A view from the outside that you might find enlightning on the state of America. Canadians are good for some things... like the friend who you can always go to who you feel safe enough with to have him reveal some truths, to tell you things that are hard to hear, but you can't tell yourself.
In many parts of the world people wonder: why are Americans taking so much of what the Bush administration is doing lying down?
It would be incorrect to say that fear stalks America. But fear permeates the American psyche, largely because the government and its allies in the media have done a systematic job of injecting fear into the lifeblood of the population.
When we talk about the fear that paralyzes political activity in the U.S., we're talking about several different kinds of fear.
First, is the fear of public disapproval. This is a powerful social controlling mechanism in a culture where being seen as "out of the mainstream" is a fate worse that being locked out of your house naked on a Sunday morning.
I think sometimes progressives scoff at this mechanism. But if I look at even my friends, who dares be 'different', or dares to even take the contriversial position? I mean, who always wants to be the 'weird one'?
The second level of fear flows naturally from the first. In our American parlance, the First Amendment has become, for all intents and purposes, a right to freedom of speech inside one's smoking room, at home, alone.
Americans believe that the employer's rights are just this side of given by God and if one's public opinions on politics or the war in Iraq become an "embarrassment" to a member of the managerial class, most people believe that the employer has the God-given right to send the offender to that most American of rhetorical gulags, the unemployment line.
This is serious stuff. I hadn't considered how risky politics can be - this need to conform to keep your job is something as a Canadian I hadn't considered.
Is this real?? Do you feel personally pressured to conform to a political ideal in order to keep your job? What is the mechanism that is at play here?
Wow.
My only addition to the article is one of hope. We need to inject some hope into this discussion.
Progressive values drive hope. A view of a brighter day ahead. Not one of negativity, of how everything is wrong. I think we need to have the answers at our fingertips as to what is and has gone wrong, but we need to shine light on a new path forward. One path out of fear.
And the values we represent (across our borders) are the same.
" A green and prosperous future that leaves no one behind. " - simple, consise. (By the way, that's the catch phrase from the NDP's campaign... didn't get us in government either, but people are certainly paying attention more and more.)
Hey, the worse the US gets, the more progressive Canada appears to be leaning! Who knows? In the cosmic scheme of things (or God's plan, depending on your comfort with the idea of an involved God), maybe that's what GWB is for? To show the rest of us how bad things could get?
Kind of warped I know. Ok now, just one more thing that I think was powerful in the article.
Lets discuss the idea of sacrifice. I think we've been trained as a society that just by spending a buck or two, or just 'talking about the issues', that we can solve the worlds problems.
But real solutions take sacrifice. What sacrifices did you make today? Compare our struggle with that of Martin Luther King Jr.
A friend of mine is a theologian, peace activist, and professor of religious studies at a local religiously affiliated college. The last time President Bush came to our community just before the November election for a campaign speech, my friend and two of her other friends, decided to make a low-key protest.
Prior to the President's speech, the streets and general areas around the arena where he spoke were cordoned off with a forest of Jersey barricades, semi-tractor trailers and police checkpoints. My friend and her compatriots felt that this was a methodology of generating fear in the local population -- fear of violent attack in America's heartland that would play well with Bush's core electorate.
They decided, on this chilly October day, to simply cross one Jersey barricade, peacefully, as a silent testimony against this fear that's become so pervasive.
The local police cordially arrested the women and my friend described the officers as polite and businesslike. The women, of course, did not resist in any way.
They were transported to the local jail where they were all strip-searched. We'll leave the details of how that was done to your imagination. My friend really didn't want to talk about it.
Now ask yourself how many women you know, honest, earnest activists, who would be willing to undergo such a ritual humiliation for a public protest that was barely noted in the local paper?
And as a result of the small article that did appear, these women were subject to letters to the editor describing them as unpatriotic and stupid, the most vitriolic of letters coming from a young woman in high school.
Inspiring, yet terrifying. What terrifying thing am I prepared to do... today? Is there a limit to how far I would go to pursue my ideals?
Am I prepared to go the way MLK Jr. went? Why not? Why? If death is the end of my existance, perhaps there is a good reason to be terrified. Am I here just to please myself?
For me, its about submission to the Lord of Creation - not that perverted god you hear about some times on the news from the religious neocon right.
No, my God that tells me that justice is not just for the afterlife, but for today, that Christians (and peoples of other faiths, as well as non-believers...) have a role to play in bringing about a fair and just society, one that thrives, one that is passionate and one that lives (in all senses of the word).
I MUST serve. But do I take this concept to its logical conclusion? What am I (me!) prepared to sacrifice? Jesus Christ (not Republican jesus, but the real one) paid the price for his beliefs, his struggle, he had his literal 'cross to bear'. But we all have crosses to bear. What's mine?
I confess to you that I have not fully submitted to serve. But I strive that one day, I might reach that goal - of finding my cross.
Do I desire to be a martyr? NO! Am I prepared to be one - in a literal or figerative sense? I don't know. I believe that someone was a martyr for me (one main one in the religious sense, but MANY in other contexts through history who died for my ideals!) and in that spirit, I can (and must) do the same.
And so, the journey continues. Enjoy the trip, but search deep to know why and where you travel. The destination might be awesome, but we are here to enjoy (in the deeper sense) the ride as well. For if we know WHY we do these things, even the pain is worth it.