What a strange time....

What a strange time....
But when in history were the times NOT strange?
The "cutting edge" in U.S. politics has passed to the right - even further to the right, it seems, than in Reagan's day. A resurgent threat of individualism (gang-action) haunts us, even as the old threat of collectivism (gang-action, also) haunted our parents.
There is a basic logic in the Tea Party stance - mine is mine, and you can't demand it of me - you can ask, but you can't demand it of me. They see society not as a relationship but as a war.
If the Republicans stink of greed, and the Lefties of old illusions and Stalin's crimes, the Tea Party stinks of down-home bullying and swagger. Their tactics are purposefully violent, insulting and overbearing. Their campaign is driven, and replete with propaganda - and they have their own television network to propagate it. It's this combination of bullying verbiage, scurrilous disinformation, and all those dollars and popular anger behind it that raises alarms in people like myself. A party of bullies - haven't we seen that before, says the Left-winger in me? Anybody remember the rise of fascism? Anybody remember the Trail of Tears of Andrew Jackson's day?
But all this proves is that I, myself, am a stranger to the basis of human interaction, which always comes down to violence. It was once a hope that men could be more than just violent drones, that there might really be such a thing as a good civilization. But this is and has been constantly belied, on all sides, by the Left, the Right, the Communists, the Islamofascists - everybody.
Do people have a "right" to live, and to live decently? And then - what does that mean? What is decent? And if people are not tested, if they are not morally destroyed and brought low in the course of their lives, how are they to emerge from their vulgar, crazy selves? But enduring such trials always calls up hatred and blaming - for it is always man's nature to blame someone else for adversity.

Bad Conscience or Good Conscientiousness?

The Conscience (as opposed to mere consciousness) is that "associated knowledge" or "small quiet voice inside of one" that will whisper or nag about the right or wrong of our conduct. Someone who is conscientious is careful about investigating these nonverbal, internal critiques - someone who listens to his or her conscience.

My conscience nags from all sides in political questions: Can I speak up and claim any authority when my perpetual implicit foolishness shines out in whatever I say? Can I speak up when I am simply reacting to news, when I haven't researched or investigated the report deeply? Can I let crime go by, seeing that it's an inevitable part of nature, and not speak up? Can I put any value on the idea of the 'equality of men' when quite plainly we are not in any way equals, but rather more 'born rivals'? Is 'equality of men' just another word for the Law of the Jungle, the Social Darwinist 'justice'? Is it not foolish to carp about misfortune, as though nature were being wronged by the suffering it itself creates? Is it not foolish to give voice to resentment? To disagreement? What are my credentials for giving voice to any such protest or dismay? Since death is not an evil, how can I complain about the 'collateral damage' carnage that American intervention has loosed on Afghanistan and Iraq? How can I complain about this carnage, given that it is caused more by Muslim absolutism and Aghani and Iraqui ego than by any specific American policy? How can I imagine that the original American neo-Con interventions were not, in fact, pursued for American Imperialism? How can I imagine that the original American mideastern neo-Con interventions were not, in fact, aimed at truly evil men, guilty of every kind of crime? But then how can I endorse further carnage pursued at the expense of the more-or-less innocent folk of those nations when we know that the terrorists' tactics inevitably result in fixing greater and greater accretions of crime and blame on us Americans - that guerilla wars are impossible to win where the people on the ground are made into shields to suffer or deflect the domineering power's blows - how can such a war ever be won?

Et so on and so forth. If the evil folk of the world have decided that rotten America is 'the great Satan' and legitimate target of any kind of violence and provocation, how can they not be treated as our enemies? And if enemies, how can we not defend ourselves? The joke for militant and aggresive American Christians is this: Christ already laid that his followers should "offer them the other cheek also" - not sweat oppression and domination that is yet to come, simply endure it and cleave to God.

But how can one, in good conscience, stand by as people are killed and torn to pieces regardless of their guilt or innocence? How can one stand by as one's own nation implicates itself in crime and savagery? Yet, by its nature, savagery is a natural part of the human world.

Et so on and so forth....

The Florida Road to Jihad

News item:

"... the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, an evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, [FL,] said his church plans to go through with its 'International Burn a Koran Day'" to be held on Sept. 11th, 2010.

Commentary:

I love the irony - this 'church' is the "Dove World Outreach Center" - neither peaceful, nor international, nor out-reaching, but simply and self-satisfiedly ignorant and angry. Woo-hoo.

This demonstration of thick-headed American ego is obviously intended as a commemoration or protest of the Sept. 11 attacks performed by our favorite ultra-Islamic terrorists, Al-Quaeda. By reacting this way, this little branch of the Religious Right is deepening and confirming all the propaganda victories already won by Al-Quaeda and their fellow terrorist bandits. But then, the "Dove" church is probably counting on Armageddon in 2012 or somesuch, and sees this as just the run-up to it. No wonder Christian is becoming a four-letter word. Oh, for a Pontius Pilatus to chastise these stupid Americans!