Banking Lessons on Racism and Bigotry

Some people have a difficult time understanding the distinction between bigotry or discrimination and “racism.” The recently announced settlement regarding Bank of America and its subsidiary, Countrywide Mortgage, provides a helpful concrete example and its implications. Racial bigotry is the prejudgmental attitude or belief regarding someone different from one’s own racial or ethnic group that is based neither on fact nor experience. It may or may not be acted upon by word or deed. When that bigotry is acted upon, it is discrimination that serves to accord certain advantage or privilege to a member or members of one group over another based upon race or ethnicity. The race or ethnicity may be real or perceived, in that one may discriminate against another believing the recipient of the discrimination to be of a certain race even if the person is not of that race or ethnicity. In contrast, racism is the operation of institutional and systemic power to privilege and accord advantage to one dominant group and to disadvantage a subordinate group because of race or ethnicity. Racism is dependent upon systemic power where bigotry is not.

In the case of Countrywide Mortgage, purchased by Bank of America with the indirect benefit of TARP bailout funds from taxpayers, the company engaged in a systematic course of discrimination against people of color seeking home mortgages. It extended loans at higher interests than mortgages offered to whites and systematically steered people of color to loans that were riskier and which contained traps of ballooning interest rates. These differences were strategic and systematic, and as a government official described: “the cost and quality of loan that you received from Countrywide depended upon the color of your skin.”

Looking to the implications of the difference, we can see how racism can be more insidious in a society. When an individual engages in acts of bigoted discrimination, the individual may be held accountable for such actions, up to and including criminal prosecution for hate crimes. Let us look, however, at the consequences of institutional racism. Not one individual was terminated or disciplined from bank of America or Countrywide specifically because of the strategic and concerted policy and practice of discrimination against tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. The evidence is that the borrowers of color were equally qualified for the superior quality and lower cost loans offered to white customers. Bank of America has agreed to a “settlement” following the investigation demonstrating the practice, which was not termed a penalty or fine and so can be written off as a business expense – which the taxpayers ultimately bear as a cost. That settlement of approximately $353 million represents about 5% of ONE QUARTER’S profit for Bank of America.

What we see is the deliberate and strategic use of institutional power, aided and abetted by the government, to disadvantage certain customers and privilege others solely upon the basis of race and ethnicity. The white controlled and operated bank of America has direct economic power and the support of governmental power in the effectuation of this systematic discrimination. That is the essence of racism. Some talk about reciprocal or “reverse” racism which is a fallacy and a misconception in the United States. The simple reason is that the power and the ability to exercise that power does not rest in the hands of the people of color affected. If the large national institution like bank of America were owned and operated by people of color and engaged in a practice of discriminating in lending in favor of people of color and against whites, it would be racism. But it would not be “reverse” racism. The notion of “reverse” is appended to the false term precisely because it occurs in practice only by whites against people of color. In other words, we have only experienced white operant racism and so there is a desire to look for a term to describe an occurrence when systemic discrimination is used against a target that is not the norm or the expected target.

One final point in this argument relates to the methodology. The corporate and institutional nature of racism serves to aid its operation and to shield it against consequences. An individual can be deprived of property or liberty as a consequence of personal and individual acts of bigotry and discriminatory conduct. It is conceivable that an individual bigot may experience remorse and alter his or her behavior in the future. A corporation is not a person, despite the pronouncement of the US Supreme Court. As a result there is no individual that will feel the loss or pain from any consequences that might result from a determination of wrongful damage based upon racist practices. There is really no person to learn from a mistake and no way to imprison a corporation that is unrepentant. That same corporation, directly or through reformation of a new corporate entity under another name, can continue and repeat the practice of racial discrimination knowing that the government and judicial system will not be able to do much about it.

Only if the financial cost exacted from the corporate or institutional racist is so high as to preclude it from operating or reformation s a new entity can anything approaching effective regulation of such behavior occur. Obviously, 5% of profits [not operating revenues – net profits] from one quarter is not the kind of consequence that is likely to deter recurrence of the racist practices. Indeed, the settlement is more likely to be read as confirmation that the “authorities” cannot or will not do anything to stop the racism. More subtlety and deception may be employed in order to avoid the nuisance of the payment of small settlement amounts and further increase profits. The message to the racist corporation is mainly that they were too blatant in the discrimination.

Somebody Hail the Chief!

At this crucial time in the history of jurisprudence, it is not a good sign that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States appears to be missing in action. The Court announces that it will take up arguments and deliberation on the Heath Care Reform legislation that has garnered mixed results in the lower courts. Perhaps a watershed case in connection with the 2012 Presidential Election. The same day, two Justices of the Court not known for their "discretion" slip out and attend a fund raising dinner for an organization lobbying against the law[and incidentally are paid generous speaker fees]. Now we can all accept that the Supreme Court is an elite club. And these guys were just out doing their usual grifting for pocket money from fat cat organizations supporting corporate interests. The engagement was probably pre-booked.

But even elite clubs are supposed to have some basic rules of decorum and behavior. Since it is the highest court of the land, it is not unreasonable that the Judicial Code of Ethics might be expected to apply, at a minimum, to the Justices of the club. After all, every other judge in the land is subject to those basic rules of behavior. They are really not that hard to follow either. Honest! Most people heard them at home when they were children: Don’t lie, cheat or steal! That can be expanded to: don’t solicit or accept bribes from parties in interest or regarding issues that you have to sit and decide, supposedly as an impartial judge. That would not seem too onerous.

HOWEVER, consider the following news report:
A few hours after the Supreme Court justices met last Thursday, November 10, to consider hearing challenges to the national health care overhaul, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were the honored speakers at a fundraiser for a conservative legal group that was sponsored in part by health care reform opponents involved in the litigation.

For goodness sakes, where is the club President Roberts? Is he sleeping on the job? Has he lost the cell phone numbers of Thomas and Scalia? Didn’t he warn them that they should keep a low profile and not be “out on the take” in the run up to perhaps the biggest decision the Court has to make since the decision to sell out the country to corporations in the Citizen’s United decision? Now it is not secret how Scalia will vote. Thomas only has to hope that Antonin and Ginny can agree on what will be most profitable personally for the Thomas family so he can be told how to vote. He has no time to bother with looking up the law and stuff like that, he never understood too much of it anyway. He was more inclined to take the word of “cute” female law clerks that laughed at his raunchy and lame jokes.

But it is going to be difficult at club meetings when you have a couple of rogue members who choose to completely disregard the ethical rules and do so in public meetings. The old wink and nod ratio decidendi of be as corrupt as you want as long as you do it in private parties seems to have slipped the minds of Antonin and Clarence. Or perhaps they have decided that the power elite have reached total victory and they simply don’t care about appearances any more. In any event, someone should put in a call to the Chief Justice to see if he cannot round up the boys and give them a stern finger shaking and talking to. [p.s., if they offer to split their take with him…he should decline]

Poor Cain; is he Able?

Herman Cain has gotten very testy and combative with the media lately over persistent questions about allegations of sexual improprieties when he was head of the Restaurant Association lobby back in the 1990's. He has changed his story so many times that it would take an accountant to keep track. He tries to put a stop to questions and to direct what the media will ask and what he chooses to answer.

We may recall that other "so-called" candidates thought that they could control or muzzle the media, and that they could choose what was reported. Christine O'Donnell walked off an interview because she could not pick and choose the interview questions. Palin blamed the "lame-stream" media for her being characterized as uninformed and vapid [history suggests that the characterization was more accurate than not]. Now Cain calls the media "nit picky" because it demands details of allegations pertaining to his past conduct and character.

Gloria Allred now announces that she has a client who was harassed by Cain and is willing to come forward, in light of Cain's declarations that he "never" harassed any female subordinate. That was a dangerous public proclamation by someone who knew that there were at least two settlement agreements to buy silence of women who had made formal and specific allegations against him. It is true that Allred is a "self-promoter" but we cannot forget that Cain is one as well. No amount of deflection [that Allred contributed to Democratic candidates] can erase the factual testimony of witnesses. If Allred's client is credible, and the fact that she is one of multiple independent accusers suggests that she probably is, then Cain has to face up to the events and explain why they do not disqualify him for office requiring public trust.

The deflection toward Democrat supporters when Cain has already taken the public position that the leak came from the Perry [GOP] campaign is inconsistent and makes Cain look desperate. The so-called "advisor" [who is white, by the way] that called the current situation a "high tech lynching" certainly did Cain no favors. He should be fired immediately. While race is an issue in some aspects of Cain's candidacy, and he has made it so by denigrating Black folk as "brainwashed" because they don't support his candidacy, these allegations of sexual impropriety have little to do with race. They are no more racial than the allegations against Clinton, Spitzer or Wilbur Mills and a host of other male politicians of all colors and political stripes.

My grandfather used to remind me that: "when you step up to start a fight, don't forget that you have to bring your own nose along. And it might just get bloodied too!" Cain wants to be treated as a serious candidate. He had better wise up and learn that he is playing on a bigger stage than he has ever tried before. The stakes and the risks are all much higher. If he does not have the character, stomach, skills and staff to handle the challenge, he should sit down and shut up.

[Pawlenty and Palin have vanished to obscurity. The same should go for Bachman, but some people are not bright enough to realize when they have lost.]

Farm Produce and Sound Bites

BIRMINGHAM | Jerry Spencer had an idea after Alabama's tough new law against illegal immigration scared Hispanic workers out of the tomato fields northeast of Birmingham: Recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to do the work, give them free transportation and pay them to pick the fruit and clean the fields.

After two weeks, Spencer said Monday, the experiment is a failure. Jobless resident Americans lack the physical stamina and the mental toughness to see the job through, he said, and there's not much of a chance a new state program to fill the jobs will fare better.

Gov. Robert Bentley has called such claims "almost insulting" to Alabamians.

Facile sound bites and slogans about "illegal" Mexican immigrants [who have been invited by local businesses and hired by them] taking jobs away from citizens during a period of high unemployment were used to fuel passage of a racist anti-immigrant bill aimed at undocumented workers of color and their families living in Alabama. There were claims about how these illegals were hurting the economy by using resources like schools and hospitals.

Last week the news story showed a schools Superintendent pleading with Hispanic parents to bring their children back to the schools after hundreds in the Tuscaloosa area and thousands across the state have left the system when the law went into effect. Schools lose funding when their student population level drops. This week the above article appeared showing how local farm businesses across the state are losing tens of thousands of dollars, and that the supposed "unemployed" laborers are not showing up or willing to do the work abandoned by the Hispanic workers after the Nazi-like law went into effect. As in Georgia, not even Alabama parolees or inmates are eager to take the jobs and the Constitution probably would not allow the state to force them back into the "chain gangs" of old.

The problem with sound bites, political slogans and jingoism to advance a cause rather than hard evidence is that the problems ultimately come to light. Research, including the experience in Georgia, showed that the labor shortage was predictable. “Ghost-like” images are used to incite and create irrational fears, like claims that Hispanics were taking jobs away from citizens eager to fill them. When light is shed on these claims, they disappear from lack of substance, just like shadows and ghosts. All that is left exposed is the irrational hatred and bigotry and ignorance. There is also dishonesty. How many of those who have posted callous replies attacking welfare recipients would line up the next day for tomato picking jobs if they were laid off tomorrow. What if they were told, no unemployment benefits if you refuse to work in the fields or a chicken processing plant? I suspect there would be a very different attitude about “entitlements” in that case, assuming basic intelligence.

The reason Gov. Bentley had to qualify his comment to say "almost" insulting is that the facts show that Alabamians are not willing to take the jobs left open when the Hispanics were driven out. Many ignorant and bigoted Alabamians have responded that people on welfare and the sick should be trucked to the fields and forced to perform the jobs. This ignores that fact that the unemployment statistics about the labor force used to support the legislation are not made up of people on welfare. It consists primarily of able bodied people out of work and who have not yet given up on finding employment. They are the ones that comprise the 9.9% unemployment rate. And they have not come forward to take the farm labor jobs abandoned in fear by the hispanic workers.

In For a Penny, In For a Pound

The idea or question has been bouncing around in my head for a while. The huge push to corporatize public education in this country has been damaging to the overall quality of education as well as to the profession. But perhaps part of the damage has been a lack of resolve, dues to a half hearted effort. After all, if you are going for ideological dogmatism, why not go all the way.

First we would need to have a public offering and see how many investors would pony up significant cash to run a business with a steady stream of raw material of variable quality and a constant demand for high quality output, regardless of the revenues. The apparent first managerial decision would have to be to reduce output and drive up the unit price using the supply and demand market based theory. If far fewer people graduated from public education, then the amount that employers would be willing to pay for such “skilled” workers would increase and the willingness to invest in the enterprise should also rise.

Second, the employers would need individuals who were adept at critical thinking and problem solving. These would be the valued output criteria for the select few who would graduate. As a result, standardized testing would be shelved and the emphasis would shift to professional teachers who demonstrated high skills and talent for producing students with initiative, creativity and ingenuity. These teachers would be highly paid in line with maximizing production of the proper students.
Finally, the basic corporate principle of profit and efficiency would prevail, and schools that were unable to efficiently produce adequate product with available resources and expertise would simply have to close. If the schools were not adequately funded by investors, they would be shut down or “mothballed.”

Memphis, Tennessee has taken a page from this manifesto. The school district has decided that if it does not have the necessary resources from the city to operate the school district; it simply will not open schools. The school year has been delayed indefinitely. More school districts should seriously consider this practical option. If the state and local government do not wish to fund the operation of public education, then schools should simply close their doors until the funding is made available. Instead, school districts routinely open schools with grossly inadequate staffing and resources which means that the chances of producing students that meet the desired quality outputs are negligible. Would any responsible capitalist invest in losing money in order to produce a product that is below standards of accept ability in the market? Of course many parents would be very unhappy to see the great majority of schools closed, and especially if their children do not gain admission to the few remaining “profitable” schools.

If a corporatized educational system is what is really desired, then as the saying goes: “in for a penny, in for a pound!”

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

A recent news article about the recent enactment of legislation called the most restrictive anti-immigration law in the nation showed a group of elderly white males, including Gov. Bentley, standing around in the Capitol congratulating each other. Only from a limited and rather myopic perspective can the enactment of such a law be considered a good thing. Here are a couple of snippets from local news stories regarding what the law entails:

The Alabama law would force schools to ascertain if their students were here legally, make it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride — even to a hospital in an emergency — and provide for individuals to report people they think might be in the county illegally to law enforcement agencies.

The new law gives local law enforcement agencies the right to detain suspected illegal immigrants without bail until their status is determined, which could lead to even more strain for the legal system.

Sheriffs of Alabama met with officials of the US Department of Justice [DOJ] seeking an indication or commitment whether the federal law enforcement agency would file suit to challenge the Alabama law. Portions of a similar and less onerous law in Arizona have been challenged and partially invalidated. The Alabama law even requires that a person who believes a law enforcement officer is not responsibly enforcing the law has a duty to report that law enforcement personnel to authorities. It is not a great overstatement to say that such mandates seek to create a public atmosphere similar to Nazi Germany, in which average citizens were obligated to “inform” on anyone suspected of harboring or not persecuting Jews. In the case of Alabama, the anti-immigration law is a pretext for discrimination and persecution of persons of color and Latinos in particular. The sheriffs are very concerned about the way in which the law encourages, if not mandates, racial and ethnic profiling.

While the sheriffs in Alabama and other states facing similar mandates are understandably concerned about the harm such legislation does to law enforcement programs and relationships, and how the necessary training stresses current budgets which are already underfunded, immediate help from the US DOJ is not likely for practical reasons. Unfortunately, it is more advantageous from a legal standpoint to observe how the law is actually implemented in order to have evidence with which to challenge it. In the case of Alabama, there will undoubtedly be case examples in which civil rights are abused or in which it can be shown that local law enforcement agencies are failing and refusing to enforce the law as written because of concerns about Constitutional violations. So the DOJ is likely to let the drama play out a while longer before intervening.

In the interim, what happens to the social and cultural climate of Alabama? Some would argue that the legislation simply demonstrates that the moral psyche of most people of Alabama has not really changed and when the opportunity to roll back civil rights protections against racial and ethnic persecution arose, the good citizens simply claimed a victory for the “Old Southern Resistance.” That is perhaps too cynical, but the virulence of the bigotry that lies beneath the law cannot be easily ignored or justified. Arguments in support of the law as a labor or public service bill have been shown to be false and disingenuous. The asserted “threats” against which the law is purportedly erected are illusory at best and are not effectively addressed by the law in any event.

Study after study by bipartisan researchers show that undocumented immigrants actually contribute more net funding to the income tax and public welfare systems than do poor citizens. They do not obtain tax refunds for withheld wages and are not eligible for grants or tax earned income credits. Many are less likely to use emergency medical services for fear of revealing their status. Moreover, the “jobs” that undocumented immigrants have traditionally taken are jobs that go unfilled when they are removed from the labor market. Georgia farmers are clamoring for a guest worker program to be implemented after legislation against undocumented immigrants removed field workers; and crops lie rotting in the field causing millions of dollars in losses. There is no demonstrable evidence that undocumented Latino immigrants present any greater threat of crime or challenge to national security than citizens.

The argument that the law is "just" simply because the persons are in the country “illegally” is a valid but shallow argument. In this country, there have been many laws that create illegal status that history has shown to be unjust and immoral. Teaching a Black man to read, marriage between a white person and a person of color [miscegenation], having an abortion to save the life of the pregnant woman and other conditions have resulted in “illegal” status in the past. Virtually every expert who has weighed in on the subject acknowledges that the immigration system is flawed and broken, resulting in many injustices and impractical classifications. Under current law an infant who is a US citizen can be orphaned or left destitute by deportation of one or both of her parents. The fear mongering that supported enactment of the law has been exposed as false and pretextual.

Because the law impacts not only persons who are undocumented immigrants, but also people who may be mistaken for undocumented immigrants, the law casts a pall over public behaviors and social relationships. Any person of color may be suspected of being an immigrant despite the fact that his or her great grandparents were born in the US. White persons even if illegally in the US from Canada, Europe or some other countries are not likely to be noticed or impacted by the law. The law also has an indirect damaging impact because it causes whites to be presumptively suspect of racism [supportive of official discrimination] by people of color and required in some ways to justify their opposition to the law. Since it was a law passed by the white dominated legislature elected by the white dominated electorate, it is presumptively the “will” of the people of Alabama. The law justifiably establishes an imprint regarding the moral character of the state. Where mean spirited legislation is enacted that fails to substantively serve any public purpose, and that law encourages the persecution and criminalization of persons because of their ethnicity or color of their skin, the law of the state brands Alabama and its leadership as racist. The implementation of official power of the state to disadvantage a group of people because of their ethnicity through institutionalization of discriminatory forces and pressures is the definition of racism.

Failing invalidation of the law by federal intervention, only a similarly forceful consensus of citizens of Alabama in opposition to the law can bring about countervailing balance and suggest that the majority of Alabama citizens are not in accord with the anti-immigration law as it is written. Moreover, being forced to abandon the measure by the courts will not eliminate the moral taint that attaches to the state because such intervention can be seen as a constraint upon what remains the “will” of the good people of Alabama. How odd that in over 50 years and two generations since the enactment of Civil Right laws the state of Alabama has made so little progress in evolution toward an understanding of social justice, even in the face of an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world. Sweet home Alabama, indeed.

Bin Laden is Dead?

We heard news that a discrete mission based upon months and years of quiet and professional investigative work resulted in tracking down and killing Osama Bin Laden. This was a successful team effort that brought a criminal to justice. Everyone should feel good that a murderer has been brought to justice.

The histrionics of "war on terror" and stoking of religious bigotry, however, must recede and be put into more realistic perspective. The focus has to be on individuals who commit and seek to commit acts of murder and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, NOT on the basis of some religious affiliation. Stupid and simple minded people on any and all sides want to turn this into an excuse for their own religious bigotry. The leader of Hamas is a prime example, just as many of the postings we have seen on sites like this from anti-Muslim bigots. More importantly, adherence to dogma of any kind instead of looking at the facts only serves to create more extremists. This mission was done well and was successful. However, there have been other US efforts that have resulted in killing innocent civilians and given fuel to the demagogues who claim that the US is an oppressor. When the Hamas leader says that the US engages in oppression, there is some truth to that, even though his respect and affection for Bin Laden is badly misplaced. We must be willing to look honestly at BOTH and hold ourselves accountable for when we screw up as well as high five when we succeed. That is what real justice means.

We forget that when Bin laden is lionized, we give him too much credit. Somewhat like the Unabomber, he was a craven criminal who spent the last ten years hiding out in caves and backwoods holes. To give him more credit than that just to feel good and do chest beating is unwise and unproductive.

Finally, Osama Bin Laden has been found and brought down. However, we must remember that his legacy actually lives on and we experience it every time we try to take a flight. Alive or dead, Bin Laden as a symbol has robbed and continues to rob every traveler of dignity and freedom, we have lost fundamental rights more because of the political exploitation of fear by politicians like Bush and Cheney than because of anything Bin laden could have accomplished directly. GOP and Democrat politicians alike have continued to exploit that fear.

Solution? I would gradually drop down this omnipresent publicity stunt of an "Orange Alert" and reduce many of the so-called "security" measures that have been shown to do nothing to actually enhance security. I am not saying to do so immediately, that would send a wrong message, but this could be done over the course of 6 months to a year. Many TSA workers admit that most of their procedures are for show and to create a public impression rather than actually catch terrorists. The idea that Americans "agree and understand" that these intrusions are necessary is BS. I would also revise the so-called "Patriot Act" and restore many of the civil liberties taken away from American people.

At the same time, I would not reduce one iota the efforts or reduce funding support of specialized and coordinated national and international intelligence and crime investigation units. These are the people who actually get the job of tracking down criminals and suspected terrorists done, quietly and effectively. Gasbags and torturers like Cheney create more terrorists than they capture, they create more risk than they solve. But the professionals who go about the business of detecting and arresting actual criminals goes on outside the spotlights and political speeches. They do not ask us to give up our Constitutional rights for political gain. Thy just do their jobs.

President Obama states that this is a victory because of who Americans are and what they can do. It is time to take a hard look at what Americans have become and start to reassert and re-establish some fundamental values and principles that have been forgotten. We need to reject the fear mongering for political gain and start actually looking out for each other, ALL of us, instead of divisive politics and class warfare. President Kennedy was on the right track when he stated that we should ask what each of us can do for our country, our fellow citizens, instead of asking what's in it for ourselves as individuals. That individualistic egotism is what has us fearful of our neighbors and against efforts to seek the welfare of children, seniors and others most vulnerable in our society. It also is what makes us vulnerable to terrorism. "Divide and conquer."

The Libyan Dilemma

The current situation in Libya raises the dilemma that some international critics raised about the US intervention in Iraq, and how it has damaged US credibility in foreign affairs. Bush claimed that the US was attacking to prosecute the "war on terror" and to defend against the campaign of Al Qaida. The US bombed and demolished towns, caused many civilian casualties, including women and children. We now know that Bush was lying [See Downing Street Memos] and that he knew that Bin Ladin had nothing to do with Iraq. That duplicitous action undercut any moral authority of the US regarding foreign interventions. The same holds true about any US complaints against the use of torture, now that it has become official US sanctioned policy. The US has no moral standing to accuse other countries of misconduct in the use of torture against prisoners, or even innocent civilians, since the US has done both with approval of its highest leaders.

Now, Ghadafi claims that his military is responding to the threat of Al Qaida against his cities and government, even though he knows [along with the rest of the world] that it is not true. Ghadafi is bombing cities and killing civilians. Yet his direct response to the US is that he is protecting against an Al Qaida invasion of Libya. He sent a message to President Obama stating that Al Qaida was attacking its cities with force of arms, "what would you do?"

There is a larger picture here. The US has lost moral authority in international affairs, and the US public is in disarray regarding what constitutes a legitimate exercise of force in the international arena to uphold standards of international law and human rights. Bush appealed to the baser instincts and the immorality of segments of the populace for support of his intervention in Iraq. In so doing, he depleted the US economic reserves and has stretched this the available military resources to respond in necessary situations. Now the US public questions whether it should be involved in the humanitarian mission on two grounds. First, there is a question whether the US should get involved in another foreign mission when the economy is weak and the moral obligation is unclear. Second, that baser segment of the population whose racist, religious and ethnic prejudice has been empowered by Bush argue that the brown and Muslim people of that area should simply be allowed, if not encouraged, to kill themselves without any foreign intervention. This is the level of ethical ambivalence and moral decay that has come to typify the US populace in the wake of policies and actions in the Iraq adventure.

By failing to hold Bush accountable and by continuing to prosecute the mistaken Iraq intervention, Obama has effectively ratified the actions of Bush and Cheney. Whether or not Obama would have taken the same action as Bush [which is doubtful] his protection of Bush after the fact claims the actions of Bush as the standing policy of the USA. The US will not begin to recapture its standing until a US leader steps up and says, "we are better, stronger and more ethically clear than the US behaved under the George W. Bush Administration. Mistakes were made and the US rejects those mistakes as misguided and morally unsound. In the future, the US will do better, BE better."

The "chickens have come home to roost." Ghadafi has cleverly turned the US strategy in Iraq, and the failure of the rest of the world to hold the US accountable for it, directly against the US regarding its participation in the UN Resolution. The current intervention in Libya is justified. the current action is "doing the right thing" despite the fact that we have no moral authority to take the action. The US still needs to own up to the fact that its international standing as a respected power will not be re-established until it deals honestly and directly with the actions of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld which were criminal by standards of international law and humanitarian decency. Only then will the US be able to walk into any international forum and advocate for action on the basis of international law and human rights with integrity and a sense of moral authority.

The US may never be mature enough to accept responsibility for those actions, but it will never deserve full respect until it does. We teach our children that a person of character admits his or her mistakes and accepts responsibility. Yet we do not hold our national leaders to the same ethical standards.

And So the Uprising Begins

The Police and Firefighter unions in Madison, Wisconsin have initiated a drive to direct attention toward major financial contributors to Gov. Walker and those complicit in the Governor’s ideological push to disembowel public employee worker rights in Wisconsin. The “Move Your Money” campaign targets the bank across from the Wisconsin Capitol which is a major contributor to Walker and which has a tunnel linked to the Capitol used by Walker to ferry lobbyists in to meet with Walker beyond the public eye and even when the Capitol was shut down to public access.

One can only be encouraged by the show of courage, ingenuity and solidarity by the Wisconsin police and firefighters in opposition to Gov. Walker’s bare-knuckled and abusive distortion of the legislative process to push through a union destroying measure. That law to denude the public employees, except police and firefighters, of the right to sit at the table and bargain in good faith over wages, benefits and working conditions reverses a tradition of over a half century in Wisconsin.

The campaign is gaining momentum in Wisconsin as the list of major contributors is being circulated and the public is encouraged to boycott those businesses as long as they continue to support Walker’s ideological war on public workers either publicly or financially. The first step was for patrons to close their accounts with the bank that is so aligned with Walker. Although the withdrawals at the branch only amounted to about $190,000 in one day, the symbolic nature of the effort and the risk of it expanding should draw the attention of Bank officials. The irony was not lost that the M&I Bank involved has taken $2 billion from the taxpayers in TARP funds that have not yet been repaid.

To be effective, this effort needs the support of all others throughout the country who have previously expressed support for the Wisconsin public employees. Boycotting products like Johnsonville Meats, Wal-Mart, Miller Beer and Sargento Cheese is something that we all can choose to do as an act of solidarity. The Wisconsin Police and Firefighters have two points exactly right. First, the attack on public employees is just a preliminary move that will impact police and firefighters as well if it is allowed to succeed. Second, backers of the regime attacking public employee rights care nothing about people or the noise from protests. They are concerned only with the transfer of wealth that underlies their strategy. Walker gave $200 billion dollars in tax breaks to corporations while taking over $1 trillion from schools and local governments.

The protesters believe that the only language that Walker and his supporters understand or respect is money. By the process of boycotting and reducing revenues to the financial backers of Walker and his supporters, there will be direct consequences. Perhaps the businesses that thought it wise to purchase influence through support for Walker will rethink that strategy. There are collateral consequences as well. People act by association and by habit. Once people get in the habit of making alternative purchases, they may not go back to purchasing the old products and services even after the boycott ends. Moreover, every time a consumer goes to make a purchase and chooses to buy an alternative motivated by the boycott, that consumer will be reminded of the need to vote against Walker and the GOP legislators who conspired with him. So the impact of the boycott may have greater and more long-lasting impact than may appear at first blush.

To be clear, no one doubts that Wisconsin and other states require stern and perhaps drastic measures to put their respective fiscal houses in order. It is also true that some reforms to employee pensions and benefits, public and private may be necessary adjustments as all share in the belt tightening. However, it was the financial collapse causes by mismanagement and Wall Street style greed and profligacy that stripped more than $14 Trillion from the economy and helped reduce tax based revenue by almost a third. It was not public employees who caused the collapse. To use the public employees unfairly as a scape goat for the problems that have a different and wider cause is unjust. It is fitting, and ultimately democratic that the people rise up and demand fairness and accountability. If that means loss of business for Walker supporters and loss of political office for Walker and other GOP legislators, so be it.

Government by Ambush

The Wisconsin State Legislature is making an interesting mockery of the term “conservative,” as its GOP controlled Senate and Assembly have resorted to deceitful and possibly illegal maneuvers to avoid the procedural safeguards meant to protect and preserve the people in a democratic society. One such protection is that if a measure is to be debated and adopted, the moving party [typically the majority] must give clear advance notice to all regarding the proposed action. This has been termed the “Open Meeting Law.”
Under the open meetings law, 24 hours' notice is generally needed to hold any public meeting, with at least two hours' notice required in an emergency.

These laws were enacted to put an end to backroom deals and slick maneuvers that had allowed legislators to abuse majority power by enacting surprise or covert measures. If the opposition could not muster the votes to defeat the measure, it should at least be made aware of the content and purpose of the measure in advance in order to express opposition on the record and in open public debate.

That process of procedural fairness seems to have escaped the Wisconsin GOP in its zeal to attach and destroy collective bargaining rights of public employees. Previously, Gov. Walker has argued that the attack on worker rights was a necessary strategy to help balance a budget deficit. However, the act of stripping the union busting measure from the fiscal bill makes evident that he was not being honest to the public about his motives and agenda.

The law was further advanced in the Assembly when the GOP majority there arbitrarily cut off debate and passed the measure that had been adopted by the Senate in its surreptitious bill. The legislative enactment will certainly be signed with maximum haste by the Governor, anxious to claim “victory” in his ideological battle. The issue really is about who he is in battle with and who he has defeated. He may see it as a victory over the opposing political party, but it may also be seen as a temporary victory over the people, especially the middle and working class, that he was elected to represent. That “victory: may turn out to be a case of winning the battle and losing the war.

Several incidents have come to light recently in which Governor Walker has openly misrepresented facts regarding his motives and political actions that he has advanced. The most recent example is when he represented to the Court that the cost of the demonstrations to the State was $7.5 million, in order to obtain a restraining injunction to remove the demonstrators. Subsequent analysis puts the cost at less than $375,000, including the usual costs of maintenance and security that would be incurred without the demonstrations. Inflating the estimate by 20 times in order to induce official court action could be an abuse of process offense leading to sanctions against an attorney signing such pleadings, so it is not just a matter of “puffery.” The point is that Walker has a record of prevarication to achieve ideological ends. Whether his decimation of public employee union rights will actually result in taxpayer relief, balanced budgets and more jobs is a doubtful proposition that awaits proof.

In any event, when the majority party uses closed room strategy sessions, backroom deals and violation of open meeting laws to push through measures, it suggests that those measures would not stand up to scrutiny if dealt with openly. When representatives of the people resort to deceitful strategies that conceal information from open and public debate and ignore procedural safeguards, the process of government becomes one of ambush and not democracy. Those safeguards were put in place as conceptual principles in support of founding values that a democratic government should not allow for the oppression of the minority interests through abuse by the majority. The people may well respond, and it will be no ambush. There are already a number of recall petitions circulating to remove legislators from office.

King of the Hill

Modern TV fans will recall the animated comedy in which the lead character is a relatively clueless but goodhearted redneck embattled by children and wife, and winds up taking on misguided adventures to try to break out of his mediocrity. That character is now being displaced by Rep. Peter King of New York. Pete’s newest adventure to rise above the crowd is even more misguided and not so good hearted. Rep. King wants to anoint himself as the new scourge of all things un-American and “Inquisitor in Chief” of the USA polity.

Not content to let the shameful past lie buried, after the country has tried to live down the era of HUAC and the tyranny of Sen. Joe McCarthy, King now wants to carry out a similar campaign against Muslims. Keep in mind that we are NOT talking about targeting Al Qaida or Taliban camps in the Middle East, we are talking about US citizens who happen to be Muslim. King apparently believes that the most pressing issues that face the nation include the threat of law abiding US citizens who do not look like King and who may worship a different religion. If King has his way, every single Allah fearing Muslim in the US will be investigated, brought before his hearing tribunal and forced to testify in blood as to their unswerving loyalty to Uncle Sam. In addition, they will undoubtedly have to testify under oath that they do not know anybody, who has ever known anybody, who has ever thought about supporting any Islamic cause.

It is often said that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to face them again and again. Maybe it is another example of the failure of our educational system. But this circus is not just misguided, it threatens to shred any remaining coherence of what had been the fabric holding together some semblance of common ground for the American people. Public scapegoating for political gain is one of the worst forms of chicanery. It is dishonest, mean spirited and cynical. It seeks to capitalize on a period in which the public is under great stress and feed that fear and encourage hatred, pitting US citizens against each other. That is the lesson of McCarthyism.

We can only hope that someone in the House of Representatives will have the courage shone by Joe Welch, Head Counsel to the US Army, who confronted McCarthy publicly and asked:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness…. Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

We can only hope that someone will stand up to King and similarly confront his antics. We can also only hope that this will happen before King is able to inflict similar cruelty and injustice to the disgraceful behavior of McCarthy.

Reaping What One Sows- Media and the Youth Movements

If one takes a step back to gain perspective, the wave of youth activism and committed opposition to the economic and political disenfranchisement that has been imposed upon marginalized young people is breathtaking. Consider the following examples of such protests and public uprisings: London, Puerto Rico and Ireland [tuition increases foreclosing higher education opportunity]; France and Greece [economic austerity measures]; Spain and Italy [unemployment levels over 30%]; Tunisia and Egypt [unemployment, marginalization and repression] and Libya [economic disenfranchisement and repression].

To the nature of the response, one may wonder what took so long for the cauldron to boil over. The rhetoric and political discourse orchestrated by elite moneyed interests with a stranglehold on power and the economy has been conflicting if not schizophrenic. While mouthing blandishments about the need to take action to secure the future for youth and the generations to come, actions by these powerbrokers toward today’s youth has been to marginalize, demonize or ignore their needs and concerns. Such systematic disenfranchisement and disinvestment has been carried out with the arrogant belief that young people were either not paying attention or did not care about even their own well-being and future. A very dangerous assumption.

The narcissistic mainstream media has become to believe that what it publishes is the official and only truth, and that young people are even remotely interested in such broadcast content other than as white noise. In fact, young people abandoned mainstream media quite some time ago in favor of electronic social media and blogs that spread information more efficiently and often more accurately across town, across the country and across the globe. The attention that the feature film “the Social Network” received this year is but a tacit recognition of a manifest history relating to new ways in which youth communicate. Yet the movie is already historical and outdated. The irony is stark when one realizes that youth who were believed to be asleep or complacent have managed to shake the fundament and even bring down repressive governments using tools that the powerbrokers had dismissed as toys and diversions. Henry Giroux* remarks:

Mass demonstrations have been organized through the emergent screen
cultures of a generation well versed in new technologically assisted
forms of social networking and political exchange.

Youth across the globe have joined together to speak with a collective voice against the marginalization and profligate stewardship by the power elite of economic and natural resources that represent the future of these young people. The information necessary to organize resistance, to record and to report the events of these youth movements ran like synaptic currents throughout a virtual brain that connected and assisted youth movement groups. And while the action was taking place, the mainstream media was more of an afterthought than a true journalistic presence, the high school senior without a prom date. Perhaps network executives have come to realize the truth that one thing worse than being hated is being deemed unimportant. The same media that turned its back on any sincere efforts to speak to, for or about the genuine needs and interests of young people now has come face to face with the realization that young people have mobilized while turning their backs on mainstream media. Recall the words of Gil Scott Heron who cautioned decades ago that “the revolution will not be televised.”

*Henry A. Giroux | Left Behind? American Youth and the Global Fight for Democracy

Fool me once, Shame of you. Fool me twice, Shame on me!

The dueling partisan debate over government spending cuts and the continued operation of government services draws to a climax on March 4. Atmospherics aside, the positions of the opposing sides are rather clear. The Democrats have declared the position that a continuing resolution to maintain spending at current levels, including the freeze in spending that Obama has already imposed and which yields reduced spending at an annual rate of $41 Billion, should be adopted as an interim measure. This is the approach that the government and Congress have taken in the past when a budget impasse has arisen. The GOP demands that a spending cut amounting to a reduction rate of $100 Billion be accepted in exchange for an agreement to avoid a government shutdown.

The Wall Street Journal reported: “In exchange for extending the deadline, Republicans want Democrats to agree to cut spending even in that short-term measure, and will try to put the onus on Democrats if they oppose it.”

Now we have the posturing about who gets the blame if the government shutdown actually occurs. The GOP is trying to construct some form of contrived logic to shift the blame to the Democrats and President. However, the continuing resolution is likely to be a short term and purely temporary measure that the public will not see as a sufficiently big deal to require agreement on the GOP plan. Why not simply continue the present course until a new plan and budget is enacted. Indeed, it is customary in the minds of most of the public that the old contract continues until replaced by a new one. Sen. McConnell has trotted out, once again, a specious pronouncement that his opinion represents what “the people” of the country want, despite no evidence whatsoever of any basis for that conjecture or credibility on his part to so proclaim. Recall the supposed public election mandate to create jobs, followed by McConnell’s proclamation that his primary goal was to defeat Obama in 2012. That does not sound like someone closely in touch with the will of the people.

The last showdown yielded an adoption of the status quo by extending the Bush tax cuts, including tax relief for the most wealthy who do not need it and which exacerbated the deficit that the GOP now wants to cut spending to address. It may sound simplistic, but it appears that the GOP made a mess and now wants to blame someone else for the cleanup cost. In any event, the Democrats, if they have the spine for it, ought to simply hold firm and demand that the status quo again be maintained. If the GOP really wants major spending cuts, then they ought to be more focused upon crafting a long range budget plan that can gain bipartisan support and avoid a Presidential veto. The quicker they achieve that solution, the shorter period of time the stopgap measure will be in place.

Given the recent past behavior of the Democratic Party and the President, there is room for serious doubt about the combined courage and wisdom to remain firm on a continuing resolution that does not make things worse than they already are, and insist on maintaining the current spending levels. This is, however, a test of leadership and will be a strong signal to the public about whether Obama can expect support from liberal and moderate voters in 2012. If he caves once again, especially when it is totally unnecessary, the damage to his credibility and reputation for leadership may be irreparable. The GOP bluffed last time, and the President blinked and caved. What he called conciliation was actually appeasement, as the current pseudo-crisis reveals. With appeasement, giving ground unnecessarily typically leads to the bully demanding even more concessions. This time around, the GOP is again bluffing and people will be looking to see if the President has learned any lessons.

Education Policy - Donkey or Jackass?

All too often as I listen to current pronouncements about education policy from the current so called leaders and pundits, I am reminded of the old [borrowed] saying my mother taught me. “Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool, than to open it and prove them right.” The other sad complement to such musing is that in establishing education policy, the “Golden Rule” applies, that is…he who has the gold makes the rules. Consequently, those who establish policy need have no knowledge or expertise about education in order to set policy, only the power to control funds badly needed for educating the nation’s most vulnerable youth. The Secretary of Education’s main qualification for shaping education policy seems to be his participation in pickup basketball games with President Obama. This proximity connection provides him influence over federal purse strings for education and a pulpit for pushing his neoliberal agenda of corporatizing public education. While I would not denigrate student athletes generally, those are not the quarters I would turn to first for intellectual capital and academic leadership. After all, LeBron James is a tremendous athlete, but I would not put him in charge of developing national policy on anything. Moreover, the slash and burn strategy and promotion of charter schools adopted under Duncan’s brief reign over Chicago schools has, in hindsight proven a failure.

We are now told by these vocal “experts” that teachers are the primary problem for student failure to improve academic performance. Teacher unions that seek to maintain a voice in the decisions about school curriculum [to the extent that this has not been totally emasculated] and insight as to what really occurs in the classroom, we are told, should be abolished. Students of impoverished backgrounds, undernourished and with enormous socio-economic disadvantages are branded failures before they start classes and their academic performance [which may take a backseat to mere survival] is to be the measure for teacher competence. We are also told that teaching effectiveness is the same whether a teacher has 20 or 30 children in a classroom; yet any teaching professional with even the least experience will confirm the ample research demonstrating that to be a falsehood. And, to throw salt in the wounds inflicted by these assaults on the teaching profession, we are told that Teach for America is a prime solution to the problem of poor teacher quality. The facts show us that an extremely low percentage of Teach For America participants stay in the teaching profession, if they even complete their required tenure commitment of only a couple of years in the classroom.

My experience as student and teacher is that students can tell almost immediately whether the person who presents as a teacher has the skills and talent to be a good teacher. Having a firm grasp on the course content is important, but not every content specialist can teach. This is a pervasive fallacy that runs through the public consciousness and is perpetuated by bureaucrats who know little or nothing about pedagogy. To be sure, most Teach for America participants leave teaching because it was, from the inception, simply a way to put a “service” marker on their resume. They move on to a more lucrative career that was their aim all along, following “missionary work.” But they also leave because they simply cannot handle the pressures and the demands of teaching and they do not want to work in the substandard conditions and with the poor children that exist in the schools to which they are assigned. It is like joining the Peace Corps, but not having to go abroad or learn another language. And despite these glowing pronouncements about Teach for America's benefits, the evidence that school with Teach for America participants experience lasting academic improvement is lacking.

So despite the repetitious and passionate rhetoric by the likes of Arne Duncan, the factual and knowledge based foundation for many current federal education policies is absent. However, over $4 Billion dollars of federal largesse is handed out based upon unproven theories, misguided policies and directed to largely irrelevant goals. The kernel of truth is that there are a small number of teachers who should not be in the classroom, and that some measure of assessment or accountability is important to the educational process. Branding all teachers as incompetent and demonizing the profession is better directed toward getting the high quality teacher to leave than it is to removing the few incompetents. Seeking accountability by measuring rote learning through standardized multiple choice and machine scored tests is feasible, but actually tells nothing about the quality or improvement of the learning process that is supposed to be measured. As an independent observer, I may risk losing my invitation to Democratic cocktail chats. I have learned not to wait for invitations to those GOP soirees foolishly preaching corporate “free market” ideology as the template for public education. But, if this all leads you to the conclusion that what comes out of Secretary Duncan’s mouth is foolish braying. I can only say that my mother would have warned him….

"Nobody knows..." or "the changing light bulbs riddle..."

When I announced my plans to move to Alabama to complete and advanced degree in education, I was met with a fair amount of ribbing from my professional educator colleagues. The obvious ones came first, such as the line that “they really don’t believe in education in Alabama,” and “the math scores in Alabama dropped because they started making the children wear shoes.” Ok, I can take good spirited jest. But other friends gave sincere looks and asked if I had a Mother Theresa complex, as if pursuing education in Alabama was akin to laboring in the slums of Calcutta. They pointed to news stories about potential governor candidates idiotically seeking to ban the use of any language other than English on drivers’ exams and license applications, despite the fact that doing so would forfeit millions in federal highway funds. In summary, they pointed out that they were willing to give George Wallace a pass because of the passage of time, “but what has Alabama done lately?” Well, of course they did win the NCAA Football Championship, but that is hardly a testament to intellect or a socially progressive environment. I took the ribbing in stride, mustered hope and convinced myself that if my belief in improving the quality of education was strong and true, what better place to apply my labors than areas that appeared to have the greatest need.

Today, an article hit the news that would try the patience and faith of the most stalwart:
CBS News) -- Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley said in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day message Monday that he does not consider Americans who do not accept Jesus Christ as their savior to be his brothers and sisters. ------------And in a brilliant rhetorical flourish, he declared: -------- "Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters," he continued. "So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother." http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=118271

Now I have no problem with a man of faith taking on the challenges of public service in a democratic society. The demands of such office no doubt require courage and a bit of divine inspiration, particularly in these financially troubled and morally challenging times. The “fly” in the veritable ointment is that there just happens to be a substantial segment of the citizenry of Alabama who are not fundamentalist Christians; and the oath of office, as well as the Constitutions of the United States and Alabama call upon elected officials to apply and enforce the laws giving equal protection to ALL people in the State.

The American Atheists president and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League representative expressed dismay over the new Governor’s remarks. After all, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution should give pause to a reasonably intelligent person in such office seeking to use the Governor’s “bully pulpit” to proselytize a particular brand of religion. But perhaps, as was the case with Ms. O’Donnell who unsuccessfully ran for the US Senate, the new Alabama Governor never took the time to actually read the document that he has sworn to uphold. Fair enough, a little on the job training may be in order. A bright guy ought to be able to pick it up as he goes, right?

But then the new Governor was asked about his duty to represent all the people of Alabama. His odd response lines up with the likes of “some of my best friends are colored people” as he asserts that he will be “color blind.” After all, no one had raised the race issue in the questioning. So why did the Governor feel the need to assure people that he would not discriminate on the basis of color? And did he not even register that the immediate problem with his remarks was about religious intolerance and not race? Makes one kinda wonder what gears were creaking in his head, doesn’t it?

So I guess all I can now say is….Roll up my sleeves, and move over Mother Theresa, we’ve got a LOT of mess to clean up around here. Let’s just hope this brain eating virus disease is not contagious!

Requiem for Dr. King

On this day of memoriam for the slain civil rights leader, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a time of reflection and perspective seems appropriate. Looking about at the seemingly pervasive culture of incivility and self-indulgent divisiveness today, it is difficult to see a way forward towards a more humane society. When even the suggestion that all people in the United States should have access to basic and affordable health care brings a chorus of derision, how can one hope for restoration of a social contract that affords liberty to all while protecting the most vulnerable? When education is touted as the key to global competitiveness and the future, teachers are being demonized by the top Education official of the land, and funding is doled out to the privileged at the expense of large numbers of children denied adequate resources for educational opportunity, what realistic hope can we see for that golden future? Yet Dr. King saw a world and a society that was at least as divided and in which the soil for growing a verdant future seemed even more barren, and he did not despair. He acted.

In that time, a Black man could be lynched simply for being on the road alone at night. A Black family could be denied public lodging simply because of skin color, as happened to me. The Governor of a State, supported by barricades and police, could stand in the doorway to publicly funded educational institutions reserved for Whites and deny Black youths entry. People did not talk about discrimination in employment based upon race and ethnicity; they simply did it as a matter of common practice. Black people who misunderstood the plain words of US Constitution, and thought that it provided a right to vote in public elections faced potential arrest or worse if they sought to go to the polls. The right of assembly to protest these injustices was a doubtful proposition, at best, that could lead to serious consequences, including death. This was the “America” that Dr. King faced.

He called upon the people of the country to look within and decide whether the society that they were actually living in reflected the kind of society that they aspired to live in. And despite the resistance to change that would undermine unjust privilege and ability to abuse power, the consciousness of the society changed. There was a belief, not in a perfect society, but that the fabric of society had become soiled and tattered. There was a consensus that the country could do better, be better, than it was. The vicious response to freedom and civil rights protesters, especially Whites who went to the South to support civil rights, sparked an awakening that transformed the nation.

Progress and change are not linear processes. There are steps forward and faltering retreats. We believe Human evolution is inexorable, but it is not constant or as persistent as we might like. There will be dissemblers and prevaricators, beyond the pale of honest debate, who seek retreat to the baser levels of humanity. Some will argue that maintaining the right to self defense and protection requires the permission of individuals to carry lethal weapons of indiscriminate and massive destruction in public, and try to wrap that justification in the cloak of patriotic rights. Some, who themselves are descendant from illegal immigrants to North America, would deny basic human and civil treatment of other immigrants who seek only a chance to invest their hard labor in order to build a life for themselves and their families. And there are those who claim the benefit of a nation of laws founded upon a principle of religious freedom and tolerance who would demonize, discriminate against and preach hatred against people because of their religious faith. Government of and for the people cannot do everything, but there are minimal things it must be willing to do to hold faith with its principles and ideals.

The outlook today seems bleaker, perhaps because there is at least some awareness that the vision described by Dr. King is potentially more attainable than ever, though it is at the same time more fragile. When we have made manifest laws and standards that prohibit unjust discrimination against people because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or religion, there is a subtle gut wrenching when we see public pronouncements by so-called leaders calling for revival of such base practices. There is, on some level, a fear of going backward into the pit from which we have climbed. We know that such “leaders” make such calls out of greed for privilege and power, not from any sense of integrity or belief in the common welfare. Yet they are listened to and followed nevertheless. Leaders are not rebuked or shunned who publicly advocate violence, directly or through rhetoric, against those who disagree with their agenda. This despite a basic understanding that the society can survive only if a system of change based upon the vote and not the bullet is preserved.

And so, in the wake of the recent attempted assassination and murders in Tucson, we honor the life of Dr. King who was taken from us by the same type of violence that is being condoned and even fomented by purported leaders of government and society. Many of the accepted “conservative” mantras faced by Dr. King have been proven false: Black and White children could not learn together, Catholics and Jews should not be allowed to live among “respectable” White folks, women did not deserve equal say with men on matters of importance, etc. Many of the ideas now being touted by today’s conservatives are equally unfounded: corporations have the same right to participation in the electoral process as human citizens, trillions of dollars can be spent on foreign wars while billions for health care and education at home is too expensive, fundamental rights of speech, privacy and against unnecessary search and seizure must be surrendered to meet some vague and pervasive notion of “national security,” etc.

Perhaps it is time to once again ask the question that Dr. King posed so eloquently. Is this the kind of society that we want to live in and maintain? Can we do better, and if we can, why don’t we? No one ever said that the climb would be easy. But the future is still within our grasp. We must decide whether to stand shoulder to shoulder with others to pull ourselves upward. We must lend our efforts along with those we disagree with on some issues, while agreeing that there is a common desire for all to succeed. Dr. King reminded us of the wisdom of Sir Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Dr. King declared, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." People of good will and honest desire for a better society must do more than rue the decline, they must act.

If we can recall this, perhaps we will do honor to Dr. King, not just give lip service.

An Environment Under Fire

Today in the news, a story recounted a man in Michigan who shot and killed his two young children and wife, then took his own life. He was found in his car in a parking lot with weapons presumably used to kill his family and then himself. There was no history of criminal behavior or even official reports of domestic violence. There was some indication of financial difficulties and a potential impending divorce. This follows on the heels of the shooting massacre in Tucson that garnered national attention because a Congresswoman and a Federal Judge were shot, along with bystanders in a calculated rampage by a young man with a semi-automatic assault weapon with high capacity ammunition clips that he easily obtained despite a history of anti-social behavior.

Unfortunately, the majority of the public seems too shortsighted, self centered and egotistical to look beyond the surface and consider implications. The common belief is that: “I would never do anything like that, so it is not necessary to consider that such tragedies happen or why they happen –conditions that make them more likely rather than less likely.” Because the individualist thinks that he or she is totally responsible with guns at all time, the belief is that guns should be readily available to everyone under all circumstances. In truth, most people do not really know or understand [or perhaps even care] what depression can do to a person. If an analogy is needed, consider the mudslides being experienced in Brazil and Haiti. The landscape was denuded so the conditions were ripe for disaster in the event of a heavy rain. No one person takes responsibility; it is just the deteriorated environment that everyone accepts. In the same way, the widespread possession of handguns creates an environment that makes disaster more likely when a bad spell occurs.

It is doubtful that we will or even should know the intimate details that led this man to crisis and the murder of his children and spouse. What is evident, however, is that most of these tragedies do involve shootings. It is conceivable that he might have strangled or stabbed the victims, but shooting was apparently more convenient and the method of choice. But the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the man as a “madman” which is also too convenient. It is true that he is to blame, but to fail to ask whether the ubiquitous presence of firearms made the event more likely and more feasible is socially irresponsible.

There are two directions that the debate can go. In the first instance, the basic position is that having firearms in the possession of so many people and so readily available is a social norm that is more important than the thousands of deaths each year from events like this family in Michigan and the massacre in Tucson. In this case, we rationalize the actions of the shooter and crazy and ignore the conditions that facilitated the event. The second direction is to question what type of society we want to live in and whether conditions that facilitate, if not promote, gun violence are socially acceptable. In this case, we seek to balance the freedom to own guns for legitimate sporting and true defense protection against the danger to society that having too many guns so readily available will result in too many deaths from abuse of those rights. In my view, carrying a gun around just in case someone might offend you is not legitimate protection need. The first argument seems to hold sway in the US, despite the weekly or daily deaths that result from the permissive and indiscriminate possession and use of handguns.

Thus, it is hard to accept as sincere the expressions of dismay or even surprise that such deaths occur. It would be like expressing surprise that a person who walks in a snake pit gets bitten by a snake. The death would be regrettable, but in no way should it seem surprising that the result flowed from the conditions. We buy into phony arguments and rationalizations. We make false and insincere expressions of sadness and regret, knowing that the conditions that facilitated the tragedy are ones we would fight to maintain despite also knowing that such tragedies will be repeated.

The gloss that the Supreme Court has layered on the Second Amendment to turn a provision initially intended to enable militia to be formed to protect against a foreign threat, when a national army was not fully established or readily available, into a supposed right of every person to own and carry automatic weapons in public is fait accompli. Despite its lunacy and historical inaccuracy, it has passed into the normative culture of US society. The question that we all should now consider is whether to continue to follow an irrational dogma or to consider the implications of too many guns. Having shotguns in the hands of licensed hunters for use during regulated seasons in regulated areas for purposes of duck and pheasant hunting is not the same as carrying a Glock 19 in an urban parking lot. That is a dangerously silly false equivalency. Yet preserving the former is used as an excuse for the latter. And the gun lobby is not even consistent in its lunacy. By its simplistic logic, there is no reason why every individual ought not to be able to own and carry incendiary grenades or even nuclear devices if they could be miniaturized so that a person could carry them. Yet the NRA would probably [note the uncertainty] that permitting such conceal and carry freedom would not be a good idea.

It is time, if there is a sincere concern about the recent shooting injuries and death, to start thinking about what can be done to begin the process of disarmament of the country. The cold war mentality that says that there are crooks and robbers out there with guns, so I must be armed, is a false goal. It leads to the next step of saying that the crook has a bigger gun, so I need a more powerful weapon, until everyone is armed with weapons they do not need for purposes that they will never face. And thus we find ourselves in the veritable “snake pit” in which the present of so many guns creates a danger in and of itself. When someone loses a temper, it becomes easier to take a gun than to just punch a fist into a wall or some other relatively harmless method of letting off steam. When that anger is directed toward a specific person, the potential of a shooting then becomes far more likely than if there were no guns readily lying about. That is the environment that we now have. The challenge is whether we want it to continue and to worsen, or do we want it to get better and less lethal.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

How deep we have sunken. One respondent to an article criticizing the incredibly high number of automatic assault weapons in the hands of US citizens, claimed that guns are not the problem, just crazy people and evil murderers. He claims that gun regulation deprives us of "our freedoms." Under his logic, anyone is a "dumbass" who advocates reasonable safety regulation. There is no reason to encroach on our "freedoms." No reason for preventing food manufacturers from putting rat poison in food, no reason why pilots should be licensed or regulated [anyone should be able to fly any plane they want to anywhere they wish, right?] and no reason to limit semi-automatic assault weapons in peaceful rally sites where there are young children.

I do not see anyone advocating elimination of gun ownership, just reasonable regulation of who can purchase and how they can be stored and used. The historical facts surrounding the Second Amendment only call for a regulated militia, not for individual ownership of guns with a right of individuals to carry concealed weapons in crowded pubic areas in time of peace. Yet folks as crazy as Loughner have a knee jerk reaction any time someone mentions the idea that maybe we don't need assault weapons in Safeway parking lots. Some of those folks argue that everyone at the Meet Your Congresswoman event should have been armed and opened fire. [Loughner would probably have been killed, along with a couple hundred other people in the crossfire.]

The idea of "common welfare" suggests that we create as a society areas or zones where certain conduct is prohibited for the benefit and safety of all. If I go to a gun range, I can expect to see guns and maybe get shot. If I wander in the woods during deer hunting season, I assume some risk. But I should not have to expect danger from Glock 19 pistols at the local Safeway. I do not think it unreasonable to require that, if you own a gun, you must be responsible for it and have it inspected and accounted for each year just like cars and emission certification. Then if a gun is missing, it will be known. The owner would bear responsibility for not securing the gun against loss or theft. I do not think it unreasonable to require trigger locks to prevent accidental injury by children. Most gun accidents come from children playing with unattended weapons. The problem is that extremist gun ownership advocates attack even the most reasonable protections. They demand the right to misuse of weapons, in the name of protecting gun ownership. That seems absurd. Does my right to own a car include a right to be reckless and to run down anyone I choose? Of course not. And it is hard to imagine that even the founding fathers would have contemplated the Second Amendment as authorizing the use of guns for people to walk into town meetings and start shooting everyone in sight. All perspective is lost.

Quite simply, it is time to stop the duplicity. If Loughner was deranged and mentally unstable, then why was he able to easily purchase a Glock 19 and large magazines for $500 locally? If he is the sort that should NOT be able to own and use such weapons freely and easily, then it is clear that the existing regulations are not working. If guns should be allowed "for legitimate" sporting purposes, what "sport" involves use of an automatic assault weapon in a supermarket parking lot? The "justifications" for rampant gun toting have risen to the level of the absurd, at the same time that the death rate from guns in the United States is THOUSANDS times higher than other developed countries. If we are not to restrict gun toting, should not all buildings and public establishments be equipped with metal detectors so that at least everyone will be alerted to the fact that a gunman is present?

There are no easy answers, but putting more guns on the streets clearly is NOT an answer. Like nuclear arms reduction, the survival of our society calls for disarmament. There is a need to reduce gun ownership and restrict areas and ways in which guns can be stored and used. Perhaps then public servants will only need to fear free speech expressions against them in the form of heckling, and not from the burst of an assault weapon.