Do You Really Want To Talk Truth To Power?

March 4th, 2010  |   

The Bob & Ray Show—Then And Now

Are any of my readers old enough to remember the Bob and Ray Show that aired on radio years ago? In case you don’t, they were comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. I loved to listen to them do clever spoofs and parodies, satirizing radio and television interviews in a deadpan, serious style. 

The other night I traveled to West Virginia State University to hear a new version of the Bob and Ray Show. Not the comedians, but Bob Parry and Ray McGovern.

Ray McGovern is a 27-year veteran CIA analyst who served under seven presidents— presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. Now retired, he’s hell-bent, perhaps I should say heaven-sent, on his mission to unmask the innocuously biased, often dishonest reporting that passes as news. McGovern has become a political activist and writer, committed to factual based reporting and analysis. He serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an organization comprised mostly of retired intelligence officers who speak out on the use of U.S. intelligence to justify war.   

Bob Parry has a long history of truth-telling reporting. Back in the 1980’s, he broke many of the Iran-Contra stories while writing as an investigative reporter for the Associated Press and Newsweek. Frustrated, even thwarted by corporate media from getting the facts to people, he and Ray McGovern turned to the Internet and founded Consortium News (www.consortiumnews.com) as a way to deliver reliable information and analysis to people searching for the truth.

“I was distressed,” says Parry, “by the silliness and downright creepiness that had pervaded American journalism by the mid-1990’s. I feared, too, that the decline of the U.S. press corps foreshadowed disasters that would come when journalists failed to alert the public about impending dangers.”

Parry told a story which went right to my heart. How a person finds his or her way to conviction—particularly when there is a cost to pay for expressing it—always goes straight to my heart. A disheartened heart can get recharged by such stories.

A wise Jew, Rabbi Nacham of Bratzlev, once said “God loves man because he loves stories.” How true that is. Powerfully inspiring narrative has a way of reawakening slumbering conviction. It can inspire people to make changes in their personal lives. Stories can motivate human beings to bring about change inside the institutions in which they live, and move, and have their being. 

A Story About An Old Man Reading A Newspaper With A Magnifying Glass

Bob Parry told us about his first wife’s elderly grandfather, who was nearly blind and hungry for news. Every morning, he would walk downtown to purchase a copy of the Boston Globe. Returning home, he’d pick up a magnifying glass and read the paper.

Parry said that watching this old man, he came to the realization that, as a newspaper reporter he had a responsibility to people like this man. He decided that he should commit himself to exposing the lies that our government tells the public, and the news that gets suppressed by the media. He would dedicate himself to the task of giving his readers truthful reporting and analysis—the kind so often hidden from them. 

I don’t know if others in the audience heard Ray McGovern say that he was a member of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington, but I did. He works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of this marvelous socially active church, whose mission is to “unleash into our hungry world the healing power of the Spirit-given Word by making it as widely and freely available as possible.”(www.telltheword.org/)     

After the Bob and Ray Show—on my way home—I thought about the work these men are doing—their effort to speak the truth to power—the risks and the rewards associated with their calling to become truth-tellers.

Perhaps I should be wary about talking about calling, for fear that I might confuse my readers by lapsing over into the vocabulary of religious-speak. Religious or not, I do believe all human beings are drawn to a vocational destiny—driven by some deep awareness—an inner voice, if you will, that spurs a person on toward a meaningful life and purposeful work.  

Jeannette Walls, in her new book, “Half Broke Horses,” has Lily Casey reflecting on the lesson her father taught her about Purpose—spelled with a capital P. “”Dad was a philosopher and had what he called his Theory of Purpose, which held that everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody’s time.”

Purpose—a meaningful life—a desire for truth—and a willingness to speak the truth to power. The West Virginia version of the Bob and Ray Show has me thinking, and now writing, about those very things.

A Choice—Get A Gun Or A Baseball Bat

I shall never forget my conversation with a man on the Delmarva Peninsula just after I arrived there in 1995, hired by the Diocese of Delaware to do a specialized ministry. That ministry was to connect as many Episcopal churches, as I possible could, with people who were living on the fringe of life in that region—the poor and disenfranchised.

I was called to engage the churches with prisoners in the local prison—blacks, feeling the effects of poverty—gay and lesbian folks, alienated by ecclesiastical and political structures—and predominately white farmers along with a newly-arrived and growing Latino population, all of them exploited by the large poultry industry housed on the Eastern Shore.

If you will take a moment to consider this work a brave bishop and diocese called me to undertake, you will understand the complexity and the difficulty of the task—the task of speaking truth to power alongside of people feeling the pain and injustice of personal and institutional  power. I was excited about this work. It was meaningful work and I knew what the Purpose was when I arrived on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Now, for my story about the conversation I had with a man just after I arrived on the Peninsula in 1995. Because sometimes, in order to tell a true story, it is necessary to invent a fictitious name, I shall call this man Bob.

Bob had deep generational roots there. He knew a multitude of folks, and he knew all about the power wielded by the poultry industry, particularly the power of the Perdue family—the owners of the huge poultry company.

At a Burger King in Georgetown, Delaware, Bob asked me if I owned a gun. I told him that I did not own a gun. His advice? You’d better buy one, because the poultry industry plays for keeps. And if you don’t have a gun, he said, you’d better carry a baseball bat in your car.

Needless to say, I bought neither a gun nor a baseball bat. But I did understand what Bob meant by giving me that advice. If you are going to speak truth about the injustice in the poultry industry, you’d better understand that these companies play for keeps. When it comes to the huge economic interests of any industry, and the task of educating the public about the injustice within the industry, and when you are called to help folks organize to address these injustices, speaking the truth may result in conflict. 

I do not wish to over dramatize my work on the Delmarva Peninsula. What I do understand is that all of us live in relationship with various institutional powers—powers that can reward or harm us.

That’s why all of us—because we all live inside of institutions and sometimes up against them—would do well to examine the power they have over our lives, and what the cost might be if we attempt to speak truth to those powers. And what it might mean if we don’t.

Living A Purposeful Life Doing Meaningful Work
 
Spending time with workers over the years—white collar and blue collar alike—I have come to the conclusion that human beings have a deep desire to do meaningful, purposeful work. When someone gets locked into a job in which they are treated poorly, even unjustly, that person becomes depleted of energy, hope and Purpose. Purposeless jobs create passionless people. As we attempt now to create jobs, we should keep that in mind—not just jobs, but meaningful, purposeful jobs.

On top of that, workers like to feel they work for a company they can feel proud of—a company that has moral Purpose and creates a valuable product. When the Bhopal, India, chemical explosion killed thousands of people in India and the details of the company negligence were unveiled, many Union Carbide workers around the world experienced a loss of morale.

I see some people who merely go through the motions when it comes to their job—and that includes folks on both the high-end and the low-end of the pay scale.

Me, I’m in the church business. Oh, I know, we label it a “calling” and mystify the work by bringing God into the picture. But, in case you didn’t know it, we operate under business-like conditions. We’d better show the church board an increase in members, and a budgetary bottom-line that spills out black and not red on the financial report. And be careful not to challenge a traditional church doctrine, particularly when your bishop is the “defender of the faith.”

And speak the truth to power—the congregation, bishop, other clergy, and the community? Are you kidding? A number of us who dress up like kings to preside over the Solemn Assemblies are as timid about that as people who work behind the counter at McDonald’s, sit in the governor’s cabinet, manage the local Macy’s, write stories for the newspaper, or deliver the news on television.

Hey, telling the truth to the boss or living it our daily on the job, be it the church or otherwise, might cause us to fall out of favor with the powers-that-be. It might cost us a ladder step on the stairway to success—whatever that means when you’re in the God-business.

And don’t forget, we’ve got bills to pay, a life-style to perpetuate and some old rules that still clunk around in our heads about being nice, saving-face, being tactful, even at the expense of telling the truth. The old Shakespearean line becomes our motto: “The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.” And just how does that message fit with the Christian imperative that we are to lay down our lives, not save them? 

Two quick thoughts that make sense, even though I might try to disconnect them from each other. First, when I speak of truth, I mean truth as I perceive and understand it. That’s all I really do have when it comes to the subject of truth. I may be informed by great pearls of wisdom taught to me by wise tutors and religious tradition, combined with my own personal experiences, but in the end I must remember it is my truth, hopefully shared by some, but, nevertheless, my truth.

And the second thought is merely this: Other people, as well as me, have their truth to tell—even my enemies and those I do not like, and those who don’t view the world as I do. And in the end, they will have to live their truth as I must live mine. And in the living, one can only hope some other words from Shakespeare come into play: “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” I smile while writing these words. They are from the play, “All’s Well That Ends Well.” And all may end well if ambition and violence do not prevail

Speaking of Shakespeare…

Macbeth With Mac And Beth

Last weekend, Judy and I drove to Durham, North Carolina, to visit daughter Beth and son-in-law Mac. A Beth-Mac visit. Yes, but also a Macbeth visit. We were there to see grandson Lewis play Macbeth.

I was thrilled to see a high school stage such a play—such a difficult play. The director displayed courage, and the students rose to the occasion, proving again that young people can appreciate Shakespeare when teachers take risks. I must also add that—please a grandfather’s pride—Lewis was a magnificent Macbeth.

Studying the play before I saw it, and watching it performed, I couldn’t help but think about how relevant this play is for us today. It is a play about how a man, Macbeth, is driven to violence and bloodshed by ruthless ambition. It brings to mind the politicians who have taken us to war, and business leaders driven by the forces of greedy ambition. It forces us to recognize how much pain and death is left behind when human beings give way to blind, self-serving ambition.

The play begins with the Three Witches predicting that Macbeth will, without any doubt, be the King of Scotland. We are led to believe that this outcome is inevitable. But the inevitability brings with it a heavy cost. In the end, Macbeth will not be able to overcome his own ambivalence about becoming the King. And, in the end, he and everyone around him, will be mired in violence, bloodshed and death.

Shakespeare could have very well saved Macbeth from this tragic finale. He might even have brought comic relief  to this dark play. But he didn’t. He refused to fall back on the old theatrical trick of introducing a deus ex machina. Don’t we all long for, even pray for a deus ex machina. What fools we mortals be.

In Search Of A God To Bail Us Out

Deus ex machina (“God from the machine”)—is the introduction into a play of a God-like character who will rescue the characters from a terrible fate. It’s a cheap trick—cheap grace. It is a mechanical way to bypass, even undermine, the freedom and integrity of the characters the playwright has created. It says he does not trust the characters he has created.

Sometimes I feel like prayer becomes a cheap trick—a plea for a deus ex machina—the introduction of God onto the scene to rescue us from whatever ails us. And so frequently what ails us is what has arrived on our doorstep, compliments of our human freedom, both personal and political—the result of individual and corporate action or inaction.

Last week marked the anniversary of the 1972, Buffalo Creek disaster. On that day a coal sludge broke open spilling over 132 million gallons of water, destroying 17 little towns, killing 125 people, and swallowing 500 homes. The Pittston Coal Company was responsible for this tragedy, but blasphemers were ready in the wings to play the deus ex machina card. The governor, Arch Moore, and the insurance companies came onto the scene trying  to save the coal company by calling the flood “an act of God.”

The situation has not changed here in West Virginia. In fact, things have gotten worse. People still live in communities threatened by an even more egregious threat than existed back in 1972. That threat is mountaintop removal, the decapitation of our precious mountains. Thank God, and I do mean God, for the courageous folks who are fighting for these mountains and refusing to hand their freedom over to those who blaspheme the name of God every time a community is flooded or a coal miner dies.

Lily Casey, from Jeannette Walls book, lives in dirt-poor poverty in a cave-like mud dugout. (Walls actually lived, as a child, in Welch, WV). During a flood, her mother begs the family to pray when the water threatens their home—a cave-like mud dugout. Lily cries out: “To heck with praying! Bail, dammit bail.” After the flood, Lily says: “I was pretty aggravated with Mom. She kept saying that the flood was God’s will and we had to submit to it. But I didn’t see things that way. Submitting seemed to me a lot like giving up. If God gave us the strength to bail—the gumption to try to save ourselves—isn’t that what he wanted us to do?”

Julian of Norwich wrote: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Right on sister! But only if folks use their God-given freedom to make things well by resisting the ambitious greed that would harm creation and the people who live here.

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