False Idols Falling: Hope for the Future?

Dear Fellow Humans,

Over the last six or so months, we have seen our world turned upside down twice.  First came Covid-9 and the sudden shutdown of practically  all societies on earth and a new lifestyle of fear and social distancing that  it brought  in its wake. Then came the worldwide anti-racism, anti-police brutality, pro-social justice protests sparked by George Floyd's cruel, tragic death in Minnesota. Both crises have exposed underlying weaknesses, contradictions and , I have constantly wondered where these twin global crises will take us in terms of how we regard society, the economy, the environment--really, EVERYTHING. Because everything seems up for grabs right now. We are at one of those rare times in history where difficult, indeed deadly events have stripped away all the superfluous fluff of daily life and focused worldwide attention on injustices and inadequacies that have been tolerated for too long by populations too beaten down, too depressed and dispirited, too apathetic, too self-absorbed or too distracted to actually consider the proposal that "just the way things are" is NOT the way things have to be. All the great rivers of the world occasionally change their courses over time, and it is the same with societies. The waters are rising.  The current is accelerating. The shores are losing their old definitions. Trees are being uprooted. The river of life is shifting. Things that seemed impossible six months ago are now regular topics of conversation.

I do not think that the outcry over police brutality and racism that resounded all around the world last summer, with continuing echoes still,  would have happened if not for the Covid-19 pandemic. The profound shock of seeing normal patterns of life abruptly halted and vast numbers of people sealed off in their homes for self-protection while other worked and sickened and died, with  rates of sickness and mortality replacing stock market averages and sport team results as the statistics of greatest popular interest, has given people time to think, reflect and feel deep things, troubling things, things they might have preferred to avoid in pleasanter times, but now can relate to much more easily than before, because we are ALL facing the firing squad of Covid-19. However, some get to lock themselves away in comfortable homes with plenty of space and comfort, but others do not, particular poor people, African-Americans, and other racial minorities. Others have to walk out into that viral hurricane every day to earn their daily bread and have to worry they when they come home to their families at the end of very long days at very hard jobs, they may be putting virus on the table along with that daily bread, with their loved ones partaking of both. Others are trapped in institutions for the elderly and the disadvantaged with totally inadequate staff and resources to effectively protect the most vulnerable among us. The spectacle of mass suffering, unjust suffering, unequal suffering has penetrated the popular consciousness and raised awareness that our social order is sick, unstable, and cruel.

Another spectacle, that of ignorant, incompetent leaders like American President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro,  blustering away on television, brushing aside the advice of medical scientists and the health professionals for us all to practice social distancing, ramp up our hand-washing and general hygiene, and keep coverings on our face to reduce viral transmission, has caused at least some supporters of  the aforesaid leaders to lose their faith in these men. When your country's people are dying in large numbers, and the head of your government proves to care much more about protecting corporate profits than  the population, you just might lose your faith in the man who you previously thought was so "entertaining," so "different," and so refreshingly "honest" with his free-flowing hostility toward minorities, elites and others and his seeming sympathy for "forgotten people" like you imagined yourself to be. Now  you can see that your Dear Leader may not quite be all that you thought he was and that all he has to offer you is more animosity toward this or that group, no real solutions, no real plan.

The collapse in the popularity of the aforesaid "leaders"--that word does seem a bit ironic in this context, doesn't it?-- is just one part of a much bigger domino effect, of false idols of many sorts crashing to the ground after bring struck with the twin thunderbolts of the coronavirus and what seems a new consensus about how sadly warped our societies are by racism ,and how poorly served we are by militaristic police who seem all too eager to use lethal force. We can also see crashing and crumbling the long-standing assumptions that businessmen and entrepreneurs are the real heroes of society, that the "magic of the market"  so much more efficient and reliable than government (see Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman for past advocates in this point of view); that  government is in fact a menace to "freedom;" that the government should never intervene in the economy; that the anti-government rhetoric of leaders like Reagan was just a bit of political sloganeering that would do no harm; that if people are poor or poorly paid, it is their own fault, and not something that should trouble the rest of society; that it is perfectly fine if many people have no health care or health insurance; that having large numbers of people homeless and in prison is acceptable; that even the most extreme inequality is part of  the proper functioning of the economy; that faraway peoples in other countries have nothing to do with us in our own home countries; that the needs of businessmen are more important than the needs of ordinary people; that public health and the natural world are less important than the health of the stock market and corporate profits.  Let's break this down a little more.

False Idol #1: Government bad, business good. When the coronavirus pandemic took hold in March 2020, governments worldwide struggled to respond, because in many cases health services had been stripped down and cut back in tandem with tax-cutting for the benefit of the business sector. Hospitals run like businesses failed to maintain stocks of personal protective equipment and medical devices like ventilators, because keeping large quantities of such stuff around when it was not immediately needed was anathema to the business mindset of keeping operations lean and relying on "just in time" supply chains. Well guess what, pandemics don't care about corporate business fads. People who really knew something about the threat of pandemics knew that it was important to have lots of supplies on hand, but the corporate types chose to cut things back. When the economy went into free-fall due to the need for shutdown of travel, guess who had to be rescued by the government? The very same businesses often so hostile to government. Not a few people have begun to see that the business sector is extremely selfish, expecting support for itself that it would be happy to deny to poor and struggling masses around the world

False Idol #2: If people suffer or are poor, it is their own fault, and no one should have to help them.  This pandemic has taken its most horrific toll on the poor and disadvantaged of the world. They did not ask to be poor any more than they asked to be exposed to the pandemic. With the fear of death that the pandemic makes universal, and the fear of extended poverty and unemployment that is now possible for large swathes of the population, including the formerly affluent, employed and comfortable, suddenly many who previously rejected the idea of government public assistance to the poor and needy are very interested in this very thing!  Fear of death and fear of poverty certainly do broaden the mind, don't they?

False Idol #3: Educated people, scientists and "elites" are suspicious people who cannot be trusted.  Donald Trump's coronavirus-update press conferences were a huge embarrassment, not only due to his verbal diarrhea of inconsistent, factually incorrect and self-contradictory statements, but also because he obviously did not like ceding the stage to more knowledgeable people like Anthony Fauci, who was studying infectious diseases back when Trump was still learning how to run a business empire based on bankruptcy  I think by now, most people realize that we need more people like Fauci in government, and far fewer like Trump.

False Idol #4: All that really matters is money. The Milton Friedman-Reagan-Thatcher-Trump neoliberal logic that the world is just an economic enterprise and that we all should just get with the program and seek to monetize everything and reduce all reality to numbers on the computer screens of financial analysts has certainly been blown to bits by the deep and limitless unfairness and suffering now on display for all to see. We need each other, we need a more caring and just society, not just a fat bank account. We need a world to live in, not a luxury mansion with walls a mile high. You can't hide from our common reality anymore. It could be a commonwealth, our common health, or a common hell.... We have to decide. It is up to all of us.

I  hope a brighter future is coming, despite the grim shadows all around us.  

May you all have hope and heart and strength for the time we are in now, and for going into the future. 

Remember to help each other. We are all each other's keepers. We always were, but maybe we forgot. Let us remember that now, and for the future and for always.

Had a Dream

All my life, I have heard people make glowing references to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. That speech, in particular its most famous line about hoping for a day when all people would be judged "by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin," seemed to be a very popular and pain-free place for politicians and others to stop by to express support for the concept of civil rights and the hope of human brotherhood. Other things that King called for, like economic justice and an end to corporate greed, violence and militarism, are far less frequently-cited themes. However sincerely or cynically King's speech has been utilized over the decades, one thing is crystal clear: his dream has not been realized. The continuing inequality that limits the lives of so many Americans affects African-Americans most of all. The c higher incarceration rates for African-Americans, higher death rates from Covid-19,  the barriers being raised to limit voting by African-Americans and other minorities, and the continuing police aggression against African-Americans that we now see on disgusting display in the knee-on-the-neck killing of George Floyd, can leave no doubt that America remains today just as afflicted by racism as it was in the lifetime of Martin Luther King.  To quote another assassinated visionary, John Lennon, "One thing you can't hide, is when you're crippled inside." The crippled moral character of America is now on view, front and center, for all the world to see and judge.

And as Minneapolis and other cities are rocked by fiery protests against police brutality and a racially biased justice system, the man in the Dark Tower--I mean, the White House--laments the death of Mr. Floyd in one breath while actually encouraging police to use more force against black protesters with the phrase, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," signalling that he expects aggrieved black citizens to shut up and submit to the knee on their neck, and if not, to prepare to be shot by the police. 

I had a dream too. About three year and a half years ago, on the November night in 2016 when Donald Trump would win the election over Hillary Clinton, I was on a plane to Finland on my way to an academic conference. I flew out of JFK airport that evening confident that Clinton was likely to win, and that there was little chance of the racist real estate developer and reality-show con-man winning the White House. However, when I fell asleep for a few hours on the flight, I had a very disturbing dream of angry crowds of people out in the streets fighting and shouting with fires burning.and gunshots exploding.  I woke up thinking, oh, it is just an anxiety dream about what could happen if a racist, brutality-loving person like Donald Trump were to become president, but of course, he won't. When my plane touched down in Helsinki, I learned who had won the election, and I felt numb with shock and apprehension.

And now I see streets aflame in city after city, with the racist-in-chief signalling to police that brutality is acceptable, even laudable. King's dream has not come true, but I am afraid my own dream may have.

This is our Ragnarok. Not the Second Civil War or Race War that some neo-Nazis and right-wing conspiracy believers are hoping for, but a battle against forces of spiritual ugliness, political brutishness and a white supremacy that doesn't even have to name itself to be known for what it is, as it is on plain view for anyone willing to look at reality in the face. We must rally our forces to defend what is good and true and enduring and fight for compassion and cooperation and caring and the long-term future of our fragile environment, against those who seek to crush the weak and glorify the brutal, whose only consistency is sociopathic aggression, and who seem to understand very little about anything beyond their own self-glorification. More and more Trump reminds me of Loki, who used slander and rumor to besmirch and belittle the other gods, and Surt, the fire-giant who seemed to want nothing more than to burn down the world. Ragnarok ends with the world destroyed, the gods all dead, but then a new world rising and the gods reviving. Let us carry on in the same faith that a better world can rise out of the broken pieces of the world we now see collapsing all around us.

I Hope

Dear Readers in this horrible springtime of pandemic,

Right now is the most terrifying period I can think of in my five-plus decades on this earth. The corona virus COVID-19 is a threat to all humans all around the earth, with no one being spared because of their location, their race, their religion, their national origin, or any other characteristic that people may think makes them superior to others or immune from others' concerns and problems. President Trump may call this a "Chinese virus" because of his habitual tendency to always seek a way to express hostility toward non-white peoples, having found that his more ardent followers will applaud loudly and almost orgasmically for his racist smears and ethnic scapegoating. However, in this crisis, I see hope that this racist tribalism may be one of the primary casualties of COVID-19,  and that we are going to see a new consciousness of the need for global human solidarity rising up from the ashes of a broken world. It is becoming more and more clear that international cooperation, not petty name-calling, race-baiting and blame-shifting, is needed to cope with this mass suffering. Leaders who rally their entire populations--ALL of their people, not just this or that racial or ethnic group--for an all-hands-on-deck effort, the only kind that can be effective in confronting a pandemic, and who work together with other governments and with international organizations and experts are the ones who will be viewed as true heroes and people of courage, compassion and wisdom, not those who rant and rave about building walls, scorning international agreements, and seeking isolation. We are of course seeing a period of closed borders right now, understandable as both a psychological and prophylactic response to this sudden, horrifying, crisis, but we are also seeing the need for countries to help each other with medical expertise and equipment, with financial burden-sharing, and other matters. It is becoming increasingly clear to most people that we really ARE all in this together.

I also see hope that this horrible collective experience will be the end of right-wing opposition to large government programs, as everyone now, of whatever political stripe, is seeing the need for huge government programs to save the economy from total collapse and large segments of the population from poverty and panic.  Furthermore, unlike the financial crisis of 2008 when many governments only seemed interesting in bailing out large business corporations, this time everyone can see that we have to provide financial support to ALL of the people who are losing their jobs and income, as the economy cannot function with a third of the population unemployed. Huge government aid programs to help the poor and stabilize the economy--isn't that the SOCIALISM that conservatives have always claimed would bring on the end of the world? Well, now that we are standing on the edge of a really terrifying social and economic precipice, it turns out that even the right-wing in many countries is suddenly in favor of massive government spending, without the usual hand-wringing about  "unsustainable government deficits," "moral hazard" and such. When push comes to shove, and society is on the brink, socialism is not such an evil force after all, though of course, the conservatives won't call this "socialism."  They'll find some euphemism like "corona capitalism," or maybe "free enterprise with collective characteristics."  In any case, a certain mental barrier has been breached. No longer will it be possible to say that the "magic of the market" can solve all problems, and that Big Government is Public Enemy #1. When the shit really hits the fan like it is now, there is in fact no alternative to Big Government, as big as possible; better still, international cooperation between all governments big and small.

I also see the possibility of a new spiritual horizon in the birthing. Many people are finding it a great solace now to be out in nature in whatever way they can manage, whether a walk down the street to a park, a stroll in the forest, or even just looking out their window and seeing a bird circling gracefully in a beautiful blue sky like a magical acrobat.  This may remind people of the sacred healing power of nature, and in a time when they are being forced to confront their own fragility in a world of biological organisms that all affect each other, inspire them to consider the need to better care for and protect nature, realizing we are all children of nature now desperate for our mother, this earth, to tell us that things will be OK.  This could be a moment of spiritual awakening as well as spur to new ecological activism. This could really be a positive turning point for humankind to reconsider many things and seek a better long-term path. I hope so.  I don't know if I will live to see it, as I am as scared of dying from this modern plague as anyone else, but I hope to.  And right now, that is a precious pair of words I will hold dear to my heart: I hope.

Muslims and Pagans

Dear Readers,

It is hard to believe that it has been more than a year since I set virtual pen to virtual paper on this blog.  Life has just been too busy and exhausting, and the gruesome reality show that is the Trump presidency has so alarmed, aggravated and depressed me that at times I have not been sure what to talk about here, as there is such a constant cavalcade of erratic and destructive actions and ignorant and hateful rhetoric exploding from the House of Tweet that I find myself at times too overwhelmed to respond. Add to that the rising tide of Trumpian right-wing nationalist politicians and parties around the world from India to Hungary to Britain to Brazil and the dispiriting effect is only magnified  a hundredfold, and I fall into anguished silence contemplating how the world that I once knew, in which Fascism had been vanquished in a World War and there was a general understanding that Nazism was an evil thing, seems to be falling apart and past hatreds and cruelties rising up again, with delighted mobs deliriously cheering blood-lust.

What brings me to write today is the very sad realization that someone who I have worked with for a long time in the academic world, someone I have respected for his work in Pagan Studies and thought I knew, someone who I considered a kindred spirit, seems to have been fully converted to the hateful outlook of the new global right wing. I noticed him making very characteristically far-right  Islamophobic statements on a blog that he writes, seizing on the extreme rhetoric of one particularly aggressive and offensive Muslim cleric and seeming to trumpet this as proof of the overall vileness of Islam, the religion of some 1.3 billion human beings on this earth. I contacted my friend and pointed out that it is neither accurate nor intellectually honest nor morally defensible to lambaste all the members of a group or religion for the actions or statements of a single person or small minority within that group. He backed off a little bit, but only a little, acknowledging that not all Muslims were bad people but adding that overall, he still finds Islam a malevolent force in the world. He observed that while some academics and intellectuals might feel it important to respect Islam out of their dedication to religious tolerance, this  was, in his opinion, a misguided "ivory  tower" view that overlooked the true reality of the world in which Islam was a  threat to the tolerant lifestyle of Western societies, a threat that had to be defended against.

Having spent some serious time in the last several years researching right-wing nationalism and extremism, particularly anti-Muslimism, also known as Islamophobia, its close relation, anti-Gypsyism, and their older sibling anti-Semitism, I was very sad to see how almost every word my friend had to say about Islam was right out of the hackneyed, hateful hymn book of the modern  far right. Islam as threat to the west has been the mother's milk trope of right-wing Islamophobia for decades, going into overdrive after the 9/11 attacks and asserted with renewed vitality after the horrific Charlie Hebdo incident in France. This is not to say that the homicidal brutality of Muslim persons in those incidents was justified or forgivable. Those responsible should be prosecuted and punished for such crimes. However,  the vast majority of Muslims worldwide who live peaceful lives of daily toil and experience the same range of human triumphs and travails as others, should not be blamed or vilified, demonized or disadvantaged due to the actions of a few within their community. To do that is to begin following the old playbook of racial and religious prejudice that cherry-picks the most unpleasant and offensive behaviors, beliefs or customs to be found among the members of any group, whether defined in ethnic, religious, or other terms,  holds this up as the essence of the group, and proclaims the need to suppress, segregate, deport or exterminate said group. That way lies Pogroms and Final Solutions.

We all have our quirks and shortcomings, and I wish I could just write off my friend's anti-Muslim bias as a quirk of his personality, something I could simply agree to disagree with him about and then put behind us. The problem is, I am bound to this person in an academic enterprise in the field of Religious Studies. Though my friend's particular expertise and interest is in regards to modern Paganism, it is axiomatic in modern Religious Studies to accept the basic validity of all religions on their own terms,  practicing religious tolerance and respect for diversity. I now have reason to believe that my friend has either never really believed in religious tolerance and diversity, or has turned a corner in his mind where in the case of Islam, the principles of tolerance and diversity do not apply.

I find his stance not only offensive to my own sense of ethics and my own commitment to respecting religious diversity, but extremely puzzling and ironic in someone who is a long-time supporter of modern Paganism. It is the principles of religious tolerance and respect for diversity that have made it possible for Pagans to practice their religion in many countries today without fear of persecution or violence. If we start saying that Islam is not to be tolerated because of certain behaviors or beliefs of a small minority of its members, do we not begin to dismantle the structures that uphold the edifices of tolerance and diversity that we Pagans shelter under? Does that not lay the groundwork for persecution of minority religions  including forms of Paganism such as Wicca, Druidism and Heathenry, that many Christians find offensive and Satanic?

I would welcome comments from readers about their own viewpoints on Pagans and Muslims. Do you agree with me that  upholding respect for all religions is the best protection for minority religions like Paganism, or do you feel like my friend that in America and other Western societies, Islam cannot be tolerated and Muslims are not welcome? Do you think we should "Build the Wall" against Islam? Or should we be looking to build bridges and find common ground? I will be curious to hear your voices.

The Revenge of Love: Two Films That Made Me Cry

Dear Readers,

I do find myself at a loss for words at times in this awful era of the Trump presidency. Not that there is nothing to say, but rather that so many bad things are happening so fast that I often cannot decide where to begin to respond or comment. The separation of families at the border.... the weird coziness of Trump with Putin in Helsinki, treating him like the best person in the world, right after insulting America's allies at the NATO summit, and always, grinding away in the background, the nonstop destruction  of programs, policies and regulations that protect the environment, help the poor, and uphold human decency...It is too much, and I fall dumb. This is either evil genius or brutally effective instinct on the part of Trump and his team: to so bombard us with crazy, cruel and contradictory things that we are shocked into silence and inaction. I must confess that at times, I fall right into this trap, which means the bastards win that day. I wish I were stronger.

Two films that I saw recently, both dealing with childhood, brought me to tears. One was a film that I remember first seeing in my early teens, the animated Beatles film "Yellow Submarine" that was first released in 1968, The other was "Won't You Be My Neighbor,?" the new documentary about Fred Rogers, the late host of the long-running, public broadcasting children's program "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood." Both films, in their different ways, are eloquent statements of the importance of  love as the glue that holds humanity together. "Love and peace," in the 1960s phrase. This is not merely romantic, sexual love of boy meets girl or girl beckons boy, or boy desires boy or girl goes for girl, but love in the deeper sense of universal brotherhood, the "peace on earth and good will toward men" trumpeted in Christmas carols but known in all or nearly all religions and worldviews as a very important thing indeed.

In "Yellow Submarine," the world is brought to a frozen, deathly state enforced by brutal, fascistic forces known as the "Blue Meanies."  The cartoon Beatles save the world by reviving the frozen, lifeless band, which is an alternate form of the Beatles, that is, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, who then overpower the fascistic Meanies by singing the song, "All You Need is Love."  Now I must admit, there were times when I was younger when I found this song sophomoric, so utterly simplistic in the face of all the complex problems that beset humanity. "Sure, if you have enough to eat and a roof over your head and some measure of security, great to sing about love. How about the poor and the homeless?" But now, in this grim and fearful time when Trump is empowering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency  as well as local police and sheriffs and others to be true "blue meanies" in ripping apart families and causing irreparable psychological damage not only to young children but to the rest of their families as well, creating trans-generational trauma that will create future problems for these families and others, all for what? For the "sacred," racist purpose of discouraging brown-skinned Latinos from thinking that American society might in any way be open to them. In this time, when Trump continues peddling misleading stereotypes and ranting about how America must be cleansed of unwanted foreigners and immigrants, the Beatles song rings very, VERY true as a very potent response to the sadistic policies and the apparent delight in cruelty of the Trump regime.

We do NOT have to be hateful and cruel toward immigrants, foreigners and refugees. We do NOT have to build walls and imprison people in institutional settings that are just modern versions of concentration camps. We could instead be loving and welcoming to the vast majority of immigrants and refugees who only wish to live in peace with us, to make a new life, to be part of this society.  In this spirit, I applaud all those who are taking up slogans like "Nation of Immigrants" and "Welcome Refugees" and reminding us of the words on the Statue of Liberty. We need that. We need.... love. That is the ultimate weapon against Trump and his minions, to declare that we want to get along, get together, stand together, work together, live together, co-exist and seek the best in one another and in others... and build bridges of common purpose, not walls of fear and hate and menace.

In "Won't You Be My Neighbor," we see that Fred Rogers was not just a simple TV personality, but a moral visionary deeply concerned with the healthy emotional development of children... and society in general. He was an ordained minister, the world was his flock, and he used the medium of television not for fame or profit but as  a form of ministry. He did not make a point of treating children with love and respect and telling them they were special in order to raise little self-centered narcissists, as has sometimes been charged, but because he wanted all people to feel safe and loved that they might grow up to seek a community of love and peace, not aggression and suspicion, one group against another, one race against another, one religion against another. Fred Rogers was rightly appalled by all the mass entertainment that glorifies guns, violence, speed and death, when what human beings really need... is love. Corny? Perhaps. Trite? You could say so. Simplistic? In a way, of course. But as we now live in a time where our country's president and government are enforcing policies reveling in cruelty, discord and aggression, totally lacking in love, except for the narcissistic cult of King Donald, an orange meanie in place of the blue ones prophesied in the Beatles film, Mr. Rogers' invitation to us all to be good neighbors is a very good thing indeed. This is not sappy. This is not a cliche. This is your life raft and survival manual.

We are struggling to stand upright against a disgusting, fecal barrage of hateful misinformation and confusing propaganda dished out daily by the Trump-Putin-Fox News axis that wants nothing more than to foment division and anger so that authoritarian forces can impose  "law and order" with guns and brutality. We should remember John Lennon's advice to never forget to "imagine" a better world, and to play positive "mind games" that can keep us sane and stable even if the world seems to be turning into a sewer. There have been terrible times in the world before, let us not forget, and one of the best things we can possibly do to survive this time and hopefully reach toward a better one in a near or distant future, is to try our best to love each other.

May the spirit of peace and love be with you. May you walk in agape, karuna, ahimsa and frith.

A New Dawn for Ásatrú: New Clarity Against Racism

As someone who has for many years been sounding the alarm about the dangers of right-wing, white supremacist and racist elements in Paganism, particularly American versions of Norse Paganism, and who has continually called on Pagans to completely reject any and all expressions of racism and white supremacy, I am happy to devote this first blog post of the New Year to praising the major American Ásatrú (aka Heathen or Norse Pagan) organization, the Troth, for its increasingly brave stance in these matters. The Troth has always been the most open and tolerant, and to that extent, left-wing Norse Pagan organization  in America, but in its intention to serve as an umbrella for as broad a range of American Heathens as possible, it has not always taken the racism issue head-on, not wanting to alienate more right-wing and ethnically-oriented Norse Pagans. However, as the anti-immigrant and white supremacist views of prominent right-wing American Norse Pagans like Stephen McNallen have become increasingly evident, the Troth has been more firmly and directly rejecting and denouncing racist sentiment and white supremacist identity construction, and declaring that racism has no place in the Troth. If one goes to the main Troth web page to see its mission statement, this is what they will find:

"...We welcome all people, whatever their religious, cultural, or ancestral background, gender or sexual orientation, who have developed or wish to develop a relationship with our Gods and Goddesses, and would like to know more about Asatru or other forms of Heathenry." (updated as of February 1, 2016).

Note, too, that the Troth  also takes a firm stand of inclusiveness toward the LBGT population and gender diversity.

In many way, in many places, the Troth has taken steps to stamp out the lingering, smoldering embers of white supremacy and racism that are an unfortunate legacy of the past history of Norse Paganism, with  respect to the continuing efforts by Nazis, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists and racists to appropriate Norse Pagan heritage and symbols for their own use. Events like the "Unite the Right"  march Charlottesville in August of 2017 have demonstrated that there continue to be disturbing links between white supremacy and a certain segment of the American Heathen population. Therefore, while I salute the Troth for more and more openly and firmly denouncing racism and white supremacy, the battle is not yet won and perhaps can never be, considering how deeply rooted racism and white supremacy are in American society and history. Indeed, when the right-wingers at Charlottesville declared that they simply wanted to preserve American heritage by protecting statues of Confederate soldiers, they had a point: racism, racial segregation and white supremacy are indeed American traditions of very long standing. Of course, so was slavery, and just because something had a long duration, that does not mean it deserved to exist for the time that it did or that it should continue now. Applying this to Norse Paganism, we might also say that just because it existed in the past, that does not mean that it should exist or be revived now, unless it has something positive to contribute to the world today. If all it has to contribute is a Viking justification for racism, than it does not deserve any respect or support, and we should seeks its demise and disappearance as quickly as possible. The many very spiritual, profound and creative non-racist Norse Pagans I know in Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the USA have reassured me again and again that Norse Paganism can be a worthwhile experiment in blending ancient and modern cultural and religious elements, and I am happy to be in their company, while I reserve the right to walk away from racists and white supremacists.

The thorny issue around which all these discussions revolve is the complex status of modern Norse Paganism, whether we call it Heatheny, Ásatrú, Forn Sið/Sed or by some other term, as a religion rooted in the past history of one particular place and people, that is, the ancient Norse and Germanic peoples of Northern Europe and Iceland, that has now been revived in a world of constantly mixing identities and cultural diversity. It is rather like the English language: it developed among Anglo-Saxons in England but has not become a language spoken worldwide. If tomorrow, the queen of England were to declare that only those residing in England or possessing Angl-Saxon genes wlll henceforth be permitted to speak English, the world would laugh.  The gods, myths, texts and traditions of Norse Paganism are no longer exclusively Scandinavian (or Icelandic, or German, or Northern European, etc.) possessions.They have become the common property of mankind across the globe. There may always be those who will take the view that the whole point of Norse Paganism is to block out the diversity and complexity of modern life and take refuge in an imagined "pure" white, Northern European identity. For the rest of us, Norse Paganism is an interesting and inspiring religious and cultural tradition that was, yes, born in the North but now faces in all directions, much like Yggdrasil, the WORLD tree that is so central in Norse mythology.

#MeToo and #EarthToo: Stop Raping the Earth!

It has been a long time since I have come to put word to keyboard here, due to a busy fall semester and sheer exhaustion from trying to keep up with the endless barrage of dishonest statements, disheartening actions, and destructive policies coming out of the Trump White House. The new "tax reform" bill that will greatly enrich the already greatly rich and over time, bankrupt the government in order to destroy social programs that help the non-rich and the non-white  is only the last in a long list of insults and atrocities. I am losing hope that much can be done anytime soon to block the triumphal march of idiocy and hatefulness that Trump is leading, with the docile support of a supine Republican majority, many of whose members may also revile The Donald but are willing to go along with him for the sake of right-wing treats like tax cuts and the weakening of regulations on banks, telecom companies and other powerful corporate interests. I take heart that opposition is rising, and that the election of the Democrat Doug Jones over the disgusting Bible-thumper, child humper Roy Moore in Alabama, coming after the trouncing of pro-Trump candidates.

The defeat of the Roy Moore candidacy had much to do with a highly energized African-American electorate in Alabama, with black women turning out in astounding numbers bespeaking iron determination. There was a definite Civil Rights angle to this situation. Roy Moore had made a shocking statement during the campaign suggesting that he saw the slavery period as one that was better for American families than the current day. Doug Jones, in contrast, had, as U.S Attorney for the northern district of Alabama in the late 1990s, successfully prosecuted two KKK members who had been involved in the racially-motivated terrorist bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in Birmingham on September, 15, 1963 that caused the deaths of four young African-American girls. This was remembered and was one of the reasons Jones got such strong African-American support.  It is heartening that Jones had the courage to carry out these prosecutions, which resulted in the conviction of Thomas Edwin Blanton in 2001 and Bobby Frank Cherry in 2002 http://www.history.com/news/how-doug-jones-brought-kkk-church-bombers-to-justice. It is equally impressive and inspiring that African-Americans, especially black women, had not forgotten this important history and were eager to elevate a Civil Rights champion over a Civil War apologist in the election.

Of course, another major factor in Moore's defeat were the revelations of his past pursuit of teenaged girls when he was a district attorney in his thirties, in the early 1980s. The women who came forward to speak of their painful experiences being pressured by Moore to go on dates with them and to then, in some cases, endure various degrees of  molestation, were denounced by Moore and his most prominent supporter, President Trump, but a large enough segment of the Alabama electorate believed the women's stories, and this lessened white support for Moore, particularly among white women, enough so that the combination of lukewarm white support for Moore and red-hot black opposition made the difference. This came in the context of the flood of revelations of male sexual abuse of women in Hollywood, politics, and elsewhere that has ended the careers of powerful men from Bill O'Reilly to Harvey Weinstein to Matt Lauer to Al Franken. Social media played an important role, with many women using Twitter and the #MeToo hashtag to publicize their personal stories of abuse and pain.

Here, I want to suggest,from a more specifically Pagan angle, that the hashtag of #MeToo could be given an environmental equivalent, an #EarthToo campaign, that could be used to "out" egregious polluters and destroyers of the environment, past and present and to mobilize public sentiment against the devastation and desecration of our natural environment. When we think about the violation of women by men, we who are Pagans might take this a step further to confront the ugly practice of multinational corporations raping the earth for reasons of greed and lust for profit. I recall reading that in Lithuanian folklore, there was once a tradition of farmers asking the earth for forgiveness for causing it pain prior to forcibly opening the soil for tilling and sowing.

May this become a battle cry heard far and wide , so that corporate predators of Mother Earth will be treated to scorn and shame in 2018 as were sexual predators in 2017...#Earth Too!  Stop Raping the Earth!

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/

The Black Snake, the Midgard Serpent--and Us

Where I live in the Hudson Valley, NY State area, my local community is facing a terrible environmental threat. This is the construction of a huge natural gas-fired power plant, the CPV Power Plant in Wawayanda NY, that will belch out massive pollution into the air and water, threatening health and well-being throughout our area, poisoning our water supply and  running the risk of massive explosions.

See http://www.blog.protectorangecounty.org/ to learn more. If you live in the Orange County area, the web site will tell you action that you can take. Time is of the essence! The final permit needed for the project will be decided by early August, so the more people call and write to Governor Cuomo, who will make the final decision, the better our chances to stop this nightmare. Tell Andrew Cuomo to not approve the permit, because we need to stop the Power Plant. Call the governor at 1-518-474-8390. Call every day if you can. You can also leave comments at https://www.governor.ny.gov/contact-iframe. Cuomo gives every indication of wanting to run for president in 2020. Let him know that if he stops this project, you will consider supporting him in any future presidential campaign, and that if he does not, you will take your business elsewhere!

I have decided to reflect on the situation through the lens of Norse Mythology.  Is the threat like the Frost Giants looking to snuff out the sun, or is it the Fire Demon Surt looking to burn up the earth? Well, both of those could be said to symbolize the current state of danger, but there is another mythological image that works even better: Thor fighting the Midgard Serpent. What made me think of this is something I heard today  at a protest today in front of The Threat. A Native American man, a descendant of the local Lenape Native Americans who ancient burial ground is threatened by the CPV plant, spoke about the Indian myth of a "black snake" that poses a danger to the earth. He argued that the massive push by oil and gas companies to build pipelines and drill for gas and oil everywhere as much and as fast as possible was the modern version of the Black Snake. A second speaker noted that just as the snake can burrow into the ground and grow multiple heads that reach into all directions, so does the Millennium Pipeline, the local structure providing distribution of fracked gas in this area, represent a hydra-headed menace growing day by day as construction of this and related pipelines proceeds. Pondering the snake image, I thought of the Midgard Serpent, Thor's ancient enemy, who he must fight again and again, never quite vanquishing but hopefully keeping in check.

This pipeline and this power plant, and all the other power plants and pipelines that similarly threaten other communities, are our Midgard Serpent. We must, like Thor, raise our hammers to fight it back. Victory will not come all at once, or it may only be partial, or it may never come, but we must fight.

Protect the Earth. Protect Midgard, the only world we humans have. Remember Thor.  Fight back the Serpent. This is our duty.

Global Depression

Dear Readers,

I have never before let this blog fall silent for so long. It is a measure of how terribly dispirited I have been feeling, watching the Trump presidency unfold. Almost every day there is a new outrage, a new insult to intelligence, a new threat to either the fabric of American society, to our international relations, or to the health of the planet. It is simply overwhelming. Trump goes to Saudi Arabia and embraces the authoritarian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, not to mention the unelected rulers of the Saudi royal family, a monarchy straight out of the Middle Ages that exports a highly fundamentalist form of Islam that feeds into the Islamic extremism of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, while hurling insults and threats at Iran, which despite its flaws, is a country where people actually get to vote for their leaders in relatively free elections, unlike Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Then he goes to Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union, and criticizes the leaders of Europe for not paying more for the NATO alliance, even while refusing to reaffirm America's commitment to the basic principle of the NATO alliance, the "one-for-all and all-for-one" idea that any attack on any NATO country will be viewed as an attack on all NATO countries and mobilize the entire alliance to repel the aggression.

It is hard to contemplate Trump's eagerness to berate America's NATO allies and his unwillingness to restate America's commitment without feeling deeply worried that he is signaling to Russia that America is unconcerned about Russia's invasion of Crimea and intervention in Eastern Ukraine, which could embolden Putin and his generals to think about further actions to destabilize, weaken and possibly reclaim parts of the former Soviet Union, most crucially, the Baltic States. And now this week, his announcement that the US will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord is the most sickening moment of all. Like Hitler and Mussolini proudly denouncing international cooperation in the 1930s as Germany and Italy quit the League of Nations, Trump has expressed contempt for the nearly 200 countries that worked together to craft that finely-balanced, far-sighted accord, and proclaimed once more that "America First" is his guiding star, oblivious to the fact that rejecting  this agreement will mean America becoming marginalized or even irrelevant in further discussions on the single greatest issue facing mankind today: the fate of our planet and the conditions for all life on earth.

In explaining his decision to abandon the Paris treaty the other day, Trump said that he is tired of other countries laughing at America, and that they won't be laughing any more. I think this statement give us insight into a central paranoia within Trump World, the nagging suspicion that he is not properly respected by other people--"they're laughing at me''--which now, in his thinking, applies to America as well. While Trump is not America, it is true that for the next several years, he is the face America shows to the world, and to that extent, how other countries see Trump is how they will see America. However, I strongly doubt that people in other countries will now be laughing less at America with Trump as head of state. It may even be the opposite. The reactions, however, are not limited to laughter. I sense that people in Europe and elsewhere are shaking their heads in disgust, feeling sad about America's declining status as a leading country, and some may even be crying instead of laughing.

I also wonder what this does to Paganism.  Trump's continuing use of anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner rhetoric, his continuing push for a nonsensical ban on travel to America from a number of Muslim-majority countries,  and the stepped up raids and arrests of undocumented workers from Mexico and Latin America,  are all sure to be received well by right-wing Americans who love to see non-white, non-Christian people harassed and demeaned, even if such actions do nothing to improve their lot in today's dysfunctional, winner-take-all economy, in which automation and corporate greed do as much to displace jobs as any foreign trade agreements. At least they can feel that they are "better" than "those people," those non-white, non-Christian Others who they enjoy scorning and/or hating and/or fearing. I assume that some right-wing Pagans will also enjoy this kind of elevation of white, European-descended Americans over non-white, non-European descended others. But what about the Christian element? Do right-wing Pagans ignore this aspect of Trumpism? Perhaps some ex-Christian, right wing Pagans will actually be persuaded to return to Christianity, seeing this as their best option for upholding their racialized sense of identity and their attachment to European heritage in this age of Trump. Others may take a more "a la carte" approach, embracing Trump's scorn for non-white, non-European people, especially Muslims, Mexicans and Latin Americans which is also expressed, more subtly, in his disinterest in any government action to aid African-Americans, while choosing to overlook Trump's appeals to Christian identity.

For Pagans who feel a strong connection to European culture and heritage, Trump's pro-Russian, anti-NATO, anti-EU leanings pose an interesting challenge. Most  European Pagans in formerly Soviet-controlled lands are pleased to be out of the Soviet Union--or in the case of Central European countries like Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia,out of the Soviet Bloc--and are are not eager to return to some Putinized mafia-state recreation of the Soviet Empire. Will they and their counterparts in America feel gratified by President Trump weakening European defenses against Russian aggression, whether this be outright invasion as in Crimea, borderland conflict as in Eastern Ukraine, cyber attacks against former Soviet states as happened in Estonia in 2007, or interference in election campaigns as was attempted in France and Germany this year, and seem to have played a role in the Brexit vote in the UK and the denigration of Hillary Clinton in the US presidential campaign last year? It could be that many American Pagans do not care or know enough about contemporary politics in Europe to take any stand at all. They may prefer to just stick to their European-derived traditions without thinking much about the current state of the Europe from which their traditions derive. My wish would be that Pagans would open their eyes to what is happening in the world and take a stand with European leaders, and European Pagan groups, in opposing Russian interference or domination of their countries, and in also opposing Trump's friendliness toward Russia until Russia ceases its interference in countries across Europe.

I would also hope that Pagans in America, all of whom claim to love nature and the gods of nature, would see Trump's cruel, ignorant and dangerous decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord as an affront to one of their primary religious values. Even if they are right-wing leaning, as I know some American Pagans are, I urge them to realize that Mother Earth--or whatever name the totality of our beautiful natural world has in any particular Pagan tradition or any particular Pagan's thinking--is calling out to us. I do believe that as Pagans, we have a duty to resist Trump to protect the Earth. This will be a test of whether Paganism in America is really a nature-based form of spirituality, as its followers have often asserted, or whether white tribalism is really the core value.

Right now, I find it hard to be optimistic.

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.

Seeking the Light in the Darkness: Winter Solstice 2016

Tonight is the night of the winter solstice, the time of year when the earth is farthest from the sun and days are at their shortest and nights their most long and dark and cold. This is a time of year when ancient Pagan peoples would celebrate light in darkness and the hope of renewal to come in the new year. In America, after the election of a man who seems intent on raping and defiling Mother Earth to the maximum degree possible and devastating the natural environment for the sake of corporate profit, the solstice, with its echoes of ancient peoples who cultivated an earth-centered spirituality, has extra meaning to me. I say to my friends, embrace the light. Tend to that spark of truth and good will within yourself, and prepare for battle in the New Year.

Prepare to stand up and fight against lies, greed, intolerance, bullying, racism, and oppression. Remember that many who supported Trump were not well-informed or fully aware of what they were endorsing or empowering. Many were simply fed-up with the difficult conditions of life today, and hoping for reasons that I still do not fully understand that an orange-haired, celebrity-bully-billionaire would be the answer to their frustrations. Let us hope that in months to come they will see the light of truth and realize that this man is not their savior, and that his election represents not their salvation but a huge and harmful mistake that we will have to work very hard to resist, rectify and move beyond. Peace.

Reflections on "Southside With You" and Racism in Paganism

Tonight I saw "Southside With You," the film about Barack and Michelle Obama's first date. It is a poignant study of the beginning of a relationship and an interesting time-capsule of American life 25 or so years ago, with the future Obamas going to see the Spike Lee film, "Do the Right Thing." At several points the two lead characters reflect on the divided, almost split-screen reality they live in, shuttling between the predominantly black American neighborhoods of the South Side of Chicago that they live in and the white-dominated corporate America in the downtown of the city that they go to work in each day. When the Michelle character reflects on how she has to continually perform and achieve at an extra-high level to win respect and status while being black and a woman in America, it made me think of how that has been true for Barack Obama as President. No white President was ever put through the kind of unrelenting scrutiny and vilification that he had to endure. Many people give him no credit at all for major achievements like stabilizing a downward-spiraling economy and not only restoring the stock market but bringing it to record heights, restoring economic growth and rising employment, putting in place regulations that will improve the safety of our air and water for generations to come, reorganizing Federal Student Loans to make it possible for borrowers to pay back on an income-contingent basis--truly a life-saver for those, like your author, with massive educational debt--and improving American's international reputation after the embarrassments of the Bush years. This is not to say the Obama record is perfect; far from it. In fact, I voted for the Green Party in 2012, but that does not mean I do not realize that things could have been much worse and that Obama did make many things better, despite incredible Republican obstruction. There are many disappointing things about his presidency, but to write it off as a nation-wrecking disaster when it was really more of a national Heimlich maneuver is to look at the last eight years through a terribly distorted lens.

Donald Trump is banking on millions of Americans endorsing that twisted view, and he may succeed. Why? There are multiple reasons, one of the foremost being that many economically struggling white Americans are responding to the old, old Pied Piper's tune of racial resentment, which provides scapegoats and rationalizations that many find comforting and reassuring. It is not the increasing power of global capitalism and massive, inhumane business corporations that are causing your declining income, status and job security; it is those nasty Mexicans and Muslims and Chinese. And all of this started when America went down the suicidal road of "political correctness" and voted a black man into the White House, a black man who is probably not even a real American, and who is probably a "Secret Muslim" though he claims to be a Christian. Don't forget that the Dunce-ald got his start in politics by gleefully endorsing the "birther" conspiracy theory that questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency by casting doubt on the authenticity of his birth certificate. The birther show was quite a media circus, for a time, but in the end it produced nothing of value and only wasted America's time and attention. If the Golden One were elected, I expect that his presidency would achieve similar results.

The longer I live, the more people I know, the more classes I teach and students I work with, the more clearly I see how the real "birther" problem of America is how this country was founded in racial hostility, economic exploitation and bitter injustice, a nightmarish and haunted legacy from the extermination to the enslavement to the continuing disadvantaging and disrespecting of non-white people, and the more this sickens, saddens and angers me. This is the "original sin" of American life, and it never goes away. It affects all of us who breathe the air and walk the streets and make our homes in America.

And to turn to my own chosen spiritual home in the evolving religious framework of contemporary Paganism, I see how this haunted legacy poisons modern American Paganism too. The recent controversy over statements made by the new leaders of the AFA, the Ásatrú Folk Assembly, that suggest a desire to perpetuate Ásatrú/Heathenry/Norse Paganism for the sake of "our beautiful white children" is repugnant but unsurprising, as this has always been one of the threads women into contemporary Norse Paganism, especially, though not exclusively, in America. As I see it, the desire of these people to employ Norse spirituality in the service of creating a lovely all-white world for their darling pure-gene children is just the old racist American story all over again, if one that is charmingly decorated with runes and eddas.

I do believe that there are well-meaning, generally kind-hearted people who are not deeply or overtly racist who fall into this unawares, not realizing that lore is being used as a lure for the unwary, to gradually indoctrinate them with a racist view of the world. A deeper understanding of American history, including its ugly chapters of racial injustice and brutalized and terrorized populations, would serve them well, as would a visit to the cinema to see "Southside With You."

Hopefully, over time, as they explore more deeply and gain greater experience, at least some who have been lured into more racist forms of Heathenry will come to see that Yggdrasil, that mythical Ash tree that links together different worlds in Norse mythology, is the WORLD tree, not the WHITE tree! Hopefully, they will come to understand that just as the mythology envisions different "races" or types of beings living together in one interlinked universe, interacting and intermingling, combining and creating, so too can we humans of different ethnic hues and backgrounds, and that together, we can breathe new energy into originally Norse-based traditions to make them more vibrant and beautiful than ever.

"Children of Odin" in Finland: anti-Muslim hysteria growing.

Dear Readers,

A friend in Latvia just forwarded to me a most upsetting news story from a Finnish newspaper, about an anti-Muslim group in Finland calling itself "The Children of Odin." I equally regret their ignorant opposition to a people they seem to know nothing about but fear due to ill-informed but inflammatory stereotypes, and their usage of the name Odin, thus again tarring Norse Paganism with the old brush of Nazi-esque intolerance and thuggery. Notice that nothing bad has happened in this town as a result of the Muslim refugees' arrival, and yet a certain segment of the local people is already mobilizing anti-Muslim militias. I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg...

Here is the link, with the article copied below.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/fridays_papers_soldiers_of_odin_patrol_kemi_streets_paper_claims_100s_of_muslim_extremists_in_turku_finland_to_cut_unicef_funding_by_75/8367123

Friday's papers: "Soldiers of Odin" patrol Kemi streets, paper claims "100s of Muslim extremists in Turku," Finland to cut UNICEF funding by 75%
Friday’s newspapers wrote about a group that calls themselves the Soldiers of Odin who patrol the streets of Kemi to "increase people's feeling of security." One paper claims there are "several hundred" Muslim extremists in Turku. Government plans to cut funding to the UNICEF children's fund by 15 million euros.

Unicefin koulu Bekaan laaksossa Libanonissa
UNICEF worker and schoolgirl in undated picture taken in Lebanon. File photo. Image: Nabil Mounzer / EPA

Aamulehti posted a story Thursday about a group that started patrolling the streets of the northern town of Kemi.

The paper writes that starting a few days ago a group of dark-clothed men, who call themselves the Soldiers of Odin, were patrolling the streets of Kemi.

Aamulehti interviewed the patrol's organiser, Mika Ranta, who said the reason behind the patrols was to "increase people's feeling of security."

The paper asked Ranta why he started the group.

"We woke up to a situation where many different cultures met. It caused fear and concern in the community. We started to gather a bunch of people," the paper quoted Ranta saying.

"The biggest issue was when we learned from Facebook that new asylum seekers were peering through the gates of primary schools, looking at young girls," Ranta told Aamulehti.

There is an asylum seeker reception centre based in the northern town Kemi, a town just under 30 km from the border town of Tornio, where the majority of asylum seekers have been arriving to the country recently.

Ranta was quoted claiming that there are hundreds of Soldiers of Odin members across the country.

He said that while he describes himself as a National Socialist on his Facebook page, he claims his "opinions are his own" and that there are all kinds of people in the "family friendly" group.

Aamulehti also published a photo of some members of the group, which appears to consist mostly of men clad in dark nylon bomber jackets, many of which appear to be embroidered with an acronym of the group.

Most of the members did not consent to be photographed, and turned their backs for the snapshot. But the five members in the foreground who agreed to the photo were all listed as having Finnish names in the caption.

Finnish police told the paper that it does not recommend patrols or actions like these "under any circumstances."
TS claimed: "Hundreds of Muslim extremists in Turku"

A brief in Turku’s daily Turun Sanomat* made an unattributed and problematic claim that there are "several hundred" Muslim extremists living in the city.

The claims are unattributed to anyone but the articles' reporter, however there is no writer’s name attached to the piece. The photo attached to the article features Muslims praying at a Turku mosque, but was apparently photographed in 2009.

The first four paragraphs of the article claim that there are "several hundred Muslim extremists" in Turku and that "the number is growing all the time. They are deeply religious Muslims."

The following paragraph goes on to explain that these Muslims belong to the ultra-conservative Salafi movement of Islam, but gives no actual evidence backing up the statements.

"The group has a lot of supporters in Saudi Arabia, but now also in Turku," the paper wrote.

The article later quotes Åbo Akademi University's associate professor of religious studies Tuomas Martikainen explaining the history of arriving Muslims to the country. In his opinion their religious identities were strengthened as more Muslims arrived, and has led to conflicts within the Muslim community.

Martikainen does not, however, appear to defend or refute a claim that there is an increase in the number of Muslim extremists in the city.

*It has come to the attention of Yle News that the referenced Turun Sanomat article was published in August 2013, however the article remains in circulation on social media and a link to the article was featured on their current web pages.
Finland to cut UNICEF support by 75 percent

The Finnish government is proposing to cut funding toward the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, by about 15 million euros, Finland's biggest daily Helsingin Sanomat reports.

Next year the government proposes allocating some five to six million euros to the international children's fund, which amounts to a 75 percent decrease compared to past years, the paper writes.

"Finland has been the world's eighth largest donor of assistance to the UNICEF children's fund," UNICEF's programming and advocacy director in Finland Inka Hetemäki said.

"The cuts to aid will have dramatic consequences for the world’s children," the paper quoted her saying.

Additionally, the paper writes, the Foreign Ministry is also proposing international aid cuts of around 300 million euros - apart from the UNICEF funding.

A Little Poem: To Remember What is True Forever

Tonight
we come together
to remember what is true forever

On this dark
and frozen night
we dedicate ourselves to light

In the ice
and in the wind
we are warmed by a fire within

That is why
we have come together
to remember what is true forever

In the cold
and in the dark
we will raise a timeless spark

On this longest
night of all
we will answer that ancient call

That tells us
to come together
to remember what is true forever

And to hold
in our hearts the light
that will see us through the darkest night

Though the ground
is frozen hard
we know the skies are filled with stars

And that is why
we have come together
to remember what is true forever

The wind that now
cuts our face
will return to a gentler place

And the light
that we find within
will grow stronger as the year begins

And so it is
we come together
to remember what is true forever

(for reading or chanting tonight, the night of the Winter Solstice)

Denouncing American Authoritarianism

It has been a dispiriting time in the United States, which feels more and more like a dis-united, deeply divided and disturbingly dissociated society. Again and again we see the same sad drama being repeated of unarmed African-American men being killed in our cities by heavily armed, highly militarized, and seemingly trigger-happy police who are then exonerated by a very forgiving and police-friendly court system for murdering members of the very society who they are duty-sworn to protect. Opinion polls, journalistic and sociological investigations and, I would add, discussions in my own classes reveal that white Americans tend to trust and support the police and excuse what they do as necessary and proper, whereas black Americans are outraged and ready to explode in grief, anger and the cumulative weight of trauma and stress at decades of abuse and threat, living in a violent, hypocritical land where black lives don't seem to matter. This is why many people marching to protest the police's long history of violent actions against African-Americans have taken up the slogan, "Black Lives Matter."

Sadly, this proud assertion bears within it the anguished accusation that black lives may NOT matter to many Americans, a fear that seems borne out by the lack of compassion many white Americans show for the growing numbers of African-American human beings gunned down without mercy by "public safety" officers. Apparently, to some, only authority figures like police and soldiers deserve respect and compassion, and there is plenty of concern on the right wing side of American society that police officers who commit such killings of black Americans might suffer any consequences for their actions. The right-wing defenses of the police range from the hackneyed old favorite, "They were just doing their job," a reliable rehash of the old Nazi Nuremberg defense, to a sense that those who were killed deserved to die because of their own improper conduct. After all, Michael Brown had grabbed some cigars out of a convenience store before his run-in with the police officer Darren Wilson, and young Tamir Rice had dared play around with a toy pellet gun on an empty playground. Clearly, the extermination of such dangerous individuals by our heroic police is not to be questioned or lamented, but applauded and held up to a warning to all African-Americans that they should be more careful about their behavior. I am reminded of Nazi Germany, where the abuse and even slaying of Jews and other "undesirable elements" by Storm Troopers and other uniformed forces would be held up as exemplary. I am also reminded of the Ku Klux Klan, whose ranks have often been known to include police and justice system officials.

The dying words of Eric Garner, "I can't breathe," have also been echoed across the land, including by some leading athletes, showing a moral courage and ethical compass lacking in some previous generations of American sports stars. I find this phrase extremely poignant, even prophetic, because America is becoming a place where many of us feel we can no longer breathe--or speak--or think--freely. Everywhere you turn, rising authoritarianism, what might even be characterized as 21st century Fascism, is stifling the freedom that our society supposedly aspires to. I want to believe in this country's ability to be a place where people can live in peace and security and have a decent life, but that belief is being constantly tested by what I see around me. In addition to the mistreatment of African-Americans, we have the continual grinding down of poor and middle-class Americans by a cold and uncaring corporate economic structure, which expects people to work harder and harder for less and less of a share of the wealth that their labor produces, under harsher and harsher conditions as labor unions and anything else that might give the workers a better shot in life are dismantled. And, with the scarcity of good-paying jobs and the lack of job security even for those with decently-paying positions, the corporate state runs a reign of terror over its labor force, whose members are understandably worried that they will lose whatever security and prosperity they now possess. Many people are too scared to speak out. They "can't breathe" either.

Remember what happened to the Occupy Wall Street protests of Fall 2011? On the very same day in November of 2011, the mayors of many cities activated their police in a coordinated, nation-wide effort to sweep the protestors out of the public spaces where they were conducting their peaceful protests. What was their crime? Were they really a threat to public order? No. They were a threat to Wall Street, our true seat of government. They were challenging the right of the financial order to dictate the terms of life in our society. On that day when the police swept those protestors away, we got to see who the police really work for. And in the pools of blood that congealed around the dead bodies of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, among others, we have been provided a vivid demonstration of who the police see as expendable enemies.

Occupy Wall Street withered away because of its unfocused leadership structure, which was admirably open and democratic but open and democratic to the point of confusion and disorganization. Nonetheless, the Occupy movement did succeed in raising issues of financial impropriety and income inequality that leaders like Elizabeth Warren are now elevating in the public forum. The new "Black Lives Matter" protest movement seems better organized for the long haul, and I believe it will endure and serve as the backbone of a new civil rights movement that is very much needed in a country sliding backwards into old patterns of discrimination against minorities and indifference by the majority.

As a Pagan who has been striving for some years to oppose racist and militaristic strands in Modern Norse Paganism/Asatry/Heathenry, and in other forms of Paganism as well, I find my resolve hardened and my fighting spirit roused by these recent events. Pagans who like swords and guns and weapons and armies and soldiers may find themselves siding with the police in regards to the situations unfolding in Ferguson, Cleveland, NYC and elsewhere, but I am very proud and clear in my opposition to police brutality and the cult of weapon-love and soldier-worship that can blind us to the inhumanity that soldiers, police and other armed authority officials and state security figures can be tempted to engage in, a temptation that may then come to be seen as a virtue and shut off from rational critique and consideration. I respect policemen, policewomen, soldiers and others who carry out their work with respect for the public and who do not believe that because they wear badges and uniforms and carry guns that they are some kind of master race that society should respect, accept and never question, no matter what they do. As a teacher, I too have power and authority and accept that if I were ever to abuse my power and cause harm to my students, I would be questioned about my actions, disciplined for any misbehavior, and even released from employment and put on trial in the most extreme case. I want to see the same standard applied to police across this land.

And, when I see how racialized perceptions of African-Americans as unreasoning, dangerous beasts seem to have led the police officers involved in the Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice incidents to conclude that these black males had to be subdued with maximum force as quickly as possible, I am all the more committed to advocating for forms of Asatru and Paganism that are not merely non-racist, but anti-racist. We cannot just look away and say, "Too bad about those race problems... now let's enjoy our all-white fellowship." We should actively seek to invite non-white, non-European individuals into our ritual activities and fellowship groups to ensure that our Paganism is most emphatically not a modern form of racism disguised as spirituality with a bit of medieval lore camouflage sprinkled on top. Let us all be conscious of these matters to ensure that our religious groups uphold the highest moral and spiritual values that we can aspire to rather than catering to the most base and regrettable tendencies that continue to haunt our world.

Resist the Rush to War

Ah, don't you feel it in the air? Americans of all political stripes coming together, the blues and the reds, Democrats and Republicans, liberal-oriented MSNBC and conservative cheerleader FOX News, all singing in the same chorus, calling for military action against the Sunni Islamic political-military movement ISIS (or ISIL or "the Islamic State" as it is various known) that has risen up out of the civil war in Syria to become a military menace to Iraq as well. Such unity of mind, heart and purpose! There is no patriotism like military patriotism, and in fact some would say there is no other kind! How wonderful! Yes, the reaction to ISIS's awful killing of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, by beheading has brought the country together like nothing since 9/11! And since we have been down this road before with our actions after 9/11, which led us to invade Afghanistan, then Iraq, and then to engage in drone warfare in Pakistan, Yemen and more recently Somalia as well, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the disruption of life for millions more, including what must be post-traumatic stress disorder on an absolutely epidemic scale--unless you think that PTSD is only a problem when it affects American soldiers and not the people that our soldiers move and fight among--we can certainly rest easy and be fully happy and confident that our military actions will not only give us the gut satisfaction of violent revenge against persons or groups that killed Americans, but also provide many benefits to the people of the Middle East, ensuring that they will be forever in our debt and eager to cooperate with the American government and provide us all with peace, security and prosperity forever! Hip-hip-hooray! Whoo-whoo! YES-S-S!!! Uncork the champagne! Strike up the band! America is ready for WAR, baby, and it's all good!! Freedom and democracy all the way! Let's go kill Muslims! Let's show 'em what Western civilization is all about! Let's bomb 'em back into the stone age, like we did in Vietnam, Hiroshima and Nagasaki! Anybody got some Napalm that we can strap on the drones? Oh yeah, baby, can you say, "Middle Eastern BBQ?" Isn't that FUN? Can we watch it on ESPN? Is it a video game yet?

Hold on... hold on. Let's think this over a little bit. Yes, the killing of the two journalists is a horrible thing, its horror amplified and extenuated by the online streaming of video recordings of the beheadings, but this is only one small piece of the many awful things that have been happening in the Middle East ever since.... when? Well, the starting date of armed violence in the Middle East is certainly a debatable matter, but we undoubtedly gave violent chaos a major boost when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, as these actions overthrew governments, destabilized the existing order in the region, disadvantaged particular groups in Iraq and other nations, setting them up for persecution, resentment, and a burning desire to exact revenge and retribution against their perceived oppressors, including the USA, and opened the door for all kinds of militant and extremist groups to rise up and seek to plant their bloody flags wherever they could find a space for them. This is VERY important to remember because one would hope that whatever action is taken by our government and military in relation to ISIS, it should not be a course of action that will simply further inflame the angry passions and traumatized psyches of the Middle East and create more support for violent and extreme Islamist movements in the future.

Yet I fear this is exactly what is going to happen, because our leaders seem to have learned nothing--NOTHING!--from our recent disastrous interventions. They are ready to rush in again, drop tons of bombs on large numbers of peoples, causing massive death, destruction and suffering, with not a care in the world that this will simply set the stage for a new set of militants to arise and seek revenge and retribution.

Remember: the first American invasion of Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990-91, and the attendant stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Holy Land of Islam, became the rallying cry of the original Al-Qaeda. The second American invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the formation of "Al Qaeda in Iraq," formed of former members of the Iraqi army and Ba'ath political party, two institutions that were disbanded and criminalized under the American occupation and the subsequent American-backed Iraqi governments, as well as disgruntled Sunni Muslims who foresaw the threat of a pro-Shi'ite, anti-Sunni government taking control. Their fears of Shi'ite suppression of the Sunni minority in Iraq proved prophetic, as this is exactly what transpired under the government of the American-backed Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. He is a Shi'ite politician who used the levers of government to disadvantage and persecute Sunnis and to convert the government and military into mechanisms for Shi'ite domination of Iraqi society. This helped lead to the rapid success of ISIS in Iraq, as ISIS is a Sunni-oriented political and military movement, which many Iraqi Sunnis are willing to support as the ONLY powerful force, however barbaric and vicious, able to protect Sunnis against Shi'ite domination. Prominent among the Iraqi Sunnis joining or supporting ISIS are many former members of the Ba'ath party and the old Iraqi military.

So, you can trace a long line of disaster here, with each successive US intervention simply leading to greater division, suffering, embitterment, and radicalization, empowering increasingly vicious and desperate groups whose agendas are rooted in resentment and anger over the effects of past US interventions and policies. By opposing Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait with military forces whose presence greatly agitated Arab Muslims, we helped to create Al-Qaeda. By invading Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein and to dispense with the imaginary threat of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, we created an actual Al-Qaeda in Iraq. By supporting Al-Maliki and enabling him to form a Shi'ite-oriented government that persecuted Sunnis, we have helped to create a group even more brutal than Al Qaeda, namely ISIS (or ISIL, or the Islamic State or whatever name it comes to be known by). So if we now pursue a policy of bombing the hell out of Iraq to dispense with the unproven threat of ISIS attacking America a la 9/11, we will create... who knows what new Frankenstein monster. We really could bring down a new 9/11 by doing everything we can to agitate angry Islamists against us. If we feel free to kill them at will, why in the world would they not want to return the favor?

And Obama seems determined to undertake this foolish and ill-considered action. He doesn't want to send American soldiers in to fight on the ground, but he is all too happy--in my view, much, much TOO happy--to rain down death from above via drones and missiles. He has become the "Drone King," the leader who relishes killing and conquering distant enemies by using high-tech weapons that slaughter from the sky.

Sadly, I think Obama knows better. I think he is intelligent and well-informed enough to know that this kind of push-button slaughter will serve no real purpose beyond giving him a temporary uptick in the polls, where he has been lagging bit lately, poor baby. Americans love military attack, and any President who makes a dramatic speech about sending our "brave men and women" to do battle against Evil Others is guaranteed a brief boost in popularity. So all Americans, let's go to war! Let's make Obama feel better! Let the death of two journalists, who went to Iraq of their own free will, knowing full well the dangers, be our justification for mass slaughter! Let's spend billions of dollars on military futility! Sadly, very sadly, this seems to be the only course of action that our Washington politicians can agree upon. Why use our resources and abilities to help rebuild a crumbling America when you can enjoy bombing another country into an even greater state of devastation? I can only shake my head and fight back tears knowing that this will only lead to worse things, both in the Middle East, and possibly here as well. If we embark on a campaign of mass murder half way around the world, against a movement that has NOT attacked the United States, don't be surprised if attacking the United States now becomes a top priority and a major recruiting tool for ISIS.

Finally, let me say that I do believe action needs to be taken to stabilize the Middle East, but I think it is not up to us to do this. Obama's strategy does indeed acknowledge this, as he calls on other countries such as Saudi Arabia to take action to clean up the mess in their back yard. However, our "minimal" involvement via air strikes and drone missions will still cause massive death and suffering and expose us to future blowback. Not worth it! Let those who live in the region deal with what is, after all, THEIR region... not ours. And, THE single most fundamental factor is the Sunni-Shi'ite division in Islam, something far, far beyond our competence to adjudicate or resolve!

As a Pagan who wants to see more focus on the sacredness of the earth and nature, I furthermore regret that this kind of military madness will once again distract us from the greatest threat that we face, which is not instability in the Middle East that occasionally causes the deaths of American journalists, but the continual degradation of our natural environment, which threatens to poison and damage us all and even end the conditions for life on earth as we have known it. Where is the battle cry to save the earth?

Enjoy your war games, O Drone King, and all you pious worshippers of the American War God...history will judge you harshly, and so will the earth.