In the Postmetaphysical Thinking 4 thread I posted the following from John Caputo:
“…democracy today is suffering from an auto-immune disease….Democracy today is a victim of the “strange illogical logic†by which a living thing destroys the very thing that is meant to fortify (munis) it against attack by a foreign body (V, 173)….. So democracies often think that if, as a practical matter, they are to survive, they must make themselves safe from democracy and learn how to tolerate anti-democratic forces within their own bodies. Thus, in order to make the American way of life safe against the threat of terrorists who threaten democracy, Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to abridge the democratic rights of American citizens (V, 64-65), or the rights of prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, even as the Rehnquist court has seen fit to profoundly abridge the civil liberties of Americans to keep the streets of democracy safe….An absolute democracy could bring a democratic end to democracy; that risk is built right into democracy….The art of governing democratically is to know when democracy should suppress its own immunities to the undemocratic and attack itself (autos)â€â€in the interests of democracy, of course.â€Â
(Originally in The Journal of Cultural and Religious Theory, 4.3, August 2003)
This is exactly what we get when we complacently court the people that hold the type of worldview representative of above. That is why I rail against “integral†practices that are misdirected in trying to play up the positive aspects of this type of conservative political view generally or Bush in particular. The latter use such praise, and the condemnation of criticism aimed at them, to build their case to disempower the populace and instill fascism, all under nice-sounding phrases like “patriotism†and “freedom.†Yes, there are positive aspects to Bush & Co., but it’s their negative aspects that we must speak up against, and loudly, or we will literally face the end of America.
Speaking of which, to help up us wake up Naomi Wolf has written a new book called End of America. This is what Naomi says in a letter to amazon.com readers:
“We are in a true crisis, and it is heartening that in the last little while it seems that Americans are beginning to awaken to the nature and gravity of the threat against us. I argue in The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, that there are ten classic-, time-tested steps that would-be despots always take when they are seeking to close down an open society or crush a democracy movement, and that we are seeing each of these steps unfolding in America today. I looked at Italy in the 20’s, Germany in the 30’s, East Germany in the 50’s, Czechoslovakia in the 60’s, Chile in the coup of 1973, and China in the 1980’s, and so many echoes leap from the pages that it is hard to avoid the hypothesis that someone influential in this administration has studied these great successes in the coercion of civil society and is reproducing not only tactics but language, imagery, scenes, photo-ops and actual laws that worked the first time around to shut down democracy or crush democracy movements, and press citizens increasingly to yield to a violent state authority.â€Â
The 10 steps to a fascist government are the following (sound familiar?):
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law
So what can I do about it? For one join in the American Freedom Campaign, that is, if you give a shit about something beyond your own supposed self-development. And quit playing nice with fascists. They need to be addressed for what they are and fought tooth and nail. The alternative is what we have in power, and it can and will get much worse soon if we don’t do something.
Naomi Wolf’s book sounds interesting. Looking forward to reading it. I wonder if her recent conversion to Christianity will be discussed therein.
Also see the Project for the Old American Century’s “14 points of fascism†at the following link:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
Regarding Wolf, politics and Christianity see this link to a symposium of The Institute for Progressive Christianity:
http://instituteforprogressivechristianity.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=36
“Thank you, and I am delighted to be here. This is potentially an historic occasion; at a moment of great danger for our nation, when the forces of the religious right have shown their tremendous power in intervening in national policy and even determining world events, some ordinary citizens have decided to stand up and fight back. There are fewer than a hundred people in this room today – but this gathering could be the start of a groundswell of citizens of all faiths determined to reverse the tide and be a force for social justice in the nation. The Center for Progressive Christianity, hopefully in alliance with friends and multifaith partners from every walk of life, may be stepping forward at a moment when such a movement is desperately needed, to be a catalyst for a groundswell of millions of citizens determined to live in an America guided by ethical policies and social justice principles, rather than by powerful theocrats.â€Â
As an aside–John Caputo, whom I quoted to start this thread, is a Professor of Religion and Humanities at Syracuse University. I’ve used Caputo extensively as a reference on Derrida in several previous posts.
I’m with you Joe in your defense of the differentiation between progressive and conservative Christians. As you point out they tend to get lumped together by some integral writers. I make a similar argument about Derrida getting lumped into a mean, destructive pluralism by some integral writers when Caputo, a religious scholar no less, sees that is far from the case.
very interesting; i am glad to see you are deeply aware of the problem;
it is important if you can recover what US used to be some time ago; your country truly paved the path to freedom and political systems that give and recognize each and every person and their personal rights, freedom and of course, obligations; now the risks are huge, if US democracy falls completely it will be more difficult for us in the third world;
our problems in the third world are different than yours, however we are working hard to transform the system;
regarding this models of “integral development”, for me they are no more than illusion, an autistic and self-centered path to a kind of limbo that conveniently keeps the citizen away from the real arena, away from the real and pressing problem, political, social, economical…an integral blocking for an integral problem;
i have always thought that no one will be saved alone, to work to save oneself alone is futile, we work for everybody so all are saved or no one will be; if we can’t build a world for everybody, what kind of strange dream makes us believe we can save ourselves or go to higher realms?
there is indeed a “progressive” Christianity, esoteric schools indeed exists inside Christianity that knows very well the world situation, they have been working from a long time from the inside, is very important to begin to work from the outside, that seems to be what Naomi Wolf is proposing;
From Carolyn Baker’s review of Wolf’s book at Online Journal:
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2445.shtml
A thorough investigation of American politics and society from the end of the Civil War until the present moment reveals, as I have carefully traced in my book U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn’t Tell You, that much of recent American history is replete with a preference on the part of corporations and the politicians they own for an economic and political system on the far right end of the spectrum. In fact, resistance to fascism in the United States has been an arduous and daunting struggle for those who have been able to understand and oppose the appeal that fascism has to the corporatocracy, and in fact, take seriously Mussolini’s fundamental definition of fascism: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
Hi Edward,
We have similar problems in Australia – but then, the conservatives have always favoured control over freedom. The communist party was once banned in Australia and I had a friend who’s parents were communists and she can remember them burying books in the backyard (which they dug up when the ban was reversed).
The situation today has parallels with the Red Scare of the 50’s and the actions against the Japanese and Germans in America during WW2 (particularly the mass internment of Japanese Americans). Indeed, my grandmother was a German Jew whose family migrated to South Australia at the beginning of the 20th century (as part of a larger group of Germans influential in creating the South Australian wine industry). During WW1 she hid both her German and Jewish ancestry so well we didn’t find out until recently.
How is today different from the McCarthy era?
I don’t dispute the connection between corpoartism and the corruption of democracy. From the very beginning of trade commercial interests have attempted to subvert whatever gets in the way of profit. I was reading in The Age today (Sat 29/9) that the military regime is Myanmar is largely supported by Singapore. The problems in Myanmar cannot be blamed on the West because the biggest influence is China and India (and SE Asia), and China has once again blocked a UN resolution (like they block action on Darfur). It’s all about trade and profit. The Myanmar elites who benefit from the dictatorship ship their ill-gotten gains into Singaporese banks and ventures and Singapore sells them military, policing and surveillance equipment and expertise.
In many ways democracy was always a myth. It’s the economy stupid – or rather, the political-economy. If democracy fails it is because the people fail to support it. The will of the people is absolute and no regime can last long without the support (or acquiescance) of the people. Totalitarian regimes exist because people want security and certainty. Some Iraqis want the return of Saddam, and Putin is popular in Russia.
This is about the hierarchy of needs. Democracy is tolerated only so long as it produces abundance. The bottom line for most people is protecting their wealth from real or perceived threats. If democracy is seen to fail to protect wealth then people accept totalitarianism (until it fails as well, which is inevitable).
The US population has always flirted with authoritarianism. There is a will amongst the population to punish transgression. You still have capital punishment, you try minors as adults and impose harsh sentances. It is no surprise to see the US react the way it has.
The pendulum is swinging the other way now, slowly – too many casualties in Iraq, a sense of having contained al Qaeda, and a growing sense that the greatest threat is internal (especially after Katrina).
But sadly, in Australia, as in America, given the choice between democracy or the house, most will choose the house.
The other thing to say here is that democracy is not just about federal governments, its about a deeper attitude that affects local associations to larger entities. It is the deeply ingrained habit that a collective should vote. Even in the corporate world boards can out vote a CEO. A company is really a special interest group made up of investors who pursue their interest in making a profit in competition with other interest groups who might wish to curtail the company’s activities for a varity of reasons. The distortion occurs because the special interest group we call corporations have far greater financial resources than other interest groups. We should also not exclude the fact that these corporate special interests compete against themselves and that a good proportion of lobbying is inter-corporational and competitive. For example, it is in the best interests of the retail lobby to import cheap goods from China, but it is not in the best interests of the manufacturing lobby. So within any economy you have pressure to both increase and decrease subsidies. The group that can deliver the most money and/or votes wins.
The problem in most industrialized nations is laziness. The population is spoilt by wealth and this encourages indifference. They have everything and so they believe in nothing and have nothing to fight for.
[...] In “The end of America” thread I mentioned the American Freedom Campaign, which I joined. They recently made me aware of the new legislation above. [...]