Politics & Society

Why There Will Be No Great Debate

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The Democratic Convention speakers did an excellent job of convincing the country that this is a “choice” election, pitting two rival philosophies of government against each other. And they are right in principle: the country does need to choose between conservatives who distrust government and put their faith in markets, and liberals who believe that government is a necessary counterweight to business. Rhetoric aside, however, we will have no such debate. To understand why, we have to look at the recent history of the Democratic Party, and especially at the Clinton Presidency.

Inter-Culturalism

The Interfaith Triangle

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One of my greatest joys in working with Eboo Patel is watching him think. He is the sharpest wit in most of the rooms he enters, and if you manage to catch him with a surprising or unusual question after a public talk or small-group gathering, you can see his mind whirring as he finds not only a meaningful answer, but also a more compelling framework for your question. In Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, Eboo gives us all the gift of seeing him think. It seems apparent that he is in the process of reframing not merely a question, but the premises of the entire interfaith movement, of which he has long been a key part. The core of his new thinking comes out in his chapter, “The Science of Interfaith Cooperation.”

General News

Who Is "The Beast?"

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As often happens in the evening when my husband Derrick has heard a lot of political rhetoric on the radio or TV (I’m the one really watching or listening – he’s the one trying to do Sudoku to escape it all), Derrick will make one comment that will spark my imagination and get my fingers flying on the keyboard. Last night his quip was that the “beast” conservatives were trying to starve or drown wasn’t government, it was, among many would-be victims, our god-daughter who has Down Syndrome. “Starve the Beast” has been a mantra of conservative politics for decades. The phrase is attributed to an un-named Ronald Reagan staffer and was most recently used publicly by Sarah Palin who called on Congress to “starve the beast” by cutting taxes. Grover Norquist, author of the coercive “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” rather than referring to some mythical beast, actually provides language that is closer to what Derrick suggested last night, when Norquist infamously said that “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Environment

Why I'm Going to the Women's Congress For Future Generations and Why You Should, Too

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Eighteen years ago, a year after my mother’s death, almost to the day, I was diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkin’s Disease. When my mother passed, she had lymphoma. Five years prior to my diagnosis, my Dad died, after a long battle with Melanoma. It metastasized to his brain. All that cancer so close to home was my wake up call. I knew something was wrong, and I knew it couldn’t just be genetics.

Politics & Society

President Obama Calls Israel's Bluff

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For months, Israel’s leadership has made it appear as though a military strike against Iran may be imminent. However, some (including myself) have viewed such sabre rattling as nothing more than a bluff – a bluff intended to politically scare up U.S. support for a military strike in an election year. A report from The Washington Post today makes it appear as though President Obama agrees. For the Obama administration seems to be calling Israel’s bluff. In short, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been waving Iran before the GOP like a piece of red meat, imploring Republicans to hit Obama hard politically with the spectre of Israel’s vulnerability.

Empathy

“Work is slow. Send the CEO home”: an Unhappy Labor Day

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Professionals, ask yourself, when is the last time you heard these words? “Work is slow today. So the CEO has to go home.” (and by the way, his pay will be cut down to the precise hours worked). And since some of the work he’s doing is not executive-level, let’s call him an administrative assistant while he writes emails, and a VP when he’s not leading a meeting but merely attending one, and pay him at lower levels for those hours. Should a teacher be paid clerk wages while she photocopies materials for her class?

Christianity

Weathering Storms and Yearning For Deserts: How to Prepare for Hurricane America

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Why am I bringing up a bunch of monastics from the third century A.D.? Because I see so many parallels and dangers inside our own form of empire and so many elements of faith corrupted by the need for polarized absolutes which allow no room for questions and definitely no space for grace. I find myself, for the first time in my life, having a particularly personal empathy for the plight of the desert monks and nuns. I can understand wanting to leave the center of civilization to keep one’s connection to faith, soul, and God.

General News

Was Ann Romney's Speech About "Love" or Hypocrisy?

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Watching Ann Romney’s speech to the Republican National Convention was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. First she sounded like she was making an argument for a progressive agenda, and then she defended a position that completely contradicted everything she said in the first part of the speech. Why does anyone think it was a success? Mrs. Romney began her speech by invoking the concept of “love” as what “holds us all together.” She then empathetically depicted the struggles ordinary Americans face, laying in bed side-by-side trying to figure out how to pay the bills, reeling at the price of gas and groceries, working long hours so their kids can get new clothes or to pay for them to participate in sports, which “used to be free” but now are not – none of which she has actually experienced firsthand, of course.

Politics & Society

Color War and Obama’s “Wink” Strategy

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The Republicans made “We built it” the slogan for their first night, and the New York Times took them up on it, calling Obama’s remark “poorly phrased” and “deliberately taken out of context.” According to the Times, “President Obama was making the obvious point that all businesses rely to some extent on the work and services of government. But Mr. Romney has twisted it to suggest that Mr. Obama believes all businesses are creatures of the government, and so the convention had to parrot the line.”