Returning the Country to the People Scorecard - A Proposed Weekly Democratic Leadership Press Conference/Program

Donald Trump promised the American people that he would return the country back into their hands.  His cabinet appointments, however, show clearly that he is doing just the opposite.  

It’s not so much that his appointments are either billionaires or extremely rich.  It’s that, like so many in their class today, they have no interest in protecting or advancing the welfare of the average American.  Their interest is either cutting government spending or, in the case of Betsy DeVos, gutting public schools, regardless of who that harms, or removing regulations that are necessary to protect the average person from corporate predation. These are all people who have shown that they are actually antagonistic to the mission of the departments they head.  He has put the foxes in charge of the hen house.

Democrats need to find a mechanism for keeping this betrayal by the President and Republicans in Congress of his commitment to the people front and center for the duration of his presidency.  To this end, I propose that Democrats hold a weekly press conference/program to detail the President’s and Congressional Republican actions that betray that commitment or are otherwise harmful to the average American

There is precedent for this tactic.  Back in the early 60s, when the Republican minority debated how they could maintain their influence at a time of Democratic dominance, they came up with the idea of a weekly leadership press conference.  It may sound dull on paper, but what became the Ev Dirksen/Charlie Halleck program provided the Republican minority a weekly national forum during the 60s.  The program was widely respected and quoted both by network news programs and the print media.

By virtue of their leadership positions, two of the people who would take part in the proposed press conference are of course Senator Schumer and Representative Pelosi.  However, because they represent New York and California, I recommend adding to the press conference roster a senator and representative from the heartland.

The makeup of the participants is very important.  The point of the program is to try and reach the people who voted for Trump.  Which means breaking through the alternative facts that they will be fed and their blind faith in the man.  Having two exemplars of the bi-coastal liberal establishment host the press conference would defeat the whole purpose.

The format of the program is very important too.   It should not just consist of talking heads.  Instead, the information should be presented in a conversation format.   And no snide or belittling comments should be made.  As the saying goes, “The facts, ma’m, just the facts.”  Points need to be made clearly; demeaning comments actually distract from the message.

The confirmation process that the Senate is currently going through provides an excellent starting point for highlighting that betrayal and the part that Congressional Republicans are playing in that betrayal.  And for matters like the House Republicans voting to remove restriction on mountain-top removal and stream protection, it provides an opportunity to discuss just who benefits from this.  Will this really save jobs or just enrich the mining companies?

I strongly urge the leadership to entertain this idea and move forward with it. 

The Two Ultimate Lessons for Democrats from 2016

Democrats are trying to figure out what to do, what to change in their game plan, to regain Congress in 2018 and the presidency in 2020.   There are various scenarios that people are putting together on how they can turn things around.

I have written after past elections, and I wrote in a post after this one, “The Perennial Search for the Democrat’s Mission,” that Democrats need to drop identity politics and instead come up with an all-inclusive, cohesive vision of America’s future that people will respond to.   They must be clear where they want to take America and how they’re going to get there.  And that path must include a better life for all Americans.

But there is an even larger lesson to be learned; a point that distinguished the Trump campaign from all the others, including most past campaigns as well.  Trump won because he made people believe that he listened to them, to their suffering and questions, and he took up their cause with great vigor, a vengeance, fighting the establishment to right the wrongs.  

His anti-establishment and anti-elite rant was so appealing because many white working class people felt, with good cause, that the establishment had failed them despite having mouthed platitudes to them for decades … rural Americans had hardly been addressed at all.  And the elite who run the establishment were not in touch with their (white Americans’) suffering as opposed to people of color or other minority groups who they perceive as getting lots of attention.

If Democrats want to once again become the majority party, the party of the people, the lesson is not, as some are saying, that they need to listen and respond to the suffering of the white working class.  Yes, they definitely need to do that.  But they need to do that in the context of listening to all the people.  

Democrats need to show that they are there for everyone and that they can deliver for everyone.  They have to show that it doesn’t have to be one group’s interests v another’s.  They need to come up with a cohesive vision that works for all Americans and which all Americans respond to.

That’s why I’ve proposed the following Mission for the Democratic Party:

"To bring to life the promises set forth in our Declaration of Independence.

To build a country of greater opportunity where:

* each and every American has the best chance to experience the promise 

‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 

certain unalienable Rights … Life,  Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’;

* government meets its responsibility as set forth in the Declaration …  

‘to secure those rights’,  within the constraints of fiscal responsibility; and

* all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts 

 to secure those rights and promote the public good, each according to his ability.”

Democrats have gotten too cozy with big money, big business, big banks.  You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t please those interests and the people at the same time because unfortunately the goal of big business is all about making money.  Sometimes their interests are not in conflict with the general good, but often they are.  There is no social conscience or social purpose involved in corporate decision making, unless it helps them make money.

And so, in other posts of mine such as, “What Drives Policy Decisions? - The Theory v The Reality” and “Our Failed Economic/Social/Political System,” I urge Democrats to shake up the status quo of how the country is run.  To change it from money/big business-centric to people-centric.  Obama pledged to get rid of the overwhelming influence of lobbyists and big business/banks, but he ended up doing neither.  

Bernie Sanders had the right idea.  His movement should not be allowed to become a mere footnote to this period of Democratic Party policy development.  Instead, it should be the core of a well-thought-through soft revolution that truly puts the country back in the hands of the people rather than big business.  Big business will still have a place at the table as they are an important part of the well-being of our country; but they will not be a controlling force. We must reestablish “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 

Trump campaigned on doing just that … putting the country back in the hands of the people.  But his cabinet appointments show clearly that he is doing just the opposite.  He has put the foxes in charge of the hen house.  And the Republican-controlled Senate supported those appointments against almost unanimous Democrat opposition.  Democrats need to label Republicans for the hypocrites they are and remind the American people of this betrayal and its implications on a regular basis.  This cannot be a forgotten moment in history.

Yes, Virginia, There Is Hope - The Invisible Majority

Of all the unfortunate results of the 2016 campaign and election, perhaps the worst is that 

the divisive identity politics pursued by both parties resulted in a loss of any feeling that we are one people, one country.  Instead, post-election there are two opposing camps at war; so many angry voices, so much vilification on both sides.  For many it destroyed any sense of hope for our country.

The Clinton campaign will refute this charge, but even with its “Stronger Together” slogan it played divisive politics by consistently demeaning those who were supporting Trump.  And Clinton supporters did not hold back in their vituperative remarks.  

The election thus seemed to show two large disparate vocal groups.  The majority (but not the winners) were vocal supporters for a fair America defined by a fistful of people’s rights, but who seemed to care little for the plight of the American factory worker and to have no use for a reading of the 2nd Amendment that included an individual right to bear arms.  

The very vocal minority (but the winners) were what has been described as anti-establishment, anti-elite.  They were for bringing back good middle-class worker jobs and against globalization.  They were against large government.  The noise of the campaign also made it seem that they were anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic, anti-immigration, and anti-choice (against Roe v Wade).  Some would even claim anti-women.

I say “seem” because while this describes the direction of the two campaigns … the only real game in town voters had to choose from … it does not describe the voters.  Get away from the politics of the moment, and there is in fact a large American majority that crosses party lines and looks quite different from the rhetoric of the two campaigns.  

How is this invisible majority defined?  I think that first and foremost this invisible majority wants three things:

1.  They each want for themselves, as well as for all Americans, the opportunity to partake of the American dream; it should not just be for a select few.  They want America to start building things again and create solid middle-class working jobs.  They do not want to see any group given preference over another.  All should have equal opportunity and advancement should be based on merit and no other factor.  (See discussion below and my post, “Economic Justice for All.”)

2.  They want a secure America … secure from terrorist attacks and secure from everyday violence as they go about their lives.

3.  They want a government that listens to them, that clearly hears them.

As for the other what-I-would-call side issues … abortion, a Muslim registry, undocumented Latinos, gun control … the majority of Americans don’t support Trump’s position.  My proof?

Re choice/abortion, for the last two decades, according to the Pew Research Center, roughly 56% of American adults have said abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 41% have said it should be illegal.  

All Americans are against Muslim terrorists and support vetting new Muslim immigrants or travelers.  But according to a June 2016 Gallup report, only a minority, albeit a sizable one, is in favor either of banning all new Muslim immigrants (38%) or requiring Muslims U.S. citizens to carry a special ID (32%).  That is to me a disturbingly large number but still clearly far from the majority view.

As for undocumented Latinos, polls in recent years have consistently shown majority support for some path to citizenship.  As recently as September 2016, a CNN poll showed that 88% (including 80% of Trump supporters) would be in favor of a path to citizenship for all those who have a clean record, have worked and paid taxes, and speak English.

Then there is the divisive issue of gun control.  Gun owners fear, as a result of NRA fear mongering, that their guns will be taken away, but taking guns out of the hands of hunters and home owners has never even been an item of discussion among gun control advocates.  Virtually all Americans support access to appropriate guns for hunting and self-defense.  So even on the 2nd Amendment, there is broad agreement.  

That agreement extends to limitations on that right, for as with all constitutional rights, this one too is not absolute.  As shown in a 2016 Pew Research Center report, the majority of Americans are in favor of tighter control of who acquires guns and the types of guns. The vast majority favor expanded background checks for gun shows and private sales (88% D; 79% R), laws preventing the mentally ill from buying guns (79%), and a federal database to track guns sales (70% - 85% D; 55% R).  A majority also favors a ban on assault-style weapons (57% - 70% D; 48% R).  

So how come Trump won the election?  Why did all these people who don’t agree with him on so many issues vote for him?

First, as various articles have made clear, they voted for him because they believed he was the best chance for restoring good-paying middle class working jobs.  He clearly heard them and took up their cause.  Democrats have been promising this for years but have achieved little, as Trump kept on accusing Clinton during the campaign.  The jobs created during the Obama administration were not jobs that helped the former middle class worker and the post-recession upswing has not benefitted them.  

Second, the recent uptick of radical Muslim terrorist attacks in Europe and the U.S. was understandably frightening to many and they liked Trump’s strict talk.  Clinton said almost nothing useful about this subject.  Third, many people, even white educated women, voiced a real dislike for Hillary, which is why even a majority in that cohort voted for Trump.

And finally, and perhaps most decisively, Trump was defiantly anti-establishment, both regarding the Republican Party and government.  Clinton on the other hand is usually seen as the very embodiment of the establishment/government.

So while the election results give Trump a “mandate” to move forward with his economic plans, parts of his national security plan, and his general anti-government perspective, it should not be seen as a mandate regarding human/civil rights-related matters.  Nevertheless it surely will be taken to be a mandate regarding all areas covered by the campaign.  That’s what all winning elections claim.

More importantly, though, the election should not be taken by anyone as evidence that the majority of Americans have lost their common sense, their morality, and have become a bigoted, racist mass.  Of course there are bigots and racists out there; there always have been.  But even among Trump supporters, they form only a small percentage.  I honestly don’t even believe Trump is bigoted or racist; he certainly played those cards to win, but then so have others before him, just not as blatantly.

“But.” the reader may ask, “isn’t your statement about what the invisible majority wants off the mark?  What about the fact that so many Blacks are adamant about maintaining affirmative action and so many whites, especially middle class workers, are adamantly against it?”

No.  Remember that my statement starts with what everyone wants for themselves; that’s the starting point, the reference point.  Blacks feel as they do because despite our laws on equal opportunity, there has never been anything close to equal opportunity for Blacks in this country, especially the poor.  It starts with  poorly funded and neglected inner city schools and continues with the existence of discrimination in much of the job market.  

Whites on the other hand feel as they do because affirmative action has resulted in Blacks with less qualification still getting job preference 50 years after the civil rights laws were passed.  They may be considered part of the “privileged class” because they are white, but they do not feel privileged.  Many are suffering economically and angry that they see attention being given only to others’ rights, not theirs. 

If, as I say in that statement, everyone had true equal opportunity, I think all would feel that the only consideration in education, hiring, and advancement should be merit, not color.

Recognizing that Trump supporters are not the bogeyman, everyone on the progressive/center side of politics should be not only open to, but arguing for a new Democratic politics that reaches out to and forms a bond with the average Trump voter (many of whom were formerly mainstay Democrats).  This means foregoing identity politics and recognizing that we are all in the same boat and we all either swim or sink together.  And it means recognizing the things in Trump’s agenda which we can and should support because they are good for America. 

We need to say to Trump voters, “We support Trump’s efforts to create good-paying middle-class working jobs.  We support his efforts to restore and improve the country’s infrastructure.  

We feel for workers whose lives have been shattered and who have not been listened to.  We understand that we must make government more responsive to the people.  We know you are not racists or bigots.   You are upstanding citizens and we apologize that anyone has characterized you otherwise.

But there are dark forces out there which must be countered, and so we ask you to stand up as Trump supporters and make clear that:

- You support an earned path to citizenship for undocumented Latinos who have clean records, have worked and paid taxes, and speak English, 

- You oppose a Muslim registry of U.S. citizens, 

- You support reasonable efforts to stop the sale of guns to those who have evidenced that they cannot be trusted with the power of guns, and 

-  You unequivocally disapprove of any violent acts and vandalism taken by individuals/vigilante groups against Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans, LGBT people, Jews, or any other group.”  

I have not included abortion rights or other women’s rights issues in this outreach request because Trump voters’ support of these issues is not as great and I don’t think anything should distract from the large agreement on these other very important issues.

Whether white middle class worker, or black inner city dweller, or rural farmer, regardless what color, gender, faith, walk of life, ethnicity or sexual orientation, the government and the economy should be there for each and every one.  Everyone is entitled to equality and respect.  Everyone should have access to equal opportunity (whether people take advantage of it is their responsibility).  There is no inherent conflict between group interests here.  

That is the mandate of our Declaration of Independence.  And that is what we should be fighting for.

The Importance of Separation of Church and State

The founders of the United States were deeply religious.   But they were not narrow-minded or bigoted in their religious thought.  They were students of the Enlightenment.  And so in writing the 1st Amendment they saw to it that the government would neither pass any law respecting the establishment of religion, thus forcing it on people, nor one prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

As worded, the amendment is all about prohibiting what the government can do.  In interpreting the amendment, the courts early on looked to a January 1802 letter written by Thomas Jefferson which stated that the language in the amendment “built a wall of separation between Church and State.”  This phrase echoed a statement made by Roger Williams, the founder of the first Baptist church in America who spoke of “a wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.”

President Trump is correct that the prohibition on election activity by churches is a result of a law pushed by Lyndon Johnson.  It impacts all non-profit, 501(c) 3 organizations, not just churches.  There is no existing constitutional law/case mandating this prohibition.

However, that is not to say that there exists no basis in the constitution for such prohibition at least as it pertains to churches.  Certainly not if we look at the intent of the founders, which is the standard in vogue with conservative jurists, including the current Supreme Court nominee Judge Gorsuch.

A wall is only a solid wall if it is two-sided.  The government is restricted regarding what it can do that affects religion and people’s free choice.  And churches, which is to say religion, should be restricted from engaging directly in political matters such as campaigns.  

Why?  Churches should not be sullied by engaging in politics.  As Roger Williams eloquently said, the garden of the church needs to be separated from the wilderness of the world.  Encroachment of the “wilderness” comes not just through laws that might restrict or command religious practice, which is the literal meaning of the 1st Amendment, but through the church becoming entangled in the wilderness.

I see this reading of the 1st Amendment as being an important part of protecting religious freedom.  Churches do have free speech and can speak out on any issue concerning the public or the state.  And indeed they use this right very effectively and appropriately.  Churches should be a moral authority.  But to take that one step further and allow churches to actively support specific candidates or parties, which is what President Trump wants to allow, would lead churches and religious organizations down the proverbial slippery slope and create a problem.

For centuries, churches were not involved in politics both because they thought that the world of politics was sordid and because there was no need to.   Freedom of religion was set in the Constitution.  

But at some point in the 1980s, Evangelical leaders started getting concerned that their values, what they felt were American values, were being undermined either by liberals or by less religious people.  And with the encouragement of Republican operatives, they got involved in politics.  To protect the America that they felt was the true America.

And here one sees clearly the problem.  This is not about freedom of religion.  No one was telling Evangelicals that they couldn’t do or practice what they felt were the standards, the commandments of their religion.  This is about one religion wanting to impose its view of morality upon the entire society, not by forcing everyone to join the same religion but through the law.   Which is in effect against the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment.

As generally recognized, the establishment clause "not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion." 

Or more recently, when they offer services to the public through their businesses, they want to be able to discriminate regarding who they serve.  But we have a law in this country.  It is part of the civil rights laws that if you serve the public you cannot discriminate in who your serve.  Period.  That doesn’t keep you from practicing your religion and remaining true to your beliefs.  That is something private.  It just stops you from forcing your morality on others when you put yourself out as a purveyor to the public.  Because then it impacts other people. 

If churches start campaigning for candidates, which has already happened despite the Johnson Amendment, then when a candidate is elected and recognizes his debt to these churches, the person is likely to propose actions, as has President Trump, which please that group even as it tramples on the rights of others.  

His vow to find a conservative jurist committed to overturning Roe v Wade was an effort to win the evangelical vote by getting the organized evangelical church and other organizations to support him and campaign for him.  And now he has carried through on that promise, despite the fact that as recently as 1999 he said that he was “very” pro-choice.  

Likewise there have been articles written about memos circulating in the White House that would turn back the rights that have been recognized for LGBT people, again despite the fact that as recently as November 13, 2016 he said that he was “fine” with gay marriage and that the matter was “settled.”

The influence of churches in campaigns is bad for our freedoms and ultimately religion.  Our system of rights maintains that we all, not just a few, have rights.  And the rights guaranteed by the 1st Amendment are indeed the strongest.  

But even they are not absolute.  No one can exercise a right if in so doing they infringe on the rights of another person.  That is the basis of all laws and regulations that impact people’s rights.  There is a greater good that is always considered.  That is as true for the freedom of religion and for the other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.  If one religion does not respect the rights of others of another religion or no religion, that is a sad day for religion in our democracy.

There is one more reason why Trump’s idea is a bad one.  America has been blessedly free for most of its history of the open religious antagonism and warfare that plagued Europe for centuries.  Yes, there has been anti-semitism in various forms, as well as anti-catholicism.   But there has not been open hostility between the various religious establishments.

If churches start being involved in campaigns with those supporting the winner benefiting in some way and having their view be ascendant, there is much more likely to develop the kind of deep-seated animosity that was a feature of European history for so long.   These feelings may be below the surface in America, but they are there and it wouldn’t take much to raise them to a different, vocal level. 

The Johnson Amendment should not be repealed and churches/religious organizations should voluntarily refrain from campaigning for individual candidates or parties for the reason that it is just not seemly.   To quote Roger Williams again, “There should be a wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.

I urge the President to reconsider his support of churches’ campaigning in support of specific candidates or parties.  And I urge Congress to maintain the Johnson Amendment in force.

Darkness Before Light

We learn that life is a struggle between the forces of light and darkness.  Buddhism sees the conflict as between your heart and your ego-mind.  In Christianity, it’s between God and the Devil.  

Many holy men have taught that there can be no light without darkness, without first suffering you cannot learn how to free yourself from suffering.  In this line of thinking, we drift from the true Buddha nature or God-essence we were born with because without suffering first, we cannot live a truly spiritual life.  To be spiritual without having ever suffered is almost an oxymoron.  Our suffering grounds our spirituality.

I have certainly experienced personally, and I have observed it in many others, that until one reaches rock bottom in one’s suffering, an all-enveloping darkness, we do not have the motivation to change our habit-energy.  We cannot fully release ourselves from the emotions, judgments, cravings, or attachments that cause our suffering.  

No matter how strongly people may feel and honestly mean that, for example, they want an end to their addiction, until they hit rock bottom they will not be able to emerge and remain sober.  That is why, regardless the nature of the addiction, the typical scenario is that people return to their addiction over and over again.

During a recent meditation, I became aware that this personal lesson applies equally well to societies and nations.  Take for example anti-semitism.  It has existed for most of the Christian era and despite the fact that in the U.S. and other countries it is no longer politically correct to voice such feelings, they are still there not that far beneath the surface.

Only one society hit rock bottom with regard to this darkness … Germany.  Because of Hitler and the holocaust, the German people have taken it upon themselves, especially the post-WWII generations, to free themselves from this blight.  And they have been very thorough and disciplined about it.  They have gone far beyond passing laws making racial hate speech and action against the law.  Even today, 70 years after the end of the war, children are taught in the schools about the holocaust in a very unvarnished way so that they understand and will never countenance any form of anti-semitism.

The United States, unfortunately, has never dealt with its history of slavery and racial discrimination with anything close to the same determined thoroughness.   After the cataclysmic Civil War, nothing was done in the north or the south to rid the nation of this cancer on its soul.  Yes, the 14th amendment was passed guaranteeing the government’s equal treatment of all, but there was no accompanying national effort to root out racism and free ourselves of it once and for all.  And so it just festered.  

Almost a century later came the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other laws which brought more legal equality to African-Americans, outlawing discrimination not just by the state but by corporations and individuals in many settings.  And while these laws brought about meaningful changes in the their lives, it did nothing to change the underlying racism and discrimination present throughout much of our society.

Why have we come such a little distance in this matter which is of such great importance to the soul and welfare of our country?  Part of the reason is that during the short period when the defenders of slavery were weak, immediately after the Civil War, the government did nothing to change the underlying pattern and reeducate people; the tactics of the Reconstruction Era were a farce and did more harm than good.  

After that short period, the defenders of racism became strong again; the white forces that opposed racism, relatively weak.  They had been, after all, primarily against slavery, not endemic racism, and slavery was no more.  Yes, a century later they managed to pass some needed laws, but doing what would have been necessary to cleanse the country was not even under discussion.  Partly because it would have meant cleansing the north of racism as well, and there would have been little support for that.  Partly because it was just taken as a given that racism would exist; it was not extinguishable.

Now the dark head of racism and bigotry has raised itself once again.  During the recent presidential election, the level of vilification leveled at various classes of Americans, and immigrants, by a major party candidate was unheard of in modern times.  And it has empowered a small core of Trump supporters to unleash its racial venom in the form of acts of violence and vandalism.

After the election, I urged the people to rise up in the spirit of Gandhi and MLK and demonstrate en masse in solidarity with all those being attacked as well as the long-suffering American worker through a new organization, American Solidarity, but to no avail.  See my posts, “How to Respond to the Election?” and “The Case for Civil Disobedience,” and www.americansolidarity.org.

But after the President’s recent executive order barring entry to all people from seven Muslim-majority countries as well as all refugees from Syria, there has been a groundswell of protest across the country against what is seen as an assault on human rights and the historic openness of America.  

Everyone supports vetting travelers and refugees for possible terrorist leanings.  We need to protect the country from a very real danger.  But Trump’s action was over-broad, smacked of Islamophobia, and because of its incendiary nature was felt by many to actually increase the threat of terrorism not decrease it.

Will this outpouring of support for respect and against bigotry towards Muslims, caused by our current darkness, build into a movement that attacks the more deeply rooted racism and bigotry that America continues to labor under?  Or will we need to descend further into this pit so that the American people and government finally cannot escape what it needs to do in this matter?  

I certainly hope that we don’t need to descend so far.  On the other hand, I fear that if we don’t, the whole episode will be papered over and nothing fundamental will change.  The lives of Muslims, women, and LGBT people, even Latinos, will probably get back on track.  But for Blacks, their lives will remain basically the same as they have since the end of slavery.  Yes, they can stay in hotels, and eat in restaurants, and many blacks have risen out of poverty and have good jobs, but in more fundamental ways nothing has really changed.

More Proof That the Problems of Inner Cities Are Not Caused by Black Culture

In an earlier post of mine, “The Cause of Urban Ghetto Violence Cannot Be Placed on a Failure of the Black Community,” I argued that while many, especially Republicans, criticize Blacks for the violence in the urban ghetto community, that causal connection is false.  It is not a function of Black culture.  It is instead the product of poverty and the soul-crushing experience of life in the modern urban ghetto.  This is what has caused the supposed “failure” of Black culture and families.  An argument supported by the existence of violence and gangs in every urban ghetto around the world.

Here's more proof.  Recently a friend shared with me something startling from a book he was reading, There Are No Children Here, about the devastating life in a broken Chicago housing project - the Henry Horner Homes - in the 1980s.  This project was completed and first occupied in 1957.  Describing her experience as an early resident in the 1960s, the children’s grandmother, Lelia Mae, “told the children, to their disbelief, that families used to keep their doors unlocked at night.  During the summers, she told them, they might even spend the nights outside, sleeping on the lawn.  The old days she spoke of seemed bright and cheery.”

And Lelia Mae’s experience was not an anomaly, as shown by a New York Times article in 2009 about lives in the early years of the city’s housing projects.  Here two quotes:  “In the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, a sense of pride and community permeated. Far from dangerous, the projects were viewed as nurturing.”  “Doors were kept unlocked as kids bounced from one apartment to the next on rainy Saturdays to watch Laurel and Hardy and Hopalong Cassidy on television. People did the right thing, or they could force you to leave.”

What a difference from life in the projects in the mid-80s when the book was written.  What a difference from life in the projects, or generally in the inner city ghetto, today.

What has caused this extreme deterioration in the quality of life for everyone living in the inner city ghetto?  (I know that’s probably not a politically correct phrase, but that is in fact what it is.) 

Once again, it is not a function of Black culture or a failure of Black one-parent households.  Or even just of poverty.  All of that was present in the 1950s.  The experience of Lelia Mae when she first lived in the Henry Horner Homes, together with other stories such as those noted in The New York Times article, is proof positive that the cause of the problem does not have the word “Black” attached to it.

Actually, just the opposite.  It was the strength, faith, values, and resilience of Black culture that enabled generations to endure poverty and discrimination in the aftermath of slavery and still retain a remarkable life-affirming attitude and quality of life.

So what happened?  The deterioration was caused instead in large part by the morphing of black social gangs with their limited turf violence into criminal drug syndicates.  This had two consequences.  It brought the violence that marks the battle for money and turf in any criminal environment, whether it’s within the Italian-American mafia or between Black gangs.  And it made drugs readily available to vulnerable ghetto residents.  When gangs such as El Rukn, the most notorious and violent of the Black Chicago gangs of the period, brought heroin into the ghetto in the mid80s, followed by other highly-addictive drugs, things got even worse … the violence more pervasive, the addiction darker.

The reader may ask, “Why haven’t Italian-American neighborhoods been devastated by mafia-related violence and drugs like inner city neighborhoods?  Isn’t the difference due to the nature of Black culture?”

No, the reason is that the mafia kept their drugs and violence mostly away from where they lived, seeking out instead vulnerable communities.  But the zone of activity of El Rukn and other Black gangs was limited to the inner city ghetto because that was the only community available to them, as Blacks, to infiltrate.  Also, the poverty and joblessness in the ghetto created a vulnerable group susceptible to the addictive quality of drugs, despite the strength of Black culture.

The other prominent cause were changes in the way the housing projects and welfare were administered.  Incomes were capped in 1971, forcing less poor tenants to move out.  Funds were cut in many housing agencies creating serious, ongoing, maintenance problems which degraded the buildings and apartments.  In Chicago, because of funding cuts, tenants were no longer carefully screened resulting in people with criminal records moving in.  In general, the projects stopped being tightly administered.

Also, until the early 1960s, the black family had been stable for decades, with roughly 80% being headed by two parents.  That changed dramatically in the 1960s due to a combination of the disappearance of jobs traditionally held by many low-skilled Black men and the new welfare rule which prohibited aid to families if there was an able-bodied man in the house.  This rule forced many unemployed men to move out so their families could receive aid.  

Although the rule was declared unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1968, it continued to be used in many localities for years.  For example, I know for a fact that it was used in Chicago, where I was a Legal Aid lawyer in the early 70s, even if a man visited occasionally.

All of this combined to greatly change the nature of the housing project community and the environment they lived in.  It changed it from safe and nurturing to dangerous and demeaning, open to infiltration by the gangs and drugs.

Previous eras of inner-city ghetto poverty were hard, and certainly many black men found it impossible to have a semblance of self-esteem in that environment.  Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun is eloquent testimony to that struggle.  

But this was something new. This violence turned the ghetto into a war zone, both in the sense of people fearing for their lives and in the sense that the worst-hit neighborhoods looked like war zones.  That and the epidemic of drug addiction the gangs fostered turned the ghetto into a truly degrading place for humans to live and it has spawned generations of damaged, highly dysfunctional children who grow up to be lost adults.  

How could anyone grow up in that environment and not be so impacted?  Yes, of course there are those who manage to rise above it and escape, whether it’s because of an exceptional parent or the good fortune of having had a mentor in school who believed in them.  But no part of society should be so structured that it is the exceptions who grow to become healthy, reasonably fulfilled, responsible adults and citizens.  

It should be everyone’s birthright in our democracy to have an equal opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.  And as the Declaration of Independence states, it is the role of government to secure that opportunity.  It is society’s responsibility … for government is just an expression of the society from which it springs.

But as I said in the previous referred-to post, society prefers the ease of finger-pointing at Black culture to place blame.  “If it wasn’t the fault of the poor, if the problem wasn’t self-inflicted, then the larger society would have both a social and a moral obligation to correct the situation, to remove or at least ameliorate the causal factors.  

But we do not want to drastically change the way our societies are structured, the way resources are distributed by government, the deeply embedded racism against the ethnic poor, and the pervasive discrimination directed towards all poor.  And so life for the poor continues more or less as it always has, even while receiving meager assistance in the U.S. and other countries from the government.

This is just one more example of the impact of the lack of humanity in our society  (see my post, “Healing Our Nation, Healing Ourselves”).  And our nation, as well as the rest of the world, will not move forward unless the essence of humanity is rediscovered by us humans, individually and collectively.”

We have so far to go.  And after the recent election, we have just taken many steps backward.

The Case for Compulsory Language Education for Immigrants

The functioning of a healthy democracy and society requires that all members of that society feel a part of it.  They can have complaints, arguments, but they need to still feel part of it.

There are several things that indicate I believe that we don’t have a healthy democracy at this point in our history.  The one is the percentage of people who don’t vote.  Typically 40-45% of the eligible voters don’t vote, even in a presidential election which gets the highest voter turnout.  Why?  People often say they don’t feel their vote makes a difference; in various ways they indicate they are politically estranged.

But when you look at who doesn’t vote … 20-somethings, Hispanics, and those making less than $30,000/yr are much less likely to register and vote than others … the more fundamental reason is likely that they don’t feel part of the system, part of society.  Why?  Because they don’t see themselves as benefiting from it.  That has to change.  But that’s a topic for another post.

Another, which has reached I believe a true danger point in the 2016 election, is that half of the population feels that it has no commonality with the other half.  I do not believe this is an overstatement.  I do not know if there has been any point in time, with the exception of the Civil War era, when the country has been so deeply divided.  It’s not that we haven’t often been divided 50/50, but the division has never been so sharp, the passions so visceral.

But in this post, I want to address another problem area … the percentage of Americans who can barely speak English, if at all.  America has always been a nation of immigrants.  In all the waves of immigration in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, immigrants settled in areas of a city or the country where other immigrants from their country lived and their native language was freely spoken.

But whether it was because they wanted to be proud Americans or whether they felt it was necessary if they were to get ahead in life, they made it their business to learn English.  The older generation might only learn to speak English haltingly and with a heavy accent, but the younger people always became fluent English speakers.

For most immigrants, this pattern of assimilation still holds true.  But it is not true for many Hispanics.  Why?  The main reason I believe is that there is so many of them that they comprise a culture unto themselves.  To the point that if they don’t get more than a high school education and work in the jobs available to that cohort, they don’t need English, or barely, to meet the requirements of their jobs.

According to the 2011 Census, sixty-two percent of Hispanics (not just recent immigrants; they have no published data on recent immigrants) spoke Spanish at home; the next highest were Chinese at 5%.  The other percentages are miniscule.  While the data make clear that the vast majority of Hispanics in this country, even those who speak Spanish at home, are fluent in English, a large percentage (25%) of those Hispanics who spoke Spanish at home did not speak English well or not at all, 

The actual number of Limited English Proficiency Hispanics is large enough that this weakens the health of our democracy because if you don’t speak the common, native language, then you do not feel part of the larger society.  You only feel part of a separate society.  

For that reason, while I am as liberal and progressive as one can be, I have always supported the proposition that immigrants must learn English to become citizens and that English should be the only language officially used … for example, on signage of all types, instruction on ATMs, elections materials, etc.  Obviously one can’t implement this “English only” standard at the current time because we have not had this education requirement.

One of the things I’ve done as a volunteer is tutor adult immigrants in English.  I’ve seen how hard it is for them to learn English.  First, it’s not an easy language.  But more importantly, they typically live in a household where English is not spoken and they associate with friends who don’t speak English, at least amongst themselves.  Many have not worked or were in menial jobs with other same-language immigrants.  

So they have lessons for an hour or two a week, but then they are immersed not in an English-speaking environment but in their native language environment, and so they make very slow progress.  (Interestingly, I haven't personally seen Hispanics in the programs I’ve been part of.)

To break this pattern, I suggest the United States needs to introduce compulsory language education for all new or recent immigrants under the age of, say, 60 who have not yet obtained U.S. citizenship.  And it needs to be sufficiently robust that it works.  It needs to be for several hours, several days a week, so that the new language can begin to take hold.  And it needs to be available at enough times so that it does not interfere with an immigrant’s attempts to find employment.

Luckily, we have an infrastructure of schools in every neighborhood in every city.  These public buildings typically go unused after the regular school day is over.  They can and should be put to use in the new compulsory language education program.

Yes, this will mean an added expense for government budgets, but it is I feel a critically important expense if we are to maintain both the health of our democracy and the character of this country.  We are not, like Canada, an historically bi-lingual country.  However, we have in many respects already become a bi-lingual country, not by virtue of the number of Hispanics who have immigrated here, but because we have not had in place systems and requirements regarding their learning English.

This must change.  And while I would not make it a requirement for those who have already become U.S. citizens, the government should make English courses readily available so that if a citizen wants to learn English, there are as few barriers as possible.

During this transition period, how should the existence of English/Spanish signage, etc., be handled?  I would suggest that after a one or two year “warning” period, all signage should revert to English only.  That is an important way of making this new requirement work.

It is important to note that this program would be targeted at and aid all immigrants in becoming productive members of our society, not just Hispanics.  I have tutored Asian and Arab immigrants.  They have been very motivated, but the obstacles to their learning English, as I indicated above, are substantial.

This proposal is not anti-immigrant and should not discourage immigrants.  It is also not against retaining immigrant culture (as a child of immigrants, I value that culture very much).  Instead, it shows immigrants clearly that we welcome you and want you to become a valued part of our country.  But that means learning the language so you can prosper and partake fully of what the country offers.