by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
September 15, 2003 There is Another Way, Another Voice The first clouds of the long rain cover the northwest sky today. There will be a few more brilliant blue days of high pressure and warm sun, but when the first blanket is drawn over the valley from the Pacific coast to the Cascades, summer is over and the dominant color will soon be gray. Perhaps the insulation from the sun is dampening my mood, but witnessing the degradation of our national will into the blunt cycloptic force of a military hammer I fear what lies before us. My hope is that the credit lines behind our articles of national faith are on margin call in the fall of Iraq from one of the most educated countries in the mid-East into primeval chaos and anarchic terror; of the re-emergence of Afghanistan into the world leader in opium production and feudal oppressor of free thought; of Israel transmuted from a “light unto the people” to an instrument for brutality and draconian self-fulfilling paranoia that publicly espouses assassination as a legitimate policy tool. What are at risk are the ancient yet oddly modern beliefs that the belligerence and violence of conquest are honorable, that non-relational power over is power, that accusation may replace intelligence, in summary that the patriarchal hierarchy is a viable form for the evolution of life, even human life, on Earth. The trial of President Clinton put the witch hunts of Salem to shame for sheer bigoted ignorance and bombast, but Clinton did betray the albeit tentative trust America was willing to put into a relational approach to government. His behavior was more above board than most presidents, but he was in the right wing cross hairs from his first affront to the insurance / health care colossus, and his ambivalent wavering about gays in the military, an unimportant issue relative to what was on the national plate, soured the military bastion of our present day republic. Bush rode into office as a Gore comparable: “I’m a uniter not a divider,” “no child left behind,” “America should not be involved in nation building,” and a host of other lies and false fronts including Darth Cheney as grandfather knows best, Chevron apologist Condoleeza Rice as representative of the feminine, and information officer for the Americal Division Colin Powell, still in an apparent fog about his role in stonewalling the IG investigation into the My Lai massacre, as the guy who would stand for integrity and truth unless it involved Sadaam Hussein. Bush’s fake billboards allowed him to seize enough of America’s tolerant middle to allow his brother’s racial gerrymandering and his father’s Court to call his narrow loss a victory for the corporate patriarchy he represented. The theater of the Middle East is dramatizing for the U.S. and the world the vertically descendant shortfall in the politics of domination; the lunacy of might making right. Perhaps this is the last gasp of life for the worldview that brought us genocide of every native people, environmental rape on an unimaginable scale, and countless forms of human indignity since at least one nomadic tribe began to believe their god was the one god for everyone, that they were his chosen people, and the land they wanted was theirs for the taking with his blessing. There is another way. I hear something of that other voice in General Wesley Clark, and I’m hopeful about the possibility of his candidacy for the presidency. Only someone who can capture the confidence of middle America can win the presidency. Dean is not capable of that, Kerry will be mcgovernized and Lieberman is a tired apologist for the forces he pretends to oppose. Clark can win the race, and before Bush, his neo-con allies at home and in Israel, and their fundamentalist mirror images Al Qaeda and the Taliban, take us all down the dark road to rapture, I say let’s move to the center of the bus and elect someone who can win back the heartland! If you’d like to hear the pure and un-politicized voice of the feminine, one that my new friend Allen Brill describes as a “life force that shares rather than commands,” of love in the face of impunity and insult, of an unadulterated desire to relate not dominate, read this beautiful paper, Tending the Holy through the Power of Sisterhood by Mary Ann Zollman, BVM: ‘The seasons of the year have come full cycle since we last gathered. In fall, brilliant gold leaves were superimposed on stories of clerical sexual abuse and hierarchical cover-up. My heart ached for a new creation. In winter, white landscapes soft with peace were superimposed on scenes of Bethlehem streets deserted under Israeli military curfew. My heart ached for salvation. In spring, yellow daffodils were superimposed on faces of Iraqi mothers holding wounded children. My heart ached for resurrection. Once again it is summer. We gather holding this year so tenderly that it hurts. We gather aching for creation, salvation, and resurrection.” Hear the courageous and compassionate voice of Itzak Frankenthal from Israel, where this week a healer of victims of terrorist violence became himself a victim, a voice that chooses healing and reconciliation over the continuing cycle of retribution and violence. Or the voice of the families of those who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, who aren’t following the two eyes for an eye vengeance of present American foreign policy, but are calling for a vision and practice of peaceful tomorrows. Or senior journalist Bill Moyers speak about the importance of environmentalism for ourselves and as sacred trust to future generations. Up is Down Donald Rumsfeld’s view of Iraq wasn’t shared by Baghdad Burning but the old corporate forked tongue let us know this week that it’s not Administration policies at fault but dissent that is the problem. This absurdity was matched by a conservative enclave of Roman Catholics who declared to their Bishops that the real problem in the sexual abuse scandal was not the predators and the canonical hierarchy, but dissent in the church. The Bush Administration’s portfolio on the invasion of Iraq has proven to be nothing but lies and misinformation but this week Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector, stated that perhaps the only truth before the war was the Iraqi declaration to the U.N. that it did not have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Farah Fadil was an 18 year old girl cut down in one of the now countless search and destroy missions by U.S. military in the civilian neighborhoods of Baghdad and throughout Iraq, that poignantly illustrates the unspoken insult and heinous crime of the current occupation force of refusing to account for Iraqi deaths. According to Iraq Body Count the verifiable civilian death toll is approaching eight thousand although medical personnel in Iraq say the number is far higher. The supposed “targeted assassinations” of Hamas leaders in Israel continue to include many children while the Israeli military continues to whitewash civilian deaths. The poorer nations walked out of the WTO international coercion sessions in Cancun this week signifying a stand for regional autonomy against corporate privatization of natural resource and local economy. The WTO complex web of multinational strategies are going nowhere according to William Greider at the Nation. Lee Price at TomPaine takes on the President’s argument that 9/11 is to blame for the current state of the American economy. When questioned about the deficit on the Today show last week, President Bush replied, “It’s nobody’s fault.” Royal Tenenbaum couldn’t have said it better! Seems that the President’s record for school improvements in Texas were as doctored as his own scholarship on Iraq. JobWatch is keeping a weather eye on the erosion of employment in America, a result contrary to the tax cut promises of the Bush Administration, while a census shows that the ranks of the poor in the U.S. rose by 1.3 million in 2002. And Curmudgeon in the Wild at Orion prescribes an antidote for America’s depression: get outside and take a walk with a friend! RIP John Cash 1932 - 2003 A real American hero died this week, a man with a good heart who wore black because he knew his own dark side and wouldn’t let his country forget theirs. Before being tough on crime was fashionable John Cash brought awareness of the brutality of prison incarceration, the hopeless plight of the Native Americans, the wrong direction of the war against Vietnam and later Iraq, the truth about addiction without self-righteousness, and a willingness to look the devil in the eye and wait for a blink. Rest in peace Mr. Cash, you made my life richer and my country a better place. Is there a better motto for today than this one: “I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time.” Ways to Help Help MoveOn’s ongoing fight against changes in FCC regulations. Tell the Senate to join the House and reject new nuclear weapons development . Sign a petition of concern on global warming. Learn about the October 25th national mobilization against the occupation of Iraq. Support Boise Cascade’s stand for sustainable forestry and the halting of all old growth logging. Subscribe to the Daily Misleader and separate fact from presidential fiction. Gentle Arms Of Eden © 2000 Dave Carter / Dave Carter Music (BMI) on a sleepy endless ocean when the world lay in a dream there was rhythm in the splash and roll, but not a voice to sing so the moon shone on the breakers and the morning warmed the waves till a single cell did jump and hum for joy as though to say this is my home, this is my only home this is the only sacred ground that i have ever known and should i stray in the dark night alone rock me goddess in the gentle arms of eden then the day shone bright and rounder til the one turned into two and the two into ten thousand things, and old things into new and on some virgin beach head one lonesome critter crawled and he looked about and shouted out in his most astonished drawl this is my home ... then all the sky was buzzin and the ground was carpet green and the wary children of the wood went dancin in between and the people sang rejoicing when the field was glad with grain this song of celebration from their cities on the plain this is my home ... now there's smoke across the harbor, and there's factories on the shore and the world is ill with greed and will and enterprise of war but i will lay my burden in the cradle of your grace and the shining beaches of your love and the sea of your embrace this is my home, this is my only home this is the only sacred ground that i have ever known and should i stray in the dark night alone rock me goddess in the gentle arms of eden Peace. *** |
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