The Siblings Duke it Out

Well, I haven't had time, or really much inclination to keep this up, so I thought I would just post some recent exchanges my sister and I have had. The origin of this exhange was a .... ahem, I'll use the word "review" loosely here, of a William Rivers Pitt article.

I like William Rivers Pitt and find him both intelligent, articulate and persuasive. Yet, I'm usually a bit slow to jump on anyone's band wagon. So when I received the link to the article, I sent the response below, alluding to the fact that I wasn't quite convinced by Pitt's article.

Yeah, I saw this, but I found it a bit overreaching. As much as I hate Bush and like Pitt, I'm not convinced we are any closer to fascism then when Hoover was head of the FBI. Kennedy was probably a political/mobster assassination, Pearl Harbor was permitted to happen to gain entry into the war, those deemed traitors (Ethel /Julian Rosenberg) were shot, not imprisoned, and individuals like William Rivers Pitt would not have been allowed to publish without treason charges most likely.

So I'm not convinced by the rhetoric, on either side. It seems whichever party has political power at the time swings the pendulum in its direction, but never loses sight of the fact that it's always a swinging pendulum. The cry that it has come to rest is not yet founded, that I can see.

While the fear mongering of this administration has occurred to the Nth degree, the cry of fascism may in fact be the same tactic, from the other side only. Congress has not been gelded by Bush per se, but by Democratic endorsement of the marginalized, by vocal and radical gay marriage proponents, pornography as free speech proponents, etc. They went so far out on a limb that the average American could no longer relate to the party.

While the inboxes of average Americans were being filled with offers to view farm animals and women getting it on, homosexuals demanding to be treated as heterosexual and children be raised to see this as not only acceptable, but a desirable consummation of intimacy between members of the same sex, reports of cities spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove "In God" or "Under God" from city seals, and the religious right feeling as if history was writing their religion out of the picture in deference to secularist ideals, in their eyes this was akin to communism and fascism of its own brand; Bush just ran in and filled that gap. He could not have done that unless the Democrats, so assured of their own strength, failed to recognize that a gap in fact existed.

And they did fail to do that.

With this, I received a one liner from sis which simply said "you gotta stop hanging out at that church, really". Thus the war of words began:

----- Original Message -----

From: Karen W. Meyer

Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 9:03 AM

Subject: Re: xxxxx wants you to see this.

You really gotta stop hanging out at that canoe shop. When you start attacking the person, and not the issues, I gotta believe those drunks masquerading as intellectuals ain't doin you no good. Really.

When middle of the road is something you no longer recognize, when suspension of belief regarding the positions of two polar opposites is something you can't entertain, you gotta admit that you probably have more in common with the fundamentalist right than I do. Same tactics, same strategy, same fears, same origins..... just manifested down a different avenue. The difference between you and I is that I have invested the time in hearing both sides of the arguement. You, it would seem, are willing to hear and surround yourself only that which validates your personal viewpoint, and attack the individual who holds a different one.

Yup, you're farther right than you know it, lit'l sis.

There. Now isn't that fun to make it a personal issue instead of a political one?

In My In-Box was a rather lengthy missive sent as an education in civics and current politics, for apparently I conveyed, unintended, that I was ignorant of these things. The original email from sis follows:

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2006 11:28 AM

Subject: Re: xcxxxxxxx wants you to see this.

Well, at least my "drunken intellectuals" get their facts straight. Some things you might want to know: it is not the democrats in Congress who have pushed the agenda on gay rights, and separation of church and state. It is organizations dedicated to those particular interests who have won court battles, in front of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic leadership. And sometimes they win, and when they do, it's because we have a pretty good Constitution and Bill of Rights. Still.

No one in congress, save possibly Ted Kennedy or Bernie Sanders, advocates an agenda that far to the left (if you must call it leftist to keep the government from promoting religion and denying gay life partners rights in the event of medical emergencies and the like). To do so for most members of Congress would be political suicide because, as you rightly assert, the mainstream of American voters disagree (and I would say most misunderstand) those particular civil liberties issues and would vote their friendly senator or congressman out of office.

So, the democrats are not really the problem. And if Pitt fails in his argument to make a persuasive case for the rise of the fascist state, it is because his article is too short and leaves out further convincing evidence. Fascism is not exactly the face of Hitler, but it is the alliance of the government with capitalist interests, and we have that to a shocking and detrimental degree right now in this country. Made possible by democrats and republicans alike. We have the best congress money can buy, and for the most part, it has been bought and paid for by very large, multi-national corporations.

So, one of the criteria for meeting the definition of fascism has been met: alliance of government with private capitalist interests.

Secondly, we are currently under an administration which has seized and manipulated executive powers to an unprecedented level. Prior to this administration, the single greatest concentration of power by the executive branch took place during the Reagan administration, was somewhat less utilized by Bush the Elder and Clinton, although they too used it to their advantage to a greater extent than presidents prior to Reagan.

This administration, however, has used its authority to extend the timespan of "secret" documents; to justify secret wiretapping as part of the patriot act and in excess of what the patriot act (passed by a majority republican congress but with plenty of democratic support) allows; to redefine torture and to redefine the term "prisoner of war" in unprecedented ways; to (for the first time in our history) say that we can hold prisoners indefinitely without charging them and without any judicial authority for holding them in the first place.

This administration has stepped all over the free speech rights of citizens in innumerable ways, but just to name a few: extending a "no-protest" ban for 7 miles around Bush's Crawford, TX ranch; requiring anti-war protesters to be corralled in fenced-off protest zones far from the event they are protesting during IMF and World Bank meetings; by encouraging landlords and other citizens to report on all suspicious activities of their fellow citizens (of which your son nearly became a victim); by imposing fines and causing the cancellation of television and radio shows that expressed vehemently anti-Bush positions (Politically Incorrect and Howard Stern, for example. Yes, technically Howard was fined for being a pig, but he had been a pig for more than ten years and no one cared at all. When he became a pig who was critical of the administration in the wake of 9/11, and an advocate for John Kerry, he suddenly became too much of a pig for the public airwaves.)

So, another criterion has been met: increasing governmental control over the flow of information out of the governmental realm to the public, and the concomitant control over speech that is critical of the government.

Thirdly, fascism is defined by decreasing individual liberties. This is clearly what the Bush administration and its allies on the Christian right are looking for, because they see those liberties as threatening to their own interests, although I don't think that the Christian Right "gets" that the Bush administration is using them more than it agrees with them. Individual liberties on issues like freedom of choice, like gay rights, like freedom of expression bother the religious right because they see these as examples of immorality that are prohibited by their own religious codes. It benefits this administration to make people all lathered up about these issues that may rarely if ever affect their own lives, because then they won't be thinking about
the fact that this government has used its power and our money to amass unprecedented wealth and control over the population while the majority of people in this country don't know if they can afford to retire, worry about their health insurance or lack of it, and blithely shop at Wal-Mart even though some kid in China is probably chained to a sewing machine so that they can fill their carts for less than their take-home pay.

So, the evidence is there that we are closer to a fascist state than we have ever been. Is it overwhelming? Maybe not yet. But it sure is bad enough to be concerned about. And, FYI, only one person at the Canoe Shop is a drunk, and none of them are convicted felons.

Nonetheless, I read, and responded as follows:

(What's convicted felons got to do with anything? (And even you must know that lack of conviction is not absense of offense, it's absence of detection).

You're preaching to the choir. I'm not a fan of this administration and never was.

With that said, you failed to address the sole issue I raised.... the denigration and ridicule of anyone, absolutely anyone who holds a different opinion... All Christians are painted with the broad brush of "religious right", and all people of religious faith as intellectually inferior. That's just not the case. I'm sorry you never knew anyone who held a deep conviction and faith and whom you could respect as possessing an intelligence equal to your own. You are the poorer not having experienced it, or shut the door on it.

I don't doubt that you understand your side of the issue. I don't even necessarily dispute most of them. I only asked if you had ever invested the time in learning the counterarguements to that? Or do you truly believe none exist? I never said this administration hasn't done a lot of horrible things. I implied only that the pendulum of democracy allows for that, where Pitt raises the alarm that the pendulum has stopped mid swing. I simply said I was not convinced of that, and for that my belief is disparaged as a result of religious affiliation. I find that attribution objectionable.

30 years ago when you did not have the totalitiarn Bush in office, you also did not have the Howard Sterns, the live sex shows, masturbation in public as a form of "entertainment" under free speech. The failure to recognize that lack of all restrictions with no concomitant responsbility for the impact such will have can in itself be viewed as a derogation of duty and irresponsible. That's not an unreasonable conclusion for people to come to. You fail to recognize the conditions which also must precede the acceptance of such restrictions on civil liberties.

Securing medical, financial and other instruments for the protection of gay "partnerships" can and have been developed. That those mechanisms, domestic partnership laws permitting collection of retirement funds and health insurance, are deemed insufficient precisely because they do not in, and of themselves, carry the same psychological currency as endorsement of marriage, is in my estimation asking government, and society at large, to validate and promote one's preferred perversion, not just protect it. NAMBLA has piggybacked and capitalized tremendously on the gay rights movement, free speech protection, and with many gay supporters, to promote and advocate their predeliction for Man/Boy love using the same platform gays have in recent history. Maybe they will eventually be as successfull and I can understand why people would fear that. Maybe in the politically correct world of unfettered freedom, we will now have to make available gay barbie and ken dolls so children will learn the acceptable ranges of "physical" relationships open to them, for to not socially validate it, as opposed to protecting the ability to engage in it, is met with cries of victimization. Ridiculous? Well, 30 years ago so was the idea that domestic partnership legislation for gays would be demonized as an oppressive arrangement.

There is also a failure to recognize another sign of a fascist and totalitarian state: the eradication of all religion from the public sphere, and then from the private. You fail to recognize that the alliance of the state with capitalist interests has always existed. The vote originally was to be granted only to the propertied, the landed, not the general public. That it did not prevail does not negate that it existed. Greed is perhaps written in some mens hearts, as is pride, and arrogance. Science and technology will never mediate the emotions and desires of man, but by chemical restraint, which, if the proliferation of those on psychotropic drugs is any indication, is well on its way also. Nor will legislation.

And to confuse the religious right with Christianity is precisely what Christ addressed. "many worship me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me."

Throwing off the oppressor at the risk of all is the story and history of Judaism. Doing so without throwing the baby out with the bath water is the story of Christ. The story is not restricted to 2000 years ago. It plays itself out in every generation.

What a sad state of affairs this is, I think to myself. I feel like the bastard child of mixed parentage.... the evangelical churches of America cringe at the mention of Democrats, and my Democrat relatives and friends turn apoplectic at any expression of Christian faith. I never knew the two had to be mutually exclusive.