NCR Today

The horrific terrorist killings in Oslo, motivated by anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment by the terrorist, makes me very worried about the growing anger and hatred expressed in the United States, especially by the extreme right.

We saw something of that in the attempted assassination of the Arizona congresswoman earlier this year (although we don't know the gunman's motives, anger was in the political atmosphere of the country at the time). After that incident, everyone from right and left stated that we needed to restore civility to our politics. Unfortunately, that didn't last very long. The current debate -- if you want to call it that -- over the debt ceiling has seen very acrimonious discourse, again, especially by the Tea Party types.

I'm worried that at some point -- not in Congress, but among the rank and file -- they, like the Oslo terrorist, will cross over a boundary that will lead to irrational behavior, including violence.

Even as a historian, I can't recall such venomous statements against the President of the United States. Some on the extreme right seem to consider President Obama and the Democrats not as political opposition, but as the enemy.

This week, the PBS News Hour offered a moving, two-part series profiling the Bard Prison Initiative. The program was started in 1999 by Max Kenner a student at Bard College in New York State. Kenner sought to restore a college education program for men and women incarcerated in New York State prisons.

Fifteen years ago, state and federal governments stopped supporting college education in prison. Kenner and his team believe that liberal arts education, rather than technical training, has the potential offer a prisoner not only marketable skills, but, more importantly, an opportunity for self-reflection.

Today, at the U.S. Capitol, some friends of mine were arrested because they care a lot about the poor. They sought to give witness to members of Congress that the budget bill drawn up by Speaker John Boehner is travesty, especially for the poor and vulnerable.

Arrested were people like Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause (also a Methodist minister), Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, Rev. Jim Winkler, general secretary, General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church, and Rev. Jennifer Butler, Executive Director, Faith and Public Life. Sr. Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service and director of NETWORK, was an official observer.