Eugene McCarthy, War, and the Draft

 

Eugene McCarthy, 1964 (portrait: Louis Fabian Bachrach Jr)

Eugene McCarthy was born on this day (March 29) in 1916. A U.S. Senator from Minnesota, his claim to fame was his 1968 Democratic primary challenge to President Lyndon B. Johnson on an anti-Vietnam War platform. 

McCarthy finished second to the President in the New Hampshire primary but amassed 42% of the vote. This strong result prompted Robert F. Kennedy, a more famous figure, to enter the race on an antiwar platform. Johnson saw the writing on the wall and withdrew from seeking renomination.

The race between McCarthy and Kennedy was close. Vice President Hubert Humphrey did not actively campaign because the rules at the time told him he didn't need to. Kennedy was assassinated on June 6 of that year. McCarthy entered the Democratic National Convention with a plurality, but not majority, of primary votes and committed delegates. George McGovern, who had not run in the primaries, also announced his candidacy. 

Kennedy's delegates largely chose Humphrey, who won the nomination. Humphrey, however, couldn't distance himself from unpopular Johnson Administration policies and lost the election to Richard M. Nixon. After 1968, both major parties passed reforms that allowed the primaries to have a more binding role in the party nominations.

Under the new rules, the antiwar faction of the Democratic Party prevailed when McGovern won the nomination in 1972. The Democratic leadership, however, refused to support him, and the Democrats have run candidates ever since who've been hawks to some degree. 

The fact that McCarthy and McGovern succeeded even to the degree they did had less to do with the Vietnam War itself, but with the draft. Young men were forced to fight and die in a country for reasons that weren't so clear as, say, World War II or even Korea. Nixon understood this, and promised to end the draft in his 1968 campaign. According to Andrew Glass, 

Nixon thought ending the draft could be an effective political weapon against the burgeoning anti-war movement. He believed middle-class youths would lose interest in protesting the war once it became clear that they would not have to fight, and possibly die, in Vietnam.

Nixon didn't keep his promise in his first term, but the draft, which had been active for most years since World War II, ended at the beginning of his second term. The draft has yet to be reinstated.

In this age of the all-volunteer military, nobody's sons and brothers (and now also daughters and sisters) are in danger of being wounded or killed in war unless they sign up. They assumed the risks voluntarily when they enlisted. 

One unfortunate consequence is that the issue of war becomes abstract. For most American voters, it's just one issue among many. Some people get far more passionate in opposing trans rights, and others are more passionate about how much the wealthy pay in taxes, than they are about America's bombing campaigns and funding of foreign wars.

War isn't a moral issue to them, it's just an instrument of foreign policy.

During Vietnam, the issue of war was more immediate because the prospect of one's son or brother getting drafted was even more critical than "bread and butter" issues like unemployment or inflation. 

That said, America is undeniably better off without the involuntary servitude of the draft. If not for Eugene McCarthy's insurgent bid against the incumbent President of his own party, which gave voice to the anti-war/anti-draft movement, we might still be living (and dying) with the draft.

McCarthy didn't end the Vietnam War, but he did help create a political environment that ended the draft. For that, we should be thankful.

As for ending the wars, that might be a question for each individual's heart to address. War is mass murder and mass destruction. It creates massive public health crises and massive poverty.

One would think that war would always be the number one issue. The economic and social distress of American life pales in comparison to that of war-torn countries. Is it even possible to be genuinely concerned about liberty and justice at home when we continually keep other nations in chaos and misery?

McCarthy helped end the draft. It may be time we all helped end the wars.

© James Leroy Wilson. You may republish with attribution and a link or URL to the original.

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You may contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

When Sandra Day O'Connor opposed fascism

Official portrait of Sandra Day O'Connor 

Today (March 26, 2025) marks the 95th anniversary of Sandra Day O'Connor's birth. O'Connor, who died in 2023, is noted for becoming the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, where she served from 1981 to 2006. Shortly before her retirement, she provided dissents in the landmark cases Gonzales v. Raich and Kelo v. New London.

Raich was about a federal prosecution of someone who grew marijuana in her own home for personal medical use, which was legal in her state of California but against federal law. The question was whether the law was unconstitutional by exceeding Congress's power to regulate commerce "among the states." Remember, this was an activity that took place within a state and in which there was no buying or selling.

The Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the Feds. In her dissent, however, O'Connor noted, "the Court’s definition of economic activity for purposes of Commerce Clause jurisprudence threatens to sweep all of productive human activity into federal regulatory reach."

Kelo was about whether a city could use eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another, so long as it promoted "economic development." The Court ruled 5-4 in favor of this. 

The Fifth Amendment, however, states that taking private property could only be for "public use. O'Connor again wrote the dissent. Here's the opening paragraph:

Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public—in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property—and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 

When Kelo and Raich were decided in June 2005, the United States became a different country than in 1998. That was before NATO, what I had previously thought was a defensive alliance, launched an illegal war of aggression against Yugoslavia. Then Bush v. Gore, then the open-ended War on Terror, then the Patriot Act, then the War on Iraq.

With the War on Terror as an excuse, the federal government gave itself new, unprecedented powers to make way for a fascist country. The Feds can monitor our communications, banking, and travel. Militarism is heavily promoted and the wars are endless. Fascism in the economic sense was made apparent in the bailouts of Big Business in the late 00s.

However, Raich and Kelo are also potential tools of fascism. Thanks to these decisions, just about anything can be criminalized at the federal level. Just about any piece of land can be taken from the little guy and handed over to the big guy.

But what do I mean by Fascism?

A recent post on the "I Acknowledge Psychedelic Class Warfare Exists" Facebook page, the (unknown) author says:

[Fascism is about] returning to greatness by purging the body politic of anything that isn't nationalism.

Because it's opportunistic, it isn't a coherent single idea but a constellation of historically and locally defined ideologies that are both distinct and interrelated.

Fascism isn't a belief. It's a political project people do.

Ex. Donald trump doesn't believe in fascism. But he does constantly do it.

[...]

Because it's syncretic, fascism takes in a lot of influences which are not themselves fascist. 

On a follow-up post, the writer says:

When I started studying the rising fascism in the west about a decade ago I heard, mostly from decolonial and third worldist thinkers that fascism was fundamentally settler colonialism practiced by and on settler nations.

I was skeptical.

But the most I've learned about the history of of European imperialism and colonies, the more right this view appears.

In the US for example, the freedom in the constitution was explicitly for white men who owned property (mostly, it was left to the states).

It took until 1856 for white men to get full suffrage.

It took more than another hundred years to reach universal suffrage for indigenous people, who were the last to be granted legal suffrage. Voter suppression and informal barriers to voting remain a major problem.

The lost greatness fascism seeks to restore is the empire, which in modern times almost inevitably means settler colonialism. 

This is the machine that unifies the disparate fascisms in their thorny complexity.

If I understand the meaning here, it is that rich whites took the land. For reasons that probably made practical sense for them, the heirs of the original landowners, the old-money "Establishment," liberalized the political system. Today, however, new generations of rich guys and religious allies who were always excluded from the inner circles of power have crashed into the system and taken it over. 

They want to "re-settle" the country. That is, they want to minimize and marginalize all who don't share their vision and values. Immigrants return to their native countries. Minorities back to ghettos or to prisons. Disenfranchise as many as possible.

Imagine a legal immigrant using medical marijuana in California or in any of the 38 states where it is now legal. It is still illegal on the federal level. Thanks to Raich and Trump's policies, she may be raided and deported. "Raich'ed" out of the country.

Don't expect drug law reform on the federal level. Instead, convict and disenfranchise as many as you can, using any law on the books, no matter how antiquated.  

Imagine using eminent domain to target minority homeowners, who must hand over their land to a federal contractor who promises to create jobs. Kelo'ed out of town.

Did the Supreme Court promote a fascist agenda in its Kelo and Raich decisions? Not consciously: most who ruled in favor considered themselves "liberal" or "progressive." Nevertheless, the sacrifice of human rights for the sake of government economic and social plans is not not fascist. Certainly closer to fascism than anti-fascism.

When legislators, Presidents, or judges diminish personal freedom for the sake of the "public good," they can't turn around and say they didn't mean the fascist definition of the public good. Every time a vote goes against personal freedom, the fascists win, even when the fascists aren't in power. They will inherit the same tools and precedents once they do get power.

Justice O'Connor was involved in plenty of bad Supreme Court decisions herself. But her finest hour was in her last year on the bench with the Kelo and Raich dissents. 

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe). Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You may contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

Bracket Update and Controversial NBA MVPs

 

Photo: Public Domain

IN THIS ISSUE of the MVP CHASE:

• NCAA Bracket Update

• Convertoverial NBA MVPs

NCAA Bracket Update

Well, that experiment didn't provide promising results. Last week, I ranked all the NCAA Men's Tournament teams, based in part on how often they were decisively beaten. How's it turning out so far?

I accurately picked 20 of the 32 games in the round of 64, which is not good, and predicted just 8 of the Sweet 16. On the plus side, six of my Elite Eight are still alive, and three of the Final Four. St. John's, which I had in the championship game, has already been eliminated, but my champ, Duke, is alive.

If I had signed up for a small pool of, say, 10-12 with money going to a third-place finisher, I might still have hoped to win some money. As it is, however, I was in a free-to-enter contest with millions of participants, and my current rank is 2,576,102. 

In any case, my hypothesis was destroyed regardless of how well I finish. I predicted six "surprise" teams, seeded fifth or lower, to make the Sweet 16. Four teams seeded fifth or lower actually did make the Sweet 16, but I didn't pick any of them.

Maybe I'll try something else next year.

Controversial NBA MVPs

My current process of choosing MVPs is the number of games won in which the player had a combined Game Score and +/- of 30 or more.

I was curious how this would have affected my MVP vote in years where there were controversial winners. I selected seasons from Robert Felton's 2018 Bleacher Report piece on the subject, plus 1993 (Barkley over Jordan) and 2017 (Westbrook's triple-double year).

It turns out that for three of the seasons, the data is not available. It's noteworthy, however, that the winner in those years was on a team that won more games than the other favorite (number of team wins are in parentheses). The MVP of each year is the first one listed.

1975 

Bob McAdoo (49)

Rick Barry (48)

1990 

Magic Johnson (63)

Charles Barkley (53)

1993 

Charles Barkley (62)

Michael Jordan (57)

For the following seasons, the name at the top of each year is the MVP winner, followed by another name(s) that many people have claimed should have won it. The player who would have won my MVP Chase is in bold. Beside each name is the number of wins in which the player had a combined game score and +/- over 30. The number of team wins is in parentheses. 

1996-97

Karl Malone 42 (62)

Michael Jordan 48 (69)

1999 (48-game season)

Karl Malone 18 (37)

Tim Duncan 20 (37)

Alonzo Mourning 16 (33)

2002 

Tim Duncan 40 (60)

Jason Kidd 29 (49)

2005

Steve Nash 29 (58)

Shaquille O'Neal 22 (59)

2006

Steve Nash 30 (54)

Kobe Bryant 33 (45)

Dirk Nowitzki 36 (60) (Curious how Nowitzki wasn't mentioned in the Bleacher Report article; I was reminded of his great season in a Bill Simmons podcast).

2011 (66-game season)

Derrick Rose 28 (62)

Lebron James 35 (58)

Dwight Howard 26 (52)

2016-17 (Not in the Bleacher Report piece; all players receiving votes are included in order. This year was controversial because some believe Westbrook was handed the award only because he averaged a triple-double for the season.)

Russell Westbrook 40 (47)

James Harden 34 (55)

Kawhi Leonard 31 (61)

LeBron James 39 (51)

Isaiah Thomas 25 (53)

Stephen Curry 42 (67)

Giannis Antetokounmpo 26 (42)

John Wall 26 (49)

Anthony Davis 24 (34)

Kevin Durant 35 (67)

DeMar DeRozan 20 (51)

In the seven years with data, the MVP Chase would have agreed with just two of the MVPs. There were, however, only two obviously wrong choices, in 1997 and 2006. In 1999 and 2011, the "best player on the best (regular-season) team" won. 

In 2017, Westbrook did indeed deserve the award among the top-5 vote getters. Curry was "punished" for having won the MVP the two previous years, blowing the championship series the season before (raising questions of whether he was overrated), and adding Durant, one of the three best players in the world, to his team.

Based on my last piece and the data here, I think I'm on the right track in determining the NBA MVP.

James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe). Thank you for your subscription and support! James is available for writing, editing, research, and other work: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.

The Tree of Life

 

"Gethsemane." Painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch. Image source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

The following is adapted from a talk I gave at Unity Lincoln on March 16, 2025.

I will begin with excerpts from Genesis chapters 2 and 3 from the World English Bible:

[Genesis 2]

7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 8 Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

15 Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. 16 Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” 

25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.

Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, 3 but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”

4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, 5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. Then she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too. 7 Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves. 

9 Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

It could be asked why God planted a Garden of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the first place? The answer I come up with is that choice is intertwined with existence itself; I am choosing, all the time. If choice didn't exist, then awareness doesn't exist, and without awareness, I don't exist.

So I, myself, am in the Garden of Eden all the time. I am always seeing those two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Every time I make a decision, I must choose which tree to eat from.

• The Tree of Life, where I go to God,  the One and the Oneness, the All in All, the eternal good, in prayer, or…

• The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, where I try to survive and thrive by my own senses and understanding.

So we have the one tree, the Tree of Life. It's not the "Tree of Life and Death," it is the Tree of Life which has no opposites.

Then we have this other tree, the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." The tree of opposites. Where the condition of nakedness becomes the idea of nakedness and creates the opposite idea that I have something to hide and that I'd be better off if I hid some parts of myself.

But opposites exist only concepts in thought. They only exist because we imagine them to exist. Then we create a whole world, based on words alone, and see reality through this lens. But it's all a mental illusion.

Take mathematics, which is based in reality but is its own world that exists only in the mind. Math makes things abstract and creates opposites. In math, there is the number one and the number negative one. 

In real life, however, I might have  one apple. I can give the apple away. I now have no apples. I don't have a "negative one" apple. There's no such thing as negative one apple. In life, there is nothing less than zero; I can't have fewer apples than no apples.

Now, math helps us think and helps us create. Math may help us understand some aspects of reality, but it's not reality. In the same way, words help us think, but they're not real. Animals that look the same gave rise words distinguishing them by kind. We created the word "cat" because we recognized animals sharing the same characteristics, but the word "cat" did create cats. "Cat" is a word based on physical reality.

Other concepts, however, have no basis in reality, only in thought. "Evil" doesn't have objective existence in the world the same way that a cat exists or the apple exists or you and I exist. Something is evil only because you judge it to be so, and you judge it because of how it makes you feel. That's what eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil gives you, the capacity to judge. Specifically, to judge by appearances.

Let's say that  you see someone who is suffering, and start feeling empathy and compassion. What fruit are you going to eat from, the Tree of Life or the Tree of Good and Evil?

You eat from the tree of life, and you might take action through prayer, encouraging words, or physical assistance to help the suffering person.

Eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and you start asking, "Who caused this suffering?" or "Who's to blame for this suffering?" Emotions of fear and anger will arise and you might call the responsible person "evil." Something must be done to that person. They may or may not have done anything, but they appeared to be guilty and so you judge them.

All of civilization as we all know it, in all of recorded history, has been built by and maintained by people living in this consciousness of Good and Evil, what I call the Human Consciousness. And, as that recorded history reveals, the institutions that were purportedly created to protect us from evil were themselves the cause of the greatest suffering. 

But then there is the Tree of Life, or what I will call the Christ Consciousness, which has no opposites. It is eternal; there is no death. It is the consciousness of love, not judgment. It keeps no record of wrongs and rejoices in the right. It praises, doesn't blame. 

When I encounter any situation, I can choose my Human Consciousness or my Christ Consciousness, where there is life with no death, health with no disease, abundance with no lack, nakedness with no shame,  love with no fear, good with no evil.

I may go through life reacting to the things I've received and go into the human consciousness and say, "This is bad; what have I done to deserve this?" Perhaps I might say, "This is okay, but I wish it were better." Or, I can go to my Christ Consciousness and say, "Good! Thank you!" and proceed through life with an ever-greater appreciation of what I've been given.

That said, we do get caught up in situations. Anger, fear, or anxiety can pop up. How can we refocus and choose the the Tree of Life?

By taking time to pray.

Unity's Lenten booklet "In the Garden" has Sunday lessons about Jesus's time in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was after the Lord's Supper and before his arrest that led to the Crucifixion. The lesson for the second Sunday in Lent, by Reverend Ellen Debenport, is about one thing: at the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus left his disciples to be alone and pray.

This is something Jesus frequently did. It's reported in Luke that he often withdrew to lonely places and prayed (Luke 15:16). And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen." That is, be alone with God when you pray.

We can assume that Jesus tried to be alone with God as much as possible. And through his praying, he developed and maintained a Christ consciousness in which:

• The wind and the sea obeyed him.

• He healed countless people, including Romans and other gentiles.

• He raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.

• He fed the 5,000.

• He told his disciples to cast the nets once more and they caught an abundance of fish where there had been none. 

• He cast out demons who were possessing people.

• And he did many other wonderful things.

But this time in Gethsemane was different. 

The burdens weighed heavily on Jesus. More so than ever before. Jesus brought to the world a Christ consciousness that mastered healing, abundance and acceptance. He even mastered the seas and skies.

But even though Jesus went to the outcasts, such as lepers, and the friendless, such as tax collectors, he had never been abandoned or been an outcast before. He knew, however, that his disciples would soon flee him.

Jesus encountered people who suffered physical and mental ailments, but he never suffered himself. Now, however, he was expecting whippings and crucifixion.

 Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but had never been dead himself.

As humans, we fear the unknown. Jesus, as a man, was expecting to face three things he had never experienced before: abandonment, extreme physical suffering, and death.

And then, from the perspective of human consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil, there was the sheer injustice of the Roman occupation and the corruption in the temple. The Romans should be driven out and the Temple should reformed, and Jesus was just the man to do both.

Or was he?

Jesus himself said he could bring down twelve legions of angels at any time to stop his arrest. So why didn't he? Well, what if the angels did come? Everything changes, there may be a revolution, the Romans leave town, and Jesus becomes enthroned. He becomes the literal, physical Messiah, the King of the Jews, that the people were hoping for.

How would that turn out?

Who would Jesus send to prison? Who would Jesus fight wars against? 

Jesus had no intention of doing such things. People had asked him to settle inheritance disputes within families, and he wouldn't even do that. But that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was present in his garden, as it is in all of our gardens, and he was acutely aware that he could bite the apple from that tree, vanquish the Romans, and bring earthly, human-defined justice to the land. But that would have defeated his whole purpose. Instead, he chose the Tree of Life, praying to the Christ within for the inner strength to see that purpose unfold.

And what is that purpose? To show to everyone that you are free, that you are unlimited.

The Authorities have no power over you.

The State has no power over you.

And death has no power over you, because life has no opposite.

Do as Jesus did. That tree of good and evil will always be there, inviting you. Ignore it. Bite from the apple of the tree of life. And take time to pray.

Thank you.