I keep reading all kinds of commentators saying, "get over it, we lost, now let's get moving again." They suggest we start organizing again, start writing letters, talking to neighbors, etc. I read about strategies to attract the red-state poor, the red-neck, red-state, wal-mart-shoppin' bigots who voted against gay marriage and for a ban on abortion, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm sorry. It's not going to be as easy as just re-framing the message by saying different words.
To me, the damage is done. The pill has been swallowed and the majority of the country no longer values anything that I value. The streak of anti-intellectualism, anti-tolerance, anti-enlightenment values is now strong and engrained. Shakespeare is a dirty word to be sneered at, and "morals" is equivalent to shuttered, narrow-minded bigotry of the worst kind cloaked in an aura of Jesus-ness that is sickening and hypocritical at its base.
I used to feel like I could move between city and country, between rural and urban, between the hills of Southern Indiana and the streets of Paris. Now, I don't trust in the "salt-of-the-earth values" of the rural Midwest anymore. The drive for progressive values of helping our neighbor, ensuring a minimum level of living, of clothing the naked and feeding the hungry has been replaced with an overwhelming drive to purge the infidel, convert the wicked and chastise the unclean. We have moved from a New Testament liberal society of love your neighbor, to an Old Testament theocracy of follow my laws or feel my wrath. It's not a true theocracy yet, but the field has been prepared and the seeds have been sown. We're just now seeing the first full crop of this harvest of hate and ignorance.
What do we do? I don't know. I grew up in Indiana with roots in the rolling hills of the south but the education and outlook of the city. I've loved the green fields of soybeans, the smell of cow manure and the cool dimness of a barn. I respected the independence and self-reliance of the farmer, the small-town business person who work hard for their living. Unfortunately, I no longer trust these old images. These are the people who have accepted this apocalyptic vision of our country. These are the people who watch reality TV avidly while scorning anything that smacks of higher learning, culture or improving themselves.
My great-aunt was a librarian in a very small town in south-eastern Indiana. The people in the town respected her and valued their small library. She suggested they read the classics and they did. She was active in Democratic politics and was a regular correspondent with her senator, Birch Bayh.
Now, that same town is full of pickups with Bush/Cheney stickers and people talk about the horrors of late-term abortion and the wrongness of gay marriage. They no longer talk about how to cultivate what's best in ourselves. Instead, they obsess about what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with their neighbors. They focus on how we can visit Old Testament judgment on those who are different, rather than how we can use New Testament compassion to help those who are in need.
This is not a condemnation of those people in that small town. This is not a condemnation of all people in all red states. I live in a red state and worked hard alongside many others of like mind to do what we could for this election because we believed this was a fork in the road of our country.
Instead, this is a questioning. I wonder how we can reverse decades of hate, of ignorance, of teaching people about the God of Vengeance, the God of Enforcement of the Laws, instead of the God of Compassion who notes the fall of every sparrow, the God who said that so as you treat the least of my brethren, so you treat me. How do we bring this back as the God of our public discourse? We are a religious nation, but we've forgotten whole sections of the Bible while listening to those who are only interested in obedience and power. Just to set the record straight, I'm not Christian, nor am I Jewish or Muslim. I use the language of the Bible because that is the language that most people who voted for Bush will respond to. That is the language not only of vengeance and laws, but also the language of compassion, tolerance and acceptance. We need to bring that other language back into our discourse, back into our lives and we need to be the people of those values, of that language no matter what our personal religion may be. Because, in the end, the values of compassion, courage, tolerance and mercy are not Christian values, or Jewish values or even Muslim values, they are human values that are shared across all religions, if you only look for it.
I want so much to believe that we can turn this around, that we can promote and bring back into legitimacy the values of the Bible of compassion, rather than the Bible of wrath. But, frankly, I don't see how it can be done. I'm looking for someone to show me the way, to help me see the direction and actions we need to do. Give me work and I will work. Give me only words and no direction and I will listen but not achieve anything. Who will give us the work?
Plane Crazy
Still in pain for my country
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Revised:
I'm starting to believe, and at this point I don't know whether I'm seeing more clearly, or just wishing, is that this administration will do one of two things depending on which power group gains the upper hand.
1. As I've expressed elsewhere, if Bush really turns out to be the friend of the dominionists that he implies that he is, he'll try and move us towards a theocracy by appointing the "right" judges and getting the moderate republicans marginalized and eventually replaced. It won't happen overnight, and they can't move too quickly on the agenda, but there will have to be a wide-spread indoctrination of the populace as well.
2. What I'm starting to believe (hope? fear?) is that he will jettison the religious factions altogether while still paying lip service, and move the country to the kleptocracy he really wants. His first speech mentioned those things nearest and dearest to his heart and they were all economic measures. And then getting rid of Ashcroft who would have been a willing sword of justice in the panopoly of the Christian Nation, doesn't look like a move towards theocracy.
Of course, as they say, know the tree by its fruit. I'll have to wait and see what the buds look like before I decide if they're apples or figs.
Plane Crazy
Full of fear, anger and dispair these days and more vigilant than ever. Hope came not to these shores of a blue island in the midst of a red sea.