called a non sequitor. Say you realize that all of the billions of dollars in spending ¨on the troops¨ has actually been going to pay for contractors with no oversight or accountability; they might then point out that John Edwards got an expensive haircut. This is called misdirection.

It reminds me of 7th grade algebra class when I pointed out to a classmate that she had made a mistake in a formula that we were working on as a group, and she sneered at me that she could at least pick out matching socks. True, my socks that day were slightly mismatched, but I was still right about the algebra. In my mind, the Republicans are the idiot classmates that ignored me and went with Suzy´s answer - costing us points on the exercise - and the Democrats are the teacher who dithered on the sideline telling me it was impolite to call a girl a name like that.

The issues at stake these days are a little bigger than getting a math problem wrong. We need to decide how to fix the mistakes made over the last six years, and confront the inevitable shortages in resources that are going to start hitting us as the rest of the world realizes that they don´t need to support our habits of over-consumption any more. We need to deal with our problems intelligently and not as a pack of squabbling teams of marketing experts. Marketing is great for selling things, but not for making tough decisions.

Meanwhile, I will continue to defy your attempts to box me in, and will kick in the sides, whether from the inside or the outside.

Box THAT, suka!

The Ambivalent Cheerleader

This was originally posted Sunday, November 11, 2007, in what seems to have been a follow-up to Recycle Your Box.

I used to enjoy mindless patriotism and expressing unthinking adulation of my "team". That has all changed over the years, but I still like to think I'm a team player. But the question now is, what teams are we talking about?

I was a Reagan Republican all the way in 1984, mainly because of his stance on abortion, creation over evolution, and whatever other issues I was aware of at age 12. I didn't understand apartheid or terrorism, had no idea what was going on in the Middle East, and could care less about economic policies. All I needed to know was that Communists were the root of all evil, and I was as quick to snap the flag at the ass of anyone who dared to differ from my opinions as Bill O'Reilly is to shout his Neilson ratings at anyone who dares question his journalistic integrity.

When I hit high school, I discovered a wonderland of "school spirit": letter jackets, school colors, pom-poms & pennants, and loud cheering. I loved all the trappings and uniforms. I was in "hog heaven", as my mother would say. And I brooked no dissent with the idea that our school was "the best", whatever that meant; I was as in-your-face as the most repugnant fan could be. I'd argue with a fence post, if it contradicted me. My school, my church, my political party; all were superior to yours.

But eventually, I learned that there is a word for a person like this: asshole.

Life has a way of presenting difficult puzzles to us, and the puzzles I was handed made me realize that the causes I championed and the opinions I held so forcefully didn't fit in with the real world. I saw firsthand how little good extreme solutions actually do when confronted with a situation as serious as teen pregnancy. I began to learn about subtlety and gray areas, and I came to see that most of the articles of faith I held so dear were based on nothing, and weren't as important as I had been taught, anyway.

And I saw how easily people can turn something as insubstantial and silly as "team spirit" into something ugly and deadly. Let's just say that when I got around to reading "Lord of the Flies", I had faces from our varsity teams to go with each character. That's where I started learning a healthy distaste for organized groups; especially those that claimed to have the Answers.

Americans tend to see the world in false groups; groups of imaginary importance, which Kurt Vonnegut described in his novel, Cat's Cradle, as a "granfalloon". He also accurately described the attitude of the average American's world view in our WalMart-based society with a character who happens to be an American businessman traveling to a Caribbean island nation to set up a bicycle factory:

"He wasn't a terrible person and he wasn't a fool. It suited him to confront the world with a certain barn-yard clownishness, but many of the things he had to say about undisciplined mankind were not only funny but true.
The major point at which his reason and his sense of humor left him was when he approached the question of what people were really supposed to do with their time on Earth.
He believed firmly that they were meant to build bicycles for him."

So, when I came to make the decision to enlist in America's armed forces, I did so with the full understanding that I was voluntarily entering a granfalloon of mammoth proportions. While there, I met people with myriad backgrounds and a plethora of opinions, and while everyone differed on the particulars, we all pretty much agreed that the U.S. was a good place to live and work, and to raise a family. And whatever political, religious, or other "granfalloon" affiliations we might have, we were there to make sure that it stayed that way. Where we tended to differ most was the question of what the rest of the world was good for, but under the Clintons, you could always count on a kind of benevolent apathy to carry the day.

Then came 2000. The roughly 25% of Americans who cared enough to show up at the polls flaccidly chose between what they saw as the lesser of two evils. And in what was the most suspiciously close decision in our history -- I will point out that Rutherford Hayes had no relatives in the government of the state which handed him the presidency -- the Top Job was given to ... the letter "W".

I remember thinking at the time, "How bad can it be? Maybe he'll manage to do what he says he's trying to do. At worst, he'll provoke people into caring enough to vote in the future to avoid this kind of nonsense." I was wrong.

It has been much worse than anyone imagined it would be. True, we suffered a horrific attack; but it wasn't the first. If our collective heads had not been in our collective fundaments, it wouldn't have been such a surprise. I refer to both our leaders and our citizenry when I say that, by the way. Plenty of blame to throw around, as we have seen.

But the real damage it has caused is worse that the attack itself. We've suffered through years of incompetence, bravado, isolation, division, blatant corruption, and the erosion of the ideals that we were supposedly fighting for in the first place. I've watched our leaders lie to us, drive away our allies, torture people (guilt or innocence undetermined), and otherwise play right into the hands of our enemies.

They knew what Afghanistan would be like after watching the Soviets stumble there, but considered it justified if we were there to help. They knew what Iraq would be like -- Dick Cheney predicted it in 1994, almost to the letter -- and they knew that al-Qaida wanted us to go there, but they went anyway. And they knew full well that even the most limited forms of compromise on our treatment of prisoners would be a death blow to our credibility -- and they did it anyway.

And while I knew what any veteran can tell you -- that our general officers are political sycophants and that our junior officers are increasingly taught religious fervor over war-fighting substance -- the Decider kept claiming to trust them and their judgment on the ground, instead of letting "politics" micro-manage the war. It is telling that every General he has so trusted has since retired and come out publicly against the policies on the ground, which it turns out, were forced on them by the men claiming to trust their judgment.



So, what am I saying with all of this? That the government is evil? That America is bad? That everyone should vote Democrat? No. I'm not.

But I am saying that I don't support this team blindly. I don't believe that what we are doing is right, and we need change. We needed change at the top in 2004, but the Democrats gave us another crap candidate to "choose". And we need change from the bottom up, but the voting public is too ignorant and lazy to even begin talking about third parties.

I guess to continue the sports metaphors, I feel like I'm on the bench, watching the coach sacrifice every element of sportsmanship for a goal that won't win the game. I feel like the fans in the stands have only come to see blood, and could care less about the actual outcome. And I feel like every time I try to suggest the changes that might salvage something from the wreckage, I get accused of not being a team player. I'm tired of having my loyalty questioned simply for pointing out the fact that not everyone loves us, and that maybe that's not a good enough reason to kill them.

I should think by now it should be obvious to everyone in the world -- even the most hawkish and spirited American -- that we need to rethink our approach to being "the Superpower". Considering the effects of the Decider's policies on our economy, the reemergence of Russia as a robust threat, and the serious dangers of Overshoot facing our planet today, our days of being "fat, dumb, and happy" are numbered no matter what we do. It would be better to find ways to make the inevitable decline and fall a graceful one, rather than taking out as many as we can on the way down.

So, while I'm grateful for the sacrifices made by my fellow veterans, and I'm still proud of my part in all of this, past and present, it's time to stop making bad decisions based on granfalloons and team spirit.

And it's way past time to recognize that self-discipline is not just something to teach other people.

Jimmy Crack Corn

A look at several political issues, originally posted Monday, June 04, 2007; reposting to show how I have and haven't changed my mind about things over the last three years.

Most days, I can maintain a sense of equilibrium. Most days, I can stand to hear the news without really internalizing any of it. I can usually keep my sense of humor intact, and by lifting one foot and squinching one eye nearly shut -- until it waters -- I can see both sides; at least enough to get by for one more day.

Usually, I can ignore the rhetoric that gets tossed around by the ignorant ones; the endless repeating of pointless jibes, and mean-spirited bickering, the accusations and withering insults. Like seagulls yelling about the miserable things they've found to eat in the awful glurp on the beach, they aren't worth listening to, so I tune them out. And usually, on occasion, I can find a nugget of hope, a grain of truth, or a shiny piece of newly minted joy.

But not today.

On this day, I just couldn't block out any more. I keep hearing the same mistakes being repeated, and re-repeated. Here is a short list of my least favorites, in no particular order:

"If we surrender, the whole region will collapse." Which is true; and is the main reason I said it was a bad idea to go in... six years ago. I was told then that I was a bad American for implying that the President would start a war in Iraq without good reason. Well, it hasn't gotten any better... are you going to listen to me yet?

"He (or she) has raised more money than anyone thought he (or she) could!" Is anyone else concerned that the Powers That Be are "fixing" the problem of corruption by raising record amounts of money? It's like trying to ban prostitution by making the girls charge more.

"Global warming is just a ploy for attention." This is true; the scientists have been trying to get your attention for thirty years. You only started listening after Al Gore made a movie. May I point out, America, that you are the same people who sit around on an extra 20-30 pounds (on average) eating nothing but crap and watching TV, wondering why you are dying from diabetes? Yet I don't dare suggest that you change your consumption habits for fear you'll squash me... sound familiar?

"You're just against business... you're a communist!" I have to admit, I am a capitalist. Most of the people who claim to be capitalists are not. When I criticize exploitative business practices (Big Tobacco), rapacious swindling (Enron, Halliburton), monopolization (AT&T, Microsoft), and piss poor misuse of the very word "management" (pick an HMO, any HMO... including TriCare), I am not "against" business. I am against being GIVEN the business, and that is another thing entirely.

"We are at war; we can't waste time worrying about peoples' feelings." We are at war precisely because of hurt feelings. I grant you that the actual Terrorists are evil people bent on breaking our system and installing themselves as despotic leaders. But when we betray our own principles and break our own rules in a futile attempt to "get them", we play into their hands. It would go a long way for us to a) learn some of the language and customs of the country we are invading, b) learn enough of our own history to understand why they might resent us in the region, c) reach out to the American Muslim community to make sure they are being treated like Americans, and not like terrorists.

"Those hybrids don't get nearly as good a' mileage as they say... so I bought a Dodge with a hemi." I actually heard someone say this as though it made sense. To date, I have not seen him haul a blessed thing in it... he doesn't want to scratch the bed.

"I don't think musicians have any right to tell me how I should vote." Yes, they do. And you have every right not to listen to them. But you have a lot of nerve claiming that you believe in fighting for freedom if the first thing you say to someone who publicly disagrees with you is "you have no right to say that."

"Of course we need to fix the immigration laws...but we can't allow amnesty!" Yes, we can. If grocery stores refused to order more produce until everyone who had ever "browsed" a grape was brought to justice, we would all starve. If the cops pulled over EVERY speeder, no one would ever drive again. You know as well as I do that 11.8 million of the 12 million "undocumented aliens" aren't hurting anyone; fine them if you can, deport the law-breakers (that should be a given), and FIX the damned laws. The reason "amnesty" didn't work last time is because they didn't fix the laws that caused the problems in the first place.

"Anybody's better than THIS guy!" I disagree. There are lots of guys who would be worse. Now quit tempting fate, pull your collective head out of your collective orifice, and stop arguing about stupid crap. We have work to do.

I'm sure some of you will recognize things you've said to me, and feel hurt by my response; I assure you, I'm not singling any one of my friends out for derision. I'm sure many of you will still disagree with me on some points... I welcome a chance to talk it out (it's hard to really convey more than sentiment in less than 5 sentences). It's just that it hurts me for my friends -- all of whom I love and respect -- to parrot the rhetoric that has led us to this lowly place.

And one last thought: Do you know why 9/11 happened? After all these years, and all of the reports, no one has put it into these words, but this was the goal: Bin Laden wanted to draw the U.S. into an uneven urban guerrilla war, preferably in the Middle East. In March 2003, we gave him exactly what he wanted.

That hurts my feelings.

2 Chikkn 2 Pro-TEST!

Originally posted Sunday, January 28, 2007, I wanted to remind everyone that I have LONG argued against war, and have LONG been uncomfortable with those who protest. This is something that often confuses people.

As you may or may not have noticed, depending on your media coverage of choice, there was a Peace Rally in DC on Saturday. Many thousands of people showed up to denounce the poor handling of the war, to protest the proposed surge, and to call for the impeachment of the President and his V.P.

As you may or may not have noticed, depending on whether you have read Kater's blog (my #1 friend), I didn't go.

I will admit that the main reason I didn't go with her was that I chickened out. I was afraid for the safety of my family (always a risk when leaving the house), I was worried about my legal standing (marching around with people dressed as the Devil and dangling marionette effigies of one's boss from their hands is frowned upon by most employers), and... I'm not 100% in agreement with the protesters.

That's right: I'm not willing to stand in front of Jane Fonda and cheer just yet, despite my general opposition to this war from day one. (Day one being 15 September 2001, which is when I first heard Mr. Rumsfeld trying to tie Iraq to the 9/11 tragedy, and realized that I heard a grand national railroad building up steam.)

The way I see it, I'm already doing what I can do to for the war effort on a daily basis. I won't talk about that here, but those of you who know me are welcome to invite me out for a quiet drink sometime to discuss it.

As for the "surge", my objective feeling about that is this: isn't it a little late to be second-guessing the Commander in Chief? I heard a lot of (pardon me, Mom...) assholes during the Clinton administration pulling that "I don't have to respect the man, but I will respect his office" crap, and now it's my turn. He may have failed to fulfill every promise I wanted him to keep (and kept a few I wish he hadn't made), but until he is legally removed from office, I am legally sworn to support his decisions.

Which brings us to the popular calls for impeachment. I put it to you this way: there is as much evidence to impeach as there was to invade Iraq. People like AG Gonzales may be slimy, double-talking, word-raping lawyers... but they are good lawyers, which means you won't be able to pin much on them when the dust settles.

Furthermore, it is my humble opinion that our Congress wouldn't have the intestinal fortitude to impeach a president who ate a baby on national television; all he would have to do in his defense is:
a) stonewall them with denials until they produce the tape,
b) claim that the baby was a terrorist until they can prove otherwise, and
c) use the intervening time to dig up instances of Congressional baby-eating, thus forcing them to admit that, gee, it's not that impeachable an offense after all, is it?

So, you might now be wondering, "If he feels that way, is he mad at his wife for going to the rally?" No, I'm not. I know she has agonized over the events of the last few years right along with me. I know she has supported our troops steadfastly throughout, organizing charity events through her Girl Scout troop, and generally contributing in any way she can. In other words, I know she hasn't changed her opinion with the winds of the media (when they deign to cover the real events); I know she isn't just going down to be part of some "party" atmosphere or to be near celebrities. You go ahead and list a few more of the petty barbs the pundits might sling at the protesters: they don't apply to my wife.

So yes, I support what she is doing, even if I don't feel I can join her. I maintain a firm belief that people should exercise their right to assembly, and their right to express their opinions, whether I agree with them or not.

That said, I hereby exercise my God-given right to say "I told you so" to:
* everyone who allowed the 2000 election to fall to the right, and groused about it later
* everyone who told me to shut up when I tried to warn you that this stuff would happen after 9/11
* everyone who let them string us along, promising "evidence" of WMD, but didn't make them produce it in 2002
* everyone who insists on blaming the media for the bad news, but lets the administration off the hook for the bad planning, and...
* every 3rd party member who voted either Democrat or Republican for fear of "wasting" your vote.

I'll say again, for anyone still reading: let's find a better way to pick these people. Let's not blow it again.

Is It Too Much to Ask?

From Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 15, 2007 - again, note that I wrote this before I had heard of Barack Obama. It's worth reflecting, regardless of your opinions, that electing him was a significant moment in our history.

Some would argue that a certain dream will never come true. They will point to the problems that we still have, and to the conflicts that still arise, and they will tell you that this is how it will always be. They will hold up the human failings of the dreamers and sneer at their faith and their goals. They will tell you that holding on to that dream is foolish and weak.

I disagree.

People will always be people, and that means there will always be something to fight over; but look at how very far we have come. Those who used to be banished to the back are now driving the bus. Those who were forced to run a gauntlet through jeering crowds to get to school are now the administrators, teachers, coaches, and superintendents. The transition is not complete, but it is implacable, and the Dream is attainable.

It is still going to be hard to take it all the way to its conclusion; past the grudging acceptance of the last generation, through the sometimes painful transition of our own, and into the peaceful and colorblind integration of the next. I can see it coming in the way my own children behave with their classmates; working together every day, seeing their similarities, and minimizing their differences.

Some have argued that this "politically correct" vision is being forced on them. They say that things like Martin Luther King's holiday and Black History Month are being shoved down their throats -- and they try to pretend as though it is this that they object to, and nothing else. They try to pretend that their resentment comes from some betrayal of their rights. To those people I say, you are not being dragged from your home and forced to endure 400 years of subjugation. You are being asked to help bring about a society where that sort of thing can't happen, and if you don't like the methods being used, you are more than welcome to offer a peaceful alternative. You have that right because courageous people like Dr. King led the fight for promised equality, and not for dominance.

And you can't stand in the way of that goal without giving the lie to your own avowed American ideals.

The beauty of the Dream was not that it led to a peaceful fairytale vision of the future; I don't think anyone has ever really believed that we could bring about Utopia. The beauty of the Dream lay in the non-violent nature of the journey. Dr. King's faith in those ideals that we have had "forced down our throats" since primary school -- the ideals of peace, freedom and equality -- is what makes his Dream so powerful. His Dream was that the so-called American Dream would come true, and we would all pay more than lip service to it.

It is that faith in our own ideals that we need to hold onto, even in the face of war.

The last few years have been a test of our belief in those ideals; a test we have done poorly on. We have allowed ourselves to be led into all of the old, familiar traps that have perpetuated violence and oppression throughout human history. "Eye for an eye", "if you are not with us you are against us", and "by any means necessary"; these are not the ideals our fabled founding fathers set out for us. These are the easy answers of the reactionary, the tool of those who crave power, and the Achilles' Heel of the ignorant.

The tragic truth is that people who truly believe in peace are few and far between. Finding people with the courage to say, "We have a reason to fight, but there is a better weapon than violence" is my own dream, though it seems impossible these days. Prevailing logic tells us that our enemies must be killed, but our methods have driven away our allies, and the violence has only continued the cycle of revenge.

What we desperately need is someone who, like Dr. King, can articulate a way to bring about peace peacefully, and can convince even the most rabid hawks to give us that chance to end the fighting.

And let's see if we can't keep that person alive this time, along with the Dream.

Majority Report

Originally posted 3 January, 2007, I thought I adequately expressed my lack of enthusiasm about the Democratic Party's recapture of a slim Congressional majority, but I guess since I didn't call to have them poisoned or compare them to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Darth Vader, I was considered "too tame"...

Well, the holidays are over, and it's time to get back to the business at hand. The Dawn of the Dems has arrived, friends and neighbors, and a new chapter in American politics begins. Of course, it will sound a lot like the last chapter...good luck keeping straight who's who.

The new majority may be slimmer than Nicole Ritchie, but it will still behave as though it has a universal mandate from the mythical People (you know, the People they are all supposed to be looking out for). The new minority, despite 12 years of nearly unimpeded corruption and a full death grip on all three branches of government will blame their ascendant opponents for all of the country's ills. Careers will rise and fall like Roman candles on the 4th of July, characters will be assassinated in the run-up to the next big brouhaha, and nothing much will be accomplished except the small accidental triumphs that come from the rest of us ignoring them all and struggling on as best as we can.

But rather than waste the next year or so listening to the Leaders of Conventional Wisdom blat away at each other with overwrought and under-thought rhetoric, how's about we try something new. Let's start a list of "things that really matter that we can fix", and maybe another one of "people who really ARE looking out for us". Don't put labels on them, just note when they do things right. You may have to go looking for them, because people doing good things doesn't make the news; but they are out there. Let's start now so that when the Coke and Pepsi candidates ask which tastes better, we can tell them... I'll take a beer, thanks.

I know it's sad to think of putting them out of work... but I can think of a very nice parting gift: Has Been, by William Shatner