Category Archives: News and current events

November 6, 2017 · 23:58

The Harder Alternative

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past few weeks I have been pondering something that to most people that I know is a major war on the Korea Peninsula that will spread throughout that region and may not leave the continental United States untouched, as well as the strong possibility of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran that would naturally end up involving the United States as an ally of the Saudis. If both of these conflicts began around the same time they could become the progenitors of a world war, the likes of which has not been seen or experienced since the Second World War.

As I look around it seems that most people regardless of their political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, or the radicals who seem to have pushed aside the traditional mainstream conservatives and liberals; do not seem to think that anything really bad is going to happen. In the Middle East the Sunni-Shia Muslim Civil War is about to explode while in the long developing North Korea standoff we have a North Korean dictator who is not going to back down from his quest for fully operational ICBMs facing off against an American President who seems to be chomping at the bit to get his chance to eliminate the North Korean threat.

In each theater the actors seem to be pushing the operational and strategic envelope leaving little chance for diplomatic maneuver and increased chances of a miscalculation that could result in wars that are just not conceivable to must people following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War.

As a historian and a career military officer I not only can imagine it but can see it coming and what frustrates the hell out of me is that so few people I know can se it and even fewer are prepared for the harder alternative of what has to be done when things go to shit. The fact is that most people, military and civilians alike live in a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land where wars remain small, manageable, and involve relatively few casualties. The wars of the past two decades have blinded us to the fact that the coming wars will be unlike our generation has seen and will be as disruptive to the global system as was the First World War. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Because I can see the disaster unfolding I am doing my best to prepare myself and the men and women who I supervise or work with, physically, mentally, professionally, and spiritually for what is coming but I feel like I voice in the wilderness. I would hope to be proven wrong by events, but I don’t see that happening as governments on all sides are moving closer to war. As the pressure continues to build and preparations, exercises, and shows of force become a substitute for diplomacy and the careful use of all elements of national power to contain these crises we should not be surprised when we wake up and find that the unthinkable is now reality.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 6, 2017 · 23:58

The Harder Alternative

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past few weeks I have been pondering something that to most people that I know is a major war on the Korea Peninsula that will spread throughout that region and may not leave the continental United States untouched, as well as the strong possibility of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran that would naturally end up involving the United States as an ally of the Saudis. If both of these conflicts began around the same time they could become the progenitors of a world war, the likes of which has not been seen or experienced since the Second World War.

As I look around it seems that most people regardless of their political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, or the radicals who seem to have pushed aside the traditional mainstream conservatives and liberals; do not seem to think that anything really bad is going to happen. In the Middle East the Sunni-Shia Muslim Civil War is about to explode while in the long developing North Korea standoff we have a North Korean dictator who is not going to back down from his quest for fully operational ICBMs facing off against an American President who seems to be chomping at the bit to get his chance to eliminate the North Korean threat.

In each theater the actors seem to be pushing the operational and strategic envelope leaving little chance for diplomatic maneuver and increased chances of a miscalculation that could result in wars that are just not conceivable to must people following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War.

As a historian and a career military officer I not only can imagine it but can see it coming and what frustrates the hell out of me is that so few people I know can se it and even fewer are prepared for the harder alternative of what has to be done when things go to shit. The fact is that most people, military and civilians alike live in a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land where wars remain small, manageable, and involve relatively few casualties. The wars of the past two decades have blinded us to the fact that the coming wars will be unlike our generation has seen and will be as disruptive to the global system as was the First World War. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Because I can see the disaster unfolding I am doing my best to prepare myself and the men and women who I supervise or work with, physically, mentally, professionally, and spiritually for what is coming but I feel like I voice in the wilderness. I would hope to be proven wrong by events, but I don’t see that happening as governments on all sides are moving closer to war. As the pressure continues to build and preparations, exercises, and shows of force become a substitute for diplomacy and the careful use of all elements of national power to contain these crises we should not be surprised when we wake up and find that the unthinkable is now reality.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 6, 2017 · 23:58

The Harder Alternative

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past few weeks I have been pondering something that to most people that I know is a major war on the Korea Peninsula that will spread throughout that region and may not leave the continental United States untouched, as well as the strong possibility of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran that would naturally end up involving the United States as an ally of the Saudis. If both of these conflicts began around the same time they could become the progenitors of a world war, the likes of which has not been seen or experienced since the Second World War.

As I look around it seems that most people regardless of their political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, or the radicals who seem to have pushed aside the traditional mainstream conservatives and liberals; do not seem to think that anything really bad is going to happen. In the Middle East the Sunni-Shia Muslim Civil War is about to explode while in the long developing North Korea standoff we have a North Korean dictator who is not going to back down from his quest for fully operational ICBMs facing off against an American President who seems to be chomping at the bit to get his chance to eliminate the North Korean threat.

In each theater the actors seem to be pushing the operational and strategic envelope leaving little chance for diplomatic maneuver and increased chances of a miscalculation that could result in wars that are just not conceivable to must people following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War.

As a historian and a career military officer I not only can imagine it but can see it coming and what frustrates the hell out of me is that so few people I know can se it and even fewer are prepared for the harder alternative of what has to be done when things go to shit. The fact is that most people, military and civilians alike live in a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land where wars remain small, manageable, and involve relatively few casualties. The wars of the past two decades have blinded us to the fact that the coming wars will be unlike our generation has seen and will be as disruptive to the global system as was the First World War. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Because I can see the disaster unfolding I am doing my best to prepare myself and the men and women who I supervise or work with, physically, mentally, professionally, and spiritually for what is coming but I feel like I voice in the wilderness. I would hope to be proven wrong by events, but I don’t see that happening as governments on all sides are moving closer to war. As the pressure continues to build and preparations, exercises, and shows of force become a substitute for diplomacy and the careful use of all elements of national power to contain these crises we should not be surprised when we wake up and find that the unthinkable is now reality.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 6, 2017 · 23:58

The Harder Alternative

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past few weeks I have been pondering something that to most people that I know is a major war on the Korea Peninsula that will spread throughout that region and may not leave the continental United States untouched, as well as the strong possibility of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran that would naturally end up involving the United States as an ally of the Saudis. If both of these conflicts began around the same time they could become the progenitors of a world war, the likes of which has not been seen or experienced since the Second World War.

As I look around it seems that most people regardless of their political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, or the radicals who seem to have pushed aside the traditional mainstream conservatives and liberals; do not seem to think that anything really bad is going to happen. In the Middle East the Sunni-Shia Muslim Civil War is about to explode while in the long developing North Korea standoff we have a North Korean dictator who is not going to back down from his quest for fully operational ICBMs facing off against an American President who seems to be chomping at the bit to get his chance to eliminate the North Korean threat.

In each theater the actors seem to be pushing the operational and strategic envelope leaving little chance for diplomatic maneuver and increased chances of a miscalculation that could result in wars that are just not conceivable to must people following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War.

As a historian and a career military officer I not only can imagine it but can see it coming and what frustrates the hell out of me is that so few people I know can se it and even fewer are prepared for the harder alternative of what has to be done when things go to shit. The fact is that most people, military and civilians alike live in a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land where wars remain small, manageable, and involve relatively few casualties. The wars of the past two decades have blinded us to the fact that the coming wars will be unlike our generation has seen and will be as disruptive to the global system as was the First World War. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Because I can see the disaster unfolding I am doing my best to prepare myself and the men and women who I supervise or work with, physically, mentally, professionally, and spiritually for what is coming but I feel like I voice in the wilderness. I would hope to be proven wrong by events, but I don’t see that happening as governments on all sides are moving closer to war. As the pressure continues to build and preparations, exercises, and shows of force become a substitute for diplomacy and the careful use of all elements of national power to contain these crises we should not be surprised when we wake up and find that the unthinkable is now reality.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 6, 2017 · 23:56

The Harder Alternative

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The past few weeks I have been pondering something that to most people that I know is a major war on the Korea Peninsula that will spread throughout that region and may not leave the continental United States untouched, as well as the strong possibility of a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran that would naturally end up involving the United States as an ally of the Saudis. If both of these conflicts began around the same time they could become the progenitors of a world war, the likes of which has not been seen or experienced since the Second World War.

As I look around it seems that most people regardless of their political beliefs, be they liberal or conservative, or the radicals who seem to have pushed aside the traditional mainstream conservatives and liberals; do not seem to think that anything really bad is going to happen. In the Middle East the Sunni-Shia Muslim Civil War is about to explode while in the long developing North Korea standoff we have a North Korean dictator who is not going to back down from his quest for fully operational ICBMs facing off against an American President who seems to be chomping at the bit to get his chance to eliminate the North Korean threat.

In each theater the actors seem to be pushing the operational and strategic envelope leaving little chance for diplomatic maneuver and increased chances of a miscalculation that could result in wars that are just not conceivable to must people following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Pact, and the end of the Cold War.

As a historian and a career military officer I not only can imagine it but can see it coming and what frustrates the hell out of me is that so few people I know can se it and even fewer are prepared for the harder alternative of what has to be done when things go to shit. The fact is that most people, military and civilians alike live in a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land where wars remain small, manageable, and involve relatively few casualties. The wars of the past two decades have blinded us to the fact that the coming wars will be unlike our generation has seen and will be as disruptive to the global system as was the First World War. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Because I can see the disaster unfolding I am doing my best to prepare myself and the men and women who I supervise or work with, physically, mentally, professionally, and spiritually for what is coming but I feel like I voice in the wilderness. I would hope to be proven wrong by events, but I don’t see that happening as governments on all sides are moving closer to war. As the pressure continues to build and preparations, exercises, and shows of force become a substitute for diplomacy and the careful use of all elements of national power to contain these crises we should not be surprised when we wake up and find that the unthinkable is now reality.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 1, 2017 · 23:48

Some Civil War Reading for those Who Dare Question Trump, Kelly, and Sanders

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am still appalled at the remarks made by President Trump’s Chief of Staff on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News propaganda broadcast the other night. In my view a man whose military career was marked by honorable service has destroyed his reputation over the past month in defending the indefensible words and actions of President Trump. In doing that he also went to where no knowledgeable person should go in his remarks about the Civil War and the traitorous Confederate General Robert E. Lee. According to Kelly the war was simply due to an inability to compromise, disregarding decades of compromise by slavery opponents beginning with the 3/5ths rule which allowed Slave States which had far fewer white citizens than Free States to count their slaves as 3/5ths of a person to increase their representation in the House of Representatives and many other compromises, all of which benefited slave owners, Slave States, and businesses in the South and North who all profited from slavery.

The fact that Kelly also defended Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a man whose life has been baptized in myth for a century and a half, and was backed up by Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the previous words of the President who called the White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis whose march in Charlottesville resulted in the deaths of one counter-protester and two Virginia State Troopers “good people.”

Like General Kelly I am a military and combat veteran of over 30 years of service, and though I didn’t know him at the time our careers crossed paths in 2000-2001 in the Second Marine Division at Camp LeJeune North Carolina. That being said I have more post-graduate education than the retired General, I am a historian, and I also have completed the same level of Joint Professional Military Education as Kelly. In addition my first book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Race, Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Civil War Era, which hopefully will be published in the next year deals extensively with the subject of slavery and Southerner’s inability to compromise as the chief cause of the Civil War will show that I actually have the gravitas to tell the retired General, the Press Secretary, or the President, that on this subject they should not make idiots of themselves by spouting such moronic and historically unsupportable comments.

But I don’t want my readers to just take my word for it. Here is a reading list of reputable and non-politically ideological historians and their works which demonstrate my points. So here they are in no particular order:

Battlecry of Freedom by James McPherson which is the definite one volume treatment of the era. It is followed by Allen Guelzo’s Fateful Lightning: A New History of the Civil War, and David Goldfield’s America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation. But there are more…

Eric Foner’s “Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction”, David Blight’s Beyond the Battlefield: Race Memory, and the American Civil War, and Charles Lane’s The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction are equally important in understanding how slavery and racism were paramount issues in what caused the conflict and the events following it. Of course one cannot forget the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass when contemplating the causes of the war in regards to race and slavery. Meanwhile Stephanie McCurry’s Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South helps readers to understand the domestic politics of the Confederacy. Likewise, Elizabeth Pryor’s Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee helps bust the myth of Lee using his own words.

But religion in the South had a profound impact on the war, principally because Southern religious leaders were in the forefront of the support of slavery and the push for secession, and Michael Snay’s Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South is one of a number of books that demonstrate the importance that pro-slavery and pro-secession leaders ascribed to Religion and their view that God had ordained slavery and created blacks as less than human.

Less known stories are told by Brian Jordan in his book Marching Home: Union Veterans and their Unending Civil War, and Noah Andre Trudeau’s Like Men of War: Black Troops in the Civil War are especially important in light of the vast numbers of books that extol the Confederate Army and its soldiers.

If one wants to read collections of essays from individuals, politicians, and the press regarding the causes of the war and what happened afterward the must read collections include James Lowen’s The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The “Great Truth” about the “Lost Cause”, William Gienapp’s The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection and the New York Times collection Disunion: Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War From Lincoln’s Election to the Emancipation Proclamation.

I could recommend quite a few more books and collections but I think this is enough for now. Reading books like these helps to discourage ignorance and makes one accountable for what they say about history, especially when people like Kelly, Sanders, and Trump, try to misuse it as a weapon to advance falsehoods and buttress unconscionable and unconstitutional ideas. I do have a draft of an article about Robert E. Lee that I will do some more work with before I publish it here, but honestly, the man is not one that any officer should aspire to be like, despite the myth that surrounds him.

Until tomorrow when I hope to be writing about what has been a great World Series I wish you a great night and day.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 31, 2017 · 23:00

Tarnished Stars

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I was disappointed but not surprised when I read President Trump’s Chief of Staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly turn to false narratives of the American Civil War in an interview Fox New’s Femme Ideologue Laura Ingraham. Kelly described Robert E. Lee as an honorable man and said that the war was caused by a lack of compromise. Kelly’s description of both is mind boggling to me as a historian in 2017 because the narrative that he evoked was that of Jim Crow, the noble south, and Confederate revisionist history that began in the years after the war and became for many people the truth about the the war, its causes, and the men who led the Confederate armies in a war that was based on the expansion of slavery and the rejection of decades of compromise in which the Free States continuously surrendered their rights and freedoms to Slave Power.

Kelly’s comments surprised many military men, especially those who have some actual advanced education in history, as well as respected historians of the period who are not political ideologues. I fit in both categories. I am a career military officer and I am a historian. My first book, which hopefully will be published sometime next year, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Race, Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Civil War Era, deals extensively with the subject. I found Kelly’s comments coupled with his continued refusal to apologize to a Gold Star Mother, and a Congresswoman who he lied about completely dishonorable and actions which stained his honor as a Marine. I can only imagine what Smedley Butler would say to Kelly, and based on what Butler said in his book War is a Racket I cannot imagine them being sympathetic to Kelly. Butler wrote:

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

In his defense of President Trump as well as his apology for the traitorous General Lee and the Southern Confederacy which valued slavery and race supremacy over the Union Kelly lost every bit of respect that I had given him. He has surrendered his honor to be a partisan hack for a politician who has shown no respect to the Constitution, the rule of law, or our form of government. Kelly may end up becoming, to paraphrase the words of Butler, a gangster for Trump. When I think of that my heart sinks, and I wonder why more officers cannot heed the words of Butler, or German General Ludwig Beck who said in opposing Hitler:

“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.”

I sign off tonight shaking my head sadly thinking about how John Kelly has forever tarnished his reputation, and if he continues down this path may help destroy the Constitution that with every promotion he has sworn to support and defend.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 30, 2017 · 23:58

Character and Leadership: Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Trump

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Theodore Roosevelt noted: “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”

As the dual crises of indictments and potential nuclear war swirl around the White House I think that it is important to see the President’s words and actions in light of a number of factors. One of those, as Theodore Roosevelt noted is character. Thus it is important to know how the character other leaders at other times influenced how they treated people, reacted to criticism, and led their nations.

In the American experience one is hard pressed to find a President with a similar temperament and character that corresponds to Donald Trump. Yes, Nixon had some similarities, Jackson as well, but both men even at their worst did, at least in public restrain themselves and Nixon, when confronted with the reality of certain impeachment did the country a favor by resigning.

But that was a different time. There were leaders in the Republican Party who chose to honor the Constitution and their oaths over blind party loyalty or their determination to pass a certain legislative act. Their resistance to President Nixon was instrumental in his resignation in 1974. But there seem to be few current members of the GOP congressional delegations willing to stand either for fear of the Trump base, or blind determination to press on with tax cuts even if it means the sacrifice of the Constitution, nuclear war, or their own integrity.

But I do think that there is a leader who in temperament was much like President Trump, who ended up helping to lead his nation and the world to the abyss of World War. That is not Adolf Hitler who many people often compare the President. I think that Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and his reliance on his radicalized base, including armed mobs in the street, and hyper-partisan allies in the right wing media, especially Fox News and Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp which serves as his de-facto state media are similar, but they do not speak to the President’s unstable, narcissistic, and paranoid behaviors. I think that the better comparison is to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany with whom the President seems to share many similarities.

In his book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, Christopher Clark wrote of Wilhelm in words that are strikingly reminiscent of the President.

“It was one of this Kaiser’s many peculiarities that he was completely unable to calibrate his behaviour to the contexts in which his high office obliged him to operate. Too often he spoke not like a monarch, but like an over-excited teenager giving free rein to his current preoccupations.”

‘I am the sole master of German policy,’ he remarked in a letter to the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), ‘and my country must follow me wherever I go”

“Wilhelm frequently –especially in the early years of his reign –bypassed his responsible ministers by consulting with ‘favourites’, encouraged factional strife in order to undermine the unity of government, and expounded views that had not been cleared with the relevant ministers or were at odds with the prevailing policy.”

“It was in this last area –the unauthorized exposition of unsanctioned political views –that the Kaiser achieved the most hostile notice, both from contemporaries and from historians. There can be no doubt about the bizarre tone and content of many of the Kaiser’s personal communications in telegrams, letters, marginal comments, conversations, interviews and speeches on foreign and domestic political themes. Their exceptional volume alone is remarkable: the Kaiser spoke, wrote, telegraphed, scribbled and ranted more or less continuously during the thirty years of his reign, and a huge portion of these articulations was recorded and preserved for posterity…”

Max Hastings wrote that Wilhelm “was a brittle personality whose yearning for respect caused him to intersperse blandishments and threats in ill-judged succession.” Sean McMeekin in his book July 1914 wrote that Wilhelm had an “insecurity complex, a need for constant attention and acclaim. As one of his many critics put it, the kaiser needed to be “the stag at every hunt, the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral.” He also noted “Eager for praise, taking offense at the merest slight, the kaiser was a difficult man to work for. Bismarck had disdained to gratify Wilhelm II’s fragile ego after he became emperor in 1888, which led to his sacking two years later.”

Like President Trump the Kaiser did experience some push back from different governmental ministers, and was somewhat restrained during the month leading up to the war, but his constant belligerence, instability, and unscripted remarks helped set the diplomatic and governmental crisis that led to the war. Of course this was not his fault alone, the Austrian-Hungarians, Serbians, Russians, French, and British all had a hand, but the Kaiser, through his words and actions during the three decades preceding the war bears much responsibility for what happened in 1914. If the Kaiser had had a Twitter account he would have certainly used it in a similar manner to President Trump.

But Germany had no checks and balances to restrain Wilhelm. He was an absolute monarch. Americans do still have institutional checks and balances to Presidential overreach or abuses should we choose to follow the Constitution, but for that to happen the leadership of the Republican Party must also act, as did their predecessors during the Nixon administration to put principle or party, and rule of law over blind obedience. This is not about partisanship; it is about the Constitution, our form of government, and yes, even the prevention of nuclear war.

Character and temperament are very important in times of crisis and elevated tensions. Character is also fate. We should all tremble when we think of the lack of character and maturity shown by our President.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 14, 2017 · 23:59

I Will Bear True Faith and Allegiance: Patriotism and Protest

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Over the past month I have been watching and occasionally commenting on the kneeling during the National Anthem controversy on my social media accounts but not here. But tonight I want to share a few thoughts on the actions of NFL players who have protested continued inequities, injustice, evil, and racism in the United States by choosing to kneel during the National Anthem.

The fact is these players as much as their critics claim otherwise are not protesting the Flag, nor are they insulting the troops. They are doing what all true American patriots have done since the beginning of our American experiment. They are being as patriotic as our founders were when they not only criticized, but took up arms against England. After all as Adlai Stevenson once said “Do not… regard the critics as questionable patriots.  What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?”

They are acting in the best tradition of America, they are peacefully protesting. They are not committing violence, they are using their position to draw attention to things in our society which must be addressed if we are in the words of the Preamble of the Constitution “to form a more perfect Union.” They are speaking of how we as Americans still fail to live up to the promise embodied but never perfected in the words“we hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal…” From our earliest days as a nation we as a people have struggled with that ideal and at every point in our there have been Americans who have, often much to the chagrin of others have protested in some way how we failed to live up to that ideal.

When freshman Congressman Abraham Lincoln spoke up against James K. Polk’s invasion of Mexico in 1848 he was condemned as unpatriotic by many and was not returned to the House of Representatives, but he was heard. When Henry Clay, a slave-owner himself condemned that war as a means to expand slavery he lost his last chance to gain the Presidency. When Stephen Douglas opposed the attempt by pro-slavery partisans to use an illegitimate election in Kansas to have that territory admitted as a slave state he lost his chance to win the Presidency in 1860. I could go on with hundreds of examples, from the Suffragettes of the early Women’s rights movement who fought for the right to vote and equality in the workplace; the abolitionists, white and black, who resisted laws which enslaved Blacks in the slave states and enabled slave owners to go into Free States and avoid U.S. courts to re-enslave any Black be they a former slave or not solely based on the word of a slave holder; Civil Rights leaders who were imprisoned, beaten, and sometimes killed for defying unjust laws…

I am sorry but the list could go on and on and on. In every case they were declared by their opponents to be both unpatriotic and lawbreakers. Today, many are saying those things about those who protest during the National anthem at sporting events while defending people who are working day in and day out to roll back the rights of other Americans, and sadly, that does include the President and many members of his political party. When I say sadly, it is because I belonged to and supported that party for 32 years until after my tour in Iraq, when I saw the lies of how the war had been sold by my party, lies which I believed in spite of evidence to the contrary. The last part was my fault, I should have known better, yet I condemned the war’s opponents as being unpatriotic only to find that they were right.

So now, nearly a decade later I support the right to protest as I would not have before Iraq. While I would not take a knee at the National Anthem even if I wasn’t still in the military I cannot condemn those who do. Patriotism involves much more than respecting the Flag, it means respecting and honoring the principles and ideals in Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Gettysburg Address, Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream and re-dedicating ourselves to the “new birth of freedom” that Lincoln alluded in the Gettysburg Address. To do that we must remove the blinders from our eyes, to re-look at our own history to get past the myths and untruths that have been used to buttress the the claims of those who want to squelch unpopular dissent and uncomfortable truths.

Mark Twain said some words that all should hold dear:

“Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way accordng to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country—hold up your head.”

One cannot sit in silence while Americans, particularly racial or religious minorities, women, and gays are threatened through legislation and sometimes violent action by other Americans who for whatever reason want to return the country to a place where those people cannot exercise those rights. If we do what good are we? If we do are we any better than those who looked the other way in the Third Reich when Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Handicapped, and others were marched off to Concentration Camps?

When I salute the Flag I salute the symbol of ideals not yet fully realized, and when I do so I pay honor and respect to all of those whose patriotism was lived out over a lifetime, and while I include the men and women who served in the military in that, I also include all of those dissidents whose sacrifice paved the way for every new advance of freedom in this country. Likewise, I remember the times that we as a nation have fallen short of those ideals and I recommit myself to my oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same…

As I do that I have to stand for the right of the players and others to peacefully protest anywhere and by whatever means they choose no matter how unpopular it is or how uncomfortable it makes us. Frederick Douglass said:

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 12, 2017 · 23:59

A Sociopath and His “Christian” Enablers

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have longed believed that the President of the United States is a sociopath. The man has no sense of care, empathy, respect for the law or the Constitution. In the past 36 hours he has threatened the Freedom of the Press which is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution and made rulings that exempt Christian organizations following laws on health care, he has ended subsidies for poor people that help them to purchase health insurance, and he has threatened to abandon the American citizens in Puerto Rico who were devastated by Hurricane Maria; neither has he said a word about the horrendous wildfires in California which have killed 29 people, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and in which some 400 people are missing and quite likely dead. Of course I have not even mentioned his continuing threats of war with North Korea. He is so ineffective that he has to rule by Executive Order since he cannot get legislation passed in a Republican controlled Congress.

Sadly, his strongest base of supporters remains the Evangelical Christians who elected him to office and no matter how egregious the President’s actions are in light of the basic teachings of Jesus, most don’t seem to care. Last night while I was asleep, one of them, a lady we knew from our time in Jacksonville Florida in 2002-2003 and have not seen and seldom heard from since went full MAGA on my Facebook page not seeing the contradictions between her words, actions, faith, the Constitution, and reality. When I looked at her posts on my timeline they were full of the the rude and ignorant bluster that has become the norm for many Evangelicals. Instead of arguing with her I simply dropped her and blocked her. I have no need to deal with people like her anymore. Since I don’t go to other people’s social media sites and attack them for things that I don’t agree with I would hope that my supposed Christian friends would exercise the same measure of discretion, but many don’t. Evidently, like the President they feel that they have the God given right to rage on Facebook and Twitter at anyone who dares to criticize the President.

In light of this I am reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt who penned these words when his patriotism was questioned during the First World War:

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

Truth matters, as does the law and the Constitution; and if Evangelical friends, like the one who came to my Facebook page are too hate filled and ignorant to get that then the hell with them.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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