A Proverb

The one who lives alone is self indulgent,

Showing contempt for all who have sound judgment.

-Proverbs 18:1

In an attempt to become more balanced, I have purposefully sought out conservative writing and journalism over the past year.  I paid special attention to the conservative voices in the major newspapers like George Will, Ross Douthat and recently Brett Stephens.  On top of that though, knowing that the Washington Post and the New York Times choice to publish those columnists casts some suspicion on them in certain minds, I have also read a good number of articles at The American Conservative home of Rod Dreher of the recently published Benedict Option.  I have also looked for opposing opinions on the more Libertarian slanted Reason. I still avoid the vomitous mass of Breitbart and generally cast a suspicious eye on anything bearing the Fox news label. 

This exercise in balance has generally been good for my soul, and has kept me somewhat sane as hurricane Donald continues to buffet our national psyche.  The first thing it teaches me is that there are good, sane and occasionally even compassionate people on the other side of the political divide.  There are conservatives and libertarians who are every bit as shamed and embarrassed by the Tweeter in chief as I am.  There are people who hold to the principles of small government and laissez faire economics who understand that the poor must be cared for so that the crushing effects of capitalism and globalization do not grind them underfoot.  My reading on the right has built up my faith in reasonable voices in general and challenged some of the things I had assumed which needed to be challenged.

That being said, I am even more convinced now than I was a year ago that we are living in bubbles.  On The American Conservative for instance, I have read thoughtful critiques of foreign policy, of Trump's good and bad moves, of immigration policy, of the cultural movement away from Christendom.  I have read things that I did not see anything about in the big papers, particularly regarding the Middle East.  But what I did not see, especially in the past week, is anything about the ongoing efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  The Post and the Times have been apoplectic about the Graham-Cassidy effort to devolve health insurance regulations to the state level.  I was having trouble finding anyone who thought it was a good idea and thus am wondering why they would be risking so much on something so bad.  The only explanation I heard was that they had to do it because of the base.  They had to do it because they had promised it for so long and so vehemently.

I was reminded of the (non-biblical) proverb that you shouldn't persist in a mistake simply because you invested a lot of time and resources in making it. I wanted one of the conservative/libertarian folks that I sort of trust to tell me something about why it is a good idea, so at least I could have something positive or hopeful to lean on.  There was nothing; deafening silence, not even criticism.

I actually went to Breitbart, figuring that the bottom dwellers there would surely be hyping up some sort of state's rights argument, actually no such luck.  The only mention I saw of Graham-Cassidy was several scrolls down past all sort of nonsense and even then it was not a substantive analysis, but rather about how Trump was going to go about taking revenge on any Republicans who failed to vote for it.  I really recommend staying away from Breitbart, for the good of your soul.

Anyhow, this dichotomy of discussion proves to me that these bubbles are real things, even, and perhaps especially among the segments of writers and readers who are really seeking to be intellectually honest.  One side honestly feels like this latest repeal effort is a real danger and worthy of rounds of excoriating rhetoric.  The side that you might think would support it, doesn't say much about it at all.  My question is why?  Do they think it's doomed and don't want to hitch their intellectual wagons to a bad idea?  I actually hope that is the case, but it could also be that they want it to pass because "Obamacare is a disaster," but cannot in good conscience defend it (or any of the other so called solutions up to this point) and so are just avoiding the subject.

It would seem that on some subjects it is possible to engage in good, multi-faceted dialogue, but on other things we just sort of segregate like the boys and girls at a 6th grade dance. This is not healthy.  Proverbs continues the thread above with the following two observations:

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,

But only in expressing personal opinion.

When wickedness comes, 

Contempt comes also,

And with dishonor comes disgrace.

Let those with ears to hear take heed.

Anthem

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There is a crack, a crack, in everything,

That's how the light gets in.

-Leonard Cohen, Anthem

I would like to preface these observations with the statement that I respect our military, our police, our flag and I actually kind of like our national anthem (at least the two verses that are most commonly sung).  I also respect the people in this country who are brown and black and who have experienced racism, bigotry and injustice on many levels.  I also respect the Constitution of these United States of America which defines how a democratically governed nation should function according to the principles on which it was founded.

However, I am, before being American, a follower of Jesus, which also makes me a believer in the existence and sovereignty of a Triune God.  This God, whom I owe my allegiance and my very existence, has given humanity some very sane and comprehensible laws, some of which are reflected in our own secular laws.  The one which is not, and honestly cannot be reflected in any governmental system that claims to abide by the principle of the first amendment to our constitution: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or of the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

As much as I think that is worth a place as the first statement in the Bill of Rights, it cannot actually replace in importance the First Law:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to worship them; for I am a jealous God...  - Deuteronomy 5: 8-9

Or if you prefer the summary of all the Law that Jesus offered us (which I do):

Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." -Matthew 22: 37-39 

I fully endorse all the ideas represented above, and I try to live by all of them.  I believe that I must live as a child of God and a follower of Jesus, before I can hope to call myself a citizen of the United States or a patriot.  I understand that not everyone shares my theological and Christian convictions and I would not seek to impose them on anyone who was not searching for the way themselves.  I am not insisting that you agree with me, I am offering you the following observations concerning the kerfuffle involving the NFL, the National Anthem, black players and now, thanks to his ill advised and un-chastened use of the Twitter, our bellicose Commander in Chief.

1. As I have said before, a year ago, when Colin Kaepernick first took a lonely seat on the bench during the National Anthem, it is our privilege as free citizens of this nation to either stand or sit, pledge allegiance or not.  It is our right to express our disapproval with the government, through speech, reporting in the press, peaceable assembly and petition for redress of grievances.  These are the rights for which the flag stands and for which our military and veterans have fought and died.  Black people in this country have a long standing and currently urgent set of grievances for which they should be able to seek redress.  You do not have to agree with the NFL players who kneel during the anthem, but you should in no way be angry with them for doing so.  In fact, Colin adopted the kneel, which since became the standard, because it was more respectful than simply sitting on the bench, it allowed players to register a protest, while remaining on the line with their team and while not simply sulking in the background.  Registering protest against the system in this way is non-violent and respectful of those who choose not to protest.  Is it perfect? No, nothing ever is, but it meets all the criteria for a lawful and effective protest. The fact that the protest continues a year later, when Colin is no longer around is testament to its effectiveness.
2. Trump's tweet storm about how players that kneel during the anthem tiptoes up the line of actually violating the first amendment.  Granted his tweets are not acts of Congress (thank you sweet Jesus), but the decision by our highest elected official to suggest that citizens exercising their free speech should be fired from their jobs, when doing so does not in any way detract from their performance of said jobs is pretty out of line. I was never worried that these players would be fired, and I am not playing a lament for the poor vulnerable football players (I'll save that for when I write a blog about concussions).  I am saying that our President needs to have more respect and understanding when it comes to the rights and privileges of being an American.  He was the one dishonoring our flag and those who defend it by blatantly and needlessly despising rights honored in the First Amendment. The NFL as a whole, not an organization known for its upright and blameless conduct, actually played this one pretty well and stood together against such an insult.
3. This is perhaps the most challenging of my three observations and the one that does not universally apply to every American Citizen: I am pretty sure that our reactions to this situation belie a very troublesome form of idolatry.  The reason why I believe that God has always despised idols is actually not because "God is a jealous God," as it says in the law.  Though I certainly don't discount that God is offended by our idolatry and that it is sin.  The reason for most of the Laws is rooted in our Creator's loving knowledge of what is good for us.  Idols, in their many forms, are some of the most damaging spiritual parasites.  They take, but do not give, they demand ever greater sacrifices and never deliver anything but coincidental benefit. The greater the magnitude and scope of a particular idol, the greater damage it can do (mammon/money is perhaps the most harmful).  National pride is essentially a form of tribalism, which at a core level is not a bad thing. As long as it is anchored by the great commandments of Christ, it can be beneficial and noble: Love God (above all else) and love your neighbor as yourself.  If  you prioritize those two commandments you will be a good citizen of whatever nation or tribe you inhabit.  I believe that when we become angry at black players for kneeling during the anthem or refusing to salute the flag, we are prioritizing the symbols of our nation over the values of our nation and thus we are committing idolatry.  The values of our nation protect our right to love God and one another and thus be both Americans and Christians or Jews or Muslims or Atheists at the same time.  When we deny someone the right to protest a symbol or a song we are surrendering that right to an idol and we are walking the road to fascism. How twisted is it to deny someone the right to exercise the rights put forth in the first amendment in the name of patriotism?  The kind of twisted that can only come from idolatry.

As it turns out this "more perfect union" thing is quite a thing to chew on, we've only been at for a couple hundred years.  We've been trying to digest the Law for thousands.  I'm glad God is patient.

 

The Problem

That one can know what Christianity is without being a Christian is one thing.

But whether one can know what it is to be a Christian without being one is something else entirely.

And this is the problem of faith.

One can find no greater dubiousness than when, by the help of "Christianity," it is possible to find Christians who have not yet become Christians.

-Soren Kierkegaard

Lately in politics I have started to see the terms RINO or DINO to denigrate a person who fails to meet their standard of doctrinal purity.  It means Republican In Name Only or Democrat In Name Only.  It is usually said with a certain air of condescension and mockery and it can be brought on by a fairly minor disagreement.  The same sort of thing happens in almost any group of people who hold to some sort of standard that they consider Orthodoxy (right belief) or Orthopraxy (right action).  As a representative of the Church and as a member of clergy (meaning I am invested in the institution of the Church, flawed though it may be), I have to laugh at such quibbling.  My laughter is not intended to be mean spirited (well maybe just a little), it's sort of like watching children getting into an argument that, as an adult, you saw coming a mile away.  The church has been dealing with the phenomenon of nominal (name only) believers for a very, very long time.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus challenges human beings, at nearly every opportunity, to fly in the face of what their instincts tell them to do. Our basic urges seek security and comfort, we seek to get ahead and try to dodge really dangerous and difficult situations.  Jesus instructs his disciples to often do exactly the opposite of what their instincts would lead them to do.  It is summed up most succinctly in the line: "take up your cross and follow me" (Mt. 16: 24). This emphasis remains fairly consistent throughout Jesus' teaching and leads to all sorts of objections and attempts to weasel out of it.  Many other teachings and parables are simply attempts to shut the side doors that many people would like to slip out of to avoid the really difficult challenge of following Jesus.

From the first century, when the Apostle Paul wrote his letters to the various churches, to the Reformation, to the 19th Century when Kierkegaard was writing, to now in the era we have dubbed postmodern, it has always been difficult to actually follow Jesus. Thus we usually settle for knowing about Jesus or perhaps we even call it "believing in Jesus." But what Christ was really encouraging is following, discipleship specifically, belief that translates into action, and perhaps even beyond that, an actually shaping of one's life and thought processes into a Jesus-like mold.  The old theological word is sanctification.

G.K. Chesterton, in one of my favorite pithy lines says: "It is not that Christianity was tried and found lacking, it was found difficult and never tried."

There is an awful lot of talk about what the future of the church in the world might look like or whether there actually is much of a future.  Something of the old ways appears to be dying off to be sure, even in the staunchest of the old traditions (Roman Catholic and Orthodox), but the thing is we are all about resurrection aren't we?  If you hold the Gospel to be the truth then the darkness of the tomb should always be temporary.  We fret and fume a great deal about how people no longer seem compelled to attend church, or engage in what Kierkegaard, with some warranted condescension refers to as "Christianity." But perhaps that was the inevitable result of an institution that has admittedly focused too much on knowing about Christ and not enough on following him.

In churches of all varieties it is possible and indeed likely to find Christians who have not yet become Christians, people who practice the religion, but who have not begun to seriously (or even un-seriously) be really shaped and formed into the image of Christ.

Given the history, I imagine that whatever the next iteration of "Christianity" happens to be, there will eventually be people who once again subscribe to it merely as a collection of doctrines and rites, and we will have to go through all of this again.

Personally, I am glad God is patient.

Eighteen

My marriage is now old enough to vote, which is a good perspective to hold on to, because it may be tempting to think that after that span of time we are grizzled veterans at this blessed union.  I remember how much I thought I knew when I was eighteen years old and that confidence gets a little shaky. Sure, we have gotten through some challenges, we are on the way to raising up a couple of know-it-all kids of our own.  But we haven't quite crossed the threshold of being together longer than we were apart, we're close, but we're not quite there.
In some ways though, I am impressed with how mature our relationship is, and how we have grown up a lot more together than either one of us would have on our own.  That was our vision on this day in 1999: we were going to make each other better, we were going to be complementary parts of new unit that lifted us both up.  Remarkably, that vision still holds up pretty well.  Despite all the things those twenty something kids didn't know and all the things we thought were going to be different, we still function better together than we do apart.
When one of us is acting stupid the other one usually keeps their head.  When one of us is in the dumps the other usually holds the light.  When one of us is overwhelmed the other provides the anchor in the storm.  That is how we wanted this to work, and by the action of grace in our lives, that's how it actually seems to be rolling along.
What I would like to be able to tell myself eighteen years ago is to keep looking at what is right in front of you, take the steps that you can and learn to really pay attention to the person you've promised to share your life with.  The places we go wrong are when we forget or take for granted what the other part of our marriage adds to our collective life.
That life is unpredictable. The challenges we face are rarely the ones we prepare for and the triumphs we have had are not necessarily the ones we thought we were aiming for, but the thing I have come to know is that we are stronger and more capable together than we are as individuals.  Marriage is more than the sum of its parts and that is a huge blessing.
What eighteen represents to me though is certainly not a destination, it is just a start, a launching out into what is next.  We have just gotten the foundation, the high school diploma of a relationship that at least signifies that you are not a disaster.  We can keep a house and raise some kids, we can hold down jobs and start building some sort of security, but most of our life and our marriage stretches out ahead of us down a hopeful road.  We are like those kids at high school graduation who have it all ahead of us, but all things considered, this actually feels even better than that.
Happy Anniversary Michele.

Where Were You?

Prior to this day sixteen years ago, I often wondered what my generation would consider their defining moment.  My parents generation had shining moments like the Moon Landing and Woodstock and Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech on the national mall, and they had tragic moments like the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK, Nixon resigning, and of course the long running tragedy of the Vietnam war.  Prior to September 11, 2001, the closest thing I could come up with to a generation-defining moment was the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding, and that seemed kind of sad, because it seemed sort of like the atrophy of the triumphs that had come before.  It was a space program that had lost steam, making a desperate plea for relevance or at least publicity by sending a school teacher into space. And it literally blew up in their face because of shoddy maintenance and faulty materials.
Then we got our definition.  Then we got the moment that we all have burned into our memory, then we got the tragedy that brought us together for a moment.  It was unbelievable to watch those towers burn and fall.  I had been to the top of the World Trade Center on a field trip in school, those two black monoliths were a defining characteristic of the New York skyline, and in a matter of hours, they were no more, and thousands of people were lost in the ruins and rubble.
The legacy of that day has been a mixed bag.  It has involved us in a seemingly unending war in Afghanistan, it has led us into conflict based on bad information, it has given us, for better or worse, a new villain to fight.  It gave us a moment to be heroes; the firefighters and first-response personnel that went into that cloud of dust on this day were powerful emblems of our better angels. What has happened since still does not dim the power of that moment.
But those events opened the door up to the jingoism and warmongering that was one of our worst faults since WWII. Fighting the Nazis made us feel like a hammer, and ever since then everything looks like a nail: for a long time it was Communists, now it is Al Quaeda, ISIS, the Taliban and whatever comes next.  Honestly, it feels a lot like playing that game Whack-a-Mole on the boardwalk, where the little heads pop out of the hole and you have to try and beat them with a big padded thumper.  From what we have learned about the enemy that orchestrated those attacks over the past 16 years, this was pretty much their plan: provoke us, draw us out and wear us thin, show the world that the imperialist and decadent West was immoral and bent towards the destruction of the true faith.  My question, pretty much every year on this day revolves around how we have and have not played right into that plan.
I know enough about the late Osama Bin Laden to know that he did not expect that the United States would simply tremble in fear and go away.  He did not expect four planes to bring down an empire, he knew that it would take years, decades maybe, and he probably also expected that he would not survive to see it.  Picking up the rubble and moving on was not a surprise to those who planned this attack, nor was the violent response and protracted military response,  The goal was not to break our spirit, but to show that our spirit was as twisted, materialistic and violent as they said it was.  Many wise voices told us this very soon after the smoke cleared, we did not listen as deeply as we ought have.
A generation of children, barely old enough to remember 9-11-2001 are now fighting and dying, accumulating scars and trauma that will be with them forever.  The cost of that day is still being paid.
I'm hoping though that this younger generation will get a better "big event" to hold on to.  We haven't been back to the Moon in a while, maybe it's time to visit there again.

Panic and Perspective

Harvey and Irma are not half of your grandmother's Tuesday Bridge club, they are storms, big ones, unusual ones.  Harvey dropped more rain than has ever been dropped on the Texas Gulf region and produced a disastrous flood event that will take years to recover from completely.  Irma is still out in the Atlantic ocean beating the tar out of some small islands, but she's coming and she is the biggest, strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic.  Most of the real bruisers (like Harvey) have formed over the relatively warmer waters of the Caribbean.  Warm water is pretty crucial to forming really nasty storms, whether they are hurricanes or typhoons, because warm water allows the natural convection of air currents to pick up speed and force.  Warm moist air rising up from the surface is the fuel of thunderstorms and hurricanes and tornadoes, every middle school science book tells you that.  The cold waters of the Atlantic ocean are a big wet blanket to the hurricane party and that is a good thing for most of the east coast of the United States.  Most of us remember Hurricane Andrew as a stark reminder of what happens to Florida when a Category 4 or 5 hurricane actually does come barreling off of the ocean... it's not good, and thankfully it's rare, except it might be on the road to becoming less rare.
Climate scientists have been increasingly clear on the fact that fairly small changes in ocean temperature can increase the likelihood of storms like Harvey and Irma.  That's why they get panicky about El Nino and La Nina, the adorably named but actually quite serious trends of ocean temperature.  These differences, really only a matter of a few degrees, can have radical effects on the weather we non-ocean dwelling mammals experience.  This is because the oceans are big, enormous in fact, and because water has a higher specific heat than air, again very basic middle school science stuff.  The enormous mass of these bodies of water and the relative amount of energy they can absorb and also release makes them our best friend and our worst enemies when it comes to climate related consequences.  The effects of climate change at this point are not just about sinking islands and shifting coastlines, they are about worse storms and extreme weather events, they are about losing ecosystems that most of us don't see very much, like coral reefs and cypress swamps, places which breathe life into our world, terrestrial and aquatic alike.
Ask Houston if they feel like that was a hoax by the Chinese.  Ask Miami in a few days, and tell them they should get used to it.  Climate change denial is becoming less about a disagreement between rational possibilities and more about callous disregard for our fellow humans.  Floods like Harvey produced are exponentially more deadly in poorer parts of the world.  In Houston we had people with boats and monster trucks pitching in to help out, we have FEMA mobilizing to help, and J.J. Watt raising millions of dollars in relief and gathering truck loads of supplies.  A week after Harvey, stuff starts to get back to normal in Texas, in Burma or Haiti it takes a lot longer than that.  If it is bad here, it is going to be worse in places where people are poorer and more vulnerable.  The death tolls are not measured in dozens but in hundreds, if not thousands.
I'm no fan of unwanted panic, I worked for a while in the environmental industry that was formed largely as a result of a panic.  For a long time, dating back to Greek and Roman civilization, people made things using this peculiar and useful mineral called asbestos, it forms these fibrous crystal structures that make stuff containing it really durable and also fireproof.  The fibrous nature of asbestos is what makes it so great, and also what made it dangerous (sort of like the ocean's heat sink capacity).  The fibers of asbestos, if you breathe them, don't do good things for your lungs.  They can cause scarring in the lungs, which produces a condition similar to the black lung that coal miners get from breathing in coal dust, and it can also cause cancer, particularly a type of cancer called Mesothelioma, which is basically a death sentence.
In the early 1980s people sort of simultaneously decided to notice that asbestos could have these effects and also that it was in freaking everything.  What ensued was a panic, in which the problems of asbestos containing materials were often made worse, regulations and responses were made on the fly and consequently made very little sense.  A lot of people, including my former employer, got awfully wealthy during this panic and people in general learned to fear asbestos in highly irrational manner.  For a long time, I held on to what I knew from the aftermath of that panic as somehow instructive about the growing evidence that human activity is contributing to climate change.
I was aided and abetted in that delusion by the soothing words of what I now know to be the voice of industries that were directly invested in fossil fuel production and consumption.  In the wake of the asbestos panic, it was found that Johns Manville, a large (to put it mildly) corporation which manufactured all manner of asbestos containing materials had actually suppressed evidence of the harmful effects of asbestos, and thus were found liable and had to pay out huge sums of money to those affected by exposure to asbestos.
It turns out that Exxon Mobile and Koch Industries and such like have pulled and are continuing to attempt to pull such a deception. The level of chicanery is several levels above what Johns Manville did with asbestos though.  Johns Manville simply didn't share all the information they had, the fossil fuel conglomerate has actually gone on the offensive against everyone from the EPA to science itself, trying to convince enough people that climate change isn't happening, or failing that, that it's not that big of a deal.
This time the victims are not just going to be a few thousand steam fitters and ship builders, this time the victims could be anyone who lives within 500 miles of a coast, any coast, you pick.  This time they are going to be all the people who suddenly live in an area where diseases like malaria start happening when they never did before, or who find their formerly productive farms turning into desert.  I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me if you could even make a thin case, you could have a hell of a class action lawsuit.

Dream a Little Dream

No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate one and love the other, 

or be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 6: 24

I have been thinking a lot about the American Dream (not Dusty Rhoades, well maybe a little, I will always at least picture Dusty at some point when I hear that phrase) over the past few days.  In the news there is talk of the Donald rescinding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) which was enacted under President Obama.  The people who are protected by this act, called "Dreamers," because they are given a chance to continue to live in the United States and pursue the American Dream without fear of being deported to a country where they really have never experienced life and may not even speak the language.

This is a level up on the rhetoric of a few months ago, where Trump basically continued the Obama era emphasis on deportation of undocumented people who were guilty of criminal acts of some sort.  This is a threat to a particularly vulnerable segment of society, whom many, including many conservatives, believe should be protected and given a chance at the American Dream.  The problem is that it was done through executive action by President Obama, and as I keep reminding myself when I wake up in a cold sweat: the President is not a king.  Trump seems to be, absent any significant legislative success, taking gleeful delight in kicking over Obama's sandcastles.  Executive Orders are legally always on shaky ground, if they are unconstitutional they must be thrown out (as Trumps first attempt at travel restrictions was).  Presidents will often use some form of executive order to do things that Congress cannot or will not do.  Immigration reform was a big agenda item for the Obama administration and one they did not achieve.  DACA was a band-aid measure, to give people who were brought to this country illegally when they were children some measure of security.  It was also an over-reach of Presidential authority, albeit a compassionate one.

Ideally Congress would have enacted laws that would protect children from being booted out of the only country they have ever known and welcomed these people into the process of becoming citizens.  But Congress has been pretty broken and the spurious argument that such mercy would only encourage more lawless immigration prevented such an act from being passed.

If I give Trump more credit than I normally do, it is at least a possibility that his whole approach to DACA is actually designed to precipitate actual legislation and move DACA from the shaky ground of an executive action to an actual, properly enacted piece of legislation.  If that happens I will try, difficult though it may be, to admit that Trump did something right, but let me say that at this particular moment, trusting Congress to do the right thing seems like a long odds bet.

The fact of the matter is though, I think this about Trump appeasing his base, people who hear the word immigrant and automatically think: illegal. Trump was elected on a wave of sentiment from a group of people who feel that the system has let them down, and they are right.  Unfortunately they have actually rather misidentified the part of the system that has let them down.  It is not the immigration system that has caused their woes.  Certainly competing with people who are willing to work for sub-standard wages is not a great feeling in the job market, but let's be honest, we mostly need more agricultural workers than we have and last time I heard, it was not difficult to get a job at McDonalds or cleaning hotel rooms.  What a lot of middle America laments are manufacturing jobs of the sort that helped their grandparents achieve the American Dream, meaning a solid place in the middle class; home ownership, health insurance, car(s), and a chance to retire for a few years before you die.  Those jobs have taken a big hit for two reasons, only one of which has anything to do with foreigners.  The first reason is technology.  Mexicans have not taken these jobs, robots have, greater efficiency and automation have.  The second reason is globalization of the labor force.  People in Mexico may very well be doing the jobs that used to be done in Detroit, but they're not doing them in Detroit they're doing them in Tijuana and Juarez, on the other side of that border where Trump wants his big beautiful wall.  They're working for less than the unionized American workers who hold on to the silly idea that they ought to be paid a living wage, and by living they mean middle class (see above description).

It's oh so much easier for a politician to get people to blame the foreigners and the other than it is to get them to blame the capitalists and the scions of greed.  It's easier because we inherently think that that the people coming up from below us are more of a threat than the ones standing on our neck. We fear the dirty immigrant who works in the fields for pennies more than the stockbrokers who can rob us with pens and bring our entire economy to the verge of disaster (true story, just happened)  I don't know why that is, but it is a useful reality for people who want to hold on to power.  It is why so many otherwise good, thoughtful people resisted the civil rights movement and thought of Martin Luther King Jr. as a trouble maker.  It is why a lot of good, decent people supported Donald Trump despite his embarrassing and crude behavior.

As long as we define our American Dream primarily as an economic reality we will be vulnerable to this sort of blindness.  Bill Clinton famously said, "It's the economy stupid," in response to why people would blithely accept so many other problems.  Yesterday, on Labor Day, Michele and I took the kids into D.C. to see some of the monuments.  We visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, and the Memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I thought a lot about the American Dream as we walked around the Mall and saw both the light and dark sides of our Empire.

Here are some: 

1. We are coming along, slowly.
2. The American Dream really has to be for all of us, if it is going to be for any of us, and by all I mean we must stubbornly include all the people of different races and creeds, even and especially when it is difficult. I heard many languages, and saw many different people from many different cultures all looking to the American story as an example for what we might be as a human race, it is beautiful and hopeful to see it that way.
   
   
   
3. The cost of the wars we fight and which we have fought is born most tragically by the sons and daughters of the poor and working class and on the families which are forever changed even as the rest of us only know them as names and shadows engraved in black marble.
   
4. If our Dream is to survive, we have to keep looking forward, while never forgetting where we come from.
   

We still have a dream.