We could hear the music blasting from beyond the trees at our rear, the lights and fire were left behind and the dark of the night wrapped about us. As we settled down in a circle on the ground Jeffrey sat down next to me, tears still running down his cheeks. Without any prompting we took one another by the hand, or wrapped our arms around each other, completing the circle of human contact, of love and support. Voices from the party floated out to us on currents of air, but their words were lost as we gave our attention fully to Rick as he began to speak...
I was still in high school when I told my family. I had known myself for as far back as I could remember but I knew that it was something that my family would never be able to accept, and at first I felt like something was wrong with me, or if I denied it long enough maybe it would go away. Until my senior year I had carried on okay, I had come to accept it about myself and believed that it was something that I would be able to open up with once I moved out on my own. But all that changed when I met Nate. Never before had I met someone who I connected to on such an intimate level. Being attracted to another man was nothing new for me but with Nate it was different, there wasn't anything about him that I didn't love.
To throw suspicions off and be able to lead a normal life Debbie and I had been 'dating' for the last year and a half. She knew the truth about me and she had come out to me as well. But as the school year went on Nate and I became inseparable and our love blossomed into something more beautiful than I had ever imagined. He made me happier than I had ever been in my life and having to hide it from everyone I knew was so smothering that at times I could barely breathe. Finally I decided that I needed to get my feelings out into the open and that I didn't really care what happened from there. I knew that my secret would break my mothers heart so I decided to start by talk to my dad, man to man.
Once my confession was out he just stood there, staring at me like I was a complete stranger. I tried to get him to talk to me but he was silent and still as a marble statue. I told him that I loved him and that I hoped he could understand before turning around and quietly leaving. I was almost back to my bedroom when he grabbed me from behind, the blow to the side of my face was so powerful and unexpected that it laid me out flat. He didn't say a word as I began to rise but just before I stood up straight he pushed me backwards. I remember my world spinning about like I was on the tea cups at Disneyland, only instead of being thrilling my body exploded with pain as I tumbled to the bottom of the stairs. Before I could even move to protect myself he was on top me, blows falling down on me like rain. Kicking me over and over with all of his strength, his silence was replaced by hoarse shouts that made it clear on no uncertain terms that I was no longer his son and that he never wanted to see or hear from me again. Just as abruptly as it had begun the assault was over and my father turned his back on me and walked out of the room.
Left to myself I crawled out of the house and collapsed on the sidewalk outside. I barely had enough strength to use my cell phone to call Nate to come take me to the hospital, where I was informed that I had suffered five broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and facial lacerations that would require extensive stitching. Since that day I have never spoken to those people again, they're no longer my family... I'm an orphan.
Strangely enough the sobs that broke the night air were not coming from Rick's throat but from my own. The circle was small enough that by leaning forward we were able to hold each other, and although it was he who was comforting me rather than the other way around I could feel his body shake as his detachment broke and he began to cry with me.
As a mother myself I have never been able to understand how a parent could love their child one moment and not the next. No matter how terrible the child's course of their life may be to them I cannot understand how someone could throw away the son who they had held as a baby, had watched their first steps, had kissed away their tears and comforted them when they were scared. I had known Rick for less than four hours and already I felt that I loved him more than his father had ever been able to. After a few moments, as our crying quieted, Amy went next...
Rick says that he is an orphan, and I think that a lot of us have been orphaned from our families by coming out, but it's especially true in my case. I was one of those 'crack babies' that you hear about, my mother took drugs throughout her pregnancy and when I was born I was as chemically dependent on cocaine as she had been. I was severely underweight and I spent three months in the newborn intensive care unit, my tiny body ravaged by such terrible withdrawals that they were unsure whether or not I would survive. The day after she gave birth to me the woman that had brought me into the world checked out of the hospital and out of my life.
The family I grew up in adopted me while I was still in the hospital and raised me as their own. Coming out to them was something that I had put off as long as I felt that I could, like most everyone in the state they were strict LDS and I knew that they would not take it well. Never in my worst nightmares did I think that they would take the news as terribly as they did, 'If we had known that you were going to be a queer we would have just let you die in the NICU' was the only response my mother gave. I felt so betrayed by the family that had raised me that I decided to attempt to find my biological parents. After a lot of digging I found out that the man who had fathered me had died of a drug overdose when I was eight years old. Eventually I was able to track down the woman who had given birth to me. When I explained who I was she embraced me warmly, told me that she had never stopped thinking of me and hoping that I was okay and happy... and then she asked if I had a couple hundered dollars that she could borrow to go buy drugs with. I walked away and never saw her again.
The warm night was a blanket that held us together, like childhood friends snuggled up in our tent at a slumber party. Each of us were sharing our stories and drawing strength and comfort from one another. In the silence that followed Amy's words Rick got up and walked around the ring of friends to sit beside her and wrap his arms around her. After a few long minutes of shared love and compassion it was Taylor who spoke next...
When I was little I always wondered why everyone called me a boy. It didn't make sense to me because I had always thought of myself as clearly being a girl like my sister, not a boy like my brothers. Even when I was old enough that my parents could explain the physical differences that decide who is a boy and who is a girl I was never able to consider myself a boy. I tried a number of times to explain this to my parents however they were adamant that Heavenly Father didn't make mistakes and that he had put me in a male body because I was a male spirit. I remember as I was growing up I would often take my sister's clothes and lock myself in the bathroom to dress up like her and put on makeup and perfume like my mother. I was careful never to be caught doing this because I knew instinctively that there would be hell to pay if I was ever found out.
Around the same time that I started to go through puberty I began to cut myself. I hated my body and felt ashamed of who and what I was, I even took to cutting my penis because I hated it and wished it weren't a part of me. The cutting didn't really concern my parents, it wasn't until I began to dress up like a girl in public that they checked me into the state mental hospital. After a couple days of testing and treatment the doctors called my parents in and explained that while I did suffer from depression and seemed to have issues with my identity there was nothing about me that constituted commitment... in short being gay did not a crazy person make.
Not one to listen to advice that conflicted with their worldview my parents checked me out and told me not to come back home until I was 'fixed'. To get back at my parents I borrowed my friends prettiest dress, curled my hair, did up my makeup and showed up at their church just as Sacrament Meeting was getting out. I strolled up to my parents and gave them each a big hug, then spent the next twenty minutes or so introducing myself to all of their friends and neighbors as their daughter. When I was done I walked back to my friends house with a broad smile on my face, out of their church house and out of their lives forever.
In the faint light from the stars I couldn't help staring at my new friend. I had talked to her earlier in the evening, telling her that she was probably the most beautiful girl at the party. She had almost started to cry as she thanked me, explaining that she had to fight testosterone for her femininity. She went on to tell me she had been on estrogen therapy for some time now and was looking forward to a gender reassignment surgery in the near future. In all of my life I don't know if I have met a more strong and brave young woman. Not having a coming out story of my own I decided to share the experience of my husband's uncle...
Growing up in Box Elder county Utah Paul was raised as a Mormon, just like everyone else he knew. He was one of four boys and always felt as though he was competing for his fathers approval. His eldest brother followed in their father's footsteps and went to work for the same military contractor their father had worked for all of his life. The next eldest was the only of the sons to serve an LDS mission and the third brother joined the army, much to his father's pride. Paul had a steady girlfriend all through high school, the two were virtually inseperable and talk of marraige followed them about like bees around flowers. During their senior year Paul's girlfriend died in a fatal car accident and his life came to a screaming hault. After graduation, in an effort to prove his masculinity to his father, Paul enlisted in the Marine Corps - considering them the toughest of the tough. After his time was up he left the military to pursue other avenues of life that held more interest for him.
The family was shocked one Sunday afternoon when Paul announced to his father that he was gay. His dad told him that no son of his could be a queer and Paul, who claimed to have been a closet homosexual his entire life, told him that this wasn't a choice he was making but rather a part of who he truly was. In the years that followed Paul's mother allowed him to move on to some land she owned in West Jordan where he and the man that he loved and called his husband would spend the rest of their lives residing. Though Paul was able to maintain infrequent communication with his mother and several of his siblings he spent the rest of his life estranged from many members of his family and his father died without ever speaking to him again.
As my story ended and I fell silent we sat in each others arms, the sounds of the night surrounding us with the noise of the party raging in the distance. Thinking of Paul and my husbands family my mind drifted to consider the families of the makeshift band of friends I had made earlier this evening who were now circled about me. The common theme this summer night seemed to be less about coming out of the closet than it did about families.
So many of my new friends had been estranged from their families to one degree or another, many of them cut off entirely, thrown out like yesterdays garbage. It's little wonder, I realized, that they had come to form such tight intimate bonds with one another, they were not united in their homosexuality... in one another they had found the love and acceptance that their families of origin had lacked, they were more than friends, they were a family; one filled with more compassion and love for each individual based solely on who they were than any genetic family I had ever met.
We sat together for a few minutes more, drying our eyes and sharing our love and admiration for one another. Finally I picked myself up and invited my new friends to come 'hippie dance' with me, twirling about the fire and singing at the top of our lungs while the stars faded away and the sun broke out over the mountain tops.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Ties That Bind
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The LDS Church Plays Smear The Queer
Two men were singled out and treated unfairly by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint because they were gay. Salt Lake City police arrested the two for trespassing when they were asked to leave the Church's Main Street Plaza when they asked, as many of us would, on what grounds they were being asked to leave.
On Thursday night, Derek Jones and his boyfriend, Matt, walked through the plaza holding hands. One reportedly kissed the other, and that's when security guards asked them to leave.
"We were called at about 10:25 p.m. by LDS security to come over to their property where two males were in custody for refusing to leave the property," explained Salt Lake police Sgt. Robin Snyder.
The couple was cited for trespassing. Snyder says the law allows the owner of a property to kick someone out for any reason.
"A property owner has the right to ask someone to leave their property. If they do not leave that property, then they have violated an ordinance, a Salt Lake City ordinance, which is trespassing. So, the police became involved," Snyder said.
The Church released a statement saying the couple was "asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior just as any other couple would have been. They became argumentative and used profanity and refused to leave the property. They were arrested and then given a citation for criminal trespass by SLPD."
"If this is a public place, such as a park, that's a whole different story," Snyder said.
But Jones paints a different picture. In a blog, Jones wrote: "This especially irked the both of us because having walked through on a frequent basis (we often walk to work through there) and every time I have been through there are either marriage ceremonies going on, young Mormon couples cuddling in front the fountain, hugging, holding hands, etc.
"Matt then tried to get them to admit they were singling us out because they just didn't approve of ‘gay' public displays of affection, baiting them into revealing their bigotry."
This story has already been completely warped and changed by the media as well as the church. This is the true account of what happened Thursday night and it's nothing less that bigotry, intolerance and an abuse of the law.....
Matt and Derek were only passing hand-in-hand through the plaza on their way home from the Twilight Concert Series at the Gallivan Center. The couple did not know the public-access through way was also private LDS church property. A large number of Utahans and most non-resident visitors are unaware of the controversial 1999 sale of Salt Lake City's Main Street, from North Temple to South Temple Streets, to the LDS church resulting in our current legal conundrum.
Derek and Matt live opposite the plaza from the Gallivan Center. Because the plaza consumes such a large amount of the downtown area, expecting pedestrians to circumvent it to get to the other side is simply unreasonable. For this purpose, a condition of the sale was that it remain open to the general public. While the property was purchased by the church, Matt and Derek have as much legal right to pass through holding hands as "Brother and Sister Jones" do.
To say Matt and Derek were kissing is misleading. Unlike LDS couples' open-mouthed kisses for photographers on the plaza following their temple ceremonies, Matt simply put his arm around Derek and gave him a peck on the side of his head as they walked along. While open-mouthed kisses, indeed an intimate display of affection, remain controversial even among straight couples in public areas, closed-mouthed kisses on heads are a rather platonic expression of affection, often exchanged between parents and children. Matt and Derek are subjects of a pernicious double standard.
Derek and Matt did not refuse to leave the open public plaza, but were arrested by church security guards when they attempted to question their legal right to pass through the public easement (a point on which, as I've already established, they were uninformed). It seems a brief explanation of the Church's ownership of what was previously government property might have been appropriate. Instead, Matt and Derek were brutally thrown to the ground and handcuffed with zip-ties by church security guards even though they were in no way exhibiting violent or threatening behavior.
It has been implied that the couple were drunk at the time of arrest. This is simply not true. Derek purchased and consumed a beer at the Gallivan Center during the concert. A beer. One. One beer does not a drunk make. Furthermore, they were walking home, not driving. Derek's alcohol consumption was in no way irresponsible, illegal, or disruptive and as such completely irrelevant to the incident and not included in the charges.
Ultimately, the couple were cited with Class C misdemeanors of trespassing, even though they would have passed quickly through the plaza had they not been detained by church security guards.
Matt and Derek inadvertently broke the law (the law being ambiguous contractual language which allows the church to decide what behavior is vulgar and disruptive and apply it unevenly according to its political agenda). But these gentlemen did not break the spirit of the law as they passed peacefully through the plaza. They meant no harm. I'm convinced the intentions of the church security guards (being both employees and members) who assaulted the couple, and the institution (whose separation from state remains dubious and problematic) which pressed charges against them, were not as unbiased as they would have us believe.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Homesick
From the Cascades’ frozen gorges,
Leaping like a child at play,
Winding, widening through the valley,
Bright Willamette glides away;
Onward ever,
Lovely river,
Softly calling to the sea,
Time, that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench of thee.
Spring’s green witchery is weaving
Braid and border for thy side;
Grace forever haunts thy journey,
Beauty dimples on thy tide;
Through the purple gates of morning
Now thy roseate ripples dance,
Golden then, when day, departing,
On thy waters trails his lance.
Waltzing, flashing,
Tinkling, splashing,
Limpid, volatile, and free—
Always hurried
To be buried
In the bitter, moon-mad sea.
In thy crystal deeps inverted
Swings a picture of the sky,
Like those wavering hopes of Aidenn,
Dimly in our dreams that lie;
Clouded often, drowned in turmoil,
Faint and lovely, far away—
Wreathing sunshine on the morrow,
Breathing fragrance round to-day.
Love would wander
Here and ponder.
Hither poetry would dream;
Life’s old questions,
Sad suggestions,
Whence and whither? throng thy stream.
On the roaring waste of ocean
Shall thy scattered waves be tossed,
‘Mid thy surge’s rhythmic thunder
Shall thy silver tongues be lost.
Of thy glimmering rush of gladness
Mocks this turbid life of mine!
Racing to the wild Forever
Down the sloping paths of Time.
Onward ever,
Lovely River,
Softly calling to the sea;
Time that scars us,
Maims and mars us,
Leaves no track or trench on thee.
- Samuel L. Simpson
The mighty Columbia River flows from East to West like a master sculptor who has left his mar, chiseling and cutting the rocks to form a gorge in which each ripple leaves a spark.The caves are carved through unreckoned ages, they are weirdly beautiful caverns in which clusters of intricately sculptured marble hang from frescoed ceilings like frozen flowers. Out-thrust from the walls are shelves adorned with bric-a-brac fashioned by nature, some of it grotesque, but all of it arresting in its cold brilliance.
The beautiful Crater Lake is nature’s mirror. As the sky admires its own beauty and surrounding glow, so perfect is the scene that even the wind forgets to blow.
The forests make a claim upon my heart, the wonderful smell that emanates from old trees change and renew my weary spirit. The silence of an ending path, leaves moving in one long whisper. A forest clothed to its very hollows in snow. The ecstasy of nature, every blade of grass, every fir tree, every spire of reed, every intricacy of twig, is clad with radiance.The farms are endless and lush, boundless and filled with billowing stalks of grain.
The ocean reflects back to me my dreams, I know that eternity will forever begin and end with its tides. The unfathomable depths, the dreamy quietude that washes over me when I behold it's tranquil beauty and brilliance. The sounds of the waves, a severe, ascetic music, calm and inviting, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous and yet so intense that it verges on ecstasy.The rain falls down and kisses my face. I am child again, running around, trying to catch every last drop in my mouth. With my hands held high, I worship the sky. I dance and I splash, never ceasing to laugh.
I am homesick......
Monday, July 6, 2009
Dare To Dream
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
~Shel Silverstein
Where the sidewalk ends can be anywhere, a dream, a secret place that you go to, even some place in the corners of your own mind. When you get to this magical place, everything that you worry about just seems not to matter anymore and the doubts, fears, and insecurities of anything that has happened to you or is happening to you goes away. There is no judgment. It's just a place where you are free to be who you truly are. It's a place to make secret plans for the future, a place to open your heart to the possibility of forever love and most importantly, it's a place where you can dare to dream......
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Shakespeare In The Bush
By Laura Bohannan
Just before I left Oxford for the Tiv in West Africa, conversation turned to the season at Stratford. “You Americans,” said a friend, “often have difficulty with Shakespeare. He was, after all, a very English poet, and one can easily misinterpret the universal by misunderstanding the particular.”
I protested that human nature is pretty much the same the whole world over; at least the general plot and motivation of the greater tragedies would always be clear—everywhere—although some details of custom might have to be explained and difficulties of translation might produce other slight changes.
To end an argument we could not conclude, my friend gave me a copy of Hamlet to study in the African bush: it would, he hoped, lift my mind above its primitive surroundings, and possibly I might, by prolonged meditation, achieve the grace of correct interpretation. It was my second field trip to that African tribe, and I thought myself ready to live in one of its remote sections—an area difficult to cross even on foot. I eventually settled on the hillock of a very knowledgeable old man, the head of a homestead of some hundred and forty people, all of whom were either his close relatives or their wives and children. Like the other elders of the vicinity, the old man spent most of his time performing ceremonies seldom seen these days in the more accessible parts of the tribe. I was delighted. Soon there would be three months of enforced isolation and leisure, between the harvest that takes place just before the rising of the swamps and the clearing of new farms when the water goes down. Then, I thought, they would have even more time to perform ceremonies and explain them to me.
I was quite mistaken. Most of the ceremonies demanded the presence of elders from several homesteads. As the swamps rose, the old men found it too difficult to walk from one homestead to the next, and the ceremonies gradually ceased. As the swamps rose even higher, all activities but one came to an end. The women brewed beer from maize and millet. Men, women, and children sat on their hillocks and drank it. People began to drink at dawn. By midmorning the whole homestead was singing, dancing, and drumming. When it rained, people had to sit inside their huts: there they drank and sang or they drank and told stories. In any case, by noon or before, I either had to join the party or retire to my own hut and my books. “One does not discuss serious matters when there is beer. Come, drink with us.” Since I lacked their capacity for the thick native beer, I spent more and more time with Hamlet. Before the end of the second month, grace descended on me. I was quite sure that Hamlet had only one possible interpretation, and that one universally obvious.
Early every morning, in the hope of having some serious talk before the beer party, I used to call on the old man at his reception hut—a circle of posts supporting a thatched roof above a low mud wall to keep out wind and rain. One day I crawled through the low doorway and found most of the men of the homestead sitting huddled in their ragged cloths on stools, low plank beds, and reclining chairs, warming themselves against the chill of the rain around a smoky fire. In the center were three pots of beer. The party had started.
The old man greeted me cordially. “Sit down and drink.” I accepted a large calabash full of beer, poured some into a small drinking gourd, and tossed it down. Then I poured some more into the same gourd for the man second in seniority to my host before I handed my calabash over to a young man for further distribution. Important people shouldn’t ladle beer themselves. “It is better like this,” the old man said, looking at me approvingly and plucking at the thatch that had caught in my hair. “You should sit and drink with us more often. Your servants tell me that when you are not with us, you sit inside your hut looking at a paper.”
The old man was acquainted with four kinds of “papers”: tax receipts, bride price receipts, court fee receipts, and letters. The messenger who brought him letters from the chief used them mainly as a badge of office, for he always knew what was in them and told the old man. Personal letters for the few who had relatives in the government or mission stations were kept until someone went to a large market where there was a letter writer and reader. Since my arrival, letters were brought to me to be read. A few men also brought me bride price receipts, privately, with requests to change the figures to a higher sum. I found moral arguments were of no avail, since in-laws are fair game, and the technical hazards of forgery difficult to explain to an illiterate people. I did not wish them to think me silly enough to look at any such papers for days on end, and I hastily explained that my “paper” was one of the “things of long ago” of my country.
“Ah,” said the old man. “Tell us.” I protested that I was not a storyteller. Storytelling is a skilled art among them; their standards are high, and the audiences critical—and vocal in their criticism. I protested in vain. This morning they wanted to hear a story while they drank. They threatened to tell me no more stories until I told them one of mine. Finally, the old man promised that no one would criticize my style, “for we know you are struggling with our language.” “But,” put in one of the elders, “you must explain what we do not understand, as we do when we tell you our stories.”
Realizing that here was my chance to prove Hamlet universally intelligible, I agreed. The old man handed me some more beer to help me on with my storytelling. Men filled their long wooden pipes and knocked coals from the fire to place in the pipe bowls; then, puffing contentedly, they sat back to listen. I began in the proper style, “Not yesterday, not yesterday, but long ago, a thing occurred. One night three men were keeping watch outside the homestead of the great chief, when suddenly they saw the former chief approach them.”
“Why was he no longer their chief?”
“He was dead,” I explained. “That is why they were troubled and afraid when they saw him.”
“Impossible,” began one of the elders, handing his pipe on to his neighbor, who interrupted, “Of course it wasn’t the dead chief. It was an omen sent by a witch. Go on.”
Slightly shaken, I continued. “One of these three was a man who knew things” — the closest translation for scholar, but unfortunately it also meant witch. The second elder looked triumphantly at the first. “So he spoke to the dead chief saying, ‘Tell us what we must do so you may rest in your grave,’ but the dead chief did not answer. He vanished, and they could see him no more. Then the man who knew things—his name was Horatio—said this event was the affair of the dead chief’s son, Hamlet.”
There was a general shaking of heads round the circle. “Had the dead chief no living brothers? Or was this son the chief?”
“No,” I replied. “That is, he had one living brother who became the chief when the elder brother died.” The old men muttered: such omens were matters for chiefs and elders, not for youngsters; no good could come of going behind a chief’s back; clearly Horatio was not a man who knew things. “Yes, he was,” I insisted, shooing a chicken away from my beer. “In our country the son is next to the father. The dead chief’s younger brother had become the great chief. He had also married his elder brother’s widow only about a month after the funeral.”
“He did well,” the old man beamed and announced to the others, “I told you that if we knew more about Europeans, we would find they really were very like us. In our country also,” he added to me, “the younger brother marries the elder brother’s widow and becomes the father of his children. Now, if your uncle, who married your widowed mother, is your father’s full brother, then he will be a real father to you. Did Hamlet’s father and uncle have one mother?”
His question barely penetrated my mind; I was too upset and thrown too far off-balance by having one of the most important elements of Hamlet knocked straight out of the picture. Rather uncertainly I said that I thought they had the same mother, but I wasn’t sure—the story didn’t say. The old man told me severely that these genealogical details made all the difference and that when I got home I must ask the elders about it. He shouted out the door to one of his younger wives to bring his goatskin bag. Determined to save what I could of the mother motif, I took a deep breath and began again. “The son Hamlet was very sad because his mother had married again so quickly. There was no need for her to do so, and it is our custom for a widow not to go to her next husband until she has mourned for two years.”
“Two years is too long,” objected the wife, who had appeared with the old man’s battered goatskin bag. “Who will hoe your farms for you while you have no husband?”
“Hamlet,” I retorted, without thinking, “was old enough to hoe his mother’s farms himself. There was no need for her to remarry.” No one looked convinced. I gave up. “His mother and the great chief told Hamlet not to be sad, for the great chief himself would be a father to Hamlet. Furthermore, Hamlet would be the next chief: therefore he must stay to learn the things of a chief. Hamlet agreed to remain, and all the rest went off to drink beer.” While I paused, perplexed at how to render Hamlet’s disgusted soliloquy to an audience convinced that Claudius and Gertrude had behaved in the best possible manner, one of the younger men asked me who had married the other wives of the dead chief. “He had no other wives,” I told him.
“But a chief must have many wives! How else can he brew beer and prepare food for all his guests?” I said firmly that in our country even chiefs had only one wife, that they had servants to do their work, and that they paid them from tax money. It was better, they returned, for a chief to have many wives and sons who would help him hoe his farms and feed his people; then everyone loved the chief who gave much and took nothing—taxes were a bad thing. I agreed with the last comment, but for the rest fell back on their favorite way of fobbing off my questions: “That is the way it is done, so that is how we do it.”
I decided to skip the soliloquy. Even if Claudius was here thought quite right to marry his brother’s widow, there remained the poison motif, and I knew they would disapprove of fratricide. More hopefully I resumed, “That night Hamlet kept watch with the three who had seen his dead father. The dead chief again appeared, and although the others were afraid, Hamlet followed his dead father off to one side. When they were alone, Hamlet’s dead father spoke.”
“Omens can’t talk!” The old man was emphatic.
“Hamlet’s dead father wasn’t an omen. Seeing him might have been an omen, but he was not.” My audience looked as confused as I sounded. “It was Hamlet’s dead father. It was a thing we call a ‘ghost.’” I had to use the English word, for unlike many of the neighboring tribes, these people didn’t believe in the survival after death of any individuating part of the personality.
“What is a ‘ghost?’ An omen?”
“No, a ‘ghost’ is someone who is dead but who walks around and can talk, and people can hear him and see him but not touch him.”
They objected. “One can touch zombies.”
“No, no! It was not a dead body the witches had animated to sacrifice and eat. No one else made Hamlet’s dead father walk. He did it himself.”
“Dead men can’t walk,” protested my audience as one man. I was quite willing to compromise.
“A ‘ghost’ is the dead man’s shadow.”
But again they objected. “Dead men cast no shadows.”
“They do in my country,” I snapped.
The old man quelled the babble of disbelief that arose immediately and told me with that insincere, but courteous, agreement one extends to the fancies of the young, ignorant, and superstitious, “No doubt in your country the dead can also walk without being zombies.” From the depths of his bag he produced a withered fragment of kola nut, bit off one end to show it wasn’t poisoned, and handed me the rest as a peace offering.
“Anyhow,” I resumed, “Hamlet’s dead father said that his own brother, the one who became chief, had poisoned him. He wanted Hamlet to avenge him. Hamlet believed this in his heart, for he did not like his father’s brother.” I took another swallow of beer. “In the country of the great chief, living in the same homestead, for it was a very large one, was an important elder who was often with the chief to advise and help him. His name was Polonius. Hamlet was courting his daughter, but her father and her brother . . . [I cast hastily about for some tribal analogy] warned her not to let Hamlet visit her when she was alone on her farm, for he would be a great chief and so could not marry her.”
“Why not?” asked the wife, who had settled down on the edge of the old man’s chair. He frowned at her for asking stupid questions and growled, “They lived in the same homestead.”
“That was not the reason,” I informed them. “Polonius was a stranger who lived in the homestead because he helped the chief, not because he was a relative.”
“Then why couldn’t Hamlet marry her?”
“He could have,” I explained, “but Polonius didn’t think he would. After all, Hamlet was a man of great importance who ought to marry a chief’s daughter, for in his country a man could have only one wife. Polonius was afraid that if Hamlet made love to his daughter, then no one else would give a high price for her.”
“That might be true,” remarked one of the shrewder elders, “but a chief’s son would give his mistress’s father enough presents and patronage to more than make up the difference. Polonius sounds like a fool to me.”
“Many people think he was,” I agreed. “Meanwhile Polonius sent his son Laertes off to Paris to learn the things of that country, for it was the homestead of a very great chief indeed. Because he was afraid that Laertes might waste a lot of money on beer and women and gambling, or get into trouble by fighting, he sent one of his servants to Paris secretly, to spy out what Laertes was doing. One day Hamlet came upon Polonius’s daughter Ophelia. He behaved so oddly he frightened her. Indeed”—I was fumbling for words to express the dubious quality of Hamlet’s madness—“the chief and many others had also noticed that when Hamlet talked one could understand the words but not what they meant. Many people thought that he had become mad.” My audience suddenly became much more attentive. “The great chief wanted to know what was wrong with Hamlet, so he sent for two of Hamlet’s age mates [school friends would have taken a long explanation] to talk to Hamlet and find out what troubled his heart. Hamlet, seeing that they had been bribed by the chief to betray him, told them nothing. Polonius, however, insisted that Hamlet was mad because he had been forbidden to see Ophelia, whom he loved.”
“Why,” inquired a bewildered voice, “should anyone bewitch Hamlet on that account?”
“Bewitch him?”
“Yes, only witchcraft can make anyone mad, unless, of course, one sees the beings that lurk in the forest.” I stopped being a storyteller and took out my notebook and demanded to be told more about these two causes of madness. Even while they spoke and I jotted notes, I tried to calculate the effect of this new factor on the plot. Hamlet had not been exposed to the beings that lurk in the forests. Only his relatives in the male line could bewitch him. Barring relatives not mentioned by Shakespeare, it had to be Claudius who was attempting to harm him. And, of course, it was. For the moment I staved off questions by saying that the great chief also refused to believe that Hamlet was mad for the love of Ophelia and nothing else. “He was sure that something much more important was troubling Hamlet’s heart.”
“Now Hamlet’s age mates,” I continued, “had brought with them a famous storyteller. Hamlet decided to have this man tell the chief and all his homestead a story about a man who had poisoned his brother because he desired his brother’s wife and wished to be chief himself. Hamlet was sure the great chief could not hear the story without making a sign if he was indeed guilty, and then he would discover whether his dead father had told him the truth.”
The old man interrupted, with deep cunning, “Why should a father lie to his son?” he asked.
I hedged: “Hamlet wasn’t sure that it really was his dead father.” It was impossible to say anything, in that language, about devil-inspired visions.
“You mean,” he said, “it actually was an omen, and he knew witches sometimes send false ones. Hamlet was a fool not to go to one skilled in reading omens and divining the truth in the first place. A man-who-sees-the-truth could have told him how his father died, if he really had been poisoned, and if there was witchcraft in it; then Hamlet could have called the elders to settle the matter.”
The shrewd elder ventured to disagree. “Because his father’s brother was a great chief, one-who-sees-the-truth might therefore have been afraid to tell it. I think it was for that reason that a friend of Hamlet’s father—a witch and an elder—sent an omen so his friend’s son would know. Was the omen true?”
“Yes,” I said, abandoning ghosts and the devil; a witch-sent omen it would have to be. “It was true, for when the storyteller was telling his tale before all the homestead, the great chief rose in fear. Afraid that Hamlet knew his secret he planned to have him killed.”
The stage set of the next bit presented some difficulties of translation. I began cautiously. “The great chief told Hamlet’s mother to find out from her son what he knew. But because a woman’s children are always first in her heart, he had the important elder Polonius hide behind a cloth that hung against the wall of Hamlet’s mother’s sleeping hut. Hamlet started to scold his mother for what she had done.”
There was a shocked murmur from everyone. A man should never scold his mother. “She called out in fear, and Polonius moved behind the cloth. Shouting, ‘A rat!’ Hamlet took his machete and slashed through the cloth.” I paused for dramatic effect. “He had killed Polonius.”
The old men looked at each other in supreme disgust. “That Polonius truly was a fool and a man who knew nothing! What child would not know enough to shout, ‘It's me!’” With a pang, I remembered that these people are ardent hunters, always armed with bow, arrow, and machete; at the first rustle in the grass an arrow is aimed and ready, and the hunter shouts “Game!” If no human voice answers immediately, the arrow speeds on its way. Like a good hunter, Hamlet had shouted, “A rat!”
I rushed in to save Polonius’s reputation. “Polonius did speak. Hamlet heard him. But he thought it was the chief and wished to kill him to avenge his father. He had meant to kill him earlier that evening. . . .” I broke down, unable to describe to these pagans, who had no belief in individual afterlife, the difference between dying at one’s prayers and dying “unhousell’d, disappointed, unaneled.”
This time I had shocked my audience seriously. “For a man to raise his hand against his father’s brother and the one who has become his father— that is a terrible thing. The elders ought to let such a man be bewitched.” I nibbled at my kola nut in some perplexity, then pointed out that after all the man had killed Hamlet’s father.
“No,” pronounced the old man, speaking less to me than to the young men sitting behind the elders. “If your father’s brother has killed your father, you must appeal to your father’s age mates: they may avenge him. No man may use violence against his senior relatives.” Another thought struck him. “But if his father’s brother had indeed been wicked enough to bewitch Hamlet and make him mad that would be a good story indeed, for it would be his fault that Hamlet, being mad, no longer had any sense and thus was ready to kill his father’s brother.”
There was a murmur of applause. Hamlet was again a good story to them, but it no longer seemed quite the same story to me. As I thought over the coming complications of plot and motive, I lost courage and decided to skim over dangerous ground quickly. “The great chief,” I went on, “was not sorry that Hamlet had killed Polonius. It gave him a reason to send Hamlet away, with his two treacherous age mates, with letters to a chief of a far country, saying that Hamlet should be killed. But Hamlet changed the writing on their papers, so that the chief killed his age mates instead.” I encountered a reproachful glare from one of the men whom I had told undetectable forgery was not merely immoral but beyond human skill. I looked the other way.
“Before Hamlet could return, Laertes came back for his father’s funeral. The great chief told him Hamlet had killed Polonius. Laertes swore to kill Hamlet because of this, and because his sister Ophelia, hearing her father had been killed by the man she loved, went mad and drowned in the river.”
“Have you already forgotten what we told you?” The old man was reproachful. “One cannot take vengeance on a madman; Hamlet killed Polonius in his madness. As for the girl, she not only went mad, she was drowned. Only witches can make people drown. Water itself can’t hurt anything. It is merely something one drinks and bathes in.”
I began to get cross. “If you don’t like the story, I’ll stop.”
The old man made soothing noises and himself poured me some more beer. “You tell the story well, and we are listening. But it is clear that the elders of your country have never told you what the story really means. No, don’t interrupt! We believe you when you say your marriage customs are different, or your clothes and weapons. But people are the same everywhere; therefore, there are always witches and it is we, the elders, who know how witches work. We told you it was the great chief who wished to kill Hamlet, and now your own words have proved us right. Who were Ophelia’s male relatives?”
“There were only her father and her brother.” Hamlet was clearly out of my hands.
“There must have been many more; this also you must ask of your elders when you get back to your country. From what you tell us, since Polonius was dead, it must have been Laertes who killed Ophelia, although I do not see the reason for it.” We had emptied one pot of beer, and the old men argued the point with slightly tipsy interest. Finally one of them demanded of me, “What did the servant of Polonius say on his return?”
With difficulty I recollected Reynaldo and his mission. “I don’t think he did return before Polonius was killed.”
“Listen,” said the elder, “and I will tell you how it was and how your story will go, then you may tell me if I am right. Polonius knew his son would get into trouble, and so he did. He had many fines to pay for fighting, and debts from gambling. But he had only two ways of getting money quickly. One was to marry off his sister at once, but it is difficult to find a man who will marry a woman desired by the son of a chief. For if the chief’s heir commits adultery with your wife, what can you do? Only a fool calls a case against a man who will someday be his judge. Therefore Laertes had to take the second way: he killed his sister by witchcraft, drowning her so he could secretly sell her body to the witches.”
I raised an objection. “They found her body and buried it. Indeed Laertes jumped into the grave to see his sister once more—so, you see, the body was truly there. Hamlet, who had just come back, jumped in after him.”
“What did I tell you?” The elder appealed to the others. “Laertes was up to no good with his sister’s body. Hamlet prevented him, because the chief’s heir, like a chief, does not wish any other man to grow rich and powerful. Laertes would be angry, because he would have killed his sister without benefit to himself. In our country he would try to kill Hamlet for that reason. Is this not what happened?”
“More or less,” I admitted. “When the great chief found Hamlet was still alive, he encouraged Laertes to try to kill Hamlet and arranged a fight with machetes between them. In the fight both the young men were wounded to death. Hamlet’s mother drank the poisoned beer that the chief meant for Hamlet in case he won the fight. When he saw his mother die of poison, Hamlet, dying, managed to kill his father’s brother with his machete.”
“You see, I was right!” exclaimed the elder.
“That was a very good story,” added the old man, “and you told it with very few mistakes.” There was just one more error, at the very end. The poison Hamlet’s mother drank was obviously meant for the survivor of the fight, whichever it was. If Laertes had won, the great chief would have poisoned him, for no one would know that he arranged Hamlet’s death. Then, too, he need not fear Laertes’ witchcraft; it takes a strong heart to kill one’s only sister by witchcraft.
“Sometime,” concluded the old man, gathering his ragged toga about him, “you must tell us some more stories of your country. We, who are elders, will instruct you in their true meaning, so that when you return to your own land your elders will see that you have not been sitting in the bush, but among those who know things and who have taught you wisdom.”
Hamlet And The Art Of Letting Go
Every now and again I find myself drawn back to the works of Shakespeare, he is possibly the only author whose stories I can read over and over again. Most recently I found myself tossing up between Hamlet and Macbeth, two tragedies whose principal characters hold special places in my imagination. In all I have never been able to identify with Macbeth as well as I have with Hamlet so I decided to give my attention to the prince of Denmark.
The story opens in castle Elsinore, the night is dark and still. The guards talk about the ghost of the dead king who keeps appearing in the castle, they convince Horatio to tell Hamlet, his best friend and the dead kings son, of the apparition and bid him to come. When Hamlet finds the ghost it speaks to him: claiming to be Hamlet's father and telling him that his brother Claudius murdered him by pouring poison into his ear while he slept. The ghost implores Hamlet to avenge his death and Hamlet, despite doubts of the reliability of the information, agrees. He decides to pretend to have gone mad in order to hide his intentions. In each of my previous readings I had never really reflected on this scene, but this time my mind paused to analyze what it was that I had just read and what courses of action were open to Hamlet at this point. For the first time I was struck with the futility of Hamlet's quest, nothing he could do would bring his father back to life, there was nothing to gain by exacting vengeance on Claudius.
Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, and Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, were married shortly after the old king's death and busy with the affairs of the kingdom they send for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Hamlet's old schoolmates, in an effort to investigate the cause of Hamlet's recent strange behavior. Perceptive, and now very paranoid, young Hamlet quickly discerns that his friends are here by orders of the king. The kings closest advisor, Polonius, has two children: a daughter, Ophelia, who Hamlet has been courting and a son, Laertes, who is returning to France. Before he leaves Laertes and his father both warn Ophelia that they do not trust Hamlet's intentions for her. When Ophelia reports to her father that recently Hamlet had rushed into her room and silently stood staring at her Polonius decides that Hamlet has been driven mad by love. Informing the king and queen of his thoery the three plot to have Ophelia spy on him. In spite of Laertes feelings on the matter Hamlet truly seems to love Ophelia, but recognizing the poisonous path that his life has taken he decides to sever their ties. He accomplishes this by verbally assaulting her, going so far as to tell her that she should go join a nunery. Reading this I was struck by the fact that Hamlet seems to recognize that little good can come of his actions, yet rather than letting go of his anger toward Claudius he scorns the love of his life, giving himself more fully over to his quest for revenge.
When a troop of actors comes to town Hamlet sees his chance to discover the validity of the ghosts claims. He talks to the players and convinces them to put on a play in which a king's ambitious brother pours poison into his ear while he sleeps. The play is presented in court and when Claudius sees this scene he leaps from his chair in shocked outrage and storms from the room. Recognizing his nephew's hand in the evenings events Claudius decides to send Hamlet and his two schoolmates to England with a sealed order requesting that Hamlet be killed upon his arrival.
Gertrude summons Hamlet to her chamber to demand an explanation but on his way to see her Hamlet comes upon the king as he prays. His initial reaction is to slay the king while he is defenseless, but Hamlet worries that the Claudius would go to heaven if he is slain in the midst of his piety. Leaving the king unmollested Hamlet arrives at his mother's room. Rather than letting go of his anger with Claudius Hamlet has allowed it to fester in his heart and he looses his composure, accusing his mother of cheating on his father even before his untimely demise. Polonius is hidden behind a drapery to listen to the proceedings but at the tumult in the room he fears that Hamlet's rage will lead him to murder the queen and he cries out for help. Thinking that Claudius has somehow made his way into the room Hamlet stabs the drapery, effectively ending Polonius's life. When the hidden mans identity is discovered Hamlet further reveals how far he has allowed his spite to rot inside of him by insulting the dead man and showing no remorse. Turning back to his mother Hamlet again sees the ghost of his father who implores Hamlet to be merciful with Gertrude but reiterats the need for Claudis to pay for his deeds. Gertrude, who of course sees no ghost, takes this to be proof that Hamlet is hallucinating and is indeed off his rocker.
Ophelia herself is driven mad by grief for her slain father and her inability to let go the pain of Hamlet's emotional betrayal. When Laertes returns from France it takes little work on Claudius's part to convince him that Hamlet is the source of all the pain their family has suffered. Word soon comes that Hamlet did not die on his journey to England and that he is heading home, he later reveals to Horatio that he changed the orders to have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern put to death instead. Claudius sees that he will have to get his hands dirty, so he persuades Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a duel in which Laertes swordtip will be poisoned. Not one to leave things to chance the king decides to serve Hamlet poisoned wine at the duel, just in case. Finally we learn that Ophelia, unable to get past her twice broken heart, has drown herself.
Returning home Hamlet and Horatio come upon a pair of gravediggers who banter back and forth with him before breaking the news of Ophelia's suicide. Her funeral procession arrives with Laertes at the lead and upon seeing Hamlet his anger boils over and he attacks the prince. The fight is broken up but just like his sister Laertes is unable to let go of his pain and move on with his life. Seeing Hamlet as the well from which his misery springs Laertes challanges him to a duel. In the fight Laertes is able to slice Hamlet with his poisoned blade however Hamlet wrests the sword from his hands and stabs him back. In celebration of the sportsmanship Gertrude drinks from the poisoned wine Claudius set out for Hamlet. As the poison courses through his system Laertes reconciles with Hamlet and reveals the plot of the king. Weakened by the poison himself, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sabre and recognizing the way the wine ends Gertrude's life he pours the remainder down the kings throat. In his final moments Hamlet names the leader of an invading army as his heir and when the army arives Horatio recounts Hamlet's story to him and the man has Hamlet's body taken away in honor.
Always before I have been able to identify with Hamlet's plight, with his struggle to make due with the hand dealt him. However reading it this time I see the tragedy of Hamlet not in the hopeless situation he found himself, but in the inability of the characters to cope with the pain they suffer and their universal failure to let go of their pain, to forgive and to move on with their lives. Had Laertes confronted Hamlet verbally, as one man who has lost his father to another, rather than with a poisoned sword the reconciliation they found in death could have spared both of their lives. Had Claudius sought forgiveness for his crimes rather than attempting to protect himself by ending Hamlet's life Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would not have been sent to their deaths and he would not have had to watch his wife die because of the poison meant for Hamlet. Had Ophelia moved on after being scorned by Hamlet she may have been able to cope with her fathers death and found comfort in her brothers love, sparing her the terrible release she sought in death.
And finally, had Hamlet been able to let go of the pain of his uncles betrayl he could have confronted his mother regarding her faithfulness to his father without flying into a rage, sparing Polonius his untimely demise and Laertes and Ophelia the pain it would bring. When he saw the pain his path would lead to, if he had turned away from the darkness rather than embracing it he would not have felt the need to distance himself from Ophelia; would not have obsessed over bringing an end to Claudius's life, giving the king no reason to have him sent to his death, saving Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, nor any reason to poison him, saving Laertes and Gertrude and, ultimately, himself. It seems to me that the message built into Hamlet is not simply the hopelessness and despair brought about through lies and betrayal, but an overwhelming lesson in the need for us to let go of our pain, to forgive others for their poor decisions and mistakes, and to move on with our lives focusing on tommorrow rather than dwelling on the wounds of the past.
Friday, July 3, 2009
My Patriotic Salute To American Fascism
In a study done by Laurence Britt seven of the most powerful fascist regimes the world has ever seen were compared to find commonalities. The regimes studied were Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. Obviously each country had their own distinct identities, cultures, developmental levels and histories; but they all followed the fascist model in their attainment, expansion and maintenance of supreme power. Also, each regime has been overthrown, giving us an excellent historical perspective to study their characteristics and abuses.
By examining these seven regimes we find fourteen common threads that link them in patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. Obviously the degree to which each regime had any particular characteristic varies, but every one of them contained all fourteen.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.
White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies, despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.
Middle school geography teacher hangs flags of China and Mexico and is promptly removed from class and put on administrative leave.
House Majority Leader: Iraq War "May be the greatest gift that we give our grandchildren."
Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the Pentagon's war-marketing slogans.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.
Republicans kill defense spending bill because McCain Amendment prohibits "cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment."
US used massive quantities of chemical weapons in the 2004 massacre of Fallujah, despite being party to the Chemical Weapons Convention as of 1992.
Bush vetoed CIA waterboarding ban bill.
Federal appeals court rules that Guantanamo detainees can't challenge the legality of their detention.
US has detained up to 80,000 people in secret prisons across the globe.
President Obama drafts executive order authorizing indefinite detention.
A human rights group claims that US forces held 60 children in the Guantanamo Bay camp for suspected terrorist activities.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with
accordingly.
SB24: Ohio Bill to muzzle "liberal" professors in order to protect young minds from the 80% who "are Democrats, liberals or socialists or card-carrying communists."
Senator Rick Santorum blames liberalism as the reason for the Catholic church's sex scandals
America's freedoms are being challenged by anti-Muslim hysteria and abuses of the Patriot Act.
US Attorney General, a Christian Evangelist with anti-Islamic views, went on record that he is "waging a war on American Muslims".
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the riling elite.
Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades
A Trillion Dollar Defense Budget
Funding for job training, health care, low-income schools, children suffering from poverty and cancer research were all obliterated in order to help pay for the military's annual budget.
The Army is pondering the creation of a new theme park.
It's legal again, to fire government workers for being gayBush called for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage
Bush refused to sign U.N proposal on woman's "sexual" rights
Pentagon admits gay surveillance
GOP candidate approves of the execution o f homosexuals
Missouri votes to end birth control funding
6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.
Report shows U.S government had been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens and the story was only mentioned in the media 41 times.
Fox News admits bias and claims to be a "conservative team" whose aligned with Rush Limbaugh in order to put radical conservatives into office.
Pentagon investigates itself after it hired private contractors to pay Iraqi news organizations to run pro-American stories.
CIA warning retired employees not to talk with reporters, or they will lose their pensions.
Under Homeland Security orders journalists from England, Sweden, Holland and other friendly countries are being detained at US airports, strip-searched, and deported.
7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
Bush aides admit to 'stoking fear' for political gain.Senate passes bill exempting Department of Homeland Security from judicial oversight.
US considers fencing off Canada.
Bush sets up domestic spy service.
"A scared populace is a compliant populace" says Homeland Security official.
Learn to spy on your neighbors, public offered class on terror spotting.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.
Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush.
Liberals are painted as godless and evil.
North Carolina congressman proposes law making it okay to preach politics from the pulpit.
George W. Bush claims divine inspiration for the US invasion of Iraq.
Barack Obama is suspected of being a Muslim, which is terrible because a non-Christian would be leading the country and would be likely to betray us.
9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.
US scientists felt pressured to tailor their writings on global warming to fit the Bush administration's skepticism, in some cases at the behest of an ex-oil industry lobbyist.
Republicans have removed a piece of Darfur Peace and Accountability Act that would have prevented big companies from doing business with murderous African dictators.
Pentagon hid unspent funds from Treasury
President Bush appoints former CheveronTexaco lawyer as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who in turn clears oil companies of price fixing.
Pentagon paying weapons contractors performance bonuses for projects that are years late, millions over budget and often entirely non-functional.
There has never been an investigation into Cheney's involvement in awarding Halliburton no-bid contracts, making the company the #1 war profiteer.
FDA protects drug companies from lawsuits
House moves to strip food warning labels
Closed-door deal makes $22 Billion payoff for health insurance industry. House and Senate Democrats were excluded from the meeting.
Thanks to the avian flu scare, Donald Rumsefeld's investments in the company that produces Tamiflu put $5 million in his pockets in a six month period.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.
Schwarzenegger steps up attacks on labor unions in California.
Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically.
FBI barges into homes of Puerto Rican community organizers who work with labor unions.
One of Washington's most well known, industry funded lobbyists takes on labor unions.
Congress and the Department of Labor tried to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers and replacing time and a half pay with comp days.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.
Right wing pundits are starting to sound like Maoists when describing universities and schools. Republican legislators beginning the purging of the liberals in academia.
Some 10,000 US researchers have signed a statement protesting political interference in the scientific process.
In a comparison of 34 countries willingness to understand and accept of the theory of evolution as basic scientific theory, the USA ranked 33rd.
Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds
New ruling will allow censorship of campus publications
The average student now graduates with three and a half times more debt than 10 years ago, but still Washington wants to cut even more student aid
12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.
The United States has now become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-8 times the rate of other industrialized nations.
Dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina, part of a pattern across the United States.
Seven million Americans - one in every 32 adults - were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of 2005, according to the US Justice Department.
Speaking at annual 1st Amendment ceremony, Newt Gingrich suggests that freedom of speech be re-examined to meet the threat of terrorism.
Documents show Pentagon spying on peace activists.
Judge rules it's okay for cops to lie on search/arrest warrant applications.
House passes warrantless domestic spying measure.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.
One third of open US attorney jobs given to Bush insiders.
House intelligence committee aided and abetted former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham to help steer more than $70 million in classified federal business to favored military contractors, who in turn paid him millions in bribes.
US government agencies charged with the reconstruction of Iraq allocated $362 million to non-existent "dummy vendors".
Judge who exonerated Cheney is on the payroll of Exxon.
Ambassadorship appointments in exchange for donations a common practice.
$1.1 trillion disappear from US treasury in 1 year
Following the Iraq war billions of dollars of Iraq's money was directed to American companies to rebuild the country - but much of it remains unaccounted for.
New charges have been filed alleging that the CIA's former #3 official used his influence in that role to support a proposed $100 million government contract for his best friend, a defense contractor.
For the second time in two months a federal court ruled that the president was in violation of the Constitution.
14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.
Ohio's secretary of state (and overseer of elections) Ken Blackwell was invested in Diebold voting machines.
Diebold memos disclose Florida 2000 e-voting fraud.
Bush campaign chairman quits over illegal phone jamming.
Republican judge upholds RNC efforts to suppress Democratic party voters.
RNC funds voter suppression in at least 5 states.
Consultant who destroyed Democratic voter registration forms says his GOP clients are "very proud" of his company's actions.
Democrats and Republicans who sit on the local boards say representatives of Diebold Incorporated have offered donations to the parties.
Bush manages to get 64% of the vote in Florida's Calhoun County despite less than 12% of the population being registered Republican.
Bush received 4258 votes in Ohio's Franklin County - odd since only 638 voters cast ballots.
It's easy to win Ohio when machines in heavy Democratic areas register negative 25,000,000 votes.
CEO of Diebold Inc. (who made the Ohio voting machines) stated that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."
Foreign monitors 'barred' from US polls.
The ugly, secret shame of American democracy is that 2 million votes are 'spoiled' in presidential elections, tossed away untallied as 'unreadable'. And the worst part is that roughly half are cast by African-Americans.
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie wants to eliminate exit polls because he says they're not accurate. All 2004 exit polls matched results except in Ohio and Florida.
Looking at these 14 signs of fascism makes me proud to live in a truly free democracy. Happy 4th of July!
