Battle of the Wilderness

…Belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians."

~ James W. Loewen, Five Myths about why the South seceded 

This year we mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  I have been reminded of the last major round of observances fifty years ago.  In 1961, the civil rights movement was still fairly new in the national psyche.  As a child in the North, I did not yet connect the events I witnessed on the evening news with those hallowed battles of long ago.  In school, as part of the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, we studied Presidents and strategies and generals.  We did not discuss the causes of the war as in any way related to what was happening in our country now.    

Perhaps this is the proper approach for initiating children to this complex time in our history.  Perhaps it was a recognition that the Detroit suburbs were heavily populated with families who had migrated from the South in search of jobs -- as if silence was the best way to let the children of opposing sides get along in the classroom.

However, I think that something important was missing from our education.  We didn't learn to face the dark realities behind either of the historic struggles – the civil war of long ago or the fight for human rights happening in our streets and neighborhoods.  We were not encouraged to look into our own souls to find the fears and anxieties we might still carry with us. 

Now we are the adults and I look around and see the angry faces of Little Rock and Selma again.  This time they carry posters with distorted images of our first African-American president and argue for states' rights and secession and nullification.  I wonder if these adults had the same edited education I had.  And I wonder how many of those who find joy in these images and these slogans consider themselves good Christians.

Image Information:  Battle of the Wilderness | Desperate fight on the Orange C.H. Plank Road, near Todd's Tavern, May 6th, 1864 (Kurz & Allison, Art Publishers, Chicago, U.S.A, 1887)

On-going Loss

From a colleague on the ground in Japan. 

Failing to acknowledge loss of heritage can mean survival is the start of crisis

Brent Duncan

A humpbacked old woman with a walker was teetering along a busy coastal highway that cut through the debris that had been a coastal neighborhood of nearly 400 homes in Noda Village. The old woman showed me the spot where her home had been before tsunamis blendered it into shreds, then mixed those shreds with the ruins of an entire community. As tragic as that seemed, the old woman said that she did not care about her house and rice field. She motioned toward the vast wasteland of debris that had been her village, and said her only concern was to find in that mess the box that contained her ancestors.

I felt like a boy scout as I helped her across the highway to the area in which 85 volunteer airmen, sailors, and civilians from Misawa Air Base were clearing debris. The old woman joined us, wandering in the debris with the aid of her walker. Eyes to the ground, she looked for her ancestors. We helped her to seek, but we did not find.

This is not an isolated case. The media focus almost entirely on the loss of life and property. Although these are tragic beyond imagination, focusing on only these aspects of disaster means that we miss the destruction of livelihood, culture, heritage, history, and religion—core elements of identity that give humans purpose and hope.

A mental health professional who is administering to survivors in a remote fishing village told me that the main challenge now is preventing survivors from killing themselves. This seems dreadfully ironic: struggling to survive, only to commit suicide. During times like these, we need to look beyond immediate survival needs and engage in administering to the psychological, emotional, cultural, and spiritual needs of survivors. We must do this within the cultural context of those who are suffering, not according to our desires to impose our reality on them. Otherwise, survival only means the beginning of crisis.

Brent Duncan, Professor | University of Phoenix | Gakushuu.org

Image Information:  A destroyed landscape is pictured in Otsuchi village, Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area. Image date, March 14, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Kyodo)

Bullies

As the Congress was debating how to "cut spending" the Republicans also spent a lot of time talking about Planned Parenthood and lying about it (see John Kyl, R-AZ)  My response is simple:

Democrats – please stop talking about the issue as "Planned Parenthood" – that just plays into the GOP talking points / makes their base happy.

Title 10 is about Women's Health Care; only a quarter goes to PPFA.  Only 3% of PPFA activities are related to abortions – and those are privately not federally funded.  NO federal dollars are being spent on abortions. Zero.  So, stop talking about abortion and playing the GOP game.

Talk about basic health care for women – that's what Title X is about.  Does the GOP want women to die?  Sorry, too strong – The GOP wants women to die if they are the "wrong" women, poor or old or working but without health insurance.

The GOP controls 1/3 of the political branches. They want 100% of the say. That's not a grown-up approach.  That's not even a childish approach – kids on playgrounds learn how to play by rules and "work with others" better than these guys.

The Hill Republicans – and their Tea Party allies – are bullies.  Stick to your guns.

Photo Source  http://allaboutcareerssite.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/workplace-bullying-2.jpg

The GOP and "class warfare"

This about sums up what has been happening economically for the past few years:

[Tom] Barrett [mayor of Milwaukee] recounted a parable making the rounds among Wisconsin Democrats, telling of a room in which “a zillionaire, a Tea Party person and a union member” confront a plate of 12 cookies: “The zillionaire takes 11 of the cookies, and says to the other two, ‘That guy is trying to steal your cookie.’ ”

Thanks to E.J. Dionne for the story in today's Washington Post.

The GOP Assault On Jobs

During the past few weeks much of the focus in the media has been on the GOP's union-busting activities.

These assaults on middle class workers have taken a wide range of forms:

– Stripping public employees of their right to negotiate effective contracts (Wisconsin);

– Downsizing the unions by converting employees to "at will" status when the union contract comes due for renegotiation (New Hampshire);

– Creation of state-appointed "emergency financial managers" who can dissolve legal agreements including (surprise) union contracts and take over cities and school districts (Michigan);

– An attempt by Maine's Republican governor to dismantle a union-history mural installed in the state's Department of Labor;

– Even an attempt to intimidate a university history professor (Wisconsin).

In all this, the party that rolled to victory in 2010 by saying its agenda was to create jobs has not made an effective case that explains how union-busting and worker intimidation create even one real job.

The Republicans focus on budget cuts instead of infrastructure investment (which contributes to our country's long-term growth.)  They act as if helping people get jobs with decent pay and benefits is fiscal madness – even though such actions would help these workers buy things and pay taxes again (as opposed to drawing unemployment benefits or depleting their remaining retirement savings.)

Of course, if people went back to work and bought things and paid taxes then the economy itself would pick up, more jobs would be created and more revenue would flow into government coffers – federal, state and local. Then there would be a budget problem – but not a budget crisis.  And the GOP needs everyone to believe there's a crisis so the voters will be afraid and Republicans will win big in the upcoming 2012 elections.

At least, that's how they're acting.  And their "jobs program" backs up this skepticism.

Robert Reich, Clinton's former Labor secretary, focuses on the "big lies" Republicans put out there as their jobs "program":  Tax Cuts for truly wealthy individuals ($1 million +); Corporate Income Tax Cuts; Cuts in Wages and Benefits; and Elimination of Regulations.  They claim these four actions will create jobs – when history proves they actually increase the deficit, undermine middle class earning power, and deplete our ability to maintain our nation's infrastructure. 

These "ideas" are not new; they are a reintroduction of Reagan era trickle-down voodoo economics. They didn't create jobs in the 1980s and they were a downright failure in the 2000s.  The tax cuts (exaggerated by two unfunded wars) have led to a "budget crisis" which the GOP claims only more tax cuts, regulatory cuts, and lowered wages will "solve."  Wage and benefit cuts have led to a major loss of real income for the middle class and working poor.  De-regulation led to the worst economic recession since the 1930s and the Gulf oil spill disaster.

Rachel Maddow says clearly "It's not about the budget."

This is about a lot of things. This is not about a budget. This is using or fabricating crisis to push for an agenda you'd never be able to sell under normal circumstances. And so you have to convince everyone that these are not normal circumstances. These are desperate circumstances and your desperate measures are therefore somehow required.

Given this situation, it's time for President Obama to call the Republican bluff.  He needs to say clearly that the budget "crisis" continues into the future primarily because revenue is down.  There are two primary reasons for the reduced inflow of cash:

– Unemployed people don't pay taxes; and people who earn less (due to frozen or cut salaries) pay less tax.

– The tax rate on those industries which gained during the past decade (such as banking, finance and energy) is too low; they aren't covering the cost of government services that benefit them (energy subsidies, bank bail-outs, lax regulations and enforcement.)

Obama needs to change the conversation back to real Job Creation.  As long as he goes along with the budget "crisis" argument, he is missing the larger issue: the corporate assault on working Americans. 

The American people understand this as two March 2011 polls show:

– The CBS News poll identified the Economy/Jobs as the number one national priority (51%); Budget deficit/national debt came in a distant second (7%)

– Bloomberg: Unemployment and jobs were number one with 43%, Federal deficit and spending gets 29%, more votes, but still second place.

Candidate Obama knew this too:

…Real change isn't another four years of defending lobbyists who don't represent real Americans - it's standing with working Americans who have seen their jobs disappear and their wages decline and their hope for the future slip further and further away.  

– Spartanburg, SC | November 03, 2007

I look forward to hearing President Obama reaffirm this commitment to the country's top priority: meaningful jobs for all those who want and need to work.

Photo credit

Sally Fields, Norma Rae, released by 20th Century Fox, 1979.

Huckabee – Three Strikes??

All this time I thought former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was a fairly level-headed guy – for a Fox News host. But over the period of a few days, he got caught up in the idea that he had to "make news" on his book tour and he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. 

Strike 1, February 28, 2011, Huckabee said the following in response to a question about President Obama's birth certificate:

I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough.. . .

If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

Anyone who has read Obama's 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, knows this is false.  Obama was born in Hawaii; his father left when he was two years old and his parents divorced.  He grew up with his mother and her parents – without his father (although Obama Senior did make one visit around the holidays in 1971.)  Later, his mother remarried and he spent some time in Indonesia with his step father's family. He eventually returned to Hawaii and lived with his mother's Kansan parents.  He did not learn about Kenya or the British imperialists or the Mau Mau Revolution at his Kenyan grandfather's knee. The only grandfather Obama ever knew is the one who appears on the cover of Obama's book.

Huckabee compounded this misrepresentation by saying he "misspoke" – he meant Indonesia, not Kenya.  Of course, he didn't address how Obama's grandfather and the Mau Mau's made it all that way from Africa to Indonesia.  Instead Huckabee blamed the New York Times for sensationalizing the story.

Strike 2, March 2nd, while on another radio talk show, Huckabee engaged in this exchange:

Fischer: "You seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president."

Huckabee: "Well, that's exactly the point that I make in the book. And I don't know why these reporters -- maybe they can't read... And I have said many times publicly, that I do think [Obama] has a different worldview and I think it's, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas."

This statement is so-o-o-o loaded.  Not only does it imply that Obama has fundamentalist Muslim connections.  It implies that neither Hawaii nor Indonesia has Boy Scouts – or Rotary Clubs.  As of December, 2010, Indonesia has 17.1 million Boy Scouts (7.2% of the nation's population) and the USA has 3.97 million (1.3% of estimated population.)  The Rotary Youth Exchange is one of the primary sponsors of foreign exchange students in the world. Rotary International has chapters in Indonesia and Malaysia, both Muslim nations.  So it's quite likely, whether he spent time in Hawaii or Indonesia, that Obama was exposed to Scouting as well as Rotary International.

Strike 3, February 28th (again), in another radio exchange – this time about the Oscars (which had taken place the night before):

Medved: . . .However, there was - there was one moment where a very brilliant and admirable actress named Natalie Portman won Best Actress. . . But in any event, she got up, she was very visibly pregnant, and it's really it's a problem because she's about seven months pregnant, it's her first pregnancy, and she and the baby's father aren't married, and before two billion people, Natalie Portman says, 'Oh I want to thank my love and he's given me the most wonderful gift.' He didn't give her the most wonderful gift, which would be a wedding ring! [Huckabee chuckles] And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.

Huckabee:  You know Michael, one of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children, and they're doing just fine.' But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock [sic].

You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids -- across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering.

Shades of Dan Quayle and "Murphy Brown" with a little tinge of racism thrown in for good measure.  What Huckabee doesn't mention in his discussion of the birth demographics is the finding that over two thirds (67.7%) of births to single mothers are white.  

Or that "Hispanic" is an imprecise number, because there are Hispanic mothers in both the Black and White data.  For example, 35.7% of white births are to single white mothers. If you back out the mothers who are white Hispanics, this rate drops to 28.7%.  The reverse is true for black births (71.8% of all live black births are to single mothers; it's 72.3% for non-Hispanic black births.)  My calculations show that 52.6% of Hispanic live births are to single mothers.  American Indian/Native Alaskan births to single mothers account for 65.8% of that group's newborns; while Asian/Pacific Islanders are only 16.9%. 

Or that if you consider the actual birth rate – births per 1,000 – rather than raw number of births, one finds the number dropping significantly for all groups (14% overall since 1989; 28% among black births) except Cuban/Hispanics (rose about 2%).

Something is going on.  In general, the number of births among single mothers is rising.  But the assumption that this is occurring only for poor, uneducated women surviving on government assistance is a Reagan-era stereotype that doesn't necessarily match the data.  Since none of the many data tables on this topic identify maternal income or education levels, I can only surmise that someone's biases are showing in Huckabee's comments.  "Ain't it awful" is not an intelligent or effective policy statement – unless the policy is to sell books to true believers.

Book Cover Information:
Pictured in left-hand photograph on cover: Habiba Akumu Hussein and Barack Obama, Sr. (President Obama's paternal grandmother and his father as a young boy). Pictured in right-hand photograph on cover: Stanley Dunham and Ann Dunham (President Obama's maternal grandfather and his mother as a young girl).

O'Keefe Oversteps – Again

As you may have surmised, I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck.  So when his website The Blaze conducted a comprehensive analysis of the latest hit job from James O'Keefe – and found it "questionable"  – you can count me among the surprised.

O'Keefe released an edited version of a  lunch conversation between National Public Radio executives and two of his "investigators" pretending to be fundamentalist Muslims looking to contribute $5 million to NPR. One of the executives was heard to be saying terrible things about the Tea Party and the GOP – heaven forbid! The honchos at NPR promptly asked him to resign.

Because the group (ironically called Project Veritas) had been accused of manipulative editing in the past (see ACORN.) O'Keefe had the full uncut tape posted to the site as well.  Most media outlets, including The Blaze, initially posted the edited version of the materials.  However, the Beck team followed up and compared the source material to the more widely circulated tape and found several instances of "unethical" conduct by the O'Keefe editor(s). 

So, hats off to the team at The Blaze!  And Bronx cheers to any other legitimate media outlet that takes O'Keefe videos and airs them without reviewing them for accuracy. 

What's that old adage?  "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Of course, there are the Republican variations: 

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you."  Rep. Virginia Foxx, NC-5, 2009

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." President George W. Bush, TX, 2002.

Update:  NPR's "On the Media" subsequently interviewed O'Keefe.  I encourage you to listen to the edited version first (about 12 minutes) in which they play a bit with the tape (near the end) to demonstrate how false impressions can be created when truth is left on the cutting room floor.  The full 45+ minute interview is also available. At the same site.


James Poniewozik at Time.com has a wonderful piece on this topic:

"To the James O'Keefes of the world, the news is a war in which mainstream journalists must cautiously wield X-Acto knives and he gets to bring an axe."

Peter J. Gomes



Peter J. Gomes
1942 - 2011



I would love to see the day when we would be prepared to try living out what we know to be our better nature, what we understand in our hearts to be our ideal image as created in God's image. I know we want to be better than we are. I know we want a world better than the one we have. I know we want to do better things than the things we seem trapped into doing. If we only had the courage to try that, it would be an amazing phenomenon.

I remain hopeful that there are enough people who will look at themselves in the mirror and say, "I do not want to be this person. I want to become somebody else. I want to be the person God meant me." As long as there are people who think that way, I remain hopeful. I remain hopeful because I'm that way. I look at myself and I say, "Gomes, I want to be what God meant me to be."

I've done some interesting things and they've been fun and sometimes even productive, but I believe my best days are ahead of me. I believe that God is not finished with me. Extraordinary things to happen, and I can't wait to find out what they're going to be.

– December 14, 2007, in an interview conducted by Tavis Smiley

The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes was Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Every year, his sermons greeted the new freshmen and launched the graduating seniors.  A prominent conservative Republican, he gave the benediction at President Reagan’s second inauguration and delivered the National Cathedral sermon for George H. W. Bush's inauguration four years later.  In 1991, in response to anti-gay commentary in a campus magazine, he shared that he was homosexual.  Subsequently, he used his considerable theological and rhetorical skills to present the case for religious tolerance of diversity.  In 2006, the Baptist minister switched political parties and supported Deval Patrick, the Democrat, for governor of Massachusetts.

He passed away on February 28, 2011.  He had planned to retire in 2012, after more than 40 years at Harvard.

Sample sermons can be found at the Memorial Church web site.  Gomes was also the author of several best-selling books.  He will be missed by those he touched.

Considering Scapegoats

It has been fascinating to watch the transference of anger going from Wall Street and investors to corporations in 2007 or so, which Barack Obama blocked, told the banks I'm the guy standing between you and the pitch forks…

Without a villain, without Barack Obama letting people have the villain they want, the Republican Party stepped in and said you know, it is government and public employee unions that are the cause of your problems.

–  Ezra Klein, The Last Word, MSNBC, February 21, 2011 (at the 00:22:30 mark)

Last night I was listening to Lawrence O'Donnell and Ezra Klein discuss the situation brewing in Wisconsin.  It was a pretty generic progressive conversation about the politics of our national and state economic and budget issues – until Klein raised the issue of "blame."  He got my full attention when he talked briefly (above) about the anger people feel and how they needed to channel it toward something.

It reminded me that President Obama has not chosen to scapegoat any particular groups or organizations for our current difficulties.  In response, I can hear someone say, "Well he did say the Bush Administration's lack of regulatory enforcement was a cause" or "Obama said the greed of the financial institutions contributed to the bad deals," etc.  At which point I need to remind myself that laying blame per se is not the same as scapegoating.  To create a scapegoat, one must attempt to place the blame on a party who bears no actual responsibility for a problem – that is, try to frame an innocent for the transgressions of others.  No one who understands our current economic crisis can say the Bush Administration and the bankers are entirely without culpability in this situation. Frankly, there is plenty of blame to go around as we try to conduct a root-cause-analysis to unearth the decades-long processes that led to this point in time.

While the Left blames bankers and lobbyists and Republicans, the Right blames government employees and taxes and Democrats.  To me, Obama seems to rise above all this as he talks about the forces at work that we must accept (such as the global economy and the speed of technological changes) and those we can control (especially how government and business respond to these forces.) Earlier this month, he spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about both innovation and economic accountability: "the mutual responsibilities we have – to secure the future that we all share."

In a world where short-term political advantage is everything – and governance is illusory – Obama makes many mistakes.  This is the world of Dualism, the childish belief that good things will happen if you find the right people to blame.

However, if one accepts the Complexity of our world and truly wants to govern in a manner that creates win-win progress for all parties, then scapegoating is a waste of time. It alienates many of those with whom one must partner if one is to truly create a new conversation in this country.   To work toward this end, one must "put an end to childish ways" – stop speaking as a child, thinking as a child, reasoning as a child – and become an adult.

Maybe that's why Obama often feels like the only grown-up in the room.

Photo Information:

President Barack Obama listens during a briefing on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, aboard Air Force One en route to New Orleans, La., Sunday, May 2, 2010.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Name-Calling

MR. GREGORY [on the subject of "birthers"]:  As the speaker of the House, as a leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?

SPEAKER BOEHNER:  David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think.  Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people.

– "Meet the Press", February 13, 2011

An Editorial writer at the New York Times (and David Gregory) took issue with this response, seeing it as disingenuous.  Let's consider another possibility. 

Assume there are basically two ways of thinking:

Type1 – Dualism: black-white, wrong-right, evil-good; apocalyptic –
Child-like

The thinking goes something like this:

     My side is right and good.

     The other side is wrong and therefore Evil.

     Things I don't understand are scary to me and therefore Bad.

     I will stick with my side because they're good and I'm good.

Dualistic thinking can lead to a straight-forward, consistent message and solid group cohesion.

Type 2 – Complexity, tones of gray – Grown-up

     Sometimes I'm right, sometimes you're right.

     By sharing differing perspectives, we can find solutions to our problems.

     My side is not always right or good; sometimes I don't have a "side" at all.

     Things I don't understand make me curious to learn more.

     I will challenge my side when I believe they're wrong.

     I will approach the other side as if they think the same way I do, even if their perspective is different.

What is the opposite of cohesion ? Confusion – that is, the message is complicated and may seem confused. [Most of us have heard the line, attributed to Will Rogers, "I belong to no organized party, I'm a Democrat."]  The consistency is in the process, how one thinks about problems, not in the "answers."

So, if I'm a Type 1 person I might think about the president this way:

I am right and good; I disagree with Obama, therefore he is wrong and evil.

Other things that are bad:

     Anyone who's not American born

     Muslims (who honor something called "Sharia Law")

     Street-wise men of color

     People who want to take my guns, and so forth.

Therefore, Obama is not American-born, is a Muslim, wants to impose Sharia Law, a thug who wants to take my guns away, etc. etc.

So perhaps it's not disingenuous for a leader who's constituency holds many Type 1 voters to say, "The American people have the right to think what they think."  Conceivably the Speaker is just reflecting an understanding of the community his party represents.

Is it possible this is about epithets, not "facts"?  If so, there's no wonder Democrats are frustrated; facts as they understand them are irrelevant to a significant number of American voters.  Perhaps it's time to come up with a whole different understanding of "facts."

NOTE:  I have simplified some important concepts to help get me to my point more directly. Much good work has been done in the area of conflict and communications. Excellent examples can be found in the  works of W. Barnett Pearce, such as his books Communication and the Human Condition and Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (the latter with Stephen W. Littlejohn.) All Barnett's work is informed and intriguing.

[Image Credit:

Obama as a pimp, from TeaParty.Org email, January 2010

Reported at Talking Points Memo, January 28, 2010]

Dissertation Information

For those interested in reading a preview of my dissertation (or actually purchasing a copy) please go to the UMI ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) database.  

The main page for my dissertation can be found here.  After the Abstract, there is a link to a page that allows you to preview or purchase a copy.

I'm very happy with the results and I'd like to hear what you think.

What More Is Required?

Between left and right . . . are those who merely want affirmation that all is right with the world. Most important, they want assurance that the president shares their values. So why won't Obama just deliver the one word that would prompt arias from his doubters?

Until recently, I considered Kathleen Parker to be a more hip version of Peggy Noonan, a thoughtful, literate conservative who had a mind of her own (except when it comes to beatifying  Ronald Reagan) and hadn't succumbed to the Tea Party brand of discourse.

Based on my assumptions of her reasonableness, I have a hard time understanding her apparent amnesia when it comes to the demonization of the current president, Barack Obama. Her essay pleads with President Obama to say the "one word" and concludes:

Perhaps it is best resolved through a presidential address in which Obama takes possession of the word and settles the question once and for all: What does American exceptionalism mean in today's world?

Ms Parker forgets that Obama has consistently spoken of America's unique role in his life and in the world – easily found in speeches dating back to the 2004 Democratic Convention. Others have commented on the inaccuracy of her essay and I won't duplicate their efforts here. I would refer you to Steve Benen or Robert Schlesinger, among others, if you want to delve into the specifics of that debate.

What interests me is that the essay seems premised on the belief that Obama is somehow responsible for this effort to brand him as un-American – or non-American.  Does Parker really believe that incorporating the specific word "exceptionalism" into presidential statements (more than he already has) will somehow dampen the demands of that fringe of citizens who question his legitimacy?  Does she believe that a series of speeches from Obama will stop the vilification from the talk-radio Right?

Each time Obama moves to respond to this rhetoric, the ground shifts and a new excuse not to believe he is really a full-throated patriotic American is presented.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama took a stand on the lazy patriotism of wearing flag lapel pins. It became a distraction, so now he wears one regularly. The pin's ubiquity hasn't convinced the naysayers.

The former GOP governor of Hawaii vouches for the authenticity of his birth certificate and the voices cry louder. They escalate to lawsuits that go all the way to the US Supreme Court. Red State legislators draft laws to require that every candidate for President provide "original" birth documents in order to have his/her name included on each state's ballot. (No one seems to ask how many "originals" one person can produce.)

The invective includes claims as simple as the charge that he doesn't place his hand over his heart for the national anthem or pledge of allegiance and move on to conspiracy theories that the president is a Muslim bent on destroying the country by imposing Sharia law and ushering in a "caliphate."

These bizarre claims started early in the 2007-2008 presidential primary season and could have been dismissed as excessive partisan rhetoric. After all, John Kerry was "too French." Standard stuff.

In our so-called public discourse, it's common to call the opposition Fascists and Nazis; so common, in fact, that there is an internet "law" that says, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." That is to say, it becomes close to inevitable. Those who disagreed with Bush-Cheney on the Iraq war and torture called them Nazis. Those who disagree with Health Reform liken parts of the law to the Holocaust. These attacks are within the expected range of  silly commentary. Disappointing, but not surprising.

What has been surprising are the continuing attacks on Obama's personal story, starting with his birth and continuing to the present. These attacks include:

·         He was born in Kenya, not Hawaii.

·         He was born in Hawaii, but since his father was a Kenyan he's either Kenyan or British.

·         He became a Muslim while a child in Indonesia.

·         "People aren't recognizing [Obama's] version of Christianity," Glenn Beck, 2010.

·         "He pals around with terrorists, " Sarah Palin, 2008.

·         Living wills and health directives are "death panels" that will require us to "pull the plug on grandma," Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley, 2009.

Yes, I know the last one could be a "policy difference" not a personal attack – if there had not also been a claim during the 2008 campaign that Obama favored infanticide. [18] To me, the two false claims seem related.

So what is all this leading up to? Simply stated, I believe there is an attempt by "main stream" actors to paint Obama as an alien, not 100% American, who does not share or understand or care for the concerns of the American people he was elected to serve.

An almost-humorous example of this can be found in Bill O'Reilly's "interview" on Super Bowl Sunday.  O'Reilly asked more than once whether the president would actually watch the game and then came this question:

O'REILLY: You know, like, football, you know, like, blitzes and coverage and all that?

OBAMA: Oh, I know football, man.

O'REILLY: You do?

OBAMA: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: I know you're a basketball guy.

OBAMA: I know football.

O'REILLY: Yes?

Well, I know Dubyah was a "baseball guy" and I also assume that he knows the basics of football. Having a favorite game does not preclude familiarity with other sports. I'd bet that Bill O'Reilly believes this too.

Why would O'Reilly wonder whether Obama really understood football? Was this O'Reilly's personal curiosity or was this a planned question? And why would one be surprised that the answer was "yes" – unless at some level (intentional or not) there is a doubt that the President is simply a bona fide American man who follows sports.

For all the Right's claims that they are "color-blind" and it's the Left that is "racist" I believe much of the confusion over Obama stems from our unwillingness to face our discomfort with a younger man of color as President.

Some of this is generational – I am disoriented by the idea that someone young enough to be my baby brother is Leader of the Free World. Just as I am perturbed that I don't know who any of the musical guests are on SNL (or about half the hosts either.) 

Some of it is cultural – I don't have that many friends with names not found in Western history and literature.

Some of it is racial – and some of it just might be racist, that is, an institutional attempt to maintain a separation of the races so that power games between them can divert us from the achievement of common goals.

I grew up in the 1950s, in a society in which races did not mix socially; they barely mixed at work. Those of us from the early days of the Baby Boom traveled in a monochromatic world, black or white, red or yellow. In 1961, the year Obama was born, we inaugurated our first Roman Catholic President. Mixed-race marriages were rare or illegal (depending on your state.) The simple idea that the child of such a couple would be President in my lifetime didn't even enter my imagination. So as an individual who grew up in the 20th century, I can understand the disorientation that many of us may feel when confronting the idea of Barack Obama's name and face among those of previous American Presidents.

What I don't understand is the acceptance of racist images, concepts and language into our civil discourse. I don't understand the continuing use of the mechanisms of the media or government to deny legal rights to Americans because there are some who don't yet accept their claims to full citizenship.

There is a saying that goes, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."  The psychotherapist M. Scott Peck wrote a book in which he struggled with the nature of evil. The book was titled "People of the Lie."  I'm not saying those who condone these lies about the President are evil; frankly I don't know what lies in their hearts. I believe, however, that (intentionally or not) they are condoning bigotry and are adding nothing positive to our common discourse.

photo credits:

Flag Pin:  http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/2008/10/03/giving-new-meaning-to-the-term-pinheads/

Button: 1920s Klan pin; http://nsm88records.com/theshop/popup_image.php?pID=2141&image=0

Stained Glass

Ta-Nehisi Coates on why he blogs:

My hope here is twofold--1.) To write deeply about that which I wake up thinking about. 2.) To push people to write deeply, either here or in their own space, that which they go to bed thinking about. I do not wish to model content. I wish to model form.

So here it goes. . . .

Stained Glass

January 29, 2011

I woke this morning to an image of stained glass in a dark church – a nave in the evening after the last prayer has been spoken and the dampened candles send their smoky trails to the high ceilings.  I look at the dark glass.  In the low light, at the right angle one can just make out the images as different textures of black and gray, with only a few hints of muted color that help identify the image of a man.

To understand the full design, there must be light – behind the window from outside the building.

And that is the ultimate intention of this blog space – to shed some light on our public conversation, to apply a perspective that may enlighten the situation under discussion.

[Church interior, source: tesnexus.com]

[Stained glass:  Thomas Becket | Canterbury Cathedral | dark: Wikipedia | bright image:  ambrett on flickr]