Who needs protecting in Arkansas?

On a dark, rural highway in eastern Arkansas, a black transgendered woman was murdered. Her body was dragged under the car for the length of a football field, apparently because the driver--presumably the killer or an associate, since there were tracks for only one vehicle--ran over the victim's body. In an interview with UALR Public Radio News, St. Francis Co. Sheriff Bobby May

"...conjectured that Tye might have been out looking for sexual encounters at 2:00 a.m., then gotten involved in a liaison that somehow went bad." (link below).

 Others guess that it must have been a drug deal gone bad. This speculation all despite the fact that the victim, Marcal Camero May, had no criminal record (link below) and had been living as a woman openly in Forest City (St. Francis Co.) Arkansas for many years without any recorded significant trouble.

What was immediately off the table was any possibility in the minds of the sheriff and others was that this was a "hate crime". Of course, there was no such thing in Arkansas as it is one of five states that has declined to create a hate crimes statute--at least not at the time of Ms. Tye's execution.

But there is a hate crime now recognized in Arkansas. On the afternoon of Monday, March 28, the Arkansas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved (68-19) Senate Bill 214 to criminalize cyber bullying. If someone were to post unkind comments on Ms. Tye's Facebook page, they would now be subject to prosecution.

To be honest, I am not a civil rights lawyer, nor do I watch enough CSI episodes to consider myself an amateur forensics wiz, so I will grit my teeth and not opine about whether the Tye murder was indeed a hate crime.  I am also in favor of laws that prosecute deliberately abusive or violent behavior that has a negative effect on an individual or a class of people. Full disclosure: I have worked for 13 years with men who committed domestic violence and wanted to change their behavior, and I was deservedly in batterers treatment for a year before that after my own violence.

What I find distasteful is that the State of Arkansas says, on one hand, that it need not have a statute regarding the abuse or murder of a person committed because that person is, or is perceived to be, LGBT; yet will act swiftly to punish a crime in which the plurality of victims (and majority of dramatic stories getting play on local and network news) are white teenage girls. (see link)  Until the recent advent of very inexpensive mobile phones with text and web access, it was the privileged and mostly white youth who had the broadband access by which to be bullied. (*note below)

Perhaps the passage of this bill is the foot in the door to other appropriate hate crimes legislation. Or, perhaps that day will not come until the son or daughter of an Arkansas legislator comes out as gay, lesbian, or transgendered, and tells their parent-legislator that they are being bullied, abused, demeaned, or threatened for who they are.

But such bills have failed before. With the strong rhetoric from Arkansas politicians objecting to the very concept of "hate crime", it may seem safer to that legislator's child to stay silent at home and risk the violence elsewhere that too often comes with being discovered. Ms. Tye was courageous to live as she did. Arkansas and the other 5 states could match her courage and act boldly to prevent such tragedies in the real world, too.

MDT
Tomorrow: The Chrisitian Conservative objection to hate crime laws
*To the question of "Have you ever been cyberbullied in your lifetime?", a larger percentage of whites and females responded "yes" than did to the question "Have you been cyberbullied in the past 30 days?". This could indicate a trend of cyberbullying being aimed increasingly toward non-whites as the digital divide narrows. Still, the narratives receiving media coverage are still overwhelmingly of white female teens.

Local Sheriff speculates on murder case

Tye had no previous criminal record

Cyberbullying studies and statistics

Why does Libya feel different? Should it?

I clearly identify myself as a pacifist--a conscientious objector with an uncompromising opposition to all war. I have taken it to the streets in protests and vigils opposing both "Operation Desert Whatevers" in Iraq, and correctly feared that Afghanistan would become flypaper that would stick US forces there for a very long time.

So why am I not (yet) up out of my seat in outrage as Tomahawk cruise missiles rain down on Libyan anti-aircraft and radar facilities this night? Why did my heart lift a bit when network news interrupted my weekend sports to tell us that French fighter jets chased Gaddafi's planes from the sky?

Oh, I still feel the same fears. I don't believe that this will end quickly, and I won't be surprised if it does not end well. And I am absolutely sure that innocents will, already have, died at our hi-tech hands. But this time I am entertaining the thought that this could, maybe, possibly be a "right" war, even though I have always considered that an abhorrent and self-contradictory concept. I feel differently tonight. I just am not sure why.

This is not the first time that brave people will have their fight for freedom brutally crushed. Do I feel differently about the dictators, Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein? They both were monstrous in suppressing thier own people. Libya's army has many mercenaries from outside the country, while Iraq's army was largely home grown. Gaddafi was tied up in Lockerbee and the German nightclub bombings, while Saddam never was a significant player in international terror (sorry, neocons.)

But none of these reasons, nor all of them together, can explain why today feels different to me. I cannot make my emotions consistent with my beliefs tonight.

Maybe I just feel like it has been a long time since my country has been on the right side of history. Or the right side of humanity's advancement. Perhaps we could act in the Muslim world, for once in a way that Muslims see as supportive and respectful of Islam. Egypt's overwhelmingly peaceful uprising against Mubarak was so thrilling, so inspiring, and the Libyan opposition's first week of action seemed full of similar promise. I had hopes...

"I had hopes." As I typed those words, the air just went out of me, and the tears have started to well up. My urge to support this military force arises, ultimately, not from what Gaddafi is doing to the hopes of the people he governs, but what he did to my hopes. I had expectations, my own picture of what should happen for people I do not know in another continent I have never seen. I didn't ask, and I cannot trust that the men I have seen speaking for the "rebels" (in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are "insurgents") also speak for the mothers and daughters and young sons of Libya. Maybe they do, but I don't know so.

I do know it this the Libyan people's struggle--succeed or fail--and if America had not made such poor choices over the past two decades about jumping into the wrong struggles for the wrong reasons in Islamic nations, this intervention would not be so appealing to me now. I must admit that part of me hopes for America's redemption through this conflict, but that again is my hope. I ultimately cannot condone killing others for the sake of my hopes. Nor will I ask our fighting women and men to die for what I imagine is the right thing.

We are...no, I am so steeped in the thought patterns of imperialism: knowing what is right for the rest of the world, when in fact I am unconsciously rooting for what would be my preference. A committed pacifist has to keep asking "why" when something inside him exults at war. It is the only defense against imperial thinking.

Am I happy with my answer? Is my answer satisfying? No. It's just true. My truth. Pacifism is not a philosophy that is free of problems, but it has the problems I can live with.

War doesn't.

GOP Topic #1: "Talking Jobs"

The Republican party has realized that their agenda priorities have slipped.  Senate Republican Conference Committee Chair Lamarr Alexander admitted yesterday that the GOP drumbeat on spending cuts may not be addressing the real concerns of Americans outside the beltway and the halls of state capitols, namely jobs.  As Republican legislators travel to their home districts during next week’s recess, Alexander says, “…you will hear us talking about, No. 1: jobs; No. 2: debt.” 

As a counselor in recovery programs for the past decade, I know that “breaking denial”—admitting you have a problem—is the first step to recovery. The GOP is admitting they have a problem both nationally and in the states, as party leadership awakens to the reality that most people are not connecting the dots between obsessive cuts in government spending and lowering unemployment.  Kudos on this first step, Republicans. 

Too bad about the mistake on what your next step should be.

Like most folks in recovery from their misguided choices, Republicans are the last to notice the undesirable outcomes of their actions.  Polling trends have indicated for months a growing majority of people who are clear that they see no improvement in their own situations as their local, state, and federal governments slash budgets.  And why should they?  Corporate profits in many sectors have risen to record levels since the 2008 recession; meanwhile, hiring is essentially flat.  More Americans each week see that while corporate tax rates are cut along with government services and support for education, so many individuals languish in prolonged unemployment.  The only folks getting overtime, it seems, are the ones printing the pink slips. 

Republicans have produced no compelling evidence that their budget “slash and burn” actually results in increased hiring, but the talking points coming out of their caucus are to exactly that. “We will talk about, #1: jobs”, as if the creation of jobs has actually flowed from the spending cuts.

That is the extent of the plan—talking. Charlie Sheen’s approach to sobriety—“I closed my eyes and made it so!”—at least suggests some effort on his part. The conservative approach to economic recovery sounds more like, “We will close our eyes, and business will make it so!”

In recovery, we do not evaluate success by what the client is talking about, but by the evidence of outcomes.  I have one overarching question in my work in recovery and changing a life direction: “How’s what you are doing working out for you?”

How's it is working? In a very predictable, though not helpful, way: The reasonable motive of a corporation in “de-tax and deregulate” culture is to get the most productivity out of the fewest people, not to hire an optimum number of people to do the work well. There is no incentive to hire if the goodies roll in whether they increase payrolls or not. Meanwhile, unemployment—and deficits—are made persistent by ideological attacks on the supports for middle and working class income: unions, mortgage and credit regulation, civil service employment, and tax policy based in evidence instead of ideology.

When the country doesn’t just spin around to the conservative line because of the GOP talking points this spring, please don’t blame us for asking, “How’s that working out for me?”

Sorry, Republicans: She's Just Not That Into You.

Hey, my GOP friends and Tea Party true believers. Dudes (and most of the folks I'm talking to are of the "dude" gender), it has happened to us all. It's part of the game to think you have scored, really found the one that will love you forever. And it doesn't hurt that she's so fine, says the sweetest things, and--she's hella rich, too. She looks good on your arm and helps you get into all the right parties. Hooks you up with the right people. Generous people.

Problem is, guys: It's not forever.
It's just your turn.

 I know; my Democrat buddies and I have been there before, and she dumped us, too, once we did--or could no longer--give her what she really wanted.

We romanced the (rhymes with) "Rich" ourselves--gave her chocolate-covered tax breaks, diamond-clad defense contracts, and gallantly went into battle to defend...well, whatever we were defending, it sounded sweet and important when she whispered it in our ear.


Your grandfather, Ike, was clear-eyed enough to try and stay clear of her. He had a pet name for her: "The Military Industrial Complex". Since then, she and her girlfriends in Big Finance have done a good job of flirting with both of us, only to really go out with the winners each cycle. I call them, "The Mean Riches".

Remember when the Mean Riches put George W up for class president as a joke, and he wound up winning!  All the time, they were really snogging the neocons that pretended to be his friends. When the boys got unpopular in 2008...well, they flirted with my man Barak, but they really started working on you.

Like I said, it's been happening for a long time and to your friends and mine. But, it is different this time. There is something else going on. It's going to hurt, but I'm really trying to warn you...as a friend:

She's not that into you. Or me. She just wants the money.

When you give her new tax breaks that empty your state budget wallet, she will promise you how that's going to mean all her friends will run to your state and give your constituents jobs! When you new Republicans put the public sector unions out of business, she's whispering in your ear how you are going to be unbeatable! But where are those jobs, my man? Who makes an unbeatable profit if unions disappear in America: You, your people, or her corporations? She won't need you anymore when there are no taxes on corporations and no regulators and no unions. She'll already have it all.

Okay, you still think I'm just trying to spoil your good thing because I'm a jealous, sore loser? Fair enough; I'm not happy, but I'm not trying to take it out on you. All I'm asking is this: What are you going to be left with when you win all the fights she's putting you up to? Did you forget what she's really after?

Remember Grover Norquist? Back in 2001 he said,  "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."  I've seen a picture of her room; she's got his poster on the wall.

Get it? You want to be the government...and she wants to drawn the government. In a bathtub of debt.

And you filled the tub with deficits by telling her she didn't have to pick up the tab for anything. Gallant, unless you consider that she's a whole lot wealthier than you are. When the government is broke, and the unions are broken, and all your opponents are kneecapped, you will think you won.

And then she'll kick you to the curb, man. You will rule nothing. Then you are going to look back and see that the signs were all there all along, but you didn't want to see them. All the stuff she told you would be so fun to do that seemed just a little shady, kinda cruel, maybe not even all that constitutional?

Hey, I don't think I'm going to change your mind. I know you can't hear this right now. You don't want to, even when the doubts won't go away. I probably wouldn't have listened when it applied to me; nobody ever does.

But, hey--give me a call if you do see this going south someday, and we'll see if we can salvage something. I'm in the book, under "Loyal Opposition".

“No Taxpayer Money for Democratic Party!”

Most of my adult life, I have had paychecks to open. On occasion when I was a waiter or bartender, I was even given cash tips. I was under the impression that—with the exception of a percentage of tips that I shared with the staff that helped me earn them, and the share that would go to taxes when I fully and accurately declared those tips as income—that the amount on the check and the tips in my pocket were now “my money”.

I worked the hours, I did the job. That money certainly does not belong my employer anymore. I have agreed that this was my money  when my employer was a for-profit business. It was true when my employer was a not-for-profit organization. It was true when I was self employed. Whoever used  to have that money has now transferred it to me: it is mine!

The principle of my wages being “my money”  applies even when the employer is an especially sensitive one. I am an ordained Christian minister who has received paychecks from several churches in a half dozen or so denominations. What was the church’s money  I had to spend as the church desired with their approval; if I misspent their money, I could be compelled to give it back.  Not so with my wages. On the 1^st and the 15^th, that part of their money  became my money, and my employer gave up all claim to it. If I spent it on illegal, unethical, or really nasty things (I didn’t, unless you count my taste in second hand furniture) they could fire me, but they could not have my money  back.

The dominant political narrative of our time says this: not only does my employer have no claim to my money, but neither does the government. Ever since the Regan Revolution thirty years ago, the dominant way to talk about the wages or salaries paid to the American Worker is this: “It’s your money, and the government should get as little of it as possible!”  

Fair enough. I can roll with that, even though I voted for Carter that election.

More recently, since the Health Care Reform Act passed a full and legally constituted US Congress, I have heard the steady drumbeat of objection to the provisions that require private citizens to purchase health insurance. The idea is that even the constitution says you can’t tell people what they must buy with their money!.

I get it. It makes sense. I don’t have any substantial argument with conservatives on this point.

But I do not understand why that same principle does not apply if the check happens to come from a state or local government?

Why is the money that has been paid as wages to someone who has done the job of teaching my child, caring for my elderly parents, certifying that I and other motorists know how to drive safely, repairing the potholes on my state’s highways, building bridges on the interstate, keeping airplanes from crashing into each other over my home…why aren’t the wages they have earned “their” money?  Once a wage has been paid to a public employee, it is no longer taxpayer money, any more than the money I earn from private business is still my employer's money. The child support I pay to my staunchly Republican former wife (while she raises our daughter to believe that Barak Obama was born to Communist Muslim jihadists on Pluto) is no longer my money. On that point, we all (and the courts) are agreed.

The falsehood behind the “taxpayer money” line is that even the people who say it know it isn’t true…at least not if the same logic is applied to their own paychecks!  And it is the height of hypocrisy for a public figure who trumpets the “my money”  philosophy about taxes to say it is “taxpayer’s money”  when talking about money earned by a public employee.

This principle applies not only to wages, but to spending. It is not my  money anymore when I spend it at Target or WalMart, even if I find the political actions of those stores repulsive. I gave them money (it is now their money); they gave me the merchandise (it is now my stuff). I cannot expect that they will give me back my money—yet let me keep the merchandise—simply because I don’t like the anti-equality or anti-union stance the corporation supports. Would any Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Tea Partier, or even any Socialist dare debate that point?

Only while it is still my money—i.e.: before I make the purchase—can I choose to consider the political affiliation of the merchant as relevant. That is my right, and that is my power.

Koch Industries, whose private ownership funds the politicians and talk show pundits who are trying to pound the “taxpayer money” line into our consciousness, makes a number of products that I can boycott if I find their use of their profits from my spending my money objectionable. These products include:

·         Lycra© and CoolMax© apparel fibers, and the fibers for Stainmaster© and Antron© carpets (source: http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/fibers.aspx ),

·         Quilted Northern^®, Angel Soft^®,Brawny^®, Sparkle^® , Soft 'n Gentle^®, Mardi Gras^®, Vanity Fair^®, and Dixie^®  paper products, as well as the building materials of Georgia Pacific ™ Forest Products, (source: http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/forestry.aspx ),

·         And a variety of other products and industries listed on the website www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp  .

Anyone want to decide what to do with your money  before it becomes their  money?  That, and your vote,  are our voice.

The HonesTea Party

(This blog is not associated with the beverage manufacturer Honest Tea.)
   "No Taxation without Representation!"  This famous cry is the popular image of the 1773 Tax Revolt and the iconic Boston Tea Party. It was also the sentiment behind the populist energy of the modern Tea Party at its start in 2009. Early voices in the Tea Party objected to the elected representatives of only one party, Democrats, having sufficient votes to pass the economic stimulus package advocated by the Obama administration.
   At its inception, the genuine modern Tea Party seemed authentically concerned with the same core issue as the 1773: That the interests of the people...ALL the people...be represented in the places of power. The Tea Act was the work of government--the British monarchy--in collusion with gigantic commodity producers/distributors--the East India Tea Company--to enrich those elites and keep the colonists poor and disenfranchised. "Representation" before the powers of government and business was the issue of the historic "tea party", and was originally the desire of the modern Tea Party movement. (source: http://usconservatives.about.com/od/glossaryterms/a/Tea-Party.htm)
    Where would the honest Tea Party sentiment lie in the current conflict in Madison, Wisconsin? The issue is legislation that would deny or weaken the representation of labor before both big government and big business. The deep financial connection between Governor Scott Walker and commodities conglomerates the Koch brothers are a close parallel to King George and the East India Tea company. When the Koch-supported organizations that would claim to speak for the Tea Party call for support for Walker's plan, it is like asking the oppressed colonists to have a "we love the king!" day.
    I find the Honest Tea Party to be a thrilling movement, although I disagree with it on some specifics. I find what is being said and done by "crown and company" in the name of the Tea Party to be repulsive, undemocratic, and a sad and cruel lie.