Tag Archives: president donald trump

November 1, 2017 · 23:48

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

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 30, 2017 · 23:58

Character and Leadership: Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Trump

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 23, 2017 · 23:59

The Kelly Kerfuffle

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I was sad when I saw retired Marine General John Kelly and current Chief of Staff to President Donald Trump debase himself in order to defend the President’s remarkers to a pregnant and now widowed wife of a fallen Green Beret. But let me explain, because context is everything when dealing with a situation like this.

But please let me preface my comments by explaining a bit of my background. I have spent most of my life in military society and have been formed by my experiences as a Navy Brat, seventeen and a half years in the Army, Army National Guard and Reserve, and another almost nineteen years in the Navy in which I have served over six years with the Marines and another four years in Joint assignments. I was born in a Navy hospital in 1960 and the military has been my life. From the time I was a young child it was my desire to serve in the military. When I got old enough to join my parents talked me out of enlisting immediately after high school to check out college. I did that, met the girl that became my wife, and realized that I still desired to serve in the military. Thirty-six years after first swearing into the Army in August 1981 I still serve. I have made multiple deployments, suffer from severe PTSD and other afflictions but I neither regret any part of my service nor think that somehow my service makes me any more of a patriot than people who love this country and serve in other ways. My brother has never served in the military but he is a stellar school administrator in a very challenging school district and his wife is a teacher. Neither of them has served in the military but there is no doubt that they love the country and have made sacrifices to serve the people of my hometown when they could have done other things.

First let me say that while he was on active duty I both respected and admired General Kelly, especially after his son, a Marine Corps Lieutenant was killed in action while serving in Afghanistan in 2010. His loss is some ways, from a personal point of view unimaginable to me because I have never fathered any children and thus never experienced the loss of a son. I have sat with hundreds of fathers and mothers who have lost their children from all kinds of reasons including war to understand their loss from a clinical and pastoral standpoint but I cannot completely empathize because I never had a child or lost one.

Unfortunately, at least from my point of view General Kelly jumped the shark in attempting to defend the words of an unapologetic, and at least from all I have read, uncaring, President Trump. Honestly there is nothing that General Kelly could have done to salvage our the situation for the President unless the President himself had done something to apologize or to defuse the situation before it blew up. All the President had to do, even if he was sincere about it, was to say, “I didn’t mean to come across the way that I and do care for you. Please if I can do anything to help during these terrible times let me know, I will,stand by you as long as you need and will make sure that you are not forgotten.” But the President can admit no fault and blames everyone else for his mistakes, missteps, and outright fuck-ups. Because of that General Kelly should have said nothing and simply worked to contain the damage of the President, but he and the White House Press Secretary poured gasoline on the fire.

Despite being a Gold Star father he showed no empathy to the wife of the Green Beret, Mrs. Johnson. Instead he launched into a speech about the decline in traditional values, including respect for women (which the three times married, lecherous, and misogynistic President has never himself imbibed in). General Kelly then made his statement an ad hominem political attack on Congresswoman Frederica Wilson of Florida who listen to the call which riding with Sergeant Johnson’s widow. General Kelly, who had not been a target of any criticism then went to the defense of the President, insulted her, deprecated her, and was hugely and factually wrong in criticizing her remarks at an FBI building dedication in 2015, which was proven by video recordings of her comments in 2015. He also made a qualitative judgment about the value of those who have served in the military and those who haven’t. It was as he said, if you haven’t served I neither respect you or value your opinion. His comments sounded much like Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) in A Few Good Men.

In answering questions about General Kelly’s comments White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders basically told critics of Kelly:”If you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.” But General Kelly is now retired. He serves in a civilian capacity and by the way no General or Admiral, active, Reserve, or retired is above criticism in our form of government and it is why that the founders had a deep distrust of military establishments and the machinations of Generals in politics. But Mr. Kelly does not seem to appreciate that distinction.

Conservative Republican columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote:

“Recognition is now sinking in that Kelly is not so different than all the other politicians and officials who come in contact with Trump. To serve him requires suspension of integrity, and therefore those who serve become morally corrupted.”

That is not good. Elliot Cohen who served in the Bush White House said that Sanders’s comments were “a statement worthy of Wilhelmine Germany at its worst.”

What Mr. Kelly did was to throw gasoline on an already raging fire, and to act more as a politician by launching attacks on a congresswoman who heard the conversation that as someone trying to be the adult in the room. I can imagine that he has not really gotten over the loss of his son and that he is still hurting, and like many of us who served, often blames civilians who have never served in the military, especially at war, as part of the problem. However, it was the military after the Vietnam War who in conjunction with legislators from both parties that helped design this all-volunteer military in the mid-1970s.

Please do not get me wrong, but Mr. Kelly hurt his reputation and moral standing by wading into the fray.

So anyway, I could write more from other perspectives but I will wait.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 20, 2017 · 14:18

What I Signed Up For: Reflections on “What I Signed Up For”

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I enlisted in the Army National Guard about the same time I entered the Army ROTC program at UCLA in August 1981. When I enlisted I did so knowing that if I successfully got through all of my training that I would not only put myself in harms way, but be responsible for the life of the soldiers who served under my command. Back then there was much to worry about. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, the Middle East was in turmoil following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, while it appeared that the United States and the Soviet Union were on the precipice of a war which could destroy the world.

Once I was commissioned and stationed in Germany, all of my training, and all of our war plans had my house in the middle of a war that had it happened would have resulted in seventy to ninety percent casualties for my unit. In fact, I had signed up to die should a war break out. Thirty-six later, having been to war, I still know my duty as a military officer should a war like that which was imagined when I first enlisted and was commissioned should occur, I must be ready to die. The fact that I am already goofed up from PTSD and moral injury is irrelevant, I have to be ready to go to war and accept my fate.

That being said, my wife Judy didn’t sign up for that. So when I see and hear about politicians who dodged the draft like our current President tell a grieving widow of a Green Beret that he signed up for that, I get annoyed. It was a cruel thing for him to say, even if he meant well.

The fact is that I have been present at far too many death notifications, both military and civilian. Honestly there are very few good words one can say at such times and I have known, and I myself have totally screwed up when trying to go further than simply expressing my condolences and offering my help. Once a leader enters into the realm of trying to justify or soften the death of a military member it usually does not go well, especially when they are emotionally disconnected and cannot deal with the human cost of war, suffering and death, as seems to be the case with President Trump when he made a condolence call to the widow of Army Sergeant LaDavid Johnson. That call, the response of Mrs. Johnson, Sergeant Johnson’s mother, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, and the President’s lashing out at their criticism had ignited a firestorm that I wish had never occurred. It also points to the danger when anyone attempts to comfort loved ones who died in war, particularly when so few people have had to deal with the anguish of war.

When people like this make notifications or condolence calls as was the case here, their emotional disconnect often leads to painfully awkward and sometime very damaging experiences for the person on the receiving end of the call. While the young Green Beret volunteered for such duty he most certainly understood the risks, but that is not the point. I signed up knowing the risks and took many extra ones by volunteering for dangerous assignments, usually only telling Judy after the fact, but then a lot of us are that way, but like it or not the fact that we know what we signed up for is but cold comfort to a grieving widow. That is not what they want to hear, their husbands may have known what they were signing up for and maybe even pushed the danger envelope, but telling the grieving widow that does nothing to mitigate their loss. When offering condolences the best advice is just to try to be there emotionally with the person, to listen to their grief, to express sympathy, and to offer to be there to help; or if you are the President to make a solemn promise to ensure they get what they need and to get to the bottom of what caused the death of their loved one.

Honestly, since he didn’t comment or even issue the press release that was written for him, I believe that he made this call in order to control the political damage done by his previous inaction. Likewise, I don’t think that the President meant to come across as uncaring, or unfeeling to Mrs. Johnson, and when he was criticized he did what he always does, he lashes out. That is who he is, that is what he is and sadly I don’t think that he has the capacity to learn from his mistakes or to change. I don’t think that he truly has the capacity to enter into the emotional world of what military personnel in harms way deal with or what their families experience.

But like I said at the beginning of this, when a President who dodged the draft and avoided military service makes a comment like what Mr. Trump did, it adds context to what was said. I can understand why Mrs. Johnson would take it as an insult to her husband’s service. In the context of Mr. Trump it is not hard to understand why people would be outraged. He compared avoiding sexually transmitted diseases to what combat veterans went through, demeaned the service of a legitimate war hero, Senator John McCain, called military personnel who suffer from PTSD “weak”, and who before his election disparaged those who have fought our wars as losers. He is a man who has said that he “loves war” but who avoided military service at all costs.

I found this whole event discouraging from a personal perspective because while I do not believe that the President meant to to be disrespectful to Mrs. Johnson, she did take it that way, as would many widows. His response of going on the attack after being criticized was worthy of condemnation. I have served under six Presidents including President Trump and I cannot imagine Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, or Barack Obama responding to the grief of a widow in such an overtly self defensive, calculating, and politically expedient act in terms of shoring up his base as did President Trump.

I also what will happen when the President either through accident or intent stumbles into a war on the Korean Peninsula or the Persian Gulf that kills many more Americans in a shorter time than in the Korean War or World War Two. I am reminded of the words of General John Buford played by Sam Elliott:

“We will charge valiantly… and be butchered valiantly! And afterwards, men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and say what a brave charge it was.”

I know what I signed up for up for. Judy and I talk about these things and after knowing me for almost forty years she understands me better than anyone. We were talking about the possibility of war a couple of weeks ago and she asked “will you resign or retire?” I said that I couldn’t because my place would to be with the troops. She said. “I knew that.” That doesn’t mean that she would take someone who said “he knew what he signed up for” better than Sergeant Johnson’s wife. In time she might be able to deal with that, but not in the immediate aftermath from someone who avoided war, suffering, and danger at every opportunity.

I hope that she never has to deal with that, but we live in an unpredictable world and have a very unpredictable and unstable man leading our nation.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 14, 2017 · 23:59

I Will Bear True Faith and Allegiance: Patriotism and Protest

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Twain said some words that all should hold dear:

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

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

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

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

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

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 12, 2017 · 23:59

A Sociopath and His “Christian” Enablers

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

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

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

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

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

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

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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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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October 9, 2017 · 06:30

The NFL and the Problem of Patriotism versus Nationalism

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I thought that the controversy over the peaceful demonstrations of athletes kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial prejudice and violence committed against African Americans and other people was beginning to die down. That was before today when Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Indianapolis allegedly to watch a football came and see former Indianapolis Colt’s quarterback Peyton Manning be honored by the team. Instead, taking his orders from President Trump, the Vice President traveled to the game and walked out when members of the San Francisco 49ers knelt during the National Anthem. Thereafter the Vice President and the President went to Twitter to castigate the players and using taxpayer money, in this case over $200,000 to make their point, condemning the protesting players as being disrespectful to the flag and to the military. As labor leader Eugene Debs noted in 1918: ““In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”

The act was an act of craven political nationalism disguised as patriotism, and there is a difference between the two. George Orwell noted this when he wrote “Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.” Sadly I fear that the vast majority of Americans do not know the difference.

For those who don’t know I’m a veteran. In fact I’m a combat veteran. Not only that I am basically a dinosaur in today’s military as I’ve been serving continuously in some component of the military since I enlisted in August 1981. My oath is to the Constitution and that document enshrines the right of free speech and political protest, even of people that I may disagree with, and to see the President and Vice President flagrantly demonizing people for peacefully expressing their beliefs, and exercising those Constitutionally protected rights by kneeling during the national anthem not only offends, but angers me. Likewise the fact that the President found every way he could to avoid military service and openly mocked combat wounded veterans as losers during the Presidential campaign demonstrates the President’s hackneyed understanding of what he calls patriotism. 

My dad also served a full career in the U.S. Navy including a combat tour in Vietnam where he was assigned to an emergency airstrip in the city of An Loc, surrounded by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong for 80 days.

I also had relatives fight in both World Wars and one of my great uncles, a brother of my dad’s mother was killed in action serving as an infantryman during World War Two. Over the last sixteen years of war I have had a good number of friends and comrades die or suffer so much from the psychological and spiritual wounds of war that they later ended their lives.

As such, I have the highest regard for the armed forces of the United States and those who have served in them whether they be volunteers or if they were drafted. At the same time I don’t think that simply being a veteran makes one any more patriotic than someone who hasn’t served in uniform and I find it disgraceful that the military and those that serve are all too often reduced to stereotyped symbols that are used for partisan political causes which are not at all related to patriotism, but instead the most base and banal forms of nationalism, often paid for at sporting events by the Department of Defense.

Please understand that patriotism and nationalism are two different things. One can be a patriot and not a nationalist. That difference was first shown by the members of Congress and other elder statesmen of the country who between 1846 and 1848 opposed President James K. Polk’s unjust and shameful war against Mexico who included John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and a freshman Congressman named Abraham Lincoln. All were called traitors by Polk and his supporters. Military men serving in Mexico found the war criminal and the actions of state volunteers abominable. Ulysses S. Grant, then a young Lieutenant wrote that the Mexican war was “as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”

Patriots want the country and our leaders to live up to our highest ideals. Patriots actually believe the words of the Declaration of Independence which state “We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.” A patriot believes and works for what the founders wrote in the First Amendment to the Constitution regarding freedom of speech, religion, association, and the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and yes, that includes kneeling during the National Anthem.

Likewise a patriot is committed to building upon those foundations as Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

While those who served in the military and those who have died to protect this county and honored the Constitution are worthy of respect, there have been far to many other patriots who have sacrificed themselves for the ideals of the country and have been treated as criminals for doing so. Those who fought against slavery and who defied the law to fight against it and to protect African Americans from slave owners who were backed by the government were patriots. Women who fought for the right to vote were patriots. Workers who fought for fair wages and safe working conditions. Men and women who protested and opposed unjust wars against Native Americans, the War with Mexico, the Spanish American War, the Vietnam War and the U.S invasion of Iraq were all patriots. Likewise the men and women who have stood up for the civil rights of all citizens often in the face of violent opposition from police were patriots too. 

This list could go in and on listing the patriotic endeavors of Americans of all races, all genders, and all religions to promote the liberty of all, whether they had ever served in the military. Frederick Douglass wrote: “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason… Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

However, nationalism is not the same as patriotism even though a fervent nationalists will without hesitation co-opt the symbols of the nation for purposes that were feared by our founders. Historian Timothy Snyder makes a good comparison of patriotism and nationalism:

“A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.” A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”

One can have honest disagreement as to what they think of the actions of the protesting players, but to deride them as being unpatriotic even as they use the flag as a campaign fundraising tools as the President did in an ad last week and the Vice President’s cynical move Sunday were shameful. Their nationalism reminds me of what Mark Twain called “Monarchical Patriotism” which he noted was different than republican patriotism. Twain wrote:

“There are two kinds of patriotism — monarchical patriotism and republican patriotism. In the one case the government and the king may rightfully furnish you their notions of patriotism; in the other, neither the government nor the entire nation is privileged to dictate to any individual what the form of his patriotism shall be. The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: “The King can do no wrong.” We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: “Our country, right or wrong!” We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had:– the individual’s right to oppose both flag and country when he (just he, by himself) believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism.”

We as a people have become so hopelessly confused as to the meaning of patriotism that we as Twain noted, are throwing away the most valuable assets we have, the right of the individual to oppose both flag and country when they believe them to be wrong. We have allowed the President and those like him to turn the protests regarding injustices that bring shame to our republic to be attacks on the flag and the military, and that is grotesque. We are throwing away our birthright as Americans to protest wrong in our land and are embracing the creed of tyrants. If we continue down this path we will lose our republic. 

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 8, 2017 · 06:35

The Authoritarian String of Tricks: Learning from History

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It has been a bit under ten months since President Trump took the oath of office as President of the United States. Over that time his actions have been similar to other leaders of history who have gravitated towards authoritarian rule. Today I want to share the words of British military theorist and historian B.H. Liddell-Hart on what happens when authoritarian, or would be authoritarian leaders gain control of a government. His words, from his short, but profound book Why Don’t We Learn from History are worth the considered read for anyone with an open mind who can, despite the proliferation of propaganda can still see clearly. Liddell-Hart wrote:

They soon begin to rid themselves of their chief helpers, “discovering” that those who brought about the new order have suddenly become traitors to it.

They suppress criticism on one pretext or another and punish anyone who mentions facts which, however true, are unfavourable to their policy.

They enlist religion on their side, if possible, or, if its leaders are not compliant, foster a new kind of religion subservient to their ends.

They spend public money lavishly on material works of a striking kind, in compensation for the freedom of spirit and thought of which they have robbed the public.

They manipulate the currency to make the economic position of the state appear better than it is in reality.

They ultimately make war on some other state as a means of diverting attention from internal conditions and allowing discontent to explode outward.

They use the rallying cry of patriotism as a means of riveting the chains of their personal authority more firmly on the people.

They expand the superstructure of the state while undermining its foundations by breeding sycophants at the expense of self-respecting collaborators, by appealing to the popular taste for the grandiose and sensational instead of true values, and by fostering a romantic instead of a realistic view, thus ensuring the ultimate collapse, under their successors if not themselves, of what they have created.

This political confidence trick, itself a familiar string of tricks, has been repeated all down the ages. Yet it rarely fails to take in a fresh generation.

Yes it has been nearly ten months and one can see President Trump following the script of authoritarian rulers. So many of the things that the British historian and theorist noted are present in the actions, words, and policy of the President and his administration.

The book is worth the read.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 6, 2017 · 23:41

Political Folly and the Lust for Power

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Note: this was inadvertently posted in incomplete for late last night as I closed up my iPad thinking I would complete it today. This is the completed article.

I have been to war. I have been shot at and had rockets pass over my head. I have seen the wounded, and I have seen the devastation caused by war. Likewise I have also trained and prepared for worse worse than I served in. Back in the 1980s the unit that I commanded, the 557th Medical Company (Ambulance) had the mission of helping to support the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment on the Fulda Gap. They and we were expected to take 75-90% casualties if the Soviets came over the border. I have to tell you that you haven’t really had to contemplate the reality of war if your neighborhood is not in the fallout pattern of nuclear weapons or the contamination zone of chemical or biological weapons. Mine was, thus ever since I was a young Army Lieutenant I have had a tremendous appreciation for what could happen if all hell broke loose and a worse case war scenario developed. For me it is not that hard to imagine worst case scenarios.

Sadly, that does not seem to be the case with President Trump. He seems hell bent at forcing the military to provide him with expressly demands faster military options for whatever he is planning; he mocks his Secretary of State’s efforts to use diplomacy to defuse the growing crisis on the Korean Peninsula, a crisis that he has made worse by taunting the North Korean leader; he is about to end an agreement with Iran which with the cooperation of our allies has been relatively successful in spite of Iran’s other provocative actions in the Arabian Gulf, in Syria, and in Yemen.

Despite the President’s rhetoric there has been no significant strengthening of the military since he took office. In fact the President’s policies are further stretching a force that spent the better part of a decade and a half wearing itself out in counterinsurgency campaigns that knew no end and cannot be won without the host nations being stable and secure enough to address the underlying causes of the insurgency. Now those forces are being tasked to go back and get ready for potential high intensity conflicts in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The military is not the solution for every situation. This is something that those of us with significant military experience in peace and war, and who have studied the fundamentals of strategy and strategic thinking using history, economics, political science, geography, science and technology, diplomacy, and information know this. Sun Tzu wrote: “He who relies solely on warlike measures shall be exterminated; he who relies solely on peaceful measures shall perish.” It is in choosing which elements of national power to gain advantage without war where true success lies, as Sun Tzu noted “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

There are a host of elements of national power, and for the President to be enamored with just one, the most costly and the destructive is foolish. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as “the most flagrant of all the passions.” Because it can only be satisfied by power over others, government is its favorite field of exercise. Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.”

One can see how the lust for power infected President Trump and how business was not enough to satisfy that need, and how even the domestic power of being President is not enough. To me it appears that the President like so many before him sees glory in war conquest and does not consider the cost. When he told reporters that they “could be watching the calm before the storm” and when asked what he meant said “you’ll find out,” not just once but a number of times going into the next day it was unnecessary and unnerving.

Honestly it seems to me that the President through his words and actions is sowing the wind and that in time we will reap the whirlwind unless sane and wise counsel prevails. I do see that senior military leaders are stating their differences with the President on policy matters and one hopes that they if no one else will be able to restrain the President who cannot stomach criticism, attacks his opponents and seems to desire affirmation and not information.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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