Happy Fascist Fourth of July

Dear Friends,

In the last year I have written fewer entries in this blog than in any previous year. The reason is the depression and despair that I feel living in America today and watching with horrified eyes how the ignorant, cruel, pathological bully president Donald Trump is bit by bit succeeding in tearing down and torching so much of what I have always believed in, what I have always hoped could be possible for America, while constructing a new America built on hate, fear, racism, anger, division and confusion. The last week has been especially hard to bear. The recent decisions of the Supreme Court whitewashing his latest version of the Muslim Travel Ban, diminishing the power of labor unions and further restricting Affirmative Action are undoubtedly going to embolden Trump and his hard right cohorts. Did I say "hard right?" I misspoke. The correct term is Fascist. The president is creating Fascism in America, a style of politics and governance that relies on brute force, intimidation, a cult of personality around a charismatic leader, a constant scapegoating of ethnic and religious minorities that is becoming more and more overtly cruel and aggressive, all under the banner of  purported patriotism, which is actually just 1930s style Fascist nationalism wrapped in an American flag.

It would be restful to my downtrodden soul if I could look abroad and find hope in what is happening in other countries, but this is not the case. Though in years past I vigorously opposed German Chancellor Merkel's part in the EU's cruel austerity policies toward Greece, I have come to respect her for standing up for the decent treatment of Muslim migrants entering Europe from Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere. I now note with great sadness that she too is now buckling to the anti-immigrant hysteria being generated by right-wing politicians in one European country after another. Hungary... Poland... Czech Republic...Austria...Italy.... one by one they are falling to  right-wing, anti-immigrant, pro-authoritarian leaders and political movements that seem increasingly Fascistic in their priorities and programs. On top of this, Trump's trade wars and obvious hatred of international cooperation are beginning to take a toll on the post-WW II world order. Imperfect as such structures as NATO, the WTO and the EU are, it is hard to imagine that throwing them away will lead to anything more than chaos and mischief. The same leaders who rise to power scapegoating vulnerable minorities in their countries may very well find it tempting to blame the problems of their closed, shrinking and increasingly xenophobic societies on other countries, and then go to war against them as the next act in the hackneyed drama of Fascism. After all, leaders like Trump, who love to glorify the military and strike patriotic poses, and who clearly have little regard for human life, would probably find going to war an attractive means of galvanizing support for their own regimes, should their popularity begin slipping in the polls.

A further fear of mine is that Russia will find it increasingly tempting to interfere in the Baltic States, what with Trump continuing to express scorn for the EU and NATO and to seek warmer relations with Russia. Trump was recently asked about the issue of Crimea, and the president refused to condemn the Russian occupation. So, while calling for a nonsensical, expensive wall on America's border with Mexico, to defend America against a nonexistent, truly "Trumped-up" threat from Mexicans and others, Trump is showing indifference, if not acceptance, of an actual, non-imaginary threat on the borders of Ukraine and Europe.  This once again exposes Trump's intellectual dishonesty, his geopolitical inconsistency and his moral bankruptcy for all to see, but the frightening thing is, some 30-40% of Americans seem willing to follow Trump off any cliff he desires to take them over. It terrifies me that some definite portion of the American population seems to truly enjoy Trump's circus of cruelty. It is like we are back 100 years ago when racist mobs would turn out to watch lynchings as entertainment.

I am 58 years old and this is the darkest time I have seen for America and the world in my lifetime. Until three years ago, I could never have imagined that I would live to see my country and much of the world marching toward a Fascist future. I mus t confess I am finding it hard to summon hope or the will to fight. On this Fourth of July evening, when many Americans are watching patriotic fireworks, I feel only dread at how all the parts of America that seemed worthwhile to me when I was younger now seem to be going the way of those fireworks, being blown up one by one.

As a Pagan, it especially pains me to see how Trump's environmental polices are actually anti-environmental policies, which will only make our world more ugly, more industrialized, more polluted, more unhealthy and more unlivable. Can't his followers see that making our country and the earth more polluted and poisoned will be bad for all of us, regardless of political affiliation? Apparently not. In Trumpian circles, environmentalists are seen as The Enemy just like journalists, civil rights activists, feminists and intellectuals. Ironically, the military establishment in America is well aware that global warming and rising sea levels will have a very negative impact on America's military capability, and that droughts, floods and famines will generate tension and conflict around the world. Yet we hear not a peep from our supposedly patriotic military leaders about the dangers to our nation, our world and our military forces of Trumpian anti-environmentalism. I hope that they will gain some courage to engage in public discussion, but courage seems in short supply these days.

For the first time., I fear that the Ragnarok scenario in Norse myth, which I always took to be a cautionary tale, may indeed be prophetic. We have leaders fomenting ever-greater division and conflict, and a rising risk of environmental collapse in the not very far off future. I dearly hope we will see some sign of hope, some sign that the winds are turning soon. Perhaps the 2018 elections? Perhaps...or perhaps not. I feel like a Nazi-rejecting German in the 1930s, hoping that this Hitler thing will pass, while fearing in my bones that it will not.

President Loki

Any rich religious tradition supplies us with many mirrors and windows through which to gaze at both our world and ourselves, the outer and the inner. Certainly the Norse Pagan tradition, which was already old before the Vikings ever set sail upon the ocean, is such a prism of imaginative possibilities. Today, as my outer eye was reading the New York Times and reflecting on the latest tweets and tantrums of President Trump, my other eye was looking into the mirror of Norse mythology and seeing the god Loki, and it occurred to me that there is a lot of Loki in our president. Both are born troublemakers who are good at stirring up strife and slinging insults and who seem to glory in creating chaos and discord. Trump clawed his way to the top of the Republican pack while slamming his competitors with pejorative nick-names like "Little Marco," "Lyin' Ted" and "Low-Energy Jeb." Then when he had the nomination in his pocket he turned his attention to the Democratic candidate on whom he bestowed the belittling title of "Crooked Hillary." How much this childish name-calling succeeded in damaging his opponents is unclear, but it may well have helped sour voters on these other possibilities as well as subconsciously charmed wavering voters to incline towards Trump as an entertaining rascal whose mockery and aggressiveness they found endearing. There are, after all, many people who do not follow politics closely, and may have voted for entirely superficial reasons or simply wanted to express displeasure with the status quo, for which purpose Trump, with his hateful, insulting rhetoric and disregard for any norms or decorum, was ideally suited.

This is much like how Loki unloads buckets of scorn and gossip on the other gods in the banquet described in the Eddic poem Lokasenna. Loki eventually gets so caught up in the joy of mockery that he cannot resist confessing that he was involved in the murder of Odin's son, Baldur. The gods' patience runs out when they hear this, and they seize Loki and bind and imprison him for the duration of history, until the apocalypse of Ragnarok when he breaks free to become the champion of the giants, the demons and the dead, who he commands in the final battle that destroys the world. One could imagine Trump's career taking a somewhat similar course. If the other Republicans in Congress get worn out by Trump's endless drama, bottomless vindictiveness and unceasing ad hominem attacks on anyone who displeases or opposes him, and if Trump's capacity for careless talk leads him to confess to serious crimes beyond the questionable actions he has already acknowledged in his diarrhea-like Twitter feed, the Republicans may decide to team up with their sworn enemies, the Democrats, in impeaching this reckless ogre and getting him out of office, and if not into prison, at least out of the political system. However, Trump's "forgotten man" supporters, who see him as their standard-bearer and messiah and seem impervious to any criticism of their savior, may well rally to him when he leaves office and give him new power to shape public opinion, promote conspiracy theories, and stir up angry trouble from a position as the head of a media outlet like Breitbart or FOX News.

Loki is also the father of some rather unpleasant and troublesome children, and the conflict-of-interest controversies swirling around Trump's daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr., not to mention Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner provide interesting parallels. Trump's affection for authoritarian, dictatorial leaders like Putin of Russia, Duterte of the Phillpines, and El-Sisi of Egypt, not to mention his love of fossil fuel products and companies regardless of the damage they cause to the environment, also brings to mind Loki's warm relations with monsters who are bent on the destruction of the world as we know it. In my previous posting, I spoke of the Midgard Serpent as an analogy for fossil fuel structures like pipelines that encircle our planet and weave in and out of the earth. Well, in Norse tradition, the Serpent is the son of none other than Loki. If Trump is Loki or like Loki, it stands to reason he would have great affection for a monstrous entity that has the entire planet in its grip and no love for humanity.

So, readers, what do you think? Is Trump America's Loki? Is he a destructive force than can be restrained, but not eliminated from our world? Who will be our Thor to rid us of this menace?  Or will we never be rid of him, because many find his poisonous words and chaotic, maddening maneuvering clever and entertaining, and in sync with their own wishes for aggression, revenge  and destruction?

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Addendum:  Since writing this entry, I have discovered that I am not the only person to perceive a similarity between Loki and Trump. See https://thebaffler.com/latest/donald-trump-trickster-god   and http://screenrant.com/marvel-vote-loki-comic-trump-president/

Seeking Inspiration in a Time of Exhaustion

Dear Friends, if, like me, you are a liberal, a leftist, or even just a compassionate person in America, or if you are somewhere else in the world looking in at this country, I am sure that you must find the non-stop barrage of insults, threats, aggression and intolerance issuing forth from the Trump White House mentally exhausting and spiritually depleting, as I do. I have been especially appalled by the ban on travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which disrupted so many people's lives for no good purpose, and which sets the tone for increased animosity and ill will between the USA and the Muslims of the world. It had become the norm in recent decades to hear U.S. presidents extol the virtues of diversity and inclusiveness, but Trump has turned his back on all this in order to push the country on a retrograde path back toward the worst moments in American history, the ones that cause intelligent Americans to hang their heads in shame, the times when blacks were enslaved, segregated and lynched, when native peoples were exterminated and dispossessed, when Japanese-Americans were interned in concentration camps, when artists and intellectuals were hounded for real or imagined communist sympathies, when Vietnamese were demonized as “gooks,” when Iraqi prisoners of war were tormented and humiliated in violation of the Geneva convention, when gays, lesbians and other non-heterosexuals had to live in constant fear of harassment, humiliation and beatings ranging from the frightening to the fatal. As we see with the Muslim Ban executive order—which in Trumpian terms is of course NOT a Muslim Ban even though it mainly affects Muslims and is the fulfillment of a campaign promise Trump made for months—Trump is obviously going to use “national security” as the justification for all manner of oppressive actions toward ethnic and religious minorities and any and all who dare to criticize or oppose him. I fear that we are living in a time not unlike 1930s Germany, where the storm cloud are gathering and the storm troopers are massing.

But I digress. There is much to say about the actions of the Trump regime and what we can and must do to fight back against them, but my main point today is to muse on how we must be careful to not let the constant din and doom of Trump and his minions so exhaust and deplete us that we are unable to do anything besides reflecting the darkness and dishonesty that is now emanating from the White House like radiation from Chernobyl. We need sources of solace and comfort, reassurance and inspiration. Different people will seek out different points of refuge and recharging. For me, this means turning toward Paganism.

As my strongest affinity is for the Norse (Germanic) Pagan traditions of Scandinavia and Iceland, I look there first. I see first of all that the world of the Norse myths is a world of uncertainty, struggle and often great sorrow. It is one in which the god of wisdom and knowledge is tortured, first gaining wisdom in a painful, shamanistic self-sacrifice, second, seeing his own son killed and being unable to help him, third, preparing to lead the gods in battle against gigantic forces of destruction, all the time knowing, owing to his power of foresight, that his side is going to lose, despite their best and most valiant efforts, and the world is going to be ruined and burnt. We are told in the Eddic poem Voluspá that in the end, or rather, after the end, after all has been destroyed, there is the possibility that the world will re-emerge, and that the gods too will be restored; or maybe not.

Relating this to our own situation, I see that we who seek knowledge and wisdom in difficult times should not be surprised to find ourselves feeling tortured, psychologically speaking, when we see our society electing a dangerously ignorant, rage-driven buffoon who unleashes a maelstrom of chaos, confusion and brutality, cheered on by equally ignorant and rage-driven hordes. Obviously, this mental torture could even become a physical experience, should we internalize our anxiety and sorrow to where it causes bodily ailments like hypertension, ulcers, strokes or heart attacks. It could also become a physical reality if the Trump regime decides that “national security” requires the interrogation, detention, and/or public shaming of regime opponents, echoing the “Red Scare” tribunals and blacklists of the 1950s.

I also think of Yggdrasil, the “World Tree” in Norse mythology, which supports and connects all worlds but itself suffers daily from being continually gnawed and damaged by various beings who come to feed on its branches and shoots. This reminds me of how in our modern world, the kinds of institutional systems that support and connect the world and provide succor and aid to many are under constant threat from the right-wingers like Trump, Pence and Ryan who seek to cut off the branches of government and let the tree of international cooperation wither, so that all will be left to fend for themselves, the weak and poor having no recourse, the wealthy and powerful feeling no responsibility, and institutional supports that make life better for the disadvantaged and lessen animosity and inequality between the peoples of the world, degraded if not dismantled. I would not doubt that right-wing Pagans have different interpretations, perhaps viewing Norse mythology through the lens of Ayn Rand and thinking of the tree as the society of the "maker" elite whose wonderful works and wealth are unfairly drained and diminished by the parasitic class of unproductive "takers," the world's underclass, regarded here as the architects of their own infirmity through their laziness, stupidity and "poor choices," with Ragnarök as the necessary destruction of an evil, socialistic world order that caters to the demented underclass rather than their majestic overlords. Myths, like any texts, are of course open to interpretation, and I can only say that mine is the one that makes sense to me and meshes with my values and concerns. I would hope it resonates with some of you as well.

I feel a special connection to trees. Whenever I see them, they comfort me and seem pillars of natural health and vitality, rooted deep, reaching high, providing shade and shelter for all living beings, free of charge. I always lament when I see trees harmed or cut down when there seems no urgent necessity. The status of trees seems to me a bellwether of the state of society. A society that values trees and greenery, and does not feel the need to mow down trees to create a blankly utilitarian landscape, is a healthier, saner one, in my view, than that which sees trees as a nuisance and would prefer dead concrete or an artificially perfect, chemical-drenched green lawn.

The plight of the World Tree is reflected in so many situations that one sees everywhere, everyday, above all the horrendous threat to the world's weather systems posed by climate change and global warming, which echoes the disturbance of nature said to presage the final destruction in the prophecy of the Voluspá. The Tree suffers much but still sustains us all, and I think this is the right way to think of one's moral duty in society in troubled times such as ours. We may have to suffer with and from people whose ideas and intentions seem ill-informed, distorted, destructive and hateful, but we must never forget to support and sustain human AND humane society and the health and well-being of the natural order which in turn gives us our health and well-being. Like Odin, we must seek wisdom, even if the quest is torturous and painful, and we must muster all our strength, intelligence and courage, even if we sense that the forces arrayed against us are truly ferocious and horrifically powerful.

The ambiguous ending of the Ragnarök tale in Voluspá gives room for hope that the powers of destruction, whether Frost-Giants, Fire-Demons, or Fascistic American Presidents, will not prevail forever. Their day will pass and a new day will dawn. We just have to hold on as best we can and make sure that the things we hold in our hearts as true and valuable and life-enhancing are not forgotten or erased, so that they may rise up as beacons of hope after the floodwaters of darkness subside. Like the gods in Voluspá, we must keep in mind that while our own time is limited, the world will go on, and we should dedicate ourselves to giving what we can to make that future world better than the one that we now see engulfed in flames. Pagans tend to look to the past, to enjoy reliving and reviving traditions of many centuries ago, but we should not forget that those traditions also looked to the future. The Vikings didn't stay at home and remain passive when times were hard. They went out and created a new world, reaching toward the future.

The hour of Trump will pass. Remember that, and don't let him drag you down into his angry darkness. Find peace and courage in nature, which endures much, but always regenerates.... eventually. Even Chernobyl, site of one of the world's worst environmental calamities, has green plants growing and animals roaming.

When his son Baldur was dead and his body laid out for his cremation, Odin bent down to his corpse and whispered something into his ear. According to the myths, no one knows what it was that the All-Father said. As there would seem little point in speaking to someone truly dead and departed, it may be that Odin knew something about the future, a future in which Baldur--and the world--would be revived, as is indeed suggested in the final lines of Voluspá.

I like that idea just now.... Something beyond the darkness.

The Rites of Spring, Then and Now

Sacrifice and Revolution...are these the Rites of Spring?

I was listening tonight to a radio program featuring a discussion of Stravinsky's composition "The Rites of Spring," a ballet inspired by Slavic Paganism and the notion of human sacrifice. The music and dancing in "The Rites" were so radical, so jarring, so unlike anything that had gone before in European classical music that this ballet actually caused riots in Paris when it was first performed in 1913. The discussion I listened to was on Chris Lydon's Boston NPR program "Open Source," which replayed a discussion of Stravinsky from the year 2000 on "The Connection," the program Lydon hosted on WBUR at that time. You can hear it at http://radioopensource.org/rite-of-spring-revival .

I am moved to reflect upon sacrifice, spring and revolution. We are just a few days in from May Day, once a worldwide day of tribute to workers and socialism, and more recently, a date on the calendar when modern-day Pagans often celebrate Beltane or other "rites of spring." In Stravinsky's vision, the Rites of Spring means the selection of a young maiden to be offered in human sacrifice in order to bring on the life-giving renewal of spring. The maiden is then driven to dance until she dies, which the frantic, driving music of the composition renders both hypnotic and frightening. Stravinsky's, and not only Stravinsky's view of sacrifice is that it is a very basic spiritual mystery, a primal bargain in which death pays for life, in which something must be given, wasted, killed, destroyed--sacrificed--by one, or by some, so that new abundance can be obtained for the many, or even for all of us. There is a similar logic in Christ's crucifixion and in Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac in the Old Testament.

In Norse myth, the world itself is created by the sacrificial killing and dismemberment of the primal being Ymir, and wisdom, poetry, writing and more are made possible for mankind by Odin's agonizing self-sacrifice on the world tree Yggdrasil. The apocalyptic vision of the end of the world in the poem Voluspa is also in a sense a story of sacrifice, as the destruction of the existing world is the prelude to the revitalization and re-creation of the world, rising up from the depths of the ocean, "fresh and green."

With our retrospective knowledge of what would happen in Europe and Russia in the years immediately following the debut of the "Rites of Spring," Stravinsky's ballet now seems not only a powerful reflection on sacrifice and death, but an artistic prophecy of the huge changes about to occur in Europe through WW I and the Russian Revolution. I find its message still entirely relevant, still full of jarring, even frightening resonance, in our own time. Our society has become dominated by a corporate and economic elite as corrupt, self-serving and unresponsive to human needs and aspirations as was the Tsarist regime of Stravinsky's time. Are we perhaps building up to the point when a revolution--a massive, horrific, collective sacrifice--is again required to make this society a more promising place for all of its citizens, not just a privileged elite? Will we need to rise up and accept the necessity of risk, loss, ruin, danger, and even death, to break the death-grip of the corporate oligarchy that now controls the parameters of our lives?

It is a tired refrain of American political thought that in a democracy such as ours, we must work through the political system, with all its flaws and contradictions, to achieve improvements in society, and that we should accept the reality that change comes slowly, and may take many generations. There is no need for drastic action, so this thinking goes, no reason to imagine anything as violent and radical as a revolution. America had a revolution once, it is true, but that was long ago, and we now have a constitutional democracy designed to accommodate public demands and to foster change and adjustments in our society, however slowly. All things in good time, you see.

Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring" reminds us of other, darker chords that can be played on the strings of the collective social orchestra. We are not in a time of social and political progress. The system is not working, or if it is, it is only working for those with massive financial power to bring about the results that they desire. Thus, when we have a financial Ragnarok as in 2008, it is only the oligarchic elite that gets much help from the government that is supposed to be "by the people, of the people, and for the people." Thus, when the world is threatened by massive climate disruption, when the icecaps are melting and increasingly violent storms and droughts rock one country after another, the carbon fuel industry is able to manipulate the media and cloud the public discourse in the United States to such a degree that most people doubt the need for any decisive action, and the profits of the carbon companies go up and up and up, just like the earth's temperature, with all the great danger that entails. Whatever happens in our world now is assimilated, adapted and repackaged by the forces of international finance and corporate power into a way for them to gather greater wealth and influence. What chance do the rest of us have?

In our world of dazzling, digital distractions, where our concerns about pressing social and political issues and our desires for real and meaningful change can be so easily dissipated, neutered and anesthetized by ever-proliferating forms of mind-crippling entertainment, it is hard to imagine a massive uprising such as the French, Russian or American revolutions. Furthermore, in a world where the economy has been transformed into an ever-more competitive, ever-less supportive, ever-more frightening zone of total insecurity for the vast majority of wage-earners, more and more of whom fear that at any moment they might be replaced by the latest "labor-saving" technology, which offers vast profits to the corporate and financial elite and the prospect of unemployment or progressively lower-wage work to many, most people are rightfully terrified to embark on any course of action that could endanger what little economic and occupational security they have managed to hold onto against the powerful techno-capital forces rumbling in the background like Tyrannosaurus Rex monsters looking to devour any and every creature that they can force into their perpetually ravenous mouths.

And yet... and yet, the brutal lesson of history, and of the "Rites of Spring," is that there can be no real spring, no true renewal, no large-scale social progress, without sacrifice and loss. The time may come when people will rise up to demand this, and be willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the welfare of future generations. It is my hope that as the threat of such uprising and revolution begins to take on shape and form and momentum, as began to happen with the "Occupy Wall Street" protests of 2011 and 2012, that the people with great power in government and the corporate and financial sectors will finally realize t the need for a thorough renegotiation of the basic social contract, and then our society can be renewed on a better basis for all. But if they are unable or unwilling to accept the need for such change... if they are so blinded by their own narcissism and the delusional belief that they have a right to perpetuate the order that is of such service to them and such disservice to others... then all bets are off, and the "Rites of Spring" may again need to be performed.