This is a series of musings, on the theme, "What's Spiritually Wrong With America." The series will be published in installments here. In each installment, whatever is new will be in bold, while the earlier installment(s) will be in lighter font.
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WHAT IS SPIRITUALLY WRONG WITH AMERICA, THAT THE AMERICAN SYSTEM COULD NOT PROTECT ITSELF BETTER AGAINST THESE BUSHITE FORCES?
Are we to believe that things could have happened like this --that a criminal regime of this sort could endure, not signficantly confronted-- at just ANY time in American history?
One thing we know: there hs NEVER been such a pervasive pattern of lies and crimes in the American presidency as with this Bushite bunch.
Here we have a list of scandals –some of them profound scandals– that sometimes gets to seem like almost every day brings a new one. And --still-- America deals with this administration as if it were a genuine presidency, as if it were more than a bunch of criminal suspects.
What does it say about the state of the country that we have not reached consensus on regarding this regime as criminal and fascist and downright evil, and has not used the mechanism designed for the nation to defend itself from this kind of usurpatious power.
It is not clear if the battle against the Bushites COULD be won. If this battle IS winnable, but is just not being fought, what does it say about the spiritual state of America that the system has failed to do what it was supposed to be designed to do?
The battle must be fought somewhere, or it will be lost. John Cochrane wrote in a comment: "When the most powerful nation in the world abandons the principles that require a prisoner to receive a fair trial and hearing within a reasonable time all of us might note that what happens to them today may happen to us tomorrow.”
To which I respond: Yes, the nature of the forces behind this Bushite regime is that there is no limit to how much power they would seek, no point at which they would not push toward complete power. So there is no truce line between allowing their violation of the detainees rights and their marching further and violating ours. You’re right, John.
The battle must be fought, and quite likely it is better to fight it sooner rather than later.
So why does America not more forcefully confront this regime? What is the spiritual defect that could explain this failure?
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
Perhaps it would mean being willing to run for office yourself.
Perhaps it would mean working hard to support someone for office who you believe is made of the right stuff.
Why don't people do that....
Well, they don't believe they could win.
They don't believe a worthy candidate could win.
They're afraid that if they put out the effort to support an independent candidate that it would end up supporting their worst nightmare.
All of these considerations are valid. Trying to change things is an uncertain risky business. One person with a gun can stand off a crowd of people because even though the group could take him out, each person realizes that he or she might get hurt.
No incumbent congressperson is willing to defend the Constitution because they fear it will lose them their job and they're not even sure they would succeed. Of course, that's the same dilemma a soldier faces when he or she enters a battle. Apparently moral courage is more rare than physical courage. A lot of people are more afraid of losing face, status or financial security, then they are their lives.
Another problem is... fighting city hall is an uphill battle that you have only a slim chance of winning a lot of ways to get hurt, particularly now. Looking back at the revolutionary war a lot of people did get hurt, including some of those who signed the Declaration of Independence.
Having courage is a lot easier when you have company; not so easy when you believe you are pretty much alone or don't know if anyone will support you.
I guess that brings you back to your original question.
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Mark A. Goldman (80 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 242 comments)
on Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 2:25:56 PM
As for isolation, for the citizenry, fortunately there are places like this that tell us that we are not alone.
But where the courage has been lacking, it seems that the Congress is where the ball got handed off in November of 2006, and then went nowhere. That's where the dearth of heroism has been most blatant.
Does Wellstone go far to explain this dearth?
Wellstone may be dead (and I've heard the rumors), but look at how many other people who have spoken up boldly (and a lot more aggressively against the BUshite evil than Wellstone, who after all died in October of 2002, before the criminality of the regime was nearly so evident), who are still alive: Olbrmann, Feingold, Krugman, Paul Craig Roberts, Glenn Greenwald, Chris Dodd (this week) and many, many others.
This is not like Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia in terms of how much courage it would take --or how surely one would be destroyed, or how long one would last-- to stand up to the Bushite regime.
I do not think the level of apparent fear on the part of our so-called leaders is so easily explained.
At the worst, a person in Congress, in standing up to honor his or her oath of office, might be inviting upon themselves the fate of a Max Cleland in the election of 2002. He was "bumped off" politically, but he lived to denounce the Bushites in the campaign of 2004.
I don't know just what Cleland would say about how terrible a fate it is to be defeated by the regime in an election, but my bet is that compared to the kind of danger and terrible fate that led Cleland to leave three of his four limbs in Vietnam, being sent back to private life is not the most frightening fate a human being can confront.
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (297 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 140 comments)
on Thursday, December 20, 2007 at 3:14:39 PM
This article raises a question that I have asked myself over and over--why is it that 40 years ago, so many Americans took to the streets to demonstrate against the Vietnam war while the anti-Iraq war activity is so limited this time?
isit only because there is no draft--the nearly 4000 killed come mostly from the lower income strata of society.Or because we are still far from the 60 000 mark?
I don't think so. Not only we might have lost our pride, our sense of the heroic, as Mr. Andrew Bard Schmookler argues convincingly but wehave lost hope.
After the historical defeat of socialism, under it's two main forms--communism and European social democracy--there is the feeling that ruthless globalized capitalism has the world in its grip, and that there is no other alternative.
And this new form of capitalism seems to bring about a regression of democracy everywhere it has taken over.
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 299 comments)
on Friday, December 21, 2007 at 7:29:19 AM
