Being Forced to Lie

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”
—Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 2, 2010

I could never escape it, either, Admiral Mullen, and if we can’t, just imagine the predicament of the soldiers forced to lie.

From the time we are small children, we are told that lying is a bad thing. Some of us are told it is a sin; all of us are told not to do it.

As we grow older, we learn about “little white lies”—the lies grown-ups tell in public to save face. We are told that such lies are acceptable, but always still reminded that lying, in general, is a bad thing.

Imagine, after being raised with those lessons, joining the military as a gay American and being told, “We won’t ask, and you just make sure you don’t tell, okay?” That sounds like a perverse game somebody would play with a young child in order to get them into a compromising situation: “Just don’t tell Mommy what we’re doing.” And what the gay American soldier is doing is living his or her life! But, don’t do that while you’re here, okay?

The underlying message that the gay person’s life is trivial enough to be shoved under a rug would make treason justifiable. But instead of rebelling, gay soldiers have earned medals and promotions and served honorably, only to have that rug pulled out and shaken, thereby disrupting their lives and careers for no good reason at all.

The fact that Admiral Mullen, who works with soldiers and knows a great deal about how they interact, can see that being forced to lie is a problem gives me hope that gay rights will be coming soon to the United States.

Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would be a public admission that being gay has nothing to do with being capable of defending your country. That will place us closer to admitting that being gay has nothing to do with declaring your commitment to another person in what we call marriage.

We need more people like Admiral Mullen, people thoughtful enough to see that this is an issue we cannot escape.

And we need more stories from the ones who were forced to lie, to help the rest of us reach that point of no escape. See Senate candidate Kirsten Gillibrand’s site if you have a story to tell about “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell.”

What’s the Matter With Kansas: Book Review

The upcoming Tea Party Nation Convention, my fourth viewing of the excellent documentary based on this book, and the recent, brilliant Wall Street Journal piece by its author reminded me that a true classic never becomes outdated.

On April 15, 2009, large groups of disgruntled Americans across the country held protests called T.E.A. Bag Parties, in which the T.E.A. stood for Taxed Enough Already. Some of the protesters were upset about the ARRA, or Stimulus Bill, viewing it as reckless spending during a time that calls for a spending freeze. Some of them were upset about President Obama in general, prompting Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” to wonder whether they were protesting tyranny or simply kicking up a fuss about losing the election.

The most intriguing T.E.A. Baggers were those who stated they were protesting taxation. To protest taxation shortly after ninety-five percent of American workers have received a tax cut is a fascinating piece of human behavior to explore. Why would these people call for lower taxes for the rich, when we have seen for many years that trickle-down economics defy the laws of gravity and do not trickle down? Why would anyone make the effort to stand up for a cause that goes against their own best interests?

In 2004, Thomas Frank wrote an entire book to answer that question. It is the classic What’s the Matter With Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Frank uses Kansas, his home state and a place he calls “the heart of the heartland,” to symbolize these self-defeating Americans. In the 2000 election, eighty percent of voters in the Great Plains, including Kansas, voted for George W. Bush. These people were poor, working-class citizens living in tired, worn-out towns, and the policies being put forth by the Democratic Party would have served them much better than the Republican Party policies they wound up with instead. But, as Frank explains through the course of his book, they weren’t voting for policies. They were voting for an illusion created by the conservative Republican machine.

Beginning with anti-abortion activism in the 1990s, during which voters were told, “We have an agenda – the kingdom of God,” Republicans wrapped their policies in religion, family values, the flag, and the vision of a heartland that any God-fearing, “other”-hating, true American would be proud to call home. At some point, voting against their own interests ceased to matter in Kansas, and the issues framed by the Republicans as all-important (abortion, gay rights, gun control) became the only interests that were worth standing up for on Election Day.

The T.E.A. Bag Parties have shown that conservative Republicans are still using this disturbing strategy, and that is why Frank’s book is still timely. In the final chapter, he discusses the Democratic Party strategy, or lack thereof, circa 2004. Since then, thanks in large part to Howard Dean’s visionary leadership of the party, the Democrats finally achieved the goal of equating voters’ personal interests with universal values. For example, health care reform is good for your pocketbook, and at the same time it helps the poor and unfortunate among us. Of course, the disastrous financial collapse in 2008 helped the Democrats, too, by creating distrust of Republican leadership.

And yet, sixty-three percent of Kansas voters supported John McCain for president in 2008. Something is still the matter with Kansas. And now thew same thing is the matter with New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts.

Now That Sounds Like Organizing

We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let’s show the American people that we can do it together. This week, I’ll be addressing a meeting of the House Republicans. And I would like to begin monthly meetings with both the Democratic and Republican leadership. I know you can’t wait.

President Barack Obama, State of the union speech, 1/27/2010

Get that community of yours in gear, Mr. President. After listening to your speech, I know you can do it. And you’re right; I can’t wait.

The Community Organizer in Washington

Remember when critics of candidate Barack Obama disparagingly called him a “community organizer” who didn’t know anything about how to run the country? Well, I liked the fact that Obama had been a community organizer. To me, it meant that he understood hard work, people, and problems. It meant that he knew how to go about reaching a goal. It meant he possessed the combination of ideals and assertiveness that are essential to getting the job done.

When Obama won the presidency and the one-time community organizer went to Washington, those  qualities seemed to fade against the background of two wars, a failed economic strategy, and a cruelly divided nation. How to begin to organize all that? You see, to be a community organizer, you need a community, and Obama’s new neighborhood, the Congress, is not a community at all.

Community organizing requires a group of people who all believe passionately in a cause and are willing to devote time to making their vision a reality. Community organizing requires a common understanding of the problem and  a common belief in the way that problem should be overcome.

That’s not the way Congress works in the 21st century. Take any issue currently plaguing the nation—joblessness, the deficit, poverty, rising health care costs, war, threats to national security. Is Congress as a whole in agreement about how to approach any of these problems? Is Congress as a whole in agreement that all of these issues are problems? Is a majority of Congress able to agree on anything? Obviously, the answer is “no.”

So, what’s a community organizer to do if he doesn’t have a community?

He did have one. He had the progressives at “Yes, we can.” But after he went to Washington, their cries grew smaller and smaller as the voices of the Washington types grew louder and louder. And it wasn’t all the president’s fault; many progressive voices grew silent this past year, either in response to Obama’s election (“Well, that’s done. Everything’s all better now.”) or in response to their hurt feelings over a particular issue (think gay rights, civil liberties, Main Street, and did I mention gay rights?) being ignored.

The singular issue Obama didn’t ignore was health care reform. As our community organizer-in-chief, he delegated that job to his community, the Congress of the United States.  But they’re not a community, remember?  They’re not a group of people who all believe passionately in a cause and are willing to devote time to making their vision a reality. Some of them think the cause is wrong, others think the solutions are wrong, and still others think the whole project is taking far too much of their time. And, don’t forget,  all of them have their own individual re-elections to consider, too.

The Congressional community is refusing to be organized around the issue of health care reform. Why? The cardinal rule of community organizing is “Tell your story.” That means “State your case, clearly and vividly. Tell people why they should be fighting alongside you.” Obama the community organizer either didn’t do that, or his community didn’t listen. Maybe it was a little bit of both.

So, the community organizer is in Washington, without a community and without a good story. If he really has the ideals and assertiveness I hope he has, our president can still come out of this situati0n with a happy ending. Ideals and assertiveness: those sound like the qualities of a leader. Come on, President Obama. Lead us. Please.

***My thanks go out to the two amazingly good writers whose articles I read in Newsweek magazine before completing this post: The Trouble With Barack by Jon Meacham and Change We Can Believe In by Fareed Zakaria.

Carnival of Progressive Politics: January 2010 Edition

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Moving America forward.

Welcome to the very first edition of the Carnival of Progressive Politics. This blog carnival is meant to be a haven for liberals and progressives—a place where no “Joker Obama” faces will assault their eyes and no GOP lies will insult their ears. Dissent and debate are welcome here, but mean-spiritedness and dead-end negativity are not. I hope you enjoy this month’s selections.

Foreign Policy

Surbhi Bhati presents Understanding The Israel-Palestine Conflict from The Viewspaper.

Political Humor

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Shameless Republicans on Christmas Attack from her blog, Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Also from Madeleine, we have Joe “Vote 60″ No Mo’.

Politics

Ella Moss presents 1 Year Old Presidency at Zodiac Times.

Next, vjack offers Dick Cheney is a War Criminal Who Belongs in Prison from his blog, Atheist Revolution.

Progressives Around the World

River’s Edge presents Lancashire’s Angel Of Death at River’s Edge. Thank you for the category title, my friend across the waves.

Race

Buck gives us Politically Incorrect-Southern Fried Chicken? Never! from his blog, Buck Says.

Review

My offering this month is a book review of The Next Progressive Era.

*****

That’s all for this initial outing. If you enjoyed this carnival, please return next month for the second edition. To submit a post, please follow these steps.

Note: As host of this carnival, I do not claim to agree with everything posted on each submitter’s blog; I only claim to approve of the posts that are included here.

The Evolution of God: Book Review

We all bring our personal baggage with us when we sit down to read a book. I brought my lapsed Catholicism, dabblings in Protestantism, and current status as a “None” with regard to religious affiliation to my reading of Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God. When I was finished, my personal religious history and current “failure to commit” all made even more sense than they had before; the book showed me that religion, like my feelings about it, is a malleable and mercurial thing.

Robert Wright starts at the beginning, with what he calls “primordial faith,” and discusses the kind of religion we all remember from our studies of Greek and Roman mythology. Why does the sun come up and go down? Because the sun god, Apollo, pulls it across the sky on his chariot. Another book that does a wonderful job at describing this kind of religious thought as a means of understanding the world is a children’s book, The Curious History of God by Russell Stannard. That book made great sense to me until the author tried to make the evolution of religion lead directly to Jesus and stop there. The Evolution of God showed me why that conclusion simply didn’t work.

From primitive urges toward the idea of god, Wright moves on to connect religious thought with geography and politics, two areas that were as intertwined in ancient Israel as they are now. He does a nice job of explaining how the evolution of “gods” into “God” coincided with the evolution of tribes into nations. What is a good way to unite disparate peoples? Convince them that they all worship the same God. Wright frequently reminds the reader that “scriptural interpretation is obedient to facts on the ground,” and, as the world opened up more, those facts demanded unity instead of dissension.

In my favorite section, “The Invention of Christianity,” Wright answers many of the personal dilemmas that haunted me as I sat through Masses, listening to selections from the Old and New Testaments that seemed to come from two different worlds—worlds that were never discussed or even acknowledged by my teachers and priests. As it turns out, Wright shows that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God, and his sidekick Jesus, were from two different worlds. They came from periods in which the “facts on the ground” were very different. And Jesus’s teachings evolved to suit the political needs of the CEO of Christianity, Inc., Paul (nee Saul).

I realize that this many be common knowledge to many, but not all of it was known to me, and I recommend Wright’s book as a fine place for anyone in the dark to learn these things. He follows a logical pattern, and makes many references to the idea of non-zero-sum relationships, which help the reader understand why religion needed to evolve as political and social relationships became more complex.

The Evolution of God covers both the Bible and the Koran, analyzing passages in light of the motives of their translators, and always taking into account when the passage was translated and who its intended audience was. Wright even provides a count of violent references in each book, and he comes to the conclusion that the Bible has more violent passages, but the Koran’s violent passages are, well, more violent. This is all very intriguing to read.

When Muhammad arrives in the book, Wright divides his revelations into those he made in Mecca and those he made in Medina. Here we have the “facts on the ground” again, just as in the Old and the New Testament. I wonder if Islamic children have ever puzzled over how Muhammad could sound so angry sometimes (Mecca—struggling prophet being ignored) and so forgiving other times (Medina—established ruler looking to grow his franchise). The revelation, or the religion, evolved—just as the words of Jesus were reinterpreted—to match the circumstances of the people who were its receivers.

As would be expected, Wright touches on jihad and Muslim extremism, and he also addresses the idea that some people, such as evangelical Christians, require a “personal God”—someone they can love, talk to, and confess to—while other people don’t need that kind of relationship in their lives. He talks about the “moral imagination,” which he states has also evolved throughout history. As technology has enabled globalism, which expands the “moral circle,” the need for non-zero-sum relationships has expanded the moral imagination. You’ll have to read the book yourself for a deeper explanation, but, for me, this theory completely explains why the Presbyterians are now including traditionally Catholic responsorial psalms in their worship services, while the Catholics are doing what the Presbyterians call “fellowship”—serving donuts and coffee after Mass.

In the end, The Evolution of God leans toward the assumption that our religious urge has evolved toward greater harmony among people and, obviously, must continue to do so. Wright reminds us that the word salvation comes from a Latin word meaning “intact.” The facts on the ground are very harsh these days. But the urge to remain intact is very strong. Here’s to the evolving moral imagination. As we become more tolerant, will our religions do so as well? Will organized religions see that this kind of evolution is in their best interest?

Thank you, Mr. Wright, for giving me so very much to think about.

Talking About Talking About Race

The book Game Change has given cable television news a gift that keeps on giving: Senator Harry Reid’s comments about the race of then-candidate Barack Obama.

If you watch television, you undoubtedly know what every prominent Republican and Democrat has said about Senator Reid calling Obama “light-skinned” and “Negro.” You also may know what a few professors of African-American Studies have said. One such professor, a scholar and commentator I admire greatly, is Melissa Harris-Lacewell, whose piece on the subject is well worth reading for its deductive insights. In my opinion, Senator Reid said what many white Americans, especially those of his age, would have said about Barack Obama, but I accept Ms. Harris-Lacewell’s belief about his use of the word “Negro” as more knowledgable than mine. While I consider it a word my mother would have used, she points out that “Reid has lived in majority-black Washington, D.C., for more than a decade; surely he’s noticed that black and African-American are the preferred monikers.” That makes sense to me.

I learned something from reading Ms. Harris-Lacewell’s essay. I would like to learn more about how blacks feel about what whites say and think, and about how whites feel about what blacks say and think. I strongly doubt that the 24-hour-news cycle is going to give me much to learn, once they have exhausted their ever-pointing fingers. My goodness, a new partisan scandal may already be brewing, on target to wipe Harry Reid off the screen by tomorrow morning.

Here’s what I want: a grassroots “Conversation on Race” campaign. Remember the Obama “calling parties?” Well, I want Organizing for America or MoveOn.org or somebody to set up local “talk about race” meetings, to be held in public libraries or community centers. How wonderful it would be to have a civilized, intelligent, honest discussion about how we feel about each other. Throw in some historical context and current statistics, and everybody in America could get an education that would truly serve them on a daily basis.

Hearing what somebody said about what somebody said will not help me or you learn how to deal with race. Talking and listening in an organized, thoughtful manner—with eye contact—will create new synaptic patterns and melt the perceived negative differences between black and white and all the other colors of the human race.

It’s worth a try. I welcome your comments.

By the way, this looks to be an interesting gathering. I think that “to teach and inform the American public about the nature, challenges, and most importantly, the value of diversity” is a goal we all need to focus on in today’s America.

Rinku Sen on Immigration Policy

During my June 5, 2009 interview with Rinku Sen, we discussed immigration policy as it exists now and as it could be. Here is the transcript of our talk. Immigration reform is a topic I hope to cover more as the New Year goes on.

Susan Gaissert: Do you think September 11^th had a lot to do with the backlash against immigrants that we have seen since that time?

Rinku Sen: Oh, definitely. In fact, there’s a scene in The Accidental American where the main conservative character, Mark Krikorian, describes his experience of September 11^th. He’s an anti-immigration activist, a restrictionist. On September 11^th, he knew that the legalization idea that George W. Bush had been pushing in his campaign in 2000 and after his election was dead in the water.

Conservatives recognized right away that September 11^th would give them tremendous ammunition to make their argument to stop the flow of immigration. It made it easier for Americans who were inclined to go this way to cut off modern immigration from historical immigration that their families had gone through—to separate those two kinds of immigration in their minds, and to treat the current immigration as different from whatever their family story was.

SG: I hear the question, “Why don’t the people from Mexico come here legally?” My question is: If you are a poor person in Mexico, other than get in the bottom of a truck, what can you do? Is there a way to come here legally?

Rinku Sen: Our legal immigration system is basically for professionals and for people who have family members here. Either you are coming for higher education—and that’s not really immigration—or coming with a high-wage professional job, or you’ve got family members already here. Our legal system doesn’t make any room for a country like Mexico, that doesn’t have a long history of legal immigration so that people do have someone here and can do family reunification.

The economy, of course, does make plenty of room for Mexicans, and it essentially recruits them. So, we’re sending a real mixed message to Mexicans by making their legal immigration just about impossible, but by encouraging—through the underground channels—their cheap labor here. I don’t blame them for taking advantage of whatever channels they have.

SG: Do you feel hopeful about the Obama administration with regards to immigration policy?

Rinku Sen: I take the debate very seriously, and I’m not blindly optimistic. I know that the next immigration policy we get still won’t really be as modern, as free, and as open as it needs to be, but I think we’ll move forward. I think the president tries to lead by educating people. He seems to invest the time necessary to help Americans understand the choices that we have to make, so that people can make those choices in an educated way.

I didn’t think the White House would deal with immigration in this first year, and I’m encouraged by their speed. I think it’s partly because legalization of undocumented immigrants, opening up immigration, and encouraging it are keys to getting us out of the economic crisis we’re in. That’s true for both professional immigrants and people who are doing low-wage service jobs. We need not just highly educated scientists and computer programmers. Our economy does also need apple pickers and cleaners and restaurant workers and so on in order to grow.

SG: What can someone reading this do, if they are interested in achieving a more just immigration policy?

Rinku Sen: The first thing they can do is contact their member of Congress now, and tell them they want a sensible, comprehensive immigration policy that includes legalizing the undocumented people who are here. The Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which is a project of the Center for Community Change, provides action alerts about when Congress needs to hear from people. Congress hears from thousands more people who are against immigration than they hear from people who are for immigration, and we need to reverse those numbers. I think that’s the most important thing to do right now.

2009: A Subjective Review

• Obama takes the oath of office and, after several days of smiling uncontrollably, I begin to feel like Ben and Elaine sitting on the bus at the end of The Graduate.
• Obama declares that Guantanano will close and signs the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Joy reigns in my heart again.
• Business as usual in Washington, and I begin to imagine what a new president learns when he settles into that desk chair in the Oval Office: do they tell him lots of deep, dark secrets that only presidents and all their “men” can know? Is it as if, when I got married, the marriage fairies came to me on my wedding night and told me that all husbands steal their wives’ souls but I mustn’t tell or every wife in the world will die? Is that why Obama doesn’t seem to be doing what I hoped he would do?
• The Summer of Health Care. Enough said.
• The Autumn of Health Care. As my friend Roxanne said, every American should be given a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order and told that democracy is a pretty complex operation. When certain Republicans called attention to deal-making by Democrats as if it were a new, Democrats-only, “Obama-esque” invention, they reached a new low—in a year of new lows.
• The Winter of Realism. We have reached the conference stage with health care reform. Now, if cool heads and warm hearts can prevail in Congress, the people who spent 2009 suffering and dying, while they were working and uninsured, might just be able to see their human rights honored a little bit more in 2010.

My Favorite:

• Media personality: Rachel Maddow on MSNBS. Every time she asks a guest, “Did I get that right?” I love her more.
• Books: The Family shocked me with its description of how religious attitudes pervade the halls of government, while  The Evolution of God got me thinking in a new way about how religion can evolve to become part of  The Next Progressive Era.
• Documentary: What’s the Matter With Kansas? See it.
• Organization: Health Care for America Now has been on target and working overtime, all year long.

In closing, I feel better off today than I did a year ago. My president is smart and, according to Sasha Abramsky, he’s looking at the big picture.

My heart goes out to the people of Iran, and I wish everybody a politically sane, socially progressive, and economically uphill New Year.

An Activist Among Us

. . . after traveling all across the state this year and meeting so many people who have suffered or seen family members die because they lacked insurance, I could not look them in the eye and say that they and people like them should wait until a better bill comes along. This legislation is far from perfect, but it will make affordable insurance available to millions of people who do not have it now. It will save lives and reduce suffering. It will pave the way for further reforms down the road. And, if we lose now, we will not only miss this opportunity to begin reforming health care but will find it much harder to attain many other goals we share.

–Roxanne Pauline, Dec. 15, 2009

I interviewed Roxanne Pauline back in September of 2009 while she was waiting for a town hall meeting to end, so that she could distribute fliers and stickers and buttons about health care reform. Roxanne devotes much of her time to organizing events that educate people about politics. Activism, she says, is in her blood. It’s what she does, and she does it very well.

Like many activists, Roxanne comes from a theater background. Because of that, she has no qualms about talking with people, creating performance art pieces to get her message across, or dealing with the press. She is also very good at getting people’s attention, and that’s what educating the public about the issues requires.

This past year, Roxanne’s message has been about health care reform. She’s for it. She is a volunteer with MoveOn, Healthcare for America Now (HCAN), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and her state’s activist health care group. But even within those organizations, she stands out as a pro.

Roxanne’s own family benefited greatly from past health care programs, such as Medicare, which supported her chronically disabled brother until his death this year at age forty-four. She believes that now is the time to make changes to our broken health care system and that, if we fail to pass legislation this year, we won’t have another chance for a long, long time.

So, Roxanne plans and executes event after event. Rallies, vigils, public presentations in front of elected officials’ offices—everything she does has the goal of providing people with more information about reform and giving them an opportunity to talk about their questions and concerns.

She says she did not have any bad experiences with opponents of reform during the crazy town-hall month of August. While acknowledging that some people just like to scream and often don’t even understand what they are screaming about, she adds that, when a supporter and an opponent start to really talk, they find common ground. Neither one wants anything bad to happen; they just have different opinions about what the “bad thing” would be. And most of those opinions are taken from sound bites generated by the media.

That is why Roxanne did something “pre-media” to advance the health care reform debate. She staged readings of HR 3200, similar to the kind of reading of a bill that would have been done by a town crier in the village square back in the days when most citizens were unable to read. Yes, HR 3200 is over one thousand pages long, but Roxanne found many volunteers, mostly actors, who were willing to take on sections of the reading.

At a reading in Scranton, PA, the Scranton Times Leader reported that, “While the reading is going on, the organizers are encouraging attendees to discuss health care under a tent.”

Roxanne is the one who arranged for, and probably helped put up, that tent. Discussion and debate are important to her. She believes health care reform is everybody’s issue. And she says that everybody can contribute to the cause by following their talents. Make a poster, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, make a video, or talk to your neighbors.

She’s still at it today, planning a reading of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, focusing on the fact that “Bob Crachit is not a fiction. He is living . . . all over the USA.”

Not everybody can do what Roxanne does, but isn’t it wonderful that she, and many others like her across the country, are doing it? I hope you feel inspired right now, and I hope you will join me in saying, “Thank you, Roxanne.”

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good health insurance plan.