Category Archives: America

Can this be happening?

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I scratch my head, wondering what to think, on the eve of another day of primaries. I am weary. Weary of the demagoguery of Donald Trump. Watching the tragedy unfold — fights at rallies, rallies called off, name-calling. “Kasich is a baby,” says Trump on the eve of the Ohio GOP primary, while people applaud the arrogance, the name-calling, the bravado, the nonsense: “We’re going to make America great again!”

We’re talking about the President of the United States of America.

A people’s frustration and anger do not a good president make. To the contrary, they make for division and demagoguery, for brawls in the streets, for the devolution of a nation to its lowest common denominator and the elevation of race, nation, and class as the altars of worship.

It leaves me speechless.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 14, 2016

 

 

 

Presidential humor and sanity

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A relaxed President Obama speaks about reality. Listen for Putin and the snowball! Some things you couldn’t make up!

Building Walls instead of Bridges

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buchananThis post by John Buchanan’s “Hold to the Good” is well worth the read IMHO. John is Pastor Emeritus of Fourth Presbyterian Church-Chicago, past Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, and recently retired Publisher of The Christian Century.

Thank you, John, for your fine work than and now.

  • Gordon and Steve

Family of John M. Buchanan's avatarHold to the Good

I simply do not know what to say about Donald Trump. I grew up in a home where what was going on in the world and in the nation was talked about regularly at the dinner table. Politics was often a spirited discussion between my father, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and conservative in almost all his opinions and positions, and my mother who I realized was a lot less ideological and more liberal. He didn’t have much good to say about President Roosevelt and Eleanor but she liked them a lot. Dad used to brag that the first words I spoke as a toddler were “Wendell Wilkie”, the Republican presidential candidate in the 1940 election, an election FDR won handily. I still have his Republican campaign lapel pin bearing Wilkie’s picture from that election. Robert Taft, Harold Stassen, Earl Warren, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Nelson Rockefeller, were familiar names to…

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“Making America ‘Great’ Again!”

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Donald Trump’s refrain begs for interpretation. What does he mean by ‘great’? Is there a synonym for ‘great’ in Trump’s speech and demeanor?

“Make America the BULLY again!”

Mr. Trump – Mr. You’re Fired! – acts like a bully and talks like a bully. “We’re going to make America great again! You’re going to love it!”

Need we say more? Yes, we do. Because people are falling for it.

imposters-of-godImagine the voice of William Stringfellow coming from the same stage as Mr. Trump:

“The sheer arrogance of the idolatrous claims of nations, perhaps especially those possessed of enormous economic and military strength, is so starling that the fascination of men (sic) with idolatry can be explained in no other conceivable manner than as moral insanity….

“More than one President of the United States, not to mention other lesser orators, have propounded, with sober face, the theme that America’s extraordinary power evidences an erstwhile holy dispensation and constitutes God’s partisanship for American dominance in the world.”- William Stringfellow, Imposters of God: Inquiries Into Favorite Idols, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006. [Imposters for God was original written as a confirmation curriculum for confirmands in the Episcopal Church in America.]

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Presbyterian minister, Chaska, MN, Feb. 27

A Sense of Decency

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Pernicious Predatory Political Practices, published here this afternoon exposing a series of right-wing pernicious, predatory mailings preying on Senior Citizens, takes some of us back to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s tactics of fear and character assassination, and the famous line that stopped him in his tracks in 1944. Imagine the American people asking the same question to every political candidate this Super Tuesday:

“You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” – Joseph Welsh, Special Counsel for the Army

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN 55318

Reader Comment:

“McCarthy, Wisconsin’s Jr. Senator didn’t respond. Trump & Cruz respond F. Y. Of course Rubio, the empty suit distinguished by ambition and absenteeism, was calculating his next slur on his ‘feckless’ President Obama. Had breakfast yesterday with retired Chair of History Department. His view is close to Ezra Klein’s Germany 1933. Scapegoating, authoritarianism, desperate and uneducated voters. Hitler won.” Jim

Pernicious Predatory Political Practices

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An 85 year-old friend calls with a bit of panic in his voice. “I think I’ve gotten myself into something in Washington,” he said. He’s getting mailings that look he’s part of a lawsuit.

We meet for coffee to look over the mailings. He shows me the piece that worries him. It’s a law suit. It strikes him as very official. [See the return address in the top envelope below: Congressman Trey Goudy and my friend’s name  v. President Barack Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Homeland Security Secretary Johnson]. It has a case number: 584-9760 US.

Trey Goudy

Trey Goudy (R-SC) is Chair of the Congressional Committee on Benghazi, the one who was criticized by the next-in-line to be Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), because the committee was driven by a partisan political agenda. The letter speaks with urgency and asks for money to prosecute the case.

Next He pulls from his satchel a long tube from The National Campaign to Guarantee Social Security “warning” him of cuts to his Social Security benefits and possible elimination of Social Security. Only near the end of the three page letter does the campaign identify liberals as the enemies of Social Security. The letter solicits a sum of $200 before March 10 when the National Campaign to Guarantee Social Security’s creditors expect them to pay past bills.

National Campaign - SS

Most of the mailings have the same return address:  1600 Diagonal Road, Suite 600, Alexandria, VA, the offices of the Federation of Responsible Citizens.

A search of the Federation of Responsible Citizens and other mail solicitors that target seniors led us to this podcast and article aired by Minnesota Pubic Radio in Dec., 2013.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/01/03/news/mediscare-fundraising-mailers

My friend and I consulted with the MN Attorney General’s Office. We were told to tear up any such mailings. “Just throw them away. You’ll see this slow down or stop after the election.” But what about the millions of seniors who at one time made a small contribution to some such mailing, believing it was in their best interest to do so? Is there a lawsuit out there to stop this pernicious predatory political practice? Someone please say yes.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 26, 2016

Term Limits: solution or problem?

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Would setting limits to the number of terms a Congressperson can hold office help solve the problem in Washington, D.C.? Term limits is one proposed remedy for fixing Congress. Get rid of the career politicians! Fresh faces would be closer to the people they represent, set a new tone, and get things done.The idea has its appeal.

We’re tired of gridlock,but is putting fresh faces in the U.S. Congress – or the White House – all it’s cracked to be?

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) rode into the Senate on a high horse, penned a letter to the government of Iran opposing the Obama Administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran, and secured the signatures of 46 of the 53 Republican Senatorial colleagues. In March 2015 the newly elected Senator appeared on Face the Nation to make his case for Iran’s creeping influence in the Middle East, declaring,

“They [the Iranians] already control Tehran.”

Did he say “Tehran” – the capitol of Iran, the Tehran of the Persian Empire dating back 5,000 years?

Yes, he did. Either the Senator came to the Senate clueless about geography, history, the sensitivities of a tense geopolitical world, and the traditions of how foreign policy is conducted in the United States, or, worse, he just doesn’t care. Neither is acceptable for a member of the United States Senate. The Senate is the body with the longer terms (six years compared to 2 for the House of Representatives) because of the Founders’ wisdom. Those who wrote the Constitution knew the value of continuity, as well as change.

In the much more complex world of the 21st Century, the case for longevity, not term limits, is an argument for wisdom.

Citizens who have served as city councilors, state legislators, or board members of local organizations, colleges and universities know how long it takes to get up to speed. Those who are most effective learn to keep their mouths shut while learning how to drive a vehicle they’ve never driven before in the company of more experienced drivers who know the rules of the road.

The advantage of long-standing service in the U.S. Congress or of a Presidential candidate with longer experience and long-term memory is that they’ve been around long enough to know the history, however differently they interpret it on different sides of the political aisle.

And then…there’s Donald Trump who has NO experience in elected office. If you need a nudge to think about it, remember the ambitious Senator Cotton on Face the Nation.

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 25, 2016

Two Religions everywhere

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Any and all religions are divided between two types. One shouts; the other listens. One makes war in the name of God; the other makes peace in the name of God. One kills its enemies; the other prays for its enemies.

Both types are found within each of the three Abrahamic religions. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be interpreted either way. Sections of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament – the Book of Revelation, for instance – lend themselves to interpretations that shout, go off to war, and kill in the name of a warrior God. The same is true of the Qu’ran.

Apocalyptic fear or expectations – end of the world theology – light the fires of fear and hatred.

Richer by Far this morning invites us to pause and ponder the deepest truth about ourselves and others.

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself – that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness – that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then? As a rule, the Christian’s attitude is reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us ‘Raca,’ and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves.” Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul.

Apocalyptic theology of whatever sort ignores the deepest truth about ourselves. Martin Niemoller, the German churchman who resisted Hitler gives the succinct word to ponder.

“It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He is not even the enemy of His enemies.” Martin Niemöller

Pure JOY – 106-year-old @ the White House

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President Obama to 106-year-old admirer during Black History Month visit to the White House: “Slow down now! Don’t go to quick!”

 

“Girl Scout cookies?”

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Sized_Cookies_ThinmintsThe St. Louis Archdiocese website carries this question and answer:

Q: “Can I still buy Girl Scout cookies?

A: “Each person must act in accord with their conscience.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried the story yesterday: “Church cuts ties with Girl Scouts“.

“Archbishop Robert Carlson has issued a letter calling on all Missouri parishes to sever ties with the Girl Scouts, arguing that the program and related organizations conflict with Catholic teachings.”

“Girl Scouts,” says the letter from Archbishop Carlson, “is exhibiting a troubling pattern of behavior and it is clear to me that as they move in the ways of the world it is becoming increasingly incompatible with our Catholic values….We must stop and ask ourselves – is Girl Scouts concerned with the total well-being of our young women? Does it do a good job forming the spiritual, emotional, and personal well-being of Catholic girls?”

“GSUSA resources and social media highlight and promote role models in conflict with Catholic values such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan.

“Organizations that USGSA promotes and partners with are [in] conflict with Catholic values, such Amnesty International, Coalition for Adolescent Girls, Oxfam and more.”

 

Meanwhile here in Minneapolis, the StarTribune carries a news-breaking story: Fridley priest’s home is searched following neighbors’ suspicions of abuse.

In 47 years as a Presbyterian minister, diocesan priests have been close colleagues beginning with Father Ron in Decatur, IL. Father Ron, Father Paul, and Father Michael were all thoughtful pastors lamented the state of the Church as much as – and often more than – the Church’s external critics. They understood conscience and honored it. They respected the consciences of their parishioners. Conscience was not about Girls Scout cookies. They lived to serve the people, and their ears were tuned to the Sensus Fidelium, the Sense of the Faithful (the people). To their great sorrow, large numbers of parishioners have exercised their consciences with their feet. They’ve left the Church. Those whose consciences have led them to stay understand and support the likes of Father Ron.

trojcak-ronFather Ron Trojcak (St. James Parish in 1969, now retired) was the last resort for folks who were down and out, recently released from prison without jobs or housing, and African-American families needing an advocate with the police, school board, and city council. The doorbell of the rectory was always ringing, day and night.  Today I’m imagining a distressed Girl Scout mother coming by the rectory to ask the question that was troubling her:

“Father, can I still buy Girl Scout cookies?”

“I like the OLD kind,” said Father Ron. “You know, the chocolate mints! Have a cookie! I’ll get us some milk.“

  • Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, Feb. 20, 2016