treat with the fairness and respect that we deserve self-defeating move
Amid a trade war and a deepening rift between the United States and its northern neighbor, Mr. Trump said that he would “not allow” the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, scheduled to open early this year for traffic between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, “until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.”
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, denounced the president’s threat in a statement, writing that “whether this proves real or simply threatened to keep uncertainty high — blocking or barricading bridges is a self-defeating move.”
It was not immediately clear how Mr. Trump would block the opening of the bridge. Its construction was paid for by Canada, and a public-private arrangement , under which Canada and Michigan would jointly operate the crossing, gives Michigan part ownership.
I first heard the story on the drive into work while listening to NPR’s Morning Edition.
The story quoted the above quote, “until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.” and added … it is not immediately clear what that means.
I could focus this essay on the old saying about getting what you ask for and couple that with the admonition, … treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve but that would be too obvious.
What we deserve in the way of fairness and respect when we are shooting our own citizens, blowing up speedboats in international waters and imposing huge tariffs … but I digress.
If you have never seen it, the movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a nice escape for a couple of hours.
The story opens with the British Prime Minister needing a feel good story to splash on the current news cycle.
The Press Secretary gets her orders to come up with a story and she goes back to her office and walks into a room of staffers and computers and announces “We need a good news story” and the staffers dive into their computers and start searching.
For the sake of the story, the best they can come up with is that an rich Sheik from Yemen would like to fund an effort to introduce salmon fishing on a river in Yemen.
Even tho the Press Secretray says, Is that the best you puffed-up Oxbridge-educated moronic buffoons can come up with?
They say yes and off the movie goes.
HERE IS THE POINT.
At the white house is there a room of people, sitting at computers, searching for the next story for that guy in office to make an issue of?
Is someone yelling, come on, come on, find something.
And with a news cycle filled with protentional land mines did one of those people notice that the new bridge in Detroit was nearing completetion.
And for that person did the dots connect in their brain that the bridge in Detroit went to Canada and that Canada was currently on the naughty list, (bad people in Canada, bad, very bad, Gordie Howe was not an American) and presto-chango, there it was.
Did the staffer yell, I GOT I GOT!
And someone calls out TELL US TELL US.
BLOCK THE NEW BRIDGE TO CANADA THAT IS ABOUT TO OPEN IN DETROIT! the staffer yells.
LOVE IT LOVE IT the room cheeers.
AND, contributes another, WE KEEP IT CLOSED UNTIL THOSE CANADIANS TREAT US WTIH THE FAIRNESS AND RESPECT WE DESERVE.
once rhetorical exaggerations feeling less hyperbolic
Adapted from a paragraph in the article in the Guardian, The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in the US by Bryan Armen Graham in Milan where Mr. Graham writes with a lot of wonderful words:
But there is a difference between contextual pressure and visible reality distortion.
When global audiences can compare feeds in real time, the latter begins to resemble something else entirely: not editorial judgment, but narrative management.
Which is why comparisons to Soviet-style state-controlled broadcasting models – once breathless rhetorical exaggerations – are starting to feel less hyperbolic.
It’s been a year without joy.
Really/
Think about it.
Bright spots to be sure.
Got two new grand kids for one.
But the bright spots have been few and far between the low spots and the daily drudge is more drudge like every day.
It got me to thinking about history.
Dark periods in history.
World War II
What was it like at home?
I am sure there were birthdays and graduations and new grand kids.
But in the back of your mind, there had to be that nagging feeling that being too happy, feeling too good … just wasn’t right.
There was a shadow over all other experiences.
A shadow that could not be erased.
There were reminders for the people at home.
Gas was rationed.
Not because there wasn’t gas but because one, there wasn’t rubber for tires, and two, it reminded folks there was a war on.
Food was rationed.
And there were those flags with blue and gold stars in windows of homes and businesses.
If your household had someone on active service, you put a flag with a blue star in your window.
If that someone died, you put a flag with a gold star in your window.
This is where those Blue Star Memorial Highway signs and the Association of Gold Star Mothers comes from.
Daily reminders that all was not right with the country and with the world at large.
I am told that the church my family attended had a banner made with 34 blue stars on it.
How would like to be looking at that during your Sunday prayers?
This drawing by James Thurber appeared in the New Yorker Magazine on January 15, 1944 after two years of war.
The caption reads, “There is no laughter in this house.”
On the opposite page from this drawing was another one.
The caption here is, “Who was that man that cheered me up so much last winter?”
The ladies are in a bookstore, looking for relief.
The New Yorker is a magazine of humor.
But it was a time without joy.
Daily reminders that all was not right with the country and with the world at large.
Today, this past year, everyday it’s something new.
Something new and somehow, something worse than yesterday.
And daily, more and more predictions on how it is going to get worse.
Predictions just a year ago, would have been dismissed out of hand.
Not possible.
Not going to happen.
Not in America.
Which is why comparisons to Soviet-style state-controlled broadcasting models – once breathless rhetorical exaggerations – are starting to feel less hyperbolic.
Breathless rhetorical exaggerations – are starting to feel less hyperbolic.
Daily reminders that all was not right with the country and with the world at large.
I embrace weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalms 30:5) …
President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, then deleted it after an unusually strong outcry from members of his own party.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement, before the clip was deleted. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
“It’s his same old con,” [Michelle Obama] added, “doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, said that the video was “just hard-boiled racism using the oldest trope against Black people imaginable.”
Over and over again I hear people say this feller in office ‘speaks for me’.
Over and over again I hear people say this feller in office ‘fights for me.’
If this feller is saying what you want to say and this is the fight you want to be in I can tell you YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE.
If this post made in the name of that feller, at long last, doesn’t offend you and you don’t find it impossible to defend or excuse, YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE.
And I say that with complete confidence THAT I AM RIGHT on this question.
This cannot be defended.
This cannot be excused.
You better take a look in the mirror and ask your self what you think of this and decide now if hard boiled racism is something that actually matters.
You better take a look in the mirror and ask your self what you think of this and decide now if hard boiled racism is something you are okay with.
I feel sorry for you if you come away from this and your conscience is clear.
And I feel sorry for this country and how willingly folks have followed this path.
I even feel sorry for that feller in office that he thinks this way.
At long last, has he no decency?
Not sure why I would even wonder that.
I am reminded of the movie, Citizen Kane when Charles Foster Kane is caught in scandal during his campaign for Governor.
Kane’s arch enemy, Jim Getty, tells Kane to drop out of the race or the scandal gets exposed.
Kane will not admit defeat or even that he has a problem.
Getty’s shakes his head and says:
Anybody else, I’d say what’s gonna happen to you would be a lesson to you.
Only you’re gonna need more than one lesson.
… And you’re gonna get more than one lesson.
And I am not thinking of that man in office only.
As Rex Huppke wrote in USA Today … You don’t get to express allegiance to Trump and then casually step aside when something like this happens. You own it. It is what you are supporting.
Anybody else, I’d say what’s gonna happen to you would be a lesson to you.
Only you’re gonna need more than one lesson.
And you’re gonna get more than one lesson.
And don’t think for one second that its me you will have to deal with.
BTW – a check online says Actually can be said with three syllables. The three-syllable pronunciation of “actually” is commonly used in natural, rapid speech, particularly in American English, and sounds like “AK-chuh-lee
ethical demand must resonate in our hearts revealed in our lives
These issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ.
“What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
I ask the faithful to join with people of good will everywhere and to stand with those who are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to take their children to school, afraid to buy groceries — those who are forced to live in fear every moment of every day.
These are the ways we stand with Jesus Christ.
And between our voices and our always respectful, nonviolent witness, we might just reveal that the soul of our great nation is alive and well in us.
Read that line again, “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
How can any Christian any where read that and not feel called upon to act, to do something.
Anything but support what is happening and if not openly support, say nothing.
Again, “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
It might also be good to remember the warning.
What warning?
I point you back to Bible to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 7.
I’ll quote the verse in the King James English as it seems to resonate in my heart.
Chapter 7, verse 21 says, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
And in verse 23 …
Verse 23 reads, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you.”
These issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ.
Who willingly runs that risk?
Read the complete essay below the photo.
In the light of recent and tragic immigration enforcement incidents, a great many individuals have asked my opinion of our nation’s immigration procedures.
Actually, they are among the issues that keep me awake at night.
Before I address the question, please allow me to recount a portion of my personal history which — along with the Gospel and Catholic teachings — has profoundly affected my understanding of the situation.
‘What you do to the least among you, you do to me’
When I served as the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, my diocese contained the entire Arizona-Mexico border. Working with government entities, Tucson’s Catholic Charities coordinated the reception of thousands of immigrants during my tenure.
While it was usually a far lesser number, at its peak our Catholic Charities processed 1,400 asylum-seekers and immigrants per day. While Catholic theology makes no distinction between assisting immigrations with or without documents, I would note that every person we assisted was brought to us by the U.S. Border Patrol or other federal agents, and each was in possession of valid immigration documents.
In my own interactions with these immigrants, I knew I was on holy ground as I would hear their stories. I would also witness the traumatic wounds of those who had seen relatives killed or did all they could to find food for starving children. I am forever changed by that experience, and when I couple it with Our Lord’s teaching, “What you do to the least among you, you do to me,” I am compelled to speak on their behalf.
Fatal and toxic
In the last few weeks, we have witnessed a 5-year-old child, Liam Conejo Ramos, separated from his mother and quickly sent with his father from Minnesota to a detention center in Texas. This fast relocation of detainees seems to be a policy that seeks to separate the detained from family, community or any local legal assistance.
As this family entered the U.S. as legal asylum-seekers and committed no crimes, many are left to wonder, why focus on them? Having largely failed to detain and deport the large numbers of violent criminals as promised, is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement now rounding up legal asylum seekers for the sake of an optic of success?
We then witnessed the killing of Renee Good, whose death at the hands of ICE agents was ruled a homicide by the local medical examiner’s office. Rather than allowing for a transparent and independent investigation of the death, our federal government is uncooperative, and insisting on doing only the equivalent of an internal investigation.
More recently, we have the tragic death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs Hospital nurse. A common concern in both deaths is that they appear to have been fatal over-uses of violent force on the part of federal agents. The matter is made further toxic by leadership vilifying Good and Pretti within hours of their killings, despite having no substantial knowledge of the facts at that time.
America’s soul is at risk
I must admit that when I look at the totality of this situation, I am dumbfounded and deeply disturbed.
As a proud American, I have always lived by the belief that we are a nation of guiding values, a nation of noble virtues, a nation established on the rule of law and respectful of human rights. Increasingly, I find myself asking if our nation is losing its very soul.
For this reason, I join my voice to the growing number of those who have expressed grave concern for what is happening in our midst.
I also reject any notion of an internal investigation of these incidents, and instead call for an independent and transparent review of these actions.
Lastly, I call for a restoration of entirely innocent small children who have been separated from their mothers. Are we not better than that?
We must acknowledge that a substantial degree of responsibility for this catastrophe flows from the failure of our federal government to craft reasonable immigration reform.
Missing that federal leadership, we should not be surprised at the humanitarian and moral crisis that has resulted.
It seems that Americans can only envision two options: Either open borders with no restraint, or closed borders with no immigration of any kind.
That dichotomy is a lie. It is quite possible to acknowledge, respect and defend our borders, while also creating a path for the same kind of immigration that brought many of our ancestors to this nation.
I believe that our elected legislators are intelligent and capable. What is lacking is unified resolve to create this critical immigration reform. While admitting that it is a daunting task, I nevertheless urge our legislators to address what is truly a life-or-death issue, even if it entails braving the onslaught of criticism from those entrenched on one side or the other of this crisis.
Christ’s ethical demand
Without substantial immigration reform that balances legitimately maintained borders with the mercy that has always been at the root of our nation, I fear we will continue to see 5-year-olds separated from mothers, American citizens killed while protesting or exercising their right to free speech and documented immigrants who arrived in this nation via the correct channels rounded up for deportation.
Again, these issues are fundamental to the disciple of Jesus Christ. “What we do to the least among us, we do to Him” is an ethical demand that must resonate in our hearts and be revealed in our lives.
I ask the faithful to join with people of good will everywhere and to stand with those who are afraid to leave their homes, afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to take their children to school, afraid to buy groceries — those who are forced to live in fear every moment of every day.
These are the ways we stand with Jesus Christ. And between our voices and our always respectful, nonviolent witness, we might just reveal that the soul of our great nation is alive and well in us.
May God bless you, may God bless those at risk and may God bless our great nation.
Edward J. Weisenburger is the Archbishop of Detroit.
we should have a land of love joy wine song, not this … land where joy is wrong
Adapted from the poem, Our Land by Langston Hughes as printed in The collected poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes (Knopf: New York, 1994).
(On the 125th Birthday of Langston Hughes.)
We should have a land of sun, Of gorgeous sun, And a land of fragrant water Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief Of rose and gold, And not this land Where life is cold.
We should have a land of trees, Of tall thick trees, Bowed down with chattering parrots Brilliant as the day, And not this land where birds are gray.
Ah, we should have a land of joy, Of love and joy and wine and song, And not this land where joy is wrong.
There is a call today to make America great … again.
Funny thing, I always thought it was great.
Feet of clay to be sure.
Lots of dirt swept under both now and in the past.
But something about it, still great.
Great maybe, for the reason that there was a way things happened.
A process for the way things happened.
A process that was due to all people to be followed.
Due process.
Rules.
Simple rules.
But that isn’t how the MAGA people see it.
They see themselves as victims and as being victimized.
They tell me that the guy in office will fight for them.
Fight for them regardless of the process that was due.
I my gut feeling is that they see themselves as the Undertaker in the Godfather movie.
The undertaker who starts out the movie with the lines, “I believe in America. America has made my fortune.”
The Godfather responds, “I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law.”
The Godfather continues, “Had you come to me in friendship … and that by chance if an honest man such as yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you”
And then they would fear you.
Is that not the perfect line?
And then they would fear you.
They would fear you.
Fear you.
Fear.
The thinking goes that the guy in the oval office fights for me and then they will fear me.
Make America great again by making people fear America.
As so many people are saying.
That’s not who we are.
Or at least, who we were.
For me?
I trust in God.
Let people think about that one.
For this country?
We should have a land of sun, Of gorgeous sun, And a land of fragrant water Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief Of rose and gold, And not this land Where life is cold.
We should have a land of trees, Of tall thick trees, Bowed down with chattering parrots Brilliant as the day, And not this land where birds are gray.
Ah, we should have a land of joy, Of love and joy and wine and song, And not this land where joy is wrong.
