Holy Trinity: God, Guns, Abortion

 “This is a country built on violence and determined to survive by violence or take the world down with it. It consistently rejects peace talks in favor of war, nonviolent approaches to crime in favor of killer cops, and open borders in favor of heavily militarized border enforcement. Then it cries when its children are killed. Then it sells more guns. It’s a twisted place to live and most of its residents have no clue how twisted.” Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch

They will say anything to deflect attention from guns and their complicity in making guns easy to obtain. They ramble on about mental illness, entry doors, armed guards, armed school teachers, hardened schools, but the bottom line is always more guns, not less guns. And so this deadly wheel turns, in Texas, New York, California, Georgia. Readers of the Balcony know that I’m proud to be an unarmed American. I hate guns. This doesn’t imply any desire on my part to impose my views on others. Anyone of legal age who wishes to own a pistol, shotgun, or hunting rifle should be allowed to do so. Responsible sport shooters and hunters pose little risk to the public. If owning a pistol makes you feel safer in your home, by all means acquire one and learn how to use it. I don’t, however, believe in open carry laws because I see no justification for them; they are part of the Wild West mentality we must cast off. 

My problem is with the weaponry of war, military-grade assault rifles like the AR-15 or semi-automatic pistols. Citizens have no need for such weapons, no matter what the NRA or its silver-tongued lobbyists say. Fuck them. And fuck all politicians of either party who bend over for the Gun Lobby year after year. I reserve special disdain and contempt for Greg Abbott, a coward and a punk; Dan Patrick for being a self-righteous asshole; Ken Paxton for just being who he is; Ted Cruz for personifying a perverted Ivy League education; Kevin McCarthy for being a dry turd masquerading as a man. All of these pissants, and many, many more, have blood stains under their fingernails.

Money and power. Cower behind the cross, hold up a gun, wail for the unborn and millions will follow you, send you money, and vote for you, no matter what. Republicans have message discipline and get on the same page very quickly, but the GOP is an immoral gang of weasels. On the other side the Democrats stagger around the frontier of the culture war, preoccupied with identity politics, wokeness, call it what you will. You want to know what triggers me? Stupidity. Injustice. Cruelty. The rule of law is being eroded, abroad and at home, and those in power escape accountability for their misdeeds. What’s a progressive to do? Where do I turn? Like James Baldwin, I hold the right to shame and criticize my country until it does better. Our society will never be perfect or even close to it, but one predicated on fear and hatred cannot long endure. 

What’s the breaking point, where does this madness end? Does it end? How do we break the iron grip of the gun lobby and the defense industry, and stop promoting violence as the answer to our mutual problems? How do we reinvigorate the anti-war movement? How do we change the American economy to make it less predatory, unfair, unequal, and also less detrimental to the planet? There’s so much heavy lifting to be done.

In the novel Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy I come across this passage which, if we continue staggering blindly down our current path, might just apply: “We are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing themselves. And do you know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? That’s right. Others come in to govern for them.” 

Walk On

 “If there's ever somethin' bad you don't wanna see/Just keep on walkin' and let it be…” Curtis Mayfield, “Back to Living Again”

I’ve been listening to Curtis Mayfield today. He was a wise man who saw deep and expressed what he saw and felt in his music. I’m reading The Cross and the Lynching Tree by the late James H. Cone, a well-known and regarded black scholar and theologian. I began this book ten days or so before the mass shooting in the Tops Market in Buffalo; Cone’s writing about the Church and White Supremacy was fresh on my mind when I saw the headline. The contradictions of faith, of the relationship between the cross of Jesus and the lynching tree of white supremacy, and how the black church was a place of sanctuary from oppression and brutality. Jesus understood the suffering of the poor and downtrodden (at least until the Christian Right in America transformed him into a greedy capitalist with a nice suit and gleaming dental work). Vigilante violence, mob violence, a preview of which we saw on our screens on January 6, 2021. Blacks were never safe from the arbitrary, capricious anger of the white mob. The church and the Bible gave them faith, and faith gave them hope, and they kept on, and on. 

I’m into the final section of The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture & Society by William Deresiewicz. Wonderful book, a treasure trove of thoughts brilliantly expressed, across a wide range of subjects. I’ve learned much from it. Deresiewicz is insistent that people think, and surprised when they think clearly, because he understands the effort thinking requires. “It takes a long time to have an original idea,” Deresiewicz writes. Deresiewicz wrote a brilliant book about higher education called Excellent Sheep that I recommend. He’s a craftsman with language. We share an admiration for the writer Rebecca Solnit and the musician Zoe Keating. 

I begin reading Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire & Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernandez, and by the middle of the introduction I am hooked. I’m frequently amazed at how little I know about American history, and particularly of our long and often tortured relationship with Mexico. The knowledge that I’m not alone in my ignorance doesn’t make me feel better. Hernandez claims that one cannot understand U.S. history without Mexico and Mexicans. Mexico occupies an important place in the story of U.S. territorial expansion and imperialism. In the early 20th century U.S. capital flowed into Mexico, spurring the construction of railroads, mining, and oil extraction. I see a parallel with the history of slavery, white supremacy, and Jim Crow; you cannot understand U.S. history without examining these topics. In our strange day, the forces of the theocratic right allied with the power-mad GOP want to prevent Americans from confronting the past honestly; they want to ban books they find too revealing or challenging. Similarly, they want to control women. It’s dangerous and frightening, and, I fear, only the beginning. The authoritarian tide is rising and I’m not confident it can be restrained; millions of Americans don’t seem to care if what remains of our democracy is lost. 

It took me five or six months to read The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: The Happy Years by the Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia. The book is a hefty 500 pages, filled with references to the literary scene in Argentina in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Piglia wrote about the political situation, Peronism, the military coups that roiled Argentina during that period, literary rivals, women, and his constant state of near poverty. Due to his work as a writer and editor, he came under the scrutiny of the Army and had to flee his apartment with only what he could carry. I gained solace from Piglia’s false starts, stops, and doubts about the value of his writing projects. 

My decision to retire from the school district last year was the right one. I have many thoughts about my career, the work I did, the roles I performed, the good and bad moments, K12 public education in general, and in particular the experience of working in a bureaucracy. I was a cog in an institution, tasked with keeping a routine going, that’s all. My part-time job at Whole Foods Market provides daily satisfaction because at the end of a shift I can clearly see the results of my labor. I like and enjoy my co-workers, the vibe in the store is usually upbeat, and I never take the work home with me; there’s no need. My family members are healthy, we have a little money, no material wants. I spend many hours each week reading, though I never read as much as I want or think I should. I take long walks along the Riviera a few times a week. 

I’ll end this with a quote from The Cross and the Lynching Tree: “Whites today cannot separate themselves from the culture that lynched blacks, unless they confront their history and expose the sin of white supremacy.”

To that I can say, amen. 

Many Questions, Few Answers

 “Instead of a feel-good ‘touting accomplishments’ campaign, Democrats should rip into the GOP with a warning that America’s future is at stake. Because it is.” John Nichols, The Nation May 16-23, 2022

Maybe we need to think of the world as might the late novelist John LeCarre, as an interconnected web of power, relationships, ideologies, and mutual interests, global and individual rivals jousting for advantage, influence, money, and the raw power to order things as they desire. I have many questions and few answers. Who is running the world? Who are the global movers and shakers so wealthy they can hire private security forces, fund their own intelligence-gathering apparatus, murder rivals with impunity, and control the media? The de facto head of the Saudi monarchy, Mohammad bin Salman, gave Jared Kushner $2 billion with few strings attached. Why? In payment or repayment for what? Where do the interests of MBS and Jared Kushner intersect? Where did Donald Trump go on his first official state visit? Saudi Arabia. Illuminated globes and sword dancing, remember?  

What did Putin and Trump talk about for ninety minutes in Helsinki in 2018? 

Why has MBS been able to evade responsibility for ordering the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi? Why is Julian Assange wasting away in jail, in one of the cruelest instances of state torture I’ve ever lived through. When was Assange, a journalist, last a free citizen?

After the election of 2016 and the unthinkable happened, how many contacts were made between Trump campaign officials and representatives of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Russia? How do those contacts relate to Putin’s decision to launch his Ukraine war this year, the price of oil, and the money laundering Saudi Arabia and the UAE are doing for Russian oligarchs. How is Putin funding his war? We need a bare white wall and a pad of Post-It Notes, like in the detective thrillers, to chart the web of relationships, channels, companies, governments and safe havens. It’s an interconnected world, particularly when money is involved. 

The Israeli Defense Forces have murdered a well-known correspondent for Al-Jazeera, Shireen Abu Akleh. She was shot in the neck by an IDF marksman. The US provides the usual amplification of Israeli government denials, and will insure there will be no consequences. That’s how this special relationship works. Total immunity. 

When Trump was president he was always boasting about how America had achieved energy independence, producing so much surplus oil and gas that we were exporting it. Where is that independence now, when the price of gasoline hovers around $6 a gallon? Do you think the price is being manipulated? Let me put the question a different way: do you trust Big Oil? 

With another spare white wall and additional Post-It Notes, we could chart all the individuals charged with crimes, convicted of crimes, or pardoned who played a role in Trump’s 2016 campaign and his four disastrous years in the White House. This would make for an interesting visual. Trump’s own family members would be heavily represented. 

I imagine the funeral of Donald Trump. Who will attend, speak, bow their heads, cry? Will millions of people wait in long lines to view the dead man, as millions did when Juan Peron died in Argentina? Will it be a sea of red hats or only a smattering? How many will rejoice that this privileged, incompetent, and demented scourge has finally departed this earth? I know where I will be, and with whom. 

Forward to the Past

 

“Prophet’s take risks and speak out in righteous indignation against society’s treatment of the poor.” James H. Cone

I’m not surprised at all by the vehemence of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s recently leaked opinion. Alito was writing for the majority -- on behalf of the infamous political operatives in robes -- Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett “Spring Break” Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett. How the draft became public is irrelevant. Alito made very clear where this is going, the repeal of Roe V. Wade and what will mark the beginning of a gradual, but steady, erosion of other fundamental human rights most of us take for granted. What’s going to change between now and when the decision is handed down except maybe the addition of another line of fencing around the Supreme Court building? We know the outcome. John Roberts might insist on watering down some of Alito’s more obnoxious phrases, citations and inferences, but the outcome will not change.  

What happens when this illegitimate, unaccountable, and reactionary Supreme Court delivers its anticipated opinion?

The crusaders are going to find the magic cup they have chased since I was a boy -- the repeal of a woman’s Constitutional right to abortion health services. Health services for women, many of them working-class or poor, the ones for whom life is already difficult enough. The crusaders will lift the cup like the winners of a European Champions League football final.  And then the unholy alliance of the GOP/Evangelical Christian right will move to the next target. Their odds of success are good. They’ve got tons of unaccountable money, FOX News, and a network of evangelical churches that enjoy tax-free status while they preach a vile form of theocracy. In the short run, before they start feeding on each other (a hazard of amassing too much unaccountable power), they will wield power like a hammer. And then, if the GOP regains control of Congress and the White House, watch out. 

America isn’t immune to the consequences of Empire Rot, a terminal condition. The example Trump sent the political class during his disastrous single term was that norms don’t matter, laws against political corruption and ethical violations are tepid and easy to evade by simply ignoring them, and telling  extreme and outlandish lies is a viable and effective tactic. In fact, the more outlandish the lie the greater the likelihood it will become the truth, and for some small percentage of the population, gospel. 

What happens when this illegitimate, unaccountable, and reactionary Supreme Court delivers its anticipated opinion? Will we stage another massive Women’s March, feel the rush of solidarity and purpose and tolerance, and then retreat to our separate silos waiting for someone else to do the work of educating, organizing, and channeling the energy and outrage and determination into a coherent, focused political direction? That’s one of the tallest orders there is, yet it’s the only way social change is made. Ground up, slow, painstaking, and, yes, incremental. In contrast, when hard-won rights are diluted, narrowed, or stripped away, it’s usually a top down process, opportunistic, cynical, and cruel. We forget so many elemental lessons, or perhaps we never learned to begin with. Rights won are not forever; they can be lost. Rights must be defended with vigilance, like liberty itself. We will soon be a country where abortion is legal in some states and a crime in others, not unlike the years leading to the Civil War when half the states permitted and perpetuated chattel slavery, and the other half forbade it. 

Serfs in Russia did not have pension plans or social insurance. They depended on their master, from birth to death. When Alito and his noxious cabal put Roe down for good, they will set their sights on other rights they find objectionable: birth control, same-sex marriage, other privacy rights, and then, one day they will come for the last prize of the New Deal era, the big one, Social Security. It will happen in stages, by a cut here, a scratch there. But once they get going more will come, more impetus for unaccountable power to go further, take more, control more. Only a credible, focused and organized people’s movement or coalition of movements that pushes back whenever it detects a threat can stymie these radicals. The demise of Roe isn’t a women’s issue alone, it must be part of a broader coalition focused on securing human rights. Losing Roe is a major setback, an insult to women, essentially a white man’s declaration of sovereignty over women and their bodies; it could be the centerpiece of a mass movement, perhaps it will, but to be transformative a movement needs size and depth. And staying power, which is where the tax-free Evangelical church network has been so lethal. 

The Democratic Party isn’t the vessel, let’s establish that from the jump. The Democrats have not done much to enshrine the right to abortion health services in law since the time abortion became a wedge issue more than 40 years ago. In 1976, a young Senator from Delaware named Joseph Biden voted for the Hyde Amendment, legislation that banned federal funding of abortion health services. Both parties have used abortion as a moblizing tool. The Democrats will talk-the-talk but fail to muster the support to pass legislation protecting the right to abortion health services. They’ll mount one of their patented doomed-from-the-outset initiatives that will have zero chance of being enacted in anything resembling its original form. 

So, what are We the People going to do?