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Poverty and the Democrats

Charles Blow has a recent column here in which he criticizes President Obama for not referring to the poor or to poverty in his state of the union address. Tom Zcocca in Slate responds that Obama did refer to preserving Social Security and to the "most vulnerable" - the closest Democrats usually come to talking about the poor (though many of their programs help the poor). In my view Blow has a point. This is a time for leadership and and a time to give the lie to the tired old slogans of the Republicans.

The Republicans have suggested for years that the poor are just lazy, and they have compounded that insult with slogans like "welfare queen" that are calculated to appeal to overt or latent racism. The reason that this is a time for leadership is that the Republican assumptions are now more blatently false than ever. It is not just that the poor have been overwhelmingly white. But poverty is on the rise. To accept the Republican mythology would require the belief that there is an epidemic of laziness in the United States! No one thinks that and Democrats should say so. Use of the "most vulnerable" is a valuable part of the political arsenal. But when it is used instead of the poor or poverty, the Democrats fail to challenge the bankrupt ideology of the Republican Party.

 

Robert Reich on the Deficit and the Shallow Politics of the State of the Union Message

Robert Reich has two must read posts on his blog here. In the first he breaks down the deficit in three parts (1) our past obligations; (2) our current needs; and (3) future investments. Although his first category focuses on only a part of our past obligations, I think he makes a compelling case.

President Obama is being widely praised for the political appeal of his state of the union message, but Reich makes an appealing case for the proposition that there is a better message available which offers a convincing couterstory to the Republican narrative. Too bad Reich is not an important advisor to the President.

Torture, Faith and Law

Published on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Torture at the Justice Department? Better Not to Ask

by Ray McGovern

On Sunday, I attended an informal talk given in a parish hall by the Justice Department's Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. His topic: "The way his work for justice is defined by his faith."

During the Q&A after his talk, I had a chance to pose some questions:

Question:  Thanks Tom, for making yourself available to us. You raise the issue of torture, and intimated that there is consensus among Catholics that torture is wrong. Polling conducted two years ago indicates that this is far from the case.

[According to the Catholic News Agency, a survey by the Pew Center Forum on Religion & Public Life found that Catholics are more likely than the general U.S. population to favor the use of torture against suspected terrorists. More than half the Catholics surveyed said that torture could be often or sometimes justified, while another 27 percent said the practice could rarely be justified. Only 20 percent said it could never be justified.]

You are head of the Civil Rights Division at Justice. I am sure you would agree that a person's right not to be tortured is a civil right.

Your immediate boss, Attorney General Eric Holder has stated in testimony to Congress that waterboarding is torture. President Obama has said the same thing. Now the President...that is former President George W. Bush...has written a book in which he brags about authorizing waterboarding and says he would do it again. Former Vice President Dick Cheney earlier endorsed waterboarding.

Like you, Tom, I went to a Jesuit high school, and I know what a syllogism is. If waterboarding is torture, and those who authorized it now admit that and brag about it, is not your boss Eric Holder bound by his oath of office to prosecute those who admit having done that?

I refer here not only to those tortured at Guantanamo, at the huge prison complex at Bagram, Afghanistan, and at "black sites" around the world where my former colleagues at CIA were given carte blanche to ply their trade. I refer also to American citizens like José Padilla born, like me, in New York City, who was deprived of his civil rights and subjected to the cruelest forms of debilitating torture right here in the U.S.A.

Again, you are head of the Civil Rights Division at Justice. You have talked a good bit about conscience. Your boss, the Attorney General, appears unwilling to see to it that the law be faithfully executed. Has your faith or your conscience led you to raise this subject with Eric Holder?

Perez:  It's a matter of prosecutorial discretion. We have discussed these matters, and I am not about to reveal information on those discussions.

Question: Your talk is billed as a discussion of how your faith defines your work for justice. I am not asking you to reveal information about the discussions you have been part of at the Justice Department; I am asking you how you come at the issue of torture from a faith perspective.

Perez:  You are very clever; but I am not going to let myself be drawn into this discussion. Next questioner.

Perez had begun by expressing appreciation for the education he had received from the Jesuits at Canisius High School in Buffalo - a sentiment I share from my four years at Fordham Prep in the Bronx. As far as moral theology and justice are concerned, though, it appears that Perez was exposed to the same dictum at Canisius as I was at Fordham. Moral theology? Ethics? Simple. The whole deal is to: Do Good, and Avoid Evil.

It was not until the mid-80s, when I completed a Certificate in Theological Studies with the more up-to-date Jesuits at Georgetown, that I learned that the Do-Good-and-Avoid-Evil proposition was only half correct. Jesus of Nazareth called us to do good, certainly. But not to avoid evil; rather to confront it.

This shows through clearly in the first chapter of the first gospel written (Mark 1:16-28). After recruiting his fisherman freshman to enroll in Discipleship 101, Jesus brings them into the synagogue at Capernaum and provides a vivid illustration of what his followers are called to do in the face of evil - confront it. 

His message: No confronting of evil, no true discipleship.

Making It at Harvard Law

Distinguished Catholic jurists who preceded Perez at Harvard Law School - like "where-does-the-Constitution-say-executions-have-to-be-painless" Antonin Scalia, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - have amply demonstrated the validity of Lord Acton's dictum about how power corrupts. Perez's response suggests to me that some of this may have rubbed off on him as well.

I am grateful for the insights gained during my years of theology at Georgetown (coincidentally, the same years Perez spent at Harvard Law). The one theme wending its way through all the courses was this: what Yahweh of the Hebrew and Jesus of the Christian scriptures care about, above all else, is that we do Justice - that disciples are called unambiguously, to Do Good and CONFRONT (not merely Avoid) Evil.

I was not surprised that Perez found my question unwelcome. I was surprised that he answered it so dismissively. 

His reaction left the impression that, during whatever deliberations on executive accountability for torture he has been party to, he has held his nose in silence - like his seniors of malleable conscience at Justice and the White House, who choose to duck, rather then confront human rights abuses involving U.S. officials.

Worse still, his taking refuge in "prosecutorial discretion" is flat-out wrong.

The Convention Against Torture

Does he not know that the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment adopted by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 10, 1984 (now signed by some 150 nations - including the U.S., which ratified it on Oct. 21, 1994) has been and remains the supreme law of the land?

The Convention makes no allowance for "prosecutorial discretion."

If evidence of a violation arises, the signatories are obliged to promptly investigate any allegation of torture and, if appropriate, prosecute. The Convention's description of torture certainly includes waterboarding. And, as already mentioned, Attorney General Holder and President Obama have conceded the point.

(For that matter, even if waterboarding - best defined as "contrived drowning with intentional resuscitation" - were somehow to be deemed not torture, it would certainly constitute the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" for which the Convention Against Torture also requires investigation as a matter of law.)

The Convention defines torture as:

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, ..."

The Convention also declares torture an extraditable offense, and endorses the concept of universal jurisdiction to try cases of torture where an alleged torturer cannot be extradited.

Jesus and Empire This may sound somewhat harsh, but it struck me that if Perez was not open to addressing "the way his work for justice is defined by his faith," he ought not to have appeared under that rubric.

Comparisons can be invidious.  And the one that follows is probably somewhat unfair. But the exchange with Perez reminded me of another person of Christian faith, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, to whom CBS' Leslie Stahl posed a difficult question on May 12, 1996.

Referring to the effect of the sanctions against Iraq, Stahl noted: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Horoshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright:  "The price, we think the price is worth it."

In an address eight years later at the Yale Divinity School, Albright elaborated on her Realpolitik approach to matters of state. She asked what would have happened if after 9/11 the President had said, "Resist not evil.  Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

Albright's exegesis: "I suspect most of us would think it a preposterous prescription in a time of national crisis."

She went on to speak of the dilemma that "we each face in trying to reconcile religious beliefs with professional duties," and came down squarely on the side of "professional duties." She then went on to misquote Scripture, claiming that President George W. Bush, in vowing to rid the world of evil, echoed the words of Jesus, "You are either with us or against us."

In a gratuitous reflection of her empire-centric approach, the former secretary of state went on to endorse Vice President Dick Cheney's "sincere" religious beliefs. She singled out as a "good thing" his controversy-provoking Christmas card the year before (2003), which bore the inscription: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"

Stanley Hauerwas, a Yale alumnus now professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School, was moved to comment on Albright's speech in a Yale Divinity School publication. He noted pointedly that much of what she said was designed to "underwrite the assumption that we cannot follow Jesus and pursue the limited justice possible in foreign affairs."

But wait. Was not "His" message a direct challenge to empire - in his day the Roman Empire and religious and civil collaborators in the Roman occupation? Isn't that why the religious and civil authorities put their heads together and ended up torturing and executing him?

Had Jesus allowed himself to be co-opted by the empire and its Quislings, had he chosen to divorce his nonviolent but challenging vision of justice from the politics of the day, he could have died peacefully in his bed - as did the leaders of the institutional church in Nazi Germany.

And we can too. All that is required is a mind-trick to convince ourselves that Jesus did not really mean to say what he said, that he did not really mean to do what he did in exposing the evils of empire.

Sadly, help is at hand. It is easy to find a pastor preaching a domesticated Jesus - an ahistorical Jesus far more interested in ``piety'' than justice. I still find myself wondering how the Cheneys' pastor reacted to their Christmas card.

Letting Our Institutions Do Our Sinning for Us

Often it takes a compassionate but truth-telling outsider to throw light on our country, its leaders, its policies. Methodist Bishop Peter Storey of South Africa, who walked the walk in his courageous, outspoken resistance to the apartheid regime (and was chaplain to Nelson Mandela), provides this prophetic word:

"I have often suggested to American Christians that the only way to understand their mission is to ask what it might have meant to witness faithfully to Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire. Certainly, when I preach in the United States I feel, as I imagine the Apostle Paul did when he first passed through the gates of Rome - admiration for its people, awe at its manifest virtues, and resentment of its careless power.

"America's preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa's apartheid, or by Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white, and blue myth.

"You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion, and caring of most American people and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them.

"This is not easy among people who really believe that their country does nothing but good. But it is necessary, not only for their future, but for us all.

"All around the world there are those who believe in the basic goodness of the American people, who agonize with you in your pain, but also long to see your human goodness translated into a different, more compassionate way of relating with the rest of this bleeding planet."

Finally, let me add something I have learned thanks to some thoughtful but candid comments from my atheist friends.

"Hey, Ray," one wrote, "Please, not so heavy on this Judeo-Christian heritage you keep citing. I don't buy any of it. Wake up: on torture it is not at all necessary to be a person ‘of faith.' It is abundantly clear to this atheist, and to most of us, that it is simply impermissible for human beings to torture one another. Humans do not do that to other humans. Period."

I see the truth in that. At the same time, it does seem that we who claim to follow a courageous dissident activist, who was tortured to death for challenging an oppressive system, may have extra incentive to do all we can to prevent others from being subjected to "Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment."

 

Nicholas Kristof on Bishop Thomas Olmsted and the Phoenix Controversy

“Though they will be denied the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist, the Eucharist will rise out of St. Joseph’s every time the sick are healed, the frightened are comforted, the lonely are visited, the weak are fed, and vigil is kept over the dying.”

NYT, 1/26/11

Tussling Over Jesus

The National Catholic Reporter newspaper put it best: “Just days before Christians celebrated Christmas, Jesus got evicted.”

Yet the person giving Jesus the heave-ho in this case was not a Bethlehem innkeeper. Nor was it an overzealous mayor angering conservatives by pulling down Christmas decorations. Rather, it was a prominent bishop, Thomas Olmsted, stripping St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix of its affiliation with the Roman Catholic diocese.

The hospital’s offense? It had terminated a pregnancy to save the life of the mother. The hospital says the 27-year-old woman, a mother of four children, would almost certainly have died otherwise.

Bishop Olmsted initially excommunicated a nun, Sister Margaret McBride, who had been on the hospital’s ethics committee and had approved of the decision. That seems to have been a failed attempt to bully the hospital into submission, but it refused to cave and continues to employ Sister Margaret. Now the bishop, in effect, is excommunicating the entire hospital — all because it saved a woman’s life.

Make no mistake: This clash of values is a bellwether of a profound disagreement that is playing out at many Catholic hospitals around the country. These hospitals are part of the backbone of American health care, amounting to 15 percent of hospital beds.

Already in Bend, Ore., last year, a bishop ended the church’s official relationship with St. Charles Medical Center for making tubal ligation sterilizations available to women who requested them. And two Catholic hospitals in Texas halted tubal ligations at the insistence of the local bishop in Tyler.

The National Women’s Law Center has just issued a report quoting doctors at Catholic-affiliated hospitals as saying that sometimes they are forced by church doctrine to provide substandard care to women with miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies in ways that can leave the women infertile or even endanger their lives. More clashes are likely as the church hierarchy grows more conservative, and as hospitals and laity grow more impatient with bishops who seem increasingly out of touch.

Catholic hospitals like St. Joseph’s that are evicted by the church continue to operate largely as before. The main consequence is that Mass can no longer be said in the hospital chapel. Thomas C. Fox, the editor of National Catholic Reporter, noted regretfully that a hospital with deep Catholic roots like St. Joseph’s now cannot celebrate Mass, while airport chapels can. Mr. Fox added: “Olmsted’s moral certitude is lifeless, leaving no place for compassionate Christianity.”

To me, this battle illuminates two rival religious approaches, within the Catholic church and any spiritual tradition. One approach focuses upon dogma, sanctity, rules and the punishment of sinners. The other exalts compassion for the needy and mercy for sinners — and, perhaps, above all, inclusiveness.

The thought that keeps nagging at me is this: If you look at Bishop Olmsted and Sister Margaret as the protagonists in this battle, one of them truly seems to me to have emulated the life of Jesus. And it’s not the bishop, who has spent much of his adult life as a Vatican bureaucrat climbing the career ladder. It’s Sister Margaret, who like so many nuns has toiled for decades on behalf of the neediest and sickest among us.

Medicare, Medicaid, and the Deficit

President Obama referred last night to "health care costs, including programs like medicare and medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit." Maybe so, but I would have thought our responses to the military lobby including our addiction to useless immoral wars was a greater contributor. Obama said last night that he would defend social security, but if he is planning to cut health services to the elderly, he will deserve the political consequences.  

Who Can Receive Communion?

An interesting debate is taking place within the Episcopal Church. The Church has long taken the view that any baptized Christian can receive communion as opposed to the Roman Catholic Church which confines the Eucharist to Roman Catholics and excludes those who have committed serious sins unless they have been able to receive forgiveness in the sacrement of reconciliation. 

Some Episcopalians are proposing that confining the communion to the baptized is too restrictive. Their proposal apparently would draw the Episcopalians closer to the United Methodists who open communion to all those who love Christ, repent of their sins, and wish to live in peace with each other. See here. For an interesting defense of the traditional practice within the Episcopal church, see here here and here. For a variety of practices within denominations, see here.

If Churchill Tried to School Gandhi on the Laws of Intestacy

 
“If Churchill Tried to School Gandhi on the Laws of Intestacy,” a creative video made by Bridget Crawford for her Wills, Trusts & Estates students, is found at The Faculty Lounge. I shamelessly exploited “the comments” to introduce readers to some of the best literature on Gandhi’s life and thought.

“I am not ashamed to own that many capitalists are friendly towards me and do not fear me. They know that I desire to end capitalism almost, if not quite, as much as the most advanced Socialist or even Communist. But our methods differ, our languages differ. My theory of ‘trusteeship’ is no make-shift, certainly no camouflage. I am confident that it will survive all theories.”—M.K. Gandhi, “Theory of ‘Trusteeship,’” Harijan, December 16, 1939.

 Update: Please see this post at Ratio Juris, “The Life and Thought of Mahatma Gandhi: Recommended Reading.” 

Squatters Fixing Broken Windows

An interesting story about neighbors in a UK village banding together to defend a squatter who had restored a neglected home that had become an eyesore brings out the ambiguity of squatting, a topic near and dear to my heart. (HT NPR)

Faith as Trust, Not Belief

Jeffrey Small, the author of The Breath of God, writes about faith as trust rather than belief here. Echoing the arguments of Harvey Cox in his recent book on faith, Small argues that it would be a strange God who created a world in which humans gained entry to heaven, if but only if, they would cultivate particular beliefs, beliefs that would be impossible for many to obtain because of their geographical placement in the world and an unlikely prospect for millions of others for many other reasons. Small argues that justification by faith has been misinterpreted. We have already been saved. The Kingdom of God is here. We already live in the infinite power of God's being. On the latter point, see Susan Stabile here.

In a passage, I very much like, Small says: "Faith then is not belief in a certain doctrine about Jesus, but a trust in using him as an example of what it looks like to live a God-centered life. Through the stories in the Gospels (whether or not the details are historical are irrelevant), we can understand the nature of God's presence within the world and what a God-centered life looks like: a life of humility, compassion, love without boundaries, a life which experiences suffering and doubt, but a life that ultimately participates in the eternal power of God that transcends death."

Religious Freedom Day and the Governor of Alabama

Sunday was Religious Freedom Day and, as Charles Haynes argues in his syndicated column, religious freedom is mainly in trouble around the world. See here. Despite the Court's infamous decision in Employment Division v. Smith, religion is relatively free in the United States. Nonetheless, there are some grounds for despair even in circumstances where the case for constitutional protection is problematic. As David Gibson reports in Politics Daily, Alabama's new governor Robert Bentley stated on Martin Luther King Day that he intended to be the governor of all the people, but if anybody had not accepted Jesus Christ as personal saviour, then you are "not my brother and not my sister." It would be difficult to fault those Jews and Muslims in Alabama who believe that they have been marked out as second class citizens.

Skins

[Cross-posted at dotCommonweal]  Matt Zoller Seitz discusses MTV's latest:

Like the original, it revolves around a group of improbably glamorous, self-assured teens who have tons of casual sex and do massive amounts of drugs (mainly pot and pills) under the noses of clueless and/or ineffectual parents and teachers. Their behavior has no serious repercussions – at least not the sort you’d see illustrated in one of those old social hygiene movies that were an integral part of high school back during my heyday, the 1980s, a quaint time when everybody drank bathtub gin and drove jalopies with rumble seats. On "Skins," consequences are mainly melodramatic rather than medical or social.

He then goes on to ask and answer the following question:

Is "Skins" bad for kids? Well, if shows directly influence behavior, over and above whatever morals that parents teach their kids – a big "if" -- then yeah, maybe, I guess so. But on the other hand, I have yet to witness a scenario in either series that I didn’t personally fantasize about in some form or another when I was the same age as the teens that comprise this program’s target demographic. When I was in eighth grade (prime "Skins" age, I'm guessing) I snuck into explicitly violent and/or sexual R-rated films almost every weekend, furtively tried out adult substances, and spent hours futzing with the aerial on top of my parents’ TV set after they went to sleep hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of fornication on a scrambled pay-per-view broadcast channel. If I were that age again in 2011, I’d probably watch "Skins" religiously for a couple of seasons, then get bored and move on to something else. The series would have been absorbing, silly, sexy and trashy no matter what critics said about it. The fact that it's officially considered Bad for Kids makes it awesome.

Maybe having kids has turned me into a fuddy duddy.  But it seems a little strained to call the idea that a show like this might influence kids' behavior "a big 'if'."  I did and thought about most of the things Zoller Seitz describes himself as doing and thinking about as well.  But the key difference is that they were all pretty labor-intensive and mostly unsuccessful.  Yes, you could stumble across a discarded (or unguarded) adult magazine in my childhood, or you could work really hard to decipher some scrambled Spice channel static.  But the sheer difficulty of getting these limited results was a message in itself.  In contrast, extremely sexually provocative content is now at the fingertips of any kid with an unmonitored internet connection.  And the ubiquity of this content sends a very different message.  I don't think anyone knows where this will end up, but to pretend that it doesn't represent a significant change in our culture and that it won't have an effect on children's behavior seems obtuse.

Sure, the onus must be on parents to keep their kids from watching age-inappropriate content.  But the sheer amount of parental surveillance required to pull that off has increased dramatically.  There's no good solution to this, as far as I can see.  Censorship is a nonstarter.  And Internet filters just don't work, unless they've gotten a lot better.  In the early days of the Internet, my parents installed Net Nanny software on their home computer for the "protection" of my younger brothers.  It didn't seem to work too well, and it became something of a running joke in our family.  Until they bought a new computer, the software would pop up at the strangest moments, like when my brothers were working on term papers and happened to type in a flagged word into their reports.  My youngest brother quipped that the net nanny had become a little senile.

"If Christianity affirms Jesus as an embodiment of love and compassion, then it is Donohue and those of like mind who, in decrying the video, speak hate....

And if Boehner and his ilk hold the U.S. Constitution, including its First Amendment, to be sacred, then it is they who are the blasphemers."

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Sightings  1/13/2011

The Politics of Wounding

- Jeremy Biles

Sightings recently reported on artist and gay-rights activist David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video “A Fire in My Belly,” which was pulled from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in response to pressure from conservative politicians and religious leaders. It had appeared in the NPG's “Hide/Seek,” a show exploring “difference and desire in American portraiture,” and is now on display at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, prompting critical redescription.

Readers will recall that this video roused the ire of now Speaker of the House John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, among others. Boehner sought to censor the exhibition, claiming that the NPG’s funding would face “tough scrutiny” if the gallery did not “correct” its “mistake,” while Cantor called for the video to be “pulled.” Catholic League president Bill Donohue, largely responsible for instigating the fray, claimed the video constituted “hate speech” against Christianity--in other words, blasphemy (from the Greek, “to speak evil of”).

In his comments for Sightings, Spencer Dew rightly admonishes readers who might be distracted by the controversy to attend to the actual content of the video. His own interpretation focuses on the image that sparked accusations of blasphemy: ants crawling on a crucifix. Situating Wojnarowicz in the lineage of symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, Dew sees the image as a “theological critique”: “over the icon of the whole system of inherent sin, necessary redemption, and otherworldly reward, Wojnarowicz imposes his personal iconography for the raw vitality of life, pre-conceptual, untainted by a religious worldview he finds to be flawed, oppressive and rejecting.”

This is a stirring reading--and to be sure, Wojnarowicz, an enraged antiauthoritarian, detested institutional forms of Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. But remarks from the artist open up an alternative interpretation of the image and of the video on the whole, effectively turning the accusations of blasphemy back on those who have sought to censor his work.

Wojnarowicz saw the swarming ants as a “metaphor for society.” And testifying against the American Family Association in a 1985 trial revolving around his retrospective “Tongues of Flame,” Wojnarowicz spoke of the destitution, desperation, and addiction he witnessed in the streets of New York City, no doubt thinking of his own marginalized place as a homosexual, as well. He remarked of another controversial Jesus image in the exhibition, “I wanted to make a symbol that would show that [Jesus] would take on the suffering . . . that I saw on the streets.

Without wanting to suggest that an artist’s interpretation of his or her work should be privileged, Wojnarowicz’s remarks commend a reading of the swarming ants as a metaphor for the degrading and oppressive religiopolitical conditions that have covered and corrupted a truth behind the religious icon. According to this reading, the ant image is not (or not only) a critique of a mechanistic and moralistic Christian ideology of sin, redemption, and reward, but a call for attention to an assault on empathy and the corruption engendered by indifference to suffering. The crucifix here is an assailed emblem of vulnerability, of woundedness--and thus compassion: suffering and feeling with others, a persistent theme in Wojnarowicz’s work.

This interpretation is supported by further consideration of context. Above all, the juxtaposition of two striking images largely overlooked by commentators intent on decrying or defending the ants reveals the continuing political relevance of the video. Wojnarowicz creates a startling visual echo in his video: a broken loaf of bread--an allusion to the Eucharist--being sewn back together with a thick red thread, and a pair of lips being sewn shut with the same needle and cord. The artist is perhaps best known for his self-portraits with sewn lips, which, as Dew points out, were a sign of protest against silence on the AIDS crisis. They put in visual form Wojnarowicz’s slogan “Silence = Death,” responding to what critic Lucy Lippard calls the “lethal censorship of AIDS information.

How to interpret this pair of images? Both images trade on the ambivalence of wounding as simultaneously desirable and intolerable. The sewing is a gesture of wounding that seeks to close what should remain open: lips that speak and bread broken in compassionate community. But in Wojnarowicz’s hands, images of imposed silence, evoking the closure of compassion, become critical gestures. They simultaneously bring to visibility and speak out against conditions of inequality and oppression: When speech is silenced, images of silence give voice.

Censorship, a wounding that sews shut, is one expression of a religious and political worldview Wojnarowicz found oppressive and rejecting--a token of an ethically and politically asinine mentality, of a bigotry embodied by some who now operate at the supposed heart of democracy.

But “A Fire in My Belly” remains an open wound, still speaking nearly twenty years since the artist who created it died of AIDS-related illness. What it tells us is this: If Christianity affirms Jesus as an embodiment of love and compassion, then it is Donohue and those of like mind who, in decrying the video, speak hate. And if Boehner and his ilk hold the U.S. Constitution, including its First Amendment, to be sacred, then it is they who are the blasphemers.

References

“A Fire in My Belly” is on display at the Smart Museum through February 6, 2011. The museum will host a panel discussion on the video on January 27. For further details, please see: http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/exhibitions/david-wojnarowicz-a-fire-in-my-belly/.

The previous Sightings column treating “A Fire in My Belly” provided a link to a version of the video with music by Diamanda Galás. The version that appeared at the National Portrait Gallery, featuring sound from an ACT UP march, can be viewed here: http://vimeo.com/17692112.

Fran Lebowitz discusses the work and life of David Wojnarowicz in David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape (Aperture: 1994). The book also contains further discussion of the suit Wojnarowicz filed against the American Family Association for misrepresentation of his work.

Jeremy Biles holds a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School and is the author of Ecce Monstrum: Georges Bataille and the Sacrifice of Form (Fordham University Press, 2007). He is book reviews editor for the Religious Studies Review, and teaches courses on religion, philosophy, art, and popular culture at institutions including DePaul University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. An insectophile, he also pursues cultural entomology.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

The Rhode Island Governor, the Bishop, and Church-State Separation

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee held his inauguration day recently without a prayer service in order to honor the principle of church-state separation. Good for Governor Chafee in my view. But Bishop Thomas J. Tobin went ballistic. He purported not to care whether there was prayer in the Inauguration. That he claimed was up to the governor. But he did strongly object to the reference to the constituional principle of separation of church and state. He maintains that the principle is not in the Constitution (certainly the words are not in it), that the concept developed later, that the concept interferes with the use of religious arguments in public life, and that the concept promotes an atheistic world view. 

The Bishop does not recognize that Governor Chafee's use of church-state separation need not be hostile to religion particularly in Rhode Island. First, the constitutional principle of church-state separation has a lot to say about what government may not do; it has nothing to say about what ordinary citizens including the Bishop can or not say in public life. It may be that some tell Bishop Tobin that he should not intervene in politics, but nothing in the constitutional principle of church-state separation speaks to the issue. Second, the principle of church-state separation is not a post-constitutional principle. SImple Rhode Island history confirms the point in that Rhode Island founder Roger Williams argued for church-state separation. He inspired the Baptists and the Constitution would not have been passed without Baptist support. The principle is also found in the writings of Jefferson and to some extent in Madison. Wholly apart from the proper interpretation of the Establishment Clause, it falsifies history to say that it is a post-constitutional principle. Finally, the principle is championed by some who are hostile to religion, but it's better and historic defense is that religion is best protected when the state does not meddle with religion. Indeed the prominent sociologist Jose Casanova has cogently argued that the failure of the Catholic Church to recognize this by securing privileges from and cooperating with corrupt kings and dictators has been a significant cause of its demise in Europe. Bishop Tobin need not speak out against the constitutional principle of church-state separation to enter the public sphere and, in my view, he is short-sighted to do so when he does.

Regrettably, given the current composition of the Supreme Court, the principle of church-state separation is imperilled. What the Justices do not realize is that in allowing governments to "help" religion, they will license actions that compromise religion and foster increased resentment against it.

Simone de Beauvoir in Harlem, 1947

My modest celebratory post for today’s holiday is found at the Ratio Juris blog (cross-posted at The Literary Table). (I didn’t want to detract from Bill Quigley’s invaluable post below, hence I posted elsewhere).

MLK Injustice Index 2011: Racism, Materialism and Militarism in the US

MLK Injustice Index 2011:
Racism, Materialism and Militarism in the US

By Bill Quigley. Bill is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at [email protected]

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values… when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967

As we remember the courage and hope of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must not forget that he spoke out and worked against the injustices of our nation, particularly those of racism, materialism and militarism. Indeed that is what made him so hated and so dangerous when he was alive.

We have achievements to celebrate: the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;” the release of San Suu Kyi in Burma; the enactment of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights by the NY legislature that extends important labor rights to 200,000 nannies and housekeepers; the victories of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers; and the exposure of secret US and other country machinations by Wikileaks, among others.

There has been progress in dismembering the laws of segregation which divided our country. We must celebrate the successes that many struggled to achieve. However, as we celebrate those victories let us not lose sight of the challenges still facing this country.

Here are some of the facts about racism, materialism and militarism in the US which we should reflect on as we decide how best to carry on the radical struggle for justice of Dr. King. (For each fact, I provide a brief cite to the sources which are listed at the end of the article).

Let us renew our commitment to the radical revolution of values for which Dr. King gave his life as we turn to the realities of current life.

Racism: Health, Housing, Income and Jobs

Health

Infants born to black women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to die than infants born to women of all other races or ethnicities. Black men and women are much more likely to die of heart disease and stroke than their white counterparts. Hypertension is by far most prevalent among non-Hispanic blacks (42% vs. 29% among whites). Uninsured persons are only about half as likely to have hypertension under control as those with insurance Source: Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Twenty-five percent of black workers and forty-three percent of Hispanic workers do not have health insurance, compared to fifteen percent of white workers. Kaiser Family Foundation

Overall, sixteen percent of all whites, twenty-one percent of blacks and thirty-two percent of Hispanics do not have health insurance. Census

Housing

In cities with large African American populations, black segregation looks pretty much the same as it did 40 years ago; Hispanic segregation is on the rise. Princeton

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the crisis in subprime mortgages in minority neighborhoods was not the result of riskier lending spurred by the Community Reinvestment Act or a decline in underwriting standards. Princeton

Even with similar qualities (credit profiles, down payment ratios, personal characteristics, and residential locations) African Americans were more likely to receive subprime loans. Similarly blacks and Hispanics were significantly more likely than whites to receive loans with unfavorable terms such as prepayment penalties. The result: from 1993 to 2000, the share of subprime mortgages going to households in minority neighborhoods rose from 2 to 18 percent. Princeton

Because predatory lenders could efficiently target entire minority neighborhoods with subprime mortgages, larger numbers of people were affected than would have had they been more geographically spread out. In true layman’s terms, it was like “shooting fish in a barrel.” Segregated neighborhoods just made it too easy to engage large numbers of people in this devastating scheme and this multiplied the effect of the crisis. Princeton

Black middle class families have been stripped of more wealth by the real estate and foreclosure crisis than any single event in US history. Due entirely to subprime loans, black borrowers are expected to lose between $71 billion and $92 billion. Devona Walker

Income and Jobs

Median household income for white families is $51,861, for black families is $32,584, and for Hispanic is it $38,039. Census

The Immigration and Enforcement Agency is on pace to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, more under the current administration than any before. Slevin

The overall unemployment rate among whites is 8.5% and among blacks it is 15.8%. For white teenagers the unemployment rate is 22% and among blacks it is 44%. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Materialism: Inequality and Poverty

The top 25 hedge fund managers were paid on average, more than $1 billion each in 2009. Schwartz, New York Times

Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the US went to the top 1 percent of the population; that top 1 percent also held a larger share of income than any time since 1928, according to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

There are 43 million people in the US living under the official poverty line. While there are more white people living in poverty (30 million) than black (10 million) and Hispanic (12 million) poor combined, the poverty rate for whites of 12% is significantly less than the 26% rate for blacks and the 25% rate for Hispanics. Census

The bottom 20% of the US population have negative wealth, they owe more than the value of all their assets. From 20 to 40th percentile, the next 20% of the population, average about $5,000 in wealth. The middle 20%, from the 40 to 60th percentile, own $65,000 in assets. The next highest 20%, the 60 to 80th percentile, are worth about $208,000. From 80 to 90th, the average wealth is $477,000. From 90 to 95th, the wealth is $908,000 in assets. From 95 to 99th is $2,734,000 in wealth assets. And the top 1%? $13,977,000 in average wealth. State of Working America

Since the economic recession started there has been a 25% rise in the number of people “doubling up” in housing by moving in with others, there has been a rise in the number of homeless families, and in not one of the 50 states can a person working full-time at one minimum wage afford a two bedroom apartment for his or her family. National Low Income Housing Coalition

Militarism: Troops, Expenditures and Arms Sales


The US reports it has 1.4 million people in active military service in 143 countries around the world. The top places for US military are: Afghanistan (105,900), Iraq (96,200), Germany (53,951), and Japan (34,385). Department of Defense

There are an additional 819,000 people in the Reserve and National Guard and another 709,000 civilian personnel. 2011 Census Statistical Abstract, Table 506.

The US spent $774 billion directly on its military budget in 2010. The Department of Defense budget was over $660 billion, counting the special expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Department of Veterans Affairs was $114 billion for 2010.

The US spends much more on its military than any other country in the world. Military spending has increased by 75% since the year 2000 and represents about $2100 for every person in the US. Excluding expenditures for veterans the US military budget in 2009 was over $660 billion. In second place globally was China at about $100 billion. France was third at $63 billion, the UK next with $58 billion and Russia in 5th place spending $53 billion. In fact the US spends more on military than the rest of the top 10 countries in the world put together. SIRI

The US also leads the world in the sale of lethal weapons to others, selling about one of every three weapons worldwide. The USA’s major clients are South Korea, Israel and United Arab Emirates. SIRI

The US continues to hold 174 people in indefinite and illegal detention in Guantanamo despite global calls for closure. Thirty eight of those still being held have won their habeas corpus petitions in front of federal judges but still have not been freed. Miami Herald.

The US continues to launch remote controlled unmanned predator drones into Pakistan, a country we are not even at war with. In 2010, US drones struck Pakistan 118 times killing many civilians. New America Foundation

The number of deaths in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are difficult to calculate since the US only counts US deaths. The US reports 1277 US military have died in Afghanistan and 4427 died in Iraq. The Iraq Body Count estimates between 99,357 and 108,475 civilians have died in violence associated with the war in Iraq. www.iraqbodycount.org

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the total cost of the Iraq war to the US is more than $3 trillion. For this estimate he calculated the actual military costs, the cost of treating and compensating disabled veterans, a $10 increase in the price of oil (the increase in the price of oil went from $25 a barrel when the US invaded Iraq to as high as $140 a barrel in 2008), the increase in the federal debt and the borrowing that demanded. Stiglitz

Conclusion

As we celebrate the life of Dr. King, let us realize the challenges that still face those who seek a world of justice and peace. He showed us that anger at injustice can be combined with courage to create real hope for a better world. Let us address the injustices of continuing racism, materialism and militarism with the courage and hope that Dr. King displayed in his brief life.

Sources:

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economic News Release, January 7, 2011, Table A-2.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm

Census: US Census, Income Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the US 2009 http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb10-144.html#tablec

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Top 1 percent of Americans Reaped Two Thirds of Income Gains in Last Economic Expansion.” http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2908#_ftn1

CDC: Source: Centers for Disease Control Health Disparities and Inequalities Report, US 2011.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/other/su6001.pdf

Department of Defense. Active Military Personnel, September 30, 2010.

http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst1009.pdf

James Glanz, “The Economic Cost of War,” NYT, 2-28-09.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html?pagewanted=1

Kaiser: Health Insurance Coverage in America, 2009, Kaiser Family Foundation. http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?cb=60&sctn=174&ch=1911

Miami Herald. Guantanamo by the Numbers. 12-26-10. http://www.miamiherald.com/2007/11/27/322461/by-the-numbers.html

National Low Income Housing Coalition: Out of Reach 2010.

http://www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2010/introduction.pdf

New America Foundation. The Year of the Drone: An analysis of US drone strikes in Pakistan, 2004-2011. http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/drones

2010 Princeton study “Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crisis,” Jacob Rugh and Douglass Massey:

http://wws.princeton.edu/news/Massey_Rugh_Foreclosure/Massey_Rugh_Summary.pdf

Nelson Schwartz and Louise Story, “Pay of Hedge Fund Managers Roared Back Last year,” New York Times, March 31, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01hedge.html

SIRI. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Military expenditures: News Release June 2, 2010.

http://www.sipri.org/media/pressreleases/pressreleasetranslations/storypackage_milex

Sale of weapons by US:

http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2009/05/05A

Peter Slevin, “Deportation of Illegal Immigrants increases under Obama administration,” Washington Post, 7-26-10. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072501790.html

State of Working America. Economic Policy Institute.

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes, “The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond,” Washington Post, 9-5-10. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html

Devona Walker, “Foreclosures are destroying the Black Middle Class.”

http://brechtforum.org/foreclosures-are-destroying-black

A Democratic Revolution in Tunisia?

 
For the latest and best analyses and comments on recent events in Tunisia, see Juan Cole’s post, “The First Middle East Revolution since 1979,” Karima Bennoune’s post at IntLawGrrls, “North African People Power,” and Marc Lynch, “The Political Economy of ‘Democracy Promotion,’” at the New Left Project. In addition to the links in Bennoune’s post above, see this article from Middle East Report (205: October-December, 1997), “Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Tunisia,” for historical context.

Update From Al Jazeera: Ben Ali Flees to Saudi Arabia 

Second Update: As to why the heading for this post took the form of a question, see Cole’s latest comments, “Tunisia between Democracy and Anarchy.” 

Third Update: “Government of National Unity or Tanks in the Streets?”

[cross-posted at the Ratio Juris blog]

God, Suffering, Schillebeeckx, and Kung

Mary Catherine Hikert has an illuminating article about the beliefs and writings of the great theologian Edward Schillebeeckx in the National Catholic Reporter. Schillebeeckx's writings were instrumental in the leadup to Vatican II and he reshaped the study of Christology in the Catholic Church in the last half of the 20th century. One of Schillebeeckx's many major themes was focused on the relationship between God and suffering. As Hilkert puts it: "Writing in the context of radical and senseless human suffering around the globe and growing ecological devastation, Schillebeeckx wanted to retell the story of Jesus as disclosing the mystery of a God 'bent toward humanity' in compassion, not a God who demanded suffering and death as recompense for sin. In one of his memorable ways of capturing this mystery, Schillebeeckx wrote: 'God’s cause is the human cause' (and the cause of all of God’s creation)." But, as Hilkert observes, "God is not a deus ex machina who intervenes in the events of human history. Schillebeeckx argued that the Christian interpretation of the biblical 'God of promise' was not a 'God of the gaps' but rather a loving Creator who empowers and trusts creation, but who does not violate creation’s autonomy or the freedom of human persons. In the face of the apparent absence of God, Schillebeeckx maintained that God’s creative and saving active presence (grace) sustains and empowers human efforts on behalf of humankind and the Earth and holds open the future even for those whose lives appear to have been destroyed by sinful humanity or the destructive forces of nature."

This, of course, leads to the problem of evil. Why does God permit suffering if God is opposed to it? Schllebeeckx maintained that God has not given Christians a theoretical response to the problem of evil, but a personal response in the life of Jesus. In Schillebeeckx's, view Christ's death on the cross was the product of human sin, not divine will. Hilkert's article is well worth reading. 

In this connection, I am reminded of Hans Kung's discussion of the problem of evil in his wonderful new book, What I Believe. Kung concludes that the problem of evil really has not been solved by any convincing argument and calls for faith. Recall that Kung also believes that the arguments for the existence for God are reasonable, but inconclusive. He believes that given a choice between living a life in a meaningless universe or in universe created by a loving God where we are called to be disciples, we should choose to believe in the latter. He suggests that even if he turns out to be wrong about the presence of a loving God, he will still have made the right choice about what he should have believed and how he should have led his life.

Against Moderate Rhetoric

In the wake of the Tuscon shootings, many are calling for moderation in our rhetoric. I read an editorial in the Los Angeles Times which criticized the left and the right and came down in between. The implication of the rhetoric is that the Times is sober and wise, sober and wise because it is outflanked on the left and the right. On this theory Justice Kennedy is the most sober and wise judge on the Court and before him Justice O'Connor, and before her Justice Powell and before him Justice Stewart - just because of their presence in the middle (never mind that each change from Stewart to Kennedy has moved the Court further to the right). The implication of this form of moderate rhetoric is that neither the left nor the right can possibly be right.

Moderate posturing pervades American politics. Mitt Romney looks more reasonable because he is outflanked on the right by Sara Palin. President Obama's rhetoric is filled with appeals to moderation, occasionally attacking the base of his party to show how reasonable he is. Of course, moderate rhetoric is sometimes called for. People who have to work together need to be publicly civil; they do not appropriately make public their private assessments of others. Even in partisan legislatures, punches need to be pulled to get things done. There is a moderation in tone as well as substance.

But the appeal to moderation even in tone is itself politically centrist. Neither the Nation nor the American Spectator engages in moderate rhetoric in tone or substance; they do not treat their political opponents with linguistic respect. This does not make them wrong and the center right. Nor is their rhetoric inappropriate. They are talking with the likeminded and are trying to persuade those who generally share their views; they are not trying to persuade those in another wing of the political spectrum.

This is not to suggest that immoderate rhetoric is always to be applauded. When political ads demonize their opponents with knowingly false or reckless statements, such rhetoric is reprehensible. Violent rhetoric cannot be supported whether it comes from Sarah Palin or groups to her right. No doubt, there has been some violent rhetoric on the left, but violent rhetoric is most frequently employed by the gun-loving members of the right. On this point cf. Alternet.

Having said that, I want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with sharp and immoderate rhetoric from the left or the right. The problem with the right is not their lack of moderation (except for its use of violent imagery and reckless falsehoods); the primary problem with the right is that it argues for impoverished conceptions of liberty, equality, community, and religion.  

Democrats and the Debt Ceiling

Just as I have worried that the Democrats would give up too much in order to get the debt ceiling raised, the Democrats in the House are threatening to vote against the raising of the debt ceiling. Why? They want to force the Republicans to get the legislation through over the objections of Tea Party Republicans. See here. Trying to divide the Republicans is an aggressive negotiating strategy. I do not know if it will work, but it is a welcome change from the negotiating strategies usually employed in the White House.

Million Plus Remain Homeless and Displaced in Haiti: One Year After Quake

By Bill Quigley and Jeena Shah. Bill is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans and a long-time Haiti advocate. Jeena Shah is a lawyer serving in Port au Prince as a Lawyers’ Earthquake Response Network Fellow with the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Contact Bill at [email protected] and Jeena at [email protected]

One year after the January 12 2010 earthquake, more than a million people remain homeless in Haiti. Homemade shelters and tents are everywhere in Port au Prince. People are living under plastic tarps or sheets in concrete parks, up to the edge of major streets, in the side streets, behind buildings, in between buildings, on the sides of hills, literally everywhere.

UNICEF estimates that more than 1 million people – 380,000 of them children – still live in displacement camps.

“The recovery process” as UNICEF says, “is just beginning.”

One of the critical questions is how many people remain without adequate housing. While there are fewer big camps of homeless and displaced people, there has been extremely little rebuilding. The UN reported that 97,000 tents have been provided since the quake. Tents are an improvement over living under a sheet but they are not homes. Many families have lived many places in the last year circulating from rough shelters to tents to camps to other camps to living alongside other families.

It is important to understand that families may leave the huge unsupervised camps and still be homeless someplace else – like a tent in another part of the city or country. Moving from one type of homelessness to another cannot be allowed to be declared progress against homelessness and displacement.

The key human rights goal is housing, not moving out of the displacement camps.

One illustration of the housing challenge facing the Haitian people can be found in a recent report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The IOM December report announced a reduction in the number of persons remaining in displacement camps. The IOM then wrongly concluded that the number of people displaced and homeless was reduced accordingly. Why is this conclusion wrong? Because the IOM report does not even try to track where displaced persons go after they leave a particular camp. They equate homeless families moving out of displacement camps as families finding housing.

These types of erroneous conclusions are not only misleading but threaten to hinder badly needed relief efforts one year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Careful consideration of the IOM report provides an opportunity to examine some of the many important housing challenges still facing Haitians.

IOM Assertion: “We finally start to see light at the end of the tunnel for the earthquake-affected population…these are hopeful signs that many victims of the quake are getting on with their lives.” IOM reported there has been a 31% decrease in the number of internally displaced people living on IDP sites in Haiti since July.

Fact: Getting on with their lives? Of an estimated 1,268 displacement camps, at least 29% have been forcibly closed – meaning tens of thousands of people have been evicted, often through violent means. Many who are forcibly evicted from one site move on to set up camp for their families in another location, which is often more dangerous. This is not getting on with life; this is searching for less dangerous places for the family tent.

IOM Assertion: People with houses labeled red (uninhabitable or extremely dangerous) or yellow (in need of repair) have “chosen to return to the place of origin or nearby to establish a shelter.”

Fact: As of December 16, 2010, only 2,074 of the estimated 180,000 destroyed houses had been repaired and a small percentage of rubble had been cleared. Decisions by desperate homeowners to move back into still destroyed homes is hardly progress.

It is also not even possible for large numbers of people who were renters to return to their destroyed homes. The destruction of more than 180,000 private residences coupled with influx of international aid workers has made Haiti’s rental market soar. An estimated 80% of those rendered homeless by the earthquake were renters or occupiers of homes without any formal land title. Current rents are unreachable by the majority of displaced Haitians, many of whom who lost their means of livelihood during the earthquake. The IOM admits “The lack of land tenure and the destruction of many houses in already congested slums left many of those displaced with few options but to remain in shelters.”

IOM Assertion: “Some households rendered homeless after the earthquake left congested Port au Prince all-together going home to the regions. Others sent their children to the countryside for a better life.”

Fact: Rural Haiti before the earthquake was home to 52% of the population, 88% of which was poor and 67% was extremely poor. Rural residents had a per capita income one third of the income of people living in urban areas and extremely limited access to basic services. Disaster response following the earthquake has not tackled the extreme structural violence that exists in rural areas, and Hurricane Tomas further destroyed livelihoods of rural communities. People moving from displacement camps in the city to living in a tent in the countryside have not really moved out of homelessness, they have just moved.

IOM Assertion: “Surviving in poor living conditions during the long hurricane season has persuaded many to seek alternative housing solutions.”

Fact: Homeless people are always seeking “alternative housing solutions.” Camp conditions even before Hurricane Tomas and the cholera outbreak revealed that displaced Haitians were in camps because they had no “alternative housing solutions.” According to a study conducted by CUNY Professor Mark Schuller before both Hurricane Tomas and the outbreak of cholera, 40% of displacement camps did not have access to water, and 30% did not have toilets of any kind. Only 10% of families even had a tent, many of which were ripped beyond repair during the hurricane season; the rest were sleeping under tarps or even bed sheets. A study conducted even earlier by the Institute of Justice & Democracy in Haiti found that 78% of families lived without enclosed shelter; 44% of families primarily drank untreated water; 27% of families defecated in a container, a plastic bag, or on open ground in the camps; and 75% of families had someone go an entire day without eating during one week and over 50% had children who did not eat for an entire day.

Human rights promise housing, not just forcing people away from displacement camps. Haiti needs practical and sustainable solutions for re-housing along with services and protections for the people still homeless.

One year later, it is critically important for the international community to assist Haitians to secure real housing. The million homeless Haitians and the hundreds of thousands who have moved out of the large homeless camps into other areas are our sisters and brothers and still need our solidarity and help.

Gabrielle Giffords, Sara Palin, Violent Rhetoric, and the Constitution

When a man plots and tries to assassinate a Congresswoman, it is natural to think that her politics has something to do with it. To be sure Gabrielle Giffords is Jewish and a woman, but she is not the only Jew or woman or Jewish woman in Arizona. It is also natural to think that the violent rhetoric of our time including Sara Palin’s placing of Giffords' congressional district in the crosshairs of a weapon and her “reload” comment and including the remarks of Griffords' election opponent Jesse Kelly who asked for help against her which he characterized as shooting “a fully automatic F-16.” Griffords herself said that rhetoric like Palin’s has consequences.

But segments of the right wing and the media including the Los Angeles Times caution that Giffords was shot by an unstable man and that violent political rhetoric may have had nothing to do with it. Maybe so. But crazy people are perhaps the most likely to be affected by this rhetoric. There is no incompatibility between being mentally unstable and being affected by violent rhetoric.

Our polity is constitutionally commited to robust, wide-open political commentary. There are limits. For example, advocating illegal action is not protected when it is directed to inciting and producing imminent lawless action and likely to produce imminent lawless action. Threats are not protected. So an abortion site that put up abortionist “guilty” posters of doctors who performed abortions together with their names, addresses, photographs, and license plate numbers was ruled to be an unprotected set of threats by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the context of abortion violence in which three posted doctors had been killed. It was not necessary that the site itself threatened to personally engage in violence it was the intent to intimidate that was crucial. Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette Inc. v. American Coalition of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (9^th Cir. 2002).

I do not maintain that Palin’s crosshairs or reload rhetoric or Kelly’s F-16 rhetoric crossed the Constitutional line. Palin was targeting congressional representatives for political defeat; Kelly was engaging in political hyperbole. But the Constitution protects a lot of irresponsible rhetoric and political lepers including Palin and Kelly. Unfortunately, their rhetoric draws a following, and so long as it does there will be demagogues who will seek to lead them. 

Guns and Terrorism: Two Unasked Question in Tucson Mass Murder

Guns and Terrorism: Two Unasked Question in Tucson Mass Murder

By Bill Quigley. Bill is Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Contact Bill at [email protected]

Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy an assault weapon?

The weapon reportedly used in the mass murders in Tucson was an assault weapon - a Glock 19, semi-automatic pistol, with an extended magazine. That weapon was illegal to sell in the US from 1994 to 2004 under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. It is now legal to sell and own. The National Rifle Association reports there are tens of millions of assault weapons is private hands in the US.

The federal background check for people purchasing such weapons only prohibits selling such weapons to people who have been legally determined to be mentally defective or found insane or convicted of crimes. This man had not been found legally mentally defective or convicted so he was legally entitled to purchase an assault weapon. In Arizona he was legally entitled to carry the weapon in a concealed manner.

The US has well over 250 million guns in private hands according to the National Rifle Association. That is more, according to the BBC, than any country in the world. In one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States according to the Brady Campaign.

Does the US really need tens of millions of assault weapons and hundreds of millions of other guns? We already put more of our people in prison than any country in the world and we spend more on our military than all the rest of the world together. How fearful must we be?

Question: Why is there so little talk of terrorism?

Apparently when a mentally unstable white male is accused, terrorism is not the first thing that comes to mind.

When Clay Duke, a white male, threatened Florida school board members with a gun and shot at them before shooting himself, in December 2010, he was mentally imbalanced.

When Michael Enright, a white male, was arrested for slashing the throat of a Muslim NYC cab driver in August of 2010, his friends said he had a drinking problem

When Byron Williams, a white male, was arrested after opening fire on police officers and admitted he was on his way to kill people at offices of a liberal foundation and a civil liberties organization, in July 2010, he was an unemployed right wing felon with a drinking problem.

When Joe Stack, a white male, flew his private plane into a federal building in Austin, Texas, in February 2010, he was angry with the IRS.

When a white male is accused of mass murder, terrorism is not much talked of rather it becomes a terrible tragedy but not one where race or ethnicity or religion need be examined.

Now, if the accused had been Muslim, does anyone doubt whether this would have been considered an act of terrorism? US Muslims could have expected increased surveillance and harassment at home and the places where they work and worship. They could have expected a Congressional inquiry into the radicalization of their people. Oh, Representative Peter King (R-NY) has already started that one!

Why Religious People Violate Laws

Why Religious People Violate Laws

I was part of the trial team for five religious people who were on trial for criminal charges in Tacoma WA - they broke into a military base where nuclear weapons were stored to protest these immoral and illegal weapons of mass destruction.

Here is a reflection by one person on trial about why she did it.

"Following a nonviolent Jesus while living in a warmaking state" by Susan Crane

(A theological reflection on Plowshares by Susan Crane, originally
posted on the Disarm Now Plowshares Blog, January 4, 2011
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/crane-3/ )

During the trial of the Disarm Now Plowshares, Arlen Storm, the US
attorney, said something to the effect that all of us in this
courtroom want a world without nuclear weapons. There is general
agreement on that, and the question is, “How do we get there?” The US
attorney was objecting to our tactics. And he’s not the only one
objecting. Stephen Kent (Catholic News Services) wrote: “Granted, the
tactics of the Disarm Now Plowshares were wrong, but not so the
philosophy and theology at the root of their action.”

What is the value of a philosophy or theology, if it isn’t practiced?
Or, what does it mean to follow a nonviolent Jesus while living in a
warmaking state?

From the Gospels we read that Jesus was a teacher of nonviolence and
often broke the laws in order to obey God. This tradition of embracing
God’s will can be found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.

At the beginning of Exodus, we read that Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew
midwifes, were ordered by the Pharaoh to kill the boys that were born
to the Hebrew women. In between the lines, we can imagine that the
midwives prayed, talked with each other and with their families, and
made a decision based on their faith. The decided to disobey the
Pharaoh, and not kill the boys. This is perhaps the first story in the
scriptures where people deliberately, in a knowing and careful way,
make a decision to obey God instead of Empire (the king or human
laws). (Exodus 1:8-17)

Throughout the Old Testament, there are similar stories. Balaam, who
doesn’t obey King Moab and instead listens to an angel (the felt
presence of God) and blesses the Israelites rather than cursing them.
(Numbers 22) David’s wife, Michal, who helps David escape instead of
handing him over to the King, her father. (1 Samuel 19:11-17) Ester,
who goes into the King’s presence, uninvited, to beg for the lives of
her kinspeople. Rizpah, who sat in sackcloth and ashes, until her
sons could be buried, (2 Samuel 21: 10-14) and the story of Eleazar,
who refused to eat pork as commanded by the King. Eleazar is a
reminder that we ought to have the “courage to reject the food which
it is unlawful to taste even for love of life.” (2 Maccabees 6)

So what is more important: obeying the laws of the country I live in,
or obeying the laws of God?

And then we get to the Gospels where right at the beginning, the wise
men don’t obey Herod. Herod wants the wise men to come and report to
him where the baby Jesus is. No, the wise men obey an angel who comes
in a dream, and they take another route home. This is civil
resistance. And then we see Jesus who cures on the Sabbath and
doesn’t follow the purity laws, who eats with all sorts and classes of
people. We see Jesus gather the people the Empire doesn’t want
gathered, we see him curing the people the Empire doesn’t want cured,
and we see him feeding the people the Empire doesn’t want fed. There
are many examples of his trouble-making law-breaking actions, where
compassion and love come before religious and imperial laws.

So there here we are today, living in a country that is spending more
than half of every federal tax dollar on warmaking. We are living in a
country that keeps waging wars that are illegal, and seem to have
little meaning except to keep the war industry employed and keep US
control of resources intact.

What should I do when I live in such a country? I think about what I
wish I might have done if I had lived in WW II Germany. Would I have
helped people escape who needed shelter? Would I have written leaflets
and handed them out? Would I have gone to the concentration camp on
the outside of the city where I lived, and cut the lines carrying the
zyklon B gas? I don’t know, or course, what I would have done. But I
hope I would have done something.

And today? The rest of the world is very concerned about nuclear
weapons. We in the US claim we are disarming, while spending more
money on refurbishment of warheads, building more nuclear weapon
plants, and now building a new fleet of nuclear armed submarines. The
Ohio Class subs, we are told, need to replaced at a cost of 70 billion
dollars.

I think about the story at the beginning of Mark 3, the story of a man
with the withered hand. Jesus is in the temple on the Sabbath, and
calls the man up in front of everyone, and says, “Is it right to do
good on the Sabbath, or to do evil? To save life, or destroy life?”
The crowd around him is silent. Jesus looks around, and is angered and
grieved at their silence and hardness of heart. In my prayer, in my
life, I do not want to cause anger and grief to Jesus. I do not want
to be silent.

Walking onto the Naval base and cutting some fence is minor in
comparison to the destructive power of a nuclear weapon. And, it was a
legal action that was our responsibility and obligation.

If people really believed there was a crime scene at the base, that
there were weapons that threaten all life on earth, no one would think
twice about cutting the fence to get to disarm the weapons. That’s why
we tried to use the necessity defense in court, a defense that is
similar to someone seeing a burning building, with a child in the
window upstairs, screaming. The person of course would break the door
down, and run upstairs to rescue the child. These actions that would
normally be considered criminal, would be justified during a fire to
save a life.

Further, there is a body of humanitarian law that is codified in US
treaties, in the US criminal code, and in military manuals that
prohibits the preparation, threat or use of weapons which
indiscriminately kill civilians, and which can’t be controlled in time
or space. What is happening on the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor is not
just immoral, but it is illegal. It is a war crime.

But basic to everything, is our faith and prayer. How do we practice
the teachings of Jesus? How can we love our enemies? What does it mean
to follow a nonviolent Jesus while living in a warmaking state?

---------------

The Disarm Now Plowshares 5 are scheduled to be sentenced in U.S.
District Court, Tacom, Washington on March 28, 2001 for their November
2, 2009 Plowshares action at the Trident nuclear submarine base at
Bangor, Washington. More information and updates at
http://disarmnowplowshares.wordpress.com/ .

American Identity When the Empire is Gone

The Editors of Christian Century make an interesting observation here. As many have argued, the days of American domination are numbered. China finances our debt and is on the way to being the world's most powerful economy. Our own economy is on the decline and as Robert Reich has argued, it is hard to see how it can thrive when wealth is so concentrated in the hands of a minority. Although politicians will claim that America must be restored to world leadership, the day will come when those words will be recognized as hollow. The U.S. will be just another significant country, but not plausibly the world leader. The Editors at Christian Century argue that the U.S. will then need to settle on a new identity just as Britain did after the fall of its empire. They argue that religion, specifically Christianity, should play a role in defining that identity. It is hard to speculate on what that new identity will be, but it is obvious that the path to getting there will be filled with denial and a difficult transition. And, it seems to me that if the U.S. realizes it can no longer play world imperialist to shore up its economy or world policeman in a counterproductive effort to frighten terrorists, that it would become a better world citizen.

Looking Afresh at Hobbes’s Moral & Political Philosophy

 
 

Having recently read S.A. Lloyd’s two remarkable books on Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy, namely, Ideals as Interests in Hobbes’s Leviathan: The Power of Mind over Matter (1992)* and Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Cases in the Law of Nature (2009), as well as the late Perez Zagorin’s Hobbes and the Law of Nature (2009), I was inspired to look afresh at Hobbes’s Leviathan (De Cive and Behemoth will come later). While there’s much I’d like to share with readers about what I’ve learned, including material that may not be well-known or appreciated or may simply be misunderstood, I’ve selected a couple of passages for reflection. Perhaps some readers will be prompted to read Hobbes for themselves, yet again or for the first time. And should you want the expertise of others to guide and assist your efforts, one would be hard-pressed to find more able scholars than Lloyd and Zagorin.

“The Laws of Nature…[are] contained in this one Sentence, approved by all the world, ‘Do not that to another, which thou thinkest unreasonable to be done by another to thy self.’”—This is of course a negative formulation of the Golden Rule, on which there is a fair amount of literature but little of which is of high quality. For perspicacious treatments, I suggest one consult Jeffrey Wattles’ The Golden Rule (1996), Anna Wierzbicka’s discussion in What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Human Concepts (2001): 191-202, and Neil Duxbury’s “Golden Rule Reasoning, Moral Judgment and Law,” Notre Dame Law Review, 84 (2009): 1529-1605.

“[I]f the Soveraign employ a Publique Minister, without written Instructions what to doe; he is obliged to take for Instructions The Dictates of Reason; As if he make a Judge, the Judge is to take notice, that his sentence ought to be according to the reason of his Soveraign, which being always understood to be Equity, he is bound to it by the Law of Nature…. All which Instructions of naturall Reason may be comprehended under one name of Fidelity, which is a branch of naturall Justice.”

“The unwritten Law of Nature, though it be easy to such, as without partiality, and passion, make use of this naturall reason, and therefore leaves the violators thereof without excuse; yet considering there be very few, perhaps none, that in some cases are not blinded by self love, or some other passion, it is now become of all Laws the most obscure; and has consequently the greatest need of able Interpreters.”

“The things that make a good Judge, or good Interpreter of the Lawes, are, first, A right understanding of that principall Law of Nature called Equity; which depending not on the reading of other mens Wrongs, but on the goodnesse of a mans own naturall Reason, and Meditation, is presumed to be in those most, that have had most leisure, and the most inclination to meditate thereon. Secondly, Contempt of unnecessary Riches and Preferments. Thirdly, To be able in judgement to devest himselfe of all feare, anger, hatred, love, and compassion. Fourthly, and lastly, Patience to heare, diligent attention in hearing; and memory to retain, digest and apply what he hath heard.”

Hobbes, Thomas (Richard Tuck, ed.). Leviathan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

* I discussed Lloyd’s first book at the Ratio Juris blog here, here, and here.

[cross-posted at the Ratio Juris blog]

A Challenge to Obama in the 2012 Democratic Primaries?

Michael Lerner has been arguing recently (see here) that a Democrat should run against President Obama in the Democratic primaries. He recites the failures of Obama to respond to his progressive base and he outlines an attractive progressive program in its own right. He observes that half of the Democratic party voted with its feet by staying home in 2010 (though he does not indicate what percentage usually stays home in midterm elections).

I do think that a primary challenge could get traction if we are still fighting in Afghanistan in 2012 without a serious withdrawal later this year. Democrats are now opposed to that war, and an anti-war candidate could gain significant support. The media has dismissed Lerner's suggestion by suggesting no serious candidate is out there. But the anti-war movement has always produced candidates in the past. It is likely that Obama will be challenged in the primaries in 2012 and that challenge could be serious.

The Spam of Jordan Shoes and Coach Outlet Stores

Jordan Shoes puts spam on our site. It now would never occur to me to buy Jordan shoes. I hope the same is true of our contributors, readers, and my friends on Facebook. We get other spam. I will add the name of the other companies as we proceed.

Edit: Coach Outlet Stores added spam as a comment to this post. It now would never occur to me to enter a Coach Outlet Store.

Natural Law "Externalism" v. Law as a Moral Idea

At the Ratio Juris blog I have a (far too long) post, “Natural Law ‘Externalism’ v. Law as a Moral Idea,” in response to a recent paper by Professor Thom Brooks, a political and legal philosopher at Newcastle University. Perhaps some RLL co-bloggers and readers will find the time to read and comment on the argument!

The Irrelevance of Gay Marriage to European Identity, and the Absence of Religion in the United States

In a flight to the bizarre, Pope Benedict XVI recently said: "Marriage [is] a basic form of ordering the relationship between a man and a woman… marriage has given Europe its particular aspect and its humanism, also and precisely because it has meant continuously learning and achieving the characteristic of fidelity and self-denial that this implies. Europe would no longer be Europe if this basic cell of the social fabric were to disappear or to be substantially transformed." (Emphasis added). I would guess that the rare European would have said that European identity hinges on the outcome of the gay marriage debate.

In terms of European institutions, I would think that one thing that is particularly distinctive is that an ethic of caring for your neighbor is built in to the political structure of European countries. Those countries have built a safety net that indicates a care for neighbor and a commitment to community that vastly exceeds that of the United States. In my view, if globalization undermines that structure, Europe will no longer be Europe. 

It is commonly said that the U.S. is a religious country. Many millions say "Lord, Lord," but no religious community would tolerate the deprivation our country permits. See Bernard Starr's column We are a Religious Country -- Or Are We?

The Schizophrenic Economy in 2011

Robert Reich has a discouraging prediction for the U.S. economy in 2011 See here. He expects high unemployment to continue, placing it at 9%, and he expects the housing market to remain depressed - on the theory that people without money cannot cause housing prices to rise. On the other hand, Reich predicts that the stock market will do very well in this new year. He says that U.S. "profits are coming from two sources: (1) growing sales in China, India, and other fast-growing countries, and (2) slimmed-down US payrolls."

This is, of course, discouraging news for most Americans and it does not augur well for politicians. If Reich is correct and his predictions carry through to 2012 (as he has previously suggested they will - at least regarding the U.S. unemploymet rate, Democrats and Republicans will be playing the blame game in the next election.