American Tax Fetish

American's have a fetish on low taxes ... and what a price we pay:

Our infrastructure is crumbling.
Our health care system sucks.
Higher education costs are skyrocketing.
Public schools are dying on the vine.

Right ... but I'll be darned if I'll pay more in taxes.

I enjoy driving on lousy roads.
I like to pay astronomical deductibles, and if I can't afford medical care, well I'll just get sick, and then die, but, by gum and by golly, no more taxes.

I love it when youth are saddled with education debt; serves 'em right for getting so uppity.

I can hardly wait to send America's children to private schools, homeschools and charter schools. Enough of this public education stuff; sounds communist to me anyway. And in public schools they teach science, and that's contrary to gawd's word.

I love it when the rich take it all.
You bet.
They know what they're doing.
They're gawd's anointed.

So,

Let's cut health care all over the place.
Cut Social Security, too; what the heck, get rid of it.
Get rid of Medicare, too.

And all the stuff that supports the poor, the underserving, the illegals and all those other kinds of people who talk strange and wear clothes different than my all-American caps and jeans.

It's just socialism, and that means taxes, and that means I don't want it.

Billy Graham Did Enormous Damage

Okay, I'll say it.

Billy Graham did enormous damage to American Christianity.

Many of those who "came to Christ" at his "crusades," never came to Jesus the Christ at all, but only to their own fears of hell-fire and damnation. Many, I know, were looking for an out from troubled lives - alcohol, poverty, a lousy job and who-knows what else.

And they came forward in droves, driven in large measure by mass-hysteria, fearfulness and longing.

They joined local churches, many of them led by men (mostly) who were poorly trained, who "knew the Bible" by rote and were able to string together verse-upon-verse to the "delight" of the congregation, while slowly spinning the web of pride (in being saved) and hatred (of the unsaved).

I have no doubt that Billy Graham was a decent sort of a man, but his message was a mess, and those who "came to Christ" via this message laid the foundation for the Right Wing destruction of the American Christianity.

When Hearst told his newspaper chain to "puff Graham," Hearst recognized a religion that could serve his own conservative purposes, and so emerged the strange and now deadly relationship between Capitalism and American Christianity.

Sadly, it was American Christians who were duped and played for fools. Hearst and his capitalist culture trumped everything and won the day, and men like Billy Graham bore the message that America was godly and good, Communism was godless and bad, and that American Capitalism was god's will for the world.

Yes, Graham tore down the rope of racial division at his crusades, but only to give the audience a message that has proved both hollow and tenacious. Hollow for want of a full biblical message, and tenacious because its "true believers" cannot admit how flawed the whole enterprise is (after all, look at the money, look at the buildings - the very things that impressed the disciples when they strolled through Jerusalem with Jesus, and which Jesus dismissed with a snort).

Yes, yes, yes, there was good in it, too, because good shows up in all kinds of places, but clear-headed thinking is needed. The mess we have today has to be studied and its roots discerned if we're ever going to find a way out and help American Christianity recover its mind and heart, the fullness of God's Counsel and the power of Scripture's prophetic message proclaimed by Jesus.

Dancing with the Devil

The US has always gone full tilt after left-wing agitators, pinkos, strikers, unions, reds and Communists, but generally leaves the right-wing nut-jobs alone. Why? The left poses a threat to American and world monied interests. The right, up until now, has been largely and ingrown and isolated social movement, more bluster than threat. Sadly, right-wing politicians have sought the votes of this alienated sector, by playing up to their bizarre interests for power (not wages, or social security or health benefits) and lionizing the ultimate symbol of their power: The Gun!

Well, when ya' dance with the devil, expect trouble.

Emboldened by several decades of right-wing NRA and t-bag nonsense, these crazy boys and girls are beginning to take themselves seriously, and the only serious they know is bullets and bombs.

How very sad that the monied interests of this nation paid out millions to attack the left and its desires for good jobs and wages and social security, while letting the cancer of right-wing hatred grow unchecked, seeing its then "harmless" rhetoric and back-woods behavior as a useful tool to bash the left and keep America fractured.

Distressed Reading … Ike, Iran and Guatemala … 1953 and 1954

I've always know this, but never in detail, and it makes me sick.

What we did in Iran in 1953, to support the craven interests of the declining British Empire and it's stranglehold on Iranian oil is so disturbing to me - our CIA, with Ike signing off on it, as he grew increasingly more frightened of the Communist Boogeyman, fomented a "revolt" paid for by American Taxpayers against a democratically elected leader (who had nationalized British petroleum interests - Communist-inspired for sure) and installed the Shah, with a new deal for oil in hand … and everyone was happy, except the Iranians.

Even as this was going on, efforts were underway in Guatemala to remove the democratically elected leader who had instituted land reform (this became proof positive of "Communist" influence); United Fruit Company, with its bananas and tentacles throughout the American Government, cried for help, and got it. "Rebels" were trained, and by golly miss molly, the president of Guatemala resigned and in his place, a dictator. And everyone was happy, except the Guatemalans.

For years, the Iranian deal was carefully hidden from the American People, until the final piece of Ike's diary were declassified May 10, 2010, admitting "covert" involvement. Steven Ambrose, Ike's biographer, had first seen this entry as early as 1984, but subsequent books omitted it.

What's tragic for me is that an otherwise savvy President, who understood colonialism in Indochina and thus refused to save the French, failed to understand British colonialism in Iran and American business "colonialism" in Guatemala. All along the way, folks who wanted to influence Ike glossed over the facts and used the threat of "Communism." Such language didn't work for Ike in Indochina, but it did for Iran and Guatemala.

And what a price we've paid.

As a side note, the Dulles Brothers were legal counsel for United Fruit in Boston; Eisenhower's personal secretary was wife of United Fruit's public relations department; Ike's national security advisor was the banker for United Fruit; CIA soldier of fortune on the ground in Guatemala, E. Howard Hunt, would later spend 33 months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate break-in.

When I finished this chapter in Eisenhower: In War and Peace, I felt dirty - my mind had been dragged through a pig sty. While I have great regard for Eisenhower, he surrendered his ability to think and weigh the realties by succumbing to the American hysteria of the time - a Communist behind every tree and under every bed.

He would have done well to heed the advice of his long-time friend, William Prescott Allen, publisher of The Laredo Times, who visited Guatemala in June of 1954: "Yes," he cabled Ike, "Guatemala has a very small minority of Communists, but not as many as San Francisco."

The Palmer Raids - a Lesson from History

Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, in the full swing of America's Red Scare, forecast the imminent revolt of left-wing radicals who would, "on a certain day…rise up and destroy the government at one fell swoop." 


Though Congress was reluctant to grant him the requested funding, he proceeded to raid suspected organizations, making labor unions a particular target. As part of his effort, he got an injunction against a planned strike against the coal industry by the United Mine Workers.


August 1, 1919, he appointed a 24-year old to oversee and develop a new division in the Justice Department, The General Intelligence Division. Oh, by the way, the 24-year old was one J. Edgar Hoover.


With a new Secretary of Labor appointed by President Wilson, Palmer's methods came under scrutiny, including a predicted "radical uprising" on May Day, 1920. But when said event failed to materialize, his support wained.


To read more of this fascinating, and frightening, time in America, check out the Wikipedia article under Palmer Raids and on Palmer himself, a Quaker and a one-time progressive. 


As I read about the Palmer Raids, I found myself thinking of what's happening in Arizona and the suggestion of some politicians to rewrite the 14th Amendment.


Call it xenophobia ... call it whatever you want ... I call it sick!


Palmer quickly moved outside the law, and though the law eventually caught up with him and undid his ferocious work, Palmer, with his appointment of Hoover, insured that a dark stain of xenophobia would have a secure place in the American heart.


Like those who followed him, Fr. Coughlin and Joseph McCarthy, Palmer cried wolf again and again, fueling hatred and suspicion across the land, accusing Congress of failing to defend the Constitution against enemies within.


A tried and true technique, to be honed to perfection by Adolf Hitler.


A tried and true technique embraced by today's radical conservatives.


In tumultuous times, fear-mongers and hyper-patriots gain the ear of millions. 


In the end, they will have run their cycle; those who drink deeply at the wells of fear and hatred always do themselves in, becoming increasingly ridiculous in their claims and proposals, driving away most of their adherents. 


Radical conservatives can and will damage America's heart, but saner voices will prevail.  

Lessons from history.