True "liberty" is responsibility
Between Cinco de Mayo and my son's birthday comes today, May 6th, Karl Marx birthday.
I’m wearing my “Pittsburgh strong” t-shirt, using my mug.
These came out in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings in October 2018. I wear it today in response to mu friend Barney’s report that one out of five Pittsburgh people are unemployed and in one 5 day period, 1.65 million Pennsylvanians applied for unemployment assistance.
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| "Pittsburgh strong" |
Our Underground group gathers again over coffee and on ZOOM. After reading my reflection on Kent State (see yesterday’s blog) my friend Steve H wants to know “why?” What kept me going. All these years? What enabled me to stay in the struggle? The answer was (relatively ) simple. I grew up in a working class town. Only around 40% of my classmates went on to college. It was still possible to work in the mills and have a decent middle class life and send your kids to college. A disproportionate number got drafted and sent to Vietnam and many came back and were never the same (PTSD) and some just left and never came back. Our 1972 reunion saw many draftees and vets trying to make sense of experience.
Let me be clear. I fought against the draft.Was glad when it ended. But I am now sure that the reason the Vietnam war ended was because the draft and shared risk turned the country against it. When I tried to turn in my draft card and it came back (long story,) when I kept my exemption and so many others had to go, I felt I owed them something. Like a lifetime commitment to try and make this a more just, humane and sustainable world. That was my why.
In talking about Kent State, Steve P remembered being at Yale in New Haven and the Black Panther trials and the thousands who came to New Haven for that and the school going on strike, all in the weeks before Kent State. Steve H was just a kid in South Africa, wondering why Americans were so unliked. Clyde K was an academic involved in campus organizing. Steve H talked about how it’s hard to hold on to principles and friends at the same time.
In looking ahead, as always, Steve P brings an historic perspective. The role of slavery in our original constitution. How the New Deal saved capitalism. Large economic expansion ultimately depends on violent coercion and post covid19 we have the potential to become a more violent and dangerous country as the capitalist class tires to hang on.
Sam’s hope kind of keeps me going, She believes change will evolve organically. Now we are forced to be in the moment. Are we capable of self-government? Hopefully.
We are like sheep without a shepherd.
What does it mean to be a failed state? In 1989, the USSR was a fractured state. What emerged was not a democracy but a new Russia run by gangsters. As Joel says, change does not always correct, sometimes it just switches. Steve P adds, Someone Weil said the opiate of the peoples not religion, it’s revolution. Aristotle said democracy is dictatorship of the poor.
Clyde reminds us that the Christian Right, the previous Moral Majority, the Tea Party, are not forces in themselves, but tools.
(Russ recommends the podcast “Scene the Radio” and the new series The land that has never been yet . ( https://www.sceneonradio.org/the-land-that-never-has-been-yet/ )
Andre wants to know, when we say Can we change? Who is we? Better? Or Worse? Is it just tribalism?
Steve P rejects moral equivalence. It's not just tribalism. Calling out bad behavior is not morally equivalent. People whose core value is to love one another can not be a tribe.
For me, “Christian” reality is both tribal and universal. I’m also troubled that tribal can mean many things. My friend and colleague started a new ministry called T.R.I.B.E. , not T-r-i-b-e. That stood for Transformation Realization. Inspiration. Belonging. And Expression. (https://www.janegalloway.com/tribe)
Joel calls our attention to Isaiah 6: "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
We talked about the coal being the word of truth and its effect as cauterization.
We are left with the problem of how will we talk with one another. I speak of the cognitive dissonance between principle and person. What I learned at Oakdale about “sometimes you just have to set Principle aside and what’s right.” The difference between Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery where differences were accepted within the family (he may be crazy but he's ours) and the meanness of Pittsburgh. That meanness has now infected the whole country. That resolving on behalf of the person often requires knowing the person. And how listening is essential. Like Mennonites teach and mediators practice, don’t let someone respond unless the the other person is certain they have been heard. Steve P points out how this is embedded in Roberts’ rules of order.
May we have the opportunities for conversation, for listening.
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The Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare(PHEWA) board meets for the first time in a year and a half at least. We welcome new representatives from our networks serving on the front lines. We have serious concerns about our denomination’s upcoming virtual assembly and the need to speak a word to the broader church and society exegeting the current Covid19 crisis and calling for a faithful response. We hope to finish that statement by the end of the week.
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On my walk, I notice the LED message above the NYPD cruiser, “Do your part, stay six feet apart.”
I’m on the street for the 7 PM cheer. Pots, pans, cheers, car horns. It’s kind of moving.
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| '"Do your part...." |
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| The 7 PM cheer on 118th |
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I make another pot of chili. The day ends with another editor of the Gluey Zoomy Show. Thanks Joel and Carrie!
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