BROKEN LAWS, SHATTERED LIVES

Before an astonished and outraged world, we
have regressed morally to using tactics first
made infamous by the Inquisition. I'm not
just referring to water boarding, but also the
whole program of secretly grabbing "suspects,"
holding them secretly, and then torturing them
until they confess to something, and then
punishing them on the basis of the tortured
"confession" augmented by secret evidence
that can't be revealed at trial for "national
security" reasons. This is just like the Star
Chamber procedures in the Inquisition!

Why bother? This is such a mockery that it
makes "rule of law" a laughingstock. Who is it
supposed to fool? It fools no one in the rest of
the world; it may fool some of us. All it does in
the rest of the world is cause great anger and
contempt, and strengthen the terrorists. It
reminds people of Saddam and Stalin. It's
unbelievably stupid, as well as grossly immoral.

Inquisition victims were often tortured until
they were insane. They rode to their burning in
open carts, wearing dunce caps and babbling
like the idiots they had become. Saudi-born Abu
Zubaydah is a broken man now, certifiably insane,
according to Dan Coleman, who was an FBI
agent who worked on his case. (He is no longer
with the Bureau.) Coleman says that Abu "knew
very little about operations or strategy." Never
the less, he has received the full treatment at
numerous CIA black sites around the world
before winding up at Gitmo. If you have a strong
stomach and want to know what the full treat-
ment entails, read the account in The Washington
Post (2/23/08) entitled "Inside the Mind of a
Gitmo Detainee." It is written by his lawyers,
and the procedures used on Abu are pretty
standard, as reported by the FBI (on other cases),
and in CIA training manuals.

The pious "we don't torture" claims repeated ad
nauseam by Bush and Rice are simply lies, reminding
one of similar claims made by the Church during the
Inquisition. The Church was careful to have
their victims seized and tortured by the secular
authorities under their control so their hands
would appear clean. Our government is fond of
"outsourcing," and does this with much of its
dirty work. Italy is preparing to go to trial next
month against 26 of our CIA agents involved
in kidnapping an Egyptian known as Abu Omar
from the streets of Milan and secretly flying him
to Egypt, where he was tortured for several
years, found to be innocent, and was finally
released. This story is reported in detail by
Mother Jones (Mar./Apr. 2008) along with an
excellent review of the whole history and bogus
legal basis for this extensive and expensive
criminal program known as "rendition." I was
surprised to learn that it was going on under
the Clinton administration, but was vastly
enlarged after 9/11. Unless we want it to
happen against ever more American citizens
working abroad, it needs to stop completely!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

FOR SEN. CLINTON

Note to a policy wonkette: Solutions aren't
worth much if you can't sell them. We saw
that on your first attempt at health care reform,
which you formulated in secret, back in the
90's. As Robert Creamer has pointed out in
The Huffington Post: "To villify Obama for his
ability to inspire is to ignore the principal
lesson of the last 30 years."

Solutions are not enough. To be successful
they need moral force and fervor that give
meaning to people's lives. Where there is no
vision, the people perish, says the Scripture.
It takes persuasion, idealism, passion,
inspiration, and reason to bring about change.
For 30 years the Demos have offered voters
superior policies, and have been beaten by a
"conservative agenda" wrapped in the flag,
religion, and "traditional values."

Something new is afoot. Hillary is as non-
plussed by it as the professional pundits, who
are usually the last folks to know what's going
on, but can sense now that a sea change is
coming. As I wrote in a previous blog, the
religious right has lost its relevance along with
much of its leadership. (Jim Dobson says he
will not vote for Sen. McCain.) With that
Republican base eroding, and the rest of the
party split, NOW thunders Barack ("Blessing"
in Swahili) is the time for change! It certainly
is the time and the place, but it won't happen
without a seismic struggle. Entrenched power
never lets go of that power without a fight.

And this brings us back to the warriors on the
Democratic side: what he lacks, he can get;
what she lacks, she can't get. It's as simple as
that. (Thank you, Alec Baldwin, for pointing
this out.) She lacks the leadership qualities
of speech and personality needed to mobilize
a movement. That's why she's behind. Geo.
Washington was not a captivating speaker,
but he was inspirational by example. Lincoln
was an eloquent speaker as well as a deep
thinker. But he had little political experience.
When elected president, Lincoln had served
two years in the U. S. House of Representatives.
That's it! He had been defeated for reelection
because he opposed the Mexican war! That
caused people to question his patriotism.
Deja vu?

F. D. R. and J. F. K. were both gifted speakers,
as were Ronald Reagan and M. L. King. That's
not a liability! And it shouldn't be discounted.
Nor is it an either/or. Nowhere is it written
that you can't have good solutions and fiery
speeches. Our greatest presidents often had
both. May it be so again!

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

Sen. Obama should, in my opinion, immediately
set up an advisory council of distinguished
military experts, such as Colin Powell and Anthony
Zinni and Brent Scowcroft. This panel should be
conspicuously non-partisan. Zinni is on a first-
name basis with both Mubarak and Musharraf,
as well as leaders in Jordan and S. Arabia. He
played golf with many of them, when he headed
Central Command. He is a student of the Middle
East, its people and history.

THE AMERICAN RELIGION (Cont'd)

In the last blog, I wrote on this topic at length,
drawing on works cited, by Will Herberg and
Harold Bloom. Herberg called our national
religion "the American way of life," and Bloom
referred to it as "the American religion." Both
show conclusively, I think, that our national religion
is not Christianity. As Harold Bloom put it: "The
American christian is more American than
christian."

We now live in a country where the president and
vice-president have the power to grab any
American citizen off the street, without a
warrant, and send him to a secret prison where
he can be tortured and held indefinitely, without
hearing any charges filed against him, without
ever appearing before a judge or being able to
get help or notify his family where he is. This
isn't a Christian country! A Christian country
couldn't even conceive of such a thing happening.

The American religion, says Bloom, intertwines
national symbols (the flag, the Founding Fathers,
symbolic prayers and slogans, the fight to keep
God in the Pledge) with Christian beliefs and
symbols. None of the national symbols really
have anything to do with Christianity, do they?
And, by the way, why do many churches display
our flag by the altar, beside the Cross? Is the
flag sacred? Is the nation? How? And why?
And what, exactly, does "under God" mean in
our pledge of allegiance? Does it mean God
rules? Does "under law" mean under God's law?

Well, these are just some of questions raised by
these two important writers. I hope they raise
your own questions and thoughts along these
lines. Let me know what you think.

THE AMERICAN RELIGION

Do all the great religions teach brotherhood
and tolerance? Yes, of course. "He whose
heart is in the smallest degree set upon
goodness will dislike no one." So said Confu-
cius, 550 years before Christ. He also said:
"Do not do unto others what you don't want
done unto you." Muhammad and the Buddha
made similar statements. (If you have questions
about Islam in this regard, see Reza Aslan's
excellent book: No God but God).

What does brotherhood mean? If it means any-
thing at all, it means feed the hungry, care for
the sick, clothe the naked, house the homeless,
and so on. Doesn't it? How are we doing here in
America? Pretty good? Could we do better? If
so, what keeps us from doing better? Some
people think it's our religion! Isn't that strange?
Or is it? What is our religion?

Will Herberg wrote an influential book (back in
the 50's) about our national religion. It's
entitled: Protestant, Catholic, Jew. In it he
argued that the real religion of the country is
none of the above, but something he called
"the American Way of Life." I will be referring
to it as "the Amer. way" or "the Amer. religion."
Herberg noted that some 95% of us believe in
God, and about 85% identify ourselves as
"Christian." 70 - 75% claim to be members of a
religious community (although church and
synagogue rolls show that only 65% actually are.


But, he says, "when asked 'would you say your
religious beliefs have any effect on your ideas
of politics and business?' A majority (60%) of
the same folks for whom religion is something
'very important' said their religious beliefs had
no real effect on their ideas and conduct in these
decisive areas of our every day life.

Clearly, said Herberg, that's not Christianity in
any way, shape or form. So what is it? To find
out, we have to ask what it is that we are
intolerant of. That will reveal what we really
value. We are tolerant of different religious
beliefs, so they must not matter much. We're
tolerant of atheists: Tom Paine, Clarence
Darrow, Robert Ingersol, H. L. Menken, were
all famous atheists with big followings. You
can curse God, if you want to. That's okay.
But not the flag! If you burn a flag you can
be in a lot of trouble. The flag is sacred to a lot
of people, and is honored in many American
churches along side the cross and other holy
symbols. Hillary wants a constitutional
amendment banning flag burning.

We are, the Pledge says, "one nation under God."
What does that mean? If we are under someone,
doesn't that mean we obey them? That they rule?
Are we, as a nation, under God's rule? Obey and
follow his laws? If so, why do our biggest
consumer bucks go to gambling, pornography,
and illegal drugs?

Herberg says the way we live is our religion. It
shows our values. One of our core values
(besides nationalism) is individualism. The
Amer. way is highly personal and individual.
"In this kind of religion," writes Herberg, it is
not man who serves God, but God who is
mobilized and made to serve man and his
purposes -- whether these purposes be economic
prosperity, free enterprise, social reform, demo-
cracy, happiness, security, or 'peace of mind.'
God is conceived as man's 'omnipotent servant.'
Faith is a sure-fire device to get what we want.
The American is a religious man, and in many
cases personally humble and conscientious.
But religion as he understands it is not some-
thing that makes for humility or the uneasy
conscience: it is something that reassures him
about the essential rightness of everything
American, his nation, his culture, and himself;
something that validates his goals and ideals
instead of calling them into question; something
that enhances his self-regard instead of chal-
lenging it; something that feeds his self-
sufficiency instead of shattering it; something
that offers him salvation on easy terms instead
of demanding repentance and a 'broken heart.'
Because it does all these things, his religion,
however sincere and well-meant, is ultimately
vitiated by a strong and pervasive idolatrous
element."

Harold Bloom, in his 1992 book, The American
Religion, echoes and amplifies much of what
Will Herberg wrote on that subject. Bloom
refers to the "linked emblems of national re-
ligion: the flag and the fetus," which he sees
as substitutes for the cross and the divine child.
"They symbolize the American religion, the partly
concealed but scarcely repressed national faith,"
he says. Court actions to remove Bible reading
and prayer from public schools are bitterly fought
by those who see such actions as repressing, and
hence attacking, our national religion.

"The largest paradox concerning the Amer. religion"
writes Bloom, "is that it is truly a Biblical religion,
whereas Judaism and Christianity never were
that, despite all their passionate protestations.
Normative Judaism is the religion of the Oral Law,
set out by the Rabbis of the 2nd century. Chris-
tianity is the religion of the Church Fathers . . .
their definitive interpretations displaced Scrip-
ture. The American Religion, unlike Christianity
and Judaism, is actually Biblical." He means by
that, its interpretation is literal. We (the majority)
support capitol punishment, for instance, because
Deuteronomy demands it, even though the two
greatest heroes of the Old Testament, Moses and
David, were both murderers who were not put
to death, but went on to become God's favorites.
Cain, the first murderer on record, was not
punished by death either, so it's not really an
unbending divine requirement. But it is part
of the American religion!

Bloom spends a lot of time describing what he
sees as the two crucial branches of the Amer.
religion, both culturally dominant in their
region of the country. These are the Mormons
and the Southern Baptists. The former are
now the fastest growing church in the U. S.
while the latter is the largest Protestant group,
and was the fastest growing one during the
last half of the 20th century. He notes that
while these two are "violent opponents of
one another, yet each is American to the core,
neither having anything accurately in common
with what historically has been considered
Christianity."

(This is getting lengthy, so I'll plan on con-
tuing it later.)

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net