Sunday Roundup December 28, 2014 - Closing Time

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

- A.J. Muste

This is the last post at The Left Bank Café.  For those of you who've stopped by over the years, thank you.

I started this blog in November 2010 - outraged at the distortions of truth and at the right-wing propaganda that led to the Republican victories that year. Since the blog's inception, I've tried to separate fiction from fact in the events of the day and, from time to time, to share my thoughts and passions on non-political topics.

Three hundred posts and four years later, it's now closing time at The Left Bank Café.  

Here are some thoughts, inspirations and sentiments that have informed this blog.

The universe is a wondrous, vast place.  The Earth is home to the only known intelligent life in that universe.  This is an awesome responsibility.  As the Native American proverb has it: "Treat the earth well.  It was not given to you by your parents.  It was loaned to you by your children."

The peoples of the world are our brothers and sisters.  The children of the world are our children.  Let's always remember that.  "I wonder how foreign policies would look if we thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children." - Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

Government has a responsibility to develop just policies and provide for the common good. Given the complexity and scale of today's issues, government plays a vital and necessary role. To say that the richest nation on Earth cannot afford the common good, that it cannot provide for the vulnerable in our society, is a lie.

Racism, militarism, and all forms of oppression must be protested and resisted at every turn. Pacifist and activist A.J. Muste spoke of a "revolutionary pacifism" that confronts the injustice that lays at the heart of wars: "We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life."  A pacifist, Muste was, of course, speaking figuratively.  Without justice, there is no true peace.  We must address, resist, and correct the causes of injustice built into the system.

Violence and force of arms are the easy but soul-damaging means to achieve certain ends. Diplomacy is more difficult but, in the end, produces more lasting and more satisfying results.

The distorted "exceptionalism" that places our nation above international law and in violation of our own democratic principles is a repudiation of our values. Our country, if it chooses, can play an "exceptional" role in making the world a better place. What nation is better equipped to address the poverty, disease, and hunger that plague so many?

The American experiment in democracy is in danger - not from any external threat or from foreign terrorists but from within. Racism, militarism, and a distorted concept of American exceptionalism pose, each in its own way, a threat to America's highest ideals. Political spending, given corporate "personhood" and an unlimited ability to influence elections by the Supreme Court, provides an amplifier for the voices of the powerful while muting the voices of the less advantaged. Special interest groups influence domestic laws as well as foreign policy. Legislation for the common good is blocked by right-wing extremists. Laws protecting the rights of all are dismantled by an ideological judiciary, and the essential right of democracy, the right to vote, has been subverted. Such is the state of affairs and such is the degree of disillusionment that, in our last elections, two out of three voters chose not to exercise their most basic democratic right.

Until money is removed from the political system, until the concept of the Other is banished, and until, in the words of President Kennedy, "the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today", inequality, injustice and war will be with us. That should not stop us from trying or caring or working for peace and justice. We need to take our victories when and where we can.

As the outlook for action at the national level becomes bleak, activism and initiatives at the state and community levels become necessary. Already we are seeing the effect of some of the successful state ballot initiatives from the November 4 elections.  For example, just two days after a successful California ballot initiative reclassified some non-violent offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, people were being released from detention.

Where do we go from here?  There is now a website that contains references and resources for the topics covered in the blog - where to go for further information, if you want to become active in an area, etc. The website also has The Left Bank Café posts indexed by topic, which I hope will be helpful.  I'll periodically update the website as new information becomes available. The address of the website is https://sites.google.com/site/leftbankresources/ .

Peace.

(The most recent update of The Left Bank website was on January 19, 2018.For more recent news, comments, and articles please visit the What in the World? website.) 

Imagining a Better 2014

2013 is winding down.  We've already posted the best news of the year, so let's imagine what 2014 might look like if peace and justice somehow overwhelmed the nations of the world.

The late Howard Zinn wrote in A People's History of the United States that the world would be a better place if  the United States chose to be a humanitarian, rather than a military, superpower - using "this wealth to improve the living conditions of Americans and people in other parts of the world."  This seems like a good place to start.  Can you imagine what the world would be like if the US military budget since the end of the Cold War was used for humanitarian purposes?  Since 1989, the United States has spent more than $13 trillion on its military budget.  The impact that this sum might have had on education, disease eradication, agricultural improvements and poverty reduction is staggering.  As Zinn notes "it was estimated by the World Health Organization that a small portion of the American military budget, if given to the treatment of tuberculosis in the world, could save millions of lives."

By implementing policies that advance the world's well-being, we would take a giant step towards reducing some of the traditional causes of unrest and war.  And in securing our own safety.  It's a myth that terrorists hate us because of our freedoms.  They hate us because of our policies.  Empire has a cost that there is no need to bear any longer.  Peacefully supporting the right to self-determination would show that our concept of democracy extends to all people.

Stopping the flow of arms and military aid would reduce tensions and the possibility of war.  Here at home, removing weapons from the streets and keeping them from the hands of felons and the mentally unstable would make our own country a safer place.  Finally, the United States and other countries with atomic weapons could provide the world with a real example of non-proliferation by dismantling its nuclear arsenals.

Pope Francis has it right.  As the dominant global economic system, capitalism should be regulated so that its benefits accrue to all, not just to a small percentage.  Economic inequality can be overcome by a just system of taxation and regulation.  Or as Nelson Mandela said, "Poverty is not an accident.  Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings."

That leads us to a final consideration.  What do we do about racism, sectarian violence and tribal and nationalistic hatreds?   It all comes down to fear and demonization of "the other".  In October  Pope Francis stressed the need to fight "all forms of racism, intolerance and anti-Semitism" and noted that "every time a minority is persecuted and marginalised because of his religious beliefs or ethnicity, the good of the whole society is in danger”.  [Catholic Herald] But what to do about it?  Here's Nelson Mandela again: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion.  People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." 

Maybe peace and justice on earth in 2014 are too much to hope for.  But we can at least make a step forward in our own lives and behavior.  And we can recognize for what they are, those damaging and divisive ideologies and policies that move us away from a better world.

Peace and Light

 

For 2000 years, Christians have been celebrating the birth of Jesus. Born in a stable, surrounded by shepherds and farm animals, He was not recognized by many on that first Christmas Day.

Coming near the Winter Solstice, Christmas is also a celebration that the Light is returning to the World, the days are lengthening. It is a time of hope and a time of peace. It is a time for family and friends. It is a time to recognize anew the Christ Child in our fellow man and treat all accordingly.

The world is not yet at peace. A recent tally at the Wars in the World website shows 60 nations plus 368 separate armed groups, militia, or guerrillas involved in conflict of some kind or other. And we are not yet at peace with ourselves. The twenty first century finds us inundated daily with anxiety producing events and with incredibly ignorant comments on those events. 

No we are not there yet. But each of us can commit to a less violent, more supportive world and hope that soon all will do likewise – that the arms dealers and war mongers, the haters and the dividers finally recognize the true meaning of the Christmas message. Each of us can look to our families and friends and communities and understand what is truly important in our lives.

Here's are two great videos of the Christmas song "O Holy Night!":

 

A beautiful video with Pavarotti, Charlotte Church and Celine Dion singing separate verses in the background.

Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo at a 1999 concert in Vienna


Have a Happy, Peace-filled and Hopeful Christmas!

Picture Credit, Silent Night

 

 

 

Forward? One Day After the Election

In the end, Team Obama pulled out a victory. The victory is a tribute to the best organized presidential campaign in history, to a massive get out the vote effort, to organized labor support, and to the campaign's messages of economic fairness and inclusivenss. Democrats will increase very slightly their non-filibuster-proof Senate majority. The House, as expected, remains in the firm control of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party.

In an election held in the midst of a struggling economy with high unemployment, the Republicans should have easily won a majority in the Senate and likewise defeated the incumbent President. They did not. All their Citizens United cash and their voter suppression efforts failed to take down President Obama and the Senate Democrats. Several of the extremist Tea Party candidates for Senate lost their races. The Republican portion of the non-white vote in the general election remained at just 20% - what it was in 2008.

Whether Republicans learned anything about the political downside of extremism on the national stage remains to be seen. While the moderate corporate media and leading Democrats are saying “surely the Republicans will stop being obstructionist” and while some in the Republican party are supporting a bipartisan approach - notably as evidenced by Romney's classy and gracious concession speech and New Jersey Governor Christie's response to President Obama's support for the hurricane-ravaged Garden State – most of the public talk from the Republican “pundits” remains the same: “Obama really has to do more to reach across the aisle. It's his fault that we've had gridlock in these miserable economic times.” They continue to be deluded about the causes of the Great Recession and their own obstructionist role in prolonging it. Most of their talk for the 2016 presdiential campaign has been on how can they recapture the 20% of Hispanic voters they've lost since W's years – not on how they can help instead of hurt the economic recovery.

Will wiser heads prevail or will last night's ranting of Donald Trump be the norm for Republicans? I would like to say I'm cautiously optimistic but I am not yet there. Where is the leadership going to come from in the Republican Party? As a defeated candidate, Mitt Romney will certainly not be the leader of the Republican Party any more than defeated candidate John McCain was. Representative Boehner has shown zero ability to reign in the Tea Party extremists in the House. We will likely continue to see Paul-Ryan-Draconian budgets cutting up the social safety net, increasing military spending, and continuing the advantages of the wealthiest from that house of Congress. What about the Senate? Well, thanks to Presidential term limits, Senator McConnell no longer can have his number one goal be preventing another Obama term. Maybe he should declare victory here – “See we did it, President Obama will never have another term after this one.” But that doesn't necessarily mean that McConnell will be any more willing to compromise. The only sure way to prevent the Senate from obstructing is to change the Senate rules on the filibuster – maybe requiring 55 votes instead of 60 to pass legislation (Senator Reid – please note.)

Given this state of affairs, what will the next four years look like and what has to be done to improve the country?

On the plus side, Obamacare survived, we won't be getting a voucher system for Medicare, we won't be privatizing Social Security, and we will be able to keep the Republican Supreme Court majority at 5-4. The financial reforms of Dodd-Frank will remain in place. We will be out of Afghanistan in 2014 and probably will not go to war with Iran.

The challenges will be to maintain the social safety net for the neediest in our society – the Food Stamp Program, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Medicaid, to improve educational opportunities, and to create jobs (including rebuilding our transportation infrastructure) to get us out of the Recession. None of this will be possible without increasing the taxes on the wealthiest and without reducing wasteful and unnecessary military expenditures.

More leadership from Obama and the Democrats is needed on the environment and climate change. This is the major long-term challenge for America – to lead rather than lag on this issue which continues to worsen with time. That the issue was virtually ignored by both campaigns was somewhat understandable – politically this issue is yet to resonate with Americans. That's why leadership is needed. If Hurricane Sandy was “unprecedented” in 2012, it may well become the norm by 2020 if nothing is done.

Where else is leadership needed? Campaign finance reform plus a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and to reassert Americans' right-to-vote are must's if we are to prevent what one WBAI commentator rightly called the “desecration of democracy” seen in this election. Real movement towards a two-state Israel/Palestine solution in the Middle East would go a long way to improve America's relations in the Middle East and restore our moral ability to lead globally. It would also allow Obama to earn his admittedly premature Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, we have seen a serious erosion of civil liberties since 9/11. The policies begun under Bush have continued under Obama. To point out two of the most glaring examples: Guantanamo is still open and the President has the right to indefinitely detain Americans without due process. If the Tea Party really cares about “freedom”, they should turn their attention here rather than to their freedom to not have health care and to carry guns. As attributed to Benjamin Franklin and as inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell at the Statue of Liberty, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” 

 

Links

National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms' 2011 Post: "A Decade of Civil Liberties Erosion in America"

Also see The Left Bank Cafe's four posts on Global Warming from August 2011:  Link to the first of these posts.
 

 

Peace on Earth

"Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will." [Luke, 2:14]

The message of Christmas is one of hope, peace and unity. 

What generates more hope than a newborn child, whose story is still to be written, whose whole life is still in front of him?

The other day my brother Dennis forwarded the story of the World War I Christmas Truce between German and British soldiers on the western front.  What a great story!  Jennifer Rosenberg summarized it well in an article on the truce: "In one of the truest acts of goodwill toward men, soldiers from both sides in the southern portion of the Ypres Salient set aside their weapons and hatred, if only temporarily, and met in No Man's Land."

In spite of today's ongoing wars, there is hope.  Maybe mankind can still bring about the peaceful Kingdom of God here on Earth.  But it will take hard work by all those of good will coupled with a general raising of consciousness to understand that prayer of Jesus at the end of His life: "I pray that they will all be one, just as You and I are one." (John 17:21)

So, if some of us believe in a Virgin Birth, the Resurrection and the Transubstantiation of bread and wine, we can also hope for a transformation of the world to one of peace and unity. 

It won't come easily or automatically. We will need to work at it ceaselessly and keep up our hope.  As another of my heroes once sang: "War is over if you want it. "

Peace.  And have a merry, hopeful Christmas.