The Evolution of God? Inferences, Abstractions, Higher Purpose ?

[From the Washington Post, a review (8.02.09):]

Thank God for agnostics. Over the past decade, our public conversation about religion has all too often degenerated into a food fight between the religious right and the secular left. Now comes journalist Robert Wright with a gentler approach: a materialist account of religion that manages (sort of) to make room for God (of a sort).

"The Evolution of God" is a big book that addresses a simple question: Is religion poison? ...The assumption underlying many answers to these questions -- an assumption shared by fundamentalists and "new atheists" alike -- is that religions are what their founders and scriptures say they are, rather than what contemporary practitioners make them out to be.

Wright rejects this assumption.... Scriptures are malleable. Founders are betrayed. At least for historians, there is little provocation here. The provocation comes when Wright claims that religious history seems to be going somewhere, as if guided by an invisible hand. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all appear to have a "moral direction," and that direction is toward the good....

The key argument is that, ever since hunters and gatherers have been hunting and gathering, the invisible hand guiding human history has been working (largely through advances in technology and communication) to create non-zero-sum situations that force historical actors, often against their own inclinations, into ever-widening circles of moral concern. Jews, Christians and Muslims are led (gradually and in fits and starts) toward moral universalism not because religions are inherently good but because believers are inherently flexible -- flexible enough to see when they and their enemies are in the same boat.

All this happens, it should be emphasized, on entirely naturalistic grounds. Wright, a self-described "materialist," believes that history is driven not by fiat from on high but by natural selection via "facts on the ground." In his account, Judaism gives rise to Christianity and Islam without even a whiff of the supernatural....

Yet all Wright's talk of "business models" and "algorithms" and "positive network externalities" somehow opens up the conversation about God rather than closing it down. In this oddly old-fashioned book, which recalls Hegel more than anyone else, Wright speaks repeatedly of "design" and "goals" and "purposes" in human history.

In the end, Wright allows himself to wonder whether the evolution of "God," the concept, might provide evidence for the existence of God, the reality. "If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer," he writes, "then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe -- conceivably -- the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity."

--"Preaching the Gospel of Maybe," a review by Stephen Prothero of The Evolution of God by Robert Wright, The Washington Post (8.02.09). Stephen Prothero is a religious studies professor at Boston University and the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn't.

This is a good and interesting review of a more interesting book. What I find most notable about it is that Wright embraces a deterministic observation--an inference, really--more openly expressed these days by voices in evolutionary science and observers of humanity and history. That inference is that there appears a "direction" to the evolution of mankind, his experience in community and with religion, perhaps even a "higher purpose."

Wright posits that the evolution of religions has recurrently set the occasion for extending the “moral imagination”—shared moral empathy, even identity—among ever-expanding groups of people from different religious traditions. Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, he explains how this has been happening over the millennia as the growth and advancement of peoples in the world pushes them closer into expanding definitions of community and the need for mutually-beneficial cooperation, what he calls “non-zero-sumness.” And yes, Mr. Wright opens the door for consideration of “direction” and “higher purpose” in it all, which for him are “moral truth” and the “source of the moral order.” But if some people of faith feel implicitly invited, even compelled, to extend his inferences further, Mr. Wright, by reasoned conviction, stops short of the scientifically unprovable: Deity.

Many of Abrahamic religious identities will surely object to some of Wright's observations about the history and evolution of their Scriptures and narratives, their faith practices and community, and faith itself--the "evolution of God." Many will dismiss the book as unimportant--perhaps even insulting--to people of faith, because its thesis is such a modest concession in the direction of a deterministic quality to the world, and leaves them well short of the sought after validation of deistic faith--and their particular version of it. Its intellectual inferences and speculations clearly fail to embrace an omniscient, omnipotent, ubiquitous and intervening personal God--whether imagined as anthropomorphic (which is hard to reconcile with ubiquitous), a spirit being of some type, or something different or more abstract. Interestingly, Wright nevertheless provides an Afterword in which he speculates on what God is. (The Gospel of John's more abstract characterizations as Spirit, Logos, Love, Truth and Light resonate most with me.) And, of course, on the other end of the continuum, many atheists and anti-theists will also reject Wrights inferences outright, fearful that they go too far and imply too much.

But the closer a person of faith and prayer is necessarily drawn to spiritual or Deistic abstractions, the closer Robert Wright's more abstract reflections and possibilities approach an affirming determinism not at all antagonistic to the intuition and experience of faith, Abrahamic or others. Wright clearly suggests that, among various abstractions of "higher purpose", his "the source of the moral order" is not so distant from Christian theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich's "the ground of being," or, for that matter, the estimable psychologist-philosopher William James' "belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting to it." Of course, many conservative and fundamentalist believers would sniff dismissively at the reflections of Tillich and James, too. But my point is simply that they nevertheless find a legitimate, meaningful place on the field of religious or spiritual discourse.

I would also suggest that, among the various organized religions, conceptual abstractions of "higher purpose" would likely first find resonance with notions of spiritual truth, divinity, or Deity among the most prayerfully devout, the more contemplative groups or adherents of those faiths. For, with regard to their spiritual apprehensions, epiphanies, and understandings that most defy description or explanation, conceptual abstractions alone are useful in expressing them and relating to them.

But no, to the conservative and fundamentalist, Wright's inferences will most often be viewed as misguided speculations and meaningless abstractions--an intellectual construction of an ambiguous, godless determinism irreconcilable with the Scriptures, constraints and requirements of their Abrahamic religions.

Evolutionary Convergences: Direction? Purpose?

As insightful and interesting as this book by Wright is, it is not the most important to infer an inherent or overarching "direction" or "purpose" from empirical observations of the evolutionary progress of life, mankind, and human community. His earlier, highly-acclaimed book, Nonzero, sets the foundation for Evolution of God. But for me, the more important work belongs to Simon Conway Morris (as shared in my essay/post, Conway Morris: Evolutionary "Convergences"--with a Purpose? (Hyde Park's Corner 6.24.08)).

Dr. Conway Morris is chaired 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.

But for our purposes, his more interesting and provocative work advanced the proposition that evolutionary "convergences" of form and function play a more central, universal role in the evolution of life forms on Earth--and that evolutionary "direction" or "purpose" might be inferred from it. And, yes, Conway Morris offers his conclusion on that "direction" and "purpose": the evolution of sentient, reasoning beings--and all the additional metaphysical questions of "why?" and "what purpose?" that follow from it.

By evolutionary "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. But, most intriguing is his proposition that sentience and cognition are also convergent evolutionary solutions, and that something like intelligent humans would evolve regardless of how many times you rerun the evolutionary process of life.

Professor Conway Morris's case is most comprehensively presented and defended in his 2003 book, confidently titled, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. That was followed in 2008 by his edited work, The Deep Structure of Biology: Is Convergence Sufficiently Ubiquitous to Give a Directional Signal? This volume is a compendium of articles by authors representing interests as varied as micro-biology, botany, human evolution, metaphysics and faith. They offer a range of views on these questions of "direction" and "purpose," and whether there results a "deeper structure," a purposeful lawfulness in the evolutionary mechanisms and constraints in the world of biology.

Of course, Conway Morris's work and conclusions have their detractors, most prominent among them being committed anti-theists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. For they see the implications supporting serious consideration of questions of Higher Purpose, spiritual Truth, even Deity, where my brethren in faith most often do not, or are indifferent to it. The anti-theists are concerned about a slippery slope. The fact that Conway Morris is a Roman Catholic Christian likely makes them all the more uncomfortable.

Regardless, skeptics, atheists, and anti-theists will still take a measure of comfort in the fact that however provocative this research and reasoning, however appealing its more deterministic mechanisms to some people of faith, it still takes us no closer to proving or disproving the existence of God, however defined. Yet, it nonetheless reflects more how some of we faithful might envision how a creative Author Spirit or God might order and direct the purposes for creation. I conclude on this point as I did in my 2005 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?

Prayer & Spiritual Experience of God: Inferences, Abstractions

Whether confronted with the science and evolutionary interpretations of Simon Conway Morris, or the insights of Robert Wright, many are nevertheless so committed to their identities and understandings that they will not or cannot be moved from them. Some cannot get past the rigidities of their faith or anti-theism, others their indifferent complacency. But there are many others who will listen and consider the importance of new research findings and inferences, new understandings and insights.

Among them are those who open-mindedly seek an informed, functioning balance of existential and spiritual identity. Some don't even mind being a "fool for Christ," as the Apostle Paul used that phrase, but will not be a simple fool--the kind of fool who is closed-mindedly blinkered to information and ideas that may conflict with or challenge their beliefs and identity, particularly their religious or ideological identity. For if it is the truth they seek, they must be open to what the truth might be.

These are often people of deistic faith and prayerful dispositions, sometimes contemplative dispositions. Perhaps they are genetically predisposed (as research evidence suggests some may be). And perhaps their temperament (which is also likely genetically influenced) renders them more open to following a spiritual intuition or inclination. Of course, some may be more influenced by family and religious acculturation. Regardless, many people appear to have a constructive, emotional need for faith and prayer. They feel drawn, even called to it. Many of us relate to it in just that way, and it makes us more whole.

For some, that wholeness is advanced by transcendent, sometimes transforming spiritual experience, experience that often defies fair and useful description. Often attending it is a received sense of gratitude and peace. These are most often people whose spiritual journey has delivered them to a more devout, exploratory prayer life and experience of God, experiences not bound by the limitations of rigid fundamentalism, constrained scriptural understandings, or brittle theological barriers. And they share no space with religious legalism of any stripe or degree. But they can share a Spirit of love, forgiveness and compassion, an experience of "relationship"--and as often, a quiet, patient but engaged openness that offers more freedom and clarity of view, more insight and understanding. And it all can change you.

This more open, contemplative experience can allow us to see in the realities of the material world, and the evolution of humanity in community, the creation and work of God. Every new scientific revelation about it all, every new understanding informed by reason, can be openly considered, and allowed to find its place in the larger reality of a merging existential and spiritual life. You may also feel moved toward Wright's "non-zero-sumness," an expanding sense of commonality, even inclusiveness and community, toward all other people. For, whether you view all this as some variant of the theological, exegetical notion of "progressive revelation," or merely the evolution of our understandings of God, we by nature (or purpose) seek to reach higher, to understand more, to become more.

But on this spiritual walk to higher ground, a growing sense of humility appears essential. The more humility we can bring to this process, the more open and contemplative our prayerful time can become, it seems, and the more clear and unburdened, even transcendent, our understanding of the world and our sense of identity. And the more open we are to expanding our experience of what some people of faith call the Spirit of God.

Some of us embrace a Christianity of that type: an open-minded pilgrimage with Christ and the Spirit of God, with Mystery. But we must be intellectually and spiritually honest. For the more one enters into that type of faith and prayer life, the more personal the experience and relationship becomes. And the more important it becomes to recognize how powerfully the language and traditions of faith culture and society shape how we understand those experiences. That is, they inform the inferences and abstractions we become reliant on to find meaning, direction and purpose in those experiences. If we are to be intellectually and spiritually accountable, then, we must also look beyond our personal inferences and abstractions, and those shared or recorded by others of our faith tradition. We must explore those of other faith, contemplative, and philosophical traditions--and the work of research science, too--that also inform our experience, that affirm, augment, or advance our understandings.

So thank you, Robert Wright; I think you're onto something--and to Simon Conway Morris, too. But more, I'm grateful for the insights of the Psalms, Sufi and Chan/Zen poetry, and the understandings given up by my faith Scriptures and reverenced texts across faith traditions. For if we would seek some semblance of physical, emotional and spiritual balance, we must pursue well informed personal understandings of the existential and spiritual directions implied by life and humanity in community—and yes, of Higher Purpose, too. And in that process, we must also honor and wrestle respectfully with the complexities of identity, and pursue intelligently the possibility and purpose of doing something useful and honorable with it.

Yes, then, we should entertain that continuing invitation to be more adventurous in those inquiries and pursuits. And as essential and illuminating as research science is, we must also recognize that quite often only the process of reasoned inferences and conceptual abstractions will serve. I'm certainly grateful for how they invite me to think more broadly and comprehensively, more critically, more profoundly about my experiences and understandings of humanity, spirituality, God and faith.

[Posted also to What God?]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102033.html

Cheney Inadvertently Rehabiltates Bush (Sort Of)?

Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration

WASHINGTON - In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal pads, have opened a second front against Cheney's White House partner of eight years, George W. Bush.

Cheney's disappointment with the former president surfaced recently in one of the informal conversations he is holding to discuss the book with authors, diplomats, policy experts and past colleagues. By habit, he listens more than he talks, but Cheney broke form when asked about his regrets.

"In the second term, he felt Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that. The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice. He'd showed an independence that Cheney didn't see coming. It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times — never apologize, never explain — and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

... "When the president made decisions that I didn't agree with, I still supported him and didn't go out and undercut him," Cheney said, according to Stephen Hayes, his authorized biographer. "Now we're talking about after we've left office. I have strong feelings about what happened. . . . And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views."

---"Sources: Cheney uncloaks Bush frustration," by Barton Gellman, New York Times, as reported on msnbc.com (8.13.09)

So, Dick Cheney has decided it is time to speak out about President George W. Bush--and on the record. He is writing a book. What a surprise. And if we think about it, we should not be surprised that he feels it necessary to criticize and further undermine the president he served in order to defend and burnish his own legacy--at least among his oddly anachronistic following at the trailing edge of American society.

But something ironic may inadvertently result from Cheney's self-serving mission: he may make George W. Bush appear a better, stronger man than we gave him credit for. At least that's my surprised, personal response to it all. In his criticism of Bush for distancing himself from the VP and his influence during his second term, Cheney has managed to make Bush look wiser, more presidential, stronger, even more likable--certainly compared to the frightening persona of the Dark Lord. I found myself feeling sympathetic toward Bush for the first time in many years. A modicum of belated respect fought hard for recognition against the dark memories of the Bush presidency.

But don't get me wrong. It appears clear by now that a hapless and less-than-adequate George Bush was quite capable of authoring a lot of misdirected and ineffective government completely on his own. He didn't need Dick Cheney for that; Cheney just made it a lot worse. For, much more than most presidents, Bush clearly needed to be influenced and supported by smarter, wiser men and women. Just as clearly, he made some disastrous choices in that area. But now, somehow, I am a little surprised, even a little relieved and heartened, to find that by the beginning of his second term, he likely rued the day he had been so unwise as to bring such a willful, arrogant, ideological power monger as Dick Cheney to a place of such influence.

But was he as insecure a man and weak a president as portrayed? Well, most of us came eventually to recognize that he was a man short of the requisite intellectual qualities, a vision of government and statesmanship, a vision of the future and--importantly--strength of leadership and confidence. But it now appears that by the end of his first term, he had actually developed some sense of presidential identity and confidence apart from Dick Cheney. He had become more his own man and, perhaps, more a leader. Still, by personality and judgment he would nevertheless hard-headedly follow his decisions and policies through--probably for lack of any sense of what else he might do, and the absence of more temperate, centrist voices among his advisers to guide him. But if I could get past the way I viewed him and give him a more objective look, were there later signs of a better President G.W. Bush?

Yes, there were some welcome signs of change toward the end. He was at long last moving toward a process for extricating us from Iraq, even if the timing was purposefully fuzzy, as was the criteria and process for staged departure. However controversial, his financial team of Bernanke and Paulson, with the President's full and public support, took the right and necessary first steps to address the crisis in the financial markets and--of critical importance--moved quickly. And even if the process and prescriptions were not perfect (after all, there was little history and research to guide them), an economic disaster of 1930s dimensions was likely avoided as a result. To Cheney's dismay and disapproval, Bush rightly if belatedly fired Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, even though his own reputation and credibility were already significantly damaged by the time he did so. And then there was the President's unexpected, uplifting stand on the conviction of Scooter Libby. On principles of justice and fairness, there would be no pardon for Libby--no matter how vociferously, arrogantly and disrespectfully Dick Cheney argued for it, no matter how entitled Cheney felt.

I can't help but entertain the view that what changes did evolve and express themselves as better leadership were, in large part, a result of the President no longer indulging Dick Cheney. He apparently no longer had the same standing and access, the same credibility and influence. (And I didn't even know!) But too late--far too late in the hapless Bush presidency to make a difference on the issues and failures that will define his place in history. Yet, it may nevertheless prove modestly rehabilitating to Bush's image--at least in the last years. And, if these resentful, spiteful revelations by Dick Cheney reflect a little better on George W. Bush, that's all right with me.

Postscript: Toward the end of George Bush's presidency, it was reported that, cloaked in light humor, the President wryly offered this lesson from his experience: Don't allow the chairman of your vice president's search committee to recommend himself for the job. Live and learn? Yes, but at such a cost.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32398177/ns/politics-washington_post/

The Fellowship/The Family/The Christian Mafia

Doonesbury this past week cast some light on a troubling "Christian" organization operating out of Virginia and Washington, DC--an organization that quietly, even furtively, recruits the powerful in government and business, both in the US and around the world. They call themselves "The Fellowship," or more informally, "The Family," and their leader, a man named Doug Coe, has sometimes referred to them as the "Christian Mafia." And no, I'm not making this up. I am not kidding.

[To see last weeks Doonesbury strips, click here at The Daily Dose (Slate). Just scroll down to the strip and click on "previous" until you get back to last Monday's strip. And just under the strip, you can read a cute quote from Doug Coe.]

Over a period of decades The Fellowship have recruited and cultivated close relationships with many in government, primarily Republicans, including a considerable list of household names, including presidents--ostensibly to provide conservative Christian influence and mutual support in their leadership roles. However, what from one view could appear a good influence and helpful support organization, from another can more soberly be seen as a co-opting quasi-religious/political organization trafficking in power and influence. And the more you look into them, the more they appear to resemble the latter. And, in turn, the more you can be unnerved by the lack of transparency, understanding of roles and reciprocities, and accountability of the organization and, by extension, their government "friends."

Recently, there have been a spate of revelations about extra-marital relationships involving at least one senator, a congressmen and a governor. It turns out they all had or soon developed a close relationships with The Family. Quite a number of senators and congressmen have also resided or now reside at The Family's C Street meeting house in DC. And the list of unsavory, disreputable international rogue leaders in relationship with The Family and supported by them over the years is even more troubling. All somehow, inexplicably, part of Coe's approach to, and goal of, a "totalitarianism of God."

Before the Doonesbury strip last week, I knew very little about The Fellowship. I had read an unsettling article about them in Harper's some years ago, but figured it must be an exaggeration; I just forgot about it. It's author, Jeff Sharlet, is a young man who actually spent some time with a Fellowship-run residential youth group in Arlington, Virginia. And he now has a new book out titled, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. And David Kuo, former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy Director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, has also published a book about The Family titled, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. I have only read excerpts from and references to these two books, but reviews assure me they are fascinating if unnerving reading.

Scary stuff. And yes, there's more. I would suggest your next stop might be Wikipedia, which you can access directly by clicking here on The Family. Buckle up, pilgrim.

Was Sgt. Crowley Stereotyped, Profiled?

David Wright is a Black American, just like Henry Gates. And like Professor Gates, Dr. Wright is a scholar and author. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And in 1999, while a faculty fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard (directed by Professor Henry Gates), he had a real black profiling experience one evening walking with a friend.

As a black scholar similarly situated to Henry Gates, he has some unique insights on status, privilege and playing the race card. In his recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (7.30.09), "The Profiling of Sgt. Crowley," Wright's subheading asserts: "The reason for Gates's arrest? His own hubris." It is worth the read. Excerpts from that article:

...The officer who stopped us unlocks the cuffs. He explains that a house has been broken into in the adjoining neighborhood. "And you're stopping all black men on the street!?" Arnold or I or both of us said.

He doesn't reply. He doesn't apologize.

In that instance, and in others before and since, I used, or attempted to use, my class privilege to extricate myself from, or at least lessen the potential threat of, an encounter with the police. That night, Arnold and I had been joking and laughing (maybe even shucking and jiving) before being stopped. Yet though we'd done nothing wrong, I immediately switched to a mainstream style of speaking when addressing the officer, and called attention to my professional status. It was reflexive. I'd been in situations like that since I was a kid, and had responded at times in an accommodating manner; at others, belligerently, and had come to understand that the best way, however demeaning, is accommodation.

So when I read the details of the confrontation between Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James M. Crowley of the Cambridge police, I recognized the situation.

Gates acknowledges having brought up race. Gates, in an interview with his daughter for the online magazine The Root, recalled asking Crowley, "Is this how you treat a black man in America?" (The official police report says that Gates stated it as accusation, pugnaciously, repeatedly, and loudly.) The subtext of Gates's words, even calmly articulated, is clear. Gates was accusing Crowley of behaving in a racist manner; by extension, Gates was calling Crowley a racist, to his face, in front of other officers, at least one of whom is black.

Those are fighting words. And Gates knows it....

The brouhaha surrounding the July 16 arrest strikes me most for the reasonable voices that have lost all sense of reason in response. From President Obama to the countless others who have weighed in, all focus has been, in one way or another, on the victimization of Gates. Professor Gates has become a stand-in for the "average black man," subjected to humiliation and abuse at the hands of a racist police force. But Gates, while obviously black, is not a stand-in for the many African-Americans, men and women, who daily are victims of profiling and worse.

Was Gates profiled? Richard Thompson Ford makes a compelling argument on Slate that Gates was not. Sgt. Crowley was responding to a potential crime in progress; he was performing his duty, by all indications, in a professional manner.

The more interesting question, it seems to me, is, was Crowley himself profiled—as a racist police officer? The answer is, unequivocally, yes—not only by Gates but by the rest of us, in newspapers and magazines, online and on TV, even by the White House....

If you are interested in reading my earlier essay/post on this topic, you can find it by clicking here on the title "Henry Gates, Obama: Mistakes, Misjudgments."

http://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Profiling-of-Sgt-Crowley/47508/?utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Health Care "Debate": Distortions, Lies Abound

WASHINGTON - Confusing claims and outright distortions have animated the national debate over changes in the health care system. Opponents of proposals by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats falsely claim that government agents will force elderly people to discuss end-of-life wishes. Obama has played down the possibility that a health care overhaul would cause large numbers of people to change doctors and insurers.

To complicate matters, there is no clear-cut "Obama plan" or "Democratic plan." Obama has listed several goals, but he has drawn few lines in the sand.

The Senate is considering two bills that differ significantly. The House is waiting for yet another bill approved in committee.

--"Distortions rife in health care debate," Associated Press, reported on msnbc.com

I suppose we can't be surprised. I too have been getting e-mails misrepresenting provisions of one or another of the various health care proposals--which, by the way, are still very much works in process. Of course, a lot is at stake, and there are a lot of very interested parties. Users of health care, those 58 million in need of health care, and health care providers would seem to be voices of notable importance. But sadly, we don't hear as much from them, even though access, cost, financing and the context for medical services are very important to these groups.

No, the most active and misleading players are the health insurance companies and their quiet lobbyists, Republican leaders in Congress, other groups of the ideological Right, and--of course--populist conservative media operatives like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. These are most often people who have or can afford health insurance, but have no interest in contributing to financing health insurance for those who don't have it and cannot afford it. And ironically, neither do they appear to have serious interest in reforming the health care system to control and reduce cost. This is not our proudest political moment.

So we now have these folks desperately opposing needed health care reform--needed to both control and reduce health care costs, and to assure access for all. But they have moved past fair and open debate of the real possibilities and proposals, and on to distortions and lies demonizing the process and the possible results. This is not new, of course. This is too often the case when financial and minority political interests see no other way to protect their interests, even when it will be at the expense of the very people to whom they are misrepresenting things.

Lets look at some examples from the AP article:

A look at some claims being made about health care proposals:

CLAIM: The House bill "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said July 23.

Former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey said in a July 17 article: "One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years ... about alternatives for end-of-life care."

THE FACTS: The bill would require Medicare to pay for advance directive consultations with health care professionals. But it would not require anyone to use the benefit.

Advance directives lay out a patient's wishes for life-extending measures under various scenarios involving terminal illness, severe brain damage and situations. Patients and their families would consult with health professionals, not government agents, if they used the proposed benefit.

CLAIM: Health care revisions would lead to government-funded abortions.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says in a video, "Unless Congress states otherwise, under a government takeover of health care, taxpayers will be forced to fund abortions for the first time in over three decades."

THE FACTS: The proposed bills would not undo the Hyde Amendment, which bars paying for abortions through Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor. But a health care overhaul could create a government-run insurance program, or insurance "exchanges," that would not involve Medicaid and whose abortion guidelines are not yet clear.

Obama recently told CBS that the nation should continue a tradition of "not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee amended the House bill Thursday to state that health insurance plans have the option of covering abortion, but no public money can be used to fund abortions. The bill says health plans in a new purchasing exchange would not be required to cover abortion but that each region of the country should have at least one plan that does.

Congressional action this fall will determine whether such language is in the final bill.

CLAIM: Americans won't have to change doctors or insurance companies.

"If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing," Obama said on June 23. "You keep your plan; you keep your doctor."

THE FACTS: The proposed legislation would not require people to drop their doctor or insurer. But some tax provisions, depending on how they are written, might make it cheaper for some employers to pay a fee to end their health coverage. Their workers presumably would move to a public insurance plan that might not include their current doctors.

CLAIM: The Democrats' plans will lead to rationing, or the government determining which medical procedures a patient can have.

"Expanding government health programs will hasten the day that government rations medical care to seniors," conservative writer Michael Cannon said in the Washington Times.

THE FACTS: Millions of Americans already face rationing, as insurance companies rule on procedures they will cover.

Denying coverage for certain procedures might increase under proposals to have a government-appointed agency identify medicines and procedures best suited for various conditions.

Obama says the goal is to identify the most effective and efficient medical practices, and to steer patients and providers to them. He recently told a forum: "We don't want to ration by dictating to somebody, 'OK, you know what? We don't think that this senior should get a hip replacement.' What we do want to be able to do is to provide information to that senior and to her doctor about, you know, this is the thing that is going to be most helpful to you in dealing with your condition."

CLAIM: Overhauling health care will not expand the federal deficit over the long term.

Obama has pledged that "health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it."

THE FACTS: Obama's pledge does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase Medicare fees for doctors. The White House says the extra payment, designed to prevent a scheduled cut of about 21 percent in doctor fees, already was part of the administration's policy.

Beyond that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill lacks mechanisms to bring health care costs under control. In response, the White House and Democratic lawmakers are talking about creating a powerful new board to root out waste in government health programs. But it's unclear how that would work.

Budget experts also warn of accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says they include back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Please be wary of what you are hearing or reading from these desperate financial and political interests--those who have fashioned, supported, and greatly benefited from the most expensive (by far), unfair and dysfunctional health care system in the advanced, industrialized world. They are often unctuous, very self-serving purveyors of misinformation, and they have no interest in, or intention of, letting you form opinions about health care reform based on a fair and complete presentation of the facts, possibilities and proposals. Fear is too often their stock-in-trade; distortions and lies are too often their currency.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32258640/ns/politics-capitol_hill

Henry Gates, Obama: Mistakes, Misjudgments

President Obama has made a troubling mistake and misjudgment in his comments about the arrest of Professor Henry Gates by Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley. It was a personal and political mistake--a big one--because it was a factual error, an uninformed emotional response, and a serious political misjudgment. He has hurt himself with many supporters, even 'in-the-tank-for-Obama" supporters like me.

I am deeply disappointed with both Professor Gates' and the President's representation of what happened. Having read everything available, including the Cambridge Police Department incident report, having heard the personal accounts of both men involved and the findings of relevant police organizations, I am persuaded that Professor Gates has misrepresented what occurred, and recast a simple case of an officer trying to protect Gates' private property as a racial incident. In light of the facts, it appears evident that Professor Gates overreacted, straining the events and facts to create one.

I've long been a fan of Professor Gates. Among my graduate degrees is a later-in-life masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Professor Gates is a revered figure on the Harvard campus, and rightly so. And I was among those who lionized him. But what I saw in the picture painted by the various reports of this unfortunate situation was not the response of a black man or white man, but the response of an arrogant, privileged man who felt he was above being accountable, respectful, and cooperative with a police sergeant who was trying to do his job. In that spirit, Gates was apparently verbally abusive and willing to dramatically play the race card as well. It's especially ironic and troubling when you consider that this respected sergeant was in fact trying to protect Gates' property.

I am aware of similar incidents that have occurred over the years in my neighborhoods and those of friends. My instinctive response and those of my neighbors and friends were to understand that the police were dutifully responding to a concerned call from a diligent neighbor. More, the instinctive responses most often were to be grateful for the quick action of both the neighbor and the responding officers. Also understood was the need to respond to the officers respectfully, and that they had to confirm the identity of those they found there--to be assured they were in fact the owners. They had to follow the procedures set out to complete the job and report it thoroughly. The responses of the police officers were welcome and assuring to the owners, and most often acknowledged with appreciation.

The only people I know of who respond to such situations in the way Professor Gates did are the arrogant, self-important people with notable personal issues regarding status and privilege. They think that by virtue of their success, status, prestige, wealth--whatever--they are above the inconveniences or implications of submitting to the requirements of police officers doing their jobs--even when it is to protect them. I know the good professor was tired after a long trip home from China. We all can have a bad day. But his pride has kept him from setting things straight, acknowledging a more balanced account of the events, and his contributing culpability as well. Professor Gates' halo has tarnished and fallen, to be sure.

I am also disappointed at the emotional, uninformed response of President Obama. I'm still "in the tank" for his agenda, but the president needs to respond with one of his more characteristically thoughtful and balanced assessments of things. He needs to retract his uninformed statement, apologize for reacting without all the facts, and apologize for the implication that this event was in any way related to the unfortunate history of law enforcement and minority peoples in some places.

(Just a little while ago today, the President more-or-less addressed the first two points--although it was only his choice of words that he retracted. He otherwise issued no apologies and admitted no error. He failed to acknowledge substantive misjudgment on the facts or to back away from the third point on inherent underlying racism in the incident. If this was a "teachable moment," it was perhaps most appropriately one for the good professor and the president.)

The President must also correct the appearance that because Professor Gates is a personal friend, and a respected scholar on race, he must be supported in this case, regardless. So far, that appearance remains. If it is clear that it is not yet a post-racial America, it is now equally clear that our president is not as even-handedly post-racial as we wanted to believe either.

Peggy Noonan (WSJ) On Sarah Palin

Peggy Noonan is a weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and a best-selling author. A trustee of the conservative Manhattan Institute, Edmund Burke and Ronald Reagan are among the political figures she most admires. In fact, she was a primary speech writer and special assistant to Ronald Reagan. Ms. Noonan also wrote the speeches for George H.W. Bush that introduced the memorable phrases, "a kinder, gentler nation" and "a thousand points of light," along with the unfortunate declaration, "Read my lips: no new taxes," in his 1988 presidential acceptance speech. She is a Republican voice that commands attention, a principled conservative thinker and spokesperson--and she has concerns with Sarah Palin's newfound prominence in the Republican Party.

From her recent column in the WSJ:

Palin was bad for Republicans--and the republic.

Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.

Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence....

McCain-Palin lost. Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths.

To wit, "I love her because she's so working-class." This is a favorite of some party intellectuals. She is not working class, never was, and even she, avid claimer of advantage that she is, never claimed to be and just lets others say it....What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits....

"The elites hate her." The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.

"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." ...Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan....

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think....

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

--"A Farewell to Harms: Palin was bad for Republicans--and the republic," by Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal (7.11.09)

I didn't say it. Peggy Noonan did--a Republican voice of impeccable credentials. But if I were still a Republican, if my views had not changed so on the need for education, healthcare and regulatory reform, if George W and his team had not succeeded in alienating and running off thoughtful Republicans whose eyes were cast more toward a fast-changing future than myopically at the same old 19th-20th century cultural, economic and government model--if I thought there were a chance to update their DNA and redeem the Republican Party (and I don't)--then I might have cared enough to say it, too. But the Republican Party is quickly becoming a cultural and political anachronism. And unless it surprises me and changes dramatically, it will rightly remain one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html

The Five-Foot Shelf: The Great Books, Classics

First published in 1909, the Five-Foot Shelf was conceived by the Harvard president Charles W. Eliot as "a good substitute for a liberal education" for a growing middle class eager for knowledge. All the big names and important ideas were here: Sophocles, Chaucer, the Constitution, three treatises on smallpox for good measure. Ordinary men and women who had never set foot in Harvard Yard could now stake a claim to the peaks of Western civilization.

"In much wisdom is much grief," counsels the book of Ecclesiastes, and in Christopher R. Beha's tender intellectual memoir, we find plenty of both. By the time he set out to read all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics — known as the Five-Foot Shelf — Beha had already survived blood cancer and seen his identical twin brother nearly die after a car accident. And in a year that would take Beha from ancient Greece to the 20th century, illness and death returned once more, reminding him that no amount of learning can efface what Pascal called the "eternal silence of these infinite spaces."

A product of Manhattan private schools and Princeton, Beha seems an unlikely candidate for such earnest self-­improvement. But like the working masses who were Eliot's intended audience, he was desperately seeking a retreat from the mundane.

--A NYT Sunday Book Review (6.24.09) by Alexander Nazaryan of The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else, by Christopher R. Beha.

I haven't read this book. And it may be awhile before I get to it. But the story affirms again the value and power of a classical education, a Great Books Curriculum, or reading the classic literature of the ages. Ironic then, isn't it, that one reads again and again of colleges dropping the major in classical studies because of a lack of student interest and enrollment.

During my six years in the Marine Corps between high school and college, I organized my own self-help approach to an experience of higher education. I took upon myself the task, often the joy, of reading as many classics of different scholarly disciplines as I could manage to identify and acquire. For me, to this day, they are among the most important, most useful books I have read.

But, I had not heard of Charles Eliot's "Five-Foot Shelf," this being the first reference to it I've encountered. Still, I understood what a classical education entailed: the Latin and Greek languages, the history, literature, philosophy, science, mathematics and arts of Greece and Rome. Then, more generally, there were the classic works of literature and other disciplines which spanned the millennia from ancient Greece and Rome through the 20th century AD/CE. And recognizing the threat to a sound education in the classics, however defined, some colleges organized their undergraduate liberal arts curriculum around the "Great Books," the classics.

The idea of the Great Books curriculum emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. The University of Chicago is probably best known for trying to implement it, although the ideal was never fully realized there. Still, Chicago today retains a Great Books component to its core curriculum, and several universities offer a form of Great Books curriculum as an alternative. In addition, there are several small colleges that have adopted a Great Books approach to their liberal arts curriculum.

The best known and most respected Great Books program today is likely the 70-year-old curriculum at St. John's College, which has campuses at Annapolis, MD, and Santa Fe, NM. When my son and daughter were considering colleges, I at least acquainted them with St. John's as an alternative. They were not interested, but in the process I received some interesting information from the school. They listed 104 authors of classics from the Greeks to the 20th century. I couldn't help but take inventory of how well I had done against their list. Of the 104 authors listed, I had read 44. Not great, but not bad either. But most interesting, I had first read 38 of those 44 authors in my self-education process in the Marine Corps. Later in college, in a liberal arts program self-crafted to be as broad an exposure to the arts and sciences as I could organize, I would add only nine more of them.

A few years ago, in reading the book John Adams by David McCullough, I was reminded again in the letters of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other luminaries of their revolutionary time, how powerfully their classical education had informed them and served them. It provided the needed knowledge and intellectual discipline, the philosophical and political foundations, for planning and organizing the most enlightened democracy and effective market economy in the history of the world. America's best and brightest today could do worse than avail themselves of that same foundation of knowledge. And the universities that define how a broadly instructive and enlightening liberal arts education is constructed and taught might revisit these considerations as well. (Although we do understand, don't we, that universities now more often tailor curricula to what students want and will pay for, and students want what society and the marketplace value.)

But I am also reminded that I have unfinished business. I still have 60 authors to go, don't I? And while I have no illusions of reading them all, there are still many on that list that I truly want to read--perhaps now more than ever. Anyone care to join me?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Nazaryan-t.html?_r=1

Thomas Merton: Failings of Faith Life & Prayer

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a Cistercian (Trappist) monk resident at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. He was a poet and, perhaps, the most prolific and authoritative 20th-century writer on the Christian contemplative life and tradition. His name and works were recognized broadly outside the cloisters of his monastic life and his Roman Catholic Christian faith. His best known work is his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, but his most important work on the contemplative life is likely New Seeds of Contemplation.

Merton was also a scholar and sympathetic ambassador to the contemplative traditions of other faiths, particularly those of East Asia. He provided respected commentary on the Chinese Taoist Master in The Way of Chuang Tzu, along with English translations of his poetry. His book Zen and the Birds of Appetite provides an intriguing treatment of Chan/Zen Buddhism from the perspective of a Christian contemplative, and offers a fascinating, insightful dialogue between Merton and Japanese Zen Master and scholar D.T. Suzuki.

But the work that speaks most directly to me is his instructive, profound reflections on Contemplative Prayer, published after his accidental death in 1968. And one of the characteristics of Merton that made him more real, a citizen in this world even if a monk, was his open, unapologetic commentary about the ills and failings of society, and the ills and failings of the organized Christian Church. A man after Christ's own heart, he lived the humble, compassionate life of an impoverished monk, yet never failed to take up his cross in calling out the religious Pharisees and vipers, the fakes and hypocrites of his day--and the misguiding expressions of their misappropriated faith.

This from Contemplative Prayer, Chapter 19, pp. 113:

Of course it is true that religion on a superficial level, religion that is untrue to itself and to God, easily comes to serve as "the opium of the people." And this takes place whenever religion and prayer invoke the name of God for reasons and ends that have nothing to do with Him. When religion becomes a mere artificial facade to justify a social or economic system--when religion hands over its rites and language completely to the political propagandist, and when prayer becomes the vehicle for a purely secular ideological program, then religion does tend to become an opiate.

It deadens the spirit enough to permit the substitution of a superficial fiction and mythology for His truth of life. And this brings about the alienation of the believer, so that his religious zeal becomes political fanaticism. His faith in God, while preserving its traditional formulas, becomes in fact faith in his own nation, class or race. His ethic ceases to be the law of God and of love, and becomes the law that might-makes-right: established privilege justifies everything. God is the status quo.

In the last book to come to us from the hand of Raissa Maritain, her commentary on the Lord's Prayer, we read the following passage concerning those who barely obtain their daily bread, and are deprived of the advantages of a decent life on earth by the injustice and thoughtlessness of the privileged:

If there were fewer wars, less thirst to dominate and exploit others, less national egoism, less egoism of class and caste, if man were more concerned for his brother, and really wanted to collect together for the good of the human race all the resources which science places at our disposal especially today, there would be on earth fewer populations deprived of their necessary sustenance, there would be fewer children who die or are incurably weakened by undernourishment.

She goes on to ask what obstacles man has placed in the way of the Gospel that this should be so. It is unfortunately true that those who have complacently imagined themselves blessed by God have in fact done more than others to frustrate His will....

In such cases, religion is understood to be at least implicitly misdirected, and therefore the "God" whom it invokes becomes, or tends to become, a mere figment of the imagination. Such religion is insincere. It is merely a front for greed, injustice, selfishness, violence. The cure for this corruption is to restore the purity of faith and the genuineness of Christian love: and this means a restoration of the contemplative orientation of prayer.

How, I wonder, might Thomas Merton view the hubris of those more politicized, triumphalist, and polarizing Christian church cultures of today?

Warren Reaches Out to American Muslims. Christian Integrity. About Time.

Under fire from fellow conservatives, he addresses Islamic Society

WASHINGTON - Defying some of his fellow conservative Christian critics, one of the most prominent religious leaders in the country told several thousand American Muslims on Saturday that "the two largest faiths on the planet" must work together to combat stereotypes and solve global problems. "Some problems are so big you have to team tackle them," evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren addressed the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America. Warren said Muslims and Christians should be partners in working to end what he calls "the five global giants" of war, poverty, corruption, disease and illiteracy.

--"Evangelist Warren to Muslims: Let's Partner," Associated Press, as reported on msnbc.com (7.5.09)

At long last a credible voice is lifted up from the Evangelical Christian community to respectfully address American Muslims. It is a welcome voice, reflecting something of the spiritual integrity that all Christians are called to through their relationship with Christ and the abiding-in of the Spirit of God. Pushing aside the religion of cultural and political identity, Rick Warren takes a welcome step toward reflecting more of Christ's nonjudgmental love, humility, and compassion when engaging those in the world who approach their faith life from a different historical and cultural foundation. The Apostle Paul admonished the Christian faithful of his day to "walk by the Spirit," and more,

...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control; against such things there is no law.

Why, then, do so many so-called Christians who pray "Lord, Lord," reflect that spiritual identity only when it is convenient to them, and then only within the context of that narrow culturally and politically defined social space where they try to hold God hostage. Lord, Lord, indeed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31741969/ns/us_news-faith/

Trilliums*

Every spring
among

the ambiguities
of childhood

the hillsides grew white
with the wild trilliums.
I believe in the world.
Oh, I wanted

to be easy
in the peopled kingdoms,
to take my place there,
but there was none

that I could find
shaped like me.
So I entered
through the tender buds,

I crossed the cold creek,
my backbone
and my thin white shoulders
unfolding and stretching.

From the time of snow-melt,
when the creek roared
and the mud slid
and the seeds cracked,

I listened to the earth-talk,
the root-wrangle,
the arguments of energy,
the dreams of lying

just under the surface,
then rising,
becoming
at the last moment

flaring and luminous--
the patient parable
of every spring and hillside
year after difficult year.


* in Dreamworks (1986), Mary Oliver

Doonesbury: Washington, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt--on Torture

Doonesbury found it's edge again with yesterday's Sunday strip. The strip has always been intelligent, thought provoking, even uncomfortable at times, but it has failed sometimes to express simmering outrage when called for. And with the retirement of Berkeley Breathed's Opus, there has been nowhere else to look among the comics pages for hard edged irony and honesty than Doonesbury. And, yes, the topic of torture during the Bush administration has been pleading for the kind of treatment provided us yesterday. Thank you, Gary Trudeau.

To access the Sunday strip, click on this link to Slate/Doonesbury and scroll down:

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20090621

But not being one to assume all representations are credible, I've done a little research of my own. I found presidential statements and actions against torture from revolutionary times through the 20th century confirmed and discussed all over the web. As I also noted in my earlier post on the subject (see below), that doesn't mean that torture has never happened, or that there were no ambiguous circumstances or statements, or inconsistent actions. There were. But our ideals and policies on the subject as expressed by many of our greatest presidents have been consistent and unambiguous in condemning cruelty and torture of enemy prisoners. And that includes methods used long ago that are very close in type and practice to what we today call waterboarding. I found the following presidential quotes and accounts reported by several credible publications and their web sites.

George Washington

I offer this quote by Washington, although there were others on the subject. Another, longer one which I have omitted has been more often quoted, but appears also to have been over-edited for effect, even though in full quote it also generally supports the same policies and sentiments. After the battle of Trenton, about 1,000 Hessians (Britain's German mercenaries) had been captured. Washington, it is reported, ordered that enemy prisoners be treated humanely. After the Battle of Princeton, some of Washington's troops were apparently preparing to run some of the German mercenaries through what they called the "gauntlet," impliedly a form of extreme punishment. General Washington discovered this, intervened, and gave the following order to his troops regarding prisoners of war:

Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren who have fallen into their hands.

It is recorded that through this approach, he and John Adams, among others, hoped to shame their British adversaries, and demonstrate to the world the moral superiority of the American people and their cause.

Abraham Lincoln

In order to address the legal issues resulting from the Civil War's large number of Union and Confederate prisoners, Lincoln turned to legal Scholar Francis Lieber of Columbia College. Lieber's work resulted in Lincoln's General Orders 100, "Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field" on April 24, 1863. Article 16 stated:

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.

President Lincoln's pronouncement was likely the first formal code of conduct for the humane treatment of prisoners, and it is said to have been a model for the 1929 Geneva Convention.

Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt is reported to have issued this urgent cable after receiving information about the use of a close variation of waterboarding by American soldiers in the Philippines:

THE PRESIDENT DESIRES TO KNOW IN THE FULLEST AND MOST CIRCUMSTANTIAL MANNER ALL THE FACTS . . . FOR THE VERY REASON THAT THE PRESIDENT INTENDS TO BACK UP THE ARMY IN THE HEARTIEST FASHION IN EVERY LAWFUL AND LEGITIMATE METHOD OF DOING ITS WORK. HE ALSO INTENDS TO SEE THAT THE MOST VIGOROUS CARE IS EXERCISED TO DETECT AND PREVENT ANY CRUELTY OR BRUTALITY AND THAT MEN WHO ARE GUILTY THEREOF ARE PUNISHED. GREAT AS THE PROVOCATION HAS BEEN . . . NOTHING CAN JUSTIFY . . . THE USE OF TORTURE OR INHUMAN CONDUCT OF ANY KIND ON THE PART OF THE AMERICAN ARMY.

Other Presidents, Generals

As I noted above, John Adams also argued that humane treatment of prisoners not only reflected the American Revolution's highest ideals, it was also a moral and strategic imperative. His thoughts on the subject were set out in a 1777 letter to his wife, Abigail:

I know of no policy, God is my witness, but this — Piety, Humanity and Honesty are the best Policy. Blasphemy, Cruelty and Villainy have prevailed and may again. But they won't prevail against America, in this Contest, because I find the more of them are employed, the less they succeed.

It is reported that even British military leaders involved in atrocities and torture of American troops finally recognized the negative effects on their campaign against the new American democracy. In 1778, a Colonel Charles Stuart wrote to his father, the Earl of Bute:

Wherever our armies have marched, wherever they have encamped, every species of barbarity has been executed. We planted an irrevocable hatred wherever we went, which neither time nor measure will be able to eradicate.

Later, John Adam's son, John Quincy Adams, would formally express similar views to those of Washington and his father. Dwight Eisenhower guaranteed humane treatment to German POWs in World War II, and General Douglas McArthur ordered observance of an updated Geneva Convention during the Korean War, even when the U.S. had yet to sign it. In the Vietnam War, the United States applied the convention's rules and protections to Viet Cong prisoners even though the law, technically, may not have required it.

So, then, how well has America supported and protected the higher ground of these ideals and policies, how true to them have we been, in the 21st century?

For my treatment of the subject, see my earlier post to Hyde Park's Corner, Torture, Our Slide From Grace (5.30.09)