McCain's Campaign: Not the Same Man We Liked, Respected

I have mostly liked and respected John McCain--at least since the time he was found to have exercised "poor judgment" in his involvement with the Keating Five. Still, I don't support his presidential aspirations, and I have some issues with his ideological predispositions. But as a Vietnam-era Marine, it is easy for me to respect his sacrifice and suffering for our country. And his public candor, his political courage, in pointing out the problems with his own party's positions, including his president's positions, on things like finance reform, irresponsible tax policy, immigration, off-shore drilling, and global warming, were bold and refreshing--and more than that, they were right.

But those days appear to be gone. He is now swallowed up in a Republican campaign machine led by many of the same folks that led the last Bush campaign, pandering as they do to conservative ideologues and the Christian Right, and "swift-boating" political opponents.

My disappointment in him is summed up by two quite different perspectives in recent articles reflecting puzzlement and dismay at the new John McCain. The first is from Time, the second from The Economist.

Time's "What Bush Taught McCain" was written by Joe Klein. Joe Klein is a left leaning centrist who over the years has found much to like and commend about John McCain, even if there was also much to disagree with him about. But he finds the new John McCain discomfiting and unlikable.

The woman, a venture capitalist from the Denver area...decided she just couldn't vote for John McCain this year. "I supported him enthusiastically in 2000, but he's hired the same people who ran him into the ground last time to run his campaign," she said. McCain's tone was more negative now. "It breaks my heart."

...Ronald Reagan never staged an ugly August. He attacked his opponents, but on the high ground of policy...But then Reagan was operating at the beginning of a political pendulum swing, utterly confident that his ideas were better than the tired industrial-age liberalism and post-Vietnam pacifism of the Democrats.

Michael Crowley of the New Republic recently observed that the McCain campaign was the most sarcastic in memory. He's right: sarcasm comes naturally to the fighter jock. He disdains all those — his colleagues in the Senate, his political opponents — who aren't as courageous as he thinks he is. But McCain has proved a selective maverick, surrounded by special-interest lobbyists who shape his foreign and fiscal policies. In fact, I suspect that this year's McCain is closer to the real thing than the noble 2000 version. This one is congenitally dark, the opposite of Reagan — not confident enough in the substance of his ideas, especially on domestic policy, to run a campaign that features them. Instead, his natural sarcasm has enabled him to perfect the Bush way of politics.

The Economist's "Bring Back the Real McCain," in the "Leaders" section, reflects more a sense of disappointment over an old political friend now lost, than Klein's writing off of a previously respected maverick and sometime opponent. After noting that they particularly like McCain for his past political courage, "his robust commitment to free trade, and his firmness in the face of American losses in Iraq," they also note their concern with his advancing age (72) and his "legendary volcanic temper," both of which they concede have been managed well so far. But they are a little more troubled about his unbridled hawkish views:

Many Americans see him as a warmonger, a man who would be happy to bomb Iran if that is the only way to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, who is more than ready to confront Russia, and who supported toppling Saddam Hussein before George Bush was elected and New York and Washington were attacked. This fear is surely overdone: even though Mr McCain is presumably more minded than Mr Obama to attack Iran, neither the joint chiefs of staff nor most of his advisers think that is a good idea. But it is not a completely unreasonable worry. Mr McCain needs to find ways of correcting this perception, rather than making jokes about bombing.

Yet their biggest concern is his apparent, unprincipled abandonment of some core beliefs:

This is not so much true of foreign policy. But even here, he used to talk much more about multilateralism than he does now. On the campaign trail, Mr McCain has tended to stress the more hawkish side of his nature, for instance by promoting his idea for a "league of democracies" that risks being needlessly divisive.

But it is on domestic policy that Mr McCain has tacked to the right more disquietingly. Doubtless he feels he needs to shore up his support among the conservatives who mistrust him. But the result is that he could easily alienate the independent supporters who are his great strength. Mr Obama will sensibly hope to woo them away.

Mr McCain used to be a passionate believer in limited government and sound public finances; a man with some distaste for conservative Republicanism and its obsession with reproductive matters. On the stump, though, he has offered big tax cuts for business and the rich that he is unable to pay for, and he is much more polite to the religious right, whom he once called "agents of intolerance". He has engaged in pretty naked populism, too, for instance in calling for a "gas-tax holiday". If this is all just a gimmick to keep his party's right wing happy, it may disappear again. But that is quite a gamble to take...

Hawkish foreign policy, irresponsible tax cuts, more talk about religion and abortion: all this sounds too much like Bush Three, the label the Democrats are trying to hang around the Republican's neck. We preferred McCain One.

And then there are the more recent revelations about his quixotic choice of running mate: 44-year old Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a lady of the NRA and Christian Right. A Pentecostal with creationist beliefs, she prays and calls for prayer that the Bush administration is sending our soldiers to Iraq "on a task that is from God." Once the mayor of a very small Alaska town and now governor for two years, she has only little experience with Washington and national issues, and none with international and geopolitical issues. Not likely the profile that will attract many Hillary democrats, or many independents or centrists either, women or men. John McCain's self-assessed claim to strong judgment could again be reasonably questioned. Perhaps he serves us best where he has served for so long: in the U.S. Senate.


http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1836890,00.html
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12009710

Group Headed by Dobson: Pray for Rain at Obama Acceptance Speech

This is what it has come to. This article, below, is the kind of thing we hear more and more of--and so does the rest of the world. Yet another spokesman for the so-called evangelical Christian Right has provided to the world their view and their example of what it is to be a follower of Jesus and reflect his love, patience, compassion and trust in God to the world. This is their take on what it is to live and share Christ in such a way that the world will feel His love for them. How could it come to this? How could confessing Christians become so co-opted by secular politics, and so distort the Christian walk? I am so sad and sick about it.

Last week, however, Focus [on the Family] unveiled a new video, asking politically-conservative Christians to pray for rain on Aug. 28, in order to disrupt Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Shepard called for "abundant rain, torrential rain ... flood-advisory rain." He adds, "I'm talking about umbrella-ain't-gonna-help-you rain ... swamp-the-intersections rain." Explaining why he wants everyone to pray for rain, Shepard explains, without a hint of humor, "I'm still pro-life, and I'm still in favor or marriage being between one man and one woman. And I would like the next president who will select justices for the next Supreme Court to agree."

In other words, Obama disagrees with the religious right on culture-war issues, so Focus on the Family wants God to smite Obama with rain. Got it.

And this is the image of evangelical Christianity that for some time has been set in the minds of non-evangelical Christians and non-Christians. Despite your earnest protestations and historical explanations, evangelical Christianity (the contemporary, protestant definition and interpretation, that is) is now inextricably linked and identified as a right-wing political identity and right-wing political machine. And James Dobson joins with both parachurch and church organizations in leading it.

But I don't sense or hear any direction remotely like this in the voice of Jesus I encounter in the Scriptures, nor the voice of the gentle, humble Jesus that I hear in prayer through His Spirit that indwells me. I don't know about you, but the evangelical Christian Right does not reflect my Christian identity, nor the walk I feel called to by my Lord. It is not my identity--and I want people to know it.

Greg Hudson

[Thanks, Laura.]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/94853/group_headed_by_james_dobson_asks_christians_to_pray_for_rain_at_obama_speech/

The Population Paradox: Time Bombs, Where & Why

Population growth is a problem--just not the problem you think it is. Yes, it's hard to forget a book like The Population Bomb (Paul Erlich, 1968). It remains memorable for its stark, frightening prognostications of overpopulation. And the troubling Malthusian hypothesis is still recycling generation after generation, reflecting as much nationalistic and racial paranoia as concern with overpopulation--always pointing at other groups as the problem, most often the poorer, less educated countries or ethnic groups. But for some decades now, a different type of problem has been evolving: declining birthrates and aging populations in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, and continued high population growth rates in large areas of the third world and the developing world.

The implications and reasons have been speculated about for some time, but this article in the British Independent World covers this global issue rather well, reflecting what is known and what remains speculative.

The implications of all this are enormous. Low-birth Europe is faced with an ageing population, a pensions crisis, later retirement, changes in work patterns, shrinking cities and a massive looming healthcare cost. Nations of children with no siblings, cousins, aunts or uncles – only parents, grandparents, and perhaps great-grandparents – will face the burden of paying for the care of a massive older generation. The same prospect of an older, more conservative, less vigorous or inventive culture looms in China, Japan and much of the Far East.

Meanwhile high-birth Africa will remain stuck in a vicious circle unless it gets economic growth, agricultural reform, improved world trade terms, infrastructure investment, better health and education systems, more girls into school and a wider availability of family planning. A tall order, though the example of Bangladesh shows change can come...

[Still] the United Nations has had to revise downwards its prediction that the world population would reach 11.5 billion by 2050. The human race is now expected to peak, according to one of the world's top experts, Dr David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, at 9.5 billion people. Then, around 2070, it will begin to decline. We have reached a demographic crossroads which will have dramatic consequences for large sections of the world – including us.

Interestingly, the article introduces the topic by referencing a piece in a leading British medical journal that calls for the British to reduce the number of children per family further in order to curb global warming and the depleting of environmental resources.

His argument was straightforward. The mushrooming population of the world is putting extreme pressure on the planet's resources and increasing the output of greenhouse gases. Every single month there are nearly seven million extra mouths to feed. And because a child born today in the UK will be responsible for 150 times more greenhouse gas emissions than a child born in Ethiopia the obvious place to start cutting back is here rather than there.

Talk about failing to see the forest for the trees! Talk about blinkered, draconian solutions that ignore the wider array of global problems--and the need for integrated, interdisciplinary answers! He apparently believes government policy, technology, and individual behavior cannot change--and that more of Africa and less of the UK would consitute a better world.

Regardless, the thrust and remainder of the article stresses the new reality of contracting populations in many Western and Eastern areas. It addresses the paradoxes, the counterintuitve facts and factors, the likely reasons for differences in population growth in different parts of the world.

The span of fertility across countries has never been wider," says Dr John Cleland, Professor of Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Both extremes cause their own problems. If Europe continues at 1.5 [children per family] the population will halve every 65 years. If Africa continues with half its population under [age] 15 it will continue to consume more than it produces making it harder to escape from poverty and illiteracy...

A country's population is determined by three things: how many people are born, how soon they die and how many leave or enter the country. Fertility, as we have seen, is rising in Africa and parts of the developing world but falling in Europe and the Far East. Mortality, by contrast, thanks to medical advance, is falling almost everywhere: global life expectancy has risen from 46 in 1950 to 65 in 2008 and is expected to reach 75 by 2050; in Europe it will be 82 by mid-century. Migration, despite the heat it generates as a political issue, is a marginal factor in population issues. It would take massive numbers of immigrants – some 700 million throughout Europe – with unthinkable cultural and identity tensions, to counter the low-birthrates. Fertility is the key engine to population rise and fall.

But the most interesting elements of the article are the explorations of the changing economic and cultural realities in different regions and countries--and among different groups within those regions and countries--and the resulting changes in population growth. Those elements also address the likely reasons for the unlikely results: the qualified role of poverty, the role of education and outside work for women, the countering role of more conservative or fundamentalist religion, and perhaps most important, the level of emacipation and status of women, and the changing, accomodating roles of men and government programs.

In the US, like Japan, 20 per cent of women born between 1956 and 1972 are childless and likely to remain so. The figure could rise to 25 per cent. Revealingly, the incidence rises with education and income. A third of women graduates in their late thirties have no children. And only 20 per cent of women with MBAs have kids, compared with 70 per cent of MBA men. [That is, 80% of women with MBAs have no children.]

By contrast 40 per cent of college-educated American women are not in the workforce, but they are still not having many kids; the number of women with only one child has doubled since 1976. And in that same year 36 per cent of women had four or more children but less than 10 per cent do today. Childlessness is now a fashionable lifestyle choice, as it is in Germany where 27.8 per cent of women born in 1960 are childless, far more than any other European country. (In France the figure is just 10.7 per cent.)

The article provides many more interesting examples and more explanatory analysis. It is well worth reading. But we should also bear in mind a point of caution and qualification tucked into the middle of the article:

How seriously should we take all this? "All population projections are wrong," concedes Professor Coleman. "The question is by how much?"

Too true. But we know the changes that have already occurred, and that we are continuing in that same direction. And we know the resulting problems about to be visited upon us.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/population-paradox-europes-time-bomb-888030.html

Plight of the Little Emperors: China's Only Children

We are by now all aware of China's long-standing one-child policy. And we are also aware of the continual speculation about the resulting demographic imbalances, national preoccupations, and adverse impact on the country, it's families, and it's children. This article in Psychology Today places in perspective these speculations and concerns, what is myth and what is fact, what is better and what is worse than we might have expected.

First, the policy was set in place not only as a method of population control, but with designs on creating an elite generation of high potential and high-achieving youngsters. They could not have known how successful they would be.

When China began limiting couples to one child 30 years ago, the policy's most obvious goal was to contain a mushrooming population. For the Chinese people, however, the policy's greater purpose was to turn out a group of young elites who would each enjoy the undivided resources of their whole family—the so-called xiao huangdi, or "little emperors." The plan was to "produce a generation of high-quality children to facilitate China's introduction as a global power," explains Susan Greenhalgh, an expert on the policy. But while these well-educated, driven achievers are fueling the nation's economic boom, their generation has become too modern too quickly, glutted as it is with televisions, access to computers, cash to buy name brands, and the same expectations of middle-class success as Western kids.

Still, there is no way to reasonably expect a new market economy to grow as dynamicly and broadly as would be required to fully accomodate the new generation with the kinds of jobs they had prepared themselves for. For that matter, it is not reasonable for the most robust market economy to provide a disproportionately large percentage of jobs for the professional and management ranks. The most successful economies still need a significant percentage of labor-class workers. And so disappointments, and on a large scale, were inevitable.

The shift in temperament has happened too fast for society to handle. China is still a developing nation with limited opportunity, leaving millions of ambitious little emperors out in the cold; the country now churns out more than 4 million university graduates yearly, but only 1.6 million new college-level jobs. Even the strivers end up as security guards. China may be the world's next great superpower, but it's facing a looming crisis as millions of overpressurized, hypereducated only children come of age in a nation that can't fulfill their expectations.

But the failure of China's economy to provide the expected jobs, social status and lifestyle is just the final blow for so many only children and their families. The destabilizing process had already forced unhealthy, imbalanced lives on them from early childhood.

The pressure to succeed was all the greater given that his parents' own dreams had been dashed during China's Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong closed schools and sent difficult-to-control intellectuals to be "reeducated" by working the fields. His own dreams destroyed, he poured all his hopes and ambitions into his son. "Because of the Cultural Revolution, my parents literally wasted 10 years," explains Wang, 29, who was among the first Chinese only kids born under the one-child policy. "I was explicitly told that they had lost a lot in their lives, so they wanted me to get it back for them."

Then, how could we be surprised when competitive, self-preservation instincts of parents were carried to extremes by the all-or-nothing, one-child policy forced on them and their children? (And why should we be surprised that the perverse social extremes visited on one Chinese generation should result in an equally perverse social exteme of another sort being visited on the next?)

In recent years, however, Chinese parents have sometimes blurred the line between sacrifice and slavery in aiding their child's success: Mothers carry their child's backpack around; couples forgo lunch so their kid can have plentiful snacks or new Nikes. Vanessa Fong recalls meeting one mother who resisted hospitalization for her heart and kidney troubles because she feared it might interfere with her daughter's gao kao preparation; when Fong gave the mother money for medication, it mostly went to expensive food for her daughter.

"In China, the term for a one-child family is a 'risky family,'" says Baochang Gu, a demography professor at Beijing's Renmin University who advises the Chinese government on the one-child policy. "If something happened to that child, it would be a disaster. So from the parents' point of view, the spoiling is all necessary to protect them."

It is understandable, then, that Chinese students tend to have fewer friends; they most often view classmates as competitors in a zero-sum game they must win. And talking to their parents, who cannot allow themselves to be understanding or sympathetic, is a waste of time and a sure way to create further misunderstanding. So where do they find escape and psychological release?

Many young only children opt for escape from reality through online gaming worlds. Every day, the nation's 113,000 Internet cafés teem with twitchy, solitary players—high school and university students, dropouts, and unemployed graduates—an alarming number of whom remain in place for days without food or sleep. Official estimates put the number of Chinese Internet addicts at over 2 million, and the government considers it such a serious threat that it deploys volunteer groups to prowl the streets and prevent teens from entering Internet cafés.

The mostly male youth who turn to virtual realms find there a place to realize ambitions that are frustrated in real life, says Kimberly Young, a psychologist and Internet addiction expert who has advised Chinese therapists. "With the click of a button, they go from a 19-year-old with no social life to a great warrior in World of Warcraft," Young says.

But, for those inclined to conclude that all the problems were unavoidable with a generation of only children, the article is quick to make the point that being only children was not by itself the problem.

Yet despite the stereotype, the research has revealed no evidence that only kids have more negative traits than their peers with siblings—in China or anywhere else. "The only way only children are reliably different from others is they score slightly higher in academic achievement," explains Toni Falbo, a University of Texas psychology professor who has gathered data on more than 4,000 Chinese only kids. Sure, some little emperors are bratty, but no more than children with siblings.

It's just that their psychological issues stem not from a lack of siblings but from the harsh academic competition and parental prodding that pervade their lives. Susan Newman, a New Jersey psychologist and only-child expert, says the notion that little emperors are bossy, self-obsessed little brats is simply part of the greater myth of only kids as damaged goods. "Pinning their problems on having no siblings is really making them a scapegoat," she says. Being an only child is not the problem.

Perhaps, so. But in the case of China's one-child policy, it is still hard to separate the conditions imposed by families and culture on their only children, from the existence of a generation of only children. That is, being only children may not be the problem, per se, but the problem unavoidably follows from the reality of a generation of Chinese only children.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-20080623-000004&print=1

It's Time: 80% Want Overhaul of U.S. Health Care

Yes, over 80% of Americans now agree: the U.S. health care system needs to be completely rebuilt or requires fundamental change. That's what a recent Harris International poll found. And that's true regardless of income and insurance status: 81% of those who were insured for the prior year and 89% who were uninsured called for either fundamental change or complete rebuilding. Only 16% of adults said the health care system works relatively well and needed only minor reform.

But how can that be, you ask? Isn't ours the great, market-driven health care system, the international standard-setter? Well, let's see:

• At least 47 million Americans do not have health insurance at all (as of 2005).

• Inefficiencies and rising costs have resulted in over a 100 percent increase in health premiums for private sector employers and their workers in just over a decade. The average premium for a family insurance plan rose to $11,381 in 2006, from $4,954 in 1996, while the average cost for a single premium rose to $4,118 from $1,992;

• Americans spend double what people in other industrialized countries do on health care: $6,697 per capita on health care in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product, compared to $3,326 in Canada, or 9.8 percent of GDP.

• And, contrary to the propaganda of our health care industry, Americans often have more trouble seeing doctors, and are the victims of more errors and go without treatment more often than people in other industrialized countries.

I'd say it's time, wouldn't you? I'd say 80% of American voices should be heard, wouldn't you?

There are some national social services that are considered by modern civilized societies to be the rights of all citizens--and also in the best interest of a robust and growing economic system. As such, they must be administered fairly and equally to all people. This is not something that markets do. Markets develop and provide the very best to those with the most money through those incentivized by profit to provide the best, most expensive products and services. People with less money can afford only lesser products and services. People with little or no money can afford none.

We Americans all recognize this with respect to education and subsistence retirement incomes. They are administered by the government for the equal benefit of all--but supplemented by private market products for those who wish to get more and pay more for it. The combined national and private systems work relatively well. Everyone wins.

But the rest of the industrialized, civilized world also recognize that health care, and certainly basic, preventative health care, must also be provided to all in the same fair and equal way. It is not only what a civilized country should guarantee to its people, it is absolutely necessary to provide healthy and well-educated workers for a modern workforce and well-functioning economy.

But not our United States government. Or, I should say, not our government as influenced primarily by lobbyists for the enormous private healthcare industry in the U.S.: Big Pharma (the big pharmaceutical companies), big high-tech healthcare products manufacturers and, of course, big healthcare providers (hospitals and their doctors). They are the principal architects and beneficiaries of this unequal, inefficient, uncontrollable brier patch of a health care system that the market's "invisible hand" has wrought. They've patched it together based primarily on their own interests and reward, not on delivering effective health care for all people. That's the way markets work, after all. That's what we thought we wanted. But the context and nature of their roles must now evolve. The needs of our country and our people have changed.

It's time. It's just time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26077335/

"Sleeping on It" Improves Memory, Problem Solving

Understanding the importance of sleep just keeps growing more important. You haven't been paying attention if you've failed to noticed the parade of studies over the years that have revealed more and more about how critical sleep in its various phases is for emotional health, attention, cognition, memory and, in one sense or another, problem solving.

Even in college, I recognized that if I could prepare for exams early enough to get a full night's sleep before taking them, my memory and command of the exam material was notably better and easier the next morning. I didn't understand it, but it worked. In a similar way, I and others have shared throughout our school and professional lives that solutions to problems that eluded us the evening before were somehow so urgent and clear at 4-5 am in the morning. Not knowing how it occurred, there was no question that it did.

This article in Scientific American provides an informative, readable review of what we now know about the critical functions and considerable activity of the brain while we sleep. Particular attention is devoted to the increasing body of knowledge about the brain's organizing, storing and strengthening of memory, and it's organizing, analyzing and solving of problems--again, while we sleep.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-snoozing-makes-you-smarter&print=true

Dramatic Departures

It is apparently the season for sad or quirky stories about the need of notable numbers of people in different places to end it all in dramatic public fashion. A Time article I chanced upon in my dentist's office related the sad effect on all concerned of those British folks who throw themselves in front of trains every year.

There are plenty of ways to commit suicide, but few more public than turning a multiton moving train full of passengers into a bullet. Last year in the U.K., 194 people killed themselves on the tracks of mass-transit systems, with some 50 of those choosing the sooty tunnels of the Tube. New York City's subway averages 26 suicides a year. In Paris, 24 died on the tracks of the Métro last year. While it is a fallacy to imagine any suicide as a solitary act--even the tidiest affair leaves survivors stricken--death by train is a particularly declaratory form of killing oneself. It makes the act a form of theater--for the driver, watching it all from behind his windshield, and for the rest of us.

On May 16, I posted a short piece, NYC: The Mysteries of the Suicide Tourist, about the pilgrimage many people make each year to New York City to make the last desperate, dramatic gesture of their lives--most often from one of the city's impressive and convenient heights. If you must give fatal expression to despairing failure, depression or nihilism, if your definition of the meaning of life--or the need to announce its failed meaning--calls for such terminal public declarations, then I suppose you may as well do it in as splashy, attention-grabbing a manner as possible. And as if these were auditions for limited numbers of more satisfying roles in the hereafter, there seems a predictable yet unseen and unscripted queue constantly forming and moving these desperate folks to center stage locations in London, NYC, and many other places.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1827064,00.html

Unhappy America

Most of us in America are unhappy these days, many of us for some years now. We're unhappy about lots of things: political, international, economic and quality of life things, and more. But, as long-time American sympathizers and cheerleaders, and from their position of some distance and detachment--the British weekly The Economist apparently thinks they see this more clearly than we do. This week's lead article in their "Leaders" section briefly chronicles our unhappiness as they see it.

Of course, we have our own perspectives. And a great many of us by now feel that many of the reasons for our unhappiness have been authored by George W. Bush and his administration, and most of the others have developed on his watch. It's hard to imagine that a president and his team could make that many serious mistakes--acts of commission and acts of omission--that could visit so much harm and have such a debilitating effect on our country, and on the confidence and well-being of our people. The list is too long to competently engage here, with all the aspects and implications of his Iraq War, fiscal and economic policy, presumptuous "unipolar" approach to diplomacy and our former global allies and partners, and his blind eye to the need for protective business and environmental regulation, among many other things. Of course, he's had almost eight years to do his worst--and that he has done, obstinately bulldozing through one wrongheaded, dull-witted initiative or position after another, without any apparent later sense of accountability for whether they have proven wrong or ineffectual. He just denies and defends.

(And John McCain appears to offer just more of the same.)

But not everything that is wrong is Dubya's doing. Sharing that place of ignominy are our Senators and Members of the House of Representatives--although theirs are more often acts of legislative omission than commission. Those would include major issues with our social security, heath care and education systems, among others. And Wall Street and the banking industry have again proved there are no limits to their hubris, greed and unaccountability--and the negligent self interest, or worse, that motivates them to cavalierly place their own financial gain above the health of our American economy. Their unregulated avarice has now visited upon us one of the worst financial crises and housing collapses in modern times.

But, the in the end, the Economist believes we will likely learn from our mistakes, and American ingenuity and resolve will again win back the day. God willing. The area that seems to concern them most, however, is our misplaced concern and wrong attitude toward the economic threat of emerging Asian countries, especially China.

The economic gap between America and a rising Asia has certainly narrowed; but worrying about it is wrong for two reasons. First, even at its present growth rate, China's GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America's; and the internal tensions that China's rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then. Second, even if Asia's rise continues unabated, it is wrong—and profoundly unAmerican—to regard this as a problem. Economic growth, like trade, is not a zero-sum game. The faster China and India grow, the more American goods they buy. And they are booming largely because they have adopted America's ideas. America should regard their success as a tribute, not a threat, and celebrate in it.

Many Americans, unfortunately, are unwilling to do so. Politicians seeking a scapegoat for America's self-made problems too often point the finger at the growing power of once-poor countries, accusing them of stealing American jobs and objecting when they try to buy American companies. But if America reacts by turning in on itself—raising trade barriers and rejecting foreign investors—it risks exacerbating the economic troubles that lie behind its current funk.

Everybody goes through bad times. Some learn from the problems they have caused themselves, and come back stronger. Some blame others, lash out and damage themselves further. America has had the wisdom to take the first course many times before. Let's hope it does so again.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11791539

Fidel Castro: "My Life"

Now in his December days, Fidel Castro offers his last account, his last statements, on one of the most interestingly consequential lives lived on the 20th-century geopolitical landscape. In The Nation, Greg Grandin reviews at length this new memoir, My Life, presented in the form of a long interview distilled from over a hundred hours of conversations with Le Monde diplomatique editor Ignacio Ramonet. And according to Grandin, Ramonet's ambiguously sympathetic presentation of Castro and Cuba does not disappoint.

Castro shares with Ramonet interesting details about his life from boyhood onward. And while he does not clarify or augment what little is known about his controversial role in the contentious and violent student politics of his university days, he is quite candid and revealing about much else. But he is unrepentant and unswerving in his continuing defense of his Marxist-Leninist line and his oppressive half-century of totalitarian rule in Cuba. He is clear that he believes his country's accomplishments in education and health care, advances in science and medicine, justify the oppression Cuba has endured under him. But, to all the intrigue and violence, to all the contradictions in his ambiguous social idealism and repression of Cuban dissent and markets, to all the disappointments of the Cuban social experiment, Grandin must respond with questions about the legacy of Castro's revolution and his rule:

The circularity of My Life's narrative is not just that Castro reconnects with postwar social democracy but that many of the problems that plagued Cuba prior to the revolution have returned, including sex tourism, race-based economic inequality and corruption, which partly explains Castro's rehabilitation of the good-government crusader Chibás. The most damning criticism that can be leveled at a revolution is not that it is repressive but that its repression was for naught. It's an indictment Castro himself raises, at the end of his interview, the only moment where his certainty gives way to something sounding like exhaustion: "How many ways are there," he asks, "of stealing in this country?"

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080721/grandin

A History of Hooch [and those who drink it]

A short, informative and amusing book review in New York Magazine hawks a new book on the history of man and his social relationship with alcohol. Here's a short pour from it:

True to form, Iain Gately's new book, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, posits its subject as the lifeblood of the world. Booze has presided over executions and business deals and marriages and births. It inspired the ancient Greeks to invent not only democracy but comedy and tragedy. It helped goad America's Founding Fathers into revolution.

Click below for the full review:

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=A+History+of+Hooch&expire=&urlID=29577780&fb=Y&url=http://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/48320/&partnerID=73272

Our Fence. Our Answer.

With awe and pride, dismay and shame, or total disinterest, you may now lift your gaze upon the not-so-great American fence. Follow your inclination. But regardless of how you feel about it, and whatever it is or will become, it reflects what America is becoming. It is totally ours.

China has The Great Wall. It's an enormous achievement and enduring testament to ancient China's resolve, resourcefulness, industry and commitment to the defense of its civilization and protection of its people. In Mandarin, it is called Chang Cheng, or long city. And given its design, materials and craftsmanship, its breadth, height and length, it did indeed function as a city or home of sorts for the many who manned it and defended their country on it. And they turned back would-be conquerors on many occasions in its history. It is a wonder of construction and a statement of early civilization to the world.

Then there was the notorious, ignoble Berlin Wall. More functionally basic, crude, actually, in its design and materials of construction, it was nonetheless imposing as a barrier to keep East Germans and others to the Soviet East from crossing into West Berlin and freedom. And while many died amid gunfire trying to make that crossing, about 5000 made the dash to a new life and lived to enjoy it. It's stature and standing with posterity lies not in the wonder of an enduring edifice, but in its complete destruction: a symbol of oppression, a barrier to freedom, rendered a long, dusty pile of debris as the winds of freedom blew West to East. It's destruction was a relief and a statement for freedom to the world.

And we have a fence, of sorts--a fence we are still cobbling together, a piece here, a piece there, of different designs and materials, a rude, utilitarian effort to be sure. I mean, a wall is monolithic, substantial and imposing--and it stands for something understood, or at least clearly stated. So, it's hard to even call our fence a wall. And it's such a patch-work quilt of a fence, at that. And somehow its unimpressive, ignominious appearance seems appropriate for the sentiments that inspire its building. But it's still our fence. We wanted it.

So, to what great purpose has this not-so-noble fence been erected? To what great principal of freedom, honor, fairness, justice, or defense of the poor or weak? Will sublime sentiments and statements of enlightened American identity grace statues and monuments raised to this all-too-pedestrian work? Or, is it possible that--perhaps--its greatest purpose and the most enduring principle will someday be found in its destruction, too. For it is unlikely that this rude fence will ever be spoken of in the same breath as Concord's rude bridge. And it's also unlikely that the great French-American lady or these great American sentiments will be found anywhere near the fence along our Southwestern borders:

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

--Emma Lazarus, Statue of Liberty

I know, you call me idealistic, and more, unrealistic and impractical. But I ask you, When did we stop thinking, seeking better answers, and solving problems? When did we stop defending the historic first principles of this great American experiment of immigrant peoples seeking freedom and democracy? When did we start thinking about walls, protectionism, and isolation.

In truth, I know, there have always been those among us who have quickly lost their progressive spirit of invitation and sharing, and turned to supporting exclusionary policies and protecting what is now theirs. Fortunately, the welcoming sentiments of the grateful and hopeful majority have always defended and advanced the foundations of our identity and our strength. Until now.

Something has changed--dramatically, frighteningly--in recent years. I recognize in our approach to illegal immigration and our Southwestern borders the same thoughtless, blunt-force approach and answers that led us into the Iraq War and our arrogant, self-defeating approach to diplomacy with friend and foe alike. Again we are giving up the high ground of principle, of well-informed, thoughtful answers that serve both the American community and the world community.

But I do recognize the need to police and protect our borders, particularly this long open border with Mexico. I do recognize the problems with illegal immigration along that long border, and the need to address them. And as this Time article chronicles, parts of the fence, properly placed and manned, can be reasonably effective. I just wish this fence was not the answer. I don't like what it stands for. And I am not alone. In fact, as reported in an Economist article, many Americans along the border, especially the Texas border, question whether it isn't all just an over-reaction. Certainly, high-tech surveillance could replace a lot of that fence, and produce a less denying, more welcoming image of the new America.

Regardless, I agree that to some extent, portions of the fence may be part of the answer, but not the most important part. The real answer requires reformation of our immigration policies and procedures, and better information available about the opportunities that await aspiring immigrants.

We know that most immigrants come to the US for work and the opportunity for a better life. And of the 12 million-plus illegal aliens now in the U.S., the vast majority are gainfully employed. We know, as we are again witnessing, that when the economy is weaker, and jobs and opportunity do not welcome them, illegal immigrants often return home. These simple facts tell us an enormous amount about the need for changes in policy and procedures:

• Our current immigration policy does not adequately consider the growing demands of American employers for increases in the workforce, increases that only immigrants seeking work can fill. Among those groups most strongly supporting the need for immigrant workers--whether legal or not--are American employers. And since many who come through Mexico illegally come only for work, not citizenship, a substantial guest worker program would seem to serve the interests of all.

• A credible, on-going process of polling potential employers and estimating potential employment of immigrants should be a basic element that informs our immigration policy and the setting of quotas.

• That same information should be provided through clearinghouses and public media to Mexico and all countries of potential immigrants. For surely far fewer of these desperate souls will take the substantial risks of illegal entry during those times when it is clear that jobs and opportunity do not await them. And when jobs are again on the ascendency, a process of legal immigration that accommodates many more potential workers might be considerably more attractive than illegal alternatives.

• A good and fair policy would extend the increased opportunity across an appropriate range and number of countries, including Mexico.

• Lastly, for those among the 12 million illegal aliens who seek legal status, there must be an attractive and workable process of amnesty and legalized entry. Let's be realistic. Our employers need most of those workers, and there is no effective and financially feasible way to deport them all. They have just been a convenient political issue for populist demagoguery. Of course, they would have to make the appropriate commitments to bring themselves reasonably into conformance with fair, achievable expectations for legal immigrants: whatever is practicable, whatever is right.

But there are many clever people whose responsibility it is to be better acquainted with the details of all this than I. Surely they can fashion still better answers than these. But who will act on them? Where are our statesmen-leaders? As all this resolves itself, or not, I leave you with some thoughts expressed in my essay on illegal immigration, "Strangers, Different Folks" in my Cassandra's Tears series:

What we shouldn't do, what we can't do, is be moved by the disingenuous voices with narrow cultural or ideological axes to grind, or the opportunistic demagogues with political ambitions. Look past these angry, misleading people with their own selfish, xenophobic and exclusionary goals. Think past their rhetoric that is intended to stir, inflame and divide people. Be the great people of promise, opportunity and community that we have the potential to be and often have been. ...Only if the pose we strike is as welcoming as it is practical and realistic can we minimize the problems that inevitably arise.

Our heart for people and community, like my faith, calls us to reach out to the strangers, the different folk, to invite them and welcome them in. But there will be complications. There will be issues of our national need or ability to assimilate, practical limits on how many we can welcome and the conditions of the invitation. Nevertheless, we must hold tight to that impulse, that leading, toward an open mind and welcoming spirit.

Darfur & Beyond: Africa, Tribalism, Genocide

The Darfur region keeps changing, with rebel groups and the government interests of Chad and Sudan now represented there or working through there. It's changing, but not for the better. It is now a crossroads and staging area for those insurgent and government interests, but it is the refugees who continue to suffer and die there. And yet, the Darfur region, Sudan and Chad are merely part of the larger, continuing history of African conflict and genocide.

Yes, the refugee camps and refugees are still there, to be sure; and squalor, hunger and death are still the realities of life for them. "Beyond Darfur," a recent article in Foreign Affairs, sets the table for its thesis by first describing the horrors we've heard of so often and understand too well: the atrocities, the genocide carried out in western Sudan's Darfur region by the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias. This "ethnic cleansing" of marginalized African peoples by the controlling Arab Sudanese peaked in 2003-04 and has claimed at least 250,000 lives and driven over 2 million more to the refugee camps where the poor conditions continue to claim lives. And while the disagreements and skirmishing goes on, the article warns of new dangers:

But while this crisis simmers, the larger problem of Sudan's survival as a state is becoming increasingly urgent. Trends more ominous than even the carnage in Darfur could bring the country far more bloodshed soon. Long-standing tensions between the Arabs, who populate the Nile River valley and have held power for a century, and marginalized groups on the country's periphery are mutating into a national crisis once again.

The 1980s saw millions of Christian and animist Africans killed in the south of Sudan as the Arab Sudanese National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum subdued the south's non-Arab Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). With the mediation of other countries, a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was finally reached in 2005. But renewed conflict and disagreement between the SPLM and the NCP over agreed oil revenue sharing and steps toward political autonomy threaten the fragile 2005 agreement. There have been skirmishes and the amassing of armies at the makeshift borders. And while mediators are again desperately at work, peace and hope stand on poor footing, indeed.

Meanwhile, Chad threatens Sudan from the west. An Economist article chronicles an audacious, if foolhardy, attempt by a rag-tag group of rebels located in the Darfur region to attack Khartoum. And, amazingly, they were almost successful. A convoy of trucks and munitions and a few thousand rebels somehow managed to traverse much of Sudan undetected, or at least unopposed. But as they approached Khartoum they were engaged by the NCP and turned back, having absorbed considerable losses. But they were encouraged by their near success and, unbowed, vowed to attack again and succeed. But the real story, the unsurprising story for those closer to the realities of the region, was that those rebels were backed and supported by Chad, which has its own contentious history and ambitions with regard to Sudan.

And these disagreements and skirmishes between Khartoum's Arab NCP and southern Sudan's SPLM, on the one hand, and among the NCP, Darfur rebel groups, and Chad, on the other, continue unabated, notwithstanding existing agreements and ongoing third-party mediation. Sudan does indeed appear on the brink of disaster.

But if only that were the extent of the dark, dispiriting warring and genocidal campaigns on the Dark Continent. The Economist's most recent sections on the Middle East and Africa have been dominated by articles detailing or updating the warring or violence in other African countries--which often, directly or indirectly, appear to involve disputes or historical animosities between various African tribes. My post of 4.11.08, "I and My Brother Against My Cousin," addressed the role of tribalism in the Middle East and the evolution of terrorism, but doubtless finds general application to Africa's warring and genocidal history as well.

Robert Mugabe's violent and destructive rule of Zimbabwe continues the oppression and killing of his opposition, while ignoring the economic damage he has wrought upon the country and its people. The only opposition presidential candidate brave enough to oppose him was soon run to ground and Mugabe, brazenly, ran an election in which he was the only candidate left standing. And then after declaring an overwhelming victory based on what he said was the democratic expression of the will of his people, it was reported by TV news outlets that he hurried to a conference of African leaders, exultant in his self-congratulatory statements and supremely arrogant in his bearing. And for those few among his fellow African leaders who would criticize him or call for him to step down, he challenged in response that only those among them with "clean hands" had any right to question his standing or his methods. Voices muted, the African Union conference moved on. And there are indeed practical limits to what the U.N. or the rest of the world can or will do.

The Congo, another site of long-term violence and genocide, was reported to have improving conditions, but not good [although by fall, new fighting had broken out between government forces and rebels backed by Rwanda--and attrocities were increasingly being reported]. Although now past, Kenya's most recent violence assures it's place among Africa's dangerous places. South African xenophobia has turned to violence against refugees from the Congo, Zimbabwe and other nearby countries where oppression and murder are still a way of life. Apparently, there are few places to find safe haven or to hide. And then, can we possibly forget Rwanda's years-long genocidal conflict, and Uganda, too? Just to name a few.

Yes, perspective is called for. Africa is not the only place where the shadowed face of genocidal agents and their killing fields are found. Many other genocidal perpetrators and occasions of genocide take their place, however perversely, alongside the history of the progress of mankind, as if to remind us of what we are always capable of becoming. Just a few such examples of the last century would include the Russian pogroms, the Holocaust perpetuated by the Nazis against the Jews, Gypsies and others, the Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. And those are just a few of the more notorious and publicized.

There are many, many more to be found around the globe and across time. They usually emerge, run their horrific course--often for years--then are resolved in some incomplete fashion, but offering at least a measure of stability. But in Africa, it seems to be part the continental identity. There always appears to be one occasion or another of warring, genocidal aggression between African tribes or countries playing itself out. And most often there are multiple violent situations unfolding concurrently.

It's always sad, dispiriting, and unclear to consider how the world's citizens can proceed wisely in serving best the interests of all involved, or potentially involved. So troubling to me has been this continuing recurrence of man's ultimate inhumanity to man that a couple years ago--after a presentation I made to my Council on World Affairs study group on the subject--I spent some time writing about it. In my resulting essay on genocide, "Never Again" in the Cassandra's Tears series, I observe that:

I had remained naively confident that the world had meant it when it collectively said, 'Never again'...

But I have learned. And in my more despondent moments, a cynical, resentful view emerges. All the impotent declarations appear more a dark charade of teasing, empty promises and false hopes played out against a cruel and denying reality. They are empty because no assurances are possible; they are false because all reasonable hope has been rendered futile by national and geopolitical realities. And the cruel, denying reality is perpetuated by the exploitative, populist demagoguery of those ultimately bent on the dominating regional power that enables 'ethnic cleansing': hatefully rationalized, unrepentant, ethnic or sectarian mass murder.

But with considerable resignation, I also had to acknowledge the implications of that reality:

But please, excuse this rant, the flailing outrage of my savaged naivety, the resentment of my flagging hope. Most of the time, my view is more balanced, tempered by the realities and responsibilities of nations in world-wide society, and informed by the more difficult lessons of my faith. I have learned that controlling or stopping the principals and agents of genocide is most often a frustratingly, dishearteningly complex matter...

...frequent have been the unsatisfying cases where the complexities, barriers to success, and the likely cost in lives lost by intervening forces, dictated reasonable caution, going slowly. In those cases, intervention was most often pursued through diplomacy, humanitarian aid, and the use of political or economic sanctions or incentives. Unsatisfying responses, yes, and often of limited effect. And the necessary analyses are unavoidably cold, clinical critiques of trade-offs, costs and benefits, of national self interest...but the practical questions must still be asked, the wiser voices heeded, however unsatisfying the answers. Doesn't it all make you sick with grief?

Two Faces of Patriotism: McCain & Obama

The 7.07.08 edition of Time Magazine has devoted a whole section to the subject of "The Real Meaning of Patriotism," including short statements by McCain and Obama. A short introductory article, "The New Patriotism," reminds us that Americans honor their country and express their patriotism in dramatically different ways--and those differences make us stronger as a nation. But the article also reminds us that,

Patriotism has always been the most abstract of American virtues--which may be why we fight so ferociously over the symbols that help us define it. Too often those symbols--flags, anthems, slogans--which are meant to unite us, end up dividing us.

The main article, "The State of Patriotism," explores the two dominant faces of American patriotism, and proposes there might be a more respectful, more balanced and constructive third approach. Today's two faces of patriotism, they note, reflect directly the conservative and liberal traditions in America. The conservative view has always stressed identity with and reverence for the past--they are conservative, after all. They see the best of what has been, and the sacrifices and achievements resulting. The liberal view has always stressed the issues of the present and possibilities for the future. They see the things that need to change and be done better; they seek a better vision for the future--they are progressive, after all.

Both are important to who we've been, who we are, and who we will be. Both represent deeply held, very patriotic views and concerns that reflect pride and identity in our country. A better, more constructive third way would be to honor both. For, in whatever way and on whichever side of the conservative/liberal divide our own patriotism is most often expressed, we must understand and acknowledge that only the combination of both these expressions of patriotism fully honors and pays due attention to our country's history of sacrifice and achievement, and its commitment to advancement, reform and a greater future.

***The Patriotism section is capped off by short, readable personal essays on patriotism by John McCain, "A Cause Greater Than Self," and by Barack Obama, "A Faith in Simple Dreams."

Freelance Political Hit Men

A good article in today's New York Times is both revealing and confirming of the role of freelance political hit men in the internet presidential campaign wars. It reveals examples of who some of these people are and how they operate. In my 6.21.08 post regarding Obama's anti-rumor plan, I talked about his new website for responding to and debunking fabrications and distortions about him placed on the internet. I noted that,

The sources are most often anonymous political operatives--the dark forces operatives, I call them--who work out of the dark, unaccountable corners of the internet. It is not always clear to what extent they are formally commissioned by candidates or campaigns, or to what extent it is the work of freelancing political
zealots.

Well, with the work of journalists like Jim Rutenberg at the NYT, and Obama's internet warriors and others like them, we are learning a lot more about these shady, unprincipled political players and the damage they do all candidates, including yours.

So, before we are tempted to be cheerleaders for our favorite over-the-top attack on our least favorite candidate, we need to recognize that these people are really just internet terrorists. Their purpose is the frustration of the effective functioning of the democratic process itself.

By fabricating lies and distortions that appeal to people's prejudices or naivete, they take the focus off the policy issues and make the contest one of ad hominem personal attacks--i.e. who can do the most damage to the candidates' personal reputation and public perception. And when the substantive issues are addressed, the attacks continue with more lies or misleading simplifications that impede the voters ability to accurately compare the candidates and make informed voting decisions. These dark forces operatives are people with real issues; they are not your friends, regardless of your political persuasion-- unless political anarchy is your idea of a democratic process.

Whoever your preferred candidate may be, whatever your political affiliation, your candidate's public credibility and respect are best served by reporting and passing on information that stays reasonably close to the facts and fair representations. We all recognize the hit man's simple, sound-bite format, the unqualified quote and/or picture out of context. Don't read them and don't pass them on. That's what the delete key is for. Consult reputable, public, full-disclosure sources--and also consult multiple sources sympathetic to each of the candidates. Be well informed. All candidates and voters--and our democracy--will in that way be better served.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25433456/

Army History Study: No Post-Invasion Plan for Iraq

The title says it all. And it's not as though most of this hasn't already been revealed by one source after another. But according to a New York Times article, reported on msnbc.com, a new army history of the Iraq War confirms that the Bush administration and the army had no real plans for next steps after Baghdad was initially taken--and had failed to seriously address the question. And General Tommy Franks is faulted for a lack of consultative planning and uninformed short-term thinking in the haphazard decisions that were made. Read and weep--again.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25433504/

Evangelical Reform, At Last

May 7, 2008; Washington, D.C.

AN EVANGELICAL MANIFESTO:

A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment

Perhaps there is still hope, but I am not that optimistic. I had just about given the Evangelical Christian identity up for an irreparably co-opted and corrupted lost cause. In fact, I had ceased some years ago to openly identify with what has become a pejorative qualifying adjective, preferring to be known simply as a Christian or follower after Jesus, a seeker after God. And then I read on my pastor's blog about a new Evangelical declaration by some of the most respected Evangelical writers and thought leaders. Better late than never, I suppose, for this is a wonderful and welcome declaration of evangelical Christian identity--or Christian identity, period, I'd say.

It proclaims and embraces the historical "evangelical" identity based on the Jesus of the Gospels: His identity, teaching and example revealed there. And it decries those self-anointed and unrepresentative public voices and their contentious conduct and divisive public politics, which too often have muted the teaching and obviated the example of Jesus--and alienated far too many non-Christians that God would have us better relate to and serve. The statement is also clear in asserting that the evangelical Christian is not antagonistic to the work and findings of science, but embraces all knowledge that better informs us of the world God is continually creating, and of His people who are in it. But it says much more that is important, so much more that all Christians would or should embrace joyfully, gratefully, and with relief.

Self-identified Evangelicals are such a fragmented, disorderly, infiltrated and co-opted lot. The truth is they represent a considerable range of Christian theological, cultural, and political views. And there is no functioning Evangelical Christian hierarchy, no overseeing or governing organization that passes on the soundness of theology or the appropriateness of public conduct based on the identity and teaching of Jesus. Whoever claims the identity gets to share it with all others who do, regardless of what they really believe, what their priorities are, or how they conduct themselves in the public arena.

Some denominations call themselves Evangelicals, some arms or factions of other denominations do, too, and so do some individual churches, both denominational and nondenominational. There are also many individuals who consider themselves Evangelicals within denominations or churches that decidedly do not. But given the identity portrayed by those most visible and vocal spokespersons for Evangelical Christianity--and the public perception most often created--it's a wonder that very many Christian people would still want to claim the identity at all.

As the signatories of the "manifesto" suggest, those self-proclaimed spokespersons have created a clearly distorted perception of the evangelical identity. That perception now held by a great many in the general public--non-Christians and many Christians, too--is that Evangelicals are legalistic, judgmental, witless Fundamentalists and, more often, political operatives and culture warriors who claim Christianity as cover for their political agendas. They have indeed expropriated the good name and hijacked the identity of evangelical Christians, providing that cover and legitimacy for their real agendas--but they have corrupted that good name in the process, as it has now become most associated with them.

Although it was announced in Washington DC, and carried by some outlets, on the whole there has been spare and muted coverage of this pronouncement. And so far, I have heard of little from the Evangelical or broader Christian world in support of it. This kind of clarification statement for the Christian world and the public at large is decades overdue. And unfortunately, its support and authority appear to stand only on the signatures of a handful of honorable and responsible Christian reformers. It requires broad support by Evangelicals and their churches. Their voices must be heard and their signatures must testify to their support. This will be a difficult job and an improbable result in the fragmented world of evangelical Christians.

And therefore, I fear that the public perception and definition of Evangelicals cannot be changed. Allow me to share these two points of pragmatic realism:

(1) Words and language take on the meaning that people say they do, simply by the prevalence of their everyday usage. That's how the best dictionaries are compiled, and where they find their direction. The word "Fundamentalism" did not always mean to Christians and the public at large what it means today. In its origins and early usage it was much like the earlier use of Evangelicalism, at least so far as its adherents aspired to live in faithful adherence to the fundamental truth of the Scriptures. But it has long had an unfortunate, unchanging meaning and irredeemable identity to the world at large. And my sense is that the word Evangelical has already been relegated to the same place in the perceptions of the general public and most other Christians. In each case, it is the portrayed public identity and conduct of the adherents' most vocal spokespersons--their de facto leaders--that defined their identity for the public at large.

(2) Another noteworthy point: without a credible and broadly supported authoritative body to publicize, clarify, and defend this statement's view of the evangelical identity, it remains just one view among others. The prevailing public view will therefore remain intact and the further public failure of the Evangelical identity becomes inevitable. But because Evangelicals are such a varied, fragmented, and disorganized group, the probability of finding this broad agreement and support is unlikely. And those who agree and support it will be a smaller group who will eventually have to qualify their identifying name and distinguish their evangelical identity in Christ.

But isn't it clear that no matter what other name might ever be chosen, if the behavior of Christians and their perception by the world brings discredit upon them, theirs too will become an unwelcome and shunned identity. And then a faithful remnant will have to re-establish that identity again. That's a significant, predictable strand that runs through the history of protestant and reformed Christian churches: renewing, falling short, disagreeing, dividing or re-identifying, reforming, and renewing again. But thank God that there is the freedom to reform and refocus ourselves on Jesus, to "Keep the Main Thing the main thing," as my pastor so often says.

My pragmatism and human disappointments aside, Christians are called always to be God's people of Hope, to continually seek and live in Christ and God's Love, and to be His forgiving resurrection people. Evangelical pastors and church leaders need to take ownership of this fledgling movement and its statement of authentic evangelical Christian identity--or, Christian identity, period, I'd say--and publicly approve it, publish it, preach it, teach it, defend it and--most importantly--live it!

http://anevangelicalmanifesto.com/index.php

Conway Morris: Evolutionary "Convergences"--with a Purpose?

"An immensely stimulating book. It draws you in with bold hypotheses and original perspectives. I was inspired to take a fresh look at my work and see if could apply some of the ideas in my lab."
--Ard Louis, Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, UK

Simon Conway Morris has delivered the next installment of his and others' work and thinking on the subject of evolutionary convergences. It is titled, The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal? This volume is a compendium of articles addressing the question of whether the phenomenon of convergence of form and function plays a more universal and central role in the evolution of life forms on Earth--and whether evolutionary "direction" or "purpose," by some definition, can be inferred from it.

Authors representing interests as varied as micro-biology and botany to human evolution and metaphysics offer a range of views on these basic questions and whether there results a "deeper structure," even lawfulness, in the world of biology. These propositions were more comprehensively presented and defended by Conway Morris in his 2003 book, audaciously titled, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe.

Dr. Conway Morris is Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, UK. His pioneering work on the Cambrian fauna and "explosion" (of life and species, that is) based on the Burgess Shale fossils was the subject of his 1998 book, The Crucible of Creation. It earned him world-wide professional recognition and respect. He is a member of the Royal Society and has been the recipient of many professional awards and medals. (And I look forward to his next book, Darwin's Compass.)

But his work on evolutionary convergences has been more controversial, running against the established orthodoxy of evolutionary science's mainstream--from the random-process proponents such as the late Stephen Jay Gould (Wonderful Life and The Structure of Evolutionary Theory), to the anti-theists led by Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene; The Blind Watchmaker; and The God Delusion) and Daniel Dennett (Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell). While most all evolutionary scientists recognize the operation of evolutionary convergences to some extent, relatively few as yet appear willing to entertain the notion that it is as central and directing of evolutionary processes as Conway Morris proposes.

By "convergences" is meant the tendency of evolving forms to find the same or very similar evolutionary solutions or advancements regardless of when or on what branch of the evolutionary tree the life form evolves. Overworked examples would include camera eyes and various types of limbs for mobility and manipulation, among many others. Convergences are, for the most part, a function of the constraints and contingencies of Earth's environment and the creative aspects of the genetic transmission process. And Conway Morris, a versatile, multi-disciplinary scientist, explores in Life's Solution the role of genetics, but also just how limiting the universe and the Earth are: the limited types of elements in the universe, the probable limitation of life to carbon-based forms, the narrow tolerances for supporting life on Earth or anywhere else in the universe, and the many evolving, shaping determinants of survival and function. Most controversial, perhaps, is his proposition that sentience and cognition are also convergent solutions, and that something like intelligent humans would evolve regardless of how many times you rerun the evolutionary process of life.

Some of the skepticism or resistance is likely just the normal and reasonable process of the scientific ship turning slowly, the need for more evidence and more time for greater numbers of respected voices to recognize the merit of such a significant change in evolutionary thinking. Of course, some of those voices also have vested professional interests in research and publications based on the current orthodoxy. But others, primarily the anti-theists, are fearful that any move toward the notion of "direction" or "purpose" greases a slippery slope into broader acceptance of theistic evolution, a new refuge for the "intelligent design" proponents, and into the embrace of the great unwashed throngs of religious folks. And to make Conway Morris' task more sensitive, he is a confessing Christian and member of the Anglican church.

Regardless, the skeptics and anti-theists will still take a measure of comfort in the fact that however provocative this research and thinking, however appealing its more deterministic mechanisms to people of faith, it still takes us no closer to proving or disproving the existence of God. Yet, it nonetheless reflects more how we faithful might envision how a creative Author Spirit or God might order, direct, and carry out His purposes for creation. I conclude on this point as I did in my essay, What God?:

“And so I am left with my epiphanies, still asking, what could be more miraculous and awe-inspiring, more beautiful, more humbling, than the complexities and unfathomable realities of evolutionary mechanisms and the progress of life? How else than through these evolving biochemical, genetic, social and psychological processes might all of creation have moved continually upward toward sentience and cognition, curiosity and questioning, the pursuit of truth and identity? For what other purpose might we be brought face to face with the history of the development of creation, and those transcendent apprehensions that lead us, than to seek the sensed Author and understandings of why we are now here?"