All posts by Chuck Fager

Guest Post: Our “Friend” Il Papa Joins The Pushback & Kicks Authoritarian Anti-Immigration Butts

I’m not sure Pope Francis would endorse my headline. But I didn’t ask his permission. He ostensibly wrote this letter to the (all-male) U. S. Catholic bishops, not to Quakers (or Quaker adjacents, who make up the bulk of this blog’s audience).

Vatican logo

But instead he released it to via the official Vatican website, in English & Spanish, which amounts to sending it to the world. And for that matter, Quakers flatter ourselves as being open to the movings of the universal Spirit from other corners than our own; if that’s so, this letter is a fine opportunity. So I don’t think Francis will mind my turning it into a guest blog post.

Which I decided to do after reading it over, and finding it one of the best statements about the combination immigration-and-governance crisis we’re sinking into here in Orange Gringo land.

Let’s hope his missive is arriving in the nick of time.

The letter is superior in many ways: first of all, clearly written, easily understandable even by non-religious folks; yet it shows full command of some of the deepest & most broadly appealing points of Roman Catholic social witness, borne lightly, but presented cogently.

Continue reading Guest Post: Our “Friend” Il Papa Joins The Pushback & Kicks Authoritarian Anti-Immigration Butts

New Issue of “Types & Shadows” – Quaker Arts Journal-Online NOW (Free)

You can read and browse it here free:  

Types & Shadows is the quarterly journal of the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. (FQA) It first appeared in 1996, and has been produced ever since by dedicated and creative volunteers.

The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were strongly against the arts for their first two centuries, regarding them as “vain” and hazardous distractions from plainness and more serious and “spiritual” things.

Their evolution away from this prohibition is traced in an FQA Booklet, Beyond Uneasy Tolerance, which is also available free on the FQA website.

Continue reading New Issue of “Types & Shadows” – Quaker Arts Journal-Online NOW (Free)

Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life

In official statements, Pete Hegseth calls the first one, “Lethality.”

Usually it’s a dry, abstract word. A term that’s launched a thousand PowerPoint slide shows. It’s ideal for air-conditioned classrooms, lit by rows of long tubular fluorescent bulbs. Under the lights, as it is repeated, rows of men in uniform listen, many taking notes, or (if it’s shortly after lunch, struggleto keep their eyes open).

Or at a crowded congressional hearing. “If you’re confirmed as Secretary of Defense,” asked a U. S. Senator, “what would be your mission, Mr. Hegseth?”

It’s the first  significant noun he emits (after, of course, the name Trump), in a crisply-memorized litany:

“He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, war-fighting, accountability and readiness.”

Continue reading Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life

Monday Quick Relief Option

On Monday, January 20, if you need some FAST Relief from Inaugu-rama overload, you can get some at, not one but TWO podcasts, featuring thine truly.
I’ll put the links below; they’re free, and won’t try to sell you anything (well, maybe a book of mine will be hyped). Together they’re that one weird trick that can get you through the swearing-in (but won’t disturb the swearing-at).

First, I talk about Eating Dr. King’s Dinner, (from my book of the same name), a true tale of time in jail in Selma, Alabama, 1965.

This session will be with co-hosts Daniel Ayers (of Spring Friends Meeting in NC) and Quinn Ray, on The Hometown Holler, a dynamic and fast-growing podcast. The Holler usually focuses on North Carolina politics, but this program is for MLK Day, which is what all the Monday fuss should REALLY be about.

Hometown Holler

It’s at thehometownholler.com (Click on “Listen Now”)

Then you can turn to a scintillating conversation on Tell It Slant —  the biography/autobiography of Chuck Fager, published last summer, by Emma Lapsansky-Werner, with Chuck — reviewing his prophetic eighty-plus years of adventure, activism & writing on religion, war, justice, love and laughter.

You’ll find it at this link:
https://tinyurl.com/yhmydnps

It’s on Northern Spirit Radio, hosted by Quaker Mark Helpsmeet.

Northern Spirit Radio

(There are two versions of this conversation: one is 57 minutes, the other 68 minutes, which includes more on Chuck’s and Emma’s religious influences.)

If those aren’t enough to get you through the worst pangs of oligarchs’ indigestion, you could go back and start over, check grocery prices (they’re UP), see  whether the cease-fire is holding and hostages are still being released,  and/or — like I might do myself — take a long nap.

(I’m setting my alarm for 2028.)
PS. The Almighty Algorithm tells me this post is too short for its super standards.
So I’ll meekly add a brief poem I found, to fill it out. I read that it was one that Winston Churchill frequently repeated in speeches to encourage the Brits during the worst months of World War Two. Now I know Churchill was a stone imperialist, racist, and some other bad stuff, but his encouragement worked, and today we need all we can get. I’ve edited it a bit, but here goes:

 

Say Not The Struggle Nought Availeth
Arthur Hugh Clough, 1819-1869

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain.
The enemy faints not nor faileth.
As things have been, things will remain

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
Though we must battle constantly:
Exposed to light the darkness fadeth
For those who have the eyes to see.

The labour and the wounds are vain,
The human heart resilient,
In time will overcome the pain.
And better truth comes clear to millions.

The enemy faints not nor faileth.
We have to trade them blow for blow
Although his malice he sustaineth
He dare not let his terror show.

As things have been, things will remain;
The night goes on continually.
Despite the hardship and the pain
One morn we’ll claim the victory.

Say Not The Struggle
Nought Availeth –

 

 

 

Pete Hegseth Wants to “Bleach the Barracks,” Starting By Firing the Top Black General

Just wrote a blog post on the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

It’s posted on the blog of my former employer, Quaker House of Fayetteville NC, near Fort Liberty (neé Fort Bragg).

Hegseth, taking aim

The post deals with aspects of Hegseth’s program that were hardly mentioned in his Senate hearing on January 14: his public targeting of the one top-level Black officer, Air Force General C. Q. Brown, to be fired, based on a four-minute video he made after the George Floyd murder.

 

Brown has had an honorable & successful 40-

General C. Q. Brown, Jr. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Target #1

year military career. It’s clear Hegseth can’t tolerate that. He wants to make Brown the first, highest-ranking scapegoat in a projected anti-woke, military-wide “crusade” to eradicate anything he considers “woke” (it’s a very long list), first from the military, and then from American society at large.

Why this crusade plan was not taken up seriously in Hegseth’s Senate hearing is not clear. Voices can still be raised about it.

More details about Brown and Hegseth’s scheme are in the full post (the views in which are personal & unofficial), are here: