Learn. Pray. Blog.

Rev. C. Douglas Smith

While traveling out of state recently, I found myself in an urban center where alcohol sales have been privatized. It was an ugly scene: corner stores selling liquor next to seedy bars; steel grates covering smokey windows lit only by the neon signs that beckoned people inside for cheap whiskey. The traffic was regular. Not far away a Salvation Army drop-in facility did its best to provide refuge for God’s children afflicted with life’s challenges — abuse, mental illness, addiction — and beset by struggle.

You have seen the newspapers and now know that there are those in state government who want to increase the number of liquor stores from around 300 to over 1000. While I am sure they are not interested in having our cities and towns turn into the kind of place I described, too often the unintended consequences of well meaning politicians become damaging and detrimental to families. If we truly believe that encouraging family values begins with valuing families we need to ensure communities are given every chance to thrive.

A few weeks back we reached out to you and asked what you thought about the Governor’s plan to privatize ABC retail sales and increase the number of outlets. Your response was overwhelming: 80% of you said “No.”  Since then we have heard directly from a number of leaders in the faith community: from bishops, rabbis and imams. We seem to be all in agreement that the state should not be in the business of selling liquor at all. But we also seem to be in agreement that having the state control the sale of distilled spirits in a highly regulated way is far better than multiplying the number of retail locations by 100, 200, 300 percent or likely more.

Today we are making our position on the issue clear in our report, Off the Wagon: Why ABC Privatization is a Bad Idea. Virginia does not need to privatize liquor stores. We are releasing a policy paper clearly outlining how other states have failed to benefit from store expansions; connecting the dots on previous research that shows the social downside to privatizing liquor sales; and showing how ABC is a well-run, efficient, and reliable revenue generator for the state and provides funding for important programs that address substance abuse and mental health.

We don’t need to turn every Sheets and Wawa gas station, every corner store, every roadside bodega into a cocktail motor-through. Our communities don’t need it. Our state doesn’t need it. And the risks are too great.

P.S.: To tell a friend about this issue and what we’re doing about it, click here!

The news these days is flush with accounts of the proposed sale of Virginia’s post-prohibition monopoly of ABC stores. For generations, the Commonwealth has controlled liquor by the bottle through a state-based network of about 300 stores that do no advertising, rarely display signage, and still wrap bottles in a trademark brown paper bag. Governor Bob McDonnell wants to change that.

My friend Sen. John Chichester used to tell me that Virginia’s hold on ABC stores resulted in the state drinking in both tax and profit. In other words, liquor stores are another example of a well run government program, this time as an actual business. And a very profitable one at that! And those general fund dollars have been put to excellent use over the years, particularly in the area of mental health. Though the irony of liquor sales funding mental health programs is not lost.

Read more…

Lord God,
We have sinned against you (by allowing others to destroy your creation);
We have done evil in your sight (and now have no idea how to fix the problem).
We are sorry and repent (though it is unlikely we will really deal with our addiction).
Have mercy on us according to your love.
Wash away our wrongdoing and cleanse us from our sin.
(Forgive us).

The name of their project says it all: Blank Street.

Like a couple of empty canvases, Ben Saunders and Joey Schihl, two film students at Virginia Commonwealth University, head out next week in a VW van named Iris to film the faces of poverty, and those overcoming hardship throughout Virginia. They are not entirely sure what they will find.

Read more…

Fox News Firebrand Glenn Beck will speak at Virginia's Liberty University

Liberty University, founded by late televangelist Jerry Falwell, has announced that its graduation speaker will be Fox News

evangelist Glenn Beck.

LU has had interesting graduation speakers in the past including Chuck Norris and Ben Stein but few of their tapped commencement speakers have had such a controversial pattern of taking direct attacks at mainstream Christianity which seeks to fulfill God’s call to compassion and justice.  Beck is not exactly the most compassionate person on TV today.

Read more…

National gun rights groups were able to scrape together 2000 or so folks in Washington, D.C. yesterday to tote guns and brandish theological absurdities.  As has become part of the constant drumbeat of the extreme right, President Obama was referred to as a socialist out to steal people’s guns and violate the second amendment with some claiming that he may actually be the “Anti-Christ” or close to it. While this is usually hyperbole, some protesters seem to actually believe the President is no longer a Muslim but now Beelzebub.

Read more…

Many people think that Virginia is part of the Bible Belt.  While we certainly can claim our share of televangelists like the late Jerry Falwell Sr., Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and of course Pat Robertson the truth is that the landscape of Virginia’s faith community, the faithscape if you will, is more diverse than that these days and not just in NOVA.

Consider a small entry on the VAPilotOnline.com Web site featuring a Hindu family.  While Hindus have lived in Virginia for generations, few ever received such positive attention from mainstream media.  Their sisters and brothers in the Jewish community have been part of Virginia since the 18th Century.  Today it is not uncommon to also know Buddhists, Sikhs, Unitarians, and a heavenly host of other faiths living together in our communities.  Hey! Quakers are your Friends.

The diversity of expressions of faith in the Commonwealth should not surprise any of us as Virginia’s population continues to culturally and socially diversify.  In many ways, given the tribal nature of faith itself, faith and cultural diversity go hand in hand.  What will be very interesting to see is a 22nd Century Virginia when those tribes have intermarried and it is virtually impossible to know a family that is not racially, culturally, and most likely religiously diverse.  That faithscape may provide a whole new era of religious unity and spiritual depth.

As a Christian, that sounds a whole lot like the reign of God to me.

Banking Titan Goldman Sachs is a prime example of why we need Wall Street accountability.

As is being reported, the greed of big financial institutions means investors, and most notably small investors, are being misdirected and led astray by misleading products where the house bank always wins.

This is yet another reason we need Wall Street accountability to come from the Congress to get our banking system in line with American values and the expectations of every day consumers.

Virginia is raising taxes on 114,000 low income Virginians, and Governor Bob McDonnell’s press secretary, Stacey Johnson, doesn’t want the public talking about it.  The Governor’s office is claiming that a new report by The Commonwealth Institute is:

“politics at its most ridiculous,”

and yet they acknowledge

“the accuracy of its claim.”

In other words, the Governor’s office would really prefer people not notice that the Commonwealth is choosing to raise $6Million in taxes on low income workers at the very time it ensures $10Million is available for Virginia’s manufacturers.  As we often say, budgets are moral documents that speak to the priorities and values of government.  Right now the priority seems to be the manufacturers lobby.

Read more…

Greed may have undercut our economy but more greed will not help America rebound going forward. We need Wall Street accountability to keep American families from ever having to experience what big bankers and financial institutions have done to this country ever again. This “Great Recession” has created tremendous hardship and that is unfair for everyday people who are working so hard just to pay the bills.

Read more…

“This plan will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than 5 years, so that in no single county will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.”
Carter Glass, Delegate to the 1902 Virginia Constitutional Convention

In Virginia, all people with felony convictions are barred from voting, even after completing their sentences, including any incarceration. Only the Governor has authority to restore their access to the ballot box.  This is exactly what Carter Glass and others like him wanted to happen in order to keep people of color from voting.

The barriers we have put in place to keep people from voting have at their roots racism.

Read more…

Haley Barbour and Bob McDonnell, southern governors.

Just when you thought that Governor Bob McDonnell was putting the whole Confederate history month debacle behind him, Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour kicks up the dust again.

“To me, it’s a sort of feeling that it’s a nit, that it is not significant, that it’s not a – it’s trying to make a big deal out of something (that) doesn’t amount to diddly,” Barbour said in the interview aired on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Barbour articulated.

This puts Governor McDonnell in an even worse place than he was in earlier this week.  Now he not only has to continue to apologize about his original flub up, now he has to take on Haley Barbour publicly about his ridiculous comments or face renewed heat from Virginians who are deeply embarrassed to once again find themselves on the international stage because of the ignorant comments of a politician (sometimes Republican, sometimes Democrat).

Sure Barbour is gaining party power, among the more radical elements of the GOP but that should not scare Bob McDonnell.  He should stand up to Barbour and explain that the future of the Republican party is not in being revisionist.  In fact, he should stand up to the extremist parts of the party who will now rush to the defense of Barbour as well.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell admitted his sin of omission by leaving out any mention of slavery in his proclamation of April as Confederate History Month.

“The failure to include any reference to slavery was a mistake, and for that I apologize to any fellow Virginian who has been offended or disappointed….The abomination of slavery divided our nation, deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and led to the Civil War.”

Kudos to Bob McDonnell for standing up and admitting his office made a grave mistake.  Earlier today I indicated that the Governor needed to learn a little more about the Civil War if he thought slavery was not a “significant issue.”  Now, that he has clarified his understanding of the facts let’s hope he uses this moment to teach Virginia and the country about how far we have to move toward reconciliation.

Many people will ruminate why he didn’t get it right the first time.  I think the more important opportunity before Bob McDonnell is to use this as a teaching moment.

Virginia’s climate deniers could not help but claim that global warming was a sham this past winter because it was so cold. Now it is the first week of April and it’s 90 degrees outside. Those same people are silent.

Just saying….

Governor Bob McDonnell has avoided being a lightning rod on race since his run up to state-wide, and now national, visibility.  He had a major endorsement from democratic-funder Sheila Johnston, a prominent African American, during his run for Governor who became an excellent validator of McDonnell on many levels since she is an entrepreneur, African American leader, and of course the founder of BET.  There were questions when McDonnell suggested closing Twin Lakes State Park as part of a budget fix.  The park has significant ties to the black community as our only state park open to African Americans during segregation, but the Governor has avoided the broader race debates that George Allen fought given that Governor’s many encumbrances with historical southerness.

Now McDonnell may have some explaining to do after reclaiming April as “Confederate History Month” yesterday, and it may become his own Macaca Moment.  There are many months commemorated in VA but rarely those dealing a war over a state’s right to protect chattel slavery.  And no other commemorative month coincides with a month when Virginia seceded from America.  [time will tell how our attempt to secede from health insurance reform will be venerated.]

McDonnell says he issued the proclamation in an effort to revive Virginia’s tourism knowing the 150 Anniversary of the Civil War is approaching.  And yet, he says:

he did not include a reference to slavery because “there were any number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues. But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.“

Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Slip were the major entryway for trading slaves who survived the middle passage.   I know that the Governor is new to the neighborhood but about a 1/4 of a mile from the Governor’s Mansion there is a memorial to the slave trade that indicates how despicable slavery was in Richmond as the former capitol of the confederacy and Virginia as a whole.  One might even describe the horrific love affair that Virginia had with slavery, significant.

I certainly hope that this does not become Macaca Moment because with all of those Civil War tourists we are trying to attract to the state it would be a shame to not have a strong Governor who can hel recognize the whole history of Virginia.  Let’s not overlook the realities that the Civil War (not a “conflict,” Governor) was actually quite uncivil for those families who fought on all sides, including my own.

Slavery was even more uncivil.

This is a teaching moment.  Governor McDonnell should learn, and then teach.

The Virginia Pilot has an interesting news piece providing quotes from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell including an excellent statement about the extremists threatening violence.  Kudos to the Governor for returning us to the ideals of democracy and the importance of civic engagement saying:

“I think there are people in all parts of the political spectrum that are doing some things that are not reflective of the highest ideals of American democracy: threats, actual acts of violence against members of Congress, governors. Our solutions are at the ballot box and in the legislature. That’s the way we do things in America,” McDonnell said.

I wonder what the extremes of his base have to say about those sage words.  I wish I was hearing more from the left and right, including the tea party folks, about the need for civil discourse. Instead we have too many people that think freedom’s ring sounds like a shot from a gun.

The way of democracy is the way of unity.  The way of a united America should be the way of peace.

For years the Virginia Interfaith Center has worked to cap interest rates of car title and payday loans at 36%APR.  During these years of small reforms, which have had a solid history of impact, one of the things that constantly struck us was the prevelance of female borrowers, particularly from the African American community.

A new study describes why it is that predatory lenders have such an easy time luring women of color into high interest loans.  On average, the net worth of an African American woman is about the value of a deli sandwich.

This link goes to a story where Helen O’Beirne, from HOME, and I comment about this significant issue for housing and community development. rss-13315-1

So while white women have a net worth or wealth level of just over 42,000, black women have a net worth of only about $5 when you take assets and subtract debt.  There are many reasons why this might be but it is clear that we need to get to the bottom of finding a solution to remedy this situation in the future.

In a turn that should certainly catch the attention of anti-taxers, but likely won’t, the Virgina Citizens Defense League (the “every day should be the wild west” guys) are saying that general fund dollars should be used for background checks.

“…VCDL views gun owners having to pay $2 for a background check for purchasing a gun to be exactly like a “poll tax.” Such a fee should be paid out of general funding and in sufficient amounts to backup the statements by the government that instant check would be just that – instant, not 4 hours or days.”

As usual, Philip Van Cleave is shooting off emails describing how entitled he and the rest of Virginia’s gun slingers are.  For the state to cover the cost of background checks, which is foolishness, that would mean it would have to raise taxes or cut even more spending from social services, cops and schools.

I am not sure why VCDL feels like an already stretched general fund should be diverted to cover gun purchases but I do know that budget bill will die.  It may have to die in the Senate since the House of Delegates is so fearful of the gun guys, but it will happen.

If we are going to raise new revenue in Virginia, shouldn’t it be an investment for the betterment of everyone rather than just to squelch the complaining of the few?

To my amazement, a slew of letters to the Richmond Times Dispatch shows at least a few Virginians are suggesting they voted for our Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  It’s been harder and harder to get those confessions even from Republicans with his constant screes.

There is also a spate of well-conjectured letters claiming health insurance reform opponents still have shot at losing that debate again.  Must be hard to hear that the over-financed campaign to keep the health care industry broken has lost with all that yelling going on at tea parties.

Below is a video of Beth Kimbriel, who’s family had to choose between food and doctor visits because they were denied coverage for a pre-existing condition. She’s shocked that Ken Cuccinelli would want to take health reform away from her family and force them into that desolate situation again.

Next stop – financial reform!

“The drought affecting Yunnan exceeds any from over the past millennium, according to the local department of meteorology. It is estimated that by May, one out of four people will have no drinking water.”

The climate is suffering and the result is that basic necessities like water are going to be more and more difficult to find throughout the world.  It is no wonder that the Chinese government is buying water-sourced land around the world when you read the most recent Epoch Times article.

We must get serious about reducing the impact of climate change and conserving our resources in order to have a planet to leave to our grandchildren.  We are meant to be the caretakers of God’s creation.