Virgin Islanders focused on Christmas shopping, the changeover in government, algae on the beach and the potential Hovensa sale may have missed some of the news from the mainland of the world’s greatest democracy. Given how bad most of it was, they are probably better off.
The United States Congress adjourned and congratulated itself on a great achievement. It did not shut down our government, avoiding a repeat of last year’s events, which damaged the nation’s credit and caused billions of dollars in economic damage.
This is not to say that many Republicans did not want to shut down the government, which they hate, to punish President Obama for his executive order on immigration. They did, but enough of them were afraid of repercussions down the line to reject this option. They also considered holding their breath until the president rescinded the order, but some realized that he might welcome that option.
We now have government by blackmail in the United States. If we do not get our way, we’ll wreck everything and bring the whole house down. If we do get our way, we will only wreck some things. This was the week when that pattern became crystal clear and gave Americans – including Virgin Islanders – a taste of the future that faces us.
To pass a budget to keep the government running, the Congress approved and sent to the president for signature a bill that included a series of provisions that will prove disastrous for our country. None of these were discussed in any hearing, and no member of Congress is willing to claim authorship of them.
Here is what, among other things, this bill includes. First, putting taxpayers back on the hook for reckless derivatives trading by big banks. (Note: this amendment actually had no author because it was written, word for word, by Citigroup. If this recklessness causes another financial crash, the likelihood of repeating the TARP bailout would seem very slim. )
Next, the ceiling on campaign contributions was raised almost to the sky, but stopped just short, at three-quarters of a million dollars. I’m sure that this is a relief to many “average” voters like me. We will now put a few extra dollars aside each month to get ready to make our $700,000 contribution to the 2016 election horror show.
At the same time that Congress was taking this action to make sure that they were amply financed by their corporate paymasters, a small group of hyper-rich Republicans was meeting in secret. They were figuring out how to save money and avoid the messy process of having voters pick the next Republican candidate for president.
Next, with the president’s signature, more on that in a minute, those who believe that they have a secure pension in the United States will have to think again. That security will be gone. Buried in the bill is a provision that would have been unthinkable just ten years ago.
Next, because, as one of the far-right Republicans from the Confederacy said, they were doing a “bad job,” the bill slashes the budget of the IRS by some $350 million. So, if members of Congress weren’t able to accommodate you through some special provision in the tax code, don’t worry. You should be able to get away with cheating in the future.
President Obama, seeking to outdo his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton as an omni-directional placator and Wall Street suck-up, will sign this into law. He will claim that it is a necessary compromise.
To imply that this was a strictly Republican operation is the kind of thing that sends the Tea Party people into what used to be known as conniption fits. And they would be right. There will be no blaming the Tea Party this time, since Democrats have their fingerprints all over this shameful act. After all, Democrats don’t want to lose their place at the feeding trough. That would, in their view, be unilateral disarmament.
Then we come to the week’s other news, the Senate torture report, and another reason to abandon all hope at this “most wonderful time of year.” There is the report itself, which makes for depressing reading, but possibly more depressing has been the reaction to it. The reaction makes clear that there is a part of our permanent government that is capable of horrific actions and that will never be accountable to any elected leader, unless it is someone like Dick Cheney. The head of the CIA made that clear in his extraordinary press conference.
We now know that there is the substantial portion of the population that supports torturing other human beings under the following conditions: those being tortured are not white, right-wing suburban Christian Americans; the less we know about the unpleasantness, the better; please use misleading euphemisms like “EITs,” torture being such a nasty word; and, as in the case of military service, these Americans would prefer that someone else’s sons and daughters do the torturing.
Most of all, let’s not bring up all that business about good and evil, right and wrong, the fact that torture is a crime, and how we were supposed to be different. Our now totally feckless mass media has handled this matter in its usual sub-pathetic manner by focusing on the question: did it work? By week’s end, they had a new talking point: how is torture (Bush/Cheney) different from drone attacks (Obama)? That is to say, who was your favorite Menendez brother?
So, let’s turn to some good news. Well, at least it seemed good for a while until it was revealed to be not what it had seemed. According to the first report, a small boy in tears asked Pope Francis if his little dog, who had just died, would go to heaven. The pope responded, “All of God’s creatures go to heaven.”
Well, it turns out that it was not Pope Francis, but Pope Paul VI, who actually said it many years ago. But The New York Times story kind of confused that, and it set off a media feeding frenzy and a firestorm. The deep divisions in our society all came to the surface because of a long deceased Italian pup and little Giovanni’s tears. PETA and the ASPCA immediately praised the pope as the leader we had long hoped for and reported massive conversions to Catholicism among pet owners worldwide.
In New York, beta fish were taken out of their bowls and baptized. But here is the rub, where the nastiness started to surface. Anti-Catholic groups demanded to know who in the hell is the pope to say who can get into heaven?
Others, including zero-sum, hardline, right wing Christians, claimed that there was barely enough room in heaven for deserving humans (specifically them, and their need for at least 3,000 sqare feet, without bringing in a bunch of animals.)
Nobody wanted to touch the issue of the possibility of burning in hell for all eternity within this context. There was an implicit assumption that all of these pet owners and their pets would be heading north, instead of south. Based on what we see around us every day, that does not seem to be a correct assumption.
Finally, there were the intellectuals, the naysayers and the troublemakers. Occupying the middle ground, I assumed that, if they were letting dogs in, our house cats, at least the nice one, could be headed for the Promised Land. Where number two, “the cat from hell”, will go is anyone’s guess.
But, as one snarky professor wanted to know, if it’s all God’s creatures, what about mosquitos? You have to admit that she had a point, and opened the door about the prospects of a lot of other creatures going to heaven. And, more fundamentally, if they are going to heaven, it must mean that they have souls, and this is where it gets really tricky. If a puppy has a soul, does it mean that a mosquito has one too?
In researching the matter, I found that there are three theological authorities who have addressed the matter. They are (in chronological order) Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and John Devine, formerly of Peterborg, St. Thomas. In their view, there are three stages in the development of the soul: the vegetative, the animal and the fully human. The non-human animals would be stuck in stage two, and therefore, it is a tough call as to whether they get into heaven or not.
Catholics used to have limbo, which was for unbaptized infants and could have been a good spot for the pups, kittens and hamsters, but that’s out now.
What do these trends and events mean for Virgin Islanders going forward? The pets in heaven issue is pretty much a one-day story, and Virgin Islanders will have to sort this out on an individual basis, depending on their faith, projected heavenly needs and the presence or absence of these creatures in their homes.
The other issues are far more serious. There is a profound message in these Congressional actions and in the administration’s acquiescence. It is that our country’s political class and the elites that control or report on them are now so far removed from the reality of ordinary Americans, both on the mainland and in the territory, that Virgin Islanders need to think more seriously than ever about how to manage on their own.
Given the territory’s racial makeup, and the likelihood of Republican control of all three branches of government in the years ahead, there will be scant sympathy for the problems of Virgin Islanders, whether they are related to poverty, public safety employment or health care. In a country in which non-whites, immigrants, poor people and “liberals” are increasingly otherized, there will be a temptation to make an example of the territory or to demonstrate how unfettered capitalism and cuts in social spending can produce a new American paradise.
Also, the potential for ever-increasing corruption will make the Virgin Islands, as obscure and small as it is to these elites, more vulnerable than ever.
Virgin Islanders can, in many ways, control their future. Making that future better will depend on social solidarity and an openness that do not currently exist, and a rejection of the deep-seated pessimism and passivity that do exist. It will be easy to blame the federal government for the territory’s ills, and much of that blame will be well-deserved. It just won’t do any good. Nobody will be listening.
