Fairness - The Commentary

The recent release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report chronicling child sexual abuse by more than 300 Roman Catholic priests over a period of seventy years with over 1,000 identifiable victims is only a surprise to people who've been in denial about the millennia-long history of the relationship of religions to sexual obsession. “The report” also “said that there are likely thousands more victims whose records were lost or were too afraid to come forward.” The real history of religions throughout the world shows how religious leaders and institutions have been concerned with controlling human sexuality through almost any means, especially when controlling that sexuality supports the culture's political and economic powers. And, at the same time, it’s replete with sexual harassment and abuse. Obsession with sexual control is due to religions having been useful to kings, emperors, and nations to promote their power – kings, emperors, and politicia...

An optimist, my favorite definition goes, is someone who falls off a skyscraper and as he passes the thirtieth floor someone hears him say: “So far, so good.” The profane Trump presidency, the accelerating corporate take-over of the US, and the further destruction of government social programs make it hard to be both a realist and an optimist. We can’t just look at the half of the glass that’s full and disregard the empty half. On top of it all, that glass is far from half full. It’s flowing over for the richest 10% or fewer of US citizens. Yet many of the other 90% -- so many of whom are deluded victims of this administration -- have been bamboozled into believing that the right-wing social agenda, including deporting foreign workers, restoring white supremacy, or undoing marriage equality, is the real solution to their problems. But an inability to be optimistic doesn’t mean that pessimism is the only alternative. No matter how we feel about the future, ...

No one is sure about who first claimed: "History is just one damned thing after another." But Henry Ford agreed: "History is bunk." Not true. In a time like this, we need to know our history to see how much is possible and to be aware of all that’s been accomplished by our predecessors. History tells us how we came to this place, for better or worse, and whether we're stuck here or not (usually not). And knowing how things have changed inspires hope that other things can too in spite of any current darkness. But in what sense does history somehow provide us with norms, tell us how things should be, or model what must be done? And are we victims of our past? Those are questions we need to ask when we hear someone use that loaded word: "tradition." That's because the basic issue is: just because something is labeled traditional, does that make it good, moral, humane, just, caring, or even valuable enough to preserve? Now, a lot of things ...

Teachers around the country, often in the reddest states, are organizing to fight the ongoing destruction of public education. For generations, politicians have targeted public schools, with major funding from the school privatization movement, to help create a two-tiered class-based system by crippling public schools and demonizing teachers. Past advocacy by educators as part of their professionalism has contributed to the conservative criticism of public education in the US and its scapegoating of teachers’ unions for any problems conservatives want to lay on the public school system. Back in 1970, for example, the AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of Teachers became the first major union to stand against discrimination against lesbians and gay men. In 1974, its larger national rival, the National Education Association, added sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination policy. Both unions have struggled with right-wing forces from within and witho...