Presidential candidates routinely make promises that they cannot keep. Sometime in the afternoon of January 20 they are given the first of a series of briefings that will explain to them why some of their pet campaign promises are politically, militarily, economically or logistically impossible.
Oh, well … .
A classic example was the “missile gap” of 1960. Kennedy got tons of press throughout that campaign by harping on the “fact” that the Soviets had far more missiles than we—and that if we wanted to survive we had to build lots more.
All the while, President Eisenhower was sitting on top secret intelligence reports that showed, if anything, the US was ahead of the Russians. There was no missile gap. But Eisenhower—and his Vice President, Richard Nixon—could not reveal this data for national security reasons.
(If the Russians knew what we knew, then they could figure out where the leak was—and compromise our intelligence gathering capabilities. So Ike couldn’t speak. We had the same problem with the German enigma code building machine in World War II.
We had it. Using it we could figure out what the Germans were likely to do before they did. But we dared not react too obviously to German plans. If we had, they would have gone to some other system and we would no longer have an inside track. For us, it was a two edged sword. We often had to sit still and let them go ahead and hit us.)
Ike kept his mouth shut and Nixon went down to a very narrow defeat. The real facts about the missile situation might have altered the election results.
This year President Obama has a campaign promise problem on HIS hands. He made a high sounding election promise he is having an absolutely miserable time trying to keep. No, I’m not talking about health care. Presidents have been bombing on that promise for decades. I’m talking Gitmo.
He and his fellow Democrats happily took up the international cry that the Guantanamo prison for terrorist suspects was a dreadful place, a dreadful idea. It was just mean to keep these poor terrorists locked up on a Caribbean Island.
People often have as much memory as chickens do. Somebody once observed a snake as it entered a chicken coop. Great squawkings and flappings. The snake lay very still. Eventually the chickens forgot all about him. Some even roosted on his back. Dinner.
I am convinced that, if instead of hanging Heinrich Himmler within a year of the war’s end, we had detained him for several years, there would have eventually been a hue and cry over our inhumane treatment of the poor Gestapo/Death Camp commander.
Like forgetful chickens, the liberal Democracy forgot about the snake (you remember, the one who made a big hole in the bottom of Manhattan), and started calling for an end to imprisonment, especially for those who had been caught before they could actually kill Americans.
Especially they called for an end to detainment at Guantanamo. They joined those in the international community who had 1) been alienated by George Bush and 2) who can hardly wait for us to get out of Iraq so they can start signing oil contracts. For them, Guantanamo and its jump-suit clad detainees became a convenient target.
Just because Bush had the knack of irritating a lot of people and went about a lot of things the wrong way doesn’t mean he was wrong on everything. I believe he got Guantanamo right. It’s on a military base surrounded by troops as well as guards. It’s far from American citizens who get nervous at the thought of a few hundred terrorists next door. It’s in the middle of a large body of water—a whale of a swim for any escapees.
I suspect that by now Obama is—like Kennedy before him—secretly beginning to think his predecessor got this one right, too. Oh my, the political stink that rises when someone suggests moving the detainees to this state or that.
Congress won’t even give him the money to move them and close Gitmo’s detention camp down by next January. (January, 2010, the month candidate Obama vowed the whole prison would go away.) Now he’s looking at more options for where to put the inmates.
One little problem is that those we are willing to release can’t find a good home. No other nation will take them—not even the ones they were born in. We’re rather in the position of a man who has pulled the pin on a grenade, has no place to throw it, and now must keep squeezing the trigger mechanism so that it doesn’t go off in his hand. Guantanamo is a good place for that.
Suggestions for stateside holding pens (as one commentator put it, places to build a “new Guantanamo”, include a state prison that’s closing down in Michigan and the federal military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
(I’ll throw in a refurbished Alcatraz—it, too, is a long swim for anybody. Nobody but a fictional character played by Sean Connery in the movie “The Rock” is ever thought to have escaped it. We put Al Capone there; why not a few terrorists?)
It’s all going to cost money. It’s going to create a political flap that most members of Congress do not want to face.
Let’s go over this again. What, exactly, was wrong with Guantanamo? Whose Congressional District is it in? How much less would it cost than to build a duplicate somewhere else—and then transport everybody?
They’re talking about having to transport judges and juries to places like Leavenworth—why not Cuba?
Again, what exactly was wrong with Guantanamo?
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
A Visit To Canada
Canada—the English speaking parts of it—often feels about as much like the United States as you can feel not being in the States. Talking to say, someone from New Brunswick (although it is legally bi-lingual), doesn’t feel all that different to a Michigander from talking to someone from Oregon or New Jersey.
I always feel comfortable in Canada—and the Canadians seem to feel comfortable with me as an American. Border crossings have gotten a lot harsher than they were ten years ago. “What’s your purpose in Canada? Put the windows down.” As he looks at our passports, “How are you related to each other? Delete all the pictures you took of this border crossing and then hand me your camera.”
That’s no longer so comfortable. Nine/eleven has changed a lot of things. They have you on computer from where you entered the country—and they ask you a lot of questions with no other purpose than to trip you up.
But, once you’re in, it’s basically a pleasant place to be. Canadians still profess a certain amount of annoyance at Americans who know nothing about Canada. One hotel clerk in Ottawa told me she gets people from the States, coming into Ontario, who express surprise at not seeing any igloos.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a state that borders Canada that I don’t expect Igloos. I have also taken a moment to read a bit of Canadian history. I am struck by how intensely aware Canadians are of us. They follow American politics more closely than most Americans do. By reading Canadian papers, I kept up with nearly everything significant that happened in Washington.
As I said to one Canadian naval reservist, “You’re our Finland”. She laughed, thought for a moment and nodded. That they are. For over a century, the very feeble United States wrenched concessions from the then superpower, Great Britain, by threatening to invade Canada.
Canadians don’t seem to resent us for that. (Of course the last time we did it was in 1922, and then only very subtly. The last time we did it seriously was in 1895.) We haven’t had a shooting war with Canada since The War of 1812. The Great Lakes, which define much of the eastern border between Canada and us have been neutral ever since that war.
I recall asking an American Coast Guard officer what the largest weapon his cutter could carry under terms of Canadian/American treaties. “A twelve gauge shotgun,” he answered. The three thousand mile long border remains basically undefended.
Those of us who do pay attention to Canada are probably aware of how close we came to having a full scale civil war on our northern frontier. Quebec nearly voted to secede from Canada in 1995. Had it done so, I cannot imagine how French and English Canada could have separated without shooting. Neither can a lot of Canadians I talked to.
What happened in Canada should be of great interest to Americans—who are finding more and more people on our southwestern border who speak a different language and have a vastly different culture from standard, English-oriented America.
After all, like the English speakers in Canada, we conquered Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California back in the 1840s. (Mexicans who sneak across our borders can be pardoned if they see nothing illegal about crossing into their own conquered territories.)
The same thing happened to the French in Canada. (One of the things I did on this visit was walk the Plains of Abraham outside old Quebec where Moncalm and Wolfe killed each other in a twenty minute battle in 1759 that resulted in all of Canada becoming English.)
For two centuries, French Canadians lived under the Union Jack and learned to deal in an English-speaking world. Then about fifty years ago, Canada agreed to strike the Jack and go over to a Maple Leaf flag that has no ethnic antecedent. They passed a law that required all Canadian highway signs to be in both English and French. The French of Quebec had never stopped being FRENCH.
In the 1960s, Charles DeGaulle, whose hatred for English and all who speak it was built into his bones came to the two islands in the St. Lawrence River that are still part of metropolitan France and urged the people of Quebec to become militantly French. You could think of him as a Gallic Hugo Chavez, if you want to. Unpleasant thought for us.
Letter bombs came in the mail. Secessionist movements arose in Quebec. (I still saw some graffiti in Quebec City that read, “Quebec Libre!”) By the skin of its teeth Canada hung together. I think of that when I look at our increasingly Hispanic southwest.
The highway signs in English Canada are bi-lingual. The signs in Quebec are French only. There is some bitterness in English speaking Canada over the fact Quebec refuses to obey the law. Your waitresses and hotel clerks can manage reasonably coherent English for tourists—but the French accent is heavy indeed. Get away from tourist haunts and you are often reduced to a patois that consists of about six French words I know and five or six English words he knows.
The Canadian brigade that mans the citadel just inside the walls of old Quebec speaks ONLY French. I asked a guide as we toured the fort (which was built, incidentally, to defend Canada from American invasion back in the 1820s) if that didn’t make maneuvers with the rest of the Canadian army a bit difficult.
He told me that the brigade has several officers whose only job is to translate orders from English to French, and he conceded that the language difference can make things quite inefficient. “But,” he pointed out, “it would be politically impossible not to speak French.”
It’s a fair question to wonder how much good Quebec’s insistence on dealing with the world in French has actually done them. As Quebec became more and more isolated in its hold on Eighteenth Century French culture, Montreal went from being the first city in Canada to being a bit of a provincial backwater. Business action takes place now in English speaking Toronto.
After all, English is still the dominant language of the business and scientific world. Those who speak it fluently enjoy a real advantage. One almost suspects that French Quebec is still trying to reverse the verdict on the Plains of Abraham when Wolfe sent his redcoats up the steep river bank to surprise and defeat the French defenders.
Even if this may seem somewhat irrational to an outsider, the feeling is intense and—apparently—eternal. It may also be so in our southwest. Time will tell.
I always feel comfortable in Canada—and the Canadians seem to feel comfortable with me as an American. Border crossings have gotten a lot harsher than they were ten years ago. “What’s your purpose in Canada? Put the windows down.” As he looks at our passports, “How are you related to each other? Delete all the pictures you took of this border crossing and then hand me your camera.”
That’s no longer so comfortable. Nine/eleven has changed a lot of things. They have you on computer from where you entered the country—and they ask you a lot of questions with no other purpose than to trip you up.
But, once you’re in, it’s basically a pleasant place to be. Canadians still profess a certain amount of annoyance at Americans who know nothing about Canada. One hotel clerk in Ottawa told me she gets people from the States, coming into Ontario, who express surprise at not seeing any igloos.
Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a state that borders Canada that I don’t expect Igloos. I have also taken a moment to read a bit of Canadian history. I am struck by how intensely aware Canadians are of us. They follow American politics more closely than most Americans do. By reading Canadian papers, I kept up with nearly everything significant that happened in Washington.
As I said to one Canadian naval reservist, “You’re our Finland”. She laughed, thought for a moment and nodded. That they are. For over a century, the very feeble United States wrenched concessions from the then superpower, Great Britain, by threatening to invade Canada.
Canadians don’t seem to resent us for that. (Of course the last time we did it was in 1922, and then only very subtly. The last time we did it seriously was in 1895.) We haven’t had a shooting war with Canada since The War of 1812. The Great Lakes, which define much of the eastern border between Canada and us have been neutral ever since that war.
I recall asking an American Coast Guard officer what the largest weapon his cutter could carry under terms of Canadian/American treaties. “A twelve gauge shotgun,” he answered. The three thousand mile long border remains basically undefended.
Those of us who do pay attention to Canada are probably aware of how close we came to having a full scale civil war on our northern frontier. Quebec nearly voted to secede from Canada in 1995. Had it done so, I cannot imagine how French and English Canada could have separated without shooting. Neither can a lot of Canadians I talked to.
What happened in Canada should be of great interest to Americans—who are finding more and more people on our southwestern border who speak a different language and have a vastly different culture from standard, English-oriented America.
After all, like the English speakers in Canada, we conquered Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California back in the 1840s. (Mexicans who sneak across our borders can be pardoned if they see nothing illegal about crossing into their own conquered territories.)
The same thing happened to the French in Canada. (One of the things I did on this visit was walk the Plains of Abraham outside old Quebec where Moncalm and Wolfe killed each other in a twenty minute battle in 1759 that resulted in all of Canada becoming English.)
For two centuries, French Canadians lived under the Union Jack and learned to deal in an English-speaking world. Then about fifty years ago, Canada agreed to strike the Jack and go over to a Maple Leaf flag that has no ethnic antecedent. They passed a law that required all Canadian highway signs to be in both English and French. The French of Quebec had never stopped being FRENCH.
In the 1960s, Charles DeGaulle, whose hatred for English and all who speak it was built into his bones came to the two islands in the St. Lawrence River that are still part of metropolitan France and urged the people of Quebec to become militantly French. You could think of him as a Gallic Hugo Chavez, if you want to. Unpleasant thought for us.
Letter bombs came in the mail. Secessionist movements arose in Quebec. (I still saw some graffiti in Quebec City that read, “Quebec Libre!”) By the skin of its teeth Canada hung together. I think of that when I look at our increasingly Hispanic southwest.
The highway signs in English Canada are bi-lingual. The signs in Quebec are French only. There is some bitterness in English speaking Canada over the fact Quebec refuses to obey the law. Your waitresses and hotel clerks can manage reasonably coherent English for tourists—but the French accent is heavy indeed. Get away from tourist haunts and you are often reduced to a patois that consists of about six French words I know and five or six English words he knows.
The Canadian brigade that mans the citadel just inside the walls of old Quebec speaks ONLY French. I asked a guide as we toured the fort (which was built, incidentally, to defend Canada from American invasion back in the 1820s) if that didn’t make maneuvers with the rest of the Canadian army a bit difficult.
He told me that the brigade has several officers whose only job is to translate orders from English to French, and he conceded that the language difference can make things quite inefficient. “But,” he pointed out, “it would be politically impossible not to speak French.”
It’s a fair question to wonder how much good Quebec’s insistence on dealing with the world in French has actually done them. As Quebec became more and more isolated in its hold on Eighteenth Century French culture, Montreal went from being the first city in Canada to being a bit of a provincial backwater. Business action takes place now in English speaking Toronto.
After all, English is still the dominant language of the business and scientific world. Those who speak it fluently enjoy a real advantage. One almost suspects that French Quebec is still trying to reverse the verdict on the Plains of Abraham when Wolfe sent his redcoats up the steep river bank to surprise and defeat the French defenders.
Even if this may seem somewhat irrational to an outsider, the feeling is intense and—apparently—eternal. It may also be so in our southwest. Time will tell.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Recession: All Over But The Shooting
Last week, July 24, the Canadian papers ran the headline, “The Recession is over in Canada”. This week’s Newsweek has as its full cover the line, “The Recession is OVER”. Below it runs an itty bitty tag line, “Good luck surviving the recovery”.
The unemployment rate will continue to climb. The upper echelons of American society—whose consumption has always fueled recovery in the past—will apparently not be fueling this one. News reports suggest that people whose net worth is twenty million and higher have lost enough money to actually be nervous. They will not be leading us into the new Walhalla, as they have so often in past recoveries.
Newsweek tells us that, of the $787 billion in stimulus money, approximately $230 billion has been allocated so far—as the ranks of the unemployed and furloughed keep climbing and more and more of the people still working face wage cuts.
Economists tell us that $787 billion is a drop in the bucket. Warren Buffett is quoted as saying the current stimulus package is like “half a dose of Viagra”. BusinessWeek tells us that we no longer have the industrial capability to manufacture crucial parts for a Twenty-first Century economy—we must now buy them from abroad.
Data seems to suggest that rather than creating any new jobs, the stimulus has merely managed to save some. In other words, thanks to stimulus money, companies that might have laid off 50 workers have now only had to lay off ten. That does help—but it doesn’t beat the recession.
Obama suggests that his stimulus package might ultimately create five million jobs. We’ve already lost way over six million—and the total is still climbing. Michigan, the hardest hit state, is at 15% unemployment.
I, for one, don’t see how a down-sized General Motors or a Chrysler in thrall to Fiat is likely to put all of us back to work. What we seem to have left is tourism, forestry and agriculture. None of these three are big time enough to make up the losses either.
The local consolidated school district just sent notices to all of us that it no longer has the money to drive school buses down the recently carved streets of the many new developments that sprang up in the past few years. The kids can walk to the corner of the nearest old street.
The township is going through the records with a fine toothed comb. A development near me that has been around since before my house was built—back in 1981—was apparently never registered as an official street. There will be no more grading or snow plowing for the poor souls who live on it. As I have written in previous blogs, for the first time in the memory of any living human, American society simply doesn’t have the money to do everything it wants to do.
A couple of minor things I’ve noticed. I just spent two weeks in Quebec, Ontario and upstate New York. In the past seven decades I’ve taken a lot of trips around this continent—Yellowstone, the West Coast, up and down the entire East Coast, et cetera.
This was the first trip I ever took in which I did not see a single Michigan license plate no matter where I went. Not even in Canada, twenty miles from the bridge from Sarnia to Port Huron. We did not see even one Michigan plate.
I talked to several motel/hotel owners/keepers this past two weeks. Travel is down. (That was nice for us—smaller crowds in places like Lake George and Quebec City.) Fewer and fewer freebies are available at the front desk—razors, tooth paste, etc. Bring your own.
I took my usual walk around this neighborhood tonight. It seems to me that there are an increasing number of SMALL cars—mostly Japanese and Korean—here, in an area that was so recently a bastion for GM, Ford and Chrysler mini-vans and SUVs.
GM has got to win those people back if we have any hope of seeing the money we taxpayers loaned them. I may not, unfortunately, be alone in my attitude that I do not buy hamburgers at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I probably won’t buy a small car from companies that only yesterday sneered at the very thought of building such a puny car. Small cars come from Toyota, Honda and places like Korea. Up until recently, GM was content to leave it that way.
We need, opines Newsweek, a “new kind of recovery”. Amen to that.
Are we capable? Do we have the economic and political will. (We haven’t had the will to fasten some serious regulation back on the banks—nor have we had the courage to talk seriously about effective health care reform.) Do we even still have the wherewithal?
Newsweek published a thought provoking—and even scary—paragraph toward the end of its article on recession and recovery. “To a large degree, the U.S. economy must now cope with an era of lower expectations. …”
After going into considerable detail about what road building, green technology and universal broad band WON’T do for us—at least not any time soon, Newsweek adds, “The recession may be over, but there’s likely to be plenty of tough slogging ahead.”
Interesting terminology. One can almost get an image of Bill Maudlin’s “Willie and Joe”, crouched down in a foxhole somewhere in Europe, muttering, “Tell me about it.”
It’s all over, fella’s. Except for a few pesky chaps who keep on shooting at us.
The unemployment rate will continue to climb. The upper echelons of American society—whose consumption has always fueled recovery in the past—will apparently not be fueling this one. News reports suggest that people whose net worth is twenty million and higher have lost enough money to actually be nervous. They will not be leading us into the new Walhalla, as they have so often in past recoveries.
Newsweek tells us that, of the $787 billion in stimulus money, approximately $230 billion has been allocated so far—as the ranks of the unemployed and furloughed keep climbing and more and more of the people still working face wage cuts.
Economists tell us that $787 billion is a drop in the bucket. Warren Buffett is quoted as saying the current stimulus package is like “half a dose of Viagra”. BusinessWeek tells us that we no longer have the industrial capability to manufacture crucial parts for a Twenty-first Century economy—we must now buy them from abroad.
Data seems to suggest that rather than creating any new jobs, the stimulus has merely managed to save some. In other words, thanks to stimulus money, companies that might have laid off 50 workers have now only had to lay off ten. That does help—but it doesn’t beat the recession.
Obama suggests that his stimulus package might ultimately create five million jobs. We’ve already lost way over six million—and the total is still climbing. Michigan, the hardest hit state, is at 15% unemployment.
I, for one, don’t see how a down-sized General Motors or a Chrysler in thrall to Fiat is likely to put all of us back to work. What we seem to have left is tourism, forestry and agriculture. None of these three are big time enough to make up the losses either.
The local consolidated school district just sent notices to all of us that it no longer has the money to drive school buses down the recently carved streets of the many new developments that sprang up in the past few years. The kids can walk to the corner of the nearest old street.
The township is going through the records with a fine toothed comb. A development near me that has been around since before my house was built—back in 1981—was apparently never registered as an official street. There will be no more grading or snow plowing for the poor souls who live on it. As I have written in previous blogs, for the first time in the memory of any living human, American society simply doesn’t have the money to do everything it wants to do.
A couple of minor things I’ve noticed. I just spent two weeks in Quebec, Ontario and upstate New York. In the past seven decades I’ve taken a lot of trips around this continent—Yellowstone, the West Coast, up and down the entire East Coast, et cetera.
This was the first trip I ever took in which I did not see a single Michigan license plate no matter where I went. Not even in Canada, twenty miles from the bridge from Sarnia to Port Huron. We did not see even one Michigan plate.
I talked to several motel/hotel owners/keepers this past two weeks. Travel is down. (That was nice for us—smaller crowds in places like Lake George and Quebec City.) Fewer and fewer freebies are available at the front desk—razors, tooth paste, etc. Bring your own.
I took my usual walk around this neighborhood tonight. It seems to me that there are an increasing number of SMALL cars—mostly Japanese and Korean—here, in an area that was so recently a bastion for GM, Ford and Chrysler mini-vans and SUVs.
GM has got to win those people back if we have any hope of seeing the money we taxpayers loaned them. I may not, unfortunately, be alone in my attitude that I do not buy hamburgers at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I probably won’t buy a small car from companies that only yesterday sneered at the very thought of building such a puny car. Small cars come from Toyota, Honda and places like Korea. Up until recently, GM was content to leave it that way.
We need, opines Newsweek, a “new kind of recovery”. Amen to that.
Are we capable? Do we have the economic and political will. (We haven’t had the will to fasten some serious regulation back on the banks—nor have we had the courage to talk seriously about effective health care reform.) Do we even still have the wherewithal?
Newsweek published a thought provoking—and even scary—paragraph toward the end of its article on recession and recovery. “To a large degree, the U.S. economy must now cope with an era of lower expectations. …”
After going into considerable detail about what road building, green technology and universal broad band WON’T do for us—at least not any time soon, Newsweek adds, “The recession may be over, but there’s likely to be plenty of tough slogging ahead.”
Interesting terminology. One can almost get an image of Bill Maudlin’s “Willie and Joe”, crouched down in a foxhole somewhere in Europe, muttering, “Tell me about it.”
It’s all over, fella’s. Except for a few pesky chaps who keep on shooting at us.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Cop, The Prof and The Prex
I’ve been on vacation for two weeks, but one thing happened during that time that is worth commenting on. An unseemly example of black rage/white guilt took place in Boston—and the President of the United States mixed himself up in it.
My problem is that I understand all sides.
I understand the cop. He got a call two men were breaking into a house in a upscale neighborhood. When you’re a cop and you have to go check out two men breaking into a house, black or white, your adrenalin starts to flow. There is always the outside chance you’re not going to go home alive. No matter how many times you’ve done it, you go in tense, even scared.
The gentlemen trying to get in the door without working keys also seem not to have had much in the way of identification. Then one of them starts to berate the officer. The still tense cop decides to put himself out of harm’s way by handcuffing the offensive door breaker. That non-vicious or racist act has saved many a cop’s life.
I understand the prof. He’s a long time activist; his stock and trade has been to point out police brutality and to bring public attention to it. He may actually have believed the officer checking on his house was acting in a racially motivated way. (If he’d thought for a moment, he might have been grateful that the police were so quick to protect his life and property.) All he saw was white cop, black man.
(He might also reflect on what will happen the next time there is a report on a break-in at his home. “Sorry, all the officers were out on other calls.”)
But black Americans do have a point, no doubt. My wife will never forget the night she was in a hurry to get home from the mall. She’s tall and she walks swiftly with apparent purpose. That night there was a black family—grandma, mom, two small kids—ahead of her.
She moved to pass them, without thinking. As she came abreast, all of them turned toward her, fear written on their faces. They put their shopping bags down. Grandma spoke for all, “You can look through our packages. See? Here’s our receipts.”
She tried to apologize, to explain that she wasn’t any form of store security—but the fear never really left their faces. Yes, I’ve known black men who couldn’t get cabs, black families who lived in middle class apartments—their carpets cut so they could move quickly and run to another neighborhood when the need arose. Black kids who sat up all night, shotgun in hand, as the KKK drove by, honking and threatening.
I’ve been picked up a cop in a pricy Connecticut suburb at 4:00am—and released in five minutes. Black friends have assured me that, in the same town, they would have been held for three days or more. Even if all any of us were doing was walking back to the train after escorting a girl home.
Centuries of bitter memories inform the prof’s attitude and behavior.
Unfortunately, years and years of experience and memories also inform the cop’s behavior. As a cop he has probably had experiences similar to those I’ve had as a substitute teacher. The race card is played more often in schools than the biology book is opened.
People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can play it with as much vigor as George Wallace or Bull Connor—and they’ve taught black kids how to be just like them. As the Connor’s and Wallace’s have taught their followers.
I remember in one school a large black student was being so loud and disruptive no work could be done. When I asked him to move to another seat, he glared at me, “You’re just doing this because I’m black!” He expected me to wilt with white guilt. I didn’t.
“I’m doing this because you are the loudest, most disruptive person in the room. Now sit over here.” Sheepishly he obliged and was quiet the rest of the hour.
When I tried to enforce a school rule on another defiant black student, he snarled at me, “I ain’t your slave!” I got lucky. Another teacher came along and reamed him into place.
I wish I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve been called “racist” or “prejudiced” for just trying to enforce a little order (and a little learning) in a predominantly black classroom. Most white subs don’t really try. I had a black teacher warn me: “Be careful. You’re an older white male. You’ve got a target on your back.”
The cop did his job—target on his back and all. The prof played his card. The City of Boston wilted with white guilt and dropped the disorderly conduct charges.
The Prex—the President of the United States—forgot for an instant that that’s what he is right now—of all the United States and all of its people and, for an instant, he became another black kid with a tall white lady walking up fast behind him.
A graduate of Harvard Law, he didn’t verbalize it the way Sharpton, Jackson or the Prof would have. He just called the cop who went up scared to investigate a break-in “stupid”.
I can understand what his mind went back to, but that was really not a terribly bright thing to say. Would he say it about white members of his own Secret Service detail if they wrestled a black man to the ground who just seemed to fuddling with something in his pocket?
If we can’t get past tense cops, activist professors who know how to generate headlines, and even presidents who are scared by their own memories, we have a bad future ahead of us.
My problem is that I understand all sides.
I understand the cop. He got a call two men were breaking into a house in a upscale neighborhood. When you’re a cop and you have to go check out two men breaking into a house, black or white, your adrenalin starts to flow. There is always the outside chance you’re not going to go home alive. No matter how many times you’ve done it, you go in tense, even scared.
The gentlemen trying to get in the door without working keys also seem not to have had much in the way of identification. Then one of them starts to berate the officer. The still tense cop decides to put himself out of harm’s way by handcuffing the offensive door breaker. That non-vicious or racist act has saved many a cop’s life.
I understand the prof. He’s a long time activist; his stock and trade has been to point out police brutality and to bring public attention to it. He may actually have believed the officer checking on his house was acting in a racially motivated way. (If he’d thought for a moment, he might have been grateful that the police were so quick to protect his life and property.) All he saw was white cop, black man.
(He might also reflect on what will happen the next time there is a report on a break-in at his home. “Sorry, all the officers were out on other calls.”)
But black Americans do have a point, no doubt. My wife will never forget the night she was in a hurry to get home from the mall. She’s tall and she walks swiftly with apparent purpose. That night there was a black family—grandma, mom, two small kids—ahead of her.
She moved to pass them, without thinking. As she came abreast, all of them turned toward her, fear written on their faces. They put their shopping bags down. Grandma spoke for all, “You can look through our packages. See? Here’s our receipts.”
She tried to apologize, to explain that she wasn’t any form of store security—but the fear never really left their faces. Yes, I’ve known black men who couldn’t get cabs, black families who lived in middle class apartments—their carpets cut so they could move quickly and run to another neighborhood when the need arose. Black kids who sat up all night, shotgun in hand, as the KKK drove by, honking and threatening.
I’ve been picked up a cop in a pricy Connecticut suburb at 4:00am—and released in five minutes. Black friends have assured me that, in the same town, they would have been held for three days or more. Even if all any of us were doing was walking back to the train after escorting a girl home.
Centuries of bitter memories inform the prof’s attitude and behavior.
Unfortunately, years and years of experience and memories also inform the cop’s behavior. As a cop he has probably had experiences similar to those I’ve had as a substitute teacher. The race card is played more often in schools than the biology book is opened.
People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton can play it with as much vigor as George Wallace or Bull Connor—and they’ve taught black kids how to be just like them. As the Connor’s and Wallace’s have taught their followers.
I remember in one school a large black student was being so loud and disruptive no work could be done. When I asked him to move to another seat, he glared at me, “You’re just doing this because I’m black!” He expected me to wilt with white guilt. I didn’t.
“I’m doing this because you are the loudest, most disruptive person in the room. Now sit over here.” Sheepishly he obliged and was quiet the rest of the hour.
When I tried to enforce a school rule on another defiant black student, he snarled at me, “I ain’t your slave!” I got lucky. Another teacher came along and reamed him into place.
I wish I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve been called “racist” or “prejudiced” for just trying to enforce a little order (and a little learning) in a predominantly black classroom. Most white subs don’t really try. I had a black teacher warn me: “Be careful. You’re an older white male. You’ve got a target on your back.”
The cop did his job—target on his back and all. The prof played his card. The City of Boston wilted with white guilt and dropped the disorderly conduct charges.
The Prex—the President of the United States—forgot for an instant that that’s what he is right now—of all the United States and all of its people and, for an instant, he became another black kid with a tall white lady walking up fast behind him.
A graduate of Harvard Law, he didn’t verbalize it the way Sharpton, Jackson or the Prof would have. He just called the cop who went up scared to investigate a break-in “stupid”.
I can understand what his mind went back to, but that was really not a terribly bright thing to say. Would he say it about white members of his own Secret Service detail if they wrestled a black man to the ground who just seemed to fuddling with something in his pocket?
If we can’t get past tense cops, activist professors who know how to generate headlines, and even presidents who are scared by their own memories, we have a bad future ahead of us.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sotomayor--How Fair Can She Be?
In defending herself for making that statement that “a wise Latino woman” could probably reach a better judicial decision than a white male, Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayer claimed that it was merely a play on words gone awry.
I wonder if a white, Republican candidate could get away with the same claim in front of our present Democratic Senate. “Oh, oops, I was just being witty when I said a “wise white man” could probably come up with a better decision than—a black judge, an oriental judge, an Hispanic judge or a female judge.
It seems to me that I recollect a white official who told a joke about black Americans in what he assumed was the privacy of his government plane wound up resigning. This was back in either the Ford or Nixon administration. I believe he resigned.
Personally I’m not all that offended by Sotomayer’s remark. It reminds me a lot of the female private detective in Baltimore who specialized in locating lost children. When asked why she thought a female could do well in the job, she reponded, “Would you want someone hunting for your child who couldn’t see the mayonnaise jar in the refrigerator?”
(After all, which of us men wouldn’t be stricken blind and immobile if we lacked a wife to find our keys and our glasses? [But, then, I have returned the favor a few times for my wife. She, however, does it more often for me.]
Perhaps Sotomayer was referring to a phenomenon I have noticed many times while substitute teaching in the elementary grades. I ten-year-old boy will stand in front of a closet in utter confusion, unable to locate a thing. Shaking her head, one of the ten-year-old girls will get up, go to the supply closet and put what he needs in his hand.
That has nothing to do, however, with “Latino”. That has to do with ANY female. God has just gifted them with the knowledge of where things are. And since mothers often spend more time sorting out disagreements between siblings than fathers do, possibly this too is a gift that carries over to the judicial bench. Or it’s just evolutionary conditioning.)
I really don’t care what Sotomayer meant by this particular remark. I suspect she might agree with me if I suggested she broaden the statement to include all women. What annoys me is the cloying, choking stranglehold “Political Correctness” seems to have over anything she said, I said or you said.
It may drive us to the point that we dare not make jokes about irritable Blue Jays—because some society or club, somewhere, will have made it their life’s purpose to advance the cause of blue colored birds. They will be offended.
I spent my own boyhood hearing a lot of bad jokes about dumb Hollanders—because Dutch immigrants were not held in high esteem in Grand Rapids in the 1950s. We stood out. We had names that were obviously Dutch to the most uninitiated—and the map of Holland adorns many of our blond haired faces.
I’m still acutely aware when I meet someone whether or not he’s Polish (major competitors to the Dutch in that era. For years I was scared stiff of English Americans (WASPs). But I’ve made friends in both groups since—and eventually it becomes a matter of “sticks and stones”. Most jokes about Hollanders don’t especially bother me anymore.
Let’s get back to Sotomayor and her comment about clever Latino women v less clever white males. (That would be me, wouldn’t it?)
I might fixate briefly on the word “Latino” in her statement—and repeat for her a story I was told years ago when I worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A young black lawyer, who became a pretty good friend of mine, was nominated for Commissioner. He had worked for the same law firm that fought several civil rights cases and was thought to be just a bit radical.
He was called in for his final interview—with Lyndon Johnson himself. He told me that when he entered the Oval Office, LBJ was rocking in his chair, looking at him. Finally Johnson spoke, “When I was a young Congressman, I had an office on the second floor of a building behind one of the town’s best restaurants.
“They put the garbage out behind that restaurant, right under my office window. In summer time, in Texas heat, it stunk.” He looked harder at my friend. “The little Mexican kids would come and pick through that garbage for something to eat. The owners of the restaurant would sic the dogs on them.
LBJ’s voice rose, “Mr. Jackson, can you be fair to white folk!?
That’s a good question to put to Sonia Sotomayer—someone who remains acutely aware of her Latino heritage in a nation that has not historically been kind to Latin Americans. She freely admits that her background influences her decisions.
So, asking how, to what extent, is a very fair question. Asking about her capacity for fairness is another very good question.
But working her over for a smart-ass statement she made nine years ago, probably isn’t. So let’s stick to asking her what matters.
“Ms Sotomayor, can you be fair to white folk?’
I wonder if a white, Republican candidate could get away with the same claim in front of our present Democratic Senate. “Oh, oops, I was just being witty when I said a “wise white man” could probably come up with a better decision than—a black judge, an oriental judge, an Hispanic judge or a female judge.
It seems to me that I recollect a white official who told a joke about black Americans in what he assumed was the privacy of his government plane wound up resigning. This was back in either the Ford or Nixon administration. I believe he resigned.
Personally I’m not all that offended by Sotomayer’s remark. It reminds me a lot of the female private detective in Baltimore who specialized in locating lost children. When asked why she thought a female could do well in the job, she reponded, “Would you want someone hunting for your child who couldn’t see the mayonnaise jar in the refrigerator?”
(After all, which of us men wouldn’t be stricken blind and immobile if we lacked a wife to find our keys and our glasses? [But, then, I have returned the favor a few times for my wife. She, however, does it more often for me.]
Perhaps Sotomayer was referring to a phenomenon I have noticed many times while substitute teaching in the elementary grades. I ten-year-old boy will stand in front of a closet in utter confusion, unable to locate a thing. Shaking her head, one of the ten-year-old girls will get up, go to the supply closet and put what he needs in his hand.
That has nothing to do, however, with “Latino”. That has to do with ANY female. God has just gifted them with the knowledge of where things are. And since mothers often spend more time sorting out disagreements between siblings than fathers do, possibly this too is a gift that carries over to the judicial bench. Or it’s just evolutionary conditioning.)
I really don’t care what Sotomayer meant by this particular remark. I suspect she might agree with me if I suggested she broaden the statement to include all women. What annoys me is the cloying, choking stranglehold “Political Correctness” seems to have over anything she said, I said or you said.
It may drive us to the point that we dare not make jokes about irritable Blue Jays—because some society or club, somewhere, will have made it their life’s purpose to advance the cause of blue colored birds. They will be offended.
I spent my own boyhood hearing a lot of bad jokes about dumb Hollanders—because Dutch immigrants were not held in high esteem in Grand Rapids in the 1950s. We stood out. We had names that were obviously Dutch to the most uninitiated—and the map of Holland adorns many of our blond haired faces.
I’m still acutely aware when I meet someone whether or not he’s Polish (major competitors to the Dutch in that era. For years I was scared stiff of English Americans (WASPs). But I’ve made friends in both groups since—and eventually it becomes a matter of “sticks and stones”. Most jokes about Hollanders don’t especially bother me anymore.
Let’s get back to Sotomayor and her comment about clever Latino women v less clever white males. (That would be me, wouldn’t it?)
I might fixate briefly on the word “Latino” in her statement—and repeat for her a story I was told years ago when I worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A young black lawyer, who became a pretty good friend of mine, was nominated for Commissioner. He had worked for the same law firm that fought several civil rights cases and was thought to be just a bit radical.
He was called in for his final interview—with Lyndon Johnson himself. He told me that when he entered the Oval Office, LBJ was rocking in his chair, looking at him. Finally Johnson spoke, “When I was a young Congressman, I had an office on the second floor of a building behind one of the town’s best restaurants.
“They put the garbage out behind that restaurant, right under my office window. In summer time, in Texas heat, it stunk.” He looked harder at my friend. “The little Mexican kids would come and pick through that garbage for something to eat. The owners of the restaurant would sic the dogs on them.
LBJ’s voice rose, “Mr. Jackson, can you be fair to white folk!?
That’s a good question to put to Sonia Sotomayer—someone who remains acutely aware of her Latino heritage in a nation that has not historically been kind to Latin Americans. She freely admits that her background influences her decisions.
So, asking how, to what extent, is a very fair question. Asking about her capacity for fairness is another very good question.
But working her over for a smart-ass statement she made nine years ago, probably isn’t. So let’s stick to asking her what matters.
“Ms Sotomayor, can you be fair to white folk?’
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Bible--A Heritage Lost
A few years ago an English instructor at the local community college began a section of her English 101 course with a list of Biblical names that students were required to know. The interesting thing is that she was and remains vehemently non-Christian.
Her reason for the course requirement is that these names are part of our CULTURAL heritage—and that most high school/college students today have no knowledge of the names or the characters and traits they represent. She felt this should not be lost—especially in the study of English literature where so many allusions come directly from the Bible.
What’s the Biblical name for traitor? What are the Little Foxes? Who is Pontius Pilate—and what does it mean to “wash your hands of something”? Doubting Thomas? Who was the left handed assassin? Who got a whole town to circumcise themselves so they could be wiped out? Why?
In which Biblical book does “The Sun Also Rise”? Why is Jude obscure? What is significant about being “East of Eden”? Who built an Ark before it rained forty days? What does it mean to be wise as Solomon? And so forth, and so forth.
This heritage is rapidly being lost. I have sat in senior English class after senior English class—AP classes as well—where not a student knew who Noah was, or Adam, or Abraham. St. Paul drew a blank as did Peter, James and John. They didn’t know who the people were or any of their stories.
We’ve all but dropped back to the 1400s. That was a time (also) when a functionally illiterate populace stumbled through life without a written heritage. Most attended church regularly; but few understood what was read to them in Latin; fewer could read anything for themselves.
This was one of the great contributions of the Protestant Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) to western civilization. Starting with the notion that a man would be a better and more knowledgeable Christian if he could read a Bible for himself, they established schools to teach reading.
Not to be left behind, the Catholic Church (which had not favored reading amongst the laity) creating an entire teaching order of monks—the Jesuits. Even protestants hired the highly educated Jesuits to teach their children how to read.
Of course, once you could read the Bible—a reasonably difficult book—you could read anything else. Popular literature began. Books like “Don Quixote” and plays like “Hamlet” appeared. Scientific treatises were published—and read—suggesting such heretical notions as the world moving around the sun.
Political books, philosophic works, military strategies, mathematical treatises—the who cornucopia of human knowledge became available to anyone who wanted to buy a book.
This all came about because men like John Calvin insisted that people be taught to read the Bible and be taught from catechisms. All of this came out of the perceived need for people to know and read that one book.
The first public schools in America were essentially created to ensure biblical literacy. For those who had to work six days a week, Sunday Schools were created that allowed the unlettered to learn to read on Sundays. That’s what a “Sunday School” originally was.
It became a common tradition. Americans, like Lincoln, tutored themselves by reading the Bible and Shakespeare, the twin pillars of the English language. Luther created the modern German language with his Bible translations. It became a common European heritage.
And now we are losing it. Rapidly. That—for secular reasons alone—will be a true literary tragedy.
Her reason for the course requirement is that these names are part of our CULTURAL heritage—and that most high school/college students today have no knowledge of the names or the characters and traits they represent. She felt this should not be lost—especially in the study of English literature where so many allusions come directly from the Bible.
What’s the Biblical name for traitor? What are the Little Foxes? Who is Pontius Pilate—and what does it mean to “wash your hands of something”? Doubting Thomas? Who was the left handed assassin? Who got a whole town to circumcise themselves so they could be wiped out? Why?
In which Biblical book does “The Sun Also Rise”? Why is Jude obscure? What is significant about being “East of Eden”? Who built an Ark before it rained forty days? What does it mean to be wise as Solomon? And so forth, and so forth.
This heritage is rapidly being lost. I have sat in senior English class after senior English class—AP classes as well—where not a student knew who Noah was, or Adam, or Abraham. St. Paul drew a blank as did Peter, James and John. They didn’t know who the people were or any of their stories.
We’ve all but dropped back to the 1400s. That was a time (also) when a functionally illiterate populace stumbled through life without a written heritage. Most attended church regularly; but few understood what was read to them in Latin; fewer could read anything for themselves.
This was one of the great contributions of the Protestant Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) to western civilization. Starting with the notion that a man would be a better and more knowledgeable Christian if he could read a Bible for himself, they established schools to teach reading.
Not to be left behind, the Catholic Church (which had not favored reading amongst the laity) creating an entire teaching order of monks—the Jesuits. Even protestants hired the highly educated Jesuits to teach their children how to read.
Of course, once you could read the Bible—a reasonably difficult book—you could read anything else. Popular literature began. Books like “Don Quixote” and plays like “Hamlet” appeared. Scientific treatises were published—and read—suggesting such heretical notions as the world moving around the sun.
Political books, philosophic works, military strategies, mathematical treatises—the who cornucopia of human knowledge became available to anyone who wanted to buy a book.
This all came about because men like John Calvin insisted that people be taught to read the Bible and be taught from catechisms. All of this came out of the perceived need for people to know and read that one book.
The first public schools in America were essentially created to ensure biblical literacy. For those who had to work six days a week, Sunday Schools were created that allowed the unlettered to learn to read on Sundays. That’s what a “Sunday School” originally was.
It became a common tradition. Americans, like Lincoln, tutored themselves by reading the Bible and Shakespeare, the twin pillars of the English language. Luther created the modern German language with his Bible translations. It became a common European heritage.
And now we are losing it. Rapidly. That—for secular reasons alone—will be a true literary tragedy.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Who and What is a Messiah?
A Jewish chap named Jacob wrote the following highly irritated comment on John Calvin. “Read,” he suggested “about John Calvin from the Jewish perspective and his assault against the true messiah of Israel Marcus Julius Agrippa.” He ended by with a wonderfully graphic curse.
“May his bones be ground into dust.” See his comment on my previous blog.
When the followers of Yeshua, called Masiah in Hebrew or Moshiach in Aramaic, broke away from mainstream Judaism in the First Century of the Christian Era, they left a lot of angry Jews behind. They also left behind a fair number of folk who claimed to be the actual Jewish Messiah.
Marcus Julius Agrippa, one of two kings of Roman Judea, is one claimant. He lived at or near the time of the first Jewish revolt in AD 70. As a result of that revolt, Herod’s temple was burned down and the land was nearly denuded of trees to crucify the rebels. But the game wasn’t over.
“Another leader who was thought to be the true Messiah was Simon Bar Kokhbah who set up a Jewish State in Judea in AD132. When he wiped out an entire Roman legion, people began to think he might really be the Messiah.
He ordered all the Jewish Christians to leave what became known as Palestine, began minting his own coins, and waited for Roman reaction. It came a year later when a full third of Rome’s legions converged on Judea and flattened the place so thoroughly that Roman troops could pitch their tents on what had once been Jerusalem. It was the worst pounding the city ever took.
After that, until the Muslim incursion, no Jews were permitted to live in Judea. For the next 1300 years, Jerusalem had only a tiny Jewish community who spent much of their time bewailing the several falls of Jerusalem.
There were other Jewish leaders who were thought to be the Messiah by one group in Judaism or another. The Baal Shem Tov (early 1700s), founder of Hasidic Judaism, was thought by some of his followers to be the Messiah.
Many Jews still look for the Messiah. I remember reading that boxcar loads of Orthodox Jews would sing “What shall we do when Messiah comes; we shall make merry when Messiah comes” as their trains drove them into the death camps during World War II.
The chief theological difference between the Jewish belief about their Messiah and the belief of the Jewish—and later Gentile—Christians about their Messiah is that Christians believe their Messiah (Christ, from the Greek) is actually God.
To Jews who stayed behind in the First Century and those who have identified themselves as Jewish ever after, the very notion is absurd. It is a blasphemy. “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord Thy God is One” is bedrock to Jewish faith. It has been ever since the destruction of Jerusalem under the Neo-Babylonians in 586BC.
(Even if some Hebrew scholars insist that the word used for “one” here is actually plural.)
If Calvin’s bones should be ground to dust for suggesting that one or another of these claimants could not be the Messiah, then so should the bones of all orthodox Christians be ground into dust. Possibly my commenter would agree. I don’t know.
Since AD325, the position of all orthodox Christians—Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Coptics, Protestants, Maronites, Baptists and Pentecostals—has been that Christ was “very God of very God” as he was defined by the Council of Nicaea.
The Christian Church did not arrive at this position all at once! In the Fourth Century, about half of all Christians essentially believed what many Jews did during his time—that he might have been a wise Rabbi, a prophet, a miracle worker, but that he was certainly not fully God.
Such heretics were bounced out of the church and most eventually became Muslims three centuries later. In modern times, this belief has resurfaced in the church as the Unitarian denomination. But modern Christianity is founded upon the 1700 year old Nicene Creed which defined his deity.
Codicils of the Creed that are no longer published also did things like order Jewish Christians to stop practicing Jewish rituals, keeping Kosher, or using the Jewish calendar to celebrate “Pascha” (or, in English, Easter). This is why Passover and Easter are no longer in Sync.
Five centuries after Nicaea, the Jewish Christian Church no longer existed. They absorbed into the mainstream Gentile Christian tradition or they returned to Judaism proper. Jews at this point became known as the “Christ Killers” and their lot in Christian lands was not a happy one.
So if my friend, Jacob”, wants to grind someone’s bones into dust for refuting the claims of non-divine Messiahs—or any one of them—he must go much farther back than Calvin (or Luther) or anyone of that era. His problem began with the folk who defined Jesus Christ as God.
That movement began in the First Century of the Christian era. Christ himself said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). I and the Father are One.” He commanded baptism in the “Name of the Father, the Son (himself), and the Holy Spirit”.
There was argument—among both Jews and Gentiles—that he was not God. The Gnostics saw him as only God. The Arians saw him as only human. There were a hundred shades of opinion in between. Gospels were written that backed any one of these beliefs.
Only after Nicaea the heretical Gospels removed from the canon, keeping only those that acknowledge Jesus as God. These are the people Jacob should be irate with. They are the ones who put an apparently unbridgeable gulf between Christianity and Judaism, between Christianity and Islam, too.
Calvin was merely reiterating a 1200 year old tradition and doctrine.
In short: It required an infinite atonement (punishment, payment) to deliver humankind from the mess we had put ourselves in. Only God could make such an infinite sacrifice. Q.E.D. “Christ must be God. Or else as the Christian Rabbi from Tarsus wrote “we are of all men most miserable.” For a non-divine Messiah, according to St. Paul, could do nothing for us.
There’s your problem, Jacob. Like the orthodox Jews of the First Century—who were perfectly willing to follow a non-divine Messiah, with a human army—you cannot stomach the thought of a Messiah who is God himself. That’s been a Jewish position since Ezekiel.
Work that out for yourself—understand what your real issue is—and you’ll be less likely to rain down curses on any one poor Sixteenth Century preacher.
“May his bones be ground into dust.” See his comment on my previous blog.
When the followers of Yeshua, called Masiah in Hebrew or Moshiach in Aramaic, broke away from mainstream Judaism in the First Century of the Christian Era, they left a lot of angry Jews behind. They also left behind a fair number of folk who claimed to be the actual Jewish Messiah.
Marcus Julius Agrippa, one of two kings of Roman Judea, is one claimant. He lived at or near the time of the first Jewish revolt in AD 70. As a result of that revolt, Herod’s temple was burned down and the land was nearly denuded of trees to crucify the rebels. But the game wasn’t over.
“Another leader who was thought to be the true Messiah was Simon Bar Kokhbah who set up a Jewish State in Judea in AD132. When he wiped out an entire Roman legion, people began to think he might really be the Messiah.
He ordered all the Jewish Christians to leave what became known as Palestine, began minting his own coins, and waited for Roman reaction. It came a year later when a full third of Rome’s legions converged on Judea and flattened the place so thoroughly that Roman troops could pitch their tents on what had once been Jerusalem. It was the worst pounding the city ever took.
After that, until the Muslim incursion, no Jews were permitted to live in Judea. For the next 1300 years, Jerusalem had only a tiny Jewish community who spent much of their time bewailing the several falls of Jerusalem.
There were other Jewish leaders who were thought to be the Messiah by one group in Judaism or another. The Baal Shem Tov (early 1700s), founder of Hasidic Judaism, was thought by some of his followers to be the Messiah.
Many Jews still look for the Messiah. I remember reading that boxcar loads of Orthodox Jews would sing “What shall we do when Messiah comes; we shall make merry when Messiah comes” as their trains drove them into the death camps during World War II.
The chief theological difference between the Jewish belief about their Messiah and the belief of the Jewish—and later Gentile—Christians about their Messiah is that Christians believe their Messiah (Christ, from the Greek) is actually God.
To Jews who stayed behind in the First Century and those who have identified themselves as Jewish ever after, the very notion is absurd. It is a blasphemy. “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord Thy God is One” is bedrock to Jewish faith. It has been ever since the destruction of Jerusalem under the Neo-Babylonians in 586BC.
(Even if some Hebrew scholars insist that the word used for “one” here is actually plural.)
If Calvin’s bones should be ground to dust for suggesting that one or another of these claimants could not be the Messiah, then so should the bones of all orthodox Christians be ground into dust. Possibly my commenter would agree. I don’t know.
Since AD325, the position of all orthodox Christians—Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Coptics, Protestants, Maronites, Baptists and Pentecostals—has been that Christ was “very God of very God” as he was defined by the Council of Nicaea.
The Christian Church did not arrive at this position all at once! In the Fourth Century, about half of all Christians essentially believed what many Jews did during his time—that he might have been a wise Rabbi, a prophet, a miracle worker, but that he was certainly not fully God.
Such heretics were bounced out of the church and most eventually became Muslims three centuries later. In modern times, this belief has resurfaced in the church as the Unitarian denomination. But modern Christianity is founded upon the 1700 year old Nicene Creed which defined his deity.
Codicils of the Creed that are no longer published also did things like order Jewish Christians to stop practicing Jewish rituals, keeping Kosher, or using the Jewish calendar to celebrate “Pascha” (or, in English, Easter). This is why Passover and Easter are no longer in Sync.
Five centuries after Nicaea, the Jewish Christian Church no longer existed. They absorbed into the mainstream Gentile Christian tradition or they returned to Judaism proper. Jews at this point became known as the “Christ Killers” and their lot in Christian lands was not a happy one.
So if my friend, Jacob”, wants to grind someone’s bones into dust for refuting the claims of non-divine Messiahs—or any one of them—he must go much farther back than Calvin (or Luther) or anyone of that era. His problem began with the folk who defined Jesus Christ as God.
That movement began in the First Century of the Christian era. Christ himself said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). I and the Father are One.” He commanded baptism in the “Name of the Father, the Son (himself), and the Holy Spirit”.
There was argument—among both Jews and Gentiles—that he was not God. The Gnostics saw him as only God. The Arians saw him as only human. There were a hundred shades of opinion in between. Gospels were written that backed any one of these beliefs.
Only after Nicaea the heretical Gospels removed from the canon, keeping only those that acknowledge Jesus as God. These are the people Jacob should be irate with. They are the ones who put an apparently unbridgeable gulf between Christianity and Judaism, between Christianity and Islam, too.
Calvin was merely reiterating a 1200 year old tradition and doctrine.
In short: It required an infinite atonement (punishment, payment) to deliver humankind from the mess we had put ourselves in. Only God could make such an infinite sacrifice. Q.E.D. “Christ must be God. Or else as the Christian Rabbi from Tarsus wrote “we are of all men most miserable.” For a non-divine Messiah, according to St. Paul, could do nothing for us.
There’s your problem, Jacob. Like the orthodox Jews of the First Century—who were perfectly willing to follow a non-divine Messiah, with a human army—you cannot stomach the thought of a Messiah who is God himself. That’s been a Jewish position since Ezekiel.
Work that out for yourself—understand what your real issue is—and you’ll be less likely to rain down curses on any one poor Sixteenth Century preacher.
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