The news from David S. Wieder

Religion and Politics in America 2012

2012-02-19T14:12:00.000-08:00

"Verily, men gave themselves all their good and evil.Verily, they did not take it, they did not find it, nor did it come to them asa voice from heaven. Only man placed values in things to preserve himself--healone created a meaning for things, a human meaning. Therefore, he callshimself 'man,' which means: the esteemer."

F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra,Bk.1

Some liberal souls, I understand, have namedRick Santorum as an ideal 13^th century president. The particulars of this appellation arewell known to those who have been following the interminable Republicandebates, some of which have actually revealed the vacuousness of a few of thecandidates, including Rick Perry, the governor of Texas whose gaffe of notremembering which governmental agency he wished to guillotine or how many deathrow inmates in his state have actually met a similar fate, albeit with a needleinstead.

Then there was Michelle Bachman whoseIRS credentials, foster children, and bible-thumping husband presumablyrendered her capable of running the world’s most powerful country.

After that we had Ron Paul, alibertarian, who plainly feels that the underclass should have their healthcareneeds met by their local churches and charities, and that the US shoulddisengage from the rest of the world. In some respects he is correct in alluding to the misadventures in Iraqand Afghanistan. However, hegemonsdo not voluntarily surrender their place in the world and most moderates do notthink we should isolate ourselves from a world increasingly globalized basedupon a 19^th century interpretation of a constitution arguably inneed of serious revision.

And then that inimitable paradigm ofhypocrisy, Newt Gingrich, a miserable human being, powered by his somewhat hardto ignore intellectual credentials and his use of the words “profoundly,” and “fundamentally,”as well as his colossal arrogance. He seems to have learned, moreover, very little, from his ethicsviolations in Congress and his, to use his words, “profound” fall from grace.His conversion to Catholicism and his abandonment of his cancer-ridden wife forCalista, a helmet-headed blond with whom he prays often and who would, nodoubt, be a loathsome first lady. His billionaire supporter Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, singlehandedly has prevented Newt’s campaign from plunging over a cliff the size ofMount Rushmore, a place, fortunately, he will never inhabit, although Newt probably believes he should replace George Washington on the prominence. Mr. Adelson apparently has now hedgedhis bets and is rumored to be giving money to Mitt Romney, a man who cannot seal the deal even with moderateRepublicans, let alone evangelicals who think that Mormonism is a devilish andheretical cult.

Mr. Romney bases his qualifications forthe presidency because he was a successful venture capitalist and thereforeunderstands how to run a profitable government (as though the government were afor profit corporation.) and that he is now a conservative who unsuccessfully denies his fostering a successful (egads! socialist) health care plan for Massachusetts. He issinking fast, however. Weare not sure he will not survive, however, since the Republicans usually pickthe next in line.

That brings us back to the possibilityof a Santorum nomination, a thought I suspect, not without some logicalbasis, that the American Union may be further infused with theocratic ideals,since Santorum has made pronouncements like President Obama is conducting a waragainst religion. The White Housewould be clearly gleeful if that happened, since Mr. Santorum was given theunceremonious boot by blue collar Pennsylvania after his undistinguished timein the United States Senate. Mr. Santorum also denies global warming and believes that he can single handedly cure the economy, but really does not say how. Dinosaurs really do walk the earth with people---Santorum being living proofdiscrediting the observations of Charles Darwin.

How the American public can swallowthese arguments is stupefying. Arewe back in the 1920s? Why are we even discussing issues like abortion? Birthcontrol? Contraception? Who prays more? Which church is not inhabited by heretics? Are we about to have another Scopes monkey trial? No country in the western world has notleft these issues far behind. But of course, the threat these intellectually challenged candidatesenvision is that the United States will become more like Europe. And Europe has uncivilized andheathen institutions like high speed rail, good roads, health care for all itscitizens, and a more enlightened populace that does not tolerate such pandering infantilism in its political discourse.

Malefactors of Great Wealth

2011-12-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

" Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who
sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in
the world a more ignoble character than the mere
money-getting American, insensible to every duty,
regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a
fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest
uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and
wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a
life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross
debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high
social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such
a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally
does some deed like founding a college or endowing a
church, which makes those good people who are also
foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally
careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and
of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are
not very many of them, but there is a very great number
of men who approach more or less closely to the type,
and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are
curses to the country.”

Theodore Roosevelt. February, 1895

I have been having a continuing dialogue with some Republican friends of mine, ardent defenders of our capitalist system. And so they should be. It is a system that has provided, all throughout the 20^th century, a nation with probably the grandest middle class and the greatest lifestyle the world has ever known. But that lifestyle was not easily won, and is now again under threat by individuals and corporations not unlike the description voiced above by, can you imagine, a Republican President of the United States, who must now, by even the narrowest stretch of any imagination, be spinning in his proverbial grave.

These Republican gentlemen, having achieved considerable wealth on their own or by whatever device, now strain mightily to justify their unimaginable insensitivity to the problematic society in which we now live. One of them said that he wished he had an airplane, four homes instead of two, and other needless accoutrements of decadence. I have no problem with that, because he did not achieve it at the expense of the poor. However, such a mentality enables a “scorched earth” policy and a sanctioning of Congressional refuseniks who have been purchased by lobbyists to protect governmental subsidies of banking, corn, oil, and other interests too numerous to catalog in this meager column.

We now live in a country that no longer has a growing middle class. The American dream has, through a darkly lit tunnel, departed the station. We live in a country that is increasingly plutocratic, where those inhabiting the strata of the upper one percent control more of the wealth than ever before. The figures, staggering and depressing, advanced by a party that has lost its moral compass, looms as a guillotine over the heads of working people who have lost their homes, been evicted in the street, cannot afford health care, and can no longer buy food. Forty six million Americans are now living in poverty. People are taking to the streets.

Nightly news shows a litany of neighborhoods, such as in Cleveland, where Cuyuhoga county has decided that abandoned homes should be demolished, rather than bring lower the homes of those people who, either conscientiously or stupidly, make mortgage payments to banks that will not readjust their financing, even though they are “under water.” These souls, representing the essential staunch character of the American middle class, choose to stay in homes valued at $50,000 carrying $100,000 mortgages. They are faced with banks, which would choose to foreclose, evict and leave the home vacant, subject to scavengers and vandals thereby depreciating the entire neighborhood rather than adjust the financing based upon their diminished value since the housing bubble burst.

Of course, banks are in the business of making a profit. But in times like these, does it not make more sense for a bank to collect a lower payment rather than no payment at all? And with no one to whom the house may be sold? These are the same banks, bailed out by taxpayer dollars, too big to fail, that are sitting on hoards of cash and are refusing to lend any money. These are the same banks (Bank of America/Countrywide) that faces Justice Department fines that it charged African-Americans a higher interest rate than whites, purely based on race.

The Bank of America's Countrywide Mortgage was required today to pay $335 million in fines for discriminating against Black and Latinos who were steered to higher interest rates than white borrowers. Anthony Monzillo, the CEO of Countrywide earned $531 million during 2003-2008 based upon his misdeeds. This criminal has, to date, escaped prosecution. Countrywide did about 49% of all adjustable rate mortgages in the U.S. in 2008 and engaged in systemic fraud.

Republican politicians should fear the next election. People are now aware that they have been hoodwinked by a congress that is not responsive to the needs of its people and are dedicated solely to obstruct the present inhabitant of the White House, who, despite all his faults, including timidity, some pandering, some absence of courage to confront obstructionists, and who, may in this election year, find some way to bring a message to the people that their cause will not remain hijacked. Hijacked by the Malefactors of great wealth.

Miscellanea, November 2011 and the Religion of College Football

2011-11-15T13:43:00.000-08:00

Miscellanea, November, 2011

I had written earlier about the Presidential debate format being changed to tête-a tête between the candidates. I was wrong.

The Republican debates have served a useful purpose, by showcasing the empty suits of most of the candidates, and by highlighting Mitt Romney’s stronger appeal to the general electorate. In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

Rick Perry’s gaffe about abolishing government departments and then not remembering which one he was going to axe, is not really the important point. It was his lack of a policy understanding and a failure to prepare and be acquainted with policy positions rather than memorizing positions coming from his handlers’ talking point memos. His authenticity quotient swan dove into a media hurricane. Memories often fail when there is only rote memory of the thoughts behind the statement. That is why he could not remember.

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Comments on the Religion of college football.

I cannot remember reading anything as loathsome as the Penn State football coach scandal except the ongoing priestly scandals plaguing Catholicism. The idea that men entrusted with the welfare and the education of children could be so callous and even depraved is unimaginable. The idea that football is a more important enterprise than the educational establishment to which it is wedded is evocative of the Catholic Church’s placing its hierarchical power structure before the interests of children, and the shuffling about of pedophilic priests to avoid responsibility for repulsive grotesqueries that would make even the most perverse Hollywood directors blush. You could not make a horror film on this subject. There is no film rating for this. It is just another life destroying mechanism that people will remember, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, without the bombs and explosions.

That is what the coaching staff including the legendary (now, in my opinion, disgraced) Joe Paterno as well as the sacked president of the University did, placing the University’s $76 million revenue machine ahead of the children whose lives have now been scarred by a monster.

The siege mentality of the Penn State football staff—them against us, the lack of transparency, the para-military discipline that robs young men of their dignity, sublimating their individuality to the team and that subjects their bodies to indentured battering in the name of an academic institution, has escorted our society to a new low of moral and intellectual bankruptcy. The fact that college football players are encouraged to take courses that do not demand much study, so they can devote their time to playing football is another indication of why our country is falling behind nations that prefer educating their studentry instead of head bashing them. Most of these misguided souls will not play professionally, and then when they graduate, if at all, they will not be trained in the skills necessary to succeed in an exponentially growing meritocracy. The origins of college football have been distorted and corrupted beyond all recognition. A game that began as an amateur pastime has lost its compass and the Penn State scandal is just another example of the decay, the rotting corpse of American big college football academia.

How much Coach Paterno knew, as well as his staff and the higher ups knew, will now be subject to the harsh scrutiny of the courts, both criminal and later, civil. Those who decry the legal system will now see it seek justice once again for those who could not protect themselves.

May the wheels of justice grind exceedingly fine.

Our Floundering Ship of State

2011-10-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

O Ship of State

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee, -are all with thee!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is inconceivable that the President Obama has, during thelast three months, raised about $70 million for his current reelectioncampaign. The election is more than ayear away! The Republicans will beobliged to raise similar amounts of money for their campaigns. We are talking about estimates as high as abillion dollars between the two parties that could be better utilized for moreconstructive purposes than advertising, negative campaign ads, denigratingother candidates, and waterboarding the hapless television viewer.

There is something inherently wrong,something improvident about this cumbersome, agonizing process. It is destructive to our polity. It should not take so long, be so divisive,or be so expensive to run for office. Itwas not always so. There are moreefficient ways to elect a leader and many more useful ways to spend money. Perhaps the old way of political partiespicking the candidates in nominating conventions was better.

Less democratic, perhaps, but moreefficient, and perhaps more productive of good candidates like Roosevelt,Truman, Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, to name a few.

A year ago I wrote that I was gratefulthat the 2010 congressional and senatorial campaign was over. But wait! Now weare obliged to listen for another year to candidates for the Presidency in anessentially perpetual campaign. We cannot afford a perpetualcampaign, diverting resources from the actual governance of the nation. A process that is devoted for years on end todivisiveness is a self fulfilling enterprise, a destructive song without end. The very length of the campaign is productive of even more divisiveness,not the cohesiveness we now so sorely need as a national goal to get us throughthe great economic global crisis in which we now lie, almost like a tortoise onits proverbial back, helplessly unable to right itself, ready to be devoured bypredators.

Candidates, questioned by journalistsabout all manner of irrelevancies, including whether that candidate is a truefollower of Jesus, Brigham Young, Mohammad, or is a true Christian. Who reallycares if Mormons believed golden plates of Jesus were in New York and theymoved to Missouri? Who cares if Jesusascended to heaven on a cloud? Whatdifference does it make that fundamentalist Christians pronounce fitness foroffice on how “Christian” a candidate is? These are not questions that shouldbe asked of candidates. How deep and abiding faith guides a candidate is notthe issue. Religion and government donot mix. Any candidate, who wishes toforce upon the public social issues such as abortion, should be asked whetherthey also believe that putting people to death is contradictory to thatpremise. Why is our dialog sorudimentary, so infantile, and so juvenile in its exercise? What is it in the American vernacular thathas happened to stunt our intellectual growth as an electorate?

The inanity of it all is a stupefyingindictment of either the lack of intelligence of the voter or of the politiciansor more likely, both.

Whydo we need Wolf Blitzer and Chris Wallace to moderate debates? Why do we needany moderators at all? The idea of Michelle Bachman giving a straight answerto anything other than how much she is guided by her faith is so fantastical asto strain the imagination of J.K. Rowling. Mitt Romney, a homogenized, blow-dried,fabric softened mannequin, is now vying with the pizza man for front runnership. The “debates” are farcical, nincompoopenterprises, offering only a modicum of insight into who these people reallyare.

And the President, althoughdisappointing, will probably get another term after all is said and done, givenhis less than courageous posture in standing up to a Republican party that hasbeen taken over by social ideologues, who deny science, climate change,evolution, stem-cell research, instead harping on piety, religiosity and “values.”

Our political and electoral system isa broken, rusty, creaking locomotive, chugging up a hill that steepens everyyear, hampered by global competition, economic challenges, and countries whichselect their Prime ministers in 6 week campaigns from start to finish.

The Electoral College is ananachronism. Its origins, based upon state’s rights, disenfranchised women,slaves, and rural communities is in need of serious reform. We need directpopular election of the President, a dramatically shortened campaign, and acongress that remains in Washington, seeing to the business of governance, notpartisanship driven by vote getting.

Billionsspent to elect candidates and a rational discussion of the issues confrontingthe country, do not need years of campaigning.

Debatesshould be discussions among the candidates themselves, not howling, applaudingaudience extravaganzas on Fox and CNN. The discussions should include follow up questions, follow ups to thefollow ups and not be a continuum of handler-generated sound bites.

Peopleshould understand that there should be a depth of knowledge generated by thediscussion and a revelation (forgive the expression) of what these people areactually thinking and, more importantly, what they actually know.

Another Depressing Presidential Campaign is Underway

2011-09-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

“Absolute faithcorrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”

“The opposite ofthe religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic whocares not whether there is a god or not.”

EricHoffer (1902-1983)

Recently,some thoughtful friends of mine have been writing about how the personalitiesof Presidential candidates and their individual world view are not reallycrucial to the process of how they manage the economy. These friends equate the economy with all the reasons to elect acandidate. I suppose this is arationalization of how to support a Texas top gun like Rick Perry or a crazywoman like Michelle Bachmann whose primitive social instincts are fantasticallyout of touch with the 21^st century. The economy is important, ofcourse, but there are other issues that trouble people, including a woman’s right to choose, birth control,education, a safety net for our citizens, and the government’s ability to createinfrastructure and an environment in which people can live in safety.

Ofcourse, economic policy is an adjunct to this, but it is not the sole thing.

Iguess my perspective is different: I believe that thesocio-religious-anti-science zealotry of some of the candidates, especially onthe Republican side of the aisle that unctuously panders to the religious rightis a disingenuous manifestation of ahypocritical vote solicitation-at-any-cost mantra. And when President Obamaalso does the same thing, “may God bless the United States of America,” at theend of every speech, he is no lessobsequious. Earlier presidents did notneed to wear flag pins or make ubiquitous and gratuitous religious referencesin order to please the voting public. Abraham Lincoln’s references to God were not done as a matter of courseat the end of every speech. And certainly Thomas Jefferson did not do so.

Iunderstand the perhaps human genetic need to believe in a supernatural force toprovide social cohesion and an ability to war against other tribes, but whymust it be a prerequisite to garner votes? Why must every speech be an appeal to piety? Are not Muslim fundamentalists the same asJewish fundamentalists or the Catholic Church in their a priori discounting of other faiths, claiming their faith is theexclusive path to salvation?

Atleast the Catholic Church is somewhat consistent: no birth control, no capitalpunishment, and no abortion. But its hypocriticaland certainly not biblical 16^th century calls to celibacy amongpriests so that the church could perpetuate its property and estates are no indicationof godliness. And there is a cogentargument that the celibacy requirement attracts sexually abusive individuals toits ranks. The Catholic religioushierarchy continues to mystify me.

Whyis the American public so ostensibly pious? Europeans have already moved away from state religions, but in theUnited States, there is an almost secular state religion, an unintendedconsequence stemming from the tolerance set forth in the Constitution. The entire fringe religious fundamentalism inthis country has a cult-like tenor to it, an irrationality that is almostindecipherable yet understandable at the same time. I think the candidates should be extensivelyquestioned about whether they expect to govern by divine revelation. Michelle Bachmann has been particularly adeptat dodging that question. George W.Bush, born again, took us into two wars costing trillions of dollars, whichhistory has borne out to be unnecessary, given recent events in the MiddleEast.

Istill remember the Republican debate in 2008 when the candidates were asked ifthey believe in the theory of evolution and all raised their hands in thenegative. That question should be put to the candidates again.

Atthe same time, the ideological, proto-religious aspect of the economic arguments presented today isundeniable. On the right are the zealotswho want to remove government from the economic process, yet wish to include itin the social agenda. Do not abort thechild, but once it is born unwanted, abandoned, and neglected, let it inhabitthe lower depths of a Dickensian unterveltof deprivation, ignorance and poverty.

Americamust find a rational alternative to this mind numbing debate: Moving beyond piety in its political dialogue,whether it be a religious or dogmatic view of economic solutions or itsmisappropriated social creed of imposing religious education and its antiscience dogma in the public schools.

Focusingon the solutions to our social problems through ideology is neither productivenor encouraging of solutions.

Polarization in Washington and an Increasingly Dysfunctional Government.

2011-07-27T12:38:00.001-07:00

The Tea Party, a misnomer from the start, is, it seems, a yearning to return to what it perceives as an America of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It is a faction of disenchanted, negative people who believe that government should be highly limited, a sort of return to the days when people lifted themselves up by their bootstraps, and needed no help from anyone. Days when people lived in log cabins, worked on agrarian lands, and tilled the soil. Those who inhabited the cities lived either in poverty or in monumental wealth. The days when the United States Constitution, a venerable document, perpetuated freedom of religion, non-voting women and, of course, that amazing gift to America—the institution of Slavery, which culminated in a Civil War, killing about 600,000 Americans. After the Civil War, the gilded age and the industrial revolution produced the beginnings of the middle class and a claque of millionaires and Robber Barons. Those good old days were not so good. But people “worked mighty hard for mighty little pay,” and understood no one was going to give them a handout. Along came the labor movement, strikes, and a progressive government that broke the trusts, thanks to Theodore Roosevelt. It was not an easy battle. But it was the beginning of a safety net for its citizens, and an attempt at hybridizing a partnership between government and laissez-faire capitalism. It was the beginning of a just society.

We are no longer that country. We have regressed. We are a nation of putatively entitled illiterates, a nation that does not understand its own history, and of politicians who barely understand the complexity of the issues that are overwhelming them. We are a nation with exponentially increasing disparity between rich and poor. Politicians hew to the call of CNN, Fox News, and a strident, brainless debate, taking positions that are not moderate or well thought out. Our government seems dysfunctional because it does not know how to cope with what may be increasingly an ungovernable situation.

I admire the optimism of those who think we are going to innovate and rise to the occasion. But I wonder.

Now we are engaged in a cultural and economic war, a war promulgated by a coterie of privileged corporations, their corrupt lobbyists, and “job creators,” who, the Republican party now believe, will restore our shattered economy through not having to pay more taxes and by shutting down the court system (so called tort reform) cutting social programs, education, pensions, social security, breaking labor unions, and lowering taxes. Tea partiers believe that more jobs will come out of favoring those who will invest if their taxes are lower and are not held to accountability by the law.

Different economic schools of thought cannot agree on whether to tax less spend less or to tax more, spend more on infrastructure and technology. Business might call this investment or capital expenditure. Make no mistake. The debate is more religious and ideologic, and while economists are a valuable resource to tell us what went wrong, they do not seem to be able to predict the future. What most economists do agree upon, however, is that it will take a partnership between government and free markets to perpetuate stability and a climate for innovation and investment. It has always been so and a dynamic market economy needs structure and regulation as well as a safety net for its citizenry. A centrist view of governance has always been America’s strength.

The problem is that we are no longer an agrarian or even an industrial economy. We are a post-industrial economy, with less ability to compete because of rising illiteracy, sloth, and a fundamental denial of what is happening beyond and within our borders. We are turning away educated immigrants, and exporting jobs overseas, because there is no one here to do them and because people in more ambitious countries are willing to work harder for less, are more skillful and better educated. A return to the American century (the 20^th) is not at all likely. American Exceptionalism? We are withering in a sea of internal discord, rancor and disparity between rich and poor. The middle class, built through years of struggle and reform, if not already vanished, is clearly more ethereal.

On top of all that, we have leaders who do not seem to be able to rise to the occasion. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have anyone who is able to capture the imagination of the people, to motivate them, to seize the moment. The President seems a capable, intellectual pedant who is afraid to be branded an angry black man, so he tries to compromise and form a consensus that becomes more and more illusory. The Speaker of the House is a political hack that caters to his Tea Party minions with a revolting unctuousness—a disingenuousness that is so obvious it is shocking.

Harry Truman we need you now.

Rites of Tribal Initiation: 2011

2011-06-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Jews, have for millennia, circumcised their male offspring as a ticket to entry into the
Tribe. Hitler’s minions, as a means of identification of male Jews, caused men to drop their pants in order to determine who should live and who should be gassed, tortured, or otherwise exterminated.Under those circumstances, it became more difficult for male Jews to escape doom and certainly argued against the procedure.

A friend of mine, a Rabbi, recently wrote an incensed article about what he termed an anti-Semitic tract, “Foreskin Man,” (www.kurtstone.typepad.com) which condemned circumcision and seeks to introduce a law criminalizing the practice. Aside from all the medical controversy, the differentiation between male circumcision and female genital mutilation seems, for me, a difficult distinction to make. Both procedures attack the genitalia of the victim.

Arguments that males benefit from the procedure and are less susceptible to sexually
transmitted diseases do not really address the moral issues of the rights of an infant who is unable to consent to the procedure and must suffer the consequences of the decision of his parents who are usually religiously, not medically, motivated. On the other hand, waiting until one is 16 or even 18 renders the procedure painful and usually not done. This even though there is evidence that there is a reduction in urinary tract infections as well as a reduction in the incidence in penile cancer.

Recently the British Medical Association pointed to medical and psychological risks of
the procedure, including anxieties, anger and even attempts of those circumcised to restore their foreskins. Some courts in Europe have declared the procedure illegal.

There has also been evidence that sexual sensation is diminished because the glans of
the penis is desensitized. However, there is evidence to the contrary that no loss of sexual sensation occurs. There is no doubt, however, that there can be medical complications, including, among other consequences, fistulas, cysts, necrosis, and ulceration.

One thing is sure: there is little doubt that circumcision arose as a tribal rite and a methodology, according to Maimonides, to control male sexuality. There seems to be an increasing consensus among medical societies that male circumcision “should not be routinely performed.”

What is clear is that it is a primitive practice, and rationales by religious people
have been carefully crafted to justify its perpetuation. Many Jewish parents decide to do it so that their children are not singled out for having a “different penis” in the locker
room. (With no disrespect intended to recently tweeting Jewish congressmen.)

I have no answer to this conundrum. On the one hand, it is an accepted and routinely practiced custom. On the other, it is a form of genital mutilation, and when practiced on females, universally and rightly abhorred.

Whether the group currently promoting Elders of Zion caricatures of Jews who circumcise and Aryan looking anti circumcision claques who oppose it are evilly motivated are marginal to the issues of whether the practice remains morally or medically justifiable. The growing professional opinion seems to be against it.

And, if one is religious, even devoutly so, and believes that Man is created in God’s
image, why the necessity to improve on God’s creation? If one is not religious, would not Darwinian natural selection have eliminated foreskins by now anyway?

Is Religion the bête noir of Humanity?

2011-04-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

I just finished a book by Sam Harris, “The End of Faith.”

A disturbing analysis of religion and theology, the book’s focus carries forth a recurring theme of the intolerance generated by all religions, and even sharply criticizes religious moderates. Traditional thinking had always been that religious moderation is an acceptable alternative to religious extremism. Not so, avers Harris, reasoning that religious moderation fosters a climate of acceptance of religious extremism. The acceptance of any religion, ergo, a priori allows an implicit acceptance of the most extreme forms of faith.

In a coolly rational discourse, Harris especially derides Islam, the conversion from which carries the penalty of death. Islam also tolerates the subjugation of women, honor killings, beheadings and suicide
bombers; the idea that so sexually repressive a religion offers however many virgins in paradise as a reward for acts of grotesque terrorism speak to its ultimate abandonment of goodness. The idea that in the 21^st century such a belief system can be food for any serious rational thought befuddles him.

He is no less forgiving of Catholicism, and refers to the Lateran council of 1252 which punished the Jews by removing them from society’s grace, promulgating thousands of years of anti-Semitism, including the blood libel, exploring a gruesome litany of disembowelments, heretic-burnings, rakings,
witch-huntings and other nauseating acts of religious fervor, ultimately leading to the Holocaust. Fortunately, he says, the church abandoned such procedures, but not until the early 18^th century and not before the seeds of the whirlwind had been sown.

Jews receive little less effusive acid pen treatment. Jewish fundamentalists cling to the anachronistic, bronze-age railings of the book of Leviticus, which Harris maintains is an exercise in the misogynistic demands of a paranoid God, who demands complete thoughtless subservience. He calls rigid adherence to primitive dietary laws and circumcision a paradigm of tribalism. Differences among the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine/Israel are still fueled by cultural differences and religious dichotomy, with fundamentalists on both sides stirring a witch’s brew of racism, terrorism, hatred and death.

He relegates theology to a non-science and does not even accord it philosophical heft, since he views religion as an evil in the world which denies people the essence of their humanity, the understanding that people do good things because of their own ethical code, giving the example of monkeys
and other species protecting their young. Religion is not at all needed to produce morality. He defines love as a concern for other’s happiness and the placement of those values on a level with one’s own well being, without the necessity of priestly or clerical intercession.

This, says Harris, is the new ethic to which we should all aspire, an ethic that needs no class of priests to stand between ourselves and our reason or our humanity. In discounting the belief of others by virtue of “faith,” we automatically discount the “faith” of others.

In my discussions with others about these undertakings, I have always encountered resistance and reluctance for the faithful to not abandon their sense of reason. The reaction is “I am not educated enough to talk to you about this,” or “I do not wish to discuss it.”

People who are content to use reason during the week somehow feel free to abandon their sense of reason on Sunday, or Saturday.

Why?

The Mideast in Turmoil II

2011-03-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

“All War represents a failure of diplomacy.” Tony Benn

Now that the Middle East has been rocked by the latest wave of freedom-seeking, it is interesting to speculate about how little influence we have over what may happen to us. Hosni Mubarak certainly did not. Surely he did not expect to leave office under the circumstances he did. Muammar Gaddafi, the murderous, insane leader of Libya is killing with impunity as the West looks on in a state of befuddlement, the punditry voicing a confused mixture of morality, pragmatism, and logistical analysis.

Nothing has really changed in our western, oil-addicted psyche. Washington politicians are ringing their hands about the “potential slaughter” of innocents, but what they are really thinking about is the same conundrum that has plagued them all along. Will pubescent Arab freedom choke off the world’s supply of oil and will the countries not yet in crisis be able to sustain the increased production necessary to alleviate the strangulating effect of oil shortages on the economic recovery in America and in the rest of its energy-seeking competitors?

Jeff Greenfield, the political analyst and former Presidential speechwriter, has a new book out that hypothesizes about how twists of fate turn the tide of history. The assassination of JFK, for example. Or the fact that a plot to truck dynamite the new President was foiled in December of 1960 because the assassin did not want his family to be involved when Jackie came to the door of their residence. Not wanting to kill the young President’s family led to a delay in the plot allowing the FBI time to foil it. This little known fact reveals how tenuous political and human fortunes are. A slight change of circumstance, a different leader here and there, matters over which even the most prescient leader has little or no control. The randomness of events, play out at the highest levels of government, potentially plunging the world into ever deepening chaos.

Should we do no fly zones in Libya ? Should we have fought in Viet-Nam? Was the removal of Saddam Hussein, empowering the Iranians helpful? Do nations enter wars with inadequate information and are decisions made with poor information, and impulsively misguided leaders? Of course. Decisions rendered in haste are often wrong, but sometimes they are correct. How can so imperfect an operation as government and its leadership really be trusted? Well, in fact, it cannot. Nathan Detroit is rolling the dice.

It is very easy to forget the threat of the Soviet Union, an imploded, decrepit economic house of cards, despite having projected enormous military power perpetuating its own empire, threatening Europe, Asia and the United States. How, in retrospect, could we have considered the threat so daunting? During the post World War II years and throughout the 1960s and 1970s, we lived in fear of a Communist takeover of the world. As schoolchildren we hid under our wooden desks, to protect us from a nuclear Armageddon. Others averred: had we not stood up to the nightmarish Leviathan, we would all be Russian vassals.

What really are the lessons of history? What can impel us to make the right decisions? Thoughtfulness, prudence, and reflection? The very qualities the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has have caused those critical of him to say he is vacillating, indecisive, and too cautious. George W. Bush was the contrary, embroiling us in two wars, killing thousands, neither of which bloody conflict has really proven its value. Mr. Truman, on the other hand, through courage and decisiveness, prevented North Korean domination of the South, allowing democracy and economic independence to thrive.

The questions of which wars are good wars and which are not remain unanswered.

They probably never will be.

The Mideast in Turmoil.

2011-02-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

Events in Egypt still bode uncertain for the West. The fluidity of the situation, now partially determined, has the scent of a youthful, computer-generated revolution, its forces young, vigorous and dynamic, the scenes in the streets of Cairo evoking tableaux of freedom-loving birds learning to fly.

The tired, corrupt government ministers who tried to blame “external influences” for their increasingly precarious grip had averred anarchy and chaos, the classically demagogic response to the change that threatened their grip on puissance.
This, of course, was the manipulative tool of corrupted political forces and is not a new phenomenon from a historical perspective. Every dictator has, to a greater or lesser extent, utilized this fear to perpetuate their own power. The difference is that this time, it failed. Fear and terror lost to a burgeoning aroma of freedom.

We do not now know how this situation will play out. Will the revolution in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East wind up in the hands of Islamic extremists? Will western-influenced youth attain power through some leader who will not become an autocrat? Will a military strongman or fundamentalist Islamists stifle the democratic instincts of the people? Will the reigns of power corrupt whomever it embraces? Will Israel be threatened or find itself at war with the newer forces which might dominate the Arab world? Many other questions still remain unanswered.

In the 1960s, the United Arab Republic was a brief, ill-fated union between Egypt and Syria, which only lasted 2½ years, a paradigm of Arab disunity, almost like the scene in the tent from Lawrence of Arabia when Anthony Quinn entered and demonstrated how the feuding tribes could not hook up, even under British rule. Western attempts to amalgamate Arab countries into one monolith have always been a huge mistake. Too many tribes and nationalities, many of which cannot even agree on who is the scion of Mohammed, offer very little unifying potential. The Egyptians do not now, it seems, wish to reject the 30-year peace treaty with Israel. Nor do they seem to be flying to an Iranian smoke signal, Shia-Sunni Arab-Persian discrepancies momentously militating against that frightful result.

Interestingly and to his credit, John Boehner, on “Meet the Press,” stated that the President had handled the crisis about as well as he could have. A very risky statement, indeed, from the man who must pacify his tea party minions. Governing is far more difficult and complicated than simply leading the opposition.

The lessons taught by attempting governance will face the naifs in the freedom-seeking throngs in Egypt and in whatever other country is next to join them in a quest for democracy. Without a constitutional heritage and institutional foundations of democracy, it will be arduous. Have Facebook and Twitter replaced Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and John Adams in Founding Fatherdom?

We are living in exciting, exhilarating times.

The Decline of Richesse.

2011-01-18T18:22:00.000-08:00

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

A Republican friend of mine, whom I respect greatly for his intellect as well as his congeniality, recently opined that the Democratic propensity is to hate the military. This notion of a Democratic antipathy to the armed forces is supported by his assertion that the military vote ten to one for Republicans. Perhaps they do, although I have not checked the accuracy of that assertion, but it is a misconception that Democrats hate the soldiers, most of whom are volunteers for a duty others will not do. Today’s military is composed of an elite career officer corps and enlisted men who volunteer, often with the idea that service to their country is noble, sometimes because they are escaping poverty, and often for a secure, structured environment. Many of the volunteers are very young, and have not yet learned of the horror of war. George W. Bush, who himself avoided combat, had very little compunction in embroiling our country in two disastrous wars that still have not proven their value.

The fact that these gladiators are supported by war profiteers and legislators both from the Republican and Democratic parties, makes them no less victimized by the illusion that the United States is responsible for making the world safe from rogue governments that spring up around the globe or other threats from amorphous terrorists.

These “threats” supposedly justify a $700 billion defense budget, when we as a nation are struggling with underfunded schools, decrepit highways, and a 19th century rail system.
This idea of an American colossus, a dynamic hegemonic enterprise straddling the globe has vanished with our manufacturing base, a decaying rust belt of post industrial cities, inhabited by the unemployed, the disenfranchised, the dispossessed.

The present Republican leadership believes that fewer taxes on their corporate benefactors will revive our flagging economy, and are busy selling the notion that all Americans will benefit from more jobs created by the effect of the long-discredited “trickle-down” theory. Democrats believe that the government should invest more, publicly fund research, invest in infrastructure and modestly raise taxes to do so. Somewhere between these two increasingly polarized positions should be a solution.

One thing is certain—the United States has neither the economic wherewithal nor the moral ability to police the world. Drunk on oil, hypocritically pious and in hoc, it now must co-exist in an increasingly hostile and threatening world. Faster jet planes and more expensive aircraft carriers are no longer the basis for projecting power. We need to turn inwardly strong. More education, better teachers, faster rail, better research, and energy independence—that is where we should be looking. Congressmen up for sale to defense contractors need to be put on notice that playing on the fears of their constituents will no longer get them reelected.

One would hope that the H.L. Mencken was wrong when he said that “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” So far, unfortunately, he has been right.

Religion in the 21st Century

2011-01-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”

Thomas Jefferson

Religion, it seems, has not done playing its hand in the affairs of mortals, who, despite accumulating scientific evidence, continue to believe in whatever divinities are comforting to their concept of human existence.

Because of this hope, men strive to gain some illusory reward after they die, including, but not limited to 73 virgins, floating upon a heavenly cloud, life in a virtual paradise, or whatever other notion they can conjure up. Because man is the only beast who knows that he will die, the other products of evolution are not beholding to a religious undertaking or to nature. Lions, for example, feel no remorse when they devour their prey. Snakes do not wilt when they poisonously bite their victims, porpoises do not tarry when they gulp their fish repast.

Man, obsessed with death, believes that if he lives according to the dogma of the church, mosque or synagogue that he will be somehow rewarded in perpetuity. He prays, fasts, renders beseechments, wails, moans, kneels prostrate and goes to confession. He does good turns not for the good in the deed itself, but for the promise of some unearthly reward. This actually diminishes the goodness of the deed, for the deed should, if honestly performed, should be reward enough in and of itself.

In the name of religion, men have killed, maimed, tortured, burned at the stake, and brutalized his fellows. In the name of religion, theocracies and true believers threaten the annihilation of other nations and seek nuclear bombs to do so. Only recently has religious dogma allowed for some toleration of the beliefs of others, mostly as a reaction to the information age and the holocaust. First, the holocaust erased institutional (but not all) anti-Semitism in the west, and second, the general diminution of misinformation that had been generated about contrary belief systems. People are exposed to the ways, in a global environment, of others. Ergo, they are less ignorant. Much of this has happened through the rise of television and of the movies, since many younger people do not read books or even newspapers. Even still, the institutional Church of Rome denies basic human sexuality and the need of men for love, fostering a class of prelate who is frustrated and unfulfilled, propelling them toward abuse and depredation.

Religious fundamentalists, including Hasidim, Islamists, Orthodox Jews, still indoctrinate their children with worthless, anachronistic dogma, dietary laws and fasts. They deny the right to marriage outside their respective faiths, they stone those who violate the Sabbath and who do not obey the precepts of their religion. Islamists execute adulterers and lop off the hands of petty thieves. They degrade and debase women as inferior beings. True believers inculcate in their children a credo that there is something worthwhile in praying to a god who has not the power to change anything on earth, and if he did, should shoulder the blame for the evil that men do, ostensibly in his name. The only thing that occurs as a result of this “educational” enterprise is hysteria and fear among those who have not been taught realistically to deal with the vicissitudes of life, other than doing dances, praying to the spirits, almost like the primitive souls lost and seeking comfort in the African Savannah, 50,000 years ago.

Not much Christmas spirit this year.

2010-12-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

Recently, a Republican friend of mine (I do have Republican friends) sent me an email, recounting a tale of a Republican father and his hard-working student liberal Democrat daughter who, brainwashed by her profoundly elite college professors, berated her father for his selfishness. The father, giving as good as he got, reminded his prodigal child that Democrats were interested, through some ignorance of the Dickensian realities of life, to surrender all their freedoms; she simply did not understand that the progenitors of individual wealth should not be subjected to redistributionist taxation. Why did she not give part of her hard earned 4.0 GPA to her partying 2.0 GPA friend as a token of her undying friendship? When his daughter refused, he pronounced her a Republican.

The histoire continued in a vein of how Republicans benefited from hard work, self-reliance, control over the self, and how Democrats were willing to surrender all individual freedoms to the common good. Other included pronouncements were that conservatives who did not like guns did not buy them, homosexuals “quietly stayed at home,” (as if there were some shame to that), and how down-and-out conservatives lift themselves up by their bootstraps instead of looking for handouts.
Like all exaggerations the tale had some truth to it, but a little truth is as good as a prevarication. Democrats are hard working people, Democrats are not Socialists, and yes, they have social consciences, they believe that society has a duty to help care for those who cannot care for themselves. Is that not what America says in its constitutional preamble? “We the people…promote the general welfare…?” Do conservatives want to ensure the elimination of the middle class, transforming its persona into a 21st century version of 19th century England? In 1970, the top 1% controlled 9% of the wealth. Now the top 1% control 35% of the wealth. It is of these figures revolutions are born. Perhaps conservatives should think of social progressivism as a way of preserving the societal structure we are now fortunate enough to inhabit.
Lately, the political discourse in America has degenerated to an almost religious dichotomy of thought. The willingness of right wingers to denounce all efforts to help the unfortunate, and the condemnation of social progressives for trying to do so has become the underlying theme of present political reality. And by the same unfortunate token, the progressives depicting conservatives as social brutes stoke the fires of more polarization.

Capital Punishment in an Age of Abolition

2010-12-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

John Paul Stevens, 90, about ready to retire from the Supreme Court, has recently written a review for The New York Review of Books, on David Garland’s recent book, "Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition."

The role of capital punishment remains a barbaric remnant of an earlier time, when public executions satisfied the need for “community gratification and fascination with death.” It serves no useful purpose, Stevens maintains. Had he been able to change his vote in the landmark case of Furman v Georgia, he would have voted to abolish the institution entirely.

I frankly do understand the arguments made by death penalty proponents: That some people do not deserve to live, that through the crimes they have committed, they have forfeited their right to life. Serial killers, criminal monsters who have violated every social moray, do not deserve to inhabit the planet; it is hard to argue otherwise. I hold no brief for Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the like. I am glad they are gone. But it is so complicated—and expensive for the state to put someone to death. If we shorten the appellate process, we risk rushing to a dénouement that no one really wants—the potential death of an innocent. And if we delay the process with individuals on death row for twenty years until they are executed, then we diminish and even make irrelevant the penalty.

The argument against capital punishment, therefore, is not the merits of keeping of death-deserving criminals alive; it is, however, the evil that our society perpetuates as a civilized undertaking (no pun intended). It has to do with the ability of our society to administer the punishment fairly. In that respect, we have failed miserably, because it is doled out without rhyme or reason, often for matters of race, or for the convenience of politicians being able to show to voters how tough they are on crime. Blacks who murder whites are 11 times more likely to receive the death penalty than whites who murder whites or blacks. Since 1972, 1,300 prisoners have been released from death row because of newly discovered evidence. We as a nation now inhabit the orb of Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran, to name a few other countries, which still put people to death. Criminality is not reduced by capital punishment. And the likelihood of an innocent man being killed is always present. Death is ever so final.

It is time for us to move beyond this primitive enterprise, and to have some leaders who are politically brave enough to say so.

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

I am thankful to live in a country where even those who disagree with us are able to express their opinion, no matter how inane, stupid, or ignorant.

I am thankful for the Constitution of the United States that has, since the founding, provided a framework for such expression.

I am thankful for the knowledge that in order for us to continue such a tradition, we must be constantly vigilant.

I am thankful for living in a country that reveres such a sacred document.

I am thankful for an understanding of the faults of those in power and for a free press that lies as an underpinning of expression and a watchdog against those who would corrupt the system.

I am thankful for our system of laws, courts and trial by jury and for those who labor to make it work.

I am thankful for understanding that “power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I am thankful that religious fundamentalists, despite their efforts to dismantle the wall of separation of church and state, have not been able to impose theocracy upon us.

I am thankful to not be living in a place like Iran where governance so antipathetic to human dignity dwells in its most grotesque and loathsome form.

I am thankful that religious fundamentalism is marginalized in our society, despite those who would try to inform our daily lives by casting us as flawed human beings in need of some sort of salvation—and a priestly class that arrogates power to itself by promising to “perfect” us.

I am thankful for understanding that we must strive to do good on our own volition, that each of us can make the world a better place and that kindness and charitable acts are the sincerest form of human effort if they are done for their own sake, with no promise of reward beyond the act itself.

And finally, I am thankful that I am not obliged to be thankful for anything at all, if I do not wish.

George Bush has his new book out.....

2010-11-15T13:01:00.000-08:00

George Bush has his new book out. I have not yet read it, but I have heard him interviewed on TV and have read reviews of the book. This frat boy, this pious peddler of religious virtue, this hypocrite now wants to sell his writing (if he wrote it at all) as though he would be regarded kindly by history. He will not. He lacks no chutzpah. Ignorance surely is bliss.

His absence of remorse for sending our young service men and women to fight and die or have a leg or an arm blown off, is an exemplar of hubris and rationalization with which history will be able to evaluate his Presidency for its true worthlessness. Claiming to "protect Americans," he invaded a country that did not present an existential threat to our national security, violating his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. Arguably he is a war criminal, having authorized torture and assuming responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American youths, as well as around 100,000 innocent civilian Iraqis.

Speaking of audacity, the current occupant of the White House could use some. His potential compromise of the Bush tax cuts, favoring the richest of Americans threatens to perpetuate a growing disparity between the super rich and the rest of us. Imposing taxes to implement social policy, despite Republican protestations, is not a new phenomenon.

Seems that the American people have been fed and are voraciously consuming the malarkey of the conservatives who, despite evidence to the contrary, still believe that these rich folk are benefactors who create more jobs when they fail to pay their fair share of taxes. These are the same people who spent two trillion dollars on two wars and insist that we need a fleet of warplanes and billion dollar aircraft carriers to fight an amorphous band of illiterate religious fundamentalist terrorist thugs who have to smuggle explosive-laden printer cartridges onto airplanes or fill a truck with explosives to attack us. Now we need to get spending under control, they say.

No present day politician, Republican, Democrat or Tea Partier seems to have the courage to tell us exactly what they will cut. Social Security? The defense budget? Veterans Benefits? Medicare? The truth be told, no one dares.

It must be the fault of the lawyers

Thank goodness the election is over.

2010-11-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog entry, and a fine time it is for it, if I must say so myself.

Florida has now elected an ethically challenged Republican governor, who essentially flooded the airwaves with negative ads about Alex Sink, the democratic candidate. People who have voted for him will not be surprised if he disappoints by trying to shut the door to the courthouse to "protect" businesses which despoil the environment, drill for oil in pristine seas off the coast, or manufacture harmful products.

On the national scene, people are amazed that tea partiers have gained so many seats in the House of Representatives, by mouthing standard platitudes of how they are going to slash spending. But where? They do not say.

Elected to the United States Senate is Marco Rubio, a 39 year old tea party conservative, who has railed against a woman's right to choose, waffled on global warming, and thinks that America is moving in the wrong direction. He expects to cure this problem by slashing the budget and making "hard choices," but has failed to specify which choices. Not social security because his 80 something mother is a beneficiary, but more likely because he fears the wrath of Florida's seniors. He is supposedly a rising star in the Republican party and since the other tea partiers are pretty crazy, he probably won't be around for his full term, unless he keeps his seat while running for higher office a la Joe Lieberman.

The selling of candidates like bars of soap continues, and the insulting, demeaning ads are over, but the consequences of the electorate not having to think too much about the candidates or listen seriously to debates about complex issues should be troublesome to any thoughtful person.

People in Florida should not be discouraged, however. Now that the GOP has some power, they will be held responsible by the punditry, including yours truly in the next election.