Tag Archives: civil rights

January 13, 2018 · 00:05

When History Rhymes: Know Nothings, Klansmen, “Shitholes” and Trump

 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Long before President Trump was elected President and uttered the words Shithole countries” in slandering the people of Haiti as well as African nations I wrote about his penchant for obvious racist terminology and tactics which I trace back to a movement long before he was ever thought of, in fact to a time when his German immigrant ancestors were scorned and hated because of their ethnicity. That being said his grandfather made a small fortune in the Pacific Northwest and the Klondike Gold Rush mostly catering to prospectors and women of ill-repute. Like many immigrants the man was incredibly successful; he made a fortune and returned to Germany where he was discovered was thrown out of the country because the Kingdom of Bavaria believed that he had gone to America to of all things, to avoid military service. The fact that he didn’t have to get a doctor to say he had heel spurs to avoid conscription makes him far more admirable than his grandson. But I digress…

I wrote the following back in July of 2016 simply because the Trump family story happened to coincide with the subject of my draft book “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory”: Race, Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Civil War Era. It just happens to be that the Donald’s father, Fred happened to get arrested during a march of the Ku Klux Klan in New York in 1927 while dressed as a Klansman.

Back then the blowback from friends, including a woman who was one of the bridesmaids at our wedding was so intense that I never want to go through it again. It really is amazing when one makes a credible claim that a candidate for the Presidency is a racist and have long time friends castigate you and condemn you for telling the truth.

But once again I digress but the irony of the current President going after immigrants and defending Klansmen while calling the countries of many current immigrants is far too rich to ignore. But the sad truth is that racism is still to common and is being given voice by the President of the United States in ways that haven’t been seen since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall noted:

“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.” 

So anyway, here is what I wrote back them.

Enjoy,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Mark Twain reportedly said that “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” One can see that in the nomination of Donald Trump as the nominee of the Republican Part for President. Eleven months ago I wrote an article called Trump and the Return of the Know Nothings. At the time few people gave him little chance of becoming the Republican nominee, and now he is the nominee and for all practical purposes owns the GOP.

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Trump’s xenophobic views on immigration charged the debate in the Republican Party during the primaries, and his positions which were fringe positions of most Republicans for decades became the mainstream, just as the same issue did during the 1840s and 1850s. So this is not a new phenomenon, and even over the past few decades the debate has come and gone, but it has returned with a vengeance as Donald Trump made immigration, or rather a virulent anti-immigration platform the centerpiece of his campaign. Trump’s focus on the issue forced other Republican candidates to scramble in order to find a position close enough to Trump’s without completely throwing away the vote of immigrants who they will need to win in many states; if they are to have any hope of winning back the presidency in 2016. But they failed. Trump outmaneuvered them at every point, and in the end Trump’s strongest opponent, Senator Ted Cruz went into the witch’s cauldron of the Republican National Convention not to endorse Trump but to stand on principle and in the process destroy his politic career and maybe endanger his life.

But Trump’s positionresonated with parts of the Republican base, and by appealing to their anger and frustration he has built a solid core of support which loyally supported him in a campaign that featured so many blunders and heneous comments that in a normal election cycle his campaign would not have survived past the Southern Super Tuesday. But he did, and if on the  takes the time to read Trump’s speeches and the reactions to them by his supporters it becomes apparent that Trump has tapped into that vast reservoir of nativism that has always been a part of the American body-politic.


As I said, such attitudes and movements are nothing new. Anti-immigrant movements in the United States go back to our earliest days, ever since the first Irish Catholics showed up in the northeast in the late 1790s and early 1800s. Met with scorn and treated as criminals the Irish Catholics had to work hard to gain any kind of acceptance in Protestant America. But immigrants continued to come, seeking the freedom promised in the Declaration of Independence.

Many White American Protestants viewed Irish, German and other European immigrants to the Unites States in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s as interlopers who were attempting to take over the country. The immigrants were regarded as poor, uneducated, uncouth, and immoral, and in the case of Catholic immigrants as representatives and foot soldiers of a hostile government, the Vatican, headed by the Pope and the bishops. Those who opposed immigration formed a movement that was aimed at forbidding immigrants from being granted full rights, especially the rights of citizenship and voting. The fear was pervasive. Many Northern Whites were afraid that immigrants would take their jobs, since like slaves in the South, the new immigrants were a source of cheap labor.

Northern Protestant church leaders and ministers were some of the most vocal anti-immigrant voices and their words were echoed by politicians and in the press. The movement grew and used government action, the courts and violence to oppress the Irish and Germans who were the most frequent targets of their hate. The movement eventually became known as the “Know Nothing” movement.

Know Nothing leaders were not content to simply discuss their agenda in the forum of ideas and political discourse, they often used mob-violence and intimidation to keep Catholics away from the ballot box. Mobs of nativist Know Nothings sometimes numbering in the hundreds or even the thousands attacked immigrants in what they called “Paddy hunts,” Paddy being a slur for the Irish. To combat immigrants who might want to exercise their right to vote, the Know Nothings deployed gangs like the New York’s Bowery Boys and Baltimore’s Plug Uglies. They also deployed their own paramilitary organization to intimidate immigrants on Election Day. This group, known as the Wide Awakes was especially prone to use violence and physical intimidation in pursuit of their goals. The Nativist paramilitaries also provided security for anti-immigrant preachers from angry immigrants who might try to disrupt their “prayer” meetings.

Know Nothing’s and other Nativist organizations, organized mass meetings throughout the country which were attended by thousands of men. The meetings were often led by prominent Protestant ministers who were rich in their use of preaching and prayer to rile up their audiences. The meetings often ended with physical attacks and other violence against German or Irish immigrants and sometimes with the burning of the local Catholic Church. They also provided security for preachers from angry immigrants who might try to disrupt nativist prayer meetings.


Bloody Monday, Louisville 1855

The violence was widespread and reached its peak in the mid-1850s.

Monday, August 6, 1855 was Election Day in Louisville, Kentucky. To prevent German and Irish Catholics from voting, Know Nothing mobs took to the street and launched a violent attack on immigrants as well as their churches and businesses. Known now as “Black Monday” the Nativists burned Armbruster’s Brewery, they rolled cannons to the doors of the St. Martin of Tours Church, the Cathedral of the Assumption and Saint Patrick’s Church, which they then were searched for arms. The private dwellings and the businesses of immigrants were looted. A neighborhood known as “Quinn’s Row” was burned with the inhabitants barricaded inside. At least 22 persons were killed in the violence and many more were injured. In Baltimore the 1856, 1857, and 1858 elections were all marred by violence perpetrated by Nativist mobs. In Maine, Know Nothing followers tarred and feathered a Catholic priest and burned down a Catholic church.

The Know Nothings did not merely seek to disenfranchise immigrants through violence alone, they were more sophisticated than that. They knew that to be successful they had to change the law. Then, as now, a new immigrant had to live in the United States for five years before becoming eligible to become a naturalized of the United States. The Know nothings felt that this was too short of time and their party platform in the 1856 election had this as one of the party planks:

A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners.

The rational of the Know Nothings for the 21 year wait was that if a baby born in the United States had to wait until it was 21 years old he could vote, that immigrants were being permitted to “jump the line” and vote sooner than native-born Americans. But really what the Know Nothings wanted to was to destroy the ability of immigrant communities to use the ballot box. In many localities and some states Know Nothing majorities took power. The Massachusetts legislature, which was dominated by Know Nothings, passed a law barring immigrants from voting for two additional years after they became United States citizens.

The 1856 platform Know Nothing Party was synopsized by a Know Nothing supporter:

(1) Repeal of all Naturalization Laws.

(2) None but Americans for office.

(3) A pure American Common School system.

(4) War to the hilt, on political Romanism.

(5) Opposition to the formation of Military Companies, composed of Foreigners.

(6) The advocacy of a sound, healthy and safe Nationality.

(7) Hostility to all Papal influences, when brought to bear against the Republic.

(8) American Constitutions & American sentiments.

(9) More stringent & effective Emigration Laws.

(10) The amplest protection to Protestant Interests.

(11) The doctrines of the revered Washington.

(12) The sending back of all foreign paupers.

(13) Formation of societies to protect American interests.

(14) Eternal enmity to all those who attempt to carry out the principles of a foreign Church or State.

(15) Our Country, our whole Country, and nothing but our Country.

(16) Finally,-American Laws, and American Legislation, and Death to all foreign influences, whether in high places or low

In addition to their violent acts, the use of the courts and political intimidation the Know Nothings waged a culture war against immigrants. Latin mottoes on courthouses were replaced by English translations. Actions were taken to remove immigrants who had become naturalized citizens from public offices and civil service jobs as well as to use the government to persecute Catholic churches. In Philadelphia, all naturalized citizens on the police force were fired, including non-Catholics who has supported Catholic politicians, and in Boston, a special board was set up to investigate the sex lives of nuns and other supposed crimes of the Catholic church.


In the political upheaval of the 1850s Nativists tried to find homes in the different political parties. Some Know Nothings who were abolitionists became part of the new Republican Party, and Abraham Lincoln condemned them in harsh terms. He wrote his friend Joshua Speed about the hypocrisy that they displayed by supposedly being against the oppression of blacks while willing to oppress immigrants:

“I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”

As an organized movement, the Know Nothings died out by the early 1860s, migrating to different parties and causes. In the North many became part of the pro-slavery Copperhead movement, which opposed Lincoln on emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment. In the post-war South the anti-Catholic parts of the Nativist movement found a home in the Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist organizations which also used racist and nativist propaganda to perpetuate violence, and disenfranchise emancipated blacks in the decades following the end of the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction. The Nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments have periodically found a home in different parts of the country and the electorate. Violence was used against Chinese, Japanese and Filipino immigrants on the West Coast, against Mexicans in the Southwest, Italians, Slavs, Eastern Europeans and Jews in the Northeast.

Sadly it seems that the Know Nothing is being turned against others today. I find it strange that there are a host of people, mostly on the political right that are doing their best in their local communities, state legislatures and even Congress to roll back civil liberties for various groups of people. There is a certain amount of xenophobia in regard to immigrants of all types, especially those with darker skin white Americans, but some of the worst is reserved for Arabs and other Middle-Easterners, even Arab Christians who are presumed as all Middle Easterners are to be Moslem terrorists, even those who have been here decades and hold respectable places in their communities.

But immigrants are not alone, there seems to be in some states a systematized attempt to disenfranchise the one group of people that has almost always born the brunt of legal and illegal discrimination, African Americans.

Likewise there have been numerous attempts to roll back the rights of women, especially working women; the use of the legislature by religious conservatives to place limits on the reproductive rights of women, holding them to the standard of a religion that they do not practice. Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling for Marriage Equality in Obergfell v. Hodges there still are numerous attempts to curb any civil rights, including the right to marriage or civil unions of the LGBT community.


As I said, this is nothing new, that hatred and intolerance of some toward anyone who is different than them, who they deem to be a threat is easily exploited by politicians, pundits and preachers, none of whom care for anything but their prosperity, ideology, religion, or cause. While I would not call them a new incarnation of the Know Nothings, I have to notice the similarities in their message and the way that they push their agenda. As for those among them who claim the mantle of Christ and call themselves Christians I am troubled, because I know that when religion is entwined with political movements that are based in repressing or oppressing others that it does not end well. As Brian Cox who played Herman Goering in the television miniseries Nuremberg told the American Army psychologist Captain Gustave Gilbert played by Matt Craven “The segregation laws in your country and the anti-Semitic laws in mine, are they not just a difference of degree?“

That difference of degree does matter, and there have been and still could be times when the frustration and anger of people, especially religious people can be whipped into a frenzy of violence and government sanctioned oppression by unscrupulous politicians, preachers and pundits. History is replete with examples of how it can happen. When I think of this I am reminded of the close of Spencer Tracy’s remarks in the movie Judgment at Nuremberg:

But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary – even able and extraordinary – men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat through the trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen. There are those in our own country too who today speak of the “protection of country” – of ‘survival’. A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient – to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is ‘survival as what’? A country isn’t a rock. It’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.”

So for today I will leave it there. I probably will return to the similarities between the Know Nothings and Trump, but not this moment. I actually do have a life and want to write about other things. But that being said, there are times when history rhymes, and this is one of them.

So have a wonderful day.

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 11, 2017 · 18:49

Faith and Politics

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The American patriot Samuel Adams once remarked: “If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”

My friends, that time has arrived. As I wrote a few days ago, Patriotism is distinctly different than nationalism and the President, the Vice President, and many of their most strident followers, especially so-called “conservative Christians” are not patriots but nationalists who in their stridency would co-opt God into their battle with their political opponents. The German Catholic theologian of the Second Vatican Council, and student of Martin Luther, Hans Kung wrote words that are quite applicable today: “Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war.”

Really, what else could motivate Trump’s followers on the Christian Right to not only defend him but in doing so toss their belief in the Crucified God to the curb for the crass cause of gaining political power?

Somehow the old motto of the Wehrmacht and the Imperial German Army before seems to suit them Gott mit Uns or God is with us. Sadly, while a Christian who believes in the incarnation of Christ as a man, born of a woman may take comfort in the belief that God shares our humanity, the concept of Gott mit Uns is the understanding of nationalism and imperialism bent on the domination of other people and other countries is foreign to the ministry of Jesus and the early leaders of the church. Sadly, in our day, the Imperial Church has found a new savior, President Donald Trump and unless one is taking a knee for the National Anthem, one better be ready to bow their knee to this President or face the wrath of both the State and God, at least say the self-anointed prophets and priests like Robert Jeffress, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell Jr., and Franklin Graham, who demand that people, even non-Christians follow their lead and obey the President.

Despite the best attempts of the Imperial Church beginning with the Emperor Constantine who cemented the alliance of the Church and Empire to secure his kingdom, and for that matter every empire that followed, has been resisted by people of conscience. The fact is that this Imperial Church concept is not only foreign to the Gospel but also to the founders of our country who resisted every attempt to to impose a state sponsored religion on the people. But neither do the most strident supporters of the President on the Christian seem to think that is important. Likewise these “disciples” neither think of the future of generations to come and their responsibility for perpetuating the Christian faith. Instead they sell their birthright for an illusion of political power that will fade as quickly as the grass in winter.

Future Christians as well as non-Christians who care about this world will look at them and wonder how they could support a man so opposed in almost every conceivable way to the faith of Jesus the Christ. The same Jesus who became incarnate, was born of a woman, who hung out and ministered to the very people who the current “faithful” despise. This is the Jesus who suffered under the scourging of Roman soldiers, was abandoned by his own people, died on a cross as a criminal, and was buried in a borrowed tomb. According to scripture he rose again from the dead bearing all the marks of his humanity, including his scars.

This is what Martin Luther called “the theology of the Cross” and one cannot understand the Christian faith, and I do say faith, without at least trying to comprehend, for it flies in the face of those who desire an earthly kingdom where alleged Christians dominate the government in the perpetually vain attempt to establish the kingdom of Christ on the earth. The best modern exponent of the theology of the Cross, German Lutheran theologian Juergen Moltmann wrote:

“When God becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth, he not only enters into the finitude of man, but in his death on the cross also enters into the situation of man’s godforsakenness. In Jesus he does not die the natural death of a finite being, but the violent death of the criminal on the cross, the death of complete abandonment by God. The suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God, his Father. God does not become a religion, so that man participates in him by corresponding religious thoughts and feelings. God does not become a law, so that man participates in him through obedience to a law. God does not become an ideal, so that man achieves community with him through constant striving. He humbles himself and takes upon himself the eternal death of the godless and the godforsaken, so that all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him.”

Why do I say this today? Well actually I began this article a couple of days ago with a different concept in mind, but I basically had writers block. But meditating on it as I walked today I was reminded of just why I stand so strongly against what the President has been doing and how the allegedly Christian Right has sold its soul to him. I cannot look at scripture, profess my belief in Jesus and reconcile that belief with a sham Gospel that despises the poor and values earthly power and prosperity.

Sadly today I had a Facebook follower, a man who I do not know, but who is a Byzantine Catholic Priest tell me that he would no longer follow me because of my “constant anti-Trump rants.” That didn’t bother me at all. I don’t know the man and everything I see that he posts, including his pictures shows me that his faith is more concerned with power, both ecclesiastical and political than the theology of the Cross.

So when you read my criticisms of the President, please know that much of my political beliefs are formed by my faith, a faith that I struggle with on a daily basis since my deployment to Iraq in 2007-2008. For me this is important, because though I believe I still doubt. But there is something that I don’t doubt and that are the words of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, and the First Amendment and that means that I cannot abide a President who flaunts all of these things and supposed Christians who sell their souls to defend him. I just can’t go there. I heartily agree with John Leland, the Virginia Baptist pastor who fought to ensure religious liberty for all when his fellow Virginian Anglicans tried to establish a state church after the colonies has secured their independence from England. Leland worked with James Madison to craft the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment which both President Trump and his Christian supporters seem to want to destroy.

We are in a terrible time of testing. The German pastor, theologian, and martyr during the Nazi Era, Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” 

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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August 27, 2017 · 10:30

Embracing “Lawless Disorder”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

For nearly two years since President Trump began his presidential campaign in 2015 I have been warning that if elected he would become an authoritarian leader. After seven months in office many of his strongest supporters are beginning to discover that I and others were more accurate than any of us wanted to be. In fact I often said that I hoped more than anything that I was wrong about the President, but nearly every day his words or actions confirm my initial predictions of him becoming a true authoritarian leader.

Following President Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio the Washington Examiner, one of the most conservative publications in the United States with a history of supporting Donald Trump declared “Trump, once the law and order candidate, embraces lawless disorder with Arpaio pardon.” The editorial went on to mention that “But “law and order,” if the words have any meaning, has to apply to government actors as well. Lawless sheriffs promote disorder, and that’s what Arpaio did to get himself convicted.” They properly understood that what Sheriff Joe did was lawless and that the President’s decision to pardon him outside the normal channel for granting pardons was an act that will cause the rule of law to break down and that in the case of this pardon “it’s clear Trump has abused that power for a friend and political ally.”

Senator John McCain released a statement condemning the President’s action. He wrote:

“No one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold. … The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions.”

But the abuse of power has been a hallmark of the President and in this case it is ominous because it sends a signal to prosecutors and the courts that if a friend of the President is charged with or convicted of a crime that this President will trample judicial decisions just because he can. In fact it was revealed that months before Arpaio was convicted that Trump pressed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to find a way to drop the prosecution. This is not the action of a man who respects the Constitution, the law, or the separation of powers, it is the action of an authoritarian who has no respect for the law who will use is capriciously to enhance his own power at the expense of the country. The late Christopher Hitchens wrote, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.”

The problem is that most people in the United States are still trying to understand the President’s actions and words through the lens of traditional American political norms. Gary Kasparov, the Russian chess champion and political dissident noted the error of this reasoning. He tweeted “People are still trying to see Trump through the framework of democracy. But he doesn’t understand them or care to. This was a display of power.” He went on to note that “dictators & would be autocrats do not ask “Why?” when it comes to using power for their advantage. They ask “why not?”

There are many people who did not believe, despite his words during the campaign about disrupting and destroying the institutions of the country that the President would do little harm, that he would be restrained by the courts and the Congress. While the courts have checked some of his unconstitutional actions, and the Congress has passed very little of his legislative agend, the President shows few signs that he respects the rule of law. In fact he attacks the courts, the Congress, the press, and individual citizens on a daily basis when they oppose him. Likewise he shows no respect for the Constitution that he swore to uphold, proving those who believed that he would act in accordance with our system of law and government wrong.

Yale historian Doctor Timothy Snyder wrote about those who make such assumptions when dealing with authoritarian leaders: “The mistake is to assume that rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions—even when that is exactly what they have announced that they will do.”

When President Trump pardoned Sheriff Arpaio he crossed a political Rubicon. His course is set. I just hope those who know better in his political party finally, if belatedly, show the moral courage to stand against what he is doing to our political system. If they do not he will do lasting damage to our form of government that will long outlive him or his presidency. Former Republican Senator John Danforth has urged responsible Republican leaders to stand. He wrote these words in the Washington Post:

“In honor of our past and in belief in our future, for the sake of our party and our nation, we Republicans must disassociate ourselves from Trump by expressing our opposition to his divisive tactics and by clearly and strongly insisting that he does not represent what it means to be a Republican.”

The President is fast becoming an existential threat to both the party of Lincoln and the Republic. No matter how he and his surrogates try to exhaust his opponents, and to break them by the shear volume of his lies, and actions against so many in this country, to include the leaders of his own party, it is not time to retreat. We must all continue to speak, and we must begin again to that together as Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to hold him accountable and preserve a Rupublic that holds promise for all of us. If we don’t he will slice us up like salami into our little groups to dilute our power.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 20, 2017 · 06:30

Statues With Limitations: Part One


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Over the past week I have written a number of articles about what happened in Charlottesville and I have promised to write something about the Confederate Monument controversy. Last night I posted an article about that controversy in light of one particular monument in Colfax, Louisiana, the site of one of the most brutal massacres committed in the name of White Supremacy in our nation’s history. I do hope that you read it and share it. 

Likewise I have I have posted quite a few articles and links to articles regarding what happened at Charlottesville and the subsequent debate about removing Confederate statues on my Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Today I am beginning a two part article dealing with my thoughts on the monuments themselves. This section is more of a background article before part two which will deal with my thoughts about the monuments themselves in the broader context of them, as well as other monuments not necessarily connected with the Confederate monuments. 

First, as to the Confederate Monuments, my comments are not meant to impugn the lives of people’s ancestors. My family on both my paternal and maternal sides fought as members of the 8th Virginia Cavalry on the side of the Confederacy even though their part of Virginia officially sided with the Union. One of them, the family patriarch on my paternal side was a slave holder who after the war refused to swear his allegiance to the United States and probably was a member of White Supremacist groups after the war. There is no doubt of what he fought for, and the fact that he was a traitor and remained a traitor to our country. I don’t know as many details about the maternal side except they were part of the same regiment, except that they were not subject to conscription and as such all volunteered willingly to fight against the United States. For that is a problem, I find it hard to honor their military service because it was against the United States. There are no records that I know of, no letters that they wrote which say what they thought, and they are not “mentioned in dispatches” (the manner in which the Confederate Army honored soldiers) for any particular gallantry, in fact the history of the regiment mentions that my paternal family patriarch deserted in February of 1865. 

I do draw a distinction between the kinds of men that served in the Confederate Army. In particular I make a distinction between those that were eager volunteers for the Confederacy and those who were unwilling conscripted in the Confederate Draft beginning in early 1862 because the Confederate Army could not get enough willing volunteers. These men were drafted, often against their will. Most had no means to pay for a substitute or did not have political connections. Interestingly one of the notable exemptions to the Confederate Draft were the men who were exempted  because they owned more than ten slaves or worked for someone that owned more than 20 slaves. This was known as the Twenty Slave Rule, which modified in Draft Law of 1864 to 15 slaves. As you can imagine many poor Whites who owned no slaves found the rule to be quite unjust, but privilege is just that, quite unjust. 

As a result the conscripts were frequently abused by the willing volunteers and frequently deserted. When found, most were summarily executed following a Drumhead Trial. As the war became more desperate, deserters were summarily exectuted without trial. Hundreds of deserters from the Army of Northern Virginia were executed in the last months of the war by the direct order of Robert E. Lee simply because they were trying to go home to their families who had been displaced by the advance of Sherman’s army in Georgia and the Carolinas. These men were victims of the war and secessionist leaders as much as anyone. If you read some of their letters they are heartbreaking. 

Those who volunteered to serve the Confederate cause, especially men who had been officers in the United States Army or Navy no-matter their reason for serving the Confederacy, their gallantry as soldiers, battlefield heroics, leadership skills, or tactical brilliance were traitors to the United States. Yes they were Americans, and many had served honorably before the Civil War, but that makes them no less traitors. After the war a good number of the survivors reconciled with the Union, opposed the growing myth of the Lost Cause, and took no part in subsequent violence or in implementing discriminatory measures against the now free Blacks. Among the most prominent of these men were Lee’s lieutenants James Longstreet, Richard Ewell, John Mosby, and Billy Mahone. I have no doubt that A.P. Hill would have joined them had he not been killed in action at the end of the war, and following the war his widow opposed Jubal Early and other proponents of the Lost Cause. Robert E. Lee himself did reconcile and opposed the use of the Confederate flags, uniforms, and monuments. I will explore Lee’s actions before, during and after the war in another article that I have already started to draft. 

Interestingly, very few monuments, except those on battlefields are dedicated to these men in the South, except from Robert E. Lee who ironically wanted no part of them. Nor are there monuments in the South to Southern officers who remained loyal to the Union during the war including Generals Winfield Scott, George Thomas, John Buford, John Gibbon, Montgomery Miegs, and Admiral David Farragut. 

Likewise there is another class of men who have to be considered when dealing with the Monument Controversy. These were the political leaders whose actions led directly to the deaths of three quarters of a million men, including hundreds of thousands of Southern men, and the destruction of much of the South. How even the most devoted Southerner who wants to honor their soldiers can tolerate monuments to these leaders in their back yards is beyond me. These were also the men who ensured that every state legislature made sure that the primary reason they gave for secession in their various articles of secession was preserving and expanding slavery, while maintain white superiority. As Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens noted in his Cornerstone Speech:

“Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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.”

There is a final group that needs to be considered. These were Confederate veterans, including notables like General Nathan Bedford Forrest, as well as men who did not serve in the war who joined paramilitaries that terrorized and killed newly free blacks. There were others who established the Black Codes which were pre-Jim Crow laws that placed many former slaves into a form of slavery by other means, imprisoning them and making them forced laborers on plantations, and businesses, many owned by Northerners. 

Racism and slavery was at the heart of the war, and it was not just a Southern problem. Many Northern businesses and banks had a strong financial interest in slavery, and there was a strong anti-war, pro-Confederate movement in the North that fully approved of slavery, the post-war Black Codes, and Jim Crow. Likewise there were many Northerners who were just as racist before, during and after the war. There were and are still are many Sundown Towns in the North and states that were never a part of the Confederacy. In no way can Northerners be fully excused from the crime of slavery, nor can they be absolved of being as racist any pro-slavery Confederate or Jim Crow proponent. Some of these men have monuments built in their honor which likewise should be examined if we are going to talk about the Confederate monuments. 

As to the monuments themselves, the vast majority were erected after the Plessy v. Ferguson case that legalized the Jim Crow Laws and empowered the movement to disenfranchise blacks, to fire them from positions in Federal and State governments, and to use violence against Blacks to keep them in line. Almost all of the monuments which were erected between 1895 and 1930 were put up not to honor the men who served but to remind Blacks of their status. The same is true of the next major surge of monument building which occurred during the Civil Rights movement, again to demonstrate to Blacks that they were subordinate to Whites, and many of these monuments were erected in places where no Confederate soldiers came from, and others which commemorate men who committed terrorist acts and murder against Blacks in the years after the war. In many case these monuments are located in cities and towns that are heavily African American. Two of these are no far from where I live in Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia. They have different histories which I think leads to a discussion about their context. 

So, that is some of the background. I’ve written a lot about slavery, secession, and Jim Crow and will put some of those articles out again, and tomorrow I will have my proposal on what I think should be done with the various monuments. This will take into the context each type of monument and how to respectfully deal with them and how people feel about them, both opponents and supporters. In looking at what I wrote here the series may well be more than two parts. 

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+ 

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August 18, 2017 · 06:25

Basketball Court Update: An Activist is Born 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

What an exciting day to be alive and to do something that matters for kids. I have written a couple of times about what is going on in my neighborhood regarding getting the kids of our neighborhood a safe place to play. Since I have shared some of the background in those articles I’ll just tell you about the special meeting of our neighborhood association board of directors which was called to discuss the issue. 

Bottom line up front the board is now looking at ways to keep the courts open and plan for an eventful multi-use facility to replace the current tennis courts. The tennis courts are seldom used and the placement of temporary basketball hoops has resulted in a number of good things, although there are some problems which can be worked out. The really good thing is that the kids now have a safe place to play and don’t have to play in the streets since our parks are mostly covered with very nice lakes. In a number of surveys residents have voted by over a two to one margin to keep the courts. 

That being said, a couple of white ladies, including the lady that got me energized about this by coming to my do to complain and enlist me to help get the courts shut down got the first words in. They were negative and one told such a bold faced lie how two blocks away she could hear the kids cursing over her television that most people were shocked. The lady who complained to me went on her usual way to complain about the kids, but other than them most people were supportive and offered suggestions to the board that were generally well received. 

I got to speak to and I have to say that I was persuasive, witty, and even entertaining; and I’m sure that I offended those ladies and maybe a couple of other self-righteous would be dictators. But as Thomas Paine said: “He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” 

So I opened my comments somewhat irreverently, with  with the phrase “May it please the court.” I then introduced myself and noted how long we had lived in the neighborhood and noted that despite the fact that I was a Navy Chaplain with 36 years of military service that I was quite the liberal social justice activist. I then recounted how when I was in Iraq Judy had approached the board about basketball courts and was told by a board member “we have to keep undesirable elements out.”  That brought a gasp from some people and some a number of people nodded their approval. What the people back then said was that they didn’t want Black  kids playing there in so many words even though those are our neighborhood kids. I was able to point out the racism without even saying that word. 

So I continued and pointed pointed out that I wouldn’t have known about the controversy if the older lady hadn’t come to my door to complain about the kids, and pointed her out. That shook her up, she didn’t expect to get called out in public. Later the old bat tried to shut me down by saying “did you say I harassed you?” So I turned and addressed her for a quick moment, and said “yes you did and I won’t have any of it.”  At that the board President told me that I was not to address her but the board members per the rules of order. SoI replied “I do apologize, may it please the court, I was addressing you until she interrupted me so it’s only fair that I be allowed to tell her to shut up.” The board President allowed me to continue and I my words were surprisingly well received by at least half of the board and probably three quarters of the people in the room. 

My only regret is that I didn’t have Judy video my speech, which was longer, more eloquent, and funnier than the others, especially with my satire and ability to respond in the moment with my rapier wit, to the board, the audience, and the old bat. Likewise I didn’t have to threaten to go to the media, the city, or anything, I just spoke the truth and it wa quite the show. The kids and their parents loved it, some people even clapped when I sat down. I am so happy that we often binge watch our collection of all five seasons of Boston Legal. I have to say that I learned a lot from James Spader’s portrayal of attorney Alan Shore. 

The board voted down two motions to shut down the courts and has decided to come back to the issue and study how best to move forward. I volunteered to help out with the kids at closing time and will get a key from the manager tomorrow, heck, I may even get my own basketball to shoot some hoops and get to know them better. 

Over all it was a very nice first outing as a budding community social activist. As one of my friends told me a couple of weeks ago, this might be part of my post-Navy calling. I could see that and I am sure that social activism will be a big part of my life. 

So anyway, I have a couple of draft articles that I am working on and you’ll see those soon. One is about Robert E. Lee, of whose statues there has been so much controversy lately, and another dealing with how I think to best handle the statues. I’m going to hold that last one for a few days to let some of what happened in Charlottesville and other places calm down a bit so it can be read without all the current raw emotions of almost everyone including me overwhelming the message. I have some other articles that I will be producing as well on other hopefully less controversial topics. 

So anyway, until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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August 17, 2017 · 06:30

“Time to Oblterate the Marks of Civil Strife and the Feelings of Oblivion the Feelings it Engendered”  


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Just a short post today because I have become weary of cyber-battles with neo-Confederates and Alt-Right Nazis. That is not to say that I won’t stop fighting them, but don’t have a lot of energy to put into this post because of those battles. I guess it could be worse, I could be tired because I had spent the day getting real bullets fired at me by these people’s Confederate and Nazi ancestors. I have been shot at in combat by Iraqi insurgents, and no it is not fun, especially when you are the only guy there without a weapon. That being said, my ancestors on both sides of my family fought for the Confederacy, and those on my paternal side were slave owners, Confederate officers, and unrepentant rebels who would not reconcile themselves to the defeat of the Confederacy. 

Unlike my ancestors, Confederate General James Longstreet was honest with himself and to the causes of the war. He wrote this in 1867:

“The surrender of the Confederate armies in 1865 involved: 1. The surrender of the claim to the right of secession. 2. The surrender of the former political relations of the negro. 3. The surrender of the Southern Confederacy. These issues expired on the fields last occupied by the Confederate armies. There they should have been buried. The soldier prefers to have the sod that receives him when he falls cover his remains. The political questions of the war should have been buried upon the fields that marked their end.” 

I am going to write about my rather nuanced view of statues dedicated to Confederate soldiers or leaders in the next few days. I had a really good, and lengthy discussion today with a fellow officer and friend about that subject. When I write it my words will probably not make anyone completely happy because I am not an absolutist in my views. While I reject what my ancestors fought for I also know that there were Confederate soldiers who were drafted against their will, Southerners like George Thomas and John Buford, who fought for the Union, and Northerners who fought political battles against Abraham Lincoln and wanted the South to win its independence because it would be good for business, and because they were as racist as the most rabid slave power secessionist. There were also Confederates who after their defeat, including James Longstreet, John Mosby, and Billy Malone who reconciled with the United States, recanted their secessionist views, and were demonized as if they were Judas Iscariot by the leaders of the Lost Cause cult because they did so. 

Robert E. Lee, who as so many statues in his honor including the one in Charlottesville that the Neo-Nazis supposedly went to defend, made this comment regarding such things, he was not in favor of them because he did not think it wise to keep open the wounds of war. He said:

“I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.” 

The neo-Confederates would be wise to heed to his words and those of James Longstreet. 

But I’ll leave that until I write that article. 

Peace

Padre Steve+ 

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August 13, 2017 · 06:30

A Pivotal Moment: The Nazi “Beer Hall Putsch” in Charlottesville 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In light of the last two days of Alt-Right, or as it is more truthfully called Nazi violence and chaos in Charlottesville, Virginia, I am reminded of the words of General George Patton, “the Nazis are the enemy.” Over the last two days members of various New-Nazi, KKK, and other White Supremcist groups gathered in Charlottesville for what organizers called a “pro-white” rally. For the purposes of this article and for clarity’s sake, I’m just going to call all of them by the one ideology that they seem to agree on, Nazi. Some people might take umbrage to that characterization, but they can stick their umbrage up their asses. I’m not going to mince words, if people march with Nazis they are Nazis no matter what they call themselves, and any support given to them, even by omission, is giving aid and comfort to the enemies of America. 

On Friday night hundreds of Nazis marched through the campus of the University of Virginia carrying tiki-lamps as ersatz Nazi torches as they chanted “Blood and Soil,” “White lives matter!” “You will not replace us!” “Jews will not replace us!” And “Russia is our friend.” They also surrounded an African American church were people were gathered on Friday night. Saturday morning several dozen so-called militia members dressed in military style garb, wearing protective vests, and helmets, carrying assault rifles and other long guns marched through town allegedly to keep things from getting violent. But it did get violent, the Nazis clashed with some left-wing opponents and also assaulted peaceful anti-Nazi protesters, including one terrorist, a 20 year old white man from Ohio who drove his car into a peaceful crowed, killing one person and injuring nineteen. I’ll call the that man and the other violent Nazis terrorists,because that’s what they are. Later a Virginia State Police helicopter that had been observing the march crashed, killing both troopers. 

In a tweet President Trump condemned the violence and hatred “from all sides” but couldn’t be bothered to specifically call out the Nazis. It was a display of moral moral equivalency that will only embolden the Nazis. Yet even so former KKK Grand Master and perennial GOP candidate for elected office in Louisiana, David Duke called out the President in his own tweet, acknowledging the role that the Nazis, which he called “white people”‘ had in getting Trump elected, and saying that the rally “fulfills the promises of Donald Trump.” At the same time the Nazi Daily Stormer praised the words of the President and proclaimed the march “a victory of victories, this war has just begun… The Alt-Right has risen… There is no going back form this. This is our Beer Hall Putsch. this was the beginning of our revolution.” 

One of the Nazis at Charlottesville, “Michael Von Kotch, a Pennsylvania resident who called himself a Nazi, said the rally made him “proud to be white.” He said that he’s long held white supremacist views and that Trump’s election has “emboldened” him and the members of his own Nazi group. “We are assembled to defend our history, our heritage and to protect our race to the last man,” Von Kotch said, wearing a protective helmet and sporting a wooden shield and a broken pool cue. “We came here to stand up for the white race.” 

A few hours after his first tweet the President entered damage control mode and while he still could not call out the Nazis he tweeted “we must remember this truth: No matter what our color, creed, religion, or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST.” I agree with the President, but he didn’t condemn the damned Nazis, he went to a moral equivalence argument and blamed everyone and the Nazis loved it, as the Daily Stormer wrote afterward “he implied that there is hate… on both sides. So he implied the antifa (anti-fascists) are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all. Also refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.” 

After the march Richard Spencer and other organizers blamed opponents and the police for what happened and Spencer finished by threatening Charlottesville saying, “You think that we’re going to back down to this kind of behavior to you and your little provincial town? No,’’ he said. “We are going to make Charlottesville the center of the universe.” 

But over a week after another terrorist attack occurred, the bombing of a Mosque in Minnesota, Trump has yet to respond even as his aide Sebastian Gorka, who has his own ties to Fascist groups in Hungary stated that the attack might have been set by leftists in order to blame the right. Trump’s supporter in the conspiracy theory media, Alex Jones said that the violence was designed to “bring in martial law and ban conservative gatherings.” 

At least former Arkansas Governor and Trump supporter Mike Huckabee had the decency to remember something from his seminary days tweeting “White supremacy” crap is the worst kind of racism- it’s EVIL and a perversion of God’s truth to ever think our Creator values some above others.” Likewise Senator Orrin Hatch tweeted: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideals to go unchallenged here at home.” 

Personally I cannot understand why the President finds it so difficult to just speak the truth and call these people what they are, but I suspect that I know why. For years he has tweeted and spoke so many words that are the polar opposite of what was his latest tweet quoted above is, that when I listened to his comments they seemed unnatural and forced. It looked like he was reading from a script written by General Kelly that he didn’t believe but was forced to say, and even then it was far too little. I will leave it at that for now. 

But here is the deal. This is not a subject that I enter into without a decent knowledge of American history and racism in America. My first book, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory” Race, Religion, Ideology, and Poltics in the Civil War Era which hopefully will be published within the next year deals with the subject extensively. I know the history of American racism, the violence of the KKK, the White Leagues, the Red Shirts, and the White Liners, and their current descendants all too well to not call this out for what it is. 

What happened in Charlotte is going to keep happening until the President is willing to both condemn them and to take action against those who would use race supremacy to attempt to force the reinstatement of Jim Crow type laws on racism, and Know Nothing policies on immigration. The President will also have to do something about Gorka, Steven Bannon, and Stephen Miller, who all are key aides with long and strong ties to the Alt Right if he is to be taken seriously. Ulysses Grant was willing to make that hard call against White Supremacists despite bi-partisan opposition, but the President does not seem to be a Grant. 

This is a pivotal moment in our history. What we and our leaders do in response to the calls for an America based on the Blood and Soil doctrine of the new American Nazis matters to us all. Their aims are clear, and most have bet on the President to do their bidding. It will be a dark day if he does not stand against them. 

The Nazis by whatever name they call themselves are the enemy of every American who believes in that sacred proposition of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truth to be self-evident, all men are created equal…” This is something that one of the Alt-Right leaders who was at Charlottesville this weekend opposes. In a 2013 interview Spencer said “Our dream is a new society, an ethno-state that would be… based on very different ideals than, say, the Declaration of Independence.” But that is nothing new in this country, George Fitzhugh, one of the Slave industry and later one of the Confederacy’s leading spokesman condemned the Declaration saying:

“We must combat the doctrines of natural liberty and human equality, and the social contract as taught by Locke and the American sages of 1776. Under the spell of Locke and the Enlightenment, Jefferson and other misguided patriots ruined the splendid political edifice they erected by espousing dangerous abstractions – the crazy notions of liberty and equality that they wrote into the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Bill of Rights…” 

As the President said today, this has been around a long time, maybe he and his supporters should actually read the history and re-embrace the Declaration and that sacred proposition that the Nazis so thoroughly despise. 

Again, this is a pivotal moment in the life of our Republic. 

I’ll leave you with that.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 6, 2017 · 06:30

An Accidental Activist 


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I would have never thought that I would become a civil rights activist. I’ve been in the military my entire adult life and grew up in it as a child. I was raised with the concepts of loyalty, obedience, and honor as being central to my life. Likewise I have been a Christian pretty much all of my life, and a minister, priest, and chaplain for a quarter of a century. Typically when you mix military, Christian, and clergy the combination does not lead to one becoming a civil rights activist. 

But the long strange trip that has been my life to dates has thrust me into places that people like me seldom experience, much less live.  When I was in high school I was part of a school district that desegregated. There was a lot of opposition to it in the community, but my class at Edison High School, Stockton California, was as racially diverse as anyone could imagine and unlike many other places where the experiment went wrong, our class came together and made it work. Many of us have stayed in contact throughout the decades and our reunions are always well attended, we were, and still are, Soul Vikes. 

When left active duty to go to seminary and went into the National Guard, came to know what it is to be poor, to wonder where the next meal, rent payment, tank of gas, or money for prescription medicine might come from. I know what it is like to have a home foreclosed on, to have a car repossessed, to have bill collectors harass one day and night. To work full time with a college degree and not make a living wage because “good Christians” didn’t think seminary students deserved a living wage because they were not going to stay around after they were done with seminary. I know what it is to have lived in a crime and drug infested area in a rented house that did not have heat during the winter. I know what it is like to lose a job when mobilized to serve overseas, and have those that did it blacklist me among my profession when I complained to the Department of Labor when I returned home. 

Likewise, my profession as a military officer, first as a Medical Service Corps officer, and later as a Chaplain in the military and as a civilian hospital chaplain brought me into contact with people and experiences that I would not have had otherwise. I was assigned to help write the Army’s personnel policy for people with HIV and AIDS in 1987 and because I was the junior personnel officer I because the point of contact for every officer diagnosed with that dread disease. The experience made me realize that the people who got it, regardless of whether they were gay or straight were real human beings faced what was then a certain death sentence. So I started speaking up for them. 

When I was in seminary I worked for a social service organization working in the slums and barrios of San Antonio before moving to Fort Worth and for a time working as the administrative coordinator for a homeless shelter. 

When I finished seminary I ended up doing my hospital chaplain (Clinical Pastoral Education) residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. While most of my time was spent in the trauma-surgery department and the emergency rooms, I still dealt with many AIDS patients, some whose families rejected them, and if they were Gay, were also condemned by their families, pastors, and churches. While at Parkland I dealt with death every day, much of it violent, and I saw the vast disparity between those who had insurance and those who had to rely on charity or some kind of minimal government provided heath care program. 

When I came back from Iraq suffering from full-blown PTSD I came to understand what it was like to suffer depression, hopelessness, struggle with faith, and contemplate suicide. I also came to know what it was like to be ostracized and then kicked out of my church, and be sidelined by other Navy chaplains. 

As I struggled during the early stages of returning home and dealing with the craziness of PTSD my first therapist asked what I was going to do with my experience. I told him that regardless of the cost I would be honest and speak out. I started doing that with PTSD but soon as I was struck by how unjust I felt that I had been treated, and seeing others being treated the same way because of prejudice, whether it dealt with mental health, race, sexuality, religion, social or economic status, I began to speak up for them as well. Speaking up for the LGBTQ community, women, and Muslims, got me thrown out of the church I had served for 14 years as a Priest, but that only hardened my resolve to fight for others, even in my own neighborhood. 

That has continued now for almost a decade since I returned from Iraq. All of the experiences I had before then came more sharply into focus, and if you read this site regularly or scroll through my vault of over eight years of articles you will see how over the years I have continued to become more of an advocate for civil rights. But I think that this is something that my faith as a Christian and oath as an officer to the Constitution demands I do. The German pastor and martyr to the Nazis Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. That means that I have to fight the battle. 

Many of the causes that I fight for are not popular in Donald Trump’s America, but one cannot give up and be silent just because it is unpopular. Mahatma Gandhi said: “It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”

I have become an activist, I didn’t plan to become one, it just happened as a part of a very long long strange trip; one that is continuing in ways that I could never had imagined. When people ask how that can be when I am still serving as an officer I believe that my answer is found in the words of the German General, Ludwig Beck who died in the attempt to remove Hitler’s from power in July 1944. Beck wrote: “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.” 

So anyway, here I am an accidental activist. 

Until tomorrow, 

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 4, 2017 · 06:30

Fighting for Justice in My Neighborhood Update: Let Freedom Ring and I Have not Yet Begun to Fight


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today I made the first step against the racists in our neighborhood who on Wednesday succeeded in convincing the man who put the basketball hopes in our neighborhood to take them down. 

I called the neighborhood association office as soon as it opened this morning to ask what the hell was going on and to express my displeasure in what happened. I’m not going to go into detail today, but according to the lady who works in the office the hoops will come back this weekend. She told me about the alleged complaints and I told her what I had dealt with for a certain older white lady in the neighborhood last week. She knew exactly who I was talking about and she mentioned some of the complaints that were being made against the kids. So I told her about how much worse that I and the kids in the various neighborhoods that I grew up in behaved compared to these kids, and then said but we were white kids in a white neighborhood. She remained silent after that. 

But I was reminded of a story that my late dad told me about a man in his neighborhood in Huntington, West Virginia, who harassed kids for playing in the neighborhood. After being harassed and screamed at by the old man who lived on 18th Street Hill, my dad, his twin brother, and their friends waited until after dark one night when the man went into his outhouse. Once the hatful old geezer was safely in the outhouse they gathered around and pushed it down the hill, with him in it. Then they ran away, and never got caught. To me that was impressive. It wasn’t that they were bad kids, it was just that the old fart was an asshole. Sadly, we have indoor plumbing and no hills in my neighborhood or I would d what my dad and uncle did to the old racist bitch who has caused this situation in my neighborhood. 

But instead of just simply complaining and being a part of the problem I offered a solution. I offered to open and close the gate of the court, and spend time with the kids to make sure things were cleaned up at night and the area was secure. I have other neighbors who are willing to do the same. I also said that the association needs to post the rules about the use of the courts and reiterated my belief that since the developers and city haven’t done anything to give our kids a safe place to play that it was our responsibility to do so. I got no argument. I also announced my intention to run for one of the vacant seats on the homeowners association board of directors. For years people have asked me to do that but I didn’t want to, I just wanted to mind my own business. 

But now it’s different. My wife and I have an investment in this neighborhood. Though I have been deployed, been assigned as a geographic bachelor, and travelled a lot because of my military duties, Judy has lived here for fourteen years and we have been homeowners paying dues to the association for twelve years. We don’t have kids, but the kids of our neighborhood are our kids, and I will be damned if I stand by and let them be treated like crap, as less than human by people who should know better, 

I am hoping that the association will take up my offer and that of my friends to help the kids of our neighborhood. They are good kids, they just need a safe place to play, and if we as homeowners and association members cannot facilitate that then what the hell good are we?

I have become a civil rights activist over the years. I will fight for these kids who are mostly African American, I will fight for women, LGBTQ people, and immigrants. I believe in the proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  To me that means everyone, including the black kids of my neighborhood. They are my neighbors and they are the children of God as much as anyone else. 

That may make me unpopular in some circles but I no longer give a damn, because I share the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…” 

I re-read Dr. King’s speech last night and as I did tears welled up from my eyes. In fact I had a hard time containing them as I read the majestic cadence of his words: 

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And let me add, Let freedom ring in the suburbs of Virginia Beach Virginia and on on a unused tennis court on which kids can safely play basketball. 

And as Doctor King concluded:

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

As of now I don’t need to go to my city council member, I don’t yet need to go to the NAACP, ACLU, or the local media, but if I have to I will. I will run for one of those vacant seats on the board and I will speak out every day until I see the dream of Doctor King realized in my neighborhood. 

I will not stop speaking out and I will work with my neighbors to do the right thing for our kids, the thing that developers, the city, and homeowners associations don’t do around here because honestly they really don’t give a damn about the kids. That is evident in the way the these neighborhoods were designed, with lakes, golf courses, and tennis courts, but no ball fields or basketball courts. Don’t get me wrong, I like the lakes, and the golf course, but why the hell should the kids have to play on the streets while unused tennis courts sit idle instead of being converted into basketball courts and a skateboard park? It wouldn’t be that hard, but some of my neighbors don’t want the kids here, so I am standing up today for the kids. I am not going to stop speaking out and I will be part of the solution, not just a complainer. If I am going to complain then I need to be part of the solution or I am no better than the people who do all that they can to oppress others. Actions speak louder than words. 

Anyway. Thank all of you for your kind and inspirational words on this website, on Facebook, and on Twitter. 

Spread the word my friends because in the words of the American naval hero, John Paul Jones, “I have not yet begun to fight.” 

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+ 

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