A Bit of Perspective

 A Bit of Perspective

Because I cannot opine on matters political that appear on the current election ballot this close to Election Day, I offer some personal reflections.

This year, I hit two milestones on the same day, March 28th.

The most important of those is my marriage on that date to my spouse, Gretchen, in 1972. Fifty-two years living with the same person, through thick and thin, is an accomplishment to be celebrated for sure. Along the way we raised three kids and helped countless more. We are lucky and proud that they have all grown up and become successful in their work and personal lives. We’ve been blessed with four wonderful granddaughters. We’ve supported each other’s careers, and both worked to try and make the world a better place. Now that we’re elderly the pace has slowed but the caring for each other and the planet we live on has not. 

The second milestone for March 28th happened in 2014 when I underwent quadruple heart artery by-pass surgery at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee. I have many healthcare providers in the Froedtert system to thank for being alive and able to get up each day and take care of what needs caring. Our healthcare system has its flaws to be sure, but I am still kicking thanks to the one we have. The fact that my surgery took place on our anniversary is not lost on Gretchen and me and, having survived, made it all the more special.

Thinking back on the milestones helped put me in touch with more of my history. One of the most important parts of that history was the five years I spent living in a private co-ed progressive high school in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts. I grew up in Southern California and was spiraling into delinquency as my teens approached. My Eastern bred parents thought it best to send me away to high school and picked one led by my paternal uncle. Buxton School changed my world view from one of California republicans to the more pluralistic socialist view of Eastern progressives. The values and world view I took on in those five years charted a life-long pursuit for social justice and equality. Buxton hit a rough patch during Covid and almost closed. I am helping from a distance by putting together a formal alum association to help the school survive so it can continue to provide a progressive start to kids needing direction.

The final piece of my formative years that helped me get launched was the five years I spent working in the War on Poverty from 1966 to 1971. I joined VISTA after dropping out of a college that I never should have entered. I got trained at the Columbia University of Social Work in New York City with a field placement in Harlem. I learned the basics of community organizing laid out in “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. VISTA sent me to Houston, Texas to work for the Houston Council on Human Relations where I joined another 8 volunteers from around the country. We lived in the several African American wards in the city organizing new political movements, registering voters, tutoring kids, and learning about race and injustice. After that year I worked for the local Community Action agency and then for a group of Black ministers as a grant writer. Speaking truth to power learned then became part of who I am today. I continued anti-poverty work after taking a job at CUNA International in Madison providing support to VISTA volunteers working in low-income credit unions across the country and then training new VISTAs for the Jane Addams Training Center in Chicago.

 The experiences I had working with and in impoverished and powerless minority communities helped cement my commitment to pursue equality and social justice in my professional and personal life.

Now you might understand a little better the slant I bring to the opinions I share every other week on this page. I’ll keep it up as long as I can think and type and hopefully continue to offer a different perspective on our world than you get anyplace else. 

Joe Biden Gets It Done

 Joe Biden Gets it Done

It is his election to lose

I have never been as optimistic about a presidential election as I am about this one. We now have a rematch between the strongest Democrat and the weakest Republican their respective parties could have picked.

President Biden’s recent State of the Union Address laid to rest all of the posturing about his age or mental acuity. He was able to speak clearly about his accomplishments and plans for governing while dealing spectacularly with the GOP hecklers. He was feisty and enjoyed the give and take. He followed the speech with his proposed 2025 budget which addresses many of the major concerns of most Americans. Rather than retreat into a safe middle ground in this election year, Biden tacked clearly left as he took on unconscionable wealth disparity, reproductive healthcare, support for organized labor and other progressive issues.

Recognizing Wisconsin as a pivotable swing state, his announcements yesterday for urban improvements in Milwaukee and Vice President Harris’ visits touting economic growth and reproductive healthcare were welcome news. Even Dr. Jill Biden has made trips here to show the administration’s support for Wisconsin working families.

Biden has shown what can be accomplished when given majorities in both houses of Congress. His infrastructure improvement actions, reductions in inflation and unemployment, reductions in student loan debt, pushbacks against Big Pharma and others show working American families he is clearly on our side.

As the MAGA majority in the House of Representatives continues to shrink with resignations and retirements, it is still possible that Democrats and more sensible Republicans can come together on a discharge petition forcing Speaker Johnson to bring the bills providing aid to Ukraine and Israel to a vote in the House. The aid for Ukraine has overwhelming support among voters in both parties and among GOP House members who are not aligned with the far-right Freedom Caucus apparently controlled by the former occupant of the White House. There is even hope for passage of the bi-partisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate.

All of these positive and productive measures show us that President Biden is more than fit to lead the country for another four-year term.

In stark contrast, the GOP has all but nominated the former president for the rematch. The cult surrounding him has gutted the Republican National Committee of anyone who dares to question the party’s choice. What funds the RNC may have will soon be diverted from electing Republicans up and down their ticket to a slush fund to help the former president pay the judgments against him and the lawyers defending him in his several state and federal criminal cases.

The former president has fully embraced authoritarian Christian nationalism and vowed to end democracy as we know it by eliminating federal civil service, ending protections for minorities, women and the LBNGTQI community. He has vowed to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after those who oppose him and to detain immigrants and others he deems unworthy.

The GOP response to President Biden’s State of the Union address by a young woman Senator sitting in her kitchen feigning outrage and disbelief could not have sent a more telling message. Women belong in their kitchens, serving their men and producing more babies even if they are elected to the United States Senate.

We have yet to hear a single message from the GOP that addresses how a GOP led administration might deal with protecting democracy abroad, making working families more financially secure or how elderly Americans might survive after their Social Security and Medicare earned benefits are taken away.

Most importantly, the GOP has no plan on how their candidate might fulfill the duties of his office, much less play golf, from inside a prison cell. Clearly, the GOP believes that there will be no criminal convictions of their candidate before November and that after election day all these pesky prosecutions will just go away. Having spent several decades in criminal courts, I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that the odds of the former president avoiding conviction and prison time are practically nil.

Last time around Joe Biden won the presidency by over 7 million votes. This time, the margin of victory will be much larger and democracy will prevail.

Abortion Hypocisry

 The Abortion Hypocrisy

Either a Fertilized Egg is a Fetus, or it Isn’t

 

The Alabama Supreme Court has thrown the national GOP into a tailspin. 

Recently, that court ruled that embryos created as part of in vitro fertilization (IVF) are “extrauterine fetuses” who have rights and interests. The ruling was based upon language from the the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs case that overruled Roe v. Wade’s protection for some abortions with some biblical references thrown in for good measure. Dobbs held that unborn fetuses are people who must be protected.

The Alabama decision is a logical outgrowth of the scientifically discredited idea that life begins when a man’s sperm fertilizes a woman’s egg. That notion is the basis of the argument that all abortions should be banned and was a major underpinning of the Dobbs decision.

Applying that logic to human embryos created in a laboratory petri dish by fertilizing a woman’s egg with a man’s sperm effectively ends the use of that procedure.  IVF does not work sometimes. When a fertilized egg from the lab is implanted into the woman’s uterus, it sometimes does not develop into a fetus. To allow for multiple attempts to have a successful pregnancy, couples sometimes have multiple embryos created in the lab which are frozen for implantation later. If the first embryo does develop, then the frozen embryos may not be needed and are often destroyed. What to be done with these unused embryos led to the Alabama decision. As a direct result of the ruling, Alabama IVF clinics suspended all further procedures out of a well-founded fear they might be prosecuted for killing an unborn child or held financially liable for wrongful death if they did not preserve them forever.

That is a result too far for many republicans, hence the loud retreat from the Alabama ruling. 

Unfortunately, many in the GOP have supported the Alabama logic. 124 republican members of the House of Representatives, including Wisconsin members, Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, and Mike Gallagher co-sponsored the Life Begins at Conception Act in the last session. 18 U.S. senators co-sponsored a similar bill in the Senate. Legislatures in 14 states have introduced similar legislation with four passing their bills into law. A recent bill introduced in the U.S. Senate to protect IVF was blocked by a Mississippi senator. 

Recognizing that IVF is very popular and used by thousands of voters every year to have children, republicans running for re-election have tried to distance themselves from the Alabama ruling and its logic. The former president who brags about overturning Roe v. Wade through his Supreme Court appointments just came out in favor of in vitro fertilization.  The republican controlled Alabama legislature is rushing to pass a bill exempting IVF embryos from the “life begins at conception” theory. The GOP controlled Florida legislature just suspended consideration of a “personhood” bill that could have ended IVF procedures there. 

The problem is that either life begins when sperm fertilizes an egg, or it does not. You cannot have it both ways. 

The GOP coalition depends upon support from those who believe ours is, or should be, a Christian nation governed by religious teachings, not the rule of law. Even they will see the inconsistency when their preferred candidates support IVF and undercut their favored argument against abortion that “life begins at conception.”

This dilemma is a perfect example of the need foreseen by our founding fathers of keeping religious beliefs out of the political discourse and governance by erecting a wall between the church and the state. Our founding documents make it clear that we are free to believe in the God of ones choosing but are prohibited from imposing those beliefs on those who believe differently or not at all. Our political and legal systems were meant to be governed by reason and facts supported by science, not beliefs which can not be supported empirically.

The logical problem presented exposes the failure of those in the cult of the former occupant of the White House to recognize why democracy is better than authoritarian dictatorship. Authoritarian dictators make everything about them, facts and science and logic be damned. “Trust me” is the mantra that allows unfettered governance that leads to disaster. It allows the dictator to do has he pleases. Campaign proclamations on this issue are worthless when it comes to votes and donations. 

 In November, voters will have to choose between Democracy and an autocratic Christian Nationalism, you cannot have it both ways.