Quote of the Day: “Resistance to Civil Government”

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjCB6W1TKcc

An excerpt from Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government: “A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.”

I hope I am not overreaching here, but since Michael has invoked civil disobedience, it seems like an apt occasion to quote Thoreau. This passage from Resistance to Civil Government (1849), I think, applies here, mutatis mutandis:

All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote. …

Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

Corporate Tax Rates / Credits

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Here’s a chart to illustrate just how grotesque the situation has become with regard to corporate taxation. General Electric, for example, does not pay income taxes. General Electric receives tax credits. It got $3.2 billion’s worth last year alone. But, of course, it is asking its unionized workers to take pay cuts.

(Chart from ThinkProgress via forbes.com)

Quote of the Day: Christianity and Fundamentalist Americanism

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Coinciding with our own exploration of conservative Christianity and capitalism, here’s Andrew Sullivan today on Christianity and a noxious brand of American Exceptionalism:

The relationship between religion and politics is, to my mind, the central question of our time. As the false totalisms of the twentieth century – communism, fascism, Nazism – have been revealed as oppressive, murderous lies, insecure and inadequate human beings in need of totalist solutions to the human dilemma have returned to religion. But more accurately, they have returned to fundamentalism, because only fundamentalism, with its absolute certainty and literal precision and binding, unquestionable authority, can assuage the anxieties of a world dislocated from tradition, up-ended by capitalism, globalized to the point of cultural panic.

What we are seeing on the Republican right at the moment, it seems to me, is an extension of this response to anxiety. The new orthodoxy is fundamentalist Americanism. This is not regular American exceptionalism of the kind that the president adheres to: a belief that this miraculous new world has opened up vistas of democratic opportunity to the rest of the planet, that its inspired constitution has enabled stability and freedom in equal measure, that it played an indispensable role in keeping freedom alive during some dark, dark times, and that its core idea – government by, for and of the people – is universalist in nature. No, the Americanism now heard on the right is that America was uniquely founded on Christianity, that America is therefore a chosen instrument of divine Providence, and that this moral superiority is so profound that indicting America on any prudential, moral or political grounds is un-American or, if it comes from abroad, evil.

*

All of this is routine for authoritarian nationalist movements. What distinguishes this one is a co-optation of Christianity. But, of course, Christianity cannot be co-opted by nationalism. It is opposed to all such distinctions:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Yes, the Messiah came from a Chosen People, but in Christianity, Jesus’s death and resurrection made the whole world that chosen people. At the Feast of the Ascension yesterday, we Catholics heard at Mass the words of Jesus from Matthew:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And so the notion of America as a unique nation in the eyes of God is a Christian heresy. And the rest of the current Republican agenda is also, extremely hard to square with Christian orthodoxy.

(Graphic from The Button Pushing Monkey)

Capitalism and Christian Values

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Over the last week we’ve been citing Frye on religious fundamentalism and false literalism. This week we’re turning our attention to the affinity of the Christian right and laissez faire capitalism.

That affinity is confirmed by a Religious News Service poll published in April. According to the poll, 36 percent of Christians say capitalism and the free market are consistent with Christian values; 44 percent say the two are at odds.

However, party affiliation significantly influences this view. Among Democrats, only 26 percent say Christian values and capitalism are compatible, while a majority, 53 percent, say they are at odds. Among Republicans, on the other hand, a full 46 percent say the two are compatible, while only 37 percent say they are at odds. (Not surprisingly, among Tea Partiers a solid majority, 56 percent, say they are compatible.) Finally, 44 percent of white evangelicals say that fully unregulated businesses would act ethically.

Add to all of this massive tax-exempt funding of conservative megachurches, as well as the deeply entrenched influence of conservative think tanks, corporate sponsorship, talk radio, the increasingly rightward slant of the mainstream news media, as well as the nonstop agitprop of Fox News, and that’s a heavy thumb on the scales in favor of Christian/conservative/laissez faire values.

We’ll see what Frye has to say about this shortly.

The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk

The “Tank Man,” otherwise known as as “Unknown Rebel,” single-handedly on this date in 1989 brought to a halt a line of tanks the day after the deadly forcible removal of student protesters from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Given that these soldiers had likely assisted in the mass murder of as many as thousands of young peaceful protesters, the stubborn bravery of this still unidentified man is inspiring.

The Chinese do not allow access to this clip on Google. Virtually no one under the age of thirty even knows about it.

Frye in Notebook 50:

June 1989. The massacre of the students in Tiananmen Square and the utter complacency of the senility squad about it, their confidence that all they have to do is to keep repeating the big lie, has definitely established Marxism, from Lenin on, as what Blake calls the Synagogue of Satan. Nobody can support a Marxist political movement anywhere now without being, on the Burke principle, not just a mistaken man but a bad man. (CW 5, 406)

Video of the Day/Quote of the Day: “Disastrous for this country and my generation”

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOys8Fqgno

Brigette DePape interviewed by Evan Solomon, who does not question DePape so much as interrupt her to lecture her

“Harper’s agenda is disastrous for this country and for my generation. We have to stop him from wasting billions on fighter jets, military bases, and corporate tax cuts while cutting social programs and destroying the climate. Most people in this country know what we need are green jobs, better medicare, and a healthy environment for future generations.” — Brigette DePape in her press release yesterday

TGIF: “Mean Girls”

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJyyhNwdQz0

I never need an excuse to post something from Tina Fey, but there is good reason this week as Sarah Palin pretends not to be gearing up to maybe announce that she might be running for the presidency she cannot win. Her cat-and-mouse is reminiscent of the manipulative passive-aggression of the Fey-scripted Mean Girls.

After the jump, in what looks like an instance of life imitating art, video of Palin’s mangled version yesterday of Paul Revere’s ride. It’s pure Tina Fey; Palin effortlessly captures the hollowed out goofiness of Fey’s impression of her:

He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free and we were gonna be armed.

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Ruholla Khomeini and False Literalism

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SwHKql3dKc

News report on the funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini

Our thread on fundamentalism continues. Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini died on this date in 1989 (born 1900).

From The Double Vision:

I am, of course, isolating only one element in Christianity, but cruelty, terror, intolerance, and hatred within any religion always means that God has been replaced by the devil, and such things are always accompanied by a false kind of liberalism. At present some other religions, notably Islam, are even less reassuring than our own. As Marxist and American imperialisms decline, the Moslem world is emerging as the chief threat to world peace, and the spark-plug of its intransigence, so to speak, is its fundamentalism or false literalism of belief. The same principle of demonic perversion applies here: when Khomeini gave order to have Salman Rushdie murdered, he was turning the whole of the Koran into Satanic verses. In our own culture, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a future New England in which a reactionary religious movement has brought back the hysteria, bigotry, and sexual sadism of seventeenth century Puritanism. Such a development may seem unlikely just now, but the potential is still there. (CW 4, 177-78)