Reclaiming the Power to Speak through Action

Mikaela entones:
There’s been a lot of speculative talk for the past 6 years about why the Democrats have been unable to

1) connect with the people who agree with fundamental values they share

2) talk assertively and compellingly about the out and out failures of the Republicans and specifically this administration and

3) talk compellingly and assertively about even their own values.

Why can’t we claim any ground? Despite everything that’s happening – the Republican-dominated country seeming to collapse around us – why can Democrats not gain traction on any single issue?

(Think: Foley…nothing. Executive signing statements…nothing. Getting rid of habeas corpus for enemy combatants – whatever they are – nothing. Disastrous war in Iraq…nothing. North Korea missile launch… nothing. War in Lebanon… nothing. And on and on and on.)

Lately, the difference between conservative and liberal has shown up for some viewers of Gene Grant’s local talkshow, The Line, on KNME. Always prone to reductionism, the conservative pundits are witty, concise, and colorful. Made for TV, you might say. The liberals? Gray. Gray gray gray. Always talking context, always complicating things, always loathe to reduce any intricate problem to a 5-second sound bite. Devastating for TV, if more intellectually honest.

My sister, an ardent Democrat, and quite the firebrand herself, has taken to listening to debates in political races across the country. She’ll yell at the Democratic candidate –“Answer the Question! Answer the *&%#@%^ question!” Then she’ll send an e-mail to the Democratic Party with points of instruction on how to do better. How many of us have this dedication and follow-through?

I myself have been hiding this political season. I’m so overwhelmed with all that’s wrong, all that’s seeming to slide downhill, all the power accruing to that idiot’s office and his lying, cheating party’s coffers, that I’m rendered speechless and despondent. Really.

Ever since reading the pragmatist philosopher William James, who famously said there’s no such thing as Truth, only consequences of ideas, I’ve been passionate about finding the meaning in things. True or false, doesn’t matter. What’s the consequence of one idea or the other gaining a foothold in the popular imagination? That’s at the heart of political rhetoric. How do you communicate the consequence of one policy over another? One candidate over another?

Media has lost the ability to answer that question, and the heart even to try. They keep trying to tell us the facts and forget about telling us about the consequences. That’s one reason I’m so drawn to editorialists and bloggers these days. Maybe that’s why most of us get more information from churches and humorists than we do from the news.

Never one for organized religion, I’ve found myself getting mighty nervous since the last Presidential elections, when the “moral values” that voters so proclaimed as their big issue was equated with the Christian right. We rarely hear about the vast number of churches who believe in kindness, treating neighbors as yourselves (even when gay, even when a different faith, even when poor), and generally supporting community in all its messy diversity. I would hazard a guess and say these kind of inclusive churches outnumbers the fear-and-hate-mongering churches, yet they’ve somehow lost control of the microphone to get their message out there. Lost ground. Lost traction. Pick your metaphor.

Yet for me, these days, when I want to understand what’s happening, not just despair, I’m turning more and more to speeches – okay, okay – sermons from educated religious leaders who aren’t afraid to take on what’s happening and go one step further – find sources for hope.

The Universalist Unitarians have a website dedicated to their work with the UN, and as part of that partnership, they sponsor a yearly competition for best sermon on Peace. They’re pretty great. No bumper stickers. No pithy reductionist logic. But real meaning.

One tells the story of a soldier from the Korean war on his deathbed years later. He had disobeyed his commander’s foolish and deadly order to stage a surprise attack. Under threat of punishment, he carried out the order and lost most of his men. Here’s what he told his minister Rebecca Parker:

“I saw the truth. Back there in Korea, I was right to have questioned my commanding officer. I was right to feel the order should be disobeyed. And when I broke down because my buddies died, I was right to cry. This is my manhood,” he said, tapping a rhythm with his hands upon his chest. “That I can feel. That I can care. That I can grieve. That I can love. That I hate war. That I had the courage to question. That I was willing not to obey. I'm not afraid to die now, because I know what love is. I know where God is.” Hands again, pressing against his own flesh.

“This is what I wanted you to hear from me before I die. It is important for you to know this. You are a preacher. Tell my story. People need to know what I'm telling you. You need to know what I'm telling you.”

I will remember this story when I hear of more and more soldiers – even officers – refusing to serve in Iraq. I will remember when so many come home, traumatized physically and mentally by what they have seen and probably will see for the rest of their lives in their nightmares. In our collectively dreamed unconscious.

The sermon recasts Bush’s war in Iraq in the light of Abraham Lincoln’s agonized declaration of war against citizens of his own country.

There is in warfare an arrogance of power that is destructive of people and nations. Candidate Bush spoke of humility in foreign policy; but it is collective arrogance that moves us now – our Manifest Destiny in the world – our new policy of pre-emptive warfare – our withdrawal from international treaties – our Lone Ranger policing of the world. His dramatic landing in full battle regalia on an aircraft carrier deck to the cheers of the sailors while proclaiming the war to be essentially over struck me as unrestrained hubris. His “bring ‘em on” bravado in response to the assaults on our troops indicates to me he has imbibed the elixir of war.

I contrasted this hubris with the case of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War as he was besieged by clergy delegations from both North and South, both claiming to know God’s will in the matter at hand. Said Lincoln, “I am the only one who doesn’t know it.” That statement reveals a proper humility now lacking.

Clearly, war is a force that gives many meaning. It does bring out our need for a transcendent goal; our capacity to sacrifice; to invest ourselves in a cause beyond ourselves. It does all these things, and it is therefore the most dangerous of all human behaviors.

Psychologist William James, early in the 20th century, called for a “moral equivalent for war.” Recognizing the self-sacrifice that often marks warfare, he wondered why we cannot commit ourselves as human beings with equal zeal to the cause of peace and justice. I wonder too. While we continue to pursue war and rebuild Iraq, our schools starve for funds, our poverty increases while the rich get richer, our health care system deteriorates and becomes unaffordable for tens of millions, our environment suffers, and we find ourselves in a national malaise.

Where is the zeal, the passion, the determination to build the Beloved Community – to wage war on poverty? Where is that same zeal, passion and determination to pursue peace as that with which our nation’s leaders and many of our fellow citizens pursue war?

Yet that same sermon, somewhat stark and heavy and complex with storytelling, ends with a prayer for peace, excerpted here:

We take courage from those who take on the problems of our age,

And live with ultimate hope, despite the discouragement every day seems to heap upon us.

It is good to be together in troubled times, as in good times.

We know there is nothing to do but go on.

When the injured have been treated;

When the dead have been buried;

When the rubble is cleared away;

When the anger has been vented;

When the horror has been processed;

The work of the world continues:

To heal the sick; To comfort the afflicted; To rebuild the cities;

To restore our zest for living and loving;

To seek justice and peace in an imperfect world.

Another sermon extols Lincoln for turning the war against the South’s succession – a big enough cause for war at that time – into a war about freedom. Claiming the moral ground. Bush thought it would work for him, but he forgot to look at the consequence of his idea. When it involves killing civilians, invading a country that doesn’t want us, spending money we need at home, opening up the world to our secret prisons, invading our culture with a morality of torture and fear, the claim of freedom and democracy – at the point of a gun – ceases to be true and becomes just the impetus for horrible, deadly consequences.

Can Democrats go Bush one better and reclaim the moral ground of this war for … justice? For the lives of working people in America? For the dying civilians in Iraq?

Can liberal religions reclaim their right to assert moral values of tolerance, charity, and loving kindness?

It exhausts me to think about it, but what are the consequences of the opposite coming true? Our silence today is tomorrow’s guilt.

Let us remember what the California congresswoman said in the debate about voting to authorize war in Iraq, just before she became one of the few to vote against granting the President this awesome and deadly power:

“As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.”

We cannot be silent; let our actions toward justice, equity, and tolerance speak louder than their increasingly hollow words.

And here we come close to our answer. Why can't Democrats speak? Because they're not ready to act. To clean up their own houses. To stop throwing stones and instead pick up the pieces of their own shattered promises. Want to end political corruption? Start separating corporate interests from government policy. Wanna avoid Abramoff scandalls? Throw the lobbyists out of the temple... I mean Congress.

Until Democrats are willing to divorce from the party all that they've intentionally or unintentionally picked up from the Republicans -- namely, corporate financing -- they'll never convince anyone -- themselves or voters -- that to vote Democratic is to vote for an equitable distribution of resources and opportunity in a diverse country based on the fundamental worth of every individual (equality of all, remember?). But it should be. We all know it. Voting time is coming. Will we act?