Barack Obama's Federal Deficit Speech: One More Reason I Appreciate this President

At risk of being flamed by many of my more conservative Christian brothers and sisters, I thought President Obama's speech on government budget reductions was yet another of his wonderful "teaching moments." I also appreciated his balanced approach regarding the deep subtext in American politics -- what he views as two basic visions re the role of government. He does not dismiss either wholly, but it is apparent that he (as do I) lean toward the idea of governance as expressing our social contract with one another.

Thus the name of his speech -- "The Country We Believe In: Improving America's Fiscal Future." No matter what one's politics, this is another speech with content worth hearing and discussing at home, work, and play. Or here, if folks would like!

Both video and text of "The Country We Believe In" below:



The Country We Believe In
The George Washington University
Washington, DC
April 13, 2011

As Prepared for Delivery—

Good afternoon. It’s great to be back at GW. I want you to know that one of the reasons I kept the government open was so I could be here today with all of you. I wanted to make sure you had one more excuse to skip class. You’re welcome.

Of course, what we’ve been debating here in Washington for the last few weeks will affect your lives in ways that are potentially profound. This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. It’s about the kind of future we want. It’s about the kind of country we believe in. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

But there has always been another thread running throughout our history – a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves. And so we’ve built a strong military to keep us secure, and public schools and universities to educate our citizens. We’ve laid down railroads and highways to facilitate travel and commerce. We’ve supported the work of scientists and researchers whose discoveries have saved lives, unleashed repeated technological revolutions, and led to countless new jobs and entire industries. Each of us has benefitted from these investments, and we are a more prosperous country as a result.

Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.

For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year.

Now, at certain times – particularly during periods of war or recession – our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities. And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn’t going to hurt if it’s temporary.

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon. They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid. Like parents with young children who know they have to start saving for the college years, America had to start borrowing less and saving more to prepare for the retirement of an entire generation.

To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.

As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts – tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.

To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our national checkbook, consider this: in the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.

Of course, that’s not what happened. And so, by the time I took office, we once again found ourselves deeply in debt and unprepared for a Baby Boom retirement that is now starting to take place. When I took office, our projected deficit was more than $1 trillion. On top of that, we faced a terrible financial crisis and a recession that, like most recessions, led us to temporarily borrow even more. In this case, we took a series of emergency steps that saved millions of jobs, kept credit flowing, and provided working families extra money in their pockets. It was the right thing to do, but these steps were expensive, and added to our deficits in the short term.

So that’s how our fiscal challenge was created. This is how we got here. And now that our economic recovery is gaining strength, Democrats and Republicans must come together and restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s. We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt. And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.

Now, before I get into how we can achieve this goal, some of you might be wondering, “Why is this so important? Why does this matter to me?”

Here’s why. Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond. That means we’ll have to keep borrowing more from countries like China. And that means more of your tax dollars will go toward paying off the interest on all the loans we keep taking out. By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. Just the interest payments.

Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That’s it. Every other national priority – education, transportation, even national security – will have to be paid for with borrowed money.

Ultimately, all this rising debt will cost us jobs and damage our economy. It will prevent us from making the investments we need to win the future. We won’t be able to afford good schools, new research, or the repair of roads and bridges – all the things that will create new jobs and businesses here in America. Businesses will be less likely to invest and open up shop in a country that seems unwilling or unable to balance its books. And if our creditors start worrying that we may be unable to pay back our debts, it could drive up interest rates for everyone who borrows money – making it harder for businesses to expand and hire, or families to take out a mortgage.

The good news is, this doesn’t have to be our future. This doesn’t have to be the country we leave to our children. We can solve this problem. We came together as Democrats and Republicans to meet this challenge before, and we can do it again.

But that starts by being honest about what’s causing our deficit. You see, most Americans tend to dislike government spending in the abstract, but they like the stuff it buys. Most of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that we should have a strong military and a strong defense. Most Americans believe we should invest in education and medical research. Most Americans think we should protect commitments like Social Security and Medicare. And without even looking at a poll, my finely honed political skills tell me that almost no one believes they should be paying higher taxes.

Because all this spending is popular with both Republicans and Democrats alike, and because nobody wants to pay higher taxes, politicians are often eager to feed the impression that solving the problem is just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse –that tackling the deficit issue won’t require tough choices. Or they suggest that we can somehow close our entire deficit by eliminating things like foreign aid, even though foreign aid makes up about 1% of our entire budget.

So here’s the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What’s left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That’s 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.

Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won’t solve the problem. So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget. A serious plan doesn’t require us to balance our budget overnight – in fact, economists think that with the economy just starting to grow again, we will need a phased-in approach – but it does require tough decisions and support from leaders in both parties. And above all, it will require us to choose a vision of the America we want to see five and ten and twenty years down the road.

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.

Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That’s what they’re proposing. These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them. Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities. South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science. Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels. And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.

It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors. It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today. It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own. Put simply, it ends Medicare as we know it.

This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy. Think about it. In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. And that’s who needs to pay less taxes? They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America. As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan. There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.

The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share. We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness. We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare. We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.

This is who we are. This is the America I know. We don’t have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit investments in our people and our country. To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I’m President, we won’t.

Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years. It’s an approach that borrows from the recommendations of the bipartisan Fiscal Commission I appointed last year, and builds on the roughly $1 trillion in deficit reduction I already proposed in my 2012 budget. It’s an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle-class, our promise to seniors, and our investments in the future.

The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week – a step that will save us about $750 billion over twelve years. We will make the tough cuts necessary to achieve these savings, including in programs I care about, but I will not sacrifice the core investments we need to grow and create jobs. We’ll invest in medical research and clean energy technology. We’ll invest in new roads and airports and broadband access. We will invest in education and job training. We will do what we need to compete and we will win the future.

The second step in our approach is to find additional savings in our defense budget. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than protecting our national security, and I will never accept cuts that compromise our ability to defend our homeland or America’s interests around the world. But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt.

Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense. Over the last two years, Secretary Gates has courageously taken on wasteful spending, saving $400 billion in current and future spending. I believe we can do that again. We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness, but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world. I intend to work with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs on this review, and I will make specific decisions about spending after it’s complete.

The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself.

Already, the reforms we passed in the health care law will reduce our deficit by $1 trillion. My approach would build on these reforms. We will reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments. We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market. We will work with governors of both parties to demand more efficiency and accountability from Medicaid. We will change the way we pay for health care – not by procedure or the number of days spent in a hospital, but with new incentives for doctors and hospitals to prevent injuries and improve results. And we will slow the growth of Medicare costs by strengthening an independent commission of doctors, nurses, medical experts and consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.

Now, we believe the reforms we’ve proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional one trillion dollars in the decade after that. And if we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.

But let me be absolutely clear: I will preserve these health care programs as a promise we make to each other in this society. I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry, with a shrinking benefit to pay for rising costs. I will not tell families with children who have disabilities that they have to fend for themselves. We will reform these programs, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.

That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.

The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.

Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn’t itemize.

My budget calls for limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest 2% of Americans – a reform that would reduce the deficit by $320 billion over ten years. But to reduce the deficit, I believe we should go further. That’s why I’m calling on Congress to reform our individual tax code so that it is fair and simple – so that the amount of taxes you pay isn’t determined by what kind of accountant you can afford. I believe reform should protect the middle class, promote economic growth, and build on the Fiscal Commission’s model of reducing tax expenditures so that there is enough savings to both lower rates and lower the deficit. And as I called for in the State of the Union, we should reform our corporate tax code as well, to make our businesses and our economy more competitive.

This is my approach to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next twelve years. It’s an approach that achieves about $2 trillion in spending cuts across the budget. It will lower our interest payments on the debt by $1 trillion. It calls for tax reform to cut about $1 trillion in spending from the tax code. And it achieves these goals while protecting the middle class, our commitment to seniors, and our investments in the future.

In the coming years, if the recovery speeds up and our economy grows faster than our current projections, we can make even greater progress than I have pledged here. But just to hold Washington – and me – accountable and make sure that the debt burden continues to decline, my plan includes a debt failsafe. If, by 2014, our debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy – or if Congress has failed to act – my plan will require us to come together and make up the additional savings with more spending cuts and more spending reductions in the tax code. That should be an incentive for us to act boldly now, instead of kicking our problems further down the road.

So this is our vision for America – a vision where we live within our means while still investing in our future; where everyone makes sacrifices but no one bears all the burden; where we provide a basic measure of security for our citizens and rising opportunity for our children.

Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn’t even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It’s just an article of faith for them. I say that at a time when the tax burden on the wealthy is at its lowest level in half a century, the most fortunate among us can afford to pay a little more. I don’t need another tax cut. Warren Buffett doesn’t need another tax cut. Not if we have to pay for it by making seniors pay more for Medicare. Or by cutting kids from Head Start. Or by taking away college scholarships that I wouldn’t be here without. That some of you wouldn’t be here without. And I believe that most wealthy Americans would agree with me. They want to give back to the country that’s done so much for them. Washington just hasn’t asked them to.

Others will say that we shouldn’t even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered. I’m sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December. It’s also why we have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit – so that we can keep making the investments that create jobs. But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don’t begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.

Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn’t make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed. I understand these fears. But I guarantee that if we don’t make any changes at all, we won’t be able to keep our commitments to a retiring generation that will live longer and face higher health care costs than those who came before.

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments. If we believe that government can make a difference in people’s lives, we have the obligation to prove that it works – by making government smarter, leaner and more effective.

Of course, there are those who will simply say that there’s no way we can come together and agree on a solution to this challenge. They’ll say the politics of this city are just too broken; that the choices are just too hard; that the parties are just too far apart. And after a few years in this job, I certainly have some sympathy for this view.

But I also know that we’ve come together and met big challenges before. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill came together to save Social Security for future generations. The first President Bush and a Democratic Congress came together to reduce the deficit. President Clinton and a Republican Congress battled each other ferociously and still found a way to balance the budget. In the last few months, both parties have come together to pass historic tax relief and spending cuts. And I know there are Republicans and Democrats in Congress who want to see a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

I believe we can and must come together again. This morning, I met with Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress to discuss the approach I laid out today. And in early May, the Vice President will begin regular meetings with leaders in both parties with the aim of reaching a final agreement on a plan to reduce the deficit by the end of June.

I don’t expect the details in any final agreement to look exactly like the approach I laid out today. I’m eager to hear other ideas from all ends of the political spectrum. And though I’m sure the criticism of what I’ve said here today will be fierce in some quarters, and my critique of the House Republican approach has been strong, Americans deserve and will demand that we all bridge our differences, and find common ground.

This larger debate we’re having, about the size and role of government, has been with us since our founding days. And during moments of great challenge and change, like the one we’re living through now, the debate gets sharper and more vigorous. That’s a good thing. As a country that prizes both our individual freedom and our obligations to one another, this is one of the most important debates we can have.

But no matter what we argue or where we stand, we’ve always held certain beliefs as Americans. We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can’t just think about ourselves. We have to think about the country that made those liberties possible. We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community. And we have to think about what’s required to preserve the American Dream for future generations.

This sense of responsibility – to each other and to our country – this isn’t a partisan feeling. It isn’t a Democratic or Republican idea. It’s patriotism.

The other day I received a letter from a man in Florida. He started off by telling me he didn’t vote for me and he hasn’t always agreed with me. But even though he’s worried about our economy and the state of our politics, he said,

“I still believe. I believe in that great country that my grandfather told me about. I believe that somewhere lost in this quagmire of petty bickering on every news station, the ‘American Dream’ is still alive…

We need to use our dollars here rebuilding, refurbishing and restoring all that our ancestors struggled to create and maintain…We as a people must do this together, no matter the color of the state one comes from or the side of the aisle one might sit on.”

I still believe as well. And I know that if we can come together, and uphold our responsibilities to one another and to this larger enterprise that is America, we will keep the dream of our founding alive in our time, and pass on to our children the country we believe in. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

Life to Iran (For Neda)

Thinking about Iran, and a casual comment made by my friend Mike, I came up with this lyric.


Life to Iran (For Neda)
© 2009, Jon Trott


They’re in the streets of Tehran
And the byways of my mind
Not looking for freedom that’s political
But freedom of an existential kind

And I wonder at their bravery
I tremble sickened at their dying
I see in their eyes that they are me
And I am them, at least I’m trying

Life to Iran
Life to every woman and man
Life to Iran
Face the dragon, I know we can…
I know we can

Protested with them in Chicago
Cost me just an afternoon
They sang the saddest song in Farsi
I felt joy was coming soon

Life to Iran
Life to every woman and man
Life to Iran
Face the dragon, I know we can…
I know we can

Jesus is my start, my end, my love
Their journey is no less than mine
All round the world love’s bleeding
Yet hope’s green ribbon is a sign

Life to Iran
Life to every woman and man
Life to Iran
Face the dragon, I know we can…
We are all Iran…
We are all Iran…
We are all Iran…
Life to Iran.


(all rights reserved)

NO SHOW!! Fred Phelps' "God Hates Fags" Fails to Appear in Chicago After All...

Where was everybody?!

A few passers-by were the only people we initially saw where the "God Hates Fags" /
Westboro Baptist Church had said on its website it would march
against Barack Obama. Ah, well. We'll save our signs and try again!

As I posted yesterday, our Project 12 program's students went downtown today in order to picket the picketers. The infamous Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church (actually all members of his own biological family), were set to tell Barack Obama, the Canadian embassy, the Chinese embassy, and the Democratic National Party, that Phelps' gawd hates them. We thought Jesus ought to be represented. So we made signs, wrote up a press flier, and drove our old rickety Project 12 van downtown to the Federal Building on South Dearborn.

But... We were there. Numbing cold weather was there. Lots and lots of police were there. Barracades were there. After a while a self-proclaimed satanic group called "S. I. N." (Sodomite Insurgency Network) was there. (We tried to talk with them but they had no interest in our message.) Who was not there, however? Westboro Baptist Church. No idea on why.

UPDATE: It appears that Westboro changed the time of the event as well as the targets of it. They may or may not be appearing later today (near noon) at 233 N. Michigan Avenue. That is a severe scale-back from what had been planned. They also plan (if they're to be believed) to appear at the same spot a number of times this month (as this pdf from their website lists).

At any rate, here we were:

Obama Hanging in Effigy: Christian University's Robust Response

I am impressed by George Fox University's response to the "hanging" of a cardboard cutout of Senator Barack Obama on their campus. There's not a lot more to say about this incident, and I note it only to remark on the school's solid example of a Christlike response.

The Sane Response (Lyric)

.
The Sane Response


How come the angels lose and devils win
And even Satan says he’s born again
How come suicide sometimes feel right
The face of day that’s as dark as night

I am angry so I won’t cry
I am angry so I won’t cry

How come bullets kill but hope keeps on
How come we all murdered God’s Son?
And keep it up with our evangelical tongue
Such an ugly song we wrote and sung

It’s as cold as loneliness outside
I heard the weather man say
As he rolled up his charts
And packed all our hearts away

There comes a break when love’s revealed
And the sky stays grey but hey
Something’s changed in how we pray
Steady on that silent narrow way

I am angry so I won’t cry
I am angry so I won’t cry

And yet I cry, and cry, and cry each day
Sweetie, lay your burden on me, stay
It’s okay okay okay okay okay…
Your anger doesn’t scare me – stay.


© 2008 Jon Trott


tag: anger, angry, Christianity, existentialism, lyrics, poetry, rape, suicide, The Sane Response

A preface of sorts for "Nurturing the Best Love of Children in a Globalizing World"

A few weeks back, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen sent me an as-yet unpublished chapter draft she's contributing to an upcoming book. For those few who have waded through all my recent posts (or even just MSVL's articles that I've posted) you will recognize a few threads of the ongoing obsession I have over women's "place" in society and the Church. But of course I discovered that Ms. Van Leeuwen's scholarship is better than mine (duh, Trott?!).

Beyond that, however, is the growing excitement I have over not just MSVL's contributions to this discussion but also other sources of wisdom I've recently been tapping into. For instance, I'm using a book by John Peck and Charles Strohmer called "Uncommon Sense." It is, to put it in slightly archaic parlance, a "worldview" book. And in some spots, one might even say it is a bit "anti" worldview, in that their ideas are geared toward interacting with the world rather than warring against world, the latter being a more traditional pathway for evangelical apologists.

Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen is a wonderful example of how to interact with good science (in her case, Social Science) and find in that scholarly pursuit a tremendously encouraging resource for the Gospel. In particular, she parallels Peck and Strohmer's emphasis on "sphere sovereignty," a concept I for one am still treating gingerly but am also finding helpful as (to my shock!) a tool of female and male liberation rather than traditionalist patriarchal bondage.

That is part of the reason I continue to post very long articles on BlueChristian, despite the fact that blogs aren't always the best venue for such lengthy works. I encourage anyone interested in women, children, men, and (esp.) the Gospel's influence over that human community of communities, to delve into at least the below article by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen.

Blessings,
Jon Trott

tag: children, Christianity, Christians for Biblical Equality, family, Love, Love in the western world, marriage, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, sociological, sociology, women

Is God Masculine? Part One (The Overview)

Sometimes the biggest cans of worms are opened with the simplest-sounding questions.

What follows is extremely "beta" and perhaps "alpha" in quality as far as being in any sense "finished" or "authoritative." (The latter term to me is not a very useful one anyway.)

Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen can be blamed for the most recent gyrations I've been making re women, men, male, female, feminine, masculine, and many related subjects. Her use of one term -- "gender essentialism" -- flipped tumblers that further clarified some things for me as I've continued reading on what it is and means. But it also opened doors to new questions, many of those more for other egalitarians than for the so-called "complementarians" (whom I prefer to call what they are: male hierarchalists).

So here's the question that I think lies behind many of the other questions:



Is God Masculine?

Well... on one hand he is called "Father" and "He" the majority of the time in Scripture. And most of us, when picturing God in our minds, have either Jesus' face or an oversized, bearded male's body (Michaelangelo's "Creation of Adam" is one example). That mix of apparent biblical evidence and traditional cultural detritus stops many faithful folk from considering the question any further. They would answer, "Yes, of course God is Masculine!"

But what they have not figured on is that even hierarchalist theologians (or at least the thoughtful ones) know that masculinity and maleness are not the same thing. God is NOT male, despite Michaelangelo's depictions of him being so. Rather, as Jesus says, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24, NRSV).

It is inevitable that we anthropomorphize God. We can hardly help ourselves. And God seems more than willing to allow us, as the very finite creatures we are, to do this within certain boundaries. The Word does it, often in analogy and allegory, in order to aid us in comprehending the otherwise incomprehensible Holy Infinitude of God Almighty. Does God walk around with a giant penis (or vagina)? No. He doesn't even have a body!

So what exactly do we mean by even asking if God is masculine? What do we mean by the word "masculine" in the context of Spirit?

Uh....

Invariably, we fall back on using ourselves (esp. if we're male!) to extrapolate what masculinity is. Testosterone? God hasn't got it. That's a biological, thus body, thing. Strength. Well, God doesn't have muscles, because that's a body thing. He certainly does have strength -- an infinitude of power able to merely speak and bring creation into existence. But is this strength really "masculine"?

And when considering God being masculine, we also have to consider God NOT being feminine. That is part of where this word "essentialism" comes into play. Let's trace some of the potential theological pitfalls.

As Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen powerfully showed via her talks at the Cornerstone 2007 Festival this summer, a Christian luminary no less than C. S. Lewis fell into a series of errors rooted not in Scripture, but rather Greek thought, by his promoting gender essentialism.

In a nutshell, and these are my definitions (not to be blamed on M. S. V.), "gender essentialism" assumes that all creation is gendered in one way or another. Further, it is gendered precisely because it mirrors God's own Nature, which is in the west almost always assumed to be Masculine. (Some would say "primarily" masculine, but that doesn't really help.) Further discombobulating things, it is assumed that since a Masculine God created man first and woman second, and that Eve (as created in man's image rather than God's, as Adam was) caused the fall, God also created a male-ordered hierarchy wherein the masculine (God) leads and initiates over the feminine (the spiritually and mentally and physically weaker sex).

Now of course the above has been ameolorated somewhat by hierarchalists trying to keep up with women's forward movement in our modernist culture. A woman did not officially run the Boston Marathon until 1984, and the story of women in athletics is one almost entirely creditable to the feminists most Christians love to hate. Yet the proof that women's bodies are capable of stupendous athleticism, and womens' minds are capable (potentially even moreso as far as multi-tasking than mens'?), and that women can lead, work, and achieve in the public sphere every bit as well as their male counterparts, forces thinking hierarchalists to recalibrate their rhetoric.

Yet among evangelicals, the idea of "roles" "functions" and all the old hoary myths rooted in the gender hierarchy myth, itself rooted in the Masculine God idea, continue. In some cases, such as that of the Southern Baptist denomination, they have actually been strengthened in order to disenfranchise women back to their "proper God-given roles."

As an egalitarian (not my favorite word) or a mutualist (better), I and many other bible-rooted Christians reject the hiearchical view of God as Masculine. But as we'll see in my next post, that doesn't solve things and doesn't even really (even from a mutualist viewpoint) answer the question, or the additional questions the original spawns. Such as:

What is masculine?
What is feminine?
Who says these things (is there any biblical evidence for such definitions?)
If masculinity and femininity are only human constructions, what does that do to the concept of "male" and "female"? (In short, are we falling into a sort of androgynous gender fog?)
Egalitarians-only question: Is God neither masculine nor feminine, or both masculine and feminine?
And so on...

I don't promise to answer all or any of these questions. But I will try to explore them a little so others can start asking further questions and maybe helping us collectively come up with a few answers...


tag: Christianity, Christians for Biblical Equality, father god, feminism, gender, gender roles, is god masculine, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, mother god, mutuality

Sexual Predators & The "Othering" of Men

A billboard targeting sexual predators of children in Virginia (story ABC) has stirred controversy, in that it seems to target men. Ah, but isn't it true that sexual abuse of children is overwhelmingly perpetrated by males? Yes. But it is also true that the vast majority of men neither desire nor have perpetrated any such crime. The critics of the billboards say its depiction of a male holding a child's hand -- and provocative radio ads which further underscore the male involvement with sexual abuse -- may well create in children a fear of men in general.

For me, who as a man has often experienced the pain of seeing my gender's connection to sexual abuse, including that of both children and adults, I can't help but resonate some with these critics' worries. Yet as a Christian with pro-feminist leanings I also can't help believing that as men, we best serve our own gender and humanity in general by wholeheartedly becoming involved with those protecting children and targeting pedophiles.

I try, when viewing a story about yet another child molestation case or rape of an adult woman (the latter being a crime I take very personally as a blow against all men as well as women), to get past that feeling of guilt/defensiveness a sensitive male can hardly escape in such matters. Women do view men with suspicion, and my feminist sensibilities tell me we often give them more than adequate reasons to do so. Rather than complain that we are being discriminated against (which as a white male I feel is singularly disengenuous), I suggest we men find ways of standing beside women and children against predators, most of whom are in fact male.

I would hope that in an instance where we experience discrimination due to being male (a mother's apparent nervousness at our presence, a woman's sudden outburst in the office or a social situation about how men are all dogs, that "all men want the same thing" and so on), we allow that feeling of unfairness and anger and sadness at such accusations against us to remind us of how much more often such things happen to minorities and women. Let our small bit of suffering teach us to empathize with the greater suffering of others.

The terrible truth is that regarding sexual violence, the male is implicated. We personally may not feel that we are, but our manhood is for far too many women a sign of their own, and their children's, lack of safety.

For the Christian male, this is especially problematic. Our history, and our present (see the Southern Baptist leadership's continual war on women as an example), prove that we are not living the Word we claim as authoritative. The first favor we can do women is to de-Patriarchalize the Church and our understanding of God. Calling Him Father is one thing... but claiming that women may not teach or preach, must submit to their husbands unilaterally, and so forth is to create a culture in which violence against women and children is more likely to occur.

If we are tired of being "othered" and seemingly implicated in crimes we personally are not part of, perhaps we need to help create a Church and a culture where sexual predators have nowhere to hide, either doctrinally or in practice. It isn't enough to merely say "I'm not responsible for rape and/or child abuse." We must make war on the systems which perpetuate such abuse, whether it be systems of theology in the Church or the hideous virus of internet pornography feeding child molesters and other peretrators of sexual violence.

We are part of the problem as men... or part of the solution.

For more suggested reading, see Christians for Biblical Equality.

My Scarlet Seven (Skin and Lies and Bones)

As a lover of erotic love (in fact a Christian because of erotic love) I nonetheless often find our culture's simultaneous naive worship and cynical usage of sex highly disturbing. Below is a lyric of sorts which (like so many of mine) may be mock-worthy. It was inspired by some thoughts about human eros trying to live in the midst of such a thanatos-loving culture. And since I don't have Resurrection Band to fob this sort of stuff on any more, I'm hoping to further diminish my vast audience by inflicting it on you.

--

My Scarlet Seven (Skin and Lies and Bones)
(c) Jon Trott

Struck desire in my deepest places
Mined my gold and took my pearl
We twins of erotic beauty
Wove so tight who’s boy, who’s girl?
Empty locket where you used to be
Hole in pocket, lost my scarlet seven
I yearn for you, or it, or me when we
Pretended we’d discovered heaven

And our jealous friends all sang…
Bow the knee to love’s royalty
She is him and he is she…
And our hopeful hearts soft sang…
Eternity lies so close, so close;
but love was changing, hope was dying
We’re skin and lies and bones
We’re skin and lies and bones

With my seed fresh-spilled inside you
And our dreams so warm and new
I couldn’t stop with touching
Because of gladness bleeding through
But our poor bodies could not carry
The burdens of our sickened minds
It is not true that I blame you
Love dies in a world without crimes

And our friends all mocking sang…
Bow the knee to love’s royalty
She is him and he is she…
And our broken hearts sad sang…
Little death won’t keep Death down
You fled and quietly I drown
We’re skin and lies and bones
We’re skin and lies and bones

We promised we would not become
Our broken mothers, cruel fathers
We said we would not beat that drum
And then like all the others
We fell and fell and fell, still falling
Our arms outstretched but neither calling
Where is love, or hope, or faith tonight?
Here in the dark with one insight…

We’re skin and lies and bones.

Richard Land and the Christian Right (Good Luck with that, GOP)

I really do not enjoy seeing (or hearing) the name Richard Land. Nothing against the man himself, mind you. But whenever he opens his mouth, something painful for the rest of us -- Christian or not -- seems to emerge.

This time around, it is his comments on Rudi Giuliani's two divorces that caught my eye.

First, let me say I have no pony in the Republican race. I make this clear to show I don't care who the winner in that race is, as long as they don't end up in the White House.

Second, let me say I suspect Giuliani -- despite his moral shading -- is actually the Republicans' best hope. So I should probably just keep quiet and laugh to myself over the Repubs being saddled with the Christian Right. (Good luck with that in 2008!)

Third, I'm confident that nothing I say will affect any election anywhere. So here we go...

Richard Land dissed Giuliani on "character issues" in an interview with the Associated Press (CNN). His comments addressed Giuliani's messy second divorce in 2000 and resultant familial difficulties, some of which are playing out more publicly as the presidential primary campaign heats up.

"I mean, this is divorce on steroids. To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control."

I love the last bit, where in what is a non-sequitor, Land switches from divorce to abortion to that most hideous of all moral sins, being pro-gun control! I don't know exactly how Land sorts that out -- I don't recall guns in the Bible but maybe it is in the original Greek or something. What I also thought nice frosting was Land's comments about John McCain, who he apparently is backing. Unfortunately, McCain also has a divorce in his background. But --

"When you're a war hero [like McCain], you have less to prove on the character front."

Does that mean the Christian Right is going to back McCain after all, despite James Dobson (of Focus on the Family) dissing McCain in no uncertain terms? "I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said Dobson in January of this year.

Dang! Someone from the NRA needs to give Jim a call!

The Cut: Female Genital Mutilation

International Women's Day is coming up this March 8, and after being invited to do so by a representative of the Population Council, I am reprinting a poem which may seem a tragic way to begin any celebration.

The poem "The Cut" comes from Population Council staff member and women's health activist Maryam Sheikh Abdi. She unflinchingly describes her own subjection to female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). FGM/C, putting it starkly, is the slicing off and (only sometimes) sewing up of external female genitalia for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons. Putting it even more bluntly, FGM/C removes any or all of the clitoris, outer labia, and / or inner labia. Justifications for cutting include religious obligation, as many community members articulated the belief that Islam requires FGM/C (a "fact" contested by many if not most Islamic scholars). Christianity is also occasionally (and falsely) connected with these practices.

But here is Ms. Abdi's poem.

The Cut

I was only six years old
when they led me to the bush.
Too young to know what it all entailed,
I walked lazily towards the waiting women.

Deep within me was the desire to be cut,
as pain was my destiny:
it is the burden of femininity,
so I was told.
Still, I was scared to death . . .
but I was not to raise an alarm.

The women talked in low tones,
each trying to do her tasks the best.
There was the torso holder
she had to be strong to hold you down.
Legs and hands each had their woman,
who needed to know her task
lest you free yourself and flee for life.

The cutting began with the eldest girl
and on went the list.
Known to be timid, I was the last among the six.
I shivered and shook all over;
butterflies beat madly in my stomach.
I wanted to vomit, the waiting was long,
the expectation of pain too sharp,
but I had to wait my turn.
My heart pounded, my ears blocked;
the only sound I understood
was the wails from the girls,
for that was my destiny as well.

Finally it was my turn, and one of the women
winked at me:
Come here, girl, she said, smiling unkindly.
You won’t be the first nor the last,
but you have only this once to prove you are brave!
She stripped me naked. I got goose pimples.
A cold wind blew, and it sent warning signs
all over me. I choked, and my head
went round in circles as I was led.

Obediently, I sat between the legs of the woman
who would hold my upper abdomen,
and each of the other four women grasped my legs and hands.
I was stretched apart and each limb firmly held.
And under the shade of a tree . . .
The cutter begun her work . . .
the pain . . . is so vivid to this day,
decades after it was done.
God, it was awful!

I cried and wailed until I could cry no more.
My voice grew hoarse, the cries could not come out,
I wriggled as the excruciating pain ate into my tender flesh.
Hold her down! cried the cursed cutter,
and the biggest female jumbo sat on my chest.
I could not breathe, but there was nobody
to listen to me.
Then my cries died down, and everything was dark.
As I drifted, I could hear the women laughing,
joking at my cowardice.

It must have been hours later when I woke up
to the most horrendous reality.
The agonizing pain was unbearable!
It was eating into me, every inch of my girlish body was aching.
The women kept exchanging glances
and talked loudly of how I would go down in history,
to be such a coward, until I fainted in the process.
Allahu Akbar! they exclaimed as they criticized me.

I looked down at my self and got a slap across my face.
Don’t look, you coward, came the cutter’s words;
then she ordered the women to pour hot sand on my cut genitals.
My precious blood gushed out and foamed.
Open up, snarled the jumbo woman, as she poured the sand on me.
Nothing they did eased the pain.

Ha! How will you give birth? taunted the one with the smile.
I was shaking and biting my lower lip.
I kept moving front, back and sideways as I writhed in pain.
This one will just shame me! cried the cutter.
Look how far she has moved, how will she heal?
My sister was embarrassed, but I could see pain in her eyes . . .
maybe she was recalling her own ordeal.
She pulled me quickly back to the shed.

The blood oozed and flowed. Scavenger birds
were moving in circles and perching on nearby trees.
Ish ish, the women shooed the birds.
All this time the pain kept coming in waves,
each wave more pronounced than the one before it.

The women stood us up but warned us not to move our legs apart.
They scrubbed the bloody sand off our thighs and small buttocks,
then sat us back down.
A hole was dug,
malmal, the stick herb, was pounded;
The ropes for tying our legs were ready.
Charcoal was brought and put in the hole,
where there was dried donkey waste and many herbs—these were the cutter’s paraphernalia.

The herbs were placed on the charcoal and
we were ordered to sit on the hole.
As I sat with smoke rising around me,
I could hear the blood dropping on the charcoal,
and more smoke rose.
The pain was somehow dwindling but I felt weak
and nauseated.
Maybe she is losing blood? my sister asked worriedly.
No, no. It will stop once I place the herbs, cried the cutter impatiently.

The malmal was pasted where my severed vaginal lips had been,
and then I was tied from my thighs to my toes
with very strong ropes from camel hide.
A long stick was brought and the women took turns
showing us how to walk, sit and stand up.
They told us not to bend or move apart our legs—
This will make you heal faster, they said,
but it was meant to seal up that place.

The drop of the first urine,
more burning than the aftermath of the razor,
passed slowly, bit by bit,
one drop after another drop,
while I lay on my side.
There was no washing, no drying,
and the burning kept on for hours later.
But there was no stool . . .
at least, I don’t remember.

For the next month this was my routine.
There was no feeding on anything with oil,
or anything with vegetables or meat.
Only milk and ugali formed my daily ration.
I was given only sips of water:
This avoids "wetting" the wound and delaying healing, they said.

We would stay in the bush the whole day.
The journey from the bush back home began around four and ended sometimes at seven.
All this time we had to face the heat
and bare-footedly slide towards home . . .
with no water, of course.
We were not to bend if a thorn stuck us,
never to call for help loudly
as this would "open" us up and the cutter
would be called again.
Everything was about scary do’s and don’ts.

I stayed on with the other five
for the next four weeks. None of us bathed;
lice developed between the ropes and our skin,
biting and itching the whole day and night.
There was no way to remove them,
at least not until we healed.

The river was only a kilometer away.
Every morning the breeze carried the sweet scent of its waters to us,
making our thirst more real.

The day the cutter was called back
each of us shivered and prayed silently,
each hoping we had healed and there would be no cutting again.
Thank God we were all done
except one unlucky girl
who had to undergo it all again,
and took months to heal.

Our heads were shaved clean.
The ropes untied, lice dropped at last.
We were showered and oiled,
but most important was the drinking of water.
I drank until my stomach was full,
but the mouth and throat yearned for more.

It was over.
All over my thighs were marks from the ropes,
dotted with patches from the lice wounds.
Now I was to look after myself,
to ensure that everything remained intact
until the day I married

—Maryam Sheikh Abdi