Op-Ed
When I ran for mayor of Buffalo, New York, last year, my past-due parking tickets became a major reason for reduced favorability among voters. When Stacy Abrams ran for governor of Georgia in 2018, there was a lot of talk in the mainstream media about how much debt she was in. I share these examples because in general, the working poor do not willfully withhold payment for debts. We are faced with the very real decision between paying often illegitimate debts (like parking tickets and student loans) and feeding our children or paying for life-saving medical treatment for our loved ones.
As wars rage, as cruelty shatters lives across the planet — as nuclear Armageddon remains a viable option for all of us — I think it’s time to claim some stunning awareness in this regard.
The human race is evolving in spite of itself — evolving beyond war, beyond empire, beyond dominance and conquest, and toward an uncertain but collective future. Indeed, I think most of us already know this, but only at a level so deep, so vague it feels like nothing more than “hope.”
I figured I’d better write this column while doing so is still legal (at least I think it is), but I don’t recommend reading it aloud in a third-grade classroom.
There’s a piece of legislation sitting in the
figured I’d better write this column while doing so is still legal (at least I think it is), but I don’t recommend reading it aloud in a third-grade classroom.
I had a breakthrough yesterday — and I don’t mean metaphorically.
Wars rage, countless humans suffer, the rich get richer, life goes on. I still have my morning coffee. But not yesterday.
What happened — about 5 a.m. — was a fleeting . . . oh so fleeting . . . insight into life beyond its small certainties and routines. When life suddenly spins out of control, the Great Unknown is momentarily present. I have decided to write about it, or try to write about it, to honor the vulnerable everywhere.
That hour of the morning is not my normal get-up time, but as I enter geezerhood (I turned 75 half a year ago) I find myself waking up throughout the night and heading with sudden urgency to the bathroom. No big deal. This is part of the routine.
It should matter little to the Chinese that American diplomats and a handful of their western allies will not be attending the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. What truly matters is that the Russians are coming.
The diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games may go down in history as the official start of the cold war between the US, a handful of its allies and China. The American strategy, however, of using boycotts to pressure Beijing in the name of ‘human rights’, may prove costly in the future.
The first 911 call went out around 10:41. More than 200 local police and FBI agents responded to the scene and established telephone contact with Akram, whose responses were inconsistently coherent. The four hostages assisted with translation. Akram repeatedly said he was going to die. He also repeatedly called for the release of a US prisoner held in a nearby facility, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, whom he referred to metaphorically as his sister.
Around 5 p.m., Akram released one hostage. According to the other hostages later, the negotiations deteriorated and Akram grew more agitated. Relying on previous training in handling hostage situations, Rabbi Cytron-Walker maneuvered the group closer and closer to an exit. Around 9:30 he decided the moment had come, he threw a chair at Akram, and the three hostages ran safely out an exit door.
The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace.
Dollar figures can look abstract on a screen, but they indicate the extent of the mania. Biden had asked for “only” $12 billion more than President Trump’s bloated military budget of the previous year -- but that wasn’t enough for the bipartisan hawkery in the House and Senate, which provided a boost of $37 billion instead.
Overall, military spending accounts for about half of the federal government’s total discretionary spending -- while programs for helping instead of killing are on short rations at many local, state, and national government agencies. It’s a nonstop trend of reinforcing the warfare state in sync with warped neoliberal priorities. While outsized profits keep benefiting the upper class and enriching the already obscenely rich, the cascading effects of extreme income inequality are drowning the hopes of the many.
There are two top things about my profession. For me personally, a great benefit is being able to cover in person and even have access to great newsmakers who’d I’d probably never have the opportunity to meet and even talk to if I wasn’t a journalist. This ranges from seeing beauties such as Jennifer Lopez, Kerry Washington and Rosario Dawson in the flesh, reporting on Nobel Laureates the Dali Lama and Maria Ressa and interviewing geniuses like directors Oliver Stone and Alex Gibney. At the top of this list of notables who I’ve had the privilege, luck and honor to encounter is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died Dec. 26, prompting his homeland of South Africa to observe seven days of mourning this week.
What’s your story?
We tell stories, which evolve into myths — and myths are what hold us together. They create the collective entity known as the human race.
And myths evolve.
At least, good God, I hope they do.
We’re stuck, right now, in the myth of collective suicide, more generally known as the myth of the conquest of good over evil. And since history is told by the winners of humanity’s wars, those currently in power are always — always! — the good guys.
David Suzuki puts it this way: “As dictators have shown throughout history, collective narratives are often successful when they have a bad guy, someone or something that is ‘other.’”