President Needs to Provide Light of Hope for Masses

united states currency seal - IMG_7366_web — Image by kevindean via Flickr

When people say they want their country back, what, exactly, are they saying?

I ask because more than one news person has said that tonight’s State of the Union is an opportunity and a mandate for President Obama to offer a vision of the future; without such a vision, they say, people will lapse into yearning for the past.

What past are they yearning for?

One of the most profound things I’ve ever heard was said by author Karen Armstrong, who said that when too much is changing, too quickly, people yearn for the past; it is in those moments that fundamentalism becomes strongest. The lack of things familiar take people all the way out of their comfort zones and feed their fear and anxiety. The only safe thing to do is to yearn for that which they know, even if what they have known was not all that good.

We sit in transition period. The economy is improving, but is still horrendous; people who used to be middle class are now poor or at best, lower middle class. People who were comfortable, economically, are now immensely uncomfortable and have no sense of security when it comes to visualizing or imagining their future or the future of their children.

This economic debacle has been called a recession, but from all that I have read, it so resembles the Great Depression. The arguments about the distance between the very wealthy and the new poor are the same, and I would suppose that much of what a vast number of Americans are feeling now is not all that different from what the people in the 1930s felt.

It took a long time for the aftershocks of the fall of the stock market to stop coming; people were still in dire straits in the late 1930s. Even as late as 1938, money was scarce for most people, and they looked for pleasure in the tiniest things – but they yearned for the “good old days.”

That, apparently, is where Americans are now. Though it is totally unrealistic to expect that President Obama – or any president, for that matter – would be able to undo what took at least eight years to create, people cannot and will not resonate with that reality. Mitt Romney said that people who do not have money are envious of those who do…and he is probably right. None of us who are flailing and who are treading water want to be where we are.

And so we are in a bad place, we Americans. We want out. We want relief. Though many hate the idea of entitlements, many have survived because of those entitlements. But that’s not what we want. We want jobs. We want there to be not a diminishing middle class but a renewed and growing middle class. We want to be able to stop having to worry about making decisions on whether we will eat or buy extra gas for a week.

All of the politicians, including President Obama, are wealthy. They cannot feel our pain. They can imagine and they can exploit it, but they cannot feel it. They are so far removed from our places of angst, that their campaigns ring hollow and their blatant exploitation of our fears borders on the immoral and unethical.

The news people are right: if the present dilemma of the American people does not get better soon, Americans who ar prone to look back and yearn for a fantastical past will do just that. Those who have never been economically sound or comfortable will continue to yearn, ironically, for a reality they have never known.

The President has an enormous burden upon him. Unlike the politicians who are recklessly using the angst and anxiety of the American people for their own selfish gain, President Obama has to give a glimmer of hope to people who are on the brink of falling into permanent despair.

I, for one, hope he realizes that, and provides the light in darkness for so many who are truly walking in darkness.

A candid observation

Newt Gingrich Owes African Americans an Apology

Newt Gingrich owes African-Americans an apology.

He absolutely knows what he is doing.

His constant calling President Obama “the food stamp president” is nothing more than racial politics, no less reprehensible or excusable than when Lee Atwater and the GOP used the image of Willie Horton to take down Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Gingrich has settled into the language that “liberals” or “elite liberals” are the only ones who “despise making money.” That is incorrect, but it isn’t a morally and ethically reprehensible statement or behavior.

But going to South Carolina and using language that feeds into the racial fears and misconceptions that come up in conversations with far too many white people, is a moral and ethical outrage.

Can you not get the votes, Mr. Gingrich, without putting black people down and feeding into the misconceptions of way too many white people?

Statistics released by the United States Department of Agriculture show that 35 percent of all food stamp recipients are white, compared to 22 percent black, and 10 percent Hispanic. If you, Mr. Gingrich, would say that, or something to that effect, the insult you have heaped upon the descendants of African slaves who built this country would be non-existent.

I wonder if Gingrich, or any candidate, has the chutzpah to tell people part of the reason that the unemployment rate amongst black men, especially young black men, is that too many white employers still refuse to hire them? I wonder if Gingrich, a historian, has the courage to talk about the fact that black people have lived through an era where at one time, there were blatant signs put up, “Black (or Colored) people need not apply,” as African-Americans sought to find work?

The signs are gone, but the emotions, feelings and beliefs that made people feel justified in putting such signs up are far from being gone.

I wonder if Gingrich has the courage to stand up and say, since he is wanting to be president of ALL of the people of this nation, that the undercurrent racism of this country will be met with and dealt with in his administration if he is elected president, so that the course of this nation will be turned, finally, away from post-Civil War and Reconstruction white resentment of black people which has never died, to a 21st century, Christian endeavor to deal with our racism honestly, for the good of the nation.

Many, too many, white people say, and believe, that “this is a white man’s country.” In her book Rising Sun, author Sharon Davies gives an account of a young white girl who is appearing before a grand jury because she has converted to Catholicism, against the wishes of her parents. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was not only against black people and Jewish people, but it also hated Catholics. This young girl’s parents were amongst the Catholic-haters, and, enraged that his daughter had married a Catholic boy in secret, her father had shot and killed the priest who married them.

In her testimony before the Grand Jury, the young girl was asked if her husband was a white man (he was from Puerto Rico and was allowed, by Alabama state law, to say he was “white.”) When the girl said he was a Spaniard, the Grand Jury members scoffed, and one juror said, just remember, “this is a white man’s country…always has been and always will be.”

A young Hugo Black, who would become a member of the United States Supreme Court, was one of the girl’s defense attorneys …and he was also a member of the Klan, as were many of the jurors.

That feeling has not gone away and Newt knows it, and he thus knows that saying President Obama is “the food stamp president” feeds right into that belief and the sentiment that there is a need to “take the country” back. The charge is that Mr. Obama is the most liberal president in history. Say that. True or not, it’s fair. It is fair political rhetoric.

Say that it is true that more people are on food stamps than at any other time in our history, but that statistics say that more white than black people are on those food stamps, and they needed to do it because the economic mess that Mr. Obama inherited from the GOP was so horrible that had he not made a way for more people to get food stamps, a lot of Americans, black, white and brown, would have not been able to eat!

Make the argument against President Obama openly about economics, and not sneakily about race.

Americans who have found themselves not only using but needing food stamps for the first time in their lives are ashamed for having to use them, but at the same time are grateful that this president did what he thought would best help them.

It is true that some people, black and white, who receive government assistance, are abusing the system. Say that, Mr. Gingrich, and nobody will be able to accuse you of playing the race card or indulging in racial politics. When you say that President Obama is “the food stamp president,” say that his policies have resulted in more black and white and brown people getting food stamps than ever before. Then your statement will not be racially charged and racially polarizing.

I know that politics, or the game of politics, is not supposed to be fair, but it is high time that racial politics stop being the trump card for politicians reaching for the White House. African-Americans, and indeed all Americans, deserve better.

African-Americans have provided the labor upon which the economy of this nation was built. It is high time white politicians say that out loud, and stop the craziness and stop using words that only make the decay in our nation caused by racism worse.

You, Mr. Gingrich, owe African-Americans an apology. It is NOT all right to insult us, even if you are trying to kick Mitt Romney out of contention for the presidency. What you are saying and are now defending, is morally and ethically wrong. We deserve better.

A candid observation …

What If?

What would America be like if it were run by a plain, old, middle or lower middle class president, and if the Congress wasn’t filled with millionaires?

There is so much conversation about how we are a plutocracy and not a democracy at all – meaning that the wealthy are doing the controlling and the governing. Government and big business are in bed together, and they are not about to give up or even consider policies which will threaten their class status or their wealth.

That’s understandable. They have no vested interest in the common people; “we the people” are merely puppets used in elections. Ironically, we elect people who do not really have our best interests at heart, not if it threatens the status quo.

It is not surprising, though it is sad, that the gap between the wealthy and the poor is getting larger and larger and that the middle class is almost non-existent. GOP presidential candidate shows absolutely no sensitivity to this reality, saying this week that the complaints against the wealthy is really envy.

Perhaps somewhat. It would be unrealistic to deny that the “have-nots” would rather be “haves.”

But what if the presidency went to a middle class person who was not so far removed from the days of real economic hardship, who remembered personally what it was like to work and still not have a decent, living wage? What if that person had a Congress that was likewise filled with people who could relate to the vast majority of Americans because they were in basically the same boat? What if the members of Congress didn’t have health care, or what if their jobs at Congress paid minimum wage or just above? What sorts of policies for the American people might emerge?

It is telling that in debates, the words “poor” or “poverty” are seldom heard. We hear that conversations criticizing the distance between rich and poor as being “class warfare,” and we hear jabs intimating that people who depend on entitlements or even government employment are burdens to the system of free enterprise.

But the candidates show their disconnect from what is the reality in America, and it goes beyond comprehension why they do not seem to know that a country cannot be its best if the masses are in distress.

And clearly, the masses are in distress.

Someone said to me that if more people would just try harder and get a good education, the playing field would be more level.

I wondered which country she lives in. The cost of a college education is skyrocketing, way out of reach for more and more people, even as jobs that don’t require college educations become fewer and fewer.

Something is wrong with this picture.

So, I just got to thinking …what if the president were just…one of us? I cringe as I see these millions of dollars being spent to get elected. It’s like the money was pulled from a reserved tree or something; this while so many people are suffering. The poverty rate in America is 46 percent…

To make matters worse, the money being thrown around isn’t getting us any closer to knowing who, really, has the best interests of “the rest of us” at heart. No, super PACs are doling out money so that candidates can tear each other to shreds personally. All these guys are super wealthy, and all they want to do is get into office to create policies that will protest their wealth. So, what’s a few million dollars to get that done?

If there were to be someone who came aboard advocating for the masses, he or she would be quickly dubbed a socialist. People call President Obama a socialist, but his policies have not been all that kind or helpful to the masses. The complaint against him seems to have stemmed from rabid opposition to his Affordable Health Care Act, but other than that, I find it hard to figure out why people are saying that he has been against big business and free enterprise.

At the end of the day, those who “have” fight to protect their interests. That’s all that’s going on now. That’s why I wonder what America would be like if someone less wealthy, with a less wealthy Congress, were in control?

Would we be a more equitable nation, or would those in power aspire to be like their mentors, i.e, the wealthy who are in power now?

A larger question might be, would a less wealthy president and Congress create a more equal America, or do the masses of people, wealthy, middle class or otherwise, even believe that financial and/or social equality is even a part of the definition of democracy? Was this country ever intended to serve the interests of and protect the masses, or were we, the common people, duped into believing in the ideal of equality by Thomas Jefferson’s words, “all men are created equal?”

A musing …and a candid observation.

Wasteful Spending the Mark of American Political Campaigns

Some things just do not make any sense to me.

Like, politicians spending millions of dollars, basically to try to destroy each other, and win an office, while people are hungry, homeless, and sick. It makes no sense for GOP candidates or for President Barack Obama, who reports say will probably spend a billion dollars in his re-election bid, while American people are suffering.

Has America lost her way and her moral compass? How can any individual and any country condone such blatant wasteful spending when not only our nation but countries all over the world are in severe economic distress?

Not only is there wasteful spending going on, the issues that have Americans at bay are basically being ignored. In the recent GOP debates, there was not a lot of substantive conversation or talking about the issues which are breaking America’s back. Instead, there was petty argument and attacks on each other. This, while 46 percent of the nation is living in poverty?What’s wrong with this picture when a candidate would rather rail about same-sex marriage than how to fix an economy where the rich are getting richer on the backs of the poor?

Can a nation sustain itself, being like this?

One of the things I am learning about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is that he never lost his touch with “the people.” He insisted on making those around him and those who made laws think about “the common man.” He insisted upon people having what he called “The Four Freedoms:” freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in whatever way one wanted, freedom from want, which meant to him, the right of the common man to make a living wage, and freedom from fear. He wanted these freedoms not only for Americans, but for people all over the world.

Why does it feel like present day politicians are not even close to wanting those freedoms for Americans – or for anyone else?

The middle class of America is about gone, yet the likes of Mitt Romney and the other GOP candidates have said virtually nothing about that. Newt Gingrich and Romney are both being backed up financially by extraordinarily wealthy super PACs…and it’s a sure thing that the “stealthy wealthy” will continue to throw bucks in the campaign buckets of candidates so that their economic positions can be maintained and grown.

What about the masses? Does the common person in America matter to anyone at all?

GOP candidates and Republicans in general lift up the name of Ronald Reagan as though he were the blood brother of Jesus, yet his “trickle down economic” policy never worked; what “trickled down” to the masses wasn’t enough to ensure they had quality lives. And now, with technology changing the way everything is done, the resources for the masses are even less. It used to be that a high school graduate could get at least a decent manufacturing job, but the wealthy – folks who own manufacturing businesses – are outsourcing jobs overseas, leaving their own American brothers and sisters to languish.

No problem, some would say. Just stay in school. Get an education! That’s good except that everyone cannot afford to go to college and some kids are just not college material. For those who do go to college, they are strapped by student loan debt that is so exorbitant it’s frightening.

The wealthy of this country do not seem to care. They are helping to develop the middle class of developing countries,and undermining America’s own. What is wrong with this picture?

If one has money, one can do about anything; in contrast, if one does not have money, one is enslaved to poverty and debt for his or her lifetime. Some of the GOP candidates have suggested, and some have stated outright, that those who are poor are poor because they want to be; they have not tried; they are lazy.

Not true. There are scores of Americans who are working their fingers to the bone and still cannot make ends meet. As for the unemployed, there are many who have given into the depression that comes when one is rejected over and over again, and those who are lucky enough to finally find a job also find out that potential employers second-guess hiring them when they realize the applicant has been out of work for so long.

This is America, where life is supposed to be easier than it is in other, “lesser” countries.

That may have been the case a while ago, but sadly, the reality and the legacy of America is changing …and nobody seems to care.

A candid observation…

Do God and Business Mix?

I find myself wondering what happens to God if a businessman becomes president of the United States?

Herman Cain and Mitt Romney keep saying that a businessman needs to run the country. Romney, in his stint as governor of Massachusetts, has shown that even as a businessman, he has some compassion for “the least of these.” People seem to matter to him, not just profit, at least from a distance.

Mr. Cain has no such record, but what I keep thinking is that the purpose of business is to make a profit, to use the people for the sake of making the profit. Some people will rise, some will fall, but business people really work for the preservation of “the bottom line.”

We, the United States, are in a financial mess, and we do need to fix it, and soon. But do business people factor God, and the will of God, into their daily operations and daily plans? Somehow, I do not think so.

When the Civil War began, Mayor Fernando Wood of New York City suggested that New York should secede in solidarity with its southern brothers and sisters. South Carolina was talking secession, and Wood was ready to lead his northern city into the fray.

At the heart of Wood’s position was a concern not for the plight of the slaves of the South and their predicament, but, rather, the preservation of the financial and maritime industries of New York City. Northern cities were becoming wealthy on the backs of slave labor; as cotton was picked, Southern landowners benefitted as did the textile industry.

In the North, immigrants suffered horrible working conditions as they worked the docks and in the textile industry. Work was a precious commodity; immigrants resented free blacks as they competed for the same jobs, and when the Union issued a draft in 1863, these immigrants revolted. They were scrounging around, working in horrible conditions, and they were not about to support a war and fight in a war that was against slavery because they felt the slaves were not suffering any more than were they.

Meanwhile, the business people continued their concern with doing whatever they needed to do to bring in big dollars. The people who made it happen for them were not that big a concern. Business people also were able to keep their own children out of the army. “The least of these” were the sacrificial lambs.

Today, we have Romney saying that “corporations are people,” and Cain saying that a businessman needs to run the country. We have people saying that there are some businesses too big to fail, while “the least of these” are falling like flies all over the country. It’s not just the poor who are falling. It’s people who used to have good jobs, members of the quickly disappearing middle class, who are falling as well.

In many churches, the focus has shifted from prophecy to profit-making, from God to greed, with God being mentioned minimally at best, or in ways that support a gospel of prosperity. Where in the New Testament, or in the Hebrew scriptures, is such a disconnect with “the least of these” supported? Where does Yahweh, in the Hebrew scriptures, and Jesus in the New Testament show a Texas-sized concern for the proliferation of the rich at the expense of the poor and suffering?

Yes, it is true that the United States needs to get its deficit reduced, its spending redirected, its debt eliminated, but at what cost? Who is “allowed” to suffer? I am afraid that the basic businessman would find such a question absurd and maybe naïve.

A candid observation …