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Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

a brief and minimal reduction of maximum personal freedom

quackery — Quackery: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Unported License

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a noted German theologian and resister. “So despondent had been the German people after the defeat of World War I and the subsequent economic depression that the charismatic Hitler appeared to be the nation’s answer to prayer — at least to most Germans…

“Hitler’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions intensified — as did his opposition, which included the likes of theologian Karl Barth, pastor Martin Niemoller, and the young Bonhoeffer.” You should read the whole passage, as it is instructive. “On April 9, 1945, one month before Germany surrendered, he was hanged with six other resisters.”

Now his biographer, theologian Charles Marsh has brought these words to our attention. “You can apply them … as you see fit.”

“Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force…

“Against stupidity we are defenseless; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed, and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one.”

A couple things I read recently came to mind. One was from a friend of mine IRL that she had posted on Facebook. It started: “From Yale Epidemiologist Jonathan Smith: As an infectious disease epidemiologist, at this point I feel morally obligated to provide some information on what we are seeing from a transmission dynamic perspective and how they apply to the social distancing measures.” Then 16 more paragraphs of rational thought about how to fight COVID-19.

He blinded them… with science!

Yet I wrote: “Yeah, science, blah blah blah. The audience who believe this already knows. And the ones who refuse to listen, you lost them at ‘Epidemiologist.'”

Opposing Social Distancing Isn’t About Freedom, Tim Wise wrote. It sure the heck isn’t about science either.

Scenario One: For the next six months, everyone masks in crowded public places such as stores, restaurants, and office buildings. It’s a minor irritant that no one enjoys, but it helps reduce infection, saves lives, and makes more people willing to go out and engage in commerce. This, in turn, puts us on a path to economic recovery, at the cost of just a brief and minimal reduction of maximum personal freedom.

Scenario Two: For the next six months, people are allowed to mask if they want to, or not, in crowded public places, and many — chanting freedom and liberty — choose not to. As a result, there is more infection, more illness, and more death of persons with underlying health issues (but who nonetheless have to do things like getting groceries and who engage with otherwise healthy people who may spread the virus to them).

And as a result of a much slower reduction in COVID cases, commercial activity returns more tentatively as many people remain afraid to venture out for much of anything beyond necessities. This, in turn, slows the recovery but maximizes the personal freedom of those opposed to masking (even as it reduces the true freedom of everyone else by forcing them to take greater risks).

Is there any doubt what the Gadsden Flag wavers and MAGA faithful would choose? Of course not.

Do unto others…

Tim Wise calls those people sociopaths. “What do we call those with such a cavalier attitude about the well-being of others? What is the word for persons who lack a seemingly functional conscience about the consequences of their actions?” While I’m not yet willing to slap that label onto these people. I will say they are, apparently intentionally, woefully ignorant.

The number of cases begin to rise worldwide as restrictions are lifted. But this isn’t just a function of pandemic exhaustion. There was an article, “I’ll do what I want”: Why the people ignoring social distancing orders just won’t listen back on March 24.

I’ll stick with Dietrich Bonhoeffer on stupidity as the root of the problem. Not just here and now, but crossing time and place. Or to quote the philosopher Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does.”

Music for the 38th parallel: 1950

Ames Brothers, Andrews Sisters

Patti Page Just as the 38th parallel separates North and South Korea, so does the year 1950 bisect the century. This was the year the Korean war began. It ended, sort of, three years later.

It was the year my parents got married, which I always appreciated. The round year made remembering which anniversary they were celebrating. they were wed 50 years before my dad died in 2000.

A bit about the list below. Billboard had a “triad of charts – record sellers, juke boxes, and radio airplay” in this period. this explains why there 103 weeks represented in the list below.

The Tennessee Waltz – Patti Page, #1 for thirteen weeks, gold record. I have this one a compilation.
Goodnight Irene – Gordon Jenkins and the Weavers, #1 for thirteen weeks, gold record. When I was a kid, my father used to come to my classroom every semester. He’d always sing this song, attributed to Leadbelly. My classmates assumed I put him up to it, and that I had a crush on the girl in our class named Irene, which was untrue.

“The Third Man” Theme – Anton Karas, #1 for eleven weeks
The Third Man Theme – Guy Lombardo, #1 for eleven weeks, gold record

If You Knew You Were Comin’ (I’d Have Baked A Cake) – Eileen Barton, #1 for ten weeks, gold record. This is a song that my mother would sing around the house.

Mona Lisa – Nat “King” Cole, #1 for eight weeks, gold record. I have this, of course. My mom’s favorite artist.
Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy – Red Foley, #1 for eight weeks, gold record

Yes, you can

I Can Dream, Can’t I? – Andrews Sisters, #1 for five weeks, gold record
All My Love (Bolero) – Patti Page, #1 for five weeks
The Thing – Phil Harris, #1 for five weeks, gold record. This was a novelty song that I heard on the radio, long before Dr. Demento.

Harbor Lights – Sammy Kaye with Tony Alamo and the Kayets, #1 for four weeks
Music! Music! Music! – Teresa Brewer, #1 for four weeks. On the record album I never wrote, let alone performed, a snippet of this song appears. “Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon.”

I Wanna Be Loved – Andrew Sisters with Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra, #1 for two weeks
Rag Mop – Ames Brothers, #1 for two weeks, gold record. I know this from the Beany and Cecil cartoon show.
The Cry Of The Wild Goose – Frankie Laine, #1 for two weeks, gold record
Hoop-Dee-Doo – Perry Como, with the Fontane Sisters, #1 for two weeks

Sentimental Me – Ames Brothers, #1 for one week, gold record

Become an anti-racist, please

“Racism is an insidious cultural disease.”

All the black people in your life are tired — Posted on my cousin’s FB feed last week. I TOTALLY get it.

I’m rather pissed off, OK? The Trumpy people to whom I am somehow related engaged me in conversation this past weekend about George Floyd. But the FOX News watchers managed to obfuscate it with” Yes, but.” Suddenly, it’s the question of “If the demonstrators can go out to protest, why can’t we open the churches?” Kellyanne Conway would be proud.

But I’m also rather annoyed with white liberals who are shocked, SHOCKED that police abuse still takes place. Haven’t you been paying attention? And they’re sending me solutions – “this is a chance for REAL dialogue!” I’ve been having “real dialogue” at least since my sister Leslie and I, as high schoolers, went to the nearly lily-white Vestal (NY) Junior High School to talk to the choir kids.

People Need to STOP Saying “All Lives Matter”. And they REALLY need to quit with, “That’s not what Martin Luther King, Jr. would do.” Remember, they killed him, too.

I saw the video of Van Jones on Conan O’Brien this week. Jones said, and I’m paraphrasing, “White people, you need to do the work.” He specifically recommended that they watch Thirteenth and read The New Jim Crow. I TOTALLY agree. In fact, they both appear on PARADE magazine’s 40 Anti-Racist TV Series, Docs, Movies, TED Talks, and Books to Add to Your List.

“There’s no such thing as ‘not racist’” – Ibram X. Kendi

Anti-racist? YES – check out this link! It’s not just, “I can’t be prejudiced, I have a black friend.” It is becoming “actively conscious about race and racism and taking actions to end racial inequities in our daily lives.”

Dealing with racism should not be black or brown people’s problem. “Being anti-racist is believing that racism is everyone’s problem, and we all have a role to play in stopping it.”

Here’s a quote by author Scott Woods:

The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not.

Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on.

So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything.

counteracting interpersonal racism

Trinity UMC, my first Albany church

chair of the Council on Ministries

Trinity UMC In the telephone contact thing I’ve been doing, I re-established my friendship with Lori, who I haven’t seen since 2004. And it had been at least a decade, and an interstate move on her part since we last connected.

She asked me if I had ever written about how I departed from my first church in Albany, Trinity United Methodist. I had not. In the blog, and in conversation, I usually deflected the topic, referring to it as The Troubles. But it’s been two decades and perhaps I should explain.

Before that, however, I reckon I ought to talk about the better times at Trinity UMC. It is a cathedral, really, an imposing structure on the corner of Lark and Lancaster Streets. Before I stepped into the building, I used to live at 223 Lancaster Street, so I would pass by it every day when I worked at FantaCo.

Then in 1982, my maternal grandmother died in Charlotte, NC. The family held a service at Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton. I decided to go church shopping in Albany with my then-girlfriend. The very first day we attended was June 13. I remember this well because the minister, Stan Moore, spoke positively about the anti-nuke rally we had attended the day before in New York City.

What sealed the deal, though, was when Gray Taylor, one of the tenors, came down from the choir loft and invited people to come to rehearsals and perhaps join the choir. A basic “Ask and ye shall be given” moment. Early in 1983, I joined the singers. In December 1984, under the leadership of an interim pastor, I joined the church.

The folks

Choirs are fascinating organisms. As I’ve written, Arlene Mahigian had “adopted” me, treating me like a son. Art Pitts was a bass who helped acclimate me to choral singing again. Steber and Jean Kerr had me over for Thanksgiving dinner a couple of years. Helen and Bob Pratt drove me to and from church for a time. Jeannette and I share a birthday. A bunch of us would go out to a local tavern before choir for dinner.

While some folks came and went, there was a core of people who were present for most of my tenure there,. As a result of that, and some good directors, we made “a joyful noise to the Lord,” as they say. One particular member was the tenor soloist in the 1980s, Sandy Cohen, a colorful character. One day he had one of his heart attacks during the service. But he refused to leave until he “finished the gig.” He died on December 24, 1990, right before that service. We never sounded worse as a choir, singing through tears.

I was very involved in the governance at Trinity UMC. At different times, I was chair of the Council on Ministries and the Administrative Board. COM was comprised of committee chairs for the various missions and ministries of the church. The Admin Board was the entity, comprised of a large percentage of the active congregants, which passed measures to implement policy decisions.

On May 15, 1999, my wife and I were married there. The following year, we were gone. What happened? That’s a story for another day.

The rage isn’t only over George Floyd

What we’re missing

patriot Jim Reisner wrote this: “Rage equals anger plus helplessness.
“If you are confounded by the destructiveness of protestors, then maybe there was another way to go. Maybe justice could have been rendered in the deaths of Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown Jr., Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Tanisha Anderson, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brisbon, Jermane Reid, Tony Robinson, Phillip White, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Terence Crutcher, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Walter Scott, Eric Harris, Tony Robinson, Laquon McDonald, Sam DuBose, Jamar Clark, Jeremy McDole, William Chapman II, Sean Reid, Steven DeMarco Taylor, Ariane McCree, Terrance Franklin, Miles Hall, William Green, Samuel David Mallard, E. J. Bradford, Jamee Johnson, Michael Dean, Antwon Rose, Stephon Clark, Tony McDade, Yassin Muhamed, Finan Berhe, Miles Hall, Darius Tarver, William Green, Kwame Jones, De’Von Bailey, Christopher Whitfield, Anthony Hill, Eric Logan, Jamarion Robinson, Gregory Hill Jr., Jaquavion Slaton, Ryan Twyman, Brandon Webber, Jimmy Atchison, Willy McCoy, EJ Bradford, Jr., D’etrick Griffin, Jemel Roberson, DeAndre Ballard, Robert Lawrence White, Anthony Lamar Smith, Lamarly Graham, Manuel Loggins, Jr., Trayvon Martin, Wendell Allen, Kendric McDade. Larry Jackson, Jr., Jonathan Ferrell, Jordan Baker, Victor White III, Dantre Hamilton, Kajieme Powell, Laquan McDonald, Charly Keunang, Brendan Glenn, Christian Taylor, Mario Woods, Quintonio Grier, Gregory Gunn, Akiel Jenkins, Alton Sterling, Keith Lamont Scott, Alfred Alongo, Jordon Edwards, Danny Ray Thomas, DeJuan Gillory, Patrick Harmon, Jonathan Hart, Maurice Granton, Tanishe Anderson, Yvette Smith, Miriam Carey, Shelly Frey, Malissa Williams, Alesia Thomas, Shantel Davis, Rekia Boyd, Shareese Francis, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.
“This is by no means an exhaustive list of weaponless African Americans who have been killed by police within the past 10 years.
“Stop wondering why Minneapolis is burning.”

Getting it

Jim, BTW, is a minister, a white guy, I suppose I should point out. He used to pastor in Albany but is now in Maryland.

Who was George Floyd? In Houston’s Third Ward, where he lived until 2018, they know him for how he lived for decades — “a mentor to a generation of young men and a ‘person of peace’ ushering ministries into the area.” The 46-year-old father of two daughters was a “gentle giant” to those who knew him.

The Three Stories of George Floyd.

I’m not a person of violence, at least some of which is stirred up by white nationalist group posing as Antifa calling for violence on Twitter. But read What we’re missing when we condemn “violence” at protests and How to respond to “riots never solve anything!”

Nothing Is Certain But Death, Taxes, And Police Infiltration Of US Protests.

Chattanooga police chief tells officers OK with George Floyd death to turn in their badges.

A photo from Thursday night’s protest in downtown Louisville appears to show a line of white women, arms locked, standing between Louisville Metro Police officers and black protesters.

Minneapolis Bus Drivers Refuse to Transport George Floyd Protesters to Jail.

Girl Gone Smart: Uncomfortable? Good!

George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper: The Daily Social Distancing Show with Trevor Noah.

And my personal favorite: Wife of officer charged with murder of George Floyd announces she’s divorcing him.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Desmond Tutu

The anatomy of a homicide

The encounter began around 8 p.m. when an employee at the Cup Foods convenience store called police to say that a customer later identified as George Floyd had tried to use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes…

The defendant [officer Derek Chauvin] pulled Mr. Floyd out of the passenger side of the squad car at 8:19:38 p.m. and Mr. Floyd went to the ground face down and still handcuffed. [Officer J.A.] Kueng [one of the original arresting cops] held Mr. Floyd’s back and [Thomas] Lane [the other one] held his legs.

The defendant placed his left knee in the area of Mr. Floyd’s head and neck. Mr. Floyd said, “I can’t breathe” multiple times and repeatedly said, “Mama” and “please,” as well. The defendant and the other two officers stayed in their positions.

The officers said, “You are talking fine” to Mr. Floyd as he continued to move back and forth. Lane asked, “should we roll him on his side?” and the defendant said, “No, staying put where we got him.” Officer Lane said, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever.” The defendant said, “That’s why we have him on his stomach.” None of the three officers moved from their positions.

BWC video shows Mr. Floyd continue to move and breathe.

At 8:24:24, Mr. Floyd stopped moving.

At 8:25:31 the video appears to show Mr. Floyd ceasing to breathe or speak. Lane said, “want to roll him on his side.” Kueng checked Mr. Floyd’s right wrist for a pulse and said, “I couldn’t find one.” None of the officers moved from their positions.

At 8:27:24, the defendant removed his knee from Mr. Floyd’s neck. An ambulance and emergency medical personnel arrived, the officers placed Mr. Floyd on a gurney, and the ambulance left the scene. Mr. Floyd was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.

[It appears to be Positional Asphyxia. The Minneapolis Police Were Sued A Decade Ago In Similar Restraint Case.]

This Was, at least, Second-Degree Murder

Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder. Before they were leveled, quoting from the very rightwing Daily Signal in a story called The Unacceptably Unjust Death of George Floyd:

What, then, is the appropriate criminal charge to take before a jury?

Minnesota, like most other states, requires an element of intent for first-degree murder… [And it’s very difficult to prove intent. Although one wonders, since they may have known each other.]

Similarly, third-degree murder is likely off the table. Even though it might seem applicable as the unintentional killing of another person “by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard to human life,” the Minnesota Supreme Court has clarified that third-degree murder “cannot occur where the defendant’s actions were focused on a specific person.” [And yet that was the charge…]

We are left, then, with second-degree murder, which appears to be an appropriate charge. In Minnesota, this offense occurs when a person unintentionally causes a death while committing a felony offense.

Arguably, Chauvin committed the felony offense of assault, as his use of force was not authorized or justified under state law. Floyd died as a result of this unjustified assault, even if the officer did not intend to kill him.

Keep in mind, too, that Chauvin also could face criminal charges under federal law for civil rights violations, and the FBI is conducting its own investigation alongside state authorities.

Because Floyd ultimately died, a conviction under these federal statutes would carry equally significant penalties as a conviction for second-degree murder under state law.
***
This man makes it far worse.

“Let me be clear. This is revolting. The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo op. Religion is not a political tool. And God is not your plaything.”

Father James Martin, SJ