Gas is now over $4 a gallon, and we are promised it will not go lower for a very long time–if ever.  And it may go higher.  For those of us who have good incomes, live close to the heart of the city, are near light rail–well, high gas prices are not going to affect our lives all that much.  So it cost me $48 to fill my car–but I hardly ever have to drive, so I probably won’t have to fill the tank again for a month. 

But if I’m a farm worker driving my old truck to the fields every day, I’m not able to make it–it costs me so much to drive to work that it doesn’t pay me to work.  If I’m a single mom working at a minimum wage job (or two of them) and driving a big old Fairlane Ford to work from my tiny apartment in the suburbs, I know I’m going to have to choose between gas and food, or food and rent.  Nevermind taking the baby to the doctor–can’t afford to drive there, can’t afford to pay the fee, can’t afford the meds.

At the same time, what’s happening to the cost of food?  Pervasive food shortages threaten many parts of the world, and crops this year are getting off to a bad start. Corn and soybeans are drowning in rain in this country, and in Australia drought is devastating the wheat crop.  Farmers are struggling to meet the demand, and millions of acres of land both here and abroad are being brought back into production.  Some of the harvest, of course, will go to power industrial countries, as oil becomes more expensive.  Already there have been food riots in two dozen countries.

As the global food crisis became clear, commodity prices have doubled or tripled.  Speculators are buying up land, fertilizer plants, granaries–continuing to drive up prices for food. 

What we are seeing in these two phenomena is the proverbial tip of the iceberg: too few resources for too many people.  The people who are going to suffer the most and the soonest–as always– are poor people.  The middle class may lose that vacation trip or the pleasure of eating out once a week–poor people will go hungry, will lose their living space, will not get medical care.  And the poorest of the poor abroad will die–they will not have clean water, they will be malnournished and not able to fight off disease, and some will simply starve to death.

Yes, such things have always happened in third-world countries–but more and more countries will become failed states, as they become unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens.  Many more in the U.S. will fall below the poverty line.  The only way to address such massive human suffering, such devastating economic conditions, is through policy change. 

But first we who are at the top of the food chain need to ask ourselves a serious question, “Do we really care?”  If the answer is no, then how do we live with ourselves and what do we tell our children about living an ethical life?  If the answer is yes, then the next question is, “How can we leverage our power to make a difference?”

A Senate committee report that was released yesterday concluded that President Bush and his aides systematically built the case for an invasion in Iraq by exaggerating Iraq’s war-making capability and by purposely conflating the Al Qaeda with Iraq. The administration set out to frighten the American people–and indeed to intimidate Congress–by shouting 9/11 every time someone brought up an alternative to their pre-conceived decision to attack Iraq.

This report has taken 5 years to carry out–way longer than many of us needed to come to the same conclusions.  Where was the Democratic party when the shameful decision was made to unilaterally attack a country that had not attacked us, thus violating international law?  But that is the way of politics.  Perhaps it is surprising that the report came out at all, and was endorsed by all the Democrats on the committee and some of the Republicans, as well.

The NY Times put the article on the report on the front page–the article is continued on p. A11, and ironically enough, it is right next to the Department of Defense announcement of the “Names of the Dead.”  The Department has identified 4,083 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war.  The article also confirmed the deaths of Specialist Quincy Green, 26, of El Paso and Pfc. Joshua E. Waltenbaugh, 19, of Ford City, Pa.

Perhaps President Bush and Vice-President Cheney should be required, as a kind of penance, to go to the homes of each of the fallen, and look the parents in the eye and tell them why their precious child is dead.  And then beg their forgiveness.

Barack Obama has been nominated for President by the Democratic party, and with that nomination has come a clear message by the American people–we are healing the racial divisions of the past, which have haunted and too often horrified us. 

Fewer than 150 years ago, blacks were being bought and sold like farm animals in this country.  Fewer than 60 years ago, blacks were being lynched for daring to “get out of their place.”  The progressive Northwest did not escape racism, either: in the 19th century black servants assisted their white families in making the arduous trip from Boston to the Northwest, only to find whites passing laws forbidding blacks to own land.  And still we know there remain a multitude of other discriminatory practices, including policy brutality, which has reared its all-too-ordinary ugly head here in Portland in recent years.

And yet . . . now we have the very real possibility of a black man becoming President of the United States.  That very fact changes everything.  Kwahena Sam-Brew, a 38-year-old immigrant from Ghana, took his American-born daughter Nana to the rally last Tuesday in which Obama was declared the winner of the nomination.  Sam-Brew says he hopes she will remember this moment, but says he will describe it to her: “I will tell her, ‘Tonight is the night that all Americans became one.’”

We cannot overestimate the symbolism to African Americans that one of theirs has risen to become a Presidential candidate.  This means that there is no limit for any black man, woman, youth, or child simply because of color.  All racism is thus challenged, including the internalized racism of the oppressed that encourages them to believe the message of the oppressor.

Is the work of justice-making all done now?  No, of course not.  But note the press photos: we have in the throngs of young people surrounding the smiling Barack Obama the greatest measure of hope that we yet have seen for a nation to live up to the radical principles of equality on which it was founded.

“Did the Devil Make Me Do It?”

Is there a force for evil in the world, countering the force for good? Or are our misdeeds simply the result of ignorance and poor upbringing?

I have not read Scott McClellan’s new memoir about his role as President Bush’s former press secretary.  And so perhaps that puts me in a precarious position to be commenting on it.  Nevertheless, here goes.

From the reviews I have read, McClellan apparently confesses that he joined the “culture of deception” that characterized and still characterizes the Bush administration.  During his tenure of office, he was a big player in creating the communications strategy of the White House.  Moreover, he looked the American people in the face over and over again and told us what he knew to be bald-faced lies.  And now he’s telling us how he himself was deceived?  Pity. 

I heard him say in an interview this morning on NPR that President Bush and his compatriots didn’t actually know that they were deceiving the American people–they were just caught up in a system “that works that way.”  (Or something to that effect.)  I guess nobody is really responsible, then, for the war in Iraq.  Gee, too bad about all those dead soldiers and those tens of thousands left with horrific physical and emotional wounds from the conflict.  Too bad about the devastation wrought upon the country of Iraq itself and too bad about all the dead Iraqi civilians.  This deception business was just . . . good people getting caught in a bad system, I guess.  We wouldn’t want to lay blame now, would we?

Let me guess how this pseudo-confessional memoir came to be.  McClellan had two needs: (1) to disavow himself of his relationship with the Bush administration, regaining in the process some semblance of personal integrity and respect; and (2) to make a chunk of money.  His publisher probably said something like this to him: “Scott, there’s only one way to make this book fly–tell the truth.  Yes, rat on your friends.  I know that will be hard for you–but I’ve got to tell you, it’s the only thing that will sell.”

And so now we have yet another memoir from yet another past Bush staff member or hanger-on who is telling us that the present administration is dishonest and/or corrupt.  I have just two comments, and then I want to go wash my hands, because suddenly they feel grimy: (1) how long does it take the American public to catch on to the level of abuse they have been subjected to by the Bush administration?  How many more such books will have to be written? and (2) how thoroughly did member of Congress bother to inform themselves about the probable consequences of our unilateral attack on Iraq?  And where have they been hiding out for the years since that first ignominous attack? 

The ignorance of the American public, aided and abetted by the cowardness and ineptitude of the media, and the formidable lack of both knowledge and courage of our elected officials is astounding indeed.  And yes, blame should be laid.  The theological term for this is “sin.”

Such a political, and I might add spiritual, void leaves a vast, open space that cries out for change.  Let us hope and pray that with our desperate need, leaders of vision and integrity and strength will step forward.