El Reino del Cielo

¡Hola Cada uno!

Este poste siguiente es una discusión de 3 porciones que he estado teniendo sobre la elección americana reciente.

La primera parte, es a de mi amigo y del redactor del "Disinformation" libros, el Jason diabólico Louv.

La segunda parte, es una respuesta a Jason de Chris Arkenberg.

La tercera sección es mi reponse a y pensamientos sobre cada uno.

This post is dedicated to Princesa Isabel de Mallorca.

Nuestra palabra es nuestra arma.

Jason Louv


Last night in my post-election daze I was wracking my brains trying to come up with any way out of this rat-trap. I think that that may be speaking to the majority in this country in their own language – morals and religion. Of course, some people may think that that is, again, allowing them to set the debate just like Bush set the tone in the presidential debates by allowing Kerry (or Kerry only allowing himself) the defensive position. But I think that ultimately, re-directing the religious narrative in this country instead of ignoring it and hoping it goes away may be our only course of action.

The only thing I can think of to do personally is to start by creating a website where religious voices–pastors, ministers, etc. who are anti-war–can out-Jesus and out-moralize these people and get them not to think twice, but feel twice about how their lives and their stories have been hijacked. I or like-minded people would need voices to be heard and people who are willing to donate a domain, webspace and design time.

Pass this email on far and wide. These are things we should at least be thinking about.

Jason


We Are the Moral Majority

I'm writing this the morning after Black Wednesday. Here in New York the hurt and defeat – I'm talking physical pain – are palpable. Even the sky went dark.

The thing we most feared happened. A lot of people are trying to get used to the idea of being resigned to this regime for the next four years. A lot of people, especially young people, are planning to leave the country.

One thing is for sure: what we saw yesterday is the complete failure of the left to get through to voters. We appealed to reason. We uncovered the Bush administration's dealings, their lies and their personal interests. We showed them the fruits of their labor in graphic detail. We showed them that despite everything that Bush and the Neo-Cons say to them, in the end they will take their money and send their children to die for no REASON whatsoever.

And you know what? The people who re-elected Bush saw and heard and registered that. It even gave some of them pause – but in the end, that didn't matter. Because Bush BELIEVES. Bush is religious. Bush is moral. And most of all, Bush holds the Word of Christ as true and incontrovertible.

Religion is the opiate of the masses – or it can be, if wielded by hands who mean to use it to enslave and cynically manipulate. It can also be man's highest aspiration – to find meaning in life, to find goodness and truth, even to surrender to higher power.

Imagine the left in this country from the perspective of the overwhelmingly religious majority of those who voted for Bush this last Tuesday – those who did so because Bush speaks to the unshakeable faith that they hold so deep within them, that they have carried with them from childhood or conversion, that they gauge their own actions and those of everybody else on this planet by. Look at the shameful, unwitting self-parody that is the left through their eyes, the living Jack Chick tract that is left-leaning America. Living like rats in cities with no space to breathe or appreciate the land or the simple things. Snide, arrogant, belittling, totally convinced of intellectual superiority and unwilling to believe in something higher. Our pundits and champions are sarcastic comedians, coddled actors and misogynist rappers, not serious political thinkers. From their eyes, we teach our children that God does not exist (condemning them to hell), that people descend from monkeys, to spit on the traditional family and its values and that it's perfectly OK to kill unborn children, all while laughing at those evolutionary throwbacks who are so unsophisticated that they actually believe the Word of God and the moral code laid down in the Bible.

How can you expect to argue with the Bush administration and those who support it when everything that comes out of your mouth sounds like mocking laughter, and from somebody so backward and unaware of the hollow void at the center of their life that they haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, to boot?

This country was founded on the separation of Church and State. We might yet realize this eminently sane ideal. Unfortunately, since the Reagan years and especially in the last four, this separation no longer holds true. But the time to lament a country that was more respectful of individual differences is not now, not when the average American's view of reality has been almost wholly constructed from the King James Bible, FOX News and the Left Behind series.

Now I was watching CNN after the election results came out and, over and over again, I saw people being interviewed on why they cast their vote the way they did. And Bush's supporters overwhelmingly said that they ticked his box because Bush is a man of faith. Despite the fact that their decisions are rapidly returning this country and the world to the 13th century, these are not consciously wrong-doing people (neither, I would go so far as to say, is Bush, although I won't speak either for his cabinet or for the Neo-Con elite in this country). All of these people have put their faith in something huge, a transcendent force bigger than any single one of them, a force that for many of them is the glue and meaning of their lives and their protector and salvation in their moments of need, fear, doubt and darkness.

And these people's faith – so pure and simple – is being callously manipulated to serve the interests of an unsustainable and murderous political and economic system, and moreover, a truly Satanic elite that does not care one whit for the people or the beliefs that it pays lip service to in order to hold on to its mandate to steal and kill.

So stop thinking in terms of hypocrisy. Stop thinking in terms of rationality. The only way that we will minimize the irreversible damage done to our planet and our civilization in the next four years is to speak to the Bush administration, and even more importantly, the people who support them, in their language. To show them how the narrative they hold to be true has been manipulated and played upon. We have four years. So instead of giving in to despair or separatism – which will almost certainly allow the last semblances of democracy-as-we-knew it vanish into the night – we need to work with what we have. We need to ENLIGHTEN BUSH.

The most immediate thing that can be done in this respect is to begin assembling voices. Let's do it. We need pastors and ministers writing and on TV, explaining to Bush and the Neo-Con jackals that are raping this planet what Christianity is REALLY about. WE NEED RELIGIOUS AND MORAL VOICES SPEAKING TO THE "RELIGIOUS" AND "MORAL." Give them something that's not so easy to dismiss. Give them something that goes straight to their heart, not their brains. Give them something that speaks in the language that they hear in the middle of the night when they lay awake with doubts as to whether they're doing the right thing or not. We need to out-moralize and out-Jesus them. We need to give them scolding father and mother figures. Give 'em their own medicine and remind them that Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Organize a deeply religious, anti-war voice in this country and give it the mountain to give its sermon on, on TV, on radio and on the web and we'll start to turn back the tide of inhuman violence that has been perpetrated in the name of religion. There's no reason even to be limited to Christianity, although it needs to be the primary mode of argument.

This is going to take a lot of organizational effort but it could be one of the best – the only – ways to lighten the burden of this administration on our planet, ourselves and the generations to come.

Religion is not the problem – religious fundamentalism is, and that's across the board. Christianity and Islam are both religions of peace, as our President has pointed out, and are also highly sophisticated methods of human liberation once one gets past the totally literal interpretation and begins to explore past the surface – so what happened to all the True Believers? The message of Christ has been hijacked and used for political control and manipulation since before that message was even written down. And they're hijacking it still, right now – but I have faith in people to be good and not follow the lies, when that good is framed in a way that people are prepared to listen to. And not in the way of the politicians who spout the language of faith while setting this world on fire.

Because in their assuredness that they are following the decree of Heaven, they are swiftly turning this planet into a living hell.

Let's take back the hearts and souls of the nation. The Kingdom of Heaven could be now.

–Jason Louv


Chris Arkenberg


Yeah, and I ain't leaving Cali either. Unless it's for Spain or maybe
Canada.

IMHO, the great failure of the Democratic party is that it keeps running these pansy-assed centrist wankers with no real convictions
because they let the Republicans set the agenda for the entire country.
"To win we have to be more like them". Fuck that! We need a candidate who really is a progressive liberal, who's not afraid to take a strong emotional stand on the issues that effect all Americans the most: education, health care, social security, economic disparity. Fuck business! How about some honest humanity? How about a real alternative?

The people who voted for Bush did so because they think he's moral and because they don't like overly-logical intellectuals. The average
person in this country relates to the world in emotional aggregates,
not logic. Bush is the same way, that's why he's so appealing to the
majority. Kerry and most liberal intellectuals essentially end up
insulting Middle America and making them feel like a bunch of morons.
They're hard-working people whose faith is being manipulated by the
corporate rulers.

And faith is something the Left might do well to embrace. Not
necessarily religion, but some degree of conviction in a higher,
guiding power that resonates with the majority of the country. Most
people want meaning in their lives, not just hollow facts. They want
guidance from something larger than themselves, something that
transcends the faults of humanity. Atheism doesn't offer any hope to
anyone. If the Left could reclaim Christianity and focus on the
teachings of Christ, it might become apparent that warfare and hatred
are not Christian values. Morality is not a stone to cast at gays and
Musliims.

A divided America works great for both BushCo and Bin Laden. Focus on
the similarities and take responsibility for your own actions.


Joe Nolan


Hello everyone,

Chris brings up some strong points I have been considering in the aftermath
of Tuesday Night.

I agree that I am not leaving the country any time soon. I heard on NPR
this morning that Canadian immigration services were flooded with phone
calls and emails on Wednesday and Thursday by Americans interested in
immigrant status/citizenship.

Bullshit.

Let's assume that the election really went down the way it has been reported
and that the majority of the voting people of America not only want George
back but they want more of his kind in the House and the Senate and that
even in states where Kerry won they are totally repulsed by the idea of 2
men or 2 women loving each other for the rest of their lives for better or
poorer in sickness and in health.

Fine.

That's no reason why I or you or anyone else who feels disillusioned (on the
"left" and "right" both) should turn tail and give up on ideals like justice
and honesty and good ol' fashioned LOGIC. That's ridiculous. Americans are
capable of great things on the whole and they always have been (like many
humans everywhere) and I think that a lot of folks are simply afraid. Now
that's no excuse for the kind of criminal insanity that has endangered this
country and its Constitution for the last 4 years but it is an explanation
and it helps me find empathy instead of just incredulity.

I also agree with the point that the Democrats have ultimately done
themselves a disservice by moving too close to the center. It worked for
Clinton for 8 years, but I hated that fucker and the fact that he (IMHO)
sold out his base at every possible turn. That is the reason why the
Greens, Nader etc. have been able to generate at least some base of support.
Even Dean and his campaign show that at it's core the left is interested in
moving on toward a Progressive Politics that can confront corporate
influence and values as popular movements of the early 1900's lead to
reforms for and an awareness of the plight of working people and the
inherent evils of an unchecked corporate/ruling class.

I am a bit more confused about what to do regarding the "faith" issue. I am
just as sickened by (what I usually come to understand as)
poser/pseudo-intellectual "Atheism" as I am at fire and brimstone/ no-think
"Fundamental Christianity". Although I don't know how to communicate
effectively with people who see illegal wars, gay bashing, fear mongering
and cronyism as the "moral values" of a "Christian"....???

What does one say?

Fight the good fight,

Joe Nolan

"All Art is Martial Art."
www.joenolan.com : music.poetry.art.comment


Solamente el asimiento humilde una esperanza humilde alta en sus corazones.

Sea humilde en sus manos soñolientas en este mundo.

Sea un Asesino en Cielo.

Toda La Energía a La Gente.

Amor,

Joselito Nolan