Other Writings By Joe English

To the Editors/11-25-18

In Voice of the People, November 25, Kenneth L. Woodward takes the Tribune to task for your November 17 editorial, "The Bishops Duck and Cover": "The most outrageous statement in your editorial is the casual reference to 'child abuse scandals that perennially soil the church'. Perennially? The Catholic Church is 2,000 years old, and child abuse surfaced as a scandal only 16 years ago." Surely Mr. Woodward knows better. Sexual abuse of children has been an integral part of Catholicism since its earliest days. As Alex Wilhelm writes (Huff Post, July 5, 2010, "The Long Scandal: A History of Abuse"), "By the Council (or Synod) of Elvira in 309, the problem of child abuse had become large enough for special punishments to be put in place. One particularly strong proclamation was as follows: 'Those who sexually abuse boys may not commune, even when death approaches.' Wilhelm continues, "Leaving the earliest days of the Church, we move to St. Peter Damian and his view of the very Church by which he was later sainted. St. Peter described the Clergy of the Church at the time to be a veritable cesspool. He was so outraged by the Men of the Cloth that in the year 1049 he wrote the 'Book of Gomorrah'. . .In the tome, he railed against the Priesthood of his time, specifically condemning sodomy against both children and young priests. . . .By the year 1600, a familiar system had been developed: the quiet moving or promoting of priests out of locations where they had been abusing the local children. This system continues to this very day." Surely this despicable record over the centuries more than justifies the Tribune's use of word perennially. In the last 50 years alone some 30,000 people in 25 countries have reported abuse, including 28 dioceses in the United States as well as in dioceses in at least 26 other countries.

Conferences and study groups are not the solution. So long as the Catholic Church insists on the unnatural imposition of celibacy on and the misogynistic exclusion of women from its priesthood, its two millennia history of child abuse will continue--perennially.

Dereliction Of Duty/To The Editors 10-29-18

The Republicans control all three branches of government. It has been clear for some time that current law which welcomes any and all to enter our country legally seeking asylum and to remain while their pleas are considered must be changed. Asylum seekers must be required to apply for asylum status in United States' consulates and embassies in their own, or other foreign, countries. The Republicans prefer to wave the bloody flag of black and brown criminals pouring into our country. To the extent that the threat is real, it is the Republicans' fault. They have the power to pass corrective legislation. Instead, they put their electoral interest above that of the country's. For shame.

To the Editors/10-25-18

Michael Hoffman, as a youth, endured protracted sexual abuse by a priest. Nonetheless, he chooses to remain in the Catholic Church, believing that "the Church can take a leadership role" against the horrors he suffered. In 1992, for example, the Archdiocese of Chicago established "The Office for the Protection of Children and Youth" to spearhead "prevention efforts." Whatever those efforts may have been, clearly they have failed. They have been window dressing and nothing more. Spanning centuries and continents, child sexual abuse by Catholic priests has been pervasive. It is the norm, not the exception. There are two underlying root causes. First, the Catholic Church refuses to change its policy against married priests, enforcing, instead, the unnatural state of celibacy. It does so for economic, not theological reasons: some of Jesus' disciples were married, including Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus built his church. Permitting its clergy to marry would expose the Church to the costly ramifications of divorce. If priests could marry, they could divorce or be divorced. Secondly, the Catholic Church, as a business enterprise, institutionalizes gender discrimination; all its management positions, by policy, are reserved for men. By refusing to change its policies of celibacy and gender discrimination, the Catholic Church shows that it is not serious about instituting true prevention efforts against sexual abuse. It is a criminal enterprise preying on our young. It must deal with the root causes or take ownership of its complicity.

Traitor, Sadist, Butcher, Racist/10-13-18

To the Editors:

As Adam Serwer writes in The Atlantic (June 14, 2017), "The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed." Lee was a notoriously severe slaveowner, who did not shrink from having his slaves tied to the whipping post and whipped mercilessly, seeing to it that their broken bodies were, post whipping, bathed in brine to intensify their suffering and pain. As a general, he was guilty of war crimes: "During his invasion of Pennsylvania, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia enslaved free blacks and brought them back to the South as property. . . evidence links virtually every infantry and cavalry unit in Lee’s army with the abduction of free black Americans. . . Soldiers under Lee’s command at the Battle of the Crater in 1864 massacred black Union soldiers who tried to surrender." As a strategist, Lee had little interest in minimizing the deaths of his soldiers; he stands as the most sanguinary of generals in American history. His campaign at Antietam was the bloodiest in our nation's history. Over the strenuous objections of his officers, Lee ordered Pickett's suicidal charge into the direct center of Union forces at Gettysburg. After the war, "Lee argued against the enfranchisement of blacks, and raged against Republican efforts to enforce racial equality on the South." Robert E. Lee: traitor, sadist, butcher, racist. This the man whose praises are sung by the 45th president of the United States

Before The Storm/10-6-18

Lurking in plain sight is the weakness of our economy. Despite politicians and pundits telling us that happy days are here again, underlying economic data are grim. Pay no attention to the “unemployment rate.” It does not count millions of Americans who do not have jobs. A more accurate indicator of actual conditions is the labor force participation rate, the percentage of adult Americans able to work who are in fact employed. It decreased from 62.9 percent in June and July to 62.7 percent in September. In the Alice-in-Wonderland of officialdom, however, we are expected to believe nonetheless that “unemployment” has decreased. Yes, and Chicago has a tropical climate if one omits the months of December, January, February and March from the calculations. Further, although nobody is talking about it, the federal deficit is exploding. It increased 20 percent from fiscal year 2017 ($666 billion) to fiscal year 2018 ($833 billion) and is projected to increase an additional 16 percent in fiscal year 2019 ($985 billion). To this menacing mix must be added the fact that the Federal Reserve is increasing interest rates; interest payments on the out-of control deficit will skyrocket. We are in the calm before the storm, and like October 1929 and September 2008, it will be a monster.

—Joe English, Chicago

To the Editors/The Obama Center/8-10-18

Those who question sacrificing public parkland for the construction of the Obama Center have only to read its annual report to understand that the elite class who knows it knows better is clueless when it comes to helping the left out and left behind. According to the report, in the past year, "the Obama Foundation raised nearly $233 million mostly from private donors and spent $1.5 million of that on local businesses including Chicago public relations, marketing and consulting firms, caterers, printers, contractors and other local businesses." [Chicago Tribune, Lolly Bowean, August 10, 2018, Section 1, p. 4]. How many public relations firms are located in Woodlawn? South Shore? Englewood? How many marketing and consulting firms? A handful of caterers and contractors received a few crumbs. It is good that everyone knows their place.

$1.5 million divided by $233 million is .006 percent. "The majority of the financial gifts made to the foundation during the year were not earmarked for a specific purpose, so the foundation can spend the funds as it sees fit," Ms. Bowen reports. It saw fit to spend .006% on local businesses. In a letter accompanying the report, Foundation Director David Sima writes, "The report is a story about how the foundation is inspiring and empowering people around the world to re-imagine their civic responsibilities." This is how these people speak. This is how these people think. This is why public parkland must be taken and why the children and grandchildren of generations of working class and poor folk who once played there must re-imagine their civic responsbilities to find green elsewhere. The Obama Center will provide them the "tools, resources, and networks to bring about change." Indeed.

Also on page four the Tribune reports that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is investigating mayoral candidate Willie Wilson for recent giveaways of his own money. The elite know how to take care of their own. Willie Wilson should not have reached into his own pockets, but, like the Obama Foundation, into ours, by securing tax reducing contributions from the gilded class. He should have set up a "foundation" in his name. He should have dispensed .006% of the bounty raised so that people around the world might be inspired and empowered to re-imagine their civic responsibilities. Feeding the hungry is do déclassé when one could be inspiring! Empowering! Re-imagining!

The Obama Foundation projects that it will "create 2,500 permanent jobs and deliver $2.5 billion in economic impact to the South Side." Once it's finished, of course, with inspiring and empowering people around the world, many of whom go to bed hungry, have no access to clean drinking water, and live in hovels, to re-imagine their civic responsibilities. From Bangladesh to Haiti. Makes one's head spin. Killing trees is a small price to pay.