Election '08
Page 3
After Election Day, Nov. 4, 2008

Click here for items from Oct. 25 to Nov. 4, 2008

What are your thoughts about the election?
Hopes and concerns?
Suggestions for the President-Elect?
Just send a note,
to be shared here.

You may have had your fill of reporters and pundits today, and I will certainly not try to rival them.

But if you want to read a reflection that has depth and passion and humor and insight, take a look at this essay by bestselling author William Rivers Pitt, whose latest book House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation.

Here’s his opening paragraph:

The cover of the newest Nation Magazine depicts a painting of Obama's inauguration rendered and submitted by a member of the online web forum DailyKos. The painting is in no way historically accurate, as Thurgood Marshall is depicted delivering the oath, but in every meaningful way, the artwork is spot-on truth. Susan B. Anthony is there, and here, as is Nelson Mandela, and Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Jordan, and Malcolm X, and Henry David Thoreau, and Gandhi, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and down at the front by the rail, there and here are four little girls from Birmingham who died in fire long ago. They are all on that podium today. We were all on that podium today.

He proceeds to offer his own thoughts, mingled with intriguing observations from others.

A new beginning for America, a new day for the world.
Let not our hopes grow too large or our expectations too grand,
the challenges are many and the way is long, but let us move forward together.

I proudly supported President Obama, and I rejoice in his inauguration.
He is a bright man and has assembled an intelligent and experienced team.
However, knowledge and human intelligence alone will not save us.

Progress will take all of us working together for a better future –
for ourselves, for the world, and for our heirs.

In this time of exhilaration, I am reminded of the cautionary poem by Robert "Red Hawk" Moore:

    THE PROBLEM WITH HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

    Easter Island is a remarkable place
    not only for its giant stone statues,
    one thousand of them, each weighing
    18 tons and standing 15 feet tall, but

    also for its fossil pollen record and
    what it tells us about Human Beings.
    Easter Island is completely treeless
    but the fossil pollen tells us that

    a fruit palm tree flourished on Easter Island
    for thousands of years and the decline of that species
    began about 1200 years ago and continued for
    several hundred years until the tree became extinct.

    1200 years ago is when the Humans came to Easter Island.
    If you stand on the island’s highest point
    you can see nearly the entire island so
    the people knew what they were doing:

    systematically they were destroying their paradise
    and the man who cut the last tree, the very thing
    he depended upon for his survival,
    knew it was the last tree standing and

    he cut it anyway.

My prayer is for President Obama and for this nation – that we will both know what is right, and that we will have the courage to do it – so that our Earthly paradise will survive and prosper.

We are ones we have been waiting for!

Arthur

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, one of the veteran leaders of the Civil Rights movement, offered these words of blessing at the close of the Inauguration:

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,

thou, who has brought us thus far along the way,
thou, who has by thy might led us into the light,

keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.

We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.

He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.

Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.

And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.

With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when yellow will be mellow... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen.

LOWERY: Say Amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen.

LOWERY: And Amen.

AUDIENCE: Amen

Also, the White House website already has a lengthy list of "agenda" items from President Obama

Here is the text of the prayer offered yesterday by Episcopal Bishop, Gene Robinson:


A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson,
Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world. Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one.

We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.

Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Here is a video of the prayer.


Thanks once again to John Shuck, who posted this on his blog,
 Shuck and Jive at 1/19/2009 09:59:00 AM

WITNESS IN WASHINGTON WEEKLY
The Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)January 19, 2009

This week’s messages are —

Authors of new Social Creed press social justice agenda with Obama

by Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service
[1-16-09]

LOUISVILLE ― January 16, 2009 — Two primary authors of “A Social Creed for the 21st Century” have sent an open letter to President-elect Obama advocating the social policies outlined in the creed.

Speaking on behalf of the U.S. churches that have endorsed the creed, the Rev. Christian Iosso, coordinator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, wrote: “… we are ready to help you achieve great deeds that will bring positive change for the people of America and the world.”

The general assemblies of both the PC(USA) and the NCC, which represents 36 member churches, endorsed the Social Creed last year. The document, patterned after the Social Creed of 1908, addresses a number of social ills bedeviling U.S. society.

The full text of Iosso’s and Kinnamon’s message:

The churches have a message for President Obama, too:

We have thought about what needs to be done, and have been working at it throughout the history of these United States. And we are ready to help you achieve great deeds that will bring positive change for the people of America and the world.

We Protestant and Orthodox churches – the ecumenical faith community – know how serious is the need for social reconstruction at home and the restoration of honor abroad. We have long worked in the soup kitchens, sheltered the homeless, pushed for environmental justice, defended public education, volunteered overseas, and steadily opposed the war with Iraq, despite the weaknesses of media and congressional oversight.

As the President-elect knows, we do not scorn “community organizers;” our urban congregations have helped fund them and have given them a base from which to work. We visit the prisons and know how bad they are; we are regular caregivers in the hospital wards and emergency rooms. We know first-hand how many are without health insurance.

While many look at who has a role on the platform at the ceremony, we look at the commitments of the man being inaugurated: long a member of a distinctive, well-informed congregation of the United Church of Christ (church of the historic pilgrims as well as contemporary prophets), he is one of us.

The social vision of the ecumenical churches is summed up in the “Social Creed for the 21st Century,” unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches of Christ one hundred years after the first “social creed” was adopted by the churches in 1908.

That earlier social message addressed the challenges of its day – industrialization and proposed measures like a “living wage,” the abolition of child labor, and prototypes of Social Security and Workers’ Compensation. When Franklin Roosevelt addressed the churches’ annual assembly in 1933 he thanked them for their biblically based social teachings. The text from Jesus that he quoted is in the 2008 version of the Social Creed and articulates the purpose of the Creed, and of faith’s prayer for society: “that all may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The 2008 Social Creed, speaking to our day, addresses the challenges of globalization and sustainability and the context of war and inequality, which is both morally and politically debilitating. We know this because our own churches also run on democratic principles and it is hard for people to participate when they are working two jobs and scrambling find childcare and family time. Thus along with urging full employment at a living wage, the churches advocate “time and benefits to enable full family life,” which for us includes Sabbath for worship and rest.

While the new Social Creed lists 20 specific reform measures under three theologically-grounded headings, it is the overall vision that is key: “a vision of a society that shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination, and finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms.”

The churches do not split personal and public virtue. Individual character and morality are crucial, but they depend on the character of churches and other nurturing institutions. Action for social justice — the “social activism” some critics scorn — is grounded in communities that lift up God first.

While solidly patriotic, our churches have resisted the kind of arrogant nationalism that confuses the flag and the cross. We remember the Bible’s warnings about empire, that only a people who humble themselves shall be exalted.

Especially now in economic life, the churches stand for “grace over greed,” and recognize the need for burdens to be fairly shared, and modern forms of usury to be regulated out of existence. This means affirming progressive taxation and well as adequate social welfare: a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members.

The vocation of the church is different from that of the nation, but even a wiser and humbler United States still has a great vocation as “one nation” among others “under God,” as a Lutheran theologian adds to the Pledge. The Social Creed summarizes countless church statements that address our nation’s current challenges: “multilateral diplomacy rather than unilateral force, the abolition of torture, … strengthening … the United Nations and the rule of international law.” The ecumenical churches helped write the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 60 years ago and have never forgotten its principles of “full civil, political, and economic rights for women and men of all races.”

The churches do not affirm diplomacy without responsible power, but can never tolerate the deliberate violence of “wars of choice” and the economies distorted by them. We have seen the high tech and housing bubbles burst but it now time for the military-industrial bubble to burst as well: we advocate “nuclear disarmament and redirection of military spending to more peaceful and productive uses.”

The churches alone cannot create a moral consensus for the redirection of America, but if President Obama harkens to his personal experience, he knows that the solid, unheralded work of the churches will be there, in support of more courageous action than most observers outside the faith community can imagine. In Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous words, we pray that we may now have a nation with the “courage to change” for the better.

(A poem from a Witherspoon member)

            At almost 61 years I see the days ahead
with some amazing feelings of hope
and breath

            there are to be sure
many things that could hold us back
as a country, a people, a world.

           but it is my prayer
not to be one of those things –
not to be a stumbling block for anyone who wishes to
            serve or to learn or to live in this place of plenty
not to be one who says no you can't belong
            when you might try and belong
after all you were always rooted in the same ground.

            will we? after all this time? be ready to live
into the work God has for us? as individuals but even much more
importantly to live in community ... über community ...

as Nietzsche coined the term "übermensch" to describe the higher state to which he felt men (and women) might aspire.  

we shall see. and the good news that we live into
            is that God knows. Thanks be to God.

God abides

A good thing or a bad thing?
[12-23-08]

Rachell Zoll, AP religion writer, quotes David Domke, author of The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America: "Here's a guy who wants to run a progressive administration getting a substantial lift in his wings from the nation's most popular evangelical," Domke said. "But he balances that with Joseph Lowery, who speaks to the more liberal, social justice and African-American heritage."   Read her article >>

Many of Obama’s supporters have been offended by his choice of one of the leading voices in support of “Prop 8" in California, which is aimed to ban all marriages except the “one-man-one-woman” type.

For example, Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way, writes:  

President-elect Obama's soaring campaign speeches included ... calls for Americans to unite around what brings us together rather than what tear us apart, and we deeply appreciate that he wants to heal the divide in our often deeply polarized country. But Rick Warren is a powerful leader who marginalizes and dehumanizes those who disagree with him – he does nothing to help unite Americans! 

In an interview just last week, Warren compared reproductive choice to the Holocaust and compared same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia, and he called Christians who work to advance social justice gospel "Marxism in Christian clothing." ... Is this the sort of inclusion millions of Americans voted for on November 4?

For the complete letter from Kolbert >>

Presbyterian minister the Rev. John Shuck, after offering a number of comments on the whole thing, decided to put forth his own solution: his own prayer for the Inauguration – in case anybody asks him.

If Obama had done the right thing and invited me to give the invocation, here is what I would have said:

I offer no prayer to any deity. Those who wish to pray may do so on their own. Instead, I invite us to celebrate and to contemplate the virtues of reason, justice, equality, and compassion that are available to all human beings.

The challenges we face are immense.

May we put away selfishness, greed, and short-sightedness.

May we work together against all forms of tyranny.

May we seek as our highest and our common goal the well-being of future generations.

May we work as tirelessly for the rights of others as for our own.

May we find a way to live within our means, with one another, with our non-human relatives, and with Earth.

And may we discover the courage, intelligence, imagination, and compassion available within us and among us to face the great work that lies ahead.

For John Shuck’s blog >>

For the "inaugural prayer" entry above>>

So now it’s your turn!
What are your thoughts on Obama’s choices?
And if he were to turn to you
instead of Warren or Lowery or Shuck,
what would be your prayer?

I still can hardly take it in. I feel like Psalm 126 –

        When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
            we were like those who dream.
   Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
                and our tongue with shouts of joy....

        May those who sow in tears
              reap with shouts of joy.
        Those who go out weeping,
               bearing the seed for sowing,
    shall come home with shouts of joy,
             carrying their sheaves.

I'm writing because I just read the Robert Gagnon essay from November 3. Thanks so much for including that. It's going to take me some time to think about it. I have read Gagnon's Bible and Homosexual Practice, and participated in an Ecunet discussion of it that he took a part in.

What strikes me in this essay – maybe it's because he's trying to motivate people to vote – is that his concern centers, not on the "destructiveness" of homosexual practice, as he maintains in his book, but on the effects of Obama's policies on people who believe as he does – ironically, effects similar to what the glbt community has suffered for so many years. Job discrimination, ostracism, name-calling, children exposed to teachings adults object to. Fortunately, I don't think Gagnon cites physical violence against "bigots" as one of the inevitable outcomes, so the effects are, to that degree, less severe than the effects of the anti-gay attitudes that the glbt community has been living through.

As unseemly as I believe many of Prof. Gagnon's points to be (Obama and Biden "lying" about policies and intentions, etc), I think the essay does raise an important point that Obama includes in the open letter Gagnon cites: "... I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary."    Read Obama's open letter >>

For all of us, the challenge of taking the concerns to heart of those whose attitudes one believes are so harmful reminds me of that spirit of Dr. King that blows me away every time I meet it – as when, after the election, a friend who is African-American hugged me – a white woman who was a junior in a segregated high school when Brown v. Board of Education was decided – and whispered (we were at work), "We did it!"

....Thanks for always giving me so much to think about, Doug!!!!!

Audaciously happy!!!!!

Betty

The Rev. Betty Hale now lives in Roxboro, North Carolina
She sent this note on Dec. 1, 2008

by Gene TeSelle
[11-17-08; updated 12-2-08]

During a recent discussion in Nashville among retired ministers, United Methodist and Presbyterian, several mentioned that many African Americans, knowing the mood of many whites, have asked how soon Barack Obama will be assassinated – or, if they are optimistic, how soon attempts will be made. Some of us had also heard this, although less frequently, from whites of all classes; often it had been difficult to know whether it was said out of fear, or hope, or normal expectations.

We knew that Obama is not so much "black" as "bi-racial," and not even the descendant of slaves (although Michelle is, and their daughters are). He himself is a product of the rootless — or rather, uprooting — cosmopolitan civilization that will increase during the 21st century, and a role model for those who must create an identity while weathering its challenges. We knew that this election may prove decisive in moving the country toward a "post-racial" situation. Still we could understand the apprehensions that are circulating around.

Such thoughts are not an idle fantasy here in Tennessee. One of the Methodists, a post-retirement minister serving in a rural county adjacent to Nashville, said that a church member with an Obama sign in his yard received a message under his windshield wiper, calling him an SOB and promising death. In exit polls, almost a fourth of Tennessee voters said that race was a factor in their vote — 16 percent said that it was important, and an additional 6 percent said that it was the single most important factor. Recently two white supremacists were arrested in Tennessee for plotting to kill Obama after shooting or beheading other African Americans. They suffered the ignominy of being indicted by a grand jury that included African Americans and thus was not a jury of their "peers." The Secret Service has had to plan tight security measures for Obama's public appearances, especially for those mass meetings that have been so impressive.

Here’s one example of a recent news report >>

Obama functions as a Rorschach test bringing out many different attitudes or fears. Recall the widespread anger after Hillary Clinton mentioned the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 after his success in the California primary. On its face it was just a reminder that the results of a single primary race do not predict the final outcome of a campaign. But many heard a subliminal message — perhaps that a black candidate was too vulnerable to support, perhaps even that assassination might be a good idea.

Most of the presidential assassinations or attempts have been by marginal persons, sometimes influenced by anarchist or leftist ideas, sometimes pathological (like "Squeaky" Fromme, a Manson groupie), sometimes (like Lee Harvey Oswald) permanently baffling unless you bring an ideological perspective of your own. This time it is different.

As American as Apple Pie

If there should be assassination attempts, they will be more "mainstream American" than any since John Wilkes Booth, who, for reasons that seemed quite justifiable to him, killed Lincoln not long after his second inauguration — on Good Friday, ironically.

We usually assume that assassins would be isolated individuals, usually disturbed in some way.  But that's a very limited perspective.  Whatever you think about the Jim Garrison/Oliver Stone theory of the Kennedy assassination, we know that there are people inside and outside the government who are willing to do whatever must be done to achieve their ends, whether it be disappearances, or extra-judicial killings, or renditions, or the corporate dirty tricks outlined in John Perkins' books.

To express fears of assassination is not to accuse everyone of wishing, advocating, or promoting it. It is to direct attention to an atmosphere of hostility not far below the surface.

But why should I even bring up the subject? There is a superstitious streak in all of us, telling us that if we think seriously about a possibility we will cause it to happen. And there is a gloating streak in all of us, telling us to go ahead and utter it because then we will be able to say "I told you so." Well, let's exorcise these and other inclinations, say "God forbid!", make the sign of the cross to keep them away from the center of ourselves, and reflect on what is only a possibility, but a credible possibility.

It may be a good time to remind ourselves of T.S. Eliot's line that, between the ideal and the reality, "Falls the Shadow." Or God's caution to Cain, "Sin lies couching at the door" (Gen. 4:7). Or Langston Hughes' 1938 poem with its complex sequence: "Let America be America again"; "America never was America to me"; and "America will be!"

John McCain voiced the election-night euphoria that a person who, until a few decades ago, could not even vote in many states, had now been elected to the highest office in the land.  It's helpful to remember that when Obama was born in 1961, fortunately in Hawaii, cross-racial marriages were illegal in many states.  Those laws were overturned later in that decade, in the case named Loving v. Virginia.

So as the election of Barack Obama was announced, many African Americans had tears in their eyes. So did many whites. Both groups were hoping that racial hostility has been transcended.

Delegitimation

But there is an obverse side to sentiments like these. Many people think that Obama has violated a taboo, occupying an office that he should not even have sought. After the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Southern Democrats became Republicans, and there has been little change, either in program or in party preference, since that time.

One AP report, dated Nov. 15, is headlined: “Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes.” It begins:

 Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

 Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

 From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

The full story >>

Many people assert that race had nothing to do with their voting for McCain. To be sure, they have other differences with Obama. After the election evangelical ministers at both national and local levels urged their followers to pray for Obama, since he supported the twin abominations of homosexuality and abortion. Julia Pickard of suburban Brentwood, in a letter to the editor of the Tennessean (November 10, 2008), warned columnists not to mock "the great Southern values such as love of God, gratitude and respect for the military, and the belief that people should be responsible for themselves." Going on, she said she does not think that Obama has a genuine love for our country; "he has never shown himself to be anything but an extreme liberal who embraces radical figures."

These attitudes and actions certainly are not framed as incitements to assassination. At the same time they amount to a fundamental delegitimation of the Democratic Party in general and Barack Obama in particular.

Another mode of delegitimation is to raise doubts about Obama's ties, such as "palling around with terrorists!" or "Socialism!" or "He's not one of us!" or "William Ayers!" or "Reverend Wright!" They make it thinkable to shout "Kill him!" at rallies, and such outcries may or may not be shushed by the speaker on the platform. There were the rumors on the grapevine that Obama is a secret Muslim, as demonstrated by his middle name; that he studied in a madrassah; that he took his oath of office on a Qur'an. Some sophisticated people in and around Fort Campbell, to the northwest of us, took these rumors far too seriously and harbored doubts about Obama until Election Day.

Fearmongering

Somewhat short of fundamental delegitimation is the other tactic of telling people to "Be afraid." Robert Gagnon's pre-election screed is an example, a warning that if Obama were elected he would wage a "war against Christians," persecuting those who believe that homosexual practice and abortion are immoral acts and dare to say so publicly.

The atmosphere is not likely to improve. Paul Krugman has predicted that the Republican Party, with its more moderate representatives turned out of office, will move farther to the right, engage in more negative stereotyping, and blame the "liberal media" for their election defeats.

Norman Lear and Kathryn Kolbert of People for the American Way report that the Heritage Foundation has already dug in its heels to stop the "change" that has been promised. They think that the defeat of John McCain, who at least made gestures at distancing himself from the Bush administration, will encourage leaders to adopt a hard-line ideology as the only winnable approach. They point out that Rush Limbaugh and other right-wingers became popular in the early Clinton years. And the success of anti-gay ballot initiatives in Arkansas, Arizona, California, and Florida will encourage similar measures in other states.

The New York Times' electoral map shows that the Democratic vote increased in most counties, even those that stayed Republican, but that there was a "red shift" — a Republican shift — in a band across the mid-South, reaching from Oklahoma through Arkansas to Tennessee and West Virginia, Appalachian or Scots-Irish in heritage, now not so much Presbyterian as broadly evangelical.  Demographers routinely characterize the area as under-educated and under-developed.  We might add over-exploited -- by coal and timber companies, by factories that moved in from the North and have now moved to Mexico or Asia, and by their own ruling class.  Most people were not slave-owners, but they did not want competition from black-skinned people, and there were "sundown towns" with posted warnings, "Don't let the sun set on your head in this town."

The Gunfire Solution

One other factor is the mainstream American assumption that we have an almost unrestricted right to bear arms, buttressed by the ethos of the Book of Judges, where we encounter biblical models who bore arms and were ready to use them in answering insults or enforcing the law. Gun sales increased around Election Day and afterward, and gun owners explained that they were afraid that "Obama" (notice how a President quickly becomes the symbol, personification, and scapegoat for everything people dislike or fear) will revive legislation prohibiting semi-automatic weapons, or that taxes will be raised on ammunition.

Bill Barnes, who has ministered in Nashville’s Edgehill community for many decades, told of people who live with gunfire at night and fear retaliation if they report anything. One of his parishioners said that perhaps his biggest surprise after being released from prison was the availability of guns.

All of this reinforces the conviction that the quickest way to solve problems is with gunfire, and the temptation is probably reinforced by the complications and costs of going through the legal process, whether you are white or black, rich or poor.

Getting Dramatic

Pat McGeachy, a Presbyterian minister who has many connections with the theater world, was reminded of the Stephen Sondheim musical Assassins. The "book," written by John Weidman, was based on a script by Charles Gilbert. The musical opened off-Broadway in 1990 and won five Tony awards after a Broadway production in 2004. McGeachy tells about local companies thinking about producing it this year or next year. CD recordings of both the off-Broadway and Broadway productions are available in the $15 range from Amazon, and if you order through this website we will get a modest commission. (Some reviews say the earlier version is better; but it does not have the song "Something Just Broke," added later.  We're providing a link to the Broadway version.)

The scene is a shooting gallery in a deserted fairground, where the Proprietor (a gun salesman) suggests that problems can be solved by shooting a president. The presidents are labeled in their order (thus Lincoln is 16, Kennedy is 35). The show ends with all the assassins reappearing on stage, singing "Everybody's Got the Right" and firing their guns at the audience as the curtain closes.

What do you think about this?

Is Gene TeSelle presenting a realistic view of American society today, and of possible threats against the life of the new President?

Do you see any ways in which faith communities might speak out or act to change the climate and reduce the threats? Or better yet, can you point to examples of where this is already being done?

Please just send a note,
and we’ll share it here!

Welcoming the new administration ...

Are we entering a new era of “culture wars”?

By Gene TeSelle
[11-15-08]

We seem to be headed into a new era of "culture wars" [See James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars (1991), Before the Shooting Begins (1994), Is There a Culture War? (2006)], fueled by competing moral visions, such that those who disagree are placed beyond the bounds of legitimacy.

Many people seem to agree with Stephen Carter that religion is the only thing that "gets no respect." When religious conservatives act in intemperate ways, their behavior is regarded as an understandable reaction to a relentlessly "secular" government. To prove their point they engage in provocative acts such as putting the Ten Commandments on stone in public places, passing out tracts in public schools, libeling those who defend same-sex relations or abortion, or refusing to fill prescriptions for contraceptives or morning-after pills; then when courts or legislators try to limit such behavior, they cry persecution and try to force a solution through political pressure.

Such actions are defended with the argument that religion is an "absolute commitment" — as though this makes it exempt from the rules of political behavior, and even confers the privilege of defining those rules and trying to seize the reins of government through the Moral Majority or the dictates of the Catholic bishops.

The problem, of course, is that many competing religious groups can claim the right to carry their "absolute commitments" into the public sphere; this encourages intolerance and eventually open religious warfare. That is why the West decided (in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and the various Declarations of Rights in 1776 and 1789 and 1791) to keep absolute claims out of the public square and develop a viable "secular state," acknowledging at the same time that religious commitments are always relevant to issues of human good. This is one of the unique contributions of the West in world history, as current trends in Islamic and Hindu cultures seem to confirm. But of course we in the West, too, have the constant temptation to press our absolute claims in the public realm.

In one recent example, a South Carolina Roman Catholic priest recently informed his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama, because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

And at a national level, America's Roman Catholic bishops prepared to challenge the new administration. In their national meeting in Baltimore this past week, they agreed they would accept no compromise for the sake of national unity until there is legal protection for the unborn. Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, president of the conference, was drafting a statement from the bishops to the incoming Obama administration, which will call on the administration and Catholics who supported Obama to work to outlaw abortion. "This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground," said Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio. "It's a matter of absolutes."

It is one thing to try, for religious reasons, to extend the scope of freedom — and the "personal responsibility" that comes with it — in a society. It is a very different thing to try to impose religious norms upon the society. But of course it is difficult to know the difference between them. When the Catholic bishops rule out all abortion, they call it natural law, while others call it religious particularism or authoritarianism. Pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception see themselves engaging in "civil disobedience" like the civil rights workers of the Sixties, while others see obstructionism or blunt political pressure.

How do we get beyond "'tis/'taint" arguments of this sort? Kent Greenawalt, law professor at Columbia, has carefully developed a reasonable approach. Religious convictions, he acknowledges, can be an important motivator in political life, including campaigns and legislative debates. But they best contribute to public discussion when they are translated into "publicly accessible reasons," that is, "secular" or at least "shared" convictions, not sectarian ones. Beyond that, they are likely to be divisive and counterproductive.

By Berry Craig
[11-15-08]

MAYFIELD, Ky. – November 12, 2008 – I passed the old clunker on the way home from school the day before the election.

The 80s-vintage Buick compact was more primer than paint. The driver’s clothes looked bargain basement, not Brooks Brothers.

Yet a “McCain-Palin” sticker clung resolutely to the rust bucket’s rear bumper. Based on his wheels and his threads, Buick Guy is one of what the Good Book calls “the least among us.”

Yet he was apparently voting for a millionaire who believes that rich people and big corporations – not Buick Guys – ought to get more tax breaks. John McCain also thinks bosses shouldn’t be bothered by strong unions and by government regulations that protect the safety and health of workers, including Buick Guy, on the job.

I’ve never understood Buick Guys. Kentucky – not one of the wealthiest states – is full of them. While Barack Obama won in a landslide nationally, the Bluegrass State went big for McCain, as it did twice for Bush.

Meanwhile, Buick Guys in Kentucky and elsewhere continue to vote for candidates who aim to make the rich richer and keep Buick Guys driving heaps.

Maybe President-elect Obama’s skin color prevented Buick Guy from voting for him. Like Pap in Huckleberry Finn, Buick Guys don’t get it. Poverty transcends race. “The issue is not black and white – it’s green,” said the Rev. W.G. Harvey, the first African American city commissioner in Paducah, where I teach in the community college.

Buick Guys are really elitists, said David Nickell, who teaches sociology at the same community college. He wasn’t kidding.

“They are the least secure group in society,” Nickell added. “They are right on the edge of the poverty line. They’re a paycheck away from losing everything.”

So Buick Guys look down on people poorer than they are, Nickell said. “And they readily accept the ideology of the real elite.”

Buick Guys oppose most government aid for people who need it, even thought that aid also benefits them. “They see redistributing the wealth as taking from them and giving to those below them. They don’t see it as taking from billionaires and helping them, too.”

While income inequality is greatest in the United States, class consciousness is weakest. The U.S. is the only industrial democracy that doesn’t have a significant, working-class-based democratic socialist or social democratic party. As much as Republican rightists disdain Democrats – and call Obama a “socialist,” which he’s not – they hate and fear real socialists more.

Republican conservatives want working people to keep believing that because they happen to own a home, however humble, or a car, even a rattletrap old Buick, their interests are the same as millionaires with mansions and fleets of luxury cars and an executive jet or two.

Millionaires vote their class interests. They get behind candidates like McCain who will do their bidding.

McCain and his soul mates are scared stiff that working class people – who are a lot more numerous than rich people – will unite at the ballot box and vote their interests. So divide-and-conquer is the Republican right’s strategy. They also use social issues like abortion and gay rights and appeals to white racial and ethnic prejudice, however subtle, to split the working class vote.

So when candidates like Obama want to help the working class by supporting unions and by suggesting that we ought to share the wealth with a tax plan under which rich people pay more and working people pay less, candidates like McCain accuse them of waging “class warfare.”

Nickell recalled hearing the first President Bush level the “class warfare” charge against Bill Clinton in 1992. “I saw it on TV,” he said. “Senior Bush was standing on the bow of his yacht at Kennebunkport.”

Nickell suggested that when Republicans cry “class warfare” they are afraid that a bunch of working class voters might not be falling for their old what’s-good-for-rich-people-is-good-for-you-too scam or for the GOP’s social issues and thinly-disguised “white-folks-r-us” hustle. Despite Buick Guy, a lot fewer were suckered this presidential election.

This union-card-carrying, working class teacher is hoping that Barack Obama, the guy I voted for, has resurrected the kind of working class solidarity that helped build Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition and keep it going for so long.

FDR was the first truly pro-union president. That was another reason union-hating Republican conservatives also called him a “socialist.” He wasn’t.

Roosevelt replied to his critics – he called them “economic royalists” – by paraphrasing the words of another famous president: "The legitimate object of Government is to do for the people what needs to be done but which they cannot by individual effort do at all, or do so well, for themselves.”

The president FDR was talking about used the might of the federal government to save our republic when it was most in peril. "Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital,” that president also declared. “Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

I suspect the McCain faithful – probably Buick Guy, too – would have dissed him as a “socialist.” He wasn’t a socialist either. He wasn’t even a Democrat.

He was Abraham Lincoln, the savior of the Union, the vanquisher of slavery, a champion of the working class and the first Republican president.

Berry Craig is a professor of history at the West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah and a freelance writer who lives in Mayfield. He and his wife, Melinda, are members of the Witherspoon Society.

by Doug King, your WebWeaver
[11-5-08]

Last night, just after CNN projected Barack Obama as the winner of the election, the apartment next to ours erupted in whoops and shouts and general delight as the African American family there celebrated. It was good to hear. And to see people like Colin Powell and Jesse Jackson weep with joy, even as millions of the rest of us have too, tells me something really big has happened.

No big surprise there, I know. But then the question is – as Obama reminded the joyous crowd last night – what do we do now? The American people, with the brilliant help of one of our own sons, have opened the door into a new future. Hopes that many of us have held for decades now begin to look like possibilities.

Early in his election-night speech, Obama expressed thanks to his campaign staff, then added:   “... above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you.”

He went on to describe how he sees his (and the nation’s) tasks:

“I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.”

For the full text of the speech >>

Those who yearn for justice and for peace must now shift gears from the easy satisfaction of resenting injustice and war. We need to put our nice ideas into proposals and programs and practices that will move us from yearnings to actions.

Obama offered one step toward that process of transforming our society, when he did what he has done since his campaign began: using “we” language instead of “I” language. Some may see that as nothing but a nice rhetorical device, and it may amount to nothing more unless millions of Americans begin to make it a reality. And certainly our faith, and the way of life taught by Jesus, should help us to do just that.

This means we must stand against the prevailing ethic of a market economy. We can do this by confronting the challenges of the economic crisis by helping one another, rather than competing as isolated battlers, each of us against everyone else.

We can do this by finding ways to work through our differences, rather than striving to defeat those with whom we disagree. (Not easy for us Presbyterians, I know.) This does not mean giving in to those who demand control of a situation, of a church, of a nation. But it means seeking ways to talk, to find common ground, to nurture new ways of living together. And if those efforts fail, it means standing firm in defense of those whose rights, and very lives, are being debased by those who seek control.

So here is a challenge for our Presbyterian Church: to find new ways to care for one another, to respect one another, and to embody that care and respect as we structure our lives in church and community and nation.

If you have thoughts on the election of Barack Obama,
or on the ideas expressed here
and by Obama himself,
please send a note,
to be shared here.

Also ...

by Gene TeSelle
[11-5-08]

The gracious speeches by John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday night seem to give hope for a new era in our political life. The strong margin in popular and electoral votes has encouraged statements to the effect that "the people have spoken," while the maverick backgrounds of both McCain and Obama and their oft-stated promises to "reach across the aisle" give some confidence about bi-partisan, but certainly not "post-partisan," cooperation during the next presidential term. We may even see a return of the "old John McCain" who was willing to buck his party on a variety of issues.

Probably much of it is election-night and day-after euphoria from commentators grateful that there will not be a re-play of 2000, voters relieved that their candidate won despite all the doubts and controversy, and a good loser who knows what to say and is willing to calm his disappointed supporters.

The euphoria is, above all, symbolic. A person who could not even have voted in many states until forty-some years ago had now been elected President of the world's most powerful government. The symbolism was made visible by the celebrating crowds in Grant Park and Times Square and many other places. It was generously verbalized by John McCain and by all the TV commentators.

But this is politics, after all, and we are obliged to move very quickly into analysis and prognostication.

A Major Realignment

The 2008 election will go down in the annals of political science as one of the major "realignments" among the parties. There have been others — the Reagan revolution of 1980, the shift of Southern Democrats into the Republican Party in 1968 and 1972, the start of the New Deal in 1932.

The current realignment is not totally new. It was anticipated by the similar, but not so successful, alliance in 1984 and 1988 around Jesse Jackson, who not only mobilized black voters but inspired many working people, women, and students to work for him. When "Super Tuesday" was invented in 1988 to help Al Gore in the South, it was Jesse Jackson who won many of those primaries. But he was Jesse Jackson, after all, not Barack Obama. And the economy, despite widespread foreclosures and the beginning of the export of jobs to maquiladoras in Mexico, was not in as disastrous a condition.

Farther back, but with farther-reaching impacts, there is the 1912 election, when William Howard Taft, despite having been hand-picked by Theodore Roosevelt, steered the Republican Party toward conservative positions that it has never forsaken since that time, while Woodrow Wilson adopted the progressive agenda (which most assuredly did not include racial justice or equality). That realignment lasted until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, as LBJ recognized, delivered the South to the Republican Party, not just for one generation but for two or three or more.

That strategy won in "Middle America." But it discredited the Republican Party among people under thirty, women, college graduates, people earning more than $200,000, Catholics, African Americans, and Hispanics, probably in a lasting way. It will doubtless increase the "us/them" resentments of many Middle Americans, for whom Sarah Palin is likely to become an abiding symbol of despised down-home values. Paul Krugman has already predicted that the Republican Party, with its more moderate representatives turned out of office, will move farther to the right, engage in more negative stereotyping, and blame the "liberal media" for their election defeats. The trouble with populism, as observers have noted for more than a hundred years, is that it does not analyze but engages in scapegoating, digging itself deeper into the same attitudes.

Barack Obama succeeded in unifying the various constituencies despite initial misgivings related to race, inexperience, and "elitism." He did it by demonstrating that he had resolved any personal issues of race and ethnicity and did not need to replay them in the public forum (he showed "more insight and maturity than Bill Clinton at the age of 60," says Evan Thomas in Newsweek, November 17, 2008); that his calm, even "intellectual," style did not mean disengagement but resiliency under pressure and a willingness to consider varying approaches to often agonizing issues; and that he was sincere when he talked about "reaching across the aisle" and relating to a wide variety of people.

In some ways he fulfills the dream of Willy and Biff Loman to be "not only liked but well liked." He does it by convincing people that he is interested in them and understands them. What it suggests about his governing style is that he will identify with as many people, as many factions, as many interests, as possible. When he has to make tough decisions (and there will be times when he must make them), there is likely to be more confidence about his fairness and good judgment.

Many on the left side of the political spectrum worry that Obama's aims are too inclusive, too close to the middle or even the right. He has placated the "Israel lobby," he has made the requisite criticisms of Hugo Chavez, he has included establishment advisers like Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin. (To his credit, however, he has publicly criticized the human rights violations by the government of Colombia, which John McCain called a friendly democracy.) Commentators on the left have been spreading the message that Congress and the Obama administration will need to be kept under constant pressure not to veer toward the right.

Republicans, for their part, have already sounded the warning that if advocacy groups and Democrats in Congress press their agenda too hard they will generate opposition and put themselves at risk in the 2010 election.

That is why continued grassroots pressure will be needed. Obama has in fact asked for it, noting that his slogan "Yes we can" makes sense only if it us understood to mean "Together we can."

Don't expect too leftish an agenda. If Rahm Emanuel becomes chief of staff, he will advocate centrist and business-oriented policies. In any case, the Democrats in Congress are already bought and paid for by corporate contributions. For decades Joe Biden has carried water for Delaware's banks and credit card companies. The policy of Congress will remain, for the most part, socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. And perhaps the final irony of this election is that Obama could not have been elected if he had stayed within the limits of public campaign financing. He won by organizing well at every level, down to the precinct. And while much of his campaign money came from small donations, a lot came from wealthy interests, too.

What's the Likely Agenda?

One clear mandate for this new administration, supported by many disillusioned Republicans, is to clean up the federal government. Even more than during the Reagan years we have seen office holders finding excuses to subvert the laws they have sworn to uphold — in environmental protection, in food and drug regulation, in labor relations and factory inspections. The Justice Department has been prey to partisanship and irregular procedures. Public servants have declared detention without trial, rendition, and torture to be constitutional. Separation of powers has been used to justify the theory of a "unitary executive" with unrestricted discretion to administer the laws. We may hope that there will be quick action to correct these abuses, though we also know that every executive is loath to relinquish powers that might be useful at some time.

At the top of the legislative agenda will be restoring the economy. Everyone is saying that Obama and a Democratic Congress will have major responsibility here and will be blamed for failures. It is an area in which the Republican Party, ideologically committed to giving business a free hand while putting constant pressure on unions and individual workers, is unlikely to cooperate.

There is now hope that the disastrous tax cuts of the Bush era will be ended and the huge national debt will be diminished by taxing those who benefit most from the economy and are most able to pay. If fairness is not valued enough for its own sake, then the state of the economy demands it.

Let's not expect too much. The cover story in Newsweek for November 10 carries a warning by Robert J. Samuelson (excerpts from a new book) that the economy is likely to slow in a variety of ways, and the new era may be one of "affluent deprivation" — not poverty but a more chastened state of mind. We didn't need Samuelson to tell us that. It has been obvious for decades that the second half of the 20th century (at least in the U.S. and Europe) was the most affluent period that world history will ever see. It is often pointed out that our lifetime has been the period of the greatest transfer of wealth from one generation to another in world history (that's why all organizations, from the Ivy League schools to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Witherspoon Society, are urging adherents to remember them in their wills; it's also why the Bush administration's attempt to abolish the estate tax was so appealing, and so controversial). We know that the 21st century will have more pressures, from resource depletion and global warming to population increases and intergroup tensions, and we will all need to reduce our expectations and find ways to live together.

"Energy independence" is closer to being a bipartisan consensus. Although there will be differences over nuclear power and offshore drilling, both parties may be ready to take meaningful steps toward alternative energy sources and the development of hybrid or electric vehicles. And let's not forget trains. They're much more efficient, and the trucking industry is apprehensive about fuel costs and the availability of drivers. The state of Virginia is giving serious consideration to new high-speed rail service (primarily for trailers, but also for passengers) in the Shenandoah Valley, which is on the main route to the Northeast from the Southwest and even from the West Coast.

This is the first area in which we will hear calls for a "Green New Deal," an "energy Keynesianism" with focused investment — not just throwing money at the banks, which is all that has been done thus far — to boost the economy and create jobs, with special incentives for research and manufacturing inside the U.S. At the same time there must be other changes in the law to make international trade more equitable, including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements and closing the many loopholes that encourage tax havens and money laundering.

The "bailout" or "rescue" of Wall Street has had only limited success. Thus far there has been very little trickle-down to harassed homeowners and renters, who have mostly been abandoned to the tender mercies of the financial marketplace. There could be some hope for them, since John McCain has publicly committed himself to dealing with the mortgage problem for ordinary people.

How will health care fare? It will be pushed lower on the agenda if the focus is simply on rescuing Wall Street, for then it would look like a major part of the problem. But it can look like part of the solution if health care is acknowledged to constitute 15 percent of the economy and if the business community recognizes how much it could benefit from a more accessible, affordable, and efficient health care system.

And then there is foreign policy. The rest of the world has been watching this election with intense interest, because what we do in the U.S. can affect them even more than it affects us. They now have great hopes that the "ugly American" image that we too often project will recede, since Obama has promised a foreign policy that works with, not against, the rest of the world. Through various channels we learn that U.S. citizens living abroad, accustomed to being constantly asked — or simply berated — about U.S. policy around the world, wept when they heard the election returns, men as well as women. Obama's election may even help with the much-debated relations between the West and the Islamic world, since it generated great interest and enthusiasm in Kenya and Indonesia, two countries associated with Obama's life story.

You might want to look at reports we've received from friends in Scotland and Australia.
 

A view from Scotland

This came from the Rev. John Mann and the Rev. Lindsay Biddle, former minister members of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, who are now both serving as pastors of congregations of the Church of Scotland in Glasgow

Hello Doug,

In response to your request for reactions to the election –

For the second time, Lindsay and I cast our ballots from overseas and watched the election results from abroad. People in Britain and Europe have desperately wanted an American President who represents our better ideals. Through the peaceful democratic process of an election, Americans have made a statement that they want the same thing. Since the results came in, both friends and total strangers have told us what a wonderful thing the election of Barack Obama is.

After five years of being on the defensive because of our government and its policies, it is indeed wonderful.

Take care –

John Mann and Lindsay Biddle, Glasgow Scotland
November 9, 2008

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This has come from the Rev. Tom Hobson, of Belleville, IL. He is a PCUSA minister, and a full-time Ph D student in Biblical exegesis at Concordia Seminary, St Louis.

After election

Saul Alinsky has been elected president. Your readers are thrilled by that. But 55 million of us have a problem with it. And probably 55 million more who voted for him have no idea what they have done, yet, thanks to a news media who has operated like a team of umpires that are owned and paid by the other team. Imagine how Obama would have been dissected if he had been a Republican. Flip the party labels on everyone who has been trashed, or covered up, in this election, and the shameless hypocrisy should be obvious. The establishment media has ceased to serve the public’s right to know.

For the basis for these thoughts, the author points to an article in The American Spectator >>

We have elected a candidate who was elected to the Senate by outing the confidential divorce records of his original opponent, Jack Ryan, over the objections of Ryan and his ex-wife. (This is the kind of leadership we want?) This president-elect has chosen a Chief of Staff who will “reach across the aisle” with his famous steak knife.

[A note from your WebWeaver on the Jack Ryan case: I had not been particularly aware of this issue, but a quick check on Wikipedia – admittedly a sometimes less than reliable source – suggests that the “outing” of Jack Ryan’s divorce records was not quite that simple. ]

ACORN’S claim that they were thwarted by Republicans from reforming the housing mess is the classic case of the rapist blaming his victim, like the Somali rape victim who was recently stoned for adultery. I heard the voices of Democrats Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and Chuck Schumer blocking the reform efforts of John McCain and George Bush by calling them racist. (Note also that Obama’s Chief of Staff was on Freddie Mac’s board when they misrepresented their assets.)

Gene TeSelle should not mistake the uninformed, reptilian public response to the Democratic economic meltdown as a realignment. The only realignment I see out there is that the Democrats have become the party of the super-rich elite.

I will need to think hard about whether to scruple Exodus 22:28. After all, it was written a long time ago, and society has changed. (Just kidding.)

Tom Hobson
Belleville, IL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The election is celebrated Down Under

November 9, 2008

Kathy and Lew Lancaster, Witherspoon members living in Louisville, sent this email sent to them by Lew's son, George Lancaster and his Australian wife, Nicky

Tonight, soccer night with my old boys of Leichardt, I arrive before the game and everyone on the team, and I mean everyone, is already in mid conversation about Obama's win. Smiles and amazed expressions as my mates take ownership of the universal joy. Handshakes and hugs of congratulations for me. Same in the office, people giving me exuberant heart-felt high-fives when the verdict was made official on Wednesday our time. News radio, the papers, phone conversations with customers-turned-friends -- all are reflecting an upbeat mood.

Never experienced anything like it -- the results of an election so far away touching folk in a foreign land in real time in a sincere and emotional way. As if it meant something life-changing to them in their daily lives. Obama is optimism personified and he's global -- America has given a gift to the world, and though I wasn't there at the time, the impact is probably not too dissimilar to D-Day. The good thing about experiencing Obama's ascendance abroad is that no one in the general vicinity, and I mean no one, has any doubt about the rightness of the outcome. You won't find any McCain/Palin supporters here.

As soon as Nicky heard the news she called Benjamin {their son} who was at home and said, You know the American flag my friends gave me when I became a citizen? Hang it up! Display it where all can see it. I think Benjamin was already on task by then and tacked it up, visible, in our front window. It was there when I got home, and all I could think upon seeing it was how right it looked. When was the last time, I wondered, did I feel positively fervent about displaying my nationality? Honestly? Never before. Benjamin then took it one step further -- today was his last day at school and he went off sporting a white T-shirt upon which he had scrawled in black ink, "I believe in Obama."

So, to answer your question, Obama's win is as big here as in Atlanta, Or Obama, Japan, Or Kenya, Or Indonesia, Or South Africa. And every instance he, his team, and a reinvigorated Congress, can dismantle law by law, illegal act by illegal act, the toxic legacy of Big W, will only serve to prolong and spread the optimism month by month, year by year. I know it's a tremendous burden upon his shoulders, but it all certainly looks bright now.

The view from Down Under.
George

Kathy Lancaster added this note:

Lew's son George Lancaster is just fine with his letter being circulated. George's wife, Nicky, was born in Australia and moved to the U.S. quite some time age; two years ago George, Nicky, and their two teenagers moved to Sydney, where Nicky's parents live. Do with this as you wish С the international drama is heartening these days, isn't it?

Best wishes, Kathy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A good message for all to hear.

Alice Walker an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama, on expectations, responsibilities and a new reality that is almost more than the heart can bear.

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you delivered the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,

Alice Walker

Thanks to Bill Coop, Sylvia Thorson-Smith, and others who have urged us to post this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Garrison Keillor offers his usual dose of wisdom, too

Bravo! You've earned it. Now go and be yourself.

Among other things, Keillor writes:

One is electrified by the historic moment, of course, but I will let Great Minds chew on that, and simply wish him and his marvelous lady all the best as they bear up under the tsunami of adoration from Democrats whom he has led out of Egypt. His picture goes up in the kitchen shrine alongside FDR and JFK -- BHO elevated to sainthood and now expected to walk on water and turn it into wine. Meanwhile, everything he said about the national mess is utterly true and a lot more. And now it is Barack's mess. Yikes.

A good shingle for the new administration to hang out, rather than The New Covenant or A Fair Exchange or English Spoken Here, would be Keep Seat Belt Buckled. Happy days are not here and the sky above is not clear.

The whole thing >>

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

Got more blogs to recommend?

Plan now for our 2010 Ghost Ranch Seminar!

GHOST RANCH SEMINAR

July 26-August 1, 2010

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