Palladino and Cleveland

The recently elected Republican Nominee for Governor noted that the last major nominee from his hometown was President Cleveland.   There may be some parallels.  Cleveland was known as being honest, committed to classical liberalism, antagonistic to party politics.   Palladino may want to be a principled, small government Republican.  In the Nineteenth Century, they were called “Bourbon Democrats.”  He ignores issues of race, which has always complicated class issues in this country.

The problem?  Their policies didn’t work.

The scripture this lesson seems to map out a plan.  Cut the debts of the poor; condemn hoarding; may the rich spend their money on friends and family generously.

Jesus was a Keynesian.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

On the Twin Towers

Sent via my enewsletter the week of the anniversary of 9/11/01.

It’s the eighth anniversary of the attack on the twin towers. That morning, I called people who I knew worked in the area, and after doing what I could, began to drive up to Rochester to be with my father, who died the next day.

Several new people came to church that Sunday. One family is now an active member of the the church. I wasn’t there, but in my absence, the Rev. Allen Shin preached that Sunday. As the spirit would have it, he had been downtown at Trinity Church, shepherding young children with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was there to give a talk.

It was a rough time. Some were heartbroken, angry, defensive, righteous, eager for a fight, determined to administer justice. All these sensibilities are real and appropriate. One parishioner said, “we should bomb them,” although she was unclear about who “they” were. Others simply wrestled with trying to figure out, why would this happen to us?

What the archbishop argued for was “breathing space.” At the time it seemed ridiculous. The archbishop noted that as the mob was about to stone the adulteress, he just sat in the ground, writing. Perhaps all Jesus was doing, was giving the demons time to walk away. Saying “I love you” offers space. Sometimes all we need is some time, spacious time, to gather ourselves, and think clearly.

Peter Stienfels once wrote about the Archbishop’s reflections upon a conversation with a rabbi after the war in Lebanon: “The rabbi,” Archbishop Williams told his audience, “made no political points. But he said that when in the Bible God tells Moses to take off his shoes in the divine presence, the Jewish sages had interpreted this to mean that we couldn’t meet God if we were protected against the uneven and unyielding and perhaps stony or thorny ground.”

The rabbi considered this also true “when we meet the human beings who are made in God’s image,” Archbishop Williams said. “Those who are responsible for violence of any kind, even when they think it is in a just cause, need to take off their shoes and recognize what it is like when flesh and blood are hurt.”

“Terrorism, is the absolute negation of any such recognition,” What will defeat terrorism in the end “is ‘taking off our shoes,’ coming to terms with what we share as mortal beings who have immortal value.”

It is a tough message. In a politically polarized environment, our first task is to recognize in each other the image of God, that admits that we all have fears, frustrations and questions. Perhaps we have to stop participating in the madness that elevates the spectacle and drama of emotional conflict. Instead, we are called to stand on that stony and thorny ground.

We must not rely on the easy platitudes that reveal our defensiveness or demand war. It is to simply recognize the truth that we can each find ourselves pulled in the direction of violence.

Jesus merely says stop. And without looking at us, He waits, and draws in the sand. The demons then depart. And so we hope.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Fighting the War in Afghanistan

After WWI, my grandfather was placed in an area of the British Empire called “The Northern Frontier.”  It’s on the border of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Then, as now, the empires – in this case Russia and England – were engaged in a rivalry known then as “The Great Game.”

The British had been suspicious that Russia would invade India through Afghanistan.  Russia wanted to dominate the continent the way Americans believed in “manifest destiny.” It resulted in a century long conflict between Russia and England that ended only during WWII.

My grandfather knew that the Tribal soldiers he encountered were some of the most fierce and courageous men he would ever fight.  He also knew of them as charitable hosts.

One evening he stumbled upon a camp.  There were several Afghan soldiers drinking tea around a fire; he was one.  They saw him and stood as he appeared out of thin air.  There was no question that if he pulled out his revolver, he would come out on the losing side.

Captain Ray (pronounced “Rai”) simply said, in Pashtun, “I’ve been hoping to find you.”  Best to treat the enemy as a friend.  Why don’t you sit down with us, they said.  Apparently, my grandfather apparently had a winning smile and a generous charism, so he spent the next couple days getting to know his enemies.

At the end, they led him safely back to his camp.  When the second world war ended, they would visit the house on Parliament Street with nuts and dates.  Apparently, they came by bicycle.  Enemies once, friends forever.

War offers a clarity that is exhilarating and profound – even sacred.  But it is the task of the gospel to shatter that clarity, to reveal the hidden interests, to expose war’s banality, to desacralize the chants and the cheers that send us into the battle.  The gospel reveals it all:  the marks of heroism, the reality of cowardice, the needless misery, the fruitlessness of honor and pride.  The gospel says, you’re really surprised that our friends are funding our enemies? You really think that the president will save us?  You really believe that this war will lead us mutual admiration and respectability?  Do you really think that the “best and the brightest” are made of a different character than the rest of us? You really think that if we leave we won’t still bear the consequences?  Really?  I’ve got news for you…

And this is the gospel truth:  as we demonize our enemies, we become more like them.  Yes – let us fight the glorious battle, but our armor of righteousness cannot be based on our moral superiority, but instead in our mutual humanity.

When we fight these wars, the gospel reminds us that we battle as sinners in need of redemption, not as heroes desperate for vindication.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Two Beers and Terra Firma

Thomas Frank, in my view the smartest cultural commentator with a regular column, leaves the WSJ.  He founded the Baffler, a cutting edge leftie magazine, but with great writing.

As the right howled “socialism,” President Obama took pains to demonstrate his loyalty to the exhausted free-market faith. On trade issues and matters of economic staffing, he loudly signalled continuity with the discredited past. On the all-important issue of regulatory misbehavior—a natural for good-government types—he has done virtually nothing.

The real audacity has all been on the other side. Many Republicans chose to respond to the crisis not by renouncing the consensus faith of the last 30 years but by doubling down on it, calling for more deregulation, more war on government.

That they have partially succeeded with such a strategy in these years of financial crisis, mine disasters, and oil spills is testimony to their political brilliance—and to Democratic dysfunction. As is the burgeoning populist movement that now stands beside the GOP, transforming anger over unemployment into anger over the auto bailout and the good pensions enjoyed by public workers.

He’s moving to Harper’s.  Of course, he was one of the few columnists who drove conservatives absolutely livid with rage.

Gawain de Leeuw2 Comments

Notes on the Cultural Center

Over the last few months the construction of a cultural center has taken a lot of press time.  Abdul Rauf is going to found Cordoba house.  Abdul Rauf has served the US under the Bush Administration by going throughout the world telling how Muslims enjoy rights in this country.   Cordoba refers to a time in the Muslim world of great intellectual ferment, of an empire where religious differences were treated with some tolerance.

Trinity Church has, rightly, expressed support for the cultural center; Mayor Bloomberg gave an impassioned and brilliant speech expressing the importance of religious liberty.

Obama, Bloomberg and Nadler acknowledge that this is also an issue of property rights, that government officials should not use a heavy hand to cloak any sort of bigotry.

Of course, there is some bleating about and sensitivity and wisdom, but Krugman demonstrates the problem with that argument.

Second, the opposition seems to imply that Islam is a crucial aspect of terror and violence.  This is a complicated assertion.  Muslims, empirically speaking, have never had a monopoly on violence.   Both Muslims and Christians an ambivalence toward weakness.   A more precise question is:  what will this community center teach?

It’s useful to affirm that for some, the cultural center provides a lot of political fodder.  Those who oppose it benefit from stirring up passions and fears.  They strengthen their sway and authority by bravely protesting inconsequential projects, puffing themselves up as saviors and defenders of piety.

And I doubt that this is really about proximity to the World Trade Center.  All over the country people are opposing the construction of Mosques.  It’s fear, plain and simple.

Bashraat Peer wrote an article that describes, in detail, persons in the narrative.   Michael Kinsley writes “Is there any reason to oppose the mosque that isn’t bigoted, or demagogic, or unconstitutional? None that I’ve heard or read.”

What is not understood is that by enabling tolerance, we represent a way of living together that is still new to some Muslim countries.   By seeking understanding, perhaps others will also seek to understand.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

The Tea Party

I’m in the midst of doing some community organizing in my county, and I’ve been struck by the contrast between the work I’ve been doing and what is happening in the tea party “movement.”

Some interesting social analysis has been done about them.  Most of the tea party is white.  They don’t want to be told what to do.  It represents the hyperindividualism that reflects part of our cultural consciousness, and the more recently cultivated antagonism toward the behemoth that is The Government.

Reasonable people can critique the “therapeutic state” and its diminishment of civil liberties.   Institutions, after all, engineer cultures (did you know that the English propensity toward tea was based primarily on a conscious decision to prefer Tea corporations to Coffee corporations?).   Anger toward corporations, generally, is well placed, even if tea partiers aren’t that consistent.

But the tea party, which seems proud that there is little leadership or organization, seems to be blind about the nature institutions, government and the public.  Their view is of the mass, “taking over” which is more like the cultural revolution (choose any) than of getting work done.

The tea “party” ignores that politics is about people in institutions.  Joe Schmoe is just a dude spouting off about paying taxes.  He’s got some anecdotes, and he’s pissed, but just because he knows his car’s broken doesn’t mean he knows how to fix it.   It just looks like another narcissistic blowhard who doesn’t know who’s responsible for his lowered standards.

Good Government requires some leadership and management skills.  Politicians will make difficult decisions.  If tea partiers don’t want leaders, and don’t think government should manage, their task is going to be incredibly challenging as they get stuck in their internal bickering.   They will perpetually seek a consensus that will never emerge.

No government will make everyone happy.   Kenneth Arrow showed, in my view, decisively that there is no perfect government or economic system.  Someone will feel screwed.   Perhaps the rich will find some of their money confiscated; or the middle class will find their pensions cut.  Sometimes liberty wins, sometimes security.  But in a democracy we live together whether we win, or lose.   Although I talked, admittedly, about emigrating to the Netherlands after Bush won a second election.

Leaders will inevitably disappoint some people.  It’s the nature of leaders that they get hit, that they compromise, and choose between two bad, or two good, decisions.   A tea party that isn’t sure what it wants, besides being left alone, and resists any leader trying to compromise between the various publics, will find itself just another discussion group, a loud mob unable to accomplish anything.

I have not been worried about the tea party because they do not take organizing seriously.  In someways, they are like some parts (not all, of course) left – get people angry, hold a couple marches, find some politician who says what you want to hear. The hard work of engaging communities, discerning their values, discovering what keeps people up at night, and then acting upon it, is substituted for quick fixes.  Like corporations, politicians and even some progressives, the tea party thinks there is a quick fix, and that is to vote the bums out.

It doesn’t work like that.  It’s one reason I fell in love with the church. Granted, plenty of priests try to find quick fixes.  The daily life of church, however, resists it. Although I believe there may need to be a reboot of the church,  bodies of people coming together are what the church does.  Perhaps we have not done so well at that over the last 30 years.  We’ve not been able to manage within the new economy of attention.  I don’t think it’s hopeless, but I do think it will require a different kind of work.  The tea-party illustrates what we should not be doing.

I’m not hard on the tea party.  As a reformed anarchist, I’m actually sympathetic, aside from it’s loose resentments that stem from race populism.  I wish that there were some elected officials who would really challenge the economic system.  As it is, some of the tea party officials seem like stooges for state capitalism.    Which is a lot different than democratic capitalism.

One of the reasons I think that democracy, and capitalism, are fruits of some hard consequences of Christian morality is because, in the case of democracy, we learn to lose some times; and when we win, we treat the losers with respect.  Battling things politically is far better than fighting a civil war.  In capitalism, we coordinate desires, trusting in each other’s ability to share goods (I’m not talking about the system of high finance).  They are held in tension – sometimes they contradict each other.   And then we should be able to learn to choose.

The tea party needs to learn how to live within the former.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Prolegomena to the Current Anglican Crisis

After a recent exchange on another blog, I’d like to address a few reasons why  reasserters and reappraisers do not understand each others’ arguments.  It seems to me that we see our current context with very different lenses, and thus our discussions easily veer off track.

What I’d like to offer are a series of broader issues, one that isn’t exhaustive,  that shape the conflict.  Perhaps by examining these descriptively, we can address our different prescriptions.

1.  A general crisis of authority.  Over the last 50 years, all our major institutions are not trusted by the laity.  There has been a crisis in the authority of scripture and the church.  This parallels a lack of trust in governments as well.

2. An alteration in the relationship between public and private.  Sex was once private, but is now ubiquitous, in part because it is used to sell products.  Public persons are not merely individuals representing institutions, but persons who’s private lives are also public.

3. The introduction of the market into institutions that had previously been sheltered from competition.  These include the church, social service organizations, and unions.

4. The immediacy of communication.  This undermines the virtues of reflection, prudence and even the Sabbath itself.  Videos and emails are exchanged quickly without consideration about their underlying meanings or the proper audience.   Although audiences are easily segmented, anyone can be a hearer, and may hear exactly the opposite of what the speaker intends.

5. The reconceptualization of place.  Cyberspace dictates the rules of civil engagement.  Geography has less of a hold on identity.  Much of our battle happens in cyberspace, and not in person.  However, it is still physical persons who make decisions and operate institutions.

6. The social engagement of more Americans with non-Christians.  This directly impacts how the average lay person thinks of heaven, hell and the uniqueness of Christian doctrine.

7. The diminishing consequences of sex outside of marriage.

8. The effect of capital upon churches and the liberation of desire for the sake of profit.

9.  Our lives and ideologies are generally fragmented, and we put them back together again sometimes in haphazard ways.

Until we can get an accurate description of our cultural context, it will be a challenge for us to even understand our proscriptions.

By and large, the progressive church has accepted the impact of liberal capitalism into the sphere of social relationships.  Some have some antagonism toward neo-liberal / libertarian economic policies, but by and large it accepts the colonial, bourgeois, world-view.   I am saying this as a description.

The conservatives generally accept, however, the place of the US as an empire, but are unwilling to adapt a pre-modern understanding of cosmology and the role of the church.

There seems to a be some link between social conservatism, political conservatism and theological conservatism, but I don’t think the links are intellectually necessary.   One can be a theological conservative and an economic progressive; a theological liberal and a libertarian or neo-conservative.  I can say that I share a cultural identity (bourgeois, private college, suburban/urban, Yankee) with people who call themselves “liberal.”  What that means on a daily basis changes.

Gawain de Leeuw4 Comments

Ernesto Cortes, Jr.

I was recently reminded about this fellow.

When one woman asks him to explain how he “motivates” people to support a cause with actions as well as words, the storm rolls in. Cortés can scarcely conceal his impatience. “Perhaps I prejudge you unfairly,” he begins, “but when I hear your question, what I think you’re really saying is, ‘How can I convince people to do what’s good? How do I get them to do what’s right? How do I get them to follow my agenda?’ ” He pauses, frowning. “That’s not organizing. What I mean by organizing is getting you to recognize what’s in your best interest. Getting you to recognize that you have a child, that you have a career and a life to lead, and that there are some things that are obstacles to the quality of your life. I need to get you to see how you can affect those things through relationships with other people. And it’s only going to happen if you engage in some kind of struggle.”

He pauses to let it all sink in. “We organize people not just around issues, but around their values,” he says. “The issues fade, and people lose interest in them. But what they really care about remains: family, dignity, justice, and hope. We need power to protect what we value.”

In churches, we call this asset based congregational development.  Begin where people are, not where you think they should be.

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Arizona’s Immigration Law

Although it feels good to plenty, this law is a bad idea.  Even for Republicans.

1) Undocumented workers now have greater reason to fear the law and will find more dangerous ways to avoid it and the police.  It entrenches the black market in human traffic.

2) Not only undocumented workers will be affected, but anyone who is a police suspect.  If you go for a drive without having your papers, a cop could stop you, and you’ll have a very bad afternoon.

3) It increases the opportunity for police corruption.  Police may, instead of having to do the work of the INS, decide that getting more kickbacks are the way to go.  This law invites the abuse of power.

4) It’s a huge F.U. from Republicans to Hispanics.  Many hispanics share moral and financial values of moderate Republicans.  But this meanness simply looks like the Republicans maintaining their whiteness.  This is one way the GOP screws itself long term.

5) It will affect the state coffers.  Enforcing these rules is expensive, and a responsible government will have to find ways to fund it.  Higher taxes anyone?

6) It was NAFTA which initiated the great wave of immigrants from Mexico.  Perhaps people might examine the costs of ruining the economy of the Mexican countryside before pinning the blame upon those simply seeking to survive.

7) The Law is unconstitutional if the Fourth Amendment has any meaning.

8) Leviticus 19:33-34; Exodus 22:21

Gawain de LeeuwLeave a comment

Learning to Obey the Law

Over the last year, most progressives have disparagingly noted the Obama’s administration to defend Bush’s wiretapping policies in court.  It’s disappointing; it seems to reveal Obama’s flexibility about issues that most civil libertarians hold dear.  But I suggest there is an upside.

By defending, and losing, Obama’s placing the executive branch within the bounds of law.

Bush’s administration tried to circumvent the law.  It’s view of the executive was high; it went where it wished because it’s task, theoretically protecting Americans, was deemed more important than process. The law was inconvenient:   if it lost a case, it would just find another way of maneuvering around the pesky intrusions of the judiciary.

Losing, however, establishes an important precedent:  it allows Obama to set an example of obeying the law against his will.   This establishes a precedent of losing with integrity.  And that benefits the country because it curtails executive power more assuredly than if he had just withdrawn the cases.

Issuing an executive order to switch gears, while laudable, would have simply signified that the executive’s priorities had changed.  It would not have done the more important work of actually exemplifying how an executive should behave.    Executives can push.  They can win.  And they can lose.  It’s important that when they lose, they obey the law.

The Bush years were marked by a radical, revolutionary, disregard for the law.  If anything, this is why he disenfranchised paleoconservatives and Republican moderates.   By Obama fighting for Bush’s policies he may have done a more interesting thing:  demonstrate their illegality.  Not merely because he thought they were illegal.  But because the judges said so.    It had to defend them as best as could be defended; they had to make some process changes as well.   But by fighting and losing, they can more credibly go other directions, with greater executive capital, and a public opportunity to demonstrate restraint.

And that’s a virtue that last administration never had.

Gawain de Leeuw2 Comments