Monday

Get a war memorial we don’t have to fight over

San Diego Union Tribune
by Logan Jenkins, December 21, 2009

Of all the possible responses to the 20-Year (and Counting) War over the fate of the Mount Soledad memorial cross, the most poignant, it seems to me, is the plea for a re-imagined monument on the federal land.

This is the romantic’s last gasp at reconciling polar opposites. The idealist’s squaring of the cross circle.

Just imagine:

Lawsuits terminated. Peace declared in our time. The skyscraping cross shipped to the lawn of a nearby church. A modern monument cuts the festering Gordian knot that has formed around the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Sam Dolnick, a World War II veteran and a self-described “humanistic Jew,” revived this utopian theme following a recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing, which pitted lawyers for the ACLU and the 114-year-old Jewish War Veterans of the United States against the federal government.

This was the latest grind of the wheel as the La Jolla cross slouches toward Washington and its ultimate date with the Supreme Court.

“The difficulty now is that although the fight is against the use of a specific religious symbol to represent all religions of those who died in service, no other symbol is suggested to replace the Christian cross,” Dolnick wrote in a letter to the editor.

Dolnick’s idea, which I had heard at least once before, is to remove the cross and put in its place an artistic replica of the battlefield memorial for a fallen soldier: an upright rifle with a helmet on top and boots on the bottom.

Putting aside the obvious objection — how would the other military branches feel about an Army-centric memorial? — Dolnick’s notion is sweetly futile, a perfect mission for a Jewish Don Quixote.

“It has been my experience over 91 years that when something is objected to, if nothing is suggested to replace the objected item, nothing is ever accomplished,” the La Mesan wrote.

In other words, you can’t beat something with nothing.

The trouble with the 56-year-old cross is that it’s really, really something. In fact, it’s not just one thing. It’s two things.

You could say that it’s both giant and windmill.

As a symbol, the Mount Soledad cross is, at its core, ambiguous. That’s its slippery genius. Even on sunny days, it’s shrouded by a perceptual fog.

On the one hand, it’s a religious symbol, arguably the most freighted in human history. It directly evokes Christ’s Passion. Believers see His suffering in the archetypal outline.

There’s a visceral reason Easter sunrise services are held at Mount Soledad. (You know a giant rifle wouldn’t draw the devout to reflect upon the resurrection.)

The cross is, at the same time (and even in the same mind), a culturally comfortable symbol of death, a 29-foot sentry for a universal military cemetery within which are buried veterans of all — or no — faiths.

In the past 20 years, as combatants have squared off in a long succession of courtrooms, the cross’s connection to the death of veterans has been reinforced by commemorative plaques at its base.

The majority of San Diegans, I suspect, can live with the inherent ambiguity, the coexistence of the divine and the secular, the manifest constitutional violation (an exclusive religious symbol on public land) and the manifest cultural amelioration (a familiar historical emblem that honors the war dead of any or no religion).

The other day, I heard from Al Rodbell, a Carlsbad writer who suggested that my crass view of the cross — I told him that, at this point, I really didn’t care what happens to it — was colored by the fact that I had been sheltered from the “virus” of anti-Semitism.

Rodbell began a follow-up letter to me with a shocking string of profanities hurled at Jews for centuries.

If I were Jewish, if fate had not knit me as a blue-eyed born into a Presbyterian family, I would feel differently about the Christian cross on federal land, he suggested.

Maybe so.

My experience with religious and ethnic prejudice in America has been largely vicarious. To comprehend bigotry, I’ve had to read books, watch movies, marry into a Jewish family.

Still, the cruel irony of a Christian cross looking down on a town that, when the cross was built and afterward, strongly discouraged Jews from living there is not lost on me.

Say or think what you will about the Mount Soledad cross it’s not modern in concept. It’s not cool.

In urging a crusade for a replacement of the Mount Soledad cross, Rodbell asked me to imagine “a soaring work of art, abstract enough to represent the force of religion, the toll of war and the aspiration for peace. It would be a small example to the city, the country and perhaps even the world that there are ways to transcend the limits of a given political system. … The hardpan of congealed conflict has to be plowed, which will take many passes; and then perhaps, just perhaps, a symbol the entire city could be proud of could grace the highest point of ‘America’s Finest City.’ ”

Support the Evolution of the Soledad Cross. Peace on Earth.

As a Christmas message, a gift borne by two Jewish wise men, it has a certain ring to it.

Tuesday

Uncensored (but edited) Letter to Logan Jenkins referenced in his column

column was sparked by this letter,  which he excerpted.


Logan Jenkins,
Columnist, San Diego Union Tribune

Dear Logan

"You God Damn Fucking Jew Bastard"

You've never had these words shouted at you. But your wife's father probably did, and if history is any guide, the virus that elicits it, with words foreshadowing deeds, is still extant in the nether regions of this country.


I describe the opportunity he has to reach readers on this issue

I happened to have gotten to know Phil Paulson fairly well the last year of his life. Since for years before that he refused any public appearances, deferring to his legal team, our hours of conversations provided me with an understanding of his motivations to challenge the Cross that are unknown to most. With him gone, with the decision of the national Jewish War Veterans to take up this issue, it will be interpreted by those whose only response to any issue is a jerk of the knee, to depict this in the most ancient of tribalisms, Christians against Jews.

........There is a need to transcend the mechanisms of our political system, a Judiciary and legislative both being binary- "The Cross, Remain or Remove." Transcending this is not to be achieved by a one shot newspaper article, column or OpEd. It will take a concerted campaign.

I spoke to Sam Dolnick, a 91 year old Jewish Veteran  whose UT letter Sunday contained the seed of a resolution. But it would require a level of skill and commitment that I'm not sure is available. It would require convincing those who are currently in control of the "Federal District of Soledad Cross" that eternal conflict is not the truest symbol of the spirit that the Cross represents.

Subsequently, I discovered that the local Veteran's Memorial Group had agreed to this proposal several years ago, but was overruled by the City Council and a referendum of voters.   The decision is now with the actual owners, and the plaintiffs in the current law suit, the U.S. Deptartment of Justice and the Secretary of Defense. 

It would require presenting an alternative, if not the rifle and helmet that Dolnick suggested, a soaring work of art, abstract enough to represent the force of religion, the toll of war and the aspiration for peace. It would be a small example to the city, the country and perhaps even the world that there are ways to transcend the limits of a given political system.

Politicians, both actual and wanabee, love to foment fear and hatred. Each era provides its own targets, but in a pinch, Jews have always filled the need. Is it even remotely in your, or anyone's, capacity to turn this around, to tap the better natures of those in the San Diego Region? How wonderful it would be if this new monument were to be not only a memorial representing those who died in war, but what they died for, which ultimately was the replacement of consuming hatred with a desire to achieve a world in peace.

The decision of the panel of the ninth circuit will not resolve anything, as that decision will be appealed to the full court, and then to the supreme court......with, in this case, right wing personages taking on the role of "defenders of the faith." to their political advantage.

You know the nature of the people of San Diego more than perhaps anyone. You know the component groups, from those "who cling to their guns and religion" to those who dream the dreams of philosophers. It could be that this is the world that we live in, destined to have the execration of hatred play itself out in all areas of political life, until, until, ........we may never know.

Perhaps I have to do some more work, perhaps try to form a group, a foundation, starting with Sam Dolnick, and then explore whether the current overseers of the Cross are even open to such an idea before you take it up. Sam planted the shovel, and the UT printed it prominently. The hardpan of congealed conflict has to be plowed, which will take many passes; and then perhaps, just perhaps, a symbol the entire city could be proud of could grace the highest point of "America's Finest City."

Regards

Al Rodbell

Sunday

San Diego Union Tribune (U.T)Editorials fostered toxic anger

One Jewish WWII combat vet, whom I described the article to, (Initials M B)talked about how he often visited the Soledad site. And here's some hard data that can be verified. He says that he feels uncomfortable there, as he has looked around the memorial plaques, and only saw a very few Jewish insignias. He struggled to express himself, "that's not....representative of those who fought in the war"

Actually that's a bit of quantitative evidence of the effect of having a cross as the overarching symbol. It could be useful to the plaintiffs, but that's not the avenue that interests me right now. I want to try to win over the hearts of those who currently are stuck in a "Cross, No Cross" binary decision.....to transcend this, rather than have a legal victory that will lead to further animosity.

This U.T. editorials (among many)before the referendum was antagonistic to the point of fomenting hatred, and something I would guess a new, more enlightened Editorial Board may actually want to rectify.

My comments in italics
--------------
Mount Soledad memorial is worth saving
July 18, 2005

Proposition A on the July 26 ballot boils down to a singular question: Do you want to keep the 29-foot cross and war memorial atop Mount Soledad? Or do you want the cross removed, as atheist Philip Paulson has been demanding in court for over 15 years?
If you want to preserve the cross, erected over half a century ago at the end of the Korean War as a tribute to veterans, vote Yes on Proposition A. If you want the cross torn down, vote No.

Not "cross removed" but the more violent connotation of "cross torn down"


As far as the ballot measure goes, it's as simple as that.
As a legal matter, however, the issue is anything but simple.
Proposition A asks voters whether they want to transfer the monument to the federal government, in accordance with a new federal law that designated the site a national memorial. The aim of Proposition A proponents is to sidestep a federal judge's ruling that the cross on public land violates the California constitution.

To be honest, though, there is no guarantee that shifting the property to federal hands would remedy the constitutional issue. The best that can be said for Proposition A is that it might shift the long-running litigation costs of defending the cross from San Diego taxpayers to the federal government. Certainly, passage of Proposition A will not bring an end to Paulson's determined drive to dismantle the cross.

The above paragraphs acknowledge the legitimacy of the breach of the constitution, and admits that the goal is to remove the expense from the city to the federal government. Personification of evil, to "Atheist Phil Paulson" is a classic propaganda technique,

What is very clear, however, is that if voters reject Proposition A, the cross will come down. The City Council already has attempted to end the court dispute by removing the cross. Only a referendum signed by tens of thousands of San Diego voters thwarted the move.

Proposition A is probably the last chance to save the cross, even if it is not a sure bet.

based on antonym for "save" the connotation is if this is not passed the cross will be "killed," something that happens to living things, so removing the cross is connected to the killing of he who the symbol represents.

We believe it is worth a try.
Vote Yes on Proposition A.
----------------------
The tone was clearly to foment hatred towards Phil Paulson specifically, and Atheists in general. If this tone, even as an echo of the previous battle, is revived now,-- if it is not diffused by something different, we could have a resurgence of anti-semitism, something I have heard reports of becoming more previlent.

Saturday

References to documents and reports

Current Complaint by ACLU v. Dept. of Defense, with full history of this issue.  Paragraph 31, describes the agreement among all parties including the Soledad Cross Memorial Association to move the cross to the church down the hill, and create a new constitutionally acceptable symbol in its place.  This was confirmed to me by the CEO Bill Kellogg, that this decision taken shortly before it was submitted to the city council on July 20, 2004, was by a unanimous vote of the executive board.

Recent controlling decision by a three judge panel of the 9th circuit of 1/04/11.  That if not granted certiorari as of end of April 2012 will be subject to enforcement.  Not the similarity with their remedy with the agreement that had been reached among all parties in 2004, as referenced above.

Law, passed in July 2006,  that placed Memorial under the control of Department of Defense, with only maintenance by the SMMA.   Thus the continuation or removal of the cross is under the discretion of the Federal Executive branch and not local authorities. Here is the legislative history.   Here is the full text of the law, with a preface that is a narrative of the losing side in every appeals court decision.  

Union Tribune Article of June 10, 2005. Describes the lineup of those who want to pass a referendum that would negate a previous one earlier in the year that instructed the City Council to relocate the cross to a nearby church. Jim McCoy, lawyer for plaintiffs feel that it would be ruled unconstitutional so they did not fight this referendum.

Thomas More Legal Center Amicus Curae brief on 2006 case before ninth circuit


WorldNetDaily article describing the 9th circuit appeal of the decision against the ACLU and the Jewish War Veterans:

Joe Infranco is a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the American Legion Department of California. He told WND that after 45 minutes of arguments in 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was difficult to tell which way the three-judge panel was leaning.
Joe Infranco, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, said "If the Supreme Court does not take the case, and they take very few, then the appellate decision stands,"   Asked whether the cross must come down if the Department of Defense does not win its case, Infranco said, "That's an excellent question. I overheard veterans at the argument today talking about civil disobedience if they're ordered to dismantle the cross." He continued, "This excites a lot of emotion among the veterans. Veterans groups in the country are outraged by this lawsuit."
Union Tribune Article on District Court Decision supporting Federal Takeover of site, July 30,2008-Decision based on broader ruling by Federal Constitution than California's.