Category: Politics

Let’s Have a Conversation

I have resisted writing here lately because my feelings about our politics are strong and I didn’t want to add to the toxicity of America’s current political discussion. But I have concluded that our society and our politics are in such a calamitous state that each citizen needs to do their best to help show the way to personal, political and societal salvation.

And it needs to be shared. America needs this discussion. I will try offer my small part and I will do it with love and respect for every American and all the people of the world.

Love and respect for the people with whom I agree is relatively easy. The president and all the people who call themselves MAGA or MAHA Republicans present the greater challenge as they would almost certainly not extend grace to me or anyone in the “Democrat” Party. But it isn’t really grace if you extend it only to the people you call friends.

Granted, it is hard to love and respect anyone who takes control of a government and operates it like a criminal syndicate. But we gave him that power through an electoral process that had served us well throughout our history, at least for the most part. So, there is little point in focusing the discussion on him.

Extending grace, love and respect to the people with whom we differ politically does not mean that they should be exempt them from legally established control and punishment. We are all subject to the law.

Removing the president from office may seem appropriate to his political opponents but that power is held by the legislative branch. He has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted both times by the Republican majority in the Senate. Those of the president’s party who voted to convict are mostly leaving the Senate rather than face his retribution.

But this is only one area where the Republican congress has ducked for cover. It has refused to hold the administration accountable for its immigration policy and enforcement debacle, the wars against Iran and Venezuela, and full release of the files that document extensive wrongdoings of Jeffrey Epstein and his many monied friends. They have ignored corruption and looked the other way while the president has made a business of privatizing currency through what amounts to a Ponzi scheme.

I could go on. But, in brief, our government has failed.

Over the next few days and weeks, we can look at some things we all can do to right the ship and make our government work for the welfare of the people once again.

I will share my thoughts with you. I hope you will offer your own thoughts as comments at the end of this article.

2020 – A SILENT GENERATION LAMENT

The cohort of Americans born between 1928 and 1945 has been called the Silent Generation. I didn’t know that I was a member of the Silent Generation until I wrote the piece below and I looked up “generation” in Wikipedia to see if I was indeed a boomer myself or, maybe, even an undeserving member of what they were calling the Greatest Generation. I found out that I am stuck in between the two. We are hardly noticed by the folks who try to generalize about the behavioral characteristics of people born in certain age cohorts.

I was late coming to the Silent Generation so my adult years were spent with talk everywhere about “boomers.” Marketing and media primarily addressed their needs and preferences. I heard so much about boomers that I subconsciously identified and, in any case, I was very nearly one myself since you could say that I was born on the cusp. But as I read more about those years between 1928 and 1945, I could see how completely my life was in the grip of that history.

What follows is very long. If you decide to read it, you will see that it is laid out like a poem. If it reads like prose to you, at least stop for a beat to think before going to the next line. Each bit of our history is loaded with plenty to think about. Yes, Truman and Eisenhower may not excite you. Ozzie and Harriet may bore you. But the kids who first learned about the world from floor model radios and small black and white screens had much to think about. And we have much to regret.

The piece is a personal project. It was completed during the 2020 election campaign and before the Biden-Harris election results were known. Although it was a hopeful sign, it didn’t really change much. But having lived through alternating and descending stair steps down into Trump hell, I know that it will take more than a single presidential election to get us heading onward and upward again. But we must continue the struggle. Loving boldly, serving joyfully and leading courageously is a model for individual living that will get us there. It is a formula for hope. Do all that and then put it to work in your VOTE.

Continue reading “2020 – A SILENT GENERATION LAMENT”

An Unrelenting Gnawing at My Soul

The Listeners by Walter De La Mare

Public Domain, link copied from

http://www.poetryfoundation.org

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door; 

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor: 

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head: 

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. 

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill 

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still. 

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then 

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men: 

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   

   That goes down to the empty hall, 

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   

   By the lonely Traveller’s call. 

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   

   Their stillness answering his cry, 

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; 

For he suddenly smote on the door, even   

   Louder, and lifted his head:— 

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   

   That I kept my word,’ he said. 

Never the least stir made the listeners,   

   Though every word he spake 

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   

   From the one man left awake: 

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   

   And the sound of iron on stone, 

And how the silence surged softly backward,   

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.

–\\\\\–

Well, here I am again. I tried to give up this bad habit of paying good money to people so I could write things for other people to read. I managed to successfully stop it a few years ago with respect to what I had come to think of as the loathsome Facebook . In this comeback posting, I begin by quoting someone else’s poetry, maybe as a way of trying to explain myself.

Last year I committed myself to discontinuing this WordPress chronicle. I had written about the things I thought about and worried about; I wrote about my church and its internal debates over social principles; I wrote about my community’s fine arts council and its theater programs, and, in general, many things that are not of interest to most readers. Besides, what do I really have to say about political issues that has not already either been born or batted around online? I read the opinion pages in national papers and I know that there are many better educated and informed people saying the things that needed to be said regarding our civic lives. Saying it all here seemed to benefit no one but myself and an irrepressible egotistical desire to attract attention. I let my subscription to the service run out. But then I wavered again.

WordPress gave me another chance to re-up, as online services almost always do. And I did. I renewed the service and will be here at least through April of 2027. So why did I decide to continue?

Most importantly WordPress emphasizes content rather than user relationships. As I remember it, people typically used Facebook posts to craft a story of their lives as they wanted friends to see them: wealthier than they really are, cooler than they really are and more well read than they really are. And, of course, kinder than they really are to their precious pets which are presented as cuter than they really are. And they undoubtedly wanted you to see it and ‘friend’ them or give them a ‘like’.

It would be disingenuous to say that I am not interested in presenting my life as one of distinction. People who know me know that I try to post things I have spent some time thinking about not just what I had for breakfast, or the cute thing my cat, kid or dog did nor my immediate reaction to what I saw on the evening news or picked up online. I do my very best (most of the time) to say something I really need to say because of its informational or moral relevance for readers and all the people in this world we share.

I don’t fish for readers. What I think about and write is here for anyone who reads it. In fact, I heard a little poem today on the podcast Poetry Unbound. The title is “The Listeners.” It is in the public domain and I led this discussion with it.

When I read the Walter De La Mare poem, I see myself as the Traveller as I send these chronicles out to phantom listeners (readers). And you would be one of them. Not just to you, but to that phantom being we call a soul. Whatever it is that I need to say, it is of ultimate concern to me and it is my responsibility to let anyone within reach of my voice know that I came and that I kept my word. These are things I must say because it is a duty of citizens to speak and, especially, of things that constitute one’s ultimate concerns.

If no one answers my knock, still, I am keeping my word. It is important to me to come calling on you because I have been feeling lately a gnawing at my soul: the world is rotting all around me and people who see something must say something.

Is anybody there? May my soul speak with yours?

WSMD?

Some thoughts on the 2024 update of Social Principles of the United Methodist Church

Mary Oliver once asked, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” (From her poem The Summer Day in her collection, Devotions, 2017.)

As I read through the United Methodist Church’s new edition of the social principles, I expected the section on the political community to give some guidance on an important question that goes beyond individual rights and standards of justice and mercy for government policy. To wit, what are the individual Christian’s responsibilities as citizens and participants? This question invites us to reflect deeply on our participation and choices: What will you do with your one wild and precious vote — that allocation of political power granted to you and protected by our constitution.

Should not Methodists approach the voting booth with the same prayerful consideration the General Conference used asking, “What would Jesus do?” The Social Principles seem to encourage this kind of reflection, urging us to align our civic actions with our faith. While some folks wear WWJD bracelets as a reminder, true spiritual discipline goes beyond outward symbols. It calls on us to act with courage, guided by love and prayer, especially in times when the world seems to be moving in troubling directions.

The latest edition of the United Methodist Church’s Social Principles (adopted in 2024) challenges us to confront injustice and to advocate for the vulnerable. Today, we see leaders in government who overlook the needs of the poor. We look on as school boards and legislatures ban books, and promote a growing disregard for science — a key driver of humane progress in all fields of human endeavor. The “culture war” threatens to extinguish the flickering candles of the Enlightenment, while the dream of a truly democratic society feels increasingly distant—even in America, which once inspired the people of other nations to pursue more participatory and humane forms of governance.

In such times, our faith calls us to respond—not with despair, but with hope, courage, and a commitment to justice. Protected only by love and prayer in an ongoing struggle for social and political mercy and justice, we are invited to participate actively in shaping a more compassionate and democratic world.

Most important of all, we should be called to think rather than simply react when we enter the voting arena. In poll after poll there is evidence that Americans dislike and do not trust political parties. Yet the typical response of these same voters, when an executive or representative of one’s own political party does or says something they do not like, is to simply vote for the other party. The intent may be punitive, but the effect is to further legitimize the two party system.

To an extent, every politician is the victim of the branding that voters have been encouraged to use as shortcuts to thinking and placing issues in a context of overall policy.

So, Methodists, do this: read, think, be civil and non-violent in all your political interactions. If you do those things, it will then be fair for you to ask: What would Jesus do? And if you need one of those little bracelets to remind you, get one.

Better yet, get one that suggests the question in a way that would remind us of the expectation Jesus has of us as members of the United Methodist Church: WSMD? I don’t think it will help to take your copy of Social Principles of The United Methodist Church, 2025-2028 into your voting station. It mostly says the same thing but it’s too long to print on a bracelet.

Reflections on Democracy: Lessons from the White House, 1964 and 2025

I had decided to let this thing go, this WordPress subscription. I stopped it but I was informed by the WordPress powers (that’s their spelling with the capital P in the miDDle) that I had recently paid for a year and I could post until my renewal date but no longer if I didn’t renew. So I left it to fallow and let the old posts rot in the field thinking that I would never post again.

I’m not sure what pushed me over the edge and led me to reach out again last night but maybe it was the criminal destruction of the East Wing of the White House. I have always felt myself to be a part owner of the White House with a bit of personal interest in its preservation as a public historical asset.

I went there once in 1964 as a college student invited by President Lyndon Johnson who, working from a mailing list, asked Dr. Phillip Hoffman of the University of Houston to identify and sponsor a student leader to come to a special White House student leaders meeting.

[Push the button below to go to Page 2 of this post.}

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Fear: the Political Weapon that Calls Us to Sacrifice

I confess to being something of a pacifist at heart.

I served in the military when my country required it of me because my country said it was needed. I never answered for myself the question of what I would do in a kill or be killed situation on a battlefield. I would make that decision when confronted with it. That was pretty chicken, I know now.

I disagreed with the justification relied upon by the authorities when they said my service was required. Yet the call to serve came from my country out of a process of debate, deliberation, and choice by popular election.

{Push the button below to go to Page 2 of this post.}

Pages: Page 1, Page 2