Bend the knee

"In 1988, one of the central attacks revolved around the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Dukakis, as governor, had vetoed state legislation in 1977 that required teachers to lead their students in the pledge. He did so on the basis of an advisory opinion from the state court, which said the legislation was unconstitutional.

Mr. Dukakis, a Harvard lawyer surrounded by other Harvard lawyers, believed himself on very firm ground. But by August 1988, his Republican opponent, Vice President George H.W. Bush, was rousing huge crowds with a contemptuous question: “What is it about the Pledge of Allegiance that upsets him so much?”

Mr. Dukakis, Mr. Bush said, was “out in deep left field on these issues.” He was also “a card-carrying member of the A.C.L.U.,” more concerned with giving furloughs to criminals — like Willie Horton — than upholding national values, the vice president asserted."





The quote is taken from an article in Sunday's NYTimes.

One has to wonder if the Republicans will have the gall to try to cut off Obama at the knees on the patriotism charge and his membership in Pastor Jeremiah Wright's former church when John McCain is tied to a radical like the Rev. John Hagee.

Rev. Hagee has allegedly called Catholicism "The Great Whore" and has been quoted saing that American policy towards Palestine is causing terrorists to attack the United States.

But what particularly ticks me off is the issue that has long perplexed America-mixing up patriotism and holiness. Our children pledge fidelity to a flag-when our loyalty is to God first. Why should we force schoolchildren to promise allegiance to a symbol? Isn't that like making our young people bend their knees to an idol?

As the writer points out, around 80 percent of us tell polling groups that they feel the country is on the wrong track. Hopefully, this time, they won't be sucked into a false arguement about who loves America more. Here's some news-they all three love America, or they wouldn't let themselves come under these kind of personal attacks.

We will have to judge who has the best plans for rebuilding our character and our government. But let's do it on the basis of policy, not patriotism.

Spring...

I wonder if I am as cynical and jaded as I imagine myself to be. I wonder if affection can creep up on me, or desire overwhelm, or love, even love, surprise...I don't have any answers for these questions. But at least I'm asking 'em. Are you? And do you wonder, also, how on earth this young lady was able to pose with her arms around a potted plant without getting a huge crick in her neck?

Imagining grief

Last night, before I was about to turn off the computer, I read the New York Times front page online. There was a story that had recently come over the wires about a young mom in Gaza. Whether because of Hamas or the Israelis, or, more likely, both she and her four children, all under the age of six, were killed. Her husband, who had two other wives and is a much older man happened to be at the market.

The Israelis blamed Hamas-they blame Hamas for everything that happens, said a spokesman. Hamas put the blame on the Israeli Army. And yesterday, a father buried a six year old, a 15 month old, a 3 and a 4 year old.

Last night my son came into my room after midnight. Bothered by a cough, he snuggled in next to me. "Mom, hug me," he said. And as I lay there awake in the middle of the night, I thought of that mother, and those children. Prayed for them and for their father and husband. And, frankly, hated the men who have no shame about killing innocents. What can they be like, these men of blood? What humanity have they given up?

More on Ledbetter

After reading Lithwick's essay (see the last post), and the commentary by Gail Collins in the Saturday NYT, I've been thinking about this decision-and reconsidering my own distaste for the confrontational style embraced by many women a bit older than me.

When we vote in the fall, women, and men who aren't living in the 19th century with regard to bigotry, will also need to consider the blatant anti-female bias revealed in the Ledbetter decision-and the choice by Republicans to block a bill that would make it possible for other women to seek justice.

Here's a paragraph from the Lithwick (Slate) commentary on the Ledbetter case:



"On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have overturned a Supreme Court ruling (PDF) that sharply limited pay-discrimination suits based on gender under Title VII. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear (2007), the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, held that the clock for the statute of limitations on wage discrimination begins running when the employer first makes the decision to discriminate, and does not run for all the subsequent months—or in this case, years—that the disparate paychecks are mailed. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, found that the plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, was time-barred from filing her discrimination suit because it took more than 180 days after she first got stiffed to discover that she was being stiffed on account of her gender. The court agreed her jury verdict should be overturned"

Was I ticked that women would be treated as though they were a lesser life form? Yes, of course.

But I was also outraged by a decision that defies logic-how many people... male or female... know within 180 days that they are not getting as much salary as another person holding the same job?

I'm also wondering if post women's movement women like me should be so complacent.

I find Hillary Clinton's pull no punches style abrasive, and sometimes offensive-as many do.

But it seems as if, when women start to relax, they find themselves the victims not only of subtle, but of in your face injustice. Maybe some of the women who came before us were smarter than we want to admit. Maybe we can't take for granted that we are going to be treated as equals-particularly by men who have an interest in grinding their heels not just in women's faces, but in those who dare to challenge the powerful interests that fuel the highly politicized Supreme Court.

Women: here's what the Senate and Supremes really thinks of us

I'm really too angry to comment on the linked article right now, except to say that the level of patronage towards women is beyond belief in this day and age. I guess one could expect this kind of condescension from Neanderthals like Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts.

But our Republican candidate for President should be able to do better-McCain is probably running scared, and want to placate his far right frenemies. Sometimes courage isn't about who carries the larger gun, John-it's about being courageous enough to speak the truth.

Across the crocodile moat

Online dating can become a world unto itself, one which often seems unlinked to the demands and reassurances of the world most of us live in daily.

Frankly, I prefer the real world to cyberspace. Yes, you will argue, in many cases the real world is cyberspace. However, there is much more room for behavior in cyberspace which I honestly don't think would be tolerated in ordinary discourse. Frankly, my dear, I don't need to hear about your dimensions or your favorite porn sites or what you did in that expensive hotel bathroom.

Some of the less graphic stories used to be fascinating to me, opening up a world of which I had little knowledge. Now I find them almost traumatic, illustrating as they do a culture in which I am an alien-without any need for asylum.

So when I get feedback from a friend, as I will sometimes when telling my dating stories (or non-dating stories), it serves as a useful reality check.

More and more my friends are asking me whether I should not try another venue for meeting eligible men.

Then I mentally run the checklist of options, and wonder if I should get off my butt and find a running group or a hiking meet up or a weekly chocoholic gathering.

I don't fit this world of casual hookups and hypersexed banter that is the key to admission for so many men, and probably more than a few of the "ladies."

But surely, out there somewhere, there must be someone as odd as me. Someone who is willing to open the castle door and escort me over the alligator moat-even if we only make it as far the entrance hall, with its deer heads and crossed swords on the wall.

A guy who wants more than an hour's pleasure and a casual goodbye-a man who is as willing to unveil his feelings as he is his body--someone who knows all about defenses, but will, as the Sting song says, set the battlements on fire. That, I can do.

My essay from yesterday's Washington Post

Abortion, Gun Control and Other False Choices

The long season of Pennsylvania’s primary discontent is now coming to a blessed close.
Marred by candidate stumbles, the six-week trek through the Keystone State also put the spotlight on Pennsylvania’s Democratic party maverick, Sen. Robert Casey, Jr.
Why are there not more Democratic leaders like this anti-abortion, anti-Iraq-war Catholic native son who is vocal about his concern for working people and for economic justice? In a party that professes to care for the oppressed and the powerless, politicians who advocate for fetal life are few and far between.
The lack of articulate voices from the left advocating for a consistent life ethic, or the sacredness of life from conception to grave, illustrates the rampant individualism that seems so endemic to the American character.
In its relentless focus on one particular woman and her “right” to terminate a pregnancy, the position taken by Democratic Party frontliners is also profoundly out of step with a Christian perspective in which decisions are weighed with community welfare in mind.
In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul called that turbulent congregation to greater care for each other. “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” (I Cor. 12:26).
The Jesus I meet in the Gospels is much less concerned with individual welfare than with the spiritual and physical health of the community.
As I interpret these ancient Scriptures in the context of the contemporary abortion debate, I can’t help but conclude that the fetus, as well as the mother and father, must have a voice, an advocate, a metaphorical seat at the table when decisions are made.
In the party’s obsession with the notion of individual choice, the Democrats and their allies on the Christian left eerily echo conservatives in the Christian right and their stance on gun control laws.
Take away our right to unfettered abortions, and you will soon reduce women to slavery. Take away our guns, and you will put us at the mercy of the enemies who howl at our door.
These positions have very little to do with faith -- and a lot to do with fear.
The two Democratic candidates have been vocal about the ways in which their faith traditions and values inform their decisions.
Yet they seem captive to the reigning orthodoxy that will not allow any room for dialogue, let alone a third way.
In the Illinois State Senate, Obama voted against a bill to ban late-term abortions, a position that puts him out of synch with the majority of the American public. Clinton has repeated the mantra that abortions should be “safe, legal and rare,” while doing relatively little to make that a reality.
The candidate’s positions do not reflect the reality on the ground -- that while Americans favor keeping abortion legal, they continue to want to limit easy access by imposing constraints, some quite rigorous.
Which bring us back to Casey, and his principled attempt to build a consensus based on the greater community good.
Late last year, he sponsored a Senate bill that would move to support pregnant women before and after they give birth, provide tax credits for those who adopt, and help pregnant students stay in school.
It would be wonderful if politicians, clergy, and people of faith were able to look beyond ideology by working for that a time when pregnant women can make a decision based on the health of two lives in the knowledge that they will have access to the help they so indisputably need. Doing so would be one step towards healing the national wound so deeply rooted in the false rhetoric of “choice” versus “life.”
After more than two hundred years, it is high time that believers, particularly Christians, seek common cause on behalf of the weak, vulnerable and voiceless ones, both born and not yet born.
Jesus hasn’t left His post. Perhaps it is we who have wandered.
Elizabeth is a freelance writer and columnist