Catalyst

Rewriting History: Rage and Praise

Part One:  Rage

In the last 4 days, I have read 2 revisions of history on the Op Ed page of The Washington Post that evoked completely opposite and strong emotional responses.

Michael Gerson (The Washington Post, June 13, 2007) described the distancing of the Republican presidential candidates from President Bush as “fleeing the [political] Center.”  He refers to Bush’s campaigning as a “compassionate conservative,” his positions on the role of government, education, medicaid prescription coverage, and immigration reform, and his assertions of “solidarity” with the poor and seeking the “common good” as “policies . . . borrowed . . . from Catholic social thought. . . .”

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s celebrated retort to Dan Quayle in 1988, “I know Catholic social thought, I am a friend of Catholic social thought, and George W. Bush is no proponent of Catholic social thought!”

Any real friend of Catholic social thought will be insulted and indignant at the claim!

Candidate Bush may have made some moderate-sounding claims in the 2000 campaign (thanks to the speech writing of Michael Gerson), but President Bush has governed as a right-wing ideologue employing the politics of division and derision so doggedly only a Rovian or a Machiavellian could admire him.  His clear and consistent option for the rich, embrace of preemptive war, record-setting use of the death penalty as governor, sending thousands of Americans to fight an unjust war on the basis of a lie and without adequate protections, hiding the human costs of the war for both Iraqis and Americans from the American people and then cutting veterans benefits on top of that, the Administration’s corruption and tolerance for corruption, its cynical attitude toward truth, law and integrity . . . .  (This is too easy; the list grows all by itself.)  “Centrist”??  “Catholic social thought”??

If he cares to encounter a more authentic presentation of policies inspired by Catholic social thought, Gerson should go back and reread the Democratic Convention keynote speech of Mario Cuomo (whom he dismisses as a purveyor of “liberal fundamentalism.”)

Security Alert: Code Red – There will be many more efforts like this to rewrite history in the months and years ahead.  It is a serious threat to the real security of this nation and the world community – just as the Bush presidency has proved itself to be.

Stay tuned for Part Two, the kind of rewriting of history that we desperately need.

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

Climate Change the Only Real Change Coming Out of This Year's G8 Summit

Last weekend the Group of Eight leaders of industrialized countries (G8) held their annual summit in the city of Heiligendamm, Germany. But, even as G8 Summits go, this one couldn’t have been more boring…or depressing.

Take the issue of debt. Earlier this year, a “vulture” fund—a fund that specializes in buying debt at market prices and enforcing in court, or otherwise pressing the debtor government into paying its full value—bought Zambian debt for 4 million and then was able to enforce in court a claim for more than 15 million.  This could have been much worse absent heavy civil society mobilization. Zambia, a beneficiary of debt relief, is just one of many countries that have been stripped of their debt service savings by “vulture” funds.  Vulture funds have been preying on developing country debts for more than 10 years.  The savings Zambia was forced to pay to the fund could have been used to build hospitals or pay nurses. The practice is quite unjust and you would think it’s time for action. The G8 didn’t.

Or take hedge funds-unregulated funds that pursue high-risk strategies to obtain higher-than-average returns in financial markets. The German government was bent on seeing some regulation of hedge funds (which some government officials have dubbed as “locusts” preying on the economy). Since every year the host country holds large sway over the G8 agenda—and with many reports showing large parts of all markets and all citizens exposed to the predatory hedge funds (yes, mutual funds and government funds increasingly invest your money in hedge funds)-- there seemed to be a fair chance of regulatory progress. Central bankers on both sides of the Atlantic spoke in favor of regulation. Even US lawmakers sent a letter to President Bush bringing to his attention hedge funds’ impacts on the long-term prospects of U.S. companies and jobs. And yet, the G8 did nothing.

And that commitment to double aid by 2010 that grabbed headlines at Gleneagles in 2005? Guess what. This year aid is not only not on track, but has actually fallen compared to the year before. You may ask, “Didn’t Tony Blair have all G8 leaders sign personally?” Well, five of those leaders are now out of office.  The incoming leaders were actively debating whether they would recommit to the target or not (they finally did).

In this dismal context, it is no surprise that the mere commitment to negotiate within the United Nations a successor to the Kyoto protocol was hailed as the biggest success. No commitment to prevent temperatures rising, no commitments to binding frameworks of any sort to stop emissions, and certainly no commitments to what would actually happen  in the context of the UN.

This is the fate of our shared planet Earth, our very lives, and all they could agree upon was a commitment to negotiate within the UN.   In the face of such a global issue that can only be solved through international cooperation, a negotiation at the UN seems like something to be taken for granted,  a starting point, rather than something to be shown as the biggest achievement reached at the end of intense negotiations. Apparently it was naïve to expect so.

It’s a sad day for the G8 when agreeing to negotiate at the UN is the biggest achievement. 

For a longer analysis of the last G8 Summit please visit http://www.coc.org/index.fpl/1090/article/10796.html.

Posted by Aldo Caliari, Director, Rethinking Bretton Woods Project.

Are You Being Left Behind?

Does it come as a surprise to find out that the media misrepresents religion and religious values to the American public?  A new report by Media Matters, "Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major New Media,” documents how the religious right and its spokespersons are overrepresented and progressive religious voices are underrepresented in both the print and TV media.  To quote Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, “The overwhelming presence in the news media of conservative religious voices lead to the false implication that to be religious is to be conservative, and worse, that to be progressive is to lack faith or even to be against faith.  Nothing could be further from the truth.”

As we find ourselves already plunged into the candidates’ debates for the 2008 elections this is a timely and important report for the close to 90 percent of Americans who identified themselves as religious.  Who speaks for them on which religious values?  Do they speak for you? 

Read the report: www.mediamatters.org/LeftBehind  and watch the news release clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-l_DYuuOqLo

Posted by Maria Riley, OP, Coordinator, Global Women’s Project, Center of Concern