Category Archives: Politics

How Fox’s Reaction to the Bill O’Reilly Scandals are Systematic of What is Wrong in Our Society

In American society, beyond all the kind words and gentile thoughts, there is one thing that is king: the Almighty Dollar. One is not important enough to be considered at the top of the game unless one is rich. As a result, when a scandal or issue comes up, while hypocrites on all sides will try to degrade their opponent on grounds of morality or sensibility, all that really will matter in the end is how much the culprit in the case can bring in as revenue.

Just minutes ago the news broke that after a series of sexual harrasment allegations, Rupert Murdoch’s American-based media arm 21st Century Fox would not be welcoming top bill Fox News host Bill O’Reilly back onto their network. “After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the Company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel,” read a statement quoted by NPR’s Colin Dwyer. Yet that thorough and careful review only came to a close not after the first sexual harrasment claim was published, nor after the following claims became known. Rather, the people at 21st Century Fox chose to wait until O’Reilly’s show, The O’Reilly Factor, had lost a significant number of its advertising sponsors.

Once again the Almighty and practically Sacred Dollar won out over the health, safety, and well-being of the women who O’Reilly had harrassed. Between the hyprocisy of organisations like 21st Century Fox actually claiming to care about it’s female employees and on-air guests, and the sheer lunacy that something as abstract and impersonal as a decrease in revenue would matter more to executives, I wonder how social change will really be able to come about in a society as plutocratic as ours. Ours is a society wrecked with illness, a society that has begun to rot, for the day when we started to care more about pocketbooks than people was the day when we as a society began to lose our sense of purpose and being. We should be ashamed enough to try and do something about it, to make things better for the next generation to come. Yet as long as the present system benefits a few there will be little reason for them to want to make things fairer and more humane.

There are pleanty of calls for reform, for progressive change coming from many levels of society. Millions of people around the globe marched for women’s rights in January of this year, and this coming Saturday many more will march in defence of science on Earth Day in cities across the country. The people most harmed by the current system, especially those most worried about what the latest President might do now in office, have made their voices heard. But are those voices being heard in the boardrooms and offices of the executives? Consider the cheap shot that Pepsi took to reach out to my generation through that infamous TV ad involving Kendall Jenner and a protest. Apparently if we all buy Pepsi then all of our societal woes will be solved. Perfect! Yet still the socially conscious focus of Pepsi’s protest ad was less so on the protest and more on a self-absorbed celebrity trying to sell a soda that frankly isn’t all that healthy. The focus was entirely on them and not us.

Such wide societal divides are not the least bit healthy, and can often lead to a breakdown of the social institutions intended to keep the peace between varying classes, institutions, ethnicities, races, religions, etc. As this widening gulf continues to grow the level of respect that the parts of society have for each other continues to lessen. Our society’s obsessive focus on material wealth is holding us back, keeping us from reaching our full potential. We see multi-million and billion dollar investments in major league teams yet at the same time budget cuts to our education, healthcare, and infrastructure. The new crowd of super-rich who have populated positions of power in Washington continue to propose policies that not only hurt their greatest supporters amongst the working class, but also cause great harm to the country as a whole.

While Bill O’Reilly is just one person in a country of over 300 million, his disregard for the wellbeing of the women around him kn the workplace is one more example of inequality in this country. What’s more, the fact that his employers at 21st Century Fox waited to cut ties with him until their revenue streams were hurt is even more shameful. As long as profits come before people we as a society are seriously unwell.

In Support of the Sioux

I am an American in the sense that I was born in the United States of America, but I am not an American in the sense that my ancestors come from here. By blood I am as much a colonist of this country as were my first ancestors who came here over three hundred years ago. By right of ius soli under natural law I am an American, but by right of ius sanguinis under that same natural code I am, in composite, European, after all all of my ancestors come from Europe, primarily from Northern, and in part from Western Europe.

Under this natural ius sanguinis, which in my book trumps all other laws of inheritance, if one is to look for a true, and pure American, one should not turn to someone like me, nor even our President. Rather, turn to the most marginalised, most detracted and forgotten of all Americans, the original Americans.

For the past many months, a number of oil companies and big banks have been pushing the Dakota Access Pipeline across the American continent, like an axe cleaving a body in two down its spine. I am opposed to this pipeline on environmental grounds, primarily due to the lack of foresight by the companies involved in its construction. After all we are only a few years, if not decades away from green energies from solar panels to wind mills to new-fangled hydroenergies taking the place of oil as our main fuel source. We have the technology and the means to construct energy producing mechanisms that are both efficient and clean to use.

I am equally opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline because of the horrendously negative effects it has had, and will continue to have upon the Native peoples through whose lands it crosses. This pipeline is yet another good idea for those in the boardroom, that ignores those who it most effects. Its design and planning ignores the fact that the seemingly empty lands of the Great Plains are in fact not empty at all, not the Great American Desert of Zebulon Pike’s proclaiming, but rather a land long occupied, long called home by a great many peoples.

So many of us Americans at some point or another played Cowboys vs. Indians as children. So many of us grew up seeing our Native Americans neighbours as less than human, mere sideshow attraction, once a noble race of barbarians now outdone by the progress that is the United States of America. We grew to disregard the Native Americans, believing that we did not need an excuse to take their homes, wrench their children’s cultures from their hearts, trample on their freedoms, and destroy their lives as if they never mattered in the first place. This has been just one expression of the systemic racism and xenophobia that infects our society like the Plague, that racism known at some point to all who are not the perennial W.A.S.P.s. We strive for better, through our founding documents, through the inspirational words of our greatest leaders, through our democracy and its most cherished institution of citizenship, yet of course those of colder hearts amongst us have found every rat’s hole, every crevice in the law which they could manipulate to their own ends, and to the detriment of all others.

For over five hundred years we the European Americans have inflicted the greatest, most unspeakable wrongs upon the Native Americans. Through conquest we have driven them from the most fertile parts of this continent to the most arid. We have built our society against them, and refused them entry into it. We have forced them onto reservations and left them for dead.

Today, as the Dakota Access Pipeline is being carved across the Great Plains, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, we are not only putting the Native American peoples, like the Standing Rock Sioux in danger, we are putting ourselves in danger. Should the Dakota Access Pipeline leak, as it surely will at some point in the future, after all it is manmade, it will poison the rest of the Mississippi-Missouri River Drainage Basin, which includes the waters of 31 states.

Let us change the narrative of Native American history for the better. Let us stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and all future projects that disregard the rights of any American, whether Native or otherwise. Let us embrace the true meaning of citizenship, that all citizens are equal under the law. By civil law I am an American, just as the members of the Standing Rock Sioux are Americans. By natural law I cannot help but recognise and embrace that this continent, America, from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego, was the land of the Native Americans first. I honour their rights, and offer my voice and pen in support of them, my fellow Americans.

What evils we inflict upon one American, we inflict upon all of us. We are all Americans.

Reflection on a Year Overseas

London – Eleven months and eleven days ago I moved from Kansas City, Missouri, USA to London, England. Eleven months and eleven days ago I left home and went on a great adventure that has forever changed the way I see myself, and the world. In the past I have said that one of the best ways to begin to know oneself is to understand the places from whence one comes. And, while time away has given me a greater appreciation for all the trappings and comfort of home, it has also given me the chance to explore some of the places from whence my own ancestors came: particularly in Ireland, in England, and in Finland.

As a historian, but perhaps more importantly as an American, this was a rare opportunity that very few of my fellow countrymen could ever hope to achieve. On the last Friday of May 2016, I quite possibly became the first descendant of my third great-grandparents, Juho Heikki and Anna Sophia Kuivaniemi, to return to their hometown of Rauma, Finland since 1879. On the other hand, I followed in the footsteps of my grandparents and was able to walk the roads and visit the town of Newport, County Mayo where my grandfather’s parents were born, and visit the nearby cemetery at Burrishoole Friary where the ancestors of so many of my relatives are buried. So many names from America are carved into those tombstones, yet here on the shores of Clew Bay they are in their original setting.

Yet perhaps most importantly over the past year I have had my beliefs, my understandings, my very philosophy of life and nature challenged time and again by friends and colleagues alike. I am eternally grateful to them all for those discussions, for those opportunities to think anew, opportunities which one day will lead me to act anew. Those beliefs, those views of mine which held water remain, while others have been left by the wayside, abandoned after much debate and discussion. I hope I am all the wiser for the people that I have met, and the great friendships that have been forged. We come from such different corners of the world, with different backgrounds, different views, different languages, yet respect abounds amongst us far more than contempt.

Next week I will at long last be returning home, to Kansas City, Missouri, in the heartland of the United States. I will return to the heat and humidity, and the allergies. Yet I will also be returning to my family, to many friends old and young. I am excited to be coming home once again, and looking forward to being surrounded by all those familiar things, sights, sounds, and smells. I did not realise it until I had been away, that even the softest sensory detail can be missed. Whether it be the sound of the wind whirling through the branches of the trees, or the familiar voices on NPR’s All Things Considered set to the backdrop of Kansas City at sunset, its streets filled with cars heading to and fro. In London I found that on winter nights, when the sky was clear and the street lamps glowed in a distinctly mechanical way, I missed hearing the familiar voice of Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace coming over the radio as I’d often hear at a similar time of night back home.

Yet I return to a country on edge, a country that has seen so much anguish, so much anger, and so much fear over the last year. The signs have been about for a while now. Since President Obama was elected in 2008 nearly every racist, closeted or not, has come out of the woodwork and ensured that the rest of us would have to hear their nonsensical cacophony rattling on. We could ignore racism as the rantings of the mad if it were not for the reality that words plant seeds, seeds sprout actions. Once again, around the world bigotry seems to be in fashion like it was in the 1920s and 1930s. There is always someone available for people to hate or fear. As Woody Allen put it in a recent interview with Catherine Shoard of The Guardian,

It’s in the nature of people to have someone to scapegoat. If there were no Jews in the world they would take it out on blacks. If no blacks, they’d move over to Catholics. No Catholics? Something else. Finally, if everyone is exactly the same, the left-handed people would start killing the right-handed people. You just need an other [on whom] to vent your hostility and frustration.

I know that bigotry has been around for a long time, and probably will still be around long after I’m dead, but I honestly did not really experience it until when I was at least around thirteen or fourteen. I remember some of the boys at school using the word Jew as an insult, which didn’t make sense to me, as I had always gotten along well with my Jewish friends and neighbours. I also never really had anything against African Americans, but after years of hearing from my classmates and friends that “Troost was dangerous,” I was less willing to go to the African American neighbourhoods east of Troost Avenue in Kansas City, MO. Subconsciously or not, I was accepting a racist ideology that I consciously abhorred.

Perhaps the best example of my reaction to bigotry comes from a strange experience that I had when I was fourteen, where an individual who I was working with at the time told me to my face, “I don’t like Catholics” knowing very well that I was a Catholic. I was shocked by this, not necessarily because he was saying that he didn’t like me because of my religion, but more so because his dislike for Catholics simply didn’t make any sense. Over the years as I have been exposed to a variety of opinions and ideas, and I have found myself adopting some similar views, whether it be a dislike for one particular nationality, or religion, or political philosophy, or a preference for a particular country over another. Yet each of these blanket opinions have been swiftly overturned as soon as I have met someone who fits into one of those categories.

How can I say that I hate someone or fear someone simply based upon their nationality, religion, politics, or even based upon the colour of their skin? It makes no sense. Bigotry of all kinds makes absolutely no sense!

I am proud of who I am. I am proud to be Seán Thomas Kane, or Seán mac Tómas Ó Catháin as it is in Irish. I am proud to have been born in Chicagoland, and to have lived most of my life in Kansas City. I am proud to be my parents’ son, and my grandparents’ grandchild, a nephew of my aunts and uncles, a cousin of my cousins, godson of my godparents, and a friend to all my friends. I am proud to be of Irish, English, Welsh, Finnish, Swedish, and Flemish descent. I am proud to be an American citizen. I am proud to have been a resident of the City of London for the past eleven months and eleven days. I am proud to be a historian, a writer, a filmmaker, an occasional musician and sketch artist. I am proud to be a Catholic.

But beyond all of these categories and more within which I fit, I am most proud, and most humbled to be human. We are all unique, we are all different, yes, as the crowd shouted up to Brian, “We are all individuals!” But most important of all is that we are all human. If we consider less what separates us and more what we have in common then surely we will be nicer to each other, and have better lives. If those in my country screaming against immigrants, African Americans, Muslims, Latinos, and all others considered what they have in common with the rest of us then surely they would think twice about their words and actions.

I am not proposing any sort of edifiable change, any sort of reform for our prisons, our city planning, our law codes, or our schools, all that will come next. What I am proposing is the essential necessity for any reform to happen. We must have a change of heart. We are all human.

On Service

Over the weekend I have been thinking about how my three main academic foci, these being History, Theology, and Politics, can intersect and cooperate. I find it far easier to find the intersection of History with Politics, after all much of my work has been in the realm of Political History. That only leaves the gap between Politics and Theology.

Earlier this evening I realised that it is Martin Luther King, Jr day back home in the United States. Dr King’s lifework was a direct human embodiment of the correlations between Theology and Politics. While I firmly support maintaining the separation of Church and State, and preserving the secular nature of American politics, as dictated in the early years of our republic, I recognise one vital theme which flows within the hearts of both disciplines: that of service.

Good theology centres on themes of selfless service. To quote the Gospel of John, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down [one’s] life for [one’s] friends.” In this case, as is more common, the laying down of a life is not actual martyrdom, but rather sacrificial service, a giving up of some liberty or possession or individual possibility for the good of another or of the whole community.

Good politics in turn is founded upon a similar principle. To devote one’s life to public service is not only a great choice but also a great sacrifice. Once one has chosen to align one’s individual interests fully with those of the public, one loses a degree of independence yet gains a greater appreciation for others. Marcus Aurelius writes in his Meditations, “Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to the perfect principles of art.” (Med. IV:2). As an actor on the political stage, be sure to have a reason as to one’s presence on that stage, but let that reason be founded upon one’s role as a citizen, a “member of a civil community.” (Med. III:7).

As Marcus Aurelius writes, “Nothing is evil which is according to nature” (Med. II:17), so too with good theology and good politics. One might say that some policies, such as support for same-sex marriage is contrary to nature, yet I disagree with that assessment, after all if nature is an element of the divine, accepting that all that is natural was created by a Divine Essence far in the past, through what science has called the Big Bang, then one cannot say with verity that anything non-artificial, that is anything not made by humans, is contrary to nature.

Nature is something which is too vast a concept to truly define in a few words, though we certainly have come up with ways to explain elements of it. Among these are theology; an  explanation of nature’s relationship with the Divine, and politics; an explanation of how human societies can organise and survive in light of the whimsical manner of nature.

Perhaps the best manner in which one can act for the good of nature, and the good of others is through public service. In this way theology and politics do intersect in a common purpose: the betterment of individual lives, and the promotion of common liberties.

Where have all the flowers gone?

London – For the past two months since I arrived in England, my thoughts have been filled with a few things: school, friends, family, home, music, stories, films, and theatre just to name a few. But after Friday’s attacks in Paris, all of that is gone. Our world changed overnight. It was as if the screams of terror, the tears of sorrow had washed away the joy and normality from life. And now we are at war once again.

What is to follow over the coming months, and possibly years, will be terrifying, brutal, and horrific on all counts as our countries focus their military might upon one common enemy. Yet for all the talk of war, for all the similarities to 9/11 that Friday’s attacks possessed, there is little bravado, little pomp. Our leaders, and most of us know all to well that this is not going to be easy. We know that the fight that is to follow could well be worse than any other since the millennium.

I have prayed fervently since Friday night for peace. I have begged God to intervene and ensure that our fellow countrymen and women do not have to go to war. I even went by my parish church on Sunday evening to light a candle to offer my prayers ever more fervently. I have prayed for the intercessions of the saints, particularly those French saints, Jeanne d’Arc, Thérèse de Lisieux, Jean Vianney, and Notre-Dame de Paris, begging that we might avert the coming crisis. After all, we were given two great gifts at Creation: free will and a limited intellect. We cannot know everything, which makes life an adventure. And yet, I recognise, regrettably, and with the greatest sorrow my heart can muster, that the only observable option remaining is war.

This weekend, Pope Francis expressed the same emotions well in an interview with Italian television’s Tv2000 network when he said, “I am shaken and pained. I do not understand but these things are difficult to understand.” It brings me so much grief to come to this conclusion, as for years I have argued against Just War Theory, but to be honest, there does not seem to be any other option at present. Sure, we could try to root out ISIS using only nonviolent methods, but that would take far too long, leaving our own peoples open to attacks similar to those wrought on Friday in Paris.

If we are to fight this war, then let it be fought in a manner that will achieve lasting peace. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us that Western powers cannot on their own root out Islamic extremism. We must leave the essential work to our Muslim counterparts. The likes of Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia must play essential roles in defeating ISIS. There should not be any European, American, or Canadian soldiers on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

I firmly believe that radical groups such as ISIS, which claim their authority from their faith, can only be destroyed by people of the same sect of Islam. Therefore, we should leave that fight up to our Sunni Muslim counterparts. We in the West can provide air support, running raids on key military sites and command centres in coordination with the Saudi, Jordanian, and Turkish forces on the ground.

Foremost though, we must not allow ourselves to give into our fear. Our hearts must remain open to the fact that we humans are inherently good, inherently beautiful beings. I have no doubt that in the end we will prevail. In the grand scheme of history extremist organisations like ISIS will merely appear as a bad nightmare.

But for the moment that beauty seems distant. It appears to be the dream, the nightmare our reality. At this moment we are at war. At this moment, talk of peace appears to me to be sad in nature. So, I ask, “Where have all the flowers gone?”

Scotland Votes No in Independence Referendum

Edinburgh – With nearly all of the results from the 18 September referendum on independence having been announced, Scotland’s status as a member of the United Kingdom is secured. In an election with turnout at well over 80%, the No campaign won Thursday’s referendum by 10 points with a 55%-45% victory. In regards to individual vote numbers, No had 1,914,187 votes whilst Yes had 1,539,920.

While Thursday’s referendum did not result in Scottish independence, the results undoubtedly will result in further political change throughout the United Kingdom. The major No parties, the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats all promised further devolution to Scotland, a promise which Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, MSP stated must be met.

All sides hailed the high voter turnout numbers throughout Scotland, with over 80% of the population casting ballots in the referendum. In particular, the voter turnout rate in Stirling, which voted no, was an incredibly high 90%.

The vote was settled by 06.00 BST (00.00 CDT, 15.00 AEST) with the returns in Fife, whose 139,788 votes against independence put the No campaign over the edge and into victory early Friday morning local time.

Much of the discussion in the hour since the Fife announcement has involved further devolution not only for Scotland, but also for Wales, England, and Northern Ireland, even with talk of a Federal system being established in the United Kingdom in the future.

Trading began in the City of London earlier than normal on Friday, with financial reactions being seen largely in the currency markets, with the pound sterling rising to 1.65 USD (1.28 EUR, 1.84 AUD). The BBC reported that the American markets are also expected to open higher than normal on Friday as a result of the no vote.

British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke from Downing Street at 07.06 on Friday (01.06 CDT, 16.06 AEST), saying, “Like millions of others, I am delighted” with the referendum’s results. “We now have a great opportunity to change how the British people are governed,” the PM continued. He made it clear to note that those commitments proposed by the three pro-Union parties will be taken up by a commission to be led by Lord Kelvin.

“I have long believed that a crucial part missing from this discussion is England.” Cameron went on to announce his support for plans to be drawn up that could lead to a future devolved English legislative body, which would have similar powers to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.

No matter the result, Scotland, and the United Kingdom are changed forever. Thursday’s historic vote will undoubtedly be remembered for centuries to come as a major milestone in the constitutional history of the United Kingdom.