Law professor Mark Osler appeared on NPR’s “The Take-Away” yesterday to give his take on President Obama’s commutation of the sentences handed out to eight federal inmates convicted of crack-related felony violations. If you want to know the difference between a pardon and a commutation, whether or not Obama has the power to commute the sentences of the remaining 500,000 inmates sentenced under the old 100-1 guidelines, why only eight inmates got lucky, and what this signals for the future, these four minutes of audio are well worth a listen.
“To really understand Texas’ Tea-Partying senator,” the lede line of this article tells us, “you need to spend a few days with his father, Rafael.”
I’m sure that’s true.
I feel an odd kinship with Ted Cruz because we were both born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, albeit 17 years apart. And I couldn’t help wondering, as I read this illuminating article from D magazine, how things might have been different if Rafael Cruz had emigrated to Calgary in the mid-50s instead of Austin, Texas.
The question isn’t as hypothetical as it may seem. Rafael was granted American citizenship almost as a birthright because he was a Cuban refugee. If he had faced the kind of barriers to entry that most Latinos face today, he would have been forced to enter the country illegally, or choose a different country–like Canada, for instance.
The article notes that Ted Cruz was born in a “socialist” hospital in Calgary and Rafael says he paid several hundred dollars extra to retain his existing doctor. I doubt that would have been necessary. All my children were born in Alberta, and our family enjoyed excellent medical care. By 1970, when Ted entered this world in a socialist hospital, his father was a card-carrying, Texas-style conservative. (more…)
I first heard of Joerg Rieger from Brian McLaren and had an opportunity to meet the German-born Methodist professor a few months ago in New Orleans. Most theologians discuss ideas as if they strictly rational constructs with little relation to the hope, fear and ambition of everyday life; Rieger places ideas in historical context. He is also one of the few theologians I have encountered who appreciates the profound relationship between theology and economics.
While charity and advocacy are widely discussed, there is a growing sense that deep solidarity may be the more appropriate response of faith communities to poverty.
Poverty is real and growing. In many places in the United States between 20 and 30 percent of the children experience “food insecurity,” which means that they do not have enough to eat. Unemployment and underemployment are rampant, and even many working people are no longer able to make ends meet. The average wage of workers at Wal-Mart — the world’s largest private employer — falls significantly below the poverty level. As the Wal-Mart model of employment is copied elsewhere, even mid-level jobs are losing full-time status and benefits.
In this climate, religious charity provides some much-needed assistance. Soup kitchens, food pantries, and clothes closets face a higher demand than ever before, and many religious communities support these efforts. Unfortunately, this kind of charity fails to address the underlying problems. Worse yet, by not addressing the root causes, the problems are covered up and in some cases intensified. Typical efforts to provide charity might be compared to a doctor who tries to cure the symptoms of a disease without addressing its cause. For good reasons, key figures of faith from Moses to Jesus did not limit their ministry to charity. (more…)
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 is just what it claims to be: a bipartisan bill. Which means the legislation gives neither party all of what it wanted. Liberals and conservatives are lamenting the deficiencies of the bill, but most analysts realize that a meet-in-the-middle compromise is superior to the only practical alternative: another year at loggerheads.
That said, the bill kicks many cans down the road, and the fate of the 1 million people who will stop receiving unemployment benefits shortly after Christmas is chief among them. By March, an additional 2 million Americans will lose their benefits if nothing is done. In essence, this legislation creates short-term consensus by ignoring the big questions. Bread for the World president David Beckmann does a good job of identifying the key issues:
Though it is a good first step, the act is not perfect. It leaves more than 1 million unemployed workers without benefits before the year’s end. Congress should address this immediately.
Ultimately, Congress needs to address the entire sequester and resolve long-term budget issues. Congress must put the country on a fiscally sustainable path, and not leave struggling families out in the cold.
The Budget Act of 2013 sets top-line discretionary spending levels for fiscal year 2014 at $1.012 trillion, and at $1.104 trillion for FY 2015. It replaces much of the 2014 sequester, and some of the 2015 sequester, due to a combination of cuts to mandatory spending programs and increased fees.
There are no provisions to extend emergency unemployment rates, which are due to expire on Dec. 31, 2013. This will leave more than 1 million workers without benefits the week after Christmas, and an additional 2 million people will lose benefits by the end of March.
I published this essay almost three years ago, but it is still generating a lot of interest so I thought it deserved as second go-round.
American liberals can’t fathom the appeal of the Tea Party phenomenon. Here we are, struggling to recover from a recession created by massive tax cuts, military adventurism, and an under-regulated financial sector and what are they asking for: more tax cuts, even less government regulation, and more military spending.
Moreover, this message sells in the heartland, big-time.
By every standard of rationality, progressive politics should be enjoying a renaissance. The alternative has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. And yet politicians aligned with Tea Party rhetoric are winning elections and shaping the political agenda. How can these things be?
Progressives were equally amazed by the stellar political career of Ronald Reagan. There was little rational argument in his speeches, his facts were frequently askew, and he enjoyed little support in the halls of academe. Yet he won two elections and is revered by many Americans as the greatest president of the 20th century.
Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm
Walter Fisher, a professor of communication arts at the University of Southern California who published his most influential work during the Age of Reagan, is known as the father of the narrative paradigm (you can find a seven-minute video summary of his thought here.) Academics and educated liberals misread American politics, Fisher taught, because they subscribe to a rational-world paradigm. To wit,
Humans are essentially rational beings
The primary mode of human decision-making and communicating is rational argument
Different rules apply in different fields: legal, scientific, legislative, public and so on
Rationality is a function of subject-matter knowledge, argumentative ability, and skill in employing the rules of advocacy
The world is a set of logical puzzles that can be solved through appropriate analysis and the application of reason.
The rational-world paradigm, in Fisher’s view, requires the participation “of qualified persons in public decision-making” and assumes that experts will call the shots. The logical consequence has been “to restrict the rational-world paradigm to specialized studies and to treat everyday argument as irrational exercise.” (more…)
Besieged by his enemies, King Zedekiah sent for the imprisoned prophet Jeremiah and, through trembling lips, posed his question: “Is there a word from the Lord?”
Tradition held that after Jeremiah spoke the words from the Lord, a spirit-drought gripped the land and no word from the Lord would be heard until the Anointed One appeared.
Five hundred years later Jesus announced that the spirit-drought was broken. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he declared in the ancient words of Isaiah: “because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives.”
As an old year dies and a new year struggles to be born, is there a word from the Lord for us? Is there good news for the poor? Is there release for those who are bound?
Friends of Justice has been preaching good news to the poor since New Year’s Eve, 1999. When poor people are oppressed by immoral public policies, we say so, repeatedly and with great effect.
God has called us to build a Common Peace Community where the walls that divide God’s people along lines of race, gender, wealth, social class, denomination and political affiliation crumble. “For Christ is our peace, having broken down the dividing wall, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2.14).
Friends of Justice is giving voice to congregations that have heard the good news to the poor, but lack a prophetic public voice. Through our Common Peace Community initiative, we are equipping and supporting existing faith leaders to break the silence. Because good news for the poor and release to the captive is as spiritual as it gets.
We challenge you to invest in the Common Peace Community. We challenge you to contribute generously toward our December goal of $25,000.
If you wish to bring the Common Peace Community to your community of faith, contact us for more information.
The spirit-drought has broken. We have a word from the Lord that speaks good news to the poor and release to the captive. People of faith are finding a prophetic public voice. Will you join us?
Megyn Kelly’s ill-advised insistence on the whiteness of Santa (and Jesus) has created a well-deserved tidal wave of denunciation. But the big threat to Christmas isn’t the skin color of Rudolph’s master or the occasional “Festivus” pole. The baby Jesus has been swept away on a green tide of money.
As the video at the end of this post suggests, Santa is the color of money. (If you want to see the video with English narrative, you can find it here.)
Sarah Palin is to be congratulated for saying what most of us appear to believe: “I love the commercialization of Christmas because it spreads the Christmas cheers”.
MATT LAUER: The book is not a typical Christmas book. You say that Christmas is under assault from atheists and secular liberals but you also make the point that it’s become way too commercialized. So, is Christmas in danger of becoming extinct–
SARAH PALIN: Oh, I’m not–
MATT LAUER: –or is it too in our face?
SARAH PALIN: Well, I hope you read the book because I`m not saying it’s way too commercialized. I love the commercialization of Christmas because it spreads the Christmas cheers, the most jolly holiday obviously on our calendar. It`s wonderful.
My parents didn’t think the commercialization of Christmas was wonderful. They didn’t tell my sister Carol and me that Santa is a myth–nothing quite that drastic–but they made it clear that Jesus was the Reason for the Season.
On Christmas morning, the Bean kids were allowed to open one present. One.
Then it was time for breakfast.
Then it was off to church. Yes, Virginia, Baptists used to have worship services on Christmas morning. My friends would be all a-flutter about all the presents they had opened. Not me.
Then is was home for the traditional turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie after which we would read the Christmas story from the Bible–usually Luke’s version.
Finally, about mid-afternoon, my father would relent and let us open the presents and Bimbo the cat would finally get his chance to roll in a great pile of discarded wrapping paper.
Easter was another matter. My parents informed me that the Easter Bunny was a myth created to cash in on Easter, and that there would be no Easter eggs in our home. Grandpa Bean would always sent a few candy eggs from his home in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, but that was the extent of it. Easter was about the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ! Period.
When I was a boy, Baptists did some serious fretting about Santa Claus and agonized over the commercialization of Christmas. We worried that our traditional celebration of Jesus’ birth had been reduced to a sentimental afterthought.
I am a true child of my parents. For the past couple of years, my wife Nancy and I have said ‘no’ to Christmas presents. We still purchase a few stocking stuffers, but that’s it.
On the first Sunday of Advent I pull out the Christmas CD’s and it’s all carols and the Messiah all the time until the great and glorious day arrives. We stay out of stores whenever possible. We do not rock around the Christmas tree. The only concession to the secular Christmas is Raffi’s Christmas album which we reserve for Christmas morning. (Our kids may not appreciate the nostalgia, but their parents do.)
Here’s the video I told you about. A bit crass . . . but I guess that’s the point.
According to a front page, above-the-fold, article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has launched a twelve-year project that will see 69 heroes of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention celebrated in stained-glass.
This ambitious enterprise follows hard on the heels of a 20-minute documentary produced this year to consecrate the 20th anniversary of R. Albert Mohler’s role in the conservative takeover of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville Kentucky.
My initial reaction to all this eulogizing of faith heroes, most of whom are still with us, was distinctly negative. It seemed tacky and a bit presumptuous. Shouldn’t we wait for the verdict of history? Don’t we normally reserve stained-glass windows for genuine heroes of the faith who are acknowledged inside and outside the limited circle of our faith tradition?
I do recall seeing E Y Mullins, a Southern Seminary president who died in 1928, incorporated into a “great cloud of witnesses” set of stained-glass windows in Louisville’s Highland Baptist Church; but Mullins was celebrated worldwide as a Baptist Statesman, inside and outside his denomination, and appealed to conservative and moderates alike. Besides, I suspect a few decades separated his death and the creation of the window.
W.A. Criswell
On reflection, though, I think Paige Patterson and his Southwestern colleagues are making the right move at the right time. The concerted antics of men like Patterson, Bailey Smith, Adrian Rogers and W.A. Criswell may appear glorious, bold and compelling to the good people within the fundamentalist wing of Southern Baptist life. But to virtually anyone outside that particular tribe, the conservative resurgence looks like a ruthless power-play accomplished by manipulating fear and ignorance.
No one outside the tribe is going to celebrate these men, so they might as well celebrate themselves.
Moreover, Patterson et al were right to move quickly. The verdict of history will not be kind. It is hard to imagine Baptists fifty years hence remembering these folks or rejoicing in their strong-arm tactics. Folks like Joseph McCarthy and Theodore Bilbo (the race-baiting Mississippi Governor) had their day, but no one is building monuments to their memory.
Please check out this Jon Stewart clip about “a white Santa”. Santa, obviously isn’t any color because he is a harmless fiction. He can be any color we want him to be. Saint Nicholas is an historical figure; Santa Claus is a creation of Coca Cola. But the historical Saint Nicholas lived in either Greece or Turkey (depending on whom you believe) so he was far from white as well.
But Megyn wasn’t finished. Here’s her full comment:
“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change, you know?” she added. “I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that’s a verifiable fact, as is Santa — I just want the kids watching to know that.”
Unlike Santa Claus, Jesus of Nazareth is a real historical figure. He was also a Palestinian Jew of the first century, which meant his skin was dark and his hair was likely dark brown or black. If you saw the historical Jesus in a security line at the airport, you would get nervous. If you worked for the Border Patrol and saw Jesus walking in Brownsville, Texas, you would ask for his papers.
Sorry, Megan. Just because Jesus’ color, or the fictional identity of Santa makes you uncomfortable . . .
Facebook is blowing up with righteous indignation over the case of Ethan Couch. And you can’t blame people for being upset. The kid was dead drunk and under the influence of prescription meds when his truck plowed into another vehicle, killing four innocent people. Yesterday, a judge handed Ethan Couch ten years probation. He won’t have to serve a day in jail.
But what really has folks riled up is the reason Mr. Couch caught a break. Defense counsel argued that Ethan is the victim of “affluenza”. His parents gave him everything he wanted and never forced him to live with the consequences of his decisions (this wasn’t Ethan’s first DWI). Since you can’t put the parents on trial for bad parenting, why should their sins be visited on the child?
If the comments section following most news reports are anything to go by, Ethan Couch and his parents should have been drawn and quartered, their bodies burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds. Consigning sinners to hell is above our pay grade, the reasoning goes, but we should be looking for the next best thing.
Other readers argue that if Ethan had been Black or Latino, or simply poor, he would be looking at decades behind bars.
Jim Schutze with the Dallas Observer agrees that the Couch boy should be looking at prison time, but he questions the logic of over-sentencing the rich kid simply because we are so terribly harsh on poor, minority kids. Here’s the meat:
And, look, all that stuff about the “affluenza defense” offered by his lawyers — how his parents had failed to teach him right from wrong so it wasn’t his fault? You just have to toss that stuff in the verbal Dumpster as the kind of courtroom trash-talk that lawyers say when they have no conceivable real defense to offer. I heard the same thing once in a case in Florida where the lawyers said the defendant teenagers had been scarred by callous suburban culture. The judge blew it off as the “fear of lawnmowers” defense.
Everybody knows it’s junk. The real defense is: “This kid’s parents can afford a very expensive whiskey school for him, so why toss him onto the human trash heap of a brutal state prison system? Maybe he can be saved by the whiskey doctors. Why not try?”
I know what the answer is. You should dump him onto the trash heap, because you dump everybody else’s kid on the trash heap. And as one of the loved one’s of the dead said on TV last night, “At some point there has to be justice.”
I get all that. I believe all that. I’m just not convinced that justice is what we have to offer. And if I put myself in the shoes of Ethan Couch’s parents, then, yes, I’m going to do whatever I can to keep him out. Maybe what the rest of us need to do is work to provide a more dignified and decent system of punishment for all kids.
It doesn’t take much experience with the criminal justice system to realize that Americans get all the justice they can pay for. A few days ago, I told you about Kareem Serageldin, a former top executive with Credit Suisse, who got 2.5 years for contributing to the mortgage meltdown of 2008. The judge cut the Wall Street swindler some slack because “He was in a place where there was a climate for him to do what he did. It was a small piece of an overall evil climate inside that bank and many other banks.”
Actually, two or three years in prison might be a reasonable sentence for a white collar criminal, but as I pointed out in my post, when we’re throwing young black males away for twenty, thirty or seventy years for non-violent narcotics offenses, something is seriously out of balance.
If the Credit Suisse hot-shot hadn’t been named “Kareem” he might have sidestepped prison altogether.
And then there is the case of Ken Anderson, the corrupt Williamson County prosecutor who put an innocent Michael Morton in prison for a quarter century by withholding exculpatory evidence. Anderson resigned his position in September and, two months later, was sentenced to ten days in prison and 500 hours of community service. In addition, Judge Kelly Moore found Anderson in contempt of court for withholding evidence.
Ken Anderson at his sentencing hearing
“This seems like paltry punishment for having ruined another man’s life,” a Dallas Morning News editorial observed.
But what would be adequate? The best judge in this situation is Morton himself, who has long insisted that he sought justice and accountability — not vengeance — for what Anderson and his cohort did.
Morton was present in Moore’s courtroom Friday. “It’s a good day,” he stated. “I said the only thing that I wanted, as a baseline, is Ken Anderson to be off the bench and no longer practicing law. And both of those things have happened and more.”
Michael Morton is an exceptional man. He didn’t want anyone else victimized by a reckless and amoral prosecutor, he wasn’t out for revenge. That’s admirable.
But Judge Moore may have granted Anderson a modicum of mercy for the same reason Mr. Couch and Mr. Serageldin dodged bullets. We must remember that Anderson served in Williamson County, possibly the most tough-on-crime county in the great state of Texas. He was part of a punitive community spirit and maybe he shouldn’t be blamed for being corrupted by it. Prosecutors generally reflect the values of the electorate.
This may surprise you, but I find some merit in this argument. Our virtues and our sins often say more, for better or worse, about our environment than about us. That’s why conservatives talk so much about moral values–they make a difference.
The problem is that these “bad environment” arguments only seem persuasive when we’re discussing white sons and daughters of privilege. If the defendant is a young black male, we respond in fear. That’s why most white people (not all, mercifully) worked so hard to believe that Trayvon Martin was a punk; it enabled them to see his death as just deserts.
One thing is certain, treating wealthy white people with the same contempt and disregard poor minority defendants generally receive from the justice system accomplishes nothing. To paraphrase Mr. Schutze: Maybe what the rest of us need to do is work to provide a more dignified and decent system of punishment for all Americans.
By Alan Bean
Tradition held that after Jeremiah spoke the words from the Lord, a spirit-drought gripped the land and no word from the Lord would be heard until the Anointed One appeared.
God has called us to build a Common Peace Community where the walls that divide God’s people along lines of race, gender, wealth, social class, denomination and political affiliation crumble. “For Christ is our peace, having broken down the dividing wall, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2.14).
If you wish to bring the Common Peace Community to your community of faith, contact us for more information.
Please check out this Jon Stewart clip about “a white Santa”. Santa, obviously isn’t any color because he is a harmless fiction. He can be any color we want him to be. Saint Nicholas is an historical figure; Santa Claus is a creation of Coca Cola. But the historical Saint Nicholas lived in either Greece or Turkey (depending on whom you believe) so he was far from white as well.
By Alan Bean
Friends of Justice 