Note: This piece was originally written for my newspaper column. I use dark humor in print to make a larger point. There is truth, even in such humor.
We have it on good authority (George W. himself) that, in this post-9/11 world, it is imperative to strike the first blow when we have the slightest notion someone--anyone--out there means to hurt us. Hit first and hit hard. Any perceived enemy is fair game. W. goes with his gut. No hard evidence of imminent danger necessary. His primary job, he declares with John Wayne sincerity, is to protect us from harm. What a fair and sensitive guy he is. Or not. Insiders say he's got a petty mean streak a mile wide. And he smirks when he punches below the belt.
The sitting president plays host, every election cycle, to newly elected legislators. Everyone's invited to the White House to meet and greet the Commander Guy. They all make nice--even though they've said some pretty awful things about each other during campaign season. The 2006 shindig was a doozey.
Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-VA) was there. He's the ex-marine who beat Bush-buddy/wannabe George "Macaca" Allen in a tight race. Senator Webb was no supporter of Dubyah's Iraq War and, unlike the Prez, Webb actually had a son serving his country in Iraq. He chose to avoid Bush during the White House reception. Not a bad idea when you're no fan. It beats hissing at him. Or tossing your cookies.
But old Dubyah was having none of that. He made a beeline for Jim Webb. Here's how it went:
Bush (smirking): "How's your boy?"
Webb (not smirking): "We want them to come home, Mr. President."
Bush (maybe not smirking): "I didn't ask you that. I asked how he's doing."
Webb (definitely not smirking): "That's between me and my boy."
Conservative columnist George Will was utterly appalled. He said Senator-elect Webb was rude to the President of the United States. He said Bush was only being sensitive and Webb was a boor. Foul play.
Well, big whoop. How many parents of servicemen and -women are feeling all warm and fuzzy toward a president who misled their kids into a disaster in the Middle East and is determined to keep them there? Seems to me every family member of everyone serving multiple, extended tours of duty in Iraq has earned the right to say whatever he or she likes. They've earned the right--the hard way--to state their own opinions. No matter who it is they're talking to. Jim Webb should have been praised for his self-control. He could have balled up one powerful, ex-military fist and made a pre-emptive strike of his own. To defend himself against both Dubyah's invading his personal space and his Commander Guy "sensitivity." Fair play and all.
War Games. That's what it's all about. It's just fine to play the War Game when the "pieces"--the toy soldiers--belong to somebody else. When the same group of military familes bears all the burden of The Game while the rest of America shops-for-freedom and complains about the cost of a gallon of gasoline.
There's an answer for that. Look to games to define the rules of fair play for games. We need a draft again. Not the old one. Nothing like it. The old Selective Service was just that: Selective. There were easy deferments for those who could afford to stay in college. Lots of Vietnam era privileged guys got a sudden yen for graduate degrees. And you could avoid the draft altogether--like Dubyah, like Dan Quayle--if your daddy had power or influence. He just saw to it that you got bumped ahead of very other guy on the National Guard waiting list. Or he got you into graduate school even when your academic record put you so low on the list of applicants you left skid marks. Nope. Can't have that. We're going to play fair this time, no matter whose keester winds up in a sling.
Let's do a shiny new draft. Let's do it like, say, the NBA. Like basketball. First round draft picks, second round, third round and so on. No deferments. None. Here's how it goes:
First round: The kids, the nieces, nephews and grandchildren of every member of the Executive Branch of government. The president and the vice president are the first to see their families' kids off to war.
Second round: Kids from Legislative Branch families. Every last one.
Third round: Department of Defense kids; the kids of war-mongering think tank policy makers.
Fourth round: Hit up big business. Defense contractors, big oil company execs. Take your pick.
If you love the notion of a war, if you stand to make a profit from it, your kids are fair game. They're gone.
It'll work. I'm sure of it. There won't be another Vietnam or Iraq in our future--not with the sons and daughters of the powerful at risk first. You can bet we'll see some serious talking going on; a veritable renaissance of diplomacy and intelligent, compassionate discourse in solving problems worldwide. No more dishonest, for-profit, pre-emptive rush-to-war. Ever again.
The cost of such a war, our leaders will tell us then, is just too damn high.
There seems to be a rebellion afoot here. OBAMA: Vote to defund this war, do it this week, or we're outta Dodge. The "Or Else" mentality is flying around like mortar fire online today.
I've had to think--and darned hard--about a response to all this.
I'm older than most of you. I married my high school/college sweetheart on May 27, 1967. We will celebrate our 40th anniversary on Sunday. Smack in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. Smack in the middle of an ungodly war. It's familiar terrain.
We had been married only 6 weeks when the draft caught us. He left home one morning before daylight and didn't come back. He enlisted--on the spot--rather than be drafted on the spot because, with college, an enlistee had some hope of surviving Vietnam. He wouldn't be a "grunt." Maybe he wouldn't have to go at all.
He came home on 30 days leave in December of 1967. He was in Vietnam only a week before the Tet Offensive.
He's been there. So have I. Lied into a senseless war, terrified of the price we'd have to pay.
Bad as it was, we were far luckier than military families today. Back then you served your year in hell and it was over. The love of my life survived. He came home to me, all limbs intact. The night terrors, the panicked over-reaction to sudden loud noises, were another matter. We coped. We survived.
I have conflicting emotions about this war. I want Barack Obama--and other people of conscience, no matter what their politics--to stand up, to say "NO!", to rise up for principle, no matter the cost, and defund this damn war.
On the other hand...I do not trust this president, who has the power of the veto without our having sufficient numbers in Congress to override that veto. Folks, this president is no longer with us. His almighty ego is at stake here. His "legacy." I have no doubt he is capable of punishing our troops, withholding funds he already has to make his point. He has proven he is capable of sacrificing American blood for politics; he'll do it again, then he can point to catastrophic loss of life in Iraq and say the Democrats did this when they proved they will not support our troops. They withheld necessary monies to keep our troops safe.
And America, infuriated by the carnage, eager to place blame, will buy it.
Let's not be so quick to judge, to jump ship, to hand over power to this--or another--monolithic, neocon right-wing administration because we splinter over a vote which cannot do more than lodge another useless protest. Write, call, email Congress. Say your piece. Keep saying it until we are such a thorn in the side of our delegations that they have no choice but to hear us and bend to our will. It's up to us--and our immediate power lies in speaking to our own delegations, on both sides of the aisle.
It's far too easy to pass judgment. To quit. But we are, at the end of the day, all we have in a political war to save the soul of this nation. No matter what the vote there is no rapid deployment home. We have inherited a tragic moral obligation to repair what we have broken--a sovereign nation, a country of innocents whose only crime was having been born in, living in, the wrong place at the wrong time--when George W. Bush & Co. lied us into war against them for all the wrong reasons. For oil. For domination. For corporate profit.
There is no easy out. As Obama has said, there are only bad options and worse ones.
Give him room. He was right about this war in 2002. Trust him a little. This is, potentially, far more dangerous a vote than a simple NO for the sake of being right.
And give those of us, who write about this every day, just a little time, too. I'll be posting a blog tomorrow--my answer, and I think it is a good one--to ending the prolonged abuse of the same troops, the same waiting military families.
Folks I admire the way our noble candidate has urged citizens in Republican areas to contact their Senators and Congressmen to persuade them to change their vote about the supplemental. This is the way democracy is supposed to work and I admire Barack Obama for bringing our attention to this. Some dismissed his strategy as unrealistic, etc., but the truth is that just because something is unlikely to succeed does not mean it is not worth attempting. I believe the "16 votes" strategy was exactly the correct approach.
But with today's news of a new bill which would fund this fiasco through September, isn't it a moot point? I put a question mark there and in my title as well because I'm not sure, really. But if this bill is passed, isn't it true that George Bush can simply and correctly claim that Democrats more or less came around to his way of thinking and decided that our troops and new General and "the surge" deserve a chance to succeed?
Can we, and can Barack Obama, accept this?
Indeed, what's next? How many lives will be sacrificed between now and September? I don't give a good damn that the President's political situation is about to receive a nice little boost. My friend, and not just my friend but yours also, to be sure, is about to deploy and serve just north of Baghdad.
Senator Obama, I admire the hell out of you and am proud to support you. Your candidacy represents a unique opportunity for America to not just turn the page, as you say, but rather to close the damn book on the Bush Era. Break a taboo, even, and burn this book and bury it. I am a public schoolteacher and have given about $350 to your campaign so far. I am proud to give my time as well. I will be walking all over Greenville, SC on our behalf on June 9. You had the foresight so many of us lacked when you passionately opposed the invasion of Iraq. I trust your judgement and believe you'll be a great President.
Please lead the fight to end this disaster NOW.
God Bless
Randall Cox
Greenville, SC
It's over. Too often, for too many mothers, that's the best that can be said for Mother's Day. Some of them need nothing so much on that second Sunday in May as a T-shirt to wear on Monday: "Don't even ask. I SURVIVED MOTHER'S DAY."
I know a few of them. Some have grown children who, in an ever more mobile society, live in other states--too far to drop by for a visit. They love their moms but they're busy with their own lives now, too busy to get a card in the mail. A gift? Maybe next year, when "money's not so tight and we've got more free time." These women don't celebrate Mother's Day. They wonder what they did wrong, get through it the best way they can.
Others I know have a far worse time of it. One, who hung on as best she could to make it through weeks of incessant Mother's Day commercial hype--and the day itself--with no hope of a card, a hug, from her only child. He died last year, at sixteen.
Another, whose son is in Iraq. She's not unlike thousands and thousands of other military moms. Except that her son is in the war zone on his fifth deployment and, at 32, he's the "old man" responsible for all the 18-20 year olds who serve under him. They spend their wartime effort in convoys, moving whatever is needed to wherever it is needed on roads beset by bullets, rocket and mortar fire, IEDs and a burgeoning Iraqi population who see us as the occupying enemy. Her Mother's Day gift this year? Word that her son's fifth tour of duty in Iraq is being extended. She survived by praying her son would, wondering if their luck would hold this time. How many "lucky" deployments is one family allowed before tragedy strikes?
Over 3300 American military mothers felt only loss and grief on Mother's Day.
In 1870 Julia Ward Howe--who wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"--penned the original Mother's Day Proclamation:
"Arise, then, women of today...Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own, it says 'Disarm! disarm!' The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession."
Julia Ward Howe meant to establish an International Mother's Day for Peace.
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day should be celebrated as a national holiday on the second Sunday of May. A fine thing.
But somewhere along the way Hallmark and Nordstrom and Wal-Mart and all of corporate America who could see a dime of profit to be made on "Mother's Day" took over. They've made a commercial mockery of what was intended to be a worldwide day of mothers united for peace. They've substituted a price tag for a lofty ideal and we've allowed it. They've placed a bounty on the worth of motherhood and left those who are poor, those whose children are "too busy," those whose children are caught up in wars and far from home, those whose children will never return, to suffer their losses. To feel less valued than luckier mothers. The trade-off cheapens us all.
"Happy Mother's Day." The cruelest words some women ever hear.
"Arise, then, women of this day..."
As I began my usual morning activities of surfing the Obama website, watching the YouTube videos of speeches and promos for hours on end, losing track of time after having read blogs and new articles related to the Senator, and missed my afternoon classes as a result, a certain image kept coming back to my mind. It was of Barack Obama, standing in the middle of a crowded café, sleeves rolled up, collar loosened, and a bit of sweat on his brow. The people in the café are silently watching, gazing with an awe-struck look of inspiration, listening to every word as if it tasted like a sweet desert that they hated to come to the end of. The image was a still shot of a video where Barack is explaining his background, and at this moment, when the flash went off, Obama is telling the crowd about his efforts as a community organizer and a grassroots activist.
What a way to start the day. A flurry of messages about Joe Anthony, MySpace and the Obama Campaign. What to do about it?
What we have here, folks, is "The human condition meets the greater cause." In this case, it's a trainwreck.
I feel sorry for Joe Anthony. He starts an Obama site on MySpace after being inspired by Barack's speech at the '04 Democratic Convention. Good for Joe!
The site explodes with "friends" in the last three months as Barack declares his candidacy and millions of Americans begin to see what we all saw three years ago. Joe's is the only Obama url on MySpace. He links up with the Obama Campaign. Everyone's working together, everyone's happy.
Joe is clearly overworked; he says so himself. He makes some mistakes on the site--minor ones--but those errors make news. They make national news. Newsweek.
The campaign staff is concerned. Understandable. Now everyone wants control. Joe wants compensation for the hours he's put in as a volunteer.
Let's cut the fluff here. The MySpace site uses Barack Obama's name. It's a safe bet that all 100,000+ "friends" signed up in support of the candidate. It's unlikely a "Joe Anthony" site would have generated so much interest. He did a great thing. No doubt about it. But the url is in Obama's name, the campaign is his campaign, the supporters are his supporters.
As such, the Obama Campaign has every right to manage the message. Any errors made then are their errors. And there are likely to be fewer of them. Efficiency. Clarity. On point.
Joe Anthony is a fine fellow who's fallen victim to the most human of vices: The need for acknowledgement, the need for ownership. "It's my sandbox, they're my friends."
All of us who volunteer give hours we don't have. We give money we can't afford to give. We organize, fundraise, write our blogs on behalf of a candidate we believe in.
Few of us will ever be paid a salary or a "consulting fee." Few of us will ever meet Barack Obama. Few of us will ever experience personal contact from the campaign staff massaging our egos. Most of us probably complain about the task we've taken on requiring more of us than we expected.
I'm a writer. I set aside work on a manuscript so I could spend the time necessary to write for this campaign. Writing candidate-specific politics means I have to spend hours reading politics, hearing politics, watching politics, surfing the internet. My agent isn't too thrilled about it. If I'm not making money on a project, neither is she. I don't get paid a cent for my work with my.barackobama, rockwithbarack or baracktheyouthvote. I don't expect compensation or attention from my candidate. Once the words leave my head--my ideas, my words--they are no longer solely my property. And I think I'm pretty clever, too. Worth money I'm not getting but, to paraphrase the old theme song from Super Chicken, "If you're unpaid you'll have to overlook it--besides you knew the job was gratis when you took it."
It's a tempest in a teapot, and it's a shame when we let our personal needs, our egos, get in the way of the greater cause to the extent that we damage the efforts of the many to change this country for the better.
Bottom line: Obama owns Obama. Pure and simple.
And thank God for it.
I would love to attend the town hall in my old hometown of Charleston, but I need to say goodbye to my friend, who is going to Wisconsin to train for 2 months and then to Iraq for another 15.
How do I (we) get my mind around the fact that my brave friend will likely have to vote by an absentee ballot in the 2008 election?
My friend is quite conservative; the sort that has something of a knee jerk negative reaction to any Democrat. Yet he is also full of contradictions; he certainly has doubts about the "mission" he is embarking upon. He has little faith in the politicians ( I don't think it's out of line for me to recall the names of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in this regard) who are sending him away from home for 17 months, at least.
Barack's speech today in Chicago was outstanding; a bold blueprint for the future of our global policy. Let's keep working to make it happen.
all the best.
Randall
We made history. That's the word from major news outlets nationwide. The LA Times, NY Times, Chicago Tribune, all talking about us. Wolf Blitzer did a segment on his Sunday morning show about us. A change is brewing, they say. Politics from the bottom up--rather than from the top down.
And infamously "red state" South Carolina was smack dab in the middle of it.
MoveOn.org, a national coalition of 3.2 million liberal/progressive voters, sponsored the first ever nationwide Virtual Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, April 10th. Over a thousand sites--homes, churches, libraries, community centers--were linked for 90 minutes by computer and speakerphone. Seven candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president participated: BARACK OBAMA, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich. The topic: Iraq. MoveOn members submitted over 6000 questions we wanted answered, then voted for the ones we believed most critical to winning our support. Candidates were not provided the questions in advance. Come prepared, they were advised; have your policy clear, succinct, ready to present as you face our questions. After the webcast, MoveOn members voted for the candidate whose Iraq policy made the most sense.
My home was one of the sites.
Understand that I am no spring chicken. I began writing over 20 years ago--on an IBM Selectric. A typewriter. I entered the world of the internet only two years ago--when my agent told me I had no other choice. I have techno-phobia. I need "idiot cards" for every function I need to get my work where it's supposed to go. I get sweaty-palmed and nauseous when I see terms like "log on" or "post" or "click here." The term "user friendly" is no help; it conjures up pictures in my head: a dirty old man in a trenchcoat prowling the neighborhood in search of his next victim...FLASH!
I was terrified. But this Town Hall Meeting was so important. I took a Dramamine and said I'd do it. I didn't tell the folks at MoveOn that I didn't have a clue how to link, connect, dial--whatever it was I was pledging to do. I had a recurring nightmare for over a week: Everybody shows up at my house and nothing happens. Because I can't remember how to do it and lost my three pages of techno-notes.
And I broke the rules. MoveOn advised we have no more than, say, six people per available computer. So everyone could see, so everyone would be comfortable.
I had twice that number. And it worked! Half were in my very small office with the internet link, half on my sunporch, linked by speakerphone. 12 people. One of the smallest groups, but one of the best.
We were all registered voters. We're not "likely voters"--we bloody well vote! Seven of us were black, five white. We were school teachers, school administrators, we have careers in banking, retail, healthcare, health/life insurance, writing, customer relations. Two of us were former military: one a retired Army colonel who served his country for 28 years, the other a Vietnam vet who was awarded a Bronze Star for his wartime service. We were Habitat for Humanity volunteers. We were parents, grandparents. We were people of faith, active in our churches. We are community leaders.
Only three of us came already committed to a candidate: one Obama, one Clinton, one Richardson. None of the rest had yet decided who would get their vote. We listened for 90 minutes. No one spoke or moved while a candidate was speaking. Notes were taken; heads nodded or shook; fists clenched, unclenched. Some had tears in their eyes.
After the webcast we voted. Votes were cast based on Iraq policy only. We did not discuss the webcast until after votes were cast.
Obama won the night with 7 out of 12 votes.
We talked for awhile after voting, about our faith, our love of family, our love for this country. We spoke of humane public policy and Barack Obama. Most of us are now solidly in the Obama camp. We made a pledge to one another before the evening ended: Only one candidate will get the Democratic nomination. We believe that candidate will be Barack Obama, and we are well pleased. We will do all we can to support the Obama candidacy. If, however, our candidate of choice does not get the nod, we will put our personal preferences aside and do all we can--together--to change the course we've been on for the last six years. We want our country back.
We made history. It felt good. We intend to make a difference in 2008. And we'll finish the job the way we began it on Tuesday night: from the grassroots up.
Bring your rally signs, posters and a great big smile for our second Wave, Smile and Honk for Obama on April 21st! See the Honk for Obama site Link pictures and blog posts from our last event. We made the national campaign blog last time, and also our local news. What a great visibility event for recruiting new members! (Be sure to have your next meeting time and place planned in case a reporter stops to write a story.) The more cities that participate, the more likely we are to generate positive press for Obama, so be sure to blog your participation on the Honk for Obama site. If you have any questions, just ask, or email the Honk for Obama coordinator Valli Frausto to get directions for how to set up, create and advertise successful events. You only need 3-4 people, some homemade posters and possibly a couple of rally signs. This is a heap more fun than you'd imagine, I promise! (just look at our happy faces)
So get out there and make some waves (pun intended) for Barack Obama on April 21st!
Woo-Hoo! $25 million--raised from the grassroots up, not from the top down!!
You're so right--tonight we celebrate. I've been saving a really fine bottle of wine--Opus One--so long I'll have to vaccum the dust off to open it. This is better than New Year's Eve!
A shameless plug: Look for LAURA OWEN and me--the new op-ed writers for www.baracktheyouthvote.com this week. You can also find me at www.rockwithbarack.com
WE ARE ALL MAKING OUR VOICES HEARD!
A special issue: "Voices of the Fallen...The Iraq War in The Words of America's Dead"
An excerpt:
Letter home from Army Major Michael Mundell from Fallujah, late August, 2006.
"This will be short, as time is very short, as usual...I am very tired. We seem to be doing little, the city is mostly trash, rubble and AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces], and frankly I am tired of being a walking bull's-eye for anyone with an AK and nothing better to do, which includes most of the populace, apparently. We have found three IEDs before they could explode under our trucks...
"Sorry this isn't funny or upbeat--there is nothing funny or upbeat to talk about right now. People are dying like flies here and I am sick of it."
Major Mundell went on to say he loved and missed his family, would be home soon.
At 1:45 p.m., Friday, January 5, 2007, Major Michael Mundell was killed by an IED while on patrol in Fallujah. He was 47. He left a wife and four children under the age of eighteen.
Why do we support Barack Obama? Another good reason:
Here's the Myth of gays/lesbians honorably serving their country in the armed services: They are dangerous. They are "bad for morale." While our straight military men and women are courageous enough to fight in the wild terrain of Afghanistan, in the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, brave enough to face IEDs without adequately armed vehicles and bullets without adequate body armor, a gay/lesbian comrade-in-arms is a deadly threat. A gay/lesbian soldier scares them senseless. There's something rotten about those sexual deviants. They're unfit to serve...unless they refuse to tell the truth about who they are. Some things have to be covered up. For the good of the war on terror. For national security. For the good of a "Christian" nation...
What's rotten here is the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. It serves no practical purpose. It denigrates gay/lesbian men and women who have served their country--and died for it--in the past. It denigrates those who choose to serve today. It glorifies dishonor and dishonesty.
And this official policy of lies has been adopted by the White House. In one scandal after another, one act of misfeasance or malfeasance after another committed by this administration, Congress has no right to ask, Bush cronies/aides have no obligation to tell. The truth about going to war in Iraq? Don't ask, don't tell. Gitmo, black sites and torture? Don't ask, don't tell. Illegal wiretapping, spying on American citizens? Don't ask, don't tell. Outing a 20 year undercover CIA agent and compromising every contact she ever made? Don't ask, don't tell.
Now it's the firing of eight DOJ prosecutors because they failed to "be loyal to the administration...and its policies." What did they do wrong? One went after Duke Cunningham. Others refused to drop active cases to go after Democrats the White House wanted smeared before the 2004 election because, to paraphrase one of the prosecutors, "There's no case here!" One was, well, just inconvenient. Rove wanted his own fair-haired boy to have the job in Arkansas. They were fired for political reasons, blamed for "poor performance", their reputations damaged in the process.
New policy: Alberto Gonzales lied. At a March 13th press conference he denied he participated at all--ever--in any discussion about firing the attorneys. He swore he never saw any documents about the firings. Newly released documents prove that he did, indeed, attend a meeting on November 27, 2006, with senior aides to discuss the firing of selected DOJ attorneys and approved "a detailed plan to carry out the dismissals."
Dubyah says he will not permit any of his gang to testify in open session, under oath, about any of this. Executive privilege. National security. Monica Goodling, Gonzales's liaison to the White House, says she will invoke her fifth amendment right to refuse to answer any questions asked by Congress. Why? Her answers might incriminate her. Gonzales, his aides and the White House declare they have done nothing wrong. So why the need for fifth amendment protection? Why the demand for secret interviews with no swearing in and no transcripts?
When a democracy dies, the public's right to know the truth is the first thing to go. The tyrant shrieks "I'm the Decider!" Neither Congress nor the voting public merits any explanation. He will veto one, ignore the other. His word becomes law.
Don't ask, don't tell. It's for your own good, America. It's how we keep you "safe" from homosexuals and terrorists. It's how we keep you deaf, dumb and blind while we eviscerate the Bill of Rights and strangle the life out of a free nation.
Why do we need Barack Obama? Why do we commit, recommit, to this candidacy? Because he is an expert in constitutional law, in civil rights law. Because he cherishes both ideals. Because he is the anti-Bush.
These will be very importatnt meetings and I hope that you all can make it to the meeting in your area.
Thanks for all you are doing for the campaign.
Phil NobleLink alt=" " width="1" height="1" />
JoinObama for AmericaForRegional Grassroots Meetingsin South Carolina
Meet other Obama Supporters,and learn how you can get involved in your area.Bring your friends!
LOW COUNTRYMonday, March 26, 2007 @ 6:30pmInternational Longshoremen's AssociationUnion Hall1142 Morrison Drive, CharlestonContact:Phil NoblePhone 843 296 1490Phil@PhilNoble.com
ORANGEBURG AREAThursday, March 29, 2007 @ 6:30pmO-C Technical College3250 St. Matthews Road,Orangeburg, SC (S-Building)Contact:Kendal CorelyPhone 803 255 8008sc@barackobama.com
UPSTATETuesday, April 3, 2007 @ 6:30pmGreenville Technical CollegeTechnical Resource Center Auditorium506 S. Plesantburg DriveGreenville, SCContact:Kendal CorelyPhone 803 255 8008sc@barackobama.com
ROCK HILL AREATuesday April 3, 2007 @ 6:30pmFreedom Center215 East Main StreetRock Hill, SCContact:Kendal CorelyPhone 803 255 8008sc@barackobama.com
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
--Sinclair Lewis
There is a difference between faith and religiosity. We would be wise to know that difference. The battle for the soul of this nation is fully engaged and we have failed to address this issue of religion and government. Too many of us on the left have abandoned all discussion of faith and politics to the far right. We gave them ownership of morality, of "family values." Sickened by the intolerance, by the rabid religiosity and nationalism of Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, et al, we recoiled in dismay. We dropped the words "Christian", "religion" and "faith" from our public policy discourse. It has proven to be a mistake.
Faith is a fine thing. Barack Obama speaks of faith--that deep belief in a higher power, the impetus faith gives us to be generous and accepting, to be wholly accountable for one another. Faith, in its purest form, would have us focused on the over-riding issues of poverty, human rights, education, healthcare, good stewardship of the earth, honesty in business and in government. Faith is about the commmon good. Faith would have us reaching out to heal the breaches between other nations, between other cultures and our own. Faith would have us both speaking with our "enemies" and listening to them--an art that was once prized among civilized nations: statesmanship and diplomacy. Successful "conversion" to democracy or faith comes by example--not by invective, threats or at the end of a gun.
Religiosity is another thing altogether. In its current guise it is an arrogant, affected, strident, excessive, dogma-driven quest to control government and, through that control, to define religion/government as a single-belief system. One brand of religious faith--theirs. It is Dominionism. And it is a corruption of everything Christ--who was a Jew--came to teach us. The profoundly simple doctrine of "Love one another...", "...do it for the least of these...", the Sermon on the Mount, all are lost in a cherry-picked Old Testament frenzy of intolerance, wrath and condemnation. They glorify the war in Iraq and capital punishment while they shriek "PRO-LIFE!" from the rafters. They refuse to acknowledge that pro-life extends to babies AFTER they're born, both here and in Third World regions like Darfur. They do not acknowledge that pro-life extends to preventing the death of the earth God gave us. Or to universal healthcare. Or to a minimum wage that ensures a decent life for working families. Instead, they preach a "prosperity gospel" that would have us believe a loving God would have some of us wealthy--if only we live our lives their way. We can all be good little Pharisees, fat and sleek, healthy and living the good life while too many others suffer in poverty, rejection and despair. It is the ultimate hypocrisy.
They have made a weapon of their religiosity. They have beaten us down with it, silencing our voices because we fear sounding anti-church or being labeled "bad Christians" or "Godless" or "morally bankrupt."
The time has come to put an end to this. There are answers for us. There are tools we can use to reclaim moral veracity, to be faithful to our beliefs in the rights of all humanity. There is a nexus where faith of all kinds can intersect with public policy in a productive, positive fashion. There is a nexus where faith informs our politics--and religiosity does not dictate them.
Google Sojo.net, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Red Letter Christians. They are progressive evangelical movements. They are valuable; read and learn. Knowledge is our best defense against the far right. We cannot expect to win the argument--or the war--until we know how to answer the rhetoric. This is a good beginning.
I got your message.
I watched Barack Obama speak in Selma. That he can still find reason for hope, for finishing the work begun by Dr. King, by Rosa Parks, by nameless thousands of African Americans who stood up, in the face of terror, for simple equality in this country, tells me I can find hope, too.
Racism is still alive and well in America. It's a far slicker version than it was when I was your age. The days of lynchings, of crosses burning, of "Whites Only" signs in store and restaurant windows, of attack dogs and powerful water hoses wielded by white law enforcement against peaceful African American demonstrators for even the smallest of liberties, are gone.
We're too savvy these days to confront what we fear, what we neither like nor trust, with the old aggressive behaviors.
The new racism is more subtle. It's harder to pinpoint, harder to confront--and it devours us from within. It's the automatic, visceral "negative assessment option." A white guy driving a Jaguar is a success story. A black man in the same car "must be dealing." That same white guy, driving in an upper-class white neighborhood at night, is simply going home after a long, hard day at the office. Nobody bats an eye. The black guy, however, must be casing some grand home or another so he can rob it--you know, drug money. He's pulled over by police for being somewhere he doesn't belong.
A white woman at the mall, in one of the better shops, wanders through racks of new fashions with her arms full of merchandise. It's a good thing. After trying on all that stuff, she's sure to buy plenty of new clothes. A black woman doing the same? Salespersons are none too subtle about closing in, keeping a sharp eye on that potential shoplifter.
This has never happened to me. I'm white. But I've been shopping--more than once--with a black friend, one with more money and more education than I, and I have seen it happen. Felt it. It's debasing. It's humiliating. It's grossly unfair--and it happens every day.
I listened to Barack Obama and I believe he is the one who has come to speak to that insidious voice inside too many white Americans, the voice in us that still holds to a "problem" with people of color. Too many of us remain just a little wary of the "difference." And we hang that bias on the handy peg of gangsta rap, drive-bys, "poverty-by-lazy-choice-lifestyles." Too many whites in America hold up the worst of minority "group behavior" as proof that it is not WE who have a problem, it's THEM.
Too many white Americans holler "Slavery is a dead issue!" The old slavery is. It's the current slavery that hobbles us now. We are slaves to our basest instincts, to the same old prejudices dressed up in fancy new clothes. We are loath to own this truth. We say, instead, that we are "colorblind." And that makes you invisible. The fact that we whites feel the need for another--newer--label, like "colorblind", is an indictment. Blindness gets us nowhere but stumbling around in the dark.
I watched Barack Obama. I listened. I thought of you, and I smiled. We have been gifted with a candidate who will inspire us all to celebrate the richness of our singular ethnicities--and then to join hands, knowing we are all God's children and all of us, each and every one, share more in our humanity, in our hopes and dreams and better selves, than any shade of skin can overcome.
We shall, at last, overcome. From the inside out. Barack Obama will lead the way.
Despite multiple surgeries and an extended stay in the spa-like U. of Pennsylvania animal hospital, thoroughbred Barbaro died. A Kentucky Derby winner, a favorite to win the Preakness, he suffered three broken bones in his right hind leg. Most horses are put down when similarly lamed. Chances of survival are so slim it's kinder to end their misery. But Barbaro was different. He was worth a fortune. Eight months of specialized medical treatment--and the staggering cost of such care--were deemed appropriate. Necessary. Pound for pound, this was horseflesh worthy of extreme measures. Whatever the cost.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, roughly 46 million Americans have no health insurance. Millions more are underinsured, unable to get--or afford--supplemental policies to offset the cost of catastrophic illness.
Businesses are slashing benefits to protect profits while their upper-managment guys make record-high salaries. The average CEO of a Standard & Poor's 500 company made $13.5 million in 2005 while a minimum wage worker made $10,700. In the 1970s a CEO made 30 times the salary of an average worker. In Japan and Germany they still do. Here? A CEO now makes 400 times what the rest of us do. "Average Joe/Josephine" works a full year to earn what "Big Boss" makes in a single day.
Our nation's largest employer offers health insurance benefits to fewer than 45% of their employees. 46% of the children of their 1.3 million employees are uninsured or on Medicaid. This company's corporate profit for one year? Around $10.5 billion.
Welcome to Compassionate Conservatism and its Ownership Society.
You can't blame big business types for wanting big bucks. You can't blame Barbaro's owners for trying to save their horse.
Barbaro's injury and his death were "Breaking News" stories on major outlets. America prayed for his recovery, mourned his passing. We're a nation of animal lovers.
But something's wrong in a country where the wealthy spend millions on healthcare for their animals while people--men, women and children--lose access to standard healthcare; where most of us are one major illness away from losing everything we own.
Sadly, none of us is apt to win the Kentucky Derby. Our illnesses and deaths are unlikely to make national news. But there is a sound, humane argument to be made for universal healthcare. Fair is fair. And it seems only fair that we have an equal shot here--not to win the race, just to stay in it.
Thanks Catherine,
I like the park idea. That is what we need.
We need to set a day and time, preferrably in the next month, to where we can get together, meet each other, talk and throw out some ideas. It would even allow me some time to find a guest speaker or something.
If anyone else has any suggestions, please let me know. We have to get the ball rolling.
A little light fare:
I just got off the phone. A very nice lady, working her second day on a phone-bank. No politics. She was calling for the Discovery/History Channels. What do I watch? How often? What would I be INTERESTED in watching...among future shows, one about Loch Ness type monsters sighted in Canadian waters...Sasquwatch types roaming the Northwest...violence and mayhem.
Told her the last thing I wanted to spend my time watching was just such a program.
"May I ask why?" she queried. "I have to write down a reason..."
I laughed. "Because we have a war-mongering, gun-slinging chimpanzee in the White House!" I said. "Why do I need to suffer through any more of nature's awful mistakes?"
By then she was laughing with me. I completed the survey, but between a few proposed new shows, we discussed the anti-Bush. Barack Obama. She hadn't been paying much attention to the race for the primaries. Now she will, with a decided bent for a leader who believes in the best of us--and she's buying a copy of The Audacity of Hope first thing tomorrow.
She didn't say "Goodbye" as we hung up. She said "Bless you."
