If Kavanaugh Is Confirmed

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, and I'm sure it'll happen, and then, sometime in the not too distant future, Roe v. Wade will be overturned, then the great Southern hope will come true - that states' rights will prevail over national purpose and unity.

Of course, some states will allow for the rights of women to make their own medical choices regarding pregnancy. Others, of course, chomping even now at the bit, will pass draconian laws against all such rights and freedoms.

This is what the South has always wanted, in order to protect and promote its own racist "peculiar institution," and it's now the evangelical way, as well, to protect and promote their own religious "peculiar institution."

The antebellum Southern Gentlemen in his time, and today's evangelicals, are all too similar in their lack of interest in the welfare of the nation or the common good above personal interest. Both, in their respective times, perceive their own interests to be of such a godly and virtuous proportion as to merit supremacy over all other considerations of national good and personal freedom.

As in other times, so today, American continues to face the largest questions of the Union - what's needed to keep us intact as a nation, with high ideals of welcome and freedom of thought, expression and endeavor, versus a smaller version of nationhood, driven by factionalism and small ideas pertinent to local customs or religious camps.

Moving ahead, in fits and starts, sometimes falling backward into fear and bigotry, we'll continue to march on. I have no doubt that the "south" will again lose the war, but at great cost to all. It's a storm we'll weather, but like any great storm, there will be damage, requiring of us a mighty effort to build for a new day.

Money, Franco and Trump

April 26, 1937, a church bell in Guernica tolled an air-raid warning - a single German plane dropped a load of bombs, and flew away.

When it became apparent that Guernica had no anti-aircraft defense, the raid began with 23 bombers and several dozen other aircraft flying from nearby Nationalist fields, leaving some 200 dead and the town a charred ruin.

Guernice was Basque, and the Basques were a part of the Republic which treated the Basques with fairness, allowing them considerable freedom, and allowing the Catholic Church there to preach in Basque.

Later, when Franco and the Nationalists conquered Basque territory, under threat of death, no more Basque language sermons, and priests who disobeyed were summarily shot.

But the larger question concerning me right now, as I read and write, is this: from whence came the fuel for those planes?

As it turns out, from Texaco, and in spite of American neutrality laws, Texaco, and ultimately other American oil companies "sold" oil to Franco, along with Firestone tires and trucks from Detroit.

The head of Texaco, a creep and bully by the name of Torkild Rieber, was "banker" for Franco, extending essentially unlimited credit, and providing a huge lobbying effort to insure US neutrality (which Rieber and his gang routinely and easily subverted.

Of course, here in the States, the Roman Catholic Church sided with the Nationalists, in spite of the brutality of the Nationalists against the Basques.

The Republic wasn't without "sin," frequently killing priests and burning churches, as well as confiscating the property of the rich and redistributing the land, something feared above all else by the aristocracies of the world, including those of the United States.

The Church, and the rich, quickly realized that if they wanted to protect their landed and powerful privileges, they needed to side with Franco with his monarchial and clerical sympathies

And so the war raged on until Franco, a friend of Hitler and Mussolini, was victorious. His German and Italian planes and his American trucks fueled with Texas oil.

Once again, so very sad to note that great wealth in the United States was sympathetic to, if not outrightly supportive of, these dictators.

Today, many of our wealthy families, and the corporate owners of American business, support Trump. Given our history, and given the sickness and fear pervading the soul of the wealthy, along with their religious counterparts in the evangelical churches, it's not surprising, in the least. They gravitate toward those politicians who can front for them, and manipulate the government in their favor, protecting their interests against any and all forms of justice.

Rieber bankrolled Franco, and the rich here in the States continue to bankroll dictators around the world and the one currently in our White House.

Tribute to Senator John McCain

When someone like John McCain takes leave of us, it gives us all a chance to consider what makes a human being worthy of our regard.

I suppose, in some sense, everyone deserves recognition for just making it through another day, and coming out on the other side most intact.

Some seem to take a darker route, like Whitey Bulger, or the like. I recall doing a funeral many years ago for a small-town, small-time, crook. Everyone said, in their own, "Glad the SOB is gone." And then chuckled looking me, "What are ya' gonna say Pastor?"

But McCain is of the highest order.

As many of my friends have said, "I didn't always agree with his politics," but never once questioned his integrity or his desire for the welfare of this nation.

He stood in the breech at some critical points; I will never forget the moment in a rally when a women claimed that Obama was a Muslim and so on. And McCain cut her off; he had no allowance for such idiocy, and spoke kindly and eloquently of his opponent's good character.

McCain knew how to cross the aisle ... the divide between red and blue was not that great for him. There were no ditches dug that couldn't be crossed; no walls so high they couldn't be climbed, or usually, a door found that the wall builders knowingly and wisely included.

His job is done, but not finished.

In the end, he declined further medical heroics and claimed his fate, as all of us must.

RIP John McCain ... your record speaks for itself ... you were a man tested by life, and you came out on the other side intact, with high commitment and clear, level-headed, patriotism.

You served your nation well!

America, 2018: The Whole Truth

There is much to celebrate in America. Yes, that I know, and for all the good and all the great, I give thanks.

Some would call attention only to the good and to the great, but that's not enough for emotional or political health. We have to face the stark realities of a mixed story, filled with sorrow, blood, violence and death.

We have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to free ourselves from the current divide pulling us apart, and giving rise to instincts and behavior originating, not in the heart of a human being, but in what's left of our reptilian brain.

We are:

A land of genocide and slavery.
   A land of lynchings and Jim Crow.
      A land of Trails of Tears.
         A land of internments and prisons.
            A land fraught with fear of the other,
A land of Sacco and Vanzetti, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and Joe McCarthy.
   A land of manic religion and self-righteousness, full of Jesus-talk and devoid of his Spirit.
      A land of military might and industrial power.
         A land ripping to shreds the earth, fouling air and water, and grabbing the money.
            A land where politicians are bought and sold with ease by the NRA.
A land where a president (in name only) has a child's mind and a vindictive personality disorder, and 36 percent of the population think he's terrific.

Until America can face these realties, the divide will continue to grow, and the cancer eating away at our soul will intensify, because a land cannot long survive on half-truths and lies; a nation that cannot tell the truth about itself will not stand the test of time.

The Lord of History is kind and patient, but not endlessly so. The annals of time are replete with failed histories, great and storied nations that ran aground and sunk on the rocks of falsehood and dissimulation.

It hurts to tell the truth, but it's a hurt unto humility and healing and hope.

FDR, the New Deal, and the GOP

It was FDR and the New Deal that made America Great, that took us through the Depression, wrote labor laws, won the war and gave us the middle class.

All along the way, FDR understood the plight of working America and the hatred held in the heart of the Ruling Class for the worker.

Now, with a Supreme Court in its pocket and a Congress more than happy to kick the American Worker in the teeth, the GOP is dismantling what made America Great. We are on our way to making America Ugly Again. Hoover just rose from the grave and said to the Supreme Court and to the GOP: "Well done, good and faithful servants."

Ugly Capitalism

Capitalism pits everyone against everyone else, in the quest for wellbeing, happiness, safety and a variety of other and similar private interests; ultimately inducing a blindness to the larger community and its needs, the needs of the poor (who are then labeled as "losers"), all the while diminishing critical elements of human nature: viz., altruism, sacrifice, and mercy. 

There is, of course, no "economic system" pure and blameless; where there is money, property, and capital, of any kind, there will be a race to grab as much as one can. In the very nature of any such race, some will, for a million different reasons, mostly the luck of the draw, end up with more, and it's the more that allows them to further game the system and tilt the board to again further their private interests, until we end up with the ugly 1% who dominate the game completely.

Yet, some systems mitigate the worst instincts of our reptilian brain, and I'd offer that democratic socialism is one such system, combining the strength of a healthy competition, the race to get somewhere, and the discipline of paying attention to the larger community and its needs, the common good, which may well require one to put a damper on private interests for the sake of the long-term wellbeing of the environment and society. 

There Is Another America

There is another America.*
One gracious and kind.
Wise and giving.

With leaders who care.
And schools that excel.
And churches filled with hope.

Churches and mosques and temples.
Gatherings of those who care and love.
Who believe in God, or the gods, or the universe.

A land of vision and sorrow.
Sorrow for the buffalo.
And Indigenous Peoples.

Sorrow for slavery.
And sorrow for our greed.
And sorrow for our hideous ambitions.

And vision, too.
The undying vision of liberty, welcome and inclusion.
The vision of peace and wellbeing.

With strong government to keep in check:
The worst of our financial impulses.
To promote the sharing of wealth.

Women and men of integrity.
To walk the halls of congress.
And sit upon the bench.

To enact the common good.
To defend it's reach and breadth.
To build up and make good.

For all its people.
And all its creatures.
All the trees and all the birds.

Yes, there is another America.
It's my America.
And yours, too.

Let freedom ring.
Let truth be told.
Let our beloved Statue of Liberty be proud.

Of the America we are.
The America we must be.
The America of which we sing:

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

*Inspired by Kay Boyle's 1953 essay in "The Nation," "Farewell to Europe" ... from her book, "Words that Must be Said Somehow" ...