Category Archives: Politics

Po-TAY-to/Po-TAH-to

That clever little title may not work as well when it’s written as opposed to spoken, but I’m too lazy to change it. It’s the first thing that came to mind and I’m going with it.

So…anything happen today? Kidding. Kind of a big day in Egypt. The military stepped in and informed Morsi that his term was officially over and they made the head of the Constitutional Court the interim President. A coaltion of multiple parties will be formed to draft a new constitution and new parliamentary & presidential elections will be held soon.

The big discussion on the news today was whether or not this could be called a “coup”. Some folks were saying that it was a coup because it was the military removing the current government and putting a new one in place. Actually, my favorite part was when Jake Tapper used Wikipedia for the definition of “coup” on CNN. Really, Jake? WIKI-FREAKING-PEDIA? Egads.  I think we still have dictionaries, if I’m not mistaken. Mine reads:

noun, plural coups d’é·tat – a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.

By that definition, this was decisive, not crazy sudden, because the President was given 48 hours to step down or make changes, it wasn’t the President’s idea, so it was by force and only illegal because the constitution the Brotherhood wrote made no provision for any kind of dissent. See? Confusing.

For most of the day I’ve been on the side of “it’s not a coup.” Here’s why:

1. I see it as the military facilitating the will of the people – populist impeachment

2. The military didn’t sieze power for themselves. They transferred it from one President to another.

3. They don’t intend to stay in control – they are committed to stepping aside when a new president is elected.

4. There is no mechanism for impeachment, or recall or any kind of dissent. The people had no choice to take to the streets. All the people saying they needed to work within thes system don’t know the “system.” There is no system. The Brotherhood was running everything and there was no room for anyone to disagree.

Then a couple of hours ago, I started hearing other things. Morsi and his advisors under house arrest. More than 300 arrest warrents issuesd for members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim tv stations, including Al Jazeera, being cut off. That feels coup-ish. It makes me nervous about what could happen over the next few days. I might be just an ignorant American, which I’m willing to accept. It just seems that alienting the Brotherhood, who is very angry, and who you promised could be part of the new process, is a bad idea. But a week in Egypt does not an expert make. I will wait and see and pray.

Doing Justice

Isaiah 58

The Message (MSG)

Your Prayers Won’t Get Off the Ground

58 1-3 “Shout! A full-throated shout!  Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people— law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ and love having me on their side. But they also complain, ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

3-5 “Well, here’s why:

“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?

6-9 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace,  free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

9-12 “If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,     restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.

13-14 “If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there— Then you’ll be free to enjoy God! Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all. I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.” Yes! God says so!

Micah 6:8

But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.

Yesterday the US Supreme Court dealt a blow to a basic tenet of our democracy, the right to vote. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965 during the Civil Rights Movement, was a provision that required voting districts who had a history of racist policies to clear any changes to elections or election rules with the DOJ. In a 5-4 ruling, the court struck down Section 5 as unconstitutional. Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered a scathing dissent to this decision, which included these more recent examples of racism at the polls:

“In 1993, the City of Millen, Georgia, proposed to delay the election in a majority-black district by two years, leaving that district without representation on the city council while the neighboring majority white district would have three representatives…DOJ blocked the proposal. The county then sought to move a polling place from a predominantly black neighborhood in the city to an inaccessible location in a predominantly white neighborhood outside city limits.”

“In 2006, the court found that Texas’ attempt to redraw a congressional district to reduce the strength of Latino voters bore ‘the mark of intentional discrimination that could give rise to an equal protection violation,’ and ordered the district redrawn in compliance with the VRA…In response, Texas sought to undermine this Court’s order by curtailing early voting in the district, but was blocked by an action to enforce the §5 pre-clearance requirement.”

“In 2001, the mayor and all-white five-member Board of Aldermen of Kilmichael, Mississippi, abruptly canceled the town’s election after ‘an unprecedented number’ of AfricanAmerican candidates announced they were running for office. DOJ required an election, and the town elected its first black mayor and three black aldermen.”

There’s the opportunity for Congress to step up and do something about this, but more importantly, we the people should do something about it. God values justice, fairness, support for the less fortunate and the oppressed.

Things are about to get real in Egypt. After their uprising in 2011 that ousted a dictator they held their first free election. Unfortunately, the election was stolen by radical Islamists by heading out into the villages 2 weeks before the election and giving out all kinds of free food and other stuff. Their candidate, now president, Muhamed Morsi lost the election in the urban areas. This “democratically elected” regime has not dealt with any of the country’s many issues, including an economy spiraling downward, a dramatic decrease in tourism, or the chaos that become reality after Mubarak was ousted. Now, the one year anniversary of Morsi’s inauguration is approaching and it will be a day of (hopefully peaceful) protests. The people are rising up and asking for democracy and justice.

People on the bottom of the hierarchy of needs are easily manipulated because, let’s face it, if I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from and someone said, vote for my guy and I’ll give you all kinds of food, I’d jump on that train. Doing justice refuses to take advantage of the desperation of those who have little and gives them the respect owed a fellow human being created in the image of God.

Doing justice is about doing what is just. But it also means going beyond justice into grace and generosity. The Bible calls us to care for the poor and oppressed more than 2,000 times. It’s so important to God that our neglect of those who have less, more than that, our need to profit from them, prevents our worship from getting past the ceiling. Failing to do justice causes a schism in our relationship with God.

God has given us the job to end oppression. As Micah said, how to please God isn’t a big mystery. Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

What’s going to happen!?!

Four years ago, Focus on the Family sent this letter to their supporters, predicting what the world would look like in 2012 if Obama were elected.  Well, they say they’re not “predictions” so much as “natural outcomes” based on what Obama and his people were planning to do. The letter is something like 16 pages long, but these are a few of my favorites.

  • High schools are no longer free to allow “See You at the Pole” meetings where students pray together, or any student Bible studies even before or after school.
  • Homosexuals are now given special bonuses for enlisting in military service
  • Church buildings are now considered a “public accommodation” by the Supreme Court, and churches have no freedom to refuse to allow their buildings to be used for wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples.
  • It’s almost impossible to keep children from seeing pornography.
  • Parents’ freedom to teach their children at home has been severely restricted.
  • Since 2009, terrorist bombs have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country is fearful, for no place seems safe. President Obama in each case has vowed “to pursue and arrest and prosecute those responsible,” but no arrests have been made.
  • Conservative talk radio, for all intents and purposes, was shut down by the end of 2010.

A number of folks have pointed out that these really haven’t come true at all. We know that I’m not a fan of the Focus on the Family cult or their scare tactics and I like to send them fun emails now and again, just for my own entertainment. Obviously, since we’re nearing an election, I want to know what’s going to happen in the next four years if Obama is re-elected, just so I know what to expect.

So, just for fun, I sent them this email tonight. Wonder if I’ll get a response?

Jim Daly had so many AWESOME predictions (sorry – “natural outcomes”) for what 2012 would look like if Obama were elected so I was wondering if he has any more in case Obama gets re-elected.

It’s such a bummer that none of my friends’ kids can pray at school any more. Of course, the kids cheered up when they saw all the porn everywhere. Their foster parents are glad they don’t have to watch them as much, though. They’re in foster care, you see, because their parents were jailed for trying to homeschool them. Fortunately, they’re young enough not to have to go to war in Iraq, since they were taken over by the Taliban. But the rolling blackouts scare them to death. I wish I could on conservative talk radio to help soothe their nerves but, well, you know, it was banned.

I can’t wait to see the list so I know what to get ready for in the next four years, just in case. Thanks!

REID-ing a LOTT of History

Have we noticed that I’m into name-related puns?

The political world has been whipped into a frenzy over the book Game Change, which lays out a luscious banquet of tantalizing details of both sides of the 2008 presidential campaign, if you’re into that kind of thing. While Sarah Palin was portrayed as the least appetizing personality (duh), one of the bombshells of the book has been the comment of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Apparently he made a comment about Obama being electable b/c he’s “light-skinned” and has “no Negro dialect, unless he wants one”. If that makes someone electable, then I will most likely be the next President.

Harry said something that was, maybe not inaccurate when you consider the racist attitudes of some of the electorate, but at best an extremely poor choice of words & at worst pretty racist. It’s more of a head-shaker b/c outside of the 2010 census, you’re not likely to hear the word “negro” a lot.

Of course the ever rational Republican political leadership issued a cry of feigned outrage, calling for Reid’s resignation (by the same folks who brought you Barack the Magic Negro). Trent Lott was run out of town for less! They exclaim. But was it really less?

What Harry Reid said was not okay. What Trent Lott said speaks to an overarching ideology of racist, white supremacist politics & policy. Lott said that the country would be in better shape today had we elected Strom Thurmond to the Presidency 40 years ago. Thurmond ran as a Segregationist on a platform of “separate but equal” and continuing the Jim Crow laws that kept people separate but certainly not equal. Lott didn’t use any specifically racist language, while Reid did.

Why shouldn’t Reid step down? Because his poorly chosen words spoke to the electability of one candidate. Lott’s statements revealed a belief amongst conservative politicians (his remarks were wildly applauded by the event’s attendees) that had white men maintained the upper hand in all things (because they haven’t?) we wouldn’t be in this [insert crisis] predicament.

Another thing about this is how concerned we are with correct language and yet how content we are with institutional inequality. I’m speaking now not only of race but also of gender, religion, sexual orientation and ability. Politically correct language has evolved and devolved and gone in and out of fashion and it’s part of the issue, but not all. It’s like putting lipstick on the proverbial pig. Speaking to and about people is part of the equation but it doesn’t change people’s inner thoughts, feelings and motivations. If one is deft enough with the language one can justify any situation. I’d like to see this political gaffe used constructively to speak to why what Harry Reid said is true in some parts of the electorate and why it shouldn’t be.

PAT answers & HUME-an Error

First, let me get this out of the way:

Dear Pat Robertson,

You are an absolute IDIOT. You join Glenn Beck in the pantheon of what I like to call “unhinged buffoons.” There are few words in the English language that describe how truly awful you are and how bad your theology is.

Love in Christ,

Auntie Tiffy

Ok, now for the meat of what I have to say:

A week or two ago the world spun into a tizzy about Brit Hume’s comments that Christianity was superior to Buddhism on the issue of redemption and if only Tiger Woods would turn to Jesus, all his problems would be solved. Yes, Brit. That’s how it works. Just turn to Jesus and NOTHING WILL EVER GO WRONG AGAIN. First, I think it was an abuse of Brit’s position to endorse one religion over another in his role as an anchor on the air. If he wants to say that in public on his own time, that’s one thing. He’s totally free and entitled to believe that and say that as a civilian. Second, it totally pissed me off that in the days following his statements, he did a series of interviews claiming to be so brave to mention Jesus and his faith because Christians are so persecuted these days. Oh shut the hell up. Have you ever watched a sporting event of any time? Kurt Warner mentioning God could be a drinking game, let alone all the other ones who give God the glory when they win (but are conspicuously silent on the issue of religion when they lose.) Third, if he had proclaimed any other religion, ESPECIALLY Islam, as superior, he would be standing in the middle of a SHITSTORM of controversy, entirely from the religious right. There are many professional athletes and none of them mention their devotion to Allah when they win a game. You know why? I’m guessing it wouldn’t set well in the fly over states.

Here’s what’s going on – Christians are no longer the dominant force on the world’s religious stage. They no longer get to use their historic seat of power to oppress, subvert, subdue and manipulate. They have to act like EVERYONE ELSE, and try to get along and it’s KILLING THEM. (I’m speaking in the third person b/c I do not consider myself one of these kinds of Christians). You are not, in fact, losing you’re religious liberty, it’s just that everyone else is finally getting theirs. So, Brit, and all you other Christians who think you’re not free to talk about Jesus. Shut up. You’re going to be just fine.

Now, on to Pat.

Oh, Pat. Pat, Pat, Pat. What are we going to do with you? Pact with the devil to overthrow the French? Really? You don’t need a pact with the devil to overthrow the French, you just need to get up before noon. Where do you get this crap and what makes you think you need to say it on television? Does it mean that poor people are poor b/c they have made a pact with the devil? So then Mississippi & South Carolina made a pact with the devil at some point but New York and Massachusetts are fine?

If I could also point out the connected history between the US & Haiti. I’m guessing Pat wasn’t aware that Haiti is the second nation in the Western Hemisphere to gain their independence, after the US. Haiti’s drawn out revolution against the French made Napoleon think it was a good idea to sell the Louisana Territory to the US for $0.13 an acre. That’s THIRTEEN CENTS. We doubled the size of our country b/c they fought and beat the French. That would make us pretty endebted to the devil as well. Pat’s never been one to feel restrained by logic or reason, or apparently, US History. Well done.

These pictures of Christianity that have been presented in the public square are at least embarrassing and at worst damaging and off-putting. Many of these more pugnacious evangelical types will claim in their defense that Jesus was offensive so they can be too. Jesus did say things that ticked people off, but he was also someone with whom children felt very comfortable. He also was most compassionate to the poor and most hostile to the religious élite. The most irritating part of all this is that Pat & Brit assume they speak for all Christians and they most certainly do not. They’re so busy patting themselves on the back for their ” boldness” (which is actually jackassery) that they can’t see the consequences of their statements. I can only speak for myself and my faith journey and I wish others would do the same.

Another View of ACORN

Yes, yes, I know. ACORN bad, corrupt, hookers, blah blah blah. Sure, it’s an imperfect institution with some bad apples, for sure. But when you look at it as compared to most government contractors, it’ s practically a group of altar boys and girls. This study is a look at how the media has played into the conspiracy theories rather than dig for the truth.

Senator Edward Kennedy (1932-2009)

Today I was watching my Friday episode of Rachel Maddow and she showed a piece of long-forgotten footage that had been recovered from an Alaska State Library by a janitor.

Sen. Kennedy gave this speech on April 7, 1968, at the Alaska Democratic convention. His brother Robert was the original speaker, but when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated three days earlier, Robert thought it was unwise to leave Washington DC and sent Teddy in his stead.

I was listening to this speech on the train on the way home and I swear I almost stood up and applauded.

“If any man ever doubted the good intentions of his fellow man, if any man wondered if  his government could be responsive to cases of human need, if any man ever yearned for a way of life that satisfied his desires for human freedom and dignity, he could look to America. This was our image in truth this was America as we knew it as we grew in it and as we have taught to our children.

“A weakness in society is a weakness in ourselves.  Within each and every one of us who are complacent, who are doing well, who realize the comforts of material gain, and who, above all else, apathetic. Where is the moral strength within us? The qualities of character that attribute and carry to our children of the American heroes that have gone before us.

“I, for one, do not feel that we are any less than our fore bearers. I, for one, do not feel that there is anyone within this room who has less courage, less conviction, or is any less dedicated to the American dream than generations past. But I do feel that in a few short years we have let events master us rather than we them. I do feel in our great history we have fallen into a lapse.

“We have refused, each and every one of us, to exercise the talent and character bred into us, and as a result, in a land that was created on the Judeo-Christian ideals of love and brotherhood, we have let hatred take the lead and we are paying that price today as we have paid for it many days and nights in this difficult decade.

‘We are where we are because all of us are passing through life with our own personal blinders on. We favor civil rights bills and feel a warm glow in our hearts when we hear the eloquence of a Martin Luther King. We cluck our tongues over the agitators in the streets  and call them outside troublemakers or ne’er-do-wells. In essence we are all very decent men and women of good faith, we are all very busy with our careers and with our families. All too busy with our own concerns to fight injustice, to fight poverty, and to fight ill will in the immediate world around us. As a US Senator my message to you today is very simple: we only delude and mislead ourselves if we feel we lift a burden from our personal shoulders by passing pieces of legislation, important as that is, if we feel legislation can be our only response to our fellow men who are deprived.

“Beyond that I would say that no matter how the most difficult questions of Vietnam is solved, no matter how we meet the future challenges in the Middle East, no matter how strong the controls we develop over the horror of atomic weapons, and no matter how we face the domestic problems of health for the poor, education for our young, and decent housing and better roads for the more distant parts of America, no matter how well we do these things, they will only be the epitaph of a great nation who could not bind its own wounds within itself and as a result, lost itself. If laws do not meet the need, and they don’t; if speeches do not meet the need, and they won’t; if marches and demonstrations don’t meet the need, and they don’t, where are we to turn? We can only turn to ourselves.”

The Louder They Are the Harder They Fall

This week’s news has been dominated by the unofficial viral coverage of the situation in Iran, and rightly so. But while you were busy putting a green overlay on your Twitter avatar, another political story has been brewing in this country and that is the downward spiral of the political career of on John Ensign, Republican Senator from Nevada.

It’s really not news that a legislator has had an extramarital affair. Duh. It would be more newsworthy if he hadn’t. The newsworthy part of this is his vociferous calls for the resignations of others when they were caught in similar situations. He called for the resignations of Bill Clinton and Larry Craig during their respective scandals. Here’s the beauty of Ensign’s “wide stance” on the Larry Craig incident: he actually said that if he were in a similar situation he hoped he would have the integrity to resign, and he said all this WHILE HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR. Is Ensign planning to resign? No, of course not. He did step down from his position as head of the Republican Policy committee, but he’s clinging tenaciously to his Senate seat.

The story of Ensign’s indiscretion has begun to spin out into more sticky criminal territory as the more sordid details come to light. First, while he was having an affair, both the woman he was having an affair with and her husband (Cynthia and Doug Hampton, respectively) worked for organizations that are directly linked to Ensign. During the tenure of their relationship, Cynthia’s pay suddenly and inexplicably doubled and her 19-year-old son was hired on as some sort of “political consultant.” When the relationship ended, both Doug and Cynthia immediately found employment at companies from which a straight line to Ensign can be easily drawn.

Just for grins, let’s add on top of this that Ensign claims to be a devout, born-again Christian and has been very active in the Promisekeepers movement.  If the promises he was supposed to be keeping had to do with the career advancement and fiscal enrichment of his mistress and her family, I say mission accomplished.

Ensign joins a long line of conservative political and religious leaders who are vocally opposed to some vice or another and end up getting caught in the act of that very vice. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

Jim Bakker
Jimmy Swaggart
Ted Haggard
David Vitter
Eliot Spitzer
Mark Foley
Larry Craig

That’s a very short list of ones I could come up with off the top of my head. There are others that I can think of that aren’t household names, but did damage nonetheless. This week the Southern Baptist Convention is meeting in Kentucky, and it’s anecdotally well-known that when the SBC is in town, strip clubs and gay bars do record business.

Here’s where I give my “I’m not judging” disclaimer, b/c I’m actually not. I don’t think I’m better than any of these people, in fact I know I’m not. My point is that these people are under the impression that words are louder than actions. The ones on this list that claim faith in Christ have missed the gospel completely – it’s a relationship with a person, not about imposing external morality on yourself and others.

Being a person of faith is all about who I am becoming not what I am vocally for or against. The internal transformation causes changes in my outward behavior, but not the other way around. The God that most fundamentalists believe in is very small, and can’t handle the gray areas of life that make up the majority of all of our journeys. Their God lives in a very small box that they can control, manipulate and fully grasp as finite humans. I don’t know about you, but for me that’s not much of a God at all. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of faith in that. I’m constantly struggling against the human tendency to cast God in my image. It’s a scary thing to let God be God and relinquish control of life’s circumstances but that’s ultimately what people of faith are called to do.

Ensign needs to resign and take care of his family, his faith and himself. God has forgiven him and I hope he can learn to accept that. However, God rarely removes the natural consequences of our actions and Ensign needs to face them and bow out gracefully. I hope he’ll learn something through this experience but keep it to himself and not try to profit from it with a book deal.