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About padresteve

I'm a Navy Chaplain and Old Catholic Priest
March 13, 2012 · 17:58

Rushing to Irrelevance: Rush Limbaugh’s Free Market Problem

Rush Limbaugh has been the dominant force in conservative media for the past two decades.  His show the Rush Limbaugh Show is aired on over 600 radio stations across the country.  His show reaches and estimated 15-20 millions listeners not including those that listen to the show through web streaming or view his website.  His influence is such that very few Republican politicians dare to take him on or criticize him.

He is no stranger to controversy and seems to revel in it seldom apologizing for what he says and he has easily survived all previous controversies. Many liberals have called for him to be removed from the air joining their voices with those of his supporters creating the perfect cacophony of free publicity that drew in even more listeners and with them more advertisers.  For years his format and attitude worked well and launched a format that would see men like Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck to join him in catering to a segment of the population that is angry about the way that they feel the nation is moving.

However things have been changing over the last few years. Demographic surveys of Rush’s listeners show that he is declining in popularity in every demographic except for listeners over 65 years old. That said Rush and his fellow conservative talkers are still very popular but that could be changing especially in light of Limbaugh’s ill advised three day trashing of Sandra Fluke.  In the wake of that advertisers have been pulling out in droves, as of last night something close to 150 advertisers including major corporations have pulled advertising from Limbaugh’s show. Additionally Premier Radio which markets the show has pulled national advertising in what are called “barter” ads from the show for two weeks. Those ads are required if a station wants to air the show for free, thus making the show more affordable for local stations to air.  This does not bode well for Limbaugh as for the first time he is having “dead air” when no advertising is running in breaks and ironically much of the advertising now running is government sponsored public service announcements.  Companies telling Premier that they do not want to advertise on Rush or other programs “deemed to be offensive or controversial” include Auto Manufacturers GM, Ford and Toyota, Insurance companies such as Geico, Allstate, Prudential and State Farm; Banks like Capitol One and Restaurants such as McDonald’s and Subway.  Those are all heavy hitters and the impact of losing such advertising cannot be discounted.  Limbaugh’s claim that the numbers as compared to all of his other advertisers is “like losing a couple of french fries out of the french fry cup at the drive through” is so much bluster. Advertisers, Premier Media and local stations are concerned about the financial impact on them.

Bain Capitol, Mitt Romney’s old company may even have a deciding role having bought Clear Channel Radio, which is a subsidiary of Premier a few years back. They have trimmed costs and cut personnel at the media giant and may not be happy over the amount of money that they could lose as advertisers flee and stations drop Limbaugh’s show.

There are some liberal politicians calling for Limbaugh’s show to be shut down and lawyer Gloria Alred has even urged Florida to charge Limbaugh with a crime under an old law which makes it illegal to question a woman’s honor by calling them prostitutes or sluts and other such slurs.  Others are calling for his show to be pulled from Armed Forces Radio for the latest incident.  If the Left is smart it will let Limbaugh stew in the boiling pot of the angry free market and refrain from doing things to make him appear to be some sort of free speech martyr, which he is not.  It is fine to criticize him and even satirize him but smart thinkers don’t create martyrs out of people who are not.  Speaking of satire Saturday Night Live did a great opening last week with a Limbaugh parody reacting to his loss of advertisers.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/rush-limbaugh-cold-open/1389919

Personally I don’t think that Limbaugh or any other talker should be shut down or censored except as the free market dictates.  Advertisers and listeners need to be the ones making those decisions. As for Armed Forces Radio it broadcasts shows from across the political spectrum so as long as there is balance he shouldn’t be pulled unless another similar show is aired in his place.

In the long run the market will decide if Limbaugh or others like him remain on the air or if people will change their listening habits. Perhaps this will result in local stations going back to finding local talent to host shows.  One reason that so many nationally syndicated shows including Limbaugh’s are one so many stations is because they were cheaper to run and brought in advertising dollars. However if the advertising dollars dry up and the costs to run syndicated shows outweighs local programing I would imagine a renaissance in local programing of various types to include political talk radio.  One of the more interesting local talkers that I have heard is Tony Macrini who broadcasts the morning show on WNIS 790 AM in Norfolk, I don’t always agree with him but he is entertaining, and deals with both local and national issues.

It could well be that this type of programming is running its course. Limbaugh has been on the air 23 years and others like him a decade or more. I cannot speak for others as everyone has their own reasons for listening to or not listening to a given radio or television program.  But I can say that I listened to Rush and others like him for years going back to when I first heard Rush in the DFW area in 1990.  However after I came back from Iraq in 2008 I found that I could no longer listen. Part was because what Rush and others were saying about the war bore no resemblance to what I saw and experienced. Part was when Rush had the nerve to call a soldier that was an Iraq veteran that disagreed with his view of the war a “phony soldier” in 2007 showed me that despite all of his “support” for the troops it was only for those that agreed with him and part was that the shrillness of his rhetoric in the 2008 Presidential election was a deciding factor.  It was as if he and others were inciting Americans to hate each other and having seen what such political, racial and religious hatred did to societies in Iraq and the Balkans I realized that I could no longer listen.

I figure that Limbaugh will survive this but think that his influence will really begin to wane. I expected before this that as his listener demographics changed that he would lose influence but this incident may speed that decline in a way that nobody expected.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 11, 2012 · 23:22

Unforced Errors: The Bane of the American-NATO Campaign in Afghanistan

The Scene at one of the Houses (Reuters: Ahmad Nadeem) 

The efforts of the United States in Afghanistan and chances of coming out with anything resembling a successful conclusion to the longest war in its history are being destroyed by unforced errors. Of course anyone who watches any kind of sporting event knows that there are many times that the team that should win self destructs by committing unforced errors that result in them losing a game. In football they might be penalties, fumbles or badly thrown balls that result in interceptions. In basketball the errant pass, the bad foul, the unforced turnover in baseball the error that costs a game. However in war unforced errors cost precious lives, harm the strategic goals of a nation and lead to greater suffering of the populations affected.

Today we learned that a US Army Staff Sergeant went on a rampage in the Afghan villages near his base in Kandahar killing 15 or 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children and 3 women. The killings were particularly brutal. We don’t know details except that some reports indicate that the sergeant had recently had a breakdown and had deployed at least one other time to Iraq or Afghanistan. I would guess that he had multiple deployments.  The initial reports say that he was assigned to troops supporting a Special Forces team that was working with the local villagers.  Some Afghans say that more than one soldier was involved although NATO says that the soldier acted alone.

The murders come after the accidental burning of a Koran sparked riots and attacks on US and NATO forces killing 6 NATO soldiers including 2 US officers working inside a secure area of the Afghan interior ministry. They also follow the video display of Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban and the trial and conviction of soldiers who had their own killing team. All the incidents were unrelated and none had the imprimatur of the American or NATO command.  However like the My Lai massacre committed by the platoon led by Lieutenant William Calley during the Vietnam War the crimes have tarnished the honor of the US military and are undermining all efforts to bring about a successful conclusion to the war in Afghanistan.

Unforced errors do not help when the strategic goals are totally dependent on the cooperation and goodwill of the populace of the country that you are operating in and trying to secure. The whole tenant of Counterinsurgency Warfare is securing the population and by doing that bringing them to cooperate with you. If you do not have the massive numbers of troops to actually secure the country yourself it is doubly important. In fact by doctrine there should be 4 times more troops to conduct a successful counterinsurgency campaign. In places where the indigenous forces are larger and more capable some or even much of the burden can be born by them, however the Afghan National Army and National Police are able to shoulder the burden. Riddled with corruption, plagued by incompetent leaders, poor discipline, high desertion rates and awash in Taliban sympathizers. A growing number of American and NATO soldiers have lost their lives in attacks from the Afghan soldiers and police working alongside of them.

Of course there are other factors such as that the government of the country must inspire the confidence of its own people in order to turn back an insurgency.  Afghanistan is “governed” if one can call it that by the regime of Mohammed Karzai. The government can most charitably be described as corrupt and incompetent.  However the Karzai government has little power or authority outside of Kabul.  It has little control over its own security forces or for that matter even regional governors who function in a near autonomous fashion as best benefits them personally or the tribe that they belong.  A shadow government of the Taliban factions often hold as much real power over the people as the “legitimate” government.  The biggest money maker is the Opium trade as Afghanistan is one of the top Opium producers in the world. The real truth is that for all practical matters Afghanistan is for all practical purposes a narco-State run by criminals and thugs of different factions.

Afghanistan also is a nation whose people believe that it is an offense against Islam foreigners to occupy the country. The Afghanis have shown their resolve against every invader and though successfully invaded they have never been long occupied nor cooperated well with their occupiers, even those that considered themselves liberators. As such the campaign to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and bring about some form of democracy has had little chance of success after forces were diverted to the invasion of Iraq.

The latest incident will cause more American and NATO soldiers to die and will likely erase any possibility that we can succeed in our goal of an orderly train up of Afghan security forces and transfer of the conduct of the war to them.  It is very likely that the situation on the ground will get worse, perhaps markedly worse.  The American military will do the right thing regarding the investigation and prosecution of this case but that investigation may prove to show how bad things have become.

Unforced errors.  I don’t know how to overcome them.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 8, 2012 · 23:02

Not Alone: The Real Warriors Campaign

“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.” William Tecumseh Sherman 

When I returned from Iraq in February 2008 it began the most difficult period of my life. Suffering from PTSD and a crisis in faith I felt alone, isolated, suffered terrible depression, anxiety was hyper-vigilant and angry. I felt abandoned by my former church as well as God. When I think about it now I can get still feel the deep emotions of those years. I am doing better now compared to how I was doing then.  Thankfully I have some friends that are to me what Grant was to Sherman.

Life is about living in the real world. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from prison “I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”

When I started getting help after I fell apart in the summer of 2008 I was really struggling and the first person that asked about how I was doing with God was my therapist Dr. Elmer Maggard. It was during those initial months when I discovered that there were others out there like me that I decided that I could not be silent. Those that have followed this blog since its early days have followed me as I detailed my struggles, experience and tried to be as transparent as possible within the limits of my emotional state at any given time.  I was helped by a number of friends especially by my friends Greg and David, both Chaplains who have experienced things similar to me and without whom I would have been hard pressed to make it through my difficult times.

That was hard to do because I am a pretty introverted and private person.  So I wrote what I could when I could. Sometimes very raw and unfiltered emotions came to the front, other times I was able to get back into my comfort zone and write from a more detached point of view, a particular virtue and failing of being a historian. I wrote an article in September 2010 titled Raw Edges: Are there other Chaplains out there Like Me?  The next day I was asked to leave my former church although the two were not directly linked being ask to leave a day after I was talking to people about them not being alone even if they felt abandoned by God, their church or faith community or even the military.

A few months later in March of 2011I was interviewed by Hope Hodge of the Jacksonville Daily News after their editor had read that article and found that I was at camp LeJeune.  The article appeared on the front page of their print edition and online. This was a big step for me because by doing it I allowed someone else to write the story. Now Hope and the editors at the Daily News handled it very well and I felt that they produced a very good article.

A couple months later I was asked by the good folks at the Real Warriors Campaign which is an initiative of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) if I would share my story to a wider audience. I wrestled with that because things like this are scary, I am not a televangelist I don’t go in front of a camera for a living. I was helped by our public affairs officer Raymond Applewhite and the team that did the filming handled it well.

The video was released on the Real Warriors website as one of a number of videos featuring veterans sharing their stories of war and return.  The video is found at this link http://www.realwarriors.net/multimedia/profiles/dundas.php and I viewed the final draft a couple of weeks ago before it went online.

My hope is that others struggling will be encouraged and know that there are indeed others out here that know something of their experience and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. My story is still being written. I am doing much better than I was but I am changed by war and while I still struggle that is not necessarily a bad thing. I have like Bonhoeffer so well put it that it is “only in living completely in the world that one learns to have faith.” Sometimes that faith comes at great cost and certainly is not something that is something that is done without help, spiritual, emotional and from people that are willing to suffer with you.  The cost to families and relationships is difficult.  My wife Judy has had to struggle with my issues and I know that what happens in war affects those that we love in profound and often painful ways. Bonhoeffer said:

“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.” 

There are a number of people who have helped me through very dark times. To those that struggle, especially those struggling with faith and God following experience the trauma of war I just want to say that you are not alone.

Peace

Padre Steve+



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March 6, 2012 · 23:57

Super Tuesday Agony: Indecisive, Inconclusive and a Portent of Things to Come

The Super Tuesday primaries are supposed to provide the boost to ensure that each party has a nominee locked in a ready to go into the November general election refreshed and with party united behind them.  Even in hotly contested campaigns Super Tuesday is supposed to give a frontrunner an edge going into the last months of the primary season. It is designed to bring unity to a party, at least in what the party believes even if it differs on its candidate.

That is not the case this year. Though results are still filtering in at the moment Mitt Romney has won as expected in Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont and Idaho. Newt Gingrich has won Georgia and Rick Santorum has won Oklahoma, Tennessee and North Dakota.

Several states are still in the balance with the big prize being Ohio which Santorum and Romney are running in a dead heat. Ohio is so close and has such a history of big counties taking a long time to count it may not be known who has won the state until tomorrow. If the margin is under .25% an automatic recount will be triggered.  Ohio was supposed to be a Romney win and when Rick Santorum began to surge Romney and his PACs dumped massive amounts of money, somewhere close to 12 million dollars in advertising to beat Santorum down. This is not good for Romney even if he gets a narrow win. Yes a win is a win but sometimes a win doesn’t amount to much  especially if a recount is triggered.

The states that Romney has won so far are states that he had no possibility of losing. Massachusetts and Vermont, Romney is the home team. In Virginia his two strongest competitors were not on the ballot making it a race between him and Ron Paul. Idaho which has a strong LDS population was also an easy win for Romney.  However Romney was trounced in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma and North Dakota.  The three southern states do matter, any Republican nominee has to win the south.  Romney is not liked in the south, he has a number of things that cause him to be less than popular in the Republican Bible Belt. His religion is part of it, many conservative Christians, both Evangelicals and Roman Catholics believe that the Mormon Church is a cult.  Romney also has to deal with the fact that he doesn’t come across as genuine. He comes across as a entitled flip flopping New England moderate who cannot connect with real people, note his comments about NASCAR.  The fact is that in many Republicans in other parts of the country believe the same thing.

Next week the campaign turns to the south where Alabama and Mississippi await Romney. I have not seen recent polling data for either state but would expect that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will poll very well and that Romney may even run third in both primaries. Kansas has its caucuses on Saturday and with that state’s history in the abortion wars that Rick Santorum should do very well with the GOP base.  Other states that Romney could struggle in include Louisiana and the only state that really looks positive in the coming month for Romney is Illinois.

As I said there are still states hanging tonight but it is very apparent that Romney’s money and organization is the only thing keeping him in the game.  Romney is still in the best position to take the nomination but he if he gets it will be the nominee of a fractured party whose base does not like him.  That is not a winning formula to beat an incumbent President no matter how bad that President’s numbers look.

My prediction, all four candidates remain in the race and Romney continues to take a beating from the conservative base.  This will remain a long, drawn out and bloody campaign. Romney will have to spent far more money than he ever had planned to secure the nomination and may lose the support of Republican party elders if he cannot seal the deal soon.  Gingrich will remain in at least for a while but Santorum allies may try to pressure Gingrich through the Tea Party to leave the race in order to make Santorum the sole conservative standard bearer against Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

It certainly makes for an interesting election season.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 5, 2012 · 23:55

They didn’t Pray Enough: Pat Robertson’s latest “Patwah”

“If enough people were praying, [God] would intervene. You could pray, Jesus stilled the storm, you could still storms.” Pat Robertson on the 700 Club

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Jesus (Matthew 5:44-45)

Well Pat Robertson the Grand Mullah of Virginia Beach has again come up with new a Patwah declaring today that the people across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys who were devastated by unseasonable tornadoes and storms this week could have avoid them “if they had prayed more.”

Of course such statements are nothing new from the Tidewater’s favorite Taliban and certainly to be expected.  Some it seems that no matter what the question that Mullah Pat needs to have an answer direct from God on high. He was responding to a question from one of his viewers about why “God would cause” such disasters and instead of doing the thing that Jesus did when asked a similar question about why Jewish insurgents had died fighting the Romans that Jesus mentioned the 18 people killed at the tower of Siloam.  Jesus basically asked his questioners if the 18 people killed at the tower of Siloam were worse sinners than anyone else in Jerusalem, the answer of course was “well duh, stuff happens.” Even in the New testament it was understood that the “rain falls on the just and the unjust.” But today it seems that the people like Pat have to find an answer that they can attribute to God to bust the chops of people that they think really need to be whacked.

I’m sorry but such theological insanity coming from a “Christian” is a shame and comparable to the Fatwahs issued by extremist Muslim preachers in Afghanistan, Iran and other locations. The only difference is that Pat is claiming that he is getting his word from Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Sorry Pat but the 39 people killed and thousands injured or displaced by these storms deserve better from a “Christian” preacher who has indulged himself upon their generous financial contributions for the last 40 years.  Heck, these were not even people that live in Blue States, these storms hit the Red State Republican heartland and some swing states.  If those states are not safe from God’s wrath then who is? But then if prayer could have kept these things from happening does that mean that the people killed, injured or rendered homeless were somehow at odds with God?

Well if you ask Jesus probably not.  However if you hold Jesus in less esteem than Pat then maybe so.  Now I do believe that God answers prayer and sometimes in most unusual and seemingly miraculous ways. However it seems that sometimes stuff happens, even to good people.  I guess that is why we need folks like Mullah Pat to guide our way…but then maybe we don’t need him to do this.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 4, 2012 · 23:33

Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word: Rush Limbaugh “Apologizes”

It’s sad, so sad

It’s a sad, sad situation

And it’s getting more and more absurd

It’s sad, so sad

Why can’t we talk it over

Oh it seems to me

That sorry seems to be the hardest word

After making a complete ass of himself in making personal attacks on a Georgetown Law School student named Sandra Fluke.  She testified before Congress regarding the provision of women’s contraceptives by insurance companies, including those that cover employees of ancillary organizations belonging to religious institutions.

Limbaugh called Ms Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” saying “What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex — what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

Of course that was not the content of Ms. Fluke’s testimony which focused on married women working at the University who needed the medications for conditions not related to contraception, something that is not uncommon. Limbaugh instead decided to attack the character of Ms. Fluke.  But this has become par for the course for Limbaugh who uses his show not just to confront his opponents but to humiliate and silence them.  I listened to his show regularly from the late 1980s until I returned from Iraq. It was then I realized just how abusive his tactics are and in the summer of 2008 I stopped listening to his program.

I guess what bothers me is that though Limbaugh is arguably one of the most talented radio personalities who has ever lived and certainly the most influential on the American political scene that he has become a bully. Limbaugh’s talent, especially his ability to use satire used to be humorous when directed at those in power has become a bludgeon to silence those without power as he has become a figure that Republicans are afraid to confront because he is the most influential Republican in the country.

Limbaugh has made personal attacks before, mocking Michael J. Fox who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease in 2006 for advocating for funding of Stem Cell research; calling a Iraq combat Veteran and career soldier and other soldiers who criticized the war as “phony soldiers.” I was in Iraq at the time and happened to hear about those comments in between missions in Al Anbar Province.  I found both episodes to be reprehensible.

With his rise in power has come a rise in vitriol and a hubris that comes from being so powerful and until this week unchallenged. Limbaugh has beaten up all comers and only on exceedingly rare occasions has issued “apologies” for his remarks.

What brought about this apology was not the criticism from Republican political candidates or elected officials.  There was little to speak of in that regard, however money talks even when politicians and fellow pundits refuse to do so. Limbaugh lost seven major advertisers in the past several days one of whom, David Friend the CEO of the online computer security and backup firm Carbonite said:

“No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.”

The only major figure in conservative media of any substance to condemn the lack of response by conservative politicians and candidates was George Will who said “Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff,…And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

Ron Paul did comment about the apology telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer “He’s doing it because some people were taking their advertisements off of his program,…. It was his bottom line he was concerned about.”

I completely agree with Will and Paul. If Limbaugh wanted to attack the policies he disagrees with that is one thing. Certainly there is room for debate on this issue as in all issues facing this country. If Limbaugh wants to attack those in political power with whom that he disagrees even in a personal matter, that is similar.  However to attack a women, a law student at that in this personal, insidious, crude, ungentlemanly and even I might say un-Christian manner is something that he should be condemned for doing.

As for me I wonder what Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan would think of the man whom many call the intellectual and philosophical leader of conservatism. I don’t think that any would have much good to say at the level that Limbaugh has sunk to in this latest episode.

The irony is that Limbaugh is working on his fourth marriage and has had to deal with addiction to prescription drugs and accused of doctor shopping. He also was detained by Drug Enforcement officials at Palm Beach International Airport returning from the Dominican Republic in 2006 for having Viagra which was not prescribed in his name. Limbaugh had the nerve to attack the character of a woman speaking for something that is legal.  What has conservatism sunk to?

The last irony is that at his last marriage ceremony Limbaugh had Elton John provide the entertainment. I guess that the title of Elton John’s classic “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word” is in reality the theme of Limbaugh’s public persona.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 1, 2012 · 23:59

Spring is Here: Spring Training Games Begin Friday

No one’s gonna give a damn in July if you lost a game in March.” Earl Weaver 

Yes it is really spring. Spring Training games begin Friday March 2nd and I am excited. I will be following the San Francisco Giants, Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics closely. At the present time the only legitimate potential playoff contender among those three teams are the Giants.

However despite the fact that the Orioles and A’s are in divisions which are now dominated by money and talent rich teams I still maintain some measure of hope that both teams will surprise us.  I have been looking at the Orioles 40 man roster and it is not bad, especially if the pitchers that have potential rise to the occasion this year. The problem for the Orioles is that they reside in the American League East where the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays all are solid organizations. The one team of those three that I wonder about are the Red Sox because I am not convinced that they have solid pitching and that their position players are starting to age. The Yankees have a similar issue but I think are deeper. Likewise I am not sure if Bobby Valentine is the answer to the Red Sox leadership woes.

The Yankees are aging as well but have both money and a deep farm system while the Rays under Joe Madden have been amazing in squeezing every last bit of performance from their young and talented team which is for the most part home grown.  The Orioles biggest problem is owner Peter Angelos who has over his tenure in Baltimore killed the franchise while maximizing his profits.

As an Orioles fan I hope that the team is able to do well enough to screw up the rest of the American League East and keep things interesting.  I was thrilled last year when they O’s killed off the Red Sox in the final week and a half of the season.  Likewise since I know a number of players on the team and in the minor leagues I really do want them to do well.

The games begin tomorrow and while they count for nothing they do remind us that it will not be long before the games do mean something.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 29, 2012 · 18:06

Romney Stops the Bleeding but Race far from Over

The Republican nomination process was supposed to be a done deal by now. Mitt Romney was by now to have for all practical purposes secured the nomination. It hasn’t been that way. After an advertised win that was not really a win in Iowa Romney went on to win on his home turf in New Hampshire. Then things came apart. A series of gaffes led to a strong win by Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Then Romney clobbered Gingrich with negative ads in Florida and Gingrich added to the meltdown by two lack luster debate performances. Romney’s win in Florida made it look like he had seized control of the race.  Romney quickly picked up the endorsement of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) and a narrow and disputed win in the Maine Caucuses over Ron Paul and a win in Nevada. However that did not last as Rick Santorum stormed to victory in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.  Those defeats sent the Romney campaign which had just seemed to have recovered some momentum int a near panic.

The Romney camp spent an anxious two weeks before the upcoming Arizona and Michigan primaries. Santorum continued to surge during these two weeks and for a couple of days began to poll ahead of Romney in that state. The two campaigns bombard each other aided by the attacks of Newt Gingrich and Ton Paul on the front runners. Santorum then departed from his emphasis on the economy and understanding of blue collar family concerns which contrasted sharply with Romney’s inability to connect on these subjects. Santorum turned the conversation to conservative social and moral issues and made some comments which probably took his numbers down in Michigan. I think that the key mistake for Santorum was his comment that President John F. Kennedy’s religious freedom speech had made him “want to vomit” accusing the late President of promoting an absolute separation of church and state that denies religious people and churches access to the public square and debate. It was a terrible misrepresentation of Kennedy’s speech and plays to a certain paranoia in the conservative Evangelical Christian and Catholic base.

Romney easily won Arizona with the conservative vote being divided by Santorum and Newt Gingrich who improved his showing in that state.  However Romney won Michigan and won the Roman Catholic vote showing a weakness in Santorum’s strategy to go after moral issues that may lay Catholics even have problems with. At the same time even though Romney won the popular vote by about 3% he split the delegates 15-15 giving Santorum a claim to have at least tied Romney in Michigan.

Romney stopped the bleeding and won what were described as “must win” states. However the post primary speeches revealed just how tenuous Romney’s wins were. Santorum closed the night with a passionate speech in which he attacked Romney and President Obama and looked like he was trying to cover some to the damage he had done over the past few days by focusing almost exclusively on moral and social issues where he already has the support of the conservative GOP base.

Romney made a speech that showed little passion and looked to me to be like a businessman trying to close the deal rather than a passionate believer in his cause.  Saturday is the Washington Caucuses and next week is Super Tuesday. I expect that Romney, Santorum and Gingrich will all have wins, just who wins what states and how big those wins are could define the next stage of the campaign.  But even more importantly it is how badly the candidates continue to damage each other will drive the narrative going into the later primary season. This could also effect their fundraising support and possibly increase the calls for another candidate at a brokered convention.

I expect that all four candidates will remain in the race and do whatever they can to gather delegates and seize the momentum. Into this mix the national GOP including major leaders are beginning to wonder what the primary campaign is doing to their chances of winning in November.  When people like Jeb Bush, Sarah Palin and others question the viability of their field in a general election it is time for the GOP to wake up.

The race continues and my prediction is that the GOP fratricide will continue and that if it does the chances of the party winning in November will go down with them. I think that  at this point barring reconciliation and a true united front in the GOP before the convention that any nominee that they field will be damaged goods and despite the obvious weakness of President Obama and the economy stand a diminished chance of winning in November. Democrats should not rejoice and count they’re chickens before they are hatched because they can still lose the election especially if the economy gets worse. However, if the inter-GOP civil war continues they stand an excellent chance of losing an election that even a few months ago I assumed as did many others was theirs for the taking.

It shall be interesting.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 28, 2012 · 23:22

Faith for those that Struggle with Faith

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.” 
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey

I’m taking a few minutes tonight even while watching primary returns and political punditry from Michigan and Arizona to muse a bit on faith during Lent.  I’ll post my analysis of tonight’s results tomorrow.

I have found over the past couple of years that there are many people that grew up in some kind of Christian home that for a host of reasons are struggling with faith, God and  the church. It is something that I find interesting from more than a theoretical premise because I went through a period after returning from Iraq where I struggled and could best be described as an agnostic struggling to recover faith.  Faith for me is still a work in progress, I can fully relate to father of the child Jesus healing in Mark 9:24 saying “I believe help my unbelief” and Thomas who after the Resurrection that he would not believe without being able to put his hands in the wounds of Christ.  Saint Anselm of Canterbury talked about faith seeking understanding and I think that is the mark of theological honesty.  I believe but seek understanding but even if I don’t understand I can have faith even if it is imperfect and plagued with doubts as well as frustration about things I see done in the church and in the name of Jesus.

When people come to me and admit their struggles I simply try to listen and let them be honest about their doubts and to know that even if they struggle that God still cares about them. I think that people, at least from what I hear are tired of the lack of honesty that characterizes much of what is being sold as Christianity in America.  What they struggle with is that “faith” marketed  by the health, wealth and political power preachers, pundits and politicians that make up the Unholy Trinity of American religious life.

Lent is one of those times of reflection where hopefully those that call on the name of Jesus can deepen faith or in the case of many that struggle, return to faith.  I really believe that honesty with God, each other and the world is one of the keys to faith and for those of us that struggle absolutely vital.

Part of that honesty to recover faith is to realize that God does love the real and very imperfect world that we live in. God loves wounded, doubting and imperfect people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer the German pastor, theologian and martyr said it this way “God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.” 

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 27, 2012 · 11:19

The War that Cannot Be Won: Afghanistan 2012

“There is no single piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier . . . no single military problem that has arisen and not been solved, and yet there is still no result.”  Sergei Akhromeyev, Soviet General Staff Chief 1986

Sometimes one wonders if anyone actually reads history and if they do whether they actually want to learn from it. Back in 1979 the Soviet Union had advisors in Afghanistan. A lot of them. A local and indigenous Communist Party had some measure of political power and this was before the Soviets invaded.

However in March 1979 a major unit of the Afghan National Army in the city of Herat mutinied against the Soviets and the Afghan government. Before the mutiny was put down 50 Soviet advisors as well as 300 of their dependents were brutally murdered by Afghan Army personnel. A further 5000 Afghans died in the revolt.

Since 2009 the trend of Blue on Green killings, that is Afghan Soldiers or Security Force members killing US or NATO personnel has been increasing at a troubling rate. We should not be surprised, the one thing that the Afghan loathes above all is the foreign soldier on Afghan soil.  While some Afghans may desire a more modern society and something more akin to the Western democratic political model to include women’s suffrage they are in a distinct minority.  The fact is that as General Barry McCafferty recently noted regarding the murder of two US military advisors in the supposedly secure Afghan Interior Ministry “we may be seeing a watershed event after billions of dollars and 16,000 u.s. casualties. we see how shallow the impact we have on this primitive society is.” 

Approximately 130,000 US and NATO troops including a number of my friends are deployed in penny-packets across Afghanistan and are increasingly isolated and in danger.  The “inadvertent” burning of copies of the Koran in a garbage dump by US personnel has resulted in the deaths of at least 4 US military personnel and the wounding of 8 more and put our bases on lockdown as thousands of Afghans protest and attack them.  More than two dozen Afghans have died in the recent violence.

As deployed they are able to achieve local success but unable to secure the country. Dependent on supplies delivered by air or along tenuous supply lines hundreds of miles long these forces though numerous are dispersed and deployed in areas where their inherent technological and operational superiority is negated by weather, terrain and restrictive rules of engagement as well as a counterinsurgency strategy in which these advantages matter little and that they do not have enough troops to accomplish.

US and NATO forces are embedded with the Afghan Army, Police and Border forces, many of whom are either incompetent, corrupt or allied with Taliban or Al Qaeda. Most Afghans feel that any foreign occupier is a mortal enemy and mistakes such as the recent Koran burning only add fuel to the fire of hatred no matter how many times our leaders apologize. Formerly unclassified but now classified reports easily available on the internet including at US Government websites paint a picture of mutual distrust and animosity that can only be described as toxic between the Afghans and NATO personnel, especially Americans.

To make matters worse the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are surrounded to the west by an ever more bellicose Iran, to the south and east by an unstable and often adversarial “ally” Pakistan through which 30-40 percent of their supplies transit.  To the north the United States and NATO are dependent on agreements with the former Soviet Central Asian Republics Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan with most having had to transit Russia.  In the 1980s the Soviets only had make a withdraw across the border into their own country.

Another potentially disastrous situation would be for a war to break out between Iran and Israel or with the United States and our allies. The way our troops are deployed means that they cannot be easily concentrated to parry any threats and their isolation prevents them from being used as an offensive asset should a war break out against Iran.

The fact is that US and NATO forces are now in a very similar position to the Soviets in the mid to late 1980s.  We are engaged in a war where military success is not going to win the war. No matter what any politician says there is nothing that can change that unless they would be willing to commit to greatly increasing the number of ground forces in Afghanistan with the costs and logistical problems that would entail.

President Obama is in a “damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t” position.  If he keeps the status quo the danger persists and maybe increases. If he were to begin a more precipitous withdraw there would be the same dangers and possibly more during the withdraw. But mitigating against a faster withdraw is the 2012 election in which his Republican challengers would accuse him of “losing the war and betraying our troops.” However the chance to end the Afghan War from a position of strength was lost in 2003 when we diverted our efforts to the invasion of Iraq. That action gave Al Qaeda and the Taliban the breathing space that they needed to make a comeback and that was not on President Obama’s watch.

Geopolitically the presence of 130,000 US and NATO forces does nothing for regional or US national security and prevents those forces and the attendant resources needed to support them unavailable for any other dangers in the region. The goal of “creating a stabile and secure Afghanistan” is a myth. Afghanistan is not Iraq and will for generations remain a backward, tribal and religiously intolerant society that will never embrace western ideals that conflict with their culture.

The question now is how do we get out of this place, seal it off to keep terrorist threats from emanating from it and endangering US, NATO and Allied interests in the region.  The reality is also that no matter what we do that any defeat or withdraw will be grist for Al Qaeda, Iran and other Islamist propaganda.  The inability of the Soviets to “win” in Afghanistan was of the factors that brought down the Soviet Empire and ended the myth that Soviet Communism was invincible. The same could happen to the United States.

When presented with a cataclysmic strategic situation on the Western Front in 1944 Field Marshall Gerd Von Rundstedt was asked what should be done. His simple response was “End the war you fools.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch56NAL1C-I

We are not yet in a cataclysmic situation but the time to make decisions is now not later because there is nothing that can change the strategic or operational conditions in or outside of Afghanistan. Facts are facts and politicians from both the Republican and Democrat parties should stop trying to turn this into short term political advantage and look at the actual strategic interests of our country as well as our broader security and economic interests in the region.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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