Day 86 Nat'l Emergency: Religion and Politics Don't Mix

I wonder, exactly what type of Bible did Ivanka Trump pull out of her $1,540 MaxMara handbag for her father to use in his photo-op appearance Monday before St. John’s Episcopal Church across the street from the White House?

Was it an Old Testament edition? Ivanka is, after all, Jewish. Presumably if she were bringing a Bible from her home or White House office it would be of the Old Testament variety, a volume where God is mostly demanding and judicious though often quick to exact punishment on transgressors. A real “law and order” deity full of fire and brimstone (God had not yet formulated tear gas, though there were plenty of times Israelites were awash in tears). 

An Old Testament god would kinda fit Donald Trump’s makeup. Well, maybe not so judicious. But surely demanding and quick to seek retribution for real or perceived offenses.

The cover and spine of the Bible he held offered no clues. The cover said “Holy Bible.” The spine read, “Revised Standard Version.”

If I had to guess, I’d say it contained the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. The New Testament is the one in which God is said to be merciful and compassionate. Calls for brotherly love (which also is in the Old Testament but doesn’t get as much play as when it is attributed to Jesus). 

For Trump to walk unmolested to St. John’s across Lafayette Park, protesters exercising their constitutional right of peaceful assembly were teargassed and driven away by law enforcement. Perhaps Trump’s brandishing of the Bible in front of the church partially damaged in rioting the night before was intended to convey reconciliation with those demonstrating against repeated police brutality, even murder, of unarmed Black Americans. 

If so, the message from on high was not well received by those beyond Trump’s evangelical base. He brandished the Bible like a trophy to be hawked to his audience. He neither carried the Bible like a holy book nor did he read a comforting passage from it. The Bible was simply a prop for a photo op. 

Not all evangelicals found his actions appropriate. Televangelist Pat Robertson repudiated Trump’s actions. Leaders of other Christian denominations did, as well, including the bishop of the church where Trump made his stand. 

Jewish clergy criticized him, too. The editor of The Jewish Week/Times of Israel, Andrew Silow-Carroll, wrote, “And then that photo-op, a futile gesture that said nothing so much as: ‘Here I stand, in front of a building I seldom enter, holding a book I rarely read, playing a role I’ll never fully understand.’”  

Trump has placed the military in an uncomfortable, rarely assigned, mission—policing American citizens. Past and present leaders of the military said it was uncalled for and that Trump was a threat to the Constitution.

The Internet has exploded in mocking Trump. My nephew Ari reposted the following from Military Veterans Against Fascism: 

“Why did the chicken cross the road?

“To pose for a blasphemous photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church.”

Father Edward Beck, a Roman Catholic priest, asked on Twitter, “Has the Bible ever been used in a more disingenuous and exploitative way?”

Make America Great Again has been Trump’s rallying cry for more than five years. At home and abroad, sadly, we have stepped back further from that ideal. 

For those who do not watch CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, take two minutes to view the attached clip, a reading of Langston Hughes’ poem, “Let America Be America Again.” Written more than eight decades ago, its message is still current and relevant: https://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_evening_news/video/ralH4AZFpevjFk_pN_PiHsx_hGKqSxA0/langston-hughes-let-america-be-america-again-shows-the-nation-s-continued-struggle-of-freedom-and-equality/.

The Corruption of Power

I’m continuously amazed by the random confluence of real world events and aspects of my life and those close to me. Monday I wrote about Gilda’s link to Magic Johnson’s announcement 20 years ago that he was HIV+. Gilda had been part of a research study back then that showed the HIV virus could not be transmitted via sweat, meaning Johnson and other players need not worry about close body contact during a basketball game.

Today, as I was riding around listening to sports radio talk show hosts comment on the horrific alleged child sex abuse incidents at Penn State University and their belief that long-time coach Joe Paterno should resign or be fired before this Saturday’s game because of his moral failure to pursue the charges against his long-time assistant and friend Jerry Sandusky, I realized the team’s next game is against the University of Nebraska. Ellie’s fiancé, Donny, is from Omaha. He and his family are BIG Cornhusker fans.

As I write this the university board of trustees has just decided Paterno cannot retire at season’s end under his own terms. They voted his immediate dismissal. If I had a vote, I’d have cast it for immediate termination.

While details of Sandusky’s alleged child molestations have come out, including eye witness accounts, it is fascinating to note the parallel reporting of the alleged sexual bias charges leveled against Herman Cain. It might have been plausible to think one woman could be delusional, or motivated by self-interest or revenge for a perceived slight. But now that five women have become part of the record, it is more plausible that Cain is a serial abuser. Perhaps he doesn’t see his behavior as such. After all, anyone who can say he was joking about electrocuting illegal aliens as they try to come across our border, might not realize the impact his words and actions have. As the head of the powerful National Restaurant Association, and before that as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, he possessed power over these women.

Power. As the saying goes, it corrupts. Paterno at Penn State was considered a king, the most powerful man in Pennsylvania. Cain had power, the power to provide employment, or take it away. What does it say about Cain that he does not remember any of the incidents raised by the five women, that he had difficulty recalling settlements in several of the cases, that he couldn’t remember acknowledging the settlements some 10 years ago when he first sought elective office? What does it say about Paterno for not alerting police to the alleged monstrous behavior of his subordinate? Have we learned nothing from the scandals within the Catholic Church, that we should immediately report alleged abusive acts to the police?

Here’s another sign of how deeply troubled and wrong-centered we are as a country: Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News tonight devoted 23 seconds to Tuesday’s elections in Mississippi and Ohio, results that have wide implications on national politics. In Mississippi, voters rejected an anti-abortion amendment to the state constitution that would have set the beginning of life at fertilization. In Ohio, voters rejected efforts by the Republican governor to limit collective bargaining rights for public employees.

While those two stories got a combined 23 seconds of air time, Pelley devoted 20 seconds to news that Eddie Murphy had resigned as host of next year’s Academy Awards telecast, a story more appropriate to Entertainment Tonight than the evening news.

The news just gets dumber and dumber.

Jobs and Shifting Allegiances

Did you catch the CBS Evening News report last Thursday on the Dawsonville, GA, company that produces customized steel plates using a laser controlled machine? (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7374087n&tag=mncol;lst;1)

The gist of the story was technology has become vital to economic success and a main reason why massive job creation may prove elusive. Impulse Mfg. is enjoying 60% profit increases, but it plans no additional hires because technology has negated the need. A laser-guided machine, for example, can turn out one steel plate in 30 seconds, a task 18 workers previously accomplished in 30 minutes.

There you have it. Manufacturing, formerly a foundation of the middle class, no longer can be relied on to provide a stable economic underpinning in the Rust Belt and other regions of the country. Job losses no longer just result from companies shipping work overseas. Even those companies committed to domestic production have limited opportunities for American workers.

When I studied economics in college, 4% unemployment was considered full employment. It’s not beyond the pale to suggest today’s definition probably is in the 7%-8% range, especially when one considers all the aging baby boomers who lost their jobs in the recession and are finding it nearly impossible to secure comparable work and pay. National unemployment was reported in June at 9.2%.

The subtext of this job dislocation is the impact on national and local elections. The party in power, regardless of fault, often bears the brunt of voter disillusionment. That partly explains Republican gains in the 2010 elections. As we enter the 2012 election cycle, embroiled as we are in the pseudo give-and-take of the debt ceiling extension debate, it’s a toss-up which party will be viewed as the more sympathetic.

Old allegiances are fraying.

As inconceivable as it might have been just a few years ago, poor, young, uneducated white folks are more inclined to support the Republican party in 2011 than they were in 2008. The Pew Research Center’s latest poll, released last Friday, shows these core constituencies of non Hispanic whites have deserted the Democratic party.

“A seven-point Democratic advantage among whites under age 30 three years ago has turned into an 11-point GOP advantage today,” according to Pew. “And a 15-point Democratic advantage among whites earning less than $30,000 annually has swung to a slim four-point Republican edge today.”

Furthermore, “Republicans have made gains among whites with a high school education or less. The GOP’s advantage over Democrats has grown from one point in 2008 to 17 points in 2011 among less educated whites. Republicans have made smaller gains among whites voters who have college degrees (http://people-press.org/2011/07/22/gop-makes-big-gains-among-white-voters/).”

Can the shift be explained away merely as frustration with the nation’s economic woes? Is it a racist response to a black president? Is it proof the GOP attracts voters who vote with their emotions, not their brains?

Probably a little, or a lot, of all those reasons.

What cannot be denied, even by the most ardent Republican booster, is the policies of the GOP are weighted toward the wealthy, its support for social welfare and higher education programs is squishy, to say the least, and its job-creation programs so far are non-existent save for calls for lower taxes for the rich, or as Republicans calls them, “job creators.” Of course, even with the Bush tax cuts for the upper crust new jobs have not been plentifully created. (Okay, they can deny it all but they’d be kidding themselves; regrettably, they’re already doing a good job fooling many of the young, poor and under-educated.)

How absolutely discouraging. How absolutely unfathomable. How absolutely implausible. But it’s true.

The safety net will be pulled from under them if the poor, the young and the least educated elect conservative, Republican politicians. But getting them to see that is like trying to prove a negative. Until they suffer and can be brought back into the Democratic fold, many will vote against their best economic interests. We have only to look at the eight years of George W. Bush to see the damage that can be wrought—failure to acknowledge warnings of an imminent attack on U.S. soil, 9/11, two wars seemingly without end, lower purchasing power for the middle class and working class, no job growth, federal budgets that went from surplus to deficit, and a loss of respect throughout most of the world.

Not So Very Good Morning News

Harry Smith is one of my favorite newscasters. I don’t go out of my way to watch him—I rarely have tuned in as he anchored CBS’ Early Show for 17 of the last 23 years. Yet, when I see him substitute host on the CBS Evening News or CBS Sunday Morning, I feel quiet comfort that the news will be delivered professionally, with appropriate gravitas, for Harry Smith is a good reporter. There’s something about his demeanor, his calm, cadenced Midwestern voice, his comfort with his skin—he’s bald, you know, not one of those newscasters who gels up his hair, like Chris Wragge does on the local WCBS-2 New York station.

Oh, did I mention it was reported this morning that Harry will be replaced by Wragge? Reality is mimicking fiction. It’s like the William Hurd character edging out Albert Brooks’ in Broadcast News. Looks over substance. If Wragge’s earpiece ever falls out...well, you get the picture.

Smith’s demotion could not have been too much of a shock. After all, The Early Show is a distant third in the ratings, behind NBC and ABC in the morning time slot. And it wasn’t just Smith who got the heave-ho. CBS replaced the full cast. Even weatherman Dave Price had it rain on his parade.

People lose their jobs every day. So far, CBS has not fired any of the replaced anchors. I’m not faulting CBS for making the changes. Rather, I was taken by a paragraph in the NY Times article:

“Mr. Smith said in an interview that the reshuffling ‘had been on the horizon for a while.’ He braced himself for it by taking a ‘long walk on a cold golf course’ last Sunday, he said, pausing to reflect on how fortunate he had been to report from places like Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the earthquake there last winter, and from New Orleans after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring. He sounded philosophical, not disappointed. Mostly, he sounded content.

“’I’ve been at this a long time,’ he said, ‘and I’ve literally given it every possible thing I can give it.’”

I can identify with that “long walk.” Mine wasn’t on a golf course. Mine took place in November 1987 along the blocks surrounding my office on Park Avenue and E. 55th Street. I had just been told that Chain Store Age General Merchandise Trends would cease publication in January 1988. I was the publisher and editor, a nine-year veteran of the magazine. Almost all of my staff would be absorbed by other publications within our company. I would wind up heading up a nascent newsletter division for our company for 10 months, before joining a different edition of Chain Store Age as its editor and associate publisher (then publisher) for the next 20 years.

I remember that long walk. Not the details of what I saw or heard. Rather, the emptiness I felt. I couldn’t focus on anything. I wasn’t angry. Like Smith, I knew the staff and I had done everything we could to keep the executioner’s song on hold. We had succeeded in forestalling the corporate decree by a year. But living under the threat, under the sword of Damocles, for nearly two years took its toll. Still, it was not a feeling of closure, of finality, when the news came. It was a feeling of emptiness. Deflation. Futility. And though I know better, it was a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling I had not done enough.

I’m long over those feelings. If he has them, I hope they soon pass for Harry, as well.

Scan Me

The growing debate over full-body scanners, or the alternative full-body, including private parts, pat-down, at airport security stations evokes the outcry often heard when corporations, such as car companies, resist making simple modifications to their products because they determine it is cheaper to pay off a few claims, even death claims, than fund retrofits that may be inexpensive on a per unit basis but total tens of millions in the aggregate. How could they be so callous?, we hear. How could they rely on actuarial tables when human lives are at stake?

In the brouhaha surrounding full-body scanners, we’re hearing similar strands, but from the other side—how could the government require them when the danger of an in-flight bombing is miniscule, probably not worth the risk of radiation exposure, much less the psychological trauma of physical exposure to prying eyes? (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/the-full-body-backlash/?scp=1&sq=body%20scanners&st=Search)

People, let’s get serious. No one wants a repeat of 9-11, or a successful shoe or underwear bomber. Imagine the outcry if we could have thwarted such an event and didn’t because we were too complacent, as a government, a society, an individual. As someone who flew 30-50 times a year for 30 years, and still flies about a dozen times a year, I’m in favor of secure air travel. Get over it, America. As a middle-aged, frumpy man told CBS Evening News with Katie Couric yesterday, “If someone is going to get turned on with this body, god bless them” (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7057978n&tag=mncol;lst;5).

For the frequent flyer, including pilots and flight attendants, there is, perhaps, a reason to be concerned about the 385 scanners now in place in 68 airports. Accumulated radiation may be hazardous. But so too is use of a cell/smart phone held close to the ear (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/business/14digi.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage). I’ll be more sympathetic to the cries of radiation risk from the scanners when I see people drop their mobile phones from their ears.

New York City airports are soon to be scanner-equipped. They might not make the security exam any faster, but I will feel safer when I fly.