Redemption

Words matter. Sometimes they matter in a sad way. Sometimes they matter in another way. Sometimes their impact is predictable. Sometimes their impact is not. One person reads the immortal Sermon on the Mount and believes it carries a redemptive message of grace and righteousness. Another reads it and believes it carries a direct message to eliminate the tax on inherited wealth, punish immigrants, or despise those who are born with different sexual orientations.

Unlike water, words don’t remain the same after they are poured into a container. Consider, for example, a politician we all know. While running for office, he said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” He then mimicked firing a gun with his fingers, adding. “It’s, like, incredible.” For these words, he was elected president of the United States of America, albeit by the Electoral College and not by popular vote. Nonetheless, he now occupies the same White House where Abraham Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, Dwight David Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and others once slept.

Having arrived there, this politician used words to dishonor the military sacrifice of a man who served six years in a brutal prisoner of war camp on behalf of our country. He used words, with the assistance of gestures, to mock the speech and movements of a disabled man. He later used words to describe a group containing Neo-Nazis as having some “very fine people.” He used words to mock the family of a soldier killed in war in the service of our country.

His base supporters lauded and approved these and other words, solidifying even more tightly around him.

The sad thing is: consider what might happen if this politician were to request TV time tonight to make the following speech.

“My fellow Americans, we have become a divided nation and we must heal ourselves. We are all in this together, and face a highly complex and sometimes terrifying future. May I suggest that we face it together as friends, not foes? Our patriots faced a harsh future at Valley Forge. Our brave soldiers and sailors, men of every color, race, religion, and orientation, faced and conquered fear on the shores of Normandy. Our grandparents faced hunger and desolation, along with fear, during the Great Depression. Our heroes of the Civil Rights movement faced dogs and clubs on the streets, highways, and bridges of our nation in their fight for freedom.

“We survived these struggles through unity, not divisiveness. We joined hands as Americans and do what American do best, prevailing against the forces of hate and disparagement. In short, we faced the future as a united nation. That’s what I’m asking you to do tonight. I’m extending my hand in this symbolic gesture, and asking you, if you are physically able to move yours, to extend your hand toward my voice and join me in an oath of unity. If, because of infirmity or disability, you cannot extend a hand, simply smile as best you can and know that we stand with you and that we all stand together.

“The main religious figure for many of you charged us to care for the least of those among us. Another religious leader commanded that we care for the poor. I pledge to orient my administration to that charge. Starting tomorrow, I will not post my thoughts on the Internet. Instead, I will post my thoughts through action. Join me and let us persevere, as did our ancestors at Valley Forge. Let us charge into the Valley of the Shadow of Death as did those brave men in France. Let us welcome sacrifice in the name of justice as did my brother John Lewis and the brave women and men who fell underneath the horses and clubs at Selma. Let us be Americans, and show the world what that means, and may whatever God we each worship, including an inner-spiritual one who dwells in our own heart, bless us.”

Well. You and I both know what would happen. He would lose half his base overnight. Franklin Graham would never speak to him again. Stephen Miller would melt into a blubbering mass. Vladimir Putin would be shocked into silence. Fox “news” would shut down for emergency repairs, and five members of the United States Supreme Court would start wearing Groucho Marx disguises when leaving the building          .

Know what though? I think the Galilean would be smiling.

Many have given.
Many haven't.
 Some gave all.

My Redacted Life: Chapter Eleven

As luck would have it, the 4^th of July came on a Sunday in 1971, before the days of elongated holidays. They let us off Monday anyway. I went fishing with the family and returned for work promptly on Tuesday amidst many complaints of too much sun, too much food, and other overindulgences. An extra day can mean the difference between delight and misery. Numbers count.

I tried to keep up with the news, but much of life in America went unreported. For example, over in our neighboring state of Tennessee, a 17-year-old girl from Nashville named Oprah Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant. If the news made our statewide paper, I missed it. The victory gave the young lady a scholarship to an all-black college in her state where she would major in communication. I doubt if any of us would have thought much about that.

News about race was settling down, anyway. Many Americans thought “that civil-rights stuff” had all been settled in the 1960s. Weren’t the Blacks happy? They could now eat wherever they chose to.

Most of the news centered on our lightening-swift plan to bring victory in Vietnam. Second Lieutenant William L. Calley became the sole conviction resulting from the My Lai Massacre, the cold-blooded murder of several hundred Vietnamese civilians by units of the United States Americal Division. Commanding officers who ordered the massacre skated through, as commanding officers tend to do, and the affair became distant history. We all had better things to worry about.

July would be a sad month for music fans. American singer, songwriter, poet, writer and filmmaker, Jim Morrison died on July 3 from “too much love of living,” as Swinburn put it.  Less noted by the young was the passing of legend Louis Armstrong on July 6. “Pops” would dazzle us never again.

We took in the news and suffered through the Arkansas summer. I’m not saying it is miserable, but some theologians admit that the average outside temperature in our state ranges a degree or two above that of Heaven’s opposite home.

I was thankful for having an apartment with an air conditioner, albeit one without a pool. At work, I was beginning to become intimately acquainted with census material. Contained in several books, the tables provided detailed socio-economic data down to the block level. As with any data, they could be used for good or for the not so good.

The data were extremely useful for documenting need for specific areas of a city, or neighborhood, so that limited resources could be directed efficiently. They helped, as well, for justifying requests for funding.

They were also good for drawing voting district boundaries designed to maintain a white supremacy.

I was beginning to realize the power that numbers carry, or seem to carry. After all, speaking of the Vietnam travesty, our sole military strategy for most of the war had been to document more enemy deaths in battle that those of Americans. South Vietnamese or civilian deaths didn’t matter one way or the other. Numbers, selective numbers, ruled. I thought about this as I worked in a nice, cool, safe place while others still stood in harm’s way. Would it ever end?

As for my current work in planning, one thing always puzzled me until I began to understand the world a bit better. Grant applications seemed never to ask for data from tables directly available in the census data. Their use always required interpolation, bundling, estimation, guesswork, or outright prevarication.

It would all become clear to me as time went by. As with the military, selective counts rule over actual counts. A little statistical legerdemain can prove useful, until the day when actual counts refuse to belie the truth further and things erupt.

Morning Thoughts: April 5, 2018

Ahh. Ever remember hearing something and trying to verify it later? Just did. You know what a fool I am for verisimilitude, when it suits me.

This one involved something I heard on an NPR segment years ago while driving. It spoke to the percentage of colonists who actually took part in the so-called “American Revolution.” Point was that the percentage taking an active part was smaller than one might be led to believe. I remembered it was 20 percent or so but had been able to find a source to cite. Well, I found one.

Reading A People's History of the United States  by Howard Zinn late last evening, I ran across this passage quoting John Shy, (author of A People Numerous and Strong) and John Adams (second president of the U.S., but hell, you ought to know that).

“Shy estimates that perhaps a fifth of the population was actively treasonous. John Adams had estimated a third opposed, a third in support, a third neutral.”

At the time, I applied this to the gains made in civil rights in the 1960s. The efforts then, of a few, were bolstered by a significant segment offering tacit support, that segment being appalled by the likes of George Wallace, Ross Barnett, and others. The sight of Bull Conner turning dogs and fire hoses on children certainly grew support throughout the nation for the rights of minorities. Good Americans felt disgusted at the tactic of using violence and venom against children as a political tool, particularly when those children were only seeking basic human rights.

In short, the forces of good gained support with each evening broadcast of television news.

Here we had, though, in the 1700s, perhaps 20 to 33 percent of active participants, backed by another 33 percent of the population as non-participants, defeating perhaps the most powerful army in the world.

That is why it troubles me so to see people who, in my opinion, are on the right side of history acting in ways that offend and diminish that vital segment of the center. Blocked freeways, riots, blind allegiance to third-party candidates, self-denigration, single-issue voting, and harsh vitriol do not build support among the non-participants.

Just an opinion troubling my thoughts this morning.

Scenes like this build support
in the struggle against injustice.

 

Day Two: January 2,

Back in graduate school, I read an article that I can’t find again. Seems that years ago, someone did a piece on slavery in America. Not one of the modern works being put out in schools during the Betsy DeVoss, era, the ones concluding that slavery was simply a matter of guest workers migrating to America in search of jobs. We may survive her and her supporters (some of which our state produced) and we may not. Stay tuned.

No, this was a serious look. It tried, without trivializing the horrors of “that peculiar institution” to present it in terms with which someone who was not of African-American heritage could, at least to a minimal degree, empathize. Of course the search was futile. Although there were those of European descent who came to America as indentured servants or who volunteered once they were here, the comparisons are miniscule. There was no compelling comparison.

The nearest the author(s) could find that approached the lack of human rights, loss of individual freedom, death or corporal punishment without representation, complete control over every waking moment, was … . Are you ready?

The life of a sailor aboard a military ship in the days of sail.

Please, again, don’t take this as a comparison in fact. It is a comparison for contemplation. The most interesting thing was the implication that slavery was a forced, brutal, and closely guarded affair requiring arms and the aid of government to enforce. Oddly, some, not all, sailors chose the life willingly refusing all others. They were the ones Joseph Conrad described as staying at sea for fear that the earth would scorch their feet.” (paraphrase)

I only bring this up because of an article I ran across yesterday that examined the animosity that the working white-class has in America for the working black-class, despite the fact that they have so much in common.

I live in rural state that “thinks poor” as much as it “is poor.” For the last dozen or so statewide elections, the prevalent campaign strategy for some candidates is simply to mail out campaign ads with a picture of Barack Obama on once side and a picture of their opponent on the other. If the opponent was male, the implications were merely designed to appeal to embedded racism. If the candidate was female, the implications were more more horrifyingly meaningful.

Did it work?

Oh yes. Hordes of voters who enjoy 40-hour weeks, social security, unemployment protection, fair labor standards, and, now, health care, flocked to the poles to vote for candidates who support not one of those benefits.

It’s a strange country we live in, and I worry that it’s about to get stranger.

Just thinking …

Sailing To Oblivium: August 15, 2017

The TV announcers seem surprised. What rocks have they been hiding under? Those chickens have been headed our way for a long time.

One wonders when a pundit, in earching for the origins of Charlottesville, VA, will remember SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts’ famous cop-out in Shelby County v. Holder. As the Court gutted voting rights, he claimed “…while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” (Emphasis mine) That is to say, “Hey, racism is over now. We don’t need no stinkin’ voting rights legislation anymore.”

Or, will a reporter finally remind us that Ronald Reagan first announced his presidential candidacy in Philadelphia, MS, the town where the three civil rights workers: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney were slain by white supremacists in 1964.

The message was plain, “Hey y’all, I’m with you on this race thing. Let’s make America white again.”

 The chickens coming home now have been wandering around long before Donald Trump announced his campaign. One only had to be there when America elected Barack Obama president. The thought of a person of color in the white house shook the foundations of white society with enough strength to awaken Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. It did awaken Jim Crow like nuclear tests awakened the monsters of the 1950s’ Sci-Fi movies. Bigotry was fashionable again in the bars, coffee shops, hunting clubs, and hair salons of the South. Like all cancers, it soon spread over all of America’s body.

People you thought were reasonable and sane began joking and frolicking: photoshopping watermelon patches on the White House lawn, wearing blackface outfits to parties, calling the gracious First Lady of our country a gorilla, or resurrecting stale old racist jokes from the 1950s.

The chickens began to strut and peck. We ignored them, perhaps because we were busy, perhaps because we were verifiably Caucasian, or perhaps because we thought America was too strong to be lured into the cesspool of racism, bigotry, and prejudice again. Maybe, after all, we did think the jokes and jibes were a little bit funny. What’s the harm if it doesn’t affect us? Warum ärgern? Es ist nichts.

When situations arose that required complex analysis, we discarded the complexity and chose sides. Violence drew lines that won’t be erased for decades. It was righteous food for the flocks, and it drew them like moths to a flame.

Other chickens, like the fundamentalist religion crowd, joined in dragging new targets. The flocks grew. Fox “news” found an audience and prospered, throwing enough grain on the ground to entice even the previously sane into the mix. Old breeds infiltrated: the KKK, the Aryan Nation, even the Neo-Nazis. Nobody seemed to notice who their flock-mates were.

It was a happy group, pecking and strutting the day away until the Sean Hannity show came on so he could throw them their daily grain. The chickens were happy and content.

Now they are coming home to roost and some wonder why. I just wonder how come it took them so long.

But maybe, just maybe, Charlottesville will provide a Joseph Welch moment for America. Click here for the video of how he handled the Donald Trump of his day.

Mr., we could use a man like
Joseph N. Welch again.