Remarks to the ECER 2023 in Riga Latvia

 On June 29-30, the European Congress of Ethnic Religions (ECER) met in Riga, Latvia. Here is the speech I gave at this gathering.

Hello.  I am very pleased to be with you today.  As most of you know, before the ECER there was the WCER (World Congress of Ethnic Religions).  I was at the first WCER  meeting in Vilnius in 1998 when it was initially called the WPC—the World Pagan Congress. I attended several meetings after that, in Athens in 2004 and Antwerp in 2005.  I am not a member of any ethnic religion or Pagan group, officially, but am a scholar with training in the history of Indian and Pagan European religions, who has had close relationships with the Asatru religion in Iceland, Romuva in Lithuania and Dievturi in Latvia, the last of which makes me especially happy to be here today.

In that first conference in 1998, we debated what name to use for the kind of religion we were involved with. The word “Pagan” was advanced as a way to indicate that we represent what came before Christianity in Europe and that we continue to suffer disrespect and suppression from Christian authorities. It was also mentioned that in modern times, Pagan often means a nature-oriented religion that allows for the worship of ancient gods. Others preferred “ethnic” as a way of indicating that the religious traditions under discussion were connected with particular places and peoples. Finally, the decision was made to accept the Ethnic Religion label as our official designation. I continue to prefer the term Pagan, so I ask you to forgive me if use this term today.

Today, as one of the only people here who was at the first meeting and who has what is now a long history of studying and supporting European Pagan or ethnic religions, I want to offer some thoughts on the future development of Paganism or ethnic religion in the years ahead.

Paganism reaches into the past to find spiritual meaning that can still be valid today.  We are thus all very concerned with preserving and protecting traditions from the past. However, all human life, all human culture, including religion, needs to evolve and develop.  If we look at any of the major world religions whether Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam or others we can see that these religions change over time, often involving a lot of debate and discussion about what to keep from the past, what to put aside as no longer useful or meaningful, and whether to develop new things.  Early Hinduism practiced animal sacrifice, but this was later abandoned, and now we often associate Hinduism with strict vegetarianism. The Buddha told his followers that he was not a god and not to worship him, but over the centuries, the Buddha has been worshipped like a god. Therefore, we who are Pagans or follow ethnic traditions grounded in the past should not feel constrained to only repeat what has been done in the past, especially considering the difficulty in actually knowing and recreating what exactly people did and believed a thousand or ten thousand years ago.  We have to be humble about the past, because we have never been there. We have never met our ancient ancestors. We only have limited information about the religion of the past. We can and should take inspiration from the past, but not be trapped by it. It is great to visit the museum, but who really wants to live there?

This actually opens great possibilities for development of European Pagan religions. From the beautiful fragments of the past that we find in archaeology, in folklore, and other sources, we can create new visions and practices, taking inspiration from the past, but also recognizing that we live in a changing world with many sources of information that were not available a thousand years ago. If someone wants to create new religious music that is computer-based and electronic, not played on a kokles or kankles, we should not reject this just because it is not a thousand years old or even a hundred. We should see if it has spiritual meaning that connects to people today, and if it helps the tradition speak to modern times and not only ancient.

One particular challenge we have today is that we live in societies of increasing diversity. This creates questions for Pagan or ethnic religions about who should be allowed to participate in our religious activities or to obtain membership in our organizations. Some would say this should only be people with the exact same ethnic identity as the original creators of the religious traditions that we honor. I think this is wrong on several levels. First of all, historians and archaeologists can tell us that people in the past were actually more diverse than we might think. Tribal identities were fluid and changeable, and people migrated, moved, and mixed a great deal. So, the people of the past may not fall into the kind of neat ethnic categories that some like to imagine. Second, to survive today, our religions must reflect the societies we live in, unless we want our religions to be hostile fortresses where we keep out outsiders and live in a mental world of paranoia and resentment., which can easily degenerate into outright racism and white power fantasies.  I think there is a better way, which is to focus on maintaining and developing sacred traditions, not obsessing over who is involved in the traditions. If a black person, an Asian or a Roma feels a sincere interest in becoming a Czech or a Greek or a Norwegian Pagan, why not let them in?  If they are willing to learn the traditions and practice them with deep sincerity, are they not at least equally deserving as some white person with the right kind of ethnic surname who may be of poor moral character, limited intelligence and not care at all about the tradition?  Pagan or ethnic religions do not have huge membership. They need to grow.  And accepting people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds is one way to do that.

Finally, I want to call on all of you to consider that in ancient Pagan or ethnic religions, nature is sacred.  I believe that one of the best ways for our religions to unify and to also have positive relations with other religions in the world is to dedicate ourselves to only worshipping nature, but protecting it. I believe it would be a very good thing for Pagans to be at the forefront of environmental action, to fight against pollution, climate change and the other severe problems affecting our earth. In this way, we show the world that we do not live in a museum. We live in the world and just as we honor and protect our ancient traditions and ancestors, we honor and protect the earth that is the mother of us all.

Thank you.

 

False Idols Falling: Hope for the Future?

Dear Fellow Humans,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Triumph of Diversity in the "Blue Wave" Election of 2018

Readers, I have been away from this blog a long time. It is partly that I have been very busy, with academic and political involvements, but is it more so because I have been too depressed and dispirited by the unending cruelty, venality and inhumanity of the Trump era. I have never felt so afraid that America might devolve into a brutal, Fascist state as I have been this year, in light of  the Trump administration's disregard of law and ethics, and racist obsession with demonizing and abusing immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants, not to mention various expressions of hostility toward African-Americans and Muslims. But as of Tuesday night, Nov. 6, 2018, when the results of the 2018 midterm election started to come in, and the evidence of a Blue Wave of Democratic party victory across the country began to mount, my spirits have lifted, though I was heartbroken by the defeat of the truly inspiring Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke as well as the apparent losses of two very impressive African-American candidates in southern states, namely Stacey Abrams running for governor in Georgia and Andrew Gillum for governor in Florida. It now seems that Abrams and Gillum might yet emerge victorious as the final counts and possible recounts proceed.

In my own home region in New York State, I saw a racist campaign against a highly qualified African-American House of Representatives candidate, Antonio Delgado, fail to derail Delgado's ascent to victory, and a progressive State Senate candidate, Jen Metzger, prevail over a Republican candidate who in the past would have been a shoo-in, this being a generally conservative-leaning part of the state. This kind of Democratic victory at the state level was part and parcel of a vast Democratic surge nationwide, with 350 Democrats elected to state legislatures and 7 states opting for Democratic governors, shifting the balance of governorships from 32 Republican vs. 16 Democratic to 26 Republican vs. 23 Democratic, with one of those Florida not entirely certain, and Georgia still to be decided.

Overall, the election shows a real triumph of diversity over the Trumpian preference for white male leadership and possibly also white supremacy. Consider how many barriers were broken, how many "firsts"  were registered. In Colorado: the country's first openly gay governor, Jared Polis. The country's first two Native American women  were elected to Congress: Debra Haaland, in New Mexico, and Sharice Davids in Kansas, who is also the first lesbian congresswoman elected in the state. The nation's first two Muslim women were also elected to Congress: Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Ilhan Omar in Minnesota. In Massachusetts, the state's first African-American female was elected to Congress, Ayanna Pressley. In Texas, the state's first two  Latina congresswomen: Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia. In New York, the youngest ever congressperson was elected, Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There was just one such "first" on the Republican side: Tennessee's first female Senator, Marsha Blackburn. Overall, the Republicans had their best showing in white-majority, economically struggling, rural areas, while the Democrats prevailed in urban and suburban areas with more diverse populations.

I believe that this nationwide embrace of racial, ethnic and religious diversity represented by these Democratic victories shows the tolerant, open dimension of the American national character coming to the fore, and demonstrating that it can stand up to and indeed face down the specter of ethno-national Fascism offered by Trump and his ilk.  This may be the start of America waking up to its "better angels," in the phrase made famous by Abraham Lincoln, the American leader who chose to stand up against the slavery of African-Americans rather than acquiesce to it, which would have been the easier path, which the pundits of the time might well have assumed was the logical, pragmatic course. Lincoln stood up for the more idealistic option, choosing to embrace diversity rather than deny it, and on Nov. 6, so did America.

There is hope!

Happy Fascist Fourth of July

Dear Friends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holding Steady in the Storm

Like many of you, I am sure, I am finding it very hard going to be a thinking, feeling, conscious person in this era of the Trump Dynasty. Just watching the news each day is exhausting. So much chaos...so much cruelty...so much stupidity and short-sightedness.... so much pettiness,  spitefulness, vindictiveness...Many qualified, experienced people quitting government service while unqualified flunkies devoted to the Donald flood the ranks of government, some soon having to leave because they are so obviously ethically compromised... And at the top of this parody of government, what do we find?... A spoiled child-emperor, a would-be caudillo dictator thrashing around incoherently, stuffing himself with cheeseburgers and yelling abuse through Twitter... An intellectually stunted bully unable to think more sophisticated thoughts than the angry, simplistic, hate-stirring, people-slurring slogans of his reality TV-styled presidential campaign: "Build the wall!" (even though immigration from Mexico and Latin America is down, not up, and far from our biggest problem); "Bring back coal!" (even though most of the carbon-fuel companies now prefer fracked gas and are also investing in renewable energy technologies for the day when they have to switch over); "End immigration!" (even though our country is built on immigration, and his own hotels and casinos rely on low-cost immigrant labor); and all manner of threat, insult and insinuation against minorities from Muslims to Mexicans to Salvadorans to Haitians...and now this idiotic announcement of trade war against half the world, with the reassuring statement, "Trade wars are good and easy to win!" Sure, that's what made the 1930s such a jolly old time. It was indeed a good period for Fascism, so maybe that is what our leader is going for:  maximum ethnic nationalism and militarism, minimum internationalism, diversity and compassion.

I really wish the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian involvement in the election would hurry up and bring this thing to a head, as the president is clearly flipping out under the pressure of having whatever ties or obligations he has to Russia exposed. My guess is that Trump has received a lot of Russian financing over the years, since his business empire has always required outside financing to keep from going under, considering how many times he has had to resort to bankruptcy, and that this web of murky financial relations is what keeps him subservient to Putin and his oligarchs. It is also exactly in accord with how Putin has built up his power since the 1990s, through corrupt (and corrupting) business deals underwritten with the threat of violence and the occasional assassination of this or that politician or journalist. See Masha Gessen's book The Man Without a Face for an analysis of Putin's gangster path to power, and then try to stay calm when you realize that Donald Trump may be just another greedy businessman ensnared in a KGB style "kompromat" scheme.

Worse of all is stopping to consider the reality that the American people voluntarily elected Emperor Cheeseburger. I think it is very likely that Russian propaganda and misinformation fed into social media helped seal the deal, but the whole thing cannot be put down to Russian plotting or the electoral college system. Russian methods may have helped tip the scale, and the electoral college certainly helped Trump by giving greater representation to rural areas, but the fact is, a lot of our countrymen and women were really and truly very happy to vote for this uneducated, unqualified, uncouth and uncaring idiot. Worse still, the simple fact that well-educated, well-informed, intellectual types like the author of this blog hated Donald and all he stood for may be more than half the reason why they love him. "If those over-educated liberals support Hillary and reject Trump, then Trump must be our guy." When you have a population that doesn't like to read or think, a skilled manipulator of rage and resentment like Trump has a distinct advantage over a more cerebral politician like Clinton, especially since many of those who voted for Trump had been trained to respond with rage against liberals, immigrants, feminists, activists and intellectuals by media outlets like FOX News and right-wing talk radio. Sadly, this divide-and-conquer, burn-it-all-down style of politics is catching on in other regions too, and the USA can no longer serve as a counterweight to authoritarian trends in other countries, because the U.S. president is now the world's foremost supporter of authoritarianism and autocracy.

How can we fight back against this? Should we just throw in the towel and consider ourselves in the position of Jews or liberals in the Third Reich circa 1934, unable to oppose the coming storm and just hoping to somehow weather it by keeping a low profile? I can see a certain logic to that position, but I do not want to live my life cowering in the corner and trying to survive by escaping notice. I think we do have to fight back, and fortunately, we are seeing signs of more and more people willing to stand up and do just that.  The  #MeToo movement and the gun control advocacy efforts of the students who survived the Parkland, Florida shooting are signs that the human desire for a better, fairer, and more humane society, not a more brutal and fear-driven one,  has not been totally vanquished just yet.

Of course, to successfully wage a battle, you have to know what you are fighting for, and who and what you are fighting against. In this age of divide-and-conquer social media disinformation campaigns, this is not easy, because the media landscape we live in now is designed for ultimate distraction and division. Google, Facebook and other such digital leviathans get more hits and thus earn more millions through hate and anger, and falsehood than by sharing accurate information and thoughtful analysis or long-term solutions. It's all about the quick emotional reaction. A lot of the anti-Hillary media was irrational and demented, but it was all carefully designed to make people keep clicking and chuckling, and continual exposure to such garbage gradually colors how a person feels, and finally, how s/he thinks, and how s/he votes, including not voting at all, which redounds to the benefit of whichever candidate has a more energized following, not who has the better-informed followers. Advantage, Trump.

So we have to stand up, hold steady, and be ready for a shit storm of abuse and irrational anger to come down on us for speaking out against the Emperor of Anger and his thuggish, resentful followers, who feel that no one cares about them except their reality-TV messiah. We have to be beacons of rationality and positive purpose for those who will tire of King Chaos and start to yearn for something different. Against those who sneer and jeer at the Other, whose voices are growing hoarse from yelling "Build the Wall!" and "Lock Her Up!", we have to tell them that there is a more humane vision that will work out much better for all of us, including them, in the long run. We have to promote good ideas for expanded public services paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy, even when the first reaction of the Trump-believers is to think that government is evil except for the military and the police. We have to keep hammering on that income gap issue, because they know it is real even if they have temporarily signed up for the sad illusion that beating up on the poor and cozying up to the rich will make them rich too. Keep reminding people that other countries have lower cost education and health care, less violence and poverty, and that this can be done here too, and that this need not mean Soviet Communism, but maybe just Swedish or German-style Social Democracy. They may not know what that is, so you will have to explain it.  When they talk about not wanting to see their tax dollars wasted, remind them how much it costs to incarcerate non-violent offenders and to keep undocumented immigrant workers in detention facilities. Remind them of how much we have spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and how little benefit we have received, least of all any greater sense of safety. Instead of numbly thanking veterans for their service, start a conversation about how much good those soldiers could have done inside the USA if we had put them to work building bridges, road and schools here instead of raining down destruction on other countries. Ask them if they really and truly want to live in a more polluted environment and see more people sicken and die from respiratory ailments and cancer. Find out the pollution hot spots in your local area, and ask them if they want more of this or less. Ask them if  they know anyone suffering from asthma or other respiratory or cardiopulmonary ailments. Show compassion and then tell them that to reduce such illnesses we have to reduce pollution. I think very few people can not agree with that to at least some extent.

Above all, point out to your conservative friends and neighbors how Trump is not keeping his promises, but instead putting in place policies that are creating further problems. Did he really "drain the swamp" and stop government corruption, or just bring in a whole new group of cronies to fatten themselves at the public trough while seeking to slash budgets for programs that help the poor and middle class? Did he really stop the wars that he claimed were stupid, or did he send more troops and expand our involvement in military quagmires?  Can his Korea policy, bringing us closer and closer to nuclear war, really be counted as a success?  And for those who like the modest tax cuts they have received, point out that the wealthy are getting much bigger cuts, that the tax cuts that they have received are temporary, and that the effect of the cuts is to greatly increase our national debt and to greatly reduce the ability of the government to provide services or maintain infrastructure. For those who are gun enthusiasts, and there are many in the rural areas, ask them if they really need an assault rifle to go hunting or target shooting, and ask them if they wouldn't sleep better knowing that fewer people had access to such highly dangerous weapons. Tell them you are all in favor of responsible gun use, just not turning the whole country into an unregulated shooting range with mass shootings on a regular basis.

This is hard work and many people are not comfortable speaking out on these issues. But if you do not rise to the occasion and speak out, you only have yourself to blame for the continuation of Trumpism. Trump is supported by an empire of words, a fog of angry, hateful, misdirecting words that cause people to hate government, hate immigrants, hate other races, and to see a mean-spirited, white supremacist charlatan as their messiah if not their fuhrer.  You have to fight back with words that express an alternate vision. So please, please, PLEASE start talking and don't stop. Speak out every time and every place you can. If you cannot convince some hard-core Trumpians, at least let them know that right in their neighborhood, there are people who  think otherwise. Don't let them believe that only Trumpians have a voice or a presence or the courage to advocate their views. Remember, many people today live in a FOX news cocoon, and  they may literally not realize how many people do not.  Let them know there is opposition and resistance, but do this with kindness if you can, offering positive alternatives whenever possible. Suggest the advantages of green energy jobs over  coal mining or fracking jobs, for example.  If they get this message often enough, they might start considering other ideas. This is what we must hope for. This really is a war of words and ideas. Silence and keeping quiet will NOT work.

Stand up, stand tall, speak up, speak out! That is the way forward.

A New Dawn for Ásatrú: New Clarity Against Racism

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

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

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

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

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

Global Depression

Dear Readers,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right now, I find it hard to be optimistic.

Living in a Foreign Country: America in the Age of Trump

On Tuesday night, November 8th, I went to sleep on an overnight flight to Europe for a conference taking place later in the week. While I was on my way to Helsinki, I assumed that America was on its way to electing Hillary Clinton as president. When the plane touched down Wednesday morning and people began to turn on their smart phones to check messages and get the latest news, a murmuring spread through the passengers. I began to hear "Trump... Trump..." and soon learned the truth: The impossible had happened. The catastrophe had arrived. The arrogant, loudmouthed, ridiculously boastful celebrity businessman with hateful views toward migrants and minorities, who had been caught on tape talking about how he used his celebrity status to take sexual advantage of women, who had zero experience in government and offered little more than vague promises to "make America great again," had narrowly edged Mrs. Clinton to become the new president-in-waiting.

I had had an awful dream on the flight. I saw angry mobs, fires, violence. I woke thinking the dream probably represented my anxieties about the election, but when I found that Trump had been not vanquished but elevated by the election, I now feared the dream was if anything prophetic, a grim premonition of what may lay ahead for country run by an ignorant, erratic, thin-skinned and hot-tempered, right-wing billionaire bully fueled by resentment and egotism.

She had won the popular vote, by a margin that has now proven substantial, but since America awards the presidency through its complicated system of the "electoral college," Trump had prevailed by winning almost all of the rural and less populated states, white majority areas where Hillary Clinton's greater appeal to more diverse populations was not only not an advantage, but actually a disadvantage. Donald Trump had signaled in many ways that he was sympathetic to the far-right, racist, white supremacist wing of American politics, not least by appointing Stephen Bannon, a leading light in the dark universe of the so-called "Alt Right" movement through the "Breitbart" news web site, to a top position in his campaign. Trump's triumph may, I fear, represent a chilling turning away from the social progress that American had painfully achieved through the civil rights, anti-war, feminist and gay rights movements from the 1960s through 2016, and particularly the advances, limited though they were, of the Obama years.

Going, going, gone: an educated, thoughtful President who cares about minorities, women's rights, the environment.... Gone, a Justice Department that looks into the killing by police of unarmed black people.... Gone, any consideration for the rights of Muslim-Americans.... Gone, the protection from deportation that President Obama had extended to the children of undocumented migrants.... Gone, compassion.... Gone, intelligence.... Gone respect for diversity.... Hello, belligerence, intolerance, crassness and braggadocio, implicit support for racism and xenophobia....Hello government by kleptocracy, Donald and his friends and family grabbing up goodies and making deals to enrich themselves....Hello to America as not the leader of the world but a diminished, puzzling "rogue nation," an erratic kleptocracy....

As a Pagan who sees respect for nature as a core, perhaps THE core spiritual value, I am most pained by the potential damage that will be done to the earth by a new government that scorns the threat of global warming and may withdraw from international agreements like the Paris Climate Treaty.... I will be looking for opportunities to join arms with other like-minded Pagans who support policies of protection for the environment rather than opening the door to all-out exploitation of nature and unrestricted extraction of carbon fuels as seem to be favored by our new president. I wonder how many Pagans will stand up for nature, and how many will instead support Trump because they like his nationalistic, tribalistic tendencies?

I do believe that in a democracy, it is important to allow a newly elected leader and government some time to establish their policies and programs before passing judgment. I just do not have much hope for the next four, or eight, years, based on who Donald Trump has been in the past, his inflammatory and ignorant statements during the campaign, and the kind of extreme right-wing people he is surrounding himself with, from appointing the right-wing, "white nationalist" (translation: racist and white supremacist) Stephen Bannon for the nebulous, and thus potentially extremely powerful because invisible and undefined role of untitled presidential "adviser" to selecting the anti-Muslim, Iran-hating, Michael T. Flynn as National Security Adviser to offering the top job in the Justice Department, that of Attorney General, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions, a throwback to racist politics of the Old South who has in past expressed more sympathy for the KKK than the American Civil Liberties Union or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the venerable civil rights group. I see growing evidence that Trump was not joking about wanting to undo many actions and policies of the Obama years.

Worse still, as I discuss election results with students and others, I am meeting more and more people who are belligerently pro-Trump and quickly turn to anger when this new American Fuhrer is subjected to any criticism or challenge. I have studied the rise of Fascism and Nazism, and I have to say Trump's supporters scare me, as they remind me of nothing so much as the kind of thugs and bullies that Mussolini and Hitler relied on to cement their grip in power. I fear that Trump is laying the groundwork for a new Fascism of the 21st century.

A train conductor on a route that I often use told me that he feels more hope for America now than he has in 16 years. When I told him that I pretty much felt the opposite, he told me that he knew Trump would win because "he harnessed the most powerful force in America...the pissed-off white guy vote!" When I complained that Trump had no government experience, which to me made it rather unlikely that he could work the miracles that his followers expected, he countered, "Well, what experience did Obama have...beside being black?" Though I would concede that Obama was not the most qualified candidate to ever run for President, he did have some important experience. Barack Obama had worked as a community organizer in poor sections of Chicago, had served as an Illinois State Senator and then a U.S. Senator, and had also taught constitutional law at the college level at one point. My trainman then said, "Maybe Obama did some good things for people on his side....I won't dispute that. But he did nothing for people like me." This despite the fact that Obama had rescued the country from the worst economic crisis in 70 years.

The reaction of this trainman and others that I have spoken to in my largely white, conservative area of New York State, including in my classes, suggest to me that there is a substantial white population in this country who are simmering with rage and varying degrees of animosity toward Muslims, immigrants, blacks, and anyone they see as different from themselves, and who are bursting with energy that Trump will give them a government that will celebrate their identity and uphold their priorities and proclivities, and also their prejudices, racial, religious or of other sorts. My made-in-the 1960s heart that beat proudly for the election of Obama as the necessary and positive breaking of a barrier that I thought would open the way for a country more able to handle racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity is now pounding with fear and anxiety about what America is going to be like in the 2010s and 2020s if Trump's backward-looking rhetoric about "making America great again," emphasis on AGAIN, means a rebirth of flagrant racism and white supremacy, as if George Wallace had risen from the grave and won the election. I am truly afraid that he has....

I feel myself a foreigner in this version of America. I actually take some small measure of cold comfort in that, remembering that when I came back to America after living abroad in the past, I always felt some strangeness in returning to "my" country, as being away had broadened me and changed me, and coming "home" did not always feel like "home." I saw myself then and see myself now as somewhat of a foreigner in America, among so many countrymen with such a radically different view of what a healthy and sane society is or should be. With my growing international connections to the Baltic States and elsewhere, I will now keep one eye on the possibility of relocating abroad if the situation here goes from bad to worse, from simmering to burning, from quasi-Fascist rhetoric to brutality in practice, presided over by an erratic, intellectually incoherent, ethically questionable, orange-headed celebrity-buffoon who has indeed accomplished an amazing thing, to convert a country that eight years ago seemed to be heading for a new more inclusive future into a country where a considerable number of people are calling for the building of walls to keep out foreigners, the use of prisons to torture suspected terrorists, and the rounding up of Muslims into 21st century concentration camps. I hope that each of these awful items that I just mentioned never comes to pass....but all of those ideas have been voiced by members or supporters of the Trump team.

I am afraid for my country....and do not think I will live along enough to see the damage likely to be done by this new president undone. I hope I am wrong.

Reflections on "Southside With You" and Racism in Paganism

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

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

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

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

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

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