The Nightmare of Empire

Our church has been studying the last half of Genesis. My morning reading with Encounter with God this week landed in the same chapters. The title for yesterday morning's notes was ominously titled The Temptations of Empire:

As the famine continues and extends its reach across the whole region, Joseph achieves the pinnacle of his power in Egypt. He devised a system which kept mass starvation at bay, and the writer records that “he brought them through that year with food”. However, this success came at the price of the liberty of the people who were “reduced… to servitude”. The devising of an economic system which kept the population alive was a great achievement, but it resulted in a dangerous centralizing of power which, as the story of Exodus will reveal, led to oppression and slavery. 

Walter Brueggamann makes this point in a sermon called "The Fourth-Generation Sell-out." He asks why, given four sets of ancestral stories in Genesis (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph), God is spoken of repeatedly in reference to only three: “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." 

Why wouldn't Joseph, most powerful of the four, be included?

According to Brueggemann, Joseph’s name was dropped because he conducted the imperial work of Pharaoh. Given opportunity to be a blessing to the nations he became instead an agent of empire:  

Joseph proceeds to do more than interpret. He advises. He is a "consultant." . . . Joseph achieves for Pharaoh, by his rapacious, ruthless wisdom, a monopoly of food that becomes for Pharaoh an economic tool and a political weapon." Joseph victimized the Egyptians and eventually his own people as well.

 According to Brueggemann, "he becomes the manager and chaplain of the nightmare of empire." 

We are in a nightmare of empire of our own.

Our democracy, our country, our state, our political parties are all in upheaval: all held captive by powerful men who have compromised with evil and used privilege to harm those they promised to protect.

I believe many of our leaders start out, like Joseph, determined to serve well, then fall prey to temptation.

Surrounded by privilege and power, it's so tragically easy for them to lose their way.

I met one state representative who never stays in Harrisburg because, he says, "It's too easy to be sucked in. To think it's normal to be wined and dined by lobbyists. To think it's okay to use power to maintain my own position."

I've spoken with legislators who were genuinely thankful when they lost a race for re-election: "I'm not sure I realized how dysfunctional it was until I was forced to step away."

The people of Joseph's day had no choice about who ruled them. 

They had no say in the way the drama played out. 

Struggling to survive, they acquiesced to Pharaoh’s power and Joseph's ruthless greed.

We do have a choice.

And the moral responsibility to watch, pray, learn, speak, vote.

Our choices impact not just us but those who have far less choice: children in impoverished communities, men and women incarcerated without fair trial or reasonable bail, refugees fleeing oppressive regimes, people in nations across the globe who watch with alarm as our country careens toward war with Korea or capriciously withdraws from carefully drafted attempts to manage pressing concerns.

On a global scale, our voices are loud.

Our choices matter.

Even off-year elections matter. 

They determine what kinds of policies will move forward, what tone will govern party platforms, what kinds of leaders will be encouraged on their way.

And conversations matter.

What we repeat. Who we applaud. What we hope for. How we pray.

I pray for leaders who demonstrate humility, wisdom, courage.

I pray for Christians able to hear, discern and speak the truth.

I pray we remember the command to love our neighbor and the promise that perfect love casts out fear. 

I pray for a platform of justice and mercy, a church that remembers God's heart for the poor, the defenseless, the stranger, the worker. 

We bid you, stir up those who can change things;
do your stirring in the jaded halls of government;
do your stirring in the cynical offices of the corporations;
do your stirring amid the voting public too anxious to care;
do your stirring in the church that thinks too much about purity and not enough about wages.

Move, as you moved in ancient Egyptian days.
Move the waters and the flocks and the herds
toward new statutes and regulations,
new equity and good health care,
new dignity that cannot be given on the cheap.

  (From Walter Brueggemann: A Prayer of Protest, 2010)  

Some earlier posts about political issues can be found here: What's Your Platform

Several that consider Walter Brueggemann's discussion of scripture and kingdom:

Anxious in America, February 19, 2011

An Alternative Narrative, February 10, 2013 

And one on voting: 

Who Is Allowed to Vote? September 21, 2014

Primaries, Parties, Power, Please . . .

I won’t be voting in our Pennsylvania primary on Tuesday. I’ve been promoting voter registration for months now, inviting attention to the League of Women Voters’ Vote411, which offers sample ballots and voter information, and posting winning videos from our League of Women Voters 2016 video contest: Your Voice, Your Vote, Be Heard!

But I won’t be voting myself, because I’m registered as unaffiliated, and PA’s primaries are closed to unaffiliated voters.

In January, Gallup reported that forty-two percent of Americans identify as political independents. That percent is much lower in PA, due to our closed primaries, but still more than 1.1 million choose not to identify with one of the two major parties.

I consider our closed primaries a form of taxation without representation.

Yes, I could register with a party to exercise my right to vote in the primary Tuesday.

Except, honestly, I can’t.

There are parts of both parties’ platforms I agree with. (Here are both: Republican, Democrat)

There are major parts in both I think are wrong-headed, counterproductive, unsustainable.

I could compromise on those. Maybe.

But my concern goes past platform and policy to practice and power.

I read an essay recently by Os Guinness (an excerpt from his 2002 book, Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype and Spin, published in the Veritas Forum's A Place for Truth):

If there's no truth and everything is only power, ours is a world of brutal manipulation in which the strong will win and the weak will always go to the wall – and that's a horrendous world. 

I fear the horrendous world he describes is hurrying toward us.

And I fear our political parties have lost sight of core values like truth, justice, the common good, and instead depend on manipulation to maintain power and justify control.

Not everyone: there are good people in both parties. I've met some. I know of others.

But the parties themselves, the power structures within them, the games they play: I am appalled by much I see and hear.

Listen to the discussion surrounding primaries, delegates, conventions, dark money, donors: anything approaching real democracy died a long time ago.

Yes, I know: anyone attempting to accomplish anything at all faces the challenge of balancing the desire to forward reasonable ends with the need to influence in appropriate ways.

This is true at the most elemental level: caring for my favorite toddler, I want to move us toward hands washed, lunch on the table, food delivered to open mouths.

There’s a point where the end may justify a small application of both force and reward (picking him up and setting him in his seat; withholding more juice until cheese and fruit are eaten). But even in the smallest drama, there’s a dangerous desire to have things go my way just because: because I’m in charge. Because I don’t like aggravation. Because I said so. Because.

On the political level, yes, it makes sense for parties to work toward agreed on goals, applying appropriate influence in reasonable ways.

Unfortunately, the more I see of our two major parties, the clearer it is that desire for power long superseded any interest in reasonable goals or appropriate methods.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been working on redistricting reform. Every ten years, the federal census paves the way for reapportionment of congressional seats: states that grow get more seats in the House of Representatives; those that lose population may have less. That necessitates changes in congressional electoral districts, but most states also adjust state legislative districts at the same time to keep districts relatively even in size.

Most democratic countries do something similar, and in most, the redistricting process is handled by independent redistricting commissions composed of impartial demographers, mapmakers, retired judges or other citizens, with strict rules for how lines are to be drawn and clear standards of evaluation.

In Pennsylvania, as in most American states, the legislators draw and approve the maps that determine their elections, an obvious conflict of interest.

The result has been, since early in our democracy, lines drawn to favor the party in power. Another word for it: gerrymandering.

I described this in much more detail back in 2014.

But here’s what I’ve learned since:

Our two major parties have spent millions trying to capture legislatures in redistricting years in order to control the redistricting process in order to control Congress and state legislatures.

Yes, of course, I get it: parties exist to help their candidates win elections, in hopes of controlling the processes, in hopes of getting their own bills enacted.

What I’m describing goes way beyond that. Essentially, it’s legal voter fraud. Manipulation of processes to guarantee that voters’ voices are discounted.

In North Carolina, that meant corralling minority candidates into two strangely drawn districts to restrict their influence across a wider area.  

In Virginia, a similar move is under Supreme Court review.

In Pennsylvania, partisan redistricting divided post-industrial cities into surrounding suburbs or farmland to ensure the voices of poor, urban communities have little influence in policy or funding.

Both parties play the game, but the Republicans have been more organized and better funded. They’ve already announced plans for the 2020 redistricting process: RedMap 2020. 

Manipulation of maps is a cynical, insidious form of voter fraud. It deprives voters of choice, pushes parties toward extremes, ensures legislative gridlock and undermines voter engagement.

I put together a simple graphic to help explain the dynamic I’m describing. I’ve been using it to promote a petition in support of redistricting reform.

  

I hear people complain about candidates who lie, stretch the truth, manipulate, take dark money, promise things they can’t possibly provide.

It’s always the other candidate: the one they don’t support.

And I hear people explain their vote because any other vote would allow the opposition to win. Or would put party control in jeopardy.

I go back to that quote I’ve been carrying with me: 

If there's no truth and everything is only power, ours is a world of brutal manipulation... 

I posted last week about this time of unraveling we’re living in.

The idea of truth itself is unraveling, has been unraveling, is now as thin as a gossamer strand of spider web, floating on the unsettled air.

 

If truth no longer matters, what we have left is manipulation.

And a brutal game of chess in which we are all, only, pawns. 

I have been praying about my own role in this unfolding story.

For now, I feel called to work on redistricting reform, to look for other ways to strengthen the voice of those shut out of our political process. And I feel called to say, as clearly and often as I can, I believe truth matters. 

This post is my vote for real democracy. The vote I’m not able to cast on Tuesday.

I admire others I know whose callings lead them in other ways: living and working in tough urban neighborhoods. Protesting and praying on capital steps in DC and Harrisburg. Writing, teaching, volunteering. Working the polls. Walking with the poor. Running for office. Writing policy.

Here’s my please:

Please don’t fall for manipulation. Don’t look past the lies. Don’t excuse the game.

Don’t just pray that the best person win.

Pray for your own role in that. Your own vote. Your own voice.

Please don’t watch in silence as the best manipulator wins.

Let the People Draw the Lines

I live in one of the most gerrymandered districts in the nation.

That’s a hotly contested honor, but I think I can prove my case.

Pennsylvania's 6th Congressional District has been the subject of lawsuits for years, and was the subject of a case heard by the Supreme Court in 2003. One of the complainants in that case, Susan Furey, argued that the strangely shaped district was  created "solely to effectuate the interests of Republicans," and offered evidence that the General Assembly relied "exclusively on a principle of maximum partisan advantage" when drawing the plan "to the exclusion of all other criteria." She described the district looming “like a dragon descending on Philadelphia from the west, splitting up towns and communities throughout Montgomery and Berks Counties."

While the Supreme Court justices found the complainants’ evidence compelling, they concluded “that political gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable because no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating such claims exist.”

To put that in normal English: even though there was clear evidence that the map had been drawn to benefit the party in power,  and even though voters’ rights are infringed by political gamesmanship over district boundaries, the courts can’t/won’t/aren’t likely to intervene unless there’s clear legislative authority to do so.

On the basis of that decision, the most recent district reapportionment resulted in an even more bizarre drawing of the District 6 map: areas of urban poverty were neatly divided to provide an even stronger margin for the party in power.

Green marks District 6 according to lines drawn in 2001. The light blue line
shows District 6 as redrawn in 2011. The red dot is candidate Mannon Trivedi's
home. The pretzel shapes in the middle are lines drawn in and around Reading. 

Yes, I can hear you yawning.

Really?

Maps?

Does this matter?

I promise you, it does.

Southeastern Pennsylvania, where I live, is a wonderfully diverse region, with wealthy Main Line communities just miles from urban blight, conservative white neighborhoods surrounding towns full of immigrants, universities and colleges scattered through towns, cities, suburbs.  

We have a high number of young voters, plenty of moderates, many Independents like me, and lots of passionate, politically savvy voters from every point on the spectrum.

Which makes it hard for the parties to keep control.

In a region like mine, the parties have two choices:

Offer candidates who appeal to both sides of the aisle.

Or carve up districts in ever more creative ways to ensure a wider margin.

For my own district, the 2011 redistricting meant that candidate Manan Trivedi found himself removed from his own constituency, with those who knew him best voting elsewhere in the 2012 election.  

Incumbent Jim Gerlach, in office since 2003, won the 2012 election , but discussed the implications of gerrymandering in an interviewthis year when he announced he would not be returning: 

"When you have 435 seats (in the House of Representatives) but only 50 are competitive, you only have 50 members who need to be flexible, and it gets harder and harder to find common ground,” he said. “And every 10 years when they re-district, more districts get a little bit safer."
 Gerlach said he recognized the irony of that statement coming from someone who has arguably benefitted from the re-drawing of a district that now includes parts of five counties, but not one entire county, but few would say his district has historically been “safe.”
 Democrats at the national level have repeatedly targeted the 6 District as “winnable” since 2002, and Gerlach’s margins of victory often have been ridiculously thin. Some national publications have, at times, called them the slimmest in the nation.
 (Perhaps that’s why Gerlach’s announcement that he will not run again made news across the country, including in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.)

 We’ll soon find out if the 2011 gerrymander was enough to keep Gerlach’s GOP successor safe.

Yes, gerrymandering has been around as long as there have been elections.

The term was coined in Massachusetts, in 1812, when Governor Gerry signed a redistricting bill in Massachusetts to benefit his own party. One of the districts in Boston was said to look like a salamander, yielding the word-play that lingers: “Gerry-mander.”

But gerrymandering then was a crude science compared to the practice now.

With demographic research and computerized data-mining, politicians can draw district lines with far greater exactness, splitting opposition groups with amazing precision.

Both parties do it, often without apology. I was amazed to find discussions of potential gerrymanders offered on public websites, with detailed rationale and careful explanations of how outcomes could be controlled.

A direct consequence of this practice is congressional gridlock. As Gerlach said, if parties can guarantee control of particular districts, then they can choose the candidates for those districts with little attention to alternative views.

Incumbents benefit, as do party leaders.

Power is retained by those who play the game, while voters lose interest when they realize the outcome is rigged long before the general election.

 

to try the wheel visit All About Redistricting

A simple graphic device devised by Fair Vote demonstrates the reality of the game. A fair line can yield even results. A more deviously placed line can ensure half the voters are totally unrepresented. 

Civic groups in some states have begun to fight back.

In Arizona, the League of Women Voters was part of a successful citizen initiative to amend the state constitution to create the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, providing for a non-partisan commission to determine election boundaries rather than the state legislature.

The first application of that amendment took place during the redistricting of 2011. At the same time, the state legislators filed suit against the commission and Arizona's Secretary of State (in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission CV12-01211-PHX-PGR). 

The legislators argued that the commission itself is illegal. The suit was dismissed by the U. S. District Court, so the legislators have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reviewed the case on July 7, 2014; their conclusions could be announced sometime in October.

Press discussions of the situation would be funny if they weren’t so sad: citizens using legal remedies in an attempt to select the legislators; legislators suing their own state to maintain control.

That won’t happen here in Pennsylvania. We’re one of 26 states without the right to a citizen-initiated referendum.  

Which means in Pennsylvania the only recourse for citizens is to sue the state, as happened unsuccessfully in 2003, and with mixed results in 2013.

Which also means it’s highly unlikely our state legislature, or house representatives, are the people we would choose if the lines were drawn more fairly.

I know people – far too many – who say democracy in the US is dead.

Some days, I think they may be right. At least here in Pennsylvania.

A line from a Jack Johnson song keeps echoing in my head: 

Well, he tried to live, but he’s done trying
Not dead, but definitely dying. 

I know people - again, too many -  who say it's a waste of time to vote, since the outcomes are rigged and the candidates come to power owing favors to party leaders and corporate sponsors, with no interest in serving the public good. 

I understand their point. 

And when I dig into issues like gerrymandering, I find myself discouraged.

Yet – what’s the alternative?

I spent the weekend with the state board of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania.

Even as we met, word came in from districts around the state where politicians are playing more games: pulling a candidate who looks unpopular and trying to insert someone voters don’t yet know. Just weeks before the elections.

Pulling out of agreed-on debates just days before the debate was to take place, refusing to answer voters’ questions and effectively silencing opponents who were eager to discuss issues together.

The work of democracy is complicated, costly, endlessly aggravating, often perplexing, too rarely rewarding.

The way forward is as convoluted, as hard to untangle, as my own District 6 boundaries. 

Even so, I'm convinced the alternative is worse.

Ways to engage:

All about Redistricting’s How Can the Public Engage offers a list of ways citizens can engage with the process, questions to ask about how boundaries are drawn, and more information about why this matters..

It’s also worth looking at candidate’s web pages (find them through Smart Voter in PA  or through Vote 411 in most other states), and it's worth spending some time studying incumbent’s voting records, and major contributors. Some candidates demonstrate a strong awareness that our processes are broken and need fixing, Others show a steady disregard for voters’ rights and abuses of process.

Make sure you’re registered (you can check that online) and if you know citizens who might have trouble registering, print out forms and help them fill and file them. The deadline, in Pennsylvania, is October 6.

Vote, and encourage others to vote.

Even if sometimes it feels pointless. 

This is the fifth in a series looking at specific issues of importance in state and local elections, as an extension of my 2012 series "What's Your Platform?" 

Earlier posts:  

What are Workers Worth, September 1, 2014
Back to School Lament, September 7, 2014
Privatization and Elementary Math, September 14,  2014
Who is Allowed to Vote? September 21, 2014 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Just click on   __comments below to see the comment option.