What Do We Stand For?


I have asked myself this question over and over now for months, perhaps years. I confess I am at a loss for an answer. A former pastor of mine used to say that the enemy has two goals: 1. Keep you from becoming a Christian; and, failing that, 2. Keep you ineffectual as a Christian. OK, so the vast majority of those who read my blog and who are in my facebook “friends” list are Christians. Goal number one is thwarted. We’re in like Flynn, to borrow an old and vulgar, but ultimately appropriate quote. In other words we know, as it says in the Good book, where we’re going when it’s all over. But that, sadly, is where the good news ends, for many in the Church have comported themselves like the old venerable sex symbol of yesteryore. Christian? Nailed it! Want to get saved? Raise your hand! Can’t pay your bills? Pray harder! Can’t eat? Food pantry! Sick? Call a doctor! Need healthcare? Not my problem! Out of work? Stop being lazy! The painful truth is that too many of our flock have not only been ineffectual in their Christian walk, their conduct has probably driven away thousands if not hundreds of thousands from ever entering the Kingdom. For those responsible it would’ve been better if they had flown off to a tropical island to live out the rest of their non sequitur lives. Unfortunately for all of us they are fast becoming the voice of Christianity for the world.

The marriage of politics and the Church is not a new phenomenon. It is as old the Crusades, perhaps older. What is new, or at least more apparent, is how the corporate corruption has become so mainstream and how quickly the cancer has metastasized throughout the Body. Death panels, socialism, terrorist sympathizer have become more than just the vocabulary of right-wing extremists; they are now firmly imbedded in the vocabulary of many Christians, as well. Polls clearly show that the vast majority of Christians are far more likely to agree and identify with the Far Right’s take on politics than with either the Left’s or a more moderate view. It isn’t just abortion and gay rights that is driving the bus anymore. Pick an issue – global warming, cap in trade, healthcare, preemptive air strikes on Iran, torture, domestic wiretapping – and the polls reveal a frightening similarity between evangelical Christians and GOP talking points. Almost completely absent from any dialogue is the allowance for alternative and or more moderate views. The mere mention of a stance that doesn’t directly coincide with the party line among this group is likely to elicit a response akin to that of John McEnroe screaming at an official at the U.S. Open. Offenders are made to feel subhuman and not worthy of being called a Christian.

How did this happen? How did a faith steeped in the values of caring for those less fortunate align itself so willingly with such a malevolent force? The answer is far more complicated than you might suspect.

For one thing conservatives and evangelicals often share many of the same core values, in that both groups believe in the sanctity of life and traditional marriage. Both groups also traditionally favor smaller, less obtrusive government and lower taxes. And both have had long histories with the Republican Party. OK, so far so good. While there are some evangelicals who are Democratic, voting Republican is not in itself the main crux of the current problem. As I have said repeatedly, the problem here has nothing to do with liberalism vs. conservatism; it goes way beyond that.

What I believe has happened is that the enemy has seized upon these shared core values and used them to drive a wedge among many Christians. What should have been an opportunity to discuss common ground between Right and Left and Republican and Democrat among Christians to advance the Kingdom has been perverted into a vitriolic dance that is nothing short of demonic. Like the serpent in the Garden egging on Eve, the enemy seems to be delighting in putting itching powder in our shorts; and like the gullible Eve, we can’t resist scratching.

Need evidence? Look at what has happened within the Republican Party over the last twelve months. It has been virtually hijacked by the ideologues to such a point that rational debate even within its own ranks is almost non-existent. Moderates who seek to broaden the Party’s appeal are shunned. The special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District is a case study in how the enemy is helping the Republican Party eat their young. Not content with the local GOP candidate Dierdre Scozzafava, the wingnuts of the Republican Party have backed independent conservative Doug Hoffman, who as it turns out doesn’t even live in the district, thus splitting the conservative vote. Not surprisingly, the Democratic challenger is ahead in the polls. The last time a Democrat held this seat was 1871. Astonishing. And the reason for this maddening divide? Scozzafava isn’t conservative enough for the likes of a Sarah Palin and the other far-right zealots. In their world view anyone who isn’t cut from the same mold as them isn’t fit to be a true Republican. No matter what the costs they are determined to show the world how righteous they are, much to the chagrin of the GOP. When Newt Gingrich is the one seeking to widen your tent, you know you have problems.

But, politics aside, haven’t we heard this same rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Christians? It was one thing to hear shouts of socialism, terrorist sympathizer and other slurs – some of them racial – being thrown at Barack Obama from many conservative pundits; it was quite another to hear supposed followers of Christ going along for the ride. Having litmus tests for political candidates to determine their stances on key issues is one thing; having them for Christians to determine how “Christian” they are, or how they are supposed to vote, is an affront to the very faith we are all sworn to represent. And yet that is the sort of thing that has been happening all too frequently lately. When any Christian dares assume that there is only one way to vote or one way to behave or one value to uphold, and that all other options are somehow dismissed as being “un-Christian” then all of us are slimed.

During last year’s election Dutch Sheets sent out a letter to his “flock” imploring them not to vote for Barack Obama. While there is nothing wrong with taking a political stand, the arrogance of his position was what rubbed me the wrong way. For him it came down to one thing and one thing only: Obama’s stance on abortion. Ignoring everything else, Sheets threw the full weight of his ministry behind the McCain campaign. That is of course his right; but what isn’t his right is to speak on behalf of a faith, many of who might actually hold a different point of view. That there might be Christians who have just as much discernment as Sheets, who respect life as much as he does, but who also see the forest as well as the trees apparently hasn’t dawned on him. The idea that those who support candidates who are “pro-choice” means that they must by definition be “pro-death” is offensive to many within the evangelical community. These people are no less Christian and no less deserving of having their voices heard and respected, be they Protestant or Catholic.

Sadly, Sheets is not alone in his contempt of others feelings. He and his fellow modern-day Pharisees like John Hagee and James Dobson have so polluted the true message of Jesus by their proselytizing for what they refer to as “true” Christian values that they have driven away countless non-believers and deeply divided Christianity as a whole. I firmly believe that God will judge them accordingly.

But my greater concern is how will God judge us? The latest test to our faith is the ongoing healthcare debate in Washington. If we say we are believers, than we must know that God could care less about our political affiliation. In all the Gospels, not once does Jesus have anything substantive to say about Rome. In deed when questioned by the Pharisees on whether it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus brilliantly sidesteps the trap by asking them whose portrait and inscription was on the denarius used to pay the tax? When they replied it was Caesar’s, he told them to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Sadly that brilliance is lost on many of His children. For the moral of that scripture and virtually all the New Testament is that God is first and foremost concerned with the condition of our hearts.

It is obvious that this particular debate has divided many within the Christian community. I will not belabor the particular merits, for I have made them all too clear in this blog. What I am going to say is that as Christians it is appalling that we could be so cavalier about the needs of our fellow human beings, thus ignoring the marching orders of our Lord and Savior. Healthcare reform is NOT a conservative or liberal issue; it is a moral cause that all true believers should be behind. While it is correct to ask probative questions of our elected officials to fulfill our ethical obligations as stewards of our nation’s economy, such discussion cannot and must not deter us from the greater good. That there are still millions of people in our country that have no access to affordable healthcare; that there are millions more who are dangerously underinsured; and that there are insurance companies making billions of dollars in profit on the backs of their customers whose only crime was they had the temerity to get sick, is a sin in any language. Our failure to do what we can to rectify that sin is contemptuous of God and will be dealt with, make no mistake about that.

Healthcare isn’t the only issue dividing the evangelical community. A recent poll found that a rapidly growing percentage of Christians believe that the use of torture on enemy combatants is justified in certain situations. How a faith that began as the direct result of the use of torture on its Lord and Savior could justify its use on any human being defies all belief. Yet that is where we stand: a growing malignancy within our community aligned against God and justifying the very same tactics the enemy would applaud. Astonishing, but true.

Equally astonishing, and puzzling, is the stance many Christians have on global warming. For well over twenty-five years we have had conclusive evidence of man-made CO2 emissions causing global temperatures to rise, and yet this group, taking their lead from their fellow political conservatives, resists the evidence and instead hangs its hat on a recent study that shows that global temperatures have fallen slightly over the last ten years. That is analogous to a basketball team trailing by 40 points going on a 15 to 2 run. And even when some of the less belligerent of this group admit that there is a problem they remain steadfast in their opposition to legislation that would reduce greenhouse gasses, insisting it would cost too much and damage our economy irrevocably. Still some maintain that global warming is not a threat to our existence not because of any data, but because the world will end only when Jesus returns. Apparently the vast majority of these Christians have not figured it out that global warming doesn’t have to necessarily destroy the planet or kill off all human civilization; only severely harm both. The fact that we are stewards of the planet as well as our wallets, and as such are no less accountable before God for its condition, is too much for their limited minds to comprehend.

So, as you can see, I am right back where I started. What do we stand for? Perhaps, a better question would be not what we stand for, but what are we willing to do about what we know in our hearts to be true? Do we stand idly by, like spectators, waiting for someone else to stand up and make a difference? Do we hide behind our narrow political differences, and in the process advance the enemy’s agenada?

I have said many times that my favorite book in the Bible is the Epistle of James. I refer to it as the action book. For all the talk that Christians do about praying and waiting on the Lord, I have always found it amazing that the good works of the Bible came not by waiting on God, but by stepping out in faith. While it is true that we cannot “earn” our way into heaven, it is equally true that our actions define our faith. Who we are is the direct result of what we do. Are we walking the walk or just merely talking the talk? If it is true that faith without works is meaningless, than sadly many of us have led a meaningless existence.

But it is not too late to make our voices heard. We can help our fellow man by doing what we can to advance His calling. We can contact our elected officials in Washington and tell them how we feel about healthcare, the use of torture, global warming, etc. If we act we can make a difference and advance the Kingdom. Failure could lead to millions of Americans needlessly suffering, the continued undermining of our Constitutional beliefs and values, and the erosion of our environment. If that happens woe to all of us - the good, the bad and the indifferent - who stood by and did nothing but watch.

Slant Right

As Fox News continues to reap profits from selling crazy to its audience, its competitors follow along for the ride.


That Fox News – and I use the term News loosely and only to distinguish and separate the division from Fox Network, you know the people who brought you The Simpsons and Family Guy – should be accused of not being a news organization by the White House, is hardly, no pun intended, newsworthy. To those of us who have had the "privilege" of tuning in from time to time – just for entertainment value mind you – that fact was already self evident.

That it took the Obama Administration so long to realize that this 24 /7 tabloid operation would never relent in its constant badgering of it and therefore finally found it necessary to deploy that age old football axiom of letting a good offense be its best defense was the real news story. Claims by Fox of Nixonian tactics are juvenile and irrelevant. Every president since Teddy Roosevelt has used the bully pulpit to his advantage, including the last one, who never passed up an opportunity to dismiss and lock out any journalists he felt were leaning too hard on him or just plain calling him out. All Obama did was state the obvious to a nation, most of which probably replied something like “Duh” when it heard the news. For the record Obama did not deny them access to the White House Press Room or revoke their credentials. What he did, if you’ll pardon the crude analogy, was call a spade a spade.

And so the injured party, just to prove the point, has spent the better part of this week pounding the Administration harder than ever. In a Newsweek op-ed piece called “The O’Garbage Factor: Fox News isn’t just bad. It’s un-American,” Jacob Weisberg ripped the network for its tactics, writing:

“Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for ‘evidence’ that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.”

As of this morning, foxnews.com had as its number one story: “Will Gov’t-Run Health Care Become a Case of …FATAL ATTRACTION?” Underneath the headline is the Fox Forum, which reads: “YOU can still stop Obamacare.” Find me another network that has a ridiculous forum like that and actually has the audacity to refer to itself as a news organization. Even the one lone bright spot regarding the Obama Administration’s attempt to “exclude” Fox from interviewing its Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg being rightly thwarted by the Washington bureau chiefs deteriorated into the usual “it’s all about us” article. Not one question about Feinberg’s role or what he intends to do in the position is anywhere to be found. If you were looking for any information about that, you had to turn to other “news” sources. For instance, did you know that Feinberg is looking to “trim” AIG bonuses as well as other executives pay? Not if you were looking at Fox News, you wouldn’t. I googled Feinberg’s name and without exception every newsworthy item about him came from anywhere but Fox. At Fox News the story, as always, is about how fair and balanced they are, and how the big, bad president is out to get them. Even six year olds behave with more maturity.

Whether it’s the banal stupidity of a Steve Doocy or Gretchen Carlson masquerading as news anchors, or the lame attempt by Chris Wallace to somehow resemble his father or even a moderator, or Bill O’Reilly spinning on his “No Spin” zone, or Glenn Beck selling crazy to the bunch of space cadets he calls his audience, Fox’s “news” division has become the laughing stock of an industry that, sadly, has grown fat, dumb and lazy in its quest for the almighty ratings point. For as reprehensible as Fox News has become with regard to journalistic integrity, the rot it has spawned throughout cable news in general is far more deleterious. Weisberg elaborates:

“That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Roger Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.”

In other words, it isn’t enough that Fox is killing its own viewers through its irresponsibility; its second-hand smoke, as it were, is poisoning its competitors’ audience, as well. An industry that once heralded the virtues of CBS’s Walter Cronkite, now kowtows to the likes of CNN’s John King. Probative reporting and investigative journalism have taken a back seat to the drive-by segment in which any guest is allowed to say whatever they want without fear of challenge. Truth is not the ultimate goal; ratings are. The more outlandish and provocative the guests are, the more viewers tune in.

And that is the good news. The bad news is that each of the twenty-four hour cable news channels have ostensibly filled their prime-time evening slots not with news people, but basically with ideologues. A look at the current lineup will tell you all you need to know about the state of affairs.

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News
4:00 to 7:00 The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
7:00 to 8:00 Lou Dobbs
8:00 to 9:00 Campbell Brown
9:00 to 10:00 Larry King Live

MSNBC: The Place for Politics
5:00 to 6:00 Hardball with Chris Matthews
6:00 to 7:00 The Ed Show with Ed Schultz
7:00 to 8:00 Hardball with Chris Matthews
8:00 to 9:00 Countdown with Keith Olbermann
9:00 to 10:00 The Rachel Maddow Show

Fox News: Fair and Balanced
5:00 to 6:00 Glenn Beck
6:00 to 7:00 Special Report with Bret Baier
7:00 to 8:00 Fox Report with Shepard Smith
8:00 to 9:00 The O’Reilly Factor
9:00 to 10:00 Hannity

Now to be truly fair and balanced - another pun? - Wolf Blitzer, Campbell Brown and Larry King are not ideologues, and probably don’t deserve the lion’s share of the blame going around here, but many of the segments on their shows do have an element that is shared by their competitors in that guests can often get volatile during interviews. As such their programs, however CNN would like to portray them as news, are more like soft-core porn to use yet another crude analogy. They get you all worked up and then leave you hanging. And while none can claim the mantle of irreverence that the Fox lineup has richly incurred, all have at one time or another unfortunately sunk to their levels to drive ratings. That I share many of the viewpoints of Olbermann and Maddow is beside the point. The integrity of the media as a whole is threatened when such a mockery is dressed up as journalism. Somewhere, Edward R. Murrow is throwing up in his grave.

This atrocity has been a long time in coming. Its genesis may have started when Fox News was launched back in 1996, but the greater issue may be moot. Not only is the proverbial genie out of the bottle, the bottle has been tossed overboard at sea and the genie is pulling for the shore. Even if it were possible to kick Fox off the air, and believe me there is scarcely a day that goes by when that thought doesn’t delight me to no end, it is doubtful that CNN and MSNBC would alter their programming. Keith Olbermann would continue to espouse Democratic opinions, Lou Dobbs would continue doing his best Glenn Beck impersonation, and Wolf Blitzer would continue saying, “We’ll have to leave it there” just as the topic started getting serious.

Oh death where is thy sting? While an industry implodes under the weight of its own incompetence, aided and abetted by the toxicity of Rupert Murdoch’s hellish monster, the remaining worthy bearers of journalistic integrity continue to dwindle to a precious few. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer is now and has been for some time the bastion of relevant and diverse political opinion unfettered by corporate greed or political agendas. Conservative and liberal ideas are treated with equal aplomb. It is refreshing to hear passionate viewpoints that do not deteriorate into divisive commentary. You will not see the likes of a Sean Hannity or Ed Schultz anywhere near its confines, nor is it likely that you will witness fake news being propagated as factual, and that is the best news of all.

I could say more about this, and will as time permits, but unfortunately my ride is here and I’m afraid I will have to leave it there. For now this closing line will have to suffice. Goodnight and good luck. Mostly good luck.

Don't Ask, Don't Care

Every once in a while we get yet another example of just how hypocritical all of us can be. This appeared in The Onion quite recently and was forwarded to me by a friend. If it makes you feel uncomfortable, GOOD!

For all the high-sounding words and bible thumping that seem to emanate from the Church these days, this op-ed piece lays bare our empty rhetoric and reminds us all that we still have a long way to go both as a nation and as a faith.

Conviction is good for the soul.

Opinion

If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So


By Jane Kendricks October 13, 2009 Issue 45•42


I don't question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God's plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit—in His infinite wisdom and all—to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so.

It's a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?

Here, let's start with the basic facts: I hate and fear gay people. The way they feel is different from how I feel, and that causes me a lot of confusion and anger. Everyone knows God is all-powerful. He could easily have given me the capacity to investigate what's behind those feelings rather than tell strangers in the park they're going to hell for holding hands. But God clearly has another path for me. And who am I to question His divine will?

Compassion, tolerance, understanding, basic decency, the ability to put myself in another person's position: God could have endowed me with any of those traits and yet—here is the crucial part—He didn't. Why? Because the Creator of the Universe wants me to demonize homosexuals in an effort to strip them of their fundamental human rights.

I'm sorry, but you can't possibly ask me to explain everything God does. He works in mysterious ways, remember?

Try to understand. If I were capable of thinking and acting any other way, then I'm sure I would, but God seems to be quite adamant about this one. He's just not budging at all. So unless our almighty Lord and Savior decides to change His mind about my ability to empathize on even the most basic level—which I find highly unlikely—then everyone is just going to have to accept the fact that I'm going to keep on hating homosexuals. And I know that He will fill me with the strength to remain mindless and hurtful in the face of adversity.

Which isn't to say that my faith hasn't been tested. Believe me, there have been times when I've drifted from the bitter and terrified life God has chosen for me. When my younger brother told me he was gay, it shook my faith to its very core. But here I am, 27 years later, still refusing to take his calls. Just the way God intended.

It's actually pretty astonishing how many complaints to the school board you can make regarding the new band teacher you've never met when you are filled with the Light of Christ and devoid of any real kindness or mercy toward His other children.

At the end of the day, I'm just trying to lead a good Christian life. That means going to church on Sunday, following the Ten Commandments, and fighting what I believe to be a sexual abomination through a series of petty actions and bitter comments made under my breath. Sure, I sometimes wish God would just reach into my heart and give me the ability to treat all people with, at the very least, the decency and respect they deserve as human beings. But unfortunately for that new couple who moved in three houses down, He hasn't yet.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have God's work to do.

Snowe Job

How Senate Democrats Capitulated on Principles to Get a Meaningless Vote. 

In the end they didn’t even need Olympia Snowe’s vote. The Senate Finance Committee passed the Baucus Healthcare Reform Bill 14 to 9. Snowe’s “yes” vote, it turns out, was window dressing. The Democrats had enough votes to pass it without her. To court her approval and call the bill “bipartisan” the Democrats scuttled every meaningful initiative such as the public option, employer mandates, meaningful penalties for people who fail to buy insurance, and allowed for up to 17 million people to be without coverage, not to mention no cap on insurance premiums, meaning that insurance companies are now free to pass along the added costs to their customers. All that for one lone Republican vote. Jon Stewart summed it up best. “So her vote made it 14 to 9 instead of 13 to 10? They didn’t even need her vote? Well good thing they gutted the whole f*****g bill!” And you wonder why Washington is broken? 

Never has a political party with so much leverage acted so sheepishly in the midst of such a national dilemma. With millions of its citizens priced out of affordable healthcare and millions more precariously under-insured, the Senate Finance Committee acted more like a teenage boy trying to woo a teenage girl to a prom dance than a deliberative body taking on a serious challenge to our nation’s well being. 

“Will you go out to the prom with me, will ya, please? What’s that, not unless I wear that light-blue geeky suit that everybody makes fun of and throws fruit at? Well OK, but only if you let me give you a goodnight kiss. What’s that, only on the cheek? Well, OK! And we’re really not going steady, you say? OK, I can handle that.” 

And while it is true that the Baucus bill will be merged with the other Senate bill and then reconciled with the House bill, all signs, sadly, point to a final bill that will inevitably end up resembling in some manner the Baucus bill. In other words they went to all this trouble to get Snowe so that they could show the world they were serious about bipartisanship, they aren’t about to throw her back into the sea of political oblivion. When you make your bed with the devil, as the Democrats have done, you lie in it, no matter what. 

And after all the capitulation on the part of Baucus and his fellow blue dogs, the Insurance industry issued a report critical of the bill and threatened to raise premiums by 110%. While Baucus and other Democrats blasted the report and a spokesman for AARP said it was not “worth the paper it’s written on,” the simple truth is that the bill, as constructed, has no provisions within it to prevent the very hikes the industry is threatening. Nice job guys! 

The United States Senate’s new slogan should read as follows: “Abandon hope all ye who enter this chamber.” For that is exactly what happens when anything of real meaning gets debated in the Senate: hope flees the building like fish from a net. And it isn’t just the Senate where hope goes to die. Apparently the executive branch is infected with the malady as well. President Barack Obama practically drooled all over himself in adulation of the Maine Senator, calling her vote “a critical milestone.” Critical milestone for whom? The insurance cartel? New York Senator Chuck Schumer has said that if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid puts the public option in the final bill, it would take 60 votes to take it out. 

Unfortunately for Schumer that would require some semblance of testicular fortitude on the part of Reid, and that is a quality sorely missing from the majority leader. Indeed it is a quality sorely missing from a good number of Democratic senators these days. And that is why a meaningful healthcare reform bill that insures all people, eliminates pre-existing conditions, keeps insurance companies from dropping customers who have the audacity of getting too sick, prevents those same insurance companies from passing on the added costs to their customers, and reduces overall healthcare costs for the millions of people presently covered by insurance plans is looking bleaker and bleaker with each passing day. No one doubts that a bill will be signed into law; the real issue is whether it will be a good bill and whether it will ultimately make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans. 

No wonder the insurance industry is still brazenly spreading vicious lies about healthcare reform and issuing threats about massive rate hikes. Who’s going to stop them? The big bad-assed Democratic Party? Please! Not even the threat of losing its anti-trust exemption has managed to make this juggernaut’s knees quiver. They are defiant and steadfast to the last. And while they continue to earn billions in profits and the Right continues to be their public relations’ arm, the country turns to a political party that is as bereft of backbone as any political party in history. The Democrats’ failure to stand up and seize the opportunity afforded them by their huge advantage in numbers is both mind numbing and disgraceful. In spite of overwhelming support in the House for a public option, not to mention the vast majority of Americans, Senate Democrats seem hell bent on caving in to a false spirit of bipartisanship and selling out the country for a cause their opponents could care less about, and all while an industry sits by laughing at and double daring them in open defiance.

A Nobel Endeavor

What America’s real challenge will be in the twenty-first century.

The announcement Friday morning that President Barack Obama had won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was both shocking and, yes, undeserved. For in the final analysis, the award was mostly symbolic, as the deadline for consideration came less than two weeks into his administration. And to be fair, some of the past recipients of the award have had checkered histories. What can you say when the virtues of a Mother Teresa and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. share the stage with the likes of a Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat? That so many people got so worked up was understandable but unnecessary. Because what so many people are missing here – particularly the Far Right – is that far from heralding a litany of accomplishments, the award represents the hope that America may be ready to finally assume the mantle of leadership the world so desperately needs. That hope was ushered in the moment Barack Obama took the oath of office on the steps of the Capital.

I have written at great length about the titanic battle between fundamentalism and pluralism, not just in America but within the world, and my hope that the latter would eventually win out. But an even greater battle is taking place between neo-conservativism and multiculturalism and the presidency of Barack Obama represents what many hope is a turning point in our history. For too often, the United States has operated on the world stage like it was its moral compass and police force. Direct engagement meant armed conflict. For most of the twentieth century, America arrogantly presumed it knew what was best not only for its own interests but for just about everybody else’s too. It behaved as though the rest of the world was too primitive and backward to understand what it was trying to do. Extending its hegemony throughout the globe may have been sold to gullible Americans as exporting democracy, but what was really going on behind the scenes resembled more a raping of indigenous cultural values and an instilling of a series of fraudulent regimes that owed their allegiance not to their respective citizenry but to Washington D.C. Over the last few decades that arrogant policy helped ignite a growing rage against the United States, which has witnessed a plethora of anti-American sentiment in the very nations it had co-opted. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a case study in how not to conduct a foreign policy. The Islamic revolution that took place in 1978 was brought about in large part due to U.S. intervention in the country in the first place. Decades of propping up a corrupt regime led to a build up of fundamentalist sentiment that culminated in the collapse of the Shah and the creation of the current government. To this day, many Iranians, even those who desire greater freedoms, are suspicious of American intentions. That President Obama decided not to interfere in the election controversy that occurred earlier this year is indicative of the new direction U.S. foreign policy seems to be taking.

Even during its isolationist periods before each of the World Wars, the U.S. acted more like the snob Ivy Leaguer thumbing his nose at the Community College graduate. It was not so much that America respected the sovereignty of the rest of the world; rather it was more like America was too big to concern itself with the world’s trivial conflicts. It was not until those trivial conflicts impacted its interests directly than its indifference gave way to a far more officious attitude. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 resulted not from any lack of military preparedness within the nation but from a lack of a thorough understanding of world politics and the nation’s proper place on its stage. In both instances, the U.S. believed that it was untouchable and that the global conflicts that were taking place were largely benign to it. In both instances it was rudely awakened.

For most of its 200 plus years America has pivoted between two seemingly extreme juxtapositions: isolationist detachment and imperialist nation building. Both have had dire consequences for its national image and its long-term interests. Whether one believes that Barack Obama is up to the challenge or not, it appears as though, for the first time since Jefferson, the nation has a president that isn’t willing to allow either world view to be its modus operandi. Constructive engagement need not lead to armed excursions resulting in the overthrow of legitimate, if odious, governments in order to be effective. Developing trusting and meaningful relationships with allies who have common interests and working with them to obtain mutually beneficial results can be far more effective and far less costly.

Much has been made of Theodore Roosevelt’s domestic policies, which helped put an end to much of the financial monopolization that was strangling the nation’s economy, but with respect to his foreign policy he was nothing less than an American imperialist, hell bent on global domination, and every president since has, one way or another, adopted Roosevelt’s mantra. The big stick, cowboy diplomacy that shaped so much of our history has run its course. The world isn’t buying it anymore; worse they’re demanding a refund of most of what they did buy in the past. There is only so much good will a pair of Air Jordans can get you in downtown Tehran.

Neo-conservatives worry about a loss of American prestige and respect, as though America had any prestige and respect left to lose. It cannot accept a world in which America doesn’t own Boardwalk and Park Place with at least two hotels a piece on them. The specter of an America that leads not by dominating the world, but by being a team player within its confines, frightens them to no end. They see multiculturalism as a threat to U.S. hegemony and all Western values and beliefs. What they fail to see is that those very same values and beliefs are already threatened by an overextended military presence that is resented and despised by most of the world, even in those parts who support our interests.

The real challenge for Barack Obama and the United States is to break free of the 200 year-old paradigm of foreign policy that has shaped our history and defined our existence as a nation. We must redefine what true leadership means as it pertains to global expansionism. Exporting democracy at the point of a gun or the barrel of a canon does not work anymore. The world needs an American presence that is proactive rather than provocative; that is respectful rather than condescending; that seeks to understand rather than to be understood; that upholds the very truths it declares to be self evident; that places principles before profits and honors all citizens of the world, even those who aren’t particularly fond of us.

This does not mean we lie down as a people and allow hostile nations and groups free reign to attack us. Pacifism is no substitute for imperialism. When legitimate threats are posed, we have the right to defend ourselves. Our mistake after 9/11 wasn’t that we weren’t outraged at the heinous act committed against us; it was our failure to seize the opportunity afforded us to go after those truly responsible and at the same time forge a partnership with moderate elements within the Muslim world to eradicate the nemesis once and for all. Because we went it alone, we alone incurred the wrath of a region. Why seek partnerships when being a cowboy had worked so well in the past. Not even John Wayne would’ve been so foolhardy.

Well the past is over and the future is at hand. It is time for the United States to join the twenty-first century and rise up out of the ashes of its imperialist past and join the human community. We do not lose our sovereignty by yielding to other nation’s sovereignty. The respect we gain by playing by the rules, instead of trying to dictate them, will gain us more cooperation in the long run, advance our causes, defeat the enemies of liberty that seek to destroy us, and lead to a far more secure planet for all to live.

The President was gracious in accepting the honor accorded him. "I will accept this award as a call to action," he said. "This award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity." It was refreshing to hear a president speak of justice and dignity in a macro setting and who looks to include others. If he can abandon all of the follies of his predecessor - and that means not just renouncing torture publicly, but prosecuting those who committed it, as well as respecting habeas corpus for all - he may yet deliver on the promise of the Nobel Committee. For our sake he had better not fail.

It's Been a Wonderful Journey!

To my dearest and most loving companion, Maria.

15 years ago we said “I Do” before God, our family and our friends. We've gone through a lot and accomlished so much together. And while the years may have flown by, I still remember how beautiful you looked walking down that aisle. I was the luckiest man in the church that day; 15 years later I still am.

Happy anniversary, honey!

You know how I love music; well I think this song sums up how I feel about you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ga9Bs4fzSY

I'll Never Find Another You.

There's a new world somewhere
They call The Promised Land
And I'll be there some day
If you will hold my hand
I still need you there beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I'll never find another you

There is always someone
For each of us they say
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I'll never find another you

It's a long, long journey
So stay by my side
When I walk through the storm
You'll be my guide, be my guide

If they gave me a fortune
My treasure would be small
I could lose it all tomorrow
And never mind at all
But if I should lose your love, dear
I don't know what I'll do
For I know I'll never find another you

Another you,
Another you!

Shame On You!

Well it’s time for this month’s winners of the "Shame on You" celebrity under-achievement contest. As always, the nominees were tough to narrow down, but I did my best, hopefully, to hit the nail on the head.

The envelope please:

First place this month goes to the entire Far Right for their disgusting display of fake patriotism in response to the news that Chicago had lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. From Fox News to Rush Limbaugh to Drudge to Glenn Beck to the Americans for Prosperity, it was a virtual free for all for the wingnuts when they found out that the I.O.C. had eliminated Chicago on the first ballot. The Americans for Prosperity erupted in a thunderous applause upon hearing the news; Limbaugh mocked, “The ego has landed;” and Matt Drudge’s headline proclaimed: “World Rejects Obama.” Shameless is a word in a half. It’s one thing to “hate” Obama; it’s quite another to root against your own country and then applaud when it gets eliminated. I have said everything I care to about what I consider to be the national malignancy that is the Far Right, but this time they collectively went above and beyond and took the cake. Fox News actually spent the better part of Friday afternoon talking about how wonderful Rio was compared to the corruption and crime of Chicago.

Later attempts to “suggest” that their jubilance was aimed only at Obama and was not indicative of any ainti-American rooting were weak at best. After spending much of the summer manufacturing rage against healthcare reform through intimidation, manipulation and fear mongering, this latest spectacle is yet another sad chapter in the annals of a movement that is about as insular and xenophobic as any movement in modern history. Go away, just go away!

Our runner up is Betsy McCaughey. The former Lieutenant Governor of New York, who played a major role in defeating healthcare reform back in 1994, and who coined the phrase “death panel” that Sarah Palin took and ran with, has once more outdone herself with an “op-ed” piece in the New York Post, titled: The “Kill Granny” Bill. In it she once more resorts to the same fear-mongering that has defined most of her fellow colleagues by suggesting that “the Senate Finance Committee bill robs the elderly to cover the uninsured -- like snatching purses from little old ladies." She actually quotes a doctor who predicts that if this bill is passed, “The only doctors left in Medicare will be those willing to ration care and practice cookbook medicine." The doctor’s name? David McKalip, the neurosurgeon who forwarded email pictures of President Obama dressed up as a witch doctor in a loin-cloth and headdress with bones in his nose. McKalip was eventually forced to step down from his position as president-elect of the Pinellas County Medical Association for his racist act. This was the expert McCaughey felt obliged to quote.

McCaughey “resigned” herself from her position as a director of Cantel Medical Corp. one day after her interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, in which Stewart read her out when she tried to spin the death panel claims, calling her ideas “hyperbolic and dangerous.” The highpoint of the interview was when McCaughey couldn’t even find the very section of the bill she was trying to misquote! There is a very special and warm place set aside in hell for this lady, and God help me for saying it, she can’t get there fast enough for my taste.

But bringing up the rear is a surprise entry: Alan Grayson. His comments on the floor of the House of Representatives were inappropriate, pure and simple. No matter ones views on healthcare reform – and the truth is that the Republican Party as a whole has not had any tangible or substantive contribution to it other than to state its unequivocal opposition to it - using a platform to suggest that Republicans want you to die quicker or that the current state of healthcare in the United States, no matter how dire, is equivalent to the holocaust is disingenuous at best and does a disservice to the cause of meaningful reform. Worse, it gave the wingnuts on the Far Right more ammunition to attack yet again the very thing we all assume Grayson and most intelligent people actually want. Furthermore, while Grayson’s rage was aimed at his Republican colleagues, he conveniently left out the Blue-Dog Democrats, many of who have taken tens of thousands of dollars of contributions from insurance companies over the last few years and are now the number one stumbling block to a Public Option in the Senate Bill.

That’s right, representative Grayson, it’s the Democrats who are killing true and meaningful reform. They have enough votes in the Senate if all of them voted as one. But because many of them, including Max Baucus – a Democrat! - have been in the pocket of corporate lobbyists for years, more Americans will needlessly die this year because they don’t have affordable healthcare insurance. Bill Maher was right. “Every time Obama tries to take on a progressive cause, there’s a major political party standing in his way: the Democrats. We don’t have a left and a right party in this country any more; we have a center-right party and a crazy party. Democrats are the new Republicans.” The guys in the movie “Dumb and Dumber” have nothing on Alan Grayson and the whole Democratic Party. I’m going to borrow a line from this blog that I swore I would never again invoke, because I feel it is fitting. Stupid is as stupid does. Way to go Alan!

Unfair and Unhinged:

When Right is Wrong.

Over the last few months, and indeed for most of this year, I have been writing about what I consider to be a growing malignancy within the country. This malignancy has been relentless and single-minded in its intentions. It refers to itself as conservative, yet it betrays everything responsible conservatives have been about for decades; it refers to itself as Godly, yet there is nothing Godlike about it; it refers to liberals as fascists, yet its actions expose a fascist tendency within its ranks that is unmistakable; it refers to itself as patriotic, yet with every vile and twisted stunt it pulls it reveals itself to be a threat to the very Constitution it claims to love and support; it claims to have the facts on its side, yet it is largely ignorant of anything even remotely resembling the facts; it claims to be on the side of the middle class, yet it is in bed with entities whose interests are injurious to such folk; it claims to love liberty, yet through its racist and xenophobic tendencies it seeks to deprive the less fortunate of the very liberties that it enjoys; it speaks of bringing democracy to the world; yet its actions at home belie its rhetoric; it talks about freedom of speech, yet it seeks to stamp out all who disagree with it; it rallies its supporters to “take back” its country, yet doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that to do so would destroy the very country it wishes to take back.

I have called this malignancy many things: the far Right, the Christian Right, the lunatic Right, the conservative Right, the fascist Right, or just plain old Right. In any incarnation one cares to call it, it is the single greatest threat to the future of our Republic. I call it relentless and single-minded, because that is what it has become. It is now a twenty-four hour, seven day a week, fifty-two week a year, year in year out fixation that has defined not just a major political party, but virtually anything right of center in the country. It is consumed with its own self-righteous rage and contempt for anything not of its own ilk, and openly threatens violence against any and all who oppose it. Its obsession with this current President has become a case study in paranoia. Through its agents - Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and the rest of the rat pack - it has been on a non-stop crusade to berate and disparage everything he says or does.

There has been an astounding lack of respect for this President that has seen no equal in history. Bill Clinton may have been despised by the Republicans, but he was never subjected to such utter contempt. Riotous mobs who show up at town-hall meetings some with loaded weapons, shouting down anyone who dares to have a differing opinion from theirs; Republican Congressmen and Senators who encourage continued contempt for the President at these town-hall meetings by not correcting attendees who shout out flat out lies and threats, many nodding in agreement with the absurdities; fake Tea Parties and D.C. rallies decrying what they think is socialism that sport racists signs and are whipped up into a lather by “fair and balanced” correspondents, are all part of the script. Stoking the emotions of ignorant citizens through deliberate misinformation and fear mongering is part of a greater effort to blame everything that happens on Obama. This is leading to a vitriol tide that is sweeping across this country like a tsunami coming ashore. Wave after wave continue to pound the body politic of our nation, until the water is completely and irrevocably polluted. No matter what this President does, he’s wrong for doing it. The attempt to capture the 2016 Olympics for Chicago is yet another example of damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. The constant barrage of hate from the far Right is taking its toll.

I have mentioned the increase in death threats against the President that the Secret Service has had to contend with; witness now the latest threat to appear on facebook in the form of an “opinion poll” titled: “Should Obama Be Killed?” The choices were a) yes; b) maybe, c) if he cuts my healthcare; or d) no. The poster of the poll didn’t even have the courtesy to use the word assassinate. The reluctance to even acknowledge the Office was almost as bad as the threat itself. Recently newsmax.com ran a column by John L. Perry – one can only wonder what the L stands for - that suggested the military “will intervene as a last resort to resolve the Obama problem.” While the column was pulled from the site, an official retraction or apology was never issued by newsmax.com.

Where is the moral indignation and condemnation from supposedly responsible conservatives over these acts of sedition? True enough Lindsey Graham recently came out against Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, accusing Beck of cynicism: "Only in America can you make that much money crying." It remains to be seen what price Graham will pay for speaking his mind. And therein lies the problem. When legitimate attempts are made to call out this madness they are met by the usual objections from the Right as infringement of First Amendment rights, and dismissed from the center as over reacting to a largely innocuous trend. CNN practically belittled Bill Clinton's interview on Meet The Press in which he described the vast right-wing conspiracy that plagued him during his administration as alive and well. "It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was." Thomas Friedman’s op-ed piece in The New York Times, however, speaks to this insanity and is quite on point.

“I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the Right or Left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far Right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination. Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the President, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.”

RNC Chair Michael Steele responded by calling Friedman “a nut job.” He then defended recent conservative protests, and warned Friedman and others against drawing a connection between outrage at the President’s policies and implications of racism or threats of violence. That Steele was adamant about deflecting criticism over the Right’s actions was typical; that no one is challenging him and others on the Right, save for the rare brave voice, is appalling. Lost in Steele’s denial of any wrongdoing was any effort on his part to reject such vitriolic demonstrations as not representing the Republican Party or being in the best interest of serving the country. And that is the problem in a nutshell. You can’t criticize the bus driver when you’re still allowing him to drive the bus. The lack of any responsible voices on the Right and the inability or unwillingness of more moderate conservatives to rise up against this malignancy is the real heart of the matter.

To quote Jeremiah 5:21, “Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear.” What we are witnessing is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history and I am very much afraid that we are headed towards a national tragedy. Friedman’s warning, if it is not heeded, will have dire consequences for all of us. For regardless of Party affiliation or political leanings, there is no room for out and out hatred and violent rhetoric. Those who use our airwaves to spew hate should not be allowed to hide behind the First Amendment. While the press enjoys protection under this Amendment, there is no such protection for broadcasters like News Corp. and Citadel Broadcasting, which own Fox News and WABC A.M. respectively. The airwaves, under FCC rules, are licensed by the government to private corporations for the expressed purposes of serving the community. The assumption is that this public trust will be honored by the broadcasters and will not be used irresponsibly. When that trust is violated, there are consequences. In 1978 the Supreme Court ruled against Pacifica Radio for airing a George Carlin bit uncensored. The FCC argued that Pacifica Radio was guilty of obscenity; Pacifica claimed freedom of speech under the First Amendment, to no avail. Which is worse, hearing George Carlin say the word “shit” or listening to wingnuts repeatedly incite their minions to possible acts of violence?

To those who claim that this is nothing more than censorship, I say get real. There is an enormous difference between legitimate political commentary and the kind of antics Glenn Beck pulls on his cable show. I have broached this subject before, so forgive me for repeating myself. It is time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to ensure that there truly is a fair and balanced message that is being heard by the masses. Talk shows that lean considerably to one side of the political spectrum may seem entertaining at first but they are launch pads for people who don’t need much of an excuse for going off the deep end in the first place. There are responsible news outlets out there: PBS has been doing a yeoman’s job for decades discussing the major issues of the day with civility. Passion needn’t give way to extremism in order to be free. With great freedom comes great responsibility. Imagine the target market for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity being constantly bombarded by hate. Now imagine, if you will, if these blowhards had to devote a segment of their shows to a less volatile and inflammatory opinion. Still think we would’ve seen the riotous Tea Party scenes and raucous town halls in August? Do you think we could’ve had a serious discussion on the budget and health care instead of talk on death panels and socialist tyranny?

Enabling deeply disturbed and emotionally wounded people by convincing them that big brother is their sworn enemy and then encouraging them to take back their government by any means necessary, even if it means killing its “supreme leader” is not what our Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. Allowing deranged personalities to speak on behalf of your interests and then calling those who call you out on it “nut jobs” is cowardice. That no one within the ranks of this cancer has stepped up and made a concerted effort to thwart such irresponsible conduct implies consent. No other conclusion is possible.

It therefore must fall on those of us who are responsible, be they Democrat or Republican to say, “Enough is enough!” If we start now, we can send this message, loud and clear, that violent rhetoric and sedition are not to be tolerated. One is free to agree or disagree with their duly elected government officials, and to peaceably protest when they wish to; one is not entitled to threaten aggression against such officials or to whip up into a frenzy the ignorant and the gullible merely because they lost an election.

Of all the speeches Abraham Lincoln made, none seem more moving and appropriate for our time than the one he delivered on the occasion of his first inaugural. His closing words are worth noting here.

“If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there is still no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way, all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being you yourselves the aggressors. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

May the peace and courage of our Lord be with us as we move forward in His name!

The Way We Never Were

How nostalgia and perception clouds our understanding of who we are and how we came to be.


Lately I’ve had the occasion to reflect at great length on what I see in our society as a growing fondness for the way things used to be. It’s called nostalgia, and while it is not a new phenomenon, it has grown into a national obsession over the last few months.

Simply stated nostalgia is defined as a longing for the past, a sort of homesickness if you will that borders on romanticism. Those who suffer from its effects often have feelings of melancholy about change and often react morbidly when confronted with the fact that no matter how hard they try, they cannot return to the past. And even when they reflect fondly back upon it, their recollection of how things were is skewed by a distorted perception.

I have been a victim of nostalgia myself and quite recently. Earlier this month, for instance, my wife and I went on vacation to San Francisco for the occasion of our fifteenth wedding anniversary. We had gone there for our honeymoon and thought it would be nice to “relive” the experience. The city did not disappoint; it was magnificent, just as it was back in 1994. North Beach, China Town, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park, the Muir Woods, Berkeley, the cable cars, and both the Oakland Bay and Golden Gate bridges. It was breath taking. To say I was sad to leave would be an understatement. As it began to dawn on me Friday that we would be leaving the next day, I couldn’t help but wonder where the time had gone; and, as we sat on the grass of Washington Square Park, I was hoping that this moment my wife and I were experiencing would last forever. It was as though I wanted time to stop moving forward, just so we could always stay right where we were in our vacation. But time doesn’t stand still; it keeps on moving forward no matter how hard we resist. The problem with the present is that it all too quickly becomes the past, and all you are left with are memories. Like it or not, my wife and I boarded the plane for home the next day. Exit vacation stage left; enter reality.

Looking around the political landscape of the country these days, I see an awful lot of people who have been caught up in a nostalgic haze. For them it isn’t so much a longing for a longer lasting vacation, but rather for a return to a time when things were simpler and less chaotic. People left their doors unlocked, children walked to school without supervision, people stood on their own two feet, father knew best, and everyone left it to Beaver.

Compare and contrast those times with today and it is easy to understand how some might be caught up in an over zealous melancholy. Home invasion, children being abducted, welfare fraud, South Park and Family Guy. Yes, I suppose if those two extremes were presented to me, I might tend to agree that today’s world is no match for yesterday’s. The good old days are pretty tough to beat aren’t they?

Gladys Knight once said, “Come to think about it, as bad as we think they are these will become the good old days for our children.” Those words were the opening lines in a remake of the classic Barbra Streisand song “The Way We Were.” Knight sang that song in 1975, more than thirty years ago. Those children are now fully grown, many of them with children of their own. I was one of those children that grew up in the ‘70s, and while I have no children of my own, I have often thought about that time in my life. Was it really that much better? Or did it just feel that way? Knight goes on in the prologue of the song, “Why does it always seem that the past is better? We look back and we think the winters were warmer, the grass was greener, the skies were bluer, and smiles were brighter.” And then she begins to sing the first verse of the song:

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time rewritten every line?
And if we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me
Would we?
Could we?

Deep down we know what the real answers are. The problem, however, is that reality is not what we’re looking for. It never is. Like me on that vacation last week, I wanted no part of reality. All I wanted was for my good time to keep going on. Returning home and going back to work was not something I was looking forward to, no matter how essential it was. My perception was not based on facts but fantasy. The fantasy was that we could stay in San Francisco forever on vacation without a care in the world; the facts were that we could never have afforded to stay there indefinitely and we both needed to return to work in order to pay for the vacation we had just enjoyed. To the rational mind, facts, no matter how inconvenient or unpopular, eventually win out over fantasy.

But since perception, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, it can often become twisted and distorted over the years. We conveniently forget the bad times we lived through, and choose only to remember the good ones. When thinking about history we forget about the McCarthyism and segregation of the ‘50s, the Vietnam War and the riots of the ‘60s, or the political scandals and runaway inflation of the ‘70s. No matter how many episodes we watch of Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke or the Carol Burnett Show, nothing but our selective amnesia can hide the painful truth that most of what we believe and know of the past has been influenced not by real events, but by our distorted perceptions of them.

That the good old days weren’t that much better than the present is a truth we simply don’t want to hear, because it means facing up the realities of a complex, and sometimes upside down world. We may have wanted the world in which Robert Young and Jane Wyatt had it all together, everybody got along, and hardship never darkened their door, but deep down we were smart enough to know that life more closely resembled the world in which Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton headed up a dysfunctional family that argued constantly and was mired in the controversies of the day. The two worlds of Father Knows Best and All in the Family were about as stark a dichotomy as any imaginable. The former represents our fantasy; the latter our reality. They were separated by two decades, yet they may as well have been in different galaxies as far as anyone could tell. Fantasy often seems real until you wake up in the morning and find the light of the new day shining brightly upon your face.

Take good old-fashioned self-reliance for example. Sociologist Stephanie Coontz in her book, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, wrote that “most Americans agree that prior to federal ‘interference’ in the 1930s, the self-reliant family was the standard social unit of our society. Dependencies used to be cared for within the ‘natural family economy,’ and even today the healthiest families ‘stand on their own two feet.’ The fact is, however, that depending on support beyond the family has been the rule rather than the exception in American history, despite recurring myths about individual achievement and family enterprise. It is true that public aid has become less local and more impersonal over the past two centuries … but Americans have been dependent on collective institutions beyond the family, including government, from the very beginning.”

Coontz goes on to expose yet another myth about self-reliance, this time with respect to the American West. “Prairie farmers and other pioneer families owed their existence to massive federal land grants, government-funded military mobilizations that dispossessed hundreds of Native American societies and confiscated half of Mexico, and state-sponsored economic investment in the new lands. Even ‘volunteers’ expected federal pay: Much of the West’s historic ‘antigovernment’ sentiment originated in discontent when settlers did not get such pay or were refused government aid for unauthorized raids on Native American territory. It would be hard to find a Western family today or at any time in the past whose land rights, transportation options, economic existence, and even access to water were not dependent on federal funds.”

Between the $15 million it spent on the Louisiana Purchase and the $200 million it spent on building canals that linked the eastern seaboard with the new settlements in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, government intervention and funding were critical in the development of United States hegemony in the hemisphere. The rugged, go-it-alone approach, so widely held to by many of today’s conservatives, was nothing more than a myth started by individuals who felt slighted by the government and passed on by one generation to the next in perpetuity.

And it wasn’t just the establishment of an American empire that required a massive government undertaking. By the early twentieth century most of the wealth of the nation was held in the hands of a very few powerful men like J.P. Morgan, who owned U.S. Steel, the International Mercantile Marine and controlling interests in several banks as well as most of the railroads in the country. At one point Morgan and his partners controlled aggregate resources of more than $22 billion, equal to the value of all the property in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River. In December 1912, Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency committee. The committee ultimately found that a cabal of financial leaders were abusing their public trust to consolidate control over many industries. The findings of the committee inspired public support for ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, passage of the Federal Reserve Act that same year, and passage of the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914. Government intervention, far from being intrusive, was essential in the break up of the Trusts and in restoring the level playing field needed for a truly competitive market.

The establishment of National Parks such as Yellowstone and Yosemite was yet another example of reality triumphing over myth; the myth being that government encroachment into the private sector is always disastrous. Without the protection of the federal government most of the parks that had been set aside would’ve been the victim of private development interests, their beauty lost to future generations forever.

Noted conservative and sometimes hypochondriac, Pat Buchanan, has been lamenting for some time now the loss of traditional American values and sounding the warning bells over the grave threat posed by illegal immigration.

“The European-Christian core of the country that once defined us is shrinking, as Christianity fades, the birth rate falls and Third World immigration surges. Globalism dissolves the economic bonds, while the cacophony of multiculturalism displaces the old American culture.”

Buchanan fails to see that every ethnic minority that immigrated to these shores brought with them experiences and values that were unique to this country and could not help but shape its culture. His myopia is no different than that of his predecessors who feared the Italians, the Germans, the Jews, the Irish, or the Poles. Irrational fear makes us see things that aren't really there and blinds us to the truth.

But of all the myths that have been perpetrated on the country, none have been more hideous than the idea of black poverty being tied inexorably to the disintegration of the black family. Stephanie Coontz again writes “The image of black family collapse feeds on racist stereotypes and media distortions, ignoring the diversity of African-American family life. Yet it also draws on some real, and very disturbing, trends affecting a section of black America. The most striking of these is a social and economic polarization in which poor African Americans have lost ground, both relatively and absolutely, for the past twenty years.

“Journalist Ken Auletta’s The Underclass (1982) first popularized the concept that black poverty is linked to a degraded inner-city subculture locked into self-defeating personal and familial behaviors. The argument became increasingly stark over the 1980s: Black poverty exists because black men are irresponsible, black women are immoral, and black children run wild. What African Americans need, according to what is often called ‘the new consensus,’ is not government programs but a good dose of sexual restraint, marital commitment, and parental discipline.

“No other minority got so few payoffs for sending its children to school, and no other immigrants ran into such a low job ceiling that college graduates had to become Pullman porters. No other minority was saddled with such unfavorable demographics during early migration, inherited such a deteriorating stock of housing, or was so completely excluded from industrial work during the main heyday of its expansion. And no other minority experienced the extreme ‘hypersegregation’ faced by blacks until the present. All these circumstances greatly affected African-American family life.”

Another hideous myth that is accepted as fact is “the so-called explosion of childbearing among single black women. Birth rates for black women have actually fallen by 13 percent since 1970, compared to an increase of 27 percent among unmarried white women.” Much of what we know of the African American experience in this country is based on false perceptions fed to us by a largely white media, which knows “next to nothing” about the true facts of black poverty.

In an excellent example of perception over reality consider that one of the more realistic television shows depicting a black family – at least for the first three seasons – was Good Times. It featured a conventional nuclear black family with a strong black man as the head of the household who often worked two jobs just to put food on the table and a mother who nurtured her three children and raised them to be respectful. Though poor and living barely above the poverty line, they nonetheless got by and remained intact. In every way imaginable, the show bucked the perception of racial stereotypes for black families, and by all rights should have been a hit. And yet its ratings, with the exception of season two, remained poor throughout its tenure on CBS.

By contrast, a decade later NBC launched The Cosby Show, depicting an upper middle-class black family featuring Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable and his wife, a practicing attorney, who, despite an obviously demanding schedule, manage to successfully raise their family. The show was a hit for the entire length of its run, tracking number one five seasons in a row. Many have concluded that the popularity of The Cosby Show when compared with the small appeal of Good Times was due to the fact that a larger percentage of Americans found it far more plausible to believe in a financially affluent black family that stays together than a struggling one that doesn’t fall apart. In other words, John Amos’ character of James Evans was unbelievable as a father who chose not to run out of his responsibility as a father, whereas Bill Cosby’s character of Dr. Huxtable fit right in with viewers’ expectations about a successful black father. Ironically, the producers of Good Times, in a contract dispute with Amos, decided to write him out of the series after the third season by having him die in a car accident.

So you see myths, while they have played a crucial role in our development, have also taken on a life of their own and, when carefully explored, do not hold up to the light of day. That they are still kept alive is proof that reality, despite being essential for our survival, is still way too inconvenient and sometimes just too painful to bare. But when we have the courage to wake up from our denial and embrace reality, far from consuming us, the freedom it provides, allows us to grow into the people God intended us to be.

No matter how much I may have resisted returning home from my wonderful vacation, when I woke up the next morning I was in my own bed in Long Island, New York. My melancholy would last a few days until I finally accepted my reality. I still have my nostalgic moments when I retreat into the past. Like the population, my old habits die hard. The "City By the Bay" still beckons, and no doubt Maria and I will return to it again one day. For now it remains where it has always been and must stay: 3,000 miles to the west.

It’s not a political circus, Mr. President!

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

It has been eight months since you took the oath of office and became our nation’s 44th president. You entered the White House on the heals of a landslide victory that millions believed would lead to the formation of a truly transformational administration. In the beginning, that transformational character was apparent. You signed an executive order closing down the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center, giving hope to those of us who still believed in the Constitution as well as the knowledge that America was not exempt from following the rules of the Geneva Convention, no matter how justified it felt its actions were, or how safe it perceived its actions as being. Your cabinet choices also proved your willingness to be diverse and invite those who most would consider rivals into your inner sanctum. It was clear that Lincoln meant a lot to you.

But the hope that we had during your campaign proved to be short-lived. Over the last seven months you have refused to prosecute those who committed torture and expanded the Bush domestic surveillance program. Those of us who voted for you and who believed in true justice were stunned at such actions and remain stunned to this day. And now you are transferring detainees from Gitmo to Bagram in Afghanistan, in essence circumventing the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush. Appalling. It seems, Mr. President, that in this arena of foreign policy, the only difference between you and your predecessor is that your justifications are more lucidly articulated. But they are no less offensive in the annals of international law. A Harvard Law graduate should know better.

But the glass is not completely empty with respect to foreign policy. There are several bright spots in your young administration that are noteworthy, among them your stance with regard to active engagement in the Middle East. You at least have acknowledged that the cowboy diplomacy, so widely adhered to by your predecessor, was clearly not working. Your decision to stay out of the Iranian election debacle, when virtually all of your opponents demanded you to intervene, was a sign of true presidential wisdom; the likes of which hasn’t been seen in this country for quite some time. You have also shown courage with regard to Israel, challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue of expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, no small feat given the powerful pro-Israel groups within America. Bravo, Mr. President, on this one!

Domestically you have had your ups and downs. True enough, you inherited the worst economic meltdown since the Hoover Administration and you needed to act quickly and decisively to avert a national calamity. While virtually every respected economist agreed that doing nothing, which is what most of your opponents were recommending, would’ve been disastrous for the economy, nearly all agreed that the manner you went about first the stim package and then the budget left way too much opportunity for your adversaries to define what it was you were attempting to accomplish. Off loading both the stim and budget process to the Congress was an error that could’ve been averted had you simply been more involved. Working with Congress is laudable; letting it run riot over two huge spending bills with your name attached to it was the height of naïveté.

One would’ve thought you learned your lesson from those two experiences, but alas, you repeated the mistake with the health-care reform bill. Once more you set out lofty goals for a program that was badly needed and long overdue, and once more you stood on the sidelines and allowed Congress to define and draft it. This time your opponents had a field day. The August town-hall meetings and the astro-turf Tea Party demonstrations were the result of intense corporate underwriting and relentless conservative rantings, coupled with rank, amateurish, rookie mistakes of an administration that should’ve seen the woods ahead, but instead drove headlong into them. The resultant car wreck now threatens the success of a reform bill that millions desperately need and the nation cannot survive without.

Your excuse? You were trying to avert a repeat of the Clinton Administration’s disastrous health care reform bill, which they tried to ram down the throat of Congress and which Congress promptly rammed right back at them. Fair enough. The Legislative branch has historically treated such attempts with predictable contempt. But, the opposite of arrogance isn’t apathy, Mr. President. It behooved you to find a middle ground where you could’ve met with senior congressional leaders, outlined specifics you wanted in the bill, co-wrote parts of it, and then left the rest up to Pelosi and Reid. By the time you got directly involved your opponents had an eight-week jump and had claimed a moral high ground they never should’ve been allowed to have. You became the poster child for socialism and death panels, principally due to your unwillingness to roll up your sleeves and directly take on your political enemies. That more people fear the government than the insurance industry is based not on any real facts, but the sort of fear mongering that the Right is extremely adept at. Shame on you, sir, for allowing that to happen; especially when it was avoidable.

And now we come to the crux of your real dilemma: the issue of your political opponents and the dire threat they represent to your presidency. Heated debates and partisan politics are part of our history and as old as the Republic itself. Jefferson and Adams loathed each other and threw everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at one another. Teddy Roosevelt so despised Republican William Taft that he ran against him for President as an independent, thus assuring the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Talk about spite. And more recently, your Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, was so reviled among his Republican rivals, they stopped at nothing in trying to bring down his administration. Though with all due respect to the Republicans they did have a little help in the form of Clinton’s indiscretions that unfortunately would end up defining his presidency.

My point, Mr. President, is that mud-slinging, bitter rivalries and personal attacks are facts of life in politics, as you well know. But what is occurring in this nation over the last few months is owed not principally to a divisive political discourse, but has its genesis in something far deeper and more insidious. It goes back farther than the mere divide of political parties, farther even than the Republic itself. The principle issue before us, Mr. President, is race.

Like most political pundits, we all figured that the true test of the nation was whether we were mature and advanced enough to elect an African American to the office of President. What we did not count on was that the real test would not come until you actually assumed the office. It was at that moment that we as a nation came face to face with an even uglier truth about ourselves: that there were certain elements in our society that simply could not accept being governed by a black man, especially a black man who is the chief executive of the country. They are mad as hell and they aren’t shy about strutting their racism.

Make no mistake about it, Mr. President, it is racism, pure and simple. Jimmy Carter, a life-long southerner, who witnessed overt and covert examples of racism in his native Georgia, said it best.

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."

You should take Carter at his word, Mr. President. It isn’t just the South. I have witnessed small examples of such attitudes in my own home town. Your mere presence in the Oval Office has stirred up centuries of hatred, which is both irrational and potentially dangerous. Some of the language used at town-hall meetings and Tea Party demonstrations has been particularly racist and demonstrably violent in its tone. These are no mere adversaries voicing their opposition to a particular political party or policy; they are mobs looking for someone to string up. Look at the pictures, Mr. President, look at them. Do you not see the correlation between your caricatures and the lynchings that took place in the segregated South?

You know there is truth in my words, and worse yet, so does the Secret Service. Death threats against you are four times more numerous than they were for your predecessor, which is quite a statement given how unpopular he was during the last two years of his administration. Failure to call this what it is, in the vain hope that time will lead to cooler heads prevailing and a peaceful resolution will take place is about as naïve as Neville Chamberlain declaring he had achieved “peace for our time” by appeasing Hitler. Less than a year later World War II started. This is not a political circus, as you so flippantly put it during your interview with 60 Minutes last Sunday. This is the prelude to a potential national tragedy that is unfolding before our very eyes and sadly right under your nose. Waiting for “responsible” right-wing conservative talk show hosts to “dial down” their rhetoric and call out their minions is foolhardy. Just what is it you expect from the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh?

Mr. President, you must act, and act now. You must look those who mean you harm right in the eye and say, “Bring it on!” You must openly refute the lies and distortions that are quickly gaining traction with many of the populace by calling out the racist elements contained within them. You would prefer, I’m sure, to let bygones be bygones and behave as an adult, believing that your foes will come to their senses and see the light. Trust me, Mr. President, they will not see the light; nor do they want to. Hearts lost in darkness will never see the light of reason. And that is why it falls on you to be that light.

This is not the time for pragmatism or taking the high road. That shipped sailed a while back. The relentless assault by right-wing, extremist elements within the Republican Party want nothing less than your removal from office and before the 2012 election. While stopping just short of implying assassination, the tone of this group could hardly be confused with that of pacifists. There are times when you seek peaceful coexistence; and other times when you fight fire with fire. Guess which time this is, Mr. President?

Perhaps you are thinking this is impossible given all we’ve been through in this country. Certainly we have progressed far enough so that we can have an intelligent debate on the real issues without sinking to the depths of our most base fears and prejudices. Certainly America is better than this. I wish this were so. But it isn’t, and the last few months have born this out. Men showing up at town-hall meetings with loaded weapons sporting signs with comments too crude to include here with your picture on it, are way beyond having adult discussions with. They are thugs who are no better than the ruffians who routinely beat and hung African Americans in the old South simply because they could get away with it. Like Hitler’s Storm Troopers, they are driven by hatred, pure and simple. You do not reason with hatred, Mr. President, you defeat it.

I was only two years old when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. It had been almost a century since the nation had a sitting president assassinated and one could almost forgive the Secret Service for not being totally prepared for the possibility of it happening on their watch. That mistake cost the nation dearly. Forty-six years later, we are again faced with the real threat of assassination against a sitting president. There is no excuse now for not being prepared. The actors in this potential tragedy have not hidden their sentiments; in deed they have made them all too clear. It would be doubly criminal if as President your intellect, your higher ideals if you will, clouded your judgment and further encouraged an unstable individual to attempt the unspeakable.

The ball is in your court, Mr. President. You can do with it as you wish. For now, you are the chief executive of the country. It is high time you acted like it. It is high time you led by example and put those who are out of line in their proper place. Your predecessor had no such difficulties in this area. Of all the shortcomings George Bush had, one of them was not timidity. He did what he felt was best for the country, no matter how it was perceived. That he was wrong in his judgment most of the time should not be an excuse for not following, at least in this manner, in his footsteps. To do so would be akin to throwing out the baby with the bath water.