Independence Day: Remembering Those in Prison and Those Who are Being Tortured

Winona, Minn., along the Mississippi River, Courtesy of Winona State University.

This 4th of July I’m planning a day trip south along the Mississippi in my recently acquired dark green Honda Civic coupe, a reliable little car that gets good gas mileage. I’m packing a picnic lunch, my camera, my daily journal, a lawn chair, and a couple of books to read at rest stops on my way down through Hastings, Red Wing, and on to Winona. The fact that I live in a 4th floor apartment with windows facing a sterile courtyard heightens my anticipation for tomorrow’s adventure.

You bet I’m grateful for the freedom and the means to leave the city behind this Independence Day as I take to the open road, specifically the southern leg of Minnesota’s scenic Highway 61.

However, my planned celebration of the freedoms I enjoy as an American this holiday weekend is not without a shadow of grief for what our country continues to practice in the name of its citizens against so-called “enemy combatants.”

President Obama has agreed with the Bush Administration that our government has the right to violate our constitutionally guaranteed standards of justice by indefinitely imprisoning terror suspects without trial. We can be thankful, I guess, that according to the AP’s Lara Jakes that although he has not given up on the idea, the president at least now feels “uneasy” about his own proposal.

Reporting on a recent interview with Obama, Jakes writes:

The president stopped short of abandoning his tentative idea of continuing to hold a small number of detainees in other prisons after Guantanamo closes, which is expected to happen early next year.

But Obama said he has strong reservations about detaining people without bringing them to trial — a legal quagmire that dogged former President George W. Bush.

Jakes notes further:

Constitutional scholars and civil liberties groups have pummeled Obama for considering indefinite detention — what they called a mirror image of one of Bush’s most controversial policies.

Jakes continues:

“It gives me huge pause,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And that’s why we’re going to proceed very carefully on this front. And it may turn out that after looking at all the dimensions of this that I don’t feel comfortable with the proposals that surface on how to deal with this issue.”

Most of the 229 terror suspects and foreign fighters currently at Guantanamo have been held for up to seven years without being charged. Many will be prosecuted.

One of the books I’m taking along with me tomorrow as I follow the river road is Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Energy of Prayer.” Hanh writes:

When we send the energy of love and compassion to another person, it doesn’t matter if they know we are sending it. The important thing is that the energy is there and the heart of love is there and is being sent out into the world. When love and compassion are present in us, and we send them outward, than that is truly prayer.

As we celebrate our considerable freedom tomorrow, let’s intentionally direct our love and compassion toward the prisoners at Guantanamo, especially Jawad who was reportedly no older than an adolescent when first detained. According to Bob Herbert in the NY Times, Jawad has been tortured and the evidence against him has been discredited.

In the above “prayers,” we’ll also be keeping faith with a relevant biblical teaching: “remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured” (Hebrews 13: 1-3).

PATRICK MURPHY DIED LAST WEEK

Patrick Murphy died last week. The obituary said that he died at home and “was surrounded by family and friends”. I was touched by that one line in the paper. So fitting for a man who had done so much for them from such an early age. I sort of knew Patrick Murphy when I was growing up and from time to time I wondered what had become of him over the years.

I was a few years younger than Patrick and living within the confines of the same neighborhood it was not unheard of to know just about everybody who shared the same streets, schools, churches that made up a community of blue collar neighbors just trying to make a living and raising their families the best way they knew how.

Patrick lived a different life from the rest of us. His father had left the family and Patrick aged 12 was left in charge. His youngest brother Tommy was not quite 4. There were three sisters in between, Kathleen, Eileen and Theresa. Five kids, no father, and a mother who drank herself into a stupor every day of the week. Unable to adequately look after her children and their care, the mantle of responsibility was passed onto Patrick. He served as both mother and father to his younger siblings while maintaining the role of caregiver that had been abandoned by his mother as she nursed her sorrow from a bottle.

But being “different” made life that much more difficult for Patrick as he would have to rush home from school, tend to Tommy who had been essentially alone for much of the day as their mother slowly became more and more inebriated as the hours progressed. The five children worked as a team. Washing and hanging out the laundry, food shopping together, picking up the house, preparing the meals, maintaining the yard, and under the direction of Patrick, they attempted to survive the fate that had been dealt to them by sticking close together as a group. They kept pretty much to themselves overall and for that they stood out.

See Patrick was “different” in other ways as well. He was rather effeminate in his manner and came to the attention of some of the other kids in the neighborhood who felt it their duty to constantly point that out. They nicknamed him “Mary” and hooted and hollered each time he ventured out the door. Head down, eyes on the pavement, Patrick managed his way past the bullies who dogged his every step. Pushing, shoving, throwing objects, jerking his book bag, pulling at his shirt. The handful of kids who found this amusing must have left irreversible scars on his soul. But too young and too ignorant to realize the effect, the torment went on unabated. Patrick Murphy was pretty much out there on his own. Empathy was elusive for him. How that must have hurt.

One day stands out. A group of kids were playing in the street as Patrick and his siblings came back from the grocery store. Four year old Tommy was sitting in the wagon that Patrick was pulling holding a gallon of milk between his little legs. The three sisters were each carrying a bag of groceries and following along. The hooting and hollering started from the group in the street and they slowly made their way to where the Murphy children were inching along the pavement. Some pushing and shoving began and someone accidentally lost their footing and upended the wagon causing Tommy to fall out with the bottle of milk being smashed onto the sidewalk. The liquid ran everywhere and Tommy began to wail.

The bullies, never intending to have their “fun” go that far, ran off in several directions. Mrs. O’Neil was the first to arrive on the scene and took charge, tipping the wagon upright, comforting Tommy, and seeing the Murphy children to their door. She returned to the scene, picking up the glass fragments from the milk bottle and proceeded to visit each parent of the bullies who had caused this tragedy to occur. Punishments were passed out by degree and the offenders were made to go to the Murphy home and apologize, promising to leave the Murphy children in peace. The shame of the offenders was there for all to witness. Penance was sought in the confessional for the wicked behavior that had taken place that afternoon. The Murphy children were never bothered again to my knowledge.

I can relate this episode with all due clarity since I was one of those in the group that day. A nine year old who thought it was “fun” to harass and bully a group that had done nothing but only meant to survive the ordeal of just being who they were. “Fun” at the expense of a little boy who was made to tip out of a wagon and shattering a gallon of milk they could probably ill afford. “Fun” at the expense of a 12 year old boy who was already bearing the burden of adulthood through no fault of his own. “Fun” in pointing out that Patrick Murphy was “different” and therefore “had it coming”. “Fun” in making three little girls cry while they watched and listened as their brother was taunted and made fearful. “Fun” in making their lives all that more miserable by a group of bullies who should have known better.

I lived with that shame knowing the part I played as well. Over the years my mind would drift back to that day and I would blanch at my own involvement. Having children of my own I did not want them to suffer at the hands of bullies or have them discover that their own mother had been part of a group that had made life miserable for another human being on a certain summer day so many years before.

Patrick Murphy died last week. He never married according to his write up. He left his three sisters, a brother, numerous nieces and nephews, and his partner John. I hope that he found comfort in his role as the family caretaker and provider through all the years of sacrifice. I hope that the goodness and love that Patrick gave was as much appreciated in return. I like to think it was. Robbed of the childhood he never had, my wish is that he found comfort in the love of those siblings he helped raise.

“Surrounded by family and friends.” What a lovely tribute. At the end, we can only hope for as much.

Morning Widdershins: FDR vs. Reagan – The Battle for the Soul of America

California is in crisis. Like almost every state in the Union after eight years of Bush, it is bankrupt. However, California is especially stuck, because back in the late 70’s, it put the question of property taxes to the voters. Well, as we all know, people love to vote for higher taxes, don’t they? The aptly-named Proposition 13 passed, and the property taxes were frozen at a very low level. 

The most significant portion of the act is the first paragraph, which capped real estate taxes:

“

Section 1. (a) The maximum amount of any ad valorem tax on real property shall not exceed One percent (1%) of the full cash value of such property. The one percent (1%) tax to be collected by the counties and apportioned according to law to the districts within the counties.

”

The proposition’s passage resulted in a cap on property tax rates in the state, reducing them by an average of 57%. In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes. Proposition 13 received an enormous amount of publicity, not only in California, but throughout the United States.^[1]

Passage of the initiative presaged a “taxpayer revolt” throughout the country that is sometimes thought to have contributed to the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. However, of 30 anti-tax ballot measures that year, only 13 of them passed.^[2]

A large contributor to Proposition 13 was the sentiment that older Californians should not be priced out of their homes through high taxes.^[3] The proposition has been called the “third rail” (meaning “untouchable subject”) of California politics and it is not politically popular for Sacramento lawmakers to attempt to change it.^[3]

So, not only is the Golden State suffering because of the housing crisis (California is where a lot of the overbuilding was done) and the credit crunch; it is also unable to make up the difference in tax revenues. Of course, the matter has not been helped by the tenure of Ah-Nuld, the Governator himself, who is using this crisis to suggest the type of spending cuts Grover Norquist and all his Social Darwinist throwbacks could only dream of, and who may have conspired with Enron to defraud the state of $9 billion, thus contributing mightily to the problem he is now bemoaning.