Steve Suitts is a civil rights lawyer who has worked for the Southern Education Foundation for many years. His recent book Overturning Brown documents the segregationist history of the school choice movement.
He wrote recently that the Espinoza decision, which awards public money to religious schools, is another step in the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Brown decision.
In a case decided on the grounds of religious freedom, the US Supreme Court took another big step on June 30 in supporting religious discrimination in publicly financed schooling and, more broadly, in overturning Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark opinion that promised the end of racial segregation in public education.
The Court ruled in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that the US Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom prohibits a state from excluding religious schools when it finances attendance in private schools. There should be no misunderstanding about what this case means in regard to religion: states are now free to finance private schools that discriminate against students on the basis of students’ religions.
As troubling as that holding is, the opinion also constitutes a major, often ignored long-term impact on school desegregation. Today most students attending private schools are in religious schools, and most religious schools are effectively segregated and exclusionary by race. For this reason, Espinoza constitutes a regrettable, and significant, decision in the Supreme Court’s long and certain movement over the last forty years to overturn the Brown decision…
Advocates of “school choice” claim they are advancing religious freedom, social justice, and civil rights when in fact, as I document in “Segregationists, Libertarians, and the Modern ‘School Choice’ Movement,” they echo the language and tactics used by southern segregationists in their efforts to evade school desegregation after Brown. It is there—in the history of the segregationists’ fight against Brown and in how the federal courts addressed their strategies—that the long-range impact of Espinoza becomes evident.
In the years following Brown, southern states passed dozens of bills to condemn and frustrate school desegregation. The overall strategy of massive resistance was based on two basic tactics. One was placing pupils in public schools according to what the segregationists claimed were children’s “ability to learn”—which they believed, but after Brown carefully avoiding saying, was inherently different due to race. The other was funding vouchers for private academies where segregationists were free to set up exclusionary admission standards.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane In reading this note, I was reminded of the idea of the “separate but equal” doctrine, as if it were being revived through the Espinoza Decision. CBK
Millions of young Americans are in the streets, insisting up on an end to systemic racism. Donald Trump, who longs to be a dictatorial strongman like his heroes Putin and Kim and Duterte and Bolonaro and Modi and MBS, has taken a page from the fascist dictator’s playbook and dispatched unidentified secret police to BLM hotspots like Washingto, DC, and Portland, OR, to arrest and otherwise harass random protestors. But the movement to end systemic racism continues strong. The times they are a-changing.
But what, exactly, does “ending systemic racism” mean? Well, as Andre Perry argues in his outstanding book Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities, it means changing the laws that ensure the economic disenfranchisement of black people. And here the Republican-majority Supreme Court has been doing everything in its power to ensure that the systems that keep people of color down remain in place. Let me give an example.
A number of studies have shown that teenaged POC use drugs at no greater rate than white teenagers do, but they are more than twice as likely to be arrested for such use. As a result of the so-called “war on drugs,” which is little more than a jobs program for drug cartels and other criminal gangs, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. And most of those incarcerated are POC.
Republican legislatures in red states throughout the country have looked at rising numbers of black and brown voters with alarm and have moved to hold the vote down by closing polling places in places where POC live. And many of these legislatures have passed laws preventing convicted felons from voting. Because drug crimes are commonly felonies, and because POC get arrested for drugs at far higher rates than white people do, such laws effectively target POC. In Florida, the Republican legislature passed a law preventing felons from voting. In a referendum, the voters of Florida overwhelmingly voted to overturn that law (65 percent voted to overturn the law). So, the legislature responded by requiring that convicted felons who have served their time ALSO, before they can vote, pay a long list of fees for fines and court costs associated with their convictions. And, at the same time, they’ve kept extremely poor records of those fines and other costs. So, the ex-convict in Florida who attempts to register to vote is notified that he or she must first pay back fines and fees, but even if he or she could afford to do so, the exact amounts aren’t available. The person gets stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Well, this went back and forth in the courts and recently landed with the Supreme Court of the United States, which refused to hear the case. By doing so, they effectively upheld the Appeals Court ruling against the ex-felons and contravened the will of the people of Florida, as expressed in the referendum. They upheld Florida’s poll tax on POC.
Why is this important? Consider the last gubernatorial election in Florida. The Trump Mini-Me Republican candidate, Ron DeSantis, defeated his black Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum, by only 0.4 percent of the vote!!!!!! The disenfranchised black voters were far more than enough to have won Gillum the election. Here are the stats:
10.43% of the Florida population is disenfranchised due to costs associated with felony convictions.
1,686,318 total Floridians are so disenfranchised.
Florida has the most disenfranchised citizens in the United States.
Florida has the highest disenfranchisement rate in the United States.
23.3% of black voters in Florida can’t vote because of felony disenfranchisement.
So, that’s ONE example of how systemic racism–racism that is built into the system–works. And the Republican Supremes are fine with such racism, for it secures white Republican hegemony despite the changing demographics of our country.
And they can count on the fact that most Americans won’t be paying attention to this kind of thing, that they are not going to follow a long, complex explanation like what I’ve written here. I but that even on this blog, many will look at the length of my entry and skip it. But I think I’ve been pretty concise and have explained only what was necessary.
But look out Repugnicans. Those young people in the streets? They are getting wise to this crap. And unlike our President, they do read.
And ofc, to get back to the subject of Diane’s post, the Espinoza decision was another hammer to keep POC down. The decision will make it easier to run segregated religious schools, which was the major tool, historically, that white supremacists used to fight desegregation.
What a telling account of the events that still resonate with the segregationists of our era. This monograph has photographs and video clips that make the history of segregation and the contemporary versions undeniably of the same cloth. Thank you Steve Suitts and also Diane for making this monograph available. https://southernspaces.org/2019/segregationists-libertarians-and-modern-school-choice-movement/
Laura Yes to that.
Also, over the years, at least since Rand’s and Reagan’s times, the neo-liberal movement has joined with, and enlisted for their own purposes, the longer-time hegemony of the natural sciences over history, the human sciences and the arts, particularly but not exclusively in the United States.
That hegemony has a centuries-long history and is underpinned by several derailed philosophical movements (naive realism, empiricism, but also many other “camps”). My point is that the whole hegemonic movement has been pervasively and powerfully influential of teacher education and of K-12 curriculum particularly over the last century.
In the case of K-12 education, this “hegemony” means history and the humanities are just not taken as seriously as the “hard” sciences and have been slowly thinned or even washed out of K-12 education. What a boon for neo-liberalism.
I cannot say whether today’s neo-liberals and/or scientists are aware of their convergence of comportment and purpose in stultifying education in the US. However, for centuries scientists and our commonsense cultures have been solidly schooled in that derailed philosophy resulting in the accepted hegemony of the natural sciences that flowed from it.
There’s a direct connection, then, between (a) the diminishing of history and the humanities in education and the (b) emphasis of science/ technology (sans ethics) and right up to the idea that “education” means training, ultimately for capitalist-only purposes and, of course, for jobs-jobs-jobs. Also, the emergence today of “techno-fascists” partakes of the same philosophical movement that now systematically absents technicians’ humanity from their endeavors and fields.
The correlate point, then, is that problems in education as a field, and as a movement towards cultural cure, has more to do than meets the eye . . . the one that recognizes racism in Court decisions. Ooops. CBK
When we learned that Charles Koch was welcomed at the Catholic University of America
and, we learned that other Catholic universities in D.C., e.g. Georgetown promoted school choice, red flags should have gone up. The latest wake-up call was the Knights of Columbus-funded Catholic shrine which was willingly offered as backdrop for a Trump photo op. (The K of C is headed by a former aide to Jesse Helms.). State Catholic Conferences perpetually operate to privatize schools, on occasion, in league with the Koch’s AFT.
When Catholic bishops changed the specifications on teacher contracts to make their duties ministerial, it led to the SCOTUS ruling exempting Catholic organizations from civil rights employment law- another sign.
Jefferson publicly warned that the priest is always, in every age and every country, in alliance with despots.
And, for those commenters at this blog who speak of liberal priests like Bishop Anthony and Fr. Steven Daly (“I’m Done with the Knights of Columbus”), how are those church leaders not hypocrites if they don’t also advocate for equal rights for women in the church?
Catholic schools will continue to separate by gender which creates the breeding ground for politics like that shown when the Covington Catholic boys school sent students to D.C. to cheer anti-abortion policy.
Religious indoctrination leads to the tribalism that men like Mitch McConnell tap to get elected.
Linda writes: “. . . for those commenters at this blog who speak of liberal priests like Bishop Anthony and Fr. Steven Daly (‘I’m Done with the Knights of Columbus’), how are those church leaders not hypocrites if they don’t also advocate for equal rights for women in the church?”
Over-the-top again, Linda. And when you say it’s “another sign . . . ” I hear Rod Serling music. Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do.
In a more reflective mode: I think there’s a name for thinking that, because we don’t know about something, it must not exist or have occurred. CBK
There’s an irony in your post about Georgetown University. In order to build the school, “in 1838, 272 men, women, and children were sold by the Maryland Jesuits; a portion of the proceeds was used to pay the debts of Georgetown College (now Georgetown University), also run by the Jesuits. The slaves had lived on plantations belonging to the Jesuits in Maryland, and they were sold to Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey. The sale price was $115,000, equivalent to $2,761,078 in 2019.[1] Of the $25,000 down-payment, $17,000 was used to pay down building debt that Thomas F. Mulledy, the provincial superior who orchestrated the sale, had accrued as president of Georgetown College.” In the sale the Jesuits agreed to not separate families. How “Christian” of them!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1838_Jesuit_slave_sale
retired teacher Interesting post.
Reminds me of when I attended the Methodist Church in Farmville VA (“the south”) while I taught there for around 5 years. They made a point to let everyone know, as did the local newspaper, how things were back then (pre-civil-war era).
Apparently, the same thing occurred: the Church’s original financial founding was related directly the selling of slaves. It’s sort of like Germany and the Nazis. They keep the horrors of the past up front so no one can easily forget or rewrite history about it. Personally, I am related to Zachary Taylor who, it is said, kept slaves in the attic. (As having some similarity to Jefferson’s history before him.)
Guess what: people and cultures change, and mostly for the better we hope. CBK
Jefferson publicly warned that the priest is always, in every age and every country, in alliance with despots.
Otto Neururer? Óscar Romero? (one could go on)
o.k. “going on” … this age and this country- Bishop Dolan and Bishop William Lori who are at the top echelon of the church’s power.
Undermining democracy and the nation’s foundation- state Catholic Conferences operating in near all of the 50 states.
Bob- make the case that the American Catholic Church hierarchy is headed in the direction that makes America more humane, less divided. and more accepting of pluralism and modernism.
Linda poses an interesting question, Bob, as much as I respect you, very close to unconditionally. Do the examples you cite, as well as the ones you go on with, absolve the right-wing tendencies of the American Catholic Church hierarchy and the Catholics in Congress who are in the vanguard of promoting intolerance? Blanket absolution, if you will? Does an Oscar Romero cancel out a Timothy Dolan? Or, for that matter, does an Otto Neururer even out a Pius XII? I have, in the past, extolled the virtues of Helmut von Moltke, Peter Graf von Wartenburg, Julius Leber, etc., but do their martyrdoms cancel out Hitler and his henchmen? Or more recently, do the actions of a Mitt Romney, despite voting 81% of the time with the Idiot balance it all out? Or the so-called Lincoln Project, cumulative past sins all taken into account, make it all ok because they oppose the Idiot with ads that change not one mind whatsoever? Wonder what Jefferson’s verdict would be? Actually, I don’t. I feel pretty certain about what he would think.
Greg, see this: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/poetry/history-lesson-or-on-the-hinterweltlern/
I don’t think it’s fair or right to condemn an entire religion for the actions of a few or even its leaders. To compare a religion to Hitler is ridiculous.
The condemnation is, of the political actions of the Catholic and evangelical power structures that perpetuate discrimination against women, gay people and discrimination against people of color through school privatization. The condemnation is of their political success in getting the public’s tax money and their exemption from civil rights employment law. The condemnation is of the growing U.S. theocracy that supplants democracy.
Just as one condemns the Chinese government for Covid negligence not the Chinese people and one condemns Putin’s thugs but not the Russian people, the American church hierarchy should be condemned.
Condemnation of the evangelical and Catholic congregants is a function of the ways in which they acquiesce to the leadership which permits the power’s continued existence. Throughout history, people have sacrificed all they had including their lives to unseat unconscionable rulers. So little sacrifice would have to be made to depose Bishops Dolan and Lori and, Carl Anderson. All Americans should understand the threat that theocracy poses when those 3 men aren’t replaced and when the churches fail to lose their tax exemptions for obvious political involvement. If fewer than 50% of white Catholics vote for Trump, the case for fear is made even stronger.
Do you also condemn a Islam for the acts committed in its name?
Years ago, I was working at a publishing house, and I stopped to drop something off for the President and Publisher. And there I encountered his secretary, a middle-aged woman who was crying. I asked her what was wrong. She had just read the Boston Globe expose of the YEARS of coverups of rampant abuse by Boston-area of priests. “I’ve been a good Catholic all my life,” she said to me. “I’ve gone to mass daily. I’ve given money. I’ve brought up my children in the Church. And I just can’t do it anymore. It makes me so sick that I’m physically ill. How could they!? How could they!?!?!? I know how she felt.
Oh well, I guess people will read anything they want into comments that aren’t made. Where do I condemn an entire religion? I’ll try again, although I know it’s hopeless. One does not address the abuses of the prevailing actions of the most extreme elements made by the leaders of a particular political movement or religion or, more to the point, the personal guilt and responsibility of the leaders of each when they abuse people and rights by citing a minority of exceptions.
This thread began with RT’s comments about Georgetown U. being founded on money that came from slavery. What is missing from the comment is that the trustees and administration of Georgetown have very publicly expressed guilt, accepted responsibility for the actions of their predecessors who have long since died, and have taken meaningful measures of contrition and restitution.
I am in no way conflating religion and Hitler and claiming that I am is worse than ridiculous, it is simplistic. Let’s take Bob’s example. The quote he chooses is a selective one that comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1814. Here’s what comes before and after that citation: “I join in your reprobation of our merchants, priests and lawyers for their adherence to England & monarchy in preference to their own country and its constitution. But merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the Despot abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them: and to effect this they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man, into mystery & jargon unintelligible to all mankind & therefore the safer engine for their purposes.” Quite different when read that way, no?
Leaving out “…abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own” and citing two examples of people who are exceptions to the rule is quite an omission. Jefferson acknowledges “the purest religion ever preached to man” as an ideal but realized it fails it when “they have perverted [it] into mystery & jargon unintelligible to all mankind & therefore the safer engine for their purposes.” Is that not exactly what Linda and I argue consistently? I’ll ask it again another way: does the martyrdom of an Otto Neururer balance the the actions of Pius XII and therefore make the silence and complicity of the Church hierarchy to sanitize Pius’s legacy irrelevant?
As for the “compar[ison of] a religion to Hitler”: I did not do that, which you must acknowledge if you will read my comment accurately. I cited some examples of how people in power have “perverted [their actions] into mystery & jargon unintelligible to all mankind & therefore the safer engine for their purposes.” This is the point, I don’t want to speak for Linda, but I would assume our arguments are consistent here, I am trying–obviously without success–to make. This is not about religion, this is about institutional leaders never confronting nor being confronted about their hypocrisy and substantial elements of their movement–by no means all, often a minority–equivocate and refuse to answer uncomfortable questions put before them. Especially when their rationalizations or selective examples that they think refutes the argument actually shines a brighter light on the inconsistencies of the points they desperately and ineffectively try to make.
When Linda cites the specific example of Dolan and his actions and other cogent examples, I have yet to read any comment here that specifically refutes her assertions. Instead, her comments are distorted, minimized and ignored. The attacks on her (and me) can be distilled into: I’m (we’re) not like that. How dare you conflate religion and Hitler? Let me show you a selective example that lets me evade a discussion about policy and doctrine that’s too uncomfortable for me address. Rhetorically, sounds to me a lot like the Republicans in Congress who enable the Idiot’s cult while evading the hypocrisy of their actions. Actions. Deeds. Avoidance.
Thank you for placing that quotation in context, Greg, and your point about Georgetown’s public atonement is well taken. The Church has much to atone for. And yes, one Bartolomé de las Casas doesn’t make up for a legion of genocidal maniacs. The Church left a river of blood throughout history, in the name of the Prince of Peace, and this is simply not acceptable.
As for the provocation of citing Islam, of course we do not condemn an entire religion. But it is fair to condemn those who make doctrine, support and fund terrorism like the Saudi Arabian government, which might not exist without substantial military support from the American government. Just like it is possible not to hate the people subjected to a belligerent, lawless leadership. Can we condemn, for example, Putin’s leadership and not be blamed for hating Russian people?
Condemn Putin. Condemn dictatorship, not the Russian people. Condemn religious doctrines that you don’t like but not the religion and its millions of followers.
Diane and all: A true theocracy is where the religious leader also embodies ALL political and social power; and there is no distinction between the political and the religious order. We see that now in some middle-eastern countries, but it’s basic to fully tribal cultures; and where all in the tribe identify with that structure.
This is why Trump is so dangerous to us. It’s our democratic institutions and the rule of law that shields us from the factions and forces of fascism and theocracy, and he is trying to destroy both.
With that in mind, we in the US are still far-and-away from THAT. (Remember Kennedy who was Catholic but was also a secular-democratic president.)
But also, one thing that’s missing here, and that comes through in Jefferson’s quote (thank you, Greg) is the difference between the political and the religious powers-that-be. Even back then, Jefferson assumes a RELATIONSHIP between the priest and the political leaders; so he was already thinking beyond tribe and theocracy in that sense.
Further, power-seekers can be found in most if not all religious groups. One central point in my own criticism of Linda’s and Greg’s posts is, regardless of what Greg recently says, both persons’ posts over-emphasize and ISOLATE Catholicism, as if Catholics (1) have a lock on human frailty and the corruption of Christianity; (2) are the vanguard of the evangelical movement all lumped together under the name “Catholic”; and (3) nothing good can be said about Catholicism or Catholics.
Greg: Your recent post is more about what you might think about yourself than what comes through in your posts. And for Linda, even if posts are not about religious issues, somehow “Catholic” shows up in most of her notes. I have long thought that Linda’s posts reveal not only a virulent anti-Catholic, but also a fervent anti-religion attitude. But hey, this is America.
Regardless of the presence of power seekers/mongers in religious organizations, however, fascist power is about the USE of religious and other organizations and popular persons. When the fascist gets a full hold on power, they throw away whatever and whomever they no longer need. That playbook has been written already in history and we should draw our understanding from it.
So, besides the above, I think the anti-Catholic cherry-picking that goes on here (incessantly) is severely misguided insofar as it aims at the wrong target where the real one is doing its work. The decidedly UN-religious oligarchy and its wannabee fascist hide under the skirts of their religious-institutional enablers . . . until such time as they no longer need them. (Under the bus they go.)
As long as the distinction between religious and political leadership holds, the relationship, complicit or not, is one of enabler to power source; or in more contemptuous terms, a soft-slavery, do or die; support political power OR the religious and their institutions suffer and die. We can remember Stalin’s Russia here; and in Hitler’s and others’ regimes, many priests have gone to their deaths because of their anti-fascist political views.
Greg, if we have been talking past one another: First, what you say about your own view above is reflective and nice; and I like to believe you; but it has not come through in your earlier notes. I don’t think you are a hypocrite. I just think you don’t understand how your notes sound, or how omissions in writing what we think we are writing occur for all of us. Second, it seems to me you read my notes wearing blinders . . . looking ONLY for what supports your and Linda’s preset and stereotyped views of what “Catholic” means. Stay safe everyone. CBK
Diane, I’ll be off the grid for the rest of the day. “Condemn religious doctrines that you don’t like but not the religion and its millions of followers.” is not a fair statement given my explanations ad infinitum. I wish you would quit characterizing my remarks as such and challenge you to cite one example where I have done so. I clearly argue against hierarchy and false doctrine and acknowledge dissent and reformers. I have done so my entire life. This will be my last comment on this issue because there is too much opposition research ready to distort my views.
GregB If I may, in my view (and not speaking for Diane) as with Linda’s notes but not as much as hers, it’s by over-emphasis and omission of context and nuance, as well as through huge oversights in responding to what I have said in my notes–at the service of preset stereotyping. CBK
Greg-
The opposition’s attacks impugn my character and yours while being tied to a defense against a charge that they concocted out of full cloth
absurdity and attributed to us.
A rationale audience to this discussion would say,
“We’ve been made aware and we’re going to fight tooth and nail against enemies of public education. Those enemies may include state Islamic and Catholic Conferences which were created for the explicit purpose of enacting into law and policy, the top clerics’ political opinions. When Islamic and Catholic clerics succeed in undermining democracy, they will be called out because knowledge is powerful in fighting the enemy of people of color, the LBGTQ community, women and, the foundations of this nation for which so many have sacrificed so much. When Islamic and Catholic clerics and their large laity organizations promote fascist politicians, they will be called out because knowledge is power….
We will not have our hands tied by congregants of American Muslim mosques and Catholic churches who have a tribe reaction in defending religion. We won’t be cowered Into silence even if we are people of the Muslim and Catholic faiths and/or know, like, love people of faith. For them to expect us to do so, is for them to ask us to violate our conscience.”
I provide info. at this blog for those who have not yet learned the nature of the political influence of one of public education’s most powerful enemies.
btw- Greg, if you don’t have a dog in this race because you’re not gay, a woman or, a person of color, I am profoundly grateful to you for writing as if you did. It demonstrates character and integrity.
Linda: . . . what I said, including: “But hey, this is America.” I rest my case. CBK
This is because I mentioned Oscar Romero? Aie yie yie.
Bob-
2nd in command at Homeland Security- Ken Cuccinelli, a self-described opponent of homosexuality, a graduate of a Wash. D.C. Jesuit high school. In the news this evening, the Oregon Governor protested to William Barr’s Dept. the actions of unidentified federal officers who forced protestors into unmarked vans.
And, what will Barr’s response be, given that he wants religion introduced at every opportunity and that he has been criticized by more than 1000 former employees of the Justice Dept. for the way he is operating the DOJ? Possibly, it will be aie, yie, yie.
It really is frightening to have a lawless fellow like Barr be the chief law enforcement officer in the country.
Linda An obsession is, . . . well, an obsession . . . As Catholicism and Catholics are behind every bad deed for one obsession, Hitler’s obsession was that he saw Judaism and Jews were behind everything bad that happened to Germany. CBK
Some stats from Pew Research will put all this into proper perspective, I think.
51 million Catholics in America, a substantial number. However, that number is DECLINING, despite growing numbers of Hispanics in the country (who were traditionally overwhelmingly Catholic). 13 percent of Americans are FORMER Catholics, and there are 6.5 former Catholics for every convert. And what are their views: Well, . . .
6 out of 10 say priests should be able to marry.
61 percent say that cohabiting Catholics should receive Communion.
50 percent say women should be able to become priests.
Almost half (49 percent) favor recognition of gay/lesbian marriages.
Politically, Catholics in the US are split down the middle, with 47 percent being Democrats and 46 percent Republicans.
Among American Catholics who identify as Democrats, . . .
80 percent believe in anthropogenic global warming,
64 percent believe that abortion should be legal,
91 percent oppose the border wall, and
76 percent support gay marriage.
And a majority of both Republican (69 percent) and Democratic (84 percent) Catholics think homosexuality acceptable.
So, the fact is that US Catholics are to the left of the Church’s official positions (as is the current Pope, Francis), and they are extremely divided, or factionalized, politically, just like Americans generally.
So, a troglodyte like Archbishop Dolan appeals only to the rightwing faction of the Republican half of US Catholics and appalls the other half of US Catholics, who are Democrats. And it’s that kind of dissatisfaction and the slowness of the Church to change its policies–about female ordination, about birth control, about abortion, about gay marriage–have led many Americans to leave the Church entirely.
In other words, I think that people like Dolan in the Church hierarchy have almost zero influence on the public IN GENERAL, or AT LARGE. They preach to a few already converted Trump Cult members and have almost no influence beyond that. The only articles that I’ve seen about Dolan in mainstream media outlets during the past few years have been ones highly critical of his support for the Idiot in the orange clown makeup.
And the extremists like Barr and Cuccinelli–truly despicable people–will be washed out of office along with Trump and his spawn, I suspect, in 108. days. 04. hours. 35. minutes. 37. seconds, as of this writing.
And to be completely forthright about this, I, myself, am not a Christian. I strongly suspect that there was a radical rabbi named Yeshua, from Nazareth, who taught that a Son of Man, the Messiah, was coming soon to establish his kingdom on Earth, a place in which the last would be first and the first would be last, and that he was executed by the authorities for his radicalism, and that of the hundreds of factions that grew around this figure in the two centuries that followed, one faction became ascendant and led to the Church as he know it today, which departed radically from Rabbi Yeshua’s teachings. But since this is an education blog, I’ll leave it at that. And no, I do not believe that wafers literally turn into the body and blood of a god, and neither, btw, do most American Catholics today, according to Pew. They also don’t believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa and his elves. In fact, according to Pew, most religious Americans today practice what I have called a religion of Vaguism. They vaguely continue to identify themselves as Christian, but they no longer believe in Hell or Satan and–this is an interesting Pew finding–are as likely to believe in reincarnation as they are in the Virgin Birth.
A short story: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/stories/it-came-upon-a-midnight-clear-short-story-bob-shepherd/
GregB In your note to Bob, you write: “. . . does an Otto Neururer even out a Pius XII? I have, in the past, extolled the virtues of Helmut von Moltke, Peter Graf von Wartenburg, Julius Leber, etc., but do their martyrdoms cancel out Hitler and his henchmen?”
Of course not. . . why would you (or Linda) even think to ask such a question, or imply that Bob, I, or anyone thinks in that extreme or simplistic way?
Such examples, . . yours, Bob’s, or mine . . . call for recognizing nuances within groups (as Bob’s statistics show); and for NOT broad brushing everyone who belongs to this or that group, religious or otherwise, with one’s own narrow-minded stereotypes, then set up a straw man to argue against.
I think it important to say that, though Bob’s statistics concern Catholics, ALL groups, religious or otherwise, especially in SECULAR America, have a similarly huge range of persons who have a huge range of views. Also, since education is the central issue here, we can hope that what is commonly referred to as “populist” is becoming more and more thoughtful.
BTW, I attended Georgetown U. (that should kick-in the stereotype thinking for some here) AND The University of Virginia AND I took some graduate courses at Boston College, after attending a two-year State college in Virginia. Also, I taught at several colleges.
The curriculum choices were broad at all. Besides specific and peculiar differences that occur at any college or University, the only difference in the quality of education I received at all of them was the size of the classes–smaller at Georgetown, but not always. They ALL offered various courses in religion and theology, but none were mandated; and the teachers were of every background, religious and otherwise.
One advantage at Georgetown, which is not a “religious school” by any means, was that it’s within walking distance of the Capitol and all of the other US Government institutions and monuments. We often were able to attend talks given by government officials who lived close to the University. I loved my time there. CBK
Bob-
The discussion can reach resolution with the following flow chart.
“Recently, have government legislative, policy and judicial decisions become more right wing?”
Two options- NO, which leads to a full stop bubble, end of discussion or, YES, which has two options (A) GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT -selection of the option leads to full stop bubble and, the inevitability of right wing control or, (B) NO, NOT GRASSROOTS which, if selected, leads to the question, “what sources initiated and backed the change?” Answers are either, (A) UNKNOWN, leading to a full stop bubble -nothing can be done but, to idly watch the takeover or, (B) KNOWN, which develops into the question, “who” with the two possibilities (A) NEFARIOUS BILLIONAIRES, with no aid from identifiable demographic voting segments. If option A is selected, full stop bubble. The discussion is moot, the U.S. is an oligarchy. The other option for the “who” is (B) DEMOGRAPHIC SEGMENTS LINKED TO MANHATTAN DECLARATION SIGNERS (including billionaire libertarians).
If B is selected, the option leads to the redundant question, “do they have influence?”, with two possibilities (A) NO, NO INFLUENTIAL POLITICAL POWER, which results in a full stop bubble. (B) YES, Manhattan signers HAVE POWER which, if (B) is selected, leads to the question, “power- ignore or thwart?” The two options, (A) IGNORE- too much controversy, full stop bubble or, (B) THWART the threat to democracy.
As I wrote earlier, the greater the distance between the attitudes of the Catholic leadership/major laity organizations and the people identifying as Catholic, the greater the threat. National downfall begins when powerful leaders go rogue on their people, without consequence. The greater the number of Catholics (approximately 20% of population) who provide a tribal response in defense of the politics of the church’s rogue leaders, the less likely confrontation will be successful.
The US is an oligarchy
And the Manhattan Declaration signers aren’t exactly the movers and shakers of this universe.
Bob and Linda: In Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, he talks about the politically innocuous individual and the coalition of political power in the collective voices of formal groups in the development in democracies.
As an important aside, Tocqueville’s analysis points to the suppression of worker and teacher unions by owners and corporations as an obvious “hit” on that coalition of the political voices of workers that give life to the fullness and maturing of democracies as such. And I know of INTERNAL and external movements in the Catholic Church that are addressing the conflicts that presently exist in Catholic Schools between (a) their treatment of their teachers and (b) Jesus’ teachings which inform Catholic social doctrine. Your statistics are also heartening in that regard.
Returning to the main point, however, and considering Toqueville’s analysis, I don’t know if Linda or probable-others want FORMAL religious groups AS FORMAL to have NO voice in the halls of the U.S. Government; but I think the political pressure that comes from the religious RIGHT in most or even all religious groups in the U.S. is fueled by that also simple-minded threat and fear of having NO VOICE AT ALL, and of the vehemence coming from anti-religious attitudes in the U.S–which are, themselves, not so democratic as they might think.
The more sane communications are not going on between those extremes or in the press, but they are going on. CBK
The U.S. is an oligarchy, and U.S. Senators should wear outfits like NASCAR drivers, with the corporate logos of their sponsors on them. By all means, Linda, continue pointing out the absurdities of certain religious positions regarding the nature of the things and morally objectionable stances taken by individuals and by churches as a whole. But one must take care in these matters. A few years ago, I started attending the meetings of a local “freethinkers” organization and of our local Humanist Society. I even gave a talk at the latter. However, I grew increasingly frustrated with both as I encountered highly levels of scientistic dogma–people who ascribed to a long scientifically discredited LaPlacean billiardball universe metaphysics and refused to consider evidence to the contrary. In other words, I found a lot of these freethinkers to be not quite freethinking enough. And I know Catholics and Evangelicals and Mormons who are vehemently opposed to Trump and Miller, who hate everything they stand for.
Bob-
It’s possible that oligarchs steered so much money from PPP to non-profit churches without expecting anything in return.
Linda
“Bob-It’s possible that oligarchs steered so much money from PPP to non-profit churches without expecting anything in return.”
Interesting point. The “however” there, however, is that, in the short run, they are probably buying votes from those one-horse thinkers in the religious right, hoping there will come a time when they can again thumb their noses at them.
In the long term, and in my experience, and from reading allot of history, many of those anti-democratic oligarchs have a much longer view in mind that some seem to imagine. What they are “getting back” is at least, but not limited to, a sense of power rooted in an embrace of the privileged, variously expressed “master of the universe” idea or, in more common terms, the idea that their “xxxx don’t stink.” The cover, of course, is probably that they’re somehow taking steered “contributions” off their taxes.
But again, Betsy emerges as Wall Street wealthy AND as a religious zealot. Now THAT’s scary. CBK
Pray for RBG.
YES, send good vibes and wishes for best possible outcomes whether you call that praying or not.
As much as I agree with the sentiment, the realist in me who understands a little about cancer is not hopeful. The fact that she has survived this long after her pancreatic cancer diagnosis, the cancer with the shortest life expectancy, borders on a miracle. Liver cancer is, depending on what statistics one cites, is the second or third most deadly. The combination of these diseases is catastrophic. I hope I will be proven wrong.
I hope so too, Greg. We have been lucky in that she did survive pancreatic cancer for so long (i knew a number of people–40, 50, 60–who passed within a very short period of time after the diagnosis).The news from an interviewed doctor last night was his feeling that her treatment at this time is more palliative. One commentator or news anchor stated a thought that Justice Ginsberg is literally giving her life for her country in that she continues to fight on, continues to work.
I think Ginsburg should have retired when she was 80 and Obama was in the middle of his second term. The Senate could not have left her seat open for 2 years, as they did for the appointment in his last year. And her seat would be filled by a justice who was 45 and not at deaths door.