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TechnoratiIt Ain't For Free
Jefferson once famously offered that, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants".
I am just enough of a bleeding-heart Pollyanna to hope that there are periods when real reform can be achieved without sacrifice on that scale, and just enough of a realist to know that there are then those other moments in history.
It's difficult to see which we're in now, but I suspect we'll have a pretty good idea within a year or two. Americans are sickened by the policies and the character of their leadership, such as it is. That much is now as clear and free of obstruction as is the space between George Bush's ears. But what follows from there is far less apparent. Are these same Americans prepared to make even the smallest of sacrifices, let alone give the blood Jefferson thought necessary, for the purposes of restoring the freedom and democracy they read about in their ninth grade civics texts? And with conservatives in ever-expanding numbers now joining the ranks of those disgusted with BushCo, could the country even agree on remedies for the current malaise, even if we can all concur on what we don't want?
The central insight of the Founders was that woven into human nature, for at least enough people to give the rest of us worry, is an insatiable will to power. Unmitigated, unchallenged, really powerful power. While Western societies may have spent half a century or so lulled into believing that that gene had finally and expensively been excised from human DNA once and for all, we are nowadays daily and sadly reminded of the eternal prescience of Jefferson, Madison and their generation.
They, of course, never met Dick Cheney. But they would recognize him instantly. If the man weren't so dangerous he would be hilariously laughable. His latest claim justifying his complete secrecy, his complete lack of oversight, and his completely unchecked power is that the vice presidency isn't actually an executive branch office (except, of course, when it is claiming executive privilege to guarantee secrecy, lack of oversight and unchecked power). I mean, I don't even know where to start satirizing that one. It's just such an amazingly absurd assertion. If Cheney claimed that he wasn't actually a human being, and therefore not subject to the laws of the land, it would be hardly less preposterous. In fact, given the absolute absence of humanity found anywhere in the vicinity of this creature, it would be rather more believable than the insane notion that the vice presidency isn't part of the executive branch.
Okay. Let's just get it out there, then. This is the guy for whom the Founders wrote the constitution. This is the man who would be king.
I'm quite sure most Americans have never really given it any thought, but the Constitution is really a pretty bizarre document absent this unspoken premise which provides for its conceptual foundation - that humans are dangerous power-seeking animals. The core attribute of the Constitution is that it spreads power out at every opportunity, from the checking and balancing of separate branches of government, to the power-sharing between the states and Washington embodied in its federalism, to the limitations on governmental power spelled out in the Bill of Rights. It is a governing system designed to produce stasis, out of fear of the pernicious products of action. It sacrifices a plethora of possible achievements in governance in order to prevent the worst of them.
And even so it can fail, especially in time of crisis, real or manufactured. And particularly when under assault by those who, while wrapping themselves in the glory and legitimacy of the Founders at every turn, seek to unravel the very essence of their greatest accomplishment.
Such is our historical moment. American democracy has been in a virtual free fall, and the problems it now faces are myriad. These challenges extend well beyond the current occupants of the White House, though the provenance of many of them can be traced to the same murky swamp from out of which evolutionary biology's attempt at humor gone freakishly awry, aka Bush and Cheney, once crawled.
It is worth considering some of these sources of our current affliction, each in turn, working our way toward the most fundamental of them. Which, not coincidentally, is also the only place where any genuine hope for redemption lies.
We can begin at the inner-most circle of Hell, with Bush and Cheney and all those like them. Life in America would not necessarily be all sweetness and light were there not a predatory kleptocracy in Washington with control over every scrap of governmental authority it can possibly acquire, but it sure would be less disastrous, and less precipitously catastrophic, were this not the case.
It's crucial to understand the magnitude of the condition we're in as a result of just this single factor. America is virtually an occupied country. Does that strike you as hyperbolic, perhaps ridiculously so? It's easy to forget, and we are massively discouraged from realizing, that just because an individual is president (or vice president, or senator, or Supreme Court justice), that such a person might not have the interests of the country at heart. The current regime can bungle spectacularly, but they are not fundamentally bunglers, and it is therefore easy to mistake them for something other than what they are. In fact, they are ruthlessly efficient at what they care about.
If a government can plunge a country into penury in order to enrich an elite economic class, if it can propagate an immense campaign of deceit in order to launch a prodigiously violent war, if it can usurp the powers of government at every turn - if it can do all these things, what difference does it make if it is foreign or domestic? If we feel any better being exploited by the Kennebunkport mafia than, say, the Kremlin mafia, it is only because we've been well trained in nationalist bunk to go along with our civics bunk. The only difference between the Russians invading Washington to imperil our lives, limbs and wealth, and the Cheneys doing the same thing, is that the former would require translators when they'd bark out the command to "Bend over!"
But this kleptocracy is not, of course, the only injurious political condition now debilitating American democracy. In fact, it is exacerbated by, and arguably even impossible without, the coincident presence of the others. But this criminal conspiracy is nevertheless currently at the heart of the ruination now being visited upon the country, and the first order of business is to remove it. By which I mean not just the Bush presidency, but the entirety of the regressive project.
Surely a second cause of our political woes has been Congress, specifically the GOP members who controlled it for most of the Bush years. They've proved repeatedly that institutional bulwarks against tyranny are only as good the people who occupy the institutions. The very same people who love to laugh at the naivete of liberals and mock the utility of their beloved treaties abroad 'prove' the point by abdicating their responsibilities at home and turning the Constitution into just so much faded parchment. One might think that even Republican members of Congress would have a certain interest in defending the institutional prerogatives of their branch of government, but I can hardly remember any time they showed such wisdom. Rather, they backed Bush even as he mocked them and gutted their powers at every opportunity. If the United States Congress insists on being run over repeatedly by an executive freight train gone off the tracks, it should not be surprised to find itself about as consequential as was the Soviet Congress of People's Deputies. Eh, comrades? Nor should it be chagrined. We'll handle that part.
Then there's the matter of the opposition party. Who, you're wondering? Yeah, exactly. Probably the only thing that keeps the alleged leadership of the Democratic Party alive is that somebody wired around their embarrassment circuits. Otherwise I expect they'd all be hurling themselves into the Potomac from the highest bridge in the District. I know I would be if I had their record. But then I wouldn't have their record. Even with all the trappings of office, I'd rather be a good ditch digger than a lousy Speaker of the House. I expect I'd struggle harder to dig a nice straight ditch than Pelosi or Reid have to save lives in Iraq. All this matters because the public expects and needs leadership in articulating an alternative vision to that of the reigning government, especially when that regime is evil, lusting for power at every turn, and not the least bit dissuaded from using every nefarious technique and every deceit large or small in order to get what it wants. There should be a serious limit to this dependency on leaders, but let's face it, most citizens don't have the time, resources and information access that members of Congress have. It's not impossible for the public to understand the intricacies of Bush's Medicare Part D scam, for instance, or the alternatives to that policy. It's just harder in the absence of a loyal opposition doing its job in leading the way.
A fourth source of our current dismal political condition is a media which has gone native so badly it makes obsequiousness look like a virtue. For someone who came of political age in the Watergate era, the last few years have been a jaw-dropping astonishment. Today's mainstream media is virtually unrecognizable from just a generation earlier, and it often wasn't so very great back then. Two anecdotal stories say all that needs to be said on this subject. The first is the near complete absence of coverage in the mainstream media of the Downing Street Memos when they emerged, a bombshell which I have argued is almost without question the second biggest news story since the Berlin Wall came down (9/11 being number one, and there is much to suggest that that one has also been treated to somewhat less than sufficient investigative attention). The New York Times actually did better than other outlets, just by virtue of mentioning it at all. They covered these leaked memos from the angle of the British election of the time, however. Confronted by an angry blogosphere about why these documents that reveal the lies of the Iraq war weren't translated into screaming four-inch headlines on the front page, their editors mumbled something about how the foreign desk and the national desk never quite connected with each other. Uh-huh. Sure, I believe that. As I said, this was one of the better bits of coverage. Elsewhere it was never mentioned at all.
Then there was more or less the entirety of 'news' 'coverage' leading up to the war, and during most of it. The stories of media failures to question assumptions about the administration's propaganda are already legion. What is becoming increasingly apparent is the degree to which the media was complicit in creating the 'news' - and not just Fox or the Washington Times, either. I heard Josh Rushing, former Marine Corps media liaison officer, on the radio this week discussing his new book. He described how 'war correspondents' would come to him during 'briefings', and quite literally ask, "What points do you want us to get across today?" (And apparently he names names in the book.) Could there be a bigger sell-out than that, a bigger abdication of fundamental responsibility? Even in the absence of the other factors enumerated here, it is difficult to imagine anything approaching a robust democracy in any polity where the conduits of information are owned and maintained by supplicants rather than scrutinizers. Heads-up news media hacks: Thomas Jefferson has plans for your blood.
I would certainly also add to the list of what ails American politics both an educational system and a political culture that consistently fail to build an army of the sort of keepers-of-the-flame necessary to anything which is meant to remotely resemble rule by the people. I don't know if there was conspiratorial project to dumb down the American educational system to the point where its products are incapable of thinking critically about politics (after all, arrogant and insular Americans have long been notorious for their ignorance of history, other cultures, and even geography), but it wouldn't surprise me if there was. Certainly that has happened, and intentionally, in the public sphere, where one corrosively inane idea after another has been successfully marketed by the vast right-wing conspiracy upon a gullible public. It's hard to know where to start, but two of the most sinister and malefic of these are the laughably absurd notion of a liberal-biased media (you know, the ones covering the Iraq war), and the even more damaging Reagan mantra that "Government is not the solution. Government is the problem."
Of course, lurking behind many of the items on this laundry list is one in particular, the endlessly voracious gluttony of the crapulent class, the pathological pursuit of superfluous wealth by elites already drowning in shamefully obscene piles of lucre. What massive insecurities can drive those already owning two yachts to favor killing a school lunches program in order to buy a third? What can push them even to the point of destroying the infrastructural goose laying the golden eggs, to save a couple of nickels on taxes? Will they be able to buy enough air conditioners to mollify their children who inherit from them not only great riches, but a one-and-only planet careering toward inhabitability? Better hope the kids aren't quite as selfish as Mom and Dad, or the latter might have to use that small army of Blackwater pinkertons to protect them from more than just the surly hoi polloi assembled beyond the walls of the estate. Of course, being the Me Children of the Me Generation (these things escalate geometrically), more likely is that the kids will be even more poorly disposed than the parents, who may find themselves one day personally mourning the loss of the munificent state they dismantled in the name of short-term greed. Good luck putting that large, egg-like creature back together.
So, if the question is "What's eating American politics"?, the answer is manifold. Is it possible to have cancer of the heart? It would seem so, given the predators now running American government. Their mission, of course, is simply to bleed the state dry of every valuable they can get their hands on and deliver those items to their rightful owners, the already fantastically privileged. They have coopted everything and nearly everyone who might serve as a barrier to their plundering, including the media, the political opposition, the educational system, the institutions of government and the very culture itself. The cards have been dramatically stacked in their favor, but we haven't even gotten yet to the single factor most responsible for our predicament.
A garden left untended will grow weeds. A child left to his or her own devices will become the human equivalent. What ever possessed Americans to allow themselves to believe a political system is any different? Not only is public indifference to politics the single most consequential factor of all of those which ail this political system, its inverse is probably the only possible remedy. Sure, it would be nice to have a Congress, or a Democratic Party, or a media that singularly or collectively decided to actually do their job. But the likelihood of that happening is remote in the absence of an engaged public. Moreover, the likelihood of it mattering under such conditions is also quite slim. There's just no avoiding it. Public participation in politics is the sine qua non of democracy and good governance, the requisite that both trumps and enables all the other significant factors.
But we're pretty far from that today. The American people are essentially phoning it in. The signs are everywhere, and they are grim. It's not just that we barely vote at the fifty percent turnout level for presidential election years (and more like one-third for mid-term congressional elections). That's a depressing measure of participation for any democracy, to be sure, but what is most troubling is the degree to which the public simply pays less than minimal attention to politics and government. Even those who are bothering to vote are often doing so with a level of engagement that could subject them to a lawsuit for negligence in other contexts. This is drive-thru politics. Pay at the first window, get your cheeseburger at the second, move on down the road.
It's not that we're intellectually incapable, either. Americans keep exhaustive amounts of data in their heads about sports, celebrities, frighteningly banal television shows and all manner of other distractions. There's plenty of storage capacity on their human hard drives, though a purge of all that useless information wouldn't hurt, nor would running a subsequent defrag to unclutter all that messy space be such a bad idea. But the point is that we could all become quite expert and sophisticated consumers of political information if we chose to.
But, of course, that is the worst nightmare of the political class, especially the rabid right, whose level of support is altogether inversely related to the degree of information and sophistication a voter possesses. If you're dumb, a phrase like "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" sounds plausible. If you don't pay attention, you wouldn't realize that there are different kinds of Muslims (and they don't necessarily all get along), and thus that attacking just any old Middle East country in response to 9/11 isn't necessarily a great idea. If you're all wrapped up in baseball box scores instead of knowing a bit about public policy, you'll believe that the pathetic little tax cut George Bush threw in your direction to buy you off was a good thing for both you and the country. If you're devoting a lot of time to following Paris Hilton's travails, you'll be uneducated enough to believe that global warming is a fraud.
I will give the American public some credit. They now loathe George W. Bush, and that is crucial. Which is why it pains me so much that it took them six years to figure out what was transparently obvious all along. More importantly, though, I am quite convinced that they despise Bush for - if not the wrong reasons - then at least not the most significant reasons one should. That is, they seem to have him figured for a bungler, a village idiot, and somebody who is less than truthful on minor issues like war, civil liberties and the Constitution. The depravity of the Bush administration runs far deeper, however. It is essentially an invading force which twice seized office illegally, has arrogated to itself monarchical authorities while in power, and uses all these for the purpose of bilking the public of its possessions. I doubt that many Americans - even among the seventy percent who think he's a lousy president - fully understand this.
I think it also needs to be said that, at some level, there is much that is off-putting about politics, particularly the way it has come to be practiced in America in recent decades. Who can blame the public for thinking that politicians are a sleazy bunch in general? They are! Who can blame people for thinking that far too many politicians are more interested in advancing their careers or lining their pockets than in being good stewards of the American polity during their tenure? Who can blame them for tuning out insipid thirty-second television ads that fairly scream out their disdain for anyone dumb enough to listen to them? And who could blame the public for wondering whether there's any substantial difference between the party of Tweedledee and the party of Tweedledum?
But which of these are the chicken, and which the egg? Would any of this occur if the titular owners of American government were more vigilant about maintaining their property? I doubt it. The last thing a politician facing a discriminating voting public would want would be to demean them with insultingly insipid campaign tactics. It's a worn-out maxim but nevertheless true: People get the government they deserve. If we require more and better political discourse, no politician could afford to deliver anything less and hope to be successful.
People ask all the time, "What can we do?" At the risk of offering a too vague response, the simple answer - I would say fundamentally the only viable answer - is for us to be more responsible owners of our government, to actively encourage everyone we know to do the same, and to seek to establish such behavior as a moral norm in the society. Any parent who allowed their child to play in a busy street would be subjected to the worst kind of opprobrium (not to mention probably losing custody of the child) - and rightly so. Why then should we be allowed to let our government to play in the street? Especially if the reason for doing so is our simple laziness. Awful things will happen. Awful things are already happening.
The great irony of this is that the cost of not paying attention is almost always infinitely higher than it would be to do the thing the right way in the first place. Too much for comfort, we're like the child who in fighting to avoid doing his homework expends ten times more energy than the homework itself would require. If Americans had any idea of the costs the Bush administration has saddled upon them, for the worst of reasons, they'd go ballistic. They'd be enraged at a thief stealing their money, and yet he's done just that while they were sitting on the couch. They'd flip out at someone wrecking their living space, and yet Bush had done precisely that while they were watching that Seinfeld rerun for the fourth time - you know, the one about masturbation. They'd get red in the face at somebody wrecking their reputation, and yet Bush shredded theirs before halftime was even over.
The truth is that we are essentially political adolescents in America. It's not entirely clear that giving us our participatory driver's licenses is such a good idea. We really don't seem very responsible, and it's not like the ship of state we're driving is some national moped that wouldn't do much damage to anyone besides the rider and the odd pedestrian in the wrong place at the wrong time. The United States is the QEII of vehicular metaphors. It's the Saturn V, man. It's the freakin' Death Star. It's capable of enormous damage if piloted by a bunch of "Party on, Garth!" teenagers with an attention span barely suited for playing Doom II, and all the gravitas of a Cheech and Chong movie. This is not a theoretical proposition. Probably a million completely innocent Iraqi civilians are dead now, while the tweener called the American public was busy rocking out to Korn instead of watching the road.
Americans have, I fear, grown intellectually lazy and fearful (which itself can often be another form of lazy). Just like we want a bunch of illegal immigrants to wash our car or bus our restaurant tables, so we want a government on the cheap and easy (which will also sometimes make lots of silly noises about illegal immigrants). We wouldn't dream of having somebody else choose our dinner for us, and yet we have delegated our futures - often our very lives - to some of the lowliest critters walking the planet, without much more than the slightest oversight. In fact, we don't even seem to care much when the folks we've hired to do the oversight don't bother to do that.
So we fund our schools through lotteries 'cause that lowers our tax bill. And we commit our children's future earnings by borrowing to spend today, again to avoid paying our share in taxes. And we give the president a blank check for fighting whatever war he wants 'cause thinking about whether an invasion is justified takes time and energy. And we drive Hummers 'cause ... well, I don't actually know why any fool would drive a Hummer. But surely it's not because he's carefully thought through the implications of environmental destruction.
I'm quite sure that the same Americans who would assure you of what solid patriots they are were just like George Bush in not knowing on the eve of the Iraq invasion, that, for instance, there are Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and that there is no shortage of historical tension between them. How can you put a magnetic ribbon on the back of your car, but not take the slightest bit of time to learn some basic facts about the living and dying hell to which your tax dollars and your votes are committing American troops? Bush's case for the war, even based on what we knew then, fell apart with the slightest application of knowledge and thought. But people don't want to learn and they don't want to think, because it can be difficult. It's far easier to be anesthetized by yet another episode of Desperate Housewives.
The solution to all this begins with accountability. So much of what passes for politics in America today is only possible because of the style of our discourse, and because of the absence of sustained questioning of members of our political class. George W. Bush had to avoid at all costs any meeting with Cindy Sheehan, let alone a public one, for the simple reason that he knew she would not be deterred from asking the difficult, probing and sustained questions that would immediately expose the lies surrounding his Iraq adventure. The media is equally capable of asking these questions, but refuses any sort of serious grilling of presidents or members of Congress (unless, of course, they're Democrats). We need to reinvent the rituals of American politics so that candidates and officeholders will not get our votes unless they can defend their ideas against prolonged critical inquiry, and we need to demand with our remote controls that our media provide us with that.
I'm more hopeful than I have been for a generation that young people get this. The New York Times is reporting this week that younger Americans are thinking about politics in ways we haven't seen for a very long time. Fifty-eight percent of that cohort said they are paying attention to the presidential race today, more than a year before election day. In the 2004 cycle - an election of pretty intense engagement relative to those which preceded it - only thirty-five percent were following the presidential race at the equivalent time in the campaign. That is a huge difference, the likes of which you don't often see in polling on any question or attitude. And what is more, not surprisingly, these 18 to 29 year-olds have more progressive views than their elders on a raft of issues, as well as very negative views of the Republican Party, which has probably lost them for life. I say this is not surprising - not because it vindicates my own personal politics - but because of the relationship between information and ideology discussed above. Time and again, regressive politics simply fall apart under any sort of thoughtful examination. The more engaged you are, the less Republican, as these young folks are proving.
There are other reasons to be hopeful as well. Who could not be excited by the group of high school Presidential Scholars - including, I'm proud to say, the daughter of two of my colleagues - who hand-delivered a letter to George Bush demanding that he stop torturing in their name, and in doing so thereby demonstrated a wisdom, patriotism and courage most Americans twice or three times their age would envy if they were smart enough to recognize it for the wonderful act it was?
All in all, it has in fact been the public these last years that has been the (unhurried) vanguard when it comes to confronting the atrocities of Bush and his band of regressives, while the institutional actors in the system have repeatedly failed in just about everything but drawing their paychecks (thank goodness for direct deposit, eh?). They continue to do so today. The only reason a do-nothing new Congress could have come to be so despised by so many Americans in so short a time is because of their failure to be responsive on the major issue of our day - Iraq. The public already gets it, and has done so without much help from a fully coopted media, either. They look at Congress and wonder what the heck those folks do all day long up there on that hill, anyhow.
But, notwithstanding these clear signs of life in the comatose patient, far more needs to be done. Far more. Especially if we are to make the institutional changes to the foundations of our political culture that are necessary to avoid returning to this dark, dank place we've haunted of late.
It may sound ridiculously platitudinous, but the fact is that there is really no substitute for our hands-on engagement in the governing of our society and our world. It all comes back to that - Congress, the Democrats, the media - all of it. The genius of democracy is in its responsiveness to the public will, and unfortunately that is precisely what American democracy is doing right now - responding to our collective indifference. But until Dick Cheney cuts to the chase already and anoints himself emperor, there's just enough democracy left in America to bring this thing around. It will require considerable effort, though. We have to tend to our garden. We have to support the seedlings and purge the weeds.
We cannot, fundamentally, delegate this one. We cannot hire someone to do our thinking for us. Not, at least, if we expect to be happy with the results. Not if we want to grow roses instead of weeds.
(Oh, now I get it. That's what the W stands for!)
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
27 Comments so far
Show AllWow! The speed at which these blogs go dormant, their circuits going silent, is an amazing reflection of the blinding pace at which modern society is careening forward.
That said, I'm going to put down a few final thoughts in response to Dr. Green's reminder: "It Ain't for Free." (which I interpret to gently suggest that we need to get off our collective asses, and give a little, for Gods sakes!).
I'm not trying to be obscure here. Rather, I'm working to articulate, however haltingly, a perspective that I feel has great value, but is seldom discussed.
For sure, there is an abundance of nitty-gritty political work to be done in the external world (That's where politics happens, right?) It seems that, at least here, on Common Dreams, the roles of self-knowledge, intuitive awareness, and inwardness are given much less consideration.
Yet, how is it that we know what action to take, which cause to support, and how to craft our actions so they have as much impact as possible?
How many of us have begun working on a cause, only to become disenchanted, and sooner or later, ending our involvement with it? What about getting immersed in political action, only to find that the whole thing simply feeling "off," (for any number of reasons)… or that we, somehow, were "off?" ….. And again, moving on to greener pastures…
In the East there is a the idea of "Dharma." While the concept itself has a great many uses (and misuses) – one sense is that it refers to actions that are in harmony with the person you are. Years ago while sitting in the dentist's chair I looked up, (not an uncommon position in that circumstance) only to notice a poster stuck to the ceiling, which read: "Be true to your teeth, or they will be false to you." (Yuk, Yuk, I know, but the message did stay with me!)
At this level the idea of "doing one's dharma" involves getting real. It means that I seek to do what is "fitting" or appropriate for who I am at each given moment. This means assessing my particular skills, talents, and preferences, as well as limitations or liabilities. I need to be clear about how additional political involvement will affect my present responsibilities and obligations, as well as the leisure activities, which may need to be reduced or relinquished for a time. How much energy can I realistically commit without burning out or otherwise giving shorter shrift to issues of livelihood, family, friends, recreation, and simple rest?
But "Dharma" contains other meanings as well. It connotes not only performing actions that are in harmony with one's uniqueness, but also that whatever one does also synergistically contributes to universal harmony as well. It is possible, after all, to relieve short-term suffering with one hand, while unknowing adding more suffering in the long run. Here, the intuitive mind, with its capacity to grasp the "gestalt" or "total picture," is comes in handy.
Sound like a big order?
Could be… for at this level of action (if we want to be optimally effective in addressing injustice and misuse of power) – we need to allow our consciousness to evolve, to deepen and expand.
To begin to grasp these ideas we can turn to Gandhi, a man who found a way to blend inner spiritual work, sensitivity to the poor and disenfranchised, and simultaneously - highly skillful, strategic, nonviolent, political action. The touchstone for his pioneering work was the Bhagavad Gita, or "Song of God," one of India's holiest books.
The Gita instructs those of us who seek to relieve suffering – both our own, and that of others – to 1) be passionately involved in service we perform, while 2) at the same time remaining unattached to final outcomes, and 3) not identifying with being the "do-er" of the action.
Admittedly, to our individualistic, accomplishment-oriented western minds, such notions can seem like utterly irrelevant mumbo-jumbo. However, if it is effectiveness we are after, can we simply close off unfamiliar ideas without contemplating them with a sense of humility?
It certainly can be challenging to reflect upon, not to mention incorporate, such a stance, for it implies an awareness of the context of action, which is often beyond our usual level of consciousness. And this is where quieting the mind and meditation become very relevant. As greater insight comes into play, we can, from a place of stillness, begin to see more plainly whether the action we are considering will lead to more confusion or more clarity. Greater peace or greater division.
--- On the value of intuitively perceiving the larger human/ecological/political situation – before, after, and during our deeds (the getting off our asses part} ---
--- From one of ancient China's most revered books of wisdom, the Tao Te Ching –another way of articulating this way of being ---
"Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Until the right action arises by itself?"
Sorry about the SiouxRose paste stickin' around at the end of mine. Somehow the edit function here didn't work. Mine ends, "Marshal Law, anyone?"
Until we take back our elections -- make them completely publicly funded, demand that those who make billions from our public airwaves give us back a little dividend in the form of free debates and one commercial per candidate (if they only get one -- they would probably not waste it on negative campaigning), no more black box voting, and firmly limit how much one can spend (including pacs, parties, etc)so that the oligarchs don't have any advantage over the regular folks. Take the whole money thing out of the equation. Insist on some degree of a fairness doctrine for those who use our airwaves (for example, they don't get to declare who the "leaders" are before an election). And place a ban on reporting "polls" for a month before the election. Then we might have a fighting chance of making some of the very important reforms people have talked about here.
But for now, our Supreme Court calls money around campaigns "speech" and deems it protected by the First Amendment. I would say that money can be speech in some circumstances (i.e. voting with your dollars), but when it comes to elections, what we call "campaign financing" most other democracies (rightly) call "bribery" or "buying influence".
Ipenek wrote:
"Democracy was supposed to cast us all irrevocably into the role of adult, but that doesn't seem to have been the case.
"We can start by asking why anyone ever becomes an adult. Out of necessity? Certainly a part of us all wants to stay child forever."
Great points. There really are so many forces that contribute to any human attaining something akin to real emotional/cognitive and spiritual maturity --- or lack thereof!
Certainly, our primary/secondary educational system with its emphasis on "obedience" and "rote learning" starts us off on a childish footing. Then there is that little matter of our parents as role models. Most often the system has done such a fine job with them before we arrived, that emotionally they are essentially "adult children."
I also recall reading Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835,40). While praising much that he found in American democracy, he also cautioned that our system has a tendency to degenerate into a "despotism of public opinion," or tyranny of majority.
He also decried a certain absence of intellectual freedom (replaced by "conformist trends") which seemed to degrade statesmanship and learning. A very keen and prescient observer, he expressed real reservations about the public discourse sinking to the level of the lowest common denominator, and the judgment of the wise subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant.
Hmmmm...sounds strangely familiar!
Lakoff's ideas definitely fit here. It's obvious from W's upbringing where he got his opinion that the presidency basically means "father of the US." How else would anyone raised by HW and Bar turn out? It's less obvious why Americans put up with it. Siouxrose is right that fundy Christianity plays a huge role. I once read that pervasive child abuse in the Weimar Republic psychologically paved the way for Der Fuhrer.
As a group Americans aren't really supposed to be authority seekers, at least that's not what our image suggests. We're supposed to be tough John Wayne's and Kate Hepburn's.
Power of Love offers, ""Anyone who has studied Dr Eric Berne and his T.A. [Transactional Analysis], will know of the P.A.C. (Parent, Adult, Child) relationship, wherein anyone 'pulling rank' as a 'Parent' figure, -tends to cast his / her peers into 'Child' mode." You mentioned the "art" of crossover tactics, well, place this quote into context with insights drawn from two important thinkers of our times: George Lakoff and John Dean. Their basic contexts overlap. Lakoff has illustrated the influence of the strict-father family model and how easily it dovetails with conservative thinking. John Dean illustrated (in "Conservatives without Conscience") psychology based behavioral models that point to a type of individual GEARED towards authoritarianism, which is a fancy way of saying, they want a father figure (new fuhrer) to fix things, like their own lives. The powerful reach of fundamentalist Christianity (it would not bear mentioning were it not the staple support system behind Bush-the-terrible) utilizes both, and that's why there was a ready fodder of followers to populate this dangerous group.
Although I will not go into it today, I am a firm believer that individuals are born with certain pre-set qualities on the basis of their birth blueprints. Some are natural leaders and rebels, others are easier followers. Many factors have coalesced to bring America to where it is today; but as I have offered in prior forums, the OLD solutions cannot work because mankind (and this nation is a key player) is at the forefront of a powerful paradigm shift. Anyone ever heard of "The Aquarian Conspiracy" by Marilyn Ferguson? I'll save my left brain critics from sharing the many prophesies relative to THIS time period and what we, as its human players, elect to do with our power(s) of intent.
I just reread my post and it occurs to me, sticking out like a sore thumb, that "rule enforcement" is a parent's trait. Funny how easy it is to fall into the same old traps. It also occurs to me how tenuous is the role "adult," one that I'm not sure government will ever maintain.
PowerofLove:
That is the key question, isn't it? And I think that's what Prof. Green is getting at when he says that Americans are increasingly "asleep at the wheel." Democracy was supposed to cast us all irrevocably into the role of adult, but that doesn't seem to have been the case.
We can start by asking why anyone ever becomes an adult. Out of necessity? Certainly a part of us all wants to stay child forever.
I kind of view the 60's as an aborted adolescence. People began to demonstrate a recalcitrance to authority per se and started to question the veracity of the facts fed them. Unfortunately, the faux parental authority of the Reagan era put an end to it. I don't really think the 60's progressed to the "adult" stage (tho I was born in '62 and am no expert).
In my opinion to be an adult not only means recognizing the facts, not only means taking responsibility, but also -- and I hate to say this but maybe that's part of the problem -- the willingness to enforce what is right. Being adult means laying down the law, and that's a hard point for many left-leaning people. In addition to all its bad connotation, enforcing justice also means telling companies they can't pollute rivers, means telling the President he can't wage illegal war, etc. So, to live in a world that we want means we have to be adult AND accept the implications.
Have responses. Will Travel.
There's a bunch of thoughts I'd like to think out loud about, and I have a feeling it's going to take more than one post!
First, as always, a heart-felt thank you to Professor Green. Someday, perhaps you'll share some reflections on just "how" you got to your current level of "political clear-sightedness" and verbal incisiveness. Good sir you have an excellent bullshit detector, to say the least.
I also would like to post a "crossover" response from Lucinda Marshall's 6/24 column, "Re-thinking Patriotism." The comments page there has at last gone dormant, after many fiery posts and a virtual "paradigm war."
Thank you to "lpenek" for your kind words. I'd also like to share a response to that column by "UN common-dreams." I am reminded that - in terms of political effectiveness, and at the broadest level, relief of human suffering – many perspectives are needed. And there is no doubt that we need to be able to "think outside the box." Here's one:
"I have a notion the this 'patriot' thing is closely associated with the duping of childlike minds by coercive and mendacious 'parental' figures who've wormed their way to the top of the societal / political dung heap.
"Anyone who has studied Dr Eric Berne and his T.A. [Transactional Analysis], will know of the P.A.C. (Parent, Adult, Child) relationship, wherein anyone 'pulling rank' as a 'Parent' figure, -tends to cast his / her peers into 'Child' mode.
[for further reading see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_%28book%29]
"Government figures, especially the worst of the breed, use this knowledge to their full and selfish advantage, and so manipulate their 'children' (-eg: we the electorate) by first trying to scare us with inflated *bogeyman* threats, and then pretending to be the 'rescuing' parent who will 'guard against all ills', (-even as they are secretly misappropriating various…funds!)"
Now, thinking longer term, I wonder what it's going to take for a majority of Americans in particular to mature to an "adult" level?
I keep reading that we need and want change, and that neither party is offering us this. Perhaps, then, the first things to change are the parties. Of the two larger parties at this time, the Democratic Party, having failed miserable when given control of Congress, seems the most likely to undergo effective change. Joining that party, however, is not enough. One must actively engage it, especially at the local level. Blogs may soothe our angered souls, but they won't produce the changes we seek.
BugsBBunny
I write to the Washington Post because they have articles by neocons. They seem to be very inbred and talking among themselves. When they write a column cricitizing Cheney I write a letter of support. For example:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702234.html
Cheney Unbound
By David S. Broder
Thursday, June 28, 2007
"Later, when presidential candidate George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney as his running mate, I applauded the choice, thinking that Cheney would fill the role Alexander had outlined. Boy, was I wrong." quote from Broder
Before the war I wrote letters that were angry and ridiculed them. Now I try to write more fact based letters, but probably the anger still comes out in my writing.
Imo its better not to show anger and just to give facts that would lead towards your opinion.
(But I am very angry about what these people have done to the US system of government and angry about the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.)
Colleen found a way both resourceful and effective. Write somebody. An editor, a politician...yeah yeah we know...but how about writing a local politician, the PTA, the pastor, the classroom teacher of your child as well as writing the noted commentator or pundit. Do you want to be heard? Talk is cheap! However, letters make someone feel like they should be answered.At least they read them. A letter represents time and effort and earns courtesy from most people , even if only they opened it and read some or all of it. Talking amongst your family and friends may be noisy but in the corridors of power, it is only silence. Amid silence ...all can go on as before, undisturbed but start banging on the door and it...wakes people up. Colleen found a workable way in her busy life yet it allows her the knowledge that she is making that much of a difference, when she knows her thoughts and concerns were read by someone she wanted to express them to. Can you say the same? Good for Colleen. Imagine the powers that be saying > "I'm getting more letters, they're catching on to this issue! We have to do something, all this could be affecting my image. I'm getting too many letters, I'm going to have to prepare a position!" To hear nothing but silence only makes a thief more enthusiastic and confident that he can get away with whatever he is doing. Seems nobody ever said a word. Except Colleen...lol. Yay Colleen. An idea. What idea? To get them to answer her of course!
IMHO the problem with America is rampant corporatism, a malignant entity the Founding Fathers never envisioned. They make the FF's seem like the Foundering Fathers these days. Corporations have the rights of individuals, are immensely rich and powerful, and worst of all, live essentially forever, except when they become suicidal, like Enron did. Unfortunately, they often go mad in the end and take many human lives with them.
To be a bit graphic, if we castrate the Corporation, will will effectively solve 80% of the world's problems.
The mirror image of this idea is that the FF's also never imagined that unprincipled scum like Bush/Cheney would ever be allowed to ascend to the highest offices of government. The Constitution does provide for such malfeasance, but doesn't make action mandatory, as it should have. And Bush/Cheney have scaled to dizzy heights aided by corporate interests that knew they would profit from it. They would never have made it on their own merit.
The die is cast. No grass-roots action can dislodge the powers that now hold sway over this country. Revolution? Forget it, they have all the big guns. So far as I can see, the machinations of the federal government no longer pertain to ordinary people. Their warmaking will continue, their relentless exploitation of resources worldwide -- both human and material -- will continue as these Balrogs-of-Morgoth visit darkness across the world in pursuit of total control of everything. The situation has gone too far for any of the remediation contemplated here. The only way this period of our history will end on a positive note is with a massive dislocation such as the Great Depression, that brought in the New Deal, and the rise of the biggest middle class the history of the world has ever known. That ended the first Gilded Age, the second of which we now have entered. Of course, as all here know, aspiring to restore the American middle class and therefrom proceeding along in biz-as-usual fashion is not going to work, because the planet will not support our wasteful lifestyle, especially (happening now) Chinese and Indians by the billions are aspiring to have a similar, consumer-oriented, resource-intensive lifestyle. From this I can only conclude that the species is going to vanish in a paroxism of war, hardened bacteria, mutated genetic viruses, or in combination. So it is then up to us to make the environment in our immediate vicinity as positive as possible. We can work toward local independence from the big corporations through the institution of food coops, through more sensible living arrangements that are much less dependent on long commutes and the like. And perhaps we can instigate a large movement which refuses to pay any taxes to the federal government. That, in fact, might be the only sort of mass action that might move things in a better direction, but it would require a leader with the charisma of a Gandhi to pull it off. Any volunteers for the job out there?
It may be that some of the people who get involved with political or moral causes will never see the ends they are working for.
There were women who fought for the vote and suffered a great deal to bring that issue to the forefront and died before they saw one woman vote. Americans still do not recognize the intense struggle that occured to bring the vote to women.
The injustices in America have been minimized and the sacrifices to end injustice have been ignored in our education as a nation.
Historically people have had to go through great suffering sometimes to work towards justice and morality. They work under a set of principles or views that drives them in their cause imo.
In America we are so accustomed to leading an easy life. We watch films and tv shows where the good win and live happy lives at the end of the story.
The reality is that most people have historically led very difficult lives and some have made sacrifices so that we today would have the laws that protect us from the excesses of leaders like Cheney. Those laws like habeas corpus are being dismantled.
I think we are all hoping that the Bush administration can be stopped by people with power within our government. Right now we can support those people who I believe are positioning themselves to take back power from Cheney and his thugs. Any one who opposes Cheney should be encouraged.
We need to support the FCC chairmen who want to bring us news that is not produced by wealthy corporations. Write to the FCC and tell them you know we are not receiving basic information from the news casts on tv, information we need to make decisions for our nation as its citizens. There are two men on the FCC who are fighting for us against the odds. This is a battle going on now and we can help by writing in support of local ownership for our media. These are the good guys: Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein and they are fighting for us and our nation. Help them and write to the FCC.
We can help with writing letters, giving money to organizations, by talking to others, by networking. Moveon is a group that has been very effective.
Maybe we expect it to be too easy. These problems in America have been growing since WWII and maybe before that.
I write to columnists at the Washington Post and I have recieved replies from some occasionally. They are reading what I am writing and maybe in some small way I am edging the dialogue a little in the direction I believe is moral.
We may never see the America that has been promised to us, but we can each do something to help make America a better nation in some way. And some of us may never see the effects of their hard work, but if you believe it is right then you should speak out.
I do agree that striving to understand how decisions are made in our government and why is crucial for effectively engaging in the political process. This search for understanding, in my opinion, is a kind of political activism and civic participation and something to be very proud of.
And still, as important as it is to gain insight into the systemic relationships 'out there,' an equally vital requisite for more peace and justice may be more understanding 'in here.' In other words, self-reflection on the motivations inherent in one's own actions.
Much of the political dialogue seems to be orientated to formulating knowledge about and opinions on what's going on out there in society and the world.
I also would suggest that a sort of inward activism-looking into the beliefs that support one's image and identity-may be very helpful, and perhaps even essential, for more peace to be present throughout the world.
Americans are so far in debt that any ripple in the waters of the US economy will put tens of thousands out on the street within 90 days.
2/3's of Americans have a negative net worth. Each day that number gets larger.
So when each and every day our workers go to work to make the next payment, it is very hard for me to see political action coming from them.
I
Plenty of patriotic blood has been shed, all we need to do is slaughter a few of the abundant supply of tyrants.
Then as the quote says: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants".
That tree would grow like gangbusters.
Bobbi, too bad we do not have vouchers, that would end the public education problem.
"I don't know if there was conspiratorial project to dumb down the American educational system to the point where its products are incapable of thinking critically about politics..."
In point of fact, the American public educational system has ALWAYS been such a "conspiratorial project." Read some nineteenth-century writings on said project if you want the truth: American public education was meant to create docile workers--you know, the kind who won't ask questions or form unions, but cheerfully (even enthusiastically!) allow themselves to be pi$$ed on by the rich and powerful.
Bush's lust for wealth and power does not stop at the American border, he is not going to be happy with just robbing America's middle class and working poor; to paraphrase Jim Morrison "Bush wants the world and he wants it now".
Remember that the NeoCon doctrine of a New American Century also requires that the United States prevent any other nation from obtaining enough power to challenge American hegemony and both China, with their massive economic growth and Russia, with their vast energy resources, are both poised to counter America as the world's only superpower in the next decade.
Bush's co-elitists, the Saudi Royals, desperately need Bush to bomb Iran back to the Bronze Age since Bush's Iraqi adventure has gone to hell in a hand cart, but Iran happens to be a client state of China and Russia. An attack on Iran is also a priority of AIPAC as Israel considers Iran "an existential threat." Am I the only person who's picked up a recent media meme on how China is poisoning our pets, our seafood and our kids? Does anybody think that President Bush is frantically trying to place anti-missile missiles in Poland to stop an Iranian missile that's not yet been built and the Iranian nuclear warhead to place atop that missile is 10 years from being miniaturized?
China, since they hold vast quantities of dollars, could retaliate by destroying the dollar if the U.S. decides to take out Iran, I suspect that the recent media coverage of suspect products from China is designed to make the sheeple think that screwing China is acceptable because they sold us some tainted pet food.
The depraved President Bush knows that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons are the largest on the planet, and due to some questionable opinions published a while back in Foreign Affairs it's possible that Bush thinks the U.S. could win a nuclear first strike against Russia and China.
The geography of Iran, with Tehran located 800 miles inland from America's Aircraft Carriers, should they be foolish enough to launch an attack from the Persian Gulf, makes conventional "shock and awe" logistically difficult, to avoid being trapped in the Gulf American planes would have to fly over more than a thousand miles of enemy territory if launched from the northern Arabian Sea. The closest airfield that the U.S. could use in an attack on Iran, Diego Garcia, is about 3,500 miles from Tehran.
A few hundred cruise missiles tipped with conventional bombs won't provide the type of societal destruction required to keep Iran's Shia from dominating the Middle East. Because the Saudi's require that Iran be decimated, and because genocide will be required to capture the oil fields of Iran, to be "successful" an American attack on Iran would be with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles.
Iran has a fleet of anti-ship cruise missiles capable of blockading the Straits of Hormuz, a thirty seven mile wide passage that a quarter of the world's crude oil flows through every day. Iran's mountainous Persian Gulf shoreline is the perfect terrain to hide these anti-ship missiles. Any attack on Iran must include a way to neutralize these missiles. The only tactic that I can think of to neutralize these missiles would be to carpet nuke an area the size of Wisconsin along Iran's gulf shore.
I have no doubt that if Bush does launch an attack against Iran and tries to take out Russia and China's nuclear arsenal Bush will also declare a State of Emergency, suspend habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, ban anti-war and anti-Bush protests and implement martial law.
And why is it that some part of my brain is thinking that the massive amounts of depleted uranium that the United States has released in Iraq since 1990 have also served as a real world experiment on the toxic effects of wide spread nuclear war?
HOW ?
How can we have a birthday celebration that is about freedom when fear is the motivating factor of a nebulous security outside the protection of the Constitution?
With a patriot act and a military commissions act to lead the way to tyranny; is this cause for celebration or for reflection on what we would give away since that first birthday?
Do we have the right , yea , the moral right to give away what belongs to our children and generations into the future? It was given to us to pass on, used but intact, It is our obligation.
When it comes to the Constitution "nothing should be off the table". To use this rational for war but not for the Constitution is obscene to the extreme.
Reflect on our obligations that go along with the rights written all these many years ago.
Tony 6/29/07
LeeAnnG....your experience is not unique and i find myself equally frustrated but you answered your own question. Voltaire had a point! Cultivate your own garden and encourage others to do the same.....i would argue that you don't have to give up your life for causes...life is the cause. what you protested and fight for now, by being concerned about ecology, reducing consumption, being honest, even by commenting here, contributes to the progress of humanity...don't despair, it will all work out in the end!
All in all, this was a great article with one exception - there were no concrete suggestions for getting involved. What does Green expect people to do? I was absolutely aware from the very beginning that Bush and his cohorts were dangerous. I knew when 9/11 happened that he would use the occasion to further his agenda. I was opposed to the war and attended no less than 6 or 7 war protests, locally and in D.C., before and after the invasion. I wrote letters to my representatives in congress and to the newspaper on a regular basis. I signed petitions, even when others said it was futile because no one reads them. I spoke out against the war and the policies of the government to as many people as I could think of.
I read countless articles in as many places as I could find in order to understand what was going on, and I tried to explain it to those of my acquaintances on the other side of the political spectrum. I've studied the candidates and know the names of the big players on the world stage. But even if every American worker knows the real truth, can the engines of power be stopped?
I have good friends in Pennsylvania who were tireless environmental activists including Vicki Smedley, who ran for Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania on the green ticket during the last election. Her entire life and her husband's were taken up by their activities, and it exhausted them.
My progressive friends and I attempt to talk to others about the political situation in this country, the poor quality of education, and other important issues. However, becoming deeply involved in ways such as running for local offices like the school board or joining movements takes awesome amounts of time. I've read recently that most activists have no other life except for their activism. That is what happened the Smedleys. Although they did much good, the amount of time and energy they spent did not really generate corresponding results.
At some point, when we have done our Candide impersonation, when we have attempted to make a difference, even as we try to live the mundane, non-political parts of our lives in a productive manner, we come to the realization that it has not made an appreciable difference. It's easy to say, "well, it's not enough. So big deal, you wrote letters, attended protests, talked to people, set an example - you just didn't try hard enough in the right way."
I have to make a living, spend time with my family and friends, create art, play music, and maintain my home. In addition, I grow almost all my own vegetables, buy locally as much as possible, and attempt to live an ecologically sound lifestyle. I try to set an example of honesty, integrity, and empathy.
Knowing the issues and voting right are certainly not going to change anything. Going to protests, writing letters, joining small anti-war groups, talking to people about what's happening - even these things take phenomenal efforts. So, are there any sound, realistic suggestions about what an individual can do aside from running for office, which most of use are truly not cut out to do, or giving up the rest of our lives to causes?
When all is said and done, I've come to the same conclusion as Voltaire. It is not the best of all possible worlds, there's not much we can do to change that, so cultivate your own garden and do the best you can.
"And who could blame the public for wondering whether there's any substantial difference between the party of Tweedledee and the party of Tweedledum?"
Indeed!
Here's a relevant passage from John Marciano's take on the true nature of bi-partisanism:
"In an article on "The Bi-Partisan Empire" for ZNET, [Robert] Jensen claims rightly that "Illegal and immoral U.S. aggression is, and always has been, a bipartisan affair. Democrats and liberals are responsible for their share of the death, destruction, and misery caused by U.S. empire building along with Republicans and conservatives."
Although he admits that the current Bush regime and the neocons "are A problem, they are not THE problem. Sweep this particular gang of thugs and thieves out of office, and … what? A kinder and gentler imperial policy designed by Democrats is still an imperial policy, and imperial policies always have the same result: The suffering of millions — others that are, too often, invisible to us — in support of policies that protect our affluence."
His arguments about the imperialist policies of the so-called opposition party currently out of power, the Democrats, make progressives uncomfortable. But these arguments must be confronted, for his essential charge is absolutely true: "The political elites of the United States of America are united in their acceptance of [empire]…. Whatever their particular policy proposals, they all lie about the nature of the system that has produced U.S. power and affluence. They all invoke mythical notions of the fundamental decency of the United States. And because of that, they all are part of the problem" which is inherent to empire: "… no imperial nation-state has ever had any fundamental decency. The rich First World nations of this world got rich through violence and theft." "
Think "third party," folks. (Either that or armed revolution. Those second amendment rights weren't meant for rabbit hunting.) It's the only thing that will save what's left of your democracy.
Prof. Green is correct (as usual).....get off your couch, get involved, get engaged, connect the grassroots! It will scare the hell out of the political ruling elite.....
Siouxrose:
Appreciated your thoughts. I vrey much agree that Lakoff's and Dean's recent writing has much to teach us at this time. I see the presence (and pervasiveness) of cognitive/emotional authoritarianism as one of the primary elements of American regressiveness. You may be interested in checking out Bob Altemeyer's (Dean's primary source on the topic) book - The Authoritarians.
And yes, I am familiar with Ferguson's book. I have also found The Paradigm Conspiracy by Breton and Largent to be very interesting book on what is at stake in terms of current paradigm shifts.
While I do think that we are in a time of rapid change and that fundamental structures of thought are under siege by powerful forces of human awakening (analogous to a flood of awareness), there are no guarantees that the new - by this I mean "progessive" - will claim the day--- either in the short- or the long-run.
I always try to remember that the term "transformation" can occur in either a "forward-looking" or backward dimension. Many people who post here are aware of the real potential for some form of American (or world-wide) plutocratic fascism to win the day.
Marshall Law anyone?
place this quote into context with insights drawn from two important thinkers of our times: George Lakoff and John Dean. Their basic contexts overlap. Lakoff has illustrated the influence of the strict-father family model and how easily it dovetails with conservative thinking. John Dean illustrated (in "Conservatives without Conscience") psychology based behavioral models that point to a type of individual GEARED towards authoritarianism, which is a fancy way of saying, they want a father figure (new fuhrer) to fix things, like their own lives. The powerful reach of fundamentalist Christianity (it would not bear mentioning were it not the staple support system behind Bush-the-terrible) utilizes both, and that's why there was a ready fodder of followers to populate this dangerous group.
Although I will not go into it today, I am a firm believer that individuals are born with certain pre-set qualities on the basis of their birth blueprints. Some are natural leaders and rebels, others are easier followers. Many factors have coalesced to bring America to where it is today; but as I have offered in prior forums, the OLD solutions cannot work because mankind (and this nation is a key player) is at the forefront of a powerful paradigm shift. Anyone ever heard of "The Aquarian Conspiracy" by Marilyn Ferguson? I'll save my left brain critics from sharing the many prophesies relative to THIS time period and what we, as its human players, elect to do with our power(s) of intent.