Fear Not

The Only Thing We Have to Fear

Is Fear Itself

During some of its darkest hours President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the country that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words ring with even more truth today than they did during the depths of the Great Depression in 1932.

Today’s politics of division and supremacy are primarily based on nothing but fear. Our leaders and some of their followers would have us fear each other, fear those whose skin is a different color, fear those who come to our shores escaping violence, fear those who believe in a different supreme being, fear those who love differently, fear those who seek to control their own reproductive systems, fear those who believe in science as a basis for sound policy, and fear those who follow different economic or political systems.

We need to own firearms in even greater numbers because we fear the “bad guy” who might come to take what is ours. Second Amendment purists and those who profit from it, base their beliefs and business model on the myth that there is some “other” out there who is looking to bring us harm. Virtually every email I see from the NRA and its local offspring, Delta Defense, promotes their platform based on fear. 

Recent fervor supporting immigration bans prohibiting people entering our country from neighboring countries to the South is mostly based on fear of the Mexican criminal who will deal drugs, rape our women and steal our children. Many cling to this myth even in the face of clear proof that most immigrants come here to work and make a better life for themselves and their families.

The rise of newly emboldened white supremacy groups is based upon the irrational fear that somehow Anglo European immigrants will soon be forced from power and become an under class as America becomes more multi-ethnically diverse. Genetically, human beings are much more alike than different. Skin color differences do not translate into a better or worse human being. It makes no difference, yet too many of us are taught to fear based just on this element of the human condition. 

Fear of those who love those with similar gender characteristics is another one of those irrational emotions used to divide. Folks attracted to those like themselves are not trying to kidnap children or lure them into a heretical lifestyle. Same sex couples can be just as good or just as bad at parenting as opposite sex couples. Gender fluidity will never upset the social order. 

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding President Trump’s travel ban unfortunately gives it an aura of legitimacy it does not deserve. The travel ban prohibiting Muslims from certain countries from entering our country is based on another irrational fear, that all who share that faith from those countries are bent upon committing terrorist acts on our soil. Most people who practice Islam are just as anti-terror as anyone else who disavows its use. To ban entire populations based upon a few dangerous individuals does nothing to advance world peace and a belief in a common humanity.

Fear of women becoming hyper-sexualized and running amok was one of the original motivations for limiting access to birth control and opposing reproductive choice.  Fear of feminism is based on outmoded notions of women’s’ inequality and inability to think and act for themselves without male guidance. 

Fearing the erosion of Christian belief systems led to challenges to science-based policy decisions in education. If you teach evolution as a fact proven by the scientific method, the underpinnings of beliefs in divine creation will evaporate. If you challenge the way we live because we know humans have created climate change and must wean ourselves from the use of fossil fuels in order to survive, I will lose my livelihood. Therefore, acting on climate change is an evil to be feared.

Fear of communism, socialism, tribalism, cooperatives and the other economic and political systems that compete with capitalism drives current political thought away from our being able to choose aspects of those competing systems that might be beneficial to our continued prosperity. Universal healthcare and food security come to mind as rational ways to maintain the species. We seem to fear them just because they have worked in different political systems than our own and threaten certain capitalistic institutions. 

As we approach the annual celebration of America’s founding on July the Fourth, let us resolve to banish fear as a reason to act or fail to act. Let us boldly embrace the other, the different, the new and the experimental so we truly can make America greater than she was before.

End One Party Rule

The Alabama Miracle

If they can do it, we can too

We witnessed a political miracle this week when traditionally Republican Alabama voters elected a Democrat to the United States Senate. The demographics of the Alabama areas that shifted political allegiances are fascinating. Many who voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election switched parties to vote for Doug Jones.

African-American Alabama voters, who apparently stayed home in the last cycle, came out in droves to vote for Doug Jones. They saw through Moore’s racially charged speeches and resisted at the polls. They joined the many disaffected white moderates and independents that voted for Trump and soon saw how he and the GOP sold them out. They were not going to be duped again.

Many will claim that Roy Moore lost because he was a deeply and personally flawed candidate. That he was, but a lot of white, Evangelical Alabama Christians voted for him anyway. They were willing to look past Moore’s accusers who credibly claimed his sexual predilections for young girls, believing instead his professed belief in a Christian God and claims to biblically based racial superiority. For these supporters, his condemnation of abortion and same sex marriage and orientation coupled with his belief that slavery was a hallmark of a great society showed that he shared their moral values.

That President Trump came to embrace Roy Moore in order to salvage his failing efforts to get the GOP tax reform scam through the United State Senate was not enough to swing the election to Moore. Trump’s public support and robo call for Moore appears to have turned the election into a referendum on Trump’s presidency, a presidency has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history. Those who might have been willing to close their eyes and vote for Moore were probably pushed to vote for Jones or write in someone else when they realized they would also be supporting a very unpopular and unpleasant president and his failing agenda.

Steve Bannon, the outcast braggart of the alt-right, could not rescue Moore’s candidacy either. Try as he might to rally the white supremacist Alabama Klu Klux Klan believers to support to Moore’s campaign, it was not enough. Bannon’s resort to scare tactics showed he has lost whatever teeth he had when Moore lost. Bannon’s endorsements have now rightly become the kiss of death for anyone seeking political office.

In the end, the Alabama Senate election exposed just how far down into the sewer the alt-right majority in the GOP was willing to go to advance their corrupt agenda. It also showed there is great hope for good Democratic candidates with a message of working together to solve common problems.

Doug Jones has solid government service credentials and a proven record of standing up for justice and equality. He celebrates Alabama’s diversity and brought together a winning coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, middle and working class whites, all of who were undeterred by GOP voter suppression tactics. Without a strong state Democratic Party, he put together a great grass roots campaign that reached into every corner of Alabama with his positive message of inclusion and improving the lives of working families.

The baffling part of the Alabama election is why so many white women and men who call themselves Evangelical Christians supported Moore so fervently. Given the credible accusations of sexual misconduct in his past, I do not understand Moore’s support by so many women. Given Trump’s failures to deliver on his many promises to help white middle and working class men, I find it difficult to understand why they continue to vote against their economic interests. Perhaps his messages of racial superiority and religious purity were enough to blind these voters to the loss of their healthcare insurance, destruction of public education and steep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security looming on the horizon.

The Alabama election outcome has reinforced resistance to the GOP agenda. Solid Democratic candidates are stepping up to offer meaningful alternatives to that agenda in traditionally republican strongholds, including our own. Just in Washington County, there are two Democrats running for seats in the Assembly.

Dennis Degenhardt, the newly retired CEO of Glacier Hills Credit Union, is running in the special election for the 58^th Assembly seat in January. His campaign stresses fiscal responsibility to fix crumbling infrastructure, healthcare as a right not a privilege, support for increased funding for public education, a re-examination of the Foxconn fiasco and working hard for everyday people and their concerns. Learn more at degenhardtforassembly.com

Chris Rahlf is running a strong campaign for the 60^th Assembly seat, stressing healthcare, public education and infrastructure repair with a return to leadership that listens. Chris is already pounding the pavement in anticipation of her 2018 election in the eastern parts of Washington County. Learn more at chrisrahlfforassembly.com

If you are tired of one-party control of our government, there is an alternative and that is bringing back two-party cooperation to address mutual concerns. Alabama has shown the way, it is now up to us.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled.

Protect the Dreamers

Protect the Dreamers

No Hate Allowed Here

Immigration reform has been a hot button issue since people started travelling to new places. We are a nation of immigrants and those who settled here in the first instance would claim that all those who came after them and took their lands are here illegally. We white folks settled those claims in the Indian Wars of the 1800s by brute force and genocide, but never you mind that part of our history.

The current effort to rid our shores of brown skinned immigrants was announced with a smirk by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions this week. President Trump made the call, but left it to Sessions to announce the decision and he did so gleefully.

Former president Obama tried without success to fix immigration in Congress, but the republican majority prevented a comprehensive fix. As a last resort, President Obama implemented DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, to tackle what appeared to be an easy part of the problem. He protected the Dreamers, kids who were brought to our shores by parents who entered this country without proper documents.

DACA made it possible for the Dreamers to remain under certain conditions. Almost 800,000 received DACA protected status because they met conditions that include registration, proof of entry while a minor with parents without documentation, educational attainment or military service and lack of a criminal record. They paid a hefty fee for the privilege to boot. As adults with a protected status, they are productive members of our communities.

The average DACA recipient is 26 years old and came here at the age of six. Ninety-one percent are gainfully employed. One hundred percent have no criminal record. They pay $500 to renew their status every two years. One, a Houston paramedic, died rescuing people in his flooded city after Hurricane Harvey.

With the stroke of a pen, the Trump/Sessions administration took away DACA protection for these neighbors of ours, subjecting them to easy incarceration and deportation, unless Congress acts to solve the problem by next March.

The GOP controlled Congress has not been able to pass a single piece of significant legislation yet. Internal divisions between ultra conservative members of the Freedom caucus and more moderate GOP pragmatists have prevented House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from advancing a budget, passing healthcare reform, or much of anything else. Tax code reform bills are next, along with funding the wall on our southern border, infrastructure repair and natural disaster relief measures. With all this on the congressional plate, and little GOP interest in talking with Democrats, comprehensive immigration reform or even protection for the Dreamers appears well beyond the horizon for consideration in this short period of time.

Make no mistake. This move is just another of the racially motivated actions by those currently in power to Make America White Again. Trump’s rhetoric and actions increasingly appeal to those white Anglo-Saxon evangelical racists who voted for him as he tries to shore up his political base against the rising tide of opposition from those in both parties and the Independent middle who fear further erosion of our democracy.

Former President Obama took the unusual step of weighing in on President Trump’s action and concluded his condemnation of it with the following:

“Ultimately, this is about basic decency. This is about whether we are a people who kick hopeful young strivers out of America, or whether we treat them the way we’d want our own kids to be treated. It’s about who we are as a people – and who we want to be.

“What makes us American is not a question of what we look like, or where our names come from, or the way we pray. What makes us American is our fidelity to a set of ideals – that all of us are created equal; that all of us deserve the chance to make of our lives what we will; that all of us share an obligation to stand up, speak out, and secure our most cherished values for the next generation. That’s how America has traveled this far. That’s how, if we keep at it, we will ultimately reach that more perfect union.”

We must protect the Dreamers just like many Germans did when they hid the Jews from Hitler’s thugs. We must stand up for our neighbors, friends and co-workers who share in the American Dream. Hate, prejudice and discrimination must not be allowed to triumph.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired lawyer who serves as a guardian for minors, the elderly and disabled.

Reject White Nationalism

White Supremacy Prevents Democracy

White nationalists recently marched at night in Virginia holding flaming torches while chanting racially charged and support for Russia slogans. The historic reference to Klu Klux Clan nighttime, torchlight marches was not lost on anyone familiar with America’s racist history. 

One of the Virginia marchers’ objections was removal of Confederate war hero statues from public areas in several Southern states.  Others phoned death threats to the crane companies employed in New Orleans to take down Jefferson Davis’ statue. The crane operators had to work at night and wear masks while taking down the statuary for their own protection.

Let that sink in.

Trump’s thinly veiled campaign plea to white supremacists, “Make America Great Again,” followed by his open embrace of unabashed white nationalists Steve Bannon, Sen. Jeff Sessions and others has unleashed a wave of racially motivated violence and protests across the country starting during his campaign rallies and continuing into his presidency.  His appeal to those who hated Barack Obama for no other reasons than his mixed race heritage and temerity to have been the leader of the free world for eight years was clear.

Jeff Sessions’ appointment as Attorney General and much of their subsequent shared agenda continues to exacerbate white fear of darker skinned fellow Americans. White racists are being openly encouraged to lash out publicly against those perceived as different and inferior, even after being shamed in Facebook videos. Videos from Wal-Mart checkout lines, public beach confrontations and stand your ground shootings by fearful white citizens and even police officers are much too common.

Those who denigrate fellow citizens because of perceived superficial differences seem to be easy prey for weak-kneed politicians who happily whip up racial frenzy instead of thoughtfully addressing real problems facing all of America’s citizenry. Senseless calls to deport or imprison those with different skin tones, foreign sounding names, culturally different clothing choices or non-Christian religious practices further inflame white fears and baseless notions of white superiority.

Travel bans unconstitutionally aimed at those who believe in Islam and come from some Middle Eastern countries, but not others, evidence Trump’s discriminate hatred of Muslims without a shred of proof they pose a danger to the homeland. Federal trial and appellate courts rightfully look to Trump’s campaign promises as evidence of his illegal racial and religious motivations in proposing the bans. Many of his supporters use the bans as a license to harass and intimidate people who look “Muslim,” even though they may just as easily be Christians, Jews or Hindu.

This imaginary fear mongering has found its way into our public policy in many other disturbing ways. Cuts to urban public education, failure to pass much needed infrastructure funding, get tough on crime policy pronouncements, frenzy over gun rights, opposition to sensible firearm restrictions, restrictions on local political control, new voter suppression laws, gerrymandered political districts, attacks on reproductive choice, restrictions on public health policy, environmental regulation rollbacks and even foreign policy decisions all have roots in white nationalistic superiority beliefs.

America is already great, in large measure because we have historically overcome notions of white Anglo-Saxon Christian superiority in favor of inclusion and diversity. We are stronger and project a more vibrant and creative image to the world when we embrace and celebrate our differences. We are better when we are kinder to our neighbors and the rest of those who share in the riches our fragile planet can provide. Divide and conquer politics diminishes our greatness and weakens the American fabric, especially when motivated by racial animus.

Trump’s pathetic calls for an end to words that incite violence will continue to ring hollow until he purges the ranks of his political appointees of the white superior nationalists and reverses the policies he and they have implemented to forward their mutually shared agendas.

Those of us from white Anglo-Saxon backgrounds take for granted our privileged position in American society and political life. That needs to change in favor of actively embracing a more diverse and inclusive world-view if we are to survive as a democracy. Authoritarian imposition of white superiority will never succeed and is a sure path to the end of the American democratic experiment.

All of us need to take a hard look at the actions our government is taking and hold those who enact them accountable when racial or religious bias is shown to motivate changes. We must step up and demand that our representatives adopt race neutral policies and laws that do not favor any religion over another.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired lawyer and serves as a court appointed guardian for the elderly and disabled.