Sometimes observers from Europe look at America and see our behavior in a way in a new and illuminating way. Slavoi Zizek in an article originally published in IN THESE TIMES on Oct 13, comments on the "news" reportage about the destruction of New Orleans and the calculated attempt to portray the people of New Orleans as looters and rapist. He writes:
"We all remember the reports on the disintegration of public order, the explosion of black violence, rape and looting. However, later inquiries demonstrated that, in the large majority of cases, these alleged orgies of violence did not occur: Non-verified rumors were simply reported as facts by the media. For example, on September 3, the Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department told The New York Times about conditions at the Convention Center: "The tourists are walking around there, and as soon as these individuals see them, they're being preyed upon. They are beating, they are raping them in the streets." In an interview just weeks later, he conceded that some of his most shocking statements turned out to be untrue: "We have no official reports to document any murder. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault."
Why? Zizek continues:
"But we are not dealing here only with good old racism. Something more is at stake, a fundamental feature of the emerging "global" society. On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers were hit. Twelve years earlier, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. November 9 announced the "happy '90s," the Francis Fukuyama dream of the "end of history": the belief that liberal democracy had, in principle, won, that the search is over, that the advent of a global, liberal world community lurks just around the corner, that the obstacles to this ultra-Hollywood happy ending are merely empirical and contingent (local pockets of resistance where the leaders did not yet grasp that their time is over). In contrast, 9/11 is the main symbol of the end of the Clintonite happy '90s, of the forthcoming era in which new walls are emerging everywhere, between Israel and the West Bank, around the European Union, on the U.S.-Mexico border. The rise of the populist New Right is just the most prominent example of the urge to raise new walls?
Here is a link to whole article.
Current Affairs: October 2005 Archives
There is a myth among Unitarian Universalists that our congregations are full of affluent, highly credentialed liberals. Once the myth is accepted and begins to shape our expectations; the carpenter, the store clerk, and the hospital worker sitting in our pews become abnormal, simply because we have constructed our norm on the basis of that myth. The myth also masks the economic insecurity of the middle class.
In my experience there quite a few blue collar workers in our congregations, and there many desperate middle class or "white color" workers. How will our congregations serve the real people in our pews: through the celebration of a myth of affluence, or by talking about the desperation that people face daily in their lives of failing to make it in America?
Barbara Ehrenreich who introduced many middle class readers to the plight of the working poor in her Nicked and Dimed; On (Not) Getting By In America has written a new book Bait and Switch : The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. In this book Ehrenreich attempts to get a white color job, she goes to job coaches, vocational counselors and she was told to think positively. She writes; "there is a tremendous American theme about positive thinking. We have a hard time dealing with truly bad news and discouraging information. Throughout my experience trying to get a white-collar job, I was encouraged to think positively. You are supposed to see your job loss as some great break, your chance to move on to something bigger and better. The reality is that 70 percent of people who lose their jobs and do get rehired, are rehired at a lower pay. But to criticize the system, or to be negative is considered "un-American."
She was unsuccessful in her job search, a not unusual experience among many qualified and experienced members of the congregations I have served. Both of Ehrenreich's books are a must read for Unitarian Universalists who seek to understand the increasing desperation of our people. Here is a link to a great interview with Ehrenreich.
James Cone begins his essay in Soul Work; Anti Racist Theologies in Dialogue with two quotes. The first is by Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote:
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
and the second quote is from Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote:
We have to repent . . . not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
We are familiar with the pejorative "Good German" which refers to those remained silent in the face of the holocaust. What evils are we called to prophesy against? What does it mean to be a "Good American?"
George Lakoff writes: "Today's right-wing conservative values are just plain un-American in this context. This is a country where people pull together in the face of disaster. They don't just tell one another to sink or swim. Sink-or-swim conservatism is not in the American tradition, or the American heart. Empathy, mutual responsibility, fairness, and community -- all progressive values -- are part of this heritage. As Katrina showed, Americans hold a deep sense of shared fate and want an effective government that represents these values, does its job, and serves the people valiantly. Americans want to act responsibly and contribute. Katrina proved it. Those are the central progressive values. Americans have them."
Lakoff argues that the Democrats are once again taking potshots at the Bush administration rather than engaging in "framing the values" around the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He outlines an approach to understanding the catastrophe and making sense of the wrong headed policies that he argues are based in conservative moral values.
Religious liberals need to wrestle with Lakoff's analyis of metaphor and values, it might help us move away from the destructive controversy within Unitarian Universalism that pits a narcissistic search for self which we call "spirituality" against a blatantly partisan politics which we call social action. We are a religious community and we are about values, and meaning, and there is an organized movement in our country that opposes our values. Our response must be about articulating the values that flow our religious perspective, rather than looking for a messiah among the current crop of Democrats who would be king.
Al Gore has given a major address in which he laments the death of "the marketplace of ideas" as propaganda becomes the dominant form of mass discourse, and he argues that America has entered an "alternative universe" where politicians are no longer accountable to truth. While he has a more generous view of "the founding fathers" than I do his point that the leaders who wrote the constitution and sought out to create a new Republic were committed to a deep appreciation of a broad humanism is well taken. I only wish he had talked like this back when he was running for President.
Funny, same thing happened to Jimmy Carter.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America
The President of the United States, and all other officers of the United States including those who work at the Pentagon swear an oath to uphold the constitution. They failed. They did not provide for the common defense of "we the people" when it came to the Katrina disaster, because they were diverted in their completed non defense related war against Iraq.
A report commissioned by the Office of Secretary of Defence as an "independent and critical review" details how funds for flood control were diverted to other projects, desperately needed National Guards were stuck in Iraq and how military personnel had to "sneak off post" to help with relief efforts because their commander had refused permission. The report says that the US has long been committed to war on two fronts, but the Katrina disaster plus Iraq proved too much for the U.S. defense.
