Thursday, August 30, 2018
Embarrassed to Death
At the men's group, the sheep are muttering like they did on the early pages of Animal Farm. They are tired of answering the question of whether they are still Catholic, and, if so, why. These are guys who, most of them, have been showing up at 6:30 a.m. every week for going on 20 years to hold each other accountable for discipleship. They now ask themselves the question they are tired of answering.
I was meditating on our collective fate this morning when WBUR in Boston aired its report from El Salvador on how people we deport are processed. About 300 a week seem to be flying into El Salvador, where their wrist and ankle chains are removed and they are given their belts back so the country can welcome them "home." Great reporting. Made me want to puke.
To clear my palate, I had to crank up Joan Baez's "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon," better known as "Deportee."
And when I got back to the radio, national NPR was interviewing the reporter of today's Washington Post story about Trump's latest birtherism, taking away passports from people who can't prove their mother gave birth legally in Texas 40 years ago and declaring them non-citizens. This is a genteel form of ethnic cleansing, but when you take up ethnic cleansing, it won't stay genteel very long.
(My link to the Post doesn't seem to work.) The attacks on the citizenship of adults who have every right to think they are Americans is only the latest outrage, and probably will be superseded by the time this comment gets on line.
As embarrassing as it is these days to be a Catholic, it is even more embarrassing to be an American.
The Democrats in Florida astonished themselves by nominating Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee (the state capital) for governor Tuesday. President Trump tweeted that Gillum is a socialist (vaguely true) with a crime problem (untrue). He is African-American. His opponent, a retreaded Tea Partier Trump endorsed, went on Fox yesterday to hit the gutter with a racist dogwhistle -- more bullhorn than whistle, Gillum quipped. The race can only sink lower from the gutter the Republican began in.
I mean, really. I'd move to a civilized country, but all the countries I'd like to go to don't want Americans coming for their First World health care we can't get at home.
But here is the thing:
Across the length and breadth of the Catholic parishes in this country are people who see nothing wrong with Trump's xenophobia, racism and general disdain for God's children.
And they are never called for it. The sin of Trump-support is more widely practiced than the sex crimes of the priests and the cover-ups of the bishops, and it would be mortal, too, except for the invincible ignorance our shepherds aid and abet.
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Tom, here's a link from Huffington that might work better. I have trouble with WaPo links too; I suppose they want me to subscribe or something. But I already subscribe to two papers; you can only do so much.
ReplyDeleteI was dismayed by that story too. And embarrassed to death also.
Bad as the church scandals are, if it's any comfort, the safeguards put in place seem to be working. Most of the incidents are in the past. Which doesn't mean the hierarchy doesn't need to be more accountable.
However the things perpetrated by our own government are taking place right now.
It would be great if xenophobia were only an American thing. Peru and Brazil are having conflicts due to the influx of Venezuelan refugees from their economic meltdown.
ReplyDeletehttps://thinkprogress.org/desperate-venezuelans-increasingly-trapped-as-brazil-sends-troops-to-borders-a57f2fd8f968/
There's also China's crackdown on the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group, and the ongoing Rohingya persection.
DeleteI can't imagine what it will be like when climate change migration begins in earnest, when there'll be a real lack of resources like water.
ReplyDeleteMichigan will become a water Mecca! And then a huge influx of people and development along the Great Lakes and inland lakes will wreck water quality. And then there will be a dysentery outbreak that will kill thousands. The idiot term-limited legislature will be unable to think of anything to do except pass a bill declaring shigella the Official State Bacteria.
DeleteWe're already seeing over development fallout on the little lakes where you have weeks of no swimming due to fecal coliform pollution.
I think, to an extent, it already is climate change migration. Of course war exacerbates environmental degradation, even without climate change issues. But when you have both, you have people fleeing violence as well as fleeing areas which can no longer support agriculture.
DeleteI have a firm memory of Al "I Am In Charge" Haig saying in a speech that the wars of the future will be water wars. It is something I recorded only in my memory, and I have tried Google for his exact words to no avail. Do any of you -- Stanley? -- feel a twinge of memory about that?
DeleteTom, not sure about Haig but I definitely remember T. Boone Pickens around 15 years ago saying on "Sixty Minutes" that future investment opportunities will be in water, not oil. Now we have Nestle, Coke and Pepsi stealing water, bottling it in carcinogenic plastic and selling it back to us for 1000x the cost of tap water. My friend MaryAnn recently found out her local privately owned water company in NJ was selling out to a big company. She's checking out the extraction rights and is already causing unhappiness. I may have to be her bodyguard.
DeleteWhen we lived in Colorado 25 years ago, Denver was buying irrigation canals in our area (Larimer County). They would rent the water out to the farmers along the way as long as they didn't need it. But you can bet when they did need it the farms were out of luck.
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