Religion

 Religious Beliefs All Share Common Themes

All are Important

 

Growing up in Southern California in the 1950s, my mother took me to her Episcopalian church for Sunday School and services. I was baptized in her church, served as an altar boy, and joined the youth group. I learned lessons from the Bible and participated in services without ever questioning any of it. I learned there were Jews in Palestine and some of the Old Testament tales of their travails. I suppose I knew there were other brands of Christianity, but I had little exposure to them or their followers.

 

At my progressive high school, I was exposed to many other religious beliefs. The kids in my school came from all over the world. Some were Jews, some Muslim, some Quaker, some atheist, some agnostic and some from a sprinkling of Christian denominations. Some of them went to Sunday services in nearby churches, but many of us went to a patch of woods by the Main House and had our own. Those services were less about God than about spirituality and the many ways that gets expressed. 

 

My post high school anti-poverty work in Southern African American communities exposed me to Gospel and other segments of Black churches. I saw emotional connections to religious beliefs for the first time in their services. I later learned of Kwanza and, Glen Grothman’s criticism notwithstanding, felt their unifying messages. 

 

Later in my professional career, I worked with Greens and Native American Tribes in Northern Wisconsin trying to protect the water and our treaty obligations. I attended many Anishinaabe pow wows with my family and experienced a nature-based spirituality unlike any of my other religious experiences. 

 

Older spiritual systems, Pagan and Druid, added their own elements. We still observe the Solstices and passage of the seasons.

 

My own spirituality combines elements from all of these. I still tear up at the Hallelujah Chorus or Ode to Joy. Other classical music of the season is as familiar as when I first heard it. I do know many of the traditional carols by heart and have been known to sing along. I rejoice in Gospel and the songs of the drum from Africa and Northern Wisconsin.  

 

All of these share, at this time of the year, a thankfulness for the bounty our Earth provides, the joys of family gatherings, and a reconnection with the core tenants of their belief systems. It is a time of giving and sharing that is all too fleeting. 

 

On this Christmas Eve, one of the holiest of the Christian faith, my family and I wish all of you, no matter how or what you believe, all the joys of the season and for a peaceful and healthy New Year.

 

Don Kriefall

 Don Kriefall, Seriously?

 

Washington County Board Chair Don Kriefall once again graced these pages with a fact free attack on public-school educators and Democrats. For a supposed non-partisan elected official, Kriefall showed his true colors as a partisan hack spewing nonsense. 

 

Kriefall’s column last week Friday was a thinly veiled call to arms for all those itching to dismantle public education. Perhaps his continued vitriol was stoked by the serial losses by those who challenged sitting school board members across Wisconsin in recent recall elections, most notably, the ones in the nearby Mequon-Thiensville School District. 

 

Without a shred of evidence to support his assertions, Kriefall claims that public school students forced into virtual learning during the pandemic allowed their parents to witness first-hand the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

No one has produced any evidence to show that our county’s K-12 schools teach Critical Race Theory. I seriously doubt that Kriefall even knows what that obscure law school course even contains. From his previous comments, it appears that he has bought into the unfounded conspiracy theory that conflates all teaching of truthful American History about slavery, native American genocide, and other not so nice actions of our Caucasian ancestors along with the teaching of concepts like empathy, kindness, respect and caring into the CRT cauldron. 

 

Having whipped up the fears of his like-minded cohorts, he further fanned the flames by accusing the government of branding those who stand up to speak at school board meetings as “terrorists.” The Department of Justice was asked to investigate actual threats of violence and physical harm to public school board members from those who were unhappy about the blown- up version of CRT they were led to believe infested their public schools. 

 

No one has ever claimed that merely voicing an opinion about public school curriculum or policy at a school board meting is “terrorism.” Given the First Amendment’s right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, no government prosecutor or law enforcement agency would ever brand mere speech as “terroristic.” Civil discourse is critical to the continuation of our democracy.  Threats of violence against individual public servants not protected speech are quite another matter, clearly warranting governmental response. 

 

Finally, Kriefall lumps all Democrats into to group that must be eliminated from the public sector for their supposed support of “leftist” “Marxist” public education. Our Republic is not and never should be a one-party state. It’s improvement, growth and prosperity depend upon the multitude of voices in the body public. Democrats and Republicans, Independents and Greens, Socialists and Conservatives have and can work together to find solutions to our common problems in a civil and constructive manner. Our elected officials should welcome such constructive activity, not condemn it. 

 

Public education is supported by tax dollars and entrusted to locally elected school boards to spend those dollars wisely and in accordance with accepted educational policies and practices. Unlike private or charter schools, public schools must take on every child that walks through their front door. They are charged with teaching each child where they are on the education spectrum in a caring and nurturing environment. That is exactly what our schools try to do each day with dedicated and professional educators guiding students to become productive members of our society. 

 

Kriefall is correct in one part of his argument. If you don’t like what is going on in government or public education and want your voice to be heard, you should run for public office. If your campaign offers constructive ideas to fix a problem, sensible solutions to difficult issues, a positive view of what can and should be accomplished, you might be lucky enough to convince enough voters to rally to your banner. Don’t bother if your goal is just to dismantle what you do not like, most voters will see through the charade. 

 

We might dare to hope that our County Board Chairman one day might tell us what he is for and not just what he is against. We would do well with a Chair who offered a meaningful response to the low percentage of COVID vaccinations among Washington County residents when compared to our Ozaukee County neighbors and the rest of Wisconsin. We would prosper with a Chair who acknowledges that we need to learn from our history to avoid the mistakes of our ancestors.

 

Mr. Kriefall, the time of divide and conquer politics and the demonization of your opponents is coming to an end. We want solutions, not condemnation. We want constructive and civil dialog from our public officials. Elected officials are put in their offices to represent all their constituents, not just those who might agree with you. It is time to grow up.

Juries

 Juries Level the Field

 

As I read the many and conflicting opinions on the Rittenhouse verdicts, I think some historical perspective might be helpful.

 

Centuries ago in England, from where we derived our current legal system, guilt of criminal activity and punishment was decided by the monarch or local lord of the manor. Due to the whimsy of these proceedings and lack of community input, we developed a jury system where guilt is first decided by a jury of one’s peers. In criminal cases, the jury must be unanimous in its verdicts, both guilty or not guilty. The burden of proving guilt rests with the state. Later developments included the idea that guilt of a criminal offense had to be proved by the state beyond a reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence adds another layer of protection, as does the right to remain silent and not be compelled to incriminate oneself. Double jeopardy protections prohibit a second prosecution after a not guilty jury verdict. In assault and homicide cases, once a claim of self-defense, defense of others or defense of property is raised by the accused, the state must disprove the claim beyond a reasonable doubt. It is very hard to prove a negative, i.e., that the accused’s belief that deadly force was necessary is not reasonable. 

 

All these protections were put in place in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights found in the first ten amendments to that founding document to equalize the playing field between the individual accused and the power of the state.

 

Many of those offering their opinions as to Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence appear to have put themselves in the chairs of the monarchs and lords of old, thinking only they have the correct view of the law and evidence. Those banding together to usurp the jury’s role and supplant their verdicts with their own seek to impose mob rule to decide Rittenhouse’s fate. That is not how our system works or should work.

 

While not perfect, the jury system and constitutional protections afforded those accused of crime have served us well over time. Does the right to claim self defense need further definition in situations like those into which Rittenhouse inserted himself? It certainly does. That is the job of our lawmakers. Do laws regulating when and where people can carry firearms and what firearms can be legally carried need reform? Undoubtedly, they do. That too is the job of our lawmakers. Does systematic racism have an impact on our criminal justice system that needs to be rooted out? Yes, it does and again our lawmakers must act to make it so. We can accomplish those laudable goals by working to elect reasonable, educated, and intelligent people who do not jump to unwarranted conclusions. 

 

Will some take the not guilty verdicts and seek to subvert them into a license to kill peaceful protesters? Probably, but those taking this view mistake what the verdicts actually mean.

Not guilty verdicts in a criminal case do not mean the accused is wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. They merely mean that the state has failed to carry its burden of convincing all 12 jurors that he was guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

In our headlong rush to pronounce judgment on Rittenhouse, let us focus on what needs fixing and not demolish a system meant to protect us all from the power of the state.

A New Perspective

 A New Perspective

 

After some exhausting research on unimpeachable online sites and extrapolating from their assertions, I finally figured out the ultimate unifying theory of our present situation. Stick with me on this one and see where it ends.

 

COVID-19 was developed by the Chinese in a lab in WuHan with assistance from the Obama administration and released into the wild to kill conservatives.

 

Fearing the outcome of the 2020 election and the ascendancy of the ultra-conservative white 

nationalist movements that arose from the ashes of the Tea Party, liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist Democrats enlisted the support of major pharmaceutical companies to create and begin the manufacture of COVID vaccines to combat the newly released killer virus. 

 

When the election result became clear, holdovers from the Obama administration put their plan into action, releasing the vaccines amid confusion and opposition from the incoming president and suggesting mandatory vaccination, social distancing and the wearing of masks to combat the disease.

 

One goal was to enrich the pharmaceutical companies beyond their wildest dreams with billions of US taxpayer dollars as the government purchased millions of vaccine doses for worldwide distribution. Of course many, who knew of the plan in advance, quickly purchased stock in those companies and began to ride the wave.

 

By suggesting sweeping governmental mandates for their mitigation strategies, the planners successfully predicted swift and universal resistance from ultra-conservatives who saw their very way of life threatened by yet another massive governmental overreach. 

 

Socialist, Marxist, communist Democrat liberals rushed to get vaccinated, donned their obligatory masks and kept their distance while the conservative opposition resisted and lined up to go on ventilators in hospitals crowded with seriously sick fellow conservative resistors. As we learned to nobody’s surprise, most of those dying in those hospitals refused to get vaccinated. Those men who survived saw their ability to perform their husbandly duties significantly deflated.

 

Being too uninformed to know any better, many conservative pundits and even more of their elected chumps, continued to deny that COVID remains a danger or that vaccine boosters are needed. As a result, even more will die or be left unable to have sex while the liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist Democrats will live long and prosper.

 

To make sure that they kill as many as possible, the Marxist, socialist, communist liberal bureaucrats soft pedaled regulation of alternative treatments that don’t work on COVID like ivermectin and others championed by the likes of Joe Rogan.

 

Enriched by US taxpayer dollars, Big Pharma was able to not only buy all of the GOP members of the US Senate plus two Democratic senators not yet converted to socialist, Marxist, communist beliefs and convince them to put a stop to the ultra-Marxist wing of the Democratic party's effort to lift up working people and bring America into the 21st Century with big spending infrastructure legislation. After all, Big Pharma already got theirs and wants to prevent anyone else from dipping into their well.

 

Conservative leaders, still missing the big picture, were then distracted by fear of real American history being taught in public schools with teachers indoctrinating their children with concepts like kindness and empathy. Using their pentup rage at Marxist, Leninist public schools to sap their strengths, they unwittingly freed up the dark state Big Government and Big Pharma to continue killing conservatives as the new administration imposes even more mandates.

 

One remaining part of the plan came into play after the last presidential election. Not content to just steal the election from the former president, liberal, socialist, Marxist, communist deep state government bureaucrats planted evidence of minor election irregularities to stir conservatives into a frenzy thinking they could prove the theft. The Marxist, socialist communist liberal planners knew this effort would drive more conservatives to reject efforts to get them vaccinated and add to the death toll.

 

To add further fuel to the fire, social media continues to promote other factions of the ultra-conservative movement as they move from one date to the next for resurrection of the Kennedy Dynasty which will, in turn, bring back the former president to rule as the King of Kings.

 

It is all part of the Marxist, socialist, communist liberal Democrat grand plan to end the conservative movement and kill off most of their members. And Big Pharma gets to laugh all the way to the bank as their stock values soar after selling more shots as boosters and mini doses to kids.

 

If conservatives want to survive, guess what? Get vaccinated, wear your mask and keep your distance. And while you are at it, put Big Pharma in its place by passing legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices or, better yet, pass universal health care like the rest of the developed nations. And if you have not figured it out already, none of the conspiracy fueled assertions mentioned here are correct or accurate. 

Save the Republic

 Responsible Conservatives Step Up to Save the Republic

 

The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party is getting more heated. Sensible conservatives are starting to condemn the authoritarian former president and his followers as the true threat to our democratic Republic. 

 

In a joint, open letter published on Wednesday by the conservative magazine The Bulwark and the liberal New Republic, writers and pundits from across the political spectrum came out with a specific list of policies implemented by followers of the former president which they all agree are inimical to the survival of our democratic Republic.

 

Here is the list, verbatim,

 

“We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to change state election laws to limit voter participation.

 

“We vigorously oppose ongoing Republican efforts to empower state legislatures to override duly appointed election officials and interfere with the proper certification of election results, thereby substituting their own political preferences for those expressed by citizens at the polls.

 

“We vigorously oppose the relentless and unending promotion of unprofessional and phony “election audits” that waste public money, jeopardize public electoral data and voting machines, and generate paranoia about the legitimacy of elections.

 

“We urge the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass effective, national legislation to protect the vote and our elections, and, if necessary to override the Senate filibuster rule.

 

“And we urge all responsible citizens who care about democracy—public officials, journalists, educators, activists, ordinary citizens—to make the defense of democracy an urgent priority now.”

 

The letter concludes, “[n]ow is the time for leaders in all walks of life—for citizens of all political backgrounds and persuasions—to come to the aid of the Republic.”

 

Wisconsin and Washington County GOP leadership have embraced all the policies opposed in the letter and need to be replaced by those who support our democratic republic form of government. 

 

There are decent conservatives in our state and community who are appalled by the actions of the former president and his followers, especially with the conduct of the former president after he lost the last election and of his followers who stormed the Capitol to overturn the result of the election on January 6^th. Some congressional Republicans are also speaking out against the former president and what he represents.

 

There are decent conservatives who support our system of open and fair elections and want to secure the vote for all eligible citizens. 

 

There are decent conservatives who support fairly drawn legislative districts which are competitive and more responsive to the will of the voters. 

 

It is time for those conservatives who support the rule of law and our democracy to step up and retake control of the Republican Party in our country, state and county. 

 

If that happens, hopefully, we will return to a political debate about ideas and policies that move the country, state and county forward instead of the current culture wars that do nothing but divide us and stoke hatred. 

 

Locally, the first place where we need to tone down the rhetoric is with our local school boards. Well heeled Republican mega-donors are funding the Mequon-Thiensville school board recall movement over health and safety policies implemented by the current board. Other Wisconsin school board meetings have become heated battlegrounds over mask and vaccine policies and inclusive curricula where the real motivating factor is frustration over a vanishing way of life and privilege.

 

Responsible people need to take back the conservative movement and the GOP to move back to governing in a spirit of compromise and collegiality. If they don’t act, our democracy is in peril. 

Shut Down the Big Lie

 Shut Down the Big Lie

 

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R - Pleasant Prairie) visited with the former president this Summer and came back home to start a completely partisan “audit” of the 2020 presidential election. He earmarked over $676,000.00 of your hard-earned tax dollars for the effort and appointed former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to head it up.

 

Clearly, the former president is thriving on a continuation of the “Big Lie” that the past election was “stolen” and that he is the only legitimate occupant of the White House. Equally clear is that adoption and continued spread of the “Big Lie” is a condition precedent for any conservative politician who wants the former president’s endorsement in upcoming elections.  Vos was only too happy to continue the fight and his election “audit” is proof of his fealty to the lost cause. 

 

Gableman’s appointment to lead the effort gave Vos further alt-right credibility. Gableman ran for the Court as a staunch conservative and continued his far-right march after leaving the Court. He has deep ties to the Republican party and its major donors. Before he was selected by Vos, Gableman made numerous public statements that the 2020 election was “stolen” without ever citing any supporting evidence. 

 

After his appointment, Gableman continued to show his true colors with his hires for investigator and legal positions. He choose people who already expressed belief in the “Big Lie” or worked in the former president’s administration seeking to overturn the election loss. 

 

Gableman and Vos issued subpoenas to election officials and mayors in Wisconsin’s largest cities and the state’s Election Commission requiring them to produce documents and sit for interviews in Gableman’s office in a private building next to a liposuction clinic. Gableman’s emails to other government officials have come from a Gmail account, not a secure governmental email address. His office announced that the mayors would not have to sit for interviews if they produced the requested documents. Gableman almost immediately said the mayors would have to honor the subpoenas and sit for the interviews, contradicting his own staff. Most of the documents Gableman seeks are already in the public domain.

 

After the Arizona “cyber-ninja” election audit failed to produce any credible evidence to support the “Big Lie,” Gableman sought cover by claiming his investigation was not seeking to overturn the last election, just to make sure everything was done properly. 

 

Gableman has not helped his cause in the court of public opinion with admissions that he really does not know how elections work in Wisconsin. His credibility as an election watchdog took another hit with recent revelations that he did not actually vote in seven elections in the past three years. He shows his ignorance of the electoral process by focusing his requests on data in voting machines which do not store data. 

 

Gableman dug more holes in his effort by consulting with the “MyPillow” pitchman, Mike Lindell, who has made repeated claims, without supporting evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen and hacked by the Chinese. Another Gableman consultant has claimed that votes were shaved off the presidential election totals, again without offering any proof to support his claims. 

 

Finally, as news reporters began asking the tough questions, Gableman attacked the news outlets, comparing them to German Nazi propaganda efforts by anti-Semitic zealot Joseph Goebbels who was responsible for the worst atrocities against Jews in Europe before and during World War II. 

 

All the evidence in the public domain and the results of numerous lawsuits here and in other states clearly shows that the last presidential election was fair and free from undue influence or corruption. Joe Biden won the election in Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes and more than 7 million votes nationwide. The “Big Lie” is just that, a whopper. 

 

Governor Evers correctly noted the Vos/Gableman “investigation” is a sham and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has called on Vos to shut it down as a boondoggle and waste of taxpayer dollars. 

 

Newspapers and other media outlets around Wisconsin are calling on Vos to end the farce and wasteful spending. 

 

There are a lot better ways to spend 676,000 than sending a biased and partisan former judge to look for something that does not exist. It is time for our elected representatives to focus on what Wisconsin needs, better roads, fully funded public schools, acceptance of increased Medicaid funding, COVID mask and vaccine mandates, protection of the environment and an end to the culture wars.

 

Contact your representatives and senators in Madison and demand they shut this craziness down.

 

Orange Shirt Day

 Orange Shirt Day

Part of Teaching History

 

This past Thursday, September 30^th, was Orange Shirt Day.

 

Orange Shirt Day originated in Canada and has spread to the United States. It is known formally as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and was designed to educate and raise awareness of the Indian residential school systems in Canada and the U.S. along with their impact on Indigenous communities for over 100 years. 

 

In the 1800s, governments in both countries sought to absorb indigenous peoples into their majority societies by creating residential schools which took native children from their families to wipe out their heritage, language, and values by teaching Native children Anglo-European language and culture. Native names were changed to sound more like the names of White children and the use of native languages was forbidden. Native spiritual traditions were ignored and supplanted by Anglo European religious practices and holidays. 

 

The schools were largely funded by the governments and run by religious groups, mainly Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian. Only recently have some of these groups apologized for their roles in this inhumane activity.

 

The separation of children from their parents was mandatory and enforced by law enforcement agents who seized the children and brought them to the schools. Parents had to get a “pass” from the agent on their reservation to visit with their children. 

 

The schools were underfunded and diseases like tuberculosis were rampant. Many children were sexually abused and died at these schools. The recent revelation of thousands of unmarked graves at former school sites has increased scrutiny and condemnation of the past practices. 

 

Even though these schools and their practices were condemned starting in the 1920s, it took a long time for the schools to be closed. The last one in Canada was closed in 1996.

 

Orange Shirt Day was started in 2013 by a residential school survivor in Canada, Phyllis Jack Webstad. She recounted being taken from her family at the age of six to a residential school where she was stripped of her clothes, including the new orange shirt given to her by her grandmother. It was never returned. The Orange Shirt now symbolizes the identities stripped from Native children by the schools. 

 

To try and atone for these wrongs, the Canadian government made September 30^th a national holiday. It recognizes the day on which the children were rounded up and taken to the residential schools. Canadians put together educational programs and television shows to recount the horrors of these practices, hoping to ensure they are not repeated. Canadian commissions were formed to study the past events and come up with strategies to honor First Nation tribes and their members. 

 

Indigenous peoples’ history in the United States has not been recognized as well as it has been in Canada. Our residential schools were just as bad as those to the North. We have not done anything substantial to rectify the wrongs perpetrated in them.

 

The United States government was even more ruthless in carrying out the Indian Wars in our Western territories, massacring millions of people while relocating the survivors to reservations that remain to this day. We still ignore treaties made with tribes when they conflict with things like mines, pipelines, harvesting of fish and rice, and wolf hunts. Tribal efforts to protect the environment for all of us are mostly ignored or rejected. 

 

We can learn from our Northern neighbors that teaching the true history of past wrongs helps heal the wounds those wrongs caused. Reconciliation can only come with an honest self-appraisal of past misdeeds and atrocities.

 

Our elected representatives in Madison seem not to have figured this out. Our state Assembly, with all our local representatives in support, recently passed a bill banning the teaching of the history and impact of our systemic racism in Wisconsin public schools. As if this will forever hide those transgressions of the past from seeing the light of day. Of course, passage of the bill is merely symbolic of the culture wars that make up the current GOP agenda. It will never survive a Governor Evers’ veto. 

 

We need to confront our real history, including our complicity in the selling of human slaves, to make sure it never happens again. Just claiming that racism is done, does not make it go away.  We also need to recognize and rectify our abysmal history when it comes to how we dealt with those who were already living here when our westward expansion sacrificed their way of life. 

 

Maybe that can start with the elimination, once and for all, of the use of Native mascots and names for cities, towns, villages, public schools, and sports teams.