Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Decency and Strength
Here in Colorado Springs, student and community organizers recently invited me to try and help promote their campaign against a proposed "No Camping" ordinance, a law to ban the homeless from sleeping on sidewalks or public lands within the city limits. The organizers insist it's wrongful to criminalize the most desperate and endangered among us, that it instead seems quite criminal to persecute people already in need of far more care and compassion than we've been willing to offer, especially during these bitterly cold winter months. But others in the area are intent on eliminating the tent encampments near the Monument Creek and Shooks Run trails, complaining that the encampments mar natural beauty, deter tourists, create fire hazards, and degrade the environment by strewing heaps of trash and debris near the creek and even in it.
It seems important for both sides of the argument to acknowledge other local encampments that Colorado Springs is home to: Fort Carson Army base, both Peterson and Schriever (formerly Falcon) Air Force Bases, Norad and Cheyenne Air Force Stations, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. It's not lost on opponents of the "No Camping" ordinance that stop-loss policies prevent many of the young men and women at these institutions from returning to their homes, where many of them long to be after repeated tours of military duty outside the United States. For every soldier intent on strengthening his or her country's military option, how many more are taking a last-ditch option, signing up for the famed "poverty draft," to sustain themselves and their families through an economic crisis felt throughout the country and the world? Many, though not all, of these young people have been driven by poverty into their encampments as surely as the Monument Creek campers have been driven into theirs.
And these bases, whatever the intentions of their residents, can certainly be scrutinized for creating waste, destruction, fear, fires, massive casualties and environmental degradation. Whatever the soldiers' intentions, these bases are here, when called upon, to supply "shock and awe" wherever needed around the world. But, it's highly unlikely that a No-Camping ordinance will appear before the City Council of Colorado Springs, or any other city in the United States, returning these young men and women to viable and secure lives back in their home communities.
President Obama, while freezing spending on nonmilitary programs in this desperate economic moment, just submitted a new budget asking an additional 708 billion dollars for the Department of Defense. Keeping one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan,for one year, costs one million dollars. All this to prevent Al Qaeda strongholds in the country even though mainstream news sources have noted that less than 100 militants of the Al Qaeda organization even live in Afghanistan. (Fox News, December 2nd, 2009). With our additional attacks against our supposed ally Pakistan, and our insistence that its government attack its own villages along the Afghan border, we have displaced at least 3 million more people, one million of whom still wait in tent encampments and inadequate shelters for their indefinitely postponed return to security and normal life, filling massive refugee camps that military observers repeatedly warn create ideal recruitment conditions for jihadist groups.
"In this new decade," said President Obama, in his State of the Union address, "it's time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength."
But where, with this addiction to war, this perverse use of resources that could house and feed our neighbors to instead destroy homes and villages abroad, -- where can we find decency? Where can we find real strength? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King famously insisted that "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." When asked, U.S. people are overwhelmingly in favor of reductions, not increases, of the military budget, and increases of aid to the needy, not reductions or freezes. Why does it seem so impossible to find a government that matches this decency and this strength?
Strength, in the sense of real security, comes from communities pulling together in compassion and cooperation. Strength comes from decency. We are made insecure by our criminal assaults on international security and our criminal neglect of the poor at home. Who will educate us to better understand that being seen as a menacing, frightful and destructive culture, internationally, jeapordizes our security? International law establishes that initiating war, as we did in Iraq and indeed in Afghanistan, is a crime; and in a fundamental sense, for those who wish to live in security, crime does not pay.
Our strength will not come from diversions of desperately needed resources into meaningless destruction and division. Individual Americans, without waiting for help from above, must act to correct these pathologies of American social and political life. We can support and learn from decent and kindly organizers, in Colorado Springs and other communities, who extend a hand of friendship to those all too often viewed, domestically, as expendables. We can donate from our own resources to fight poverty at home and thereby deny these resources as taxable income that our government can employ in causing more despair, poverty, and displacement abroad. And we can build bonds of community and shared purpose, organizing in our neighborhoods, our cities, our schools, churches, and workplaces, to build a world wherein no one is left out in the cold.
- Posted in
56 Comments so far
Show AllCicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"We can donate from our own resources to fight poverty at home and thereby deny these resources as taxable income that our government can employ in causing more despair, poverty, and displacement abroad. And we can build bonds of community and shared purpose, organizing in our neighborhoods, our cities, our schools, churches, and workplaces, to build a world wherein no one is left out in the cold."
This paragraph of Ms. Kelly's reads like George Herbert Walker Bush's "thousand points of light speech." Who is she kidding but herself? It's not enough. There aren't enough churches, synagogues, mosques or civic organizations in the U.S. to even begin to deal with the scale of economic hardship spreading across this country. Too many brainwashed Americans are already in denial about the level of it.
Local community groups would do well to learn how to monitor police crackdowns on the poor and homeless with cop-watch videos. There should be an hour long, twice-weekly TV program (cable access?) devoted exclusively to videos of police brutality against poor & homeless people simply for being poor and homeless. Maybe if enough people saw it nationwide they would start to organize in some numbers to get in the streets and raise hell about it.
The YouTube Cop Watch Guerilla Video Primer is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQoYzw8lzzE&feature=player_embedded
Nice comment.
As a homeless person myself, that paragraph stuck out to me too. I've met many well intentioned people who think the kind of "compassion" mentioned in that section is enough.
It's not.
It's not because it's the kind of love which does not directly challenge those in power and seek structural change.
It is seperate from justice.
Real love is inseperable from justice.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
VERY GOOD POINT. It is a form of surrender to the corruption of those in power.
Thanks metal... I think. I mean, I've read a bit from your other comments above regarding marriage equality and well, I think your points make absolutely no sense.
And it's kind of scary to read the number of other posts supporting your views.
Whether the issue is homelessness, education, war, healthcare etc. I believe the fundamental question common to each is which definition of human worth prevails.
Marriage equality is definitley part of that list.
By the simple fact that LGBT couples are human, they have an equal right to marriage. It doesn't matter what income bracket you're in, or what average income bracket those like you in sexual preference are in, or how many children you or your social cohort raise on average.
All that's none of your fucking business.
As far as personal income goes and family size--not to mention the "spending freeze" and a "deeply troubled economy" are concerned--they have nothing to do with a moral definition of human worth. The fact that such things do get conflated with human worth is simply more evidence that a "strong" moral compass is lacking in our society.
metal: Your ideas are worthy of implementation. What I discover when I talk to people is that they have no idea how bad things really are -- much the same as you discuss in your post! Living here in NYC, too, I listen to conversations that are going on around me when I walk on the streets! I learn a lot about people just by listening.
Of course, my own situation is dire -- and therefore, I know that other people are having problems that are probably even worse than my problems. I'm close to the street -- and quite frankly, I don't want to live on the streets for any reason.
Here in NYC, there are empty buildings, and apartment buildings, in almost every neighborhood ...not to mention the huge number of empty commercial spaces that have been vacant for more than a year. Last month, the Section 8 vouchers, low-income housing, were voided even though they had already been sent out to people. At last count, nearly 1.5 million people are unemployed. However, I simply don't see a good reason for homelessness. But, our fearful elite leaders, Republican, Independent and Democrat as well, feel that if a person doesn't have 'dollars," he, or she, shouldn't have a place to live, health care, or anything else that adds to the dignity of being a human being.
And, the banksters continue to reap their outrageous salaries, benefits and bonuses -- as do our elected officials and other public servants -- the CEO of the NY Public Library system earns $800,000 per year, as reported by Katha Pollit in the Nation.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Hi Kay,
I am sorry to hear what you are going through. I'm moving closer to the threat of homelessness myself. The thing that infuriates me most is that our neo-liberal corporatist leaders have no intention of creating or re-introducing decent paying middle-class jobs (and related job training or education subsidies) to our country in anything but paltry, negligible numbers. They don't even have any intention of providing adequate, TIMELY job training for low wage jobs which there aren't enough of as well.
The ratio of empty homes to homeless Americans is around 7 to 1 right now. If we were a truly Christian nation the churches would be speaking out demanding that all our empty housing be used to house the homeless--even if only on a government voucher system.
By the way, unemployment in socialist-democratic Norway right now is at 4%. Real unemployment in the U.S. is at 17%.
It's a non-violent tactic used by many (not enough) to live at a poverty level by donating any taxable income levels to charitable concerns of ones choosing; which might be the very organization that saves or prolongs your life. The American Spirit lives but it's awash in a field of blue with the best way of surviving being the creation of social organizations (stars for the new flag), with historically, far from the image of the Rugged American Individualist, the marriage union being the greatest marker for prosperity in life and trade, with ensuing churches and community centers being successful based on the strength and decency of the basic union. (No? Check out the history's of Big Sur and the Straits of Mackinac...the American Farm).
"It's not enough"? A million dollars per year (does that include the likes of BlackwaterXe?) per soldier? That's not enough money to stimulate some creative ideas for future and current opportunity costs? In the wake of Haiti? When human beings are Housing Coded out of being able to live and/or build a housing structure by and of their own? When the coast of Bangladesh recedes hourly? Yeah, use your video camera and film some of the return on investment Tax Payers are getting when some of the PTSD $1,000,000 Per Year Soldiers starts to work for the local police department gets revved up with some Mook Blackwater reject, that would be a nice addition to Kelly's argument. And a good place to show it will be churches and community centers (and if you're not married you might find a strong and decent spouse there).
If it is true that a majority of Americans support cutting the military budget, there's still a very vocal minority that supports ever dime we spend, and a smaller fraction that would support an even LARGER increase. Unfortunately many of thse folks are in the US Congress.
As long as the MIC can confuse "support of the troops" with the military budget then it is unlikely we will see significant cuts in spending. While we could close some overseas bases without local protests like we get when we close bases in this country, that would not by itself be a big enough cut to matter that much in my estimate, though it would be an important symbolic one.
Cutting ALL those overseas armies and weapon-systems however would free up a considerable hunk of change. That COULD be used for more sensible things like jobs training, schools, infrastructure, alternative energy and conservation, and much more. Including putting the homeless into homes.
Can we afford an empire any more than, at the end of WW2, the British could afford theirs? Of course not!
Gary
"It is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empire - different from Britain's and Rome's but an empire nonetheless."
-- Robert D. Kaplan
gdgoodman
"As long as the MIC can confuse "support of the troops" with the military budget then it is unlikely we will see significant cuts in spending."
Excellent point. "Supporting Our Troops" has absolutely nothing to do with the MIC, nor the war in which they are engaged nor with the people that sent them.
"While we could close some overseas bases without local protests like we get when we close bases in this country, that would not by itself be a big enough cut to matter that much in my estimate, though it would be an important symbolic one."
I would like to suggest to you that we would benefit far more than you are suggesting by closing bases we no longer need. Each soldier/marine/airman on that base must be dupilicated for actual service and the cost of supply and support is considerable.
So I'm suggesting that we would have a smaller less costly military while at the same time producing a stronger and more competent military. More combat capability for far less money. Fewer military with more ability.
"While we could close some overseas bases without local protests like we get when we close bases in this country"
Here I believe you would be surprised at how many local communities all over the world would scream to Washington if we tried to remove that money from their economy.
I posted some quotes from Pat Buchanan yesterday, in which he said literally, "what are we doing there if they don't want us" in reference to Japanese bases and suggesting we close them while asking if they would like us to close mainland Japan bases also. Why not was my thought.
"Can we afford an empire any more than, at the end of WW2, the British could afford theirs? Of course not!"
Seems a fair comment to me. Lets bring em' home.
"As long as the MIC can confuse "support of the troops" with the military budget then it is unlikely we will see significant cuts in spending."
I think they can do that because a "strong" moral compass is lacking in our society.
Healthcare reform should be positioned as a moral decision in an either or choice between military spending or healthcare.
At heart, what's at stake in both issues is how do you define human worth--a "pragmatic" definition or a moral definition.
In fact, whether the issue is homelessness, education, war, healthcare etc. I believe the fundmental question common to each is which definition of human worth prevails.
As for that struggle and re-defining, healthcare is a good place to start.
Bartering people's health for profit is morally wrong.
Since we're now ALL prisoners in Company Town, there is NO DECENCY in our "governance" and only sapping of our strength in Obamanible exCHANGE! Time to DUMP the COMPANY and FLUSH the "MIGHTY" TURLITZER, Barack; via the BOWEL (Barack Obama's Worth Ever Less) Movement. Only 1080 days to GO!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
What is a "turlitizer?"
a jukebox? No... that's a Wurlitzer... Maybe he meant to say Turdlitzer, because Obama will spew any shit called for to juke (synonym for dodge?) any action which actually serves the non-corporate people of this country. Yeah, Turdlitzer, the trillion dollar shit jukebox!
This is an excellent analysis of the perversely pretentious and prideful predation which the United States of Global Domination has come to represent.
My only disagreement is that I believe most religious institutions are part of the problem. They are ultimately about male domination, whether it is judaism (jehovah), christianity (jesus), islam (allah), hinduism (vishnu and shiva), buddhism (buddha), or free-market capitalism (dominion-"lordship").
The transference of an argument about homeless people occupying "no camping" public domain into an argument about the military is hilarious.
The idea is absurd. If you want to write an anti-military article, by all means do so. But don't insult my intelligence (watch it metal!!! :) by laughable logic such as this.
Are you connected to the military? Even then, you need to have a little understanding here. The military is taking up too much land space and it needs to be seriously reduced so that the homeless can actually be given land that they deserve. What do you want the homeless to do, sign up and lose their lives when they might have something better to do with their lives for a change? Your absurd defense of the military is laughable. I have met homeless soldiers returning home and the last thing that even they would want is not getting a place to land at because the military is hogging up the land.
Shawn Berry
Are you connected to the military?
Nope, except like all marines we keep in touch and some of my men from when I served are officers now. And other friends serve here or there.
I think I have an understanding actually. First I'd say that you cannot "give" homeless people land and have it help them. I don't believe there is any shortage of land. Next I don't believe I suggested any of them "sign Up."
I don't remember defending the military, I believe what I said was that the premise of her article was flawed and her logic was silly. If thats defending the military, then I guess I was.
I think she is just saying that some portion of the people currently residing with/employed by the military would otherwise be residing in the gutter along with the rest of the jobless/homeless and that this state of affairs feeds the "voluntary" recruitment efforts for the US's miltary adventurism. Isn't that a logical connection?
I frankly found her logic simply strained to say the least. But, yes, if you stretched it a mile, you could put that connotation on it.
We may get to test that scenario if these quacks in congress and the White House keep going down the same path.
Thanks for responding and I do usually find your comments to be strucurally sound for the most part. However, I do not think that it stretches too much to say that increased poverty in the US increases the viability of non-draft voluntary participation of US citizens in US military adventurism and so gives motivation by the most predominant industry to use its lobbying power to promote such conditions and to make life harder for those who don't initially sign into its program for increased military volunteerism. Long sentence, sorry.
Not only that but increased US poverty also will eventually mitigate the need for corporations to spend huge dollars transporting things to the US from all over the world when the price of labor in the US makes US labor competitive with foreign production of products + foreign transport costs. It seems like by the time this is accomplished, there will be no more cheap world-wide transpo (fuel gone), 99% of the world's people (who survive) will be operating at one base, low, subsistance wage, while the elite few will basically bring the world back to the fiefdoms of the supposed past. I don't think this is a stretch either...
So, all that. It kind of feels like the (I hate to say end-game, because it is so cliche, but I have to) end-game is to kill all the "non-centrists", scare all the "centrists" into submission and slavery, and prop the elites up as a permanent technocratic dictatorship with a military that has not seen home for a decade or even worse are just as likely to be foreign nationals from South America employed by corps like Blackwater et al.
I sound like everyone else here, we will surely all be rounded up and shot. Good Night, and Good Luck.
I don't have any objection to one being connected to the military unless I think it was clouding your judgment. Thanks for clearing it up.
I might be indirectly supporting the military if I own an SUV until I can find a cheaper replacement or switchgrass ethanol is subsidized by government. It's kool.
Shawn Berry
As someone pointed out not long ago, driving an existing SUV is much more enviornmentally sound that buying a new Prius. Your carbon footprint is far less that way.
Wow really? I need to read up on that. I bought an SUV to use mainly for work since I do repair work and construction and have to carry the tools materials around. SUVs are also good for snow storms and long distance trips. I find it convenient, cheaper, and more green to drive to NV from MN than to fly. Airliners suck, cost too much, bad service, and actually pollute more.
I'll add one more to counter the SUV bashers. Fuel efficiency isn't changing much for gasoline powered vehicles. It gets harder to increase it unless the vehicles start losing some of those fancy features. Instead of subsidizing corn ethanol, government should be subsidizing switchgrass, sugarcane, and alcohol.
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_biomass-crops.htm
I don't know if any of it can be grown in the upper midwest but in addition to TX, CA, AZ, and NM might be the best places for large scale production due to hot weather.
"The transference of an argument about homeless people occupying "no camping" public domain into an argument about the military is hilarious."
You just don't see where these two issues--and many others--have a fundamental common connection.
gregsdiary
Other than we spend too much on the military and too little on domestic problems as a connection I can find none in her logic.
I can also say for a certainty that if you halved the military budget tomorrow those people would not vanish. One does not follow the other at all. Money may not even be the answer.
Thats why I found her logic silly. The premise is simply flawed.
You may be technically correct but you should come to Colorado Springs if you are to understand the relationship between the conservative nature of the people and the military bases to symbolize it. If you get to visit it and stay a while, I think that you will agree with the author.
Martian Bachelor
Probably, but it was non sequitur in my view. Sort of like if I ran over a lemon with my car I made lemonade, thats the logic she was using.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Obscenely bloated Pentagon budgets (for nearly a decade that haven't reduced the threat of terrorism but, in fact, cultivated it) have always had an inverse relationship to discretionary domestic spending--especially spending related to the alleviation of domestic economic hardship.
"This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A NATION THAT CONTINUES YEAR AFTER YEAR TO SPEND MORE ONO MILITARY DEFENSE THAN ON PROGRAMS OF SOCIAL UPLIFT IS APPROACHING SPIRITUAL DEATH."
--Martin Luther King: April 4th, 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York
I see no problem with your posting....I was just pointing out the tortured logic. And to what point? Her argument is just silly.
The American Dream was designed to be too self-centered and libertarian. There are people who are homeless and then there people who are sitting comfortably not caring about others. I see military jingoists as well as people who complain endlessly about the military but then do nothing about it. I have come across Xtians and other religious right wing nut cases who rant endlessly about it. Some of my favorite quotes are "Mars rules", "God is protecting America", and "Jesus wants to protect you". You can't use religion or astrology to explain why a nation is in a war or justify it. The nation loves the military because people are selfish and ready to engage in downright nastiness to feel good about it. Selfishness leads to overprotective behavior and overprotective behavior leads to having a serious urge for defense and fighting. The author is also right to suggest that Obama may be at fault but until community organizing goes mainstream, just attacking the president without working on ways to collectively fill in the progressive void will lead to nowhere. The economy might get worse or it might get a little better but with rising unemployment and homelessness, expect to see a big divide within the well to do. Some of them will offer to help the homeless and get out there and join the protesting against oppressive policies. Others will remain selfish, get overprotective in fear, and then try to use the military to defend their comfortable life style. If we progressives can do more on compassion, positive thinking, community organizing, and following Howard Zinn's advice on civil disobedience to attain economic justice for all, then we can tame the military industrial complex and the ruling class and be proud of it.
Colorado Springs is inherently conservative in nature. The young men and women are conditioned into believing that militarism is king. I couldn't date a girl in high school with her requiring me to be aggressive in nature. CO Springs is inherently addicted to the Military Industrial Complex and interacts with the local businesses to keep them in business while they are given the power to dominate in return. I would like to share the author's optimistic ideas but first people have to get over their militarist thinking that corrupts both men and women alike.
Here is my idea for getting rid of this corruption. First we examine the principled definitions of feminism and masculine. Feminism is about kindness and social equality. Masculine is characterized by general strength and boldness. If we take these good traits and apply it to the social and political lifestyles, we will have defeated the militarist mindset that is corrupting men and women alike.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Your post is well-intentioned and I agree that American notions of what constitutes femininity and masculinity are in need of reexamination in relation to militarism vs. social compassion & equanimity, but you need to develop your ideas more.
Traditional feminists have always been more interested in gender equality than in creating a classless society or ending militarism . They seek equal pay for the sexes when it comes to doing the same job, but that is not the same as ending extreme class-based income disparities in a demonstrable move toward broader economic fairness and social justice.
Masculinity in America is in far worse trouble. It is devoid of intelligence, puerile in perspective, lacking in moral compass, stupidly reactionary on the most sloganistic, sound-bitten level and more conducive to being herded like cattle than building a decent society.
Masculinity in America used to, prior to the weakening of the nuclear family in the early 1970s, possess a strong core element of patriarchal familial obligation and responsibility. This was true across class and race. Divorce was very rare and universally frowned upon as were unwed pregnant mothers. Society regarded men as the family bread-winners and women as the caretakers of the family's children. The father/breadwinner in a family was responsible for financially supporting that family. Corporate pay reflected that old cultural tradition. When feminism moved into the workplace, corporations took advantage of the situation to pit men and women against each other for available jobs with respect to wages and the overall cost of living. Now it typically takes both parents working one or more jobs to support a family in the households lucky enough to have two parents. Feminism never saw this coming and its academic proponents still haven't fully come to grips with how badly they were had by corporate America. The statistics regarding single parent families with a female head of household speak for themselves. Rates of child poverty and hunger have not been this bad since the last Great Depression.
Now LGBT couples demand marriage and spousal rights under law previously reserved only to heterosexual couples. Those traditional spousal rights and benefits for married couples were designed to help heterosexual couples bear the additional social cost of raising children--not to gold-brick government and corporate benefits for overwhelmingly childless homosexual and transgender couples. LGBT couples who raise children should be given special civil legal status to qualify for child support-related benefits and rights, but childless LGBT couples who expect all the financial benefits of marriage status are just too many would-be freeloaders for this troubled economy to support. We need to feed, clothe, house, educate and provide medical care for the children we already have in this country. The average homosexual is both better educated and wealthier than the average heterosexual in America in any case, and militarism is something the gay communities in America are silent about except for the Pentagon's "don't ask don't tell" policy which they want eliminated so more of them can serve in the military.
Gender roles in America are now as scrambled as Americans are generally confused and misinformed about foreign policy and whether or not the country is involved in just or un-just wars.
Thanks for the feedback metal. You explanation of masculinity is fascinating. I believe that when you talked about masculinity gone bad, you are refering to machoism which encompasses the behaviors you described. I cannot deny the fact that masculinity is easier to abuse and corrupt. There has been a history of extending masculinity to hegemonic masculinity where boldness and strength would be misused to dominante and abuse. It is this masculinity that I have found both men and women exploiting. Maybe women being conditioned into submission might have caused some of them to admire a macho over a regular male. It was sad enough to watch males get tough when I was in school but I was twice as scared of women when they would get tough. Perhaps submission could have triggered revenge in them. I have no issue with women using their strength to overcome reactionary and juvenile men who tried to dominate. My older cousin used her strength to save me from a few bullies when I was in school.
I have heard positives and negatives of arranged marriages. I wouldn't want to be forced to marry someone I might not get along with. On the other hand, working out conflicts usually comes first before divorce so it could be a good thing.
When it came to women and careers, I always assumed that feminism actually women the choice to choose between working vs being a housewife. I believe that big business exploited the female weakness of wanting to get even so they were hired but at the cost of lower wages. Then it also included hiring women for exploiting their beauty for public display. I used to have a crush on that like every other fool watching until I one day dressed up skin tight and then got attacked as being gay. It's as if men lost their freedom to dress as they please. Can't a guy be free to wear a speedo instead of baggy pants as he wishes? All this corporatism mixed with feminism and now it seems that if a woman isn't looking sexy or a man looks too handsome, SOL !
With couples having to work more and the need for couples to be together, I see no reason why couples have to remain same sex but it's endless evangelical rant out here. I still cannot believe that minorities in CA were opposed to allowing for same sex marriage. I wonder if certain groups of people are given their rights first to take for granted so that they don't help the ones in need next to them similar to what I see here between the haves and the have nots.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
There is a widening, artificially & corporately induced (and to a now very dangerous extent government-abetted) disconnect between the true NEEDs of this rapidly decaying society and the DESIRES that the corporatists and their government lackeys use mass media to inculcate Americans in to believing are justified personal or social needs. Because of this for 40 years now gender roles, which were already becoming more complex because of other factors of social change, have not intelligently realigned themselves with respect to to prioritizing and best addressing the most critical basic needs of the country. The "social priority list" presented to the public by corporate America and its government is mostly fictitious and services the desires of the affluent upper-middle and upper-class movers & shakers who use Big Media to generate and reinforce Americans' self-image as a people and a nation.
Because for 25 years now (since the era of Iran-Contra) that image has so persistently glorified the worst and lowest of masculine characteristics--aggressive reckless macho-ism, problem solving through violence, the big and powerful beating up on the small and weak, and militarism--even many post-1970s feminine gender role identities have become far too accepting of or reliant upon aggressive macho-like recklessness, relying on problem solving through emotional or physical violence and militarism. An analogy that took place roughly over the same time period would be the effect of so many Americans voting Republican for so long that they helped push the Democratic Party too far to the right.
Part of the reason for the more masculine aspect of contemporary female gender role identities also has to do with the soaring rates of divorce, unwed mothers and absent or unknown fathers that have splintered the nuclear family since the late 1960s and forced too many women to have to play the role of both mother and father in their single parent households.
Another social factor in this: I don't know if the statistic still holds true but throughout the 1990s fully 75% of black children belonged to a single parent family with a female head of household and most of these children had no clue who their fathers were. The warehousing of young black men in prison on crack cocaine charges who endured sentences that were three times as long as the sentences handed out to white middle-class young men on powdered cocaine-related charges had much to do with this. And it has been shown that the CIA helped sew the inner cities with much more addictive crack cocaine beginning in the late 1980s which the CIA must have known would lead to a long-term (ongoing) boom in the black prison population-especially if conservative white-dominated legislatures would write laws to sentence people on crack cocaine charges to three times the amount of prison time as those charged with powdered cocaine-related offenses.
As a whole I think the American concept of masculinity needs to be less unquestioningly aggressive, imbued with a much stronger sense of fatherly personal and cultural obligation to try to make marriages work and be responsible for raising one's children to be responsible adults, and less intellectually trendy in the sense of being a weathervane that blows along with whatever direction the prevailing winds blow regardless of how incredibly stupid this or that political, economic or social trend is. This would help give mothers the strong sense of psychological reassurance they need to more fully and coherently focus on the nurturing and other aspects of their child-raising responsibilities so that they can be more relaxed and well-rounded in their array of feminine identities as most of them transition from being single women to motherhood (too often whether they want to or not). Women are, I think, infinitely more complex creatures than men and, in our hard-right, overly yang masculine culture too many of them don't understand the deeply natural, subtle yet very powerful female yin energy. The Te Tao Ching perhaps expresses it best:
Tao 78:
Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water (yin energy).
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Tao 8:
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao (natural energy ebb and flow of the universe).
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In daily life, be competent.
In action, be aware of the time and the season
No fight: No blame.
To fathers:
Tao 33
Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs true strength.
He who knows when he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of willpower.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.
metal, you have, dare I say it, a mind like a steel trap, I generally appreciate and agree with what you say.
Having said that, I am wholly supportive of LGBT equal rights so I really want to disagree with you on this issue... but I really can't because it is hard to argue against what you are saying. And I think it is an issue that LGBT couples need to examine and address, at the risk of looking like they are gaining advantages which are intended to help families with more than two people to deal with the increased cost of having kids. Maybe it would be safe to say that LGBT couples should have all the marriage and spousal rights that apply only to couples with no children... but, wait, am I being a total idiot? Are you? Why should a childless LGBT couple not get the same spousal and marriage rights as a childless straight couple? Especially given that there are avenues for LGBT couples to have children, only it is a planned process, as opposed to the random childbirth process practiced by so many straight Americans. It turns out that I can, on examination, argue against what you are saying.
It seems that you are saying we cannot afford to give childless LGBT couples equal rights to childless straight couples because they do better financially (being generally smarter) and we need their tax dollars. Is that not an example of discrimination against a class of people? Because they are free-loaders, while straight childless couples are not. Is this the case? What spousal rights, that childless straight couples currently enjoy, would you say childless LGBT couples should not enjoy? Keep in mind that I am vehemently in favor of higher taxation for the rich, say those earning over 250k.
So I have gone from wanting to disagree with you, to wanting to agree with you, to actively disagreeing with you, if I understand your reasoning correctly. Can you give me a scenario in which you would see advantage taking by LGBT couples, were they to be afforded equal spousal rights to straight couples? Is marriage between straights to be about Love and Money, but for LGBT couples it can only be about Love? How does this viewpoint jive with a supposed American ideal with all persons being equal? You must have steel balls, metal, because you sure stuck your groin in the hive with this one...
I agree principally with much of the rest of what you say and am saddened to say that an unintended consequence of women's empowerment was a hastening of America's descent into overall wage slavery and wage deflation... This was not at all the fault of any movement for women's rights or equal access to the workplace. It was, as you say, a concerted corporate effort and MO to screw all workers, men and women alike.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"Why should a childless LGBT couple not get the same spousal and marriage rights as a childless straight couple? Especially given that there are avenues for LGBT couples to have children, only it is a planned process, as opposed to the random childbirth process practiced by so many straight Americans."
Because the percentage of married heterosexual couples who will bear, inherit or adopt and raise children is consistently overwhelmingly (over 96%) greater than the percentage of LGBT couples who will inherit, adopt and raise children. There is also the long precedent of ancient tradition with respect to traditional heterosexual marriages being understood in most societies around the world as representing the proper biological and gender role balance of parenting skills that is best for the psychological development of children who will someday be responsible for raising their own hopefully stable families. Additionally, all the great religions of the world support this tradition. LGBT couples do not always plan to raise children and sometimes inherit them from deceased relatives.
"It seems that you are saying we cannot afford to give childless LGBT couples equal rights to childless straight couples because they do better financially (being generally smarter) and we need their tax dollars. Is that not an example of discrimination against a class of people?"
No, I am saying that in a deeply troubled economy with a 3 year spending freeze in discretionary budgets coming our way the country cannot afford to shower a whole new class of tens of millions of childless gay couples with government and corporate marriage benefits when (A) as a demographic they are wealthier than child-raising heterosexual married couples, and (B) they don't need extra money from the deeply indebted government or corporations that was intended to supplement the raising of children when the vast majority of them don't and won't raise any children. The few LGBT couples who do inherit or adopt children should, as I said, be eligible for those benefits under law. Childless heterosexual married couples are a comparatively tiny percentage of the overall number of heterosexual couples and ancient laws and traditions including religious tradition treat them as being more realistic potential parents; realistically likely at some point to inherit or adopt children and raise them with the proper balance of biological and gender role parenting skills than these same laws, traditions and religious traditions have ever treated LGBT couples.
The United States has far and away many more urgent social and economic NEEDS to solve than the DESIRE on the part of comparatively affluent childless gay couples for government and corporate spousal benefits.
metal
Damn good post!
Are you teaching somewhere? If you aren't, why aren't you. Except when you disagree with me, you are right on the money! :)
I actually think all that 'socialism' in Europe has worked to retain more traditional nuclear family ties, even as both men and women have gone to work. Or, at least, the change to a new working structure hasn't been fulcrumed on the marriage contract as completely as it has here. Divorce rates in Europe are much lower than they are here, I believe.
UK its 13.9 divorces per 1,000 married people. But I need to point out that the real divorce rate in America is NOT 50% as widely reported, that's a questionable PROJECTION. Here's the US:
AGE WOMEN MEN
Under 20 years old 27.6% 11.7%
20 to 24 years old 36.6% 38.8%
25 to 29 years old 16.4% 22.3%
30 to 34 years old 8.5% 11.6%
35 to 39 years old 5.1% 6.5%
http://www.divorcerate.org/
Gary
“Ah, yes, divorce ... from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.”
-- Robin Williams
this is also my over-all impression.
though they are much more "secular" now than before - with religion being given its space and even supported by cities through taxes to keep their heritage (such as keeping their churches in good repair)..but generally more restricted from influencing politics as would be in the so-called "separation of church and state" USA...europeans seem to have closer family knitting than the USA.
one thing I have observed as a new yorker...tourists from europe - you can see them easily in the subway at ANY season of the year - are VERY OFTEN traveling AS families.
Colorado Springs is a strange, dysfunctional city. I've lived in this town for almost 20 years, (with a wonderful 10 year respite in the middle). We've never really had tent cities here before, thankfully, and there is some disagreement on how to best deal with them. Some believe they need to help in any way they can, even if it's just bringing bags of food and clothing, blankets and personal items, whatever may be needed. So they began doing just that. It was wonderful to see, wonderful to be a part of. So.....Guess what happened??? The local news stations began broadcasting warnings. "Don't take food directly to those people. Take the food to food banks who know how to distribute it properly. Don't take clothing, etc. Donate to Goodwill, they know how to distribute it properly." Etc. Etc. The local police upped their patrols around the tent cities and start harrassing the "good-niks", not allowing them to leave their packages for the homeless. Forcing them to leave.
This is life in America as we now know it. Citizens are discouraged on every front from being a part of the solution. The "experts" will take care of it. To the credit of some of the citizens here, they are continuing to feed the poor and tend to the tired and sick. Still, the city is talking about "closing down" the tent cities. And just where do they expect the people to go??? There there are those on the other side of the equation.....They're unsightly, they're driving down our property values, they're full of criminals and we're worried about the safety of our children, etc. etc..... I've never been more ashamed of this city as I am right now.
As far as the military goes, COS would dry up and blow away if the bases closed. A high percentage of city income is derived directly from the massive military presence here. The large Christian "industry" here is another major source of revenue. (Well, not in taxes obviously but in other ways.) The municipal economic situation is already perilous. They need to keep the xtian's and the soldiers happy. That means keeping anyone who speaks out against either of them quiet. And I do mean quiet. We've had old ladies dragged across asphalt for peacfully protesting the war. Peace marches are attended not only by the peaceful, but also by a very visible and menacing police presence. In addition to all that, this is just about the rudest place I've ever lived in. For being such upstanding, born again, bible thumping, Jesus lovers they are the most hateful people. For being such patriotic, country loving, flag saluting people, they certainly show no compassion for the poor in their community.
I'm counting the days until I can get out of this weirdo place again. And next time, I'm NOT coming back.
AMEN ! I don't blame you for wanting to leave although I have been used to this city. I would add that this city is not recommended for sending kids to school. The reason I recommend against CO Springs for sending kids to school is students, both genders, are conditioned into militarist thinking. The brainwashing of these young men and women is enough to keep CO Springs systematically dysfunctional. There has been some influx of immigrants to temper the city a little but nothing much has changed.
Hey Martian, I did rather go on a rant there, didn't I. It's not all bad and I shouldn't make it sound as though it is. There are a few enclaves of sanity. Manitou isn't bad and parts of OCC. The trick, I've found is to venture no farther north than Constitution and no farther east than Nevada. (hee-hee)
It's ok. You're to tell the truth out some more. CO Springs is backwards in nature but I have been used to it. I wouldn't move to San Francisco or NYC. Those two are much worse than CO Springs.
"Why does it seem so impossible to find a government that matches this decency and this strength?"
Rhetorical, I'm sure, but the obvious answer is because there simply is not enough profit in these things called decency and strength. There's some, but not enough. Also, it's boring.
Plus, for whatever reasons, we Americans generally hate each other. Do you see George Clooney holding an emergency telethon to raise money for the 50 million Americans suffering from daily 'food insecurity'? Or Red Cross text lines dedicated to raising money to house the homeless? Or to help the 1 in 4 children on food stamps? Is the Gates Foundation building schools and vaccinating children in Chicago and Detroit?
No. Because we make ourselves so sick, we'd rather help others...
Kathy Kelly is great but I thought "stop loss" was discontinued.
Kathy Kelly's call to treat homeless veterans with decency and justice expresses the same goals Promoting Enduring Peace advocates in our opposition to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We urge the Obama administration to negotiate an immediate end to these conflicts, bring all troops home, and redirect the monies saved to provide jobs, education, and health care to each of these women and men. For those who wish to sere abroad, they can help to build schools and hospitals for peoples in these countries while helping them gain access to water and food. If we want peace, we need to work for justice at home and around the globe.
I think that Kathy Kelly's article is excellent. " Decency and Strength" I have great admiration and respect for Kathy and her relentless quest for justice and peace. Some of the people who are homeless are veterans with PTSD and some are mentally ill citizens who are neglected by a system that stigmatizes people with mental illness and refuses to fund proper facilities. Way too much tax money is spent on locking people up in prisons. Mental health facilities that are open to afflicted people who need and want compassionate and medically competent residential care would be a great improvement in America. It should be part of a single payer, health care plan. However military budgets use the lions share of the revenue. We really do need to get our priorities straight. The pain and grief is equally agonizing whether an American is injured or killed from a terrorist attack or the depraved indifference of a neglectful society.
Metal, Bachelor....and others (forgive my not typing everyone's names) ...I AM SO ENJOYING your discussions and ideas!
SO bracing and refreshing and thoughtful..
THANKS for the very perceptive ideas and observations that are so enriching towards understandings things better.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to rent out homes and apartment buildings (free, if necessary) to people who need them, rather than putting so many people in prison (at much higher expense) or hiring more vicious cops to harrass the peace-niks? Seems like the solution to every social problem has been 'get a bigger hammer' - even though that never worked and can't ever work! Persecuting the homeless is beyond cruel and inhuman punishment - it is utterly barbaric! So many of the new homeless are NOT 'bums' or 'drug addicts/alcoholics' - they are ordinary people, often with families, that lost their job and homes through no fault of their own. Giving $13 trillion to rich banking criminals is outrageous - especially when their victims are left without recourse. People deserve justice - a job at a decent wage, decent food, decent housing, a decent education, and decent healthcare (NOT insurance, but healthcare!) That is the responsibility of any society - to provide for ALL its members, not just a chosen few (or a chosen many, even).
The military mindset is unbelievably anti-social, even though the American people pay for all their benefits. (Yeah, I know they don't get paid as well as all those mercenaries - but why are mercenaries getting paid at all, when we have homeless people at home?) The rigid authoritarian bent of the military is responsible for this 'conservative' perspective - except that it's more fascist than conservative. You don't have to be a liberal to realize that we're all in this together, and if we don't create a just society we are ALL going to pay the price.
How do homeless unemployed people provide for food and clothing? Are they forced to steal just to provide for themselves and their families? That's just insane. Then you can justify hiring more cops (and more vicious ones, at that) - where the real solution is to provide the necessities of life for everyone, regardless of their circumstances. After all, nobody ever grows up wanting to be poor, homeless, sick, disabled, or whatever unfortunate situation presents itself. Fascism is killing this country - the last 10 years is just the frosting on the fascist cake that's been baking all my life, but Nixon really got the ball rolling by going after the hippies protesting him and his war. Reagan was an imbecile and feeble-minded - just a stooge for the real powers-that-be: the fascists and their banks and corporations and the MIC that makes their fantasies (our nightmares, not to mention what happens to their foreign victims) happen.
I love the military - but not the US military. They don't defend us, they defend their fascist masters, and they'd kill you just as easily as they slaughter Arab (or any other) children. Women and children are the victims of these 'wars' - how can you have a real war when the people you're killing don't even have a formal military with which to fight back? (And then you call them illegal combatants if they can't afford uniforms!)
This is insanity - and I can see it every night when I walk my dog and see those flickering blue lights in every window of every house all around me. The idiot-box rules the addicted - and there is no addiction stronger than TV, because it's based on ancient primitive responses to movement that once meant life or death - only now they mean life or death in a different way: the death of the soul. (If you don't believe me, just try to get a friend or relative to give up their 'drug of choice' for even a month!)
There are certainly good comments here, but most of you are missing the boat. The addiction is feeding propaganda to your neighbors - and their souls are dead as long as they are addicted, believe me. Dead souls don't care about anything but their next fix - and that's our problem in this country. Addiction. So long as the addicts subscribe to fascist propaganda schemes, we are NOT going to build a civilized society - or a competent DEFENSIVE military that is just and honorable. This is a class war - and the fascists have won. Until we start to fight back - stop the torrents of propaganda - we cannot reclaim our society and become civilized. Every one of us needs to start making 'interventions' - take your friends and family to task about their addiction - only then will they reclaim their souls (and have the time to learn the truth about our sorry state) and reach out to those less fortunate in OUR society. The homeless, the jobless, the uneducated - they are all part of OUR society, and we are responsible for the kind of society we have. Nothing will change until more people are thinking clearly, and have the time to help those who need it. After all, tomorrow may be YOUR day of need - will there be anyone left to help you if you don't help now?