Questions as November 7 approaches

 

Elon Musk warns that it’s going to hurt to get our nation’s financial house in order, doing it the way he wants to do it. I can sort of understand that, but I cannot accept it if more hurt is imposed on people who are hurting already, or on people just a paycheck or two away from hurting. And will his plan hurt the middle class, whose votes everyone wants? We deserve to know. Plus, I will not accept it if people in the top 1 or 2% are not also hurt—and I mean hurt, not just inconvenienced—by it. How will Mr. Musks plan hurt Mr. Musk? Tell me that, and I might be more interested in what he has to say.

The Haslam family has made billions off its chain of truck stops, enough to buy the Cleveland Browns several years ago. They have given over $6 million in the past couple of years to mostly conservative, Republican causes and candidates. At the same time, they are looking for a billion or two of tax money to build a new stadium for their Browns. Let me get this straight: they are looking for tax money from politicians who are for lower taxes and fiscal conservatism in order to subsidize their own enterprise?

One weather-caused disaster does not prove the entire climate is changing, but when such disasters start to add up, one on top of another, it may occur to those who are paying attention that something is not right. But adding up is what is happening…powerful storms, extended droughts, record high temperatures, nearly snowless Cleveland winters…and everyone knows it. It’s exactly what climate scientists have told us would happen. They have told us why it is happening, too. Why on earth would we even come close to electing a government that runs on climate change denial?

An essay on political name-calling

 

This morning's news is filled with self-righteous charges of name-calling flying back and forth between people who seem to enjoy name-calling. Whatever really was said, or was intended to be said, if it sounds even a little bit like name-calling, the other side (both sides) is on it with fury: "How dare you...!" 

 "The pot calls the kettle black," and the kettle responds in kind.

It's exhausting and demeaning, this style of politics. It won't do any good for me to call for a stop to it. I'd like to think we are better than this, but we aren't. Calling our adversary hurtful names just feels too good to abandon the practice.

My unplanned response to Donald Trump's rally yesterday

I just read about Mr. Trump's Madison Square Garden rally yesterday, and think the following, which I drafted last night, is as good a response to it as any. Maybe if some who spoke there had been in church with me yesterday, they'd have changed their tune...one can always hope!

We heard a great sermon yesterday morning about the ingathering God of the Christian scriptures. About the God who would rather gather us into one than scatter us into many. About the God who calls all people to be more gatherers than scatterers, who rejoices when the lost come home and the whole family celebrates with them. (I've moved beyond the sermon itself, but I was inspired.)

Leaders who want to bring people together around common issues and concerns seem to me to be a reflection of the God I heard proclaimed this morning. Leaders who want to scatter us into our various tribes seem not to be. People who want to be gathered and in community seem to me to be responding to this God more truly than are people who thrive on being scattered and isolated.

We must be careful, however, not to get derailed. When Martin Luther King, Jr., was preaching reconciliation of races in the beloved community, many accused him of being divisive. But, sounding divisive in the search of being truly reconciled is often a necessary step on the way to a healed community. It is not an end in itself, but a rough spot on the way to human wholeness. King's dream was not about divisions, but about a unity beyond all of our divisions. Dare our land still dream that dream?

Lord, show us all how to be a more faithful ingatherers of the human family, even when some accuse us of creating division. Teach us what to say and do to help create your beloved community. Amen.

Elon made me do it

I am voting this fall for the Harris-Walz ticket, for Sherrod Brown for Ohio’s United States Senator, and for Democrats down the entire ballot. I urge you to do the same wherever you live.

I am making this announcement (which will probably come as no surprise to anyone) at this time because Elon Musk is all in for Trump, MAGA, and the rest. I have neither Musk’s gazzilions nor his power nor his ego, but I am no less a citizen of these United States than he is. He has his reasons, and I have mine. He uses his voice, and I will use mine.

My reasons for supporting Harris and all are many. But I will keep this simple.

First, I like the kind of leadership she will exercise and many of the things she stands for and has promised to try to do when she occupies the Oval Office. Most important, I believe she will exercise power within the boundaries of our Constitution.

But second, I am absolutely certain that Mr. Trump and his allies will irreparably compromise our democracy if they are returned to power. Mr. Trump and his supporters at Project 2025 and elsewhere have plainly told us what they will do given another chance at it. Every day they tell us more, and it gets more extreme by the moment.

Let me ask you this: no matter how much you agree with the MAGA movement’s positions on the economy, or abortion, or Israel, or whatever else is important to you, is it worth abandoning over two centuries’ worth of American democratic government and replacing it with one man/one party rule? If it is, then have at it.

But if what matters to you is the United States of America and the republic for which (our flag) stands, then I cannot see how you can support Mr. Trump and the rest. If this election grants them total, unchecked power to do what they what to achieve the things you want, then the next thing they will do is to use that same power to do things you do not want, and perhaps against you yourself. History shows that that is how power works when it knows no limits. Always.

So, I am voting this fall for the Harris-Walz ticket, for Sherrod Brown for Ohio’s United States Senator, and for Democrats down the entire ballot. I urge you to do the same wherever you live.