Sins of the Fathers

Sins of the Fathers

by Marco M. Pardi

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me.” Deuteronomy 5:9 and Exodus 20:5

“Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:7 and Numbers 14:18

All comments are welcome and will receive a response.

To be very clear, while I do not subscribe to the concept of a personalized God, I hold a deep respect for those few believers I have known who do so honestly, living fully according to the precepts of their religions. That in no way means I agree with them; it means I respect honesty. I have no respect whatsoever for people who wrap themselves in the mantle of a religion while living an anathema to that religion, the people who have used that mantle to enrich themselves. I have lived among and worked with people of the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I’ve also lived where these religions were practically unknown.

Western society generally prides itself on the position that you can believe whatever you want to believe so long as you do not force it on others, or bring harm to others. That appears to be rapidly changing in the United States.

There should be no doubt that, even among reasonable people, themes fundamental to religions permeate through the social and political systems of those people. Of course, we could say the reverse is also true; social and political themes which became religious themes did so by the simple grafting on an assumed “divine authority”. One of the more puzzling themes I have encountered is that of visiting punishment, or some sort of reckoning onto the descendants of those who supposedly committed some offense.

I first encountered this concept when, as an Italian child relatively new to the post WWII United States I met with some hostility from other children who claimed their fathers fought against the Germans and the Italians, two of the Axis Powers.

Of course, I was not savvy enough to generate a meaningful rebuttal. I knew only that my father was distinctly not a Fascist; he was sympathetic to the deposed King of Italy, but was strongly in favor of a British style parliamentary system. (I later learned how he used his position – Colonel – to orchestrate resistance against the German occupation of Italy.) But Americans, especially kids, knew little or nothing about internal Italian politics. So, I relied on less cerebral skills to deal with those wishing to resume hostilities.

At that time we lived in the North. I learned about the Civil War with some disinterest, it not being my war. And I read about current Southern White hostility toward Northerners. I thought that understandable, Northerners being able to speak grammatical English and more likely having a full set of teeth. But when I moved to the South I again encountered hostility. Older by this time, I tried to explain I came to this country; I was neither a “Yankee” or a “Rebel”. Some years later I began reading about “reparations”.

This was a concept I understood. As the German locusts were retreating from Italy during WWII they seized and occupied a 39 room chateau we owned in the Alps above Cortina. The Americans and British duly bombed it to dust and it was only in the mid 1960’s that the government of Germany paid us “reparations”. I did not know the details, but I understood the concept.

Yet here was talk about reparations for the enslavement of Africans brought to the New World. There was precedent. Major German companies were embroiled in court cases over reparations to the survivors of concentration camp labor forced to work for them during the war. Those cases were largely won by the survivors, even the children of those survivors. But the cases were bolstered by the meticulous records the Germans themselves kept of every person imprisoned and subsequently forced into a factory or mine. How could anyone provide documentation specific to a huge slave trade which functioned solely on descriptions such as Adult Male Healthy, Child Female Sickly?

I don’t know, but I suppose some crafty real estate attorney calculated the value of that chateau at the time of the bombing, or perhaps what it would be worth in the 1960’s. I do know that we have seen many wrongly convicted and incarcerated Americans awarded cash settlements after they were freed. I assume those settlements were based upon calculated lost earnings, with perhaps some punitive award thrown in. Native American tribes have successfully sued the federal government for breach of contract subsequent to treaty violations and land confiscation.

But to identify all living African-Americans as necessarily the descendants of people brought here in slavery over 150 years ago – which many are not – and hand each a lump sum cash settlement is clearly unworkable. For one thing, it would mean parcing out tax money in the U.S. treasury to ensure that only money paid in by those presumed to be the descendants of the slavers would be used for the pay out. Otherwise, tax money paid in by the descendants of slaves themselves would be mixed with that paid in by Native Americans, by immigrants from non-slave trading nations, and by descendants of the slavers. How well do you think that would go over?

There are other ways providing reparations. We have known for decades of outright racially based discrimination in many sectors of American society, including availability of loans for housing, small business support, federal subsidies to farmers, and much more. A serious and meaningful response to those issues would result in a deliverable value.

On a worldwide scale, we are already seeing another kind of human displacement: Climate refugees. This is no new problem. Linguistic evidence strongly supports the position that the name Hebrew derives from the Egyptian word hebiru, essentially meaning migrant or itinerant laborer. During repeated droughts in the area which came to be known as Palestine the residents moved to the fertile Nile Valley, taking what jobs they could find.

At the height of Imperial Rome edicts were issued limiting the amount of coal that could be burned in households; a black pall hung over the city in deep winter. People who could, fled the city for the rural villages. And now we are seeing mass migrations in several parts of the world as largely man made climate change drastically alters rainfall, crop growing patterns, forage for livestock, and seawater temperatures which support or deny fish.

Who is the main driver behind climate change? The fossil fuel industry, supported by tax breaks and subsidies passed by our elected officials and their appointed minions. Through disclosure of internal documents we now know that the major oil and gas companies knew they were destroying the environment as early as, or before, the 1960’s. Yet they have grown into the world’s most profitable and most powerful multi-national companies. Their tax sheltered income is in the trillions; their power resides in their ability, as a cartel, to turn off the tap and roll living conditions back into the 1800’s.

And their air pollution and the water pollution which changes the chemical balance of salt and fresh water is acceptable to a large portion of humanity which sees it as a side effect of the medicine needed to fix and maintain everyday life.

Most people are aware of the Deep Water Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Few people are aware of another such blowout. Twelve miles off the coast of Louisiana a drilling rig toppled in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan has been leaking 700 barrels of oil every day up to the present day, and is still leaking at that rate (U.S. Govt. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement). The same Bureau said, “For every 1,000 wells in state and federal waters, there’s an average of 20 uncontrolled releases – or blowouts – every year. A fire erupts offshore every three days, on average……” (USG, BSEE) The Gulf of Mexico is the world’s largest open sewer. And who are the new hebirus, the new migrants fleeing the changing conditions which spawn violence and desperation? We are seeing them all over the world, drowning in the Mediterranean, being killed in the Middle East and in Asia, and having their children forcibly taken from them at the U.S. border. Well over 5,400 children have been taken, most shipped to unknown and now untraceable locations. ICE has admitted it had no tracking technology when it sent infants and children to foster homes, shelters, and orphanages throughout the U.S.

But America, despite its claim to “Pro-Life” is growing support for Draconian laws proposed and passed by elected representatives banning abortion under most or all circumstances and restricting or banning access to contraception, dooming many children to homelessness, poverty, hunger, revolving door foster care, juvenile and adult prison, and the desperation that leads to acceptance of any kind of work, be it drug trafficking, prostitution or what amounts to mercenary enlistment into an imperial military. The very same elected legislators who propose and enact the “Pro-Life” laws are attempting to eliminate Social Security, MediCare, MediCaid, school lunch support, and SNAP – the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (the proposed cut to SNAP is 450 billion dollars).

Looking back at that title, Sins of the Fathers, we might ask ourselves who the fathers are. Of course, we must recognize that the concept originated within a rabidly patriarchal society. So, we can now understand “fathers” in a more inclusive sense not restricted to males.

Who paid us for the loss of our chateau and all its furnishings and personal items over twenty years previously? The aircrews who bombed it? The German General Staff who ordered the seizure? No. The next generation of German taxpayers, the people struggling to put their lives back together paid us. They paid for the sins of the fathers.

Years of hard fought legal and even physical battles have won advances for African-Americans now living in America. But who should pay for the lives lost or spent in abject misery during the years of organized slavery? How should it be paid? To whom? The original “fathers” are long dead.

Who should pay for the officially approved genocide of Native Americans, the hundreds of treaty violations, the forced dislocation of people to lands so poor they could barely feed themselves, the confinement to Reservations? How should it be paid? To whom? The original “fathers” are long dead.

Who will pay for the lives of our children and grandchildren as they struggle to survive on diminishing arable land, with greatly reduced available seafood and clean water to drink? Who will house and feed the masses attempting to relocate to where life is still possible? Who will answer their questions on how this came about? We are the fathers.

Who will pay for the unwanted children, especially those born with incurable medical conditions they will experience for life, born into circumstances which could not have supported them even before the vicious cuts in the social safety nets? We are the fathers.

The old advertising slogan, BUY NOW, PAY LATER, has been replaced by the unspoken ethic, PILLAGE AND RUIN NOW, THE BILLS WON’T BE DUE IN OUR LIFETIMES.

Yet we are the fathers, and soon enough the paternity suits will hold up in court. In teaching Human Behavioral Science I always destroyed the myth of instinctual “Mother love”. Perhaps the best arguments against that myth have been playing out before our distracted eyes.