A week ago, on the early morning of June 12th, 2016, Omar Mateen carried out his brutal rampage in the LBGT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, setting a new American record for number of people killed by one American gunman at one time. Though much attention has been paid to the killer's Muslim religious background and his claim of allegiance to the Islamic State, I find it more important to point out that this massacre was clearly motivated by intense homophobia. He could have gone anywhere to take innocent lives and make his point, but Mr. Mateen chose a place that was associated with the LBGT community. He made a conscious decision to target gays, lesbians and others of non-conventional sexual and gender preferences for his night of infamy. In deploring the killing, many politicians and media pundits have chosen to focus on his religious identity and his attempt to link himself with violent Islamic extremism, but fewer are the voices that have made as resounding a denunciation of anti-gay attitudes and violence as they have of Islamic extremism or terrorism.
This is quite ironic, considering that LBGTs are among the populations most prone to suffer persecution and violence--and thus live in terror--in America. One would think that those who denounce terrorism in broad, sweeping, flag-waving, moral-crusade terms would take note of how often LBGT Americans are terrorized, and bring this front and center in denouncing the Orlando rampage, but no. The reason is not difficult to surmise. Many right-wing politicians have made quite a point of vilifying LBGT people and rejecting their efforts to gain equal rights over the last several decades. In their demonization of gays, lesbians, transgender people and others, such politicians helped to set the stage for the Orlando massacre, for they have targeted LBGTs with their rhetoric and legislation as surely as the Orlando killer did with his assault rifle. And so, when this holocaust raged in the Orlando nightclub, the right-wing politicians and gay-haters found themselves in a quandary, and took the easy way out, focusing on the religious aspect to engage in some free and easy Muslim-bashing, to avoid the issue of how their words and actions have contributed to the beating and killing of LBGTs on many occasions including this horrific night in Florida. Sadly, their pointing to Islam, rather than homophobia, as the cause of the Orlando catastrophe is likely to lead to more Muslim-bashing around the USA and beyond. Of course, for those like Donald Trump, who depend on whipping racism and bigotry to a "white"-hot froth for their surest source of political support, this result will probably suit them just fine, regardless of how it traumatizes Muslim-American individuals and families, tears apart our society, and bolsters the anti-American sentiments and ideology of groups like ISIS.
Today, however, I want to call attention to another aspect of the Orlando shooting spree. Omar Mateem didn't just go to the Pulse nightclub armed to the teeth to kill others, but also to be killed himself in an orgy of violence, a ballet of bullets. In so doing, he was acting out a script that has been portrayed and played out all too many times in America, in both the fantasy life and the real lives of Americans. This is the tired but never retired old trope of the valiant, gunslinging hero who goes to fight against invincible odds and dies in a blaze of glory. Think of "Custer's Last Stand," fighting bravely against the "Injun" enemy. Think of all the movies and television shows, from "High Noon" to "Dirty Harry," from "Pulp Fiction" to "American Sniper" to (add your own), where soldiers or police or vigilante he-men or charismatic criminals end up fighting alone, one gun against a hundred or a thousand, to either die or miraculously triumph, or both.
All hail the lone male hero and his mighty gun, one brave penis against the world! If he dies, he dies happy in one last ejaculation of lead, blood and sperm! If he prevails, it is because of the magical power of a noble man and his majestic weapon!
I would go so far as to say that this scenario, this man-and-a-gun-against-the world script, has achieved a quasi-sacred status in the American imagination, particularly the American male imagination, helping to explain why guns are such a sensitive political issue in the USA. Any proposal to limit access to guns in the USA ignites such ferocious and irrational opposition, you would think that the proposed laws were aiming at castrating men rather than simply placing limits on gun access, use and purchase similar to those in other countries. Perhaps if more men played more with their penises and got their jollies that way, perhaps if our society were more open and accepting of sexuality, we would not have this problem. Perhaps if Omar Mateem had gone to that bar seeking an orgasm rather than a gun-gasm, this tragedy could have been avoided. Unfortunately, it would seem that gun play had become more satisfying, more meaningful, and more heroic than sex play for him. I fear, however, that he is not alone in this, shall we call it, "lifestyle preference," where aggression trumps eroticism and carnage is preferred to coitus.
This needs to change. I say that unequivocally, and I don't see how any sane person could disagree with the proposal that we need to completely reject and lay to rest the persistent, pernicious and tragically popular mass hallucination that teaches young men in America that the ultimate exercise of American male heroism is to die in a hail of gunfire, shooting and being shot, taking down as many others as possible before submitting to death oneself. John Wayne, RIP! Quentin Tarantino, please find something else to aim your camera at besides endless and repetitive displays of gunfire!
But it will not be enough to retire this script. It has to be replaced with cultural representations that are not only non-violent, but also attractive and inspirational. American boys and men--and boys and men in other countries who grow up to the sights and sounds of bullet-riddled American media, from police procedurals to war movies to gangster rap--need to be shown other models of heroism to aspire to, other ways of being fulfilled and proud as men without fetishizing guns and shooting to kill. We need a paradigm shift, in Thomas Kuhn's phrase.
We need a massive, all-hands-on-deck commitment to creating images and narratives that celebrate the value of peaceful pursuits and non-violent forms of achievement and heroism for American men. Instead of only glorifying policemen, soldiers and psychopathic killers ad infinitum and ad nauseum, we need to showcase the drama and significance of other occupations and situations. To a public trained to feel bored by any story that does not involve the firing of guns, and equates heroism with good guys with guns killing bad guys with guns, this is indeed a difficult task, but that does not mean it is an impossible one. Popular television programs have been built around the work-lives of lawyers and doctors, with the ethical dilemmas of law firms and the life-and-death drama of the operating room proving just as gripping and just as lucrative as battlefield heroics or the stereotyped shoot-out in the crime-den. The work of teachers, social workers, legislators and other public servants could also be converted into compelling dramas if the networks and movie studios were willing to take a chance, as they did with "Mad Men" and its portrayal of the advertising world, for example.
And then there are video games. Surely more could be done to create a wider range of alternatives to the kinds of single-shooter kill-fests that would almost seem to have been designed as how-to manuals for disturbed mass killers like Omar Mateem?
I know some who read this will object that there is no direct correlation between violent entertainment and gun violence in America. I would answer that while there may be no direct correlation, there is no escaping the fact that American gun violence in American life very much reflects the portrayals of gun violence in American popular culture, suggesting a kind of feedback-loop between what people see on screen and what they do in life. There may not be any one-to-one causal correspondence between any particular media display of gun-violence and any particular mass-shooting in a simplistic sense, but that does not mean there is NO influence on the American psyche from the constant screening of scenes of men with guns who shoot to kill and are killed by shooting. If images and narratives on the screen had no effect on us, billions of dollars would not be spent every week on television and internet advertising. What we see, what we hear in the media DOES affect us. Looked at in this way, the massive and ceaseless displays of gun violence are one long and unending advertisement for the glorification of guns and an equation of American masculinity with gun violence, an anti-public service announcement, you might say.
Women of course can play and slay with guns as much as men, and I would sadly predict that the rising number of films and programs with gun-toting females will eventually usher in a new phenomenon of female mass-shooters. I suppose this could be seen as a victory for gender equality, but this is one glass ceiling I would rather remain unbroken.
One more thing. I have noted for many years now that in many places in America, most public monuments are dedicated to soldiers and police. One could easily develop the impression, growing up in the average American town or city, that the only men who are real heroes in American life are those who brave danger with guns in their hands. Why are there so few memorials to people in other walks of life, to doctors, nurses, engineers and musicians, poets, artists, composers and playwrights? Many are the American highways and byways named for army regiments and state police officers; few are those named for teachers or writers or scientists. This is another area in which we can alter the atmosphere of our country to advance more peaceful values and images, and start reducing the amount of energy that our culture pumps into a misguided romance with guns and violence that may not directly cause events like the Orlando massacre, but which helps make them more imaginable, and thus more possible. We need to drain this swamp, whose polluted waters allow toxic tendencies to flourish...
I remember once reading a book called "Wisconsin Death Trip," a photographic journey through images of death and funerals in Wisconsin. I feel like our country has been on an "American Death Trip" for years. Let's get off this sad trajectory, PLEASE!
Next: Paganism and gun violence.
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
National Security Through the Looking Glass
There are several events in recent weeks that I see as connected by a common thread, from the acquittal of George Zimmerman to our continued use of drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan to the closing of embassies in Arab and Muslim-majority nations in anticipation of possible terrorist strikes against US targets. In all of these cases, the use of violence is justified by the fear of violence and the belief that the best way to achieve safety and security is by pre-emptively attacking and killing others before they can kill you. Why not just kill everyone in (a) any country we don't like, (b) any religion we don't like (c) any racial or ethnic group we don't like, or (d) all of the above? Wouldn't that be the logical extension of the pre-emptive, stop-the threat-by-any-means necessary, shoot-first-and-ask-questions later philosophy that seems to be increasingly popular in American life? I would prefer (e) none of the above, and in this essay I will attempt to explain why.
George Zimmerman, carrying a gun, followed Trayvon Martin through a gated-community housing complex in Florida and eventually shot and killed him because he perceived the seventeen-year old black teenager to be a dangerous person who had to be confronted and if necessary, subdued with deadly force. The nefarious activity that Mr. Martin was engaged in was walking back to the home of his father's girlfriend after purchasing some candy and a drink at a local convenience store. Mr. Zimmerman clearly had a distorted view of Mr. Martin, who was just a teenaged kid coming back from a store carrying junk food, not a dangerous person in any way. George Zimmerman claimed that he was driven to using his gun when Trayvon Martin over-reacted to Mr. Zimmerman's pursuit and confrontation of Mr. Martin by lunging at him and slamming his head against the pavement. In the course of the trial, the jury reached the conclusion that Mr. Zimmerman was justified in killing Mr. Martin.
The fact that Trayvon Martin was not engaged in any kind of criminal or antisocial activity when George Zimmerman decided to pursue him and confront him, that George Zimmerman was the person carrying a truly dangerous, indeed lethal weapon, not Trayvon Martin, and that Mr. Martin, seeing a strange man following him and possibly also seeing Mr. Zimmerman's gun, had just as much justification in feeling threatened and using force against George Zimmerman as Zimmerman did against Trayvon Martin, and that all that ensued was a result of George Zimmerman's decision to pursue and confront Trayvon, did not apparently factor into the jury's decision. They seemed to accept as persuasive the Zimmerman defense's argument that Mr. Zimmerman, feeling threatened by the presence of a black teenager in his community, had the right to hunt him down, confront him and kill him. Mr. Zimmerman received no penalty or punishment for killing a young man who was simply on his way home with a drink and a snack when a stranger with a gun decided he was a threat that had to be dealt with. Bottom line: fear is sufficient grounds for killing.
In what I see as a parallel case, on October 14, 2011, a drone missile strike launched by the U.S. military in the Arab country of Yemen ended the life of Abdul Rahman Anwar Awlaki, a sixteen year old boy visiting relatives. This teenager was under suspicion of nefarious activity not because of anything he was actually doing, but simply because he was the son of the militant cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, who had been previously assassinated in a drone attack two weeks earlier on September 30, 2011. Abdul Rahman was killed along with six other suspected militants. The grandfather of this slain teenager wrote a poignant essay reflecting on his grandson's death in the New York Times on July 18,2013.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/opinion/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html
I did not agree with the killing of the boy's father, Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was slain for inciting violence against the USA through the internet and other means, but I can see that in that instance, there was at least some kind of understandable rationale, that the man was viewed as dangerous to US interests because he was actively provoking others to undertake attacks against American forces and citizens. I do worry, though, that this sets a precedent that anyone anywhere who says something at all anti-American or even criticizing America could be seen as a threat and made a target for long-distance assassination. But why kill his sixteen year old son? The reasoning seems to be, the more we kill, the better; the more they die, the safer we will be. This is a very short-sighted, myopic and entirely inhumane view of the situation, with terrible and extremely dangerous implications, it seems to me, as I will explain further below.
The link I see between the killing of the seventeen year old black boy in Florida and the sixteen year old Arab boy in Yemen is that in both cases, a judgment was made that because these boys might be threats to safety and security, they were legitimate targets for pursuit and killing. Neither Trayvon Martin nor Abdul Rahman had committed any crime. Neither was charged with any crime or afforded a trial in which their guilt and innocence could be proven in a court of law. No. There was no judge, no jury, no juridical process, which is to say, no justice. Only execution, "extra-judicial killing," justified by fear of potential threats, not actual actions.
It disturbs me greatly to see this same trigger-happy logic applied both here at home in America and in our actions overseas. George Zimmerman reserves the right to kill people who he sees as potential threats to the security of his gated community. The American government reserves the right to kill people who we think might be potential threats to national security. The really twisted part is the assertion of the right to kill people who have not necessarily done any actual action that causes harm, but who merely look suspicious (Trayvon Martin) or who are related to or who are in the physical proximity of others who are deemed threats (Abdul Rahman). This gives both the private citizen, the aspiring vigilante, and our military, police and other such security forces quite a lot of lassitude to kill quite a wide range of people on the basis of extremely sketchy information or even just vague suspicion.
This is all justified by fear. Fear of criminals, fear of black people, fear of terrorists, fear of Muslims, fear of Arabs, with perhaps a little hate and bigotry thrown in for good measure, too. But does following such policies actually make us any safer? Does it actually reduce the threats that are so feared? I would argue that at least in some ways, such policies can make things worse. If young African-American men have to live in constant fear of being hunted down and targeted like Trayvon Martin, never knowing when they might run across a George Zimmerman-like vigilante, it is only going to make African-Americans more angry and stressed and increase tension between racial groups, leading to more, not less potentially violent confrontations, and increase the odds that people of all racial and ethnic profiles will be packing guns and following the shoot first, ask questions later philosophy, expecting that if they do end up shooting and killing someone, that they might be able to escape any punishment the same way that George Zimmerman did.
In our government's foreign relations, I also do not see the never-ending drone attacks making us safer. We may be killing some people who are actually dangerous terrorists, I don't doubt, but there is a lot of evidence that we are killing lots of other people too. What we might dismiss as "collateral damage" is not going to be forgotten, let alone forgiven, by the friends, relatives, fellow tribal members and countrymen of those we kill. They will be angry. They will hate us. They will seek revenge. This should not be a surprise to anyone. When we suffered the 9/11 attacks, Americans were angry. They hated the perpetrators. They wanted revenge. This is universal human psychology. I shook my head in disbelief when I saw some so-called intelligence experts testifying in front of Congress several months ago, claiming that our drone attacks were not causing any major reaction among the population in Yemen or Pakistan or elsewhere. Fast forward to the last few days, and suddenly America is closing all its embassies in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East because we are scared shitless of the possibility of some unspecified attacks. This would seem to be the very kind of blowback that our experts told us was not an issue. Any person with a higher-than-moronic level of intelligence could have seen this coming.
And even as we close down our embassies in fear of terrorist attacks, we are launching new drone attacks in Yemen and elsewhere. I wonder if we might not be creating the very enemies that we fear. Is it because we want to have people we can kill with impunity, even as we accuse them of wanting to do the same to us? Have we gone through the looking glass and reached full-fledged insanity?
There is no such thing as total safety and security, but we keep being told that if we take certain measures, such as drone killings and total surveillance of all our telephone and digital communications, that we will be safer, things will be better. That is a dangerous myth peddled by those who gain advantage by increasing our fear and anxiety levels. I am in fact very suspicious of our national security state, because I think that in the end, what it is most interested in protecting is its own security. I note an interesting sequence of events. First, Edward Snowden releases documents that reveal the full extent of our national security surveillance operations. A major explosion in the media and in the Congress ensues,and there is a genuine public outcry, on both the right and the left. Though a lot of the media discussion remains on the idiotic level of "Where is Snowden now?," members of Congress start talking about the need for legislation to cut back this extremely broad and possibly out of control surveillance program. The President and his national security team protest that any cutback would be dangerous to our national security, that they are doing what they do to "keep us safe," and that we must not back down one inch or one dollar from our massive, and also massively secretive, national security operations. Still, some politicians keep talking about taking action, and one bill putting some brakes on the national security crowd almost gets passed through the House of Representatives.
Then, a very short time later, the very national security state that had been threatened with possibly cuts and restrictions now tells us that there is a very big, very real threat of massive attacks in the Middle East, and so embassies must be closed and American cautioned not to travel. Could it be that this is simply a ploy to make Americans cower in fear and back off from any discussion of cutting back our massive national security apparatus? Is there really a clear and present danger, or is this public relations to ensure the security and safety of the national security state?
I worry that by spending so much of our government money on national security, we are starving our country of resources that could be deployed for other purposes, such as jobs programs to help the unemployed, rebuilding of rotting infrastructure, cleanup of polluted areas, development of clean energies to help us turn back the specter of global warming and climate disaster, investing in poor communities that are breeding grounds for crime,addiction and hopelessness, and so on and so forth. If we sacrifice everything for national security, and it doesn't even really make us safer, but only agitates our current enemies and creates new ones as well, what kind of fools are we? If we seriously believe that encouraging more people to carry guns and shoot at anyone who makes them feel nervous or threatened is a wise policy, what kind of hellish society are we building for ourselves and our descendants?
A basic principle of morality in many religious traditions is a simple sense of reciprocity. We should not be doing to others what we do want done to ourselves, whether in the street, in our cities, or in other countries. We have to learn to trust and communicate and seek common ground with others, not always assume that we are in the right, others in the wrong, and that we are justified in using force.
But we Americans just love Love LOVE our guns and explosions, don't we? Sigh...
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Death by Corporation
I have recently been thinking about how so many of the world's most serious problems today are either caused or made worse by the powerful business entities known as corporations. It is not just that large corporations engage in practices and sell products that may be harmful in various ways. It is also the case that such corporations are also able and willing to use their considerable economic power, media presence and political clout to block or confuse any efforts to address serious problems from global warming to childhood obesity to gun violence, to name just a few.
Global warming. It is a serious threat to humanity's future. Warmer temperatures are causing more and more extreme weather with damaging, even lethal consequences, with the "superstorm" Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast of the USA in October of 2012 and the raging fires caused by excessive heat and drought in the New South Wales region of Australia in January of 2013 as two recent examples of the environmental juggernaut that is bearing down on us. In the judgment of most scientific authorities, we have to alter our patterns of energy consumption, in particular our dependence on carbon-based fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas, in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that are building up in the atmosphere and triggering a warming of the climate that is in turn warming the ocean waters, that in turn cause more warmth and moisture to rise into the atmosphere and produce the storms, droughts and other weather effects causing increasing damage to life, land and property. However, the carbon fuel industries have poured money into an intensive media campaign, particularly prominent on right-wing news outlets like FOX News but also finding its way to other media channels as well, to discredit the very idea of global warming or climate change, convincing a good many Americans, and no doubt others elsewhere, that either global warming is a kind of scientific hoax, or, that there is no clear proof that it is the result of human activity,and no proof that human activity can halt it. Therefore, it would be foolish to undertake actions such as reducing the burning of fossil fuels, since such actions would be disruptive to the world economy without any certain environmental benefit. This has confused many people into a state of apathy. The Victors: corporations that profit from fossil fuel production and consumption. The Losers: all of us who want the planet to remain livable. The reason: the incredible hunger for profit that blots out all other concerns and values is proving capable of drowning out the world's scientists and visionary leaders concerned about the future.
Childhood obesity. This is an increasingly common condition in the USA and is growing in the UK and elsewhere too. It is not just that young people are becoming more massive in their size. They are also manifesting diseases such as diabetes that threaten their health and longevity. Scientists are not clear on all the causes for this situation, and there may well be many from lack of exercise due to more sedentary lifestyles and pastimes to the ingestion of growth hormones given to farm animals and ending up in American food to overeating of "junk food" filled with fat, carbohydrates, salt, sugar and/or corn syrup, and chemicals that add appealing color and addictive taste. No one objects to the government encouraging young people to exercise more, such as First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, but when Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NYC, made an effort to restrict the bottle and/or serving size of sugary drinks such as soda, there was a huge outcry from the soda and beverage industry,and a media campaign accusing the mayor of robbing Americans of their "freedom," presumably the all-important freedom to eat and drink non-nutritious foods and beverages and develop heart disease and diabetes. Once again, corporate greed attempts to override human interests.
Gun violence. As I have addressed this recently, I will not rehash the whole discussion, but just focus on the corporate profit dimension. Guns and gun-related paraphernalia are big business in the USA, highly profitable indeed. The main pro-gun lobbying organization, the NRA, is largely funded by gun manufacturers. With so much money at stake, the purveyors and manufacturers of guns are definitely not going to let a mere public outcry by the majority of the people of the nation over problems of gun violence get in the way of the profits that their stockholders feast upon. And once again, we find a sophisticated media campaign funded by gun manufacturers and amplified by right-wing media that any reduction or restriction of guns in America is an assault on fundamental freedoms and evidence of a totalitarian government in the making that is best resisted by --you guessed it-- guns. So go out now, all you freedom-loving folk, and prepare for war against the big bad government that thinks of nothing else but how to oppress and enslave you. I keep wondering when someone will start championing the right to bear nuclear arms. If possessing personal weapons without restriction of ANY sort is so important, then why not allow patriotic Americans to have their own nuclear bombs and missile launch systems? Wouldn't that be the ultimate demonstration of the most important American "freedom?"
The defense of the "right" to eat and drink unhealthy foods and the "right" to own and use a limitless number of guns is almost identical to the way that tobacco companies used to champion the "right" to smoke. The skillful effort to confuse and discredit the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming/climate change is a planet-threatening problem RIGHT NOW is also reminiscent of how the tobacco companies argued for decades that there was no good scientific evidence that smoking was harmful to human health, even though the companies themselves had done their own research proving that point!
We cannot trust corporations to watch out for our health or the future well-being of our planet. Corporations just want us to buy buy buy whatever crap they are producing, no matter what the cost to health, to society, to the environment,and they will do everything in their power to prevent anyone from interfering with their business activities. As a college teacher, I am sad to see how many of my students seem to believe that the American style corporate economy, the so-called "free enterprise/free market" system, is not only the best economic system, but indeed the ONLY one that is possible. This is the result of the past 30 years of American politics in which the Reaganite vision of government-BAD, businessmen-GOOD; regulations-BAD, profits-GOOD; compassion for others-STUPID, selfishness and individualism-SMART has been dominant. For the sake of the planet and ourselves, I pray that this paradigm is now losing its allure and that we will be able to have a different kind of conversation about such issues as mentioned above. One thing is for sure, every step of the way, powerful corporations will fight like hell to prevent any changes that might deprive them of their all-important profits. They do not care about the future, so we are going to have to care twice as hard.
In Snorri Sturluson's version of the myth of Baldur, his death causes widespread sadness, and his mother lets it be known that if all beings will weep for him and show their love, he will be returned to life. The whole range of living beings are ready to cooperate, but only one creature refuses, a female giant that is actually the mischievous god Loki in disguise. She says, "Let Hel (death) keep what she has...I will not weep for Odin's son!" This is the kind of hard-heartedness that we can expect from the giant corporations of our day. When we tell them the children are being killed by an oversupply of dangerous weapons and unhealthy food, that the oceans are rising and destructive storms are washing away our shores and threatening our cities, and when we urge them that we have to change the way they do business so that future generations can walk on the earth in safety and enjoy the light of the sun, the blue of the sky and the greenness of the earth, they are not going to want to listen. We have to keep at it until they do. Today's corporations are caught in a web of evil that they have spun for themselves, but the corporations are at bottom human institutions, and we must strive to reawaken that glimmer of humanity that still exists somewhere inside the armies of lawyers, the billion dollar marketing teams, the disinformation campaigns, the corporate boardrooms obsessed with financial figures.
Above all, we have to reject the idea that profits are all that matter. People are more important than profits. Nature is more important than profits. The well-being of us all and our planet is more important than profits. We need new economic arrangements that honor our deepest, most sustaining and inspiring values and reject the false idols of narrow-minded greed and profit. We need to revisit the very idea of what corporations are for, who they should serve, and whether they should bear more responsibility to society and nature in a broader sense, and not just be answerable to their shareholders and the stock market.
As a Pagan, I can easily relate this to the Pagan love of nature, but there is in fact no religion I know of that tells people they should seek to destroy each other and all in nature for the sake of gold and greed.
Global warming. It is a serious threat to humanity's future. Warmer temperatures are causing more and more extreme weather with damaging, even lethal consequences, with the "superstorm" Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast of the USA in October of 2012 and the raging fires caused by excessive heat and drought in the New South Wales region of Australia in January of 2013 as two recent examples of the environmental juggernaut that is bearing down on us. In the judgment of most scientific authorities, we have to alter our patterns of energy consumption, in particular our dependence on carbon-based fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas, in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that are building up in the atmosphere and triggering a warming of the climate that is in turn warming the ocean waters, that in turn cause more warmth and moisture to rise into the atmosphere and produce the storms, droughts and other weather effects causing increasing damage to life, land and property. However, the carbon fuel industries have poured money into an intensive media campaign, particularly prominent on right-wing news outlets like FOX News but also finding its way to other media channels as well, to discredit the very idea of global warming or climate change, convincing a good many Americans, and no doubt others elsewhere, that either global warming is a kind of scientific hoax, or, that there is no clear proof that it is the result of human activity,and no proof that human activity can halt it. Therefore, it would be foolish to undertake actions such as reducing the burning of fossil fuels, since such actions would be disruptive to the world economy without any certain environmental benefit. This has confused many people into a state of apathy. The Victors: corporations that profit from fossil fuel production and consumption. The Losers: all of us who want the planet to remain livable. The reason: the incredible hunger for profit that blots out all other concerns and values is proving capable of drowning out the world's scientists and visionary leaders concerned about the future.
Childhood obesity. This is an increasingly common condition in the USA and is growing in the UK and elsewhere too. It is not just that young people are becoming more massive in their size. They are also manifesting diseases such as diabetes that threaten their health and longevity. Scientists are not clear on all the causes for this situation, and there may well be many from lack of exercise due to more sedentary lifestyles and pastimes to the ingestion of growth hormones given to farm animals and ending up in American food to overeating of "junk food" filled with fat, carbohydrates, salt, sugar and/or corn syrup, and chemicals that add appealing color and addictive taste. No one objects to the government encouraging young people to exercise more, such as First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, but when Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NYC, made an effort to restrict the bottle and/or serving size of sugary drinks such as soda, there was a huge outcry from the soda and beverage industry,and a media campaign accusing the mayor of robbing Americans of their "freedom," presumably the all-important freedom to eat and drink non-nutritious foods and beverages and develop heart disease and diabetes. Once again, corporate greed attempts to override human interests.
Gun violence. As I have addressed this recently, I will not rehash the whole discussion, but just focus on the corporate profit dimension. Guns and gun-related paraphernalia are big business in the USA, highly profitable indeed. The main pro-gun lobbying organization, the NRA, is largely funded by gun manufacturers. With so much money at stake, the purveyors and manufacturers of guns are definitely not going to let a mere public outcry by the majority of the people of the nation over problems of gun violence get in the way of the profits that their stockholders feast upon. And once again, we find a sophisticated media campaign funded by gun manufacturers and amplified by right-wing media that any reduction or restriction of guns in America is an assault on fundamental freedoms and evidence of a totalitarian government in the making that is best resisted by --you guessed it-- guns. So go out now, all you freedom-loving folk, and prepare for war against the big bad government that thinks of nothing else but how to oppress and enslave you. I keep wondering when someone will start championing the right to bear nuclear arms. If possessing personal weapons without restriction of ANY sort is so important, then why not allow patriotic Americans to have their own nuclear bombs and missile launch systems? Wouldn't that be the ultimate demonstration of the most important American "freedom?"
The defense of the "right" to eat and drink unhealthy foods and the "right" to own and use a limitless number of guns is almost identical to the way that tobacco companies used to champion the "right" to smoke. The skillful effort to confuse and discredit the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming/climate change is a planet-threatening problem RIGHT NOW is also reminiscent of how the tobacco companies argued for decades that there was no good scientific evidence that smoking was harmful to human health, even though the companies themselves had done their own research proving that point!
We cannot trust corporations to watch out for our health or the future well-being of our planet. Corporations just want us to buy buy buy whatever crap they are producing, no matter what the cost to health, to society, to the environment,and they will do everything in their power to prevent anyone from interfering with their business activities. As a college teacher, I am sad to see how many of my students seem to believe that the American style corporate economy, the so-called "free enterprise/free market" system, is not only the best economic system, but indeed the ONLY one that is possible. This is the result of the past 30 years of American politics in which the Reaganite vision of government-BAD, businessmen-GOOD; regulations-BAD, profits-GOOD; compassion for others-STUPID, selfishness and individualism-SMART has been dominant. For the sake of the planet and ourselves, I pray that this paradigm is now losing its allure and that we will be able to have a different kind of conversation about such issues as mentioned above. One thing is for sure, every step of the way, powerful corporations will fight like hell to prevent any changes that might deprive them of their all-important profits. They do not care about the future, so we are going to have to care twice as hard.
In Snorri Sturluson's version of the myth of Baldur, his death causes widespread sadness, and his mother lets it be known that if all beings will weep for him and show their love, he will be returned to life. The whole range of living beings are ready to cooperate, but only one creature refuses, a female giant that is actually the mischievous god Loki in disguise. She says, "Let Hel (death) keep what she has...I will not weep for Odin's son!" This is the kind of hard-heartedness that we can expect from the giant corporations of our day. When we tell them the children are being killed by an oversupply of dangerous weapons and unhealthy food, that the oceans are rising and destructive storms are washing away our shores and threatening our cities, and when we urge them that we have to change the way they do business so that future generations can walk on the earth in safety and enjoy the light of the sun, the blue of the sky and the greenness of the earth, they are not going to want to listen. We have to keep at it until they do. Today's corporations are caught in a web of evil that they have spun for themselves, but the corporations are at bottom human institutions, and we must strive to reawaken that glimmer of humanity that still exists somewhere inside the armies of lawyers, the billion dollar marketing teams, the disinformation campaigns, the corporate boardrooms obsessed with financial figures.
Above all, we have to reject the idea that profits are all that matter. People are more important than profits. Nature is more important than profits. The well-being of us all and our planet is more important than profits. We need new economic arrangements that honor our deepest, most sustaining and inspiring values and reject the false idols of narrow-minded greed and profit. We need to revisit the very idea of what corporations are for, who they should serve, and whether they should bear more responsibility to society and nature in a broader sense, and not just be answerable to their shareholders and the stock market.
As a Pagan, I can easily relate this to the Pagan love of nature, but there is in fact no religion I know of that tells people they should seek to destroy each other and all in nature for the sake of gold and greed.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Telling the Truth about Tucson
It is very interesting to see the reaction in the American media to the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona last Saturday night (January 8). Some are taking the view that no one can be blamed for the actions of a clearly deranged individual. Others are saying that while the shooter was indisputably insane, both sides of the political spectrum need to take responsibility for heated political rhetoric in the last several years that may have inspired this demented young man to pick up a gun and shoot a politician, a judge and a number of others.
Bullshit. There is only one political party in America on one side of the political spectrum that has made a specialty of drumming up intensive hatred of the government and that has repeatedly encouraged people to consider taking up arms against the government. That party is the Republican Party, with its young Frankenstein monster the "Tea Party" movement never being told that it should calm down and be less angry and extreme. There is a very long trail here that simply has no counterpart in the Democratic Party or on the left-wing side of the spectrum.
Barry Goldwater, Republican candidate for President in 1964, made the famous statement during his campaign that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." This was in the same time period when peaceful Civil Rights activists were being beaten by right-wing supporters of racial inequality and in some cases killed by lynch mobs in the South. Goldwater made clear where he stood by voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was much appreciated by Southern opponents of Civil Rights and desegregation. The South was the one area of the country where Goldwater did well in the 1964 election, setting the trend of solid Southern support for Republican candidates for President in nearly every election since then.
Ronald Reagan, running for President in 1980, made his first speech after winning the Republican nomination at a site in Mississippi just a few miles from an infamous spot where Civil Rights workers had been brutally slain in 1964. He talked of restoring "states' rights," an unmistakable reference to right-wing, Southern opposition to the Civil Rights movement, which made clear that his choice of location for his first major speech as Republican Presidential candidate was no mere coincidence. Reagan was laying claim to the heritage of violent opposition to the Civil Rights movement, and saw no need to pay homage to the Civil Rights martyrs of that region. Reagan would go on to coin the phrase, "Government is not the solution; government is the problem," which has ever since been the mantra of the anti-government conservatives.
In the 1990s, Republican politicians often shared the sentiments of the anti-government, gun-crazed militia movement, which was in many ways a forerunner of the Tea Party movement. Bill Clinton,a Democrat and a liberal, was demonized with outrageous accusations by right-wing, conservative politicians, including the claim that he had engineered the killing of his friend and aide, Vince Foster. Among conservatives and militia members in this era, there was much paranoia directed toward the United Nations, which they feared was setting up a secret government that would soon enslave Americans and take away their liberties. The mood of anti-government hatred and the glorification of anti-government violence reached its peak in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murray government building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.
Under President George W. Bush, right-wing hate and anger cooled down a bit, perhaps because Bush's continually expanding wars against Muslim nations provided an external outlet for conservative anger and paranoia. Though there was angry left-wing opposition to Bush's policies, especially his wars, it never led to the kind of mass cult of paranoia and violence that was typical of the Clinton era. With President Obama's election, there was a resurgence of 1990s-style anti-government sentiment and a renewed glorification of anti-government violence. Once more, wild, extreme accusations were made about a Democratic, liberal President, whose African-American heritage seemed to inflame conservatives into paroxysms of rage and paranoia. Sales of guns and ammunition skyrocketed. The right-wing media, which had been in their infancy in the Clinton era, were now well-tooled operations of mass propaganda and coordinated fear-mongering, and were able to terrify many Americans that the quite mild, liberal and pro-corporate policies of the Obama administration, such as a health-care reform effort that was quite disappointing to liberals and the left wing, were pushing the country to the edge of the apocalypse. The spring and summer of 2009 saw the rise of the Tea Party movement, with angry opponents of Obama and Democratic policies showing up at political rallies armed with guns and shouting out their paranoia and anger with red-faced fury. In Texas, an anti-government zealot flew a plane into a building. The FBI issued a warning about rising activity by right-wing extemists and militia groups.
Then came the 2010 election season. Republican politicians were eager to cozy up to the Tea Party, seeking to harness their passion and fury. Rarely did any Republicans, even those previously known as political moderates, speak out against the paranoid fantasies and violent rhetoric of Tea Party members and right-wing extremisists. Instead, they openly or implicitly endorsed such sentiments. Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party groupie Michelle Bachman urged her followers to be "armed and dangerous" in opposition to new energy policies under debate in Congress. Sarah Palin urged conservatives, "Don't retreat; instead, reload!," and placed gun-targeting cross-hairs on an internet map of Democrat candidates whose defeat she was advocating on a website. One of the candidates targeted on this map was Gabrielle Gifford, the Democratic Congresswoman shot in the head on Saturday night. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for Senator in Nevada, spoke approvingly of "Second Amendment remedies" and armed insurrection against the government.
In all of these ways, the Republican Party and its right-wing, militia and Tea Party allies have poured huge amounts of energy into creating mass hysteria, paranoia and anti-government, particularly anti-Democrat, anger. It is one thing to express opposition to policies, but it is something very different to give explicit or implicit approval to people brandishing guns and fantasizing about heroic violence against politicans and the government.
The Tucson shootings were aided and abetted by the Republicans and the right-wing in America. There is nothing equivalent on the Democratic or left-wing side of American politics. It is time to call a spade a spade and not pretend that there is equal blame to go around on both sides. There is only one side that is dedicated to pushing fear, hatred and violence. Those who have made their careers and even considerable fortunes by feeding these flames of fury, fear and violent fantasy need to be held responsible.
Furthermore, it is time to realize that the massive amount of violent fantasy and imagery in our culture is a sickness. It plays into a worldview that the only solution to any problem is through heroic violence. Consider how government is represented on American television shows. It is portrayed as useless, corrupt, evil. The only government agencies shown in a positive light are those engaged in violence: police and soldiers. Almost no other part of government is represented in an appealing manner, while violent vigilantes and brothers-in-arms are continually glorified.
So, if you were a deranged young person like the shooter in Tucson, you would find massive encouragement in American culture and right-wing politics for becoming a gun-toting, tyranny-resisting hero in your own twisted fantasy of violent manhood. We need to start speaking out and turning away from this. We need to start valuing our government officials and public servants, in contrast to the right-wing campaign now under way to villify teachers and others on the public payroll. They are not our enemies. They work for us. Are they perfect? No. Are we perfect? No. Do they deserve to die for trying to do their jobs? What do you think?
Peace. That is not a wimpy, foolish thing. It is sanity. We need it. Badly. We do not need more glorification of war, weapons, violence. We have already had too much.
Bullshit. There is only one political party in America on one side of the political spectrum that has made a specialty of drumming up intensive hatred of the government and that has repeatedly encouraged people to consider taking up arms against the government. That party is the Republican Party, with its young Frankenstein monster the "Tea Party" movement never being told that it should calm down and be less angry and extreme. There is a very long trail here that simply has no counterpart in the Democratic Party or on the left-wing side of the spectrum.
Barry Goldwater, Republican candidate for President in 1964, made the famous statement during his campaign that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." This was in the same time period when peaceful Civil Rights activists were being beaten by right-wing supporters of racial inequality and in some cases killed by lynch mobs in the South. Goldwater made clear where he stood by voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was much appreciated by Southern opponents of Civil Rights and desegregation. The South was the one area of the country where Goldwater did well in the 1964 election, setting the trend of solid Southern support for Republican candidates for President in nearly every election since then.
Ronald Reagan, running for President in 1980, made his first speech after winning the Republican nomination at a site in Mississippi just a few miles from an infamous spot where Civil Rights workers had been brutally slain in 1964. He talked of restoring "states' rights," an unmistakable reference to right-wing, Southern opposition to the Civil Rights movement, which made clear that his choice of location for his first major speech as Republican Presidential candidate was no mere coincidence. Reagan was laying claim to the heritage of violent opposition to the Civil Rights movement, and saw no need to pay homage to the Civil Rights martyrs of that region. Reagan would go on to coin the phrase, "Government is not the solution; government is the problem," which has ever since been the mantra of the anti-government conservatives.
In the 1990s, Republican politicians often shared the sentiments of the anti-government, gun-crazed militia movement, which was in many ways a forerunner of the Tea Party movement. Bill Clinton,a Democrat and a liberal, was demonized with outrageous accusations by right-wing, conservative politicians, including the claim that he had engineered the killing of his friend and aide, Vince Foster. Among conservatives and militia members in this era, there was much paranoia directed toward the United Nations, which they feared was setting up a secret government that would soon enslave Americans and take away their liberties. The mood of anti-government hatred and the glorification of anti-government violence reached its peak in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murray government building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh in 1995.
Under President George W. Bush, right-wing hate and anger cooled down a bit, perhaps because Bush's continually expanding wars against Muslim nations provided an external outlet for conservative anger and paranoia. Though there was angry left-wing opposition to Bush's policies, especially his wars, it never led to the kind of mass cult of paranoia and violence that was typical of the Clinton era. With President Obama's election, there was a resurgence of 1990s-style anti-government sentiment and a renewed glorification of anti-government violence. Once more, wild, extreme accusations were made about a Democratic, liberal President, whose African-American heritage seemed to inflame conservatives into paroxysms of rage and paranoia. Sales of guns and ammunition skyrocketed. The right-wing media, which had been in their infancy in the Clinton era, were now well-tooled operations of mass propaganda and coordinated fear-mongering, and were able to terrify many Americans that the quite mild, liberal and pro-corporate policies of the Obama administration, such as a health-care reform effort that was quite disappointing to liberals and the left wing, were pushing the country to the edge of the apocalypse. The spring and summer of 2009 saw the rise of the Tea Party movement, with angry opponents of Obama and Democratic policies showing up at political rallies armed with guns and shouting out their paranoia and anger with red-faced fury. In Texas, an anti-government zealot flew a plane into a building. The FBI issued a warning about rising activity by right-wing extemists and militia groups.
Then came the 2010 election season. Republican politicians were eager to cozy up to the Tea Party, seeking to harness their passion and fury. Rarely did any Republicans, even those previously known as political moderates, speak out against the paranoid fantasies and violent rhetoric of Tea Party members and right-wing extremisists. Instead, they openly or implicitly endorsed such sentiments. Republican Congresswoman and Tea Party groupie Michelle Bachman urged her followers to be "armed and dangerous" in opposition to new energy policies under debate in Congress. Sarah Palin urged conservatives, "Don't retreat; instead, reload!," and placed gun-targeting cross-hairs on an internet map of Democrat candidates whose defeat she was advocating on a website. One of the candidates targeted on this map was Gabrielle Gifford, the Democratic Congresswoman shot in the head on Saturday night. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for Senator in Nevada, spoke approvingly of "Second Amendment remedies" and armed insurrection against the government.
In all of these ways, the Republican Party and its right-wing, militia and Tea Party allies have poured huge amounts of energy into creating mass hysteria, paranoia and anti-government, particularly anti-Democrat, anger. It is one thing to express opposition to policies, but it is something very different to give explicit or implicit approval to people brandishing guns and fantasizing about heroic violence against politicans and the government.
The Tucson shootings were aided and abetted by the Republicans and the right-wing in America. There is nothing equivalent on the Democratic or left-wing side of American politics. It is time to call a spade a spade and not pretend that there is equal blame to go around on both sides. There is only one side that is dedicated to pushing fear, hatred and violence. Those who have made their careers and even considerable fortunes by feeding these flames of fury, fear and violent fantasy need to be held responsible.
Furthermore, it is time to realize that the massive amount of violent fantasy and imagery in our culture is a sickness. It plays into a worldview that the only solution to any problem is through heroic violence. Consider how government is represented on American television shows. It is portrayed as useless, corrupt, evil. The only government agencies shown in a positive light are those engaged in violence: police and soldiers. Almost no other part of government is represented in an appealing manner, while violent vigilantes and brothers-in-arms are continually glorified.
So, if you were a deranged young person like the shooter in Tucson, you would find massive encouragement in American culture and right-wing politics for becoming a gun-toting, tyranny-resisting hero in your own twisted fantasy of violent manhood. We need to start speaking out and turning away from this. We need to start valuing our government officials and public servants, in contrast to the right-wing campaign now under way to villify teachers and others on the public payroll. They are not our enemies. They work for us. Are they perfect? No. Are we perfect? No. Do they deserve to die for trying to do their jobs? What do you think?
Peace. That is not a wimpy, foolish thing. It is sanity. We need it. Badly. We do not need more glorification of war, weapons, violence. We have already had too much.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The United States of Punishment
Readers, this is something I have been wanting to comment on for a long time: a growing spirit of meanness, even sadism, in the thought, behavior and culture that I feel is becoming stronger and stronger in the United States. This country has a lot of problems right now, but it seems to me that there are not a lot of people interested in actually THINKING about what our problems are and trying to solve them TOGETHER. No. What many, and I fear most Americans want, is just to beat up on someone. You can see it in reality television shows and on that internet voyeur known as You Tube, where the great fun is to watch some misguided average Joe or Jane humiliated and ridiculed. You can see it in our obsession with celebrity, in the delight that so many take in seeing the famous brought low.
You can see it in our criminal "justice" system, where there is much more support for punishing the people locked away, even for very minor offenses, than for rehabilitating them so that they will have a snowball's chance in hell of living a normal, productive life when they get out of prison. Why rehabilitate them? Better to let them remain criminals so that we can enjoy locking them up again and again and feeling superior to "those people."
You can see it in the anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic sentiment that seems to be growing in popularity. Look at that one more closely and you will find things like Hispanic people being beaten up and even killed, not in the Deep South, mind you, but on Long Island, just a few dozen miles from diversity central (NYC). You can see it in the popularity of police drama television shows, which give the people a steady dose of a very particular view of American society, in which there is no hope of improving society, only the adrenalin rush of hunting down criminals and locking them up. You can see the real-life ramifications of this media indoctrination in the way states like California have, for many years, been pumping much more money into prisons than schools. Did you know California used to have free university tuition? Not anymore, but plenty of free services for the thousands upon thousands in California prisons, a situation mirrored in states across the country. Priorities are clear! Why educate people when you can punish them? Is THIS the American dream? Most modern democratic countries have abolished the death penalty. Not here! It is a dear and cherished tradition!
You can see it in our national government's foreign policy spending priorities, in that the amount of money devoted to peaceful foreign projects is far dwarfed by what is spent on the military, not only our several ongoing wars that have ripped apart whole societies and left shattered cities, psyches and limbs in their wake that will take decades to heal, but also our "peaceful" military presence in so many countries around the world, which sends a clear message that we are ready to stomp on anyone who disagrees with us or fails to support our military objectives and corporate business interests. Remember that what kicked off both of our most recent wars was a desire to PUNISH: punish the Afghans for 9/11 (even though all or most of the terrorists were Saudis), punish Saddam and Iraq for anti-American weapon programs. Call it "war on terror," call it "nation-building," but I would argue that the root motive is punishment of dark-skinned, non-Christian, uncooperative foreigners.
You can see it in how every city and even very small towns in the USA always have military parades, which for some reason often feature police as well as soldiers, but nothing to honor artists, teachers, or people in non-punitive helping professions. It was a hard-fought battle in this country to establish Martin Luther King day as a national holiday, for the obvious reason that he was a man of peace, as well as an African-American, and in the view of many, THAT AIN'T AMERICAN!! Do you know which state held out for years on accepting the holiday? Same state (AZ) that is now set to implement a law that will give police carte blanche to harass and arrest Hispanics suspected of being illegal aliens. It is also the state with a cruel and humiliating prison system, in Maricopa County, that happens to be immensely popular with the general population, to the point where the head of this police state, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who his fans call "America's Toughest Sheriff," has his own reality television show.
I can't wait until someone finally puts on a show that will televise live executions. "Live from Death Row," sure to be a big hit in the near future! Fun for the whole family, taking America back to the days when people would bring picnic lunches to watch hangings and lynchings. I am not joking about that last point: executions and lynchings were popular entertainments in the not-too-distant American past.
We just love Love LOVE to have someone to beat up on, someone to bomb, someone to throw into prison, someone to hate. And, final irony, some of those on the right-wing side of the political spectrum seem to be gearing up and gunning up to take up arms against our democratically-elected government--and they think of themselves as patriots. The obsession with guns, the fear that you will need to defend yourself in a John Wayne movie always showing in the little cinema in the back of your mind, where does that come from? I suspect it goes back to the culture of the American frontier, when "the west was won" by white Americans shooting and killing Native Americans and taking their land. A great victory, right? Or maybe it was the time not long past in the Jim Crow South when the white man could shoot blacks with impunity? Maybe there is a bit of guilty conscience, fear of payback from people no longer cringing in fear?
What is it that many right-wingers and conservatives shout nowadays? "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!" Back to what, exactly? They never say...Perhaps the good old days of white supremacy, the KKK, lynching of blacks and gays? I for one have no doubt that there is an ugly racial undercurrent running through the so-called Tea Party movement. First a black man is elected president, and then sales of guns and ammo shoot through the roof. What is that about? And what was it that made Bush so popular for several years post-9/11? His promise to "punish the evil-doers." I wonder, will Obama now be tempted to attack Iran to bolster his own popularity?
I am afraid. I fear that this country is becoming an increasingly harsh and brutal police state. I fear that young people today are being raised in a culture which values and validates violence and aggression over all things, that sees compassion, compromise, gentleness and intelligence as disgusting, undesirable, effeminate qualities. A culture that believes the ONLY solution to social problems is to beat people down, shut them up, lock them up. A mindset that has no doubt that the ONLY solution to international conflicts is to use force to beat and bomb foreign people into submission to our will. A mentality that asserts that the ONLY way to be a man is to be a tough-as-nails, ain't never backin'-down, fist-fightin' gun-totin,' brute (A REAL MAN!!) Women too are encouraged to be more aggressive, more selfish, more mean, maybe pack a gun in the purse along with the lipstick. Now there's some great feminism for you! Real gender equality, all through the magic of gun ownership! And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it is going to be easier and easier for every American to carry a gun wherever they want! Finally, we will all be SAFE. This is surely what the forefathers dreamed of when they set sail for America: a nation where guns will one day outnumber brains.
I don't believe that violence and aggression will make this world a better place. I think we are WAY off track and completely losing sight of the need for gentleness, calmness, compassion and civility. If it were not the fact that something deep in me resonates strongly with the gods and traditions of the European Pagan heritage, I would be very tempted to take up Buddhism. I greatly respect the Buddhist path of self-control, self-reflection and non-violence. I would like to believe they can also be found in Pagan tradition, but I know many disagree. In American Asatru, there are many who primarily relate to this tradition as a warrior path. I don't want to begrudge anyone the right to their own views and interpretations, particularly military veterans who have a need to validate their battlefield experiences, but I feel that there is just too much war-mongering going on, to the point where other priorities and possibilities are lost. I mean, come on! "Hail Thor, Hail War, Let's drink some beer then drink some more!" Wow, now THAT is really spiritual! Come on, please. Anyone who studies any Pagan tradition, whether Norse or Celtic or Slavic or what have you should realize that warrior machismo is not the only thing going on in these religions. There is so much about nature, about sensuality, about peace, about friendship, about art, about beauty. I fear that the warped priorities of modern American society are being read back into ancient Paganism, and then held up as Pagan virtues that all should honor and obey.
Well, I for one am NOT going to play along with this. I worship the sky, the earth, the trees, the ancestors, and I don't need guns or weapons or fantasies of violence to feel right with MY Paganism. I do NOT accept narrow definitions of "tribe" that would cause me to turn away from my brothers and sisters of all races and ethnic backgrounds. I do NOT see the military punishment of foreign populations and disruption of their societies as honorable or worth emulating. I believe that there are more pleasant and productive forms of travel than military invasion. My Paganism is wide and loving and embracing, not narrow and hateful and punishing. I want to see a Paganism that teaches peace and co-existence, not a glorification of war and aggression. Those things have their time and place, I don't doubt, but that place is not everywhere and the time should not be everyday and every minute.
What kind of world do YOU want to live in?
You can see it in our criminal "justice" system, where there is much more support for punishing the people locked away, even for very minor offenses, than for rehabilitating them so that they will have a snowball's chance in hell of living a normal, productive life when they get out of prison. Why rehabilitate them? Better to let them remain criminals so that we can enjoy locking them up again and again and feeling superior to "those people."
You can see it in the anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic sentiment that seems to be growing in popularity. Look at that one more closely and you will find things like Hispanic people being beaten up and even killed, not in the Deep South, mind you, but on Long Island, just a few dozen miles from diversity central (NYC). You can see it in the popularity of police drama television shows, which give the people a steady dose of a very particular view of American society, in which there is no hope of improving society, only the adrenalin rush of hunting down criminals and locking them up. You can see the real-life ramifications of this media indoctrination in the way states like California have, for many years, been pumping much more money into prisons than schools. Did you know California used to have free university tuition? Not anymore, but plenty of free services for the thousands upon thousands in California prisons, a situation mirrored in states across the country. Priorities are clear! Why educate people when you can punish them? Is THIS the American dream? Most modern democratic countries have abolished the death penalty. Not here! It is a dear and cherished tradition!
You can see it in our national government's foreign policy spending priorities, in that the amount of money devoted to peaceful foreign projects is far dwarfed by what is spent on the military, not only our several ongoing wars that have ripped apart whole societies and left shattered cities, psyches and limbs in their wake that will take decades to heal, but also our "peaceful" military presence in so many countries around the world, which sends a clear message that we are ready to stomp on anyone who disagrees with us or fails to support our military objectives and corporate business interests. Remember that what kicked off both of our most recent wars was a desire to PUNISH: punish the Afghans for 9/11 (even though all or most of the terrorists were Saudis), punish Saddam and Iraq for anti-American weapon programs. Call it "war on terror," call it "nation-building," but I would argue that the root motive is punishment of dark-skinned, non-Christian, uncooperative foreigners.
You can see it in how every city and even very small towns in the USA always have military parades, which for some reason often feature police as well as soldiers, but nothing to honor artists, teachers, or people in non-punitive helping professions. It was a hard-fought battle in this country to establish Martin Luther King day as a national holiday, for the obvious reason that he was a man of peace, as well as an African-American, and in the view of many, THAT AIN'T AMERICAN!! Do you know which state held out for years on accepting the holiday? Same state (AZ) that is now set to implement a law that will give police carte blanche to harass and arrest Hispanics suspected of being illegal aliens. It is also the state with a cruel and humiliating prison system, in Maricopa County, that happens to be immensely popular with the general population, to the point where the head of this police state, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who his fans call "America's Toughest Sheriff," has his own reality television show.
I can't wait until someone finally puts on a show that will televise live executions. "Live from Death Row," sure to be a big hit in the near future! Fun for the whole family, taking America back to the days when people would bring picnic lunches to watch hangings and lynchings. I am not joking about that last point: executions and lynchings were popular entertainments in the not-too-distant American past.
We just love Love LOVE to have someone to beat up on, someone to bomb, someone to throw into prison, someone to hate. And, final irony, some of those on the right-wing side of the political spectrum seem to be gearing up and gunning up to take up arms against our democratically-elected government--and they think of themselves as patriots. The obsession with guns, the fear that you will need to defend yourself in a John Wayne movie always showing in the little cinema in the back of your mind, where does that come from? I suspect it goes back to the culture of the American frontier, when "the west was won" by white Americans shooting and killing Native Americans and taking their land. A great victory, right? Or maybe it was the time not long past in the Jim Crow South when the white man could shoot blacks with impunity? Maybe there is a bit of guilty conscience, fear of payback from people no longer cringing in fear?
What is it that many right-wingers and conservatives shout nowadays? "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!" Back to what, exactly? They never say...Perhaps the good old days of white supremacy, the KKK, lynching of blacks and gays? I for one have no doubt that there is an ugly racial undercurrent running through the so-called Tea Party movement. First a black man is elected president, and then sales of guns and ammo shoot through the roof. What is that about? And what was it that made Bush so popular for several years post-9/11? His promise to "punish the evil-doers." I wonder, will Obama now be tempted to attack Iran to bolster his own popularity?
I am afraid. I fear that this country is becoming an increasingly harsh and brutal police state. I fear that young people today are being raised in a culture which values and validates violence and aggression over all things, that sees compassion, compromise, gentleness and intelligence as disgusting, undesirable, effeminate qualities. A culture that believes the ONLY solution to social problems is to beat people down, shut them up, lock them up. A mindset that has no doubt that the ONLY solution to international conflicts is to use force to beat and bomb foreign people into submission to our will. A mentality that asserts that the ONLY way to be a man is to be a tough-as-nails, ain't never backin'-down, fist-fightin' gun-totin,' brute (A REAL MAN!!) Women too are encouraged to be more aggressive, more selfish, more mean, maybe pack a gun in the purse along with the lipstick. Now there's some great feminism for you! Real gender equality, all through the magic of gun ownership! And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, it is going to be easier and easier for every American to carry a gun wherever they want! Finally, we will all be SAFE. This is surely what the forefathers dreamed of when they set sail for America: a nation where guns will one day outnumber brains.
I don't believe that violence and aggression will make this world a better place. I think we are WAY off track and completely losing sight of the need for gentleness, calmness, compassion and civility. If it were not the fact that something deep in me resonates strongly with the gods and traditions of the European Pagan heritage, I would be very tempted to take up Buddhism. I greatly respect the Buddhist path of self-control, self-reflection and non-violence. I would like to believe they can also be found in Pagan tradition, but I know many disagree. In American Asatru, there are many who primarily relate to this tradition as a warrior path. I don't want to begrudge anyone the right to their own views and interpretations, particularly military veterans who have a need to validate their battlefield experiences, but I feel that there is just too much war-mongering going on, to the point where other priorities and possibilities are lost. I mean, come on! "Hail Thor, Hail War, Let's drink some beer then drink some more!" Wow, now THAT is really spiritual! Come on, please. Anyone who studies any Pagan tradition, whether Norse or Celtic or Slavic or what have you should realize that warrior machismo is not the only thing going on in these religions. There is so much about nature, about sensuality, about peace, about friendship, about art, about beauty. I fear that the warped priorities of modern American society are being read back into ancient Paganism, and then held up as Pagan virtues that all should honor and obey.
Well, I for one am NOT going to play along with this. I worship the sky, the earth, the trees, the ancestors, and I don't need guns or weapons or fantasies of violence to feel right with MY Paganism. I do NOT accept narrow definitions of "tribe" that would cause me to turn away from my brothers and sisters of all races and ethnic backgrounds. I do NOT see the military punishment of foreign populations and disruption of their societies as honorable or worth emulating. I believe that there are more pleasant and productive forms of travel than military invasion. My Paganism is wide and loving and embracing, not narrow and hateful and punishing. I want to see a Paganism that teaches peace and co-existence, not a glorification of war and aggression. Those things have their time and place, I don't doubt, but that place is not everywhere and the time should not be everyday and every minute.
What kind of world do YOU want to live in?
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