What's with those Five Stones?

At the April 26 City Council meeting, I emptied five smooth stones – from our garden – into my left fist and, referring to 1 Samuel 17, suggested that that’s all we need to defeat Wal-Mart. The mayor quipped – nervously, I thought – that he was glad I didn’t have seven stones. “Seven Stones for Seven Council Members,” now there’s an idea for a musical!

So, what, you ask, was that all about…the five smooth stones, I mean? What did I have in mind? As a student at Berkeley’s Episcopal School for Deacons, I usually have in mind my next sermon…at the school or at the church I’m interning at. Were that sermon here in Vallejo, I might well choose 1 Samuel 17:32-49:

And David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth; and if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and killed him. Your servant has killed both lions and bears; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!” Then Saul clothed David with his armor; he put a helmet of bronze on his head, and clothed him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword over his armor, and he tried in vain to go, for he was not used to them. Then David said to Saul, I cannot go with these; for I am not use to them.” And David put them off.

Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in his shepherd’s bag or wallet; his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

And the Philistine came on and drew near to David with his shield-bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, ruddy and comely in appearance. And the Philistine said to David,”Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.”

Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with the sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.

When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone, and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.

Thus endeth, one might say, today’s Bible study, with perhaps a slight addition: “My, those Old Testament writers were bloody minded.” But so too are our 21st century Philistines from Bentonville. A good preacher might also add a word of explanation relating the Scripture to the ethical issues of the world of today we live in.

This one’s rather simple, a “no-brainer” I’m inclined to say. Saul? David? Israel? They are a community – our community – Vallejo. The Philistines? They are that mob of anti-union, anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-immigrant, and, yes, predatory anti-business purveyors of the cheap, the mediocre, the unworthy, the stuff produced by non-union, non-American, unregulated workers in overseas sweatshops in China, Central America, and on tiny Pacific atolls. They go by the collective name of Wal-Mart.

Unfortunately, they’ve got allies –sycophants – in Vallejo – the voices that the Times-Herald likes to trumpet – those satisfied with “cheap town” and that shopper who reports that “(At Wal-Mart) I can get a lot of cheap stuff.” Is that really what we want – a “lot of cheap stuff” in “cheap town.” Have we no self respect, no compassion for the down-trodden foreign workers who produced our “cheap stuff,” no solidarity with our fellow American workers displaced by the exploitive practices of Wal-Mart’s minions worshipping at the altar of a rapidly shrinking Almighty Dollar…minions whipped into a semi-religious frenzy by their champion, their Goliath, Lee Scott.

Take heart. You’ve already beaten those earlier “lions and bears” - Bechtel and Shell. You’ve proven your dignity and worth. You – we – can do it again. The only question is: How many stones? The Biblical five? The seven demanded by a six-member city council? Or that one flung by David? Not wanting to tempt the Lord, I’m inclined to say “One is enough…one well-chosen, highly polished, well-aimed stone.”

WAL-MART WANTS YOU!

And Vallejo needs you…now!

Okay, friends, here we go again. Quiet back-room behind-your-back bargaining. Big out-of-town boys in dark blue suits, money bulging from their pockets, local good ole boy lawyers in their tow. Another deal about to go down.

Maybe the Times-Herald will dribble out a few details this weekend. You'd think they might. After all, the City Council meets on it Tuesday, April 26...in typical Vallejo fashion at 5:00 p.m. Got the kids home from school yet? Home from work yet? Had your dinner? Had a chance to get up to speed on the details? To define your position? Prepare your talking points?

Have we got a deal for you! "We" are the Wal-Mart boys from Bentonville and we want you. We want Vallejo. We want a new big box "supercenter" on the old K-Mart site on Sonoma Boulevard in addition to, not instead of new AmCan supercenter.

Our new downtown Wal-Mart would be located about a mile down Sonoma Boulevard from the existing store at Meadows Plaza, 2.5 miles from the planned supercenter in "downtown" American Canyon, and just a few miles from an another existing store in Napa and one down the road in Fairfield. Even the Chamber's Rick Wells has expressed some surprise, saying it was "intriguing" that Wal-Mart would want to locate a string of stores so close to each other. The Spanish located their missions a convenient day's ride apart. Our Wal-Marts will be located a half-hour's walk apart. Now that's convenient!

Is that because Wal-Mart is so user friendly? No, it's because, in the eyes of the boys from Bentonville, Vallejo is an easy target. If Wal-Mart has its eyes on you, you are in the crosshairs of a very big blunderbuss.

Already last year, when rumors about this first surfaced, we heard the same arguments that were deployed earlier on behalf of LNG - tax revenues and jobs. Mayor Intintolli said he was "glad they are interested in Vallejo" and, according to the T-H last August "touted the importance of the revenue, jobs and community support Wal-Mart provides." Noting that a new megastore could lead to a "strengthening of the job base," the Chamber's Wells cited the "potential for a positive impact on the economy." So, there we are, the same old cast of characters, the same old mantra - revenue, jobs - and the same lack of critical questioning about what's really best for Vallejo.

Even the mayor, however, admitted to some fears that a Wal-Mart megastore on Sonoma Boulevard would doom the rehabilitation of the city's commercial corridor and, specifically, the mixed use plan for the K-Mart site that would include housing as well as retail. What, for example, would happen to other stores like Mervyn's and those struggling at Redwood Plaza. Wal-Mart has a record for gobbling up such competitors. Are the Chamber of Commerce's current members aware of that predatory record?

Jobs? Herein lies what should be our most telling objection to this unworthy scheme. Wal-Mart is not only anti-competition. It is virulently anti-union and anti-labor. It offers only minimum wages, woefully inadequate health care and retirement benefits. It exploits women and migrant workers. And it profits off the export of American jobs to overseas sweatshops in places like China, Bangladesh, and Honduras. Wal-Mart is not the sort of business Vallejo wants or needs. Hopefully, our trade unions and women's groups will voice that message loud and clear.

Were You Aware:

Here are just a few more facts you may wish to consider before Tuesday's City Council "study session." Were you aware

…that Wal-Mart, which creates its low prices on the backs foreign sweatshop laborers and non-unionized American "associates," has targeted California for dozens of its big box "supercenters?"

…that wherever Wal-Mart drops its super-sized parking lots, local businesses are put out of business, local workers lose decent jobs and benefits, and, over the long-haul, local city coffers come up short?

…that, having picked off American Canyon, Wal-Mart now has downtown Vallejo in its sights and seeks to build just such an enormous, nightmare-traffic-generating monstrosity on Sonoma Boulevard on the old K-Mart site?

…that, in order to do so, Wal-Mart seeks to force the city and county to rewrite the 1995/96 White Slough Specific Plan which restricts development on this environmentally sensitive site to low density mixed use planned development?

…that, to this end, Wal-Mart's agents have been in conversation with city officials for nearly a year and have engaged the services of local attorneys well-known in development circles to facilitate the process?

…that another developer is interested in building a more upscale, pedestrian-friendly mixed use project at the same location - one that combines housing and human-scale commercial development comporting with the beauty of the White Slough lagoon and the city's vision for a rehabilitated Sonoma Boulevard commercial corridor?

…that the Bullies from Bentonville seek to drive off this other developer and to strong arm the city council to knuckle under to their demands? "Don't get in their way," we've been warned, "They don't take 'No!' for an answer."

…that, if Wal-Mart gets its way with Vallejo, we can kiss off the upscale, forward looking development of our downtown, our waterfront, and Sonoma Boulevard itself? Vallejo's now bright future would slip into the darkness of the "cheap town" image that one Wal-Mart shopper described to the Times-Herald on March 24.

Does all this sound familiar? We've shown the out-of-town blue suits once before that Vallejoans don't take this sort of thing lying down. We can do it again!

What Can You Do? You Can:

...educate yourself by typing "Wal-Mart" into your computer search engine. You will be amazed by the flood of information about the predatory business practices of, the pending lawsuits against, and the settlements offered by this anti-union, anti-woman, immigrant-exploiting, local-business-busting monster.

…call Mayor Anthony Intintoli at 648-4377 and Council Members Gary Cloutier, Gerald Davis, Anthony Pearsall, Pamela Pitts, and Joanne Schively at 648-4575.

…express your views to the Vallejo Times-Herald which can be reached at: Readers Opinions, Times-Herald, P.O. Box 3188, Vallejo, CA 94590; 643-0128 (fax); or, via e-mail at opinion@timesheraldonline.com.

…contact us, Vallejoans for Responsible Growth, at (707) 554-0672 or vgray54951@aol.com, for information, petitions, and/or signs to place on your lawns or in your windows - residential and/or business.

…watch www.vickigray.com for up-to-date information.

…above all, attend the Vallejo City Council Study Session on the "Big Box" Issue, Tuesday, April 26, tentatively set for 5:00 p.m., at the City Council Chambers, 555 Santa Clara Street (at Georgia).

…at that meeting, thank especially Council Members Joanne Schively and Gary Cloutier for making it possible for us to express our views in the study session they helped bring about.

…and make it clear that Vallejoans don't want any more big boxes, but rather worker and consumer friendly businesses that jibe with our positive image of Vallejo's future. We are not "cheap town," but a vibrant city on the cusp of positive change consistent with our proud heritage.


VALLEJOANS FOR REPONSIBLE GROWTH
164 ROBLES DRIVE BOX # 125
VALLEJO, CA 94591-8039

"Preserving Vallejo's Future"

WHAT’S GOING ON?

Sunday before last, I visited the Oakland Museum for a trip into my past – that splendid, moving, troubling exhibit on Vietnam and California called “What’s Going On?” “What, indeed?” I thought, having turned off the headset narration, as I walked through 1965. I didn’t need the interpretation offered a new generation; it was in my bones. I found myself staring at the faces of those my age, American and Vietnamese. The past rushed in midst all those artifacts, especially those tiny “Things They Carried” – the dog tags, scapulars, Zippo lighters – displayed between montages of 1965 departures…from Travis and the Oakland Army Terminal.

Leaving via a long hallway devoted to the “legacy” of it all, I overheard a woman at the far end call to her husband “Did you leave a comment?” The man, my age, growled “Yeah, ‘Let’s put Bush in charge and do it right this time!’” I exchanged a pained glance with the young attendant, as if to say “He didn’t get it, did he? The ‘legacy,’ that is.”

Later, in the gift shop, I was in a more playful mood, when a visitor asked a clerk if they had a Bush cut-out doll book to go with those on Kennedy and Reagan. “No,” she said, “he wasn’t Vietnam era.” “Right,” I shouted across the room, “he’s Iraq-era.” In truth, the parallels – between eras, between my war and that going on now - were clearer than ever at afternoon’s end. Before heading home in the bright, warm sunlight, however, I paused to lose myself in the play of the multi-colored koi in the courtyard pool – a watery zen garden – and to smile at the two young Vietnamese Americans embracing at its side.

Two days later, I visited a friend, Carol. I arrived upbeat and smiling. But, soon, I began to speak of “What’s Going On” and that war so long ago and lost myself in tears. The pain burst out, as I spoke of the “gnawing, gnawing, gnawing….” In an instant, I faced up to the ancient pain, a pain I hadn’t understood or wished to acknowledge. I used that trite phrase with Carol – post-traumatic stress disorder – and paused to ask plaintively midst the tears: “Why does it always have to be disorder? Is it normal, is it sane, to see the pain and horror…and not react?”

Yesterday, I tried to work it out in poetry. Isn’t that the role of poetry…to make sense of the insane, the absurd, to heal, to enable one to walk forward with one’s wounds? I called it “What’s Going On?” What’s going on, indeed!

Still it tears
at this broken heart,
a shadow on a sunny afternoon,
that war so long ago.

The war I fought in paddies,
on more familiar streets,
and in a place that’s deep inside
and now so deeply scarred.

The stench of napalm, of burning human flesh,
aromas strange of nuoc mam and sandalwood,
they mingle with the smell of pot, tear gas,
and mildewed dusty pages,
pulled last night
from forgotten hiding places.

Chuck Eddy in the Saigon Post,
the Koelper circled on a map,
a yellowed May Day flyer,
a note to Mike Gravel,
a box of letters, all so old,
so full of love…of fear and hope,
a manuscript unfinished.
a story yet untold.

“Support Our Troops”
and “Bring ‘Em Home!”
“Aye, Aye, Sir.”
“Hell, no we won’t go!”
Green duffel bags,
the tiny things we carried,
squished between displays
of ’65 departures.

Travis, Oakland,
Tan Son Nhut and Camp Alpha,
a bar at Villa Roma,
a cry once stifled in the throat,
still there, still there,
gnawing, gnawing, gnawing.

Down a long last hall called “Legacy,”
a woman near my age
calls an aging husband:
“Did you leave a comment?”
“Yeah!” shouts back the angry man,
“Let’s do it again.
Put Bush in charge.
And do it right this time.”

“Some ‘legacy’,” I cry inside.
Is that the lesson
we’re meant to learn?
I, too, would like to do it again,
but, unlike some angry old men,
I’ll live with what’s done.

The sun is blinding,
sparkling on koi
darting about
their limpid Zen garden.

On its edge, just to the right,
two lovers – Vietnamese,
no, Viet Kieu –
embrace in their dream,
a dream so universal,
so private, so old…so new.

The scar, just picked open,
is healing again.

I urge you all to make the effort to take in this exhibit. It runs till February 28. Those of you who took part thirty or forty years ago – fighting, resisting, “supporting the troops,” or, as in my case, all of the above - will learn as much about yourself as about the era. And bring your kids and grandchildren. They too need to learn how to look at Vietnam…and at Iraq.

And, if you get a chance, hop on one of United’s new flights to Saigon, you will learn, as I did in 1996, that Vietnam at peace is a beautiful country with beautiful people. And you will learn, as the Vietnamese will tell you, “Vietnam is a country, not a war.” You will learn finally that half the people there were born after “The American War” ended in 1975. They are eager to get on with life.

Ah, life. It is good. It is beautiful…like a sunny afternoon in Oakland…beside a glimmering koi pond.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Was that a party or what?! I mean, of course, that “celebration of freedom” on January 20 and the $40 million spent to take our minds off dark distractions like Iraq. And what a speech! “Freedom” 22 times, “Liberty” 15, and “Iraq” not once. But, not to worry, there are endless possibilities for new wars and other adventures contained in the President’s rhetoric and the Vice President’s jocular interviews. Let’s talk about those possibilities and other idiocies leaking out of their echo chamber on the Potomac.

“Outposts of Tyranny”

In her January 18 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State-designate Condi Rice sought to broaden the horizons of the senators, challenging them to look beyond Iraq – already the “last war” – to the exciting new possibilities that awaiting our over-stretched citizen soldiers. “To be sure,” she said, “in our world, there remain outposts of tyranny, and America stands with oppressed people on every continent, in Cuba and Burma, and North Korea and Iran, and Belarus and Zimbabwe.” Breathtaking! In a throwaway line not questioned by the press – or the senators – the “axis of evil” just doubled in size.

The “enemies of freedom” are everywhere – on every continent, save Australia and Antarctica – but, alas, not in China, Sudan, or Saudi Arabia. One can only assume that the latter countries are free. The main criteria for making our hit list seem to be oil or constituents in South Florida. One wonders, on the other hand, how Saudi Arabia slipped under our screen. Might it be friends in high places…like Crawford?

Ah, surely, Rummy’s radar will catch those trying to slip through our tyranny detectors. Indeed, according to Bart Gellman in the Washington Post, JCS Chairman General Richard Myers has reportedly sent Rummy “an early planning document” focusing on emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines, and Georgia.” The Philippines an “emerging target?” (Yes, I know, Moros in the south. But has anyone asked Manila?)

According to Gellman, Rumsfeld has created a new, undisclosed unaccountable organization, the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), that has been operating “off the books” for the last two years in Iraq, Afghanistan, “and other places [DOD] declined to name.” In his January 17 New Yorker article, Seymour Hersh has named Iran as one of the countries where these cowboys are mucking about.

I know that inspires confidence in the fear-filled minds of my red state friends. But still I worry, when I learn that Deputy Undersecretary for Intelligence Lt. Gen. William Boykin and Assistant Secretary (for special operations policy) Thomas O’Connell are running these “black” activities. Boykin, who you may remember as the God-is-on-our-side, Bible-toting loose cannon, admits that Rummy has arrogated to himself functions formerly performed by the now-gutted CIA. For his part, O’Connell brushes aside historic restrictions on such activities, noting in the Post article that Rummy has no patience with the “hidebound way[s] of thinking” and “risk-adverse mentalities” of his predecessors. Boykin and O’Connell, by the way, are the deputies, respectively, of the morally-challenged Under Secretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone and that arch neo-con Under Secretary for Policy Doug Feith.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s “denials” of Hersh’s article on Iran are, in fact, nothing more than obfuscatory non-denials. Far from denying it, our soft-spoken Vice President shows up on the Don Imus show on Inaugural Day with a variety of worrisome statements. The President, he says, is “very concerned” about Iran and has placed that country “right on the top of the list,” presumably of “emerging targets.” Might Israel do the job for us – bomb Iran? The Vice President smiles and continues: “Israel might do it without being asked,” and “leave it to the international community to pick up the broken china.” (One wonders: Is that how he views our dead young men and women in Iraq – so much “broken china?”) Another “green light” for Sharon? Or, as more charitable commentators put it, is he seeking merely to “rattle Teheran’s cage?” Trouble is, he’s rattling my cage, our allies’…and maybe yours.

What are these people thinking? Why is this crowd that launched an aggressive war, killed and maimed tens of thousands, stained our honor by ordering – or, at very least, explicitly countenancing - the torture of prisoners, and broken a once proud and effective army still running things?

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq

What do you call an election where no one knows who’s running or where the polling places are? Where hardly anyone is registered? Where gun-toting U.S. soldiers pass out election flyers? Where there are no foreign observers? Where you might be killed if you show up at a polling place? The President calls it “freedom on the march,” and Fox and MSNBC breathlessly promise minute-by-minute results on Sunday. I wonder what the exit polls in Fallujah will say?

The Price of Freedom

Our election was almost three months ago and today we learn the President is asking for another $80 billion “supplemental” for Iraq – now nearly $320 billion for our burgeoning overseas “war on terror.” In the face of another record budget deficit, the President, who promised in October to half the deficit in four years, also wants to tack on another $600 billion by making his tax cuts permanent.

We also learned today that the Pentagon estimates that we will need 120,000 American troops in Iraq for at least two years. Others claim that that is a conservative estimate and that we will actually need more like 150,000 for six years.

For his part, the President claimed this week that the 2004 election was our “accountability moment.” Iraq was debated, and, he says, “the people chose me.” Oh? Do you remember the President mentioning figures like these in October? Is that light at the end of the tunnel looking brighter? Or is the darkness deepening?

Our Abu Ghraib and Others’

Speaking of darkness, have you noticed how stories about Abu Ghraib and other American torture centers (like Bagram and Guantanamo) have migrated to the deep inside pages of your papers and disappeared completely from your television news. Frank Rich, the New York Times media critic has noticed. In addition to the efforts of the Administration to pin all accountability on a few hapless NCOs and the ideologically-motivated efforts by folks like Fox and MSNBC to hit the “erase” button, Rich, in a January 23 story, cites two non-ideological factors that, although seemingly contradictory, are, in fact, reinforcing: TV’s perceived need for pictures and the FCC’s campaign against “indecency.”

Noting that no cameras were allowed in the courtroom of Spec. Graner’s court martial, TV turned instead to much more visual legal proceedings such as the circus surrounding the Michael Jackson case. Obversely, the networks, cowed by the FCC, “are unlikely to go into much depth about war stories involving forced masturbation, electric shock, rape committed with a phosphorescent stick, the burning of cigarettes in prisoners’ ears, involuntary enemas, and beatings that end in death [Some 30 such deaths are under investigation,].”

The result is, as Graner’s lawyer explains, the turning of Nuremberg on its head: [In Nuremberg] we were going after the order givers. Here the government is going after the order-takers.”

Fact is, as Rich notes, our government has been allowed to get away with “strictly quarantin[ing] the criminality to a few Abu Ghraib guards” and insulating itself from any charge that that criminality derives from U.S. policy that permits torture. And the authors of that policy – Rumsfeld, Cambone, Alberto Gonzalez, and others – continue, unchastened and unaccountable to plot new outrages.

Meanwhile, recent reports reveal that – Whew! – we’re not alone. British and Danish soldiers have, it turns out, similarly abused Iraqi prisoners – a fact that led the BBC news on cable last week, but didn’t get a mention on American network or cable news.

The Continuing Shame of the American Media…and Signs of Hope

The American media – especially the telegenic airheads on TV – have been AWOL since September 11, “choosing,” Rich says, “to look the other way rather than confront the evil committed in our name” in Iraq. With precious few exceptions, television has assumed the role of Administration lap dogs, be it CNN’s “Defending America” nonsense, Chris Matthews’ “Heroes Tour,” or Brian Williams “journalism-free ‘Road to the Inauguration’.”

That said, there are voices out there that give rise to hope. On TV, ABC’s Ted Koppel and a compassionate and perceptive team that includes Chris Bury and Dave Marash cover real news on “Nightline;” Keith Olberman is a refreshing breath of fresh air in the midst of MSNBC’s smog alert; PBS still offers “Frontline,” “The Lehrer News Hour,” a slightly truncated “Now,” Charlie Rose, and, after Rose signs off at midnight on KRCB, Amy Goodman and “Democracy Now.” The best newscast of all these days is Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. I encourage you also to search out the BBC and Germany’s Deutsche Welle on cable (usually KRCB). Their reality-based take on the world stands in refreshing contrast to the unreality of American television “news.”

On the radio there is good ole KPFA, FM 94.1, and – Here’s the really good news! – Air America on KQKE, “The Quake,” AM 960. Air America’s big names – Al Franken and Janine Garafolo – leave much to be desired. Its real stars, however, are shining more brightly every day. They are the intelligent, passionate, and witty Ed Shultz (noon to 3:00 p.m.) and Randi Rhodes (sp?) (3:00 to 7:00 p.m.). Watch for Ed Shultz on this Sunday’s George Stephanopoulos show.

Profiles in Courage

Under the guise of considering Condi Rice’s nomination, the Senate held an historic debate today on Iraq policy. You had to watch C-SPAN, however, to catch it. There were wise and courageous words uttered by folks like Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander, and our own Barbra Boxer, who forced the debate. There was also more craven fawning over Rice by Dianne Feinstein.

I urge you to contact Senator Boxer at www.boxer.senate.gov/contact and express your appreciation. I also urge you to contact Senator Feinstein at www.feinstein.senate.gov/email.html or at (202) 224-3841. I called today and told her staffer that I intended to vote against Feinstein for any office she sought. Better to have an upfront Republican senator than the one we’ve got now.

Be Scared, Be Very Scared

I for one am very scared. You might be too after you re-read Animal Farm and compare its plot against the bizarre one we’re now living through. God help us. I mean that…God help us.

Vicki

LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Today the Vallejo Times-Herald wondered whether “Three Kings Day” had been forgotten by Mexican-Americans, taking it for granted that the rest of us didn’t even care.

I don’t know what Epiphany and the Wise Men do for you, but for me they call up memories of a childhood in New York, of happy Christmases past, of a Christmas Eve blizzard, of the smell of mittens wet with caked snow drying on a radiator, of Christmas carols sung in the living room, of decorating the tree, of setting out those Lionel tracks, and, best of all, setting up the creche.

Jesus was always there in the center of the manger…but oh so tiny and hard to see in the shadows. The shepherds were close by, but kind of dull in their gray robes. Like my sister and, later, my brother, I was most entranced by the three Wise Men – they were always three. They were, after all, KINGS…or so I thought. They were resplendent in red and purple robes and golden turbans. And, best of all, they had camels…not your garden variety animals, but the kind you could only find in the circus or in the Bronx Zoo. Mary Ann, Larry, and I took great care in finding a suitably prominent place for the Magi, though I never remember calling out to my parents the way one child once did: “Where should we put the Wise Guys!?” For us, they were the colorful, flamboyant stars of our crèche set. They had to be seen…and admired.

Epiphany was an especially important part of my New York Christmases. We German-Americans called it “Little Christmas,” the last of the twelve days of Christmas, the closing scene of the story. It was the day when we ritually – without fail – took down the tree and “put Christmas away.”

But New York was a very diverse place. Across the hallway of our apartment building lived Ira Balogh, a Jewish-American. From him I learned about menorahs, lattke, and dreidels. And, I learned that, when his family started lighting their menorah, Christmas was not too far behind. And upstairs lived Patty Panos, a Greek-American, who tried to explain – not very successfully - why she celebrated Christmas so late.

The Orthodox, I do remember, had a very strange way of celebrating Epiphany. We’re talking January in New York, here! A crowd of Russians would gather at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan where an ornately robed and mitered bishop would toss a strangely shaped cross into the harbor. Several pasty white and overweight men in black speedos and rubber shower caps would then dive into the frigid green waters to fetch the cross. The “winner” wrapped in several woolen blankets would then kneel before the bishop to receive his blessing. Go figure!

I’m sure there are still kids – and overweight Russian men – who are carrying on these traditions this week in New York. For me, however, they are now decades and thousands of miles away.

But the nice thing about Christmas is that it is never-ending, constantly repeating…and renewing, and, wherever Christians – cultural or practicing - gather, always the same. The Wise Men got their same prominent place in my crèche this year. And, once again, I dutifully took down my now tiny tree today…but not without remembering those Christmases long ago and just gone by and reflecting on their timeless message of hope and joy.

As I pack those boxes in the garage tonight, I feel compelled to pause and, looking back…and forward, wish you all a very Happy New Year. We’ve got lots to do. Let’s get on with it!

Vicki Gray

WHAT MORAL VALUES? WHOSE?

Amazing! Truly amazing! Over 1,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis have died over the last year in a never justified and steadily worsening war, the Holy Land careens down a violent road map to nowhere, both create new terrorists faster than we can kill them, our federal deficit sets new records daily, unemployed workers watch their jobs head overseas and their health care disappear. Yet, 22 percent of Americans cited “moral values” as the paramount issue in this year’s election, and 80 percent of them voted for George W. Bush.

Moreover, 58 percent of those who attend church weekly, 64 percent of those who do so more than once a week, and 91 percent of those who said that “religious convictions were important as a quality in their leader” voted for President Bush - this, mind you, the President Bush who, at last count, had attended church only twice in the past year…on the two Sundays before November 2.

What, however, are the moral values of these voters and the religious convictions of the leader they elected? The simplistic exit polls didn’t explore such nuances. But Karl Rove and the President’s re-election team had. And they exploited the results of their research to craft a cynical symbiosis between a sizable bloc of evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, and Orthodox Jews, on the one hand, and a self-proclaimed “born again” President, on the other. The axis of that symbiosis is a narrowly-defined cluster of issues related to a “culture of life” – i.e., abortion and stem cell research - and the defense of “family values” against a “homosexual agenda.”

Never mind that capital punishment and unjust war are not mentioned when discussing the “culture of life.” Never mind that the real threat to heterosexual marriage is not the blessing of a church on a monogamous relationship between two people in love, but rather the prevalence of heterosexual divorce.

Never mind also that none of these issues touch upon the central themes of the justice that speaks to us through the prophets, of the love that comprises the Gospel of Jesus, or of the equality and inclusion that, together, they bespeak.

Never mind. For Rove and his team were concerned in this enterprise not with religion, but rather with the political uses of religion. They have tapped the negative, exclusive, judgmental instincts of a religion that values personal salvation over societal solidarity and that misunderstands how we are called to constructing the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven.” And they have sought to play on the fears of those who would keep the different and the questioning out of their private comfort zones of certitude – folks like that 7-year-old on a recent CNN special, who, having “accepted Jesus” when she was three, could say with certainty that all those who did not similarly “accept” him were doomed to hell.

And, during the God-awful election campaign we have just endured, the White House pandered to and manipulated the adults who think like that 7-year-old by insisting on a federal constitutional amendment “defending” marriage and by quietly ensuring that anti-gay marriage amendments appeared on the ballots in eleven states, most notably Ohio.

Politically, these efforts paid off handsomely. To many evangelical Christians, the GOP became the Party of God and George W. Bush its messenger. They turned out in droves to support this man who speaks their language and professes to share their convictions. There is, however, a scary difference between Rove and the President on this score. As Ron Suskind reported in the New York Times last month, George W. Bush apparently actually believes that God speaks to him and guides American foreign policy. Last year, for example, he told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, that “God told me to strike al Qaeda and I struck, and then he instructed me to strike Saddam, which I did.”

One cannot object to the President’s apparently sincere religious views, outlandish though they may seem. Nor can one object to evangelical Christians or others voting on the basis of their sincerely held values, narrow though one might find them. As a Christian, however, I do object to Karl Rove or anyone else seeking to manipulate those values to create the impression that somehow God is on their side. It smacks of blasphemy – taking the name of God in vain for impious reasons, in this case, worldly political advantage. I do, moreover, object to the way in which the media has bought into this manipulation by accepting the suggestion that the religious right has some monopoly on “moral values” or speaks for all Christians.

Above all, I object to the way in which Christianity – my faith – has been distorted in the popular imagination into a narrow, judgmental, exclusionary brew that Jesus would simply not recognize. The Jesus I know opened his heart to prostitutes, lepers, Samaritans, Roman soldiers, and others on the margins. And he chided the prim and proper and oh so righteous guardians of the religious status quo of his time. He was concerned not with the forms, but rather the essence of religion. Like the prophets before him, he preached justice…a leveling of the playing field for all God’s children. Above all he preached love, full, unconditional love of God and of all our neighbors, not just those who look like us or who smell nice, but all.

Mainstream Christians must reassert their vision of that loving Jesus, that inclusive Christianity in the public debate. With those in other faith traditions, and none, we must join the discussion of moral values. We must make clear that we, too, find offensive the coarsening of our popular culture and civic dialogue. We must point out that morality concerns more than just sex and that there is out there a much broader moral agenda of peace and social justice, of poverty and inequality. And we must preach the good news of a love that is the very antithesis of the fear we have heard too much of this year.

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The above originally appeared in the Vallejo Times-Herald November 21, 2004.
Posted by Vicki at 05:38 PM

SOME THOUGHTS FROM A BLUE STATE

This is hard to say and will be hard, I expect, to read. In view, however, of the appointment to Justice of someone who finds the Geneva Conventions “quaint,” the ideological attacks on Senator Specter, the ongoing purges at the CIA and Department of State, the “Christianization” of America’s domestic policy, and the militarization of its foreign policy, it must be said.

My country has gone off a deep end. I no longer recognize the place and no longer feel I have a stake in supporting the wrong-headed decisions of its leadership. Like Neva Chonin writing in the Chronicle Sunday before last, I feel like I live in an occupied land. Now, two weeks after the election, however, the sense of urgency and agency is, in a sense, gone. The yahooism must still be resisted but now seems overwhelming, popping up round every corner, its smirking hubris now unbounded, its hands on every lever of power. But, there’s time – four years – to fall back, re-group, re-establish priorities. It doesn’t all have to be done by Tuesday.

Maybe I’ve lived too long overseas – twelve years? Maybe I’ve lived too long on the margins? Maybe I’ve just lived too long, experienced too much? I just find the people who run this place far too shallow, cynical, hypocritical, and patronizing to take seriously or have any truck with. Having lost touch with reality, they believe their own propaganda and, in this regard, are dangerously dumb, because they don’t know how dumb they really are.

Maybe because Germany’s been on my mind these past few days – the anniversary of 1989, watching “Goodbye, Lenin” – I find myself seized by two Germanic modes of distancing. Like my erstwhile friends in long-ago communist East Germany, I find myself tempted to slip into a “What me worry?” comfort zone of “inner-migration.” Let them do what they want in Washington. Life’s too sweet in this private, very blue patch of California. Much as I want to adopt that stance, however, I know I can’t. It’s all well and good for defiant New Yorkers to describe their city as “an island off the coast of Europe,” but the Bay Area is, I recognize, another threatened island, not nearly close enough to Tokyo and way too close to Fresno, Boise, and Spokane. Moreover, Paul Loeb (Soul of a Citizen) is right, it would hurt too much in the pit of my stomach to abandon the field to the yahoos and ideologues. But still the temptation exists.

The second stance that comes to mind – that of those heroic souls who, under Hitler, rescued the reputation of the “good Germans” – is one I find easier to adopt – that of divorcing my love of country and people from loyalty to an unjust government and policies that are wrong. Looking at the rubble of Fallujah – a “battle” begun just hours after the election - I find myself in the emotionally troubling but rationally and spiritually required position of praying for the survival of our individual soldiers, but praying also for the failure of their collective endeavor. For that endeavor – invasion, occupation, and the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis – is, to use the President’s favorite word, evil. It dishonors all I hold sacred about my country and trivializes the sacrifice of our sons and daughters sent to die for God knows what.

It is only a small leap from disengaging one’s loyalties to engaging in resistance. It’s a leap I’ve probably already made…now two years ago. It’s a decision I’m willing to live with.

I take great heart in the fact that I appear to be on the side of the best minds and most sensitive souls in this country; and there are still many. Perhaps the over-reaching we’ve already seen in Washington will yield a backlash of outraged sensibilities and produce an barricade of rationality against the looming disasters.

I fear, however, a deepening, ever more bitter Kulturkampf>. The “moral values” crowd seems to know no bounds. And the media is more cowed than ever, conceding to the fundamentalist right their claim to be the sole, God-ordained repository of moral rectitude. Where are the church leaders on the left? How strange, indeed, to find the social ethics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ labeled “leftist.” What sort of moral idiocy are we dealing with that reduces morality to issues of sexuality and ignores poverty, war, and state-sponsored killing?

As an American who believes that there is a “shining city on a hill” still to be had and as a Christian who believes in a Gospel that is truly revolutionary, counter-cultural, and liberating, I feel compelled to keep speaking for social justice, peace, and sanity. I have the sinking feeling, however, that if I keep it up – speaking truth to power – I’ll be reined in by my government, or, worse yet, by my church. Then what?

Let me be clear, we’re nowhere near where Germany was in 1937. But, in the record of our past four years and in climate of the moment, there are troubling echoes of an earlier time in Germany, when resistance in the form of solidarity and a well-placed word might have sufficed to fend off the disaster, the outlines of which were then already clear. How often, in this regard, I’ve thought of that belated lament by Martin Niemöller, that patriotic u-boot captain turned pastor:

First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.

And, how often I’ve thought also of that other lament by Leo Baeck, the leader of German Jews from 1933 to 1943: “Nothing is so sad as silence.”

Please, please, don’t be silent. Speak truth loudly, bravely, now! And speak out for the weak, the vulnerable, the marginalized in our society. In this time ahead, we are all Jews.

Vicki
Posted by Vicki at 08:03 PM