Justice, Texas-Style

Like everyone, there are things I like to hate. One of my favorites is the state of Texas...well, almost all of the state of Texas. I will grant favored-city status to Austin, where my aunt and uncle used to live and my cousin still does and where there is an oasis of enlightenment in a desert of materialism and ignorance. Oh, occasionally, the people of Houston will elect a gay woman as sheriff or something else will happen that dampens my enthusiasm for hating Texas, Texans, and everything about The Lone Star State. Texas gave us Bill Moyers, the American I would most like to have a beer with. But he's left Texas far behind now. Then, there's Jim Hightower, one of the funniest and most liberal Texans I know, now that Molly Ivins no longer freshens those barren confines (if you can call anything about Texas physically confining)or any other.

Texas is the state that gave us George Herbert Walker Bush and his morally-challenged son, George Walker Bush, as Presidents of the United States in exchange for taking the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Some swap! Texas also gave us John Tower, Tom DeLay, Phil Gramm, and Dick Armey--the Four Coarsemen of the Texapocalypse. Texas is the only state whose legislative minority has been the object of a manhunt by the Department of Homeland Security ordered by the legislative majority. They execute more prisoners, summarily shoot more Mexicans (at the hand of Texas Rangers, circa 1900), allow more air and water pollution, pray at more public high school football games, and rear more bigots than any other state in the union.

Just this week, two stories broke in the news that reminded me, once again, of how much I hate Texas and Texans--

The first concerns a certain young lady--a McCain/Palin campaign worker, as the story goes--who claimed that she was assaulted, raped, and disfigured by a tall, black man who was upset because she had a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on her car. Matt Drudge picked up the story first, followed by a few newspapers. Soon, the McCain campaign was demagogueing the story in an effort to raise doubt in the minds of undecided voters as to who the REAL OBAMA is. Then, the whole thing collapsed when the young woman admitted that the entire story was made up. While the fictional event took place in Pittsburgh--another geographic location that seems to have its share of bigots--the disturbed young "victim" was from...try to guess...Texas.

The second horror story comes from Paris, Texas, where racism has been institutionalized. There, in September, two white men returning from a beer run across the border into Oklahoma (Paris is apparently a place where sanctimoniousness about using alcohol is more valued than the life of a black man) drove their Dodge pickup over their dark-skinned drinking buddy and dragged his body along the two-lane highway until body parts littered their wake.

One of the accused white men had been previously found guilty of shooting another "friend" in the head three times while trying to ward off "two black men" who were attempting to rob the two white guys in the (same?) truck. The black would-be robbers were never located.

According to the byzantine and bizarre machinations of Texas justice, the shooter, who was defended by the county district attorney appointed as his public defender, plead to a lesser charge of manslaughter and served a little over a year of a four-year sentence. The victim in the more recent "black buddy as road kill" case testified on behalf of the very man who may have driven the truck that later killed him, hoping to provide him an alibi. For his trouble, the African-American was convicted of aggravated perjury and spent two years in jail, nearly double what the white murderer served.

Last year, also in Paris, Texas, a 14-year-old black girl was sentence to seven years in detention for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. Just three months earlier, the same judge had sentenced a white 14-year-old girl to probation after finding her guilty of setting fire to her parents' house. Only pubic outrage at the injustice led to the release of the black defendant.

Texas never disappoints when it comes to Third-Word kinds of outrages. In fact, I feel a little bad about lumping Bolivia in with Texas. If I had my way, I would offer to rent Texas back to Mexico for the cost of tearing down the wall that now separates the two. Of course, I would require that businesses in Texas remain open to provide jobs for the former "illegal aliens" who would now have their own "state". Whites who had no real business responsibility could freely emigrate northward. When Texas was no longer a majority white "state", we would terminate the lease and welcome the new 50th state back into the fold, now transformed into a civilized society.

What Makes People Vote Republican?

First, I want to explain why I have posted so infrequently here over the past month. My husband, Laurin, has been having health issues which has necessitated numerous trips to visit hospitals or doctors. He has fainting spells, episodes of inarticulateness, and early signs of Alzheimer's Disease or senile dementia. In addition, after a long period of procrastination, I have finally agreed to downsize to a smaller, less expensive apartment. We will be moving right after Thanksgiving and I have much work to do to liquidate my vast and virtually worthless collection of movies on now-passe forms of home reproduction. Both of these have taken much of my time and energy. I won't promise anything for the future, except that I need to do this writing to sustain my soul. Please do check back from time to time.

The title of this post is taken from an article written for Alternet.org by Jonathan Haidt, associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia. Prof. Haidt has done original research on how people process information concerning actions that might be characterized as disgusting or disrespectful, specifically involving objects of affection, such as pets, or patriotic symbols, such as the American flag. He concludes, firstly, that when people react viscerally to something that someone has done or said, reason seldom enters into their response. As Haidt puts it, "feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so." Haidt goes on to argue that Democrats often fail to grasp this concept, picking candidates who sound professorial in their extensive use of facts and figures.

Haidt's second principle is that morality--the base subject of his research--is not just about how we treat each other, as liberals claim, but is also about strengthening traditional institutions which bind disparate people together as a society and living in a way that reveres the sacred and respects the noble nature of mankind. It is this aspect of morality that Haidt claims Democrats "just don't get". By dismissing this position as "narrow-minded, racist, or dumb", Democrats, according to Haidt, fail to grasp that "politics is more like religion than it is like shopping [for policy positions that will convince 51% of voters to buy]". Politics is like religion because "across eras and cultures...they are about the same thing: performing the miracle of converting individuals into a group".

One illustrative example that I have found for looking at these contrasting moral views centers around the very hot topic of marriage between individuals of the same sex. Liberals (I prefer to speak in terms of liberal vs. conservative rather than Democrat vs. Republican) believe that same-sex marriage equality is a matter of fairness, because all people are entitled to the same treatment under the US Constitution. Social conservatives, on the other hand, see same-sex marriage as a threat to "traditional marriage, the chief building block of society". They would put the moral value of a culture or tradition ahead of what they see as individual freedom to do as one pleases.

President Clinton used to sell his welfare reform proposal with words such as, "if you play be the rules, you should be able to enjoy the advantages of the good life". This was a coded message to conservatives that people should be expected to work for a living and not become dependent upon government handouts. For gay couples who wish to marry, this would analogize to "if you want to marry, marry someone of the opposite sex". Other examples would be, "if you want to live here, you must enter the country legally and learn the language" or "this is a Christian nation, if you want to have equal rights around your beliefs, you must convert to Christianity".

For conservatives, the only moral question is "How well does this individual fit into the norms of society?" This means obeying the rules (laws) as they have been on the books from the days of the Founding Fathers--at least, as far as the conservative mind understands them. I say this because many conservatives seem to feel that the rules were set by the Founding Fathers for all time and it is forbidden to change them in any way (think: Scalia, Bork, Thomas). Other rules were set by God in the Garden of Eden and are not to be modified as long as someone in some pulpit somewhere still finds them useful.

This, indeed, seems to be the Achilles' Heel of the conservative moral position as Haidt outlines it and as I believe it often functions in society today:

While it is good for our society to be bound together through sharing of common culture, values, morality, rules, etc., the binding is only as strong as the buy-in. Rules are established by the "ruling class" to establish order and protect the status quo. The "commonality" that is nurtured, even revered, is that which assures the security of those in possession of power and wealth. Our Founding Fathers and Mothers felt the need to break away from the power of King George III to bind British society together through the force of the monarchy and the church, which were inextricably bound together. There is nothing more "American" than to sever the binds that tie freedom to oppression.

In my lifetime, I have seen the tremendous changes brought about by the desire of African-Americans, women, sexual minorities, and, now, undocumented immigrants to break free from the unworkable tethers of tradition that have exploited them. Yes, it is moral to seek to avoid disorder, violence, and anarchy by setting a floor on human behavior. It may even be desirable to define what is sacred and attempt to establish a modicum of conformity as to how that should be honored. Where I differ from those on the right is in the relative value to be put on order vis-a-vis oppression. Even Jesus said that the most important rules to be remembered are to do unto others as you would have them do unto you and to love God with all your being. All else is, as someone has said, dicta.

Therefore, I say, what is the harm in telling people where and how to vote in two languages? Is how they receive the message that, in a democracy, it is important to vote more moral than that they actually are able to vote? Is the sex of the person I marry more of a moral imperative than the fact of my love and devotion? Is it more moral to be "color-blind" than to atone for centuries of slavery? Does honoring thy father and mother mean not reporting parental abuse? Does respecting the purity of young girls require consigning them to ignorance about birth control and then forcing them to bear a child they neither want nor are able to care for?

I agree with Haidt that healing the divide among Americans requires a "clear and oft-repeated commitment to guarding the precious coherence of the whole", that "America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom". But I also believe that the morality we must consider as most sacred, most deserving of respect, most worthy of holding in high authority is that which underlies the symbol of our flag, the fire in the belly of our founding fathers, the honor of our military, and the resonance of our common language. To place greater value on the institution than its raison d'etre is to remove oneself from the root of all morality and demean the commonweal through the use of rote rules to divide rather than unify and preserve the current power structure rather than open the doors of opportunity to the disenfranchised.

Welcome, Staceyann

Thanks for checking out my modest blog. I hope you find something here that interests you. I would welcome your comments...as long as you're honest. (C;

Guns don't make a man, only misery

“We’re here tonight to make sense of the senseless.”

So said the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, to an overflow crowd of 1000 at a special service for the dead and wounded of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN.

To end the service, which was held at neighboring Second Presbyterian Church, TVUU children, whose performance of Annie, Jr. was interrupted by the shootings, sang the song they didn’t get to sing on that fatal morning. A part of that song goes like this:

When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely,
I’ll just stick out my chin…
and grin…and say,
‘Oh, the sun’ll come out tomorrow,
So, you gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow,
Come what may.
Tomorrow, tomorrow,
I love ya, tomorrow,
You’re always a day away!

The words must have resonated with those in attendance, as, just before the service began, the skies over Knoxville had poured forth rain, as if weeping in sympathy.

It is not easy to make sense of such an act as blasting away at a sanctuary full of people who have gathered to watch children put on a play on a Sunday morning. It is not easy to imagine how a human being could have been brought so low in his life as to do such a thing.

As I write this, three days after the event [sic], facts about the perpetrator are becoming more and more known. It appears that the safest thing that might be said about him is that he was a failure at just about everything he attempted. As people are wont to do, he likely sought to assign blame for his troubles. Ultimately, that blame descended with a vengeance upon a group of people--self-proclaimed liberals--whose willingness to welcome everyone, regardless of race, faith, or sexual or gender orientation, was deemed by this one man’s troubled mind to be the greatest threat to everything he held to be constant and valuable. Unable or unwilling to deal with his dilemma creatively, he acted in the only way he felt competent—through violence.

His first victim, Greg McKendry, was a 60-year-old man who served on the Board of the church and was an usher. (I identify personally with that description.) Witnesses say that Greg positioned himself between the shooter and the congregation. In doing so, Greg “gave the last full measure of devotion” to the cause of liberalism—to believe that the lives of those who are vulnerable are worth even the sacrifice of our own.

If there is any sense to be made out of what happened at that UU gathering place on that day—or at Virginia Tech or Columbine or a thousand other places where hatred has bred death—it must grow from the tiny seed of realization that, while lives can be altered forever in the flash of a gun barrel, it is the spontaneous act of selfless love that can turn the world around.

As Unitarian Universalists, it is our belief that “sainthood” is manifested by those who, like Greg McKendry, see a human need and fill it, though we don’t always have to die in the cause to be appreciated. More than perhaps any time in our memories, the world needs UUs to rededicate ourselves to doing the work that can heal our battered and bruised world.

My Personal Vision and Mission Statements

My Personal Vision Statement—

To make a contribution to the betterment of the human condition for as long as I am able and then to leave the scene before I become a burden on others.


My Personal Mission Statement—

Through my writings, to be a voice for clarity, purpose, and the betterment of the human condition throughout the world. To enable others to see how their problems are not so different from the problems of humanity, that all issues are related, and that only by working together can we create a rising tide of humanity that will float all boats, both skiff and yacht, and all whom they contain.

Big Oil's Ox Gored by Big Al

I haven't written on the subject of the environment here, yet, despite that it is a subject to which I have devoted hours and hours of my time in both study and action over the past year. Yesterday, something happened to change that. Former Vice President Al Gore--the very man who would be our president today if not for the greatest political embezzlement ever perpetrated upon the human race--gave a speech on the necessity of converting 100% of America's energy production to solar and wind power within ten years. I strongly urge you to use the link on the left side of this page--under "More Deserving Dots"--to see and hear the 30-minute speech yourself. Al Gore says more in this speech that could secure the future of our children and our children's children's than all of the speeches made by the current administration over the past seven years.

I'm not going to summarize what Mr. Gore says in my blog. I'd rather use the bytes to urge you to contemplate two things: 1) What might the US and the rest of the world look like today if the occupant of the White House over the last seven years had been AG instead of GWB?; and 2)How did it happen that American presidents are chosen not for the content of their ideas or character but by the timing of their sighs or their appeal on television?

How is it that GWB's dereliction of duty in the Air National Guard during wartime and his connections with Big Oil received less air time on the major networks and cable channels than AG's alleged "exaggerations" about his influence on the development of the Internet? Does a candidate's style really matter more than what she or he does? Answer: only if her or his style can be spun to instill enough fear in the electorate to overcome the things she or he does that scare the hell out of the people who own the news media.

I fault Al Gore--and his party--for being far too wimpy about the events of November and December of 2000. It seems to me that liberals/progressives are overly sensitive to the feelings of others--to the point that they let neoconservative's zealotry run roughshod over the truth, even at the cost of a very important election.

However, the mainstream media also had a vital role to play, in that--as Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols explain in their brilliant book, Our Media Not Theirs--they were far too amenable to listen to the Republican mantra that the voters had declared Bush II the winner and the Democrats were trying to forestall their will. This came about the moment the networks and newspapers became businesses and not purveyors of news. With staffing cutbacks and greater fiscal dependency on advertising, reporters became--as McChesney and Nichols claim--mere stenographers, capturing the words of partisan elitists of the left and right without inquiry into wherein lay the truth. It took Greg Palast, writing for British news media, to reveal the truth about the disenfranchisement of thousands of poor Florida voters--a direct attack on democracy that could well have, by itself, changed the outcome of the election.

Well, you may say, but that's ancient history. It couldn't happen today. If you feel this way, I encourage you to post a reply and tell me why you feel that way. I only see things getting worse when it comes to mainstream media in the US.

As for Al Gore's energy plan, all I can say is that it's bold, workable, and will be fought tooth-and-nail by the likes of Exxon/Mobile and the coal and natural gas industries. I'm with him 100%, however, and will give time and money to the effort to bring it into fruition. I don't call myself "Legacy Guy" for nothing. I believe that the greatest mission of my (Baby Boomer) generation is to make it possible for my children and their children to live, first of all, and, beyond that, to live healthy and happy lives. I'm willing to make sacrifices to make that happen but I don't see Gore's plan as being one that calls for a great deal of sacrifice. I see it as one that will do far more for real people than did Kennedy's dream of putting an American on the moon. It will be expensive--Gore estimates as much as $3 trillion over the next decade. That's roughly what the ill-advised and -fated war in Iraq will cost us before it's over. Consider what we will have when the money's spent on Gore's project compared to what we will have when all our soldiers are home from Iraq.

The Case against Moderation, Part 2

Arianna Huffington said it best, I think, in her recent blog piece titled, "Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle Is for Losers". She wrote, "Fixating on--and pandering to--[undecided swing voters] is all about messaging tailored to avoid offending rather than to inspire and galvanize....In 2004, the Kerry campaign's obsession with undecided voters--voters so easily swayed that 46 percent of them found credible the Swift Boaters' charges that Kerry might have faked his war wounds to earn a Purple Heart--allowed the race to devolve from a referendum on the future of the country into a petty squabble over whether Kerry had bled enough to warrant his medals". [For more, see http://www.alternet.org/story/90465.]

Since I wrote the first installment of The Case against Moderation three weeks ago, it has become pretty plain that Sen. Barack Obama has been told by his oh-so-well-paid advisors that the way to win is to take a lesson from the New Democrats/Democratic Leadership Council/Blue Dog Democrats crowd and tack right until the left shore is out of sight. With his newly-minted positions on "Free Trade", FISA, gun control, the death penalty, and, now, "faith-based" social programs, Sen. Obama risks so compromising his political cache and audacity of hope that, like Gore and Kerry, he will find the McCain campaign defining him to the voters in their way, not his. He is beginning to look--unfairly or not--like any other Washington beltway politician. Perhaps that is because he spends too much time listening to Washington beltway pundits.

So-called "swing voters" are, by their very definition, the political equivalent of vanilla ice cream--they take on the flavor of whatever is poured, spooned, or dipped over them. This may also be true of many independents, though I'm sure not all. Swing voters are as likely to be swayed to vote for someone because of the color of their spouse's hair as any one issue. The fact is, for many of them, they couldn't care less about politics, history, science, or political genius. They like what they like, end of story. Moving to the right to appease these voters on the issues is a very risky gamble. Mostly importantly, it confuses and alienates the very base that gave Obama the nomination. Secondly, it confuses those voters who don't quite understand what Democrats stand for and validates those who say there's no difference between the two parties.

We all know what Republicans stand for--small [ineffective] government, low [skewed in favor of the rich] taxes, a strong [exorbitant] defense, cozy relationships with big business, and winning at all costs. But what does the Democratic side of the slate look like? Right now, it's blank because Democrats keep erasing what was written there yesterday and replacing it with something designed to offend as few voters as possible. They used to be for a strong social safety net for the poor and the elderly, civil rights for all, prudent budgets with a vital middle class, and a best-in-the-world military. That was the legacy of FDR and Truman. Now, the Democratic mantra seems to be, "we have to work with the Republicans to avoid the appearance of obstructionism (or elitism or lack of patriotism or whatever other pejorative the other side happens to be slinging at the moment". The Party of the People that used to stand against injustice like a mighty oak has turned out to be hollowed out, filled with worms...just when the country needs it to stand strong the most.

Here's what I would like to say to Senator Obama:

If our country is ripe for change, as you seem to believe it is and as your campaign's success in the primaries seems to prove, that change will not come from the middle. As Albert Einstein once said, "The same thinking that got us where we are is not going to get us where we should be (I'm liberally paraphrasing)." We need a president with a rare vision to see the future and the path that will steer this ship of state away from the shoals. The people see you as a leader with the vision to take their hands and lead them to a more gentle America. Not everyone has that same vision and like all great leaders--Abe Lincoln comes to mind--you can listen to them for what they might have to offer. But there comes a time when a leader must connect the dots where others may not even see dots and lead, not cajole, nor pander, nor equivocate, BUT LEAD US TO THE LIGHT AS GOD HAS GIVEN HIM OR HER TO SEE THE LIGHT.

So, keep your eye on the prize, be true to yourself, and take us there by the strength of your convictions. We will be there beside you, proud as you, and just as confident that our world will heal, not from making nice with tyrants, but from pursuing the hard, tough course that will lead us away from sure madness and destruction. Surely, the challenge you face is no less daunting than that of Lincoln. If you are not willing to risk division, as he did, you cannot bring a resolution to the existential issues that face us today.

FDR once said in a fireside chat that he "welcomed" the hatred of those of the well-healed elite who felt that he was a traitor to his class. If you pursue the course that I have recommended, you will be hated by some, Sen. Obama. But you will be loved by many others. This is the fate of those who have the courage of their convictions and the power of effect real change. It cannot be helped. Welcome it. Your legacy will save our children and their children and they will sing your praises unto the seventh generation. Godspeed to you, Sen. Obama. A proud nation awaits.