Delusions

In the September HARPER'S, Garret Keizer commented, in an interesting essay, on the delusion of our society, "not so much its materialism as its faux spiritualism . . . in which the elect live everlastingly and communicate telepathically while flying in disembodied splendor above the heads of the Mexicans mowing the lawn." This idea, unsurprisingly, has a long pedigree. We should focus on making this material world a better place.

Some disagree about our main delusion. I recall a French officer sent to help in the American Revolution, who reported back that "these people worship money." That sums up a lot of our recent history.

I doubt if the spiritualist delusion is our worst. About 20% of Americans believe that the Sun travels around the Earth. A third of all Americans, including members of congress, believe that the Constitution protects freedom of religion only for religions that are well liked by the majority.

Among the most deluded are the members of the Tea Party who worship, more or less, our Constitution. In fact, the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution deliberately designed to frustrate Tea Party types (and most of the rest of us, for that matter). The Founding Fathers had a distrust of direct democracy that was based, I suppose, on their knowledge of the conflicts in ancient Athens, their sense of the people around them, and their studies of philosophers like Plato and Socrates, who were totalitarians.

The Constitution the Fathers adopted divided sovereignty into many parts (states vs. federal government, President vs. House, House vs. Senate, voters vs. the Supreme Court, etc.) The effect of this was to slow the pace of possible change to a crawl. That is our frustrating system.

There is much that the Founders did not see coming. They did not expect multinational corporations to take on the funding of our major political parties, assuming control over our financial lives. They granted ordinary citizens the right to bear one-shot rifles that took a minute to reload, not expecting the rise of machine guns. But they did get the Tea Party right. The Tea Party will be stopped by the muddling devices for slowing things down in Constitution they think they support.

We are faced now with an election in which the Republicans of all sorts are going to make gains. It is up to us to get out and limit those short term gains if we can.

Gary Goss

Paint It Black

Loony Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, once ran successfully for the school board while arguing that black was an ungodly and wicked color that invoked the devil. Her attempt to prevent the local high school football team from wearing black uniforms succeeded.

Angle has described her current campaign as divinely inspired. God called on her to run for the Senate. This might be the case--God might have arranged for the Republicans to nominate the only candidate so ludicrous that she would lose to Harry Reid.

The Islamic Community Center

I've been looking through Facebook where many pragmatists have come out with doubts about the Islamic community center--I suspect it is because they don't want to hurt the feelings of the local residents. Yet a recent poll showed that a majority of the people of Manhattan favor building the community center. Community Board 1, which represents the area, including the 9/11 site, voted 29 to 1 in favor of the community center. Manhattan itself is polyglot. And, as Hendrik Hertzberg put it, anguish "is not an entitlement to abandon rationality."

The World Turned Upside Down

Yesterday the Swedish authorities issued a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, on the charges of rape and molestation. Today the arrest warrant was withdrawn. No reasons were given. Meanwhile a Pentagon spokesperson resembling Lady MacBeth complained that Assange "had blood on his hands."

The Bell Curve

The good news is that the last American combat brigade has left Iraq. Some of us, including former soldiers, have worked for that safe exit for eight years now, and it's a relief to bring home, out of harm's way, our combat troops. Still at risk, of course, are 50,000 advisers and support troops, along with the forces fighting in an apparently pointless war in Afghanistan.

The bad news is that 20% of Americans are morons--I refer to the 20% who maintain that President Obama is a Muslim. I'm not sure what this does to our intelligence bell curve, but it can't be good.

About 60% of us are religious bigots. This figure includes women like Democratic County Supervisor Shirley Zane, who opposes the Muslim cultural center located in Manhattan near the Twin Towers site (which the cultural center predates). Of course she might think that Manhattan is in Kansas or near Occidental, so let me add that the Manhattan in question is found at one end of Long Island in the state of New York. That's a long way from Santa Rosa, but bigotry is elastic enough to stretch around the world, the Bill of Rights be damned.

Finally, THE PROGRESSIVE reports that the New York Times, which consistently referred to waterboarding as torture in the past, changed its ways during the Bush administration. From 2002-2008, the Times called waterboarding torture 1.4% of the time. The reason the Times editorial board gave for its grammatical shift was "We are moral idiots" (not really).

--Gary Goss

Primitive Religions

News reached us this morning that the Taliban in Afghanistan has stoned to death a young couple accused of adultery (it's unclear what "adultery" means to people suffering from religious mania). President Obama is under attack by the Stupid Party for his support of religious tolerance. And a three-bigot federal appeals court has blocked same-sex marriages in California, although they are legal in Canada, Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

Marry and Do Both

On Wednesday gays will once again be able to marry in California, which reminds me of a 1960's slogan: "Make love, not war, or marry and do both." Anyway, in an era when skies often seem gray, it's nice to catch a few moments of bright sunlight. I'm going to put on k.d. lang, pour some whiskey and toast the idea that we are all human together.

Dr. Laura

In case you don't know, Dr. Laura is a stupid but successful radio talk show host who, yesterday, used the "N" word repeatedly on the air in order to demonstrate, I suppose, that a White person can use a term that is used by some Black persons. She felt it necessary to do this because she is, after all, a racist--Dr. Laura has a history of related episodes.

I mention this because I know a four-year-old who is genuinely repelled by dark skin. She talks about it openly. She did not pick this up from her parents (progressives with advanced degrees) or her teachers. She did not get it from Sesame Street. And this has not been an easy matter to fix. Her family, friends and teachers have not made much headway.

You might ask where this prejudice came from. The answer, I think, is that the election of President Obama did not erase racism from the American scene. Racism is in the water we drink, where it goes almost unnoticed. But a tot can see that Barbie is a blue-eyed blonde. We swim in a lake of cultural biases that progressive adults have learned to get beyond (we hope), but under the surface lurk unseen carnivorous fish.

I'm not talking about the rampant racism of the Tea Party Republicans. I'm dumbfounded that racism reaches down to wonderful children in some unknown way.

----Gary Goss

Lafayette

On my vacation I read an autobiography of the famous Marquis, who turned out to be more than the absurdly young general who once led the charge at Yorktown. Lafayette grew up with a famous name but not much money, spending much of his time running through the woods with peasant children. Unlike most noblemen he was used to physical hardship. As a teenager he inherited a gigantic fortune and went to court (he was apparently tall and likable and welcome everywhere). He joined the French army. Believing that all men (including slaves) should be free, when the King refused permission for Lafayette to join the American Revolution, he bought a boat, loaded it with his friends and followers, and sailed anyway. The American rebels, who had no chance without French cannon, ammunition and soldiers, welcomed him.

Lafayette was not one of the foreign experts who came to train the provincial Americans. He had come, he kept saying, to learn. The Americans, mostly, loved him.

In France after the American Revolution, Lafayette was a hugely popular figure who went on to help dethrone several kings and a dictator (Napoleon). In the French revolution, Lafayette commanded the people's army and worked to set up a constitutional government. His views gradually lost out to the Terror, which Lafayette survived only by crossing the border into Austria, where he was imprisoned in foul conditions for five years until President Washington secured his release. America did not forget Lafayette, and he came back to visit twice. At the time of his death Lafayette was probably the most beloved figure in France and in America.

I came away with this thought. When you look at the popularity of successful progressive leaders, you may detect a pattern: they are hated (as Lafayette was) by the Right and attacked by Far Left (who find them too pragmatic). The most passionate on both sides go after them. That comes with the job. No wonder so few apply for it.

--Gary Goss

Vacation

I was sorry but not surprised to read that the Rohnert Park City Council had ignored their own planning commission and voted 4 to 1 in favor of WallMart. City Councils, not Congress, are the most morally bankrupt institutions in American politics. Much of the time town councils are staffed and controlled by the few who have the free time to pay attention to them: well-off pro-corporate lackies who worship at the alter of Greedyguts.

I'm off to visit Canada the next ten days. I'll be back on about the 10th.