Incorporeal Works

On a trip to Mexico to discuss mutual efforts to curb violent drug trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged to the Mexican government that illegal drug demand in this country finances increasingly violent drug cartels in Mexico. Link to L.A. Times story.

The traffic is two-way, drugs shipped north, money and guns shipped south. Rival cartels have accounted for over 7,000 deaths in Mexico over the past 15 months. A number of the deaths were police and prosecutors working to shut down the cartels. Journalists have also been killed when they reported on the  violence of the drug business.

For years, I have known that every shipment of marijuana, cocaine or heroin had cost someone their life somewhere along the route from other countries to the neighborhoods of our towns and cities. The huge amount of money to be made in the drug trade has corrupted law enforcement personnel on both sides of the border. For myself, alcohol has been the only recreational drug I want to use, and I use less of that each year as I grow older.

Arguments about the harmlessness of marijuana and attendant support for its legalization are beside the point. The legalization of alcohol in 1933 after fourteen years of Prohibition did nothing to weaken the powerful criminal organizations that had enriched themselves enormously over those “dry” years. Criminal offenses, even individually slight and seemingly harmless - buying a bag of pot, or a gram or two of cocaine - collectively undermine society, law enforcement and public respect for the rule of law.

Once cartels reach the level of power of organized, large-scale businesses spread across borders and into every corner of our country and others, combating them is daunting. There ought to be constant and complete coverage of the consequences in Mexico and in this country of the cost of supporting such malignant enterprises. This country has made great progress in reducing the use of tobacco through publicity, lawsuits and regulation. We can do the same for illegal drugs.

And we need to be in this effort for the long haul.

This morning on the MSNBC news show Morning Joe, guest Jon Meacham drew parallels between the present financial crisis, populist response to it, and the similar issues during the Andrew Jackson presidency. I had the same thoughts as I read Meacham’s latest book, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, shortly after its publication last November. The crisis in the financial industry was rapidly spreading through the economy, unabated by early infusions of federal funds into the largest firms, largest among them AIG. Slowly (to those of us not in the industry) the extent to which credit default swaps, a rarefied sort of insurance against failed securities, were involved has become apparent. The trip wire to this failure of unsecured insurance occurred within a unit of AIG.

Outrage against these practices, building for months, crystallized in the past week or two, with the news of large bonuses paid to employees within this very unit. The impact on Main Street, a mantra early in the crisis, has focused on these bonuses. The current issue of Newsweek magazine, of which Jon Meacham is the Editor, centers on the populism ignited against Wall Street

As I read American Lion last fall, the struggle between Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States seemed to closely parallel the current situation. The Bank of the U.S., actually the second Bank of the U.S., was a private business filling many of the functions of the government, for private profit, as well as being a depository of federal funds - at no interest paid to the government.  Sort of a combination of Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae, and the Fed, only without any regulation to speak of.

Men of great intelligence and financial knowledge ran the Bank of the U.S., much as was the case recently with the large firms that have so nearly wrecked the U.S. economy. Profit and public policy do not mix well, at least in the public eye when there is fallout like the current ghastly train wreck.

I do not understand the complexities of what happened, a condition shared by many in power and on the street. The virtual nationalization of the banking industry accomplished in such short order last fall may work out to the economy’s benefit, and therefore to our own. I hope so. Learning from history would have been a better way; prevention trumps crisis management.

I noticed in checking the Episcopal Lesser Feasts lectionary that today commemorates the Salvadoran priest, bishop and martyr, Oscar Romero, gunned down as he celebrated a funeral Mass in the Chapel of Divine Providence Hospital. I remember the stories from El Salvador during those years, marked by increasing violence against poor and dissident Salvadorans. I remember the story of the slain Archbishop, and the disintegrating public order that followed. That followed with support from the government of the United States, especially once Ronald Reagan assumed power. Eventually, after years of bloodshed, the forces of revolution (Reaganites would say ‘marxists’ ) won free elections.

Almost the last words spoken by Archbishop Romero:

Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ
will live like the grain of wheat that dies…The harvest comes because of
the grain that dies…

A week after our wedding, I finally completed my move from bachelor apartment to Babs’s house this past Thursday. Four years of my life were spent in a comfortable, two-bedroom, two-bath apartment that saw the grandchildren on a regular basis, often for overnight visits. Their Granny Babs and I share many happy memories of those visits. Early on, one winter night just at bedtime, Reese stood up on her bed, stretching her two-year old height to look out the bedroom window. She could see down the wooded hill, leafless then, and watch the stream of headlights and tail lights on the four-lane road far below. She looked up at the clear night sky, and exclaimed to her granny, “Oooh, look, Granny Babs, I can see stars and cars tonight!”

Last week, after packing up the last bits and pieces in the children’s bedroom, I stood alone where Reese had stood, looking out the same window. It was winter again, and the lights of traffic flowed along the street. The night was overcast after a day of showers, so no stars shone above the cars. In my memory those lights and those stars will be as permanent, though, as I am sure they are in a little girl’s growing store of wonder and delight.

My  throat constricted and my eyes watered, as I whispered, “Oooh, look, Reese, I can see stars and cars tonight!”