Category Archives: Election 2018

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Quaker Statues Have to Go? That’s What George Fox Said . . .

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The work of bringing down Calhoun took all one night and most of the next day.

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So– the City of Charleston wasted no time. After the City Council voted unanimously this week to take down its landmark monument to John C. Calhoun, a crew swung into action, starting at near midnight.

It was no small task to pluck the figure from its 100-foot pedestal. It took the workers until late the next day to bring  Calhoun floating back down to earth, and ship him off to a future of obscurity.

I was as pleased as anyone to see Calhoun disappear, at  least from that exalted place of honor; but I hope he lives on as a shameful memory, of a sadder-but-wiser nation that let him look down on all since 1896, as what one historian called “the Marx of the master class.” Continue reading Quaker Statues Have to Go? That’s What George Fox Said . . . →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Fire This Time, Resistance, Sedition Watch, Signs of the Times, Social Justice

Trauma & Triggers: Coping With Campaign Overload

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I don’t know about you, but late last week I hit the wall about the midterm election: the swirl of attack ads, the endless urgent fund appeal emails, the feverish palaver about polls. Not to mention the shocks of the Khashoggi assassination, the mail bombs, and the massacre in Pittsburgh. When the funerals there were basically crashed by the uninvited  ghoul, my internal needle bounced into the red “zone marked “Overload.”

I’m not dropping out: already voted (first day of early voting); urged all & sundry to do likewise; sent several hundred dollars to a list of pleading, promising candidates. And I’ve been reading & listening to the nonstop chatter & prognosticating. 

Then finally it became too much. It was driving me nuts. Had to get away.

Continue reading Trauma & Triggers: Coping With Campaign Overload →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Election 2020, Social Justice

Pow Wow Chow-Gate: Therapy for The Feverish Media

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As far as the midterm elections go, for the media and the talking heads it’s basically all over now, except the voting and the counting (and recounting).

Early voting has started.

Some reporters are still criss-crossing the country, and sending back breathless dispatches, which, if you look close, are mostly interchangeable: campaigns are all in high-gear, GOTV is everyone’s goal, voter suppression is widespread, attack ads are nonstop, the polls are inching up and down, early voting is underway, — and crazy presidential tweets keep flying.

Which is to say, there’s not much real news here. After all, unless there’s some shocking  October Surprise about to drop (no sign of such yet), this frenzy is exactly what you would expect.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m past burned out on watching or listening to talking heads yammer back and forth about, “Will the Dems take the House?” “Oh, maybe yes, maybe no.” “What about the Senate?” “Well, maybe no, but possibly yes.” After this long, it’s like  asking, “Will the market go up or down tomorrow?”

Surely many among the scribes must be fed up with this pointless speculation, and in the absence of actual new political news, many journalists and pundits — way too many, in my view — have gone rogue this week, and have decided to gnaw on the ankle of Senator Elizabeth Warren, over the six-minute video she released on October 15, about the matter of her Native American ancestry.  Continue reading Pow Wow Chow-Gate: Therapy for The Feverish Media →

Current Affairs, Election 2018, Election 2020, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice

2020 Speculations: Wanted — A Fighting Leader

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With the awful weekend behind us, we can now return to our regularly scheduled programming, namely endless speculation about the Democrats & their 2020 presidential contest.

Even during the Late Unpleasantness around the Supreme Court, many media mavens kept offering comments about how presidential aspirants on & off the Senate Judiciary Committee were (or weren’t) building their 2020 “brand” in the midst of the swirling controversy. And I admit, I was pondering all that too.

If this now sounds rather ghoulish, it’s still what they (& I admit it, we) do, and some even get paid for it (not me; I’m such a sucker I do it for nothing).

So, with that lame apologia, here’s my handicapping report:

There were three identified aspirants on the minority side of the Senate Judiciary Committee: California’s Kamala Harris, Jersey’s Cory Booker & Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar.

For my money, Klobuchar came across best, but none of them really stood out. Harris & Booker stumbled out of the gate, heckling Chairman Grassley about arcane procedural technicalities (extra points if you can remember any of them), which of course went nowhere. Continue reading 2020 Speculations: Wanted — A Fighting Leader →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Fire This Time, LGBTQ & Gender, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Torture & Human Rights, War & Peace

Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.)

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The confirmation vote is is done.

I won’t hold it against anyone who feels stunned and numbed by the travesty in the Senate, and needs to take some time to scream, cry & regroup. (Just don’t forget the midterms!)

Yet soon enough, those on the progressive side will need to look beyond the next election to the long work of coping with other aspects of what Kavanaugh’s arrival on the court portends.

And yes, the outlook is mostly bad; terrible, in fact. And it was a terrible prospect even before any of us knew who Christine Blasey Ford or Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick were.

The upside down flag signals an emergency. I rest my case.

Further, it’s about what we knew, or could have known, before the explosion, that I want to deal with here. Continue reading Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.) →

Agni ad Bellum/ The Lamb's War, Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Sedition Watch, Signs of the Times, Social Justice

Notes on a Terrible Day In Our History

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I listened to and watched almost all the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing Thursday; 9 hours I’ll never get back. Can  any sense be made of the ordeal? Here are a few observations

One, Ford was very credible. She was credible in two ways: one, her stories, even if incomplete and not thoroughly investigated, hung together.

Second, she was personally credible: Beyond the impact of the assault, her story of struggling with anxiety, her fear of public humiliation (and then death threats) are all too plausible. Even Utah Republican Orrin Hatch grudgingly admitted afterward that Ford was a “very attractive” witness.

Her willingness to talk openly about needing and doing therapy with her husband and then on her own was impressive. Even her fear of flying (which she manages by force of will for work and important family trips) sounded like many people (me for instance), and explained much about why she kept quiet about her story so long. And her naiveté about politics, her vain hope that she could leave her story to have whatever impact it would in the Senate behind the scenes.

Three, her courage, to face the Committee and the country and speak her truth even as her voice shook, was undeniable.

Well, no– “undeniable” is not appropriate here.

In the snake pit of our current politics, her testimony was eminently “deniable” — by the Republican majority, many of whom are skilled professionals in denial and discounting anything that gets in the way of their agenda.

Continue reading Notes on a Terrible Day In Our History →

Agni ad Bellum/ The Lamb's War, Current Affairs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Election 2018, Hard-Core Quaker, Quaker Theology, Resistance, Sedition Watch, Signs of the Times

Is 45 Making Jesus Great Again?

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For a long time I’ve felt that much of the deepest internal struggles in American culture have religious roots.

Sure, there’s also politics, class, race, gender and empire involved as well. But take off your Bubble-colored glasses and look closer, and religion pops up in most of these contexts too.

Making Jesus Great again?

Further, one passage, Romans 13:1-7, has long been close to the center of these conflicts. It equates worldly rulers, and  their use of “the sword”, with God’s divine order. and has long been used to support whichever ruler a preacher most favors.

Continue reading Is 45 Making Jesus Great Again? →

Bible Study, Current Affairs, Ecumenical & Interfaith, Election 2018, Fire This Time, Hard-Core Quaker, Quaker Theology, Social Justice

Using & Abusing the Bible to Defend or Challenge Abuse at the Border

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I didn’t plan to do a followup to the previous post on the Bible and defending slavery.

But there’s been something tragicomic in the scramble by some reporters to get churchy rebuttals to the use, by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, echoed by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, of the Bible to defend their latest, cruelest border policy of splitting up families and penning up children. This scramble also brings up some similar issues & dilemmas.

Speaking to a law enforcement group in Indiana, Sessions turned to the Tyrant’s old standby, Romans 13. And within 24 hours, even the Friends Committee on National Legislation had a statement out condemning it:

“The Bible does not justify cruel, dangerous and inhumane border enforcement practices,” said Diane Randall, Executive Secretary for FCNL. “It teaches us to love our neighbors, not to break up families. We are critical of the use of Biblical teachings to justify an immoral political decision of this Administration.”

“Disgraceful,” indeed.

Numerous others  followed suit. Even the odious Franklin Graham called it “disgraceful” on CBN TV, though he was also very careful to blame it on politicians no longer in office.

The more liberal critics took a familiar line: Continue reading Using & Abusing the Bible to Defend or Challenge Abuse at the Border →