"Hate has no place in God's house"

From retiring Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writing in Essence magazine:

Each of you is called to respond to God's urgency for love and life. So whether you are in South Africa, the United States or anywhere else, humanity needs to accept its own diversity as a gift from our Creator. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are part of our family of God....

Boldly, I urge all faith leaders and politicians to stop persecuting people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Every day people live in fear because of who they love. We are talking about our family members, our flesh and blood, our humanity. LGBT people are in our villages, towns, cities, countries -- and our whole world.

In South African churches we have sung, "Oh freedom! Freedom is coming, oh yes, I know." We sang this chorus at the lowest points of our journey toward freedom against the racist and colonialist system of apartheid, and we still sing it to this day. Freedom is coming -- and those of us who have freedom must speak out for those whose freedom is under attack. We can and must make a difference.

Cross posted from the new series, "Voices of Faith Speak out", at Gay married Californian

Selling America to Big Business: the corporate strategy behind Arizona's SB1070

The disgusting "breathing while brown" anti-immigrant law in Arizona turns out to be heavily inspired by for-profit prison companies. An exposé on NPR reveals that the private prison industry is trying to develop more aggressive anti-immigrant laws to populate their prisons. They see detention for women and children to be a particular growth area.

Anyone else troubled by this?

Listen, since Citizens United (where the conservative, activist Roberts court declared corporations to be citizens), we've known that America is now run by companies, not the people. The Tea Party, far from being a populist movement of citizens claiming their rights, is a cynical manipulation by anti-government billionaires.

And the prison industry is now one of the big players. To the point where they are writing the legislation.

Late last year, a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) held a meeting in D.C. for its members, which include state lawmakers, assorted organizations like the NRA, and powerful corporations like ExxonMobil. The billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America was also on hand, and connected with state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), who's spearheaded anti-immigrant efforts in Arizona.

A business model was born. As the report explained, "According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market."

So, at the ALEC event, members discussed and debated language, and sent Pearce back to Arizona with a proposal in hand. Four months later, NPR's piece noted, "that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law."

In case this doesn't appear quite nefarious enough for you, also note that most of the co-sponsors of SB1070 were attendees to the ALEC event. The Corrections Corporation of America quickly hired a powerful new lobbyist, and 30 of the 36 co-sponsors received donations from prison lobbyists or prison companies.

Again, this is not government by the people. This is government by corporations buying off representatives. It is absolutely corrupt.


Even though crime rates are relatively steady, we lock up increasing numbers of people. There's profit in it: we have a private industry based on profiting off the misery of others. It's an unholy alliance with powerful prison guards' unions who also support increased incarceration. We lock up immense numbers of people for victimless drug crimes, due to hysterical politicization of crime. We never met a prison we didn't like.

In 1970 one in 400 American adults was behind bars or on parole. As of 2008, the number was one in 100. Add in probation, and it's one in 31. The number of people behind bars for drug crimes has soared from 40,000 in 1980 to about half a million today. States today spend one of every 15 general fund dollars on maintaining their prisons. citation

States like California eviscerate their education budget to keep prisons funded. And now, the prison companies making a fortune out of this misery are writing laws that will ensure a steady stream of victims, and profits, to come.

This country locks up more people than any other Western democracy.

I hope I'm not the only one completely revolted by this.

Of course, it's not just immigration policy that is set by the companies. Read this New Yorker article for an explanation of how the White House and the Senate between them screwed up any chance of meaningful movement on climate change, which is almost entirely dictated by corporate interests.

Look, I'm not anti-company. But a nation out-of-balance in how it treats business interests is out of balance in the role of government. We have one political party that is committed to feathering the nest of rich corporate oligarchs. And as a result, our infrastructure is crumbling and our education lags behind our economic competitors. Our citizens' health is among the worst in the Western world (in infant mortality we're number 42) and as a rail commuter, I'll tell you we can't even run a train on time.

America, Republican-style. And we just voted the bastards back into office.

DC Memorials to the Dead

On the morning of the Rally for Sanity, BP and I went early to the mall, and headed down to the west end. BP hadn't been back to DC since the WWII memorial was built in 2004 and we wanted to look at it.

The sun was still at an oblique angle and the golden light made the fall foliage glow richly. The morning was bright, clear and brisk as we walked past the Ellipse and the White House.

The WWII memorial is built around sunken fountains at the end of the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, so it doesn't interfere with that view. It consists of great pillars with metal wreaths marking each state and territory that fought, with one side marked "Atlantic" and the other "Pacific" for the two theatres of war. "Victory at sea, Victory on land, Victory in the Air" thunders a massive brass inlay in the pathway. George W Bush's name is prominent on the cornerstone. It feels very classically European in a grandiose, rather anachronisitc way and it doesn't do a THING for me. (It should not need saying that this is a reaction to the memorial, and not the sacrifice of those who fought and died.)

Walking along was a squad of troops in cammies. Their leader stopped them at one point and I heard him begin, "President Franklin D. Roosevelt....." so I guess it was a history lesson.

We left the WWII memorial and went further towards the Vietnam Memorial, that simple, stark slash of black stone that looks like a scar in the earth. I've seen it 3 times and I cry every time. As we approached, an older man, maybe in his late 60s, walked past us going the other direction. He was heaving with agonized sobs as his wife tried to comfort him.

We went to the far end to look in the Book for a name. BP wore an MIA bracelet back In The Day for Lt Col Robert Standerwick Sr, and she wanted to find him. The Book gives the location on the panels for each name. A volunteer guide helped us. He pointed to the lightly etched cross in front of Lt Col Standerwick's name, rather than the diamond that separates most names. Not a religious mark, but a placeholder. "He's still missing," the volunteer explained. "When they're found, we drill out the diamond. We've found nearly half of them since the wall was built. If we found them alive, we would put a circle around it. There are no circles on the wall," he finished, wistfully. He thanked BP for wearing a bracelet for Lt Col Standerwick all those years ago, and we moved on, our eyes full of tears.

The Wall is very tactile. You can see people making rubbings of names, or just reaching out to touch them. There are notes and offerings left at its base. There was a laminated card with a rhyme written by one of the "Donut Dollies" who cheered the boys along, lamenting that she never knew their real names.

Don't you think that I remember
Big Mike, Stoney, Ace, and Jer?
I still can see and hear you
But I can't find you anywhere

I can't reach out and touch your name
Though I know you're on the wall
I never got to say Goodbye
Or Welcome home--that most of all.

A group of young cadets from Annapolis were there, in uniform. Like the squad at the other memorial, they were having some sort of a history lesson, and they walked along the length of the wall. The faces of the men--boys, really-- were still spotty with youth. I don't think it really affected them. They don't have the memories of waiting for draft numbers with a brother, the nightly news of carnage, burning draft cards, protests and tear gas, and the damaged bodies and minds that came home to angry voices and rejection. That searing image of the fall of Saigon is no more real to them than a video from an old war movie. And it is ever thus, as young men go to war.

From the Wall, we joined the throngs walking purposefully up to the other end of the Mall and joined the rally. It was very fundamental: Americans, gathering "in the nation's back yard" to exercise our rights to free speech and free assembly.

But before we got there, I couldn't help but wish that every bloviating politician in the Capitol be forced to go stand by that Wall in contemplation.

Photos (C) by IT

VOTE!

GET OUT AND VOTE. Vote like your life depends upon it, because it does. Even if you've found the Administration up to this point disappointing, vote. IF you are outraged at corporate ownership of our system, vote. If you are pissed off at craven Democrats in Congress, vote. Because the tea party radicals and Republican nay-sayers have no interest in governing, only in campaigning, and it will assuredly be worse if they get in. The other side will NOT listen to us at all. They speak only for destruction. We have to vote in the Democrats, and then hold their feet to the fire!

Report from the Rally

We started to realize it would be a Big Thing on the plane, when about 1/3 of the passengers raised their hands when asked who was going to the rally. One woman behind us said friends of hers from New York were on the train and said everyone else on their train was also going. We got to our hotel (in Crystal City, where BP lived about 25 years ago) by 8pm and had a reasonably early night, since we wanted to get to the Mall early in the AM for some sightseeing before the rally. I'll blog later about that.


It was good we were admiring the Lincoln Memorial around 9am because not long after we got there, the Metro was overwhelmed. The trains were so full, that passengers in the closer stations couldn't get on them. They were taking the trains in the opposite direction to the end of the line in order to be able to get on the train to get to the Mall!

As we started the walk down the Mall towards the rally site, throngs of people were walking with us (and it was only a little past 10). We saw two helicopters leave the White House, presumably carrying the president off to do some campaigning.

Shortly before 11, we made it on the rally site between 4th and 7th. It was absolutely thronged. We found some food and perched against a crowd fence in the middle of the section, within view of a jumbotron. We could see the stage in the distance but it was way too packed to try to get closer. Cell phones did not work, so we missed meeting up with Friend-of-Jake Karen) and thus it was just us. Right around the time it was starting, a woman came up behind us. She had managed to find her boyfriend (no mean feat when the phones don't work) and said that the crowds went back across 7th all the way to the Washington Monument. There weren't any jumbotrons back there, either.

So, it was very low-key and friendly, mostly music and some sketches. Couldn't see anything except on the jumbotron. The crowd was warmed up by Adam Savage and Jamie Heinnemann of Mythbusters fame, who had us all do the wave, and jump in synchrony, and make funny noises. There were funny signs ("This is a sign"; "I see smart people"; "We are a mixed party couple and we have great sex") and more serious ones ("Congress should do stuff" ; $2billion a day isn't a defense, it's a scandal"). The invocation was by Fr Guido Sarducci. THe younger people didn't know who he was.


People were very positive, singing along when they could. The demographic, contrary to expectation, was not all young. There were lots of older people too. Mostly but not exclusively white; I'd guess around 85%.

Jon Stewart's impassioned speech at the end calling for intelligence, and criticizing a media of soundbites and endless campaigning hit the right note for this crowd. If there was a boogeyman, it was Fox news and corporate takeover of the political discourse. Stewart commented more than once that Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez may have made stupid remarks, but are NOT racist, and a communal tar-n-feathering of them was not at all appropriate. He wasn't partisan, having comments about the hyperpartisanship of both sides.

These Muslim women had signs offering to introduce folks to Islam	AP photo

Will it make a difference? I don't know. Certainly it was the nicest possible crowd leaving the site, as the hordes inched along the streets. BP and I held hands tightly in fear of getting separated without phones. We walked all the way up to 9th and U, in an evening quest to find Ethiopian food. While having a couple beers in a bar there (near Howard University), we met a nice young man called Mark who was on his way back to the bus. He had come from Ohio on an overnight bus, and was going back the same day. Easy for BP and me, comfortably-off professionals, to splurge on a weekend. But Mark, who is probably in his late 20s, made a real effort to get there and make a difference. So did a lot of others.

Do you see us? Two lesbians under the pink arrow waving! (Photo from CBS, arrow added by IT)


The same company that estimated 87,000 for the Glenn Beck rally estimated 215,000 for this one.

So now the job is clear. Get out there and VOTE for the grownups, and become a civil, sane, civic participant. We get the government and the media we deserve. Time to be heard.


All photos (c) author, except where noted. Click on any for a closer view