In the course of producing this little blog, I try to touch on a range of issues going from theology, politics, history and economics. Of course, in my opinion, they are all delightfully intertwined! Today, I had a brief but enjoyable experience at the LBJ Library here in Austin, Texas. The former director of the library- Harry Middleton- has taught a course for years on the the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Each year he has kindly asked me to direct one class during this course to reflect on how the LBJ presidency affected my work as a parish priest.
It is an easy subject to talk about. Most of the students have had no experience with the cruel segregation that marked life in the South prior to the upheaval created by the President over a short three or four years, when he was able to produce major structural changes in governmental and racial issues. First came the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the first serious break that blacks had received since the end of the Civil War. That was followed by the Open Housing Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, and many others.
If you were a Black American in 1955, you would see tremendous cause for hope and optimism by 1965. While changes required action by both the House and the Senate, those changes would never have occurred except for LBJ. Mr. Robert Caro has made a career of writing about the extraordinary life of President Johnson, completing four books to date, with one to go. I have read them all, but would primarily recommend Passage of Power for those interested in this fascinating story.
Now to the parish. I was serving a poor area during these turbulent years. Dramatic changes I witnessed first hand included better educational opportunities (via Head Start), better housing, more open job opportunities, and a surge in self-confidence in the poorer members of our society. Sadly, over all of this wonderful activity, there was a cloud- the VietNam War. I leave that subject for another day.
If you’re in Austin, take advantage of the opportunity to visit the LBJ Library on the University of Texas campus. This library will give you a wonderful picture of this administration’s crucial work under President Johnson from the early 1930′s until his death in 1973, only 63 years old.

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I am amazed! I am really amazed. More accurately, I am really saddened. Here we are in 2013 and the Supreme Court of the United States is seriously discussing cutting back the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The arguments for it? Why, the problem has been solved! Voter discrimination has been eliminated and there is no need for this archaic law today!
I assume that the justices on the court were somewhat conscious of the fact that throughout 2012 there was a determined effort in more than 20 states to adjust voting procedures in a way that it would make it more difficult for some citizens, especially the poor and minorities, to cast their vote. Restrictions on voter ID, scheduling and inconvenient polling places as well as other tricks were used to cut back on the voting of these groups.
It is true that in 2013 the evils present in our system before 1965 have been greatly lessened but that is no reason to go backwards. We still see powerful forces that want to limit voting rights. The Voter Rights Act holds them at bay. Let’s keep it that way.
 

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Back in November, the State of Texas elected Ted Cruz to be its junior senator. A number of other newly elected senators were sent to Washington but most of them the general public has not heard about as yet. Not so with Senator Ted Cruz. He has made a real impression in the nation’s capital.
I am told that it is a long tradition that freshmen congressmen and senators should sit quietly for a period of time until they get the lay of the land and familiarize themselves with the mode of operation present into which ever house they have been elected. Not so Senator Ted Cruz.
After the tragic killing of children and students at Newtown, Connecticut, Senator Cruz accused the president of the United States of using this incident in such a way as to further his own political agenda. The Senate Arms Services Committee was reviewing the appropriateness of former senator Chuck Hagal for the office of Secretary of Defense. Senator Cruz shocked many in his own party for his rudeness, misuse of facts and innuendos. Then it started immediately to be said that “we have another Senator Joe McCarthy,” we have another person whose approach is simply to attack without data – to charge, to accuse and, if necessary, to really hurt his opposition.
Time marches on and people forget. Joseph McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin who dominated American politics in the early ‘50’s. He was brutally dishonest, ultimately censured by his fellow senators and gave his name to a period that was synonymous with destructive conflict.
Senator Ted Cruz has only been in office for a few weeks. It may very well be that he has learned that the old tradition of sitting and listening for a while is a good approach. I wish him every success in that effort.
 

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A large gang of carpenters and laborers are still working hard endeavoring to get the capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. in shape in order to enable the government to continue to do routine business. The hotels are no longer crowded, tons of trash has been removed and getting around the city is no more difficult than usual. The inauguration was both fun and expensive but now the president and the Congress must confront the large number of serious problems, conflicted situations, economic peril at home as well as military and terrorist peril abroad.
The most immediate issue facing the president, and you and I are facing it as well, is the need to deal with multiple fiscal issues within the next few months. The automatic budget cuts raise their head again in early March. The debt ceiling has come back to life. The absence for a federal budget adds to the bitterness between the White House and the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Maybe we should rename the Arab Spring. I think it is more like an Arab earthquake with dangerous and tragic situations continuing in Syria, Egypt and now Algeria. Our relations with Russia and China are less than ideal. All in all, it is a difficult and complex time in American history.
Shouldn’t we all be glad that there is always somebody out there who wants to be the president? Let’s pray for that man and let’s pray for our country.

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Most Americans are aware of the fact that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Then the Congress of the United States adopted the 13th Amendment in 1865. Almost one hundred years later, in 1964, the Congress of the United States adopted the first realistic and effective Civil Rights Act since the Civil War. In the next three or four years, several other important pieces of legislation were passed, such as Open Housing Act and Voter Rights Act. Our nation, founded on the principles of human freedom and dignity, nevertheless tolerated slavery for most of its first century as a Republic. It has been endeavoring to deal with this scandalous contradiction for more than 150 years. Regretfully, we are not there yet!
The January 5th issue of the New York Times tells us that, “In October, the Arkansas Times reported that Jim Hubbard, a Republican state representative, wrote in a 2009 self-published book that the institution of slavery, that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people, has actually been a blessing in disguise.” His misguided point was that for all the horrors of slavery blacks were better off in America than in Africa.
Signs of slavery’s shadow can be found in many different directions. I have not read Michelle Alexander’s popular new book, The New Jim Crow, but she tells us that, “Today, there are more African American adults under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War. Finally, a poll about the Civil War found that Americans, when queried about the Civil War, had very different views. In the West, 11% were more sympathetic of the Confederacy than the Union, the Northeast was 14% and in the South THIRTY-EIGHT PERCENT tilted toward the Confederacy.
Shadow indeed.

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In the distant past of early 2012, candidate Mitt Romney generated enormous amounts of laughter when he suggested that the solution to the problem of illegal immigration was for those persons who had entered the country illegally should simply “self-deport” themselves. Can’t you see 10 or 12 million people laying down their rakes and shovels and hitching rides to the nearest freight train which would take them down to the Rio Grande? When they got to the Mexican border they would not be home. They would have another 1,500 or 2,000 miles to get down into Central America, a poverty area from which they had fled earlier solely because they had a desperate desire to survive and to feed their children. Self-deport indeed!
Life in this country for undocumented people can be extremely difficult and even dangerous but the real danger is to be found in the process of getting here! Tens of thousands of Central Americans, many of them as young as 10 and 12 years old, take the enormous risks of trying to cross Mexico in order to get to what they hope and dream will be the land of plenty, the United States of America. Hundreds and hundreds of them never make it. The statistics will never be known. Their bodies are found beside railroad tracks or their skeletons peeking out from parched sands of the deserts of northern Mexico. It is a terrible situation but despite the grimness of the scene there is some small cause for optimism and hope.
Thanks be to God there are generous men and women, citizens of Mexico, who establish small programs to help these migrants continue on their dangerous journey. A little food, the essentials of water, a safe place to sleep. The people doing this work are themselves poor but they have a powerful sense of solidarity with their neighbors to the south and their help makes the difference for many in terms of being able to survive as far as the Rio Grande.
The solution? Economic development across the planet in a way that would have all peoples gain an adequate education to survive in the modern world and have access to the resources that they need in order to live simple but safe and stable lives. I know, I know. That is a dream but it is already true for much of North America, Western Europe and the Asian Rim. Developed nations of the world need to recognize the hopes and longings of people in undeveloped parts of this planet, and see them as human beings desiring to share in the blessings of this planet and not merely look upon them as an inexpensive source of raw materials in order to enhance the wealth of those who already have enough.
 

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Fifty years ago as the union movement was moving to improve the life of its members, Southern states, almost without exception, passed laws to which they gave the rather absurd name the “right to work.” The union movement in the South was weak and almost helpless and they were not able to beat back these counterproductive measures. That was not true, however, in the Northeast and the West until last month.
Michigan’s Republican controlled legislature came through with a so-called “right to work” law and the Republican governor signed it with enthusiasm. The union movement is weak. That cannot be denied. However, neither can it be denied that middle income workers’ wages have been stagnant now for several decades. The wealth in this country is ever more concentrated and this is very bad for the country as a whole.
I would expect the Republicans, who are in some ways quite consistent, to do what they could to hold down the workers and blocking them from getting their share of the pie. However, there used to be one glorious light in this struggle and that was the position of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has been solidly pro-union since the end of the 19th century. Every single pope without exception speaks repeatedly about the right of workers to organize in order to protect themselves in the face of the extraordinarily harsh economic realities that they face. The popes remember but do the bishops? When that Michigan’s “right to work” law was passed several weeks ago to my knowledge there was not a single authoritative Roman Catholic voice speaking out against it. This was a state law that was being enacted. The Church has set up state Catholic Conferences to relate the Church’s position vis-à-vis new legislation. The Michigan Catholic Conference was silent – absolutely silent – and one of the principles in moral theology is “silence gives consent.” Does that mean that the Michigan Catholic Conference endorsed this destructive move against working people in that great state?
Are the bishops forgetting this glorious tradition? Are they turning their backs on the Church’s commitment to the poor, to the vulnerable? I pray that this is not the case. May God help us.

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Well, the number crunchers, the economists and the public relations people have all been busy trying to figure out how much the November elections cost the people of the United States of America. So much money was spent in so many different races in different parts of the country that no one will ever know. The common figure that most people tentatively agree to is six billion dollars. No, this is not a typographical error. Six billion dollars was spent to choose our elected officials. All of these jobs, whether city councilman or president, are important and almost everyone has a right to contend for one or another of them. But SIX BILLION DOLLARS? Wow!
One of the good things about this election is that many more individuals were involved and made small, reasonable contributions – $10, $50, $200 – but that is not where most of that six billion came. It was the big donors, the people who want something very specific from the government or they want it done a certain way. This has been a problem in our country for nearly 200 years but two years ago the Supreme Court chose to make it much more difficult by coming down with the decision called Citizens United.
In its overzealous desire to not impede free speech in this country (there hasn’t been too much of a shortage of that of late, has there?), it blandly made the decision that the poverty stricken powerhouses in Corporate America were just simple citizens, like Mr. Smith who lives across the street. They have a right to be engaged in politics and there is no limitation on expenditures. They also made it possible for organizations to give enormous sums of money without identification or visibility. It was this change that made the cost of running for election in this country soar so much higher in a short period of time. It frightens me to think about what the cost of elections will be in 2016.
In the early 19th century, America’s leaders fought vigorously to keep corporations out of politics and they were successful until this recent decision. There is a strong move underway to change the Constitution but that is extraordinarily difficult – extraordinarily difficult!

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The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is one of my favorite organizations. With limited resources, it struggles constantly to maintain honestly and accuracy in all aspects of our economic and social system. Their chief method is to be prepared to support “whistleblowers” when they have the courage to report improper production or sales methods. In the past, an employee who would have the courage to report transgressions in protecting America against corporate greed they would usually be fired quickly and brutally. For years, GAP has tried to protect them and now a real victory is about to be achieved.
In late September, the House of Representatives passed S. 743 – the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) – by unanimous consent! Can you believe that? The legislation will provide millions of federal workers with the rights they need to safely report government corruption and wrongdoing. The bill reflects a strong bipartisan consensus and is finally excepted to pass the Senate this month.
When the bill passes, it will end a hard-fought and crucial victory. This victory was achieved by the Make It Safe Coalition (MISC), which GAP coordinates. They have done a great job and deserve our appreciation and support.
Our government struggles to protect us from bad food and medicine through programs such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Disease Control. It cannot and we would not want it to supervise every production line in the country. What we can do, however, is stand prepared to help those workers who see dishonest practices that threaten not just the money of the public but their health as well.
Do you have an extra twenty bucks? How about sending it to the Government Accountability Project, 1612 K Street, NW Suite #1100, Washington, DC 20006, 202.457.0034, info@whistleblower.org.

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If there is anyone in the United States that did not know that American politics is a tough, difficult and expensive world, they do now. A two year struggle to choose a president for the next four years is now over. As I said last week, most of us are very thankful for that fact. Will anything be different now?

The last two years were extraordinarily bitter and hostile. It seemed like the government was at a complete impasse. The battle over the debt ceiling took us into a very dangerous situation and was temporarily solved only at the last minute.

I think that we are all happy to note that there are glimmering signs of rationality and a willingness to work together to solve our many and very serious problems. The president’s position is strong and Speaker Boehner has given some indication that he is going to try hard to develop a cooperative spirit in the Republican controlled House. If that works out, it will certainly be a wonderful blessing for the country. We must deal with our problems and continued stalemate, conflict and logjam points us to disaster.

Let’s pray that our leaders are open to responding to reality and that they put the overcoming of these obstacles ahead of their personal views and opinions.

We are reasonable people. Let us move forward and let us move forward together.

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