April 14, 2018

      I have been thinking (that could be dangerous) lately about Trumps keeping his promises even if they are hurtful and damaging to our allies and to the world as a whole except to his faithful sycophants.

He like to take credit for anything good, like the stock market when it goes up, but silence when it goes down. He took credit for the release (big public exercise) of the three Americans of Korean descent (Obama had had released 11 Americans but never trumpeted it about). But it was  a bit too much when, in so many words, he thanked and praised Trump for the nice way he treated these prisoners. It was interesting to watch the look on the faces of the other two (one was waving his hands, I am sure, only too happy to be free, no time to quibble now) who looked stony faced in response to this unbelievable statement. Torture is the name of the game, not beautiful treatment.

But especially when it comes to his taking credit for bringing Kim Jong Un to the point where he was willing to sit down and talk. I think there must be a lapse of memory when we recall that each time Un fired off another rocket or tested another atomic device, more sanctions were put in him. It didn’t stop him. He fired a few more, and more sanctions, and name calling, but it didn’t stop him. Even when China got in the act and boycotted 60% of the goods that go to NK from China. That didn’t stop him. He kept on testing his missiles until he finally got on that would go all the way to Los Angeles or even Washington DC, and could be fitted with a nuclear warhead. Now he had the deterrent he wanted and felt that he needed, so now he was prepared to sit down and talk. Ha. Maybe that was forgotten in all the praises and plaudits of Trump how he, and he alone, through his tough policies got Kim to the conference table. I am of the mind that it was really when Kim felt that he had some Aces in his hand that he was not prepared to talk. I may be wrong but I feel that Trump is a bit too quick to take all the credit for this upcoming event.

     I also wonder what Trump is going to say to Kim as a guarantee that he will stick with whatever agreement is made. Kim can easily say, why should they trust the US agreements when they have so many recent examples of breaking agreements (NAFTA, PTT, PARIS ACCORD, IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL, etc.  He keeps his promises to his supporters at home, but breaks his promises to all his friends abroad. What the heck is going on. No one, I repeat , no one, will ever trust any agreements that they make with America. We have recent events as proof that America can’t be trusted.  How nice. Thank you Mr. Trump.

   Here is something else that has been irritating me…. The gun control debate. Can you image the proposal that Trump made to the school kids and the school teachers as a solution to the security in schools, that every teacher should have a gun. Holy Moses. Maybe I am mad but rather than being a solution, it seems to me to be pouring oil on the fire. I would probably be afraid to attend a school where I knew that every teacher (some get under stress from time to time) knowing that the teacher who is teaching me had a gun ready to be used. Wow!

    Listen to what Sr. Joan Chittister says.

And a little child shall lead them

Young people are leading the way against US gun violence

Mar 19, 2018

by Joan Chittister

Opinion

This article appears in the Gun Violence feature series. View the full series.

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Students choose to leave class and gather near the U.S. Capitol in Washington to demand stricter gun laws March 14 during the National School Walkout. (CNS/Reuters/Jim Bourg)

Between 1900 and 2018, there have been at least 146 protest marches and rallies, gatherings of people to express their social and political views, in Washington, D.C. It is a time-honored American way of making sure that the government "hears" the people, their passion and their political aspirations. The First Amendment allows this kind of speech, and the government protects it.

Now we have another protest brewing, the national March for Our Lives, which is being led by students. This First Amendment display of complaint is to protest the use of the Second Amendment to protect the widespread availability of military-style weapons on American streets.

It's difficult to tell exactly what is driving the student anti-gun demonstrations that are taking place all across the country: It may, of course, be the actions of the most recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 14 of their classmates and three of the school's staff members dead and another 14 of them wounded.

On the other hand, it may equally be the non-action of adults. Since the shootings at Columbine in 1999, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, and the 50 other mass murders or attempted mass murders at schools since then — 17 of them by children under the age of 15 — not one piece of national legislation has been passed to either stop the shootings or protect the victims, though some has at the state level.

According to an FBI report in 2016, 129 victims, most of them children, died in other schools before Parkland. (Not to mention the more than 1,600 other mass shootings of adult gatherings that left 1,800 dead and more than 6,400 wounded as of 2018.) Certainly, the reason for the reaction in Florida is clear and — we might even safely say — overdue.

Since no one else is doing anything about it, the young people have taken it upon themselves. They lay the responsibility directly at the feet of the politicians who define themselves as the guardians of the democracy. The students' March for Our Lives on Washington, D.C., scheduled for March 24, defines three issues for resolution: age restrictions on gun purchase, a ban on assault-style weapons, and the demilitarization of police forces.

The point is that we now have two tragedies here: the first is the mounting numbers of deaths in classrooms, the second is the seeming political indifference to it. Where being re-elected in a country obsessed with guns is obviously more important than protecting schoolchildren, politicians have refused to regulate the sale of guns by either age or category.

As a result young people can get a gun in the United States before they get a diploma and with it the hoped-for control it takes to decide how and when to use it. Worse, adults argue back at student activists with a straight face that taking military-style weapons off the streets would violate the Second Amendment rights of sportsmen — translation: of deer and rabbit hunters mostly. The adult arguments clearly do not persuade: "Protect children, not guns" one of the protest signs says, as students walk through city streets in protest.

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Whatever the reason for ignoring the call for gun control, the disease of indifference is now being compounded by the unwillingness of even some school administrators and state officials to support last week's student walk-outs designed to demonstrate local solidarity on gun issues.

The problem is a delicate one but one that is easily solved: Yes, children belong in classrooms … unless or until we want them at a larger school event, or a national academic event, or athletic events, or some kind of competition somewhere else. Then they can be easily dismissed and all in the name of education. Or in the name of authority, of course, as in "it depends on who told them they were allowed to go."

In this current situation, over 2,500 schools registered to participate in these public exercises in democracy, civics, social justice and moral development. If there were ever a teaching moment, these schools seem to realize, this is surely it.

But for some administrators, for a few schools, the calendar and the authority questions have taken precedence over education. The question is why? And so what?

Why, when as educators we preach the power of civic involvement, would this not be the ideal time to teach the place of people power in a democracy, the number of times the legislative process has begun in the streets rather than in a committee, a commission, or even a Congress. Enshrined by the U.S. Constitution from our earliest days, protest rallies have allowed people to express opinion and call for action on issues as different as women's suffrage, immigration, public assistance, civil rights, peace in Vietnam, abolition of abortion, equal rights for women, nuclear disarmament, LGBT rights, and an end to gun violence. Among other things. And all of those protests surely took time from the regular schedules, jobs, and educational activities of hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and states of life. They have changed America.

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Kira K. shows the shirt she revealed March 14 while standing in silence for 17 minutes by herself during math class in support of the National School Walkout that day at 10 a.m. The shirt lists the names of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting Feb. 14 in Parkland, Florida. (Provided photo)

From where I stand, it is clear to me that solidarity with that kind of concern has always been the backbone of this country. In an era when the very foundation of democracy is under pressure, when peace needs a voice in a violent country, when rational protest is meant to precede angry moves toward radicalism, our young people are walking in the best of the tradition. Surely there is a way for education to make both solidarity and public witness, freedom of conscience and moral development possible without threatening, intimidating and punishing students because they have the passion for something we should have but do not.

The memories of young people in anguish over Vietnam — the marches, the drum beats, the reading of the names of the dead — finally awakened the conscience of the nation. It was an exercise, I realized later, in coming to understand the truth of "and a little child shall lead them." I can't believe that class assignments, class discussion, class participation and class schedules couldn't be organized to make that possible again before it spills over into more pain.

Most of all, I am grateful for the schools made that possible before the next shooting comes and really disrupts our children's neat curriculums and nice daily schedules. That kind of education may well protect this country from itself. Again. In fact, it might even make America great again.

[Joan Chittister is a Benedictine sister of Erie, Pennsylvania.]

Editor's note: We can send you an email alert every time Joan Chittister's column, From Where I Stand, is posted to NCRonline.org. Go to this page and follow directions: Email alert sign-up.

In the meantime, I have been reflecting on the readings for the two feasts we just celebrated, one being a reminder that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The other is what we celebrated yesterday, the Ascension.

The story about the vine and the branches reminds us that the gardener (God) prunes those branches that are already bearing good fruit to make them bear even more fruit. I thought that maybe when something bad or challenging happens, it is like God pruning that person, a good person, to be even better. For example. I was dancing two Saturdays ago with a young woman (maybe 40 yrs. Old) who was born with disfigured hands and feet. With much perseverance and many ops, she managed to overcome this disability and I was able to even dance with her. If she had been born like any other normal little girl, she would have grown up and no one would have paid special attention to her. But because of her struggle to get herself right, a very painful and challenging struggle, people who observed, where touched and inspired by her, e.g. she was bearing much more fruit than would ordinarily have been the case. Do you get what I am driving at. What may seem to be a disaster, a car accident, a life-threatening bout with cancer, being accidentily infected with AIDS, etc. etc. etc. may be the cause of deep thinking and reflecting, along and with others, that begins to bear much more fruit than if such disastrous things had never happened on ones’ life.

    As for the Ascension, I can imagine what the Apostles felt when Jesus said, I did what I had to do, now I am going home to be with my Father, where I came from. You know what I am all about and how your lives were changed, now I leave it up to you to go out and let others know that this is what life is all about. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Our world seems to be going in the opposite direction. But what boggles my mind is that he TRUSTS us. He knows how dumb and weak we are, but he gives us, through the Apostles and their successors and the whole Christian community, the task to bringing this good news to THE WHOLE WORLD. Holy Moses. You can imagine their consternation. Us, you trust us with this unbelievable task. Are you mad. And, on top of that, you are leaving us. We counted on you. What are we going to do now without you. Scared to death. Depressed. Overwhelmed. Then, Jesus says, I know how you feel so  I will send you the Holy Spirit who will help you, teach you, empower you, etc. so don’t be afraid. For you who are not believers or who are not Christians, this gives and idea what a good believing Christian is about.

 But that is enough for now for you to chew on. I am having some trouble with my teeth and will be seeing my dentist tomorrow (Sr. Michael Klosson, CPS). I hope that she can continue to salvage what is left. Ha.

Love and Peace, Cas.