That said, Mr. Santorum meets the qualifications to run for president of the United States.  He’s a native-born American over the age of 35.  His candidacy should succeed or fail based on the number of voters who think he’s best fit to serve in the Oval Office and only on that basis.

That, however, is not what happened in Iowa.  This morning, the Des Moines Register broke the news that rather than losing the Iowa caucuses by eight votes to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Mr. Santorum actually won them by at least 34 votes.

I have to write “at least” because the Iowa Republican Party claims the votes from eight precincts have been irretrievably lost.  Due to this, the official word on the caucuses is that it was a “tie” between Messrs. Santorum and Romney.  It wasn’t a tie on Caucus night; it was a “win” for Mr. Romney.  How is an eight-vote margin a “win” and a 34-vote (at least) margin a tie?  (Hint: It’s a “tie” when you’re trying to throw the election to Mr. Romney.)

A few days ago, pundits were saying that having won in Iowa and New Hampshire and heading into the South Carolina primary with a double-digit lead in the polls, Mr. Romney would be the first Republican to win the first three contests and had the GOP presidential nomination all but locked up.   How quickly things change.  Now the Iowa “victory” is in sincere doubt and Newt Gingrich is leading the South Carolina polls.  (We’ll see how that stands up after ABC airs an interview with Marianne Gingrich – wife number two – in which she details Mr. Gingrich’s infidelity.)

For anyone who’s confused about where all this is going, let me be clear: the Republican Party has long been the purveyor of crooked politics in this country and it’s gotten to the point where they’ve turned their nasty deeds on each other.

George W. Bush stole the 2000 election with the help of his brother Jeb, Katherine Harris and the Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.  In 2004, the GOP pulled numerous dirty tricks around the country, particularly Ohio and likely stole a second national election.  I worked on that election in Marion County, Florida and saw plenty of them.

Rick Santorum made Iowa his focus.  He visited every county, moved his family there for several weeks before the caucuses and staked all his hopes on coming out strong and building momentum.  He has, however, no chance of winning a general election and Republican politicos know this, so they apparently have done everything they can to sabotage his campaign and get him out of the race.

Given the way the Iowa Republicans have treated Mr. Santorum, I wouldn’t blame any GOP candidate for passing the state by in 2016.  It’s also worth noting that Republicans – first on a federal level during the recent Bush II administration and then at the state level – have been trying to restrict the voting rights of poor people and people of color, key democratic constituencies, with the unsubstantiated excuse of “preventing voter fraud” (even though they can’t point to any cases of voter fraud).

I’ve said in this space that since 2004, I’ve been pessimistic about the survival of American democracy.  We have now reached a point where the Republicans are willing to purge even candidates who swear fealty to every NRA and Grover Norquist litmus-test pledge, no matter how stupid.  Now they disenfranchise Mr. Santorum’s Iowa supporters with the “eight lost precincts,” a ruse so flimsy it would make Lyndon Johnson blush.

I don’t agree with Republicans, but this kind of Republican infighting does not fill me with glee.  It scares me, because if these people get any more power than they already have, this nation will be a very ugly place.  John Donne was right, no one is an island and the loss of anyone’s civil rights, even (especially!) someone with whom I disagree, diminishes mine.

© Mark Floegel, 2012

As I watched the video of the last trucks crossing the Kuwait border, all I could see were the black hulls of the Greek ships sailing away, gray smoke still hanging in the ruined walls of Troy.

Not that Iraq is currently in ruins, but the Trojan war has been on my mind for the last decade, since George W. Bush, like Agamemnon before him, began gathering reluctant allies for a headstrong military adventure that brought grief to nearly everyone associated with it.

To appease the gods for sending a military force to make war on a society in a war in which non-combatants on only one side would be at risk, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, Iphigenia.  (His wife would later kill him for having done that.)  Mr. Bush made no such sacrifice, nor did he ask the majority of his countrymen to make any sacrifice on behalf of the soldiers he commanded.

Popular political psychology has it that one of Mr. Bush, fils authentic motivations for the Iraq invasion was revenge on an enemy of his father’s (or perhaps to show himself stronger than his father).  Both roles are reflected in the character of Neoptolemus, Achilles’s son, whom avenges his father’s death before the walls of Troy, by killing King Priam as the city is sacked.  This “revenge” is the punitive act of a bully, putting the sword into an old man who can no longer defend himself.

As Achilles dishonored Hector’s body, dragging it through the dust of the Dardanian Plain, so the residents of Falluja desecrated the bodies of four Blackwater contractors in 2004, so American troops desecrated the bodies of living and dead Iraqis for “trophy photos,” so – bizarrely – did our military of our nation desecrate the bodies of our own troops by disposing of them in landfills.

“Troy falls at last after ten years of futile, indecisive, noble, mean, tricky, bitter, jealous and only occasionally heroic battle,” writes Barbara Tuchman.  As for the Greeks’ Trojan Horse ploy, she said it exemplifies, “policy pursued contrary to self-interest – in the face or urgent warning and a feasible alternative.  Occurring in this earliest chronicle of Western man, it suggests that such pursuit is an old and inherent human habit.”

(So, wait, am I comparing the US to the Greeks or the Trojans?  Both, actually.  It would seek a foolish consistency to only learn from one side and somehow we have maniacally managed to repeat the worst mistakes of each.)

A more recent and equally depressing analog in the history of arms is the nine-plus years the Soviets spent trying to bring a friendly government to Afghanistan.  That invasion/war/occupation began on a Christmas Eve in 1979 and ended with the trucks and tanks rolling over the border for the cameras on a winter day in 1989.  Like us, the Soviets didn’t try to portray their withdrawal as a victory march, but like us; there was a feeling of relief that comes from setting down a heavy load.  For Islamic militants, the Soviet withdrawal was seen as a tiny force, blessed by Allah driving our a superpower.  How will they see the US withdrawal from Iraq?

I don’t know how things went for the Soviet soldiers, but Western literature says those who fought at Troy brought their war home with them in ways eerily familiar.  Odysseus famously wandered for a decade, as did Aeneas of Troy and his followers.  Neoptolemus was killed by Agamemnon’s son Orestes (who also killed his mother Clytemnestra, who killed Agamemnon).  Our troops return to a devastated economy years of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I suppose it’s appropriate the end of this long, foolish war comes at the end of a year, the end of the 9/11 decade.  Here’s to hoping we can all feel as though we are putting a burden down and prepare to take up new and better burdens in the year ahead.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

His column was on the European money crisis and the gist of his argument is this: it makes economic sense for Germany (Europe’s economic powerhouse) to bail out Greece (Europe’s irresponsible brother-in-law).

The Greeks have gotten themselves – and are dragging the Euro and the Eurozone nations – into this mess with too little austerity and too many early retirements.  It’s the hardworking ants of the Baltic versus the sun-drenched grasshoppers of the Mediterranean.  It’s in Germany’s self-interest to save the Greeks, because if Europe returns to a patchwork of currencies, then those low-value drachmas and lire and pesetas will buy fewer German products.

The Germans, however, resist this logic not for economic, but moral reasons.  “If we bail you out, how will you learn your lesson?” the Germans ask, “Why would you not repeat your mistakes?”  It’s like the parent, about to punish the child, saying, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” and in this case it might be true.

Here’s where Joe Nocera wouldn’t go: why doesn’t Germany just shut up and bail out the Greeks?  Thank you, my cousins, for shifting the terms of the debate from economics to morals.  Now that we’re in that territory, let me remind you that not so long ago, Germany invaded and occupied Greece, killing thousands of its citizens and sending tens of thousands more off to death camps.  (The people with whom I share half my ethnicity hate it when I bring these things up, as if I’m the one who breached decorum.)

In 1945, the Allied nations agreed that forcing Germany to pay reparations for its crimes did not make economic or political sense.  The heavy burden of reparation imposed on Germany after World War I helped aid the rise of the Nazis.  That was a good call and helped get a ravaged Europe back on its feet, but somehow, it insidiously evolved into a dysfunctional denial of history, as if it’s impolite to mention the bombs and bullets.  Forgetting serves no good purpose.

So here’s my proposal: Greece gets a one-time bailout from Germany.  Does that mean that slate is clean?  No, that slate can’t be cleaned.  It just means no further bailouts or reparations or whatever you want to call it from Germany to Greece.

Am I uselessly holding onto the past, onto grudges that serve no one?  I don’t think so.  True reconciliation requires remorse, forgiveness and atonement.  I have faith in German remorse and the forgiveness of Europe.  In more than half a century, there have been no opportunities for real atonement.  Now one presents itself; Germany should take advantage of it.

So, should Spain get a bailout, because the Nazis warmed up for WWII by using Spanish Republicans for Lutwaffe target practice?  What about Poland, France, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and on and on?  If Germany shores up Greece, we hope those nations won’t need German relief.  What about Italy, now also teetering on the brink?  Does Germany owe Italy?  Morally, no, economically perhaps.  This is the danger when one shifts the philosophical grounds of debate.  (Hey Germany, you started it; I’m just taking the moral debate to a logical conclusion.)

Once this moral/economic argument is engaged, things quickly get complicated.  For instance, if Germany should bail out Greece, does that mean the U.S. should pay reparations to African Americans for centuries of slavery?

Yes, I think it does.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Burlington will hold a mayoral election the first Tuesday of March, town meeting day.  Four candidates put themselves forward for the Democratic nomination.  Vermont caucuses and primaries are open to all registered voters in a given jurisdiction, which sometimes leads to mischief, but usually results in a pure form of democracy.

“You’re going to be voting soon, you need to see how this works,” I said.
“That’s twooo yeeears awaaay,” she replied.  A lifetime for teens.  She brought her phone, so she could distract herself by texting friends.

The streets around Memorial Auditorium were filled with citizens, discussing the merits (and demerits) of the various candidates.  The afternoon was pleasantly warm.  Occupy Burlington protesters formed a brass band and marched to the auditorium’s steps, politely moving out of the way so people could enter.

Inside, the atmosphere was chaotic, as Democratic Party events always and everywhere seem to be, but the mood was upbeat and the left-of-center urban Vermonters milled in the aisles, many sporting stickers or signs proclaiming their choice, but everyone cordial.

After a glitch-ridden registration period and brief speeches by nominators and candidates, thirteen hundred and nine voters participated in the first round.  State Rep. Jason Lorber, the low vote-getter despite an endorsement from the Burlington Free Press, graciously bowed out.

By now, the teenager was hooked.  She no longer rolled her eyes when I identified friends or politicians in the crowd.  “Senator Hinda Miller?  She’s the jog-bra lady!  I remember her from fifth grade!”  (For the record, the teen will deny she was ever interested.  She’s lying, but needs to maintain her side of the generation gap.  I respect this.)

A cookie from the snack bar helped maintain her mood (and blood sugar) but after four hours, I had only just dropped my round two ballot.  Back home, a neighborhood potato roast (as mentioned last week) was about to get started and since ballot counting was taking about an hour, we left.

Walking out, she said, “Remember how big the snowbanks here were last winter?”  I do remember.  I remember sitting beside them in the car, waiting to pick her up from basketball practice, listening to radio reports of anti-government protests in Tunisia following the self-immolation suicide/protest of Mohamed Bouazizi.

I walked the teen home, checked on the potato preparations (as ever, I contributed little to the feast), grabbed my bike and got back to the caucus just in time to hear that City Councilor Bram Kranichfeld had been eliminated in the second round.  He too, was gracious in defeat.

I made out my third-round ballot, dropped it in the box and headed home.  Down to two candidates, why stick around?  Most of the crowd agreed and the street corners were thick with small-town punditry as I pedaled away.

A few blocks south, Jarred and Caitlin, who still vote in New Hampshire, pulled up beside me and we cruised along updating the day’s events.  “This is what democracy feels like,” I thought.

Back yard punditry around the fire as we ate wild mushroom soup and waited for the potatoes to roast.  My cell phone rang; it was my friend Chris, still at the auditorium.  “Can you come back for another round?  It looks like neither candidate has a majority.  They’re tied.”

Tied they were – and are.  Remaining candidates Miro Weinberger and Tim Ashe agreed it was senseless to try and bring voters back Sunday night, so the caucus will continue as soon as the city Democrats figure out when, where and how.  Only those who registered Sunday will participate.

In New York and Oakland, police shut the Occupy camps.  The camp in Burlington was shut down as well, after a man tragically committed suicide in one of the tents.  Although these developments are unwelcome, they have been peaceful.

We need change in this country, change for the better.  The year which began with radio reports of a nascent Arab spring has seen governments toppled with varying degrees of violence while some undemocratic leaders violently hang on.  There have been bitter protests and riots in European cities from Athens to London.  Here in American we cling, however tenaciously, to peaceful processes of democratic change.  Let’s hope we can continue this; let’s hope our leaders recognize this and respond in kind.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

(By the way,  I don’t think “standard” time is standard anymore, as we observe it for only about four months a year, just as a car’s manual transmission is no longer the “standard” equipment it once was.)

The fact that we shift clocks at all is a symptom of industrial society ruled by measured time.  Real farmers rise with the sun, not the clock.  We change from daylight to standard time (and vice versa) in the middle of a weekend to ease the Monday morning transition.  By the light of the flames, we could see ourselves on the cusp of transition from the global, oil soaked era to a new agrarianism.

My neighbor Malgosia said she lit her fire because when she was growing up in Poland, school would let out in the early days of November so children could help with the potato harvest and in the evenings they would burn the dry, desiccated potato plants in the fields, with tubers roasting in the embers.  The failing light and crisp November air reminded her of those days, so a fire seemed appropriate.  We decided to have a backyard potato roast this weekend (weather permitting); if it goes well, maybe another on Thanksgiving eve.

Then we talked about our gardens, what had and hadn’t gone well in the growing season just past.  We’ve started to refer to our block as “the farm” because so many of us have gardens, fruit trees, bees or chickens.  Malgosia from Poland and Margaret, a Vermont native, (they were born one day apart, um… some years ago) are the resident advisors on growing and pruning, canning and preserving.

We agreed that turning our neighborhood into “the farm,” eating locally, learning about foraging and supporting farmers’ markets are the new activism.  Attempts to head off global warming have not worked.  Nor have we stopped overfishing or deforestation, hard as mainstream environmentalists have tried.

Unsuccessful though we may be, we still have to try.  The consequences we face are too severe to stop now.  At the same time, we can’t pretend everything will be all right.  It’s already too far gone for that.  The effects of global warming, overfishing and deforestation are upon us.  This summer’s fires in Texas burned 22 percent of the American cotton crop.  Corn, wheat, peanuts and beef all took hits as well.  The new activism, my neighborhood farm, is going to look smarter every year.

The old activism, my day job, is important too, if for no other reason than it buys time for the new activism to establish itself.  “I must continue by faith or it is too great a burden to bear,” said Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was referring to violence, but I reach for those words when I feel any burden.  “Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives,” Dr. King said.

The harvest is in, the days short and the year is winding down.  Our industrial society is failing, so we return to the land in the ways we can and spontaneously find new harvest rituals.  We plan for the next year, the next spring, the next phase of hope.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

My math was not wrong.  I wrote that commentary the first week of October 1999.  What was faulty was my memory or my credulity.  Have I really been writing these damned things since there were fewer than six billion people?  Guess so.  (Hello, new readers!)

I did a bit of surfing on the subject and found this BBC site that lets one evaluate world population in personal terms.  It claims I was the 3,086,987,341st person on Earth when I was born (extrapolate yourself to find out when) and the 76,783,189,538th person alive on Earth since history began (I’m guessing the BBC starts history with the emergence of writing, around 5,000 years ago).

(Note this: when I wrote in 1999, projections were that we would have 12 billion people on Earth by 2050.  The BBC piece predicts 10 billion by 2083, so the growth curve seems to be flattening out.  Or we just can’t agree on our predictions.)

Clicking through the site reveals Qatar is the fastest-growing nation, adding 514 per day and Moldova is the fastest shrinking, losing 106 people per day.  While both numbers reflect respective birth/death rates, they are turbocharged by immigration.

Moldova, with a population of three million, is already a contender for World’s Worst Nation.  Crime-ridden, corrupt and unstable, it is best known these days for sending young women into the global sex trade.  Before world population reaches eight billion, Moldova will inevitably undergo a momentous change.  Not likely to be a change for the better, but how much worse can things get?  Maybe a rich guy will just buy the whole country.

Qatar, however, is an oil-rich Gulf state with a population of about 850,000, but a citizen population of 300,000.  Watch this trend.  Global migration, spurred not only by an another billion people here or there, but economic dislocation and changing climates will not only push people from the Moldovas to the Qatars, but we’ll increasingly see the establishment of legally-separated castes.  If you listen to the Republican presidential debates, you can hear the seeds being planted in North American soil.  I don’t expect to see the bloom this election cycle, but I’ll be surprised if I don’t see it in the 2016 cycle.

As we approach seven billion, there is the usual overpopulation hand wringing.  I see the merit in it; it’s hard for seven billion people to live lightly on the Earth.  As I wrote in an even earlier commentary, “The most burning population question we face today is not the rate at which world population is growing, but the speed with which a small percentage of that population is consuming the earth’s resources.”

The important number here is zero.  Not zero population growth (worthy goal that it is) but zero sum.  In a world of finite resources, every gain for one person is a loss for someone else.  Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute makes the case better than I can.

It’s bad enough when the resources the first world claims are about energy and wealth, but that’s not the story any more.  Now we’re down to food and water and thus we’ll see Moldovas collapsing, Qatars getting feudal and both trends spreading.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

The gist of the story is that when it comes to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the White House is pinched.  On one side are environmentalists, whose support helped Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008 but are sure the pipeline will be a blow to efforts to stop runaway global warming.  Bill McKibben arranged for several hundreds of people to be arrested in front of the White House, an embarrassment to the liberal posers inside.

Lining up on the other team are several corporations, unions and the friendly nation of Canada, all of whom stand to make money from the sale of Alberta’s tar sands-derived oil into the US market.  The operative word in that last sentence – in case you missed it – is money, the currency of Washington.

Each side has its list of reasons why the pipeline should/should not be built, all of which are worth mockery/discussion, but when one reads the WaPo, one wants to keep an eye on the politics.

The politics are typical for DC.  For example, it turns out that Paul Elliott, chief lobbyist for would-be pipeline builder TransCanada, was a ranking staffer on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and when Friends of the Earth FOIAed emails between him and State Department aides, the aides were cheerleading for TransCanada.

Not to worry, State had arranged for an environmental review of the pipeline be an outside third party – which happens to be a major TransCanada contractor.  This review found “no significant environmental impact” from the pipeline (except contamination of the largest freshwater aquifer in North America and the heat death of human civilization, but not until after the corporations have been paid, so it’s OK).

In her defense, Secretary of State Clinton told the Post the whole thing had been “delegated to a deputy.”  Well done, Madam Secretary.  Ranks right up there with George H. W. Bush’s weak “I was out of the loop” on Iran-Contra and Al Gore’s “I was in the bathroom,” when illegal campaign fundraising was discussed.

So the greens have truth and justice on their side.  BFD.  The corporations have money, pots of it and an election is coming up.  (“Nice little administration ya got here, Barry.  Be a shame if somethin’ happened to it.”)

Chief of Staff Bill Daley weighed in, saying the White House would stay out of the final decision unless another agency objected to the State Department’s final determination. (“State’s gonna cook the books on this environmental thing and the rest o’ youse is gonna keep yer mouths shut.  Got that?  I’m lookin’ at you, EPA.”)  Thuggish behavior, originating at the Chamber of Commerce, rolls downhill.

“Both publicly and privately, however,” the Post reads, “Obama administration officials have told environmentalists they are better off with the president in office than without him.”  Having completed its downhill roll, the thuggish behavior now lands on the environmental community with a splat.

The problem with liberal Democrats is the gap between what they say they are: defenders of justice and equality – and what they really are: servants of the corporate state.

Bottom line?  One of two things and probably both.  One: Bill McKibben and friends have scared the pants off the above-mentioned posers in the White House, so the posers allow unusually blunt quotes to be printed in the WaPo, hoping to scare him off or at least scare him into silence.  Two: in the end, the environmentalists will lose and the corporations will win.

Six months ago, I would have found this depressing, but I think I’m beginning to see the revolution at the end of the tunnel.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

On the other hand, heading down to Wall Street would take me away from my day job and since I’m fortunate enough to have a job that entails holding corporations responsible for their actions, it’s probably better that I stay here.

Besides, I’ve done my time on the protest lines through the years and while I hope I’m not succumbing to some sort of mossbackery, I have family responsibilities I didn’t have back in the day.  (Beside besides, as I sit here trying to get this thing written, I’m getting calls from the OWS people, telling me the NYPD is likely to boot them from Zuccotti Park in the next 48 hours and can I help them find a place to be for the next stage of the protest?  Dunno what they think I can do from northwestern Vermont, but I’m making calls.)

I will admit to envy.  In all the protests, sit-ins, lockdowns, direct actions and street theater in my resume, I always felt we were swimming upstream.  The issues we were trying to call attention to were every bit as important as the economic injustice we face today, but none of my protests ever seemed to capture the zeitgeist the way the OWS kids have.  (This is not about you, Mark.)

Another useful thing about the OWS protest is that it’s a simple device for informing you of who in politics, media, your friends, family, etc. is a jerk and who is not.  Of course the Republican presidential candidates bash OWS – they’re churlish by definition (and scared out of their pants), but there are any number of otherwise intelligent people who should recognize the scent of history when it wafts under their noses.  Go back and read those column inches about civil rights and anti-Vietnam protests.  The jerkmeter worked back then and it will be working in 2031.

Most of the misguided commentary I hear and read, along the lines of “those stupid, pot-smoking kids, just spoiled brats” seems to be lifted from the Chicago Tribune, 1968.  “Kids today” is still a popular refrain, accompanied by the head shaking.  Just as it was 43 years ago, “kids today” are struggling to figure how to make their way in the world we adults made.  Kids, on behalf of my generation, I apologize.

Last year, Adrienne gave me a copy of Michael Lewis’s The Big Short, about the 2008 financial meltdown.  It’s a good book, so with Moneyball the movie coming out, I read Moneyball the book, which is also good.  (Two words, however, for Mr. Lewis: Earl Weaver.)

Now I’m reading Liar’s Poker, published in 1989 and is – inadvertently – about sowing of the crop of mortgage-based debacles through the global system of finance.  It’s also – inadvertently – about how quickly things change and how easily our memories fail.  Chapter One concerns John Gutfreund, then-CEO of Salomon Brothers, known as the “King of Wall Street.”  On page 14, Mr. Lewis says that in 1986, Mr. Gutfreund was paid more than any other Wall Street CEO – $3.1 million dollars.  “Three millllion dollllars!”  Kinda makes you feel like Austin Powers, doesn’t it?

Keep it up, kids, you’re doing the right thing.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

* Why has there not been a revival of this song?

At lunch, on the schoolyard, we boys told each other that if we had been there, we would have done something, because we knew the Nazis were wrong.  That was the puzzling part.  How could people not know the Nazis were wrong?  There were movies and tee vee shows about the Nazis and it was so clear that they were wrong and evil.  How could people fail to do the right thing?

Nazi-era Germany was the only example in our grade school morality lesson.  We didn’t talk about the civil rights movement.  That was still ongoing and close by.  My parish school was filled with white children of working class families and I imagine there was not unanimity on civil rights questions (or if there was unanimity, it was not of an opinion anyone would be proud of today).

There was a three-day race riot in Rochester in 1964.  One of my classmate’s grandfathers was a police officer who was hit in the head and was never the same after.  Besides, if “they” (African-Americans, known at the time as “the coloreds”) got what they wanted, it might mean change in our neighborhoods, our schools, our parents’ workplaces.  We just didn’t talk about civil rights.

So there’s the pattern: questions of morality that are long ago, far away, long since settled with conclusions reinforced by Hollywood culture were safe and we were all sure we’d have done the right thing, if only we’d been there (which we weren’t).  Issues that were up close and contemporary and might cost us something – money, privilege or the comfort of complacency – well, we’re all doing the best we can to get through the month.  You shouldn’t expect too much.

A few years later, adolescence and Watergate were both upon me and we were beginning to discuss civil rights.  I didn’t feel like there was much I could do about Watergate, but I did make myself one promise: not to look away.  If I could do nothing else, I said I would not hide from unpleasant truths about my country and society, not to allow myself to become distracted or try to convince myself that things were OK when they were not.

I’ve had increasing reasons for keeping that promise – even though doing so has become proportionally uncomfortable – for the past three and a half decades.  Depending on the year and the issue, I’ve felt at times like I’ve done everything possible to put myself between evil and those it would harm.  Other times, I feel I’ve borne an all-too-quiet witness from a safe and comfortable distance.  I didn’t look away, but that’s about all I can say for myself.

This week, the nation’s harshest legal persecution of undocumented immigrants went into effect in Alabama.  Like the Jews of Depression-era Germany, they are a group easily seen as outsiders, marginalized and used to whip up nationalist prejudice.

A federal judge, Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, “upheld the parts of the law allowing state and local police to ask for immigration papers during routine traffic stops, rendering most contracts with illegal immigrants unenforceable and requiring schools to ascertain the immigration status of children at registration time,” the New York Times reports.

From what I remember of those European history lessons, it sounds eerily familiar.  When a less-severe law went into effect in Arizona a few years ago, there was national outcry.  Conventions and vacations were cancelled.  I’m not hearing that this week.  Is that because Alabama is not as tourist-dependent as Arizona or do we have higher expectations for Arizona?  Is there a callus forming where compassion used to be?

What can I do?  At a minimum, I can remember I once promised not to look away.

© Mark Floegel, 2011

Last week, Republicans who hope to be president stood silently by as their constituents cheered for the notion of letting uninsured people die needless deaths.  None of them had the courage to tell the morons in the audience to STFU.

At last night’s Republican debate, similar morons – or perhaps the same morons (the two debates were held 85 miles apart) – booed an American solider serving in Iraq because he asked if the candidates would try to circumvent his ability to serve his country because he is gay.

Whether or not you agree with our country’s wars, this man and thousands like him puts his life on the line every day on our behalf and when he says he wants to keep serving, he is booed by the very people he’s serving and not one – NOT ONE – of these so-called “leaders” will say a word in his defense.

Afterward, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman called the boos “unfortunate,” providing yet another definition for “too little, too late.”

I am more ashamed of my country today than ever before and that’s going some.

© Mark Floegel, 2011