Does Israel Have a Right to Exist?

Hamas is condemned because it refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist. A good case can be made for Hamas on historical and moral grounds. It may  have been a mistake to establish the state of Israel in 1947 by bringing in thousands of mostly European Jews to a land largely populated by hostile Arabs and where few Jews had lived until well into the 19th century. Jewish possession of the land had been lost for more than a thousand years.

The result has been constant hostility, hatred, wars, and violent conflict with no end in sight. It is the source of Muslim hatred of Europe and America,  constant turmoil, and a threat to peace in the entire region. The notion that Palestine belongs to the Jews on the basis of a divine promise three thousand years ago is plausible only to those who find it plausible, including Jewish and Christian fundamentalists. Granted, some solution was needed for the constant persecution of Jews in many lands including Europe and America, but in my opinion the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine was probably  not it.

 A distinction needs to be made between accepting the moral right of Israel to exist and the full acceptance of the fact that Israel does exist, will exist, and must be dealt with accordingly with all the implications thereunto appertaining.

For practical reasons Hamas needs to come to terms with Israel as a reality, no matter how much they despise the fact. But pragmatism does not flourish in the presence of deeply rooted ideology and hostility toward Jews. The refusal of Hamas to  accept  this inexorable reality practically, if not theoretically and morally, is fraught with dire consequence for Jews and Arabs. To contest the full implications of the actuality of Israel as a Jewish state is futile and will be the source of continuing bloodshed and hateful agitation on and on. Sending missiles to explode in the cities of Israel solves nothing and perpetuates hatred and retaliation.

On the other hand Israel needs to stop the settlements and withdraw to their 1967 borders. This swap of land for peace needs to be accompanied by some plan, probably internationally mediated, for compensating Palestinian refugees for loss of their homes and livelihood because of their expulsion from Israel in the years following Jewish statehood. Israel needs to start treating Arabs in their territory with decency, and full respect and guarantee them all civil and personal rights that Jews have.

This is not likely to happen on either side. This, after all, is the Middle East where too few are willing to say with Yitzhak Rabin “enough of blood and tears.” So "two communities of suffering" (Edward Said) will continue to suffer and bleed and hate  until reason or sheer exhaustion leads to a resolution tolerable  to both if not loved  or welcomed by either.

News Channels Have too Much Time to Fill

Having so many full-time news networks is not necessarily a good thing. To fill all this time, they focus on "breaking news" with reporters on the spot to follow events as they happen. The result is that frequently trivial occurrences are noted with a solemnity that far exceeds  newsworthiness.

When a catastrophe occurs, every boo-boo is captured, every failure noted. The current oil spill is a good example.

The assumption of journalists seems to be that immediately upon a catastrophe, all relevant institutions should be so perfectly prepared and organized that all the right things begin to happen at once without any gaps  and proceed without error until every issue is resolved. Unfortunately, the world does not operate like that. Institutions are imperfect, and leadership is fallible and sometimes incompetent  and often negligent. Having this pointed out twenty fours hours a day does not necessarily serve the public good, given the excesses that so much time allows.

Commentators demand explanation for every perceived failure and often seem to know infallibly what ought to be happening and what everybody should be doing to correct things. No mercy is shown and the recognition that some problems are complex and difficult to resolve is almost totally absent. Journalists appear to lack any comprehension of their own fallibility and ignorance.

The gaps in time between  "breaking news" events are filled with commentary from an innumerable host of folks who presumably  but frequently do not have something worthwhile to say. Political critics are omnipresent, though they are as often wrong as right and are sometimes silly. Gov. Jindal of Louisiana who thinks we have too much government and too many regulations is getting air time to criticize Obama for not doing enough.

Some of the critics sound as if they think Obama should be out there on the rig shouting orders to engineer and executives and directing every move. They seem deaf to the rejoinder that the government does not have the know how or the equipment to stop the oil flow. The only sense I can make of all this is that they want him to be louder and angrier.

 The  larger context is that too much attention is paid to ephemeral events that pass quickly into the trivia of history. The worst example is when all else is dropped to focus attention on a police chase in California followed by helicopters for an hour until the culprit is stopped, runs out of gas, or crashes.

Maybe the news channels should be forced to show Bugs Bunny cartoons half the time. The world would be no worse off and might even get along better. It certainly would be more high-class entertainment and much less boring than a constant diet of  "breaking news."

Misplaced Anger at the Tea Party

The Tea Party is right be to mad. We all ought to be, but it is important to be mad at the right things. The are mad about the bailout of the huge banks. I am too, although I was convinced that it was necessary to save all our hides. But too small a price was demanded from the banks, and too little has been done to reform the practices that let to the mess we had to rescue them from.

They want less government and less spending

Private Splendor, Public Squalor

Roger Cohen's column today noted that there are more "cellphones in India than toilets. Almost half the Indian population, 563.7 million people, is hooked up to modern communications, while just 366 million have access to modern sanitation, according to a United Nations study."

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25iht-edcohen.html

This reminded me of John Kenneth Galbraith's 1958 book The Affluent Society.  He pointed out that post-World War  II America had become rich in private goods but poor in public goods. This describes precisely the nature of present-day politics and cultural values. We value clever private cell phones more than child care support for working-class parents with low incomes. Our roads, bridges, and infrastructure generally crumble while ever more advanced cell phones are put in the hands of kids as soon as they can push the buttons and lift the device to their ears.

We have the latest electronic technology, splendid cars and television sets,  the most advanced medical care  and an abundance of private consumer goods without end available for those who have money but no universal health care to which every citizen is entitled from birth regardless of economic circumstances.

Is there something wrong here?

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Babel, Pentecost, and Politics

I have always been struck by the contrast between Babel  (Genesis 11:1-9) and Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11). In the former, all people spoke one language but ended up in confusion, unable to understand one another. In the latter, diverse people who spoke  in different ways all could make sense of what the others were saying.

Which is the current state of American  politics most like?  Problem: How can we make political speech more like Pentecost and less like Babel?

Mail your answers on a postcard attached to a 2010 Lexus. Winner will be given a free meal at Cracker Barrel.

Exegesis Follows Belief, Although Exegesis Is an Important Determinant of Belief

The recent election of an openly lesbian candidate, The Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool of Baltimore, as bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Los Angeles is the latest chapter in Anglican turmoil.

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury,  denounced anti-gay prejudice but said the Anglican Communion was not in a position to approve same-sex marriages. "Changing the Anglican theological position on homosexuality would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion," he wrote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/lesbian-priest-re-ignites_b_384382.html

What the Archbishop neglects is that people do the exegesis. Exegesis  most often follows from what the people doing the exegeting believe, not the other way around, although the latter is not inconceivable or without real examples. When people accept same-sex love as legitimate, exegesis will provide the biblical foundation for it. 

The problem is not fundamentally exegetical but that many Christians believe that homosexuality is wrong. Otherwise, they would deal with the issue the same they do with the Scriptural approval of slavery, the stoning of male children, killing men engaging in sex with men, and the subservience of women --  to mention a few examples where clear textual evidence is present.

The text matters, of course, but other things matter more. Supremely what matters is the whole set or theological and moral beliefs  Christians have come to have at a given point, for whatever reasons, the text of Scripture being among the most important of such reasons.

What Christians who approve of same-sex love need most is not more and better exegesis but to find non-exegetical ways to change hearts and minds. When that happens, the foundational and sustaining exegesis will be forthcoming. Selah!

Hint: The best, but not unfailing, way to change minds is to demonstrate the deep and immense suffering caused by the church's traditional attitude.

For the assumptions underlying these claims, see:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/herm.htm

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/bibint.htm

Why Churchill Ordered an Attack on the French Navy in WW2

Nothing illustrates the ironies, complexities, ambiguities, tragedies, paradoxes, and contradictions of history than a little known episode of World War II. Noteworthy also  are the uncertainties that accompany many momentous decisions in the life of individuals and nations. Cf: Søren Kierkegaard and Reinhold Niebuhr.

After France signed an armistice with the Nazis  in 1940 and agreed to call their Navy to French ports, Churchill was afraid that eventually all these ships would fall into Nazi hands  and used against Britain, insuring victory for the Germans against them. Commander of the French fleet Admiral Darlan assured Churchill that he would scuttle all this ships rather than let the Germans have them, but Churchill doubted that he would actually do it, and he needed certainty. Some evidence indicates that Admiral Darlan would have done what he promised.

Meanwhile, Churchill's pleas to Roosevelt for 50 old warships went unheeded because Roosevelt thought that Britain and the American ships  would fall to the Nazis. Churchill demanded that French ships be put under British control or sailed away to safe Allied ports. When a deal could not be worked out, Churchill ordered an attack on French vessels at a naval base in the French-Algiers port of Mers-el-Kebir. destroying a number of French ships and killing 1,300 French sailors—more than the number of French soldiers killed by the Germans at that point in the war. The British public approved;  the French were outraged, and Germany used the event for propaganda purposes. Roosevelt was now convinced of British resolve and capacity and sent the ships and other military supplies to aid Britain.

The  uncertainties, ironies,  complexities, ambiguities, tragedies, paradoxes, and contradictions of history: they are all there. 

See: Secrets of the Dead: Churchill’s Deadly Decision, PBS, May 12, 2010

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/churchills-deadly-decision-preview-this-episode/548/

Absolutism: Gun Rights and Terrorists

Absolutism is a position that holds under any and all conditions, allows no exceptions for any reasons, circumstances, or possibilities. An absolutist is one who holds such positions.

Should known or suspected terrorists be permitted to fly on airplanes?

Should known or suspected terrorists be permitted to buy guns?

Reasonable people would say no to both questions.

There are folks in Congress who answer no to the first question but yes to the second.  Absurd? Yes. But it illustrates the nature of absolutism.

The National Rifle Association and those in Congress it has bought or sufficiently intimidated are absolutists, along with any who might be absolutists by conscience or conviction.

Beware of absolutists in politics -- and religion.

For a delightful look at terrorists and their right to buy guns, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06gcollins.html?hp

 or Toles' cartoon in the Washington Post:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/?hpid=opinionsbox1

Sarah Palin Right About Something?

Her I'll let somebody else say it:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/05/sarah_palin_makes_sense_--_on.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Insufficient Information and Bad Thinking

Suppose 87% of the people in  Strange county jail are people with bright fuchsia eyes though they constitute  only 2% of the population. Seems like something is wrong here. But suppose that 87% of the crimes in the county are committed by people with  bright fuchsia eyes. As my Dad would say, "That brings on more talk."  Doesn't seem so wrong, unjust, or unexpected now does it?

We need all relevant information to avoid confusion and bad thinking.

I Am Opposed to Celebrating Independence Day: A Response to the Furor Over Confederate History Month

Since I did not  support Confederate History Month (though a southerner), I am opposed to celebrating  the Fourth of July. This is a nation whose original constitution regarded enslaved black people  as 3/5 of a person, a nation that committed near genocide against Native Americans. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. Only property owning white males voted. The vote was not given to women until 1922. Women still do not have equal rights in all areas of life. Many churches deny them ordination to the ministry; their pay  in many jobs still lags behind that of men. Homosexuals have been and still are treated badly and often are subject to violence and cruelty, denied basic rights, e. g., to marry.

We are still a racist county in many ways. Theologians both North and South defended slavery on the basis of Scripture and natural law well into the middle of the 19th century.  Slavery existed in both North and South.  Especially New England, but also  New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, got wealthy in the slave trade. 

To this day, it's difficult to find an old North institution of any antiquity that isn't tainted by slavery. Ezra Stiles imported slaves while president of Yale. Six slave merchants served as mayor of Philadelphia. Even a liberal bastion like Brown University has the shameful blot on its escutcheon. It is named for the Brown brothers, Nicholas, John, Joseph, and Moses, manufacturers and traders who shipped salt, lumber, meat -- and slaves. http://www.slavenorth.com/profits.htm

Soil, climate, and the invention of the cotton gin, not moral superiority, accounted for the persistence of slavery longer in the South than in the North. When the state of Georgia was founded, slavery was prohibited, but envy of wealth in  slave states led to its legalization.
 

The treatment of laboring people has been ghastly and often violent. Wage workers were left in their old age to fend for themselves. Sometimes their economic status and quality of life were no better than that of some Southern black slaves, whose masters provided for them until they died.

I will mention our imperialism only in passing but will point out that we have participated in the overthrow of democratically elected governments. Especially notable was the  deposing  of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, leading to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the threat we now face regarding nuclear weapons in Iran.

Let us move on to the  unnecessary and profoundly tragic wars in Vietnam and Iraq. We are the only country to use a nuclear weapon against another, though that was probably no worse than the Allied and US bombing of Dresden in WWII. How does the honoring of Confederate soldiers differ from honoring those who fought in Vietnam and Iraq?

On second thought I will gladly celebrate Confederate Day and the Fourth of July  if they are set aside as a time for confession of sin and commitment to fruits meet unto repentance.

Profiling and Clear Thinking

Suppose than in Banktown, 90% of the bank robberies are committed by white men 80 and older with beards. (For the record I fit that description.)  Would it make sense for police to pay close attention to people who fit that profile hanging around banks? But wouldn't that  be race, age, and beard profiling? The question illustrates the confusion surrounding the current discussion. We are supposed to be against all sorts of profiling, right?

Perhaps a relevant distinction (than which nothing is more useful) would be helpful. If profiling means focusing suspicion (stopping, questioning, detaining, etc.) on people merely because they fit a  particular profile and for no  reason relevant to the crime or other offense at issue, that is prejudice, is wrong. and should be prohibited, as in "driving while black."

If, however, the profile is relevant to the crime as suggested in the example given, profiling would be sensible policing and should be commended and promoted. If would be foolish to ignore white men 80 and over with beards when they are in or near a bank in Banktown.

Sometimes a relevant distinction can clear things up beautifully.

Confederate History Month and Yankee Bias Against White Southerners

If Yankees would get off this Confederate thing, I would be happy to let it alone. But Frank Rich prompts me to say something more. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18rich.html?hp

I think the reason they go on about it so is that they equate the essence of the Confederacy with pure evil, allowing no room for anything good anywhere on anybody's part, whereas America is regarded as at worst  ambiguous, i. e., containing both good and evil and at best Edenic. I am inclined  to all view all history as ambiguous with some situations being much worse or much better than others.  Southerners historically have had a greater sense that all history  is marked by  tragedy and evil based on their own experience of poverty, defeat, devastation, suffering, and the moral burden of having sponsored and defended slavery.

What Yankees often don't recognize is that the very effort of Southerners to find some glory in the Lost Cause, to focus attention on states rights and the Constitution, along with the  ruses to justify secession, etc. often  have been and are an effort to escape  the memory and guilt of slavery. Such disguises are rationalizations which themselves  acknowledge by implication that slavery was morally reprehensible and indefensible. It is the South working through its own hurting conscience, to expiate its sins through evasion instead of through contrition, confession, and "fruits meet unto repentance."  This is how Confederate History Month should be celebrated.

Southern experience has been more like that of the rest of the world in contrast to the sense of American (Yankee) exceptionalism (not  as prevalent since Vietnam and Iraq) which had viewed America as that new thing in history, free, innocent, and sponsoring high ideals in its founding documents. In this scenario the South has been the exception to American exceptionalism, the other and inferior America, those odd people down there with the funny accent. It has been America's perennial problem because of its cultural backwardness, poverty, and as the primary locus of slavery and racism. As I like to say, prejudice against white Southerners is the only bias white northern liberals allow themselves without guilt, it being in their estimation not a slanted view but a recognition of plain facts.

In the current ranting I see a failure to distinguish between slavery and racism. Racism is pervasive north and south, east and west, even if it is more easily exploited especially in small towns and rural Dixie. Nobody today defends slavery, but racism though widespread is more subtle and often expressed in code and nearly everywhere and always denied by the accused.

As a southerner I pledge that every time the Confederacy is mentioned, I will at once fall on my knees, look heavenward, and wholeheartedly denounce slavery as  ugly and evil if every time Yankees mention America they will denounce the near genocide of Native Americans, the internment of the Japanese in WWII, the witch trials in Salem, the denial of the vote to women until 1922,  and the exploitation of  wage labor in the industrialized states and the violence against unions. All Jews must likewise at the mention of Israel denounce the forced expulsion of Palestinians in 1947-48, the occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967, the apartheid it continues to practice, and the building of settlements in Palestinian territory. A full confession would include repentance for the  appropriation of ancient Canaan and the Jewish jihad of Esther 9.

But I forgot that  all other history is morally ambiguous; only the Confederacy is pure evil with no redeeming features.

PS  Southerners will get an extra star in heaven for putting up with Yankee self-righteousness and condescension. We are--white and black--often not expected to be very bright. I have had more than one Northern white woman confess to me later that the first day in class when she heard my southern accent, she was not sure I could be smart enough to teach her anything. With pride Augustine would appreciate, I can confidently say that it took only three or four days to demolish that illusion.

Redemption from Sin

In a weak moment I bought a package of Oreo cookies. It was a bad thing to do, I admit, but now that I have them, what should I do?

1. Take them back for a refund.

No, that would just make them available for someone else to buy and gain weight, take up my time and the time of grocery clerks, use gas going there, etc.

2. Give them to the food cupboard.

No! That would just lead others into temptation. I should take only good, nourishing items to the food depot, like broccoli.

3. Throw them in the garbage.

No. My Mother told me never to waste food.

4. Let them stay in the cookie jar until they spoil.

No, see  3.

5. Eat them myself.

Yes. That way I will be punished for my sin by gaining weight and getting my arteries clogged. Otherwise, they will just be there tempting me. Eating them is the only way to get rid of this temptation.

Wow! I am glad I reasoned my way through this. It has been bothering me.

Barbour is right! In the End the Flap Over Confederate History Month Does Not Amount to "Diddly"

In these prickly times in which sensitivities are all on steroids, one--especially a white southerner--hesitates to say anything  about the Civil War and the Confederacy lest it offend somebody. Nevertheless, in fear and trepidation I assert that the Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour has a point in asserting that the furor over  Virginia Gov. McConnell's call for the observance of Confederate History Month in the final analysis does not add up to "diddly."

Actually, the Virginia Proclamation as amended is not so bad. See:

http://www.governor.virginia.gov/OurCommonwealth/Proclamations/2010/ConfederateHistoryMonth.cfm

Numerous other southern states have had similar proclamations and observances over the years, including my native state of Georgia. As a child I marched down the streets of Griffin in observance of Confederate Memorial Day for reasons I neither understood nor thought much about.

There are so many facts, facets, aspects, dimensions, complexities, paradoxes, contradictions, ambiguities, and the like regarding the Civil War era that it is probably impossible for anyone to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the matter. Conversely, most any reasonable statement is likely to contain at least a partial truth. So here goes.

In the Washington Post  Eugene Robinson--a journalist I deeply admire and usually wholeheartedly agree with--wants a "reason to 'honor' soldiers who fought to perpetuate a system that could never have functioned without constant, deliberate, unflinching cruelty."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/12/AR2010041203297.html

One of my Great, Great Grandfathers and two Great Grandfathers were Confederate soldiers. One --Cash Clay--died in an Illinois prison of smallpox. They owned no slaves, but like many other poor white southerners were recruited to fight a war for an institution they had no personal stake in. I don't know what their views on slavery were. Nor do I know what their attitudes were about women voting. I am pretty certain that my moral, political, and religious views would be in  deep conflict with many of their own. Were  all Union soldiers paragons of virtue and void of abhorrent views on race, women, and slavery? All understanding of history must begin with the proposition that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," although certainly some have sinned more grievously and some sins are far worse than others.

What attitude would Robinson have me take toward my ancestors? While condemning slavery, would it be inappropriate for me to honor  or at least remember their bravery, their sacrifice -- which is what most Proclamations I have read call for? They also call for understanding the past, seeking reconciliation, and the like.  One can certainly deal with slavery during Confederate History Month. Here is McConnell's statement in this year's Proclamation:

WHEREAS, it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders, and the study of this time period should reflect upon and learn from this painful part of our history;

OK, that was added after an uproar about its omission, but did anyone suspect he was shaky on the subject?

It just seems to me that a special burden is put on southerners to disavow slavery every time they mention the Confederacy, as if there might be some doubt. If I speak of Jefferson and Washington (whose birthdays the nation celebrates), am I obligated to say that they owned slaves, and I think slavery is really evil. If I speak of Colonial Massachusetts, must I disavow the stoning and hanging of alleged witches or think it was wrong that Roger Williams was driven out. Granted the Confederacy had slavery at its center and that is an important distinction, but which of us is still suspect on the slavery question?

If you asked my ancestor soldiers what they were fighting for, I have no idea what they would say. They might agree with the Confederate Shelby Foote quoted who responded to a Yankee's  similar question by answering, "Because you are down here," i. e., you are in my territory with guns trying to kill me.

My forebears--like we all often are--were caught up in a maelstrom of events profoundly tragic over which they had little or no control and about which they doubtless had a limited understanding.  The speeches of Abraham Lincoln probably come as close as is humanly possible to a  comprehensive and profound understanding of the meaning of it all.

Slavery may be America's "Original Sin," as Robinson claims, but the atrocious  treatment of Native Americans is right up there as a mighty contender for the dishonor and began about as early.

I was born in rural Georgia in 1930. I have never heard  anyone I knew as a child or now or indeed in all America in  my generation offer a defense of slavery or greet it with approbation. How many times must we say that it was horrible, cruel, evil, and despicable? Apparently every time the Confederacy is mentioned.

I don't care for Confederate History Month. Much of the rhetoric I hear from its most ardent supporters is distasteful to me. But is there no place in our discussion for relativity, proportion, and even a little tolerance for what we don't like?

The immediate situation needs to be put in a larger historical context to gain a deeper understanding. The 20th century saw the development of American exceptionalism. In this vision, the South is the "other America," those people "down there" who are different (read: inferior) to us. The North is the primary location of a distinct sense of being innocent, free, successful, democratic, and devoted to high principles -- not like those older countries from which we came and the rest of the world.  The South has been the regional exception to this exceptionalism. Indeed, the South, unlike the North (the real America)  has known poverty, defeat, and shame over slavery and has sought for some way to find solace in the alleged values of an agricultural society with its devotion to tradition, religion, virtue, and honor. The North in a long-enduring southern counter-myth, by contrast, was  materialistic, greedy, and ruled by a frenetic capitalism that left the laboring classes at the mercy of the rich, the powerful, and the destructive forces of the impersonal market. Vietnam and now Iraq have taken some steam out of the most ambitious versions of the  American exceptionalist myth, but it is still around, even if in a weakened and chastened form.

So perhaps what we see in the current devotion to Confederate History Month is a way for the South to seek some meaning in the "Lost Cause" in the bravery, sacrifice, and honor of their soldiers and leaders. When northern liberals denounce the whole business with shouts of racism, we see remnants of the old American notion of exceptionalism and its feeling of superiority to that "other America" -- the exception to the real America while forgetting the racial and other sins of its own, including its participation the destruction of Native Americans and the appropriation of their land.

So  a little humility on both sides would help as we come to understand that neither region is yet free from the stained heritage and myths of the past. North and South still have stuff to work out in their own psyches. Whites and blacks, liberals and conservatives, northerners and southerners perchance need to come to a deep internal recognition that those realities--the Confederacy, slavery, the Civil War--lie 150 years or more in the past and have decreasing efficacy in the stream of real life today, except as magnified by imagination and unresolved feelings. Perhaps we might then turn our attention to the real threats, destructive forces, and constructive opportunities of the moment.

Meanwhile, until we all are more fully redeemed, let the Confederates have their history month . I assure you no one  will defend slavery or segregation and no politician will advocate racial discrimination. In the larger scheme of things April will soon pass and, the whole thing will not amount to "diddly."

PS The literature on these topics is vast. I will suggest only one book:

The Burden of Southern History

C. Vann Woodward, 3rd ed.(Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2008).

For an interesting review see: http://cwmemory.com/2010/02/27/the-burden-of-southern-history/

A Short Lesson in Metaphysics

Everything that exists can be divided into two classes: peanut butter and not peanut butter.

Peanut butter comes in two forms: creamy and crunchy and is either  natural (ground up roasted peanuts only) or processed (salt and/or sugar or other ingredients added).

Everything else is not peanut butter.

Any questions?

Christians and Violence

http://128.36.236.77/workpaper/pdfs/MESV6-1.pdf

Aesthetics, Realism, Symbolism, Ethics, and the Morphology of the Spirit

OK, I am just showing I still know how to speak professor-ese,  by which it is possible to parade obscurantism as profundity. Here is what I have in mind:

In the front of my church is a beautiful stained glass Apostles cross in vivid colors. It gets the morning sun which makes it brilliant. Aesthetically, it is splendid. The symbolism is clear. But realism is absent. The actual historical cross was probably ugly, dirty, rough-hewn, and splintery.  A replica would probably not be chosen for exhibition in that choice spot, visible at all times to  worshipers.

What is going on here? How do aesthetics, symbolism, and realism relate to the enhancement of piety and  the promotion of faith and good works?

Guernica is a Picasso classic. Paul Tillich says it exhibits the estrangement manifest in all forms of modern life. The painting depicts the 1937 bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German bombers, who were supporting the Nationalist forces of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Interpretations vary and are many in number, generally having to do with the tragedy and suffering of war.

Now imagine that instead of this painting we had a professional-quality vivid color photograph of a battle scene or a bombed out area with bodies, brains, blood, guts, and limbs in horrible, grotesque display. Would it or could it have the same moral and spiritual power of Picasso's great work? Would we hang it in our living room? Would any museum want it?

Is it missing the point badly to suggest that a realistic picture of the horrors of an actual battlefield might convey more powerfully the estrangement in modern life and the awfulness of war? Does a painting like Guernica  perform  a kind of aesthetic cleansing without loss of symbolic power that makes it acceptable to display in living rooms and other places great art can be admiringly shown without tasteless offense?

No picture or painting has much meaning apart from some background knowledge of its historical and cultural setting. The more we know, e. g., about the context of Guernica and its forms and elements, the more significance it has and the more interpretations it generates. Can only a work of art like this create all these possibilities while a literal depiction cannot? How do aesthetics, realism, symbolism, and ethics relate to the human spirit in  terms of power to inform, elevate, and transform our grasp of meaning, purpose, and duty?

I suspect I have raised more questions and provoke more interpretations than my capacities can handle. But it is interesting to think about it, n'est-ce pas?

http://terresdefemmes.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/guernica.jpg

http://www.leopoldsegedin.com/essay_detail_picasso.cfm

One And A Half Cheers for the Health Care Reform Bill

The recently passed health care bill has much that is good in it, which readers will know about without being reminded here. But compared to the ideal, it is pretty bad. But it is probably the best possible under present political conditions, which are themselves pretty bad.

Hence, I am prepared to give not three cheers but one and a half to celebrate its passage. A one-payer, Medicare for all would be simpler, more efficient, and would guarantee every citizen health care.

The employer-based system was a war-time exigency that allowed employers to give benefits instead of raising wages, which was prohibited under war time rules.  It is complex, inefficient, clumsy, generates many inequities, and leaves millions uncovered . Additionally, it proves that the free market is not appropriate for providing health care, for reasons any economics textbook will enumerate when stating market limitations.

But it continues out of inertia and because of the political power of those who benefit from it, e. g., health insurance and drug companies and many individuals and families who have good coverage and are fearful of change. (Mine is free, except for co-payments under the generous spousal provisions  of my wife's former employer-- The University of Rochester.)

I wanted the present measure to pass and watched every vote in detail on C-Span2, the principle being that when the ideal is impossible, the best presently achievable is usually better than nothing.

So, here we go: CHEER, cheer!

See:http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/is-employer-based-health-insurance-worth-saving/

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/a-medicare-like-plan-for-the-non-elderly/ 

Do We Have Rights, And How Do We Know?

A letter to the editor in my local paper argued that health care should not be considered a right. Her reasoning was that such a right is nowhere specified in the founding documents. This is a great advance over the mere assertion that this or that is a right. To make such conversations meaningful, we need a definition of what a right is and on what basis it is to be affirmed. Otherwise, we have a mere exchange of opinions but not much light thrown on the matter.

Unfortunately, the usual situation is that anything that anyone  strongly believes the government should provide is asserted to be a right. This is not helpful. My proposal is that instead we should claim that something, e. g., health care is a need and that all have a just claim on available resources. I speak here of rights to specific goods and services not the more fundamental rights, e. g., human rights, civil rights, legal rights, etc., discussed next.

This would not, course, automatically resolve all the issues. We would still still have to establish what a need is, whether health care is one, and whether the need should be met by private or public (governmental) means and so on. But it would provide a basis and process for debate that would not be as empty as the mere assertion that something is a right.

We can responsibly speak of rights. I would suggest two types: natural rights and constitutional. The former are those that belong to us by virtue of our being human.  Since they are based on reason, they  are controversial and open to doubt and dispute. But if we are to make claims based on nature, I suggest they be kept to a minimum, such as those mentioned in the Declaration of Independence,  i. e., "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I would add  equality and justice and leave it at that.

Constitutional rights are those specified in the American Constitution or implied therein as determined by judicial review and ultimately by the Supreme Court. On this basis rights can be established by legislation and court decisions, e. g., the Miranda rights. Interestingly, those legislated and enforced are the most knowable, certain, and specific but most likely to be mistaken, whereas natural rights are less knowable, have less concrete  specificity, and the least guaranteed enforcement as such but have the greatest universal validity.

There are also, of course, rights by recommendation and adoption, such as the United Nations' Declaration of Universal Rights. Earlier were Roosevelt's Four Freedoms and other proposals for the recognition of rights. These tends to function more as ideals to be attained not claims guaranteed by some authoritative body with power to do so.

The issues regarding are more complicated than this, but perhaps this suggests the beginning of a ways to approach the overuse of the term for anything anybody feels strongly about.

Quasi-Acerbic Comments for the Day

 Politicians should be forbidden to speak of "the American people." The assumption is that Americans are of one mind, i. e., hold opinions  on the issue in question identical with those of the politicians speaking. The truth is that Americans hold many different opinions about almost any policy question you can name.

Why Can't We Take Effective Steps to Conquer the Superbugs?

We all know that superbugs are emerging that available antibiotics cannot kill.  The overuse of antibiotics spurs evolutionary adaptation and the production of newer versions of bugs more resistant to treatment. Doctors overprescribe antibiotics, sometimes at the insistence of patients who demand them despite the futility of their use.

What is not so well known is that most antibiotics are used on animals.

A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that in the United States, 70 percent of antibiotics are used to feed healthy livestock, with 14 percent more used to treat sick livestock. Only about 16 percent are used to treat humans and their pets, the study found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07kristof.html?hp 

Why doesn't Congress do something about this? Apparently because the agribusiness lobby is too powerful. The Obama administration has not shown any determination to take them on. 

Just one more sign of our dysfunctional democracy.

We Have Met the Enemy -- US! (Pogo)

Of course, the Senate is in gridlock, bound by partisanship and meanness of spirit. Of course, Senators are beholden to special interests who provide them money and to groups who guarantee votes. Of course, the Senate is strapped by arcane, anti-democratic rules.  And, of course. the whole system is shot through with corrupting influences of money, quest for power, and self-preservation.

But behind that is we the people who are self-centered and selfish, thinking primarily of how law and policy will affect us. Most people have health insurance they like and are only weakly concerned about the millions who have none at all, especially if providing it to them will exact a cost from them in taxes or premiums. We are good at rationalizing our views in ways that mask our egocentric thinking and demands and making us look like good, patriotic, right-thinking folks.

Missing or weak in all the actors who shape our laws is a concern for the common good, what benefits society as a whole, promotes opportunity, justice, and equality for all. That is a matter values, of morals -- the province of religion and culture. As Daniel  Moynihan reminded us, it is culture that finally rules not politics.

Churches, are you listening? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others whose faith mandates compassion, mercy,and  justice, especially for the poor and down and out, are you listening?

For Discriminating Tennis Fans Only

It is time to announce this year's Sporadic  Arbitrary, Gratuitous, Eccentric  Tennis Awards dealing with panty issues. The first award goes to Caroline Wozniacki for  Full Disclosure, to wit;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Whs6UGKB0

The co-winner is Jelena Jankovic for Most Daring Changeover, to wit;
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/763538/

Could He Have Avoided This?

A CNN /Opinion Research Corporation poll released yesterday shows that a majority of Americans wouldn't vote to reelect President Obama. 44% of those surveyed said they would vote to reelect the President, while 52% said they would back someone else. 

 Could Obama have avoided this disenchantment with his presidency? Hard to know, but if he  had been more passionate, less professorial, not so cool and detached, and had had more plain language conversations with ordinary folks in which he admitted that we were in a big mess, not much of which was his fault at the beginning, that no good solutions were available, and that Republicans were making it worse by their total oppositional stance, that we were in for tough times in which the people themselves had to recognize that you can't reduce spending without pain for all, calling the bluff of those who want spending reduced by asking them to propose specific reductions in defense, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid or shut up or at least admit they are willing to hurt poor people but not willing to approve any cuts that reduce their own benefits or raise their taxes, and so on -- maybe that would have helped. He would protest that he did make those points, but I am suggesting he should have made them in Harry Truman, give'm hell fashion.

Obama also has hurt himself by his identification with and protection of banks, insurance and drug companies (see many of my previous blogs for details) and hence is deserving of some of the wrath against Wall Street that people rightly feel.

I suspect, however, that the deeper problem is that too many people are just mad at incumbents because times are tough but want painless solutions without seeing the contradictions in their own thinking and just generally reacting emotionally with rage without reason, and wanting relief without pain, success without sacrifice, and  higher benefits with lower taxes. Hence, we are in for the politics of bombast without specific realistic proposals that are honest about costs and benefits in the style of  George Wallis and Sarah Palin.

Palin was right that this "hop'ey, chang'ey stuff" is not working out so well for us. But neither she nor any other Republican has anything better to offer. But they hope to win on anger that wants those who are in to be out and to replace them with more "hope'y, change'y stuff that has neither the diagnosis nor the prescription to make us well.

Politics is part destiny. He came along at the right time to get elected but became president of a country in tough times, a country whose political apparatus is  sadly dysfunctional, corrupted by money and self-interest, a country that is barely governable, driven by angry partisanship.

I  suspect  that no one could have done much better on the whole than Obama. Even if he had been perfect, it was his destiny to be president during tough times.

And nobody is available -- Republican or Democrat -- who would be likely to do better next time around.

It is not a good time for our country. Short of a profound revolution in the structural deficiencies created by greed and self-interest, the future promises nothing much better.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Richard Dawkins and His Theological Kindergarten

Dawkins is at it again with his naive assumptions about THE religous mind, followed by my response.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2010/01/haiti_and_the_hypocrisy_of_christian_theology.html?hpid=talkbox1

Mr. Dawkins, you would not do your scientific work in conversation with its worst examplars, so why do you engage with the worst examplars of religion as expressing THE religious mind? In the index of one of your books, I found not one reference to theologians I assigned to my classes. Why not engage the best theological minds? Have you ever read Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, or David Tracy -- all of whom gave the Gifford Lectures? You will not find in them what you take to be THE religious mind, but they were/are Christians who are your intellectual equals. Until then you only irritate me with your theological kindergarten. I hate bad religion as much as you do. But you equate the worst with its normative substance. Bad thinking!

God and the Haiti Earthquake

Could God have prevented the Haiti earthquake? I conclude that if God could have, God would have. I know all the answers of the orthodox  in trying to justify such acts of God, (having studied them for years and taught a course on the subject) but all are weak and unconvincing (to me). See my article:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/theodicy.htm

Anyway, it is a good test if you take the orthodox view, i. e., of all the places where an earthquake could occur, why would God permit or cause one in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere still suffering from hurricane damage?

What Obama Believes

1. Change but not too much. It might rock the boat.

2. Do not antagonize the big bankers or the drug and insurance     companies.

3. Do not show any more emotion than is absolutely necessary. 

This may not be where his idealistic heart is, but it appears to be where his pragmatic head is. Question remains: Is he doing the best that can be done under the terrible circumstances that he inherited and daily faces? Or is he not the one we thought we voted for? Is the larger problem the systemic corruption of the political system by money and parochial interests where countervailing forces working in favor of average people is lacking? I am not sure, but I am working on it.

What Obama Said About the Airplane Incident

There was no smoking gun but we dropped the ball, failed to put the pieces of the puzzle together, did not connect the dots. Stuff fell through the cracks. There will be no finger-pointing; the buck stops here. We must get our act together, put our house in order, line our ducks up in a row, and keep our eye on the ball.

Disgusted with Obama and Democrats

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

Should I Be Disillusioned with Obama?

Either Obama is doing the best that can be done under the circumstances, as David Brooks hints at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?_r=1&hp ),  or I am sadly disillusioned with him because:

1. He took the advice of his generals rather than that of his Vice-President on Afghanistan.

2. He is much too friendly with the Wall Street bankers who provided him with so much of his money.  I think he could have gotten a better deal  with the powerful financial interests for the country when they were hanging by their fingernails. I have never trusted Timothy Geithner and am not confident in Larry Summers.

3. He is all too calm, cool, and analytical on the unemployment crisis, and when he speaks he thinks his feeling but gives little evidence that he feels the pain of the jobless. Sometimes I want to see more preacher and less professor.

4. He sold out to the drug and insurance companies on health reform, making a back room deal that enabled them to get the most important things they wanted for a promise to pretend to support reform and to mute opposition. The result has no public option and no importation of  cheaper drugs. Obama got what the wanted, the drug and health insurance industries got something they could live with and a promise of millions of new customers-- guaranteeing them huge profits, some of who would be subsidized by the government, and liberal Democrats got royally screwed in the deal.

5. He seems to exhibit the triumph of hope over facts and experience regarding the transcendence of partisan politics. The current  Republicans, with few exceptions, are obstructionists, dogmatic ideologues who do not hesitate to engage in demagoguery and distortion of the facts, and would rather defeat Obama than cooperate in enacting   constructive legislation that does not meet their obstinate orthodoxy.

6. Although I appreciate his coolness under pressure, I would on occasion like to see him  get really excited about something other than his wife, children, and family dog, you know, show some deep passion about something.

But maybe he is doing the best that can be done for a progressive agenda given the mess he inherited and the lack of good options on the major issues facing him and the nation.

So, I will give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment with my head but in my heart I cannot escape disillusionment. Heck, I am just plain mad with him. Final answer forthcoming when I hear from my liver.

What Produces Islamic Extremism?

In other words, the very policies the U.S. has been pursuing in the name of combating Terrorism -- invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries; locking them up without trials; torturing them; violating the values we've been preaching to the world -- have been the most potent instruments for fueling Islamic radicalism and terrorism.  By contrast, those who have been continuously accused of being "soft on Terrorism" and even being allied with the Terrorists -- those who opposes our various wars, who demanded and provided basic human rights protections and equal liberties to Muslims, who objected to their own governments' oppressive and belligerent policies -- have done more to diffuse and impede Muslim radicalism than virtually anyone else in the world.

This is the thesis of an article every American ought to read and heed:

http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2009/11/16/terrorism

The article is based on interviews with ex-extremists who have changed expressing why they became radical enemies of the United States.

The Tragedy and Futility of Afghanistan

The more I learn about Afghanistan, the more hopeless our cause seems. The latest shock is that we are paying the Taliban through intermediaries to let our supply trucks though. We are funding both sides of the war.  See:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston

Karzai and company are utterly corrupt are not likely to change much. The loss of life, the suffering, and  the expense are not worth the meager goals we might achieve by staying.

Along with a growing number, I think we should devise achievable goals while we get out. The consequences might be severe, of course, and we would have to live with that. I dread especially what it might mean for the children, especially the girls who  could be denied an education or liberation from the despicably oppressive rule of men whose ethics are rooted in centuries-old brutal traditions.

What is our goal anyway? I have no better answer than Peter Berger: Try to get Afghanistan back to where it was in the 70's. See:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/19/afghan.untold/index.html

Maybe this is unrealistic romanticism not relevant to present conditions. But one move that is relevant would be to persuade  the local warlords and chieftains by appropriate financial and other inducements that they would be better off to oppose the Taliban and support the American cause. The local authorities, not Kabul, are the ruling powers. They don't want the Americans and other foreign troops there, but they do want a better life for their people. Make that possible. It would be cheaper that continued military occupation.

In any case, Pakistan is the heart of the problem. Berger maintains that the Taliban would never have been successful without the intelligence and military  forces of Pakistan. Hence,we should say to Pakistan: Either you deal with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in your country with our aerial and financial assistance, or ____(fill in with the strongest alternatives that would be effective without destabilizing the country or letting it fall into the hands of the extremists with their fingers on the nuclear button). In addition tell them that we will do all we can to insure that India does them no harm while they deal with our mutual enemies within your borders.

Bottom line: there are no good solutions. Let us hope that Obama comes up with the least bad option. I trust him more than any of the certaintists, who know exactly what we should in the absolute confidence that the consequences will be a predicted.

The younger Bush left us with unsolvable  ensemble of problems by neglecting Afghanistan to overthrow Saddam Hussein -- a tragic mistake. Suppose  the US had reinstalled King  Mohammed Zahir Shah instead of supporting the present disgrace Hamid Karzai. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Zahir_Shah

Of course, we cannot make or remake history to our liking. It is supremely important to recognize the limits of power and do what is prudently doable in the pursuit of national security and international peace and justice.

Others have made more powerfully and in detail the case I am making, a fact likely to be be familiar to anyone who chances to read this. I merely join them in suggesting we get out as quickly as possible and in a manner consonant with achievable modest goals.

Then we tell Israel and the Palestinians to make a just peace, or they are on their own -- no money  or military assistance to either side.  This, of course, is what ought to be done, but political realities in this country make it impossible given the power of Christians and Jews to prevent it or anything else that would effectively lead to peace and justice in that area.

Next time: what to do about Iraq and Iran, global warming, world poverty, and the delay or the Parousia.

The Healthcare Debacle: Contrary Wants and Unyielding Facts

Would strict regulation of doctors, hospitals and patients under a single-payer system provide control? Or would genuine competition among health plans over price and quality work better? That's the debate we need, but in truth, doctors, hospitals and patients don't want to be limited,

 So says Robert J. Samuelson in today's (10-26) Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102502041.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

I mostly disagree with his  conservative take on things, but I think he is right about this.

Most people want lower health care costs and  greater or unlimited access to health, care just like they want lower taxes and greater government services.  Doctors and hospitals want their payments increased, and citizens don't want their taxes raised. Insurance companies want greater profits by raising premiums and refusing service.

Obama has promised lower costs and no raise in taxes for anyone but the super rich. So how will it all turn out? Well, there is always the national credit card from China, Inc. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, criminals are defrauding Medicare of billions and billions, and when asked about it, officials have plenty of excuses but express no outrage and resolute determination to stop it. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, are you listening?

Down at the Graveyard: Light Thoughts about Grave Matters

OK. let's just collect all the clinches, puns, etc. about graveyards and bury them once and for all.

I was talking to the Superintendent at the cemetery:

How's business? I said.

Oh, just great. In fact, people are dying to get in.

Is that so?

Yeah, besides that there are people dying today who never died before.

No kidding! You do a good job here, I bet.

Yeah, well, we've never had any complaints for any of our tenants. Nobody has ever tried to get out.

What's it like working in a cemetery?

Well, its' awfully quiet. No loud music. No wild parties,  Late at night, it's pretty dead around here.

What do you do if a prospective customer complains about a plot?

Oh, we'd start digging into it and not stop till  we got to the bottom of it.

But aren't a lot more people getting cremated these days? Does that hurt business here?

Well, you know, more people are thinking outside the box, and that is a grave problem for us.

Do you have any worries at all?

Oh yes,  I do have a few worries, but I  think about them for a while and then just bury them.

You like working here, on the whole?

Oh yeah. And undertakers are wonderful people, very loyal and trustworthy. I can assure you  they will be the last to let you down.

Myths of Capitalist Apologists: Now and Then

At a conference in London, a Goldman Sachs international adviser, Brian Griffiths, praised inequality. As his company was putting aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier, Griffiths told us not to worry. "We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," he said. (Robert Reich)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-wall-street-reform-is_b_330105.html

Oh Yeah, well in the old days his ancestral myth makers said that the lower classes needed the goad of starvation to make them work, thus justifying subsistence wages.

I have never understood that last claim, since the same myth makers insist that the rich need the goad of greater income and wealth to persuade them to  work, invest, and create jobs.

Could it be that the lure of higher wages might  also make the poor work and work harder? Or are we common folks a different form of humanity who need different incentives?

These capitalist myths are all crap and baloney, I

think.

Work of Christ

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Signs of Plutocracy

On every front: derivatives regulation, the proposed Consumer Financial Product Agency, new limits on commodities trading, the administration's initial proposals have encountered overwhelming opposition from lobbyists and been eviscerated as they inch through Congress.

ttp://www.salon.com/tech/htww/?last_story=/tech/htww/2009/10/21/the_break_up_the_banks_delusion/

This agrees every other analysis I have seen. Obama and Geithner bark but so far have not bitten except in mostly harmless ways. Congressional leaders express outrage. Congress roars as if in childbirth with an elephant but seems to be bringing forth a relatively harmless mouse.

You want a reason why the bills to regulate banks are being gutted? Just look at the money the financial institutions give Democrats. Check out how much Goldman Sachs and the like have given Obama.

Was it Will Rogers who said he was tired of people criticizing Congress. Why, he said, we have the best Congress money can buy!


OK, I suppose this condemnation has to be qualified a little given the announcement just made that severe pay cuts have been ordered for some big banks -- but not Goldman Sachs and J. P. Morgan Chase, who have repaid their direct TARP funds. But they benefit from other government programs and guarantees that enable them to make big profits with little risk. So, I insist that the plutocracy is still largely intact and capable of great mischief to the masses of us average folks.

No Moral Equivalency Between Israel and the Palestinians

Once again today a defender of Israel assumed Israel's right of defense against Hamas attacks. Of course, but only if you assume initially a moral equality between the two at the present moment.

I reject that assumption because of the events of 1948, when Israel forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and 1967, when Israel considerably expanded its borders. Granted, enough guilt is real on both sides since Israel became a state in 1947. But the fact remains that Israel today occupies territory not originally given them and has been an oppressor of the weaker Palestinians for all these decades.

While all  Palestinian violence against Israel is futile and to be deplored, no way can the two be considered as being on initially equal terms at the present, so that any attack by Hamas or other Palestinians is a justification for severe retribution in the name of self-defense.

Yet that is the unquestioned assumption we see over and over in this country. It must be challenged in the name of justice.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Today's Crisis

Oh my, Oh my, Barbie's ankles are too fat! What to do? Let her take Furosemide. That's what I do.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/10/14/joy.behar.carter.intv.hln

Corn Subsidies: The Multifarious Complexities and Ambiguities of Life

The Law of the Infinite Cornucopia: No shortage exists of reasons to bolster whatever theory anyone wants to believe.  (Leszek Kolakowski)

The Law of Universal Self Interest: We are all driven by self-interests, meaning not only selfishness but what the self is interested in. (Ken Cauthen)

Given the Law of the Infinite Cornucopia  and the Law of Universal Self-Interest, this essay is undertaken boldly but with humility and in light of Whitehead's observation that sometimes it is more important that something be interesting than true.

My understanding is that the huge subsidies given to American corn farmers Under NAFTA have been disastrous for Mexican corn farmers, leading to immigration from the farms to Mexican cities and the United States.

I propose that the government subsidies, which totaled $56.2 billion from 1995-2006, should be reduced by 10% each year and the savings used to sponsor illegal immigrants willing to return to Mexico and grow corn or take other jobs, with  added assistance from the Mexican government.

Will it work? I have no idea. Will  it happen? Absolutely not.

But it is an awfully interesting subject. If you google the terms, you will soon get into economic theory regarding free trade (may produce gain for the many, pain for the few), the loss of Amazon forests,  ethanol controversies, a lot of interpretation  to suit the predilections of the interpreters, American political realities, e.g., power of farm lobbies (Obama voted for the subsidies, McCain against, etc.), corn products and obesity, how rich nations can help overcome poverty in poor and developing countries,  economic adaptation to changing conditions, and a lot of other stuff illustrating my favorite terms -- complexity and ambiguity.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Plutocracy Rules. Who Will Save Us?

Surely President Obama knows that we live in a plutocracy or something far too close to one. Surely he does not approve. Granted these two premises, I can only conclude that he thinks he is powerless to do much about it.

The financial industry has been dealt with tenderly, despite some brave words to the contrary. Tim Geithner's ties to Wall Street are cause for alarm. He is too much in the mold of Henry  Paulson. Larry Summers provides no comfort.

Congressional Committees seeking to provide stiffer regulation are having tough going. "Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is none too thrilled by the watering-down he has been compelled to accept by the New Democrats -- chiefly Democrats from affluent, suburban swing districts -- on his committee," says Harold Myerson in The Washington Post, (October 14, 2009).

Does anyone know how we can elect a Congress with Ralph Nader's ideas on this subject and a President who will suppport their legislation?

Quasi-Acerbic Reflections for Today

Am I the only one who wonders if we should be  spending money we must borrow bombing the moon when 35,000 showed up for 3500 stimulus awards  to help with mortgage foreclosures in Detroit? Detroit this summer had an unemployment rate of 28.9%.

Am I the only one who thinks that if Charlie Rangel is not sternly disciplined by House Democrats, Speaker Pelosi's brave words about cleaning up the place will become testimonies to cowardice?

Republicans Unpatriotic?

When President Obama went to Copenhagen and failed to get the Olympics for Chicago, some Republicans cheered, especially the extremist nut cases -- they who are usually so patriotic, even jingoistic.

When President Obama won the Nobel Prize for Peace, some of the same crowd deplored this award to an American.

Let us admit that the Nobel Peace Prize is something of a Rorschach test that evokes our own predilections and preferences. What about Henry Kissinger? Yasir Arafat? Norwegians have their own as well. 

They key to this bizarre behavior is not to be found in reason and logic, but apparently is grounded in the premise that if Obama is involved, it must be wrong, even if the country must be disparaged in the process.

Strange, but these are some of the same people who think that passing a health care bill in the reconciliation maneuver would be  awful now, but was OK when President Bush the Younger used it to pass his atrocious tax bill to benefit multimillionaires and billionaires.

We must look to St. Paul, Augustine, Calvin, and Reinhold Niebuhr for the clue to this behavior and ours as well, i. e., the natural tendency of individuals and groups (the nation state being the supreme  example) to prefer  self-interest--affirmed, encouraged, and sometimes magnified by choice -- though at times moderated by concern and compassion for others, more so in individuals and small groups than by larger collectives. (Long sentence but the details get a little messy and complicated, full of ambiguities, contradictions, and the like.)

Who are the Republicans?

Republicans fall mostly into three groups and those in the vicinity: One segment has a moral imagination limited mainly to matters involving sex.

A second group either wants to grant big business as much power to run the country as possible or is willing to aid and abet or at least not hinder this effort.

Finally, there are a few more moderate folks who just want change to go slow and not upset things much in a short time.

By the time you combine these allow for those in the vicinity of these three subdivisions and for some exceptions to any rules, you have included nearly all of them. But start with the three main groups and add as necessary.

You could also start with history, region, and culture and arrive basically at the same trio of barriers to what I would prefer in the way of a country worthy to elicit pride.

Mail me a letter attached to a 2010 Prius, and I will provide political science and journalistic labels for these denominations of barriers to progress.

Why Does Obama Have to Deny the Truth?

Obama sometimes appears so pragmatic and politically motivated that it forces him to deny the obvious. President Carter, I think, overstated the case when he said that race was the major factor in the recent protests. Race is not the only ingredient, but it is surely one important one. Yet the Obama Administration is falling all over itself, trying to deny that race enters at all. Why?

Remember when he was so naive in his campaign in so stressing our unity at Americans that he obscured  the real  differences that divide us by race, class, region, self-interest, and ideology.

He knows better in his heart. Too bad his head tells him that truth is not politically advantageous in some cases.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Why Universal Health Care is so Hard to Achieve.

 

 

Many reasons can be cited to explain why it has been so hard in this country to get health insurance for every citizen, an idea proposed as long ago as Harry Truman. One is surely the powerful individualism that may have been more fitted to the early centuries of our history but ruinous today. This contributes to the lack of a strong socialist tradition characteristic of advanced European nations.

Another that needs more attention is the fact that white people do not want to be taxed for benefits that go to people of color, in the past meaning mainly black folks and today Latinos as well. This too has a long history. See: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/15/race/

Add to this the unwillingness of Americans to  support benefits that help others if it costs them something. Finally, add the political influence of huge insurance and drug companies that can use money, if not to buy. at least strongly influence legislation that preserves and increases their financial interests.

Doubtless other factors enter, but the ones mentioned are sufficient to explain why it will be like moving mountains with a shovel to get universal health care that is efficient and affordable.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Americans, Get Healthier, and Costs Will Go Down

Everybody knows that we spend much more than other countries on health care with worse outcomes. What is not so often noted is that we have more unhealthy people to begin with. Our kids and adults eat too much sugar, made cheap by huge subsidies to corn farmers. We suffer from obesity, sedentary habits, and eat too much fat and fast foods, producing a growing epidemic of type two diabetes.

If we want to have lower health care costs, then we as a population need to get healthier by preventing illness through better diets, more exercise, good health habits -- and no smoking and less alcohol.

When will the politicians tell us this simple truth we don't want to hear? I don't mean with euphemistic-tending, weak language like more preventive care. I mean direct talk like this: "Look, as a nation we are  fat, eat too much sugar and bad fats, don't exercise enough, smoke too much and, generally don't take care of ourselves very well. We can either shape up and get fit or pay more for health care, live with chronic conditions, and die early."

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

On Outlasting the Bastards

At the celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday, Bruce Springstein spoke of the election of Barack Obama in the context of Seeger's decades long fight against bigotry, violence, and injustice. Then he said, "Pete, you outlasted the bastards."

So come on, all you who long for peace, you who despise prejudice against any human being, you who long for an end to hate and violence, you who work for justice,we have to outlast the bastards.

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml

Nobody Has Seen the Whole Elephant

A familiar story circulating in various religious versions has four blind men touching an elephant and saying what it is. One touches the side and says wall, another grabs the tail and says rope, another takes hold of the trunk and says hose, a final one grabs a leg and says pillar.  Sometimes the argument rages until the men get violent, or some wise person will resolve the issue by telling them the truth, e. g., all of them are partially right but each has identified only a part while the truth lies in the whole.  

       

Now this story has right and wrong interpretations. The wrong one is that all religions have part of the truth, but none has the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

This view holds only if the wise person has seen the whole elephant and can identify partial views in relation to the whole.

I maintain that if we are talking about God, then nobody has seen the whole elephant and nothing but the elephant -- though many claim they have. More precisely, we can't be sure that anyone has, although many do so claim.

Hence, we can only testify to what we believe based on what is non-deniable and persuasive to us in light of convincing sources as tested by norms  compelling from our vantage point in history and, culture, given our particular life stories, reasoning , and interpreted experience.

But nobody can be sure of having seen, touched, felt, heard, and smelled the elephant, the whole elephant, and nothing but the elephant. Or at least, that is what I believe as of this moment.

For more, see my article: http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/truth2.html