On Misreading the Constitution?

Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn (about the original intent of the founders). They lived in their time, we live in ours and the times they have a changed. They established a government, they did not write Holy Scripture.

In fact, I’m convinced that there is no original intent. If by the founders we mean those bewigged eighteenth century gentlemen in short pants and high stockings who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, let’s face it, the former also gave us the Articles of Confederation which was a compact of thirteen sovereign states (as in State of Israel, an independent nation) unified in fighting Britain but in hardly anything else, and then when that wasn’t working too well, some of them met in secret session to create the Constitution. So what was the original intent of that group? Hard to say. Some left mid-session in anger at what was going on; some refused to sign the Constitution because it didn’t say what they thought it should; others agreed with Ben Franklin who said, in effect, well, it’s not what anybody wants, but it’s the best we can do, so let’s sign the thing, hope for the best, and go home.

Immediately it was realized that the Constitution even with all its compromises wasn’t quite right so amendments were proposed by James Madison, ten of which were ratified very quickly, and then an eleventh and then a twelfth to resolve problems that none of the founders in their infinite wisdom had anticipated.

And yet, there are some today who seem to think that they know the Original Intent and that it is good.

Which brings me to Thomas J. Tobin, the Roman Catholic bishop of Rhode Island. Writing in The Providence Journal on January 12 he throws down the gauntlet to Governor Chafee who didn’t have a prayer service before his inauguration and who had the temerity to declare that Rhode Island was a secular state. “By now,” the bishop writes, “you should be aware that the exact phrase ‘separation of church and state’ isn’t found anywhere in our nation’s Constitution but rather was a principle that evolved later on…to protect religion from the interference of the state. It was never intended to remove every spiritual aspiration, prayerful utterance or reference to God from public life.” He then backs this up by quoting a Catholic archbishop, a pope, and quotations from Madison and Washington.

As to no mention of separation of church and state in the Constitution, the bishop is correct. There is also no mention of toleration of slavery (or even the word “slavery”) but there was slavery. There is no mention of judicial review, but there is judicial review. There is no mention of the air force, and yet the President is commander-in-chief of that as well as the army and navy which are mentioned. If we only look at what the founders said we’d only count three of every five black people every census. The Constitution was not written by divinely inspired men but by politicians. I’ll spare the bishop Thomas Jefferson’s vituperative remarks about Christianity and priests but will recommend that he look at Brooke Allen’s “Moral Minority” which demonstrates with ease that the founders were anything but religious folk and that they wanted as little to do with religion as possible.

The bishop also contends, rightly, that religious leaders have “every right, indeed the duty, to speak out on public issues. If we fail to do so, we’re neglecting our role as teachers, preachers and prophets.” Prophets? The age of prophesy is still with us? OK, let’s just chalk that off to hyperbole and agree that yes, religious leaders as citizens have a right to express their views. But do they have the right to threaten legislators with excommunication or denial of the sacraments to those of their faith who disagree with the hierarchy’s views? Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis publicly stated that he would deny John Kerry communion because of his views on abortion and Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston, told Catholic elected officials who are pro-abortion that they should not be receiving communion and that they should refrain from taking part in the Christian sacrament on their own. This goes beyond writing a letter to the paper or seeking an interview to express differing views. Closer to home Bishop Tobin forbade Patrick Kennedy from receiving communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights. That’s what the founders had in mind? I’m thinking not. And if it is, I refer you to my first sentence.

On Russ Feingold

You remember Jesus, of course. No, not that One. I have in mind Jesus ben Sirach, credited with one book of apocryphal writings. That Jesus. He wrote Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach. Only deep into the book do we find its most famous line “Let us now praise famous men…” and then with permission granted to myself to edit quasi-sacred writ, here are some examples of why the famous men are to be praised—for “giving counsel by their understanding, and by their knowledge of learning, wise and eloquent, honored in their generations, and the glory of their times who have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported.”

Heady stuff. Few qualify in the modern world. Russ Feingold is among them however, recently turned away by the voters of Wisconsin, though still young enough at fifty-seven to return to the fray. Known as a great dissenter, Feingold voted against his own party 887. Looking remarkably like Daily Show host Jon Stewart, Feingold attributes his independent spirit to growing up in the small town of Janesville, Wisconsin where most of his friends were Protestant, many from conservative homes. Rather than conform, he excelled.

Not surprisingly a biblical analogy is used by a colleague to describe him. “He has been the David against some pretty big Goliaths,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “He never shied away from a fight, even if he had to fight alone.” He opposed the Patriot Act, the Bush bank bailouts, and the Obama troop surge in Afghanistan. Most recently Feingold joined 18 other senators from both parties in voting against President Obama’s compromise extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. The measure also extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans, a key demand of Democrats. To me this is his most important vote in opposition. To give multi-billionaires tax breaks for two years in return for thirteen months of unemployment compensation to the neediest, the people who multi-billionaires put out of work to begin with, is a shanda, and I’m sorry our delegation voted for it, pleased as punch, to quote another mid-westerner that Feingold refused to do so. Feingold’s argument was more economic than my moral stance, but it holds: “Rather than include a combination of responsible spending cuts and revenue increases to offset its projected cost [the tax breaks] of nearly $900 billion … instead just adds its cost to our already massive national debt.”

Those were dissenting votes; he had positive ones as well, most notably the epic coalition-building that resulted in the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 (after a seven years legislative struggle) that severely limited national political party committees from raising or spending any funds not subject to federal limits, and “issue ads” that name federal candidates within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election, and prohibiting any such ad paid for by a corporation or by corporate or union general treasury funds. So-called soft money was the target; big business complained and in 2009 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the guts of the bill were ripped out. Big corporations objected that free speech was imperiled, that money was speech and could not be regulated by federal legislation. The Supremes in Washington agreed (well, five of them, anyway) and McCain-Feingold went the way of the passenger pigeon. If the Court is right, if money = speech, America is in trouble; deep trouble. There are those few with many dollars and those many with few dollars. The rich can shout from the highest minarets, the poor get to write the occasional letter to the editor. Parity, which Feingold and John McCain (in his maverick mode) sought, is destroyed. The dollar rules, the voice of the people is muted. The bill took seven years to pass, and then seven years later it was declared unconstitutional. Pharaoh’s dream came to reality, again.

In bidding adieu to his colleague, McCain said “In his time in the Senate, Russ Feingold, every day and in every way, had the courage of his convictions. And though I am quite a few years older than Russ and have served in this body longer than he has, I confess I have always felt he was my superior in that cardinal virtue.”

In the 112th Congress there will be thirteen Jewish senators (counting Michael Bennet [D-Colo.], who does not identify a religion, but notes that his mother is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor.) Missing will be Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

On Palestinian Sermons

Imagine if you will the following fictional scenario. The governor of Arkansas is unhappy about criticism aimed at him from the pastors in the pastures; he’s distressed about the hollers he’s hearing from the hollers; so he assigns one of him minions, his Minister of Ministers, to write mandatory Sunday sermons to be read in all churches. ACLU anyone?

It could never happen, you think; it’s a flight of journalistic fantasy, but, it turns out, it’s not so fictional. The bailiwick may not be the Ozarks, but according to the Washington Post (December 15) exactly that situation is playing itself on the West Bank where anxious to court Israeli and American favor, and hating Hamas almost as much as the Israelis do, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, is conducting exactly such a campaign.

Each week, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian Authority's Minister for Religious Affairs, E-mails Friday’s script for sermons each imam is required to deliver. According to the Post, the campaign has been effective and Hamas support is down. How this could be eludes me. I fully expected to read the opposite, that in reaction to this heavy-handed imposition of the state on the teachings of the mosque that riots would erupt. Maybe they will, but apparently, not yet.

Already though, there is opposition. Sheikh Hamid Bitawi of Nablus whose fiery sermons the Palestinian Authority banned three months ago estimates that dozens of other imams have been prevented from preaching. “I’m sure,” he argues, that “the popularity of …the Palestinian Authority is going down. They will be punished for their behavior.” (Insert here a chill down Abbas’ spine.) More moderately Nasser Abed El-Al, who runs a kebab restaurant, hasn't liked the changes either. “They're choosing imams that speak the way they do,” he said. “This regime is not popular with the people here.”

Defending the practice, Habbash argues that “We're convinced this is in our national interest. What we have seen is when mosques are under the control of other parties, it causes division within our people.” (Insert squirm of your liberal reporter as he reads this.) “My main message, Habbash contends” is that “we need to liberate Islam from … extremism and wrong understanding of Islam. Islam does not incite to hate.”

So, do we Jews, we advocates for peace within secure borders for Israel, we advocates of western liberal ideas we’ve read in the writing of Locke and John Stuart Mill have a horse in this race? Yes, we do, but to be safe (which is frequently to live dangerously) we’ve divided our wagers and now watch hopelessly as the animals on the track, those magnificent steeds upon which we’ve based our hopes are running not in a straight line but helter skelter all over the course. Observing from the stands it’s difficult to say what we want the outcome to be. But surely not this.

Maybe after centuries of patriarchal clan loyalties Arabs in the area (as opposed to Arabs who have come to live here) cannot be expected to conform to the norms of first amendment expectations. But can we liberal Americans, even though the censorship is being undertaken to promote causes we believe in (recognizing the legitimacy of Israel) tolerate this blatant disregard for free thought and speech? Or is it time for us to say (insert southern drawl here) “Well, these boys aren’t really ready for advancements our forefathers fought for fiercely, so let ’em play the game by their rules, not ours and we come out on top.” But the problem with that argument is that Arabs aren’t a stupid people and they already see through the heavy-handed control of what their imams are allowed to say.

I see the situation as further evidence of the failure of the idea of the Two-State solution daily touted by its advocates. Look at the map. There’s the West Bank here and Gaza there, Israel in the middle. Look at the political realities. In the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas imposes his views on the mosques; in Gaza the mosques impose Hamas’ opposite views with equal or greater vehemence. One group is willing to work with Israel and the United States but does so by using methods abhorrent to American and Israeli social and political theory; the other group wants only to destroy Israel. There is not a single Palestinian land mass or a single Palestinian perspective on Islam.

Find another solution; one that will work, not this cobbled together pipe dream.

Shabbat in Paris

For December 10, 2010
From the Old Olivetti
By Joshua Stein

On the Friday following Thanksgiving I went to church with my wife; but not to pray. St. Denis on the outskirts of Paris was a place I’d longed to see for decades. You remember Dagobert, of course, the last Merovingian king to rule as well as to reign? Among his many accomplishments was construction of the church named after the first Christian martyr of Paris, the aforementioned St. Denis, decapitated on Montmartre (martyrs mount). He picked up his head, the story goes, and walked about six miles preaching along the way. I’m not sure exactly how he accomplished either task but he became one of several Christian cephalophores (from the Greek for “head-carrier” a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head.) From Dagobert’s time on, the basilica was the site of royal burials and tombs to commemorate France’s kings and queens.

In the 12th century the church, in need of repair, was refashioned in the new Gothic style, in fact, St. Denis is the first Gothic building in Europe, all others a modification of the original. So we had to go to church to see the tombs and the architecture. I’d been to Paris many times, but the basilica is so difficult to reach (it’s at the end of a spur line on the Metro) that I never could. This time, however, wife in tow, we schlepped and oohed and ahed.

That evening, it being erev Shabbat we went to synagogue, to the Temple Victoire a.k.a. the Rothschild Synagogue. Built in the Romanesque style in the mid-19th century, this enormous edifice is cathedral like except for the missing statues and crucifixes. Its bimah where the cantor sings facing the congregation is several steps up from the ground, higher still is the area behind where he sings facing the ark which is still higher, and above it there is a pillar atop of which is a depiction of the Ten Commandments. People approached us to talk but our French (mine and my two sons) wasn’t adequate but we quickly ascertained that Hebrew would be the Lingua Franca and we got along in that—my son the cantor did.

Afterwards we walked to the Ailes restaurant at 34 Rue Richer, incongruously across the street from the Folies-Bergère where we had pre-paid for our kosher meal. By the time we got there the place was nearly filled, but our reservations were honored and we sat and quietly sang Shalom Aleichem, and then I blessed my sons and my wife blessed our daughter-in-law and I said kiddish over the wine and the motzi over the bread. Since these sons live at a distance from us I don’t get to bless them very often and I noted as I did that tears were misting my eyes as I said the ancient words knowing that there is a limited number of times one gets to bless his children and wondered how many more chances I’d have. All around us I could hear similar songs and prayers chanted by different families, ricocheting through the restaurant like whispering breezes. But then about a dozen young men came in, took their places, but didn’t sit. Instead in perfect 12 part harmony they sang aloud the blessing over the wine, grabbing the attention of the other diners, some of whom applauded, and others walked over to ask if they were going to bench Birkat Hamazon the tuneful grace after meals. Well, they may have, but by that time we’d quietly sang the words ourselves and left, walking back to our apartment, our stomachs full, our souls refreshed.

It was a nice way to spend Thanksgiving, though whether we’ll ever be able to do it again like that I don’t know, but we did it at least the once.
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A sharp eyed reader called me to task for saying that David Koch, multi-billionaire backer of the Tea Party, was Jewish. I’d used him as an example of one who betrayed the principles of the prophets in expectations of greater profits; it was a brief mention at the end of a long article. Well, here’s a lesson for all of you currently taking Journalism 101. Never rely on memory; always double check your sources and yourself. In my rush to make a deadline, I failed to do either and blundered. Koch is Roman Catholic, not Jewish. My thanks to the sharp-eyed reader.

Adam Smith, Socialist

Quiz time, again:

1- What fruit did Eve eat in the Garden of Eden that got her into trouble?
2- In Genesis, which was created first, women or animals?
3- Why did Cain slay Able?
4-Which of the four books of the Maccabees describes the miracle of the oil lasting eight days?
5- In the Constitution of the United States does the oath taken by a new president conclude with the words “So help me, God”?
6- Does the Constitution of the United States establish a democracy?
7- What did Adam Smith mean when he wrote about Laissez-faire, laissez-passer?

Answers:

1- Who knows? The apple is a renaissance artist’s invention.
2- The woman was created at the same time as the man in Genesis I, after the animals in Genesis II.
3- We are never told.
4- None of them; it’s a later rabbinic add-on.
5- No; the word God is never used in the Constitution, ever.
6- Democracy was the last thing on their minds in 1787; the founders mixed the three classic forms of good government, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy giving democracy the shortest of shrifts.
7- Nothing; he knew the term but never used it and didn’t believe in it.

So much for common knowledge.

Discussion:

If the word God never appears in the seminal document creating the American government why do some Christian fundamentalists want to insist that our schools teach that the founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation? If Adam Smith in his classic On the Wealth of Nations didn’t advocate that the government should do nothing to regulate the economy, what did he propose? And why as a Jewish community should we care? (Hint: Think of the Jewish prophets, not the modern emphasis on profits.)

Prof. John Hill of Curry College recently gave a lecture at Roger Williams University on the topic “Laissez-fair, no fair” debunking the myth that Smith ought to be enshrined as the father of modern capitalism. It was a useful reminder to me of those long ago days when I first read On the Wealth of Nations and a wake-up call to my students who only know it by reputation. Hill contends that Smith was a moral philosopher above all; that he was interested in the wealth of nations, not in the wealth of individuals; that while he understood some would become wealthy, that wealth imposed obligations; that he favored a luxury tax to prevent the wealthy from getting too rich and opposed the sort of gap we have in America where 5% of the population controls 75% of the wealth.
In America, we have always stressed the rugged individual. Smith would have preferred we pay homage to the self-made man who gives it all back. The career of Andrew Carnegie is nothing to emulate; he was a strike breaker who ruthlessly exploited his workers and then let his partner take the fall when deaths occurred. But in his The Gospel of Wealth he preached that ostentatious living and amassing private treasures was wrong. He praised the high British taxes on the estates of dead millionaires. He claimed that, in bettering society and people here on earth, one would be rewarded at the gates of Paradise and gave the vast bulk of his state to the creation of libraries and concert halls.

In a different gospel we read “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” a nice Jewish sentiment paralleling Jeremiah’s idea that the reason Jerusalem was about to fall was that the rich were exploiting the poor. Micah tells us what God expects of us and it’s not acquiring wealth for personal gain at the expense of others but “only to do justice and to love goodness and to walk modestly with your God.” Instead David Koch, Jewish multi-billionaire gives his money under the table to the Tea Party which believes that it’s wrong to tax to aid the tired the poor, the huddled masses who have been seduced into taking out foolish loans. When I was a student protester it was on behalf of the poor, the black, the grunts conscripted into the Vietnam War, none of which I was. Today the Tea Party people protest that their pockets are being picked by people who want to introduce a form of European Socialism. Pshaw! Adam Smith knew the truth, if only people would actually read him.

The 2010 Elections

The people have spoken, though I wish they’d spoken differently.

Two years ago Obama and the Democrats were America’s darlings. On November 2 we saw the power of big money behind the scenes and big voices on TV and radio. We Americans ride a pendulum. In 1964 the conservative movement was dead and in 1980 we got Reagan. In 1972 Nixon was overwhelmingly re-elected and then in ’74 was forced to resign in disgrace. Bill Clinton also lost congress two years into his first term and then handily defeated Bob Dole. The big Republican wins on Tuesday will be followed by big Democratic ones at a polling place near you sometime in the future—but not in two years, I wouldn’t think. Such is life.

A man whose intelligence I respect thinks that the stunning Republican victories were the result of, “the power of the American People, who do not want a ‘European Social Democracy’ type of society.” My immediate response was “You've made my point. The Democrats weren't proposing anything close to European style socialism, but the big money and the big mouths convinced the voters big-time that they were.”

It’s mid-term exam time. Question: Which European leader was the first to introduce and have his parliament pass legislation creating social security benefits, sickness insurance (2/3 of the premiums paid by employers, 1/3 by employees), and accident insurance (100% paid by employers), health insurance, civil marriage obligatory (and church marriages optional). Hint: He was Otto von Bismarck, not some far left socialist (in fact, he had a series of anti-Socialist laws passed). Why? One reason was to woo workers from the Socialist party to his Conservative one; the other was that the master of Realpolitik knew that Germany’s economy depended on a stable happy work force.

President Obama has two choices. He could say (and has already said) I’ve learned my lesson and want to compromise with the new Republican majority in the House, the empowered Republican minority in the Senate. This is the Bill Clinton approach, and it’s worked. Then, but it won’t now. Already, within the week of the elections GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) has rejected talk of bipartisanship and made crystal clear his party’s goal is to defeat Obama in 2012. The party of NO will not become the party of “Let’s roll up our sleeves and work together”. Right wing Republicans call Obama “Leviathan” perhaps an homage to Thomas Hobbes as they work to “Reverse the damage done by the Obama-Reid-Pelosi regime since 2008.” (Mark Tapscott, Editorial page editor of the blog “Washington Examiner”)

Memo to Mark Tapscott: Obama didn’t assume office in 2008.

Or Obama could go the other way (but I don’t think he will as he’s shown no inclination to do so when he had large majorities in congress) and roll up his sleeves and say, “I have an agenda, the American people knew what it was when they overwhelmingly elected me and I’m going to push it.” This was the attitude of Cheney and Bush when they rolled into Washington in 2001. They knew the people had wanted Gore and Liebermann, but they’d won and they pushed and pushed and got what they wanted from cowed Democrats and jubilant Republicans. But as I say, I don’t think Obama has it in him. He’s weak; eloquent, but lacking in the reality of how Washington works—not with a whimper but with a whip. Ask Dick Cheney.

The Republican leader in the House is likely to be the only Republican Jew in Congress, Eric Cantor of Virginia. (What does that tell us, that of all the Jews in the House and Senate only one is a Republican? It tells us that Jews are still overwhelmingly concerned with social justice, not bottom lines, with the economics of job creation, not trickle down tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while the gap between poor and rich increases exponentially.) Jews won and lost this season. Rhode Island sent its first Jewish Congressman to the House and America lost Russ Feingold, a man who with John McCain fought and fought and fought and fought for election reform, only to have it trashed by the Supreme Court. It’s ironic that he was among the first victims of the big money splurge that resulted.

For a complete accounting of how Jews did this season, see: http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2010/11/02/2741564/tracking-the-races

My father's bar mitzvah

After my father died, we sold his apartment in the Promised Land (sometimes known as Florida) but before we put it on the market we found treasures including his parents’ naturalization papers which list him as a one year old, but what struck me most was an invitation to his bar mitzvah. “Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Stein Request the honor of your presence at the Confirmation (and then in Hebrew ‘Bar Mitzvah’) of their son Joseph on Saturday April 10th, 1926 at 9 A.M. at Machzike Talmud Torah of Borough Park 1319-43rd Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. Reception at 8 P.M. at their residence 1847-48th Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.”

I wonder if I’m the only reader of the Voice & Herald ever to receive an invitation to their father’s bar mitzvah. The section from the Torah that morning was Sh’mini which among other things describes the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons and his silence in response. The Haftarah was from the book of II Samuel describing the moving of the recaptured Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and the death of one of the men escorting it who made the mistake of touching it when it seemed to fall from its cart. Sixty years later his grandson Daniel, our first born, read the same texts. Life can be odd that way.

I’ve tried to get the weather but people who write columns on typewriters don’t readily have access to such information. But what intrigues me more is that I know the future of those there in a way my grandchildren will know my future and the world as it unfolds beyond our time. I’m just visiting this planet; we all are. Some of us try to make it a better place in our limited allotted time; others simply reside as a tenant in someone else’s apartment, making no improvements, others exploit all advantages intended or not. I do not pass judgment as I am as often willing to laugh at the world’s absurdities from the sidelines as I am to roll up my sleeves to resolve them.

But I know that in 1926 Hitler was merely an ex-con heading up an obscure political party considered too radical to succeed; that the Great Depression was still three years into the future; Stalin would have his show trials in 1936; Pearl Harbor was fifteen years away; my parents married eleven months later and I came along seventeen months after that. None of this was known on that bright sunny day (as I picture it in my mind) when my father read from the Torah and haftarah way back then, eighty-four years ago.

What’s in store for us? One of the things I’ve learned as an historian is that attempting to predict the future is a fool’s game. The old cliché about history repeating itself is a canard, not a truth. Economists and political scientists try to anticipate events and trends all the time, and fail. They study their charts and computer print outs and fail to account for this little thing or that and so they are wrong as often as right. If it were otherwise we’d all be millionaires. After all, who in 1926 was predicting the Great Depression or could have foretold that in seven years Hitler would be Chancellor of Germany?

In Berlin there’s currently a showing of Hitler mementos which opened with some trepidation. This is the first time a German museum has had such an exhibit, and the curators say they have taken great care to avoid glorifying the villain who is their subject. The Central Council of Jews in Germany acknowledges that the timing is right, given today’s political climate where Germans are nervous about the economy and immigrants and some in the lower middle class seem to want a leader to extract them form the doldrums—paralleling some of the conditions of 1933. Exhibits are set up in ways to discourage neo-Nazis from taking heroic photos of themselves near images of Hitler. But Hitler though dead is still a living presence, alive to those who fear foreigners, non-Christians, the better educated. In America their ilk is confined, generally, to the wilds of Idaho and Montana (except when they emerge as a Timothy McVey in Oklahoma City).

None of this was known when my father, a young boy of thirteen innocently celebrated becoming a man in 1926, to which event I’ve just been invited.