Let's Take Another Look at the State of the Union           

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
1/30/15
 

 

The state of the union -- which is different from The State of the Union -- is precarious from the ethicist's point of view. We may have been "conceived in liberty," as the Great Man said, "and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," but we are not there yet. Far from it. Farther, perhaps than we have ever been.

 

It is painful to retell the story. We all know it. There are the 1%, the 10% and then the rest of us. Far more wealth is owned or controlled by the 1% and 10% than by the 99% and the 90%. The tax code is skewed in favor of those affluent minorities, as is well known, and against the middle class and even more so against those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

 

A recent study shows that the poor pay twice the percentage of their income in various taxes than those at the peak of the economic summit. In no reconstruction of that fact can anything fair or democratic be said about it. So money doesn't talk. It shouts at the top of its lungs. It becomes an arithmetical cudgel used to beat the poor and middle class into submission.

 

Collective bargaining that, by any measure, is a cornerstone of true democracy is being legislated out of business, especially in the public sector. Public pension funds are being raided to make up for the reduction of taxes on corporate profits at the expense of future retirees. There is a case of grand larceny committed in the most petty, small-minded of ways.

 

That at the same time the Republican-dominated 114th Congress has set its greedy eye on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as the low-hanging fruit of an easy harvest in its fanatical crusade, they say, to eliminate the nation deficit. First is to be the cutting back of Social Security disability benefits -- easier yet because the disabled are least likely to be able to overcome the everyday obstacles of their disabilities even to think of voting. That's the old schoolyard ploy of ganging up on the fat kid or the little kid for the thrill of it all.

 

I was the fat kid in my schoolyard. As it turned out, though, I had advocates. When they were present, no one kicked my ass and otherwise denied me the pleasure of afternoon recess. Where now are the advocates for the disabled? Not, so far as we know, in the Republican majority of the current Congress. Excuse me, but what country is this?

 

This gross inequity is the child of a corporate-centered social structure that operates on the duel systems of domination and violence. The canonization of "job creators" and of those who make money by the manipulation of the financial system and the tax code allows them to have their way with legislatures and Congress in the matter of enacting laws. Who wishes to have any kind of a life as a legislator at any level must follow the dictates of those who fund his campaign or fund attack ads against his opponent.

 

"Follow the money" was one of the grim lessons we learned from Watergate. Or should I say have yet to learn.

 

Drill or not to drill, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pollution or to take arms against shortsighted avarice and by opposing stop it.

 

At issue of late has been the Keystone pipeline project that has been heralded as the greatest source of jobs in modern times. Not true, of course, but there would be a moderate amount of jobs for a finite time. One problem is with the pipeline itself and the matter of how often -- too often -- such things spring leaks and ruin a countryside or a river. Another is the nature of the substance that would move through it: tar sands oil -- among the worst of the worst where air pollution is concerned.

 

Trusted polls reveal the rather astonishing fact that most Americans are not buying the good-tidings argument of the Keystoners. One poll shows that 70% of the public is convinced that climate change is real and the burning of fossil fuels is a primary cause. More eye-opening yet is that some 56% of Republicans agree with that and 54% of conservatives -- whatever their partisan leaning, if any.

 

The money source behind the Keystone movement and other such environmental rapaciousness is, of course, the oil and gas lobby, whose spokesgoons are heard and heeded in the corridors of Congress where arms are twisted and palms are greased.

 

So I ask you: Is this the kind of country we want to be? We know that less than a third of the American electorate created the horror that is the 114th Congress. The other two-thirds had better begin speaking up before the newly gilded age becomes firmly ensconced in the nation's parlor and refuses to leave.


A struggling middle class, many of whom live at or near the margin of poverty, and those lower on the ladder than they must not be abandoned by a collective shrug of the shoulders -- unless that is the kind of nation we wish to be.

 

In which case, set the flag at half-mast and sound taps. The land of the free and the home of the brave is becoming a place neither Abraham Lincoln nor Franklin D. Roosevelt for all their toils and labors would recognize.

Copyright 2015 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 


Readers Write
Re essay of 1/23/15 Heavenly Malarkey
 
 

Joel Pugh, Dallas, Texas:  

Good essay. It is motivating. Dr King's "the urgency of now" should be the underlying topic of every sermon."  Great stuff. As to your wish: "I wish to be assured that my beloved wife, my four children and five grandchildren would one day join me in a glorious, everlasting reunion" -- well, the Mormons will promise you that. As for me, it would be a disaster. My first wife didn't like me. So I hope that the Mormons are wrong.

 

Susan Hibbins Carroll, Pleasant Ridge, Michigan:

You told [the substance of your essay] to my sister and me nearly 20 years ago. I was taken aback and dismayed at the time but am now so grateful for your wisdom and how it has shaped the way I live my life.

 

Blayney Colmore, La Jolla, California:

I suppose it would be churlish of me to say I am not hoping for a posthumous reunion with my family, despite loving them. First of all, it has taken all of our patience and talents to make our affection for each other grow rather than diminish over a lifetime. I seriously doubt my patience could last for ever, nor theirs for me. Surely the hope for eternity is to soften our disappointments about our failed intimacies in this life. Suppose we consider that we have succeeded in those relationships beyond any reasonable expectation? The fictions that made us read novels and go to movies were never about real life. Our lives are. And, as Mary Oliver has written, "When the time comes to let them go, to let them go." The resurrection I long for is the happy sense of "enough."

 

Bradford Holmes, Toronto, Canada:

Bravo, sir, for calling out the Malarkeys and their publisher. But more curious yet, as you point out, are the millions of people who fall for all the heaven business. It seems as if the more astrophysics, biology and the sciences of the mind teach us, the more more people believe in things that those disciplines have shown are not possible.

 

Leonard Bosman, Rochester, Minnesota:  

I realize that you are a priest, albeit retired. Did you tell your congregations about your doubts concerning heaven. And did they push back? Did you get fired? Were you put on trial for heresy? If so, it proves your point about "alacrity."

 

Bernice Holley, Annapolis, Maryland:

Please come and save us from stupidity at my parish church. Even bishops go on and on about heaven. I'm with you, but we must be in a minority. A fellow parishioner, knowing of my doubts, asks me every time the subject comes up why I bother to go to church. Nothing I could say would make a difference to her. But what I usually say is that "I love the music." Well, yes I do. As it is written, but seldom as it is rendered.

 

Lydia DeWaldt, San Gabriel, California:

You have certainly touched a nerve with your broadside on heaven. I can't wait to read next week's Readers Write section. Personally, I agree with your analysis, but many will not.

 

Harry Dyck, Elkhart, Indiana:  

I had read about the young fellow that had fabricated the story re his going to heaven and subsequent return, and then confessed to his lie later. So pleased to read your article today to provide genuine counter to his/their lie in the first place. The biblicists all over the country who still promulgate such fabrications and who then instill fear of consequences for their non-belief continue to stand in the way of our children's intellectual growth and the application of science by which a better world might be promoted. Thank you so much for your insights. Take care of your health; your articles are an inspiration to us all. I look forward to each essay from you.

 

Louisa McCauley, London, W. 1, Great Britain: 

I will be putting a copy of your essay on heaven in the post to our young vicar who laces every sermon with something about it. I have sometimes called his attention to your work. He thinks you are a heretic. Are you? I so devoutly hope so. My mother knew Bishop [John A.T.] Robinson and respected him and his writings so much. I'll bet you have read his books.

 

John Bennison, Walnut Creek, California:  

I particularly appreciated this essay, thanks. Assessing the basic human hunger for immortality -- along with a place to park it -- is indeed a psychological question, not a theological one. Unfortunately, when it comes to such alluring malarkey as eternal streets paved with gold, there are far too many peddlers of religious fantasy posing as preachers. One of my late paternal grandmother's favorite phrases -- when describing some long-lost shirttail relative as "either grass or sod, I know not which" -- was a folksy paraphrase of your Second Isaiah quote. And the second half of your quote from Psalm 90 about "numbering our days" is a reminder I often use for birthday wishes: "that we apply our hearts to wisdom." The boy who claims to have crossed over to the other side and returned describes nothing more than what some might hope to see from this side. It is not only unhelpful but unwise. The operative word for anyone claiming a "near-death experience" is "near," not "death."

 

David N. Stewart, Huntington Woods, Michigan:

Laugh out loud, with a dead serious conclusion. Bravo!

 

Eunice Rose, Southfield, Michigan:  

I can see both sides of the "heaven" question. Common sense tells me that "heaven" would be mighty crowded if all of humanity (the good, religious ones, of course) would leave this vale of tears and be in a glorious, unending place with all of their loved ones. I can, however, understand those who are frightened of a vast nothingness after death. To make it more complicated, how about those who believe in many lives lived before this one? Hmmm. Fodder for another piece.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, California:

Of life after death you say, "No evidence exists that could possibly lead a rational person to hope for such a thing." Then why, one wonders, do so many Americans remain committed to the belief? Is it failure to think clearly, hope against hope, the false assurances of religion, the stigma attached to being an atheist, or what? Pope Francis is the most popular man on the planet because he puts the emphasis where it belongs, on living by the example and teachings of Jesus rather than indulging in wishful thinking about an unknown future.

 

Richard M. Schrader, Jacksonville, Florida:

I too am bothered by the obits which recite that 'the dearly beloved' have been called to eternal life by their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But to give some slack. Is it not our inability to comprehend Consciousness? Modern physics has told us that even our perceived most inert objects are subject to intense activity at the sub atomic level. The mapping of the brain may show us how the brain works, but will it explain how we move from living to dead? What happens to our sub-atomic particles. Do they have limited lifetimes or do they transmit to other identities? Is the wisdom of old age an introduction or at least a touching of consciousness?

 

Sharon Tesner, Macomb, Michigan:
And yet, some people find great comfort by reading such stories.
 

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].