Category Archives: Political Commentary

March 4, 2015 · 12:33

“They Won’t Get in Our Way…” to Armageddon

US-ISRAEL-CONGRESS-NETANYAHU

“I know what America is. , move it in the right direction. They won’t get in our way…” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 2001

Yesterday I watched the address of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it occurred live. I watched as the majority of our elected Senators and Congressmen, seem to hang on every word and rise to give thunderous applause to Netanyahu’s blatant attempt to not just hijack but to commandeer U.S. foreign policy to serve Israel. If any other foreign leader had been invited by any other party to do the same at any point in our history there would be an outcry.

 Now please do not get me wrong. Iran is an enemy, they continually work against us in attempting to destabilize the Middle East and advance their Shia’ Moslem version of the Apocalypse. However, they are very pragmatic and with the major demographic shifts there could easily come a point when the young people of Iran, tired of the repression of the Mullah’s overthrow them. Likewise I do believe that the Iranian nuclear program must be monitored and if it looks as if they are about to produce a bomb that can be delivered by air or missile that could harm us or any ally that they will have to be stopped. I have written about this before so I will not go into that here. Likewise, before calling me anti-Semetic please look at the body of my writings which not only are supportive of Israel but those of a realist who understands that anything which involves the United States in yet another pre-emptive war is not in the interest of the United States or Israel. 

 At the same time the speech was insulting because the United States has given Israel everything that it ever has needed since its founding in 1948. American Presidents from Truman to Obama have bent over backwards to support Israel. In 1967 the Israeli Navy and Air Force launched a sustained coordinated attack on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War which killed 34 and wounded 171 United States Navy Sailors. The Israelis, despite evidence to the contrary, including the testimony of the crew of the Liberty claimed that they had mistaken the ship for an Egyptian destroyer. The Johnson administration accepted the Israeli version and quickly buried the incident.

In October 1973, if it had not been for the actions of Richard Nixon Israel very likely would have ceased to exist, Nixon rushed emergency supplies of tanks, aircraft and weapons aboard U.S. ships and cargo aircraft, and confronted the Soviets who were threatening to intervene. 

Since then we have provide Israel advanced weapons and weapons technology in abundance, we share intelligence with Israel that we share with no-one else, and we have always supported Israel in the United States every time there is an attempt to rebuke, condemn or sanction Israel. Even President Obama and his administration has done this with abandon. 

 And what credit do we get? We get a few meaningless platitudes from Netanyahu before he attempts to commandeer U.S. foreign policy with the active aid and support of John Speaker of the House Boehner, support that is in clear violation of one of the oldest laws dealing with foreign policy enacted by this country’s founders in 1799. 

 The speech and the reception of the Representatives and Senators who invited Netanyahu to give it and their wild adulation was not only insulting but flies in the face of what our every one founders believed reference foreign policy and relations and actually a clear violation of the Logan Act of 1799 that prohibits unauthorized citizens from negotiating with a foreign government.

The Logan Act reads:

“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.” 

 And this my friends was exactly what happened here. While negotiating with members of the Israeli government as Speaker of the House, Boehner kept his efforts secret for over three weeks. Boehner only told the White House when he had secured a deal for the Israeli Prime Minister to address a Joint Session of Congress, which is in itself a highly unusual event. If fact Winston Churchill was the only foreign leader to receive such an invitation. I do not want to be cheeky, but Netanyahu is not a reincarnated Winston Churchill. Unlike Britain in late 1940 Israel has the capability of destroying every one of its enemies with its large stock of fully operational and deplorable nuclear weapons and delivery systems, most of the latter supplied by the United States and other Western Allies. 

Not only this, but the invitation coincided with the closing weeks of Mr. Netanyahu’s reelection campaign, and is a blatant attempt to sway Israel voters to vote for him.

What the Speaker did was unethical, illegal and against every founding principle of American foreign policy dating back to George Washington and John Adams.

The nearly orgasmic applause of the Republicans to every thing that Netanyahu said was sickening. Especially when Netanyahu demanded that  the United States walk away from the negotiation table, and especially when Netanyahu threatened to attack alone if necessary. Of course, knowing his audience, he said, he knows that would not happen. It was like watching them cheer on Armageddon. 

 Mr. Netanyahu knows that he can use fear to get Americans to do his bidding, as well as the beliefs of the militant Conservative Christians who pray for such a war in order for Jesus to return.

Netanyahu presented a very black and white image of the Middle East. It was as insulting as it was fear based, conflating Iran and the Islamic State competing “for the crown of militant Islam.” He said, “In this deadly game of thrones, there is no place for America or Israel…” and urged no middle ground short of destroying Iran. Netanyahu’s option was to walk away and offer Iran a deal that no nation with any self-respect would agree to, in fact walking away will usher in the war that Netanyahu says that the tactic will avoid. 

 The speech was eerily reminiscent of Netanyahu’s words to a Congressional committee in 2002 in the lead up to the Iraq War, which of course was such a success. Netanyahu has been using the same tactics to get the United States to do Israel’s bidding for two decades, capitalizing on America fears, and the underlying apocalyptic strain of American Evangelical Christianity which has found its way into the political mainstream. Back in 2002 Mr. Netanyahu said:

“There’s no question that [Saddam] has not given upon on his nuclear program, not [sic] whatsoever. There is also no question that he was not satisfied with the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that he had and was trying to perfect them constantly…So I think, frankly, it is not serious to assume that this man, who 20 years ago was very close to producing an atomic bomb, spent the last 20 years sitting on his hands. He has not. And every indication we have is that he is pursuing, pursuing with abandon, pursuing with every ounce of effort, the establishment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. If anyone makes an opposite assumption or cannot draw the lines connecting the dots, that is simply not an objective assessment of what has happened. Saddam is hell-bent on achieving atomic bombs, atomic capabilities, as soon as he can.”

“Today the United States must destroy the same regime because a nuclear-armed Saddam will place the security of our entire world at risk. And make no mistake about it — if and once Saddam has nuclear weapons, the terror networks will have nuclear weapons.” 

 
“If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region… The task and the great opportunity and challenge is not merely to effect the ouster of the regime, but also to transform the region.” 

 The scary thing is that when you look at the Americans who most strongly “support” Israel, they are men like fundamentalist Christian zealots like John Hagee, and Tim LaHaye, who have spent the better part of fifty years preaching a version of Bible prophecy which for Jesus to return and institute his “millennial kingdom” Israel must be devastated by a war that claims two-thirds of Israelis before the “remnant” accept Jesus as their Messiah. By the way this point of view is also held by top contenders for the GOP nomination in 2016 for the GOP nomination in 2016 and many House and Senate GOP leaders. But, my friends, if you disagree with them, some of their “Christian” pundits will call you a traitor who should “be hanged” in from of the Capital Building. 

 Now, be assured, Netanyahu doesn’t believe that for a second, he is a cunning politician, and he has no problem using the political power of the people who believe this to get his way with America. I believe that this will in the long run be bad thing both for the United States and Israel. I think that it is unbelievably unwise and may create an actual rift between our countries and fracture what has been throughout our history a bi-partisan support for Israel, and for what reason, short term political gain, both in Israel and the United States by those that brought it on. 

 My objection to what happened yesterday was not that Iran should not be opposed, nor the security of Israel be compromised. My objection is that what happened yesterday was against everything that our founders believed in and violated the law. Of our land. 

As an American my loyalty is to this country and our Constitution, not to an errant and heretic view of scripture that surrenders American rights to the whim of a particular warmongering Israeli politician. Netanyahu is a politician who has more than once stated his disdain for this country and sees us as a means to achieve his end, even if that means committing the United States to a war from which no good can come.

 Mr. Netanyahu and his American allies pushed us into a war in Iraq which was disastrous, not only for the human lives lost and devastated, the reputation and image of this country, and the economic burdens incurred, but also because it has unleashed turmoil in the region far greater than anyone imagined.

I am an American and my allegiance is not to Israel, it is to this country and our Constitution. I will be damned if allow myself to be silent while religious zealots, be they American, Iranian, the Islamic State, or Jewish try to bring about their version of Armageddon.

 Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 2, 2015 · 15:57

Busting National Myths

In light of the many historical myths and conspiracy theories being floated by pseudo “historians” like the infamous David Barton it is always appropriate to look at examples of the power of those myths in the lives of nations and their influence on citizens. Some myths can be positive and inspiring, but others can lead to conspiracy theories, false accusations and the demonization of others for the purpose of inciting hatred against political, social or religious opponents. They also can be used to perpetuate false beliefs about other countries that influence policy decisions, including the decision to go to war that ultimately doom those that believe them.

A good example of this is the Stab in the Back myth that began after the armistice that ended the First World War, as well as the false beliefs held by Hitler and other Nazi leaders about the United States.

There are many times in history where leaders of nations and peoples embrace myths about their history even when historical, biographical and archeological evidence points to an entirely different record.

Myths are powerful in the way that they inspire and motivate people. They can provide a cultural continuity as a people celebrates the key events and people that shaped their past, even if they are not entirely true.  At the same time myths can be dangerous when they cause leaders and people to make bad choices and actually become destructive. Such was the case in Germany following the First World War.

After the war the certain parts of the German political right posited that the German Army was not defeated by the Allied powers, but was betrayed by the German people, especially those of the political left. But such was not the case the German Army was on the verge of collapse.

Like all myths there was an element of truth in the “stab in the back” myth. It is true that there were revolts against the Monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, including the mutiny  of the German High Seas Fleet, as well as Army units stationed in Germany. However, in truth, the crisis had been brought about by General Ludendorff who until the last month of the war refused to tell the truth about the gravity of Germany’s position to those in the German government.

So when everything came crashing down in late October and early November 1918, the debacle came as a surprise to most Germans.

The myth arose because the truth had not been told by Ludendorff who was arguably the most powerful figure in Germany from 1916-1918.  In the crisis which Ludendorff suffered what could be called an emotional collapse and  was relieved of his duty. His successor, General Wilhelm Groener presented the facts to the Kaiser and insisted that the Kaiser Wilhelm abdicate his throne.

The Republic that was proclaimed on the 9th of November was saddled with the defeat and endured revolution, civil war and threats from the extreme left and right.  When it signed the Treaty of Versailles it accepted the sole responsibility of Germany for the war and its damages because to not sign was to have the Allies resume the war against Germany.

The treaty required the Germany to dismantle its military, cede territory that had not been lost in battle, and pay massive reparations to the Allies. The  legend of the “stab in the back” gained widespread acceptance in Germany during the chaotic years of the Weimar Republic.

Hitler always believed that the defeat of Germany in the First World War was due to the efforts of internal enemies of the German Reich on the home front and not due to battlefield losses or the entry of the United States.  He made the “stab in the back” a staple of his attacks on the Republic. This was expressed in his writings, speeches and actions.

The internal enemies of Germany for Hitler included the Jews, as well as the Socialists and Communists who he believed were at the heart of the collapse on the home front.  Gerhard Weinberg believes that the effect of this misguided belief on Hitler’s actions has “generally been ignored” by historians. (Germany, Hitler and World War II p. 196)

Hitler believed that those people and groups that perpetrated the “stab in the back” were “beguiled by the by the promises of President Wilson” (World in the Balance p.92) in his 14 Points.

Thus for Hitler, the Americans were in part responsible for undermining the German home front, something that he would not allow to happen again.  In fact Hitler characterization of Wilson’s effect on the German people in speaking about South Tyrol.  It is representative of his belief about not only the loss of that region but the war: “South Tyrol was lost by those who, from within Germany, caused attrition at the front, and by the contamination of German thinking with the sham declarations of Woodrow Wilson.” (Hitler’s Second Book p.221)

While others will note Hitler’s lack of respect for the potential power of the United States, no other author that I am familiar with links Hitler’s actions and the reaction of the German political, military and diplomatic elites to the entry of the United States into the war to the underlying belief in the “stab in the back.”   Likewise Hitler had little regard for the military abilities or potential of the United States. Albert Speer notes that Hitler believed “the Americans had not played a very prominent role in the war of 1914-1918,” and that “they would certainly not withstand a great trial by fire, for their fighting qualities were low.” (Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer p.121)

Hitler not only dismissed the capabilities of the Americans but also emphasized the distance that they were from Germany and saw no reason to fear the United States when “he anticipated major victories on the Eastern Front.” (Germany Hitler and World War II p.92)   Hitler’s attitude was reflected by the majority of the military high command and high Nazi officials. Ribbentrop believed that the Americans would be unable to wage war if it broke out “as they would never get their armies across the Atlantic.” (History of the German General Staff, Walter Goerlitz, p.408).  General Walter Warlimont notes the “ecstasy of rejoicing” found at Hitler’s headquarters after Pearl Harbor and the fact that the he and Jodl at OKW caught by surprise by Hitler’s declaration of war. (Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-1945 pp.207-209) Kenneth Macksey noted Warlimont’s comments about Hitler’s beliefs; that Hitler “tended to dismiss American fighting qualities and industrial capability,” and that Hitler “regarded anyone who tried to show him such information [about growing American strength] as defeatist.” (Why the Germans Lose at War, Kenneth Macksey, p.153.)

Others like Field Marshal Erwin Rommel wrote about the disregard of senior Nazis toward American capabilities in weaponry.  Quoting Goering who when Rommel discussed 40mm anti-aircraft guns on aircraft that were devastating his armored forces Goering replied “That’s impossible. The Americans only know how to make razor blades.” (The Rommel Papers edited by B.H. Liddell-Hart p.295)

Rommel was one of the few German commanders who recognized the folly of Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States noting that “By declaring war on America, we had brought the entire American industrial potential into the service of Allied war production. We in Africa knew all about the quality of its achievements.” (The Rommel Papers p.296)

When one also takes into account the general disrespect of the German military for the fighting qualities of American soldiers though often with good reason (see Russell Weigley’s books Eisenhower’s Lieutenants and The American Way of War) one sees how the myth impacted German thought.  This is evidenced by the disparaging comments of the pre-war German military attaché to the United States; General Boeticher, on the American military, national character and capability. (See World in the Balance pp. 61-62)

The overall negative view held by many Germans in regard to the military and industrial power and potential of the United States reinforced other parts of the myth.

Such false beliefs served to bolster belief in the stab-in-the back theory as certainly the Americans could not have played any important role in the German defeat save Wilson’s alleged demoralization of the German population.  This was true not only of Hitler, but by most of his retinue and the military, diplomatic and industrial leadership of the Reich. Hitler’s ultimate belief shaped by the stab-in-the back and reinforced by his racial views which held the United States to be an inferior mongrel people. This led him to disregard the impact that the United States could have in the war and ultimately influenced his decision to declare war on the United States, a decision that would be a key factor in the ultimate defeat of Germany.

Myth can have positive value, but myth which becomes toxic can and often does lead to tragic consequences. All societies have some degree of myth in relationship to their history including the United States.  The myths are not all the same, various subgroups within the society create their own myth surrounding historic events.

The danger is that those myths can supplant reason in the minds of political, military, media and religious figures and lead those people into taking actions that work to their own detriment or even destruction.

It is the duty of historians, philosophers and others in the society to ensure that myth does not override reality to the point that it moves policy both domestic and foreign in a manner that is ultimately detrimental to the nation.

The lesson of history demonstrated by myths surrounding the German defeat and role of the United States in that defeat shows just how myth can drive a nation to irrational, evil and ultimately tragic actions not only for that nation and its people, but for the world. Sadly in the case of the United States, a portion of the political Right,  mostly found in the conservative Christian elements of the Tea Party movement are spreading their own version of the “stab in the back.” They blame Democrats, liberals, atheists, racial and religious minority groups, educators, labor unions and a host of others for the calamities that those that they have supported: the big banks and financial instructions that collapsed the economy in 2008, the politicians of the Republican Party who took the country into an unwise, unjust and illegal war in Iraq that not only cost many American lives and treasure but brought on the crisis that has led to the advance and power of the Islamic State, and the list can go on and on, and includes social issues, race, education, and even religion. But ignoring the responsibility of those they support,mother create myth, and cast blame on everyone but themselves.

That myth that they preach has become a staple of our political crisis. It is little differnt in tenor and intent of those who promoted the stab in the back myth during the Weimar Republic.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 26, 2015 · 12:46

Living in the National Security State

Patriot-Act-HR-3162

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, in time of war the law stands silent…

James Madison wrote that “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both.”

After September 11th 2001 the National Security State went into overdrive with the passage of the so called Patriot Act. That act opened the floodgates for an ever expanding national security state.

I have a lot of apprehension when I read the reports about the activities of the National Security Agency, other intelligence and police agencies at all levels of government and the pervasive erosion of civil rights.  The national security state and the seeming all pervasive security and surveillance apparatus which demolishes any sense of privacy, especially the protections enunciated in the Fourth Amendment and to some extent the First Amendment. Of course the use of similar methods by the private sector, often in conduction with government agencies is another concern, but that needs to wait for another day.

I also understand from history and empirical evidence that many others, many from unfriendly countries do not share those apprehensions. Many of these competitors are willing to use whatever openness that we have as a society against us, using similar technology and methods used by our intelligence, police, governmental and private sector. It makes for an ethical, legal and even constitutional conundrum. I know that I am not comfortable with this, and perhaps maybe none of us should be.

It is very easy on one hand in light of history, our Constitution and democratic process to condemn the NSA, the FISA courts and other lawfully constituted agencies and those that drafted the laws over the decades that allow the activities which they now conduct. The same can be said of foreign intelligence agencies which all engage in similar activities including the British GCHQ, the German Bundesnachrichtendienst and so many others including the Chinese and Russians.

Likewise it is equally easy in light of history, current events and national security concerns for people to jump to the other side of the fence and not only defend the activities of the NSA and agencies like it, and to demonize those that protest or expose such activities.

When I see the talking heads on cable news shows defending or condemning such activities and not agonizing over the complexity and issues involved I get worried. Because there are legitimate concerns voiced by critics as well as defenders. But since we live in an era of soundbites, gotcha and half-truths being portrayed as all truth I find it helpful to use either historical examples, literature or fiction, and even science fiction to wrestle with the fundamental truths. So I find looking at such issues through the prism of Star Trek sometimes more interesting and provocative than simply doing the whole moralizing pundit thing.

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There was an episode of  Star Trek Deep Space Nine that aired well before the events of 9-11-2001, and the subsequent Global War on Terror, that I find fascinating. The episode deals with a secretive agency in Starfleet operating in the gray areas between the laws and ideals of the Federation and the threats that the Federation faces. Even when the Federation is a peace, Section 31, as it is called is engaged in activities against historic or potential enemies. In a way it is somewhat like the NSA or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

At the beginning of the Deep Space Nine Episode Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges the head of Section 31, a man only known as Sloan comes back Doctor Julia Bashir to involve him in an clandestine operation. An operation to on the Romulans who at this point are a Federation ally against the Dominion.

Sloan makes his approach and Bashir, who expresses his reservations:

BASHIR: You want me to spy on an ally.

SLOAN: To evaluate an ally. And a temporary ally at that. I say that because when the war is over, the following will happen in short order. The Dominion will be forced back to the Gamma Quadrant, the Cardassian Empire will be occupied, the Klingon Empire will spend the next ten years recovering from the war and won’t pose a serious threat to anyone. That leaves two powers to vie for control of the quadrant, the Federation and the Romulans.

BASHIR: This war isn’t over and you’re already planning for the next.

SLOAN: Well put. I hope your report is equally succinct.

BASHIR: How many times do I have to tell you, Sloan? I don’t work for you.

SLOAN: You will. It’s in your nature. You are a man who loves secrets. Medical, personal, fictional. I am a man of secrets. You want to know what I know, and the only way to do that is to accept the assignment.

I find the exchange both illuminating and riveting. The fact is that in the situation we face today the arguments of both sides should make us very uncomfortable.

Whether we like it or not or not, the incredibly rapid technical and communication advances of the past couple of decades have primed us for our present conundrum of liberty and privacy or security. That technology, as wonderful as it is  has enabled a generation to grow up in a virtual world in many ways detached from the moral and ethical balances between individual rights and liberties as well responsibility to community.

All the wonderful gadgets that we employ in everyday life, make it easy for enemies and “friends” to do things that were unimaginable to people other than science fiction writers even twenty to thirty years ago. Likewise they were certainly beyond the wildest imaginations of any of the founders who drafted Constitution.

The reality is, the things that make are lives so easy are also the things that have the potential to remove the very liberties that we treasure, either by our enemies using them, or those that defend us.

The truth is, that throughout history, even our own there have been operatives within the government in charge of secrets, as well as spies. In the Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges episode we see an operation that is full of duplicity and moral ambiguity all committed in the name of security. I won’t go into the details because it is too full of twists, and turns, you can read the plot of the episode at Memory Alpha.org http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Inter_Arma_Enim_Silent_Leges_%28episode%29

There is an exchange between Dr. Bashir and Admiral Ross of Starfleet command which is very enlightening because it practically mirrors how many on both the civil liberties and the national security side of the current controversy feel about the War on Terror.

BASHIR: You don’t see anything wrong with what happened, do you.

ROSS: I don’t like it. But I’ve spent the last year and a half of my life ordering young men and young women to die. I like that even less.

BASHIR: That’s a glib answer and a cheap way to avoid the fact that you’ve trampled on the very thing that those men and women are out there dying to protect! Does that not mean anything to you?

ROSS: Inter arma enim silent leges.

BASHIR: In time of war, the law falls silent. Cicero. So is that what we have become? A twenty fourth century Rome driven by nothing more than the certainty that Caesar can do no wrong!

ROSS: This conversation never happened.

In light of the controversy of today regarding the NSA, FISA Courts, government secrecy and intelligence gathering information on its own citizens, as well as allies, friends and and enemies we face a growing tide of reporters and others seeking to reveal those secrets. Back in 1989 ethicist Sissela Bok wrote something very important in her book Secrets: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life:

“…as government secrecy expands, more public officials become privy to classified information and are faced with the choice of whether or not to leak … growing secrecy likewise causes reporters to press harder from the outside to uncover what is hidden. And then in a vicious circle, the increased revelations give government leaders further reasons to press for still more secrecy.”

As we wade through the continuing controversy surrounding these issues we will see people do exactly what Bok said. These are the exact arguments are being made by the people and officials directly involved in such activities, as well as former elected and appointed officials, and members of the press.

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The interesting thing to me is that very few of the people or agencies, past and present, Republican and Democrat involved have clean hands. It is amazing to see former champions of civil liberties defend the NSA actions and those that empowered the NSA in the Patriot Act now condemn it. I find it both fascinating and frightening.

At the end of the Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges episode the mysterious Sloan pops back in on Doctor Bashir who is in his quarters, asleep and depressed by what he experienced during the operation on Romulus and with Admiral Ross.

SLOAN: Good evening.

BASHIR: Are you expecting applause? Have you come to take a bow?

SLOAN: I just wanted to say thank you.

BASHIR: For what? Allowing you to manipulate me so completely?

SLOAN: For being a decent human being. That’s why we selected you in the first place, Doctor. We needed somebody who wanted to play the game, but who would only go so far. When the time came, you stood your ground. You did the right thing. You reached out to an enemy, you told her the truth, you tried to stop a murder. The Federation needs men like you, Doctor. Men of conscience, men of principle, men who can sleep at night. You’re also the reason Section Thirty one exists. Someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn’t share your sense of right and wrong.

BASHIR: Should I feel sorry for you? Should I be weeping over the burden you’re forced to carry in order to protect the rest of us?

SLOAN: It is an honor to know you, Doctor. Goodnight.

We live in this kind of world and maybe it is good to sometimes step back and look at issues using a different prism. I really don’t have the answers. I am a civil libertarian who places a high value on the openness of a government to its people. I also know that there are those that have no regard for such openness or, to quote Sloan don’t “share your sense of right and wrong.”

Maybe that is not a good answer. I really don’t know. All I know is that as uncomfortable as this all is that those on both sides of the issue have valid points and concerns. It is a debate that needs to happen if we are able to balance that a society needs to balance individual rights and responsibility to the community; openness and secrecy; civil liberties and national security.

But that being said. it is a debate that needs to happen, even if it makes us uncomfortable. I for one think that it is better that we be uncomfortable when looking at such an important debate than to be prisoners of our certitude.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 23, 2015 · 21:06

Southern Justice and Its Relevance Today

NormanRockwellSouthernJustice-1Southern Justice- Norman Rockwell 1965

I have been writing about the continued problem of racism and hatred in this country, as well as in others lately. Fifty years ago, three young men working to register blacks to vote as part of the Freedom Summer in Mississippi were brutally murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The three men were idealists who would all die because they fought for the right of Blacks to vote harassment and intimidation.

Twenty year old Andrew Goodman from New York City, was a progressive activist and Anthropology student at Queens College. Twenty-four year old Mickey Schwerner was a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of Social Work. Both Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish. Twenty-one year old James Chaney was from Meridian Mississippi and was a volunteer with CORE, the Congress of Racial Equity working on voter registration and education with local churches.

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The Ruins of Mount Zion Church

On June 21st 1964 the three men were investigating the burning of Mount Zion Methodist Church in Longdale. They had been working with the church  to assist in registering blacks to vote.  In the wake of their visit to the town and to the church, the local Klan, which included many men of influence, including those in law enforcement sought to lure CORE workers into the town to make an example of them. They did this by upping the ante and instigated a campaign to harass, attack and brutalize the black citizens and church members. They then burned the church to the ground.

 

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The three went to the site on June 20th and were arrested for an alleged traffic violation. They were then jailed and released later in the evening without being allowed to make any phone calls. On the way back to Meridian, two carloads of Klan members forced them over, abducted them and killed them. The bodies were buried at the base of a dam and not discovered for 44 days.

Cecil Price, a deputy Sheriff involved in the arrest was one of the murderers. He was one of the men later convicted of their murder. After the killing he told his helpers:

“Well, boys, you’ve done a good job. You’ve struck a blow for the white man. Mississippi can be proud of you. You’ve let those agitating outsiders know where this state stands. Go home now and forget it. But before you go, I’m looking each one of you in the eye and telling you this: “The first man who talks is dead! If anybody who knows anything about this ever opens his mouth to any outsider about it, then the rest of us are going to kill him just as dead as we killed those three sonofbitches (sic) tonight. Does everybody understand what I’m saying. The man who talks is dead, dead, dead!”

The disappearance of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman brought national attention and a major investigation to the town. Eventually seven men, including deputy Price were convicted of the murders. The murders and the investigation became the subject of the movie Mississippi Burning.

In 1965 Norman Rockwell, well known for his portraits of American life and the Civil Rights movement painted “Southern Justice” which is sometimes known as “Murder in Mississippi”  This was not long after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, which has been under attack in many southern states over the past decade and had a key provision gutted by the Supreme Court last year.

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50 years ago the murders of these three young men brought national attention to the pervasive racism and discrimination in the country. Until this incident most of the murders, lynching’s and burnings of homes, businesses, and even churches had been covered up by the media and law enforcement.  Frankly, a black life wasn’t worth investigating or the air time.

I do hope and pray that we never go back to those days, but as laws are passed to limit voting rights in various states I wonder if the clock is being turned back. I don’t think that it will in the long run these efforts to disenfranchise blacks, other minorities, students and the working poor will be successful, but we can never assume that. Freedom always hangs in the balance and it can be lost when we do nothing. The Klan is still active, and sadly its hatred for Blacks, immigrants, Jews, Moslems, Catholics, and Gays, or for that matter anyone who stands against them has spread to others not traditionally affiliated with the Klan.

Some might say that it has been fifty-years, that things have changed, so why bother bringing up the past? I’ll tell you why, because freedom is always under siege, and the sacrifice of so many, including these three young men, for those rights should never be forgotten.

In memory of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner and others of the Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights movement who died or suffered to peacefully bring about change to our society.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 22, 2015 · 14:13

Remembering the Miracle on Ice

We all remember where we were when tragedy happened.  No one can forget where they were when John or Bobby Kennedy or the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated. Likewise few can forget where they were when the Space Shuttles Challenger or Columbia, blew up or where they were during the the events of September 11th 2001.

Tragedy we remember well, but good news not so much.

But, despite the fact that good news is not always as memorable as tragedy there are some good news stories that make a lasting mark.

Back in 1980 there was one of those sentinel events. I am sure that if you were alive back then that you remember it well.

I am speaking about the victory of the US hockey team, Team USA over the Soviet team at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid New York. Some might be prone to dismiss this as merely a sporting event with little relevance, but the context of an event makes all the difference. English historian and military theorist Colin Gray wrote “Wars are not free floating events, sufficient unto themselves as objects for study and understanding. Instead, they are entirely the product of their contexts.” 

I like what Gray said, but I think that we can expand it to other historical events, not just war. If this was just a stand alone hockey game with would have little meaning. There are times when underdogs win championships and defeat heavily favored perennial champions. Most of those times, except for the devoted fans these events pass into relative obscurity and pop-up from time to time on an ESPN special. This event is much more important than a remarkable sporting event.

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Back in 1980 times were tough in the United States, recession, double digit inflation, 20% interest rates, a gas crisis, as well as the residual effects of the Vietnam War created a specter of anxiety for many people.

Even as the domestic economic lurched from crisis to crisis the United State was reeling  and the humiliation that the Iranians were inflicting on the United States on a daily basis following the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran and a seemingly unending hostage crisis. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was yet another thumb in the eye of the United States.

So as the United States prepared to host the Winter Games at Lake Placid New York there was not much to cheer about. The country was mired in political crisis as the sitting President Jimmy Carter was continually at odds with his own Democratic Party and to all appeared weak in dealing with the Soviets, their satellites or the Iranians. When Cater made his “malaise” speech in July 1979 the reaction around the country and world was I was less than positive. I was in the UK touring as a spotlight tech with a  singing group and the reaction of the Brits and other Europeans was ridicule of the President, and pity for the United States. It seemed to many that the United States had hit bottom and was not coming up any time soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fztlLwgSFCg (highlights and live call)

In 1980 Team USA was nothing more than a bunch of American college kids playing teams of Warsaw pact professional all-stars from powerhouse teams such as the Soviet Red Army team.  The Soviets had dominated international hockey since 1956 and with the exception of the US Gold Medal team of 1960 had won every Olympic gold since that time. In 1980 the Soviets were once again expected to win Olympic Gold.

When it came to the American hockey team no one expected much, with the exception of head coach Herb Brooks.  Brooks and his collection of college players, a number of whom would later become stars in the NHL, began their time together inauspiciously conducting a 61 game exhibition tour against teams from around the world.  On February 9th in the final game leading up to the Olympics  the Americans faced the Soviets at Madison Square Garden and were blown out by a score of 10-3 by the Soviet team.  In the lead up to the Olympics the Soviets toured North America and played against NHL teams. The Soviet team went  5-3-1 against their NHL teams.  The previous year a Soviet team had shut out an NHL All-Star team 6-0.

When the Olympic completion began the Soviets as was expected dominated their opponents in the preliminary round going 5-0 and outscoring their opponents 51-10.  The United States surprised everyone tying Sweden 2-2 with a last minute goal and then stunning a highly favored Czech team 7-3 before defeating Norway, Romania and West Germany to advance to the medal round.

Brooks practiced the team hard as they prepared for the Soviets who they were scheduled to meet in the opening round of the medal competition. A loss for the Americans would force them to play for Bronze and no one expected the Americans to defeat the Soviets. Yet when the day came the Lake Placid Field House was packed with 8500 fans decked out in Red White and Blue, American flags displayed everywhere and the crowd spontaneously singing “God Bless America.”  Unfortunately because the Soviets refused to allow a later start time the game was not televised live nor broadcast live on the radio in the States.

On February 22nd I had finished work making and rolling pizza dough at Shakey’s Pizza in Stockton, went home showered and then got in my car to head over to Judy’s house.  On my way over I was listening to the radio when ABC radio broke in to air the last minute of the game live. I was listening as Al Michaels made the famous call “Eleven seconds, you’ve got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? YES!”

I could not believe it and was screaming with joy and wild abandon in the car. As soon as I got to Judy’s I went in and told her and her parents When the game came on I watched it with undivided attention and to this day I cannot forget that night.  The Americans had beaten the vaunted Soviet team 4-3 and would go on to defeat Finland in the Gold medal game 4-2.  The next day they were guests at the White House and after that the team broke up.  13 players would go on to NHL careers, Brooks would lead the 2002 Team USA to a Silver in 2002 before being killed in a car crash in 2003.

The Soviet people and their news media were stunned by the loss and the fact that the Soviet Team won Silver by defeating Sweden 9-2 the team had lost its luster.  While it remained dominant until the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990 it was the end of an era.  Today many Russian players star in the NHL and live in the United States even after their careers.

That team and its members did something that no one expected in defeating the Soviets and going on to win the Gold medal against the Finns. No one could have expected the effect on the country either. It was a miracle, a miracle on ice.

Thirty-five years later the triumph of Team USA against all odds on that night is remembered as an event nearly unequaled in sports history as well as contemporary American history.  That game actually marked a return of pride to the country after a decade of discontent, defeat and discouragement.

Some people, especially those on the political right in their Reagan myth, mistakenly give Ronald Reagan the credit for turning around the attitude of the country in the 1980s. I don’t think that they could be more wrong. It wasn’t Reagan or any other politician, it was the 1980 American Olympic hockey team that made us believe again.

That is why this event meant so much more than a a game.

I don’t know about you, but I still believe in miracles.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 20, 2015 · 16:08

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: The Undying Racism of the Lost Cause

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My friends this is the final section of my Gettysburg text chapter dealing with the religious, ideological and racial component of the American Civil War. My hope is that as you read it you will see that those parts of history which make us uncomfortable, and that some politicians, preachers and pundits say no longer exist, are still pervasive in our society.

I hate to admit this but it is far too true.

What many don’t realize is just how pervasive and insidious the myth of the Lost Cause was in the decades after the Civil War and its effect on the new medium of film as D.W. Griffith romanticized it in Birth of a Nation, Margaret Mitchell’s best selling novel which became the movie Gone with the Wind and even Walt Disney’s animated classic Song of the South. That was just in the popular media, a host of “histories” advanced the Lost Cause in academia. Many Civil War buffs get a lot of their history from the same sources, sources which “whitewash” the evils of Confederate Nationalism, Racism and the centrality of slavery to Southern culture, economic life and even religion.

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Thus the Orwellian culture of denial continues to this day where, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and state legislators claim that racism no longer exists and that those who say that it does are “racist.”

Trust me, if you read this and you have grown up sucking at the tit of the Lost Cause without even realizing it, these articles might stir up all sorts of uncomfortable feelings, and I hope that they do. Soul searching is a good thing, and the truth, however uncomfortable as it is will help set us all free.

As I mentioned in the first segment of this post, for me that journey has been at times uncomfortable. As I said, my family owned slaves and parts fought for the Confederacy, even as their neighbors in Cable County West Virginia fought for the Union. After the war the family patriarch, who had served as a junior officer in the Confederate Army, refused to sign the loyalty oath to the Union, and lost all of his family’s lands. If you ask me the truth, I think that history should make us uncomfortable. If it doesn’t I doubt that it is history.

The link to the article is here.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion, Ideology and the Civil War Part 3

Have a great Weekend,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 19, 2015 · 19:19

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Racism, Slavery and Religion

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Today my friends another installment of my chapter in my Gettysburg text dealing with religion, racism and ideology as causes of the American Civil War. While many people, especially modern Southern White politicians like to repeat the mantra that we live in a “post-racial”  society where racism no longer exists. I discussed that ridiculous assertion yesterday in my intro to the series so I won’t bother to repeat it now.

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What I will do is discuss how religion has been used and in still being used by “true believers” of many religions to justify all sorts of evil in the name of their God. The latest and most newsworthy of such people are the practitioners of terror in the name of Allah, the Islamic State and Boko Haram in central and west Africa. These groups have brought back the concepts of what we would call public lynching of their enemies, burning them alive, beheading them, enslaving them, and engaging in ethnic and religious cleansing. They are ruthless and are a throwback to times that most of us had hoped had passed into recess of history.

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But history has a way of never dying, especially for those who don’t stop believing in their cause. In resp0nse to the acts of ISIL and Boko Haram I have heard numerous American Christian politicians, pundits and preachers claim that Christians have never acted in such a way. I could go through the litany of crimes committed by Christians, Churches and the actions of nations whose state supported churches provided the theological justification for genocide, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, crusades, imperialism, slavery and a host of other crimes against humanity. Instead I am just going to focus on the theological justification of those who defended the institution of slavery, as well as their abolitionists opponents in this posting, because they are really not that too far removed from the actions of ISIL and the words of many supposedly Christian politicians, pundits and preachers in this country today.

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This section begins with the Compromise of 1850, an act which included the Fugitive Slave Act which gave Southern Slaveholders the right to go into any state or territory to reclaim their human property and provided them with a extra-judicial system to support them.  From this it transitions to the theological arguments and proclamations of those supporters of slavery and their opponents. The section ends with a note about a case that Virginia was pushing through the Courts in 1860, just prior to the Civil War, it was a case that they hoped would destroy any remaining legal obstacles to expanding slavery into Free States and territories against the wishes of the citizens of those states. I find it interesting that for people then as well as today the concept of “States Rights” only applies to them and their attempts to deny freedom to others.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion, Ideology and the Civil War Part 2

Tomorrow I will post the third section of this chapter which begins with Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, the link between church and state in the Confederacy, the election of Lincoln, Emancipation, and the pervasive and poisonous myth of the Lost Cause in the United States.

Racism, as well as other forms of hatred backed by religion is still alive and it is not just in the Middle East and Africa. It is still here, and it is still happening now. It may be a bit more subtle and certainly not as violent as it was in the ante-bellum days, or Post-Reconstruction, but it is here. Like in the Middle East it bides its time until extremists can invent an excuse to resort to violence and terrorism.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 18, 2015 · 23:17

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Racism Still Exists

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

In a week and a half I shall be off to Gettysburg again with a new band of students, bracing the very cold and possibly even nasty winter weather to experience and learn about the people, whose courage, sacrifice and service helped change this country for the better.

That is not to say that we have arrived in any sense of the word. Today I was confronted on a social media site about a quote that I posted from the late Associate Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall which said:

“None of us got where we are solely by pulling up our bootstraps. We got there because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony, or a few nuns, bent down and helped us pick up our boots…” 

When I posted it I wasn’t thinking of anything more than that all of us owe something to someone else for what we have achieved.

The person who confronted me on this, a retired Navy Chaplain chastised me because of “institutionalized affirmative action programs.” When I defended Marshall’s comments I got a a comment that “those days are long gone….” 

When  I read that with or new puppy Izzy snuggled beside me I thought, “what the fuck?” I really didn’t know how to respond. I was astounded to hear those words coming from a person who served a full career in the military. Heck the Admiral I work for, who is one of under twenty African Americans serving at that rank today was told by a white Commanding Officer that he would never command anything because he was black. He entered the military a year after I did during the early part of the Reagan build up. I enlisted in 1981 and was commissioned in 1983, he was commissioned in late 1982.

So please keep telling me that institutional and personal racism does’t exist. It does and it is still a part of life, no matter what Ben Carson, Alan West or Starr Parker say. Those people are no different than Stephen, the character played by Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained. They benefit from being the black henchmen of those that oppress other blacks. In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s era they were called Uncle Tom. The sad thing is that such people never understand that the system that they defend and advocate still hates them. I’ll go back to that in another two articles this weekend, which will be entitled They Still Hate You and another We the Good White God Fearing Citizens of Rock Ridge Again both will have a film reference and if you don’t know those films you should.

Sadly it seems they one people that really believe that are white American conservative Christians. But I digress….

The heart of why over 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and the country was devastated by a total war, the effects of which still linger today was rooted in racism, the institution of slavery, the belief that Blacks were less that human and that States, backed by legislative “compromises” and Supreme Court decisions could and should be able to maintain and even expand an evil  social and economic system that treated Blacks as less than human, enslaved them and treated them not as human beings but as the property of slave owners.

That my friends is not just a fact, it is history and it is uncomfortable as hell because my family owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy, something that I am neither proud of or ashamed to admit. It is history. It is reality, and it is shameful. I will not simply resort to the lie that my ancestors who owned slaves and fought to keep that right were simply products of their time. They and thousands of others like them knew better, and they not only intellectually assented to the system, but the profited from it and fought for it.

What I am saying, and this will not be comfortable to those who want to believe that racism, or other forms of social discrimination exist and are being re-legislated into law in certain state legislatures in actions to roll back voting rights, civil rights and economic liberty.

No they will not, especially to those who hold those beliefs and back them with their religion. Just because an elected official, or a law enforcement officer who happens to be Black expresses an opinion that racism still exists and that the laws on the books designed to ensure equal rights are enforced does not mean that they are racist. It seems to me that the racism label today is used by the very proponents of racism, racism that seeks to assign blacks, women, other people of color, and gays to less than full social, political and racial equity. But then I could be wrong, maybe in  the words of Supertramp’s Logical Song I’m just a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal…. but then maybe all the world is asleep…. and my questions run too deep….

That my friends is just one of the reasons that I believe that history matters and that such evils, and yes they are evil, need to be confronted today. The history must be told and it cannot be varnished with the lacquer of the myth of the Lost Cause, or any sort of neo-Confederate romanticism, the politicians, pundits and preachers who do so be damned to the pit of the hell that they so adamantly assign those that do not agree with them.

So tonight I am reposting a link to the first of three previously published articles, which are one full chapter of my Civil War and Gettysburg text. They are uncomfortable as hell to read, because I know for a fact that from my own research, and family history that they are just that. The accounts, the words of the defenders of slavery and the racist ideology behind it and today behind much of the preachers, politicians and pundits of the Tea Party must be confronted. Not just because it is part of their ideology, but because it is an integral part of the ideology of the Islamic State, Boko Haram and all evil that go with them. Ideology, religion and racism matters, not just in the past but today.

So tonight I give you 

Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: Religion, Ideology & the Civil War Part 1

I’ll repost part two tomorrow and part three Friday with a few more editorial comments because as you an see I am really spun up about this.

Have a great night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

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February 17, 2015 · 12:04

There Comes a Time… A Bloom County Reality Check

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If the print on the strip is too spall on your phone or tablet the link is here: http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2015/02/17

Likewise if you click on the picture it should be larger and more readable

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

It is funny how timeless the social commentary of Berkeley Breathed’s classic comic strip Bloom County is even today. The strip shown above is from 1987. It is part of a series of strips where Donald Trump’s brain is transplanted into Bill the Cat’s body leading to some interesting encounters with the citizens of Bloom County.

In this strip, a little Black girl named “Ronald Ann,” named such by her dad after Ronald Reagan meets Mr Trump. The Donald, like all of us has a dream, but his is a bit different, and in the strip he is symbolic of the worst part of our humanity, that which has everything, while denying others of even the chance to achieve. A class of people who have no empathy, and for whom nothing matters but their bottom line, and they have an army of politicians to enshrine their policies into law, pundits who shamelessly defend them, media empires that promote them and their lifestyles as good, and preachers who give the blessing of something that they call “God” to their most ungodly world view.

The amazing thing is that those who promote this vast imbalance don’t even recognize what they are doing to civilization. Barbara Tuchman wrote in her book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century that “When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.”

We are watching this unfold before our very eyes and those leading the charge, the politicians, bankers, moguls, media empires, pundits and preachers are blind to what they are sowing. Sadly they don’t seem to care so long as they have power and their profit margins increase.

What they are sowing is the seed of violent revolution, and not just in the United States, but around the world. They are sowing the seeds of war, they have helped create the growing threat of the Islamic State and Boko Haram, and their short sighted policies will bring down nations and economic systems.

Bu then such people and those who allow them to do what they do do not study history, except for the sanitized kind of myth that makes them feel good and justifies their actions. The same is true of how they view philosophy and religion. That is why they love the pseudo-history of people like David Barton, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and the theology of Christian Dominionism and the Prosperity Gospel. Sadly, those who call themselves “Christians” and promote this seem oblivious to the fact that it is all based on Social Darwinism, the survival of the fittest. But then to the preachers who support those who benefit by such thought believe that a lie told for the glory of God is justified.

As such they seem to have little capacity for empathy or compassion, the death and suffering of people from disease, poverty and war makes no impact on them. Tuchman wrote “[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.” 

The same is true with technology. We have the most wonderful technological capabilities but instead of harnessing them for good, we turn them into instruments of destruction, instruments that may one day destroy all of us. Tuchman wrote: “For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.” Sadly, that gap between technology and mental and moral capacity to use it has only grown exponentially in this new century 21st century.

Sadly, that bit of satire about Donald Trump and Ronald Ann in this 1987 Bloom County comic strip is even more true today than when Berkeley Breathed drew it and penned the words. The power of the pen can be seen even today as people who speak out, write or pen satire become targets of those that they critique.

But I can no longer be silent when I see such institutionalized evil that is blessed by the politicians, pundits and preachers, who I call the Trinity of Evil. I would rather be called every epitaph that the promotors and supporters of such a hateful, tyrannical and perverse system can muster, than not to speak the truth. It’s funny how the words to the The Logical Song by Supertramp ring true for me:

“Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal.”

I’ll have to write about that song sometime soon, as it seems to speak volumes about my own journey, but I digress…

I said at the beginning of this year that I would seek truth and speak truth. Until I came back from Iraq in 2008, having seen and experienced the horror of war, the lies of my government in launching that war in Iraq that has latterly sowed the wind and is reaping the whirlwind with the Islamic State’s advance, I said nothing, and at times even defended the system. But since then I cannot. I have already paid a price, men who I thought were friends abandoned me, a church that I had faithfully served, threw me out and I have been threatened, harassed and trolled by white supremacists; religious fanatics of various denominations, and political ideologues.

But truth is truth and I cannot be silent. As Dr. King so well put it: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 16, 2015 · 15:21

Remembering: Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address

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Today is President’s Day and instead of doing much I am simply going to post one of the most poignant and meaningful speeches ever given by a President,  Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

The address was delivered on March 4th 1865 just over a month before Robert E. Lee’s Army surrendered at Appomattox, and just 41 days before Lincoln died at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. A man who the League of the South, a radical group bent on returning the whole country to their neo-Confederate ways plans to honor on April 14th for “executing” Lincoln who they call a criminal tyrant.

Lincoln’s words need to be remembered for what they are, a remarkable statement of reality as well as hope for the future. When he spoke them the war was all but over, but much blood was still being spilt on battlefields across the South. By the time the war, which began in 1861 was over, more than 600,000 Americans would be dead. It was the bloodiest conflict in American History.

To really understand what Lincoln was speaking of one has to remember that just nine years before the Supreme Court had seemed to demolish any hope at all for Blacks in the United States, and not just the enslaved Blacks of the South, in it’s notorious Dred Scott decision. Roger Taney, the Chief Justice writing for the majority, most of whom were Southerners said about Blacks when denying them any form of Constitutional Rights:

“Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen?…It is absolutely certain that the African race were not included under the name of citizens of a state…and that they were not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remain subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them”

Before that there was the equally noxious Compromise of 1850 which included the Fugitive Slave Act which gave any Southerner claiming his human “property” not only the rights but a legal mechanism to hunt them down in the North and penalize anyone hindering them with weighty fines and jail terms.

One has to look at the words of Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in his Cornerstone Speech to understand the truth of what Lincoln spoke on that day in March 1865. Stephens, just four years before had declared in the starkest terms what the war was about and what the Confederacy’s foundation was:

“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

It took four years of bloody war, the first total war waged on American soil to end slavery, sadly within just a few years the Jim Crow laws had regulated Southern Blacks to a status not much better than their previous estate, and again became victims of often state sanctioned violence, discrimination, prejudice and death through lynching.

Southern leaders like Stephens and Jefferson Davis denied that slavery was the cause of the war and the foundation of the Confederacy in their revisionist histories after the war was over. They did so even though the litany of their letters, speeches and laws they supported, damned their words as the bold faced lies that they were. In the mean time many in the South sought to reclaim their pre-war glory in the myth of the Lost Cause which permeated much of the United States in the decades after the war, being glorified by Hollywood in Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Walt Disney’s Song of the South. The unconscionable racism and white supremacy promoted by these masterpieces of cinema helped perpetuate racism across the country.

In the North, blacks faced discrimination and prejudice as well. another Supreme Court decision (Plessy v. Ferguson 1896) had legalized segregation and discrimination against Blacks in the form of “Separate but Equal” across the entire United States, something that would remain until a later Supreme Court would overturn Plessy in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Despite all the reverses and the continued fight against the rights of Blacks, as well as women, other minorities and Gays, the struggle continues.

In August 1863, Lincoln was asked to speak at a gathering wrote in support of stronger war efforts and enlistments. Lincoln could not attend and wrote James Conkling a letter to be read on his behalf. That letter addressed those who disagreed with Lincoln on emancipation while still be claiming to be for the Union. Lincoln ended that letter with this:

“Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have to be proved that among freemen that there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to to bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and with clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, that they will have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it….” 

Lincoln, unlike many even in the North recognized the heroic nature of African Americans fighting for their rights and how their struggle was beneficial for every American.

Lincoln died too soon, his death was a tragedy for the nation, but today, on President’s Day let us remember the words of the Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and the truth that they express. Lincoln’s concluding sentences which began with “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” should be at the heart of our dealings with all people so that we, as Lincoln said so eloquently “may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

It is a speech that always encourages me to fight for freedom and truth, even when that truth is less than popular and often uncomfortable. Lincoln’s words still inspire me, because he spoke the truth that many even today do not want to hear:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war–seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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