Moving Out

I did not want to empty my office in a blizzard. When a sunny and fairly warm Friday arrived early this month, it was time: I rented a U-Haul truck, and with considerable assistance from my friend John Cowan moved most of my things to a storage unit. Since then, only a few things remain, few enough that I can easily load them in the Prius C and be out of the church in about a half-hour when the Last Day comes.

I had packed my clavichord into its shipping case; it was the only large piece, joined by the white wooden chair made by my great-grandfather and a few other small pieces of furniture. The organ music went into boxes, saving out only what I needed for the remaining weeks. The books had come home bit by bit over the last month, a few in my carry bag every day. Photos and diplomas went into boxes, as did my CD recordings. I shifted my work to a laptop, packing away my desktop computer, a twin of one that is at home, to serve as its backup after we move. Thanks to Marie Kondo, surprisingly little needed to go into recycling, the dumpster, or the thrift store. I had already done most of that when I worked through my things, seeking those that spark joy and saying farewell to the rest.

And it is no longer my office. Nineteen years and more it has been, the longest I have been in one place in this lifetime. More of my waking hours were at the church than at home, and the office bore more of my personality than anything in our apartment.

In that lies a challenge for the coming year: can I find a Home in our new home, yet to be found? Beyond that, can I find a Life when so much of my life energy has been tied up in the church and its music?

I got a clue from a long interview with Tulsi Gabbard, the presidential candidate that I wholeheartedly support. To paraphrase, she spoke of the quiet life that would be her “selfish interest” as she called it, home in Hawaii, surfing every day. But asking “what do I want, what would make me happy” rather than finding the real happiness that is “service to God, service to others… service above self” leads to the question “What is it all for?”

If I craft a nice comfortable little niche, playing my clavichord and piano every day, reading books, doing nothing for others, then it is all about myself. But “Is today the day? Any day could be your last. What are you doing with this time?” That is why she is spending this winter in places like Iowa and New Hampshire instead of Hawaii, and why she walks the path that is hers. [these thoughts and quotes are from around the 42 to 46 minute mark in the video]

I do not know what path is mine, not after December 31. But after the political campaign is over, I plan to keep Tulsi’s bumper sticker on my Prius: “Service above self.” I will need that reminder even more in retirement than I do now.

----------------
As I wrote several months ago, I chose to support Tulsi because of her courage in standing up to the corrupt Clinton/DNC machine in the 2016 primaries and supporting Bernie Sanders, courage that was again displayed this week when she refused to support the rush to impeachment that is polarizing the country.

Back in May, I thought that I was finding in Tulsi a political candidate that I could follow and support. I did not then know that I was also finding a spiritual guide and example.

There are three other Democratic candidates that I admire and like: Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson. But on caucus night in a few weeks, I will stand up for Tulsi. And beyond that, whether she wins or (more likely) falls short, I will honor her and seek to live up to her example.

Tulsi Gabbard

In 2015-16, I supported Bernie Sanders. With millions of others, I watched as Mrs. Clinton stole the Democratic nomination from him, using the supposedly impartial Democratic National Committee as an arm of her campaign. “Democracy is messy,” I think Bernie said at the Democratic convention.

And I watched as Donald Trump became President of the United States.

Senator Sanders is running again, this time with a strong network of supporters and volunteers. They had an organizing day last Saturday, April 27, with three gatherings at homes in our county and thousands of similar gatherings across the country. I continue to respect Bernie, but this time, I am supporting a different candidate.

Tulsi Gabbard is a congresswoman from Hawaii. She came to my attention in 2016 when she endorsed Bernie, one of the few members of Congress to do so, and gave the nomination speech for Sanders at the Democratic National Convention.

She and Sanders are in agreement on most issues, with solidly progressive ideals. Bernie tends to emphasize domestic needs such as Medicare-for-all; Tulsi speaks constantly about stopping the stream of “regime-change” wars such as Iraq and Syria and Yemen and now Venezuela that are bleeding this country dry.

She is a long-shot among some twenty Democratic contenders. Like Bernie, she is loathed by the establishment. Unlike Bernie, she is going to have a hard time being heard, and she is not going to have the Big Money that some of the “safe” candidates will have to push their views in the media.

I commend to you this six-minute video, wherein an Afghan-American woman speaks her heart about the war that has destroyed her homeland and Tulsi responds. I think it gives a good sense of who she is, why she is running for president, and why it is going to be so difficult. Yes, she is a long shot. So was Bernie when he started, and he would have won on a level playing field. So was an obscure first-term senator from Illinois in 2007-08, some guy named Obama.

And that is what gives me a glimmer of hope. I think that Tulsi could come from nowhere in Iowa, as Obama did. But in 2007, it looked to me like Obama had a lot of money behind him. Tulsi is not going to have anything like that. If she is to win, it is going to have to be from the support of ordinary people. Like me.

And I am not going to be able to do much. I am barely able to hang on with my bounden duties as organist/choirmaster and husband. I have made financial contributions to both of them, Bernie and Tulsi, and will stand up for Tulsi on caucus night in February. And pray for both of them, and for this country.

Charlottesville

Much has been written and said about the white supremacist rally at Charlottesville over the weekend. I am a son of the South; my readers and friends know my respect for the Confederate States of America. Thus, I cannot be silent. Not when the supremacists marched under the Stars and Bars, and made a statue of Robert E. Lee the focus of their Saturday rally. Their actions dishonor the flag and the veterans who served under it. This is far from the worst of it, but it is something that should not be forgotten in the turmoil.

Let me be clear. I absolutely denounce white supremacy. And racism. And the hatred and persecution of Jews. Or anyone, for any reason.

Three observations:
- I have no doubt that Mr. Lee would be angrier than I am, and would disassociate himself from these people. In the months and years after the war, whenever someone would stoke the fires of hatred against the north, he would rebuke them, often heatedly. “We are all Americans now,” he said. I am certain that he would do the same today.
- There were racists among the Confederate soldiers, and more so among the politicians. But I think that the best of them would join Mr. Lee in denouncing the actions of the supremacists in Charlottesville and elsewhere.
- This is the work of our Adversary. Hate and fear are his strongest weapons. But he that is with us is greater than he that is in the world.

After last fall’s election, I wrote:

I suspect that the United States will be a darker, more divided, and more dangerous place in three or four years, most of all for people who are not of white European descent….

I think the stage is set for a genuinely progressive candidate to run against President Trump. By 2020, we will have a good idea what a Trump presidency is like, complete with Republican control of House and Senate and probably the Supreme Court. And I think a great many people by then will be ready for some genuine change.

The trouble is, there are more directions for change than one. The stage may also be set for a more effective candidate from the far right, perhaps a charismatic Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran with a fondness for armbands and torchlight parades. Mr. Trump’s campaign provided a model for how such a person could win an election in the United States. I suspect there are young adults who have been paying attention.

It has only been a few months, and we already have the torchlight parades. God help us.

[Added on Tuesday, August 15, the Assumption of the B.V.M.
I have a large photograph of Mr. Lee in my office. Like the pictures of J. S. Bach and others on the inside of my door, the icon of the Mother of God, the holy cards that lean up against my computer monitor to remind me of the saints, the photo of Mr. Lee is for me an icon, a window into the divine space where he lived his life as a faithful Episcopal layman. He reminds me to be gentle and forbearing with others, to treat everyone with respect, to act as a Christian gentleman no matter what defeats and failures may come, to react with patience and a calm spirit when others are angry. He teaches me to humbly commit all of my intelligence and ability to the tasks that lie before me, and to commit the results to Divine Providence.

I need these lessons now more than ever.

But I have removed his photograph and put it into a manila file. My office is too public and I do not want to provoke trouble. Upon reflection, I concluded that this is what he would do, given the circumstances. Mr. Lee does not need our monuments; he is at rest with the saints in glory.]

Sanders for President, Part Two

At the outset, I must say that I am delighted that Queen Hillary got her comeuppance, alongside the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream media.

I have not forgiven her for the manner in which she illegally torpedoed the Sanders campaign, using the supposedly impartial Democratic National Committee as an arm of her campaign and the news media as mouthpieces for her campaign propaganda.

I have not forgiven her for calling my people “deplorables.” It was a defining moment for me when I realized that it is precisely what she would have thought of my parents and virtually everyone that I grew up with.

I have not forgiven her for being in bed with the Wall Street bankers, for being obviously more comfortable with the Goldman Sachs executives than with unemployed coal miners or people at a food bank in Kimball, West Virginia.


I wish that Donald Trump could have lost the election, too. I suspect that his supporters (I am not one of them) will soon discover that, like Clinton, he has both “public” positions and private positions on every issue. I suspect that his views are even more subject to the winds of expediency than Mrs. Clinton’s, and that is saying a lot. I suspect that his anti-establishment talk is no more than that – empty words. He is likely to give an even larger share to the 1% and the corporations in tax breaks, at the ultimate expense of those who will someday, in one way or another, be presented with the bill. These are likely to be the children who sing in my choir and their peers, coming of age in the 2030’s and beyond. I grieve for them.

I suspect that the United States will be a darker, more divided, and more dangerous place in three or four years, most of all for people who are not of white European descent.

Senator Sanders (born 1941) is not young; he will be pushing eighty by the 2020 campaign. Six months ago, I would have said Senator Elizabeth Warren would have been an acceptable second choice as a progressive candidate, but not after her shamefully enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton, when an endorsement of Sanders might have made a difference. “We trusted you,” hecklers cried during her speech at the Democratic convention; I hope that none of us will ever again trust Senator Warren.

But, whoever it might be, I think the stage is set for a genuinely progressive candidate to run against President Trump. By 2020, we will have a good idea what a Trump presidency is like, complete with Republican control of House and Senate and probably the Supreme Court. And I think a great many people by then will be ready for some genuine change.

The trouble is, there are more directions for change than one. The stage may also be set for a more effective candidate from the far right, perhaps a charismatic Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran with a fondness for armbands and torchlight parades. Mr. Trump’s campaign provided a model for how such a person could win an election in the United States. I suspect there are young adults who have been paying attention.

[Edited Nov. 15 to add: I received an anonymous comment on this post, and deleted it. Upon reflection it deserves better than that, and the person raises valid questions which serve as a counterpoise to what I wrote. I continue to maintain, as I did after the Democratic Convention, that I would never vote for Mrs. Clinton even if my vote handed the election to Mr. Trump. I remain comfortable with that decision and consider it thoroughly congruent with my Christian faith. I note that I did take action: I volunteered for the Sanders campaign and gave it financial support, partly because he would have easily defeated Mr. Trump. I gratefully accept this person's prayers for my hardness of heart.

Because there is no way to un-delete a comment, here it is, pasted from the notification e-mail:]

You write: "for calling my people deplorables." I hear that you were personally affronted and that your pride on behalf of your family and old friends was wounded. But, please, help me track both your logic and the juxtaposition with your professed Christian faith.

I have read the statement made by Secretary Clinton to which you refer, along with her apology for that statement. Secretary Clinton called out some Trump supporters for racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and islamaphobia. The days since the election have offered more than 200 episodes of harassment and violence committed in President-Elect Trump's name and verified by the SPLC and ACLU. It would appear that some followers and supporters of P-E Trump do indeed feel lifted up, validated, and emboldened to pursue acts of racism, sexism, homophobia, and islamaphobia.

Questions for your reflection:

1. Did you engage with Secretary Clinton's apology for the comments that personally offended you and your family? And if you did, how? And if you did not, why not? And what does your response illuminate about your faith and discipleship?

2. Having withheld your vote from Senator Clinton, how will you reconcile your conscience with the harms now visited upon women, people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, refugees, and our brothers and sisters who are Muslim and Jewish? You, as a white man, hold a privileged and protected status on the streets our our nation that none of the groups just named are able to enjoy. You have contributed to the burdens heaped upon their shoulders. I do hope you will be somewhere besides your organ bench when it comes to offering tangible protection to those groups. Your loudly proclaimed discipleship calls you to nothing else.

I lament and pray for your hardness of heart.

Free Leonard Peltier

As of this writing, Native American activists and supporters are engaged in peaceful protest at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

Over the weekend, they were attacked by a heavily militarized force of police and national guards from several states, in action reminiscent of the old-time union-busting work of Pinkertons, FBI agents, state police, and the U.S. Army in the Appalachian coal fields (examples: the Battle of Matewan, the Battle of Blair Mountain). It is also very much in the spirit of the “Peacekeepers” from the Hunger Games books.

It also recalls the American Indian Movement and the 71-day siege of their encampment at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973, an event that is now hardly a footnote in the history books.

As a part of the aftermath of this “incident,” the activist Leonard Peltier was framed for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents. In a highly irregular trial, he was sentenced to two life terms and remains in prison, over forty years later. Among those calling for Peltier’s release over this period: Amnesty International (which considers him a prisoner of conscience), the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela.

Several presidents have failed to pardon him, most notably Bill Clinton, who instead on his final day as president pardoned his buddy Marc Rich, reportedly in return for $1 million in gifts to Clinton-related groups, such as Hillary’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and the Clinton Library Foundation. Peltier had no rich friends to match such an “offer.”

Our presiding bishop, Michael Curry, has visited the Standing Rock encampment. He has called this standoff “another Selma.” But that was in the middle of a movement where a great many people, black and white, cared what happened, and the scenes of police dogs, tear gas, and brutality inflicted on the marchers did much to change public opinion. The Native Americans are a much smaller minority group, and I often think that most people in the mainstream culture simply do not care what happens to them. They are essentially invisible.

They have been trampled by the U.S. government from the beginning of this nation. It looks very much like it is going to happen again at Standing Rock. Yes, there may be public outcry for a while – as there was during and after the Wounded Knee incident. And yes, most people will forget and move on.

And, more than likely, there will be one or more Native American scapegoats to join Leonard Peltier in federal prison.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

****
Today is the Feast of All Saints.
I am not at all saying that Mr. Peltier is a saint; I have no idea.
And I am not saying that all of the people encamped at Standing Rock are saints.
But there are quite a few of them -- including at least one of my friends, a priest who reads this blog -- that are out there in the desert because of their faith, whether they see it as faith in the Christian God or by some other path.

Some of them may become martyrs before all is done.
Martyrdom or not, the path to sainthood can take you to places like Standing Rock, and to situations where it is not at all clear whether you will walk away whole in body, or at all.

The fruit of these days and weeks, however it turns out, may lie dormant for a long time, as it did after Blair Mountain, when it looked like the United Mine Workers of America was dead and gone. It was many years before they again became strong, and the memory of Blair Mountain and Matewan was a part of that.

Jimmy Carter: "Stay engaged. Stay involved."

Jimmy Carter Convention Speech
Tuesday, July 26th, 2016
2016 Democratic National Convention

The full message, pre-recorded by President Carter, is only two-and-a-half minutes, so you might be willing to take the time to listen to all of it. My impression is that hardly anyone in the convention hall was paying the slightest attention. One has to dig around a bit to find any mention of it. President Carter has, on the whole, not been well treated by his party in the years since he was in office. From the first, he was outside of the establishment, and even being elected President was not enough to bring him into the fold, it seems.

Because so few people would have noticed, I think it important to highlight one part of his message, the part that I think was what the former President most wanted to communicate:

I thank Senator Sanders for energizing and bringing so many young people into the electoral process. To all of you young Americans, I say:

Stay engaged. Stay involved. And be sure to vote this November.

The parent site for this link appears to be a good source for those who might wish to listen to any of the convention speeches; they are all here, or will be once they have been presented.

I have heard President Carter, whom I revere. I am not interested in the rest of them.
Not even Senator Sanders.

I am not surprised that the allegations we have made all year about the Democratic National Committee being essentially a branch of the Clinton campaign have proven to be true. And I am not surprised that Senator Sanders is trying to bring his followers into line to support Secretary Clinton. “Democracy is messy,” I think he said.

I cannot bring myself to listen to Sanders' speech, nor that of Senator Warren, whom I used to admire (but no longer).

Nonetheless, on a day when I am angry, and almost in tears over the direction our people have chosen – either Secretary Clinton or Mr. Trump – I repeat what I wrote a few weeks ago, quoting from Robert E. Lee:

I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It is particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example.

I do not see any good way forward for our country. Or rather, I think that (as with the choice between Reagan and Carter) we have been presented with a good choice, and chosen the path of darkness.

I want to tune out, in disgust at the whole sorry mess. I know that many other Sanders supporters want to tune out, especially many of the young people, finding out for the first time how ugly it can be – a lesson I first learned under the tutelage of Richard M. Nixon, with a refresher course under Ronald Reagan.

And I think, again, of Mr. Lincoln sitting in that telegraph office, or late into the night in the White House. And of Lt. Col. Faith on Hill 1221 in the freezing cold.

Stay engaged. Stay involved.

What will this look like?

I recall the young volunteers and paid staff for the Sanders campaign with whom I worked before the Iowa caucuses. What strikes me in retrospect is how different they were from me; it was a cultural divide. They lived via social media; they worked hard, some of them sleeping on the floor of the campaign office in the final weeks.

They believed in progressive ideals, things like gender rights, inter-cultural respect, a guaranteed minimum wage, single-payer health care, breaking up the Wall Street banks. I share these beliefs. But they believed they could actually do something about them.

Most of them absolutely loathed Mrs. Clinton, and I suspect that they still do. They recognized that she embodies the Status Quo. Four (or eight) more years of things exactly as they are, but a little worse every year. And the alternative -- Mr. Donald Trump, with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, firm control of all three branches of the Federal government, and Republicans controlling most of the states as well -- might be even worse.

What now?

Perhaps it might be working for "down-ticket" candidates, such as the two people on a "Sanders ticket" that will be on the ballot this fall for our local County Commission. Perhaps it might mean running for office yourself.

Here is a cold, hard fact that must be addressed. Since 2009, some 900 legislative seats have been lost to Republicans in state after state throughout this country. In fact, the Republican Party now controls 31 state legislatures and controls both the governors’ mansions and statehouses in 23 states. That is unacceptable.

We need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers helped us make political history during the last year. These are people deeply concerned about the future of our country and their own communities. Now we need many of them to start running for school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships. State and local governments make enormously important decisions and we cannot allow right-wing Republicans to increasingly control them.

I hope very much that many of you listening tonight are prepared to engage at that level.... I have no doubt that with the energy and enthusiasm our campaign has shown that we can win significant numbers of local and state elections if people are prepared to become involved. I also hope people will give serious thought to running for statewide offices and the U.S. Congress. (Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a speech on June 16, 2016 at Burlington, Vermont)

To any young adults (and older ones, too) who have every right to feel discouraged: "Stay engaged. Stay involved." It is going to be a hard and long fight. Senator Sanders is not likely to live long enough to see the things he believes in come to pass. You might not, either, even if you are an idealistic eighteen-year-old in your first election.

Today (as I update this post on Saturday) is the Feast of William Wilberforce, M.P.
Read about him; he is a reminder of what can happen, with God's help.

From the bio by James Kiefer (linked above):

[Wilberforce] introduced his first anti-slavery motion in the House of Commons in 1788, in a three-and-a-half hour oration that concluded: "Sir, when we think of eternity and the future consequence of all human conduct, what is there in this life that shall make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice and the law of God!" The motion was defeated. Wilberforce brought it up again every year for eighteen years, until the slave trade was finally abolished on 25 March 1806. He continued the campaign against slavery itself, and the bill for the abolition of all slavery in British territories passed its crucial vote just four days before his death on 29 July 1833. A year later, on 31 July 1834, 800,000 slaves, chiefly in the British West Indies, were set free.

Bernie Sanders, revisited

It has been a long campaign.
When Senator Sanders announced his bid for the Presidency more than a year ago, I wrote this:

I have, once or twice, spoken well of former senator H. Clinton in these pages. In my opinion, she did good work as secretary of state [I would no longer characterize what she did to the people of Libya and Syria as "good work"] and in some of the other gigs on her resume (the United Nations, U.S. Senate, First Lady). And there was a time when I really liked her husband. I voted for him twice, with enthusiasm.

But since those days, in my opinion Bill and Hillary have sold out to the Wall Street bankers. There is probably not a better political mind on this earth than Bill C.'s, and perhaps the two of them recognize that H. cannot be elected without large piles of corporate money.

Since announcing her candidacy, Hillary has sounded like a progressive. In my humble opinion, she is lying. As president, she will be no more progressive than President Obama. For all his talk of "hope" and "change," he likewise has been a subservient tool of Wall Street.

But Bernie Sanders? He is the real thing.

It is not, in truth, altogether “done.” Ms. Clinton still needs all of her “superdelegates” to fulfill their pledges to vote for her at the Democratic Convention next month, for without them – that is, the smug, comfortable political establishment – she does not have enough delegates to be nominated. I would be surprised if Senator Sanders can get any of them to come over to his side.

The Sanders campaign has sent daily e-mails to their financial supporters – the millions of people who have given small contributions, on average less than $30. From today’s e-mail, following last night’s results:

You ask anyone running for office what they hate most about it, and I guarantee that virtually every single candidate will say that it's raising money.

The way that you have helped me run for president is absolutely unprecedented. I get to talk to voters, while my opponent has to talk to donors.

The candidates we're endorsing for other races are seeing similar results. We funded state legislative candidates' entire campaigns through one email. We completely transformed several congressional races because of your generosity….

What we are proving… is that it is possible to take back our country from the billionaire class. It is possible to stop millionaires and billionaires from buying our democracy. And we can do it $27 at a time.

I have supported some of these candidates with small donations, alongside my financial support for Bernie Sanders. I think that this may be the direction that Sanders wants to take the progressive movement that he has kickstarted.

Our state, Iowa, had a primary election yesterday. Not for president -- that was all done at the Caucuses -- but for the U.S. Senate and Congressional seats, and local offices. For the three open seats on the county Board of Supervisors, there was a “Sanders slate” – three candidates who had been Sanders precinct captains in February. Two of them were elected as the Democratic nominees.

It is a start.


I do hereby pledge that I will never vote for Hillary Clinton.
Not even if Sanders calls on his supporters to do so.
Not even if my vote were the deciding vote that gave the election to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump strikes a responsive chord in me, with his scorn for political correctness and establishment politics. But I do not sense that this responsive chord is of the Spirit; quite otherwise, when one considers some of his views.

I will consider voting for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. She appears to be a good and honorable person, and my political views align with the Greens, more so than with the Democrats (especially as they are nowadays).

Most likely, I will write in “Bernie Sanders.”
I think a lot of people will do that.

I was bitterly angry this morning as I read the news reports, especially Sanders’ loss in California, and the gloating commentaries in the mainstream media. A lot of Sanders supporters are angry. Many of them were already alienated from the political process, but saw this as one last chance to have a voice in the manner in which America is governed.

And then I looked across to the photo of Robert E. Lee that is on my desk, a photo taken after he had suffered a defeat far worse and more final.

I think it is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony. It is particularly incumbent upon those charged with the instruction of the young to set them an example. (from a letter to the trustees of Washington College, where Mr. Lee was serving as President after the War)

And I looked at a quote on a magnet attached to my filing cabinet, from another great leader whose cause fell to defeat and whose people continue to suffer from it:

Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children (Sitting Bull, 1877)

Wednesday morning is one of the times appointed for the Great Litany. Thus, I sang it at the end of Matins, as is my custom. This day, I appended the Supplication (BCP p. 154), which is “for use… especially in times of war, or of national anxiety, or of disaster.”

I do not think that this is going to end well.

We humbly beseech thee, O Father, mercifully to look upon our infirmities; and, for the glory of thy Name, turn from us all those evils that we most justly have deserved; and grant that in all our troubles we may put our whole trust and confidence in thy mercy, and evermore serve thee in holiness and pureness of living, to thy honor and glory; through our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 155)

Doing my part

On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country… (from the Scout Oath)

In 2004, I gave too much money to the campaign of Sen. John Kerry. Never again.

In 2007-08, I gave too much time to the campaign of Gov. Bill Richardson. His local headquarters was across the street from our church (in a different part of the same building as this year’s Clinton headquarters), and it was too easy to go over there for an hour or two of volunteer work after my day’s work at the church. That quickly became two or three hours into the evenings, and half-days on Saturdays and sometimes Sunday afternoons. My involvement grew and grew, until it was dominating my life in the final weeks before the Iowa Caucus.

I am glad that I did what I could, and I have some good memories (and a few bad ones, and lasting resentment against the Obama people). But never again.

This time, I was determined to stay out of it. I would show up on caucus night and stand up for Sen. Bernie Sanders (as I wrote here), but that would be it. I am eight years older, and no longer have the energy to do much.

But “Bernie” is one of the few politicians I admire. Alone among the candidates on both sides, he will take on the billionaires and use anti-trust legislation to dismantle the “Too Big to Fail” banks – which are much larger and more powerful now than when they caused the 2008-09 financial crisis. He alone will work toward a sensible single-payer national health care plan – something Obama promised and did not deliver.

As summer moved into fall, and then winter, I was increasingly guilty about doing nothing. “I am too busy,” I told myself. There was Advent, then Christmas. I came to realize how badly I would feel if he loses the caucus (which is very possible, even likely) and I had done nothing – the one presidential candidate in all these years since Jimmy Carter for whom my support is absolute.

Last Friday afternoon, I walked down to the local Sanders headquarters. I signed up so that they would have my name in the list for their planning – I remember from the Richardson campaign how important that is for them, and how difficult it was to get people to actually commit. And I volunteered to give them three full days: the Monday and Tuesday before the caucus, and the Caucus Day itself, Monday, February 1.

Three days. I can at least do that much for my country.

Sanders for President

Senator Bernie Sanders announces bid for Democratic nomination

I live in Iowa. In this state, the political parade has been underway for months, at least since the November 2014 election and to some degree even before that as presidential hopefuls crisscrossed the state to "help" their candidates for congress, senate and governor.

I have, once or twice, spoken well of former senator H. Clinton in these pages. In my opinion, she did good work as secretary of state and in some of the other gigs on her resume (the United Nations, U.S. Senate, First Lady). And there was a time when I really liked her husband. I voted for him twice, with enthusiasm.

But since those days, in my opinion Bill and Hillary have sold out to the Wall Street bankers. There is probably not a better political mind on this earth than Bill C.'s, and perhaps the two of them recognize that H. cannot be elected without large piles of corporate money.

Since announcing her candidacy, Hillary has sounded like a progressive. In my humble opinion, she is lying. As president, she will be no more progressive than President Obama. For all his talk of "hope" and "change," he likewise has been a subservient tool of Wall Street.

But Bernie Sanders? He is the real thing.

Mind you, he has absolutely no chance of being elected. None. Zero.
And were he to win, he would be unable to do anything, not with the Congress firmly in Republican hands.

In the fall of 2007, I spent far too much time and energy supporting someone whom I thought was a good candidate (most decidedly not Barack Obama). And before that, I put a lot of energy into supporting John Kerry, whom I thought (and still consider) a decent human being, and whom I honor for his courageous opposition to the Vietnam War (see, for example, the Winter Soldier investigation).

I do not think that I have the time or energy to do this sort of thing for Sanders, as much as I would like to.

But on caucus night, I am going to be standing in his corner, even if I am standing there all by myself.

Scottish Independence

The Scottish vote on the question of independence is this Thursday, September 18. I am among the many Americans whose ancestry is more Scottish than otherwise, so I look on this with interest. And I am a Son of the South, where we were not given an opportunity to vote on secession. Our wishes were clear, but they could not prevail against Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and their armies [I spare a thought for the men in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg one hundred fifty years ago, and in the Shenandoah Valley, where Gen. Sheridan was to defeat the Confederate forces there in battles on Sept. 19 and Sept. 21-22, freeing the Yankees to burn the Valley from end to end, destroying all the season's crops and turning it into a wasteland going into winter...]

If it were me, my vote would be a resounding YES, remembering Wallace, the Jacobite risings, the highland clearances, and noting the manner in which the financiers of the City of London currently suck all the life out of the realm (as Wall Street does in this country), leaving little but dregs for the likes of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

But I would not want to stray very far; I would remember fighting alongside the English in three centuries of wars. And I would still want to be a subject of the Queen and her successors. That is not directly at question tomorrow, and will take considerable sorting out, should the Yes vote prevail. So will many other things.

On Thursday, it is up to the Scottish people. I wish my Scottish friends – those in our companion diocese of Brechen, and elsewhere in that great Land – the very best, however it turns out.

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I have been away from the Music Box for too long, and should not be taking the time this evening to write these words. I do not know when I can return more regularly, but you, my readers, are in my thoughts. May God's blessings be with you.

election results: friendship trumps money

Despite all the money the Koch brothers and their “Americans for Prosperity” poured into our city council election, their four candidates were trounced. Their candidate for mayor got only 27% of the vote; none of their three council candidates got any more than 25%.

In my previous posting, I expressed surprise that the AFP had not resorted to personal attacks: as it transpired, they saved that for Monday, the day before the election. Their mailing-of-the-day featured photos of the incumbent council members and proclamation of the tax breaks they had given themselves as council members. True, in a way: their taxes were reduced. But so were everyone else's, by exactly the same rate; it was an across-the-board reduction in property taxes, normally the sort of measure beloved of “fiscally conservative” groups such as AFP.

But the direct mailings, the painting of our town as a little Detroit, the half-truths, the robocalls, the blizzard of advertising – all of it was to no avail.

I spent the day as election chair for the smallest of the six city precincts, sworn to “prevent fraud, deceit and abuse in the conduct of this election” along with my two co-workers at the polling place. It quickly became clear that the turnout would be heavy, and that we would run out of ballots. I called this in to the county auditor's office, with increasing desperation as we dwindled to less than a score of ballots by midday. Just in time, a delivery of forty-eight more ballots arrived, followed by a second delivery in the late afternoon, after the auditor's office had printed another 1800 ballots to be divided among the six precincts. They were needed: it was a record turnout, higher than either of the last two presidential elections.

One other thing became clear: one of the non-AFP candidates lived in our precinct, and it seemed like every voter on her street and the neighboring streets were coming out to vote, a steady stream of them all day long. In the end, she gained the last of the three open council seats by a margin of about 150 votes. This lady was a traditional candidate: a thirty-year resident of the town, a “soccer mom” who put all her children through the local schools and was active in parent-teacher organizations and civic activities. Every time in the last twenty years or more that there has been a community drive or festival or event or need for volunteers, she has been there, working alongside others to do the grinding (and often unappreciated) hard work that undergirds such activities.

And in this election, that trumped the outside money. Her neighbors and friends came out and voted for her. It was as simple as that.

an insurance update, and the election

Here is an article from the New England Journal of Medicine about what happens to Americans who do not have medical insurance.

The author states that many of his clinic's uninsured patients do not understand that under the Affordable Care Act, they might be able to get insurance. All that they have heard is that they will be fined for not having insurance, and the opponents of the ACA have seen to it that they do not hear the other part: the subsidies to help low-income people pay for it – sufficient subsidies for many people among the "working poor" to entirely pay the premium.

That is, unless they fall in the “Medicaid Gap.” The intent of the ACA was that for persons who are below the poverty line, the states would expand Medicaid (with financial support from the federal government) to cover them. But many “Red State” governments have refused to do so, leaving lots of their citizens without any coverage. For example, in Mississippi, a single adult's monthly income must be under $403 a month to be eligible for Medicaid ($4,836/year). For a couple: $542/month. The poverty line is $11,490 a year for one person, $15,510 for a couple. A lot of people fall in that gap, and even with the ACA, they will continue to be uninsured. But they must blame their state government for that, not “Obamacare.” Also, they could blame the Supreme Court: their ruling overturned the original requirement in the ACA that the states expand Medicaid to include everyone below the poverty line.


As for me and my wife, it turns out that we will not need the Health Care Marketplace after all. To their credit, my wife's employer, the Kohl's Corporation, has revamped their medical insurance, and we have now registered for coverage beginning January 2014. It is better coverage than our Blue Cross policy at a discount of about $200 a month from what we are currently paying.

Where the ACA enters into this is the fact that we do not have to worry about insurance and pre-existing conditions if my wife loses her job – a constant possibility in retail.

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As for the upcoming election, we are now receiving a flyer from “Americans for Prosperity” in each day's mail. Yesterday's compared our town to Detroit, insinuating that we are on the fast track to a similar bankruptcy and ruin.

I worked in another political campaign several years ago, and I know how much it costs to send a bulk mailing to the voters of our town – about $4,000. Every day. When in past city elections, that was how much most of the candidates spent for the whole campaign.

And that is not counting the phone banks, the door-to-door canvassing, the advertising....

We are hearing a lot from the AFP, and almost nothing from the other candidates – their voices are being drowned out. And that is the plan.

A Local Election

Tuesday, November 5: The general election in our community (that is, the town of 20,000 where I live, which is not the same as the community in which I work) has only one matter on the ballot: the election of a mayor and three members of the city council.

Normally, such elections are of marginal interest, with low turnout. It may be different this time, thanks in part to the presence of Americans for Prosperity. If you are unfamiliar with them, you might take a moment to peruse the applicable Wikipedia article.

AFP is widely known for its leading role in the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election, and for its attacks on President Obama during the 2008 and 2012 elections. It also played an active role in the anti-union “budget reforms” of 2011 in Wisconsin.

What are they doing in my community? My theory is that we are something of a pilot project for them. Thanks to the Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling, they have so much money from conservative billionaires that they can now expand beyond national and state politics into the local arena.

Here is my analysis of their activity in this election:

- Eighteen months to two years in advance, identify a potential “hot button” local issue that falls within their purview. I believe that their interest in our specific issue is not genuine, but it gave them a starting place.

- Provide support for low-level “educational” activities on the issue. We started seeing yard signs, occasional flyers, and letters to the editor on the subject.

- Identify local people who take an interest in the issue, and groom selected persons as potential candidates. According to reports, AFP recruited their slate of local candidates in January or February of this year. None of them have any previous experience in elected office: this is a plus, for they have no past record to defend.

- Ideally, look for an election where a takeover can be made in one sweep. In our case, the long-time mayor is retiring, and three out of five seats on the council are up for election.

- Avoid direct financial support of any candidate, as it could be counterproductive. The presence of AFP has rightly become an issue in the campaign, and all of their candidates deny any direct support from AFP, though they admit to advice and logistical support. However, one other candidate stated that she was offered $20,000 by AFP to run, and she refused the money, sensing that there were "strings attached." She has been one of those attacking the AFP candidates for the "out-of-state support" that is behind them.

- Instead, funnel money into such activities as telephone “push” polls, advertising and direct mailings that avoid naming any specific candidates that happen to agree with the views expressed. AFP representatives from the state chapter say that as the election draws near, there will be door-to-door solicitation and "other educational efforts not tied to any candidate."

- Turn it into a one-issue election. Hammer on the selected issue at every opportunity; defuse any discussion of other potential issues. This has been the clear pattern in the three candidates' forums. By this time, thanks to almost two years of preparation, the selected issue is at least vaguely in the back of most voters' minds, even those who pay little attention to local politics (which is nearly all of them). In the final weeks, the goal is to bring the issue to the forefront of every voter's mind.

- Use sufficient funds so as to overwhelm what any local candidate could do. I have read estimates that past council candidates have spent sums in the area of $4,000 or $5,000. In this case, if the AFP money is counted, the amount per seat is more on the order of $20,000 and up. Be it noted that these estimates have been made by liberal organizations hostile to AFP's mission, so take them with a grain of salt.

So far, we have not seen the vicious personal attacks for which AFP became well-known in the Obama campaigns and various congressional campaigns. Such attacks would be more likely to backfire in a small-town election. But the direct mailings we have received are clearly from the same hands, down to the layout and graphic design. They tend to sensationalist one-liners that are at best misleading and sometimes entirely false.

I encourage you to watch for this pattern in your community. If you have local offices up for election on November 5, pay attention to them. Educate yourself about the candidates – it is much easier to do in this day through the Internet than it was in the old days.

shutdowns and hunger games

For what it is worth, the local crisis center has put out a call for help: the W.I.C. ("Women, Infants, and Children") nutrition program is shut down along with other federal agencies and programmes. The word has gone out via e-mail to our church members, and doubtless at other local churches. There is a limit to what we can do.

A Huffington Post article about this, written when it was still a prospect for the future.

Locally, they are honoring WIC food vouchers that have already been issued, but no more can be issued until the budget impasse is solved. The situation varies somewhat from state to state, depending on whether a state might be willing or able to fund it temporarily to avoid starving children.

It is of such as this that revolutions are made.

[Added some weeks later... I won't link to it here, but a speech by one of the senators from North Dakota brought my attention to how things have been on the Native American Reservations since the "sequester" began earlier this year. Part of the U.S.'s treaty obligations to the Sioux and other tribes was that, since they were being shoehorned into reservations where they could no longer make a living in the traditional way, the U.S. government would see to it that they are fed, clothed, etc. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has always been chronically underfunded, but was cut even more by the sequester. Here is an analysis of its effect. At this writing, the "shutdown" has been temporarily resolved, but the "sequester" is looking more like a permanent fixture.]

Obamacare and Me

Before Matins this morning, I turned on the computer and went to the official site for the Affordable Care Act.

When I saw their splashpage with the big title: "The Health Insurance Marketplace is Open!" I shed some tears. It has been a long time coming.

Many presidents, going back at least to Harry Truman, have sought affordable healthcare for Americans. Lyndon Johnson was the first to win a partial victory, by pushing Medicare through Congress. Harry Truman and his wife Bess were there when Johnson signed it into law in 1965, and were the first persons enrolled in the program.

That took care of the largest part of the issue: health care for persons over age 65. The rest should have been straightforward. It has not, however, proven easy. The debate over what became the Affordable Care Act (immediately labeled "Obamacare" by its detractors) is widely known, and I will not say more about it.

But it is perhaps worth a few minutes to relate how it affects me, a married person in his late fifties.

For a long time, I was a participant in the pension and healthcare plan of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Under their system (at least as it was in those days), the local church paid a fixed percentage of each employee's salary, which provided for a defined benefit pension and medical insurance. As they often said, it was a "community-based approach." Those who were well-paid (typically clergy) paid more, those who made less (typically lay employees, also clergy in smaller churches) paid less. All paid the same percentage, or rather the congregation paid on their behalf. It was (and remains) a thoroughly sensible approach.

Then I became an employee of the Episcopal Church.

Our diocese offers three medical insurance plans, and it is mandated by canon law that the local parish must pay the full cost of participation in these plans for the clergy. As it currently stands (2013), I may enroll in the insurance plan should I wish to do so. The cost for single-person coverage is about $9,000 a year; should I wish for my wife to also have insurance, the total cost would be slightly north of $20,000. The congregation would pay zero; it would all come out of my pocket -- which is not sufficiently deep for numbers like this.

Thus, my wife and I purchased individual coverage from the state Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliate. We are on the cheapest plan they offer, which has such a limited list of coverages that it does not cover what the ACA calls "essential health services." We are both in excellent health, but have had "pre-existing conditions" ruled out -- for me, there was no coverage for anything related to the eyes, because I am sufficiently nearsighted to be at high risk for retinal detachment. The deductible for this policy is $11,000 a year -- that much has to be spent in medical bills before the plan pays so much as a penny. The premium is about $500 a month, covering the two of us; this premium has approximately tripled during the twelve years that we have had the policy. This is a "high deductible health savings plan" and is accompanied by a Health Savings Account, to which we can make tax-free contributions, and we have done so every year, right up to the maximum allowed. This money sits in a HSA earning about 0.5% interest with a $25 annual fee eating away at it.

In my opinion, this is not a satisfactory arrangement. But it is the best we can do, balancing affordability with at least a minimum of insurance -- for, if you are uninsured in America, you are one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.

Correction: you WERE one accident away from bankruptcy. Today, that all changed.


I spent only a few minutes on the HealthCare.gov website; it is a busy day for them and their servers are maxed out. I downloaded a form that my employer will need to fill out, which is part of my proof that I cannot afford the insurance offered by my employer (it is well over the 9.5% of family income that is the cutoff). Our income falls easily within the range that should make us eligible for a subsidy on our premium payments. It looks promising; the best I can tell, we should be able to find coverage in the "Marketplace" and get by for no more than we currently pay, and receive much better coverage.

"Obamacare" is a term of derision coined by the program's detractors -- there are some deep-pocketed people out there who have funded a sophisticated program of dis-information about the law, and at this writing, the Republicans in Congress remain determined to kill the program. I use the term in the hope that "Obamacare" becomes a badge of honor for this president, who has staked everything on it. I believe that it will do as much to benefit the ordinary people of the U.S. as Social Security.

At the least, this American, who on the whole is not a fan of President Obama, wishes to thank him for bringing us to this day. My hat is off to you, Mr. President.

[I tip my hat also to Sen. Edward Kennedy, of blessed memory, for whom this was an issue of utmost importance. And Pres. Richard Nixon, who was among those who tried and failed to bring universal health care to Americans. His proposals back in the 1970's, built around a mandate for employer-provided insurance, have many likenesses to the Affordable Care Act as it now stands.]

The International Space Station

The commander of the ISS Mission 32, Sunita Williams, conducts a 25-minute tour of the ISS in November 2012.
LINK

Just seeing her and the other astronauts gliding through the passageways as if they were swimming is astonishing to an old science fiction fan such as I am. For all its faults, it is a Real Space Station. In orbit. Out there in Space.

Back in the old days, I was a Star Trek fan. I was a teenager when the original television series aired, with Captain Kirk, Scottie, Bones, Spock, and all the rest. My parents gave my sister and me special permission to stay up late this one night of the week to watch it with them on our black and white TV. Later on, I watched the Star Trek Next Generation series, and was a big fan of Deep Space Nine – for one thing, DS-9 included a character who took Religion seriously, something notably absent from the other incarnations of Star Trek, and from much of print science fiction.

For I devoured the books. I was a subscriber to the Science Fiction Book Club for decades, and likewise to the Analog science fiction magazine. Heinlein, Asimov, Poul Anderson, James White... later on Anne McCaffrey and the Pern novels (ah, Masterharper Robinton!!! And Menolly. And all the other harpers and musicians in those books... And the Dragons!!!). These days I read much less of the genre, indeed very little of it beyond the works of Carol Cherryh and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Among Bujold's early books was “Falling Free,” which I read in a four-part serialization in Analog with fabulous cover art based on the story by Michael Whelan (not, be it noted, the art from the later reprint that appears in the linked Wikipedia article, but rather this). Part of Bujold's point in this book was to explore what it would mean in a world of genetic engineering for one's engineering projects – living beings, in this case sentient beings – to become obsolete, a moral question that remains open. The characters who populate this story are the Quaddies – genetically engineered from Homo sapiens to be better suited for zero-gravity and life in space. Most easily noticed are their four arms (two of them in place of our legs). About the time that they are fully developed and there is a good-sized population ready to be sold and leased (for, being genetically-engineered corporate property, they are not “people” and thus have no rights), artificial gravity is invented, and the corporation is pulling the plug on the project, including killing all of the now-useless quaddies. It is a great story, and turns out well (the quaddies reappear in some of her later stories, including a character who is a four-handed keyboard musician, and most of all in the 2002 novel "Diplomatic Immunity," which takes place some two centuries later), but my point for today is that the ISS video puts me in mind of them. We humans are not well-suited for living in space. But oh, how splendid it is to go there!!!

At one point, Commander Williams takes us to the Cupola, where one can watch the Earth go by underneath. Words fail me.

The NASA program costs a lot of money (though an order of magnitude less than, say, bailing out the TBTF banks). No doubt the day will come when some penny-pinching Congress shuts it down. In 2009, NASA announced plans to end the ISS program in early 2016 (just three years from now!); the current President has said he would like to extend it to 2020. The Russians have plans to re-use their modules for a possible new station, but it may be that they will go it alone, without international cooperation. The European Space Agency, especially, has had a hard time coming up with funding for their part of the ISS, and the US is not in much better shape.

It will be hard to watch the dream die; a part of me will die with it.
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Here is the website for further information about the International Space Station. There are a variety of other videos, and lots of pictures. There is even a live video/audio stream where you can follow the day-to-day activity.

A word on American politics

The Republicans and Democrats have held their national conventions. The U.S. general election is less than two months away.

Like many others, I am disgusted with President Obama. He campaigned like a progressive, but since his election has done the bidding of his friends on Wall Street. Instead of the single-payer universal health care system that should be the simple and obvious choice for America, we have an Affordable Care Act that will mostly benefit the big insurance companies and will do nothing to contain health care costs, and has mostly not yet gone into effect. Instead of backing the unions that helped elect him, he stood on the sidelines in this summer's recall election in Wisconsin, which was a critical defeat for unions everywhere. Instead of prosecuting the criminal Wall Street bankers who have ruined our country, he bailed them out with taxpayer money. Instead of using anti-trust legislation to break up the “too big to fail” banks, he has allowed them to become larger than they were in 2008. Instead of repealing the so-called “Patriot” Act, he has continued the infringements of liberty begun by his predecessor, President Bush. The rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and we are all deeper in debt.

President Obama can make a good speech. But it seems to me that he is a hypocrite. He has no intention of fulfilling anything that he promises, no intention of doing anything that would offend his owners. At no point in these four years has he stood up to the Republicans and simply done what was right. If re-elected, there is no reason to expect this to change.

At least Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are not hypocrites. We know where they stand: if elected, they will destroy Social Security and Medicare, grind the faces of the poor and middle class in the dust with increased taxes and more offshoring of jobs to China, and hand even more tax breaks to the one percent. To know where Romney stands, one need only watch the film “When Mitt Romney comes to town.” He is all about money, mostly for himself. [Romney chuckles... “Make a profit. That's the name of the game.”]

What is a voter to do?

Bill Moyers addresses these issues this week on his show. He interviews Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, a thoroughly good man, someone who (as he says) in Scandinavia would be a Democratic Socialist. Moyers then interviews Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, the Green Party candidates for President and Vice-President. It would be worth your while to watch these interviews, especially the one with Senator Sanders. I find myself in agreement with pretty much everything he says in this interview.

There is no way that I would vote for the Republican ticket. And there is no way that I will vote for Obama. Nor am I going to vote for Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala, or any other third party candidates.

I am going to vote for Joe Biden.

I will ignore that other person on the ticket with him. Mr. Biden takes a lot of heat because he speaks his mind, but I think he has done well in the limited role that he has in the government. Almost alone of the people in big-time politics, he is not a millionaire.

And then there is this:
Elizabeth Warren addresses the Democratic Convention: “The system is rigged.”

I believe that she is one of the finest politicians around, someone who would indeed stand up to the one percent. Like it or not, I must take her endorsement of Obama seriously, along with that of Bill Clinton.

But we are headed in the wrong direction, and whoever wins in November, that is not likely to change in the next four years; if anything, it is likely to accelerate. Perhaps I could dare to pray for a ticket next time of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, and that there is still an America to hold an election in 2012. And I will join the Psalmist and the prophets in praying for justice and righteousness.

A political thought

I spend most of my time here writing about Religion. That is bad enough, so I do well to steer clear of Politics, the other unmentionable in polite company. And I will continue to stay out of it. Mostly.

But I want to say this: I am glad that Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State. The world is in a mess, with war and the threat of war in a multitude of places, to say nothing of the economic problems in Europe and elsewhere. She has been going about her work of addressing these issues through diplomacy. She has been a steady and reliable presence in the Obama administration, dealing with as many difficult issues as perhaps any of her predecessors.

It may not be enough, but it is the task set before her, and she has my respect.