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.

A Season of Silence, and Why

My my my...How the time flies. I can't believe it has been more than two months since I have written in this blog. This autumnal season of silence came about partly for the reasons one might expect: work life very busy, leading to exhaustion capped by a touch of illness. Tra-la-la! There was also a more pleasant reason for my inability to find the time or energy to write here. I had a trip to Lithuania to participate in a project aiming at promoting inter-religious tourism in Lithuania and Latvia, both of which are lands blessed with amazingly rich histories of religious diversity, from their Pagan heritage to their long histories of Jewish and Muslim communities along with varied Christan contributions. This was a great pleasure but also quite exhausting.

There is however, another reason for my persistent silence. I am finding the current state of American society and politics so depressing, so frustrating, that I feel a growing sense of hopelessness for this country of my birth. The forces of obstruction and ignorance are so many and so immense in our declining, divided, self-destructive nation. I can only compare our situation to scenarios imagined in mythology and religious prophecy, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that usher in devastation and destruction in the Biblical Book of Revelations, or the ten plagues that descend upon Egypt in Exodus, or the dark forces that take down the world in flames and flood in Norse Ragnarok, or the dread dance of Shiva that beats out its world-crushing rhythm when humanity has become so stupid, so cruel, so lost, so impervious to guidance or wisdom that the gods decide that the world must be put out of its misery and cleared away to make space for a new world yet to come.

We today in America are facing a really sinister and powerful combination of retrograde forces. These range from carbon-based energy industries that do not want to see any movement toward a greener, healthier planet and economy, to the gun lobby that refuses to even consider very modest measures to reduce the danger of guns and gun-related materials falling into the possession of mentally imbalanced individuals who go on shooting rampages or into the hands of immature youths who are eager to settle scores with bullets. The list goes on to include the greedy, self-important minority of super-wealthy plutocrats who do not wish to see higher wages for people at lower strata of our highly unequal and unfair economy, to the Tea Partiers and libertarians who do not want the government to do anything besides putting people in prison and maintaining a grossly oversized military whose continued existence and immense expenditures can only be justified by continual conflict and crisis and propaganda inflaming our fear and hatred against whichever foreign country is now top of our enemy-of-the year list. I fear that our interlinked military-intelligence-industrial-political sectors will keep pushing us to either use or threaten to use force overseas as often as possible, even though this may only inflames others against us. Then we have the disheartening spectacle of the Supreme Court that is gutting and discarding decades of Civil Rights progress and returning us to a time when state and local politicians could enact all kinds of barriers to prevent African-Americans or other disfavored social groups from having any voice in our supposed "democracy," which the Court has also damaged terribly by allowing more freedom for wealthy individuals and corporations to dominate the political process through unlimited political advertising and financial contributions to the causes that perpetuate their interest and privilege.

In the embattled world of academia, which I know from the inside, the forces of misguided "reform" seem to be pushing us in the direction of a standardized, bureaucratized, heavily managed and number-driven form of education in which teachers will have little autonomy or job security, and in which liberal arts education, which can waken people to higher visions of life and a desire to create a more equal and less cruel society, will be pushed aside by an obsession with job-training out of a mistaken belief that training young people with the right technical skills will somehow overcome the problems of corporations seeking to send jobs overseas to lower-paid workers, or to bring lower-paid workers to America to replace highly skilled workers here, so that the majority of college graduates, even if highly trained and skilled will have to compete for low-paying jobs in corporations that refuse to share their profits with their workers. If we do not change the rules of the economic game, simply training people will solve nothing. Since the 1970s, American workers have become more and more productive, but rarely been allowed to enjoy a fair share of the profits generated by their productivity, and unless we have a revived labor movement or some other mechanism to force companies to pay better, there seems little hope for the American worker.

And as for the media's favorite pipe dream that high-tech millionaires and billionaires will show us the way, let's not forget that it was great geniuses like Steve Jobs who sent so much high-tech manufacturing to countries like China and India. Entrepreneurs will never lead the way to a more equal economy. They often make their millions and billions from the hard labor of workers who are paid as little as possible. It will require some kind of external pressure to force the high-tech folks to share much with the common man and woman. The popular adulation of high-tech entrepreneurs as economic saviors is a joke. They are in it for themselves, not for us. And since our government is increasingly at the beck and call of consummately greedy and self-interested companies and corporations, not only the high-tech toy-makers but also the oil companies, the multinational banks, the pharmaceutical industry, Wall Street financial firms and so on, I find it hard to escape the conclusion that we are entering a new Middle Ages, in which a small class of ruling elite will live in splendor, in beautiful mansions, surrounded by servants and flatterers, like kings and barons living in castles of olden times--and aren't our modern gated communities just an updated form of castle fortresses?--while the rest of us will eke out an insecure living through hard labor, deeply in debt, but unable to challenge our social superiors.

I am mentally and emotionally exhausted. That is why I am not writing much these days. I look for rays of hope, but see so very few. The advent of the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare, a modest attempt to re-structure our primarily corporate health care system to provide better care to more people, has only unleashed new ferocity among the various groups who oppose any kind of government activity apart from military action, and see any kind of social reform or even the slightest effort to provide assistance to the growing ranks of poor and needy persons in our society as a foul betrayal of freedom and liberty. I see anti-government zealots ready to cut food benefits to the hungry and who smile when 800,00 government workers are cut off from their salaries for weeks on end, and who don't even care if their actions push the international economy to the brink of financial disaster. I see the President mocked when he tries to negotiate peace with Iran.

The only comfort to me right now is the election of Bill DiBlasio to the office of the mayor of New York City. At last, a leader who speak about income inequality and rising poverty as problems that all society, and especially government, must address. His election is an answer to those who dismissed the Occupy Wall Street movement nearly two years ago as a silly, leaderless, rudderless social fad that would have no effect. It was the Occupy movement elevating the issues of financial institution greed and wealth inequality in New York that lit the spark that became the bright light of the DiBlasio candidacy. No doubt DiBlasio will not be able to satisfy all the hopes and ambitions of those who supported him, but I think he will at least try to push back against the trend toward plutocracy that is at the heart of so many of our ills. I am glad to see someone, somewhere, making some kind of stand and articulating an alternative vision.

But sadly...anyone who knows America knows that New York City is an anomaly in this country. I live some distance from NYC, and I know that many of my fellow citizens here believe the old Reaganite narrative constantly reiterated by right-wing media like FOX, but increasingly in evidence across the culture, that "government is the problem" and that cutting taxes, shrinking government, and "unleashing" business and entrepreneurship are the solutions, that the military is sacred and that we must "support the troops" and never question what the troops are called upon to do and why, nor the effects of those actions, and that if you are not a "success" in America--something measured primarily, if not exclusively in materialistic, money-making terms--that you only have yourself to blame. The alternate, liberal narrative of "we are all in this together," and that we could use government as a vehicle to share out resources to create a better life for everyone, not just the elite few, is not convincing to most people.

I am facing the reality that the things I really believe in may no longer have any place,or at the very best, only a very marginal,vestigial place in this sad, misguided, self-delusional and self-destructive country, this very dis-United States of America. The pendulum may someday swing back to more equality and compassion in this country, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

It is these thoughts that crush me into silence. Perhaps this will spark a renewal of my spirituality; I hope so. Maybe it is time to turn inward, and to seek refuge with other spiritual refugees in this very hard and fearful time, while no longer expecting the larger society to improve or change very much, at least not in any foreseeable future. The Buddha taught that the fundamental truth of life is suffering, and that this is the starting point of spiritual insight. Perhaps that is the crossroads that I am facing. I don't know. All I know is that it seems very dark outside indeed.

They Scare Me: My Fear of Fascism in America

At the end of each academic year, when I see my students' final essays and research papers, I have time to reflect more deeply on the material that I teach and how it is interpreted by my students and related to their own experiences of life and their own views of the world that we live in. As my students come mainly from lower and middle class backgrounds, I feel they afford me a fairly representative window on the state of mind of Middle America. Not the elite, more liberal and cosmopolitan America of privileged enclaves on the east or west coast, but the more conservative America of less cosmopolitan, more average and ordinary Americans. And every year, what I see when I peer into this collective mentality scares me.

In teaching a World History class that surveys the interaction of civilizations and peoples around the world from about the Renaissance onward, a major theme I try to convey is the huge and continuing impact of colonialism. I strive to explain that the West greatly benefitted from the centuries of colonialism, including the long period of African enslavement, while other regions suffered, and that even the supposed end of colonialism in the 20th century has not meant an end of Western control over and meddling in other regions, with the post-WW II and even moreso, the post-Cold War political and economic order paving the way for substantial corporate control over many nations and their resources, amounting to a new type of colonialism, a corporate colonialism, with America now the inheritor of the mantle of colonial master-in-chief. When we get to the end of the course, I attempt to impress upon my students that resentment toward colonialism, and toward America in its role as global military enforcer of the current, corporate business-centered order, is a key factor that inspires and drives international terrorism, such as the 9/11 attack and other radical Islamist actions. I talk about how the American government, through its military forces, through the CIA, and most recently, through remote controlled drone attacks has often used force against other countries, including assassination, and that this is part of what motivates people around the world to dislike, resent and even hate America to the point of engaging in violence.

Furthermore, I tell my students that we are in a very dangerous time. If we Americans continue on the path laid down by Bush and largely continued by Obama of using force against an ever-expanding range of terrorist targets around the world, meaning that we kill and terrorize ever growing numbers of people through what we believe to be legitimate anti-terrorist actions, we will run the perpetual risk of simply inciting more acts of violence by people seeking revenge against us for acts of violence that we have perpetrated against them. By killing terrorists we will create them. Witness our killing of Osama bin Laden. That really stopped Islamic terrorism once and for all, didn't it?

I comment that a cycle of bloody revenge can become a self-perpetuating dynamic that can go on for decades or centuries, and I ask my students if this is what they want for America and the world. I tell them of the simple but important concept of "blowback" as something that we Americans should take more seriously. We cannot simply use force around the world as often as we like, set up military bases everywhere, send our troops and CIA everywhere, and expect everyone else in the world to cooperate and agree with us and love us unconditionally and never get upset with us, never disagree with us, and never strike back against us. That is unrealistic and short-sighted, but it seems to remain the guiding principle of American foreign policy.

I suggest to my students that there could be an alternative path for America to follow in its relations with other countries. America could try to treat other countries with more respect, withdraw our military forces from places where they are not welcome, and negotiate with countries or groups that we have tensions with. In my view, this would greatly reduce the risk of perpetual terrorist blowback and revenge cycles. However, REAL negotiation has become fairly alien to American foreign policy. What passes for "negotiation" these days is American representatives telling other governments or groups what they must do to avoid brutal punishment from us, including economic sanctions that can cause as much suffering and death as military invasions. That is not negotiating; that is just a slightly diplomatic form of bullying. Real negotiation would mean sitting down at the table as equals, saying here are our priorities, our needs, and listening to those of the other side as well, and then trying to work out a deal.

I would like to think I am a fairly insightful observer and a somewhat persuasive advocate for my ideas, but when I see my students' views on world affairs as expressed in their end-of-term papers, I realize I am sadly mistaken about my ability to make a dent in the view of the world that many of my students seem to share. After all the discussion of colonialism, the resentment of foreign domination resulting in terrorist blowback and the dangers of an American foreign policy resting mainly on the use of military force, what I hear from my students is that colonialism is all over, terrorists and Islam are evil,and that America must continue to use military force to "protect our freedom."

I am struck that the young of America have been very effectively brainwashed into this simplistic, militaristic, pro-bully, anti-terrorist, anti-Muslim view of the world. From the coverage of the tragedy of 9/11 that never really looked hard at other countries' and peoples' grievances against the USA to President Bush hailing "Mission Accomplished" about our great work in Iraq to President Obama's celebration of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, from the long-running television drama "24" to "Zero Dark Thirty," the recent cinematic tribute to the CIA, to the military and to the use of torture, to the paucity of voices in the news media, even the so-called "liberal media," questioning our militaristic foreign policy, to the proliferation of video games that train people in the visceral pleasures of blowing away your enemies, there is little that lone educators like me can do to resist the overwhelmingly militaristic and jingoistic mentality reigning in America. I hope to plant a few seeds of critical thinking here and there, inspire a few students to imagine something more than endless war as the natural order of things, but it may be useless. I will keep trying but without great confidence that I am achieving much.

Something else I teach about in presenting the history of the 20th century is Fascism. For most of my students and I would imagine for the vast majority of Americans, Fascism is something that they confidently believe has been dead and buried since World War II. Yes, Hitler and Mussolini were bad and the Holocaust was horrible, but it is all over now,they would say if asked. If only I could take refuge in a similar belief that the world has truly closed the book on Fascism! Instead, I fear that Fascism is reviving and that it now waves a red, white and blue flag. Obviously, this is not the exact same thing as German Nazism or Italian Fascism or any of the other extreme right-wing movements that afflicted Europe in the 1920s and 30s. I know that the original Nazi movement is gone. I know that Mussolini is dead. But I see certain trends and tendencies, certain preferences, that to me seem strongly reminiscent of Fascism in 21st century America.

Fascism is actually quite hard to define, as anyone who has investigated the scholarly literature can attest. As a professor teaching introductory course, however, I have to find simple, direct ways of defining and explaining things. I therefore have come to understand Fascism as a style of social organization, and indeed a view of the world, simultaneously both a way of being and a way of thinking that is centered on the use of brute force to attain and maintain authority and dominance. On top of this there is typically overlaid an ideology of extreme nationalism, with intensive devotion to the flag and other patriotic symbols, but I think the raw love of brutality is really the more fundamental feature. What serves brutality is valued above all, and so there is a powerful devotion to weapons, to soldiers, to policemen, to any thing, person or social institution that is related to the use of violence. In fact, it might be said that the ideology of nationalism is just a means to the end of the worship of violence; that the love of the nation or the flag is just the excuse for enjoying hating, shooting and killing the enemies of the flag and feeling really really great about being really really brutal. Nazis were extremely patriotic, let's not forget. They really loved their flag, their nation, their uniforms, their military, their Fuhrer, and they felt perfectly justified in using force against others and invading and attacking other countries.

Loving violence (think video games and action movies). Respecting brutality (note the rising popularity of super-violent sports like mixed martial arts and cage fighting). Glorifying professional agents of violence (endless proclamations in the media and our politicians that soldiers, policemen and trained assassins like Special Ops soldiers and CIA agents are the finest Americans). Assuming that our country is always justified in using force (think of the Iraq and Afghan wars,the drone attacks in Yemen, Pakistan, "war games" training exercises and military maneuvers right on the borders of Iran and North Korea, and many of our politicians not wanting to limit America's freedom to use military force by signing international treaties or submitting to any kind of international authority). This is America today. Is this also Fascism? I fear that it might be, or if not, something disturbingly similar.

It is late now, and I am tired. It is dark out and it seems dark in here too. Perhaps in the morning when the sun is shining and I can smell spring blossoms on the breeze I will feel differently, but I doubt it. I have been watching this train rolling down the tracks for a long time, and I know it is going to keep on coming. The train is called America, and it scares me.

Still, history is full of surprises. Things can turn and change quite suddenly. All that seems solid can crumble unexpectedly. No one saw the Fall of the Berlin Wall coming, nor the Tiananmen Square protests. Maybe the forces of Fascism can yet be derailed. I do hope so, and I would like to see Paganism as part of that effort, hence my call for non-violent, non-militaristic, non-nationalistic, pro-ecological, and pro-artistic forms of Paganism. The same tendencies should be applauded among other forms of religion as well.

Why Kim Jong-il is Not Really So Funny or So Strange

The Kim is dead, long live the Kim.

Kim Jong-il, The second Stalinist autocrat of the House of Kim in North Korea has passed away, and the third, Kim Jong-un, now takes his father's place. This has received a lot of coverage in the American media, with a slight sense of regret, being that the elder Kim had provided so much entertainment for Americans who loved to laugh at the odd, portly dictator with a love of Hollywood films and nuclear missiles. Having visited South Korea several times, I know the anguish Koreans feel about the Cold War division of their country into two opposing halves, and I have observed with sadness how each successive effort by the government and people of the South to reach out to the North has been rebuffed with the situation ending up where it began, with the North engaging in saber-rattling, missile-launching and other acts of symbolic or actual aggression to extort food and other aid out of South Korea and the USA in a kind of bizarre protection racket. How very weird, ridiculous and awful North Korea and its leaders are; how very far removed from us in wonderful, democratic America; or so we would like to believe.

I have been reflecting on Korea and reaching a different kind of conclusion, one that is not especially cheerful or reassuring. In a number of ways, I see the USA becoming more and more like North Korea.

Resemblance #1: Dedication to military power over all else. North Korea is as poor and economically dysfunctional as a country can be, but it still manages to have the fourth largest army in the world. Add to that the development of nuclear missiles, and you can see why military force is so important to North Korea. The rulers know that no one will ever dare to attack them, because any attack on North Korea would result in a devastating counter-attack on South Korea. The modern,high-tech magnificence of Seoul, the South Korean capital, could be attacked within hours by the North Korean army, and if the nuclear missiles ever become fully functional, the threat will be even more acute.

What does this have to do with the USA? Well, we are the number one military force in the world, we have more military bases around the world than anyone else, and in the last several decades we have engaged in more invasions and wars than anyone else. Whoo-hoo! Most Americans almost wet their pants with love of the military, and since 9/11, it has been considered very poor taste, unpatriotic, and maybe even a potential sign of terrorist sympathies to ever EVER question or criticize our wars, our occupations, our bases, the size of our armed forces, our huge expenditures on military matters, and so on and so forth. So we are rather North Korean-like in our devotion to the military and the almost sacrosanct position that military matters occupy in our national psyche. The North Koreans cheer when their missile launches threaten South Korea, and we love to "support the troops" when they invade other nations, no questions asked by the "patriotic" majority.

Resemblance #2: Just as the North Koreans show no remorse for the pain or suffering their aggressive acts cause to others, so do we have very hard time ever admitting, let alone apologizing, for death and destruction caused to other people by our military. For both the USA and North Korea, military action is a conscience-free zone of thought. There are of course Americans who oppose and critique our militarism and aggression, but I am referring to the majority, for whom being "strong on defense"(i.e., aggressive and unapologetic) is a key qualification of national political leadership. Note that,with the exception of Ron Paul, all the current Republican candidates for President continually heap scorn on President Obama for being a "weak" and "apologetic" President, despite his continuation of the Bush wars with expansions into Yemen, Libya and Pakistan, with ever-increasing use of drones to make the killing of "bad guys" even easier.

Resemblance #3: Like North Korea, we are dedicated to maintaining our huge military at any cost, even if our society is crumbling and resources are badly needed elsewhere. In the last two rounds of budgetary brinkmanship on Capitol Hill, the one thing that has given the Republicans pause in their zombie-like, headlong rush to cut back government programs and services despite the toll that such reckless and random amputations would take on non-wealthy Americans was the possibility that defense spending might also have to be cut. Suddenly the Republicans felt a sense of hesitation about their budget-cutting gospel! It is one thing to cut off unemployment benefits to people who can't find work, withhold food stamps from people on the edge of starving, destroy union contracts that provide a decent living to people who do not live off investments, or cut back funding to roads, bridges, schools or water systems that are disintegrating and collapsing. Things like that the Republicans can do without a moment's hesitation or any apparent remorse. But cut back the military by even one penny? Oh no, that is INCONCEIVABLE! That would be a CATASTROPHE! I suspect that if the current right-wing extremists of the Republican party manage to take over the Senate, the House and the Presidency, we will see a massive devastation of most social services and government programs and at the same time, a massive buildup of the military, all wreathed in a beautiful, red, white and blue patriotic afterglow. And then will come the wars, and more "support the troop" mass hypnotism as we send our young men and women to kill and be killed, all in order to "defend our freedom," to finally return maimed and mad to a country whose decline can only be disguised so long by massive military extravaganzas.

So, while we may enjoy snickering and sneering in remembrance of Kim Jong-il and the completely miserable state of the country that he presided over, I see him and the way he ruled North Korea as a frightening foretaste of what America may become if we continue in our blind worship of the military to the exclusion of all other needs and concerns.

But hope springs eternal. Maybe in 2012, Americans will decide that they have had enough of war and that is is time, at long last, to direct our energies to non-military matters, like taking care of each other and preserving our precious planet rather than seeking to blame and attack others. However, I am not at all confident that this runaway train can be stopped in time.

A Personal Farewell to Gods of War

Having received some fine and thoughtful responses on the issue of the contemporary relevance of war gods, I am now ready to offer my own perspective. I posed the question, "Do the gods of war still speak to us?," which I could also rephrase as "Do we still need gods of war?" or "Should we still believe in gods of war?" I have a simple and straightforward answer: NO. As far as I am concerned, war gods no longer serve any useful purpose for modern mankind; at least not for me. When I imagine a Pagan spirituality cleansed of war and violence, I feel I am breathing clear, pure air again, not the smell of blood and burning corpses.

I know that many Pagan and Heathen readers will respond that my proposal is absurd, unthinkable; sacrilegious, even. After all, the ancient Norsemen, Celts and other pre-Christian Europeans, as well as other indigenous peoples of other regions, certainly worshipped war gods, so aren't we modern heirs to the Pagan tradition duty-bound to also worship these gods, and exult in the excitment and camaraderie of the warrior life? I say, NO. I believe we are all free people with the right to think and choose about which aspects of old religions we wish to continue and those we wish to leave behind. Reinterpretation and reconstruction are always selective, and this is my selection. Other may choose differently, and that is fine. Freedom to all to worship as they please.

If you, my friend, wish to worship the old war gods, because they are meaningful to you for any number of reasons, please go ahead. I have no wish to limit your own spirituality. Perhaps if I were a soldier or had a strong bond to the military, I would join you. But my experience in life has led me to nothing but opposition to war and militarism. I have walked the earth in countries that have been crushed again and again by insane and destructive wars, often fought for no other reason than the desire for power and glory of megalomaniacal leaders. I have been to Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo where right-wing militarists revere the dead soldiers of WW II as semi-divine heroes, even though Japanese militarism led to nothing but misery and destruction across Asia.

As an American living with great unease in America, I see my country going down the self-destructive track of ever-increasing, ever-more costly, ever-more unquestioned militarism, even as basic structures of society from roads to schools to bridges to state parks crumble from neglect, while huge numbers of Americans fall into poverty and discover that there is little to no "safety net" in America, while billions keep being spent on what seem to be endless, eternal wars. I don't see anything much to celebrate. I think the war god is firmly in control of American society, and he is leading us to a future of angry, blind destructiveness.

I have always prized intelligence and compassion over brute force and violence. When I look around the barren landscape of American culture, I see such an overabundance of violence and aggression that I am almost dumbfounded. Worse still, the violence in our popular culture seems increasingly interchangeable with the official violence of our government and military agencies. TV shows like CSI and Law and Order , in their endless, repetitive iterations, teach us that there is no cure for our social ills other than swift, brutal police action to beat up, lock up, or simply exterminate the "evil-doers." Look at the larger society: the trend for many years has been to reduce funding for social programs and education, increase funding for prisons, police and military. Meanwhile, the popularity of "first person shooter" video games perfectly corresponds with the Bush-Obama military strategy of using remote-controlled drone bombers to hunt down and attack people thousands of miles away, all from the safety and security of video screens at military installations in Colorado and elsewhere. Where does the video game end and the war begin? It seems that many people do not care anymore; as long as we get to kill "bad guys," whether in fantasy or for real, without regard for "collateral damage," it's all good!

War God bless America....

I cannot, as a thinking, intelligent person in the age of Hiroshima, My Lai and CIA drone attacks, think of war as a wonderful, honorable thing that we need to honor with a war god.

I note with happiness that most Pagan gods are multi-functional. We can dispense with various gods and goddesses' war functions and concentrate on those aspects more in keeping with modern life. The Pagan religions of the past were always in a state of transformation. Let us continue the transformation to create 21st century Paganism.

Do the Gods of War Still Speak to Us?

Dear Readers, I apologize for a very long absence and silence. It has been a very busy semester, including a most wonderful trip to Poland in the last month. I still cannot find time for a proper essay here, so I thought instead I would pose a question that I hope will invite some interesting discussion from different points of view. As a semi-pacifistic liberal sort of Pagan, I am often at a loss of what to make of the worship of gods of war among the Pagans of the past. I wonder what relevance this aspect of the old religion holds today, with war a much different thing than it was in the past. I do not find war a praiseworthy thing in the modern world, but a horrible tragedy in almost all cases, and thus I cannot agree with those Pagans and Heathens who seem to glorify war and see this as the most important thing in ancient texts. The war aspect of the old religion is something that I feel is outdated and that needs to be left behind. I can only relate to gods of war and warrior figures as metaphors for the need to struggle and fight morally and mentally, not as a call to literal, physical fighting and killing. What say you? I would like to invite your comments and then return later to add some more thoughts of my own. Thanks.

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?

Some Modest Proposals

Jonathan Swift, author of "Gulliver's Travels" once sardonically suggested in an essay entitled "A Modest Proposal" that the best solution to the proliferation of poor people in Britain was to give them a useful role in the British economy as a food source; that is, to eat them. Since in America, we are in the middle of the most severe economic recession since the 1930s, with our "deficit hawk" politicians in Washington refusing to extend the unemployment benefits that have been a lifeline to millions of unemployed workers, we need to think seriously, as Swift did, about how we want to deal with the reality that there are an increasing number of very poor people in our society. The simplest solution is just to kill them. This approach has the great virtue of being in tune with the American value of pure rugged individualism and the lofty Social Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest. If these people are unable to find jobs and take care of their own financial futures, if they have failed in the great America free market of competition, why should they be allowed to go on living? They are just taking up space that could be better used to provide luxury housing and retail outlets for those Americans who ARE good people and have proven this by becoming fabulously wealthy.

Furthermore, the extermination of the poor could be televised as a--naturally--"Pay Per View" program, to raise money for some worthy cause like medical research into the health problems caused by excessive wealth, in which super-wealthy Wall Street executives, oil company CEOs, multi-millionaire baseball and basketball players, pop music stars, and other examples of God-given success, are allowed to execute poor people in a manner of their choosing. Market survey research has proven that this kind of programming would be far more popular with the majority of Americans, including those who are sliding into poverty but prefer to think of themselves as "middle class," than programming that explores the actual circumstances of poor people.

Who needs the poor? Let them die. This would be somewhat embarrassing for our nation, it is true, but certainly far less shameful than forcing our government to go into debt to provide financial assistance to these worthless individuals. Given the choice between adding to the national debt by helping the jobless and simply exterminating them in a cost-effective manner, the choice is clear. It is the duty of every red-blooded, patriotic American to either become rich, or kill the poor.

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The above is my attempt at satirical humor. My more serious thoughts on this subject are that we should absolutely take care of those who are losing jobs and falling into poverty in our society. I disagree with the way that this issue is being framed by most politicians and media pundits. According to them, the only way we can provide aid to the jobless and poor is by the government going deep into debt and driving up the deficit. There is another way to go. When a government budget faces a shortfall, the crucial choice is between cutting services and raising revenues. We have heard plenty of voices saying we must tighten our belts, we must cut back government programs, and so forth. I think we should consider the other possibility, of increasing revenues by raising taxes.

I know that the very phrase "raise taxes" is enough to mobilize a hundred million conservative Americans into an angry, frothing frenzy, but I persist in calling for this, because I think it is the only way forward without decimating services that are widely needed across this country. Let me add as an aside that not only are unemployment benefits on the chopping block, but many other government services from education to fire departments to you-name-it. Check out your local news to see how this is unfolding in your state or local community, as it is becoming nearly universal across the USA, with very few exceptions. I would also like to point out that there is a huge amount of research showing that from about 1980 onwards, with the Reagan tax cuts, the decline of labor unions, and other factors, the wealthiest 5% of Americans have seen an exponential growth in their income and assets, while the vast majority of Americans have seen their level of income and assets dwindle and diminish, while their level of debt has been rising dramatically and continuously. That is to say, there has been growing income inequality for decades. Since we now face a crisis that is hitting the most vulnerable members of our human community with brutal force, isn't it time for those wealthy Americans to give something back, to sacrifice a small amount of their vast wealth, to help those who are on the edge of despair and homelessness? It is time for the greedy to face the needy. We should move quickly to institute income tax increases on the top 5%. THEY CAN AFFORD IT. If we are unable to face this issue, then my joking proposal in the first half of this entry will prove to not be a silly joke, but a grimly accurate prophecy. Have we really become a "winner-take-all" country where the lucky few get to live lives of immense luxury, while millions scrape and struggle? That is pretty much the same as letting the rich kill the poor. It just not as direct and dramatic as what I mention above.

Though this blog entry is primarily one about American politics, it does also connect to one of my main concerns about American Paganism. I have detected--and please correct me if I am wrong--that among American Asatru believers, there is a general right-wing, conservative, or libertarian political orientation, that is totally opposed to the kind of tax policy I mention above. These are people who largely, in my experience, like to fancy themselves modern-day, Viking heroes, tough, independent, and not needing no help from nobody, least of all Big Government. Here is why I think their viewpoint is wrong, and here I must ask forgiveness of my readers for repeating a point I have made repeatedly in the early days of this blog. If we look to the homeland of the Vikings, to Scandinavia, we find that these societies have continued to evolve from medieval times onwards to embrace large, effective government, generous social programs including substantial jobless benefits, and progressive tax policies that require the well-to-do to pay high levels of tax to take care of the rest of society. The results have been spectacular: a healthy, well-educated population, much less of a gap between rich and poor, much less crime, and still, a very successful, thriving business sector, from Nokia to Ikea and beyond. It can be done, and the modern-day Vikings show how.

I believe that the most important thing in religion is to waken in ourselves our "higher mind," our greatest potential. I believe that the gods of any and all traditions represent the human attempt to symbolize and personify many different peoples' glimpses of that higher mind that speaks to us to beckon us to a higher level of awareness. In the Norse tradition, I see that higher mind symbolized and personified by Odin. I think modern-day Scandinavia is, in a certain sense, still listening to Odin and tapping into that higher awareness, and using that to create some of the most pleasant and equitable societies in the world. I wish America could do the same.

I regret deeply that my Asatru brothers and sisters in the USA seem to be only devoted to looking backwards, to trying to create some kind of fossilized version of tenth-century Viking heroism, combined with a particular brand of modern-day American "rugged individualism" wrapped up with love of the military and dislike of government. I think Odin has moved on, and they should too!

PS. We could also take money out of the military budget to pay for human needs in the USA, but I guess that is simply impossible. The military is sacred.

Terrorism and Tribalism

The recent near-terrorist incident involving the bungled attempt by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to cause an explosion on the Christmas flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, following the horrific shooting spree by the American soldier Nidal Malik Hassan at Fort Hood, Texas in November, have brought forth responses in the media, the public and our politicians that again illustrate a general American inability to respond to these difficult situations with anything more thoughtful and probing than a knee-jerk reaction of seeking to punish the perpetrators of these actions and to blame those who did not stop these situations from progressing to where they nearly caused, or in the case of Nidal Hassan, actually did cause harm and tragedy. There is also the infantile desire for government to provide a guarantee of 100% security to all Americans at all times. This writer will concede that more could perhaps have been done to prevent these incidents from unfolding as they did--or nearly did--but what he finds sadly lacking from the discussion is any serious consideration of WHY these Muslim individuals are so willing to take up the cause of violence against the USA and/or the West, even at the cost of their own lives. The general discussion seems to assume that these "bad guys," as labeled by former President Bush, are beyond understanding. They are simply "bad." Or maybe crazy. Or maybe misled by bad, crazy ideology. Or all of the above.

Rarely will you hear any discussion of how the Islamic world in general has been suffering a long-burning sense of humiliation, frustration and anger since being unsettled, disabled, carved up into pieces and then rearranged this way and that by Western colonial powers from the British to the French to the Russians to us for the last several hundred years. The post-WW II creation of the state of Israel by non-Islamic powers from outside the Middle East is one particularly grating example of events that have often taken place against the will of Islamic countries and without their consultation or any serious consideration of their interests or sensitivities. To put it bluntly, the Muslims are tired of being pushed around. Americans may recall we had a similar feeling toward the British in our colonial days, a feeling which prompted us to undertake a certain war of independence. To our British rulers in that period, Americans seeking to break away from the British Empire must have seemed like crazy, evil terrorists, "the worst of the worst."

So, when Islamic radicals take up arms against American forces occupying their lands, their actions, however regrettable or horrific, are not really all that crazy or irrational, nor are they so impossible to understand. What is needed is to seriously and thoughtfully consider their own point of view--which is not the same thing as agreeing with it--and not simply condemn it as evil or insane. These radicals are responding to what they see as unfair American domination of their world, an "American empire," if you will, and this is their attempt to make it end, or die trying.

I would argue that we will never succeed in stopping these repeated attempts at destabilizing our world through terrorist violence until we seriously consider how past and present actions of America and other Western countries have destabilized others' worlds, particularly those of Islamic peoples who once lived in proud, powerful Islamic states that boasted an advanced sophisticated civilization. We tend to assume that the rest of the world should accept American dominance, including allowing our military forces to freely operate in or near their territories--though we would never allow others to bring their military forces onto American soil--and merrily join in with our economic system and form of government.

Consider how we would feel in the reverse situation. If Saudi Arabia used its oil wealth to construct a huge military and then, after some perceived humiliation of some Saudi citizens in the United States, demanded that we allow Saudi soldiers to set up military bases in say, upstate New York and the Florida coast, and to be allowed to occupy these bases for an indefinite period, we would think it crazy and never accept it. Yet we expect other countries around the world to acquiesce to exactly this kind of humiliating and infuriating arrangement. Our military presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia needs to be considered in this light.

But the kind of discussion I am calling for will probably not happen, certainly not in the mainstream USA media nor the halls of government. The media and the government prefer to hew to the party line of "American exceptionalism," believing that we are a particularly blessed and virtuous nation, beyond all criticism or objections, and that other countries should "naturally" accept our leadership--or else.

In a strange way, this is actually a very tribal point of view. Our tribe of the USA is incapable of seeing any other point of view other than that which glorifies and justifies our own greatness and entitlement. Any disruption of our tribal interests will be met with maximum harshness, without excuses or compassion. A one-day attack in 2001 that kills a small number of our total population but involves no disruption of our government nor any occupation of our territory becomes the justification for eight plus years of war in which we invade two other countries, overthrow their governments, kill tens of thousands, take prisoners that we ship to overseas prisons for indefinite detention, and ignite or re-kindle interminable civil wars. Our armies march through foreign lands with no apparent understanding of how frightening, disturbing and humiliating our presence may be, establishing fortress-like bases wherever we like, like crusader castles of old, giving orders and issuing demands to local rulers that make a mockery of our supposed belief in democracy, and killing those who dare stand up against our occupation of land that is not our own.

Once you take off the self-justifying, other-distorting glasses of American exceptionalism, this is not so hard to see. It also helps to travel and talk to non-Americans once in a while.

In my writings in this blog on Paganism, I have struggled a great deal with the relationship of tribalism to ethnically-based forms of Pagan revivalism, particularly Asatru/Heathenry. Now I see a new and disturbing connection with the world situation. It is my impression that the same American Heathens or Asatru followers who are most enthusiastic about the retro-ideal of a closed tribal community are the ones most likely to unquestioningly support the US military in carrying out its imperialistic duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It seems that they view the American military as the most wonderful tribe of all; a tribe beyond criticism, whose legitimacy or purpose cannot be questioned.

A few months ago, on a Yahoo Heathen group that I often peruse, I read many messages of congratulations to a young man going off to war in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Not one voice was raised to question the wisdom of the war; there was just the simplistic, sentimental "support the troops" point of view. I didn't want to spoil the party, so I said nothing.

Does Norse Pagan tradition have anything to say about the current situation beyond the easy glorification of war that one may derive from the battle-scenes in the Eddas ans Sagas? This is obviously a matter of interpretation, but I believe there are several strands in Norse mythology and history that show something more complex and nuanced than a simplistic glorification of the tribe and exultation in war.

(1). In the account of the "first war in the world" between the Aesir and Vanir tribes of gods described in the poem Voluspa, the resolution of the conflict comes not from one side completely subduing the other, but through truce and compromise that results in a blending of the two tribes. Could this be applied to America's conflict with Muslim militants? It might save some money and lives if we tried to figure out what these "bad guys" wanted, instead of assuming that they are insane and should all be killed, and see if we could work out some kind of compromise. I have a feeling that they would first of all like to see our troops leaving. Guess what? So would many Americans, including this one.

(2) In the satirical poem Lokasenna, the suspicion is voiced that Odin, in his function as arbiter of war, often gave victory to the less deserving side on the battlefield. Other texts show Odin as being fickle in terms of his support of one side or the other. Does this apply to anything today? Well, it might give us a little humility in viewing the odds for American victory in Afghanistan and elsewhere (Yemen? Somalia? Iran? Sudan? Pakistan?), when we reflect on how the god of war does not guarantee victory to anyone.

(3) When the Norse explorers attempted to settle in North America, probably on the coast of Newfoundland at the site of L'Anse aux Meadows, they were eventually driven off by the hostility of the Native Americans. Victory is not assured when occupying foreign lands.

(4) Both the Norse gods, in mythology, and the Norse peoples, in history, often blended with and assimilated with other beings/peoples/cultures. The Norse gods fight giants, but also mate with them. The Vikings fought the English, Irish and French, but also settled among them and in time became completely mixed with them. This suggests something that the American military is realizing about Afghanistan: it helps to get to know people and form relationships with them, not just order them around and bomb them when they become disagreeable. This is quite different from assuming that we Americans all have the answers and that the other side should become our obedient subjects.

(5) We also find, when we examine the course of Scandinavian history, that the Scandinavian countries became much more pleasant and prosperous places when they gave up their dreams of empire and conquest. That's the good news. The bad news is that no one gives up empire willingly. I imagine that American imperialism is in its final stages, because we are rapidly reaching the point where we simply cannot afford to keep all these troops trained, equipped, and deployed all around the world. Not if we want to preserve any kind of public services within the home base of the empire. I think the sun is starting to set on America as the dominant world power, but it will take a while. I look forward to the quiet day when we become a modest, medium-sized power, like Britain after World War II, when it gave up its African and Asian colonies. I also believe that when we stop trying to dominate the world, Islamic extremism will lose its raison d'etre and the Muslim world will calm down too. However, it is going to take a while.

This is all quite painful to ponder. I take none of this lightly. I seek solace in the spirits of nature, the quiet patience of trees and water and stones.