Follow the Blood Trail

The internet rag American Stinker (1) is at it again. Normally, if I'm writing about the kooks on the far right zombie hand of the dial, I write a brief, dismissive and/or furiously satirical piece at the other site, if for nothing else than to blow off steam. But this piece was frustrating for different reasons. And for those reasons, I thought it best to write an actual, serious bl0ggue about it.

Mister Perfesser Robert Huff* follows his hero, the self-serving malignant David Horowitz (a troll that has been touting his past-life as a 'radical liberal activist' since the day when every single person on the Left exhausted their patience with his conniving, back-stabbing ways and Horowitz found he could make more money by 'exposing them' - pretty nifty trick) in making connections that aren't really there in an attempt to smear the images of innocent people for political purposes. Huff puffs about Shane Claiborne, darling of the Evangelical center, actually. But he also aligns him with other characters, chief among them Dr. John Perkins (elder statesman of reconciliation and the Beloved Community, a hero to non-racist Evangelicals for being our sole historical bodily connection to the Civil Rights movement, the visionary responsible for the Christian Community Development Association's ethos and doctrine). But he never mentions anything at all positive about the actions of Perkins - never clues in his obviously clueless audience as to the identity of Claiborne's co-author. Huff only makes this dubious association with a man he dubiously associates with dubious associators of dubious associations with dubious people and/or purposes. The soul-sucking vacuum is obvious - and intentional. And, for what I can only assume are ivory-political purposes, he throws in a dig at the naivety of his school for forcing its freshmen to absorb the the librul Christian Left propaganda.**

When I got my bachelors, the only credit math classes I signed up for were Linear Equations and Logic. Huff must not be so advanced in these fields that he's pushing forward a new type of logic. Or, he's just another separatist fundamentalist that got a job at an Evangelical school.

My money's on the second. According to Huff, Dr. Perkins and the entire Christian Left*** are guilty by association with Claiborne. Claiborne is guilty for having gone to Iraq with Iraq Peace Team^ for a few weeks during this occupational war. The Iraq Peace Team is guilty for being a joint venture of Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Christian Peacemaker Teams is guilty for talking with and working with Palestinians. Teh nerff! Spazz!! And those ingrates at VitW hate America so much that they went to Iraq, got kidnapped and then had the gall to blame the American and British governments for creating the desperation in the country that led to their imprisonment.

Of course, this is some weird thinking, but it's not new. Peacemakers are always accused of creating violence, by the very fact that they expose the violence of the oppressive system. Israel, Britain and the US can do tremendous violence against Iraqis, Palestinians. They can completely destroy their homes, take over their countries, displace them, remove their access to jobs, clean water, and the land they've owned for generations and generations. They can introduce civil strife, tie their hands, force them into desperate and violent retaliatory measurements. This is not new for empire-building, nor for the United States (take how we treated our indigenous populations, for instance). But the second someone questions these actions, the moment she takes an action to openly demonstrate the evil that is being brushed under the carpet, she is labeled a traitor and a violent, dangerous radical.

However, the real victims of the American Thinker's article isn't the Christian left, the Iraq Peace Teams, or even everybody's favorite evangelical monastic, Shane Claiborne. Neither is it the much-revered Saint (and the only living connection between the largely white Evangelical church and the Civil Rights movement it sat out) Dr. John Perkins or his school's curriculum. The real nasties, according to The Perfesser, are the Palestinian and Iraqi people who dare question American dominance and imperialism.

Not only are they guilty of being ingrates (and dark-skinned), but anyone who associates with someone who associates with someone who associates with them are, of course, tainted...

(1) Credit for photoshop and altered name belong to the fine folks at Sadly, No. Should have made this clear yesterday.

*Google crashed when I tried to search his name. Just sayin'...

**Yes, I'm reading between the lines. I make no excuses for doing so. If he's going in with such a naked agenda, I'd like to call him out on it. Or he can explain how I'm wrong. In which case, he'll have to repudiatedly refutions on his whole piece.

***A rather new name - complete with a Facebook page - that may be bigger and more diverse than can be possibly contained within Huff's use of the term, or anyone else's. But, in basic, it seems to be a somewhat reactionary movement against the political conservatism that has largely taken over at least the Evangelical super-movement. It parallels, in some ways, the post-Conservatives and Hipster Christian generational shifts.

^ From the Voices in the Wilderness page:

Voices in the Wilderness organized Iraq Peace Team delegations to live alongside ordinary Iraqis during the massive bombardment of Operation Shock and Awe. Convinced that “where you stand determines what you see and how you live,” VitW continues its efforts to educate people in the United States and abroad about the consequences of US militarism. Our current campaign focuses on the need to “spotlight Iraq.” By telling the truth about this war, we hope to help prevent future wars. Further, we seek to connect with and educate ourselves about people who live in other countries threatened by US war.

Chicago Tuesdays: Hey! I'm WALKIN' Here!

One of the sites where I work is in the middle of an industrial park. As a motorist, for a few months I used to travel through here between work, church and school. And I appreciated this strip, because it is nearly half a mile of pure, unadulterated three lanes in an otherwise stop light-heavy major thoroughfare. If you hit the green at the south end, you've got another six blocks before the next light - but that's full of dangerous turns and it's more narrow, so it's not quite the joy to traverse.

So I see why cars don't necessarily have any desire to slow down at this juncture, despite the obvious pedestrian crossing markers on the floor.

However, Illinois just became the fifth state to pass a law wherein cars have to stop in order to let pedestrians cross at any crossing lane. And that would include unmarked lanes.

Motorists don't seem to be much aware of this law, though. And I'm sure that there are many who, when first hearing about the law, argue that it's unnecessary or reaching For instance, although 6,000 people are hit by cars each year, only a fraction of those result in injuries and fatalities. I can hear the everyman rhetoric right now. "Only 170 people died in the entire state from getting hit by cars while walking. Half of them were probably asking for it. How much are we going to lose in revenue to enforce this law? How much productivity are we going to lose to slow down every block for walkers?"

Similar arguments (at a more heightened and frightening level) were made about DWI laws, of course. But there is a major difference: Driving while intoxicated has killed multitudinous drivers, passengers, passerby, bicyclists and other motorists and their passengers. The culture-change that needed to happen there was not just necessary, but apparently so. And as Mad mothers started telling their stories, more people felt it necessary to be responsible (not always, but there is a legitimate sea change here).

Pedestrian crossing laws and cultural shifts are, however, just as necessary, even if not as apparently so. Citizens are not necessarily dying at a heart-breaking rate from being run over or sideswiped. We are dying at heart-attack rates from inactivity, from NOT walking or bicycling. And as long as the rules of the road favor 1500 lbs of steel and plastic traveling at 30-60mph over roughly 200 lbs of cartilage and organs, capable of traveling from 1-10mph (or those same skins and bones on top of a 25lbs thin machine of oil and aluminum at 10-25mph), then we'll continue to suffer and die from preventable diseases. As long as current law and culture favors oil and gas-propelled vehicles over food-propelled movement, we'll continue to poison our waters, land, air, children and lungs. As long as we continue to promote vehicular use over and above other forms of transport, we promote violence for expediency.

So, I say, bold move Illinois legislature. Good show.

Chicago Tuesdays: We Can Get Good Things I: Incarnational Ministry and the Firehouse

When I was a youth leader with my church, I got to hang out with a lot of really cool, smart, fearless and passionate adult men and women who felt it was/is their life's mission to come alongside disadvantaged, marginalized and targeted young men and women throughout the city. I could write much about my love for this way underpaid (if paid at all) crazy career and the folks who lovingly risk it all to give a thug a hug.

One of the leaders of this group (in a rather organic matter) is Phil Jackson (not that one) of Lawndale Community Church, and The House. LCC is one of the models for the Christian Community Development model (in which a church or church-based org works within the community to serve and uplift its people as one of them) and its head pastor helped to found the CCDA along with Civil Rights icon John Perkins. Fittingly, the church and its community centers (which include a fitness and health clinic as well as many social agencies---) are located in the neighborhood that Martin Luther King, Jr. used as his base for the Northern Civil Rights movement in the sixties. The House is a youth-led church that practices the gospel through the cultural context of hip hop. All of this fits under the rubric that I've noticed with the most successful Christian ministries - not just in the cities, but in any place. To be intentionally incarnational. To walk with the walkers and suffer with those that suffer, but with the hope of a redemption and the work that hints and grows toward that.

In other words, they don't believe in waiting for the Kingdom Come - until after we die or are raptured up - to answer the problems of today. Consider the work of Phil Jackson and his team in North Lawndale. " and that, according to the 1980 census, 58 percent of men and women 17 and older had no jobs. And The Firehouse Community Arts Center is an emblem of this, an abandoned firehouse in the middle of one of the nation's poorest neighborhoods (from Wikipedia: Jonathan Kozol devotes a chapter of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools to North Lawndale, which he says a local resident called it "an industrial slum without the industry." At the time, it had "one bank, one supermarket, 48 state lottery agents ... and 99 licensed bars.) that is being turned into a multi-use site for arts and community-building. Programs include a recording studio, music, photography and dance classes, video editing, and culinary arts training with an emphasis on entrepreneurship throughout the classes.

The site is within an African American community called North Lawndale (an area that is 94% Black) and next to a Mexican American neighborhood called Little Village (Latinos - mostly Mexican and Mexican American - account for roughly 80% of the population). Recently, a group of young Afro and Mexican Americans traveled to Veracruz, Mexico for an eye opening experience that Phil and his crew was able to be a part of. According to Phil (via his fb pix), this was the first time for many in the group traveled not just out of the US or out of their region, but out of their neighborhood. Many of these guys spent little time off their block. But not only was this a time to travel to pyramid sites, but to check out the history of the African diaspora in Latin America, in an effort to build bridges of reconciliation between these members of the African American and Latino cultures in the hopes that they would be ambassadors.

Check out what's going on at The Firehouse here. But only if you want to be encouraged.

WLS Channel 7 report:

Prejudices in Process

People need prejudice. That's a given universal measure of most any creature. In order to be safe and function in the world with any amount of Things We Haven't Quite Comprehended, we must be cautious of how we respond to those TWCQCs. We tend to distrust and even fear what or whom we don't know. And although we do not want to be prejudiced against other people, even the most open-minded amongst us has blind spots in one area or another. And that is human. To suggest that one doesn't or that another shouldn't is to suggest that one (usually the self) is better than and above collective humanity and certainly holier than thou.

So it shouldn't come as a shock that so many Americans not only don't understand Muslims nor Islam, but are a wee bit afraid of them somewhere deep down inside. Few of us work with, go to school with, live with or talk to Muslims - let alone worship with them. It is in moments when we encounter The Different Breed where tolerance should be the immediate first response*. But even still, there is fear and ignorance throughout the world and in each person. Blaming someone for being ignorant about another group of persons may make us feel better, but we're deluded to think that - in the deepness of our hearts - we can't be guilty of the same awfulness.

Personally, I still fear/dislike/detest (depending on my mood) gangbangers and drug dealers. I could have easily been in their spot, but I had community, family and a belief system to keep me out of such predicaments. And although I know and have housed quite a few homeless people, I don't tend to trust them - at least not as a group.

Of course, none of this is an excuse for not knowing who our neighbors are, or at least some basic and biological true facts about them. No matter how overworked and tired we are, if we have enough energy to write or speak about a people group with a fair amount of anger directed at some supposed travesty that they supposedly commit that we don't understand, maybe we should try to get to know a little about them.

Or shut up.

But then there are people who are paid to learn and teach. Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, "Pastor" Terry Jones, myself. We're paid to KNOW things and disseminate things in a teachable manner so that our students/clients/disciples can empower themselves in order to make their personal lives and their environment better. And yet at least three of us aren't doing our jobs honestly. Palin, Gingrich, Jones: These smog-peddlers exist primarily to exploit and exponentially explode the below-the-surfaces toxic mixture of anger, paranoia, and fear of a confused generation. The arguments that they are haters or stupid or both (while true and important) may not have much to do with the terrible fact that they are not doing their jobs. They should be fired post-haste by whoever handles their checks, but they won't because they sell. A rotten agenda, but they sell it very well.

But what if the teacher (let's say a director of issues analysis) isn't just a horrible teacher, but speaks on behalf of a Christian organization while performing some of the worst, most vile teaching possible from a supposedly respected organization? What if this 'teacher' argues that not only are Muslims inbred idiots, but aggressive and war-mongering (funny, that)as well? What if his own evidence is refuted by his own evidence? Could that possibly deter him from blatantly lying about 1/7th of the world's population? What if that same population is made up primarily of dark Middle Eastern, South Asian, Northern and Sub-Saharan Africans - would that shine some light on his willingness to be so obstinate on painting such a demeaning picture?

This is pathetic race/religion/culture-baiting of the lowest order, and the lowest intelligence. It's the type of stuff we expect to find on a White Supremacist Church website, written by a man with a high school education and schizophrenia, missing an arm from bomb-making experiments gone awry. As a Christian, I must call into question how Christ-like the American Family Association behaves by endorsing this message through their Director of Issues Analysis, Bryan Fischer. As Christian as the KKK and the White Citizen's Council? Which is, nominally CINO. The AFA is no longer about families, nor is it very American. And it certainly isn't Christian. In order to qualify as that, they would have to love the Lord their God with all their minds. And love their neighbors** as themselves.

It's been this steady diet of winking hatred that is feeding the Fearful Monster. This Monster as evidenced by the recent spate of Qu'ran burnings and by the Muslim world's reaction to such threatened burnings, is hungry and won't die any time soon. This morning, I read about a burnt Qu'ran left outside a community center in the North Side of my own city. When defamations of holy symbols and places happen, physical and lethal violence are not far behind. How else can a defiled Holy Symbol be interpreted but as an act of terrorism? Burning crosses a hundred years ago. Burning, then bombing black churches. Now burning Qu'rans? We've not evolved, we're just changing our targets (while simultaneously oppressing many of the former ones).

*I'm a proponent of love OVER tolerance. 'Tolerance' doesn't quite cut it for me. It has the connotation of "passively living and letting live." Religious tolerance gives, on the face of it, as much credence to the ability of "Pastor" Terry Jones to burn a holy book as to his targets' professed hatred of him.

Love isn't passive, however; it's active. It not only says, you can be my neighbor and that's okay, it says, "Let us be neighborly." It defends, it guards and protects those who need protection. Further and even better, it gives tools to those same oppressed, marginalized voices so that they can speak on their own, for their own.

But, at the very least, if we don't have the time nor energy nor resources to get to know everybody and their customs, likes/dislikes, nor why or at least how they do what they do, we should acknowledge that they may do things differently than we do, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of dignity or respect or health or natural resources than we.

**One could argue that the AFA as represented by its outspoken leaders does love its neighbors, if by "Neighbors," we mean, "Other people that think and look like them." But that's missing the point of the story of the Good Samaritan. Who would be considered in much the same way Palestinians are now in Israel. But that's our neighbor, the one least like us (at least on the surface), the one we're most terrified of, the one who is dirtiest, poorest, richest, snootiest, loudest. These are the ones we are to love as ourselves - not just others who ARE just like ourselves...

Lazy Sunday Reading: We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that...

Archbishop Oscar Romero - much like Ben Franklin and Mark Twain - may have said less than what he is said to have said. Apparently written by soon-to-be Bishop Ken Utener of Saginaw (eastern Michigan), the poem/prayer is beautiful and one I was led in at a parent's orientation at our daughter's school a couple weeks ago.


It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
Amen.

The Hizzoner Is Dead! Long Live the Hizzoner!

I normally (if ever) write about local concerns once a week. But right after I wrote my rare Chicago Tuesdays profile, the citywide news of the year broke. And to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm going to add to the noise or not. I just want to have a place to explore my thoughts and invite dialog about meaningful local politics.

Daley will have been king of Chicago (with some help and propping from the self-serving Machine of patronage that his father established and perfected he has updated and continued) for 22 years by the time he steps down next year (unless he pulls a Favre. Although he could conceivably pull a Jordan, now that I think about it), but he is leaving the city in economic turmoil that he didn't create, but he did help to exacerbate. Much like his birthday buddy, GWB, Daley didn't make much use of surplus when he had it and squandered billions in bad ideas and in shady deals to politically connected friends. Additionally, of course, there were the scandals that always seemed to escape this Teflon Don: Hired Trucks, Silver Shovel, police misconduct,

and locked-up cronies and associates acting as Fall Guys.

But he did some things right. The tourist areas of Chicago are more tourist (and native) friendly. And, unlike Detroit, moneys have been brought back into the city and the economy is pretty diverse. Of course, that source of revenue is funded most easily by gentrification and cheap TIF handouts - in short, displacing the poor while giving welfare to the rich corporations.

But there's no shortage of good reasons for Daley to quit now. His wife is in poor health. He will have been in office for a longer period than even his father (who, like Harold Washington after him, died in office). The city is losing revenue while costs are raising. And then there's the bondoogles, like the Parking Meter FAIL privatization scheme, which is the one scandal that finally caught up to him in any appreciable (though not legal) manner. So, that's another source of revenue that the city - and whoever leads the city - can not count on to help through the recession.

Whoever occupies the City Hall Royal Throne next has their (thankless) job cut out for them. He or she is going to have to find ways to bring in jobs (which would cure a whole mess of ill, including closing the budget woes and decreasing crime), bring in other sources of revenue, streamline effectiveness and pull out the weeds to loosen the patronage grips of the Machine while tightening the budget. Importantly, the next mayor can do these things while serving the poor and minority populations. It's going to be a tough job.

What we're looking for here would be a Wonk, primarily, but not only. Someone who has proven capabilities and can work with business and community leaders as well as a possibly fractious city council. The new mayor, much like the old, will need to have connections with and wide support from White, Black, and Latino populations and communities (including the diverse White ethnic communities) as well as the diverse social and economic groups.

From what I can see, the list of possible contenders runs from the hopeful but novice Scott Waguespeck (one of the few aldermen to actively object to the recent fiascoes, most notably the Parking Meter privatization. I like him, but it may be too early for him yet. Some more money, name recognition and experience will do him a world of good, though), to the Law & Order types like Sheriff Tom Dart (L&O's like Daley himself don't tend to take care of fundamental problems as much as sweep them under the carpet. Just ask anybody in New York who got 'Guiliani'd'.), to the dynasties like the Jackson family - three of whom are rumored to be thinking about it, to the BIG NAME Rahm Emanuel (a bane to progressives, of course. And a man too much connected to Daley and the hard-line machine to cause any real difference. Except possibly cuss more in front of a mic. Or confront adversaries in the nude) to the already-entrenched Machine Heads like Alderman Burke (no.).

But I think the person who best fits the needs of the city - and, as a bonus, could actually pull off a win - is current City Clerk - and longtime pol - Miguel del Valle. As an extrie bonus, he's actually represented and worked with the poor and Latino populations.

Chicago Tuesdays: Why Chicagoans never get good things, pt. Q

Chicago gang leaders met with top cops last week. Past and present members and leaders held a press conference a couple days later to denounce that meeting. Aldermen also denounced that meeting. Of course, the reasons for denouncing that meeting were myriad and diverse. But they also demonstrate substantial problems within the city and the tense relationships between those in power downtown, those who are supposed to serve and protect, and those that arise out of an economic/power vacuum. And, more to the point, those put in their crossfire.

Here's a few of my questions. Please feel free to add your own. Or to address them to those who can do something about them (CAPS meetings, POs, gang leaders, etc.):

1. Since the fatalities in the city are not statistically worse than before, why does the city wait until now to take such desperate measures?
2. Apparently, the gang leaders were roped into this "summit" under false pretenses. And the pretense of this actually being any sort of dialectic summit is also false. Does the CPD understand that they need to actually build relationships? Does the CPD understand that they're largely ineffective in the same communities where gangs have a strong hold because the police are untrusted in those communities? Does the CPD really think the solution is to break down what little trust is still there?
3. RICO. Gang leaders/proxies say that this is a violation of their rights. Do they have a point? The violence here is systemic and much of it is directly gang-related. They do have a point that much of it is more directly related to drugs, but their deflection is - to say the least - lame. Since the violence is intrinsically related and fundamental to how gangs operate in Chicago, is it wrong to implicate the entire structure and those who prop up the violent structure?
4. Speaking of violence... The biggest and most accessible complaint at the press conference is that the biggest crime is the scarcity of jobs available for potential gang members. This is something that Daley and city council has had ample opportunity to turn around if they were willing to fully leverage TIF funds from the downtown districts to community development in the West, Near North, South and Far South sides. If Daley is serious about reducing crime and violence done in those areas, then shouldn't he be serious and creative about reducing the crime and violence done to those areas?
   
5. Children learn from their community. Unfortunately, a disproportionate amount of Black and Latino adult males served time locked up and away from their communities. And when they returned they found fewer options to get straight than when they left. With depleting jobs, decreasing social programs and a wide reticence (however understood) to hire ex-cons, the temptation to return to the same patterns is stifling. While many young men in the area are steadfast in their determination not to become the men they see and know, it's near impossible to not become like most of the people you've ever met/seen/talked to, despite what we want to believe. How can we expect better from the next generation if we continually ostracize the current adult population? Don't we recognize the forces of internalization when we see it?
6. What's with the aldermen getting their bunchies in a bunch over the idea of talking with gang leaders? "We don't negotiate with terrorists..." Stupid. Lame. No wonder nothing works here...

Next, I want to highlight some local stories that I think ARE working in this city (and in others). Hopefully, I can get some stories for the upcoming Christian Community Development Association conference starting in the city tonight I'm going to try to make it to the film fest sometime during the week. If any of the LeftCheekers are wont to go, hit me up here and we'll see about making a date about it!

Full of win!

I've been on vacay for a good part since I've last posted here. And when I gets back, all xeno- breaks loose. You know, hatred of The Others because they are The Others. First it was brown people (Mexican immigrants), then it was Black people (African Americans who happen to speak up and notice that America is still racist), now back to another type of Brown people (Muslims, who will be allowed to worship their demon-possessed god as soon as they change their religion).

So, the little blogging that I have done has been the highly satirical/sarcastic type, on the other site. But now that I've gotten that out of my system and saw that The Onion has returned (at least for a bit this week) to its primal form, I can cool my jets. More of teh blogging to come. But for now, a steal from this great, on-the-street report from L'Oignon:

Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims

SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world...

"I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?"

"And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero," continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. "No, I won't examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people's universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell."

"All Muslims are at war with America, and I will resist any attempt to challenge that assertion with potentially illuminating facts," said Gentries, who threatened to leave the room if presented with the number of Muslims who live peacefully in the United States, serve in the country's armed forces, or were victims themselves of the 9/11 attacks. "Period."

"If you don't believe me, wait until they put your wife in a burka," Gentries continued in reference to the face-and-body-covering worn by a small minority of Muslim women and banned in the universities of Turkey, Tunisia, and Syria. "Or worse, a rape camp. That's right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps."

As the article is full of win, may you read it. Peace.