- Posts tagged politics
- Explore politics on posterous
The President's Gospel vs. Ralph Reed's Bigotry
President Obama's clear understanding of the message of Jesus being, in part, the necessity of caring for the poor among us came up against Ralph Reed's narrower perspective on the meaning of Christianity yesterday. I thought the contrast was stark and important to bring to greater attention.
The President, quoting from Luke 12:48, said his view of social policy coincides with the statement, "for unto whom much is given, much shall be required." That was an accurate paraphrase of the actual quotation from the King James Version but I prefer the NIV on this: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded;" The passage goes on to say, "and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."
That the largest portion of Jesus' teachings -- insofar as we have them recorded reliably -- is about neighborly love and caring for the downtrodden. So, too, were the teachings of virtually every Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) prophet,'
But Reed, of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said that for the president to tie his tax policy to Jesus’s teachings “is theologically threadbare and straining credulity.”
It's a classic clash between the Social Gospel and Socially Conservative Fundamentalist Christians. This clash, in turn, is a product of late 20th Century America. Jesus talks not once about abortion or gay rights or any of the other social issues on which the Christian Right is focused like a laser beam while ignoring most or all of his teachings about love, relationship, charity, compassion and forgiveness.
It's sad, really. This time, at least, the President got it right and the guy with a Ph.D. in history who leads a large faith-based movement got it, if not wrong, at least sideways.
Tim Thomas is a Jerk
Yeesh. My headline expresses my thoughts but so does this parenthetical remark by the writer:
(Is it any wonder that the country is so politically fractured when a bunch of guys can't agree to just get together and talk sports?)
Campaign Money and Policy: It's Not Always Quid Pro Quo
I ran across a story today that highlighted Virginia GOP Representative Virginia Foxx' vocal support of for-profit colleges. The article tied her advocacy to contributions from those colleges to her campaign funds.
I have no idea whether the article is correct in drawing the conclusion it drew. But I am sure of one thing: it is highly doubtful that every member of Congress who takes a position does so as a direct result of campaign contributions. I think we sometimes carry the notion of quid pro quo too far and paint everyone with the same brush unfairly.
It is at least plausible that someone like Rep. Foxx had independently reached the position that she takes with respect to the superiority of for-profit colleges over not-for-profit government-run colleges. She may have had some personal experience with the subject. Or one of her staffers might have come to her with some research she found on the Internet or elsewhere. Then, noticing that there are indeed folks out there whose views on the subject are sympatico with her own and who have funds available for campaigns, Rep. Foxx might have approached them -- rather than the other way around -- and suggested that since she was going to advocate for them anyway, it might behoove them to help her say in Washington.
I'm sure that there is a lot of quid pro quo going on in Washington on both sides of the aisles of both houses. But I refuse to believe that all of our elected representatives base their policies on who pays the tab. The media from both extremes ballyhoo perceived corrupt connections as if they were proven fact when it is almost never the case that there is any proven connection between a contribution and a policy. Just because A happens and then B happens doesn't mean A caused B. Sometimes it does. Other times, it doesn't. A bit more discrimination and careful investigation is needed if the media are to stop playing the crucial role they now play in causing Congress to be so widely disrespected.
NoLabels Makes Eminent Sense
I've recently joined a national movement called NoLabels. This is a non-partisan group with, I think, close to 200,000 grass roots members from across the political spectrum united behind one idea: making Congress work.
The group has proposed a 12-point plan to remove the gridlock and reduce the polarization in the Congress. You can read about the plan here. The 12-point plan, in bullet-point form, calls for:
- Congressmembers' pay stops whenever they are late producing a budget.
- All Presidential appointments get a straight up-or-down vote within 90 days.
- Filibusters are confined to bills only, not to motions to consider bills, and filibusterers must maintain a physical presence onj the floor throughout.
- Make it easier for a bipartisan majority to bring legislation to the House or Senate floor without committee overrule.
- Make Congress work three weeks of the month rather than two or fewer as is now the case.
- Schedule regular question time for the President in front of the Congress, a la Britain.
- Annual fiscal updates to Congress from a nonpartisan leader, with senior Congresspeople being required to sign it off.
- Congresspeople should be banned from taking any pledge other than their Oath of Office and the Pledge of Allegiance.
- Mandated monthly bipartisan gatherings.
- Bipartisan seating, with party members seated with members of the other party rather than being segregated.
- Congressional leaders should form a bipartisan congressional leadership committee.
- Incumbents should be banned from waging negative political campaigns against incumbents from the opposing party.
Not all of these ideas are great. Some of them may even seem silly but they do seem symbolic. If we could get Congress to adopt even half of these principles, it would go a long way toward making Congress work.
As you can see, there's no partisanship in any of the proposals. Won't you join me and spread the word about this worthwhile undertaking and sign up to help the cause? Regardless of who wins the November elections, we need a Congress that actually functions.
A Whiff of Hypocrisy on the Left in CA
A friend sent me a copy of an article in sfgate.com today in which those who take a lawsuit-based approach to enforcing the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) are taken to task for their "frivolous suits" against small business owners in San Francisco and throughout California.
A couple of the specific anecdotes mentioned do sound a bit over the top. But I find it ironic that the very liberals who lobbied and fought for the ADA in the first place -- in the interest of creating and protecting rights for disabled Americans -- are now claiming to be stressed by the enforcement of the law against small, primarily Latino, business owners.
"Disabled Americans have rights," they seem to be saying, "but not when it comes to small minority businesses for whom compliance would be too big a burden."
Interesting.
Spirituality and Political Activity Can Co-Exist
(In an email chat with my good friend Paul Jimerson @pauljimerson, a Baha'i for whom I have great respect, I found myself addressing the question of how to reconcile a fundamental spiritual belief that radical political action is incompatible with a true spirituality based in Oneness, and a gut-level perceived need to do something. What resulted seemed worth sharing.)
I think the key to our dilemma lies in the Christian admonition to be in the world but not of it and in an acknowledgement of the deep truth of the Buddhist teaching that suffering derives from attachment to outcomes. We suffer when we are tied to specific outcomes that we establish in our own minds. So, e.g., in terms of environmentalism if I were to be attracted to that as a primary socio-political cause, I would try hard to be focused on solutions rather than problems, and open to a potential range of solutions rather than focusing on one specific law or action that I had determined was the best. For me, in these cases, it's about integrating the idea that the wisdom of Spirit (or the Universe if you will) far exceeds my own.
When I meditate, contemplate or pray about political concerns, I am (or try to be) careful to add, "This or something better" to my prayer when it does focus on a desired specific outcome.
I am anti-capital punishment. I can (and do) pray for the United States to become sufficiently enlightened to outlaw its use. But I have recently become more open to other solutions Spirit might bring to bear such as:
- enlightening humanity to the point where we no longer kill each other
- awakening Americans so that they no longer favor capital punishment (in some polls) heavily enough to offer political cover to those who govern
- reforming the justice system so that the chances of executing an innocent person decline to near zero (not a real solution, in my mind, but clearly a significant potential improvement)
- sudden spiritual awakening around the demonstrated execution of an innocent person (such as happened in Illinois a few years back) that results in a single, bold executive decision to suspend the practice indefinitely
I'm sure there are others. The point isn't to be specific about alternative outcomes but to be open to them. I have found Buddhism's teaching that suffering comes from being tied to the outcome to be so repeatedly true in my life that I have tried earnestly to avoid attachment. I'm a long way from there, but I'm a lot closer than I once was.
(BTW, if this is an area you find interesting, I heartily recommend Marianne Williamson's wonderful book, Healing the Soul of America: Reclaiming Our Voice as Spiritual Citizens, recently re-issued under its new title. The book isn't really America-specific; it has global value and meaning.)
Spirituality: Could it Be a Cure-All?
This wonderful piece in the India Times describes how spirituality -- which the author defines somewhat broadly as "Basically ... a non-materialistic approach to life's issues as opposed to the other approach that is based on materialistic interest." -- is the key to stopping the corruption that is so rampant in India and throughout most of the world. I concur with the writer and wish to broaden the discussion.
It seems to me that spiritually, properly understood as I think the above definition comes close to doing, is indeed the answer not only to corruption but to much of what is going haywire in the world around us these days.
Specifically, it seems to me that a spiritual approach to economics, banking and finance, would, once in place, all but eradicate much of the unfairness, bias, and economic violence which is now rampant. If even a substantial minority of those who call the shots in these arenas was focused more on the non-material issues of fairness, justice, opportunity and equality, we could cut through a lot of the garbage out there passing for serious economic policy but serves the materialistic selfishness of a minuscule minority of our citizenry.
If we looked at our unilaterally launched and all-but-morally-indefensible wars against terror, and in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya (and lots of other places nobody's talking about), with non-materialistic aims in mind. We'd shut them down in a nanosecond and divert those resources to activities that promote love and peace and harmony.
Maybe if, instead of calling it spirituality, we called it "non-materialism", we'd get more traction for these ideas in the public arena?
Maybe Stock Market Isn't the Right Gauge?
Let me see if I get this.
The country is driven to the very brink of defaulting on its national debt because the government is unable to act on legislation that was purposely overly complicated by both sides.
We're told that if that logjam isn't dealt with on time, our bond rating could be affected and the stock market could tumble.
A "compromise" is reached. (Don't get me started.) The crisis is averted, at least in the main.
The next day, our bond rating is unchanged but the forecast for the bond rating is downgraded severely. Given that bonds are always trading on the future, this seems at least similar to a downgrade in the bond rating itself, just not of the same immediate effect.
And, oh, yeah. The stock market plummets anyway. This time, the excuse given for the drop is investor concern about the slowness of the recovery. A slowness that has just been greatly exacerbated by the passage of a "compromise" debt ceiling bill that both parties are guilty of mangling worse than anyone could have imagined a year ago.
So Wall Street drops if we don't raise the debt ceiling. It encourages the irrational and almost unprecedented tying-together of the debt ceiling (which deals with debt already incurred) and upcoming budgets (which do not deal with debt already incurred, duh). Then when it gets what it wants, it plummets out of concern for the consequences of its actions.
Maybe we need to find a better barometer of our nation's economic state than the Stock Market, which has actually long ago stopped being a valid indicator of economic movement because of the day trading and automatic triggering brought to bear in the past 15-20 years.
Rep. Weiner, One of My Real Heroes, Is Finished
New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a real stalwart of the Left wing in American politics in recent years and a personal hero of mine for his courageous stands and articulate speeches, effectively ended his political career today. After days of denying he had anything to do with a picture that has been characterized as "lewd" and "inappropriate" and that was sent from his Twitter account to a student in Alaska, Weiner fessed up and admitted today that the photo was of him, and that he sent it.
He alleged his Twitter account had been hacked and that he had a private security team looking into how to track down the perpetrator and shore up security on his Internet communications. It was all a bold-faced lie. And so yet another rare voice for the oppressed and disenfranchised of this country is effectively silenced by his own stupidity. He says he has no intention of resigning but the odds of his retaining his Congressional seat in the next election are extremely long and will grow longer. My guess is that he will resign in coming weeks.
Politicians of all stripes can fall prey to the temptation of this kind of behavior, of course. And while we have seen much more of this sort of behavior from leaders on the Right, this incident along with former Sen. John Edwards' indictment last week for campaign finance violations directly tied to his admitted extramarital affair that produced a child, provides ample reminder that nobody is exempt.
Beyond my sadness at the loss of Weiner's voice and credibility, I'm genuinely sorry for him, Edwards, former Sen. John Ensign, and so many other national political figures whose certainly well-intentioned careers were destroyed by personal weakness, and for their families, loved ones, fans and supporters whose confidence in the integrity of the system has once again been shaken.
John Edwards Will Defend Charges on Legal Definition, Not Behavioral Grounds
Two-time Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards appears to plan to mount a defense against a criminal indictment handed down this week, based not on the facts of his behavior but on legal definitions and interpretations. Not sure what else I expected from a former trial lawyer who dashed the hopes and beliefs of his once-ardent supporters (including yours truly) by having an extramarital affair and an out-of-wedlock child while his wife suffered through cancer.
According to press reports, Edwards' defense team will not argue that the Senator didn't have the affair or didn't have the child. That's good; he's already admitted that he did. They will try to defend him against criminal charges on the basis that his conduct didn't break any Federal Election Commission rules or laws governing campaign finances.
A reading of the indictment itself makes it hard for me -- a law-trained layman -- to see how his attorneys can respond to the charges in the way they are suggesting he will. While I, like many other political observers, wonder at the Justice Department's decision to crack down on Edwards while leaving the cases of guys like Tom DeLay and John Ensign on the table (see the CREW statement, for example), their priorities don't change factual or legal observations. It wouldn't surprise me if the thinking inside the Obama administration is to pursue such a public course of action against a once-powerful Democrat as a way of appearing to be interested in equal opportunity indictments.
I feel sad for Edwards, as I do for Ensign and his family as well. This kind of familial upheaval is always so destructive in so many hidden ways in addition to the public humiliation and loss of reputation that inevitably and justifiably accompanies it. And I find it strange and depressing that most of the public officials who get caught in sex scandals are those who are loudest in proclaiming their "family values" stances on issues. Methinks they do protest too much.
