Friday, June 30, 2017

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

With the advent of our first Independence Day under President Trump, it might behoove us to heed the prescient words of Frederick Douglass.  He is, after all, "an example of somebody who's doing an amazing job and is getting more and more recognized, I notice." 

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Here is the entire speech.  “As with rivers so with nations.”




Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Justice Mondays

Last year, after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I was so ready to become more active and vocal as a white ally in Black Lives Matter.  But then shortly after, Micah Johnson murdered five police officers in Dallas, and I retreated back into my mind.  Would the people I grew up with consider my activism as incitement to violence?  Would protesting against the shooting of Sterling and Castile (and so many others) be disrespectful to and inconsistent with the mourning of the Dallas 5?  

Even though it is not actually a zero-sum game, I nevertheless possess a dualistic mind and live in a dualistic nation.  We feel like we must pick one side, and thus because we cannot embrace all victims of violence, we embrace none of them.  

I have been a member of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) in Newark, New Jersey for several years.  Last year, as I read the autobiography of Malcolm X, I came across a passage where he was, rightfully, calling us good-intentioned white folks out:   

I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are "proving" that they are "with us." But the hard truth is this isn't helping to solve America's racist problem. The Negroes aren't the racists. Where the really sincere white people have got to do their "proving" of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America's racism really is—and that's in their own home communities; America's racism is among their own fellow whites. That's where sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.    

Yes, most of the anti-racist work needs to be done in white minds and in white communities.

**
Every Monday, between 4:45 and 6:00pm, POP rallies in front of the Rodino Federal Building on Broad Street in Newark to demand that New Jersey police officers who have shot unarmed black people in recent years be held accountable for their deaths and that the U.S. Attorney start official investigations and potentially bring civil rights charges against these officers.  Yesterday, POP held its 75th consecutive “Justice Monday.”  

Of the 75 Mondays, I’ve made it to only five or six myself.  There are many practical reasons I have not been a regular attendee.  I just couldn’t make it this or that day.  Some Mondays, however, I convince myself not to go: They will be there next week…What good does it really do?… Yes, the U.S. Attorney is in the building, but it’s preaching to the choir on Broad Street… I care but it’s not ‘my main issue,’ so I’ll go to POP’s meeting with the guest speaker next week to make up for it.

And yet still other times, it is my suburban upbringing and my lack of courage which subconsciously get the best of me and convince me not to go.  That is, when I look at the macro-picture, I can see so clearly that blacks are unfairly targeted and discriminated against at all levels of the criminal justice system.  Thus, I am a supporter of the movement for black lives.  However, in particular cases, I sometimes find myself second-guessing the movement’s specific calls: Well what if he just listened to what the police officer said initially?... What if he wasn’t selling loose cigarettes?... What if he just dropped the toy gun?  Those thoughts are obviously the product of my white-privileged upbringing.  The assumption is if you follow the law, you’ll be fine.  All of my interactions with police officers, including the ones I ran away from in Ingleside, Texas (and got caught by), have been positive.  Both the past and the present prove that black people should not make those same assumptions and same positive associations.  While there are no police officers in my family, my family’s background is closer to that of most police officers than to that of the victims of police shooting.  Because of these doubts and these associations, I have often lacked the courage to speak about racial injustice and police brutality in white audiences, which despite current residency in Newark, is my actual home audience.  

Meanwhile, the police officer who shot Philando Castile in Minnesota was found not guilty.

Yesterday, as I was listening to a panel from the United National AntiWar Coalition’s conference and thus settling into “my main issue” of war/peace/demilitarization, I was delightfully surprised to find Larry Hamm as the last speaker on the panel. (The whole panel is good, but I especially recommend Larry at the 1:20:00 mark and also David Swanson at the 52:00 mark).   Larry is the chairman of POP and is always an encyclopedic-yet-inspiring speaker.  Many years after Malcolm called us out, Larry rightfully called us out:   

Today, more than ever before, we need a peace movement.  The threat of war, wars abroad, and world war is greater than it’s ever been.  But, the peace movement will not rise to the level that it needs to rise unless it is closely and directly connected to the black liberation struggle in the United States of America.  And let me say this, the black liberation movement will not be able to achieve its aims and goals unless we are connected to the peace movement and the other movements that exist here in the United States of America.  And it is this dialectic that has bedeviled us for decades and continues to bedevil us, and it is so important that somehow we struggle to navigate this contradiction and overcome the differences that have kept our people’s movements apart.  At critical times, we’ve come together and in those times we achieved success.  But we have not been able to build that glue to hold us together long enough so that we could in fact reach not just a quantitative change in our movement but a qualitative change also….  Consistency is key.  No one protest in one week in one year is not going to do it, but we have to assail the doors of oppression with the battering ram of protest until those doors are broken down….  This is so important that we link these two struggles….  And the peace movement: See, it’s one thing to invite black people to a conference.  It’s one thing to invite prominent black authors and writers and speakers to speak at gatherings, but the real question is what happens at the local level when these conferences are over.  I’m going to tell you what happens.  Black people demonstrate against police brutality and the white people who demonstrate for peace don’t show up at those demonstrations and that practice has to come to an end, brothers and sisters. And likewise, I say to my black comrades here in this room, we can’t look at the peace movement as a white thing.  It’s a people’s thing, if war destroys everybody.  And, I get this in my community—“well, we’re not going to go to this, that’s the white people’s thing.”  No, if you’re a revolutionary, you got to fight on all fronts….  We have to have multidimensional thinking….  This is a multi-dimensional system that oppresses us in a myriad of ways….  Let us struggle to find ways to bring our movements together, not just at the conference, but bring these movements together in the streets….       


Larry’s unexpected morning admonishment was enough to get me to the afternoon’s Justice Monday.  The work continues, in hearts and minds and on streets. 


Monday, June 26, 2017

Korea Peace Network Conference

A peace deal is possible (and has been close at hand in the near past).  War is not inevitable.  Check out the videos from the Korea Peace Network Conference, from a couple weeks ago at George Washington University.  I especially recommend the two keynotes.  "We have to deal with North Korea as it is, and not as we wish it to be."  
Donald Trump wants war with North Korea. Tell President Moon we support diplomacy. 

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Give Us Barabbas!

And the crowd yelled, “Give us Barabbas!”

Five months ago, while the television in the cafeteria broadcasted Trump’s inauguration and after he took the oath of office, the cameras showed the mass of people cheering for him.  The particular size of that mass of people became an unexpected cause of concern for the new president.  Regardless of whether it was the largest crowd ever assembled for an inauguration, or in human history for that matter ("Period."), a significant number of people did cheer for the Trump that day.

I initially had my back to the TV on purpose, but the spectacle of the moment made me watch.  I felt anger and nausea and still some shock and disbelief.  And, those were the first words that I could verbalize: “And the crowd yelled, ‘Give us Barabbas!’”  A mostly sympathetic and cursorily-biblically-literate faculty audience gave a hearty chuckle, and then I grabbed my Tupperware and headed to my classroom.  My paraphrased biblical verse was not planned.  It was a gut reaction.
   
Two months earlier, on the evening of November 8, when it became apparent that majorities in a sufficient number of states had voted this malignant narcissist man-child for the nation’s highest office, a different gospel image had come from the gut: Jesus weeping over Jerusalem from afar.  

I guess all those years of church stay under your skin, whether you want them to or not.  I don’t quote scripture often (or ever?), but these two images surfaced on November 8 and January 20, and I keep returning to them since.  In the interim, I have gone to look up the actual verses.

November 8: Lk 19: 41-42: As he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.”  January 20: Lk 23:18: But all together they shouted out, “Away with this man! Release Barabbas to us.”  Or, Jn 18:40: They cried out again, “Not this one but Barabbas!”

No, Hillary Clinton, was neither exactly “what makes for peace” in the former verse nor the other choice vis-a-vis Barabbas in the latter verse.  But, still: Donald Trump?  What the fuck?

The majority of self-identifying Christians in the United States voted for Trump.  Furthermore, the majority of self-identifying Catholics voted for him.  When I first heard these exit-poll numbers, I was not entirely surprised.  The polling had confirmed the emptiness of American Christianity once again.  So many of our churches: homes to “broods of vipers,” as the Baptist might say.  Trump might have been the outsider candidate, or the businessman candidate, or the America-first candidate, or the celebrity candidate, or simply just the non-Clinton candidate, but how the hell was he the Christian candidate?  What gospel are we reading?      

The teacher said, “You’re fired! … Who wants to be a millionaire? (different show I know, but same gospel) … They’re rapists … I alone can fix it!”  And, we replied, “USA! USA! … Lock her up! … Celebrity apprentices, make all of us! … Give us Barabbas!”  Throw in a couple words about abortion and "two Corinthians" amidst the hate and bloviating, and that makes him the Christian favorite.  What a joke.  What a sick, dangerous joke.  Count me out, I say.  

Thus, it has been hard to go to church in the meantime.  Especially a white suburban church like Saint Jude’s when we are visiting Chalfont.  There, the fast-food Eucharist has nothing to say about the bully-in-chief.  All the factors in the election aside—the Clinton campaign’s strategic mistakes, the now-mythical white working class, low voter turnout, potential Russian meddling.  All of them aside, Christians overwhelmingly voted for a bully.  Now, the bully has nukes.

Otis Moss III animates this story, which is as old as religion itself, in a spirited (pre-Trump) sermon, "I Love Jesus but Can't Stand the Church" .

*** 

Despite myself, despite my self-righteousness, despite my estrangement with American Christianity, and despite rational analysis that sometimes points to no hope or no meaning, these are the things and people I have found the most solace and hope in, oddly and sometimes accidentally: Saints Francis and Clare, Pope Francis, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, the Hebrew prophets, the Quakers, the Mennonites, the eco-theology and poetry of Wendell Berry, the spirit of Daniel Berrigan, my mother-in-law’s farm animals, the witness of (friends) Jesuit Sean and Catholic Peace Fellowship Shawn, the nuns, Richard Rohr’s daily emails, Krista Tippett’s On Being interviews, the prayer circles of Standing Rock, and the lamentations of the (black) mothers of the (American) disappeared.  Somehow this stuff has stuck under my skin, too, and these teachers have been patient with me.  

Springsteen writes in his recent memoir, "As I grew older, there were certain things about the way I thought, reacted, behaved.  I came to ruefully and bemusedly understand that once you're a Catholic, you're always a Catholic.  So I stopped kidding myself.  I don't often participate in my religion but I know somewhere...deep inside...I'm still on the team."

So, despite all, count me in.   

Friday, June 16, 2017

How to Revive the Peace Movement in the Trump Era

Daniel May, writing for The Nation, posits:

Over the past 75 years, the United States has built the greatest war-making force the world has ever known. Today, our country boasts an infrastructure of global surveillance, flying killer robots, and floating aircraft carriers, all administered from a network of more than 800 military bases in over 70 countries. In recent decades, we decided to erase from that infrastructure any semblance of democratic accountability, allowing the president to make war almost anytime, anywhere, for any reason.
This year, we put at the helm of this global killing regime a reality-TV star who has promised to “bomb the shit” out of our enemies, attack the families of terrorists, and reinstitute torture—and who, in February, proposed increasing the already bloated military budget by $54 billion. Imagine the response of this president to a significant terrorist attack, the damage to our democracy and our world that he might unleash. It helps clear the mind.  In the face of such a nightmare, how do we build the peace movement we need?
Read the rest of his excellent, thorough article "How to Revive the Peace Movement in the Trump Era"

Upcoming events

1. June 16-18, Richmond, VA: The United National Anti-War Coalition 2017 Conference.  Talks will be live-streamed here.
2. June 22, 6p-9p, NY, NY: Friends Committee on National Legislation Advocacy Workshop.
3. August 9-13, Chicago, IL: Veterans for Peace 2017 National Convention: Education not Militarization.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Jeux sans Frontieres*

In 2007, we the crew of the USS Cowpens participated in "Foal Eagle," the annual "series of joint and combined ground, air, naval and special operations field exercises...designed in the spirit of the U.S.-South Korean mutual defense treaty of 1953."  In fact, during Foal Eagle 2007, I spent about a week onboard the ROKS Yang Manchun, a South Korean destroyer, as a "liaison naval officer" because my captain thought I was friendly, diplomatic, and/or expendable enough to sail with the Koreans instead of with my own ship.

Ten years later, Foal Eagle continues.  A couple months ago, the 2017 iteration took place alongside "Key Resolve," another bilateral, joint military exercise.  This is the context around and after which North Korea has increased its bellicosity.  The United States, in turn, has ratcheted up its posture. As President Trump declared, "We are sending an armada--very powerful."  (Except that we were not sending an armada.)

North Korea's increased aggression, particularly its missile tests, has rightfully alarmed U.S. media outlets, policy-makers, and citizens alike, in addition to alarming international observers and citizens of other nations, most especially South Korea.  The "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) strain of nuclear deterrence theory proposes that no side would (post-August 1945) strike first with a nuclear weapon because it would ensure a retaliatory strike and further retaliatory strikes and thus the potential destruction of the species and the planet.  It does assume "rational actors" are in charge, who won't willingly usher in the end of humanity.  Much of the world questions how rational Kim Jong-Un is and, before him, how rational his father Kim Jung-Il was.  Hence, there is always particular concern about North Korea.  (When the rest of the world now sees this campaign speech or watches this presidential Black History Month speech, it has even more reason to question how much the MAD/rational actor theses hold up.)

North Korea may likely be the most brutally repressive regime in the world.  Kim Jong-Un may likely be the least rational leader in the world.  However, solely focusing on North Korea's unpredictability misses much of the story.

If war between the United States and North Korea were to occur, it would at least partially be our fault, too.  These regular war games that occur off the Korean peninsula provoke the (ir)rational actor.  Furthermore, when U.S. media outlets discuss North Korea's nuclear capabilities, they rarely share the whole story of attempted and failed negotiations.  In 1993, 2005, and as recently as 2015, the United States helped thwart successful negotiations.  Noam Chomsky describes:
"China and North Korea proposed to freeze the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons systems. And the U.S. instantly rejected it. And you can’t blame that on Trump. Obama did the same thing a couple of years ago. Same offer was presented. I think it was 2015. The Obama administration instantly rejected it.
And the reason is that it calls for a quid pro quo. It says, in return, the United States should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on North Korea’s borders, which happen to include, under Trump, sending of nuclear-capable B-52s flying right near the border."
It begs the question of how serious the U.S. is about deescalating and demilitarizing the region.  Very little, I would argue.

Congressional Democrats and the media have rightfully been criticizing every wrongheaded move by Trump, and there have been many.  Yet, sadly, they have been less critical when it comes to war.  War and militarization is one of the last bipartisan issues.  This can be seen in regards to the reaction--or lack of reaction--to the Syria bombings, the "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, the Saudi arms deal, NATO-Russian tensions rising, and the North Korean escalation.

In 1983, escalation and missed signals during a different war game, "Able Archer 83," almost led to catastrophic nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Nate Jones and Peter Scoblic describe the exercise in detail for Slate and compare it our current folly:
"Nuclear miscalculation and escalation are also possible with adversaries besides Russia—most notably North Korea, which has worked for decades to build an arsenal of nuclear missiles. Currently, the United States and South Korea are conducting a massive war game involving tens of thousands of troops. Much like the Soviets in the 1980s, the North Koreans worry such games are just a rehearsal for an attack. In response, they have threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes and, as nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis has written, are practicing for war by conducting missile-launch exercises. Making matters significantly worse, both U.S. and North Korean doctrine call for the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict, meaning that the chance of a spark turning into a nuclear conflagration is extremely high. Able Archer 83 is a reminder not only that nuclear weapons are one of the few existential threats the United States and its allies face, but also that humility is key to the conduct of national security policy. The United States assumes that it is clear in communicating its intentions and understanding those of its enemies. It also tends to assume that it controls the consequences of its actions. Neither of these things is necessarily true. Misperception, chance, and accident are facts of history. In 1983, war was averted because of restraint. Unfortunately, President Trump is not known for self-control."
(In full disclosure, the Air Force intelligence officer whose inaction helped deescalate the situation is my wife's late grandfather, Leonard Perroots.)  And thus, considering the risks of militarization in East Asia and across the globe, what are we to do?  We have slightly more influence over our (ir)rational actor-in-chief than the North Koreans do over theirs.  Much responsibility lies with us.
We should stand against war and against war games.  In that spirit and in the spirit of Julia Ward Howe's original Mother's Day Proclamation, here are photos from the Mothers Day Peace Rally Newark NJ MLK Monument, hosted by NJ Against US War on Syria and in the Middle East #NJSaysNoToWar. (Photo credits to Bob Witanek).





Sunday, June 11, 2017

Trinity

I am grateful that I was able to share a reflection at Faith ND for today's Gospel.  Here is my best attempt: Faith ND June 11, 2017.