The God Industry

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "God is dead" in his book "Froeliche Wissenschaft" and continued with that theme in his next book "Also Sprach Zarathustra". What Nietzsche meant was that belief in the Christian god had become "unbelievable" in a 19th Century swept away by scientific rationality. Almost a century later, the French philosopher and author, Albert Camus, pointed out that the hopeless fairy tales of a god, divine creation, heavenly host, and life after death had created an absurd contradiction with realities of the human condition. Yet throughout the election campaigning of 2011 through 2012, we have heard pronouncements from Republican candidates who not only believe that god wills raped women to have babies but who also believe that the earth was created in six days while god rested on the seventh day --- never mind that there was nothing to mark days and nights until god, supposedly, created the sun and moon. It is probably no surprise to anyone that the very same politicians who are such fundamental Christians disbelieve in the last four centuries of scientific work, especially the theory of evolution and any evidence suggesting human involvement in global warming and its consequent, climate change. What is truly appalling is that contemporary supposedly intelligent people can believe and broadcast this nonsense; but what is even more appalling is that we allow this sort of garbage to enter the political theater at all. The very same politicians who introduce bills in state legislatures to prohibit Sharia Law are eager to submit Americans to Christian Law! And when it comes to dealing with women's lives they are not really that far different.

Now Nietzsche warned us that the news of god's death would be slow to make its way throughout the world but we've had almost 150 years to get it right. So what is the problem here? I've been thinking about this a lot, lately, and I've come to the conclusion that the central problem is the "God Industry." It is, in Western history, an enormous industry; and while it seems to be declining slowly in present time, it remains truly enormous today. Consider as an historic example the power of the churches in Medieval Europe; bishops and archbishops were as powerful as kings, perhaps more powerful. Consider the enormous wealth accumulated by religious institutions in order to build the huge cathedrals that we tour throughout Europe. In America we have our cathedrals as well; and every town has enough churches to service a variety of belief systems. The God Industry is everywhere and, most important, it employs large numbers of people. Needless to say, it cannot afford to allow people to go their own way in deciding belief or unbelief. 

Of course, there is also a large amount of fear associated with this issue, fear that we have learned since childhood. If god and the heavenly host do not exist, then what is there to give meaning to human life? If god doesn't regulate behavior, then the world will go mad. If there is no life after death, no heaven where we will meet our Aunt Millies, then that means a fall into Nothingness, the Abyss. In their weird ways, these fears are the greatest nihilistic forces in all of life --- one of Nietzsche's main points --- because they drain all value out of normal existence and thrust everything into an other-worldy paradise. Simply living our lives has meaning to us and does not require other worlds. 

Personally, I am sick and tired of baseball players who motion to god or Jesus when they round first base; if there were a god, I'm sure that she would have something better to attend to. I am also sick and tired of politicians proclaiming their faith, especially the ones who corrupt scientific judgment or try to control women's lives. And finally, if god were something worthy of belief, I don't think he would urge nations to go to war and grind young men and women into useless and forlorn pulp.

Save Big Bird

What's so important about Big Bird? Well, if you look at the amount of money involved, it is obviously not how much of the deficit problem Romney might solve by killing Big Bird. Public radio and television support is something like 0.01% of the problem. 

What is really going on behind the attack on Big Bird is a "bucket list" item with the whole Conservative gang. They have been trying to get rid of public radio and television anyway they can for years now. The deficit is just an easy excuse for accomplishing their longtime objective.

And what's wrong with public radio and television? It's outside the direct control of corporate wealth. The Conservative agenda is to maintain absolute control of the media. Americans should hear and see only what the wealthy 1% want them to hear and see. That is really what is at issue here. Freedom of speech and assembly are wonderful ideals, but do they really mean anything at a practical level when all the media are maintained by corporate power? These media have already successfully reduced the idea of "news" to "entertainment." And, of course, all Americans get for "news" is what the media think will entertain them. Talk about dumbing down!

Better Off

Republicans ask us whether we are better off today than we were four years ago. How can they dare ask such a question? The answer, of course, is "We're a whole lot better off than we were four years ago!"

September 2008 --- It was the end of the Bush era and a complete disaster with little outlook for improvement. The Dow was teetering at 11400 and was at 8000 by the time Obama took office. People were losing their jobs and their homes. It looked like we were heading into the worst depression since the Great One and that this one might actually be as great. We were bogged down in two foreign wars. And the national debt had already climbed to ridiculous levels. 

Obama's first year was a continuation of the Bush budget and a continuation of the slide toward disaster. However, Obama's policies had turned many of these factors around by his second year. He could have done more, perhaps, if the Senate had not been hostage to the 60/40 rule for passing anything significant. Then, by the time the Republicans gained control of the House in 2010, they made it clear they were not going to cooperate with Obama and were going to make him a one-term president by sacrificing the people of the nation. In spite of all that, employment has risen steadily throughout the last three years, housing has been somewhat dealt with, and the Dow is back to 13500. We are out of Iraq and there is a plan to leave Afganistan.

We are clearly better off than we had a right to think we might be. No one is entirely happy with where we are. There is much more to be done, but a return to Republican economics is the last thing in the world that might make things better.

While we're at it, let's consider the National Debt. Republicans constantly harangue Obama about increasing the debt. But if you actually look at the debt graph for the last fifty years, what you find is huge increases in the debt under Reagan (the god of Republican economics) getting even worse under the first Bush. Clinton actually managed to bring the debt under some degree of control and then the second Bush shot it upwards remarkably. Obama inherited a $9 trillion debt with interest in a time when debt reduction would have created an even worse economic condition. 

No Shame

Republicans heralded the speech given by Paul Ryan as a great contribution to their convention strategy. Yet, at the same time, Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and even one of the Fox journalists were demonstrating that Ryan had engaged in a major campaign of lying and deception. Is this really what the Founding Fathers had in mind? Just lie, cheat, and steal so long as you win power. The Republicans have been on this path every since Obama was elected. They have no concern for the nation, for the economy, etc. Their sole interest is power. And when they have it --- what then?

The Actual Referendum

In 1964 Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize for his new book "Anti-intellectualism in American Life." Forty eight years later, Americans are having a referendum on the intellect or, perhaps more accurately, on intelligence. It's not just the parade of republican politicians who seem to be holding a contest on who can publicly say the dumbest things; it's the heavy weight of public opinion stacked up behind them that not only doesn't care about intelligence but actually seems to admire the reverse. In Texas schools, they refuse to teach critical thinking on the grounds that it will undermine "the authority of the family." One is reminded that the first thing new militarist governments usually do is arrest all the professors and shoot their students. They can't tolerate criticism and the last thing they want is new ideas.

Economics is an interesting example. Academic economists have been studying the "business cycle" ever since the Great Depression and have developed an understanding of economic downturns as well as sensible policies for stimulating re-growth. Republicans, on the other hand, think the great geniuses of the "economy" are the richest businessmen --- "surely all that money says something about them!" ---  and want to run the national economy like a business. Of course, the national economy is not a business any more than it is a household budget. Of course, in all of this, we are asked to ignore the fact that it is businesses that get us into "business cycles" precisely by doing business as usual. Ignore whatever the academics say!

A century ago, the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset, wrote "Revolt of the Masses" in which he described the evolution of "mass man" in modern times. One of the principal traits of mass man is that he completely loses sight of how modern times were developed out of science, literature, and the arts and begins to think of them as natural gifts, hence nothing that requires effort or sacrifice. Of course, Ortega was ignored as just another elitist intellectual.

The New/Old Republican Paradise

Mit Romney, as well as most other Republican "leaders", says that the economy will be fine and all kinds of new jobs will be created if we just lower the tax burden on the super wealthy, dispense with environmental protection, strip away regulations that monitor and control industry, and return to the golden days of all-American health care. Oh yes, we should also deport millions of "illegal immigrants", deny women their Constitutional right to choose an abortion, make it increasingly difficult for women to obtain contraception, and exclude as many poor people from voting as possible. While we are at it, we should break apart as many unions as possible and deny collective bargaining rights to as many workers as we can. 

This vision of paradise is, of course, nothing new. It is a perfect model of how the country ran in the 1890s and early 1900s. Unfortunately, being five or more generations away from those wonderful times, few Americans understand why we have unions and collective bargaining and why the vote is such a precious possession. Women did not have the right to vote until the 1920s; 18-year-old soldiers did not have the right to vote until the 1960s; and massive numbers of people were disenfranchised because they could not read or recite passages from the Constitution. 

One of the most admirable features of uncontrolled corporate Capitalism was the "company town." The corporation offered almost all available jobs, owned all of the housing, and ran most of the services (like food stores). Wages were kept so low that virtually nothing was left over after rents were paid, clothes were purchased, and children fed. Hours of labor were often six days per week for up to 12 hours per day. Children frequently had to work in the factories or mines just to keep the family going. The only restraint on corporations was to pay enough so that workers did not die in massive numbers. Meanwhile, few safety precautions were taken and workers died in accidents on a daily basis. 

This was not only a system with no regulation of industry; it was a system in which government supported industry. Workers who threatened to rebel or strike were taken out by police or military and either shot dead or put up for trial in judicial systems that were heavily oriented toward the corporations. Corporations simply owned government --- local, state, and Federal. Today, as we watch billionaires literally gushing money into support of Romney, it is easy to believe that we are headed back to the good old days in which business owns government and 99% of other people pay for it with their lives. 

What continues to boggle the imagination is why 50% of Americans will continue to vote for something like this when it is so enormously contrary to their own interests. I can only think that the reason for Republican success is their ability to hide behind the weird mask of "social issues" --- anti-abortion, anti-sex-education, anti-evolution, anti-science, and anti-gay-rights --- so that people don't look beyond to that paradise of starvation-level employment, social impotence, and child labor.

Some lessons gained in Wisconsin

Scott Walker and his ilk can win no matter how outrageous he behaves so long as he can out-spend his adversaries 8-to-1. And where did all that money come from? Certainly not from Wisconsin. There are super-rich people out there (like the Koch brothers) who are buying up political power all over the country.

But money doesn't do everything. Unions have over-stretched their demands and power and now people are down on them. That's a shame because history well documents the fact that unions are necessary in order to give workers a fighting chance against raw Capitalism. Unfortunately, we seem to be in a position of re-living history every century or so because most people do not learn history anymore. Probably half the people alive today were born after the Vietnam War. There is no memory of how labor was treated back in the late 19th Century.

Another fact is that wealthy conservatives are buying up political power in the states. They have not given up on the Federal government but they have realized that they can do a great deal of their damage through control of the states. Look at what has been happening to women's issues around the country, especially in Southern states where this strategy has been successful.

In an odd sort of way, what is happening now is a violation of the old conservative principle of "states rights." Except that it is not the Federal government that is intervening in self-determination of the states. It is big money from out-of-state. What would have happened in Wisconsin had the people of the state been able to exercise their own political choice without the intervention of foreign economic and political power?