Notes from the Revolution, 6/9/20

. . . a revolution of hearts and minds . . .

After his funeral in Houston today, George Floyd was carried
to his final resting place in a horse-drawn hearse.

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As I said in Sunday's post, I can't keep up with all the news that's going on right now, but I will continue to post from time to time, under the above heading, my thoughts about where we are as a nation and where I think we ought to go, and how.

And let me say, for the benefit of any new readers, something that I suppose has been apparent to my longtime truckbuddies:  I represent a party of one, and this blog is my personal forum in which I express my own independent thoughts, not all of them necessarily in tune with the zeitgeist of the modern world.  My party's platform includes the Golden Rule, the Golden Mean, and the Baptismal Covenant, as well as a plank in favor of the Oxford comma, and another one denouncing the use of gift as a verb.

Being fairly well versed in the English language, I say what I mean and I mean what I say: it's my privilege as a free, though flawed, man in a free, though flawed, country.  I don't want to argue with anyone.  If you don't agree with me, just move on and find someone else you do agree with:  that's your privilege.  There are millions of other voices in the world, and mine, small and obscure, has no influence over the course of events, one way or the other.  Which may be all for the best; at least it passes the time for me here in retirement.

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"Defund the Police" Needs a Rebrand:  It certainly does, for all sorts of obvious reasons. As Kevin Drum says:

We can write thousands of pieces telling people that “defund” doesn’t really mean defund, but honestly, you can hardly blame people for nevertheless thinking that defund means defund. That is, cut police budgets to zero and get rid of them entirely.

There’s not a Democratic politician alive who thinks we should do this, and keeping the phrase in use is just an invitation for unnecessary conflict between politicos and their base. Maybe it’s too late, but can’t we come up with something better? Rebuild the Police? Reform the Police? Demilitarize the Police? There’s got to be something.

Notice how Senator Kamala Harris, a former state prosecutor, struggles to explain what the phrase really means - "not that we get rid of the police, of course not" - which is baffling to any intelligent listener who believes that words have meaning:



Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis was booed out of a protest march on Saturday after he refused to accede to the demand to "defund the police." He was quite right to decline, in my opinion. Here he explains his stand:




Now I certainly agree with Sen.  Harris that increased funding for public schools, healthcare, job creation and training is necessary to make better communities:  you get what you pay for.  Although I do have to wonder why, more than fifty years after LBJ called for the building of a "Great Society" in America - and the countless billions of dollars that have been spent on those very issues - why is our society not great?  Why are black communities still impoverished, with all the unhappy outcomes that go with poverty?  Why have fifty years of massive federal aid to cities and minorities had no better effect on its intended beneficiaries than what we see today in this country - the richest and most powerful in the world?

Please understand that I do not know the answers - I am simply asking the questions.  Questions that are long overdue a proper answer free of bias, one way or the other.

Some uninformed people in this great country think that it was established as an exclusively Christian nation and intended to be such forever.  The facts are otherwise, but even if that were true, they should not boast about it, but weep.  Jesus did say, "The poor are always with you."  But this hardly justifies complacency about the fact; I think it likely that He was quoting, in part, Deuteronomy 15:11, where God commands the Israelites:

For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

And of course, Jesus himself told the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, enjoining those who love God to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, care for the sick, and comfort the prisoners; in other words, to do whatever was needed to alleviate poverty and misery.  In the Sermon on the Mount, He blessed the poor, saying the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to them.

Now, you need not believe in God or Christ or the Bible to grasp the exalted moral imperative here, which is expressed in different words in all other religions worthy of the name:  love your neighbor as yourself.  Believer or non-believer, conservative or liberal, rich or just getting by - if we are not barbarians, we must as individuals and as as a nation do what needs to be done to help and heal and lift up the poor among us - poor in body, mind, or spirit - and that is what will truly Make America Great Again.