justice

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The Whirlwind of Trump

“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7).

Republicans have no patience with consistency or token justice. They have even neglected the ancient art of political horse-trading, so obsessed are they with amassing power. And now they are reaping the whirlwind, as the prophet Hosea put it.

The prophet had seen a succession of corrupt and idolatrous kings in Israel in the eighth century BCE and wrote to warn of the coming implosion and overrunning of the nation by Assyria. 21st century American politicians might heed the ominous caricature of greed and lust for power embodied in the Trump campaign, as a sign of the gangrenous decay of political processes.

How blind with power can you be to miss that Donald Trump is the symbol of indignation of citizens and the refusal to consider a Supreme Court nominee is a prime example? Can’t Mitch McConnell see that American voters are sick of obstructionism, the dismembering of time-honored processes of electing, confirming and legislating?

Donald Trump is outrage personified. He boasts and blusters of his plans to bend a world to his will, and his followers resonate with that indignation. He cannot say anything to alienate his tribe, because he, alone, defies the absurdity of the politics as usual. Trump is the attack dog for one-third of the electorate.

If Republicans are dismayed by him, they should not be astonished. They have provoked a nation to wrath provoking the whirlwind of Trump. He will annihilate their Party, unless they perform their Constitutional duties. Each day that they obstruct the Supreme Court nomination they are sweeping toward chaos.

Perhaps this turn of phrase is too apocalyptic for the hardened souls of Washington, but they should consider that there are consequences for abusing power. The Trump whirlwind is storming the country and only the revival of reciprocity and integrity in the corridors of power can possibly abate its rage.

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Make America Great

More than a third of New Hampshire Republicans want to “make America great” again. It is sobering to think that Americans are more concerned with greatness than rehabilitation or justice in their world. It puts our nation back in the Superbowl of international competition, crushing our economic foes like China, Japan and Germany, intimidating our political adversaries like Russia, Korea and Iran, reducing our role to domination and control.

But the time is wrong for the metaphors of domination, as the majority of voters will eventually attest. The Denver Broncos won the Superbowl on grit and teamwork, not with heroes. Maybe Von Miller was voted “most valuable,” but the pundits had a difficult time singling out a player or coach most responsible for their decisive victory. Perhaps it was fitting there was no Tom Brady or even a redoubtable Peyton Manning to suck up the media air as the story of victory. Every player assumed a role, made the tackle or block when called upon to do so. Kind of an anti-story when you try to re-tell it.

The big story of the current campaign is Bernie Sanders’ army of no-name, moderate income supporters. An average campaign donation of $27, he boasted Tuesday night. He seemed almost to choke with pride, when he described his undistinguished supporters. Not much noise from the Koch brothers, who are trying to find a horse to play in a crowded field of nags. Donald Trump has struck a chord, but it is a minor chord. His vote count was barely half of Sanders’ in a Republican state. He can spin this as “greatness,” but his Tower of Babel will soon be foreclosed.

The Flint water crisis has also taken center stage. The shame of politicians allowing a public health hazard to explode does not call for heroes but villains. Yet the reasons that water with high lead content was allowed to flow to citizens’ homes will inevitably be complex. Even though heads will roll, it will be hard to single out blame. There is sense of collective failure from bureaucrats, austerity-bound politicians, and a distracted media that captured the story after six months of alarming neglect. America can not be great while its eyes are focused on
international domination. We still have the “shame of the cities” to reckon with.

Donald Trump will continue to exhaust the air in the room, because he embodies his own message. He, too, wants to be “great,” and for a while he is convincing a vocal minority that his goals are theirs. But his ambitions are shallow and will eventually be exposed as bluster and contempt for his rivals. He may make a run in the playoffs, but he is not getting to the Superbowl.

America will be great when all its citizens are great, when clean water flows in Flint, when urban schools are rehabilitated, when college graduates and seniors have sustaining incomes, when clean air and water are consensus goals. There are plenty of venues to be “great,” even if they miss the hype of the Superbowl or next primary campaign. But even if you watch the Superbowl or the campaign, you will see the power of players working together, of personal greatness in common causes, and the shared hope of rehabilitation and justice.

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The Gospel of Opportunity

So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it they began to grumble against the landowner. “These men who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
But he answered one of them, “Friend I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt 20:10-15)
 

Apparently Jesus was a socialist, because he lacked the business sense of giving workers what they deserved. Yet this was the same man who accepted the idea of taxation (even to Caesar), called for wise investment (Parable of the Talents), and who cursed an unproductive fig tree. Jesus does not wear the facile labels that politicians love to slap on their opponents.

So what can we make of this uncomfortable parable that seems to reward the laggards, those who were idle until the last hour of the Vineyard shift? It is not an anomaly, because it is buttressed by the Parable of the Prodigal Son, by the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (“invite to the banquet anyone you can find”), and by Jesus’ injunctions of inclusion (prostitutes and tax collectors in the kingdom).  The latecomers to the Kingdom are always welcomed.

It is the Gospel of Opportunity that we cannot escape.  The door is always open for those left outside. We can see these people as illegal immigrants, as the long-term unemployed, as the criminal who served his time, as the disgraced public official, as the Wall Street swindler, even as the domestic abuser.  Of course the opportunities are not invitations to repeat offenders, but alternate paths to redemption.

So when John Boehner accuses the unemployed as being habitually lazy (“I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather sit around.”) he cuts off the path to opportunity, the opening to succeed. John must have purged this Parable of the Vineyard out of his Bible, because it clearly allows the latecomers to work. It grates on the sensibility that we get what we deserve and that some deserve to suffer for lack of a job.

And if anyone wants to point to malingerers, they can look at Congress, which has given itself a four-month vacation to campaign to save their skins. I guess they are not strictly malingerers; they just found another vineyard to work in during the fall. Maybe we should overlook the fact that it is a self-serving vineyard.

It is fair to point out Jesus’s Vineyard would violate labor law and the unions would be the first to shut him down for such an operation. Unions can be the most ruthless arbiters of fairness, when it comes to fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.  John Boehner may not be the toughest dog in the junkyard. We are glad to have tough arbiters on our side, when we fight against injustice.

Standing for justice is human, but standing for opportunity is divine.  Those who open the doors will find the Kingdom of God on the other side. Those who shut them may find themselves on the wrong side of justice. It is always safer to give a laggard another chance, because he or she may be no less than a broken politician. Politicians deserve to work the Vineyard, too, even at the last hour of the day. That is the Gospel of Opportunity.

 

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Fighting for Justice

Then his lord summoned him and said to him, `You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ (Matthew 18: 32-35).

No one will say it, but human rights could be the real basis for fighting ISIS, not the pretended threat to American citizens. At the same time, we ignore human rights at the peril of our own people. The rise of Al-Qaida from an unstable region shows that the abuse of human rights is not local, but international.

Al-Qaida delivered its sucker punch to the Twin Towers in 2011 from an outpost where it might have been safely ignored till that moment in 2001.  It was defined as a terrorist organization based on that attack, but its manifesto already had condemned the West and declared jihad with ruthless disregard for human life. It was prepared to do whatever was necessary to spread its version of Islam.

Since then the United States has found allies against such brutality. NATO moved into Afghanistan, governments in Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq have invited American intervention against terrorist armies. Even Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have supported military goals in Syria and Iraq.  The lines between Sunni and Shia have blurred in the face of a ruthless, unprincipled enemy.

Certainly every nation has its own political agenda, but it is almost unimaginable that the political agendas of all of the stakeholders surrounding Iraq could coincide. There must be one other motive: human rights. An army which spreads its religion by coercion and brutality is anathema to all. The universal revulsion at the beheadings of two American journalists was not politically inspiring.  It was the sheer disregard for justice and decency that inspired a coalition of the willing.

Human rights is both the highest and most entangled motive for war. If human rights were the first principle of U.S. military intervention, our armies would be scattered into every nook and cranny.  And yet, what better reason to intervene in the tribal battles that divide and terrorize nations, but to defend justice and protect minorities? The image of U.S. helicopters rescuing a persecuted people from a mountaintop could not help but make American citizens proud. That is the image we wish to preserve during the complicated counter-terrorism in Iraq and Syria.

And armies will doubtlessly harm the innocent and commit their own atrocities in a declared war, so it is not always the high ground we claim. But the alternative, to let a brutal perversion of Islam conquer and coerce innocent people is unthinkable, indecent  To allow a terrorist state to spring up in the heart of the Middle East is anathema, not only to Americans, but to every political entity in the region. So a coalition for human rights is formed.

It will never be acknowledged, because it is too ill-defined and too controversial, but the drive for justice and decency will push unnatural alliances together, even the most peculiar alliance of Republican and Democrat. And though Western intelligence can not foresee danger, we will feel more secure that such inhumanity is being challenged in another part of the world. As we learned on 9/11, we are not safe from such desperation, even a world away from our border.