Time's 2013 Persons of the Year

I hope the day after Christmas finds you well and happy.  We are having a welcome visit from our daughter Jeanette and will soon be visiting our larger family in Southern California and our younger daughter Marie and her husband.  Renewing family ties is one of the most rewarding activities of the holiday season.

Today my comments are on the top five Time Magazine "Person of the Year" choices.  Time's criterion for inclusion is the magnitude of the person's impact on the world--be that for good or ill--during the year.  The 2013 selectee for Person of the Year is Pope Francis.  Places two through five went to Edward Snowden, Edith Windsor, Bashar Assad and Ted Cruz.

Pope Francis is the absolutely right and fitting choice for Person of the Year in 2013, in my view.  The man Time calls "the people's pope" heads the Roman Catholic Church, the largest religious body in the world, with some 1.2 billion members.  In addition, a pope's influence can extend also to some degree over the 1 billion Christians who are not Catholic, and can do much to form views about Christians and predominantly Christian nations among those of other faiths, particularly Islam and Judaism, but others such as Hindus, Buddhists and the nonreligious as well.

By choosing the papal name Francis, the only pope to do so, the first non-European pope in over 600 years served notice that his emphasis would be on loving pastoral care, especially for the poor.  Francis has certainly followed that path.  The previous two popes were canon (religious) lawyers by training, and spent a great deal of effort fighting the culture wars, particularly on sexual issues, and enforcing orthodox teachings.  Francis, a pastor by experience and inclination, stresses the messages of mercy and love.  His famous response, "Who am I to judge?" when asked about gay clergy, was an astonishing pronouncement from a pontiff.  He has censured prelates for spending undue sums on pomp and luxury, blasted unfettered capitalism for forgetting the poor, and removed culture warriors from prominent church positions.  The findings of a panel he appointed to make recommendations about the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy, could well presage a needed house cleaning there as well.  Pope Francis's vigorous efforts to steer his church toward Saint Francis's vision as a hospital for deprived and wounded souls rather than a scolding organization could begin to revolutionize many things within western civilization, the more so if the health of the now 77-year old Francis holds up.

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor and leaker,  is a deserving choice as number two.  His revelations, while certainly no surprise to the informed such as those who read this blog, appear to have come as amazing revelations to many.  Ever since 9/11 the electronic reach of the NSA has pervaded society in unprecedented and clearly unconstitutional ways.   The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.  In bringing the true scope of surveillance to the attention of the public at large, Snowden has succeeded in sparking the national discussion he sought.  It will take years to properly delineate the proper balances between privacy and security, but much more of the debate will now take place in public, where it belongs in an ostensibly democratic society.

Edith Windsor, the number three Person of the Year, has been a catalyst for one of the most rapid and sweeping societal transformations in American history.  Her case United States v Windsor was the one in which the U.S. Supreme Court this June overturned the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, thus opening the way for recognition of marriage equality rights across the United States.  Her specific case dealt with her contention that her same-sex marriage, recognized by the state of New York, should entitle her to inherit the estate of her deceased spouse without the assessment of inheritance taxes, the same as heterosexually-married couples enjoy.  With this ruling, for instance, military same-sex spouses became eligible for many benefits heretofore denied, and further challenges keep widening the effects.  Six new states have recognized same-sex marriage in the U.S. this year, the latest being Utah in a Federal District Court decision partially based on Windsor that may well eventually end in the Supreme Court making a definitive ruling on the entire permissibility of excluding same-sex marriage throughout the nation.

As number four, dictator Bashar Assad of Syria simply shows the enduring problem thugs of his ilk can still cause this world of ours.  The civil war in his country has drawn Iran, its Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah terrorist minions, the  European Union, Russia, the United States, the conservative Arab gulf states and Sunni jihadist al-Qaeda linked fighters into a Middle Eastern maelstrom.  The conflict was initially inspired by the Arab spring in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and began as an effort by moderate, pro-democracy Syrians to free themselves from the Assad regime's oppressive authoritarian rule.  The scope of those involved certainly shows Assad's "contribution" to important world events, and continues to point up the seemingly intractable difficulties of untangling the problems of that byzantine portion of the globe.

Tea Party firebrand Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was chosen as number five.  His demagogic rantings led to the futile government shutdown, an attempt to stop Obamacare, this fall.  The fact that the three-fourths of Republican representatives and senators who are not tea-partiers felt constrained to cave in and go along with this kind of action when they knew it was bad for the country and couldn't even work speaks volumes about the Republican rank and file these days.  The right-wing media has created an extreme base which few in GOP circles will even dare publicly talk reality and sense to.  Cruz reminds me of earlier demagogic congressional leaders, most notably the Democrat Huey Long in the 1930s and the Republican Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, who for a time gained impressive sway founded on incendiary and nonsensical ravings pitched to the most gullible and fear-motivated people in society.  Hopefully, his political importance will in the end be the same as theirs: a cautionary lesson of shame and disgrace.