Last year at this time, I gave a “State of the Union Address” at the University of Notre Dame just an hour, or so, before President Obama’s address. My talk that night is just as applicable to our country today. As you will view, it is short on political hyperbole and long on directness and common sense. The gist of the talk is that in the face of some tremendous dramatic problems (50 million abortions, global warming, world starvation, nuclear proliferation, inner city war zones…), much of the legislation coming out of D.C. — for quite some time — has been like “…rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” What my talk outlines is how to steer the boat away from the iceberg altogether, before it’s too late.
biophobia and boycott
I talked with Alan Jenkins who is involved with the Earth Covenant Ministry through his Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. (Earth Covenant focuses on trying to promote more environmental stewardship in the face of some tremendously bad environmental practices these days. For one, Earth Covenant exhorts people “…to use food, water, energy and other natural resources in a mindful way.”) To get people thinking this way, Jenkins said we have to expose them to more encounters with nature. To that end, he is taking a group of local youth on a canoeing and camping week soon. He noted that environmental author David Orr uses the term “biophobia” to describe a lot of the populace in America at this point. We interviewed Orr at Oberlin College in Ohio several years ago for our position paper on the environment. Orr notes that biophobia is basically a fear of ‘anything nature’ anymore. And how many respond to nature now, for the most part, is we ensconce ourselves in temperature controlled office space, temperature controlled homes, temperature controlled cars… Nature, in essence, has become the “enemy.” Note: Weighing in on China… Among other things, America is concerned about a trade imbalance with China and the perceived need for their currency to appreciate. We also pay at least lip service to their human rights record. In that vein, our administration would go beyond lip service and, for one, focus on the 130 million abortions in China in the past 30 years, many of them “forced.” Example: The World Magazine recently reported on Wujian, who become pregnant “…without the necessary birth permit” under the China One-Child Policy. The magazine reported: Wujian went into hiding, but was tracked down. She was then forced into a “grizzly hospital” with other women facing the same fate. She begged for her child’s life, as doctors pulled the baby apart with scissors. She caught a glimpse of the bloody foot of her nearly full-term child. “Through my tears, the picture of the bloody foot was engraved into my eyes and into my heart… and so clearly I could see the fine, small, bloody toes,” she lamented. “Immediately the baby was thrown into the trash can.” Note 2: In essence, America has allowed this type of horrific human rights abuse to be trumped by economic concerns. Our administration would ‘draw a line in the sand’ saying until this kind of thing (along with jailing and torturing of pro-democracy advocates, religious persecution, etc…) stopped in China — there would be a complete trade boycott with that nation. And yes, I realize the economic domino that might happen as a result. But sometimes, well, you’ve just got to do what’s right without all the complex geo-political rationale (read: rational lies).
for all the little Christinas…
Besides volunteering at the Open Door Community outreach to the homeless in Atlanta this week (while looking at urban poverty issues), I’ve been doing research on various sets of other issues facing our country. At the forefront this week is the shooting in Arizona. The New York Times noted that preliminary data around the shooter, Jared Loughlin, 22, “…seems to point to a man with delusional thinking and mental illness.” This would be a time to note that we could be doing a whole lot better when it comes to dealing with mental illness. In an article for Emory University Magazine, former First Lady Rosalyn Carter writes that there has been an explosive increase in scientific knowledge and understanding of mental illness of late. Brain scan technologies, groundbreaking research into genetic and environmental influence, and the development of powerful medications and other treatments. However, Carter said the system needs to catch up with these advances, ensuring their availability and affordability… I am a former counselor who has worked extensively with drug, alcohol and dysfunctional family system dynamics. (Initial reports also indicated Loughlin had illegal drug issues.) What’s needed, I believe, is a tremendously heightened focus on these issues. About 10 years ago, I spent three months researching the organization Take A Stand for Kids on the Monterey Peninsula in California. Citizens there banded together to put on in-home meetings, public seminars, school seminars… to raise peoples awareness about drug addiction, alcoholism, compulsive gambling, work addiction, dysfunctional parenting patterns, mental illness (depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia…), including teaching about a host of recovery options. This, in turn, made the peninsula a much healthier place emotionally. Note: All the latter issues lead to a tremendous amount of social problems — domestic abuse, crimes, shootings (there are 100,000 shootings a year in America). It’s only common sense that we should step up our dealing with these things at their roots. For all the little Christina Taylor Greens of our society. I once told Ohio Magazine: “Liz and I used to be concerned about how our kids did in English class. Now we’re more concerned about them being shot to death in English class.”
a recap
A recap of the last year: While the other potential presidential candidates were positioning themselves in various ways for potential runs for Campaign 2012, we were already hard at the campaign. (I declared for 2012 five minutes after the polls closed in Alaska for Campaign 2008. I mean why wait, right?) Last year our tours spanned some 10,000 miles. We campaigned in: Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina… We were featured in such newspapers as the LaGrange News in Georgia, the Amarillo Globe News in Texas, Wiki News… I gave my “State of the Union” address at the University of Notre Dame. The talk was sponsored by the Center for Social Concerns at the university and actually was the night of President Obama’s “State of the Union” address. (Incidentally, the talks were decidedly different.) During the last year, we continued to do even more cross-country research for a rather extensive set of position papers. And one of these position papers (on Native American issues) was featured in a Cengage Learning college text book: Opposing View Points — Social Justice. Our essay argued for a series of amends to Native Americans. It ran opposite of Michael Reagan’s. He argued against amends. (Reagan is the son of the late President Reagan and is a conservative talk show host). We are currently in Atlanta, Georgia, for the winter where we are volunteering at an outreach for the homeless, updating our website, and preparing for the next series of campaign tours. And so it goes for our fourth successive run for president.
gift that keeps on giving…
Our family’s gift to Jesus this Christmas was a financial gift to Heifer International. We all kicked in some money to buy chickens for a Third World village. Heifer raises animals in America then ships them to these villages. The provision is that once, say, the chickens have other chickens, the baby chicks are to be given to other villagers, who in turn give the next offspring to other villagers… It’s a gift that keeps on giving, in a big way… I found my self in a conversation with a Libertarian at the YMCA. He said he was not particularly in favor of entitlement programs. I said we’d just spent five years in the inner city of Cleveland on the front line, if you will. Kids growing up trying daily to dodge hunger, needles, bullets… While the kids in the suburbs (and many small towns) have a way better shot at life. And I believe it’s a spiritual imperative we help level the playing field. (And no, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with socialism. It has everything to do with Christian love.) As coincidence would have it, last night I stepped in to help coach my son’s home school basketball team. Most of the kids are from suburban Atlanta. They show up in Lexus’s (etc.) driven by their parents and play in $100 basketball shoes. Of the teams I coached at the Cleveland Rec Center in the city, these kids showed up primarily on foot or by bus (through some pretty rough neighborhoods). and their shoes, for the most part, were bought used in thrift stores. What’s more, many of them were going home to places without a father; or to parents who are alcoholics, or crack addicts… Note: While at the Open Door Community in urban Atlanta, I interviewed a volunteer here who just retired as legal counsel for the Weather Chanel. In her retirement, she has become involved with “Leadership Atlanta.” This is a year long program for seniors who want to “…give back to the community.” Each month there is a day long seminar on various social issues in Atlanta. Some of the topics include: race relations; education, health care… The intent of the program (each class has 75 students) is to not only expose people to the issues, but create “leaders” who will take the ball and either create programs, or get involved with existing programs, to impact some of these issues.
“Merry Christmas Johnny”
It’s Christmas… In between campaign tours, we’re volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta this winter, an outreach to the homeless here. (They take homeless people in here, but we are currently full.) This morning while making my rounds outside, I came across someone who is somewhat of a regular here. He slept outside last night under two threadbare blankets. The temperature was in the lower 30s. “Johnny” is a thin, Black man who appears to be in his late 40s. He has a mental disorder and has been on the streets since, well, anyone can remember. He’s fallen through the cracks, as have many down here. Along with a “merry Christmas Johnny,” I gave him a hot cup of coffee, a couple sandwiches and $5 for cigarettes. But what he really needs is extensive counseling in a quality in-patient, mental health facility, some nutritious food, a support network… And that could actually happen for Johnny — if so many of us in this country lost the satellite radios, the wide screen TVs, the air-conditioning… But sadly, we go on pampering ourselves and in turn saying quite literally to the “Johnny’s” of the world: “Sorry, there’s no room at the inn.” Note: In this same vein, President Obama and his family are on an 11-day vacation at a million dollar beach house in Hawaii where, the press reports, they’ll have steak tonight. ‘Change we can believe in?’ President Bush would go to a set of multi-million dollar family summer homes on an ocean island off the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine, for some of his vacations. Where, I’m sure, he also had steak for dinner. Incidentally, “Johnny” — if he’s lucky — will have a cold bologna sandwich for dinner tonight on his way to searching out another back alley to sleep in. Isn’t it time to stop the insanity in this country? And I’m not talking about “Johnny’s” mental disorder.
boom x a whole lot
The New START Treaty has been ratified in the U.S. (still has to be ratified in Russia as well). The treaty will limit each country’s strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. I’m sorry, but this seems to me like ‘…rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.’ Our last campaign tour took us through South Dakota where we stopped at an old missile silo headquarters run now by the National Park System. A display board there noted it takes approximately 30 minutes for a nuclear missile to travel to Moscow. Ok, some average Joe math: 1,550 nuclear missiles (‘down from 2,200 nuclear missiles) would still blow the world up a whole lot of times over. (And I didn’t even need to work at Los Alamos to know that.) What’s more, for the Treaty to have passed, there was a provision added that $85 billion (that’s right, billion, as with a b) would be allocated for nuclear weapons upkeep and modernization. Meanwhile, 24,000 people starved to death today in the world. None other than former President (and Army general) Dwight Eisenhower once said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired… signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed…” Some more “average Joe” math: $85 billion dollars could buy a whole lot of food for people starving in the Third World now. An “average Joe” analysis: I wonder how God would look at people who put their own safety above the desperate, imploring eyes of a little Ethiopian child in the throes of the last stage of starving to death — as her mother looks on helplessly? Note: Bumper sticker sighting in Atlanta, Georgia, today: When Jesus said love your enemies, I doubt if that meant kill your enemies. I wonder how nuclear missiles would square with this?
He’s dead.
Our family is volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, Georgia, this winter. The Open Door is an outreach to the homeless. The last couple nights, because of frigid temperatures here, we have become a temporary night shelter. Part of what prompted this was that the first night the temperatures were in single digits (with the wind chill factor), someone died on the streets of exposure. There are some 10,000 homeless people in the greater Atlanta region. Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine just noted that the top 20% of Americans own 84% of the wealth of this nation. And the bottom 20% own 0.1% of the wealth. The guy who froze to death was in the latter category. On our last campaign tour, I told the Amarillo Globe News that my administration would have some of the guys on the street: living in the Lincoln Bedroom. I mean, I don’t think Lincoln would mind. He’s dead. The room’s open.
‘culture of narcissism’ and global warming
Ok, time to call a spade a spade… During our prayer time this morning, I was reading the kids some writings of Dorothy Day (co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement). At one point, she wrote that people in this society often grow up quite selfish, continually expecting things. (A ‘culture of narcissism,’ if you will.) Thus, if you have a majority of people who are are selfish, then it makes for a country that is, well, selfish. In the face of rapidly evolving global warming that is already causing lethal droughts and flooding, super-charged hurricanes, super-charged typhoons… America is dragging it’s feet (particularly the Republicans) on dramatic (and quick ) cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Why? Because selfish people don’t like to sacrifice. As an example, they don’t want to be warm in the summer (lose the air-conditioning), colder in the winter (cut back the thermostat), while we’re phasing in more and more clean, renewable alternative energy technology. So those involved with the Climate Conference last week in Cancun, Mexico, had to settle for secondary (and far less impacting) responses to global warming. Does this make us in the U.S. (even narcissistic initials, huh) morally culpable for the climate deaths happening around the world now, and in the future? Well, sure.
An ounce of prevention…
We’re currently volunteering at the Open Door Community in Atlanta, while looking at urban poverty issues. The Open Door is an outreach to the homeless that includes some beds, meals, showers… The Open Door also has a health clinic on Wednesday nights. Several of the volunteers for this are medical students at nearby Emory University. I recently talked at length with one of the students, Gretchen Snoyenbus. She said she is currently taking a class on health care issues for seniors. Ms. Snoyenbus said one of the problems, the way she sees it, is insurance companies generally only allow for 15 minutes with the doctor per: visit, yet seniors often times have a cornucopia of health issues that need longer attention and considered discussion about medication, nutrition, and so on… If this doesn’t happen at that point, then long term there’s a much better chance the senior will end up in the hospital, including health care expenses rising exponentially at this point. Ms. Snoyenbus said common sense would be that insurance companies should make provisions for covering longer visits for seniors at the outset to, in turn, cut down on extensive health care expenses on the other end of the continuum. Or put an old-fashion way: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Note: At the climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, a frustrated Bolivian president, Evo Morales, said dragging feet on this issue is akin to “ecocide.” It’s been my experience that the Green Party has, by far, the best platform when it comes to reversing global warming.