Mindful Justice

I’m scared for our future.

If there is anything I’m proud of as an American, it’s the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.  Since our inception (or at least since 1791) we have tried to encapsulate what America is through the ideas of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association.  From high school civics on, I learned that what you think, what you sing (or with whom you sing), what you write, is off limits to government intrusion.

Yet in the last couple of weeks shocking incidents have occurred that scare me.  The most recent involved a Major League Baseball manager, the other a German poet.

Ozzie Guillen, the 48 year old manager of the Miami Marlins, articulated his admiration for Fidel Castro in an interview.  What he said was basically, he admired him because he stuck around.  Wow!

He didn’t say he wanted to import the Revolution to Miami or he liked the Cuban leader’s position on the Catholic Church.  He simply said he thought it was admirable that, while so many people were trying to eliminate him, he lasted.

So Coach Guillen got suspended for five games.

Now, I passed Constitutional Law and know that major league baseball is not a government activity, but since the government actively protects and promotes its monopoly practices, doesn’t MLB meet the threshold for significant state involvement?  And, if it does, shouldn’t the government be telling the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig or the Marlins CEO, that they’ve overstepped their bounds?

The first incident was not here, but reflects our increasing intolerance for anything said (or written) that challenges the status quo.  The German writer, Gunter Grass, wrote a poem in which he speaks about the dangers Israel poses to world peace.

That a German of Gunter Grass’ generation (born 1927) would speak out against Israel is a story in itself, but that he would urge Israel to open itself up to the same international scrutiny demanded of Iran, is somehow scandalous.  To be clear, he never equates Israel and Iran or asserts any kind of moral equivalency.  Grass simply says enough of the West’s hypocrisy, enough silence.

The poem is called: “Was gesagt werden muss . . .” (What must be said.)  It has been translated into English and published in The Guardian (link here).  The poem is not going to be ranked in the same category of literature that Grass would normally be found.  However, the poem, like Niemoller’s famous lines after WWII, says the obvious:  We must speak out before it’s too late.

I’ve always been led to believe that Israel was a western-style democracy (whatever that means) that prided itself on being different than her neighbors.  However, post-publication of Grass’ poem in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, he has been named persona non grata by the state of Israel.  Don’t think that couldn’t happen here.

Why do I so clumsily enter into these political discussions?  Only because I’m interested in baseball and poetry (well, yes), or is there some other agenda I see?  There is.

How are we ever going to find the best practices for the treatment of mental illness or advance mental disability law if some of us don’t think outside the box?  Given the orthodoxy of the medical model, the sway of pharmacology, and the unbelievable, unrelenting political power of the pharmaceuticals, the battle is not going to be easy.  It requires fearless thinkers.

General Patton once said, “If we all think alike, than someone is not thinking.”  The truth is never found in group-think.  The truth is found when some courageous fool has the audacity to speak up, or sing, or write a play, a novel or a poem, and say what must be said.