(Ir)religiosity

Two things up front: 1.) I believe quality health care is a fundamental right that should be afforded to all persons regardless of _________, 2.) I believe governments have a moral responsibility to ensure that said care is provided to its citizens.  For me, these are non-negotiable.  Period.

Our country is the closest it has ever been to ensuring the most of its citizens have access to quality health care.  I will be outraged, not to mention deeply disappointed, if we fail to push it through.  At this point we’re our own worst enemy.  As Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent episode of The Daily Show, it wouldn’t be all the surprising if President Obama’s approval rating of the American people has plummeted over the last month or so.  The lack of civility and reasonableness in our public discourse on this issue would be disappointing if it weren’t so pathetic.

I’m continually perplexed at the various ways in which people either hear or see what they want to or intentionally caricature what is said by resorting to scare tactics (I’m looking at you Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck).  Most people simply aren’t working with the facts and if they are the choose to sideline them in favor of something that sounds controversial and may gain some shock value or media attention.¹

Health care is too important of an issue for us to play games.  I’m afraid if we keep screwing around we’re going to miss our chance.  Then we will be responsible for the lack of care and ensuring that the uninsured remain uninsured.  There won’t be any passing the buck.  The blame will rest squarely on our shoulders.

Yesterday President Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times that clearly and carefully articulates his position yet again.  You should stop right now and read the whole thing.  Here’s what I think is the nucleus.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

I read that and I simply don’t understand what the great end-of-the-world, apocalypse inaugurating problem is that I keep hearing about.  What is so wrong with providing a public option for those who can’t afford it?  Please tell me.  Or better yet, let’s tell those who currently can’t afford care why it is that they were just dealt the wrong hand and don’t have the right to the same quality care that the rest of us enjoy.

It is deeply disturbing, I think, when this idea is met with such anger and hate by people (mostly white people who can afford health care, by the way) at town hall meetings and not accepted with a sense of great urgency.  Perhaps the health care debate is what racism and classism looks like in the 21st century.  It looks more and more like Gordon Marino was right when he wrote that “the fact that a significant number of Americans do not feel any urgency to revamp a system that leaves millions of our sick without care is symptomatic of the fact that we must be suffering from a hardening of more than our arteries.”  Indeed, our irrational and childish behavior is demonstrative not only our compassion deficiency but our collective moral bankruptcy.

Perhaps the recent recession extends to more than our economy.

1. One of the best places to keep up with what is fact and what is fiction is http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ [↩]

I haven’t blogged much about politics since the election, mainly because I’ve lost some interest and grown a little tired, but I couldn’t help it after reading this.

Dick Cheney is now blaming former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke for the “failure” (seems more like suppression to me) in intelligence leading up to 9/11.  Here’s the exact quote: “You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it.”

That’s right.  This is the same Dick Clarke who issued at least seven memos earlier in 2001 to both the State Department and the White House, one coming less than a week before September 11, warning of potential and even imminent terrorist attacks.

When pushed about the memos Cheney tersely replied, “That’s not my recollection, but I haven’t read his [Clarke's] book.”

Seriously? Since the memos were a major part of the 9/11 Commission, an investigation under which Cheney was called to testify (and refused to do so under oath of course), I highly doubt that he “doesn’t recall” their subject matter.  Given their gravity that seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I just don’t get it.  Do they really think we are that stupid?  I am so sick of this passing-the-buck type mentality and I’m tired of career politicians placing blame on someone lower on the food chain in order to save their own asses (one of the many reasons why I don’t like food chains).  It’s disgusting.  And when it comes to something like 9/11 I find it particularly repugnant.

And, as usual, I agree with Jon Stewart’s analysis (starts around 1:50):

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• Richard Clarke speaks the truth: ‘The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Richard Clarke Slams Cheney, Rice: “The Trauma Of 9/11 Is No Excuse” (huffingtonpost.com)

For a long time now Jim Wallis has denied that he or his organization comprises or wants anything to do with the so-called Religious Left.  In fact, in one of his more popular books he spends a great deal of time arguing that the should be neither a Religious Right nor a Religious Left.  Much of his rhetoric has suggested that faith communities and religious non-profits should strive to transcend the political polarities that always seem to dominated public discourse.

I agree.  I think that is exactly the route that should be taken.  And I think that Wallis and Sojourners have done a pretty good job of modeling that ethos.

But then yesterday a statement was released from the Sojourners press office with a noticeable change in language and tone.

I wanted to gauge your interest in the first big mobilization of the Religious Left in the Obama era — a signal of the shift in power dynamics. Sojourners is mobilizing over a thousand Christian activists and 70 religious and anti-poverty groups at a conference next week in DC to prepare a new poverty coalition for legislative battle this year. This is the Religious Left filling the hole created by the decline of the Religious Right but now we have the political power and ear of the White House — definitely a new trend and a “first” within this new political era. (ht)

Yikes.  I don’t like the sound of that at all. I’m all for a mass mobilization to fight poverty but I don’t see the need to brand it has the rise of new Religious Left.  We’ve seen what happened with the Religious Right.  Polarizing and divisive language should be expected of our politicians.  But I think it’s time for our faith communities to model a different way that transcends the false dichotomies of modernity.

What’s interesting is that this press release is the only statement (that I know of) that uses the new verbiage.  So it makes one wonder if Sojourners really is shifting or a deputy press secretary is just off message.  The official website for the conference makes no such mention of “mobilization of the Religious Left.”  But either way, it makes me very curious about insider talk.

What do you make us this?  Is it a careless mistake or indicative of a wider shift?

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To say that the economy has become the dominant political issue over the last several months would be to state the obvious.  But even still there wasn’t a single mention — at least not that I know of — of an ‘anniversary’ that came and past last week.  Six years ago this month the long, arduous and costly (both in lives and money) war in Iraq began.  While the media pretended to be infuriated over the AIG bonuses and the rest of us marked our NCAA brackets the United States’ occupation of Iraq entered it’s seventh year.  Not a mention on the 24 hour news channels.  Even the blogosphere was silent.  I hope we haven’t forgotten.  I hope we haven’t moved on to the next trendy justice issue or the next big government mishap and neglected that one of the biggest justice issues and the worst government mishaps in recent memory continues on our watch.

I have hope that under President Obama this will end.  We shall see, but I have hope nonetheless. And until then I will — I hope we all will — continue to push and pressure my government to sever the tentacles of imperialism and put to death the attitude of exceptionalism.

Last year I organized and participated in war protest/peace demonstration in Oklahoma City and gave one of the speeches.  I’m re-posting it unedited (some of the language and statistics are now inflated) today as way of remembering that even in the midst of our economic crisis the war continues. Read the rest of this entry »

Hmmmm. Not so much.

Click to enlarge (Original here)

Original here.

I am a political schitzophrenic.  Browsing through my posts on politics will prove it.  I’m happy that Obama got elected and I’m trying really hard not to be overly cynical about everything too quickly.  I do hope that things change — seriously change.  But part of me knows that he is just another politician and a member of the rich power elite who will likely maintain the general status quo.  I live with the tension.  And it causes me much grief.

Obama’s rhetoric has been inspiring, but if actions mean anything, then his recent appointments should indicate the general direction his administration will go.  So far he has enlisted help from the establishment, mainly old Clintonites who represent politics as usual.

I know.  The guy hasn’t even been sworn in yet.  I really am trying to remain positive.

BUT — I do have a random list of non-negotiables that will send me back into realm of dissent and criticism quicker than anything.  Here they are in no particular order.

1. Immediately close Gutanamo Bay
2. Seriously end the occupation of Iraq (and by seriously, I don’t mean moving troops around or reducing their number.  I mean seriously, like getting rid of some of those permanent military bases)
3. Repeal the Patriot At
4. Try George Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes and crimes against humanity
5. Begin a serious health care reform (serious = a new system)
6. Enact a plausible energy policy that will eliminate our addiction to limited resources
7. Scrap No Child Left Behind and start over
8. Get on board with Kyoto
9. Make the executive office more transparent
10. Scrap the BCS system for college football (!!!)

This list is by no means complete and I realize that all of these cannot be accomplished as quickly as I’d like.  However, if several of them aren’t in process by or before the midterms I will be very, very disappointed.  If none of them are, then Obama has blatantly lied.

What are your non-negotiables?

“How long? Not long! Because no lie can live forever.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ve posted on homosexuality before, but I think some of that sentiment bears repeating.

I am a white, married, heterosexual male who attended one private institution for undergraduate work and is now attending another private institution for graduate school.  I was born into and continue to occupy a position of overwhelming privilege.  Simply the mere fact that I have both the time and the money to “blog” rests the case.

I don’t have the slightest idea what it feels like to be oppressed, subjugated, or marginalized.  I don’t know what it feels like to have fundamental rights stripped from me nor do I know the feeling of being told I cannot marry my partner.

That being noted, I feel that the least I can do is speak the truth as I see it and to stand in solidarity with those who struggle.  For me, silence is simply a ghastly affirmation of the status quo.  The written and spoken word are the tools of my trade so I feel that the least I can do is use them to raise my voice in opposition.  It is with that in mind that I wrote this post, because to not speak out would be dishonest on my part.

November 4 was a bittersweet night for me.  I was happy that Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States, but at the same time I was deeply saddened to learn that Proposition 8 was passed in California.  Propositions banning same-sex marriage were put to vote in four states this year: Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, and California.  To be honest, I expected the first three to pass by a wide margin. What I didn’t expect was the outcome in California, where Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%.  I assumed that a state like California, with a high gay population, would maintain it’s open and progressive policy.  But it did not.  It’s one thing to deny a person or group their rights outright, it’s another to strip those rights from them after the fact. Read the rest of this entry »

Join in for some fun and commentary as we finally put an end to this seemingly endless campaign.

Check back here for live updates beginning at 7PM EST and continuing through . . . well I’m not exactly sure how long

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?” -Gandhi (Source)

I hope we vote tomorrow with no illusions.  While all signs are pointing to an Obama victory — which is good to a point — I hope that our collective enthusiasm is tempered with the reality that when our new President is inaugurated in two months most things will stay the same.  The United States will more than likely continue behave imperially, preserving its hegemony across the world in “the holy name of liberty and democracy.”

An Obama victory will be good, or, put another way, an Obama victory will be less bad.  Be that as it may, I hope more than anything that concerned citizens, “patriots,” and dissidents will not allow their political activism and their creative imagination to be colonized and limited to the most ineffective political action of them all — casting a vote in our system.