Kopp then Trump Pose Questions We Can’t Dodge
John Ryan, friend:
I admire your decision to organize a meeting to discuss the
renewal of something that thousands of people did, out of great love, with
courage and hope, 20 years ago. But what did those brave people do? Exactly what
would you like to renew?
If you are considering a single event or two, then I have
nothing to say. But if you are thinking about re-building a movement, I have
quite a bit to say. In my view, we are not at square one; I think we have dug
ourselves into a hole, and need to find our way out of deep problems before we
can start building.
How bad is the rot in the pro-life movement? Quick example:
in 2016, when I tried to explain how Trump will drive abortion up (abusing
women, eugenics, and dismissing refugees), sometimes I mentioned a detail of
the global migration crisis: there are about a million pregnant women on the
road each year – desperate refugees. Planned Parenthood offers them “help.” Are
we involved? I thought that maybe some pro-lifers would sit up and take notice:
“Whoa! I can ignore the men on the
run – they are not my problem! But I gotta help pregnant women!” But nope. Not one pro-lifer reacted, as far as I
could tell. Not one. Across the country, pro-lifers worked hard to elect Trump,
worked with great determination and commitment – even when it meant simply
ignoring a million pregnant refugees, with their unborn children. That is
serious rot.
Sometimes blindness is due to accident or congenital difficulty.
But sometimes it’s just a bad habit.
+++++++
I think we need to address six overlapping questions, three
from the Kopp crisis, and three from the Trump division. I doubt that anyone
who was leadership in the rescue movement 20 years ago can do anything to rebuild it now. I pray for a
renewal; I remain convinced that a campaign of nonviolence is the only way to protect unborn children and
their distraught parents. But I have questions. The issues that need to be
clarified include:
1.
What’s nonviolence?
2.
Is honesty and candor important in a campaign of
nonviolence?
3.
Are nonviolent leaders responsible for what
their followers do? If friends in a movement of nonviolence opt for violence –
for murder – are we obliged to stop that murder?
4.
What’s the relationship between nonviolence and
politics? What is our tone vis-à-vis the rest of the world adversarial or confrontational?
Can a campaign of nonviolence work hand-in-glove with a political effort
achieve communication that isn’t polarized when politics usually depends on
polarization?
5.
What is our relationship with the Church? We
aren’t sponsored by the Church, nor funded by the Church; we are not dependent
on the Church for anything – except (?) teaching (?) and inspiration (?) and moral
guidance (?).
6.
Do we ignore racism?
(Besides these six, there’s another question looming in the
background, isn’t there? We don’t agree that killing in defense of another is
murder, do we? I won’t wrestle with that question here – not because it doesn’t
matter or because it’s a bad question, but because I answered elsewhere, at
length (Emmanuel, Solidarity: God’s Act,
Our Response). I want to stick to the question of whether this proposed
renewal will be nonviolent. If we need a discussion of justifiable homicide,
then the question of whether we are committed to nonviolence is already
answered.)
I don’t think that it’s possible for anyone who was involved
in pro-life activism in the 1990s to dodge these questions honestly. And I
don’t think we’re close to a consensus. Without an open and thorough discussion
of the actions and decisions and ideas of Mike Bray and Jim Kopp, and then
another set of issues raised by Donald Trump, we can’t rebuild anything.
There may be a quick solution to the matter of consensus on
these issues: throw me out. I wish I knew whether that was a joke; and, if so,
whether it was funny. But for sure, until I am thrown out, I will press for clear
answers, for candor.
+++++++
preliminary personal
issues
Tone! It is quite likely that my angry tone is disqualifying,
ruining my work, so that I can’t lead or even teach. It is quite likely that
nothing I say will penetrate and do any good, because I am angry. When I
started working toward pro-life nonviolence in 1975-6, the first obstacle for
me (after general stupidity and sloth) was my anger. I knew that I couldn’t do
anything toward nonviolence until I got control of my anger. So I have been
fighting anger for 40 years – and I’m still losing.
Sometimes I joke about this, but it’s not just a joke. There
are personal issues here that I must face, to make it possible or easier for
others to assess whether, or to what extent, anyone should listen to what I
have to say about this proposed renewal. Anyone trying to assess whether to
give my views any weight should understand some personal issues. I admit freely
that I am unfit for leadership, because I used to be angry, and now I’m bitter.
I fight it, but it’s still there; and I think it’s disqualifying for a leader.
Around 1999, in a very short period of time, several things happened:
1.
I got tossed out of American Life League. The
owners of the enterprise did not see fit to provide any explanation, but issues
in the air included nonviolence and eugenics and candor.
2.
I broke with the Information Project for Africa
(IPFA), whose work mattered very deeply to me, because the person running IPFA
refused to stop blaming the CIA for everything.
I have a list of relatives associated with the CIA, including my brother
– who was instrumental in the capture of a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden,
before 9/11. IPFA’s constant ignorant carping about American intelligence
became intolerable, and I walked away from it, and left behind a piece of my
life that had been a source of great pride.
3.
Jim Kopp killed an abortionist, and pro-lifers
closed ranks to protect him – some deceived, some willfully self-deceiving,
many playing word games, some privately enthusiastic about Jim’s “courage,”
vast numbers desperate to avoid decision. No one – no one! – in “leadership” was
determined to act decisively and effectively and responsibly to stop him. By my
understanding, the reaction to Kopp’s decisions and actions and flight showed
that my life’s work – pro-life nonviolence – had disappeared from the scene.
It seems to me that the Lord, in his wisdom, understood that
if he wanted me to listen up and do something new, he had to start the
conversation with three good klunks with a 2x4 upside the mule’s head. I half
understood: I believed he wanted me to move on, and I did. No more battering my
head against (and sometimes through) brick walls! I was done, for the time,
with world-shaking. I taught high school English for a dozen years, getting out
of bed in the morning thinking about literature I loved and kids I loved, and
how to put them together. But I still had a head (battered but functioning) full
of memories, good and bad. I half understood,
only half: I did not understand what was happening fully, nor did I trust
fully. I admit with shame that I allowed myself to slip-slide into sour. So when
I criticize anything in the pro-life movement, it is important to weigh this
failure of mine, and to decide for yourself: how much of what I say is genuine
insight from someone with a great deal of experience, and how much is bitter
unease and disease and no-knees?
So weigh away.
But I will speak, about six challenges.
+++++++
#1: Nonviolence
Nonviolence as explained by Gandhi
is a proactive force, not just a public relations limitation. Are we committed
to it? Can we tolerate free-lance violence?
You can’t lead if your
understanding of nonviolence is simply and only “not violent.” The way forward
for serious people who read history is true nonviolence (e.g., Gandhi) or war.
And war isn’t compatible with Christianity, so we are left with one serious
option. And you can’t lead if your understanding of nonviolence does not
include a commitment to honesty and candor – which in turn must include a
lively awareness of your own faults and a permanent commitment to on-going
repentance.
Pope Paul VI said that in our time, peace has a new name.
Ancient words can become encrusted, and lose their clarity. In our time, peace
is called “development.” You choose to help neighbors overseas, or you prepare
for war. And similarly, it seems to me, the new name for love is “solidarity,”
a pro-active decision to join hands and lives with people in need. And
similarly, it seems to me, the call to repentance when we are faced with
massive social evils is “nonviolence.”
Nonviolence does not mean “not violent.” The word has a
history, written in blood; and it is brutish and ignorant to overlook that
history. Sure, I understand that drug offenders who have sold a few joints but
haven’t shot anyone are called “nonviolent offenders.” But when pro-lifers
swore to Cardinal O’Connor, over and over, that they were committed to
“nonviolence,” they were talking about what Gandhi did, what King did, what
Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa and Solidarity were doing, what the tiny
Filipino nuns and millions of others did in Manila. It is a deliberate effort
to confront evil and end it by absorbing violence and forgiving, like Jesus. The
clearest image of nonviolence is Mary at the foot of the cross – revealing the
decision of the Lord to stand with love at the feet of our crosses.
It was bitter, shocking, when the rescue movement abandoned
its commitment to Gandhi’s ideas and practices (Gandhi was a pagan, you know,
and a pervert) and to King’s ideas and practices (King was a Communist, you
know, and a philanderer). When rescue leadership abandoned the promise to
O’Connor, they spoke bravely about their commitment to “biblical principles”
instead – meaning Calvinist ideas, including an explicit open-ness to lethal
violence in the manner of King Saul. In one quick improvement, the rescue
movement moved from the Sermon on the Mount to King Saul’s genocide. Dear Lord,
preserve our sanity!
In 1990, it was not clear whether the rescue movement was
committed to nonviolence as it is described in the Sermon on the Mount, or to
something bigger and better, like genocide.
So: which movement would you like to resurrect?
+++++++
#2. Honesty and
Candor
When Gandhi was struggling to explain his ideas as simply as
possible, he tried using the Sanskrit word “satyagraha.” It means “truth,” or
perhaps “Truth.” But it is not truth as a collection of static facts, objective
and measurable, perhaps listed as propositions. The word includes a response to
truth: it means “clinging to the Truth.” His idea, which he tried to indicate
in four skimpy syllables, was that the Truth is not something you acknowledge
intellectually; rather, it is something you live out. Confronting the evil in
society includes confronting the evil in our own hearts, because that’s where
the truth lives.
Truth. Gandhi’s understanding of nonviolence included
reference to truth. Speaking the truth was not a detail of what he taught; it
was fundamental.
So it is bizarre to hear people arguing about whether a
campaign of nonviolence must include a tenacious effort to cling to plain
simple honesty. Deception is as foreign to nonviolence – as Gandhi understood
it – as shooting people.
From my perspective, the effort to defend Jim Kopp’s
violence by a variety of dodges was and still is as foreign to nonviolence as
the violence itself. Can a good Jesuit teach you how to defend theories like
the necessity defense applied to the defense of another? Sure, that’s a
worthwhile debate – nonviolence versus other theories. But lying and covering
up? That’s problematic.
When Jim Kopp was a fugitive, on the run and then living in
Ireland, our opponents who identify themselves as “pro-choice” denounced us as
liars.
Q: Is Jim
innocent?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay, but did he do it?
Q: Okay, but did he do it?
A: Mumble.
Or:
“I’m
pro-choice. I prefer nonviolence, but I won’t force my morality on others.”
That’s cute. It’s wry and funny, like Jim Kopp’s standard
humor. But pro-choicers were right about the facts: Jim shot Barnett Slepian,
and Jim shot him from hiding, and the denials about whether Jim shot anyone
were lies, and other pro-lifers did help Jim hide.
And I add firmly: when Kopp was on the run, I did not know
who was telling the truth about what happened. When he was on the run, I worked
at American Life League, and then at Human Life International, and I had
activist friends all over the world. With very few exceptions, I did not know
who was lying. It is ridiculous to expect reporters from outside the pro-life
movement to know who’s lying and who’s reliable if I, who started in the
pro-life movement in 1972 and in promoting rescues in 1976, couldn’t tell.
It would be extraordinarily foolish for anyone to be quick
to trust the word of a pro-life activist who talks about a renewed movement
that is committed to nonviolence. We have earned a reputation for deception.
+++++++
#3. Responsibility
A lifetime ago (in 1977, I think) the National Right to Life
Convention was held in St Louis, and there was a workshop on sit-ins, on
pro-life nonviolent action. But there was a great deal of tension between the
pro-life politicos and the activists. In fact, within a decade (in 1986?), when
the National Right to Life Convention was in Denver, activists were asked to
leave, to stay out of workshops, to stay away from general sessions. Security
blocked us at doors and elevators going down to convention activities. We
wheedled and cajoled and got a reprieve – but we weren’t leading workshops
anymore!
Tension between activists and politicos is common in
nonviolent campaigns. Some people work it out successfully – like Rep. Chris
Smith, like Lech Walesa (with a little help from Pope John Paul II), like
Gandhi. Others struggle with it (like Rep. John Lewis).
One source of tension: activists might get sued, and the
politicos often have more to lose than the activists. They don’t want to get
sued.
One source of tension: there may be deep disagreements about
long-term strategy. I reject the NRLC strategy – education leading to a change
in the law – as foolishness, appropriate for much smaller issues but not this.
There is no precedent in history for the NRLC
policy (we can argue this elsewhere; see Emmanuel, Solidarity: God’s Act, Our Response); so there’s tension
between the activists and the politicos. I started asking pro-life political
leaders to debate strategy in the 1970s; in 40 years, no one has responded to
that challenge. They talk to each other about the Wilberforce precedent, but
not to me.
One source of tension: politics is an unbloody contest of
wills, with winners and losers. Nonviolence aims for reconciliation, for a
win-win conclusion. It’s very difficult to reconcile these two approaches. In
practice, pro-life activists have solved this particular tension with politics:
we just abandoned all that reconciliation stuff. In general, the activists are
far more polarized than the general population. We don’t award prizes, but we
do notice who’s skillful at savage insults. We don’t even pretend we want
something different from political goals. In other words, in many ways, we have
abandoned nonviolence.
But one huge source of tension was about violence. The
conventional pro-life leaders wanted guarantees from activist leaders that
after we broke the law (or whatever we were doing with the law and necessity defense
and suchlike – which included arrests), we would still be able to maintain
discipline and avoid violence. We promised. But they doubted we could keep our
promise. And in turns out, they were right and we were wrong, weren’t we? Are
we ready to do far better?
#3. Responsibility,
continued
When leaders of the rescue movement floundered around trying
to respond to Jim Kopp, it seemed to me that there were three significant
separable issues. (1) Were we serious about nonviolence – about the Sermon on
the Mount? (2) Were we serious about honesty and candor? (3) Did we have
responsible leadership?
You can’t lead if you aren’t ready to corral the strays and
correct the wandering. Leaders will guide the way toward sanity, and will deter
craziness and violence. If you are cute about your commitment to nonviolence –
e.g., it’s your personal preference, but you wouldn’t want to enforce your
morality on others, so it’s okay if they bomb and kill – you are not a leader
(aside from the problem that you trivialize nonviolence).
In rescues in Maryland in the 1970s and 1980s, our
preparation included logistical details (that Philly always handled far
better), and some role play. We also included some spiritual preparation, such
as reading and meditation on Songs of the Suffering Servant). But we also
included a brief public commitment to nonviolence. Gathered together, we each
said, one by one, the following or similar words:
In
the presence of God and friends, I say this. In the face of death, I choose
life. In the midst of violence, I choose nonviolence. So help me God. In the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
An important detail: we held hands when we said this.
Holding hands mattered, because we were making ourselves accountable to each
other, and explicitly permitting others to hold us accountable for what we said
and did. For example, at a rescue in Baltimore, an angry cop (likely
post-abortive, God have mercy on him) was beating the hell out of a friend, and
I intervened. I was trying to explain some things to the cop about his
ancestors, things he didn’t know, with a variety four-letter words and brief
images. Marilyn grabbed me, put me in a headlock, and started whapping me. “You
tell God you’re sorry, right now!” Good idea. I did. There’s an important
detail from the Marilyn example: she had explicit permission to grab me.
There is some distance between Marilyn’s approach – if John
says “bitch,” smack him hard – and the later approach – hey, if Jim wants to
shoot someone, who am I to say no?
Marilyn had it right. Are we going to grow up? Can we make
decisions, or just suggestions? Can we decide what we will do, and enforce our
decisions?
+++++++
#4. A Tested and
Reliable Prophetic Voice
For Catholics, there’s a serious problem with breaking away
from the teaching authority of the Church. It’s not the same problem for
Muslims or Jews or Protestants – for non-Catholics in general. But for
Catholics, there’s a clear problem (and for others, analogous problems).
If you say that you accept the unity of the Church that
Jesus built around Peter, and then reject the authority of the Church to teach
and lead on matters of justice, how do you say that the Church’s teaching on
abortion means anything? Of course you should make arguments to save a child’s
life that don’t depend on the person you want to convince being a faithful
Catholic. But for you, yourself: are you okay if you lose your sense that your
words about protecting children are from the Lord, given to us with the
tranquil certainty of the Church?
Well, you can’t draw on the strength of the Church if you
reject it and undercut it, can you? That’s a serious loss.
And you can’t draw on that immense and eternal reservoir of
strength if you reject the teaching of the Church – the Second Vatican Council
and every pope since then, plus the clear applications of that teaching by the
American bishops, all of them (except one lone dissenter who does not have a
see).
The same Council, the same popes and bishops, who together
confirmed and strengthened a determined effort to end 450 years of division
between Catholics and Protestants, and who reached out with tremendous
determination to end the millennium-old division between Western Catholics and
Eastern Orthodox, and who uprooted and rejected the scandal of 18 centuries of
anti-semitism – that same Council and those same popes and bishops also asked
you to put an end to 13 centuries of warfare with Muslims. The Church says that
“we” hold Muslims in esteem. Does that “we” – the Church founded by Jesus and
fired by the Spirit and led by Peter and united by the bishops – does that “we”
include you?
Pope Francis and President Trump have been in complete and
explicit disagreement about how to treat immigrants for years. The whole nation
watched when pro-lifers – in near unanimity – supported Trump. I understand
that you meant to vote against abortion. But you simply cannot ignore the
widespread perception that you stand with Trump, against the Pope, regarding
Muslims. What’s your stand?
The same is true about America’s welcome of the children of
Guadalupe. The nation is divided over immigration. The Pope and the bishops are
not divided; they are united, in a position that is diametrically opposed to
Trump’s position. Most of the nation believes that pro-lifers are also united –
but not with the Pope and bishops. Most of the nation – including me – is
startled to see pro-lifers stand in near-unanimity with Trump against the Pope.
How can you dare to ask anyone to listen you your
“prophetic” challenge to protect the unborn, when there is a tested and
confirmed prophetic voice, guaranteed to be authentic, that you reject?
It is not possible to build a campaign of nonviolence
without the support of a community of prayer. We need to draw on the wealth and
strength and wisdom of God, consciously and explicitly and deliberately,
including conscious and explicit and deliberate union with God’s people – to
the best of your knowledge and understanding. That is, by my understanding,
nonviolent action arises from a community of worship, and the community
includes many people who are unaware of our local efforts to build a campaign
of nonviolence. And also, this community of people called by God may or may not
know His name, although they respond to His voice. The community, in my
understanding, includes St. John Paul II and Lech Walesa, and also Rev. Martin
Luther King and Cesar Chavez, and also Mahatma Gandhi and Badshah Khan, and
also Nelson Mandela and Nat Hentoff. But for Catholics, this deliberate unity
with the Church includes an unswerving commitment to the Social Gospel.
A pro-life Catholic who rejects the teaching of the Church
is an orphan, a schismatic, a nuisance, a fanatic – a loose cannon, incapable
of leadership.
+++++++
#5. Polarization
Polarization isn’t new, but it seems to me that in America
today it’s deeper and more inflamed than it has been since 1865. Democrats and
Republicans in Congress have been almost completely unable to make decisions
for decades. When they do make serious decisions – like health care – the
decisions often rely on one party, and the other party waits for the
opportunity to reverse that decision. The nation’s ability to make decisions
isn’t quite paralyzed, but almost.
Further, both parties are internally fractured. Again,
Obamacare provides a clear example for one party. Repeal, just repeal? Repeal
and replace simultaneously? Replace with what? The Republicans had the power to
do whatever they wanted, if they could decide amongst themselves – but they
couldn’t. The Republicans are split. And the Democrats are just as split:
Hillary and Sanders, the incrementalists against the revolutionaries, the
realists against the idealists. For a while, they are united in opposition, but
that’s not a platform, not a stable uniting force. That’s a temporary patch.
There’s neither unifier nor unity anywhere in sight.
But it’s not just the nation’s leaders who are divided. The
nation is divided, blue against red, left against right, center against coasts,
Fox against the New York Times.
And the Church is not uniting us! The Church is split,
social justice against personal morality!
So where are the nonviolent activists, the children of God
who build peace? Where are the specialists in reconciliation, who absorb
violence like a sponge and end cycles of revenge? Where are the
bridge-builders? Where are the healers?
Well, actually, at least among pro-lifers, pro-life
nonviolence devolved into pro-life activism, and pro-life activism became one
of the most inflamed and embittered battlegrounds of the nation’s
fragmentation. Heal? Hell! Join me or shut up! Other people deal with grey
areas and fuzzy goals and compromises, but not us! We are 100% sure we are
right!
I’ve been a pro-life Democrat since 1972. So I can say from
experience that:
·
in the 1970s, Democrats were the majority of
pro-life movement, and welcomed Republicans;
·
in the 1980s, pro-life rank and file was still
mostly Democratic, but the leadership was mostly Republican;
·
in the 1990s, Democrats in the pro-life movement
were a small minority, without much clout but treated fondly, sort of a
protected species;
·
in the first decade of the century, there was
substantial hostility to pro-life Democrats, who weren’t getting with the
program;
·
in the second decade of the century, pro-life
Democrats are treated with contempt, subject to bitter attack – traitors,
fools, obstacles.
The pro-life movement shoved out Democrats, but continued
its march to the right. Now, the pro-life movement isn’t just Republican; it’s
quite solidly committed to the Tea Party branch of the GOP. (Or so it seems to
me.) I am not confident I can convey how much of a shock it was to me when the
Tea Party rejected Eric Kantor – who was House Minority Whip, a conservative
strategist, and a solid pro-lifer – in favor of David Brat – who is a nutcase,
and a pro-abortion vote. The issue in that defining election was immigration.
As the pro-life movement moved firmly into the Republican
Party, and then firmly into the Tea Party branch, where were the activists with
roots in nonviolence? Well, they too moved right and then righter, but with a
twist. On the streets, they shouted louder and louder. The activists brag about
their ability to insult, to put down, to humiliate.
The Pope is out there offering ideas about how the pro-life
movement can expand – with an outreach to (1) Latinos, (2) Muslims, (3)
feminists, (4) environmentalists, (5) immigration activists. To which the
pro-life activists say: no, no, no, no, and no.
In fact, if you want to find a lot of people who resist the
Pope – not just on political and social issues, but also on matters of (6)
prayer and (7) Church unity and (8) sacramental life and (9) the Eucharist –
check out pro-life activists! Pio Nono! Pro-life activists, even more than the
average conservative Republican pro-lifer, are likely to join the pious
resistance against the Pope: no-no-no, no-no-no, no-no-no!
Nonviolence includes, in its very core, a concerted and
long-term effort to reach out to opponents. Pro-life activists don’t do that
stuff. Instead, there’s trouble with moderate Republicans, Democrats, other
social activists, fellow Christians, even the Pope.
Polarization is not startling in politics. Since the
Adams-Jefferson contest, we have understood politics to involve a collision of
ideas, a contest between competing visions, resulting in winners and losers.
Our national sports are collisional, especially football with its sharply
defined line of scrimmage. Music is about harmony, but we enjoy “the battle of
the bands.” Given a choice between competition and cooperation, Americans are
likely to choose competition. For this reason, nonviolence and politics are
hard to mix.
Nonviolence seeks a win-win situation. Martin Luther King
was not lying or exaggerating when he said he intended to help whites more than
blacks. Injustice as a threat to just about every thing blacks had here on
earth; but for whites, racial injustice was a threat to eternal souls.
Nonviolence seeks to end a cycle of violence by losing (on
many levels of experience), by getting smashed, by being killed, by tossing
away everything including our lives, in order to lay hold of something an
eternal prize. We sell everything to get that one pearl.
Nonviolence is the way of the cross – with pain,
humiliation, and death. Its success depends on the Lord.
Nonviolence is not compatible with habits of polarization.
To go the way of nonviolence, we have to face this choice – and repent.
I am not proud of my reaction to the nation’s bitterness and
polarization. I’m a guilty party, another fiery partisan. But if someone wants
to rebuild a campaign of nonviolence, those involved in it – and certainly
everyone involved in leading it – have got to break the habits of the past
years.
Repent.
+++++++++++
#6. You can’t lead if
you are racist.
"I've come to the
point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist
requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that." John
Tanton, 12/10/1993, letter to Garrett Hardin, a controversial ecology
professor.
Beware Buchanan, Tanton, and Bannon. Throughout our lives,
the Church has been urging us to confront and reject racism. But also,
throughout our lives, racist leaders have been working to divide the Church
left against right, justice against morality, the poor against the unborn. It’s
simply not possible to speak with credibility about issues of justice if you
are known to be – or perceived to be – an opponent of racial justice.
Pat Buchanan
worked for President Nixon. He was disturbed by some of the results of the
Second Vatican Council: Catholics following the teaching in Gaudium et Spes were leaning toward the
Democratic Party, which spoke about justice and peace. He outlined a strategy
to end the leftward tilt of the Church, and to coax Catholics back into the
Republican Party. Buchanan’s idea (as described by Buchanan’s critics) was
pretty simple: if you don’t have a conscience, buy a conscience. That’s
probably a little harsh, but it does get to the core of Buchanan’s strategy.
Find an issue of conscience, and talk it up, or the Catholics will leave
permanently. The issue, urged Buchanan, was abortion. Buchanan was not trying
to protect children; he was trying to strengthen his party. I’m sure he is
against abortion, but that wasn’t (and isn’t) what he’s really after. He wants
pro-life muscle. We’re pawns.
John Tanton is a
fascinating guy. He is a key player in making Buchanan’s strategy work,
although I doubt the two ever met.
To understand Tanton, you need some context. The eugenics
movement got started in the 19th century, and grew steadily for
decades. In the 1920s, American eugenicists were able to launch an ambitious
legislative agenda, with great success. They pressed for state laws, and banned
inter-racial marriage in many places. They pressed for forced sterilization to
neuter people whom they labeled “feeble-minded.” And they pressed for laws
restricting immigration.
The laws promoted by the American Eugenics Society focused some
attention on Jews, who were deemed to be of low IQ, although not every
individual was sure to be feeble-minded. So anti-immigrant anti-semitic laws
were on the books in the 1930s, when Jews who saw what was coming started
leaving Europe. And then, history records, the anti-immigration laws of the USA
made unmistakable contributions to the Holocaust.
Consider the infamous voyage of the American ship, the St
Louis. There’s an exhibit about it at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. The
ship sailed out of Hamburg in 1937, carrying passengers to North America,
including Jewish refugees. The USA refused them entry; we had too many
immigrants. The passengers saw the lights of Miami, but sailed back to Germany
– back to captivity, back to death. It is simply undeniable that the American
immigration laws supported the Nazi Holocaust. This isn’t a wild supposition;
it’s traceable fact. You can write to the museum and get a list of 254 names,
people who died in concentration camp because of our immigration policy. Once
you see the connection between our law and their slaughter, you realize that
those 254 names are just the tip of the iceberg. Was our law complicit in 10
percent of the deaths in Nazi camps? Triple that? A third of that? It’s not
possible to measure it precisely; we have no idea how many people who gave up
on the idea of fleeing, because they knew they weren’t welcome – and then were
killed. You know, a fraction of six million, even if it’s a small fraction, is
a lot of murder.
Anti-immigration laws supported the Holocaust in the 1930s,
and then later supported the forced abortion campaign in China.
Consider the Golden Venture story. In 1993, a freighter ran aground in the
Rockaways, in Queens, a borough of New York City. Chinese refugees poured out,
including some women fleeing from China’s forced abortion policy. There was a
debate about whether to send all the refugees back home, or who to accept. Rep.
Chris Smith and President Reagan defended the women fleeing forced abortion,
but it was a fight to protect them. The incident brought an unpleasant truth
out into the open. It is simply undeniable that there was a link between
American immigration law and the one-child-only population control policy in
China. And again, the Golden Venture was just the tip of the iceberg.
During a trip to Japan, I visited a northern coastal city,
hoping to meet the first known woman to escape the Chinese policy by fleeing to
Japan. Her name is Li Xue Mei. I did not meet her, but I met her attorney. One
detail of her harrowing story was crystal clear: fleeing across the Pacific to
America was generally a better bet than fleeing across the Sea of Japan –
because at that time, America was still the hope of refugees.
When you understand that anti-immigration laws in America
can and indeed have supported population control measures elsewhere, you can
understand the John Tanton story. Tanton’s life work may be more ambitious and
demonic than Margaret Sanger’s. She made the feminist movement a tool of the eugenics movement. But Tanton is
recruiting millions of pro-lifers to
support population control. Starting the 1990s, Tanton built a network of
organizations in the USA to fight immigration. His principal organization,
FAIR, was started with seed money from the Pioneer Fund. When pro-lifers want
to show how racist Sanger was, they usually use her letter to Clarence Gamble,
the founder of the Pioneer Fund. Tanton was also co-founder of NumbersUSA and
the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Although he started his career in Planned
Parenthood and the Sierra Club, he has been able to persuade millions of
pro-lifers to accept his population theories. The connection between population
control and immigration restrictions is generations old, and the connection is
tight. Pro-lifers are being seduced into supporting the worst violence in the
history of the globe.
Take a look at an ad about immigration that pro-lifers keep
sending me, from one of Tanton’s tools, NumbersUSA.
(https://www.numbersusa.com/resource-article/immigration-world-poverty-and-gumballs-updated-2010.)
Watch it, and then ask yourself whether the ad is about immigration, or the
population explosion? Sure, the presenter starts out talking about immigration,
but if he stuck with that, he’d need 65 marbles. So watch when he shifts to
3,000 marbles. It’s not explicit, but it’s not subtle either. He’s asking you
to be horrified about the population explosion, not just about immigration.
Restricting immigration is a detail – an important practical detail, but just a
detail in the horror he displays. When the marbles flood the table, that’s
about poor people everywhere. Aren’t they awful? The marbles flooding across
the table are offered as an explanation of why we shouldn’t try to fix the
world by permitting immigration. The flood of marbles is not just a reason to
restrict immigration; it’s also – far more – a reason to persuade all those
poor women around the world to stop having babies. If you do try to fix the
marble problem, you need global population control. Am I wrong?
And Bannon.
I have no idea what to do about people who haven’t noticed
that Donald Trump and his advisor Stephen Bannon are racist. If you haven’t
seen it yet, nothing I can say is likely to help.
Trump’s dad belonged to the KKK. That’s not a serious problem
if he shows us that he and his dad are different. But during the campaign, when
Trump was asked about civil rights, he talked about law enforcement. That’s
chilling. He wants to keep out Muslims, for religious reasons, and Latinos, for
economic reasons. He’s got problems with a lot of people of color – for a
variety of reasons. At some point, you have to notice that he believes that
some people are born better than others, just born that way. He’s a racist
eugenicist.
Trump was mired in racism as a child; Bannon didn’t pull him
into it. But Bannon has a theory, not just a habit. Bannon buys all the
eugenicist theories of ages past. He promotes books from another Tanton
creation, the Social Contract Press. He gets enthusiastic about the works of French
eugenicists. Probably you have never heard of Charles Maurras, but you should
understand him and his impact on Bannon. You don’t want to read Jean Raspail’s Camp of the Saints, but you need to
understand a little about it: it focused Tanton’s mind, and now it affects
Bannon. Its plot in a few words: Muslims invade Europe and smash it. Its key
message: push back or perish.
Bannon’s ideas about the world are very close to the
theories that drive ISIS. He expects a war to the death between Islam and Christianity.
The only difference between Bannon and ISIS is that he wants the Christians to “win.”
The Catholic Church, I repeat, firmly rejects a renewal of
the Crusades. We have turned a corner, and we won’t go back. We esteem Muslims,
and intend to build a new civilization with them. Sooner or later, you must
choose: follow the Pope and the bishops and embrace Muslims, or follow Buchanan
and Tanton and Bannon, and put on the armor of hatred.
+++++++
Racism, continued: what
feeds abortion?
I think we are feeding the lions, keeping them healthy until
it’s time to play the Games. Shouldn’t we be careful to oppose the forces that
lead to abortion?
It’s obvious that a part of the background of abortion is an
attitude towards sex. If a person is convinced that sex is a wonderful game
with free toys, then it’s hard to believe that this game could have very
serious consequences. If sex is just a game, then it’s just not sensible that
pregnancy would be a big deal; so of course we can stop the game and end the
pregnancy. I don’t think that’s particularly controversial, although it may be
hard to live out a commitment to a more serious attitude toward the gift of
human sexuality.
And it’s obvious that there are abortion promoters. If you
hang around Planned Parenthood, they are likely to teach you to get along with
abortion.
What’s less obvious is that eugenics leads to abortion. The
abortion movement globally and in Britain and in the United States was built by
the eugenics movement. The work of Margaret Sanger and of Planned Parenthood was not – and is not – feminism. Sanger made feminism subservient to the eugenics
movement. This is apparent is her two books, Pivot of Civilization (pivot = women, civilization = eugenics) and Woman and the New Race (woman =
feminism, new race = eugenics). Read the books! And it’s also obvious when you
look at population control globally, supported by Planned Parenthood. Planned
Parenthood supports choice as long as people choose abortion; but in China,
where women need help to resist a brutal depopulation policy, Planned
Parenthood supports the government, not women. (Read Germaine Greer for more.)
It’s pretty bizarre that if a woman feels trapped when she is facing a
pregnancy, and there are two options – abortion costing $200 or so, birth and
what follows costing more like $200,000 – that the organization helping make
the cheap option available get to be called “pro-choice.”
From the outset, abortion has been a key part of a
depopulation effort. The connection between Francis Galton and the abortion
clinic downtown is a smudgy connection, but it’s real, and it’s tremendously
important to understand.
The eugenics movement has another huge project underway to
squeeze populations. It’s restricting immigration. That effort began with
eugenicists, and it is still led, in America, by FAIR, CIS, and NumbersUSA,
organizations founded by a eugenicist who left Planned Parenthood to do
something more effective. And – this is truly weird! – pro-lifers sign up for
this flavor of eugenics!
How bad does this get? Well, there are about 65 million
refugees on the road this year. So that means there are about a million (+/-)
pregnant women on the road this year, fleeing from war or violence or poverty.
A million pregnant women. The pro-life response? Not my problem! Keep them
outta here!
Pregnant women on the road are just the most obvious part of
the problem. Abortion is often an act of naked despair, akin to suicide. Women
don’t have abortions because they need something cool to do this weekend; they
get abortions because they feel trapped. When women feel trapped, children die.
Okay, what makes women feel trapped? What makes people in general feel trapped?
Many things, but a new and ferocious one in our time is that the world’s escape
valve, the nation that has accepted refugees for generations, has closed its
borders. So you want a better life? Suck it up! You’re stuck! Restricting
immigration aggravates despair (which cause abortion).
Does that mean America has to fix every little thing in the
world that makes people unhappy? No, of course not. But when we take actions
that make people – including pregnant women – feel trapped, we should be ready
to explain why. The effectiveness of population control in other nations
depends in part on our immigration restrictions. We close the holes; they kill
the rats. Should pro-lifers be a part of that? (Recall the voyages of the St
Louis and the Golden Venture.)
Unborn children and immigrants show up in our lives on their
own schedules. They disrupt our lives. So we can be hospitable, and meet God.
Or turn our backs and refuse to help – and … well, go read Matthew 25.
Hospitality is not a decoration, like a polished piano in the corner of the
front room. Hospitality is a fundamental human virtue, a ray of light straight
from the burning heart of the Trinity.
Wait a minute, you might say. Eugenics, and especially
immigration restrictions, lead to abortion, just like lust and Planned
Parenthood? That’s not what I see at the abortion clinic. I never met a mom at
the door of a clinic who was talking about eugenics and immigration.
True enough. Eugenics is why the abortion clinic is there,
not why she is there.
So why is she there? Often, what you see in her is despair. Often,
you see pretty clearly that she was abused; she’s there to escape the brutality
of some guy who has been using her. Sometimes, what you see in abortion-bound
parents is a brutal materialism, or a blind selfishness. So it’s not always
about immigration or eugenics.
True. But it still amazes me that so many pro-lifers not
only demand that the nation be inhospitable to immigrants, but also – now, in
this unhappy year – expect pro-life miracles from a man who is known for his
naked materialism, blind selfishness, lust, and misogyny.
Does it make sense to oppose abortion – and at the same to
support (or at least tolerate) just about every power and ideology and habit
and vice that leads to abortion? How can that work?
+++++++
Racism again: the
Kantor scandal
Pro-lifers have a history of entanglement with racists. For
years, at the annual March for Life, the featured speaker – or at minimum, one
of the featured speakers – was the formidable Senator from North Carolina,
Jesse Helms. He was a pro-life leader – and he supported segregation. For
decades, the March for Life had flags and signs up front, flanked by the
gorgeous streamers of Tradition Family and Property (TFP), a Brazilian Fascist
organization that was founded to fight Communists and other social justice
activists – including the post-Council Catholic Church, which denounced TFP in
Brazil. For decades, the movement lionized Pat Buchanan, an isolationist and a
racist, who figured out how to blunt the social justice claims of the Catholic
Church and the Democratic Party. More recently, the pro-life movement has been
a strong and reliable element of the Tea Party – although in 2014 the Tea Party
mobilized to upset a conservative Republican House leader, Eric Kantor, and to
replace this sold pro-life vote with a pro-abortion vote. What was the reason
to oust this powerful conservative leader? Kantor’s crime: he agreed to
negotiate with Democrats about immigration reform.
And what was the pro-life response when the Tea Party hurt
the pro-life movement in order to stay fiercely anti-immigrant? There was
absolutely no response! The new priorities of the pro-life movement were thus
exposed: we are tied tight to the Tea Party, with all our eggs in one cracked
teacup.
+++++++
Racism again: Throwing Bell Curve
balls
When it
began, eugenics was embraced by conservatives and denounced by Engels. It is
noteworthy that over time this ideology of arrogance proved to be appealing on
the right (Galton), then the left (British Socialists), then the right (German
National Socialists), then the left (American environmentalists and the abortion
movement), then the right (see the Bell
Curve debate). Now, the eugenics movement has shifted right again.
In the 2016
election, pro-lifers were faced with two pro-abortion candidates. One from the
left, one from the right. Every person here understood the threat from the
left, from Hillary Clinton. (Everyone at
this meeting voted for ABH, anyone but Hillary – with a single slight
exception, who voted for ABHUIT – anybody but Hillary unless it’s Trump.
Every
pro-lifer understood the abortion threat from the left, but not everyone
understood the threat from the right.
There’s a
huge campaign of civil disobedience coming, and I don’t mean us. In his first few
weeks in office, Trump managed to threaten 10 percent of the population of the
nation, including 11 million people who came here without documentation and who
now know that Trump meant it when he said he wanted them all to leave, plus
three million Muslims who learned quickly that there will indeed be a new wave
of religious oppression, and 20 million people whose life and health depends on
Obamacare. The speed with which Trump moved to implement measures was
startling.
Pro-lifers
were tested when physicians in Texas realized that if they traveled to Iran to
treat unborn patients there, they might not be able to return – so they
cancelled their trips, and their patients slid toward death. And the deep
worries of pro-immigrant activists were realized when the USA deported a man
who said he would be killed if he was sent back home – and it turned out he was
right.
There will be
a huge campaign of civil disobedience resisting Trump’s anti-immigrant and
anti-Muslim policies. It has not taken shape yet, but it’s coming. It will
include references to natural law theory, and a global perspective on human
life. It will seek to defend Mexicans and others fleeing from death by raising
the necessity defense.
If we
re-build, we need to be able to explain the relationship between what they do
and what we do. What we do will always be contrasted with what they do. The new
Latino and Muslim campaign will not be a dozen tree-huggers; it will be huge
groups who will claim – honestly and credibly – the mantle of Martin Luther
King. They will fight for the rights of the children of Guadalupe, and they
will assert the necessity defense, on behalf of others. The will say that the
right to a trial is a God-given right, not an American creation. They will
assert that the right to legal advice – the right to a Paraclete – is a
God-given right, not an American creation. They will quote the Declaration of
Independence, and the Gettysburg Address, and Kennedy’s inaugural address – we
hold a revolutionary belief: that the rights of man come from the hand of God,
not the generosity of the State. They will insist that justice requires
balancing rights – the rights of Americans to control the border, but also the
rights of immigrants to freedom from violence and drug gangs.
Are we
positioned to respond to their arguments – which sound like ours? Will we
support their claims, or resist, or just try to stay out of it? If they assert
the necessity defense, and we don’t speak up to affirm this defense, will most
Americans be completely appalled by our inconsistency?
Muslims and
their friends will launch a huge push to protect religious rights from bigots. They
will quote the First Amendment, Vatican II, and Pope Francis, and the American
bishops. Are we going to talk about religious rights – and ignore their far
more pressing arguments about religious discrimination? Again, are we
positioned to respond to these arguments? Or will most Americans be completely
appalled by our inconsistency?
Muslims
fought with us against global population control, repeatedly. The global
pro-life alliance for decades has been: pro-lifers from the USA, two European
nations, the Vatican, Latinos, and Muslims – and sometimes feminists against
coercion. Trump has insulted the Pope, sworn to build a wall and keep Latinos
on the other side, urged a struggle against Islam, and offended feminists. Can
pro-lifers rescue the global alliance, or is it already smashed beyond repair?
Regarding Muslims in particular: will we recall their work? Will we be grateful
to our allies, or not?
The Church’s strength: three changes
from Vatican II
The Social
Gospel was not new with the Council, but the Council strengthened it immensely.
The Church sees justice as part of her work. Embracing the “social gospel”
means that we are deliberately engaged, as a Church, in work for justice, as
well as charity. This work was perhaps de-emphasized for a few centuries when
Catholics and Protestants were fighting each other, but now we’re back where we
belong, speaking out for justice – like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
whole prophetic tradition. (See Gaudium et Spes, or, to use the English
title, The Church in the Modern World.)
Embracing the
“social gospel” also means that for those who intend to be in unity with the
Church, it’s new and important to understand that the Church claims to have
authority to address issues of justice in the light of the Gospel. This is part
of the teaching mission and authority of the Church, not some kind of optional
or local or temporary aberration on the part of a wayward bigmouth priest or
bishop or national council (or pope). It
is our formal teaching now that work for justice is a constitutive element of
evangelization. (See the Vatican’s Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the
Church.)
The Church
has embraced a new or renewed respect for all religions. We still believe that
there are matters of immense importance that we understand better than others –
not because we are better people than anyone else, but because we have accepted
a gift. And we do feel immense urgency about making what we know available to
anyone who wants it. And yet, at the
same time, we do not feel obliged to press our views to an unreceptive
audience. The “great commission” is not an excuse for hatred or discrimination.
We recall the respectful dialogue that Paul initiated in Athens; whatever the
outcome, it is clear he did not feel obliged to threaten or condemn. (See Nostra Aetate.)
Nostra Aetate, 3. The Church regards
with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in
Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has
spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable
decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in
linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God,
they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times
they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of
judgment when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised
up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially
through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.
Since in the course of centuries not a
few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this
sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual
understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of
all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.
+++++++
It is a
matter of the greatest urgency that we rebuild a solid movement of pro-life
nonviolence. But we can’t do it carelessly. If we make a list of unnecessary
foolish mistakes again, the price of our carelessness will be oceans of blood –
children’s blood. So we shouldn’t dither and let ourselves be paralyzed by lengthy
debates; but before God, we must not be stupid again.
1.
What’s nonviolence?
2.
Are you committed to honesty and candor?
3.
Will you take responsibility for the forces you
unleash?
4.
Nonviolence or polarization: it’s a choice. What’s
your choice?
5.
What is your relationship with the Church?
6.
Will you ignore racism?
If we (or you) can
overcome these hurdles, then we (you) can start.