10/4/13Powerless is how the political drama in this country makes me feel. I have no control over what my country does or does not do. I cannot make Congress restore the much-needed funds for the SNAP program, better known as food stamps. I have no power at all to keep Congress from plunging the nation into a catastrophic default. I am in no position to shame Congress into enacting laws requiring universal background checks on anyone buying a weapon of mass destruction, viz., a gun.
Aside from the improbable coincidence of being present as the next madman aims his assault rifle at a classroom of innocent children and interposing my body between him and those kids, I am helpless to prevent that next massacre -- and it is sure to come sooner rather than later.
I was an avid student of civics in the eighth grade, of government in the 12th grade and of political science as a college sophomore. Leonard Clayton Bailey, Burrell Smith and Prof. Darrell Pollard, respectively, helped me understand how American government is supposed to work.
I learned in several history courses how government sometimes doesn't work very well, often to the great disadvantage of the governed. Late 19th- and early 20th-century Russian history and 20th century European history spelled that out for me in clear and certain terms. There are other examples.
My generation learned that those who represent the electorate all the way from the village council to the United States Senate are to be responsive and accountable not only to those who elected them but to the People at large. They are charged with the enactment of laws that, among other things, will enable every American in the pursuit of happiness first mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
Along the way, we learned about Elbridge Gerry and the sneaky ways state legislatures corner the market on political power to their own parties' advantage. We learned about lobbying and lobbyists and the effect they have on the manufacture of sausage. We were, many of us, aghast when in 2010 the United States Supreme Court went out of its way by a 5-4 vote to enable the big-money folk of the 1% to run the country their way and for their own benefit.
We say today, both in anger and sadness that this is how it is. Toeing the line between pessimism and optimism, we are hoping for the better, if not the best, and preparing for the worse, if not the worst.
Perhaps we might draw inspiration from the lore of a 13th-century BCE people who lived in economic oligarchies along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. They were the 99% of their day -- perpetually poor, on the edge of destitution, living under the heel of one despot or another.
They came to see they had three choices: 1) they could hunker down and live out their lives in quiet desperation, thus consigning their children to the same bleak existence; 2) they could rise up in revolution; or 3) they could pick up and move out. They rejected the first option. They had the smarts to know that if they went with No. 2, the 1% would grind them into meal. So they chose No. 3: They picked up and left.
Textual and archaeological evidence strongly suggest that they removed to the hill country of what is now northern Israel and there established egalitarian communities. They created for themselves a socialist economy based on a principle much later articulated as "from each according to his ability; to each according to his need."
Apparently, at the first and for some time after, they had no kings and no military. They figured out to govern themselves, which may have given us the beginnings of what are the mitzvoth known as the Ten Commandments that probably started out with No. 10 (Thou shalt not covet) and worked in the opposite direction as they are known today, ending with (Honor thy father and thy mother). The other four have to do with cultic matters. Mitzvoth five through 10 are pretty clearly parts of an early humanist ethic.
Not much doubt that they represent the founding principles of what is known today as Judaism and its younger counterpart Christianity that has its own mitzvoth: Turn the other cheek, volunteer to walk the second mile beyond the one required, forgive as often as it takes, love your enemy, etc. Judaism and Christianity share with Buddhism the idea that society is better off when a person does not do to another what he would hate to have done to himself.
Should we who are terminally fed to the teeth with the economic and political oligarchy that is now America a) just put up with it and tell our children to do the same, b) organize a nonviolent revolution, or c) leave? The first option is unthinkable. The second, in light of the infamy of the Citizens United ruling, seems unattainable. The third for some is Canada, which would entail many complex problems for such �migr�s.
My Detroit friend Frank Joyce has chosen the second option and issued a call to action. I've known Joyce for 45 years. I was involved with him in what we used to call symbolic action, some of which was less symbolic than I'd want to try to defend today. Following is an astounding paragraph he has written as part of a longer article.
[In anything resembling a peaceful revolution], we will have to rely on ourselves. And more and more, we are doing just that. For those of us who believe the current dominant order is not only not working, but is a menace to life on Earth, we [may] have a part in making another world happen.
I know him well enough to know that he means making it happen not only "here" but "now." Power, then, to the people, as we used to shout.
