June 24th, 2010 |
High Noon At The White House
Before going to bed two nights ago, I visualized General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in mid-air on his flight back home to meet President Obama at the White House. I then peeked in on Mr. Obama readying himself for bed. I wondered if either one would sleep well, or sleep at all.
This meeting between McChrystal and Obama was classic theater, shades of the movie “High Noon.” It brought back memories of when President Truman called General MacArthur home in 1951 to chastise him and relieve him of his post during the Korean War. MacArthur’s letter criticizing Truman didn’t appear in a magazine, like McChrystal’s interview which appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine. MacArthur’s words, written in a letter, were read on the floor of the House of Representatives and distributed to the press.
This issue of Notes is devoted to the talking points and tipping points which surround this dramatic and important moment involving General McChrystal, President Obama and our war in Afghanistan. But, before I say more, I should offer a word of explanation about talking points and tipping points.
Talking Points & Tipping Points
The term talking points is quite common these days. Unfortunately, it has become a derisive term employed by politicians. Both the political right and left love to say that their political opponents cook up talking points for the media, as if the information presented is bogus, party-line propaganda. In fact, comedian media mogul Jon Stewart, loves to belittle political talking points as nothing more than a superficial examination of issues.
The dictionary definition, however, rescues the term. “A talking point in debate or discourse is a succinct statement designed to persuasively support one side taken on an issue.”
The term tipping points has become popular as a result of Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.” Gladwell’s point is simply this: Little changes can have big effects. Something which seems very small can result in a huge turn of events. As the old saying goes, “The straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Having defined my terms, it’s time to offer a few of my own talking points about the McChrystal-Obama confrontation, and how I see what took place at the White House as a tipping point for President Obama.
So What Did Take Place At The White House?
I heard someone on television say that General McChrystal had been “taken to the outhouse” by President Obama. Hardly. What he meant was that McChrystal had been taken to the woodshed.
For my young readers, the term refers to a day long-gone when a father would take his son out to the woodshed for a spanking.
Since there isn’t any woodshed at the White House, Obama did his handiwork in the Oval Office. McChrystal, who is known as a straight-talker, got punished for criticizing the Obama team’s conduct of the war—comments made at a Paris pub in the presence of too much booze, and in front of a Rolling Stone interviewer.
As The Worm Turns
There is an old proverb that says “Tread on a worm and it will turn.” This means that even the most defenseless creature will, when sufficiently provoked, attempt to defend itself.
When General MacArthur gave his farewell speech before Congress (interrupted fifty times by applause) after having been fired by President Truman, he concluded his remarks with these words: “I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”
General MacArthur did not fade away, nor will McChrystal. Even though he left the White House, having swallowed his punishment quietly, humbly, apologetically, and in an honorable military way, the worm will turn. Mark my words, the worm will turn when folks begin to feel sorry for General McChrystal, and remorseful for having to watch this fallen warrior bite the dust. In the long run, most Americans, when given the choice between siding with a soldier or a politician, will choose the man in uniform.
The worm may turn even more vigorously as the war turns even more deadly and voices are raised which say, “Obama should have listened to this straight-talking general who told the truth about the ambivalent and conflicted policy makers in Washington. Sure, McChrystal broke a time-honored tradition which prohibits military personnel from openly criticizing a superior officer. But Obama should have exercised his authority by slapping McChrystal’s wrist for his subordination and sent him back to Afghanistan with a renewed commitment to get the job done no matter how long it takes to win this battle.”
How Long Will It Take To Win This Battle?
Over the Memorial Day weekend the Turner Classic Movies channel offered a large menu of old war movies. I suspect that a few more will air over the Fourth of July holiday.
Watching bits and pieces of these black and white films, there was, of course, no technicolor blood. Instead, there was a sheen of romanticism that covered the action—a diaphanous scrim constructed to soften, even hide, the the brutality of war
I grew up with these films. They hid more than they revealed.
Albert Einstein had it right when he wrote sharply about war, as if he wanted to rip all romantic notions from the subject matter. “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
That said, let’s be clear—crystal clear (I might say McChrystal clear) about the policy the Good General, and his replacement, General David Petraeus have each committed themselves to in this already nine year old war in Afghanistan.
Russia spent nine years back in the 1980’s fighting to control and occupy Afghanistan. It is estimated that one million people died as the Soviet Union threw its mighty military force in harms way in a war that consumed 25 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product. Despite this commitment of troops and money, Russia was eventually defeated and forced out of Afghanistan. The war became Russia’s Vietnam experience and eventually contributed to Russia’s loss of the Cold War.
The diaphanous scrim that covers the war in Afghanistan must eventually be removed if our nation wants to see the reality that lies behind the romantic myth that we can win this war. The ongoing commitment that President Obama has made toward counterinsurgency (COIN) in Afghanistan guarantees an extended and costly fight—one that the American public will eventually abandon support for. COIN is a bankrupt currency.
Exit strategy? Forget it. Look instead for a metaphor—a symbol to describe our presence in Afghanistan. One might best consider Jean-Paul Sartre’s play in which three characters are locked in a room with no windows, no mirrors and a locked door. Near the end of the play, one of the characters demands to be let out. His demand causes the door to open but the three still cannot find the courage to leave.
The play, in case you hadn’t already guessed its title, is No Exit.
A New Rock Star On The Scene
Candidate Obama, as he campaigned, supported a continued war effort in Afghanistan. I cringed each time he made that commitment. But since I am not a one issue guy when it comes to voting for candidates, I voted for Obama hoping that his supporters could turn him around on this war. I hoped that, once elected, he would see the folly of our continued military presence.
The poet, Alexander Pope coined the phrase hope springs eternal in the human breast, but in all honesty, this breast of mine is devoid of hope when it comes to Obama pulling our troops out of Afghanistan and back home any time soon. Although I live in the United States, hold a U.S. passport, and vote and pay taxes as a U.S. citizen, I feel like a Cold War Russian trapped in an endless war, where lives and dollars are being wasted.
Remember, if you will, that Obama did not support a counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan until he became president. After he was elected, he sent General McChrystal, who “wrote the book” on counterinsurgency, to lead that policy in Afghanistan. Now he has appointed General Petraeus to carry out the same policy.
In other words, McChrystal may have disappeared from the stage, but the same rotten play goes on. Petraeus and Obama are on the same page when it comes to policy. When our president, following McChrystal’s dismissal, said in his address to the nation that the policy for war in Afghanistan would not change, I believed him.
Following McChrystal’s dismissal, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Senator Bill Nelson from Florida met with General Petraeus and issued this statement: “In our discussion, General Petraeus reiterated that this change was only a change in personnel, not policy. He expressed a readiness to carry forward the U.S. strategy on the ground in Afghanistan that he played a key role in developing.”
The Nebraska Nelson showed up on cable news saying this about Petraeus: “He’s the guy who can take over and ram this policy through.” And how can he do that? Simple. As NBC correspondent Richard Engel put it, Petraeus is a “rock star.” Who knows, perhaps he might eventually do what General Colin Powell couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Petraeus could very well be an electable presidential candidate.
Obama’s Tipping Point
Prior to McChrystal’s fall from grace, the nation was focused 24/07 on the BP oil spill that is ravaging our precious waters and the wildlife dependent upon those waters, as well as the people whose very livelihood depend on clean water. .
Prior to calling General McChrystal home, President Obama was being warned that his lack of attention, and his tardiness in addressing the spill, might very well cost him his home—eviction from the White House in the next election.
One political analyst, frustrated over Obama’s temperament around this disaster in the Gulf, wondered out loud why our leader can’t seem to work up a good old display of anger. Maybe, he asked, our calm mannered president is lacking in pissedoffterone.
I think you know very well what he’s talking about. He’s not hankering for a leader stuck in the angry mode. No, he’s merely looking for more than cool. I am too. Let me put it this way: There’s a time for Zen and a time for Zing. Zing, that’s the thing your supporters are looking for, Mr. President.
I hear a lot of my friends say that President Obama has disappointed them over more than one issue. My take on it, however, runs deeper than that. Forget my disappointment. I believe he has disappointed himself by not living up to the serious change he promised to deliver around the way business is transacted in Washington.
In a previous issue of Notes I agreed with Garry Wills, when he wrote in The New York Review of Books, that Obama should forget about another term in the White House and just plunge ahead with his plans for change, as if he would only be a one term president.
Here’s where the tipping point I mentioned above comes into the picture. I am talking about presidential tipping points—those moments or events, some big and some small—that proved fatal to our recent presidents. Think tipping points: The Tet Offensive in Vietnam for Lyndon Johnson. Watergate for Richard Nixon. The Iran Hostage Crisis for Jimmy Carter. The lackluster presidential campaign performance of George “Papa” Bush up against Bill Clinton.
I’ll make an observation, even though it may rub a few of my friends the wrong way. The war in Afghanistan stands a good chance of being President Obama’s tipping point. His willingness to walk the same path toward war that his predecessor, George W. Bush walked may very well tip him out of the Washington and back to Chicago in 2012.
Ticker Tape News
Watching cable news, prior to the President Obama’s address to the nation, my eyes caught sight of the moving ticker tape flashing news at the bottom of the screen.
• At least 115 million widows around the world live in devastating poverty. The most dire consequences are faced by 2 million Afghan widows and at least 740,000 Iraqi widows who have lost husbands to war.
• A Pew Research Center for the People and The Press/Smithsonian Magazine poll reports that 41 per cent of Americans polled say that Jesus will return to earth within the next 40 years.
How does one consume a diet of news like that? Okay, so let’s not question the forty one percent—which translates into four out of every ten people I pass on the street while walking. The only question that hangs in the air is this one: When Jesus comes back, will he find you hard at work doing what the Bible requires of believers—that is, taking care of widows and orphans? And better still, will Jesus find you hard at work organizing to stop your nation from eliminating war—one of the reasons we have so many widows and orphans?
A bumper sticker I saw last week on the back of a car says what I’m trying to say, but with fewer words. JESUS IS COMING BACK. LOOK BUSY.
Always Leave Them Laughing
George M. Cohan, who I mentioned in my last issue of Notes, wrote a song way back in 1903 entitled “Always Leave Them Laughing.” After this rather heavy issue of Notes, that’s my intent—to leave you laughing. And what better subject is there to laugh about than television’s endless subject for advertisements—erectile dysfunction (ED).
Prior to Father’s Day, my Sunday newspaper arrived with a USA Weekend insert full of articles about men’s health. Inside was an article “For Men Only” by Dr. Oz—the wizard doctor on TV. Honest, what I am about to tell you is true. The good doctor is concerned that Viagra might not be the answer for men who think they have ED. Perhaps the problem is psychological or may be the result of being overweight. So here’s a tip for how a man can tell if he needs medication.
“Before going to bed,” says Dr. Oz, wrap a strip of lick-and-stick stamps around your penis. If they break apart overnight, you’re having erections while asleep, and the problem is probably psychological, not physical.”
Thinking about this engaging subject, it came to me that men could very well be valuable assets in helping to rescue our economically distraught U.S. Postal Service. Buy stamps, brothers, so we can keep our post offices open and the mail arriving daily without interruption. We certainly don’t want our nation to suffer from postal dysfunction.
June 24th, 2010
June 1st, 2010 |
One of my favorite magazine and newspaper formats is the Q & A—the question and answer method of getting information from people.
Each month The Progressive magazine does a four page Q & A. The comments from a variety of guests are always interesting. In the May issue, for example, Ed Asner, actor and social justice advocate, talks about politics and the Oscar winning movie Up in which he did the voice part for the elderly man who lost his wife but found his lost dream. “I think Up is a marvelous film. It treats subjects that non-animated pictures should be dealing with,” he says, “old age, loneliness, discovering new life, new directions.”
Another fascinating and challenging interview can be found in the March issue of The Sun magazine. In it, Tim Farrington, a writer who has been hospitalized for depression in the past, talks about depression, the spiritual Dark Night of the Soul, suffering and writing. On writing: “Done right, the discipline of writing makes your heart more open and soft—or at least it helps you take your head out of your ass. Writing should ultimately decrease morbid self-absorption, not make it worse.”
It’s a rare Sunday when I don’t read the one page New York Times Magazine Q & A done by Deborah Solomon. Subjects interviewed range from Jane Fonda, Rand Paul, Rosanne Cash, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Chinua Achebe, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Interviewed herself, Solomon says, “I don’t see interviewing as an art form. At best, it is a minor art form, like bartending, or macramé.”
Solomon, like other interviewers, has a knack for taking thousands of words and parsing them down to four hundred. That’s what folks like about a Q & A. It’s short and to the point—it’s a lean, fatless piece cut close to the bone. It’s not a thesis but rather a thimble full of information. Or, to appropriate Solomon’s bartending imagery, a Q & A is like a shot glass of bourbon rather than a boot full of beer.
In the February 14 issue of Notes, my Valentine’s Day issue, I used the Q & A format to focus on the subject of love. I am writing this issue on Memorial Day and will return to the Q & A format. This time I’ll be focusing on some of the questions that people have asked me over the years, including some that are recent, about a variety of subjects. I hope you find my pithy comments revealing and helpful as you sort through your own thoughts about life.
Cheers and down the hatch!
Question: What are your thoughts on Memorial Day, 2010?
Answer: If there is a parade downtown today, I’ll stay away from it. I hate seeing old guys in uniforms they’ve outgrown, marching with flags and ammo-empty rifles. And I take no delight in the children throwing candy from red, white and blue floats, followed by high school ROTC kids who haven’t even begun to shave. Last night I heard a woman interviewed on CNN who said that each and every one of us is able to exercise our freedom because of those who have sacrificed their lives in war.
Today, I shall wince if I hear some orator say our fallen warriors “died to keep us free.” Why? Because, since WW II, I’ve not seen a single war fought for our freedom. “Freedom” is just another word to justify U.S. hegemony in the world. The dead—some of my friends—were tragically misguided, their courage exploited, their blood wasted. And they will have died in vain, if we refuse to study war no more.
Question: That doesn’t sound like a very patriotic thing to say. Do you love your country?
Answer: Look, I was raised in a Red-White-and-Blue row house, working class neighborhood in Baltimore. I can remember the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and George M. Cohan’s lyrics: “Every heart beats true ‘neath the Red, White and Blue.” I cut my teeth on the movie “The Sands of Iwo Jima.” The Marine Corps Hymn still stirs a hair or two on the back of my neck. That’s an alert I have to pay attention to because it could indicate I’ve been struck down by the John Phillip Sousa syndrome. I marched to those tunes during my brief stint in the Marine Corps where I received a rough-and-ready education about the reality of U.S. military dominance around the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this country. It’s your land and my land, like Woody Guthrie said in that great American folk song. By the way, he wrote that song in response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” because it seemed unrealistic and complacent—romantically gushy. He was tired of Kate Smith’s version on the radio. But I need to be proud of my native land. Lincoln’s words ring true to me: “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” Right now I am not proud of my land, the way we are living at the expense of the earth and one another. Nor am I proud of my land when I see so many people who are not proud of Americans who are trying to change the way we live.
Question: Do you face the flag and put your hand over your heart when the National Anthem is played? Do you say the Pledge of Allegiance?
Answer: Okay, I’ll own up. I’m not a flag guy. I don’t like national flags, or church flags for that matter. I see too many folks wrap themselves in the flag, blind to the ills of their nation. The covering masks a multitude of sins. I’ve seen too many caskets wrapped in flags—men and women who were sent to die in wars that should never have been fought. The same goes for church flags. There’s a long and nasty history of Christians marching off to war—Christian soldiers on crusade. You know, the literal interpretation of those words from a very familiar Christian hymn: “Forward into battle see His banners go.”
I don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. I chuckle when I remember that it was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist. Hey, run and tell Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity about that. You know, I think I have an Annabaptist gene lodged inside my body. The Anabaptists condemned oaths, shunned arms, and refused to pledge allegiance to “Caesar.” My baptism in Christ—my allegiance to the Prince of Peace and the Kingdom of God—crowds in on me when I am asked to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And, by the way, it would suit me just fine to see all the flags out of the sanctuary.
Question: Since you bring up the church, let’s talk church. At this very moment you are in a bit of trouble with the Bishop of West Virginia because he says you have “crossed boundaries.” What’s that all about?
Answer: I am in trouble, but I don’t want to write about that yet since I am presently in conversation with the Bishop and all parties concerned. Just know that I wasn’t discovered in bed with a live woman or a dead man, and I haven’t swiped any church offerings. Just let it be said that I visited some dying and sick people from the parish I used to serve here in Charleston, without conforming to certain ecclesiastical etiquette.
Question: Some folks say you play fast and loose with boundaries, both state and church. What say ye?
Answer: Prior to making peace delegation trips to Libya and Iraq, I had to meet with folks in New York from the Center for Constitutional Rights. They warned those of us making the trip that we might very well be punished for traveling to countries where Americans were prohibited from going. Needless to say, I made those trips. Peace work means crossing boundaries to meet even with the so-called enemies of our nation. Furthermore, at the heart of all civil disobedience is a passion for justice that demands a disobedience to laws in pursuit of a higher imperative. This passion is what put me at odds with my congresswoman when I was arrested in her office opposing her vote for more money for the war in Iraq.
As far as church boundaries are concerned, I have always felt the need to make the case for occasional ecclesiastical disobedience. When I blessed two gay couples back in 1976, I crossed that line and, if it had not been for a supportive bishop, I might have fallen prey to some clergy who wanted me to face a church trial. I had the privilege in the early 80’s to work with Barbara Ferraro and Pat Hussey, two former nuns who stood up to the Pope in their refusal to back down from offering poor women the option of abortion when they faced a troubled pregnancy. In the news now is the excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. This good sister allowed for an abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four.
We are all locked into the boundaries of the hand we have been dealt at birth, and the boundaries that mark our date of birth and our date of death. These boundaries challenge us, while we have time, to exercise as much freedom as we possibly can, in our contacts with people and the planet we inhabit. Sure, we all make mistakes in the decisions we make, but no one ever promised us a risk-free trip toward some kind of unachievable perfect life. Risk on, brothers and sisters!
Question: What are the ingredients for making a good clergy person?
Answer: Since I love chocolate, I would have to say be sure and include a cup or more of chocolate in the recipe. All joking aside, this is a tough question with no easy answer. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try. First, a minister, like anyone else for that matter, should be the person who he or she really is. Don’t be talked out of your personality by someone preaching to you about humility. Frankly, I am suspicious of the process that leads to ordination these days. It seems to be giving us cookie-cutter clergy, fashioned like processed cheese. God given personality seems drained out of school-solution, theologically correct, officially certified clergy. Where are the renegades? Spice the cake with a bit of “heresy.” Orthodoxy needs you desperately.
Clergy must be available to the people they serve. It’s the only way they know you, and the only way you know them. Availability is a twelve letter word for love. Preaching and pastoral care emerge from contact with people and the life of the community. On top of that, clergy have to connect the dots. War is waged in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan by our government, and it winds up on the church doorstep when warriors come home with a variety of pastoral problems. Gay concerns aren’t just an issue for the gay members in a church. Those concerns are an issue at the local city council, state legislature, and congress.
Question: Aren’t you in danger of mixing religion and politics?
Answer: Sure. Christians should be in perpetual danger over the radical message that Jesus lived, taught and called people to follow. That means calling attention to the fact that what goes on inside the temple is directly linked to what takes place outside in the marketplace. Liturgy disconnected from life is no more than dress-up-and-play-church. Look, Jesus didn’t hang from a cross because he forgot to cross a “T” or dot an “I.” Death by crucifixion was the penalty one paid for treason—threatening the Roman Empire. I am no great fan of Bishop N.T. Wright, but he got it right when he said: “Wherever St. Paul went, there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea.” Hey, sipping tea with folks is an okay thing to do, but sympathy for those who drink the dregs from cups of injustice is what Christians are to be about. Maybe it’s all about tea and sympathy. I hear a lot about Benedictine Spirituality from clergy these days, but damn little about Christian Socialism. The balance between these two traditions seems askew.
I have been perpetually disturbed by the bed of silence churches have slept in while we have been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. These stone edifices that Christians go to for a dose of God have been stone cold silent about this military-industrial-media complex that is eating up our economy and poisoning our world with violence. Go visit a different church for the next few months and see if any of them are addressing the issue of the rise of fascism in our nation. Please surprise me with the information that even one church is dealing with this subject. Haven’t we learned anything about how the church in Nazi Germany became complicit with evil by remaining silent?
Question: What are your thoughts about the oil spill?
Answer: It’s interesting that the initials BP (British Petroleum) are front and center in this crisis. In my mind, BP could well stand for Big Power. That’s what has us all by the throat—Big Power. The Bible story of Jesus’ confrontation with the Gerasene demoniac has much to teach us. This man lived among the tombs and no one could control him, not even with chains. His name was Legion because, he told Jesus, “there are many of us.” His strength was such that he was able to break any restraints anyone tried to put on him. Sound familiar? A mad capitalism roams and roars on Wall Street, international markets, and throughout our nation, wreaking havoc on communities made unsustainable by mega-corporations, vertically integrated companies, and greedy entrepreneurs with little concern for anything but the dollar sign. Take note at how these Big Powers resist being reined in by regulations. Accountability is a chain they refuse to wear, and Big Powers lobbyists who fight any public regulatory power are legion.
We are living at the expense of our environment—the earth, air and water, and the creatures that depend upon it for health—and they are speaking back to us. Old time religion would describe what is happening as the wrath of God. I can go there, if I see this oil spill as the direct result of our misuse of our God-given freedom. To use modern industrial lingo, God has subcontracted the care of our environment to us and we have screwed it up and, therefore, we stewards must be subjected to the flood of pollution and waste which the misuse of freedom inevitably produces. I also believe we have convinced ourselves that scientific and technological expertise can solve any problem. Technology has become our golden calf—an idolatrous icon that we call upon to save us from our self-centered behavior.
Question: You frequently write about the media. What’s at the heart of your ongoing interest in the media?
Answer: When I was a philosophy major at Washington & Lee University, the subject of epistemology intrigued me. The questions surrounding how we know what we know—the source of our knowledge—seemed critical in terms of dealing with metaphysical and ethical questions. Being a Christian, with so much emphasis on the Word becoming flesh, seemed somehow connected to publishing. You know the old hymn, “Publish Glad Tidings.” I can still remember, as a high school student, visiting The Baltimore Sun and watching the wedding of paper and ink as the presses rolled on loudly. The touch and smell of a fresh newspaper was the word becoming flesh and dwelling on my front porch every day.
Television, and now the blogosphere have been like successive Gutenberg Revolutions, and who can possibly tell where the printed, imaged word is headed. One thing I can say for sure. The Washington Press Corp is incestuous. They are married to one another, attend the same parties, and kiss up to the politicians they should be tough on. On top of that, they are poll-driven entertainers. Case in point: Mary Matalin & James Carville? In New Orleans, both crticized BP, whose subcontractor, Halliburton, is directly responsible for the oil spill. Hey, Mary Matalin was Dick “Halliburton” Cheney’s PR front for the weapons of mass destruction ploy and the Iraq War. For God’s sake James, call her to question on that fact. Instead, James harped on about Obama, that he should move down to the region and eat shrimp with the folks, smell the oil slick, and feel the pain. Feel the pain—an old Bill Clinton line. This twosome is tiresome. Where are the Izzy Stone’s and the Edward R. Murrow’s when we need them?
Question: It’s no secret that you love to read. What’s on your reading list this summer?
Answer: Right now I am working my way through “The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire” by Evan Thomas. Speaking of newspapers, William Randolph Hearst did his part to further the war efforts of Roosevelt and Lodge. “He tried parades and fireworks to boost circulation,” says Thomas, “but he needed something bigger, more spectacular. He needed a war.” Of course he got it and we were launched on a militaristic course that would extend for over a century. I am also working my way through Dairmaid MacCulloch’s “Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.” All 1,016 pages of it. My fun reading is Elmore Leonard’s “Road Dogs” and Gail Godwin’s “Desires.”
Question: Anything else you want to say on this 2010 Memorial Day?
Answer: A final Memorial Day thought: Creech Air Force Base in Nevada was built after the Pearl Harbor attack. Today military personnel there, like video game players, pull the trigger that kills people in Iraq and Afghanistan. A military report was released a couple of days ago that says drones killed 23 innocent Afghan civilians earlier this year. Drones are “collateral damage” prone. My, how warfare has changed. We have progressed from hand-to-hand bayonet killing, to mortar and artillery fire at convenient distances, to bombing at 10,000 feet, and now to gaming from a room half way around the world. Ah, civilization. It invites a countercultural approach to itself—a resistance capable of changing the deadly patterns that have a hold of us.
June 1st, 2010
May 7th, 2010 |
Rhinos And Media Moguls
I’ll bet you didn’t know that the first day of May is Save the Rhino Day. Well, it is, or it was. It’s a day set aside each year to educate people about rhinoceroses—a day to call for support efforts to save the mammoth, horned animals from extinction.
If you’ve paid attention to the news, you may know that May 1 was also the date for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. That’s the day when White House correspondents, news media personalities and a host of celebrities dress up for an evening with the President. This year President Obama competed with Jay Leno for laughs, and won.
You may think I’m a stick-in-the-mud, but I think this event is an enormously depressing sight to watch. So I don’t pay attention to this farce, except for the spot replays on television, blogs, and newspaper stories. In the TV clips I see a lot of forced and nervously self-conscious laughter on the part of media todies preening over one another and fawning over the president like a bunch of teenagers nestling up to a rock star.
So what do I want from the folks who deliver information to me about what’s going on in the world?
Here’s what I want from the Washington press corps, and other news media folks as well. I want them to keep far away socially from the president—and any other people they report on—as far away as a rhino from a safari hunting for big game.
The Fourth Estate—the press—exists to report on the members of our three branches of government, not to party with them. Forget the schmoozing and sucking up to powerful politicians or public figures.
Alex Jones, in his fine book “Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy” gets it right when it comes to the number one organizational value and mission of traditional news organizations. It’s simply to be a democratic watchdog committed to accuracy, balance, accountability, independence and checks on profit. Entertainment news (The Today Show, Oprah Winfrey), tabloid journalism (local papers and radio/television lead –with bleed news), and advocacy journalism (The O’Reilly Factor and Countdown with Keith Olbermann), have their place, but rock-solid watchdog reporting is the vehicle that provides information that helps people function as citizens in coping with the world. Investigative reporting is a critical component of watchdog reporting. It keeps democracy alive. It plays the truth-telling game, not the ratings game.
I want a watchdog press, not a bunch of lapdogs wagging their tails for crumbs thrown from tables full of powerful people. Watchdogs, like junkyard dogs, are not indoor dogs. They belong outside. And as for chumminess on the part of the press corps, it may get some charming reporter in for an “exclusive” interview with the politically elite, even higher ratings for the network or publication she or he represents, but it won’t result in getting beneath the political rot that lies hidden inside the chambers of power.
Most of all I don’t want rhinoceroses or watchdogs to be extinct.
Can An Old Lapdog Learn New Tricks?
Three days prior to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, James Risen, a reporter for The New York Times, received a subpoena requiring him to provide documents and to testify in front of a grand jury about confidential source material for a chapter in his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.”
The chapter in question has to do with Risen’s account of a botched CIA covert effort to disrupt Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Risen, got his information from a CIA case officer who was willing to say that this spy game backfired and actually “assisted the Iranians in joining the nuclear club.”
Risen says he will not comply with the demand that he turn over his confidential source papers and that he will ask a judge to quash the subpoena. If the judge does not do that, and Risen still refuses to turn over the papers, he will be held in contempt of court and will be sent to jail.
The New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, reminds readers “that the public interest is served by not forcing certain categories of people to disclose information. Lawyers don’t have to reveal confidences of their clients. Husbands and wives don’t have to tattle on each other. Clergy don’t have to reveal what is told to them in some situations. (I once said I would eat my files before turning them over to Tyson Foods when they went after my records in search of the names of farmers and poultry workers I worked with.) And I would argue that the public interest in a vital, truth-seeking, aggressive press is at least as great as in these other exceptions.”
Kristof concludes: “Overall, I think that history will suggest that news organizations were too restrained in reporting security abuses in that period (the Bush Administration); our problem was that we were more lapdogs than watchdogs. And if the Obama administration is going to start going after journalists, there couldn’t be a worse time to create a chilling effect.”
Kristof seems to be in sync with Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press who says that there is no difference between Bush and Obama when it comes to addressing the press. “News organizations” he says, “face a crisis in their business model, and the prospect of huge legal bills, hefty daily fines, and losing a reporter to jail becomes a real disincentive to the kind of edgy, aggressive reporting that we need more of. So come on, President Obama. How about a bit more change we can believe in?
Here’s what I would have liked to have seen happen at that White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I would have liked to have seen those black tie and gorgeously gowned and coiffed reporters and media stars stage a walkout. On their feet they would respectfully say they were leaving the event in solidarity with their colleague James Risen. Call it a kind of a resurrection happening. The press rises, three days after the Obama administration tries to bury Risen with a subpoena.
A bit much, you say? Sort of like trying to teach an old lapdog new tricks.
“Brownie’s” Back And He’s Anything But Green
Lo-and-behold, look who’s showing up on TV these days—Michael Brown—“Brownie,” the guy who headed up the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast wrecking havoc from Florida to Texas, especially in New Orleans. He left that post after he incompetently botched the rescue effort.
Five years later, “Brownie’s” back on the scene pontificating about the oil rig disaster off the Gulf Coast. His message? President Obama’s is lovin’ the oil spill “because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, ‘I’m going to shut it down because It’s too dangerous.’”
You know what “Brownie’s” doing these days, aside from TV network hopping with his ridiculous message? He’s employed by companies that offer consultation about disaster relief and which give advice about technology that claims to screen for terror suspects. My question: Does he have a machine that can detect a phony disaster relief expert?
Kent State Remembrance—The National Guard Then & Now
This past Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of National Guard shooting on the Kent State campus in which 4 students were killed and 9 wounded. The students were protesting President Nixon’s decision, the day before, to widen the Vietnam War, sending troops to invade Cambodia, and stepping up the bombing of Cambodia.
That was in 1970 when I was a minister at Trinity Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia. At that time I was protesting the war, and shortly thereafter, I took a phone call in the middle of the night from a pilot whom I had come to know as his minister in Annapolis while he was a midshipman at the Naval Academy. He was flying bombing missions over Cambodia and was calling me drunk and telling me to “get us the hell out of here.”
The bombing of Cambodia actually dated back to early in 1969 when President Nixon, with the help of National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, developed the bombing plan. They tried to keep the bombing hidden from Congress and the American people. Pilots were sworn to secrecy and their “operational logs” were falsified.
When The New York Times revealed the secret bombings, thanks to government leaks, Kissinger went ballistic. “We must do something! We must crush those people! We must destroy them!” He meant both the Times and the leakers. This prompted Nixon to go wild with phone taps and paranoid accusations leveled at his top administrative officials. This was intended to chill the press, as well as folks eager to spill the beans about the failure of the Vietnam War. But it ultimately led to Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press—information which finally exposed the lies told to the public about the war.
The National Guard wasn’t on any campuses this year on the anniversary of the Kent State shootings because there is no military draft to prompt antiwar protests by students—protests against the war in Afghanistan.
While I’m wishing for news media reporters to stand up and protest the targeting of James Risen, here’s a second wish. Ironically, it involves the National Guard—not, of course, to get them off the campus, but to get them out of Afghanistan and back home.
The message –stop the shooting—is as good a message today as it was at Kent State.
Immigration Debate—Who’s In And Who’s Out
This week Joe Scarborough, the talk show host of MSNBC’s wildly popular show “Morning Joe,” engaged in a vigorous, heavily-caffeinated verbal exchange with Eugene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The Washington Post. These two gentlemen usually, pretty much, sing the same tune. But not when it came to talking about a column that Robinson had written about the subject of immigration.
Robinson, has been pounding home the message that comprehensive immigration reform is the place to begin dealing with immigrants already here without proper papers, as well as immigrants who continue to cross the border. What sent Joe into a hissy fit was when the conversation focused on “securing the border.”
Robinson wrote: “It would be possible to build a 2,000-mile-long Berlin Wall, complete with watchtowers. But it would be stupid and counterproductive. The U.S.-Mexico relationship is vital, economically and politically, and the border has to be permeable enough to permit a massive legitimate daily flow of goods and people.”
Joe didn’t like that Berlin Wall analogy. It was like blood spilled in shark infested water, and Joe morphed into the Great White Shark. The Berlin Wall, he said was built to keep people in, said Joe; building a wall along the 2,000 mile Mexican border would be done to keep people out.
Robinson’s shark repellant was his reasonable argument and gentle smile. Build a 2,000 mile long wall? Joe, walk that border! You’ve got to be kidding!
After watching this exchange, I had two thoughts.
Putting up a wall along the Mexican border, either concrete and barbed wire, or by stationing National Guard and military troops along the border, really does lock us in and keeps us cocooned in our own fear, xenophobia, racism and myopic prejudices.
And furthermore, if we want to talk about crossing borders, we are the experts. It’s our nation that has crossed the border into Central and South America time, and time again, to plunder nations and tribes for our economic gain. And we have done it with military might and at great expense to the people living in these countries. Ask Central Americans who have fled our financed wars in their countries—people who are here because they are poor and need money. They will tell you, if they trust you enough for you to hear the truth, about the death and destruction we have caused in their native lands.
The Circus Packs Up & The Media Moves On
Ringling Brothers Circus was here in town last week. I have a real love of the circus and a fascination for the work that goes into setting up and tearing down the equipment necessary to make the circus a sustainable community. It’s a city unto itself.
The morning after the last evening performance, I checked the circus area and it was totally empty—as if the circus hadn’t been there. Walking home, I thought about the disappearing circus the exodus of the media after the recent mine disaster here in West Virginia ended and the final memorial service was over. Media equipment and personnel have moved on to other places—the oil spill along the Gulf Coast, Times Square, Wall Street, and whatever spot pops up with a child that’s disappeared or a celebrity who has run off with another celebrity to whatever place invites celebrity hanky-panky.
With that in mind, let me give you, especially readers outside of West Virginia, a quick briefing on what’s going on here in coal country, where we do keep up with the news.
• Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy—the company that owns the Upper Big Branch mine where the disaster took place—has abandoned his uncharacteristically quiet posture. He’s back to mouthing off. He’s calling environmentalist and critics of the coal industry “evil.” He likes to call us folks “greeniacs,” and “people of the far-left communist persuasion.” I guess that includes Senator Byrd, who has now spoken out strongly about the harm the coal industry is doing across Appalachia. A recent study, by the way, links mine stream pollution with high cancer rates.
• Since the mine disaster, federal mine inspectors have found hundreds of safety violations in a nine state sweep. In West Virginia, 23 mining operations were cited with 500 violations, and in Kentucky, six mines halted production because of nearly 300 violations.
• Hearings, focusing on the disaster, are about to begin but they are not public enough. Folks here want all hearings wide open to the media and public scrutiny. Some will be closed. A good piece of news is the fact that workers and family members are coming forward to talk with officials about the problems in the mine. Death may bring a lifting of the veil of fear and secrecy that has kept people silent about Massey and other coal companies.
• One of the veils of secrecy that may be the hardest one to lift is the one that folks near the mines are reluctant to talk about. That’s the fact that some people phone a mine when they see mine inspectors in the area. The call is an early warning signal that allows for some cleanup to take place prior to their arrival.
A Bit Of Levity From Fat City
I leave you with a bit of humor. It has to do with fat—a subject I am paying my own personal attention to since I have begun a diet to reduce a tire around my waste so that I can get into summer shorts. On top of that, Men’s Health Magazine has just recently named Charleston the second fattest city in the United States.
Now, let’s have some fun. I’ve just read a newspaper report about a retired military officers’ study which says school lunches are making U.S. kids so fat that many can’t meet military’s physical fitness standards. Our national security is threatened by fat kids! Fat kids can’t fight! Remember the days when being gay or having flat feet or being a seminarian or having hemorrhoids (Rush Limbaugh was deferred from the draft during the Vietnam War) would get you out of serving in the military. Now it’s fat that has become the problem.
Given all that, I leave you with this: Peaceniks unite! Proclaim this message: Kids, pig out and pork up for peace. There’s good precedence for this, even some heroes to emulate. Heck, Pope John XXIII was a roly poly peacenik. And Buddha never went to Weight Watchers. And the Rotund One, Kate Smith, is probably singing in heaven, with harp accompaniment, “God Bless America,” because she was the best at it while she was here on earth with us years ago. Fat is downright patriotic!
May 7th, 2010
Next Posts
Previous Posts