After the election, I posted the following on facebook: "This is not the America I swore to defend". Of course, when I entered the Marine Corps, I swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and the fact is that the result of this election - as distasteful as it was to me - was a Constitutional result. So my facebook post requires more explanation.

I had specific things in mind when I posted this. I did not swear to defend racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance. Those activities are excluded by the Constitution, and to the extent that truly racist, misogynous, homophobic, intolerant religious extremists voted for a candidate, I did not swear to support you. In fact, I will oppose you with every fiber of my being. But not everyone who voted based their vote on these beliefs, and I recognize that. I have to accept the outcome because that's what the Constitution requires.

The question I've posed for myself is "What now?" I've been searching for an answer, and one answer is to wait and see. The problem with that answer, for at least some of the difficulties we face, is that we really can't wait. I'm thinking specifically of climate change, but certainly inequality (in income, in race relations, in gender equality, etc.) can't wait either. I'm still searching for a good response. For now, I can simply affirm my opposition to inequality of all types.

An article in the NY Times today tells the story of an ex-Marine (truly, an EX-Marine) about the hazing he tried to endure in boot camp. This prompted me to recall my own experience in boot camp back in January, 1968, and I thought it might be worth public distribution.

I had, and still have, a lot of respect for our Drill Instructors (DI's), especially SSGT Gonzales. All of them were combat veterans and all of them knew what we were getting into and all of them wanted us to be as ready as we could be for what we were about to experience. One of the most powerful experiences I had in boot camp came when we were leaving for Infantry Training after our graduation from boot camp and SSGT Gonzalez had marched us to the buses taking us away. He stood there watching as the buses started to leave and said "You assholes take care of yourselves!" Doesn't sound like much from this distance, but I knew he meant it and he knew that none of us would ever be the same.

Did our DIs abuse us? Well, when you consider what they were trying to prepare us for, no. Did I get punched? Yes, but not in a way that made me bleed or otherwise truly hurt me. What hurt was knowing that I'd let my platoon down, and usually the platoon got punished for something I did wrong. That really makes you want to do things right because you don't want your friends to hate you and you know that if you do screw up in combat, the penalty for your friends is much more severe than a punch or extra push-ups.

That said, it does sound like some of the DIs went overboard on some recruits, and that kind of shit has to be stopped. Seems to me that what we went through was aimed at forming us into a unit rather than a bunch of individuals ditty-boping through the bush. That is critical in war; and the Marine Corps has an unblemished view of what happens to Marines in war. The view from the point of the spear is a lot different than the view from the ass-end.

I'm with her!
I hear so often that our elections boil down to the choice between "the lesser of two evils", and I have voted with that thought in mind. The only politician for whom I ever  actively campaigned was George McGovern in 1972. Since that time, I've either voted for "the lesser of two evils" or a third-party candidate.
When I voted for third party candidates, I did so because I wanted to vote "for" something rather than against the candidate I disliked the most. It seems to me that's the way we should vote, and I see folks I respect opting to do that this election. However, this election I'm actually voting FOR Hillary Clinton and not against the Donald (well, Ok - I am voting against the Donald as well).
I'm writing this blog for a number of reasons:

• Hillary Clinton is being painted as a liar - and yet according to fact checking organizations she was the most honest of all the candidates, including Bernie Sanders.
• Hillary Clinton is almost universally acknowledged by people who should know as "the best qualified candidate to EVER run for president".
• Hillary Clinton is a work horse, not a show horse. She's not fancy or an eloquent speaker, but when she goes after something, she does it with all of her heart.
• Republicans who worked with her in the Senate acknowledge her excellent work there, and her willingness to work WITH them.

The reasons for voting against Donald Trump are, to me, obvious, but I'll list a few of the most troubling characteristics of this empty suit.

• Of all the candidates, Donald Trump was the LEAST honest - by far.
• Donald Trump is universally acknowledged by people who should know as the LEAST qualified candidate to EVER run for president.
• Donald Trump doesn't work at anything except self-promotion. His ignorance of foreign affairs is astounding, and he seems unwilling to learn anything about the actual running of government.
• Donald Trump can't seem to work with anyone. It's all about "the Donald".
• He clearly couldn't pass a basic civics test. As Khizr Khan pointed out it's unlikely that Trump has ever read (and certainly not understood) the U.S. Constitution. That's the document he'll be sworn to uphold if (God forbid) he wins the election.
• Also as Mr. Khan pointed out, Trump doesn't understand the meaning of "sacrifice". As a combat veteran, I could excoriate this clown for his multiple deferments during the Viet Nam war, but I understand the resistance many people felt towards the war at that time. However, in Trump's case, his resistance seems to have arisen because being in the Army would have been an inconvenience, and his "resistance" was not based on principle. In fact, I wonder what principles this man actually holds.

What about the third party candidates? Well, the Green Party candidate is basically anti-science (see her statements on vaccination), and the Libertarian candidate (as a Libertarian should) opposes government intervention in a number of places where I think the government should be involved.
This election is shaping up as the most important of my life. My fondest wish is that Hillary Clinton will win all 50 states, and Donald Trump will crawl back into the sewers he came from, never to be heard from again.

Civil Rights

Civil rights

I grew up in the midst of the civil rights era. In general, my parents got along very well – I only heard them argue a couple of times. One of those times involved civil rights.

To set the background, you should know that my dad grew up on an oil lease in northeastern Oklahoma in what I would presume was a fairly hand-to-mouth existence. I have pictures of him dressed pretty much like Huck Finn, and I got the idea that he caught the family dinner a few times from the local ponds. His mom cooked in a restaurant for the oil rig workers. His dad worked for Gulf Oil in a middle management position.

My mom, on the other hand, had a more middle class life in southwestern Oklahoma, complete with black servants. I suspect that different experience led to the different response they each had to the civil rights movement. I only caught a part of their argument, but it had a profound effect on me. I remember my mom saying “Why can’t they just wait?” But my dad’s response was what stuck with me through the years: “They’ve been waiting for 300 years. How much longer do you want them to wait?”

How much longer do you want them to wait? And wait for what – for the simple recognition that “they” have the same rights as “us”? In the wake of the SCOTUS decision on marriage, we’ve all read and heard comments on civil rights. In the wake of the church shootings in Charleston, we’ve all read and heard comments on civil rights. It is simply beyond my comprehension how anyone could argue that “they” do not have the same rights as “us”.

What about religious liberty and free speech? Surely, some argue, “Christians” shouldn’t be forced to condone a lifestyle they find sinful. Interestingly, Christianity is far from monolithic in our society and there are plenty of Christian denominations which have no trouble with gay marriage. But some literalist branches of Christianity point to the Bible and note that homosexuality is a “sin”, leading to their opposition to gay marriage. Of course, many things in the Bible are listed as “sins” which nobody in their right mind would regard as worthy of nationwide sanction. Do you wear cloth with different kinds of fibers? Well, you shouldn’t – and there should be a national prohibition against such activity. Do you work on the Sabbath? Again, you shouldn’t, and there should be a national prohibition against that kind of thing. You get the point; why pick on homosexuality as the behavior which should be opposed at all costs?

Some would counter that one should “love the sinner, hate the sin”. I wonder if such persons have really thought through the implications of such an argument. Folks who hold such a position are passing judgement; those “sinners’ just can’t seem to control themselves and so they need our “help” to point them in the “right” direction. They should deny who they are, because we feel they are sinning. And make no mistake, by casting LBGT’s as sinners, we are asking them to deny who they are based on our selective reading of one holy text. Oh but we’re all sinners, you say. Sure enough, which makes judgmental behavior all the more suspect.

What about free speech? This has cropped up most in regard to the confederate flag, but it also has been raised as an objection to the gay marriage ruling. In either case, the main flaw with that argument is that our right to free expression has not been changed. If you oppose gay marriage, don’t perform one. If you feel you should be able to fly the confederate “stars and bars” – have at it! On the other hand, if you run a bakery and a gay couple comes to you to buy a wedding cake, on what basis would you deny them your business? It’s against your religious principles! I’ll bet smoking dope is against your religious principles as well, but you still sell to dopers, whether you know it or not. What about lying – how does that fit with your religious principles? I’ll bet you’re opposed to that as well, which means you shouldn’t be selling anyone a wedding cake. If you run a business, you automatically run the risk of doing business with folks who do things you don’t like. Why pick on this particular thing as a basis for denying services? And make no mistake, the very same “principles” were involved in the denial of service to black Americans.

Ah, but black Americans can’t choose to be black, so it’s different! Nope, sorry – it’s not different. Skin color is very malleable but it does indeed have a genetic basis and people can’t really choose what color their skin is or their ethnicity. Likewise, people who are LBGT can’t “choose” their lifestyle. The scientific evidence is convincing – sexual preference has a strong genetic component. Most folks who are gay know it very early in their development, before puberty and sexual activity ever happens. That’s why when we pass judgement and “love the sinner, hate the sin” we’re asking them to deny who they are. And that’s just plain wrong.

Peg didn't want me to wear this shirt today because she didn't want me to dis my service. And the shirt might be interpreted that way - the Viet Nam war was not a game and the idea that we came in second place is undoubtedly troubling. But I'm an educator and it seems to me that the shirt provides an opportunity for education.

What lessons could this shirt teach? I think the primary lesson is - don't send us to fight a war that isn't justified (and Just). A corollary to that lesson is don't send us to fight a war that we don't intend to win. I might say don't send us to fight a war that can't be won, but sometimes a lost cause is worth fighting for. Truth be told, I'm not sure what "winning" looks like anyway.

I gave a talk about my time in Viet Nam at a local nursing home yesterday, during which I stated that one of the reasons I enlisted in the Marine Corps was to help the South Vietnamese, because I thought they wanted and needed our help. My first patrol showed me otherwise. Perhaps I should have realized that before, from all the news and opinion that was flying around in 1967. In fact, one of my friends said something along those lines, referencing Frances FitzGerald's excellent book Fire in the Lake. Only problem is - that book was published in 1971. I don't think the nature of that war was as clear to the average U.S. citizen as it should have been to the policy makers who sent us there.

I suppose that's another lesson from my shirt: keep a close eye on the people who are making the policies that result in wars like Viet Nam (are you listening, George W. Bush?).

I'm often asked how I feel about people who protested against the Viet Nam war, and I think most people who ask that question expect me to say that I despise those people. I don't. One of the freedoms we were supposed to be fighting for (perhaps the most important reason) is freedom of expression - freedom to criticize your government. That freedom means nothing unless people actually use it. I think that's another lesson from my shirt - and I think I'll spend some time in my classes today talking about those lessons.

"Boots on the ground"

There are certain phrases that rub me the wrong way, and this is one of them. Right now, we're in the midst of dealing with fundamentalist Muslims in the form of ISIS, and the concern expressed by almost everyone is "Are we going to have to have boots on the ground in Iraq again?" CEO's use the term as a way of showing that they "understand" what the average worker does in their companies, and I've heard it in lots of other contexts ever since the phrase cropped up. It pisses me off no end.

Here's why: there are people in those boots, and they are the ones getting blown up, or grievously wounded, or experiencing terror the likes of which no one should have to deal with. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives. "Boots on the ground" implies all this is just a bunch of footwear; it dehumanizes every person alluded to by that phrase.

We have a tendency to do that with any unpleasant reality. "Collateral damage" was a big one in my day - and it still is; implying that the use of military force *might* lead to some buildings being damaged somewhere that - oh shucks - we didn't mean to do that but it's the price of "doing business". Of course, what's hidden by that phrase are the people killed and injured because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're pretty good at disguising what we really mean with language.

While we're at it, the contention that the US isn't committing combat forces against ISIS at this stage denigrates the hazards the airmen doing the current bombing are facing. As a former "grunt" (now there's a euphemism that really does capture reality) I admit to some scorn for the flyboys because they don't necessarily see the reality of what they do; but they're in hazard's way like grunts and if that isn't combat, I don't know what is.

Sustainability and miracles

The latests Science arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Usually I'm too busy to read much of it, but this morning I decided to take a break and look it over. There's lots of good stuff in there, but the two things that caught my eye were sustainability and miracles.

Sustainability first. An editorial in this issue praised Pope Francis for his concern about the poor around the world and how environmental degradation affects those people, who have arguably had the least input in producing major problems such as climate change. A second article pointed out how religious institutions can have a dramatic favorable impact on these problems. In an earlier blog (a week ago, in fact - see Evolution Dreams) I argued that folks like Richard Dawkins, who contend that religion is a cancer and science is the only valid way of approaching the problems we face, were misguided at best. We need the moral authority of people like Pope Francis to help us make the best choices.

The second article might seem diametrically opposed to what I just wrote, as it's about an evolutionary biologist and linguist who has been investigating the origin and spread of human language and animal cognition. Russell Gray of the University of Auckland has a pet phrase - no miracles - which he uses when addressing what were previously regarded as questions beyond the reach of scientific investigation. He's using modern evolutionary analysis tools to address questions of the origin of human languages and the origin of "intelligence" in non-human animals.

The "no miracles" part is guaranteed to rub some religious folks the wrong way, but in context what he's saying makes sense. In fact, that's how science makes progress; previously unsolvable (by scientific means) problems become tractable when a clever scientist comes along and figures out a way to address them.

What about religious miracles? Well, science can't really help us there. Was Jesus divine? Sorry, no help. However, I'm in the racket I'm in because I regard life as "miraculous".