How the World Works, Part 2 (Updates I & II)

Naomi Wolf in an interview about her new book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot and A Citizen's Call to Action, makes the argument I've been making. I agree completely with the analysis about what's happening to us; I'm less optimistic that there is at this point a fighting chance of doing anything about it.  I think the MCA and congress's inability to rescind it is a signal that the game is up in the political sphere:

What we really have to realize is that in a modern democracy, the shift to a closed society doesn't happen overnight.

And it doesn't happen even in a clear line on a graph that's left to right diagonally. It happens in what Malcolm Gladwell would call tipping points. You can chart it, and there may be pressure, pressure, multiple assaults, and, then, a key event that would be like a vertical line on that chart. And then you're looking at another reality.

The really important thing to understand, which is why I walk the reader so carefully through the way democracies really curve down, is democracies can reach a point of no return. And it's sudden when that happens. And it's disorienting. There's a point at which democracy can no longer heal democracy. People have got to understand that. People need to realize that the day we made it legal, essentially, for the state to torture people, that was one of those vertical lines on the chart. We're now in a place where it is legal, the White House has claimed, to knock on your door or my door, and say: You are an enemy combatant. Come with us. Then there is what Jose Padilla went through, in three years of solitary confinement -- making it difficult to see a lawyer, making it difficult to see his family.

I'm not saying he's a good guy. But I'm saying the White House is taking the position that the President -- and any future president -- can say: You, Naomi, you, peruser of BuzzFlash -- you're an enemy combatant. And the President gets to decide what that means. The President gets to decide to hold you. The first time that someone is called an enemy combatant that you and I identify with -- that's going to be another one of these vertical lines, after which you are not going to be having this conversation, because I'm not that brave. The tasering of this student was another vertical line, because, believe me, if they are tasering voting groups in Florida in a disputed 2008 election, dissent will close down pretty quickly. People are just not that brave when they start to get physically hurt.

And that's how society is closed down. Suddenly, there's news of someone getting arrested. Or someone being taken. Someone getting a ten-year sentence under the Espionage Act for publishing something in the Wall Street Journal.

And the next day, there are still newspapers. There's still online shopping. There are still so many aspects of normal society. But what there isn't is freedom, because people are scared. And that's why we need to wake up now, because, believe it or not, the President has the power to do that. The President -- any president, President Thompson, President Giuliani, President Obama -- any president now has the power to make it easier to declare martial law and to declare a state of emergency. The president gets to decide what that is. That is not what the Founders envisioned.

People who are fighting overseas for democracy understand better than we do that we are witnessing the classic danger signs. They know how dangerous it is to have a leader relegate for himself or herself the power to do that -- to seize people and to militarize civil society. Or to declare a state of public emergency or to make it easier to define a threat to public order. Those are classic signposts that other democracy activists around the world recognize as flashing warning lights.

. . . We've been so blessed and so spoiled, in a way, by over 200 years of strong democracy, even taking into account the serious moments like the McCarthy era, that we expect the pendulum will always swing back, because the checks and balances have always been in place. I've explained in the book why this is different now -- why the pendulum isn't as free as it used to be, why we can't rely on it, a point Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda made first.

The trouble is that we're so used to a democratic mindset and we're so reliant on freedom, that we, A, don't recognize the dangers, and B, we don't realize what it takes to resist them. When I talk about these threats, people tend to answer before they've thought it through, or before they've read the book, with the correctives of democracy. Well, the ACLU will sue them. Or we'll just vote the guys out. "Vote the bums out." After you've read the book, you'll realize that you cannot rely on democracy to heal democracy, as you could if our democracy was strong, and checks and balances were in place.

So it is a radical shift in consciousness that we need right now, and we don't have time. We need to understand right now that this is a crisis. It's not business as usual. We can't leave it to other people, to Congress, to activists, or until the next election, because we are much further along than people realize.

So we do what we can do to resist. I admire Wolf and everyone who is trying to raise the alarm, but her book will be easily dismissed by the mainstream as leftist loony. And the only people who will read it are the minority who already agree with it. 

The bottom line is that most Americans, even if they understood what was happening, don't really care.  They don't see this ominous rightward swing in the political sphere as affecting them in any way that really matters. "Hey, it's just the way the world works," they say. And they're right, and any memory of the American ideal as the attempt to do something differently than "the way the world works" was either never understood or is considered romantic, liberal naivete. Liberals are by definition are starry eyed airheads who don't understand how the world works. For these realist Americans, for whom Dick Cheney is the prototype, America means nothing more than "our team" in an us-against-the-world contest.

I hope I'm proved wrong, but the bottom line is that unless there is a mass outcry against this incremental movement toward the historical militarized, authoritarian norm, there's no stopping it. The people for whom this movement toward a closed society is in their interest understand this. They have been working hard to establish the infrastructure and they realize that there is no real opposition to their agenda--certainly not in the media or in the congress.  They understand that we're already on the other side of the tipping point, whether most people are aware of it or not, and that there's not going to be any significant roll back.

Wolf is calling for a reverse tipping point, one in which a majority of Americans will become outraged and demand that their representatives stop this movement toward the authoritarian surveillance state.  Anybody think such a reversal is possible?  Someone give me a scenario in which you might think such a thing will happen. I want to believe it's possible, but I don't see it.

Update I:  Interesting that it's Buddhist monks leading the protests in Myanamar:

Earlier Tuesday, the army began deploying troops in the heart of Yangon after tens of thousands of people led by barefoot monks in maroon robes defied orders to stay off the streets and marched for the eighth straight day against the junta.

Troops were also seen gathering at a military center in Mandalay and military trucks rumbled through the streets of both cities late into the night, witnesses said.

The potential for a violent crackdown had already aroused international concern, with pleas for the junta to deal peacefully with the situation coming from government and religious leaders worldwide. They included the Dalai Lama and South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize laureates like detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Who has the moral stature to lead such a protest in this country?  I think that's what it's going to take for such a protest not to be dismissed as fomented by lefty rabble rousers.  This is the point I've been making repeatedly, and which secularists don't seem to get. The lead has to be taken by people who have moral stature, or such a movement will be perceived as the predictable politics of the disgruntled.

There has to be a call to conscience by a leader or a group of leaders which has real moral authority. Is there any sense from readers about potential religious figures in this country who could play a leadership role in such a conscience-driven protest movement?  I'm sorry to say that for me no one comes to mind.  What is it about God-fearing Americans that the emergence of such moral leadership is almost impossible to imagine?  Am I being too harsh?

Update II: Read this speech by Daniel Ellsberg entitled 'A Coup Has Occurred'. Ellsberg thinks an attack on Iran and the ensuing Iranian retaliation, perhaps in the form of another 9/11, is very likely. The crisis atmosphere that it will create will give the authoritarian elements in the administration the pretext they need to tighten domestic police and surveillance controls.  Does this sound paranoid?  I don't know.  Such a scenario is certainly within the realm of possibility, and should not be glibly dismissed. An excerpt:

I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.

If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? …  They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.

And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps. . . .

Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran’s reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to some extent written into law.  …

This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it.

Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her administration her ability to protect United States citizens from possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all that NSA can provide? I don’t think so.

Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two before a new administration comes in – and there’s no move to do this at this point – unless that happens I don’t see it happening under the next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.

Comments

[Jack Whelan]

Ed Note-- I'm pasting in Matt Zemek's late comment to the first "How the World Works" post since I'm continuing the discussion here. I'll respond later today when I have some time:

Here we go:

First, a bit of local background here in Seattle to set the scene, accompanied by yesterday's readings at Mass.

I've just hooked up with a non-profit agency in Seattle that's staffed by a Baptist church. This non-profit does a major fundraiser every two years (odd-numbered calendar years) in the ostensibly secular upper reaches of Seattle's philanthropic community. I just had to give sound bytes on behalf of this nonprofit for a splashy video presentation that will take place at the fundraiser gala event later this year. At this filming session, the director of this non-profit, a wonderful (even heroic) person, had to tell me to be restrained in my (filmed, edited, polished, etc.) sound bytes, because we had to give the very specific impression that we were appealing to the (corporate/philanthropic) establishment if we wanted to bring in a really big haul of money for various life-saving programs.

That's one snapshot.

The other snapshot is that Seattle's St. James Cathedral Parish (and I'm only speaking for myself here; Jack is a also a parishioner there) just happens to be having its charity Golf Tournament today as a fundraiser for its own bevy of outstanding outreach programs.

What's deeply ironic is that yesterday's Gospel reading at Mass involved Jesus talking about the need to make friends with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be ready to enter into the heavenly kingdom.

That Gospel reading--while not easy to interpret--does convey a deeper sense (amazingly enough) of what is needed in the worlds of philanthropy and activism. Accordingly, it shows us the way forward, which--having dispensed with the background--I shall now pose to this blog's readership:

A very hard and isolating element of an authentic Christian life, and of (more specifically) an authentically prophetic Christian voice, is to speak to ideas, principles and life paths that so deeply cut against the cultural and social grain. Telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear (and, moreover, telling it plainly and nakedly so as to leave zero confusion about what must be done)--on structural and systemic levels, yes, but even more so on attitudinal levels--is an action that invites either a firestorm of "HOW DARE YOU"-style criticisms, or the equally crushing response of deafening silence/ignorance/dismissal.

To possess deep emotional (and up-close, experience-based) knowledge of whole cultures and subcultures--and by extension, the systems, forces and methods that bring these subcultures into existence, govern them, and then cause them to calcify in the lived-out realms of administration, procedure and individual action--enables a person such as myself to see the cancer at the root of so much of American life, but particularly the part of American life that is ostensibly devoted to doing the most to relieve problems: the philanthropic sector of American life.

Another snapshot of Seattle life is appropriate at this point:

I read in "Real Change" (Seattle's homeless newspaper) about a lecture attended by a lot of corporate real-estate developer types. A newly-hired and highly-placed executive at Habitat for Humanity (after all, who would ever think that Habitat could do anything wrong, right?) gave a speech in which he said that developers could not be reasonably expected to build housing units for people making anything less than $90,000 a year (that figure could be higher; I don't have the sheet in front of me...).

The whole affair--as reported on by the executive director of Real Change, who attended the event--was a big, good ol' boy, backslapping festival designed to tell a lot of corporate types how good and altruistic they were, with their ("supposed")concern about low-income housing.

In effect, though, anything and everything said at the event would be sure to perpetuate, and perhaps even worsen, the actual problem of housing in Seattle for low-income folks.

And as for Habitat itself (something of a sidebar, but not that irrelevant in my mind) is the simple reality that the Gulf Coast is just NOT getting rebuilt... not by any reasonable standard. Habitat is a massive organization with considerable reach. I realize that "dysfunctional Louisiana politics" (one of the ultimate redunancies of our time) are the No. 1 culprit in the slow process, but it still gives me pause: how come two years have seen so little action?

Now I hear a guy who occupies a high place in Habitat's pecking order giving frankly INSULTING remarks about low-cost housing to an audience of developers?

The wool just keeps being peeled from my eyes, folks.

The bottom line--which I have been hinting at and pointing to until now--is plainly this:

We have so many charities, organizations and foundations in this country, and yet problems remain the same. It has begun to dawn on me, and it should begin to dawn on all Americans, that this proliferation of charitable outlets is more a burden than a help--perhaps not in a purely structural sense, but certainly when you make linkages between structure and (sub)culture.

I read a New York Times story from September 6 that absolutely BLEW MY MIND. It said that of all the money given to charitable/philanthropic ends in 2006, "less than 10 percent" went to basic, dire human needs: homelessness, hunger, poverty, etc. The vast majority of philanthropic dollars went to universities, the arts, and medical research.

Meanwhile, though, people don't have shelter. Big-box projects and personal pride count for more in philanthropy than truly wanting to address dire, persistent problems of a fundamental nature.

The same applies to US aid overseas. Overwhelming amounts of attention, political buzz, governmental pressure, and other forces/resources are devoted to treatment of AIDS/HIV in people who have already been infected, when--of course--the real way to stop or slow down the AIDS epidemic (or any other epidemic) is to focus on the PREVENTION side. (All this stuff is documented in William Easterly's revealing and shaming book, THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN.)

Whether at home or abroad, in Seattle or Washington, DC, in church settings or secular settings, in the non-profit world or in lofty philanthropic circles not expressly connected to non-profit organizations, we're collectively running in circles.

Americans currently insist on giving money (or time) in ways that will enable them to FEEL GOOD and FEEL IMPORTANT AND RECOGNIZED.

There is a prevailing and powerful emotional environment/context surrounding virtually every attempt to do something meaningful in American life. Competitiveness, narcissism and a herd mentality (either for corporations or universities or research centers) combine to overwhelm the vast majority of attempts to make major gifts of resources.

Money either goes to people/places that don't really need it; to places that need it, but in woefully small amounts; to people that need it, but with strings attached that prevent people from doing what they really need to do with the money; or to people who need it, but are not equipped to be able to use the resources (for logistical, educational or other evident reasons).

Why is there this profound and unending climate of failure and waste in terms of Americans donating money and other resources?

It's because--and I know this from working with and being with the poor for the past 15 years--you have to really want to take the time to be with people in their struggles. You can't do photo-op justice; you need to set aside the time, set aside the ego, and set aside a primary emphasis on personal profit or career advancement if you really want to help struggling individuals, one by one by one, until whole communities are healed and defined by justice.

There are structural problems and limitations that need to be addressed here, but this is fundamentally a problem of attitude and moral/political will.

If we REALLY care about helping people in an emotionally honest, forgiveness-centered, humility-based, other-minded way, we will solve just about everything. If all Americans give, serve and love in the right way for the right reasons (as opposed to the wrong ways for the wrong reasons, as exists today), we will make our way forward with astonishingly quick success.

The problem, of course, is getting through to people--not just intellectually, but piercing their hearts and deflating their egos. Inspring people to act nobly and feel deeply, without leaving them bitter, angry or disenchanted, is the breakthrough we need. A revolution will occur in philanthropic circles--not in terms of dollars given, but in terms of the hearts of the people giving the dollars and attending fundraisers and going to the (currently) back-patting, feel-good seminars that only allow people to feel they're doing something important, when in fact they're not only failing in that regard, but they're worsening/entrenching the problems they claim to seek.

I'm done. Finally.

[forestwalker]

"Any sense from readers about potential religious figures in this country who could play a leadership role in such a protest movement? I'm sorry to say that for me no one comes to mind. What is it about American religious life that the emergence of such moral leadership is almost impossible to imagine? Am I being too harsh in saying so?"

Noone comes to mind here either. And it's very dispiriting. Jim Wallis likes to claim that mantle but he's very complicit in the system. Everyone wants to be seen as 'serious' and 'responsible'. But the great moral voices are seen, without exception, as dangerous by the powers that be. I have faith that that voice is rising but I suspect it will be largely a lay movement. Too many of our churches are corrupt and see offering sacrifices to Caesar as part of being both serious and responsible. Lord, have mercy.

[Jack Whelan]

FW--

I feel the same way about Wallis. I have in the past really wanted to get on board with Sojourners, but it doesn't have the esprit that I think is needed. I don't want to knock him, because better that he's doing what he's doing than not, but something far more radical is called for if the religious community in the U.S. is going to play an effective role in confronting the powerful forces that are corrupting our system.

[Jack Whelan]

Matt--

I think you're right in understanding the kind of narcissism that is at root in most charitable giving. That's why Martin de Porres has the naming rights for the city's biggest homeless shelter rather than some millionaire.

That's ultimately why, though, I think that the liberation theology model is the only one that is going to work to get things changed. It's about small communities organizing to support one another and to put pressure on the system to get their needs met. To expect the rich to do it out of their own generous impulses is unrealistic. Top down is always less effective than bottom up.

But that's where our paralysis comes in, and I'm as much a culprit in this as anyone else who is really doing nothing about it. We are in this neither here nor there state. Americans are not experiencing the extent of economic disaster that other countries are. They're not experiencing the political oppression that the Burmese are experiencing now, and so the motivation to act simply isn't there. Americans are stressed but they're not yet outraged. They're confused, and don't understand what's happening. They are cynical about their politicians and government, but can't imagine anything that could change. They think that once someone like Obama gets in things will change, and maybe they will a little. But someone like Obama or Edwards or anybody with his heart in the right place will be ineffective if there isn't some kind of grassroots, bottom-up pressure to counterbalance the pressure he is going to feel from the bad guys.

There are lots of people--I'm one of them--who want to get involved to work for change, but the last place they would want to work for that change would be within the context of the Democratic Party. That is a loser's game and a waste of energy. Something outside the system with power and energy has to arise if anything is going to happen, and I would get behind any movement like that in a heartbeat. Something like Solidarity in Poland or the MLK led civil rights movement. But how does such a potent, outside the system movement arise? That's what's so exasperating and what makes me feel so impotent and frustrated. At least for now there is no way to channel that frustration except in futile symbolic gestures.

[forestwalker]

Agreed re Wallis/Sojourners and what is needed.

Have you happened across Patrick Deneen's blog yet? Very good stuff there and now part of my daily read list. He has an interesting post today speculating on an anti-libertarian political realignment:
None of the Above?
http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com/2007/09/none-of-above.html

Another good post from earlier this month:
Whither Bryan's People?
http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com/2007/09/whither-bryans-people.html

[DMD]

This post was referenced on my group blog here:
http://www.intheagora.com/archives/2007/09/moral_authority.html.

[Matt Zemek]

Well, as far as a leader is concerned, the hard part is finding one willing to step into a national spotlight and carry the kind of political weight that would fall upon a figure who would attain the label, perhaps, of the "21st Century MLK."

But in terms of pure outlook, consistency, and impregnability from the power structure, Richard Rohr (of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque) would be it.

He's appearing with Jim Wallis in Cleveland for a major politico-spiritual conference.

Rohr--whose female equivalent is Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun in Erie, PA--is the spiritual medicine man of our time. I just don't think he is (or would be) called to step into an overtly political and public spotlight. The fact that his official ecclesial standing in Catholicism is, of course, marginalized is something that--while enhancing his reputation--would make it harder for him to have mainstream credibility.

[Matt Zemek]

Jack,

On your response to my post:

What I struggle with in my work with the poor is that they're so beset by economic pressues that it's hard to imagine them ever having the emotional (let alone financial and geographical) space from which to exert and agitate, thereby bringing about the mass groundswells and movements that you speak of.

I realize that if the poor can be galvanzied and mobilized, that would indeed be the best and most central way of improving the landscape. However, I think that changing the minds of those dispensing ridiculous amounts of disposable income offers the gateway toward putting our resources at the true service of others. Once the poor can be financially liberated, then they can become agitators (along with those in upper-income brackets who are open to conversion). But if we try to mobilize without first providing the economic liberation, I just can't imagine that going anywhere.

It's the hierarchy of needs, in short.

As Dorothy Day said, "We need to make it easier for people to be good." And while that is ultimately a spiritual question in the long run of history, it is an economic and situational question in our immediate socio-political context.

After all, some of the poor (not all, but certainly some) would not be poor if they were already educated, aware and alert. Reducing poverty and homelessness provides a foundation from which education and holistic development can then take place.

With a lower-middle class population savaged by subprime loans, it might be a different story.

But for those at the bottom, I definitely see this as an "economics first, mobilization second" situation.

At any rate, it's definitely complex and worthy of a lot more discussion and examination.

[Jack Whelan]

Matt--

In the short term you're right, but ultimately it's not in the interests of the rich to solve the problems of the poor; it's in the interests of the poor to solve the problems of the poor. If the rich want to help out, great, but ultimately it's not their fight. It's the same as in the civil rights movement. This was a fight that African Americans had to initiate, and the job of justice-loving white people was to support them in their struggle. In the same way I would argue that it is not the responsibility of the rich to take the initiative in solving the problem of poverty, but they need to be enlisted to do what they can to support bottom-up initiatives.

Also, I don't like Maslow's pyramid as a model, because I don't see the spiritual issues as requiring the lower-hierarchy needs to be met before the spiritual needs. I would flip Maslow's pyramid upside down. Meeting material needs is secondary to meeting spiritual needs. Spirit is the foundation, and everything else depends up on it.

So it follows that I see the problem of poverty as fundamentally a spiritual issue rooted in the soul-crushing culture which reinforces the hopelessness and humiliation of the poor and which reinforces their passivity and complacency. The biggest problem for the poor is not their economic condition but the various ways in which their spirits have been squashed. To me it's more important to awaken the fight than whether the fight succeeds.

Granted, there are many among the poor who are destroyed by drugs and alcohol and they have to be treated with compassiona as dependents if it is simply impossible rouse them to stand on their own two feet.

And granted arousing the fight in them is easier said than done. It doesn't seem possible now even to arouse the fight in educated, relatively affluent middle class to resist our current drift into a crony capitalist militaristic police state.

So I don't see this problem as one only for the poor--it's a problem for us all. We're all of us soul-crushed, co-opted, and dispirited. Some of us are living more comfortably than others, but all of us are pretty much the same in our passivity, complacency, and lack of a spirited, justice-thirsting imagination. And to me overcoming that is the biggest and most central challenge that faces us all--whether we're in the underclass or the middle class.