Band of Brothers

At the recommendation of one of the best people I know I have started watching the HBO series from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, Band of Brothers.  The first episode was underwhelming as it followed the Airborne volunteers through basic training, but then the second episode got me thinking.  It was an hourish long episode that displayed the preparations for D-Day and the actual fighting of that day.  The scene shows dozens of American aircraft with 9 men on each ready to parachute their way into Nazi controlled France to try and loosen up the Nazi’s for the impending invasion in the morning.  Many planes were shot out of the sky and many men never got to jump.  The majority of those that did jump were either killed en route or as they landed.  Those who weren’t killed almost all missed their intended targets and were left to regroup once they landed.  Those who were then lucky enough to find other American paratroopers were quickly engaged in fire fights with the Nazi’s (or Krauts as they’re referred to in the show) and both sides would mercilessly mow down the other.  

As I watched this I thought, “I could never ever do this.”  I wondered how anyone was able to do this.  Of course I live in a different time and the Nazi’s aren’t threatening to take over much of the world, but this sort of impersonal killing is so seemingly easy and tragic.  I was shocked at how brave so many of these men were, yet how casually they were able to take human life.  When those men who actually served were interviewed before the episode it gave you chills to hear their accounts of their fear and courage during those days.  They followed their training and due to that D-Day was a successful operation and within 9 months the Allies were into Germany and within a year Hitler had committed suicide and the Nazi’s surrendered.  

Many have called this generation “The Greatest Generation” for their bravery and courage to beat back the worst in humanity.  Few men ever resisted the call to serve and many even volunteered.  In our current time this sort of service is unimaginable.  But is it understandable?  I would contend yes.  I think service to one another is our highest sacred obligation, but tragically many Americans do not trust their government enough to blindly defend that government in battle.  With the governments clear lies and misleading in Vietnam and Iraq young people no longer believe that our declaring was is a righteous battle against evil, but see it as politicians using a generation to achieve some abstract goal.  

The sad truth is that it is not a lazy and apathetic generation of young Americans, but it is the gaul of our own government to misrepresent the truth that has left a sour taste in that generations mouth to serve that government.  When I watched that episode of Band of Brothers I wanted to serve others.  I felt like I wasn’t doing enough, but the question is, what should we do?  What will our righteous victory be in this generation?  We have no Nazi’s to defeat, but there are plenty of people (not governments) to serve, if only we open our eyes.

Growing up Catholic

As a young boy I actually enjoyed going to mass several times a week.  I grew up in a typical American suburb with a good Catholic family.  I didn’t have a choice but to go to a Catholic school in grade school, but I really didn’t mind.  I liked the uniforms, or more accurately, I liked bending the uniform rules as much as possible without stepping across that line.  I liked the religion classes.  Religion and discussion of religion always fascinated me.  The concept of an all knowing and powerful entity somewhere out there that nobody could even prove if he, she or it even existed dazzled me.  And yes, I liked attending mass.  I liked kneeling in a quiet church and talking to God.  When I was young I knew that he heard me.  When I was young I felt answers.  When I was young I had no doubt.  

When most think of Catholicism they think of the Pope or ‘catholic guilt,’ but upon reflection I think many Catholic kids see the Church as just some rules that they don’t care to follow.  When I closed my eyes and prayed at mass I felt a divine connection.  As I got older I felt self-conscious that other kids were watching me or making fun of me as most kids rolled their eyes each time that it was announced we were off to mass.  I didn’t like it.  I couldn’t understand how others wouldn’t want to talk to God and feel his presence.  I couldn’t understand why a person would ignore such a loving and powerful being.  Eventually I got it.  It was the structure they didn’t like.  It wasn’t God they were rebelling against, it was the shit in their lives that they couldn’t understand that seemed it could be God’s fault, or that there must be no God because he wouldn’t let this or that happen.  

What the apathy toward God is really about then is the structure and unquestioning nature of a Catholic grade school and the shit kids realize about themselves, their parents, their family and the world as the curtain gets pulled back on life.  Most kids come to realize that life sucks.  I never thought that when I was young.  I loved life.  Not until I hit my teenage years did I realize that life sucked and that it didn’t appear God was doing much about it.  It just so happens many kids beat me to that realization.  

People don’t like responsibility.  Nobody would ever admit that, but deep down we all would like things to be a bit easier and not have to worry about this or that or have to live up to some ideal we have imagined ourselves to be.  To the best of my reckoning it seems God has given us free will.  With that free will comes a lot of things that we do not want, most poignantly, the truth about our world.  At some point we all realize that nobody is perfect and the world is full of really crap stuff that seems to happen to so many undeserving people.  Yet the catch is that we all feel that we are just a bit better than most other people.  We think, “I’m not Hitler, I didn’t kill anybody,” but we also fail to realize that this world is made up of 6 billion other people all making as many choices as we are at the speed of light and that those choices can have a butterfly effect that we may never see.  

Throughout much of its history the Catholic Church chose (maybe correctly) to limit the choices of its followers.  What I mean by this is that the Church decided what was “true” and as a Catholic you were and are obligated to believe it or else.  The or else part was always intriguing to me.  This or else happened to be the threat of excommunication or not being allowed to be part of the community.  One who was excommunicated was not allowed and is not allowed to participate in the most important practices of the church.  The root of that word is community.  In essence the Church is banning you from participating in their community.  Something that you said or did was so grave that you are now shunned from God’s bride on Earth.  

This flabbergasted me.  That an organization could essentially ban someone from heaven because they disagreed on a particular issue seemed like something God could never endorse.  I remember that when I first learned about excommunication I started having my first doubts about the Church, not God, but doubts about the Church.  It just didn’t add up to me.   

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Growing up Catholic in a fervently Evangelical suburb which is in the Guinness book of world records for most churches per capita wasn’t easy.  Having said that, it was nothing like growing up black in Jim Crow south, but a week rarely went by when I was told that I was going to hell or that i wasn’t a “real Christian.”  Once I was even called a Papist (totally kidding).  

I grew up in Wheaton, home of Wheaton College where Billy Graham went to college.  Until I was 17 I didn’t even realize it was a real college, I didn’t know what it was or how highly rated of a school it was.  In all honesty I had no clue who Billy Graham was.  When one of my childhood friends found that out he couldn’t believe it.  I slowly started realizing that there was this other religion (now I know there are 100’s) out there that was similar to Catholicism, but yet very different.  I couldn’t tell how it was different yet, but the overwhelming similarity was Jesus.  The belief that he was and is God and that he came to Earth lovingly to release all of us from the bondage of all those awful and silly choices we have made, are making and will make.  

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Jesus always seemed so radical to me.  When I forgot the spin around him and just read and listened to what he said I was shocked.  I always saw him as the ultimate human being.  He would close himself off to nobody and love everyone.  He could party, he could discuss, he could heal, he was the most amazing person ever.  I have studied history and I teach history and I have never seen anyone like him.  If the accounts in the Gospels are true, then he is unique.  This analysis made me believe that he was God.  But where is he now?  I would give anything for a one hour conversation with that guy over coffee, a beer or a mountain hike.  Even though that has always been my number one dream, I know (deep down) that will never happen, just like I know (deep down) that he is always there for me.  

I can’t rationally or scientifically prove this of course.  When I say that I know he is there for me, it’s a bit different than when I say I know the world is round.  Jesus has proven himself to me (though I still have frequent doubts), but that proof was for me, it is not empirical data for others.  Therefore, I feel a tug.  I love thinking and discussing, but to be able to do that you have to master the liberal arts skills, yet those won’t help too much in proving to myself that God is out there.  It is the classic battle of head versus heart.  But I’ve learned that maybe it’s not a battle.  Maybe just maybe the two go together better than I or many think.  

Politics in America

In 12 days from now Americans will find out who our next President will be.  According to recent polls from the USA Today, 25% of 18-25 year olds say that they regularly pay attention to politics and the same percent say that they trust no government officials on any level to make good decisions.  This voting group is by far the most apathetic, but political apathy is still prevalent amongst all voters in America.  Only 60% of eligible voters voted in 2008 when President Obama was elected and in the Congressional elections of 2010 barely 40% of eligible voters chose to use their Constitutionally protected right to vote for their elected officials.  Malta leads world voter turnout with over 94%, but most democracies around the world have over 75% turnout, while America is woefully low on the list it would be all too easy to say that Americans are lazy and self centered, but I think that would be an incomplete analysis.  Studies show that people will vote if they believe that their vote will make a difference, or if they have a strong sense of civic duty or strongly support a particular political party.  Clearly American voters do not meet these voter turnout benchmarks.  It seems clear that voter turnout is ultra low due to the antiquated Electoral College and two party system, the obscene amounts of money in elections and the nature of politics in 21st century America.

The Framers of the Constitution clearly did not trust the average voter.  They established strict limits on who could vote and they did not allow direct elections for either the Senate or the President.  The 17th Amendment changed that when it allowed the residents of a state to directly elect their Senators rather than the State Legislators.  However, there has never been an amendment to eliminate the Electoral College (EC).  There are two major problems with the EC.  First, the citizens of the United States do not directly elect our President and second, people often do not feel that their vote is critical as most states are all but predetermined before election day.  In the upcoming 2012 election everyone knows that President Obama will win Illinois and New York and Governor Romney will win Mississippi and the Dakotas to name a few.  Essentially this leaves the outcome of the election in the hands of a few critical “swing states.”  Voters in Ohio and Florida are most critical, but Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada will also be significant this year.  Voter apathy in America is clearly impacted by an antiquated system of electing a President that most citizens do not even comprehend.  

A recent poll of voters aged 18-35 found that 63% of this age groups policy positions actually would categorize them as Libertarians.  In short they believe the government should be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or put another way, the government should lower spending but allow homosexuals to marry.  The catch here is that the Libertarian party has less than 285,000 Americans that are registered with them.  Why is this?  It is also mainly because of the winner take all EC that governs our Presidential elections, but also because of the entrenchment of the two political parties in America.  The process of elections has almost gotten silly.  Each political party is an entity that cares first and foremost about getting elected in our system.  In Parliamentary systems parties are forced to compromise with each other in order to establish a government, in the American system no such structure exists to demand compromise, except that is for elections, but what does that matter when voter turnout is so low?  Third parties in the United States have almost no chance of winning elections.  Only one third party official is in the Senate and third party candidates such as Ross Perot or Ralph Nader are only blamed for stealing elections.  It is time that a few third party candidates are allowed to participate in Congressional debates and especially the Presidential debates.  

Over $1 billion is going to be spent on this election.  An individual can run any ad they want supporting a party or candidate and spend unlimited funds to get them elected (indirectly).  It is time to end this inequity in our system.  Access to media should be publicly doled out and distributed to candidates in a way that allows people access to the candidates without hearing how every candidate for public office wants to kill grandma’s kitten.  It is clear that this could be interpreted as a restriction of speech, but what our current system allows is that persons with huge amounts of wealth have more influence via media than those without wealth.  A publicly financed campaign is the only solution albeit imperfect to the ridiculous ads that surround our campaigns today.  

Finally, a non-systematic factor has taken the disrespect and dishonesty in politics to a new level.  This factor is the 24/7 “cable news networks.”  This started with CNN being launched in 1980, but did not begin to take off until the Persian Gulf War and CNN’s coverage of the invasion and takeover of Iraq.  Shortly thereafter competitors arose such as Fox News and MSNBC.  These news networks are owned by corporations whose monomaniacal goal is to make money.  One can not be engaged in honest to goodness journalism if they have to appeal to a market.  Therefore, our news networks continually have breaking news that is no big deal, coverage of the latest celebrity gossip and programs that are filled with incomplete and dishonest analysis masked as news and journalism.  A democracy can not function without an alert, truly journalistic and independent media.  The sad fact is that our corporate owned news networks are neither journalistic or independent and are rarely alert to the issues they should be.  When Woodward and Bernstein revealed the corruption of the Nixon administration they were true journalists aiming to keep an eye on the government.  But today with so many television stations and websites accessible to everyone in America it is getting difficult to discern legitimate journalism to a trained eye, and most Americans are not “trained eyes.”  

Theoretically the true authority in and democracy lies within the hands of the people.  As the United States is a Republic, we elect people to make decisions for us, but the problem is that we no longer have total control over our elections.  Without direct elections for the President and legitimate challengers to the Republicans and the Democrats our future elections will become more corrupt and less democratic.  Unless private money is taken out of elections and modern 24/7 media find their moral compass the future of America is murky.  The United States is a great country, a unique place in the history of the world, but unless we are vigilant about our electoral system we as citizens may begin to lose the grip we ought to hold on our country.  

Politics 2012

In just a few short weeks Americans all over the world will be mailing in their ballots or heading to polls and it appears this will be a very close election.  With polls in the swing states drawing ever closer it is anyone's guess who will win the all important states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida.

The two men running have very different stories and are very different people, but both are extremely compelling.
Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii to a single mother and an absent father.  At the age of 10 his mother too abandoned him and he was raised the rest of his youth by his grandparents.  As a young man of mixed race it always seemed a challenge for him to find an identity.  It seems while he was in college at Columbia he decided that his fate didn't lie where he saw all his other contemporaries heading.  He went to Chicago and took a low paying job as a community organizer there trying to assist impoverished families and schools.  After a few years he headed to Law School at Harvard and became the first African American editor of the Law Review.  He worked extremely well with the conservatives there and this gave him the belief that if well intentioned individuals sat down and intelligently discussed and debated then compromise could be reached on all manner of policies.  After a difficult introduction to politics, he ran for US Senate in 2004 and gave the speech of his lifetime at the Democratic National Convention.  When I saw this speech I was quite convinced that he would be President someday.  He took his seemingly naive belief of compromise with him into the White House with him after being elected the first African American President in a country that was founded upon slavery.  This belief in compromise failed for many reasons, but mostly because politicians aren't interested in passing good public policy, but winning.
Mitt Romney was born into a good hard working Mormon family of privilege and followed in his father's footsteps with having significant business success, then running a state and finally running for President.  Romney was a maverick in his time at Bain Capital and not only created a fortune for his family, but a name for himself in the private equity world.  In 2000 he came on board and saved the Salt Lake City games from scandal and disgrace before he ran for governor and won in Massachusetts mid-decade.  In 2006 he was pro-choice, pro gay rights and passed Romney-care.  This was his banner achievement in politics, passing a health care bill in Massachusetts that mandated all people must buy health insurance.  Two years later he decided to run for the Republican nomination for President, but the aforementioned policies didn't warm him to Republican primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire or any other state.  Now in 2012, he has overcome that by altering his views on those policies and attempting to convince voters that he is the man to turn the flat economy around.  It remains to be seen if he is given that chance.

My quick assessment:  I think both men are good men, good fathers and good husbands.  Barack Obama seems to have a drive to genuinely change the situation in our country for the better by sticking to policies that he has believed in for quite sometime.  Mitt Romney appears to take a market approach, by trusting the people and the market to determine his policies.

We shall see which direction voters choose in a short time.