Two Americas

Two Americas? How about a thousand?

Happy new year.

As you might have guessed by the long period separating the last posting from this one, I took a breather to put the election behind me, find goodness in America, and basically smell the roses.  Gotta do it quick, because Bush the Gardener is coming with his shears and his merry team of leafblowers, to blow all the petals into the street and under the wheels of oncoming vehicles. 

The semi-aborted plan of the House Republicans to write themselves an official double-standard is of concern more as a precursor than a fait accompli.  Tom DeLay is such a snake that it's difficult to imagine a greasier character.  Maybe there isn't one.  He exudes pomade, besides wearing it liberally.  Oh my Texan friends, why did you not remain a Lone Star Republic? 

Anyway, as things get back to hopping, as Social Security goes under the knife, as the war rages uncontrollably, as our domestic environment and government services take the hits -- imagine that private citizens have raised more money for tsunami relief than Uncle Sugar, because he's broke! -- there'll be plenty to write about.  I can't wait.   Just wait until his and her and their and their and their oxes are gored.   

Two Americas?  How about a thousand?

First Fool and Lesser Fools

The heartfelt enthusiasm expressed by US troops in Iraq for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- at least as reported in the mainstream press -- is one more indicator that the theory of America as "a nation of abused children" (see prior post, below) is accurate.

Rumsfeld has miscalculated and lied about virtually every aspect of the Iraq War:  promoting the invasion under false pretenses, undermanning the forces so that they are perpetually at risk, denying the truth of Abu Ghraib and similar atrocities for too long, failing to supply American troops with sufficient body and vehicle armor, and most recently, coarsely sending letters of condolence signed by a  machine to families whose sons and daughters have died in battle.

And the troops cheer this fool?  "Kick us again!"

Our Nation of Abused Children

As much of America celebrates Christmas, the institutionalized be-nice-to-children holiday, many children in this nation live in fear of abuse; and many more adults live with its scars.

I wrote the article below, about America's epidemic of child abuse, for publication during the general election.  It wasn't popular with editors, probably because the subject hits so close to home among individuals of all classes, races, and religions.  Needless to say, Kerry and the Democrats didn't have the courage to work with this issue and suggest how they would mitigate child abuse.  Oh course, Bush and the Republicans, who benefit from child abuse, didn't. 

The 2004 election wove child abuse into the very warp and woof of our  national fabric.  Now it is inviolate, except in reactionary laws that stigmatize overt, crazy abusers, but preserve the right of the majority to continue abusing.

The fact that America is a "nation of abused children," remains a secret only in the official discourse.  The  consequences of abuse --  including a society that is increasinglyraw, violent, and intolerant, led by brutes who condone and encourage domestic and world terror -- are all too evident to Americans who must live with these outcomes every day.

IN OUR NATION OF ABUSED CHILDREN,
CANDOR AND CARING ARE THE KEY TO POWER

Why outing “lying liars” may not matter, but truth and caring do

A recent poll revealed that many of President Bush’s supporters do not like what he is doing, but they like the way he’s doing it.

And while they know the Bush Administration has lied to them – about the war, about the economy, even about for whom the tax giveaways were intended – these loyalists dismiss Bush & Co.’s deceits, notwithstanding Al Franken’s revelations to the contrary.

If this makes little sense to you, it’s because your experience as a child, like mine, may have been different from most of Bush’s fans’ – and for that matter, from the childhoods experienced by a majority of Americans.

Ours is a nation of abused children.  The most conservative statistics state that one of four female children, and one of six male children, will have been sexually or physically abused by the age of 18.  Abuse counselors and psychologists in the field claim even higher numbers:  40 to 45 percent of all female children and at least 25 percent of male children, are victims of abuse.  When pressed, the professionals confess that a majority of both sexes may be abused, when psychological abuse and neglect are taken into account.

Those of us fortunate to have avoided the terrors of childhood abuse and neglect cannot conceive of the damage they do to the child and to the adult that the child becomes.  An abuse victim learns early that the world is an unsafe place; that manipulation and deceit are essential ingredients of family life; that the administration of pain is an expression of love, and that no one will come to help, anyway.

From the frying pan into the fire, young victims rescued from severe abusers – before they are maimed or killed outright – may enter an equally abusive child-welfare factory.  Though many child welfare agencies, social workers, and foster parents labor hard to save these kids, others are not so careful or caring.  The record stands on the side of abuse.  Subject to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy, these children remain victims. And so, to their earlier slights is added helplessness. Obeying the dictates of the state is key to survival.

But the victims of less overt abuse, emotional as well as physical, suffer only slightly less.  The introject the pain and sorrow of a truly “tough love” and while some courageous individuals manage to throw off the bonds of co-dependency and hurt, many more do not.  As adults, their suffering is unabated.

Young people coming of age have faced yet another type of abuse as children:  commodification.  Advocates for the child like the late Neil Postman warned against converting America’s children via the TV medium simultaneously into premature consumers and involuntary witnesses to untold physical.  But the commercialization of children’s experience has gained “traction,” to use a marketing term right out of mechanical engineering, and now it’s irresistible.  Children may be unaware that they have been turned into eyeballs for the sake of ratings, but their psyches pay the price.

These accumulated hurts breed anger as well as submission.  That is the strange dichotomy that both fuels and rules the right.

Large segments of the American electorate, contrary to democratic ideals, embody an unhealthy and dangerous anger, helplessness, and self-loathing.  The French, who take the study of society seriously, have a word for it:  ressentiment. “Resentment” is its weak English-language equivalent.  The French term is more telling, a hundred times stronger, alloyed with xenophobia, mistrust, and generalized hate.

American culture turns the knife, and this is the final straw that leads to incipient fascism:  the individual is held responsible for his or her impotence.  The jingoist culture of “rugged individualism,” while trumpeting personal strength, paradoxically emphasizes individuals’ helplessness and dependency.  Talk show hosts and religious fundamentalists fan the flames of ressentment, like therapists working in reverse, serving up scapegoats for dreams unfulfilled and of course, abuses that have gone unreckoned.  The right-wing talk show hosts produce today’s equinvalents of B-film horror stories in which the angry dead consume the bewildered living.

Thus we have it that a large number of Americans are prone to accept loving abuse from their political leaders, for which they exchange their allegiance.  Tens of millions of bruised Americans are voting with broken hearts.  A bond has formed between President Bush and these damaged souls.  Bush may have been an abuse victim himself:  his past behavior, including both his drug taking and his being “born again,” suggest that it’s true, as does his daughters’ behavior today, continuing a cruel chain of causation.  The Greek’s have a word for it: pathos.  Pathos is a form of persuasion based on emotion – in this case, negative emotions that are overwhelmingly powerful.  Bush is a master of negative emotions.

Linguist George Lakoff believes that Bush’s supporters are looking for a “strong father” figure, unflinching in the pursuit of the things that matter to him. Lakoff’s thesis makes sense, yet in part, I disagree.  I contend that Bush’s supporters are looking for a weak and abusive man disguised in strong rhetoric, a verbal slap down – and in George W. Bush, they have found their ideal.

Faced with such unabashed loyalty, what’s a John Kerry to do?  Appeals to truth, logic, or principles won’t carry water with people who are determined to admire their leaders more, the worse they do.  Neither does it work to mimic Bush, trying to out-abuse him.  Kerry doesn’t have it.  Although his military record might resonate with citizens seeking a strong leader, Kerry does not express the required insolence to appeal to Bush’s fellow victims.

There are only two remedies that history has proved to salve the abused and open them to new realities, possibly even winning their allegiance to a healthier worldview.

The first and more immediate remedy is to reduce and eliminate the sense of helplessness that afflicts the victim, and replace it with a sense of power.  This means giving adults who were abused as children some skin in the game, a share of the action, a chance to reflect, to choose leaders and drive policies about which they’ve been educated and consulted.  An active progressive grassroots among progressive political groups, like that conceived by Howard Dean for the Democratic Party but not quite realized before Dean’s concession, might do the trick.   Like a support group, a solid grassroots organization offers relief from the constant battering that keeps the alienated individual in line and simultaneously on edge.  An tangible social oasis that offered a refuge and respite would go a long way in this election.

The second, longer-term remedy, is for the  Democratic Party to recruit as spokesperson a “Caring Mother” – not necessarily a woman but someone who can honestly evince feminine compassion – to confront and chide the “Strong Father” political team in the White House for its cynical production and manipulation of ressentment.  The Caring Mother who could force Bush to recant before his victims, or reveal his callousness.  No Democratic candidate or public figure has the temerity to criticize at root the perverted nature of the Bush campaign, however; few would don a feminine persona.  Nor have most prominent Democratic leaders, including Presidential candidate John Kerry, used the word “caring” in a meaningful way.  They usually mean it in the sense of equal access to governmental benefits.  Important, but not to the abused.

Our Nation of Abused Children needs relief and respite from our collective pain.  Instead, it only gets worse, with both candidates preaching a long war in Iraq and terror at home, with economic uncertainty a necessary outcome. Caring with candor would be a better alternative.

Bush's plans for the rest of us.

Ignore the fact that Bush is planning a militaristic induction ceremony for himself that involves -- just for the bands -- 2,100 service men and women, not to mention tens of thousands more on parade (memories of Pinochet or Hitler come to mind). Ignore also that he's created a Cabinet that will be remembered for its highly incestuous qualities. (Funny that no one in the press should have noted that life in general inside the Bush White House is so incestuous. It's one of those ugly facts of life you'd rather forget....) What W. has in mind is more heinous than those minor faux pas.

According to Jonathan Weisman, economic Policy Writer for the Washington Post, speaking on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Dec. 14, Bush has these concrete objectives, to be achieved in the next year:

1. Reform Social Security to the point where it's functionally eliminated.

2. "Reform" tort law: in other words, ensure corporate and government invulnerability to lawsuits that might be brought against them in court for discrimination, workers' injuries, lying to shareholders, etc.

3. "Simplify" the tax laws to eliminate taxes on dividends (top 10% of the population, mainly) and make up for it by (a) increasing taxes on Social Security received and (b) eliminating the state tax deduction for federal income tax. His goal is to thrash our progressive taxation system, in place for the last 70 years. Weisman said Bush intends to tax the "blue states," the states where money is made and where, more important, Bush is highly unloved, more heavily. Why not? Send the pickins back to the po' foke in the "red states"....

These are bad days for America. Everything's so rosy and cheerful on the surface, yet one suspects that beneath all the smiles, the rot is setting in. Anytime now.

The Right-Wing HATES the Environment: "The Delusional is No Longer Marginal," by Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers, retiring host of the acclaimed PBS feature news show, NOW, gave this speech on accepting the Harvard Medical's Global Environmental Citizen Award on December 1.  How incredible that perverted human lust for Armaggedon should now translate into disgust for all God's creatures, large and small. 

_________________________________________________________________________

I accept this award on behalf of all the people behind the camera whom you never see. And for all those scientists, advocates, activists, and just plain citizens whose stories we have covered in reporting on how environmental change affects our daily lives. We journalists are simply beachcombers on the shores of other people's knowledge, other people's experience, and other people's wisdom. We tell their stories.

The journalist who truly deserves this award is my friend, Bill McKibben. He enjoys the most conspicuous place in my own pantheon of journalistic heroes for his pioneer work in writing about the environment. His bestseller The End of Nature carried on where Rachel Carson's Silent Spring left off.

Writing in Mother Jones recently, Bill described how the problems we journalists routinely cover—conventional, manageable programs like budget shortfalls and pollution—may be about to convert to chaotic, unpredictable, unmanageable situations. The most unmanageable of all, he writes, could be the accelerating deterioration of the environment, creating perils with huge momentum like the greenhouse effect that is causing the melt of the Arctic to release so much fresh water into the North Atlantic that even the Pentagon is growing alarmed that a weakening Gulf Stream could yield abrupt and overwhelming changes—the kind of changes that could radically alter civilizations.

That's one challenge we journalists face—how to tell such a story without coming across as Cassandras, without turning off the people we most want to understand what's happening, who must act on what they read and hear.

As difficult as it is, however, for journalists to fashion a readable narrative for complex issues without depressing our readers and viewers, there is an even harder challenge—to pierce the ideology that governs official policy today. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the oval office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist , reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true—one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election, several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right—the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.' A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed—an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144—just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer.  Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed—even hastened—as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election—231 legislators in total, more since the election—are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, America's providential history. You'll find there these words: "the secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie...that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece.' however, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in god's earth......while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that god has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on November 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.

I can see in the looks on your faces just how hard it is for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market?" "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."

I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with the Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that—it's just that I read the news and connect the dots:

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration that wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources. This for an administration:

• That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections; and ease pollution standards for cars, sports utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.

• That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.

• That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting coal-fired power plans and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

• That wants to open the artic wildlife refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend nine million dollars—$2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council—to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.

I read all this in the news.

I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the international policy network, which is supported by Exxon Mobile and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is 'a myth,' sea levels are not rising, scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are 'an embarrassment.'

I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer—pictures of my grandchildren: Henry, age 12; of Thomas, age 10; of Nancy, 7; Jassie, 3; Sara Jane, nine months. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know now what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?

What has happened to our moral imagination?

On the heath, Lear asks Gloucester: "'How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly." I see it feelingly.

The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free—not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called 'hocma' —the science of the heart.....the capacity to see....to feel....and then to act...as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.

Bush loves the falling dollar: Mammon.

While the rest of us await financial disaster as the dollar declines to near-record lows against foreign currencies like the Euro -- for reasons which demonstrate the intertwining of politics and economics, like Bush's tax rebate which begat the deficit which begat foreign investor flight -- Bush is a happy man.  How can that be?

In "Apocalypse Not Yet," appearing in December 9's TomPaine.com, Professor James K. Galbraith at the University of Texas notes that the falling dollar, while causing distress and possible calamity for billions of human beings, benefits the "Bush Gang."  And that explains the Administration's "insouciance," says Galbraith, "toward the developing crisis"...

The most stunning aspect of these events has been the insouciance of the Bush administration. Neither the president, nor Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, nor anyone else has troubled even to emit the usual platitudes about the greenback—not, at least with the slightest conviction. It's almost as if they've figured it out. It's almost as if they realize the awful truth. Which is that the dollar's decline is mainly good for their friends, and bad mainly for those about whom they couldn't care less.

Yet that is the truth. The dollar's decline immediately boosts the stock market, for a simple reason. Multinationals have earnings in the United States and in Europe. When the dollar falls, U.S. earnings stay the same but the European earnings go up when measured in dollars. Oil prices in dollars will stay up—at least enough to prevent the price in euro from falling. This too helps U.S. oil company profits, measured in dollars. Meanwhile, China will keep its renminbi tied to the dollar, and prices of Chinese imports won't rise much, so Wal-Mart isn't badly hurt. The American consumer will get hit, but mainly on the oil price rather than on the rest of the consumption basket. Many will grumble, but few will recognize the political roots of their problem.

Since the U.S. owes its debts in dollars, the financial blow will fall first on China and Japan, in the form of a depreciation of their holdings. Tough luck. Latin American debtor countries will get hit on their exports, but helped on their debt service. Those (like Mexico) who export almost exclusively to the U.S. will get squeezed; others (like Argentina) who market to Europe but pay interest in dollars will be hurt less. An unequivocal loser is Europe, which has been hoping for an export-led fix to their own, largely self-inflicted, mass unemployment. The Europeans can forget about that.

If Bush's insouciance works, the dollar could decline smoothly for a while and then, simply, stop declining. U.S. exports might recover somewhat, helping manufacturing, though there's no chance exports and imports will balance. But even so, the dollar system could stay intact, so long as China and Japan remain willing to add new dollars to their depreciated hoard. Given that their interests lie in maintaining export activity and the jobs it creates, they may very well make that choice. Large-scale dollar purchases by the European Central Bank are also a remote possibility (the option has been mentioned on the periphery of the ECB). The problems would return later on, but meanwhile, such an action would prove that God really does look after children, small dogs and the United States.

Galbraith's lengthier article is one worth reading; with every paragraph I learned more.  He argues that collapse is not imminent, nor even likely, although a tipping point nearby may simply be imperceptible to us.  What galls Galbraith, however, is the perverse reluctance of the Bush Administration to do anything, even admit there's trouble in River City.  It may be economically rational, but it's politically immoral, to let things get out of hand so that human suffering increases so that a very few can get richer.  It's so crass as to be unbelievable.  But isn't that George W. Bush's modus operandi: to always act the fool! 

The National Mood

Everybody Knows
by Leonard Cohen & Sharon Anderson

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joe’s still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of calvary
To the beach of malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

-- From "I'm Your Man," Leonard Cohen (1998), remastered on The Essential Leonard Cohen (2002).

Image:  Laszlo of Montreal

TV networks prohibit inclusivity as a matter of faith.

CBS (Viacom) and NBC (General Electric) have once again demonstrated how TV broadcasters abuse the privilege granted them by the Communications Act, to run their near-monopolies over the publicly-owned airwaves.   CBS and NBC selectively censor advertisements they won't run.  Today, they caval before the White House and its opposition to gay marriage.   Read on....

I never noticed the networks had a problem running Mormon public-interest advertisements or innumerable Easter- and Christmas-oriented shows promoting Christian doctrine.  Networks run many advocacy advertisements, happily taking their sponsors' money without taking credit for their themes.  There is no one more weasily than a broadcast executive who has to make a courageous decision, even one for which there is precedent, no apparent downside, and a progressive payoff.  The ad in question is available at the National Public Radio website and will air on many cable television channels, who obviously are too foolhardy or unpatriotic....

From the World Faith Network
For immediate release
Nov. 30, 2004

CBS, NBC refuse to air church's television advertisement
United Church of Christ ad highlighting Jesus' extravagant 
welcome called 'too controversial'

CLEVELAND -- The CBS and NBC television networks are refusing to run a
30-second television ad from the United Church of Christ because its
all-inclusive welcome has been deemed "too controversial."

The ad, part of the denomination's new, broad identity campaign set to
begin airing nationwide on Dec. 1, states that -- like Jesus -- the United
Church of Christ (UCC) seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability,
age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation.

According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is
being denied network access because its ad implies acceptance of gay and
lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is,
therefore, too "controversial."

"Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other
minority groups by other individuals and organizations," reads an
explanation from CBS, "and the fact the Executive Branch has recently
proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a
man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and
UPN] networks."

Similarly, a rejection by NBC declared the spot "too controversial."

"It's ironic that after a political season awash in commercials based on
fear and deception by both parties seen on all the major networks, an ad
with a message of welcome and inclusion would be deemed too controversial,"
says the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president.
"What's going on here?"

Negotiations between network officials and the church's representatives
broke down today (Nov. 30), the day before the ad campaign begins airing
nationwide on a combination of broadcast and cable networks. The ad has
been accepted and will air on a number of networks, including ABC Family,
AMC, BET, Discovery, Fox, Hallmark, History, Nick@Nite, TBS, TNT, Travel
and TV Land, among others.

The debut 30-second commercial features two muscle-bound "bouncers"
standing guard outside a symbolic, picturesque church and selecting which
persons are permitted to attend Sunday services. Written text interrupts
the scene, announcing, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." A
narrator then proclaims the United Church of Christ's commitment to Jesus'
extravagant welcome: "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's
journey, you are welcome here." (The ad can be viewed online at
<www.stillspeaking.com>.)

In focus groups and test market research conducted before the campaign's
national rollout, the UCC found that many people throughout the country
feel alienated by churches. The television ad is geared toward those
persons who, for whatever reason, have not felt welcomed or comfortable in
a church.

"We find it disturbing that the networks in question seem to have no
problem exploiting gay persons through mindless comedies or titillating
dramas, but when it comes to a church's loving welcome of committed gay
couples, that's where they draw the line," says the Rev. Robert Chase,
director of the UCC's communication ministry.

CBS and NBC's refusal to air the ad "recalls the censorship of the 1950s
and 1960s, when television station WLBT in Jackson, Miss., refused to show
people of color on TV," says Ron Buford, coordinator for the United Church
of Christ identity campaign. Buford, of African-American heritage, says,
"In the 1960s, the issue was the mixing of the races. Today, the issue
appears to be sexual orientation. In both cases, it's about exclusion."

In 1959, the Rev. Everett C. Parker organized United Church of Christ
members to monitor the racist practices of WLBT. Like many southern
television stations at the time, WLBT had imposed a news blackout on the
growing civil rights movement, pulling the plug on then-attorney Thurgood
Marshall. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. implored the UCC to get involved
in the media civil rights issues. Parker, founding director of the Office
of Communication of the United Church of Christ, organized churches and won
in federal court a ruling that the airwaves are public, not private
property. That decision ultimately led to an increase in the number of
persons of color in television studios and newsrooms. The suit clearly
established that television and radio stations, as keepers of the public
airwaves, must broadcast in the public interest.

"The consolidation of TV network ownership into the hands of a few
executives today puts freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression
in jeopardy," says former FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani, currently
managing director of the UCC's Office of Communication. "By refusing to air
the United Church of Christ's paid commercial, CBS and NBC are stifling
religious expression. They are denying the communities they serve a
suitable access to differing ideas and expressions."

Adds Andrew Schwartzman, president and CEO of the not-for-profit Media
Access Project in Washington, D.C., "This is an abuse of the broadcasters'
duty to inform their viewers on issues of importance to the community.
After all, these stations don't mind carrying shocking, attention-getting
programming, because they do that every night."

The United Church of Christ's national offices -- located in Cleveland --
speak to, but not for, its nearly 6,000 congregations and 1.3 million
members. In the spirit of the denomination's rich tradition, UCC
congregations remain autonomous, but also strongly in covenant with each
other and with the denomination's regional and national bodies.

Back to the Dark Ages.

"Evolution is just an opinion." -- Heard on right-wing talk radio show.

Anna Badken, in today's SF Chronicle, "Anti-Evolution Teachings Gain Foothold in Schools,"  describes a trend that's frightening and appalling:  37% of Americans polled by CBS now believe that Creationism instead of evolution should be taught in our public schools.  Not "in addition to," which is heeby-jeeby enough, but  "instead of"!   The article goes on to describe the 6-3 vote of the Dover Area High School school board, in southern PA (a place that consistently impresses me as being highly mixed up), to require that teachers point out "gaps and problems" in Darwinian theory.  They must also teach "intelligent design," the pseudo-scientific explanation that Someone Up There (where?) must have ordained things as they are.  This Panglossian sophistry in the 21st Century is almost beyond belief.   Two school board members with principles resigned.

Says Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU,

"There's a constant impetus by conservative evangelical Christians to bring religion back into the public schools.  The end goal is to get rid of evolution. They view it as a threat to their religion."

And the result?

"There's only one creator, and it has to be God," said Rebecca Cashman, 16, a sophomore at Dover High. She frowned when asked to recollect what she learned about evolution at school last year.

"Evolution  --  is that the Darwin theory?" Cashman shook her head. "I don't know just what he was thinking!"

Interviewed by Badkin, Patricia Nason at the Institute for Creation Research, the "world leader in creation science," said her organization and other activist groups are encouraging people who share conservative religious beliefs to seek positions on local school boards.

"The movement is to get the truth out," Nason said by telephone from El Cajon (San Diego County). "We Christians have as much right to be involved in politics as evolutionists. We've been asleep for two generations, and it's time for us to come back."

The ultimate outcome of this attack is to reduce individuals' -- school kids' -- ability to think critically and be self-reliant.  Knowing nothing about how humanity came to be, they are forced to turn to authorities who prescribe "the Truth."  It's the perfect formula for inducing passive compliance, as authoritarian churches, eager to increase their political power, have known for millenia.  And what about American students doing better in math, science, reading, and social studies, to better compete  in a global marketplace?  Apparently, that's of second priority.

Back to the future, back to the Dark Ages.

"Living Under Fascism," by Davidson Loehr

Davidson Loehr delivered the following sermon at the First Universalist-Unitarian Church of Austin on November 7, 2oo4.  It's reproduced here in full, unabridged and not divided up into separate pages, because I consider it of such great importance.  For more information, see the First UU Church of Austin website.

LIVING UNDER FASCISM

You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word "fascism" in a  serious discussion of where America is today.  It sounds like cheap  name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies.   But I am serious.  I don't mean it as name-calling at all.  I mean  to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has  slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary  implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying.   That's what I am about here.  And even if I don't persuade you, I  hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are  now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.

The word comes from the Latin word "Fasces," denoting a bundle of  sticks tied together.  The individual sticks represented citizens,  and the bundle represented the state.  The message of this metaphor  was that it was the bundle that was significant, not the individual  sticks.  If it sounds un-American, it's worth knowing that the Roman  Fasces appear on the wall behind the Speaker's podium in the chamber  of the US House of Representatives.  Still, it's an unlikely word.   When most people hear the word "fascism" they may think of the  racism and anti-Semitism of Mussolini and Hitler.  It is true that  the use of force and the scapegoating of fringe groups are part of  every fascism.  But there was also an economic dimension of fascism,  known in Europe during the 1920s and '30s as "corporatism," which  was an essential ingredient of Mussolini's and Hitler's tyrannies.   So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the  1930s and was held up as a model by quite a few intellectuals and  policy makers in the United States and Europe.  As I mentioned a   few weeks ago (in "The Corporation Will Eat Your Soul"), Fortune  magazine ran a  cover story on Mussolini in 1934, praising his  fascism for its ability to break worker unions, disempower workers  and transfer huge sums of money to those who  controlled the money  rather than those who earned it. 

Few Americans are aware of or can recall how so many Americans and  Europeans viewed economic fascism as the wave of the future during  the 1930s.  Yet reviewing our past may help shed light on our  present, and point the way to a better future.  So I want to begin  by looking back to the last time fascism posed a serious threat to  America. 

In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a  conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a  nationally syndicated radio talk show host.  The politician - Buzz  Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and  patriotism.  Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of  traditional American democracy ˜ those concerned with individual  rights and freedoms ˜ as anti-American.  That was 69 years ago.  One  of the most outspoken American fascists from the 1930s was economist  Lawrence Dennis.  In his 1936 book, The Coming American Fascism ˜ a  coming which he anticipated and cheered ˜ Dennis declared that  defenders of "18th-century Americanism" were sure to become "the  laughing stock of their own countrymen."  The big stumbling block to  the development of economic fascism, Dennis bemoaned, was "liberal  norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights."

So it is important for us to recognize that, as an economic system,  fascism was widely accepted in the 1920s and '30s, and nearly  worshiped by some powerful American industrialists.  And fascism has  always, and explicitly, been opposed to liberalism of all kinds.   Mussolini, who helped create modern fascism, viewed liberal ideas as  the enemy.  "The Fascist conception of life," he wrote, "stresses  the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so  far as his interests coincide with the State.  It is opposed to  classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the  individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing  the real essence of the individual."  (In 1932 Mussolini wrote, with  the help of Giovanni Gentile, an entry for the Italian Encyclopedia  on the definition of fascism.  You can read the whole entry here.)  Mussolini thought it was unnatural for a government to protect  individual rights: The essence of fascism, he believed, is that  government should be the master, not the servant, of the people. 

Still, fascism is a word that is completely foreign to most of us.   We need to know what it is, and how we can know it when we see it.   In an essay coyly titled "Fascism Anyone?," Dr. Lawrence Britt, a  political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common  to fascist regimes.  His comparisons of  Hitler, Mussolini, Franco,  Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14  "identifying  characteristics of fascism."  (The following article is from Free   Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.  Read it at  http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm ) See  how  familiar they sound. 

1.    Powerful and Continuing Nationalism Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos,  slogans,  symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.  Flags are seen  everywhere, as are flag  symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2.    Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights  Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in  fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in  certain cases because  of "need."  The people tend to look the other  way or even approve of torture,  summary executions, assassinations,  long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3.    Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the  need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic  or religious  minorities; liberals; communists; socialists,  terrorists, etc. 

4.    Supremacy of the Military Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is  given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the  domestic agenda is neglected.  Soldiers and military service are  glamorized.

5.    Rampant Sexism The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively  male-dominated.  Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are  made more  rigid.  Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia  and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

6.    Controlled Mass Media Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but  in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government  regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.   Censorship, especially in war  time, is very common.

7.    Obsession with National Security Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the  masses.

8.    Religion and Government are Intertwined Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion  in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion.  Religious  rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even  when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to  the government's policies or actions.

9.    Corporate Power is Protected The industrial and business aristocracies of a fascist nation often  are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a  mutually  beneficial business/government relationship and power  elite. 

10.    Labor Power is Suppressed Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a  fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or  are severely suppressed. 

11.    Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to  higher education, and academia.  It is not uncommon for professors  and other academics to be censored or even arrested.  Free  expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often  refuse to fund the arts.

12.    Obsession with Crime and Punishment Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power  to enforce laws.  The people are often willing to overlook police  abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism.   There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited  power in fascist nations

13.    Rampant Cronyism and Corruption Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and  associates who appoint each other to government positions and use  governmental  power and authority to protect their friends from  accountability.  It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national  resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright  stolen by government leaders. 

14.    Fraudulent Elections Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham.  Other  times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even  assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to  control voting numbers or  political district boundaries, and  manipulation of the media.  Fascist  nations also typically use  their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

This list will be  familiar to students of political science.  But  it should be familiar to  students of religion as well, for much of  it mirrors the social and political  agenda of religious  fundamentalisms worldwide.  It is both accurate and  helpful for us  to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as   political fundamentalism.  They both come from very primitive  parts of us  that have always been the default setting of our  species: amity toward our  in-group, enmity toward out-groups,  hierarchical deference to alpha male  figures, a powerful  identification with our territory, and so forth.  It is that brutal  default setting that all civilizations have tried to raise us  above,  but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to  be achieved over and  over and over again. 

But, again, this  is not America's first encounter with fascism.  In  early 1944,  the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace  to, as Wallace noted,  "write a piece answering the following  questions: What is a fascist?  How many  fascists have we?  How  dangerous are they?"  Vice President  Wallace's answer to those  questions was published in The New York Times on April  9, 1944, at  the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and   Japan.  See how much you think his statements apply to our society  today. 

"The really  dangerous American fascist," Wallace wrote, " is the  man who wants to do in the  United States in an American way what  Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way.  The American fascist would  prefer not to use violence.  His method is to poison  the channels  of public information.  With a fascist the problem is never how  best  to present the truth to the public but how best to use the  news to deceive the  public into giving the fascist and his group  more money or more power." 

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism he saw rising in  America, Wallace added, "They  claim to be super-patriots, but they  would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.  They  demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for  monopoly and  vested interest.  Their final objective toward which all their   deceit is directed is to capture political power so that,  using the power of the  state and the power of the market  simultaneously, they may keep the common man  in eternal  subjection."  By these standards, a few of today's weapons for   keeping the common people in eternal subjection include  NAFTA, the World Trade  Organization, union-busting, cutting worker  benefits while increasing CEO pay, elimination of worker benefits,  security and pensions, rapacious credit card interest, and  outsourcing of jobs ˜  not to mention the largest prison system in   the world.

The Perfect Storm Our current  descent into fascism came about through a kind  of "Perfect Storm, " a confluence of three unrelated but mutually  supportive schools of thought. 

1.    The first  stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of  the Project for the New  American Century.  I don't believe anyone  can understand the past four years  without reading the Project for  the New American Century, published in September  2000 and authored  by many who have been prominent players in the Bush   administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfleid, Wolfowitz, Richard  Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few.  This report saw the fall  of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of  the world, to establish a new  worldwide empire.  They spelled out  the military enhancements we would need,  then noted, sadly, that  these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be  a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that   would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist  country.  There was no clear interest in religion in this report,  and no  clear concern with local economic policies.

2.    A second  powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson  and his Christian  Reconstructionists, or Dominionists.  Long  dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of  Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is  now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration.   Katherine Yurica,  who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews  from Pat Robertson's "700 Club"  shows in the 1980s, has shown how  Robertson and his chosen guests consistently,  openly and  passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the   control of Christian Dominionists.  Robertson is on record saying  democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his  kind of  Christians.  He also rails constantly against taxing the  rich, against  public education, social programs and welfare ˜ and  prefers Deuteronomy 28 over  the teachings of Jesus.  He is clear  that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and  that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed.  Robertson  has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including  Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ.  (The Yurica  Report.  Search under this name, or for "Despoiling America" by   Katherine Yurica on the internet.)

3.    The third  major component of this Perfect Storm has been  the desire of very wealthy  Americans and corporate CEOs for a  plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and  disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the   destruction of workers' unions, and the alliance of government to  help achieve  these greedy goals.  It is a condition some have  called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which  others recognize as a reincarnation of  Social Darwinism.  This  strain of thought has been present throughout American history.   Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace  Franklin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a   fascist dictator in 1934.  Fortunately, the picked a general who  really  was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke  and wrote about  it.  As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in  the book and movie "The Corporation," they have now achieved their  coup without firing a shot.  Our plutocrats  have had no particular  interest in religion.  Their global interests are  with an  imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the  New  Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise  of America's  middle class after WWII. 

Another ill wind  in this Perfect Storm is more important than its  crudity might suggest: it was  President Clinton's sleazy sex with a  young but eager intern in the White  House.  This incident, and  Clinton's equally sleazy lying about it, focused  the certainties of  conservatives on the fact that "liberals" had neither moral  compass  nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to  the  moral fiber of America.  While the effects of this may be hard  to quantify,  I think they were profound. 

These "storm"  components have no necessary connection, and come  from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldn't even like  one another.  But together, they  form a nearly complete web of  command and control, which has finally gained  control of America  and, they hope, of the world.

What's coming When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt),  then it is not hard to predict where a  new fascist uprising will lead.  And  it is not hard.  The actions  of fascists and the social and political  effects of fascism and  fundamentalism are clear and sobering.  Here is some  of what's  coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few   years: 

  The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to  those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those  dependent on social security and social welfare programs. 

  Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already  has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in  the developed world. 

  Increased loss of funding for public education combined with  increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their  children's education  to Christian schools.

  More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into  the police state necessary for fascism to work 

  Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and  the Public Broadcasting System.  At their best, these media  sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen  as enemies of the  state's official stories. 

  The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of  privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest  children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that  could never benefit them anyway.  (That was my one-sentence  Veterans' Day sermon for this year.) 

  More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the  construction of  a huge permanent embassy in Iraq. 

  More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national  security. 

  Control of the internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument  of free  communication that is exempt from government control.  This  will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.   

  Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this  one, and to characterize them as anti-American. 

  Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and   demonization of the few media they are unable to control ˆ the New  York Times, for instance. 

  Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs,  to produce greater profits for those who control the money and  direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America's workers  to a more desperate  and powerless status. 

  Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an  increasing number of Americans to own their homes.  As they did in  the 1930s, those  who control the money know that it is to their  advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning. 

  Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with  arrests, detentions and harassment increasing.  We already have a  higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country  in the world.  That  percentage will increase. 

  In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to  say the things I have said here this morning.  In the fascist story,  these things are un-American.  In the real history of a democratic  America, they were  seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of  critical questions that kept the American spirit alive ˜ the kind of  questions, incidentally, that our media  were supposed to be  pressing.

Can these schemes  work?  I don't think so.  I think they are  murderous, rapacious, and insane.  But I don't know.  Maybe they  can.  Similar schemes have  worked in countries like Chile, where a  democracy in which over 90% voted has  been reduced to one in which  only about 20% vote because they say, as Americans are learning to  say, that it no longer matters who you vote for. 

Hope In the meantime, is there any hope, or do we just band together like  lemmings and dive off a cliff?  Yes, there is always hope, though at  times it is more hidden, as it is now.

As some critics  are now saying, and as I have been preaching and  writing for almost twenty years, America's liberals need to grow  beyond political liberalism, with its often self-absorbed focus on  individual rights to the exclusion of individual responsibilities to  the larger society.  Liberals will have to construct a more complete  vision with moral and religious grounding.  That does not mean  confessional Christianity.  It means the legitimate heir to  Christianity.  Such a legitimate heir need not be a religion, though  it must have clear moral power, and be able to attract the minds and  hearts of a voting majority of Americans. 

And the new  liberal vision must be larger than that of the  conservative religious vision that will be appointing judges,  writing laws and bending the cultural norms toward hatred and  exclusion for the foreseeable future.  The conservatives deserve a  lot of admiration.  They have spent the last thirty years studying   American politics, forming their vision and learning how to gain  control in the  political system.  And it worked; they have won.   Even if liberals can develop a bigger vision, they still have all  that time-consuming work to do.  It won't be fast.  It isn't even  clear that liberals will be willing to do it; they may instead  prefer to go down with the ship they're used to.  One man who has   been tireless in his investigations and critiques of America's slide  into fascism is Michael C. Ruppert, whose postings usually read as  though he is wound way too tight.  But he offers four pieces of  advice about what we can do  now, and they seem reality-based enough  to pass on to you.  This is America;  they're all about money:

    First, he says you should get out of debt.   

    Second is to spend your money and time on things that give  you energy and provide you with useful information.   

    Third is to stop spending a penny with major banks, news  media and corporations that feed you lies and leave you angry and  exhausted.

    And fourth is to learn how money works and use it like a  (political) weapon ˜ as he predicts the rest of the world will be  doing against us  (see From The Wilderness).

That's advice written this week.  Another bit of advice comes from  sixty years ago, from Roosevelt's Vice President, Henry Wallace.   Wallace said, " Democracy, to crush fascism internally,  must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the  same time balance the budget.  It must put human beings first and  dollars second.  It must appeal to reason and decency and not to  violence and  deceit.  We must not tolerate oppressive government or  industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels." 

Still another way  to understand fascism is as a kind of  colonization.  A simple definition of  "colonization" is that it  takes people's stories away, and assigns them supportive roles in  stories that empower others at their expense.  When you are taxed to  support a government that uses you as a means to serve the ends of   others, you are ˜ ironically ˜ in a state of taxation without   representation.  That's where this country started, and it's where  we are now. 

I don't know the next step.  I'm not a political activist; I'm only  a preacher.  But  whatever you do, whatever we do, I hope that we  can remember some very basic  things that I think of as eternally  true.  One is that the vast majority of  people are good decent  people who mean and do as well as they know how.  Very few people  are evil, though some are.  But we all live in families where some  of our blood relatives support things we hate.  I believe they mean  well, and the way to rebuild broken bridges is through greater   understanding, compassion, and a reality-based story that is more  inclusive and empowering for the vast majority of us. 

Those who want to live in a reality-based story rather than as serfs  in an ideology designed to  transfer power, possibility and hope to  a small ruling elite have much long and hard work to do,  individually and collectively.  It will not be either easy  or  quick.  But we will do  it.  We will go forward in hope and in  courage.  Let us seek that better path, and find the courage to take  it ˜ step, by step, by step.