The Tea Party and the 2012 Indiana elections

This, and another article from the 2012 Indiana elections, on how Indiana's new Senator, Joe Donnelle, ran on a platform in 2012 that was Tea Party Light, were both originally published on Examiner.com that year, and are reprinted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist" because they have stood the teat of time:  they are both still highly relevant to today's politics--GF

Indiana is traditionally a very conservative state with a penchant not only for electing Republicans, but also a state where Democrats tend to be Blue Dogs and Republicans outright reactionaries.  But Indiana can also surprise on that.  In 2008, while incumbent Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Senate hopeful Dan Coats beat their Democratic opponents by nearly two-to-one margins, Obama narrowly carried the state by 30,000 votes. Governor Daniels, a fiscal conservative who enthusiastically signed into law bills that established Indiana as a right-to-work state and cut unemployment benefits, and said that unions were no longer needed, also called for a Republican “truce” on divisive social issues—even as he signed into law the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Indiana (however, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction against defunding).  Richard Lugar, a long-established moderate Republican who’d served as Indiana Senator since 1976 and earned the respect of Democrats as well as Republicans, lost to Tea Party-backed insurgent challenger (and state Treasurer) Richard Mourdock in May’s primary by a 61%-39% margin—but Lugar isn’t campaigning for Mourdock, and Mourdock’s Tea Party support could make him Indiana’s Sharon Angle or Christine O’Donnell in the tight Senatorial race with Democrat Joe Donnelly.  Angle and O’Donnell, Tea Party-backed Senatorial challengers who handily defeated more moderate Republicans in the Nevada and Delaware primaries in 2010, respectively, went on to major defeats in the general election. 

 

Now, with Mourdock and Donnelly running neck-to-neck, with latest polls showing them in a statistical tie, a Donnelly win would help ensure Democratic control of the Senate.  Whereas Lugar was nearly invincible each time he ran, Mourdock clearly is not; and his hardball campaign against Lugar in the primary has alienated a lot of moderate Republicans and conservative to moderate Democrats who would’ve gladly supported the six-term Senator.  That handily-received Tea Party endorsement that was an asset to Mourdock in the primary could well turn out to be a serious liability in the general election.  That, and non-support from Lugar Republicans. 

 

Joe Donnelly certainly hopes so, and is vigorously trying to appeal to disaffected Lugar supporters as well as portray Mourdock as a Tea Party extremist.  Mourdock, for his part, is now trying to tack to the center, portraying himself as a typical Indiana conservative rather than a Tea Party fanatic, and trying to make what political hay he can by vaguely referencing Lugar’s stated wish after the primary that he hoped for a Republican majority in the Senate (which a Mourdock victory could enable).  But Lugar’s office recently slammed as unauthorized a mailing from an outside group that claimed Lugar support for Mourdock, and Lugar himself has refused to campaign for Mourdock.

 

Another Republican candidate with strong Tea Party ties is Mike Pence, a six-term Congressman running for Governor against Democrat John Gregg.  Only this race isn’t even close—at least not yet.  Pence has a two-digit lead over Gregg in statewide polls, has far outdone him in fund-raising, and has been further aided by an initially lackadaisical campaign on Gregg’s part, along with his inability to rally Democrats and reach out to women and independents.  But Gregg has been aggressively trying to change that lately, pointedly reaching out to disaffected Lugar supporters, attacking Pence’s ultraconservative record as Congressman, and his fixation on divisive social issues such as being staunchly anti-abortion, supporting a cutoff of all federal funding for Planned Parenthood for any purpose, defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, and a family as consisting of a married man and woman only couple as heads of household (single-parent households would thus not count as families, nor would households where heads of household were not married, or of the same gender).   Pence also wants to put into Indiana law a stipulation that no other state has—that each piece of proposed legislation be subject to an impact study on how it would affect such “traditional” families as defined above.

 

Gregg has also been actively pointing to Pence’s unabashed Tea Party support and participation—regularly speaking at Tea Party rallies, and being the first member of the Republican Congressional leadership to join Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party Congressional caucus.  To counter this, Pence, like Mourdock, has been trying to tack to the center—emphasizing on the campaign trail job creation, economic development, and restructuring education to give more emphasis to vocational training rather than college prep.  But Gregg and the Democrats charge that this soft-pedaling of social issues that Pence engages in now could all change in January 2013 should Pence become Governor, and have the power to force his prior widely-publicized far-right social agenda, which Gregg calls “social engineering.” Pence is also widely considered as planning to use his Indiana gubernatorial victory, should it come, as a springboard from which to launch himself as a future Republican candidate for President. 

 

Both Gregg and Donnelly are conservative Democrats.  Donnelly, a Congressman from Indiana’s northwestern Second District, is a member of the House Blue Dog caucus, while Gregg, former Speaker of the Indiana House from 1996-2002 who describes himself as a “gun-totin’, Bible-quotin’ Southern Indiana Democrat,” was Honorary Chair of the Hillary Clinton for President Indiana Campaign in 2008.  And while Donnelly supported aspects of Obama’s program such as the bailout and Obamacare, he’s also dissented from other aspects of it:  he supports building the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposes cap-and-trade legislation. 

 

While Gregg chose liberal present Indiana House Minority Leader Vi Simpson as his running mate for Lieutenant Governor and actively worked with liberal Democrats and Republicans as Speaker of the Indiana House, he implores prospective voters to “Look beyond the party label” in this conservative state that last elected a Democratic Governor in 2000.  Donnelly calls for tax cuts for small businesses to create jobs and supports a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, conservative measures criticized by this writer in his Examiner.com article, “Democratic Senatorial candidate Joe Donnelly’s jobs program is Tea Party Light,” reposted on "Politically Incorrect Leftist."

 

As for Indiana grassroots Tea Party activists, they are enthusiastically working for both Pence and Mourdock.  A news story from Indianapolis TV station WTHR, “Mourdock finding support among Tea Party,”  http://www.wthr.com/story/19608135/mourdock-finding-support-among-tea-party, quotes Indiana Tea Party activist Greg Fettig as saying that while Mourdock never said he was a Tea Party candidate, “The Tea Party claimed him.”  Fettig said this as he delivered a bundle of pro-Mourdock signs to a fellow Tea Partier for placing, 25,000 planed for strategic placement in Central Indiana alone.  WTHR political analyst Robin Winston says of the Indiana Tea Party and Mourdock, “He was bought and paid for by them and supported by them.”  Dr. Theo wrote enthusiastically in the conservative Dakota Voice of a 2010 “Get Out the Vote” rally in Plainfield, Indiana, where both Richard Mourdock and Mike Pence spoke, that was sponsored and organized by the Indianapolis Tea Party.  (Plainfield is a small town to the west of Indianapolis; the link to the story is http://www.dakotavoice.com/2010/10/pence-and-murdoch-at-indianapolis-tea-party/)

 

Of course, Pence always had Tea Party support in Indiana because of his open affiliation with the Party at the national level.  The Tea Party at Perrysburg blog gushed on January 18, 2012 that Pence had already raised $5 million for his campaign. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/) But William Teach admonished Pence in the June 17, 2010 Right Wing News for trying to tie the Tea Party movement to a moral agenda that was heavy on social issues such as support for “traditional” marriage and against abortion instead of focusing exclusively on political issues such as limited government, “loyalty to the U.S. Constitution” and individual liberty. (http://www.rightwingnews.com/republicans/mike-pence-states-tea-party-should-also-focus-on-morality/) Of course, sentiment such as Teach’s is not shared by many Tea Partiers, who are enthusiastic supporters of draconian social legislation such as Pence endorses.  Further, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party supporter Rand Paul avidly praised both the Tea Party and Murodck’s primary victory over Lugar in the conservative Washington Times of May 9, 2012. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/9/tea-party-wins-in-indiana/)

 

However, in mid-October a Tea Party group in northeastern Indiana was forced by the property owner to move a billboard comparing Obama to Osama Bin Laden from its original spot near the Allen Co. line (Indiana’s second-largest city, Ft. Wayne, is located in Allen Co.). (http://www.courier-journal.com/viewart/20121015/NEWS0203/310150113/Indiana-tea-party-group-forced-move-anti-Obama-sign)  In September, John Gregg got into trouble for calling Mike Pence a “Teabagger,” a term many Tea Party members consider a slur. (http://blogs.wishtv.com/2012/09/10/did-john-gregg-direct-a-slur-at-mike-pence/)  And in early October an outside group supporting Gregg, Believe in Indiana, posted ads in Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne that show Pence speaking at a 2011 Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C. and tying him to Mourdock as “Tea Party and extreme.” (http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/politics/new-ad-attacks-mike-pence)   Tensions and tempers are running high this election season in Indiana.

 

As is seen from the above, the Mourdock-Donnelly and Gregg-Pence races, and the role of the Tea Party in each, are generating a lot of media attention, far more than usual in Indiana elections.  And this attention is not just confined to Indiana media.  Nationally-read newspapers such as the Louisville Courier-Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Slate have all run stories on these races and the significance of Tea Party involvement, and the defeat of Richard Lugar by Richard Mourdock was a national story as well. Mike Pence and his political career and predilections have long been items of national interest, and have generated further commentary in such Internet outlets as the Daily Kos, Politico and Talking Points Memo.  Indiana newsman Brian Howey published a piece on the vicissitudes of John Gregg’s campaign that was reprinted widely. (Linked at http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/brian-howey/brian-howey-the-curious-campaign-of-john-gregg/article_bd0c126f-2010-5982-9e79-f774baa6cd8d.html)   From these extensive media sources both nationally and in Indiana this writer has drawn much of the material from which this story has been composed—and the links that carry these items of reference,  while far too numerous to list, show up readily on Internet search. 

 

Indiana is normally a sleepy place for news, even local news, so it’s really unusual for such media attention to be drawn to anything Hoosier outside of the Indianapolis Colts.  However, these are unusual elections, and considerably more than usual rides on the outcomes.

 

Riding especially on the outcome of the Mourdock-Donnelly race are control of the Senate and the political future of the Tea Party, both intertwined.  The Tea Party’s had a history of winning handily with its candidates in the Republican primaries, only to lose by large margins in the general elections, and turn what should’ve been easy victories for Republicans for Senatorial seats into resounding defeats and major victories for Democrats.  It happened three times in 2010, with Sharon Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, and Ken Buck in Colorado.  It could happen again twice in 2012:  had Lugar won the Republican primary, he would’ve been close to invincible in November; and had Todd Akin not won the Missouri primary against the  Republican establishment candidate, that seat, too, would’ve probably gone to the GOP.  As it is, Akin, who notoriously bawled that women never get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape,” is in a tight race with Democratic former underdog Claire McCaskill; and Akin’s candidacy has been essentially disavowed by the Missouri Republican Party because of that remark.  While political handicapper Charlie Cook gave the Republicans a 60%-70% chance to gain control of the Senate in 2011, he now gives a 60% chance to the Democrats to stay in control.  (The information for the above comes from Dana Milbank’s October 19, 2012 column in the Washington Post, “The Tea Party is helping Democrats,” which has been syndicated widely; link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-tea-party-is-helping-democrats/2012/10/19/815e07e0-1a08-11e2-aa6f-3b636fecb829_story.html)   Tea, anyone?        

THE “JOBS FOR ALL” LETTER AGAINST THE CURRENT NASTILY REFUSED TO PRINT

Recently, I tried to post the following Letter to the Editors of Against the Current on Occupy movements and the unemployment crisis:

To the Editors of ATC:

While I appreciate the coverage of left movements I get from Against the Current (ATC), including the extensive posts on the Occupy movements in the latest issue, #156, January/February 2012, as a very much "self-interested" unemployed worker I have to object to the consistent exclusion of articles in ATC that has been going on for the last couple of years (only one exception), the unemployment crisis, which is at the heart of the people's massive misery caused by the Great Recession. I can't help but personally feel that this exclusion flows from the fact that the left generally has no personal understanding or awareness of the severity of the crisis, and cannot seem to grasp its devastating impact on the unemployed themselves, who often feel psychologically as though trapped in the lowest rungs of Dante’s hell.

Noted socialist writer Upton Sinclair wrote, "It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." That doesn't just apply to the business and managerial classes alone--I submit, it can also apply to those who are economically comfortable either as workers or as retirees--and thus have no inkling of what it's like to be one of the working poor, what it's like to be chronically unemployed and "living" on a mere $600/month in unemployment compensation, to live constantly desperate. Such as I do, even as a college graduate (but with the "wrong" degree for the job market!), along with my college graduate friends who also have the "wrong" degrees, who are also older (as I am), who have to try and subsist on only temp agency work that pays $10/hour or less (as I had to do for 10 years, before being cut loose even from this kind of employment!) And yes, Upton Sinclair's remark applies to many a putative socialist as well, and to numerous "activists" in Occupy movements and left groups who don't have to worry about the economic wolf at the door, at least for the time being.

It is literally shameful the way the U.S. left has ignored the unemployment crisis, either slighting it through silence altogether, or not proposing bold Keynesian measures such as a new WPA, which created 8.5 million jobs in the 1930s and provided paychecks to 9.7 workers then, according the UCubed, the "union of the unemployed" set up by the Machinists' union (but which is not conceived as an "unemployed council" such as were established in the 1930s, but merely as a voting bloc to pressure Obama and the Democratic Party to "do right."). The reformist socialists such as DSA and CCDS only advocate for Obama's tepid jobs program, which will create merely 1.2 million jobs in an economy with a far bigger workforce than existed in the 1930s. The "revolutionary" socialists are even worse, aiming their fire at the "inadequacy" and merely "reformist" measures that would result from implementing Keynesian measures such as were instituted during the New Deal. So afraid of "saving capitalism," our "revolutionaries" would rather sacrifice the unemployed upon the altar of ideological purity, thus presenting themselves through their inaction as tacitly “aligned” (though for much different reasons) with the obstructionist Republicans and Tea Partiers--who also don't want any Keynesian measures applied to help the unemployed by providing decent-paying, productive, valuable jobs that fulfill real economic needs such as repairing infrastructure, and can actually become Green jobs.

Fortunately, there is one honorable socialist exception, the semi-Trotskyist/Third Camp socialist journal and website New Politics, http://newpol.org, of which ATC Editor David Finkel is a Sponsor, and of which leading Solidarity member Dan La Botz is an Editor. I published on New Politics online on February 3, 2011 my "Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis" calling for a new WPA, http://newpol.org/node/425; in this I was ably seconded by Brian King's supportive article and history of the WPA, "Jobs for All," http://newpol.org/node/445. Radical historian Jesse Lemisch also contributed mightily to this discussion with two articles on New Politics online, "Occupy the American Historical Association: Demand a WPA Federal Writers' Project," http://newpol.org/node/555, and "A WPA for History: Occupy the American Historical Association," http://newpol.org/node/582. I also briefly discussed Occupy youth and their roles as probably unemployed workers once they leave the student confines in "Carl Davidson, Bill Ayers, and Zig Ziglar Moments," http://newpol.org/node/568, where I pointedly noted in a footnote that, according to the New York Times, only 56% of the graduates of the Class of 2010 had found jobs by 2011! But these are virtually unique in what is otherwise a blackout of articles and analyses on the unemployment crisis in "revolutionary" socialist publications!

Jack Rasmus’ article in ATC 135 (July/August 2008), “A New Phase of Economic Crisis,” http://solidarity-us.org/site/node/1608, which was touted to me by one of the Editors of ATC as an exception to my claim of silence on the unemployment crisis, is no exception, really, to this blackout. Much of the article is but a compendium of economic statistics that leads only to the weak, deterministic conclusion that essentially the unemployment and ancillary crises caused by the Great Recession can’t even be seriously ameliorated under capitalism. A “revolutionary” call to passivity in concrete action now while calling for the overthrow of capitalism in the indefinite future. Certainly not a call for a “Jobs for All” new WPA as we called for in New Politics, which, while possibly “saving capitalism from itself” (albeit with major restructuring of this “saved” capitalism), would directly benefit millions, galvanize and energize them, and draw them into more militant political action precisely because they would now feel a sense of real hope and empowerment—plus having the material means to live a decent life, not merely scrounge to survive! Same as the (admittedly) reformist and inadequate New Deal did in the 1930s—which aside from achieving real changes in the way capitalism worked, also radicalized millions and pushed the “limits of the possible” much further to the left. Good things, yes? One would really think so, especially on the part of the “revolutionary” left as represented by ATC and Solidarity, but—these “revolutionaries” tragically disappoint by only wanting to say “no” to this.

But as my comrade and fellow New Politics contributor Brain King put it in an e-mail comment to me that was shared with this ATC Editor, “Why don't ‘Socialist’ groups and journals want to support ‘Jobs for All’? That's a tough one, but it's gotta have something to do with how they see their own group interests and the maintenance of their institutions. They must figure that it's much cooler to promote some pie-in-the-sky version of an ethereal state of affairs called ‘socialism’ than to get jobs for all, gain a lot of control over labor markets, but leave capitalism still functioning. I also think a lot of these so-called ‘socialists’ don't much like the idea of being involved with a lot of politically incorrect schlubs, like me and you. If your gonna build a mass movement, you're gonna have to learn to get along with a lot of working people without left pedigrees.” [As originally written by King—GF]

Leaving socialists such as myself, Brian King and Jesse Lemisch who are aware of the horridness of the unemployment crisis and the sting of unemployment between the Scylla of reformist tailing after Obama's inadequate approach, or the Charybdis or the tacit “alignment” with the Republicans against Keynesian measures that would actually work by the "revolutionary" left (although, again, for entirely different reasons), as demonstrated by the deafening silence coming from the "revolutionaries”!

I write this letter out of my great respect and appreciation for ATC.

George Fish

This was a revised version of an earlier draft I’d sent to this socialist bimonthly—most notably revised from the original in that I’d excised some language that Against the Current Managing Editor and Editorial Board Member David Finkel had vehemently objected to. For in the original I’d talked of persons on the left not understanding what it was like to be unemployed because many of them were among the “smug employed” and the “smug retired.” Finkel also drew my attention to the article by Jack Rasmus, on which I commented in the revised letter. Those were the two notable changes made, and made specifically to answer Finkel’s objections; and so I sent off the revised letter to Against the Current for re-consideration. Despite Finkel’s nastily reproachful tone, I’d been professional enough to take his objections into consideration, and revise accordingly. I expected no problems with the revised letter, even though personal relations with him were strained, had been for some time, and in the fall of 2010 Finkel personally instigated proceedings that led to my expulsion from Solidarity, the socialist grouplet (only 200-some members nationally) that publishes Against the Current as a ‘broader” left magazine. In fact, many’s the time I’d previously published in Against the Current, frequently with Finkel’s previous encouragement and approval. (It should be mentioned here that David Finkel is also a listed Sponsor of the New Politics hard-copy journal.)

What I got instead from Against the Current was this below, directly from Finkel:

My final note to you, last week, very explicitly stated that “…you don’t need to send us any more ‘letters to the editor’ or proposals for articles, and in fact you can stop sending messages here on anything whatsoever. If there is any part of the above that is not clear, please re-read as many times as necessary.” There is no way to make the point clearer. We will not acknowledge or respond to any further communications from you.

There it is, ladies and gentlemen, friends and comrades! Just like Lucifer, I’ve now been cast into the pit of hell by Almighty God himself, in the form of a Managing Editor of a small, and to most people, highly obscure, magazine of the left with which I’d been associated with before; and had even been told by Finkel himself that I could submit proposed articles and letters to Against the Current even after I’d been expelled from Solidarity.

What’s particularly interesting, I think, in all this is not any objection to “offensive” language (which had been excised, anyway, in my revision) on the part of Against the Current, but the fact that, like much of the left today, it doesn’t really want to talk about “Jobs for All” new WPA-style programs. New Politics online has been the only notable (and to me, honorable) exception, having first published my awkwardly-titled "Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis" that called for such a new WPA, which was ably seconded on New Politics online by Brian King; further, also on New Politics online, radical historian Jesse Lemisch posted three articles in support of a WPA-like proposal for unemployed cultural and intellectual workers. (Two of Lemisch’s articles are linked above in the letter, as are King’s and my articles).

That “Jobs for All” programs and the left’s failure to adequately address the unemployment crisis because new-WPA proposals are seen as either inherently “reformist,” or conversely, other elements of the left don’t want to destroy “unity” by going beyond what Obama’s proposed, seems to me what’ at the ideological crux of Against the Current’s refusal, not language that had since been removed. That was seen to be the ideological issue involved by Brian King and three other friends and comrades of mine, who sent me the following remarks on my original draft, and whose words of support had been passed on to Finkel. They wrote, from a variety of political orientations, as seen below.

Greg King, member of CCDS, shop steward, SEIU Local 888, Boston city workers:

George, the Left hasn't been completely silent on the unemployment issue. They probably haven't devoted anywhere near as much time and energy to the crisis as it deserves. Discussing & pushing for solutions such as your WPA proposal would be a very good thing to do. Sometimes there is too much posturing and abstract theorizing, not enough attention to the real problems of real people.

Also, I didn't think your letter was that offensive. I thought it was well-argued and frank.

Harold Karabell, former left activist in Indianapolis, now living in St. Louis, Missouri:

In addition to infrastructure work, my own city could use a few thousand trees in various neighborhoods.

So perhaps it's time to revive the CCC as well!

Brian King, comrade from Seattle, long-time activist, contributor to New Politics:

I'm not surprised that ATC refused to publish your letter. For the record, I thought it was very good, and, for you, remarkably restrained. [I admit to sometimes getting carried away with harsh language—GF] My experience with all these guys (ATC, CCDS, DSA, Monthly Review, Nation) is that they are very uncomfortable with the idea of Jobs for All and the idea of building a movement for a new WPA. Actually, as far as I know, the only person of national prominence who supports us is Robert Reich, Clinton's old Secretary of Labor.

Why don't "Socialist" groups and journals want to support "Jobs for All"? That's a tough one, but it's gotta have something to do with how they see their own group interests and the maintenance of their institutions. They must figure that it's much cooler to promote some pie-in-the-sky version of an ethereal state of affairs called "socialism" than to get jobs for all, gain a lot of control over labor markets, but leave capitalism still functioning. I also think a lot of these so-called "socialists" don't much like the idea of being involved with a lot of politically incorrect schlubs, like me and you. If your gonna build a mass movement, you're gonna have to learn to get along with a lot of working people without left pedigrees.

and Phil Davis, former member of Solidarity, unemployed recent college graduate:

I think Dave should publish your letter regardless of whether or not he agrees with it. He could perhaps publish it and then write a rebuttal explaining why he disagrees with you. Instead, he chooses not to publish it at all. This is sad and unfortunate and yes it is censorship…you are correct.

Yes, I agree with you that "Jobs for All" is the slogan we should be fighting for. As someone who is unemployed, I believe that's a very, very important demand. I think Finkel should publish your letter regardless of whether or not he personally agrees with it. He could always write some type of rebuttal explaining why he disagrees with it, but I guess he won't even be doing that.

Refusal to even discuss “Jobs for All” programs compounded by censorship. Those are the political issues at the heart of Against the Current’s vehement refusal to print my Letter to the Editors, nor even allow the issue to be raised, even in a miniscule journal of the U.S. left where, given the mood of the U.S.’s also-miniscule left as a whole, both the letter itself and the issues it addresses would soon be forgotten. If anyone on the left ever wonders why, in this time of continuing deep economic recession, there exists this historical anomaly of the great bulk of the 99% not identifying with the left, nor wishing to get involved, even in amorphous Occupy movements, we need look no further than this incident for at least partial explanations.

Religion is not the solution to the problem. Religion is the problem.

This paraphrase of Ronald Reagan’s famous words as President (“Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem.”) becomes so apt, so tellingly truthful, upon even the most cursory, but honest, examination of religion and its influence on public life. We need look little beyond the headlines of the day, the leading news stories involving religion, for confirmation. First, and obviously, is the continuing scandal of priest-pedophilia and its even worse, even more reprehensible, cover-up by the Catholic Church, especially in Ireland, where the Vatican’s deliberate intervention in preventing action against pedophilic priests drew the ire of the Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who angrily denounced “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.” There were further determined protests on the issue of the Catholic Church’s denial of women’s ordination to the priesthood, a conflict that’s been raging now for years, but has only been met with demands for silence by the Vatican. These issues were extensively reported in the New York Times of July 10, July 13, July 22, July 23 and July 25, 2011. (See “References” below)

The death of Osama bin Laden brought back to memory yet another set of crimes committed in the name of a certain type of Islam, those of Al-Qaeda, not only in terms of 9/11, but also in regard to al-Qaeda’s bloody attacks against Muslims who did not share its repressive theocratic authoritarianism. (See Karima Bennoune, “References”) The unholy alliance between the socially hidebound fanatics of the Religious Right with the “secular” economically hidebound fanatics of the Tea Party is still another example. (See Ted Kilgore, “References”)

Does the nefariousness of religion in the public realm ever end?

The religious liberals and mainstream pastors and laity will cry out, “But that’s not us!” But they will do so in vain, for they have not only been silent too long, but have even lent the cover of “religious tolerance” to such theological ugliness. So while their disingenuous acquitting of themselves is technically true—for they are not the ones committing the nefarious deeds—they fail the moral test of at least one mainstream religious current, i.e., Quakerism, in failing to “speak truth to power.” They fail the test of mandatorily speaking out against injustice and deliberate cruelty that’s expressed in both atheist and Christian perspectives: in the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre with his “Silence is complicity,” and in the Catholic Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, about to be laicized for speaking out against the Vatican’s “sin of sexism” in ruling that the Catholic priesthood was a strictly male prerogative. Echoing Sartre, Bourgeois said, “Silence is the voice of consent.” (See George Fish stories on Bourgeois, In These Times, “References”) We need look no further than the silence of mainstream Protestantism in the face of Catholic priest-pedophilia and cover-up. For where were the voices of Christian compassion for the victims here, victims who were obviously receiving no such Christian compassion from the Catholic Church, only the barrage of the Church’s lawyers?

As for Islam, while we can properly note that not all Muslims embraced the methods, or even the aims, of Al-Qaeda, Muslims of note did not speak out against the placing of a bounty on the head of novelist Salman Rushdie, nor the riots by Muslims engendered by the irreverent Danish cartons, acts which are commonly regarded in the “Great Satan” West (to use a popular fundamentalist Muslim characterization) as permissible expressions of free speech. (See Ibn Warraq, “References”) We can talk as well of an assault on a Muslim people themselves in the name of a non-Muslim religious “mandate”, the continued denial of human rights to the Palestinians by the Israelis. Of course, all this above is denounced within the Christian religious tradition itself, in the words of the one Christianity calls the Messiah: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” But where are the voices of Christianity heeding this, acknowledging its telling admonition? Certainly not on the public record, nor, as I’ve found, even in private conversations!

As an accountant might say of the above moral bookkeeping by religion, “There are definitely two sets of books being kept here.” This is something I’ve experienced personally also, in my daily life lived among the believers as well as in being someone who reads the newspapers. This gives a new dimension to my atheism: moving it beyond a strictly intellectual objection to the teachings of the world’s various theologies, to a moral objection that pointedly notes that deliberate cruelty, abuse of power, hypocrisy and the promulgation of double standards are an integral part of religious practice—something I learned early in life growing up Catholic (but didn’t become aware of its causes until later), surrounded on all sides by the emotional and verbal abuse of Catholic parents and family, on the one hand, and, on the other, the abuse of power, censorious repression, and looking the other way when evil was done to me by the Catholic school system and the clerical and lay teachers and fellow classmates within it. So I can truly say I’ve directly experienced the malevolence of religious practice as an integral part of my life experience. A malevolence that by no means ended when I left Catholicism through entering the university, but a malevolence that’s also directly manifested itself in my life here in Indianapolis. A malevolence that’s been, and still continues to be, part and parcel of my treatment by the Indianapolis “peaceable religious progressives;” a malevolence that started with the lies and deliberate character assassination promulgated and broadcast extensively since 1980 by one late “good Quaker woman” who was believed uncritically, and who did permanent damage to both my reputation and to my standing among others. (See George Fish blog, “References”) Fortunately I’ve been able to free myself somewhat by discovering good people who are not motivated by the sanctimonious self-righteousness, that sense of being part of a sanctified elect, that’s so integral to the de facto self-definition of Indianapolis “religious progressives”—even though they will (unsuccessfully) try to deny it.

But this is not merely my own sui generis view. This dissection of Christian morality finds solid intellectual foundation in that seminal work by the 19th Century German atheist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity. In it, Feuerbach not only tellingly depicts the self-estrangement of Man from his better nature through adoption of theology (which he distinguishes from the “natural” but vague religious impulse toward love of self and one’s neighbor, but which is corrupted, and has this corruption codified, by theological systems), but shows amply that through such theological embrace, the most cruel and perverted, the most unloving, the most destructive, forms of human behavior are not only tolerated, they are actually celebrated as the will of God and walking in the ways of God himself! Needless to say, history abounds in real-life examples, of which we need only mention the over 900 wars in the West during the Christian era, the Inquisition, the persecution of Galileo, right up to our own day with the priest-pedophilia scandal, the televangelism and political activism of the Religious Right, the televangelizing message of “God wants you to do well in the stock market” as preached by Robert Schuller and his devotees, right into my own personal life of active child abuse by my own “loving” devout Catholic parents, the character-assassination grousing behind my back by the late “good Quaker” mentioned above, and the gleefully active assault on my character and personality by the Indianapolis “religious progressives.”

Even leading Indianapolis “religious progressive” Jim Wolfe concedes that eminent British philosopher and logician Alfred North Whitehead was right when he stated that religion has probably done more harm than good in human affairs. He’s even willing to concede that “there have been more than enough of crusades, holy wars, pogroms, massacres, despotisms, spats, bigotry, abuse” committed in the name of religion. (Jim Wolfe, “Making Peace Among Religions Within Myself”) Atheist writer Christopher Hitchens states appropriately that, while religion is not the cause of what’s bad in human behavior, he also goes on to state incisively, “But the bad things that are innate in our species are strengthened by religion and are sanctified by it…so religion is a very powerful re-enforcer of our backward, clannish, tribal element.” (Quoted in Be Scofield, “5 Things Atheists Have Wrong About Religion," Tikkun, reprinted by AlterNet, www.alternet.org/story/151396/) Put all the above together, and a powerful case is made for regarding religion not as a good in our individual and collective lives, but one of the great evils within these lives.
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My good friend Greg King had a long, but most appropriate comment on this blog entry:

Even Karl Marx said something like, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed; the heart of a heartless world." I'm sure I don't have the quote exactly right, but it's close to that. Many hundreds of millions of oppressed people around the world, for thousands of years, would have killed themselves, were it not for that "pie in the sky when you die" as Joe Hill sang -- that promise of a heavenly reward, if only they can keep trudging through this vale of tears. It has given them a reason to carry on.

Of course, terrible things have been, and continue to be, done in the name of religion, but if it gives people a little comfort, a little solace, it's played a useful role. Of course, for many people throughout history, it has placed them on the wrong end of a pounded nail, a crossbow or a scimitar,faggots and torches, a noose, some stones. There have been many innocent victims of religious blindness and bigotry. But there have been hundreds of millions, or, over the last thirty thousand or so years, even billions of people, for whom it has played a useful role. No, I don't mean the role it has played for the pharisees, the popes, the bishops, the caliphs or the mullahs. I mean, as I've stated, the role it has played for the downtrodden peasants and workers. Buddha, Lao Tse, Jesus, St. Theresa, St. Francis, Dorothy Day, Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Buber, Maimonides, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Romero, Fathers Dan and Phil Berrigan, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, have all played very good roles and each, in their own way, has provided some comfort for the oppressed.

Of course it's better that the oppressed rise up and throw off their chains. But you know as well as I do many people have not had a real opportunity for that. People with the ability to lead, like Spartacus, John Ball and Wat the Tyler, Jean D'Arc, Danton, St. Just, Robespierre, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Sam Adams, Mary Wollstonecraft, St.Simon, Robert Owens, Karl Marx, Proudhon, Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, Ho Chi Minh, Joe Hill, Big Bill Haywood, Mother Bloor, Mother Jones, Anne Burlak Timpson, Amilcar Cabral, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Kenji Miayamoto, Tom Hayden, Rudi Deutschke, Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dohrn, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Elaine Brown, Angela Davis,Carl Davidson, Carl Boice, Wayne Hayashi, Carol Amioka, Stan Masui, Kalani Ohelo, you, me and countless others, mostly unmentioned, who played major roles or very minor roles (like some of those listed), have to come along and provide inspiration and leadership. Not all of that leadership was good, but it had its good aspects.

Now, you know just as well as I do that the alternative to political leadership -- religious comfort -- may be based on a lie or, in any case, an illusion, a delusion. But we don't know that. We won't know until after we die. Most likely, we'll just insensately feed the grass, or our ashes will be scattered to the wind, and that will be it for us. But we may wake up in some way station between birth and rebirth. We may find ourselves in paradise or purgatory, or a hell somehow worse than the one we came from. We don't know. We may think we know, but it's much easier to prove the existence of something than the non-existence of something. So we might as well try to lead good lives, be considerate of our fellow beings. All our fellow beings.

Me? I don't know what to believe. Maybe Camus was right, and life is a cruel joke. We humans have this wonderful ability not only to experience, but to contemplate the world. But it's all going to be obliterated in an instant. As Simon and Garfunkel sing, "All lies in jest, yet a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." But I have found that appealing to something outside myself helps me through rough times. "When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comforts me," as the Beatles sing. I know it may just be an emotional crutch; that what I'm appealing to is just air, and nothing more. But it provides some comfort. I suspect that's pretty universal.

REFERENCES, ALL SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bennoune, Karima, “Remembering all al-Qaida's victims,” Guardian (UK), May 3, 2011

Dalby, Douglas, and Rachel Donadio, “Irish Report Finds Abuse Persisting in Catholic Church,” New York Times, July 13, 2011

Donadio, Rachel, “Vatican Recalls Ambassador to Ireland Over Abuse Report,” New York Times, July 25, 2011

Dowd, Maureen, “The End of Awe,” New York Times, July 23, 2011

Feuerbach, Ludwig, The Essence of Christianity, translated by George Eliot, Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1989 [Originally published in 1841]

Fish, George, “Roy Bourgeois Faces Excommunication,” In These Times, March 2009, www.inthesetimes.com

Fish, George, “No Indulgence for Father Bourgeois,” In These Times, October 2010, www.inthesetimes.com

Fish, George, “Politically Incorrect Leftist” blog, www.politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com, esp. entries “Guest Blog from my friend John Williams: The Woman You Thought You Knew” and “On Mother’s Day: for those mothers who were really ‘mothers’”

Frosch, Dan, “Accusations of Abuse by Priest Dating to Early 1940s,” New York Times, July 10, 2011

Goodstein, Laurie, “In 3 Countries, Challenging the Vatican on Female Priests,” New York Times, July 22, 2011

Kilgore, Ted, “’Teavangelicals’: How the Christian Right Came to Bless the Economic Agenda of the Tea party,” The New Republic, www.tnr.com/article/the-permanent-campaign/91661/tea-party-christian-right-michele-bachmann

Mackey, Robert, “Video of Irish Leader’s Speech Attacking the Vatican,” New York Times, July 25, 2011

Scofield, Be, “5 things Atheists Have Wrong About Religion,” Tikkun, reprinted by AlterNet, www.alternet.org/story/151396/

Warraq, Ibn, Why I Am Not a Muslim, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2003

Wolfe, Jim, “Making Peace Among Religions Within Myself” speech text manuscript, n.d.