Given the outbreak of bedbugs across the country, you would think that the bedfellow index would be down. But no: we have found the Other again, and this time the group target is Muslims. In the 50’s it was communists among us. Thanks to the leadership provided by Joe McCarthy, the junior senator from Wisconsin, America was treated to a witch hunt that brought down a good many otherwise respectable folks who were arbitrarily painted with the communist brush. While the red brush was not slapped on a particular ethnic group, it was enthusiastically supported by Roman Catholics who had experienced their share of suspicions by long-settled Protestants as waves of Catholic immigrants coming from all sorts of European countries and speaking all sorts of languages landed on American soil during the Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century.
However, the immigrant Catholics had only a religion in common and therefore created their own churches organized by ethnicity. Poles went to their own churches; Irish went to predominantly Irish churches; and Italians went to Italian churches. Catholics dug no secret tunnels to connect those ethnic churches nor did they dig any to the Vatican.
The same human tendency that enables us to make constellations out of random stars drives our propensity to see conspiracy where there is none. Unlike the scientist, who collects vast quantities of data to test the validity a hypothesis, the all too common man can develop a certainty out of coincidence. Once the common man latches on to an idea, he runs with it beyond belief, especially if his fellow travelers or friends believe the same certainty. Doubt is for sissies. Skepticism is for Doubting Thomases.
And that is how we, as humans, have invented gods as well as constellations. True believers would personify or deify certainty in order to give it even greater power rather than trudge the slow road of the scientist who must learn to live with the fact that his hypothesis is seldom a safe bet, that today’s truth may be tomorrow’s mirage.
The truth about Muslims is that they represent even more diverse ethnicities than the Roman Catholics did. They come from all over the world, not just Europe. They speak more diverse languages and represent more varied cultures than the Protestants ever dreamt about the Catholics. If attributing conspiracy to Catholics turned out to be a herding-cats enterprise, then doing so with Muslims is as logical as counting on unanimity happening at the UN.
Religious faith conditions the mind to stop thinking. And it enables the mind to accept as truth notions that have no provable basis. After all, that is what faith is all about. Faith is a sort of blindness cloaked in the disguise of light. Darkness is a placed called Hell, a place to avoid, not an obscurity in need of intense illumination. The conspiracy-inclined mind can generalize false assumptions without evidence because evidence can contradict belief. Never doubt; just believe, and you shall carry the light. The scientific mind works inductively: it gathers facts first and then reaches a tentative conclusion, seldom a certain one. Scientists are proved wrong by discovery. True believers are right by fear-driven, self-contained, hermetically sealed belief. It is the common, everyday, Immaculate Conception. Any contradiction only detracts from the purity of thought, however wrong.
Seeing a bear in a cluster of stars poses no threat; attributing terrorist ideology to a mainstream world religion does*: it gives power to those few like Al Qaeda who would use the religion for its own evil ends by persuading the religion’s mainstream believers that they are demonized. Al Qaeda merely says to the mainstream: “See? I told you so. They are bent on destroying you, so join us in destroying them first.” That does not mean the mainstream will join them en masse, but it does invite the young and easily radicalized to join the extremists.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” said Emerson. Small minds tend toward conspiracy theory. They want to see cause and effect where coincidence lies. And they firmly believe coincidence lies, for everything is the intention of someone or something: God, if you are a religious believer: the government or the corporation, if you are not.
Let’s give Muslims the benefit of our inevitable doubt, for inevitable it will be. We got over fear of Catholics and then fear of Communists, although we have lately, thanks to fear-mongers in the Republican contingent, experienced a recrudescence of anti-socialist rhetoric aimed at that Muslim-born, foreign-born, socialist, community organizer named Barack Hussein Obama. They are trying to make him the Other. Recently, they have gained some ground in doing so, thanks to fear-driven faith of the vigilante minds that shoot first and ask questions never.
* All the religions of Abraham have outrageous pronouncements tucked away in their hallowed texts which both inspire extremists and abhor critics. That’s the problem with literal interpretation of texts of any kind, including the Christian Bible. Literal interpretations can be recipes and justifications for heinous crimes against humanity, all in the name of God.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Swallowing More Than We Chew
America is now fearful enough to make blessing counters seem almost obsolete. There is the fear of global warming, the fear of Al-Qaeda, the fear of the growing deficit, the fear of unemployment, the fear of inflation, the fear of deflation, the fear of rising taxes, and the fear of fear itself. There is, in fact, enough fear out there to make a fear-monger blush.
The latest news polls indicate that the American public, in increasing numbers, fears the President of the United States is a Muslim, even though he has insisted he is a Christian over and over again. Well, they don’t exactly fear it: they want to make him a Muslim so they can loathe him. It’s not as if we have to invent fears in this fearful age in order to keep the fear index uncomfortably high. There are enough fact-based fears to keep us rational folks busy as it is. But there is something contagious about fear: the more we fear, the more it seems to spread. When FDR proclaimed: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” he was stating as absolute truth our tendency to exaggerate. Most of our fears are unfounded or at least much greater than reality would suggest.
Fear is the most effective self-fulfilling prophecy humankind has ever adopted. We have a greater capacity for fear than almost anything else. Once fear gets going, it is hard to control it. It is like a hot air balloon on a windy day. When it takes off, you have no idea where it will land.
One such fear being fanned by certain believers is the fear of national debt. Thanks to the Bush tax policies, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, the government takeover of GM, the stimulus package, and the Great Recession, the American national debt is now measured in trillions of dollars, not just billions. For those with valuable assets, the debt is the greater fear. For those who are unemployed, the lack of available jobs is the greater fear. To the environmentalist, global warming and continued degradation of the environment are the greatest fears. Since we cannot seem to agree what the greatest fear is, perhaps what we need is a national fear inventory or poll to assess what our fear priorities really are and begin addressing them accordingly. Otherwise, we will remain in a paralyzed state of generalized fear with no prospects of working our way toward some degree of fear reduction. I realize a state of national serenity is a utopian dream, but efforts toward fear reduction are the practical steps we can take as a country, once we have identified our fear priorities.
America has always been a faith-based nation. Not only is it still highly religious in nature, it puts faith in the beliefs of various economic philosophers who offer contradictory solutions to man’s economic problems. Some American economists insist that Keynes is the guy to follow while others worship Adam Smith. Whatever economic philosopher you align with, their theories are simply beliefs wrung through the uncertain wringer of rational thought and assume an uncertain understanding of human nature. If human behavior were predictable and rational, we would not have the need for philosophers, who, along with scientists, give us the best available tools for understanding ourselves and our world. And yet, we are a far cry from fully understanding human nature any time soon.
Our inclination to put faith in something is our national propensity. Our faith, in turn, sets the stage for an outbreak of fear. Rather than doing the hard work of honing rational tools, we rely on faith and fear to govern our lives. They are two of the most primitive and irrational behavior modes that trace their roots back not only to the cave but to the species that gave birth to us. We would rather throw our hat into the ring of perceived purity and perfection than do the hard rational work of incremental progress. Scientists do the latter; faith-healers do the former.
Right now one issue America is grappling with, and one driven in some circles by irrational fear, is the building of a Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City. Rather than dealing with the fact that Al Qaeda does not represent mainstream Islam any more than the Ku Klux Klan represents mainstream Christianity, some Americans find it easier to demonize the entirety of a world religion and thereby play into the hands of Osama Bin Laden rather than do the relatively easy task of separating extremist elements from the otherwise benign elements of the mainstream faith. But no: those who put all their eggs in one basket will gladly do the same for others.
On the other hand, one could argue that all religions represent an irrational response to life’s vicissitudes and therefore should be avoided in favor of a more rational approach. But a ban on religion would be as successful as the War on Drugs or Prohibition. Taboo has never served as a deterrent but rather as a magnet. People need to choose to be rational, not forced.
Smart people diversify their investment portfolios. They would be wise to do the same with their beliefs and ideas. Rather than latch on to the next fad, the next faith or fear monger, the next fabulous offer, or the next fib sold as fact, maybe we ought to start educating ourselves using the best available information gleaned by the use of rational tools rather than continue to backslide further down the evolutionary track through lazy and listless reliance on faith and fear. That starts with broadening our sources of information beyond those which give us false comfort and exercising the tools that a lot of hard work exercised by previous generations has honed and made available to our brains.
One of the greatest epidemics of our time is physical obesity. Reason would dictate that getting fat is a bad idea. Our lives are shortened, our health is compromised, and our health care costs are rising as a result of this epidemic. No reasonable person would choose to be obese. I would contend that we are also suffering from an obesity of mind. We are becoming a nation of fat-heads, full of false certainty and empty thoughts, just as our bodies are full of fast food and empty calories. The next generation of children will be at even greater risk of suffering from both physical and mental obesity. We need to start exercising our whole beings, not just our bodies, and start feeding ourselves with truly wholesome food as well as truly wholesome food for thought. A diet of faith and fear is just another form of fast food. In more ways than one, we are what and how we eat.
The latest news polls indicate that the American public, in increasing numbers, fears the President of the United States is a Muslim, even though he has insisted he is a Christian over and over again. Well, they don’t exactly fear it: they want to make him a Muslim so they can loathe him. It’s not as if we have to invent fears in this fearful age in order to keep the fear index uncomfortably high. There are enough fact-based fears to keep us rational folks busy as it is. But there is something contagious about fear: the more we fear, the more it seems to spread. When FDR proclaimed: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” he was stating as absolute truth our tendency to exaggerate. Most of our fears are unfounded or at least much greater than reality would suggest.
Fear is the most effective self-fulfilling prophecy humankind has ever adopted. We have a greater capacity for fear than almost anything else. Once fear gets going, it is hard to control it. It is like a hot air balloon on a windy day. When it takes off, you have no idea where it will land.
One such fear being fanned by certain believers is the fear of national debt. Thanks to the Bush tax policies, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the bank bailouts, the government takeover of GM, the stimulus package, and the Great Recession, the American national debt is now measured in trillions of dollars, not just billions. For those with valuable assets, the debt is the greater fear. For those who are unemployed, the lack of available jobs is the greater fear. To the environmentalist, global warming and continued degradation of the environment are the greatest fears. Since we cannot seem to agree what the greatest fear is, perhaps what we need is a national fear inventory or poll to assess what our fear priorities really are and begin addressing them accordingly. Otherwise, we will remain in a paralyzed state of generalized fear with no prospects of working our way toward some degree of fear reduction. I realize a state of national serenity is a utopian dream, but efforts toward fear reduction are the practical steps we can take as a country, once we have identified our fear priorities.
America has always been a faith-based nation. Not only is it still highly religious in nature, it puts faith in the beliefs of various economic philosophers who offer contradictory solutions to man’s economic problems. Some American economists insist that Keynes is the guy to follow while others worship Adam Smith. Whatever economic philosopher you align with, their theories are simply beliefs wrung through the uncertain wringer of rational thought and assume an uncertain understanding of human nature. If human behavior were predictable and rational, we would not have the need for philosophers, who, along with scientists, give us the best available tools for understanding ourselves and our world. And yet, we are a far cry from fully understanding human nature any time soon.
Our inclination to put faith in something is our national propensity. Our faith, in turn, sets the stage for an outbreak of fear. Rather than doing the hard work of honing rational tools, we rely on faith and fear to govern our lives. They are two of the most primitive and irrational behavior modes that trace their roots back not only to the cave but to the species that gave birth to us. We would rather throw our hat into the ring of perceived purity and perfection than do the hard rational work of incremental progress. Scientists do the latter; faith-healers do the former.
Right now one issue America is grappling with, and one driven in some circles by irrational fear, is the building of a Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City. Rather than dealing with the fact that Al Qaeda does not represent mainstream Islam any more than the Ku Klux Klan represents mainstream Christianity, some Americans find it easier to demonize the entirety of a world religion and thereby play into the hands of Osama Bin Laden rather than do the relatively easy task of separating extremist elements from the otherwise benign elements of the mainstream faith. But no: those who put all their eggs in one basket will gladly do the same for others.
On the other hand, one could argue that all religions represent an irrational response to life’s vicissitudes and therefore should be avoided in favor of a more rational approach. But a ban on religion would be as successful as the War on Drugs or Prohibition. Taboo has never served as a deterrent but rather as a magnet. People need to choose to be rational, not forced.
Smart people diversify their investment portfolios. They would be wise to do the same with their beliefs and ideas. Rather than latch on to the next fad, the next faith or fear monger, the next fabulous offer, or the next fib sold as fact, maybe we ought to start educating ourselves using the best available information gleaned by the use of rational tools rather than continue to backslide further down the evolutionary track through lazy and listless reliance on faith and fear. That starts with broadening our sources of information beyond those which give us false comfort and exercising the tools that a lot of hard work exercised by previous generations has honed and made available to our brains.
One of the greatest epidemics of our time is physical obesity. Reason would dictate that getting fat is a bad idea. Our lives are shortened, our health is compromised, and our health care costs are rising as a result of this epidemic. No reasonable person would choose to be obese. I would contend that we are also suffering from an obesity of mind. We are becoming a nation of fat-heads, full of false certainty and empty thoughts, just as our bodies are full of fast food and empty calories. The next generation of children will be at even greater risk of suffering from both physical and mental obesity. We need to start exercising our whole beings, not just our bodies, and start feeding ourselves with truly wholesome food as well as truly wholesome food for thought. A diet of faith and fear is just another form of fast food. In more ways than one, we are what and how we eat.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Monotheism and the Culture of Absolutes
I have been reading James Joyce’s Ulysses with a small group of retired men in the small western town of Crestone, Colorado. Crestone used to be a mining town in the 19th Century. Today, it is the locus of spiritual retreats representing most of the world’s religions. Some of the men have connections with one or more spiritual organizations while others do not. The discussions have turned out to be one of the highlights of each week for all of us.
Because the novel follows loosely the story of ancient Ulysses (or Odysseus, if you use the Greek rather than Latin name) the notion that man, in ancient Greece, interacted with many gods and often found himself in conflict with them or having to please more than one made life more complex and confusing at times. Seldom did ancient man find himself serving or reacting to one god alone. He had to adapt to the demands of various gods as he encountered them. Man had to be flexible and inventive in order to survive his hostile world. His religion reflected that “reality.”
Today a large percentage of the world has concentrated the powers of the gods into a single entity, a single god. Although there are a variety of those single gods, for the most part the monotheisms (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for example) believe in a sole god. They believe their god is the only god, and that any others are either imposters or nonexistent. They may tolerate the existence of someone else’s god, but they do not believe in it.
What happens when you put all your spiritual “eggs in one basket “is you make yourself vulnerable to the concept of the Absolute. One way becomes the only way. Things become black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Power gets concentrated into an absolute power. Once this concept of the absolute takes root, it is able to spread to all other spheres of thinking. An absolute religious god can give rise to an absolute economic or social one. The mind set can be transferable. This notion is the thesis of a great little classic by Eric Hoffer called The True Believer.
The founding fathers of America saw this problem of concentrated religious power. They saw that America was composed of all sorts of religious sects, many of them allegedly escaping persecuting regimes in Europe, but in reality they themselves were often so “pure” in their beliefs and practices that they had little tolerance for any other beliefs. Even Roger Williams’ colony of Providence Plantations which opened its doors to Jews as well as various Protestant sects would not admit Papists (Catholics). (Ironically, it turns out Catholicism is the major religion represented in Rhode Island today.)
Most of the founding fathers were, to one degree or another, Deists, a term which is foreign to most 21st Century Americans. Deists were not Christians. Deists believed that a supreme being created the universe but that by using reason and the observation of nature man could ascertain truth without the need of faith or organized religion. While the Deists were technically monotheists, they did not organize and codify around that concept to the extent that a hardened religious doctrine evolved from it, as has happened with orthodox aspects of monotheistic religions. In other words, it was a way of thinking about the world rather than a doctrine. Those founders who either claimed to be Deists or were influenced by Deism were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, possibly Alexander Hamilton as well as less famous figures like Cornelius Harnett, Gouvenor Morris, and Hugh Williamson.
In short, fundamentalist Protestant thinking did not play a major role in the construction of the U.S. Constitution. It was reason that dominated the discussion. The whole balance of powers and checks and balances that were woven into that document was intended to ensure that no concentration of power could take place in any branch of government. Absolute power of any kind was something to be avoided or held in check.
Today in America there are no dominant religious gods except perhaps in the Bible Belts of the South. As an example of how the South is different, the Texas state school board just recently decided to subtract Thomas Jefferson from the list of influential figures that inspired revolutions in the 18th and 19th Centuries because he introduced the phrase “separation of church and state.”
During the 19th and 20th Centuries the Protestant god dominated the country and was used to inspire such fervors as Manifest Destiny in the 1840s and 1850s and Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s Joseph McCarthy latched on to an issue which initially and fervently appealed to his fellow Roman Catholics: the communist witch hunt. That issue brought the 20 percent of Americans who were Roman Catholic into the mainstream of religiously inspired causes embraced by a large segment of the Protestant mainstream and paved the way for the country’s acceptance of its first Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy in 1960.
However, although there are no nationally dominant gods, that does not prevent groups of Americans from promoting their gods as absolutes whenever possible. Whether it is the god of fundamentalist Christianity, the god of free enterprise, the god of government regulation, the god of anti-abortion, or the god of medical marijuana, America is full of folks who try to push their gods to dominance. Therefore, the founding fathers knew what they were about. Let us hope that this cauldron of vigorous monotheisms can still be transformed into a melting pot of ideas and a living, responsive but responsible set of laws rather than reducing itself to a one stock soup of narrow belief.
Because the novel follows loosely the story of ancient Ulysses (or Odysseus, if you use the Greek rather than Latin name) the notion that man, in ancient Greece, interacted with many gods and often found himself in conflict with them or having to please more than one made life more complex and confusing at times. Seldom did ancient man find himself serving or reacting to one god alone. He had to adapt to the demands of various gods as he encountered them. Man had to be flexible and inventive in order to survive his hostile world. His religion reflected that “reality.”
Today a large percentage of the world has concentrated the powers of the gods into a single entity, a single god. Although there are a variety of those single gods, for the most part the monotheisms (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for example) believe in a sole god. They believe their god is the only god, and that any others are either imposters or nonexistent. They may tolerate the existence of someone else’s god, but they do not believe in it.
What happens when you put all your spiritual “eggs in one basket “is you make yourself vulnerable to the concept of the Absolute. One way becomes the only way. Things become black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. Power gets concentrated into an absolute power. Once this concept of the absolute takes root, it is able to spread to all other spheres of thinking. An absolute religious god can give rise to an absolute economic or social one. The mind set can be transferable. This notion is the thesis of a great little classic by Eric Hoffer called The True Believer.
The founding fathers of America saw this problem of concentrated religious power. They saw that America was composed of all sorts of religious sects, many of them allegedly escaping persecuting regimes in Europe, but in reality they themselves were often so “pure” in their beliefs and practices that they had little tolerance for any other beliefs. Even Roger Williams’ colony of Providence Plantations which opened its doors to Jews as well as various Protestant sects would not admit Papists (Catholics). (Ironically, it turns out Catholicism is the major religion represented in Rhode Island today.)
Most of the founding fathers were, to one degree or another, Deists, a term which is foreign to most 21st Century Americans. Deists were not Christians. Deists believed that a supreme being created the universe but that by using reason and the observation of nature man could ascertain truth without the need of faith or organized religion. While the Deists were technically monotheists, they did not organize and codify around that concept to the extent that a hardened religious doctrine evolved from it, as has happened with orthodox aspects of monotheistic religions. In other words, it was a way of thinking about the world rather than a doctrine. Those founders who either claimed to be Deists or were influenced by Deism were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, possibly Alexander Hamilton as well as less famous figures like Cornelius Harnett, Gouvenor Morris, and Hugh Williamson.
In short, fundamentalist Protestant thinking did not play a major role in the construction of the U.S. Constitution. It was reason that dominated the discussion. The whole balance of powers and checks and balances that were woven into that document was intended to ensure that no concentration of power could take place in any branch of government. Absolute power of any kind was something to be avoided or held in check.
Today in America there are no dominant religious gods except perhaps in the Bible Belts of the South. As an example of how the South is different, the Texas state school board just recently decided to subtract Thomas Jefferson from the list of influential figures that inspired revolutions in the 18th and 19th Centuries because he introduced the phrase “separation of church and state.”
During the 19th and 20th Centuries the Protestant god dominated the country and was used to inspire such fervors as Manifest Destiny in the 1840s and 1850s and Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s Joseph McCarthy latched on to an issue which initially and fervently appealed to his fellow Roman Catholics: the communist witch hunt. That issue brought the 20 percent of Americans who were Roman Catholic into the mainstream of religiously inspired causes embraced by a large segment of the Protestant mainstream and paved the way for the country’s acceptance of its first Roman Catholic President, John F. Kennedy in 1960.
However, although there are no nationally dominant gods, that does not prevent groups of Americans from promoting their gods as absolutes whenever possible. Whether it is the god of fundamentalist Christianity, the god of free enterprise, the god of government regulation, the god of anti-abortion, or the god of medical marijuana, America is full of folks who try to push their gods to dominance. Therefore, the founding fathers knew what they were about. Let us hope that this cauldron of vigorous monotheisms can still be transformed into a melting pot of ideas and a living, responsive but responsible set of laws rather than reducing itself to a one stock soup of narrow belief.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
LeBron James: Friend or Foe?
What did LeBron James do when he became a Cavalier? He appointed his best friends from high school his managers. What did he do this weekend? He attended a friend’s wedding: Carmelo Anthony’s. What motivated him to join the Miami Heat? Two friends with whom he played on the Olympic team were either there or going there, and he saw a chance to be with his friends and, of course, a chance to win an NBA championship.
Friendship has always dominated LeBron’s ethos. From the time he was a young boy living a hard life with a single parent, friendship was paramount. Moving around so much in childhood, he learned to make friends quickly and to use basketball skills as a means to do so. Loyalty has always been his strong suit, but loyalty to real friends, not fans or cities or franchises, has been his history. It holds true today. Yes, LeBron is looking to use his skills in the pursuit of an NBA ring, but he would rather do it with true friends than by himself, which was both the history and prospect in Cleveland. Should he be faulted for that? I think not.
His handlers, who happen to be his friends, were not apparently cognizant of the backlash the ESPN “The Decision” program would create. It was all done in very poor taste and clearly choreographed by either a cynical cretin or a bumbling buffoon. It left the whole production doomed to not the benefit but the liability of doubt. Sometimes friends can be more hurtful than foes.
Still, LeBron’s greatest asset, his role as friend, will remain his strongest value. For someone who, as a child, spent a lot of time wandering, he has a great need for a sense of belonging. And home-boys play an important role in establishing his home. Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, was just that: an owner. No self-respecting black man in America wants to see himself as owned, and that is the message Gilbert conveys in his rants. The theme is essentially “I invested in you, and you turned into my junk bond.” That is not exactly the kind of bond LeBron cherishes.
I wish LeBron good fortune in Miami, not because I live there and root for the Heat. (I am a Nuggets fan and root for Carmelo Anthony, Birdman, and Billups.) I wish him well because I can imagine how much friendship means to LeBron, given his rootless beginning. The roots he plants in friendship today are far more important than the roots of his fans or the rants of his owners. We all need roots. Isn’t it great that he gets to choose them and plant them himself.
Friendship has always dominated LeBron’s ethos. From the time he was a young boy living a hard life with a single parent, friendship was paramount. Moving around so much in childhood, he learned to make friends quickly and to use basketball skills as a means to do so. Loyalty has always been his strong suit, but loyalty to real friends, not fans or cities or franchises, has been his history. It holds true today. Yes, LeBron is looking to use his skills in the pursuit of an NBA ring, but he would rather do it with true friends than by himself, which was both the history and prospect in Cleveland. Should he be faulted for that? I think not.
His handlers, who happen to be his friends, were not apparently cognizant of the backlash the ESPN “The Decision” program would create. It was all done in very poor taste and clearly choreographed by either a cynical cretin or a bumbling buffoon. It left the whole production doomed to not the benefit but the liability of doubt. Sometimes friends can be more hurtful than foes.
Still, LeBron’s greatest asset, his role as friend, will remain his strongest value. For someone who, as a child, spent a lot of time wandering, he has a great need for a sense of belonging. And home-boys play an important role in establishing his home. Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavaliers, was just that: an owner. No self-respecting black man in America wants to see himself as owned, and that is the message Gilbert conveys in his rants. The theme is essentially “I invested in you, and you turned into my junk bond.” That is not exactly the kind of bond LeBron cherishes.
I wish LeBron good fortune in Miami, not because I live there and root for the Heat. (I am a Nuggets fan and root for Carmelo Anthony, Birdman, and Billups.) I wish him well because I can imagine how much friendship means to LeBron, given his rootless beginning. The roots he plants in friendship today are far more important than the roots of his fans or the rants of his owners. We all need roots. Isn’t it great that he gets to choose them and plant them himself.
Turning Down the Heat
This is turning into a long hot summer for America. The East Coast just went through a record-breaking heat wave; La Nina is forecast for the Pacific which usually fries the Midwest; collars are hot all over the Gulf Coast, thanks to the man-made oil-gushing disaster; Main Street is still hot about Wall Street; Republicans are hoping the country will remain hot about bailouts through November; and the Democrats are hot about the blame they are getting for unemployment stagnation, even though the paternity of the Great Recession is easily attributable to the previous administration. Cleveland is hot that Lebron James did not turn down the Heat and remain in Cleveland; and hurricane season is heating up.
Summer is a time of betrayal and intrigue, usually limited to beach novels. Not this summer. Starting with Lebron’s betrayal of Cleveland (but not his dreams and friendships), tossing in the spy exchange just orchestrated by the Russians and the United States, adding the development of the “Spy Pigeon” Drone our military now has available, plus the report that Google Street View has been spying “inadvertently” on American citizens, (no wonder China has agreed to restore its license), Fox should be working on a new reality program called: “Can You Trust a Fifth Grader?”
“Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. The McCarthy witch hunt for communists had a lot to do with encouraging our country’s leaders to adopt the phrase. Clearly, we could not trust our neighbors to be fully American and not communist, so we came up with an ironclad theocratic phrase to confront the Iron Curtain. Today, given the economic uncertainty of the times, we have become suspicious of anyone and everyone, especially government. We expect government to solve our national problems, and yet we want it to be less intrusive in our lives. We want it to be effective, but when it is not, we want it smaller. Our trust in ourselves as a nation is so low, we want to get rid of or blame the latest wave of immigrants who always, over time, add to rather than subtract from the growth and goodness of our nation.
The spies we just rounded up accomplished nothing while they were here, except that they integrated themselves so successfully they had their neighbors and co-workers completely fooled, but not the FBI or CIA. Those are government institutions, by the way. Want to shrink those agencies now?
Just maybe it is time to renew our trust in our government, and our trust in ourselves to be generous, positive, hopeful, and adaptable. Maybe it is time to put all the anger, mistrust, and misunderstanding aside and renew our pledge of allegiance to the idea of America, not as it is but as it should be: inclusive, magnanimous, and moving in a positive direction. Yes, government should be more efficient and less costly, but I would rather have it strong enough to ferret out spies in our midst as well as put corporations and banks in their place when they start serving only their own short-term interests instead of the greater good. Rather than limit the institutions we can with our vote, we better think twice about what power they can wield on our behalf in the face of spies, BP, and Goldman Sachs. Making government less powerful will only play into the hands of those who would control it if they could and let loose a limitless concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few, rather than spread among the people.
The heat is on, and it is time to cool our heads and warm our hearts, rather than letting the reverse rule the day.
Summer is a time of betrayal and intrigue, usually limited to beach novels. Not this summer. Starting with Lebron’s betrayal of Cleveland (but not his dreams and friendships), tossing in the spy exchange just orchestrated by the Russians and the United States, adding the development of the “Spy Pigeon” Drone our military now has available, plus the report that Google Street View has been spying “inadvertently” on American citizens, (no wonder China has agreed to restore its license), Fox should be working on a new reality program called: “Can You Trust a Fifth Grader?”
“Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. The McCarthy witch hunt for communists had a lot to do with encouraging our country’s leaders to adopt the phrase. Clearly, we could not trust our neighbors to be fully American and not communist, so we came up with an ironclad theocratic phrase to confront the Iron Curtain. Today, given the economic uncertainty of the times, we have become suspicious of anyone and everyone, especially government. We expect government to solve our national problems, and yet we want it to be less intrusive in our lives. We want it to be effective, but when it is not, we want it smaller. Our trust in ourselves as a nation is so low, we want to get rid of or blame the latest wave of immigrants who always, over time, add to rather than subtract from the growth and goodness of our nation.
The spies we just rounded up accomplished nothing while they were here, except that they integrated themselves so successfully they had their neighbors and co-workers completely fooled, but not the FBI or CIA. Those are government institutions, by the way. Want to shrink those agencies now?
Just maybe it is time to renew our trust in our government, and our trust in ourselves to be generous, positive, hopeful, and adaptable. Maybe it is time to put all the anger, mistrust, and misunderstanding aside and renew our pledge of allegiance to the idea of America, not as it is but as it should be: inclusive, magnanimous, and moving in a positive direction. Yes, government should be more efficient and less costly, but I would rather have it strong enough to ferret out spies in our midst as well as put corporations and banks in their place when they start serving only their own short-term interests instead of the greater good. Rather than limit the institutions we can with our vote, we better think twice about what power they can wield on our behalf in the face of spies, BP, and Goldman Sachs. Making government less powerful will only play into the hands of those who would control it if they could and let loose a limitless concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few, rather than spread among the people.
The heat is on, and it is time to cool our heads and warm our hearts, rather than letting the reverse rule the day.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Force
(with apologies to Dylan Thomas)
The force that through the hedge funds drives the bet
Drives my car’s wheels; that blasts the I.E.D.
Is my annuity.
And I am dumb to tell myself
My soul is lost to the same hungry fever.
The force that spews the oil from the pipe
Drives my blood cold and coats the coastal tides
Is my slick slave.
And I am dumb to mouth unto its slime
How at the gushing well we all suck.
The hand that casts the vote pumps the gas
Dials the broker who buys the BP stock
That drills for more
And I am dumb to tell the tarball force
How it rolls on from sea to slippery sea.
The soaring eagle becomes the tar-draped pelican
The sanctuary is made a mortuary
All life destroyed.
And I am dumb to tell the lusty marshy life
How it is lost to human greed for profit margins.
And I am dumb to tell the womb turned tomb
How through my hair goes the same oily comb.
The force that through the hedge funds drives the bet
Drives my car’s wheels; that blasts the I.E.D.
Is my annuity.
And I am dumb to tell myself
My soul is lost to the same hungry fever.
The force that spews the oil from the pipe
Drives my blood cold and coats the coastal tides
Is my slick slave.
And I am dumb to mouth unto its slime
How at the gushing well we all suck.
The hand that casts the vote pumps the gas
Dials the broker who buys the BP stock
That drills for more
And I am dumb to tell the tarball force
How it rolls on from sea to slippery sea.
The soaring eagle becomes the tar-draped pelican
The sanctuary is made a mortuary
All life destroyed.
And I am dumb to tell the lusty marshy life
How it is lost to human greed for profit margins.
And I am dumb to tell the womb turned tomb
How through my hair goes the same oily comb.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Dick Cheney: Go to Guy By
With all the head-scratching BP executives and the federal government have been doing about the Gulf Oil Disaster (G.O.D.), I wonder why no one has called for the former ace oil executive/clandestine way paver Dick Cheney. No one combines the skills of back room deal-making and oil drilling expertise better than the former CEO of Halliburton and ex-VP of the United States. Even if he has not been called to duty, it is surprising he hasn’t contributed his expertise by joining Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, with practical solutions to this blip on the screen of an otherwise error-proof and risk-free industry. Dick and Bobby could be a great team, bad-mouthing the way too cautious deliberations of the White House while they roll up their sleeves in front of the TV cameras and get to work saving the Louisiana coastline.
Dick Cheney, even when he is after small game, can bag a big game trophy with his fire-ready-aim approach. He has shown that skill while quail-hunting. As VP of the United States of Halliburton, he was able to acquire for his former company a no bid contract for a substantial part of the non-military support needs in the Iraq War. If he can do that, he surely can plug a little leak in the Gulf. After all, it is only a small hole in the floor, and with all that oil going to waste, which nobody seems to be focused on, something ought to be done and done now.
Therefore, I nominate Dick Cheney to be head of a federally appointed task force to solve the G.O.D. damn problem. Why, he probably would come up with a solution that would not only plug the hole, but take care of reducing another expensive and deteriorating inventory, namely nuclear stockpiles and waste. Instead of spending all that money on dismantling nuclear missiles and burying atomic waste under Yucca Mountain, why not plug the damn hole with some really heavy stuff, not just so-called “mud” that has nothing more than some classified chemicals in its composition. Send a nuclear missile or two down that hole or pump some really heavy mud down in there with some real density to it and then sneer at those hapless environmentalists who have the TV networks all worked up about a few pelicans. Hell, you can’t even eat pelican!
I just can’t understand why we haven’t heard anything on this one from Dick Cheney. He has thrown in his two cents on a number of other issues since he left office. Why would he hold back now when the issue is one he should know more about than say how Obama is soft on terrorism. Maybe he’s off hunting somewhere. Or maybe he’s lying low because of some deals he hatched back in 2001 with the oil and gas industry that enabled a reckless oil drilling culture to develop that led inevitably to the G.O.D.
Dick Cheney, even when he is after small game, can bag a big game trophy with his fire-ready-aim approach. He has shown that skill while quail-hunting. As VP of the United States of Halliburton, he was able to acquire for his former company a no bid contract for a substantial part of the non-military support needs in the Iraq War. If he can do that, he surely can plug a little leak in the Gulf. After all, it is only a small hole in the floor, and with all that oil going to waste, which nobody seems to be focused on, something ought to be done and done now.
Therefore, I nominate Dick Cheney to be head of a federally appointed task force to solve the G.O.D. damn problem. Why, he probably would come up with a solution that would not only plug the hole, but take care of reducing another expensive and deteriorating inventory, namely nuclear stockpiles and waste. Instead of spending all that money on dismantling nuclear missiles and burying atomic waste under Yucca Mountain, why not plug the damn hole with some really heavy stuff, not just so-called “mud” that has nothing more than some classified chemicals in its composition. Send a nuclear missile or two down that hole or pump some really heavy mud down in there with some real density to it and then sneer at those hapless environmentalists who have the TV networks all worked up about a few pelicans. Hell, you can’t even eat pelican!
I just can’t understand why we haven’t heard anything on this one from Dick Cheney. He has thrown in his two cents on a number of other issues since he left office. Why would he hold back now when the issue is one he should know more about than say how Obama is soft on terrorism. Maybe he’s off hunting somewhere. Or maybe he’s lying low because of some deals he hatched back in 2001 with the oil and gas industry that enabled a reckless oil drilling culture to develop that led inevitably to the G.O.D.
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