Catalyst

What if the Amish Were in Charge on 9/11?: Fantasies of a Christian Nation

I officiated at a baptism for a 6-month old named Kathleen a week or so ago.  The family wanted to emphasize the community aspect of the sacrament, so that guided my reflections as I prepared.  I realized that although infant baptism doesn’t mean much to the infant at the time, it makes a profound difference in her whole life.  If, for example, I had been welcomed into a Protestant or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu community, I wouldn’t have been there with Kathleen and her family.  My life path, my beliefs and even a number of my values would have been dramatically different from who I am today.  The fact that we don’t know how her future will unfold does not in any way change the impact her baptism into that community will have on her.

Then it struck me: what if our political leaders on 9/11 had been baptized into the Amish community? Would they have responded in the same way the Amish did to the tragic shooting of their daughters in rural Pennsylvania a few months ago?  Where would we be today if they had?

Would they have let the police authorities handle the investigation, pursuit and punishment of the people who committed the crime?  Would international crime fighting networks have been developed and strengthened for combating the organized crime of terrorism?

• Would they have shown the same ability to forgive and heal?  Would we be at war today in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Would the thousands of U.S. soldiers be dead and the tens of thousands wounded – and the tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis be dead, maimed, terrorized dailyby war?  Would so many families across the Middle East and here at home be so torn apart? Would so many people face disoriented and disturbed psychological futures?
• Would we have so damaged our moral authority as a human rights advocate globally and disgracefully abandoned our own values by torturing and demeaning our prisoners?
• Would we have a declared pre-emptive policy threatening any nation that might challenge our supremacy or interests anywhere on the planet or in space?
• Would we be developing a new generation of nuclear weapons at the same time as we accuse others of feeding nuclear proliferation?
• Would we be in nuclear confrontation with North Korea and Iran?
• Would we be daily driving our nation so deeply into debt that our economic future is very uncertain?
• Would we be trying to wall off hundreds of miles of borders and abandoning our tradition of welcoming the needy migrant in order to secure ourselves?
• Would we be calculating the size of toothpaste tube we can carry onto an airplane?
• Would we be any less secure?

The Amish community in Pennsylvania gave the nation an awe-inspiring example of compassion and forgiveness when they reached out to the family of the man who had killed their daughters, sharing prayer, food and financial resources with them – acknowledging that they shared in the tragic grief.  In doing that, they defused the power of hatred that had been unleashed, giving an indelible testimony to the power of love to regenerate hope and re-build a shattered peace.  Could we have done that for the families of the hijackers on 9/11?  What difference might it have made?

As I reflect on what might have been, I am left very sad.  What in our response to the attacks of 9/11 marked us as the Christian nation so many among us like to claim we are?  This was our chance to live up to the images of the “city on the hill,” or the “light on the lamp stand to give light to all” that are so  treasured in our national religious mythology.  It was squandered.

Would such an approach have “worked?”  Would there be fewer people in the world than there are today who are bitterly committed to fighting the U.S. way of life?  I am sure there would be and that our world would be immensely safer.  Can I prove it?  No.

Would the U.S. public have allowed our political leaders to take us down this path of law enforcement, forgiveness, healing and love?  I am not sure – and that brings the question back home to  each and all of us.  Are we willing to live the Christian vision of loving forgiveness when it is painful – and to make it the guiding light of our foreign policy?  Is being a “religious nation” a real possibility for us?  And if it is not just an impossible phantasy, why did we not demand it of our leaders in the aftermath of 9/11?  Why are we not demanding it now?

I extend my profound gratitude and admiration to the Amish of Pennsylvania for their witness to what is really possible for our humanity, living in faith, to achieve for the world.  It can only be a sign of the sickness of our culture that we marginalize them as a quaint glimpse of a past left in the dust of our progress.

Posted by Jim Hug, SJ - President, Center of Concern.

Fiscal Responsibility--or Irresponsibility?

It's October now, autumn, and the fourth quarter of the year. Leaves are falling, and the air is crisp as the globe cools. But there are other, not altogether seasonal, changes in the air.

The Forbes 500 has been reduced to 400 in order, it seems, to establish a minimum wealth of $1 billion and eliminate anyone who is not a billionaire. The Federal minimum wage, though, remains at the same level ($5.15 per hour) for the ninth straight year, despite continuing inflation and six pay raises for Congress during that period. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has just released a report noting that the median earnings of full-time workers declined in 2005 by 1.8% ($774) for men and 1.3% ($427) for women. The Budget Center also reports that wages accounted for the smallest share of income since 1929 while corporate profits reached their highest level since 1950.

We have just entered a new fiscal year without a Federal budget and without a good deal of other legislation. Some things do not change, however; there is a kind of annual ritual with Congress scrambling to pass a ”continuing resolution” permitting government to spend in fiscal year 2007 at fiscal year 2006’s levels, but avoiding the appropriation of money to fund a new budget for the new fiscal year. And all this happens against the background of highly vocal devotion to fiscal responsibility, which everybody claims, but nobody has.

The Constitution vested the power to raise and spend money in the Congress, which was thought to be more representative of the people than the Executive Branch and more likely to act as a brake on the fiscal desires of executives and bureaucrats. As the years went by, however, and political parties became stronger, these relationships grew more and more complex and the problems more difficult to resolve. The inevitable pressure for reform and against deficits led eventually to passage of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, which now theoretically governs the process and the timetable for adopting the federal budget. (These three
senators are no longer in the Congress.)

Theoretically, because the budget timetable seems to work as long as the legislative action deals with the budget as a whole, as in passing the required budget resolution; but when money is to be made available, the required action becomes an appropriations bill which generally is far more controversial and vigorously argued than the overall budget. There are thirteen of these appropriations bills, which must be passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law before money can be spent. Each such bill is considered by a different committee of the House and the Senate; varying versions are passed by the two houses and must be reconciled before going to the White House.

When Congress adjourned on September 30, the House had passed twelve appropriations (all except Labor/HHS), but the Senate had passed only two (Defense and Homeland Security).; consequently, a continuing resolution was passed September 30, because no one wants to repeat the pain of September 1995, when Clinton let the executive agency doors close briefly.

When Congress reconvenes in a “Lame Duck” session on November 13, it will have to complete action on the budget, before its term ends, but will also have on its plate such matters as minimum wage increase, estate tax reduction, immigration reform, rescission powers to the President (like a line-item veto), offshore oil drilling, reforming lobbying practices, tightening port security, warrantless wiretaps, tax breaks for business, possible trade legislation, Defense policy, the fate of UN Ambassador John R. Bolton, exporting nuclear technology to India, and cuts in Medicare payments to doctors.

How any of these matters will be handled is unknown; possibly the only major step will be the annual “omnibus bill,” which includes everything not passed separately, plus the “pet projects” (like the famous Bridge to nowhere of last year) that the final tradeoffs include in a bill that everybody supports, but nobody reads.

The upcoming limping session also presents some unusual problems. During the final frenetic couple of weeks of the legislative session the more disciplined House of Representatives, having passed all but one of its appropriations bills, used the time to pass a flood of local legislation designed to give a boost to dozens of Republican Representatives who seem to be in danger of losing their seats. Did I mention this is campaign season?

Thus many voters can reward their members for such low-cost items as providing protection for Native American languages, preserving open space and farmland, and water planning. There are 165 of such bills to tug at the heartstrings of voters who my not realize that no money has been appropriated for any of them. They are on the books, however, in case there is a significant shift in the Congressional power structure as a result of the November 7 elections. After all, this is politics.

Fiscal responsibility, however, has to consider not only whether there is a budget, but also what is in it and whether it is in deficit. The U.S. national debt, whose ceiling was recently raised by Congress, is now $8.5 trillion; the estimate for the FY 2006 deficit (reduced from an earlier inflated OMB estimate) is just under $300 billion, which would be added to that total. There will be a strong push to bring in this budget with a surplus, but without affecting funds for the Iraq operation or rescinding or reducing any of the tax breaks for the wealthy that the Bush administration has already pushed through. 

Clearly it is better to live within our means and not to have deficits; but the moral question is, who pays? It depends on what stays in the budget and what gets cut. Should we be spending $500 billion so more Americans die in an unjust war in Iraq than died on 9/11, and sacrificing even more revenues to the majority party’s rich friends and supporters while the minimum wage remains static, the welfare rolls steadily increase, and the percentage of the population covered by health care decreases? Should we hide our trade-offs and pet projects for local constituents in omnibus bills or Christmas trees?

That is another, more complex matter. Meanwhile, it should be clear that neither the federal budget process nor its outcome promotes the common good of poor people here or elsewhere.

Posted by Martin McLaughlin

Adjunct Associate, Agribusiness Accountability Initiative

Author of the book World Food Security.

Common Good 911

“Nanny 911,” the cultic and often repetitious Fox TV show, drives home a central lesson every week: without a commitment to the common good in the family, chaos reigns, individual rights and needs, both children’s and parents’, are trampled upon and family dissolution is imminent.  The plots are simple and the weekly solution obvious.  A family in distress, with children out of control and parents at their wits end, calls in a very British Nanny to help.  The Nanny analyzes the problems, sets down a few rules to restore order and fairness, counsels the parents to set limits and stick with them, referees the changes for a few days and bids farewell to a family set on a course to happiness and peace.  A wonderful scenario that subtly teaches viewers the value of the common good as the foundation of all social (as well as economic and political) relationships and as an essential ingredient for the promotion social and global justice and peace.

Many politicians and activists have been increasing the rhetorical call for the common good during this election season.  But what does the term mean and more importantly what do people mean when they use the term.  Historically there are two ways the term has been defined.  The utilitarian definition of the common good as the “greatest good for the greatest number of people” accepts the exclusion of those who do not fit the category of “the greatest number.”  This is probably the root definition that many people subscribe to whether implicitly or explicitly because it fits so well with our U.S. ethic of individualism.

However, the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has a more subtle and comprehensive definition of the common good, a definition that is shared by many faith traditions.  In CST, the common good represents the integral relationship between the individual person and the community in which that person lives.  The well-being of all individuals can only be guaranteed within the context of the well-being of the whole society.  The common good sustains a delicate balance between the rights of the individual and the well-being of society, insisting that all persons must benefit from the social goods that come from a well-ordered society.  A social order that privileges the few above the needs of the majority fails to promote the common good.  In this globalizing age, the need for a commitment to the common good must now include all dimensions of human and environmental relationships, from the local to the global.

What does all this theory say to us as we now learn from the Forbes magazine that being a millionaire is not longer enough to make the annual list of the top 400 wealthiest people in the  U.S.?  Only billionaires need apply.  What does all this theory say to us as we observe the number of gated and security-laden communities increasing exponentially in the U.S.?  What does this theory tell us in the face of our current fixation with national security which has invaded some of our enshrined values and constitutional rights?   What does this theory tell us when the 2005 U.S. Census report on “Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S.” indicates an increasing number of people are losing ground in our society even while Wall Street tells us the economy is booming?  Finally, what does this theory tell us about the growing number of impoverished people worldwide living on less than a dollar or two a day?

A simple answer:  The U.S. is failing to achieve the common good either at home or abroad and we are paying the price in local and global social unrest and violence; an unrest and violence that cannot be contained by legal and military means unless the roots causes are addressed.

Yes, the common good needs to be a central theme of this political season.   

But as citizens we need to challenge the candidates on their commitment to and understanding of the common good.   If the rhetoric is empty, it needs to be exposed.  If the agenda is “the greatest good for the greatest number,” the fallacies of that approach need to be challenged.  We need a commitment to shaping a common good that ensures the well-being of all individuals at home and abroad.  That kind of a world is created through legislating social and economic domestic and foreign policy built on a foundation of the common good for all.  We need our own “Common Good Nanny” to set our household on the way to order, fairness, happiness and peace.

Fortunately, a growing number of progressive faith-based initiatives have been launched to promote the common good in the coming elections.  They are a form of Common Good 911.  For more information and voter guides check the following:

Catholic Alliance for the Common Good - “Voting for the Common Good”

Catholic Democracy Institute - “Catholic Voting Project” 

Catholic Media Watch

Sojourners/Call to Renewal - “Voting for God’s Politics” 

Posted by Maria Riley, OP, Ph.D, Coordinator, Engendering Economic and Social Justice Project.

Danger on the Border—Is Tougher Security the Answer to Undocumented Immigration?

One of the many variations of a well-known story in social justice circles is about the people of the town of Facadia, called Facadians, who, one day, began to discover children floating down the Obscurious River. A good and generous people, the Facadians pulled the children out of the river, cleaned them up, fed them, and adopted them. As the years passed, the Obscurious River continued to deliver children to Facadia, and the Facadians continued to extract the children from the river on a regular basis.

Over time, however, the number of children found floating in the Obscurious River grew. It was not uncommon to find dozens and dozens of children floating down the river at once. The good-hearted Facadians continued to pull them out, care for them, and adopt them, but some people in the town began to grumble about the plethora of children who had become a burden to the town. “They soak up our resources and overpopulate our towns and they are a nuisance,” these bitter persons said. Then one discontented Facadian had an idea: “Let’s build a dam so that the water and children will no longer burden us.” The discontented Facadian’s lobbied hard to do so and with some extra funding from special interests, the city council passed a resolution to build the dam and the Facadians were sure that everyone would live happily ever after—that is, except for the floating children who piled up upstream.

Any rational person who hears this story will point immediately to the absurdity of the Facadians’ actions: most obviously, they never once looked into the root cause of why the children were floating downstream. They also chose an expensive, short-term solution which would probably not solve anything in the end, since the pile of dammed children would eventually grow taller than the wall or alternatively, the children might decide to get out of the water and walk to Facadia instead. Also, the solution was cruel and showed no respect at all for the children’s dignity and rights.

Although the analogy admittedly has its limitations, those who promote immigration policy that is focused entirely on security are very similar to the Facadians. There are three major flaws with security-only immigration policy, which are strikingly reminiscent of what has been discussed above:

• Security-only immigration policy is highly impractical and, based on the history of previous immigration control efforts, is likely to be completely ineffective.
• Security-only immigration policy denies the human dignity and personhood of immigrants, rejects long-time American values, and is unacceptable for humanitarian reasons.
• Security-only immigration policy fails to address any of the root causes of increased immigration.

On September 29, the Congress passed a security-only immigration bill, the “Secure Fence Act of 2006,” which authorized the construction of 700 miles of double-layered fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border, which is expected to cost $6 billion. The main focus of the bill is on building the fence and it fails to include any of the social, economic, or humanitarian concerns brought up in previously considered legislation, such as The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act and to a certain extent, The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (CIRA).

Although it is tempting to go into the specifics of the legislation, here I will focus only on the problems with security-only immigration policy in relation to the three flaws mentioned above.

The impractical, ineffective nature of security-only policies

Immigration policies that focus only on security disregard other important issues such as the future of 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants who are already in the U.S.; the issue of long-term separation between immigrants and their families; and the needs of U.S. businesses for workers.

Economically, drastically reducing the number of low-cost workers available to producers is bad news to U.S. businesses for obvious reasons. Several important studies have shown that immigrants are a boon to the economy and the U.S. Labor Department itself has concluded that immigrants keep U.S. industries competitive, increase employment through higher rates of self-employment and increase wages and mobility opportunities for many groups of U.S. workers.

In addition to the impracticality of greatly reducing immigration, security-only efforts have not worked in the past. Despite the fact that a main component of U.S. immigration policy since the mid-1990s has been to strengthen border security, with the number of border agents tripling since 1993 and millions of dollars spent on increased fencing, the numbers of persons illegally crossing the border has substantially increased, not decreased. In fact, “getting tough” on security has not helped at all—it has simply driven immigrants to more dangerous ways to cross.

Humanitarian concerns associated with security-only policies

Some of these more dangerous methods to which immigrant have turned include the following: Paid smuggling networks and “coyotes” are increasingly being used; younger children (who are less likely to be detected and are less suspicious looking) are traveling alone, leaving them vulnerable to sexual assault and other abuses; and immigrants trek through long stretches of desert in 100+ heat to bypass fences or squeeze into trunks of cars.

In the past five years, over 2,000 migrants have died while trying to cross the border, a higher number than ever before and from October 2004 to September 2005, a record number—460 people—died in a one year period while trying to cross the border between the United States and Mexico.

Such methods are an affront to immigrants’ dignity as human persons. As Archbishop Wilton Gregory stated in August, there is a compelling moral reason as to why immigration reform must go beyond a security-only approach. “Families are separated; migrant workers are abused and exploited by human smugglers; and, tragically, human beings die in the desert,” he wrote. “We must reform the system and restore to it respect for basic human rights and human life.”

The failure of security-only policies to address root causes

The fact is that no matter how many billions of dollars the U.S. spends on security on the border, immigrants will continue to seek out better lives in the U.S. so long as the quality of life is getting worse in their own country. Some compelling facts:

• There are 60 countries in today’s world that are poorer than they were thirty years ago.
• For every dollar that rich countries give to poor countries in aid, $1.30 has been found to flow back to lenders in debt interest.
• The trading system remains inherently unjust, with the poorest countries of the world accounting for only 0.4 percent of international trade, yet they lose an estimated $700 billion a year due to unfair trade rules.
• The gap between the rich and the poor has increased under free trade, with the median income of the richest 10 percent 122 times higher than the poorest 10 percent.
• Despite growing recognition that the “Washington Consensus” policies of the 1980s and 1990s did not work, many of these policies are still being promoted today.

In addition, a fifth of the world’s population (1.2 billion people) lives on less than $1 per day and almost half the world’s population, or 2.8 billion people, live on less than $2 a day. Every second, a child dies of malnutrition. Economic injustice still plagues most of the world, providing a strong impetus for immigration. An ideal immigration policy would identify these root causes for immigration and not just build a dam or a wall, but go “upstream” to address the source of the problem.

Unfortunately, none of the recent immigration proposals have truly been able to accomplish this last goal of addressing the root causes of immigration. Perhaps the root causes are too big an issue to take on and must be addressed with broader policy changes as well. One thing is clear: choosing the Secure Fence Act of 2006 over several other promising proposals has identified our country more with Facadia than with the United States of America which, since its founding, has prided itself on welcoming the stranger and protecting the rights of all people. 

Posted by Jill Rauh, Senior Project Associate for the Education for Justice Project at the Center of Concern.

Casualties of War

If the United States and its coalition forces are “winning the war in Iraq” as George W. Bush would have us believe through his repeated claims, what would losing the war in Iraq actually look like?  By every conceivable measure, there can be no use of the word winning, or victory in connection to what is happening in Iraq.  Over the past three years there has only been a steady spiral downward into chaos and now a looming civil war that will only exacerbate political instability in the region and most likely lead to greater violence and terrorism.

The President may use all the rhetoric he chooses, but the underlying reality reveals a very different truth.

• As of September 30, 2006, the current death toll of U.S. service men and women killed in the line of duty in Iraq stands at 2,715 and counting.[1] 

• The number of U.S. troops who have been wounded in Iraq continues to climb and as of August 30, 2006 stood at 19,910 wounded.[2]  Their lives will never be the same.

• The number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began is estimated to be between 43,546 and 48,343.[3]  In military terms, the innocent civilians caught in the cross fire, or victims of roadside bombs are conveniently referred to a “collateral damage.”

• Iraqi security troops who have died number 5,468 as of September 30, 2006.[4]

Numbers by themselves will never tell the more personal story of specific lives lost, or of the thousands of lives of family members and friends whose futures are forever changed by the landscape of grief and the burden of their loss.  There is no way to communicate in number or otherwise the magnitude of destruction that visits all sides of this conflict.  The loss of human life alone prevents this from being any sort of victory.

If we are “winning this war” how should we account for the mounting losses?

If we are “winning the war” then how should we account for the unquestioned erosion of our own civil rights vis a vis the Patriot Act?  While we fight for greater democracy abroad, we stealthily erode its integrity here at home.

If we are “winning the war” then how should we explain that as human lives are lost the major oil companies and the U.S. defense contractors are actually recording record profits as a result of the war?

If we are “winning the war” then why is there greater instability in the region, and insurgency efforts are only getting stronger, not weaker?

If we are “winning the war” then how should we account for the lack of moral standing the U.S. now has in international arenas?  We have a president who is actually arguing for the use of torture and other tactics clearly banned by the Geneva Conventions.

If we are “winning the war” how do we tell our children that domestic spending priorities vastly favor the purchase of military equipment that will destroy life, over investment in education, which will actually better their lives?  How do we explain to them the skyrocketing deficit and diminished social spending  both of which weaken the very foundation of our own democracy?

The casualty list for this war grows greater every day.  In no way is there a victory at hand here.

The question surely arises, ‘so what must be done’?  The war in Iraq is a key election issue this fall.  Great efforts will be made to deflect attention from what’s happening in Iraq in order to distract us from the devastating reality.  As citizens, we must not let that happen. 

In this election season we must reclaim and reform the rhetoric that is being used against the American people.  We are not only losing the war in Iraq, we are losing a great deal more.  While we “fight for freedom and democracy” abroad, we must exercise our own hard won freedoms at home and reinvigorate our own democratic privilege by asserting our civil and moral voice through our own participation in the political process here at home.  If we allow apathy and ignorance to win out over careful consideration of candidates, we fail to use an opportunity to speak as people of conscience.  If we fail to participate in this upcoming electoral opportunity, we too may be casualties of the war.

Submitted by Katherine Feely, SND - Program Associate, Center of Concern

1 Source:  http://www.icasualties.org/oif/US_chart.aspx
2 Source:  http://www.icasualties.org/oif/woundedchart.aspx
3 Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
4 Source: ibid.