A Progressive HKS
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on April 13, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
A group of reformers once paid a visit to President Franklin Roosevelt to seek his help in passing a progressive bill. He replied, “I agree with you; I want to do it; now make me do it.”
His point was profound: social change doesn’t come from the good intentions of benevolent leaders. It comes from pressure — organized, effective pressure that compels leaders to make change happen. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Here at HKS, many of us think about change differently. Yes, we want to make a positive difference. But let’s not kid ourselves; this school is an establishment-minded place. Much of what we’re taught is about tweaking the system. Block grant or matching grant? Tax credit or deduction? Expand or shrink a program’s eligibility standards?
These kinds of questions are important, even crucial. But they too often pre-empt more fundamental questions: What kind of society do we want to be? How should our economy be structured? What about a foreign policy that isn’t centered entirely around U.S. interests? And how can we create the political climate necessary for our leaders to enact bold reforms?
In spending so much time learning how to fine-tune the system in a politically feasible way, we sometimes forget there’s another route to progress. This is the route of outsiders, of agitators, of social movements. It’s the route of progressive advocacy — of bending the arc of history toward justice. It’s about creating new political realities, ones rooted in human dignity and the common good, rather than merely reacting to the realities we already face. It’s about moving the political center instead of moving to the political center.
To be sure, we get a bit of this stuff in ethics class, and professors like Marshall Ganz teach grassroots organizing around shared values. But the culture of HKS tends to genuflect to the powers-that-be. It’s in the lingo we use, the questions we ask, the speakers we see, the essays we write. After all, when we spot a bunch of black, bulletproof SUVs outside the courtyard and know another head of state is here to grace us with a self-justifying, platitude-laden address, we all cram into the Forum to watch it.
This place could use more of the “audacity to hope” that Rev. Jeremiah Wright (ahem) talked about. If an endeavor doesn’t require audacity, it doesn’t require much hope.
The HKS Progressive Caucus was started last semester to help add a little more audacity to this school. The idea was that broadening the political conversation would do HKS some good. I recently organized the caucus’s first major event: a panel of activists discussing how to bring about positive change now that Democrats control Congress and the White House. Ganz moderated, and 115 people were on hand.
The Progressive Caucus will doubtless have additional events soon, but here at HKS, we need more than a few events. We need a cultural shift in how our school conceives of public service.
What would such a shift look like?
We would show as much reverence for the community organizer as we do for the big city mayor.
We would make it a priority to showcase independent journalists that uncover government and corporate wrongdoing, even if they’re not famous like the network talking heads.
We would ensure that students are familiar with alternatives to neoclassical economics.
We would give nonprofit advocacy as much airtime as nonprofit service delivery.
We would undertake a serious examination of the rise of corporate power — one of the defining characteristics of our time — and its implications for political and economic democracy.
We would give students an understanding of the West’s role in causing (not just failing to prevent) human rights abuses throughout the world, so that future policymakers are better prepared to acknowledge and uproot these abuses.
We would, in short, broaden the school’s vision of what’s possible in the world of politics and public policy.
That’s what a more progressive HKS would look like. And what a difference it would make, as we send hundreds of leaders into the world each year with the eagerness to dream big dreams for our country and our world. HKS wouldn’t just be the school that works the system; it would be the school that changes the system.
Can we get there? Here’s hoping.
The SIF Scandal
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on March 9, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
The auction held recently to support this summer’s Student Internship Fund (SIF) was a fun affair. Attendees competed for classy stuff, and first-year MPPs Casey Osterkamp and Meaghan Jennison did a great job as organizers. By all appearances, the auction went off without a hitch.
Except for one. A big one.
Almost every person bidding was a Kennedy School student. Not alumni. Not donors. Not faculty. Students.
Sure, a few professors and staff members wandered around the silent auction area to make small bids. But in the live auction, which featured the big-ticket items, students were doing most of the bidding. So the very people the SIF is supposed to help — you know, poor grad students who are knee-deep in debt and live off of bad pizza — were the ones putting money into their own assistance fund. As a result, virtually every item garnered significantly less than it should have.
Take, for instance, a weeklong stay for 15 at an Orcas Island vacation home in Washington State. The top bid was $1300. Retail value? $6000.
Or how about a Harvard commencement week stay for a whole family in executive education housing? That one got $575. You can’t get two nights in the Charles Hotel for that.
A nice lunch for 10 with three big city mayors? $225. That’s less money than 10 people would pay for a nice lunch without getting to chat up political bigwigs.
Et cetera, et cetera, ad infuriatum.
By the end, the auction had grossed just over $17,000. The cost of putting it on was $10,000. So all told, the net benefit was $7000 — not counting whatever costs donors are incurring to make their gifts. That was the end result of Casey and Meaghan putting in 20 hours a week of unpaid, quality work for months.
So what happened?
The answer seems to lie with the HKS administration, particularly the Alumni Relations Office. Casey and Meaghan wanted to contact alumni and donors, but the school’s top brass said no.
“We’d have meetings with the administration, and they’d come in and say they want us to succeed but we can’t contact the big ticket donors,” said Casey. No one ever told her why.
The KSSG tried to help. But it, too, was stymied. “They asked us not to contact alumni,” said one KSSG representative on the condition of anonymity. “They didn’t want to impair their own fundraising efforts.”
Casey, ever the gracious Midwesterner, speculates that the administration was trying to look out for the best interests of the school. “With the economic downturn, a decision was probably made to target donors in a different way. On the one hand, this makes sense: they want big donors giving $10,000-20,000, not coming to an auction and spending $3000.”
But then there’s the other hand. Asking Casey, Meaghan, and several other volunteers to do months of work — and then ask the student body and faculty to donate valuable items — is a big deal. People’s time and effort matter. Why should all of that energy have been expended for a four figure gain?
Perhaps administration officials didn’t realize the final tally would be so low. But what exactly did they think would happen when they excluded everyone with a bank account from the auction?
To be sure, HKS gave a $50,000 donation to the SIF. So there’s that. But if it had just given a little bit more it could have canceled the auction, saved everyone the time, and let the SIF fare better anyway.
The real losers, of course, are HKS students. At a public policy school, not everyone does fancy schmancy internships at consulting firms that pay thousands of dollars. Many of us want to invest time in nonprofits that offer a great experience but can’t pay interns. Financial assistance from HKS is sometimes the only thing that allows us to participate in such internships. And this year, there won’t be very much assistance to go around.
Some of the auction’s most competitive bidding was over a Venezuelan brunch for six with Professor Dan Levy and his family. Levy, the most popular professor in the history of the universe, raised $350 with this one. But the brunch could have raised more.
“Imagine if we’d been able to invite alumni who love Dan Levy and get them back here to bid on that,” Casey said. “That would have gone for big bucks.”
No Doggie Left Behind
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on February 24, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
“You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved. But when the Rapture comes, what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind?”
So begins the homepage copy for Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA, a new company that pledges to care for your four-legged fuzzy wuzzies when the time of tribulation begins. If God whisks you from earth without warning, your pets will be put into the home of a caring atheist who stands no chance of going to heaven.
The price is reasonable — just $110 for 10 years of insurance. But be warned: no refund will be tendered if Boots and Precious die before the Rapture. All sales are final.
The brains behind this enterprise belong to one Bart Centre, a 61 year-old atheist from New Hampshire. He has admitted in the past to wanting to devise a way to “cash in on this hysteria to supplement” his income, but he now says that, “if you love your pets, I can’t understand how you could not consider this.” Over a hundred clients have already signed up.
The hysteria of which Mr. Centre speaks is dispensationalism — a theological construct that provides much of the “end times” language with which Americans have by now become familiar. This school of thought won massive attention in recent decades due partly to the staggering success of the Left Behind book series, now pushing 70 million copies sold. This series’ interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation is a scary thing to behold. And for a lot of Christians, it has stuck.
To be sure, dispensationalism is rejected by Catholics, Orthodox Christians, many evangelicals, most mainline Protestants (like Presbyterians and Lutherans), and the vast majority of theologians. Indeed, early church leaders such as St. Augustine insisted on a metaphorical understanding of Revelation, which he took to symbolize the struggle of faith that Christians undergo in their personal lives. But the belief in dispensationalism remains widespread — certainly widespread enough for clever entrepreneurs like Mr. Centre to exploit.
The danger that this new pet business represents is not just that a few credulous people will lose their money, though there is that. More broadly, it serves as a reminder that the millions of people who think the end is near have very little stake in the future of the world.
Polling data suggests that about 20 percent of Americans believe Jesus will return to earth within their lifetimes. That’s no small fraction when we’re talking about one of the most populated nations on earth, and for now the most significant. If the world as we know it will be gone in a few years, why work to make things better? Why stop climate change? Why reduce the national debt? Why preserve Social Security and Medicare? Why pursue peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Why do anything to help future generations if those generations won’t even exist?
It’s no coincidence that we rarely hear about dispensationalists fighting for social justice. People won’t fight for a future that they think will never appear.
Accordingly, the biggest sin of dispensationalism is that it focuses people’s minds on exiting this world rather than caring for it. Its emphasis is on the waiting, not the doing; on being There, not being Here. In short, it holds that life is in the leaving. And that makes everybody in this world, our world — the only world human beings will ever have — worse off.
We can only hope that in the marketplace of ideas, more constructive views of human progress will eventually win out. And that those who prey on well-intentioned yet gullible people won’t find it quite so easy to make a buck.
“If we thought the Rapture was really going to happen,” Mr. Centre told BusinessWeek, “obviously our rate structure would be much higher.”
Hidden Health Crisis: Vieques Seeks Its Day in Court
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on February 10, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
Vieques is a small island with a big problem. And the Obama administration is fighting to keep it that way.
A municipality of Puerto Rico just a few miles east of the main island, Vieques has the lamentable distinction of being the venue of six decades of training exercises and weapons testing by the U.S. Navy. Starting around the outbreak of World War II, our military has tested all manner of munitions there, from napalm to depleted uranium to Agent Orange. It has also released immense quantities of jet fuel, flame retardants, and other toxic substances. The place is contaminated.
Not surprisingly, Vieques’s 9000 residents — American citizens by birth — are a sickly bunch. Cancer rates are 30 percent higher than they are on Puerto Rico’s main island. In the case of diabetes, the figure is 41 percent; for hypertension, nearly 400 percent. And roughly 80 percent of residents test positive for heavy metals like lead, mercury, and arsenic in their hair.
The Navy left in 2003 due to public pressure, but it hasn’t cleaned up the mess and still refuses to pay victims’ health care bills. So the victims are now filing suit. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is taking the Navy’s side, though, and insists Vieques residents have no standing to sue at all. By invoking the legal notion of “sovereign immunity,” which says the government is above the law, the DOJ is trying to keep the case out of court. Federal attorneys know that if a jury heard this case on the merits, the Navy wouldn’t stand a chance. Justice would have to be done.
That justice isn’t being done already is itself a scandal. We wouldn’t be abandoning our fellow Americans if this kind of contamination befell, say, Nashville. Or Topeka. Or Sacramento. Or New York. The people of Vieques, however, are poor, powerless, and — yes — brown. That makes them easy to ignore. The Obama administration is brushing off Vieques because it can.
But what if it couldn’t? What if thousands of Americans contacted the DOJ and demanded justice? What if public pressure forced the Obama administration to give some semblance of help to the people — the Americans — that our Navy spent 60 years poisoning?
Something like that is starting to happen. CNN spent two nights last week doing an exposé on this issue, giving the residents of Vieques a bit of momentum. And a group called the American Values Network (AVN), a faith-based organization that I serve as an advisor, has set up a website where people can ask Attorney General Eric Holder to let the islanders’ lawsuit proceed.
I myself plan to spend this coming summer working with AVN in Vieques to organize the island’s churches and residents. No matter what happens with the lawsuit, the folks there will need medical help, and I’ll be working to make sure it arrives. This issue has moved me, and I want to do what I can.
In the meantime, let’s hope the Obama administration has a change of heart (or at least of political calculus) and decides to allow Vieques residents to have their day in court. That’s the island’s best chance to get relief — and justice — so long denied.
Stupak Is as Stupak Does
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on December 6, 2009 in Heresies, Opinion
The recent uproar over the so-called Stupak amendment is all well and good. The anti-abortion measure that was attached to the House of Representatives’ recently-passed health care bill has so alienated the pro-choice community that it threatens to derail the passage of historic legislation. And yet this uproar — replete with images of coat hangers and references to back-alley abortions — obscures a more fundamental problem with the Stupak amendment: it makes no sense.
The Stupak amendment’s first order concern is that taxpayers shouldn’t be in the business of funding abortions. Fair enough: federal law has adopted that view for a long time, and Congress would be foolish to muddy the waters of the health care debate by trying to change the precedent now. Pro-choice Democrats have generally conceded that point and strived to create a health care bill that’s abortion-neutral. How? Through a simple “yes, but” approach: yes, those who receive federal subsidies under the new health care bill could have abortion coverage in their insurance plans — but the funding for actual abortions would have to come from women’s out-of-pocket premiums, not from federal subsidies. That way, women would retain the right to choose an abortion and taxpayers would reserve the right not to fund it.
The Stupakers, though, are having none of it. And they base their objection on an eyebrow-raising idea: that all money is fungible.
The argument goes like this. If the federal government pays any money into any plan that covers any abortions, that means the taxpayers are effectively killing babies. Insurance companies can’t segregate public and private funds in any meaningful way, we’re told; money is money. Therefore, we must prohibit insurance plans from providing abortion coverage to anyone the new health care plan subsidizes. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, if you’re poor enough to need government assistance for health insurance, you wouldn’t be able to buy a plan that covers abortions — even if private money would pay for them.
With this line of reasoning, the Stupakers are really covering all the bases. But if we’re going to be serious about the notion that all money is fungible — that freeing up money for abortions is no better than funding abortions directly — we should be ready to embrace a few other initiatives, as well.
First, Focus on the Family — the country’s leading religious right group and a proponent of the Stupak amendment — will have to switch health insurers. The insurance company it uses, called Principal, covers “abortion services” for other consumers. Eek.
Next, we’ll have to end all welfare. After all, if the government is giving money to poor people, some of that will doubtless end up paying for abortions. Same goes for food stamps: if an impoverished woman had to pay for her own vegetables, she’d have less money to spend on baby killing.
All of us here at the Kennedy School can forget about our interest-free student loans, too. At least one student will doubtless have an abortion using money she didn’t pay in interest.
Even those rent-controlled apartments in Manhattan are funding abortions. My Aunt Susie on the Upper West Side? Abortionist.
Of course, the Kennedy School Student Government isn’t innocent either. Dave Baumwoll and the other cold-blooded killers we elected just gave us subsidized tickets to take the bus to the Harvard-Yale game; we had to pay only $40, while all other Harvard graduate students paid $60. Who’s to say one woman won’t use that $20 for an abortion?
Free wings at Redline? Abortions.
Cookies stolen from an Executive Education luncheon? Abortions.
Free Baby Ruth minis at an IOP study group? Scrumptious, tooth-decaying abortions.
OK, back to reality. The point is that the Stupak proponents’ fungibility argument is a practical absurdity. If our society is to function, we must recognize that people will do things with which we disagree, and they might even use money that once belonged to us in order to do it. That’s how things work.
In the case of health care reform, we can do much to ensure taxpayers aren’t directly financing abortions. We can mandate that insurance companies set up different accounts that hold money from different funding sources. What we cannot do is construct a world without ripple effects and that keeps all federal funding from ever finding its way into an abortion clinic.
The sooner we accept that reality, the sooner we’ll pass a health care bill — a bill that desperately needs to be passed.
The Halting Progress of God and Gays
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on November 11, 2009 in Heresies, Opinion
Last Tuesday night was bittersweet for the cause of gay rights — and for progressive religion.
The bad news first. In Maine, voters decided in a referendum to reverse legislation giving homosexuals the right to marry. The 53-47 percent margin wasn’t as whopping as it might have been. But it was enough. This victory for anti-gay forces was due in no small part to the Roman Catholic Church, which came out swinging for a repeal. Portland Bishop Richard Malone went so far as to have local priests take up a collection to help fund the effort and show a video about how devastating it would be to human civilization if gays were able to tie the knot. One lay Catholic woman was stripped of her leadership role in a local congregation for penning an op-ed supportive of same-sex marriage. The Church was playing hardball.
A valiant crew of progressive clergy fought back. The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine — comprised of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, United Methodists, reform Jews, and others — held rallies and press conferences declaring that God is about love and inclusion, not fear and discrimination. Their work helped show that the divide over gay rights exists within the religious community, not between the faithful and the secular. That’s a crucial message, even though fear ultimately trumped love in Maine.
Across the continent, however, a different dynamic was playing out. Washington state had a referendum of its own on the ballot — this one involving civil unions that promised gays all of the benefits of marriage other than the name. As in Maine, the state legislature had already passed a bill recognizing these rights, but voters now had the opportunity to wield a veto. The margin was razor-thin. But in a 51-49 percent vote, Washington went with equality.
The religious community played no small role there, too. Of the 280-odd groups that officially endorsed the campaign to keep civil unions legal, about 50 were faith-based. One of these groups, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, represents nearly 500 congregations. The other groups represent hundreds more. Like their counterparts in Maine, these progressive religious organizations argued in the run-up to the referendum that faith is above all about love. And this time, they actually won.
To be sure, the bar was lower in Washington than it was in Maine, since some voters think the word “marriage” makes all the difference. But that doesn’t diminish the fact that for the first time in any statewide referendum, a majority of voters favored giving gay couples the same legal rights as straight ones. It’s a big deal. And just 20 years ago, it was unthinkable.
In the years to come, people of faith will continue to wrestle with this topic. But despite temporary setbacks in Maine and elsewhere, those of us who support gay rights can take solace in the apparent fact that the future is already written on this issue. Vast majorities of young people (religious or not) support absolute, uncompromised equality for homosexuals — from serving in the military to getting married to anything and everything else. The consensus is emerging and inevitable.
I am reminded of a story that progressive evangelical Jim Wallis likes to tell about a sermon he saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu deliver in Cape Town, South Africa, just before the fall of apartheid:
“The place was surrounded by soldiers and police who outnumbered the worshipers three to one. They came into the sanctuary. He was preaching. They stood along the walls…with tape recorders and pads, writing down what he was saying. They had already put him in jail. They were saying to him in effect, ‘Go ahead, be bold, be prophetic, and we’ll put you right back in jail.’ He looked at them and pointed his finger and said, ‘You are very powerful, but you are not gods. And I serve a God who cannot be mocked. You have already lost, so I invite you today to come and join the winning side!’ The place erupted.”
This tale, indeed, reflects the triumph of what I see as the ultimate article of Christian faith: love wins.
Lobbying While Muslim
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on October 27, 2009 in Heresies, Opinion
Christians and Jews should start raising hell about Muslims. And this time, it needs to be in Muslims’ defense.
Four congressional Republicans are demanding an investigation into whether the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is trying to “infiltrate” the U.S. government by “planting spies” in congressional offices. These Republicans — Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Paul Broun of Georgia, and John Shadegg and Trent Franks of Arizona — claim that an internal CAIR memo reveals this insidious plot.
What does this smoking gun of a memo say, exactly? Behold: “We will focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community. (For example congressmen on the judiciary, intelligence, and homeland security committees.) We will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in congressional offices.”
Sweet Jesus. According to this memo, CAIR actually hopes to influence public policy on issues it cares about while securing internships for members of the community it represents! That’s sick, sick stuff. Or maybe it’s just democracy. Pick your poison.
What we have here is a rather contemptible display of anti-Muslim chauvinism masquerading as patriotism. An advocacy group is doing what advocacy groups do — you know, like, advocating and stuff — but because the group is Muslim, it’s getting tarred with accusations of espionage. Apparently, the very people who are most adamant about imposing democracy on Muslims abroad now find it intolerable to grant democracy to Muslims here at home.
Be that as it may, this moment presents a golden opportunity for Christian and Jewish leaders to speak out for the rights of American Muslims. No religious group should have to live in fear that simply participating in the democratic process will invite a federal investigation. And there’s no one better to make that case than leaders that come from religious groups that are more widely accepted.
Religious leaders understand the great moral credibility they wield. But they’ve largely been silent on the intimidation tactics now being used against CAIR. Major Christian and Jewish groups have issued no statements of support, written no indignant commentaries, and held no rebuttal press conferences. A few murmurings of support have been heard here and there — like when United Church of Christ blogger Chuck Currie asked for “an investigation into why voters sent such hateful souls to serve in Congress.” But such comments have been the exception, not the rule.
We shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for conservative Christians to leap to CAIR’s defense. When thousands of American Muslims were set to gather for prayer on Capitol Hill last month, Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins asked whether any of them would “affirm loyalty to the U.S. and our constitutional liberties” or, instead, “pray for shari’ah law to come to America.” I suspect Perkins would be none too pleased if evangelicals were asked such questions. But nevertheless, the Christian right has long made clear that it has little interest in protecting the rights of Muslim-Americans.
No, the hope for religious solidarity on this issue lies with America’s religious moderates and progressives. Numerous advocacy groups based in Washington, DC, represent this large swath of the faithful. It is incumbent on them, more than anyone, to speak up for Muslims — the most embattled and beleaguered religious group in America today — for the sake of religious freedom.
If nothing else, Christians and Jews may want to consider a paraphrase of the well-worn poem by German pastor and theologian Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the Muslims…”
Treason Season?
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on October 19, 2009 in Heresies, Opinion
What’s the morality of undermining your president’s foreign policy?
During the Bush years, Republicans had harsh words for anyone who dared criticize the commander-in-chief’s foreign policy. The typical line of attack was that liberals (almost always the perpetrators of such insidious gestures toward democratic accountability) were “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” The feistier conservatives said a lot worse than that, casually bandying about words like “traitor” and “treason.”
The surface-level moral argument was that our country needs a “united front” so we can “support the troops” in whatever mission they happened to be engaged in at the moment. The deeper moral assumptions were that (a) life on earth is dog-eat-dog, (b) we must do what’s best for our own country, not what’s best for the world, and (c) what’s best for our country is whatever the president says it is. This set of views represents a deeply totalitarian strain of American moral thought — a view that’s skeptical of participatory democracy and dismissive of international cooperation.
Today, however, Republicans in Washington apparently have a whole new outlook, because they are now working against President Obama’s diplomatic efforts overseas. Indeed, they’re going beyond simply voicing criticisms of the president’s foreign policy (as liberals did with Bush) and are actively seeking to undermine it. Consider the following examples, in increasing order of chutzpah.
Less than five months into the life of the new administration, Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) revealed he had informed Chinese officials that our nation’s deficit problems were worse than the White House was letting on: “One of the messages I had — because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor — is that the budget numbers that the U.S. government has put forward should not be believed. The Congress is actually going to spend quite a bit more than what’s in the budget.” Strike one.
Then in August, a delegation of 25 House Republicans visited Israel and attacked Obama’s opposition to the continued building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Delegation leader and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said he was “concerned about what the White House has been signaling of late” because “I don’t think we, in America, would want another country telling us how to implement and execute our laws.” Big whiff; strike two.
Worst of all, the New York Times reported in late September that Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) planned to travel to Honduras to encourage Roberto Micheletti — the illegitimate president who recently replaced the democratically-elected Manuel Zelaya — to “resist” efforts by the White House and others to return Zelaya to power. DeMint later denied that he had a dog in the fight, though the Times had obtained its information from DeMint’s staff. And anyway, even if DeMint were telling the truth about his neutrality, that would still mean he’s refusing to embrace the president’s position on a diplomatically delicate foreign crisis.
That’s strike three. The hypocrisy is now official.
Of course, one needn’t have waited this long to see Republican hypocrisy on the topic. During the Clinton administration, GOP leaders relentlessly attacked the president’s military actions around the world. While American forces were in Kosovo, for instance, former House Majority Whip Tom Delay assailed “Clinton’s war” as an “incompetent” and naïve “adventure” that looked as if it was “formulated by the Unabomber.” Predictably, though, this permissive standard for criticizing U.S. foreign policy disappeared the moment George W. Bush entered the White House.
Thus it appears the Republicans’ alleged commitment to supporting the commander-in-chief on international affairs doesn’t exist. Their support is entirely contingent on whether they like the policy in question — or, if we’re feeling saucier, on whether they can benefit politically. The principle was just pretext.
So are Republicans guilty of treason now? I’m not a totalitarian, so I wouldn’t say that they are. Tasteless, yes. Maybe even dangerous. But traitorous? Nah. Indeed, it turns out the Republicans are more committed to the democratic spirit of open debate than they ever let on during the Bush administration. These guys just might be democrats (with a lower-case “d”) after all. Or at least they are now that they’re out of power.
But what if we applied the moral standards the GOP used over the previous eight years? Would Republicans be considered traitors then? I report; you decide.
Left Faith, Right Faith; Health Care, Shmealth Care
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on September 30, 2009 in Heresies
A battle of biblical proportions has broken out over health care reform. And I’m not talking about the spat between President Obama and Joe “You Lie!” Wilson.
Two sets of religious activists are fighting to define the moral terms of the national health care debate. In one corner we have the religious right — an aging champ that’s not the dominant force it once was but hopes to grind out another victory. In the other corner we have an emerging crew of religious progressives — lean, hungry, and desperate to knock out the reigning champion. Each side has a story.
Let’s start with the right. Immediately after the 2008 election, the religious conservative movement was considered moribund. Sure, conservative leaders like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and the late Jerry Falwell had spent three decades ingratiating themselves with the Republican Party and had come to wield enormous influence over the public discourse. Indeed, the movement’s PR offensive had been so effective that religion in politics became synonymous with conservative religion in politics. But by the end of 2008, the religious right had little to show for its efforts. Abortion was still legal, TV was sexier than ever, and in a few states, gays were starting to make lifelong, monogamous commitments to each other through marriage (gross!). Meanwhile, the Democrats had just expanded their majorities in Congress and a cosmopolitan liberal had won the presidency. With polls showing that young evangelicals were significantly more progressive than their traditionalist parents, hopes for the future of the religious right seemed dim.
But all was not lost. The movement has since identified a new source for resurrection: denying Americans health care.
That’s not how they think about it, of course. They want to keep America from turning into a hellish pit of socialism. (Perhaps they have access to a secret gospel in which Jesus quotes Milton Friedman approvingly.) They also want us to be very careful to protect life — though not, apparently, the estimated 45,000 lives that are lost every year due to a lack of health insurance. So in response to Democratic efforts to make health insurance affordable for everyone, right-wing Christian groups such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family have been successfully mobilizing their rank-and-file through webcasts, church assemblies, and e-mail campaigns. Reports suggest these organizations are enjoying a spike in donations and e-mail sign-ups. Good times.
And what of religious progressives? Faith communities have been a fount of social justice activism since the early days of the republic, with churches playing key roles in the movements for abolition, worker rights, and civil rights. After the 1960s, however, this strain of faith began to fade in power and prominence; in its place came the religious right. This shift reflected the rightward drift of American politics in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And the organized intensity of the conservative cause — fueled initially by court rulings on abortion and, less famously, racial integration in Christian universities — redefined the role of faith in politics. Religious progressives found themselves excised from the national conversation on public morality.
Over the last few years, however, the pendulum has begun to swing again. After the 2004 election — an election in which Democratic candidate John Kerry notoriously failed to convey a sense of values and President George W. Bush effectively organized evangelical voters — liberal religious groups that had been toiling in relative obscurity against war and tax cuts for the rich started receiving national attention. A slew of new groups started springing up, as well. And today, with a faith-friendly Democrat in the White House, the progressive faith community has a louder voice in Washington than it has had in decades.
Organizations like Sojourners, Faith in Public Life, PICO, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good are now working to frame health care reform as a moral imperative. It’s a right, they say — one that’s reflected in the social teachings of every major faith. They watched in dismay as Obama lost the moral high ground in this debate over the summer and urged him to recast his argument pronto. When Obama addressed Congress earlier this month, he did not disappoint. He quoted the late Ted Kennedy in insisting that health care “concerns more than material things” and is “above all a moral issue. At stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.”
That, in essence, is what religious progressivism is about. And it is the polar opposite of what the religious right has stood for during the last three decades.
Two sets of rabble-rousing religionists; two visions of what defines a nation’s character. The winner remains to be seen.
When Christians Abet Torture
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on September 16, 2009 in Heresies, Opinion
How do you turn morally absolutist conservatives into hand-wringing relativists? Ask them about torture.
Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era CIA operatives who went too far with their “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Little wonder, as CIA documents released this summer reveal the U.S. government has committed countless acts of torture over the last several years, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, strangulation, extreme stress positions, and hypothermia, among other things. In some cases, we’re talking about murder: at least 100 prisoners have died in U.S. custody, with many having been literally tortured to death. Meanwhile, as former interrogator Ali Soufan attested in a New York Times op-ed last week, there remains no evidence these actions have prevented any imminent acts of terrorism.
That’s a dismal set of facts. But it hasn’t stopped right-wing morality mavens from making an ethical case for torture. Gary Bauer, quite nearly the personification of the religious right, now has a post up at Townhall.com defending our country’s past torture policies. Offering an explicitly Christian rationale, Bauer makes his case with a ticking time-bomb scenario, St. Augustine’s Just War Theory, and something about the ethical importance of “intent” in Christianity. Oh, to be able to see the world through Gary’s eyes.
Gary Bauer is a guy whose savior — supposedly the same one as mine — extols the virtues of “the merciful” and “the peacemakers” while insisting that we “love our enemies.” Famously, Jesus went this far: “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Indeed, Jesus said these things knowing he’d soon be subjected to government-sanctioned, death-inducing torture. How’s that for absolutism?
Jesus isn’t the only guy in the New Testament to make this point. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, demands that the followers of Jesus “never pay back evil for evil” and “if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
This is not the stuff of torture. This is the stuff of radical love. Breathtakingly, impossibly radical love. Christians aren’t permitted — Scripturally, at least — to fight the bad guys by becoming bad guys ourselves. We might do it anyway. But if we do, it’s not because Jesus said it was OK.
Sadly, however, Bauer is no anomaly in the evangelical community. According to a Pew survey released this past April, 62% of white evangelical Protestants say torture is “often” or “sometimes” justifiable. That’s compared to just 33% who say it can “rarely” or “never” be justified. Other religious groups assessed in the survey — including white Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated — express substantially less support for torture. In the U.S. as a whole, 49% are in the “often” or “sometimes” camp while 47% go with “rarely” or “never.”
Curiously, then, the religious group that sees itself most fervently as beholden to Scripture is also the one that’s most supportive of a set of policies that violate Scriptural mandates. When it comes to torture, many evangelicals’ true savior appears not to be Jesus Christ; it’s Dick Cheney.
To be sure, there’s plenty of diversity within the evangelical community. Numerous organizations with strong evangelical ties — say, Sojourners and Faith in Public Life — have railed against U.S. torture policies and lambasted religious leaders who have failed to do so. But thus far, such organizations have not managed to persuade a majority of evangelicals to adopt their views. Progressive evangelicals still have their work cut out for them.
Of course, once we step outside the evangelical world, Scriptural exhortations need not be definitive. Many people — including non-evangelical Christians such as myself — reject the idea that Scripture is inerrant. Contradictions, inaccuracies, and moral anachronisms abound in the library of stories and visions and letters that we have come to call the Bible. Like any document, the Bible must be read with a discerning eye. But committed evangelicals like Gary Bauer think differently, holding that the Bible is the inerrant, unchanging, and (usually) literal word of God.
Therein lies the hypocrisy — and the tragedy — of evangelical apologetics for torture.
