PATTERN RECOGNITION IS THE KEY TO PRECOGNITION

With the Arab Spring and the Revolution that has become visible in the Occupy movement in the US and around the world, many people are beginning to have hope for the first time in their lives that the imposition of a permanent fascist New World Order that would enslave us all can be stopped and reversed.

The question is, is this starry eyed optimism or are the pessimists who dismiss the Revolution as a temporary phenomenon right? The answer may depend on how you view the situation. In any event,the pessimists are guilty of accepting a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they do not believe that democracy or the end of war are possible, they will not see how they may be wrong. Therefore, they will not know how to help the Revolution succeed and even if they try, their efforts could lead to the opposite effect of what they want if they promote division rather than the union of the international front against fascism and war that has the collective power to crush the corporatocracy if enough people believe that it can.

Whether the pessimist or the optimist proves to be the realist depends on whose vision prevails. That is why we must encourage doubters to suspend their disbelief in the possibility that we can save human civilization and join us in convincing others that war can and will end when enough people reject the self-fulfilling prophecy that it is inevitable.

If you wish to know the objective truth of something you must seek to understand it from every point of view and find that which is true from all of them. To understand the world as it is enables one to understand the world as it should and can be, if we apply our collective will to creating that world.

Planning for the future in what seems like a chaotic world situation requires a unified world view that sees the future as one of many possibilities. To develop such a way of looking at the world, you must have a clear grasp of what is important to attend to based on a good understanding of what has led us to the present moment.  

In today’s world of information overload that may seem impossible, but it is not. The key to overcoming America’s Attention Deficit Disorder is to help our neighbors understand what issues are fundamental to the process of taking America back for the people. In selectively focusing attention on information that answers the most pressing questions of how to create a united front against fascism in America and war in the world, patterns begin to emerge that make the importance of new information easier to recognize.

Once enough people understand the pattern of recent history, the collective consciousness will shift in the direction of positive change that is possible only through collective action. It is not true that history repeats itself. History is made by those who refuse to accept this futile proposition.  Those who make history are those who study the mistakes of the past to find new paths that we can take together to a more promising future.

Some look at world history as one of endless warfare and an individualistic struggle for supremacy in a hostile universe. These people implicitly reject the idea of democracy in the belief that selfishness is an indelible part of human nature. Thus, the falsely believe that history repeats itself regardless of the efforts of individuals and societies to change.This worldview is distorted by the failure to recognize the abundant evidence to the contrary.

Those of us with the faith that men and women are capable of governing themselves know that they are wrong. It is those who reject the idea that we cannot individually and collectively change history who will be the agents of the change for which the world is clamoring. The stubborn refusal of pessimists to challenge the self-fulfilling prophecy that their own neighbors cannot be trusted to make sound judgments about what form our society should take is a danger to democracy itself and ultimately, to the survival of human civilization.

There are examples to be found throughout history of social cooperation creating critical positive change. Here are a few:

-There have been many centuries in which Jew, Christian lived in harmony throughout much of the world.
-In the American Revolution, men put aside fundamental differences on the issue of slavery in order to ensure that they did not all become enslaved by the fascist Old World Order of the British Empire.
-Americans came together in crisis of the Great Depression to try social experiments that would have been unthinkable ten years earlier, at the height of the Red Scare.                                                                       
-There was shared sacrifice during WWII and a sharing of the benefits of the economic prosperity that followed, including with the vanquished nations of Germany and Japan.
-Throughout the history of the US there has been an evolution toward democracy punctuated with stunning successes by both the forces of democracy and those of the fascist mindset that currently controls the US government and its military.

When trying to develop a strategy to create the fundamental social and political changes that must be made to save human civilization from the depredations of the selfish elite class, we must keep in mind the lessons that history provides. If we apply to our current situation the lessons of both our successes and failures in the past, we can together create a road map to peace based on mutual respect, empathy and a deep appreciation of our interdependence. Any such map must lead to a world in which all enjoy the benefits of liberty and justice. Only in such a world is democracy possible. Without democracy, there can be neither true freedom nor peace for anyone.

If we begin with the assumption that democracy is possible, then we must assume that we are capable of achieving the consensus necessary to create a government and a society that will function according to the wishes of We the People. One of the fundamental contradictions in the American collective consciousness is that we can somehow force the other side to accept our vision of America through waging a Civil War for the hearts and minds of our neighbors using weapons of ridicule and invective.  This has led to a social psychological disorder I call America’s Borderline Split.

US society has the characteristics to merit the diagnosis: Idealization and devaluation of our leaders, self-destructive anger, generally unstable emotions, and a disturbing tendency to be preoccupied with death while doing little to help ourselves overcome our self-destructive behaviors. Like the individual with borderline personality disorder, we feel profoundly empty and as a society struggle to maintain a coherent image of ourselves and others as basically worthy of love despite the imperfections all humans share.

We are so busy fighting each other that we cannot come together to fight the real enemy: fascism. Our common enemy is not those who vote for leaders whose policies we despise, or even the corporate Puppets in Congress. The real enemy is the small group of counter-Revolutionaries that was never happy that the US government was designed with a view toward creating a society in which each citizen had an equal voice in the operation of the government. From the Hamiltonian Federalists to the modern Republican Party, there has been a never-ending battle between those who believe that democracy is necessary and possible and those who have no faith in We the People to decide our collective or even individual destinies.

Those who reject the notion that we can achieve the consensus necessary to assure the continuity of progress toward democracy are the COINTELPRO agents among us. Wittingly or unwittingly, they serve as agents of the State in helping to divide us, just as the survival of human civilization depends on our coming together. Some might assume that these are those who would consider themselves “conservative,” but they would be wrong. Many self-identified liberals are so used to despairing at the corporate media and politicians manipulating the public discourse that they have given up hope of reasoning with those with whom they disagree. The truth is that both sides are entrenched in a pit of despair and loathing. Only we can free ourselves from this trap. The time for recriminations is over. Politics does not have to be a battlefield if we learn to think of each other as fellow Americans and citizens of the world.

A world in which everyone has the right to the benefits of freedom, justice and peace starts with the idea that such a world is possible. If you do not believe that it is then you cannot conceive of how to help create it. If you do not consider what it would take than you will miss the obvious signs that such a world is right in front of us in the near future, if we work to get there from here. If you believe as I do that the pattern of history is coming to a dramatic punctuation point, the signs are all around you.

The pattern of change is unmistakable if you know what to look for. The Occupy movement is the most obvious sign of a Tectonic Paradigm Shift that is taking place in human consciousness. At the same time, international activist communities are learning better how to unify their efforts, a world ecumenical movement is building and vast networks are forming that are connecting the dots that represent our individual interests. Projects like John Perkins' Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream are painting a picture of a world in which it is generally recognized that the interest of each of us is intimately connected to the best interests of all.

All humans are much more alike than they are different. The commonalities that we share make us human. Our differences give rise to the variation in thought that can help us adapt to a world that is changing in dangerous ways. As long as we continue to think of ourselves as members of this or that group first rather than fellow travelers on Earth, we constrain our individual and collective power. Only by uniting can we realize our potential to change the world into one fit to leave our children.

WHY I AM PROUD TO BE CONSERVATIVE

I am the son of an anti-union small businessman who is a rock-solid Republican. My mother on the other hand was a liberal with such a bleeding heart I thought that she was going to exsanguinate at any time during the 60s, as her heroes were assassinated one by one. Her depressed disposition was in sharp contrast to my father’s sunny one, which did not waver through the Vietnam War until my brother was severely affected by serving as a marine in Vietnam.

There was difference of opinion between my parents over the idea of killing or dying for a country so sick that it killed its own President, his brother and an internationally respected civil rights leader who just also happened to be opposed to the war for corporate Empire in Vietnam.   My brother served because my father expected him to to serve, not because he believed the lies of the corporate politicians and media that promoted the war as part of the “war” on communism. The effect of my brother’s emotional injuries caused a rift in my family that took decades to heal.

I was ten years old when my brother went off to Vietnam. By that age I had learned to think for myself, as my father had taught me. I listened to both sides and understood the argument for fighting communism but my eyes told me that we were in a hopeless fight. In those days the war was on in the living room every night, unlike today when the blood and madness of war are carefully kept from a public more interested in whether they can feed their families and keep a roof over their heads than the connection between wars in far off deserts and the war on the middle class at home.

At ten years old I read the newspaper editorial page every day. Our local newspaper struck me as neither particularly liberal nor conservative, as I understood the terms. I developed a facility for looking at both sides of every argument and testing them for logical consistency. Eventually I felt forced to conclude that I was a liberal. What I didn’t know at the time was that traditional conservative values had become so distorted by corporate politicians and the media that the term “conservative “ had lost much of its traditional meaning and that most of the values I picked up from my father were in fact traditional conservative ones.

I didn’t find out the truth until years later, when I met former Nixon Chief Legal Council John Dean and had a long talk with him in 2009 at an American Civil Liberties Union banquet where he was the speaker. We talked about his then-new book Pure Goldwater. It was a biography of a man he knew well and regarded as the epitome of the conservative politician. He had recently completed a trilogy of books about the demise of traditional conservativism and the rise of fascism in the ranks of the Republican Party. Recognizing this, he had left the party some years before and become an independent. This is certainly understandable, as a man like Dean clearly also saw that the Democratic Party was leaning in the same direction as both parties became increasingly dependent on corporate money.

We talked about and mourned the loss of traditional conservative values like tolerance for minorities, avoidance of foreign entanglements, the individual liberty to conduct ones private life as one wishes without government intrusion, paying for wars and other costs of government as you go and respect for the loyal opposition. He had seen firsthand how the naked lust for power could destroy someone like President Nixon, who at one time he had considered a good man. We talked about parallels with John McCain, who had briefly stood out as a maverick within the Republican Party until he was smeared by the Bush slime machine in 2000.

Dean professed no particular affinity for John McCain, who his research showed was held in disdain by Barry Goldwater. McCain’s brief dalliance with standing on principle could not compensate for the hypocrisy of abandoning every principled position he had ever held as the price for securing the Republican presidential nomination. In his blind ambition, he had willingly become a tool of the international corporate terrorists he was fighting for when he was captured and tortured by the Viet Cong.

Once my eyes were opened to what real conservatism was I realized that I was as much a conservative as a liberal. My father taught me the virtues of hard work and self-sufficiency at a young age. Working with him I found him to be as scrupulously ethical in business as he was in his personal life. I learned that he paid union wages and provided health benefits because he believed that it was the right thing to do, not because anyone pressured him to do so. He took pride in his work and taught me the value of hard labor.

I love my parents equally despite their differences. Both taught respect for others, the importance of honesty and integrity, the inherent value of every human being, how to be a good citizen and how to deal with conflict without acrimony. They were both as quick to praise good behavior as to criticize my failings while always making it clear that they did so out of love and in the hope that I would grow to be a good man some day. They understood that to accept the responsibilities of an adult, I must be given the autonomy to fail and to grow from my mistakes.

 

Having grown up to think for myself, in the end I concluded that I am neither conservative nor liberal, as those terms have been redefined by corporate politicians and the media. I am an American. I value my independence of thought. I refuse to be labeled as being on one side or another of an artificial divide that we have accepted as reality only because of indoctrination with false beliefs in school, in our homes and in the corporate media. I am as proud of my conservative beliefs as those that others would call liberal. They are the product of being raised properly with respect for the ideals that this country was founded on and respect for my fellow Americans and other Peoples of the world.

When enough other Americans realize that our similarities are more important than our differences, the time will come when we will arrive at the collective conclusion that our government has failed us not because the idea of a democratic Republic is inherently flawed. The democratic experiment is failing because we did not maintain the vigilance necessary to ensure that a government created to be of, by and for We the People would thrive and flourish. Under our eyes and with the support of many, our government has been given over to corporate interests with no allegiance to the United States, its people or the other Peoples of the world suffering under the yoke of fascist tyranny.

it is not too strong to label the American government and the New World Order it is fashioning as fascist. It is a sad commentary on the ignorance of history of most Americans that so few remember that the term was coined by Mussolini to describe a government of, by and for the corporate interests. That is what ours has become. If we wish to avoid the mistakes of Germany in the 193os we will remember that if we do not cry out against injustice to any of us, there will be no one left to save us when the fascists come for us, as they clearly intend to do.

There is yet hope that our children will not grow up in a fascist New World Order. All that is required is for Americans to remember their proud history of fighting liberty and justice for all. If we can cast aside the artificial and self-imposed distinctions that divide us we can unite to restore representative democracy to the United States. The key is to recognize that nothing in this world is perfect, including the constitution. The Founders knew full well that selfish men would seek to assume power not meant to be held in a democratic society. That is why they provided a mechanism to change the constitution without overthrowing the government.

The Revolution was sparked by a Tea Party that was a reaction to the granting of special tax privileges to a corporation that had far too much influence in the British government, the East India Company. We are now faced with an similar situation where financial, medical insurance, banking, armaments, security and other corporate interests control all the levers of power in Washington. The revolution is not over, it has just begun. Those of us who want to be proud to live in a nation whose highest values are liberty and justice for all must reach out to our countrymen and unite in the common cause of the modern abolition movement: The abolition of corporate personhood through constitutional amendment.

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

Imagine a vast cesspool teeming with hungry sharks and you have a pretty good idea of what it is like to be in Congress these days. The stench became too much for a principled senator like Byron Dorgan, who got out of the pool just in time before the Supreme Court dropped chum into the filthy water in the form of Citizens United. Now the sharks are in a feeding frenzy, fighting to get to the source of their sustenance: the corporate money that feeds them all and whose waste is the stuff that they swim in. Unlike predators who are careful not to excrete their wastes in their own habitat, these foolish and short-sighted men and women are quite content to live in the foul environment they have created.

How is an honest politician supposed to survive in this putrid environment? It is not true that there is no such animal. Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley Peter DeFazio and others are all in the fight, but not for themselves. They understand that they were elected to serve the People, not the voracious appetites for wealth and power that impels others to swim with the sharks.

Regardless of the risk of being soiled with the excrement of their colleagues they hold their noses and do what they can in the clear knowledge that if no one does the wealth of the nation is inevitably going to become food for the sharks and their handlers, the international corporate terrorists and war profiteers who feed them.

This is all to the good, of course. The thing about a feeding frenzy is that in the end, the sharks end up feeding on themselves when the chum is exhausted. The wounds can be fatal. Survivors can be injured to the point that they can no longer lead the attack on the common man on whom they depend to stay in the pool.

The only question is do we provoke the feeding frenzy that will eliminate the sharks and leave honest members of Congress the biggest fish in the pond so that they can clean it and take measures to assure that it will never be polluted with corporate cash again.

It turns out that the solution to this apparent dilemma depends on honest politicians being smarter than the carnivores whose only interest is to feed themselves for the benefit of the corporate Puppetmasters whose pets they have become.

Fortunately, sharks in a feeding frenzy are focused on only one thing. Normally that is the smell of warm blood but in this case it is the smell of cold, hard cash. That makes them easy prey for the smart fisher of men. The astute politician will protect him- or herself by supporting a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood.

Not only will the voters finally have a simple issue by which to choose the politicians who will work for We the People and not to make us shark bait, but by creating the conditions necessary for honest politicians to live and work in a healthy environment, they will in the end be able to not only survive but to thrive in the newly created atmosphere of a democratic Republic.

We have to ask ourselves why it is so hard to convince our fellow Americans that this is the only way to restore democracy to the United States. There are many factors to consider in the ecology of American politics but in the end it boils down to a few variables that We the People can control if we can learn how to work together in the common interest of ensuring that our children grow up in a rational and sustainable world.  

First and foremost we have to redefine what it means to be American. The corporate media would have us believe that the singular American virtue is self reliance. Nothing could be further from the truth. The American Revolution would have turned out quite differently had the English colonists not recognized their common interest in shaking off the oppression of British Empire and working together to fight the corporate Puppetmaster behind the throne: The East India Company.

The equivalent enemy today is Goldman Sachs and its fellow criminal conspirators in the international banking and financial community. Britain ruled the waves with the backing of the corporate war profiteers of the day until they were challenged from within by a newly awakened People that was determined to shake off the chains of colonialism and determine their own future.

In putting aside for the moment the political and economic interests that divided them they came together to fight the mightiest power the world had ever known they secured for themselves and prosperity the opportunity to create a more perfect union where all men and women would eventually be treated as equals.

In the end the Revolutionaries  realized that they could not win this war alone and so reached out to other foreign powers who had waged a losing battle against the British corporate Empire. With financial help from the Dutch government and military and economic aid from the French, in the end the cause of freedom prevailed. 

America became a beacon of freedom and hope for the common man by demonstrating that a People united is more than a match for international corporate terrorism. The American Revolution inspired the people of France to rise up against the oppression of their government and to overthrow the royalty that had until then deluded the masses into believing that they had a God-given right to sovereignty over the People.

The revolutionary idea that a People could rule itself became the dream of all oppressed men and women everywhere. Unfortunately, the realization of that dream has been blocked by the rise of corporate Empire in the United States, now working in tandem with the economic royalty of the United Kingdom to enslave the Peoples of the world in a fascist New World Order.

The time then has come for the Peoples of Earth to form a united international front against fascism and war. When Americans once again taste the sweet flavor of freedom other Peoples will have the opportunity to do the same. In removing the threat of corporate control of the American government we will free ourselves from the rule of the self-appointed Masters of the Universe.

No democratic nation has ever fought a war against another nation. A free America will thus guarantee the realization of the dream expressed in the Declaration of Independence: All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

If we end America’s Civil War and fight together to finish the Revolution, soon the valleys and hills across the nation and throughout the world will ring with the cry “The King is dead! Long live We the People!”

DIVISION AND CONQUEST

Ever since the advent of war, those who would force others to submit to their will have used the technique of dividing the enemy in order to conquer them. When a People cannot put aside lesser differences to fight the threat of slavery, they are helpless against a united enemy. When a People are willing to risk all to preserve their freedom by fighting together in common cause, they can wage the type of asymmetric warfare that has proven to be highly effective in wars from the American Revolution to Afghanistan.  

In defending against a common enemy, traditional enemies must unite just as traditional enemies unite to wage war against them. In the American colonies in 1775, there were great divisions between the states, who were competing to pay the Crown its due under the conditions of the corporate charters that created them. Of these divisions, the greatest by far was over the question of slavery. Abolition societies had already been formed and sentiment against slavery in the North ran so high several colonies had banned slave importation prior to the battle of Bunker Hill. By 1777, Vermont had become the first state to abolish slavery. In an interesting twist of history, Vermont is also the first state to declare its intent to end economic enslavement by calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood.

Colonial Americans put aside the basic question of whether an ostensibly free nation would countenance slavery in order to fight against the united power of corporation and state that was Imperial Britain. Though visionaries like Thomas Jefferson realized that the question would fatally divide the United States if not addressed, this fundamental difference was put aside to fight in common cause against the fascist aggressor that had invaded the new nation. The result was the world’s first example of asymmetric warfare where a small and weak but determined opponent succeeded in defeating the power of the Empire of its day. 



In victory, the people of the newly united states of America quickly resumed their struggles against each other. Political parties arose in disregard of Washington’s warning to “beware the rise of factionalism.” Slave owners defended their prerogative in defiance of America’s claim of equality of all men. Bankers began plotting how to control the new nation as Britain was largely controlled by the Rothschilds, principle financiers of the East India Company. Women like Abigail Adams continued to be subjugated to men.
Eventually, each of these divisions led to upheaval as those who were left out of the American dream fought for their rights. 


A bloody Civil War was fought to preserve the Union that tolerated slavery because the ideal of freedom was more important than the fact that it had not yet been realized. In the course of this war that determined the viability of democracy in America, a decision was made to directly address the injustice that led to the proxy war between industrialists of the North and slave holders in the South. The proxies were of course the poor young men of the south who were unwittingly fighting for those who would willingly enslave them against the largely poor young men of the North who would become economic slaves of the rising class of fascists in America. 


Enslavement of African-Americans was ended because Lincoln and most of the nation had realized that it was not just Blacks who were enslaved. All men and women living in a system where slavery is tolerated themselves become slaves to the system. Unfortunately, few but Lincoln understood the danger of the rise of the Robber Barons, who gained power by profiteering during the Civil War, prospering as all corporate terrorists do from the blood, sweat and misery of the generations of youths who fight their wars for them.


When fascism was at its peak at the turn of the 20^th century, the great nations of the world had aligned themselves with traditional enemies in order to fight for control of the world in the global game of Risk that was cynically marketed as the War to End All Wars. In the aftermath, the fascist nations who were victorious collected the spoils of victory from the dazed citizens of the defeated fascist nations. 

Fascism in the world grew stronger than ever as the essential ingredients of racial prejudice, nationalism, poverty and class warfare were stirred into the stewing consciousness of Germany, the US and other nations enduring the fallout of the Great Depression that was the legacy of the first attempt to establish a New World Order. In victory, the US was magnanimous and it seemed that under Franklin Roosevelt fascism had been defeated in the US. Who could have known that a generation later the son of a war profiteering traitor would become first the Chief of the CIA and then be selected President?
 

WWII was the result of the unfinished business of determining who would lead the fascist new World Order. Under existential threat once again, the people of the United States rose up to help defeat fascism in the world, only to ultimately collaborate with the rising tide of fascism in America and set the stage for today’s final assault on freedom in the world. In their satisfaction with material wealth the nation’s citizens became complacent about the actions of their government and accepted prosperity as their due.  For decades most Americans lived in blissful ignorance that their gains were at the cost of the life, liberty and happiness of most of the rest of the world.


In its naïve belief in American exceptionalism, the people of the United States have allowed corporate control of their government, which is the defining characteristic of a fascist nation. As in Nazi Germany, when things are going well most citizens are content not to know what is going on behind the curtain of government. As good Germans learned in 1945, such willful ignorance has a horrible price to pay.


Now is the time to rise and demand payment for the blood of the patriots who died that we might remain free in wars from 1775 to 1945. We must fight a bloodless war against the soulless vampires who are sucking the lifeblood of America to maintain an Empire that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of our youth from Korea to Afghanistan. We have a duty to them and to our children to assure that the last, greatest hope for Mankind does not perish from the Earth. If we are good enough to rule ourselves then we must prove it by putting aside our political differences to Take Back America for the People. 


Americans are very experienced at division but in this generation we must relearn the importance of unity. To finish the American Revolution, we must remember that to be American is to value liberty over life itself. When all the people of the nation are at once at risk of being enslaved by ruthless fascists with utter power over the government, it is time for us to fight together to restore power to the People. No single issue is important enough to divide us in this, our hour of crisis and opportunity.


It is time that we use the principle of division as a means of conquest to our own advantage. The military strategy of dividing forces can be dangerous if the opposition can destroy a large part of a rebel Army, but in asymmetrical warfare the rebel Army must be everywhere at once. Forming Divisions that operate openly on every street corner would not only protect the troops of our virtual Army but increase our visibility and sense of our presence everywhere and at all times. An America Uncut by political divisions is an America that cannot be defeated by the machinations of politicians and their corporate Puppetmasters.


With small bands of guerilla protesters on every corner of every street at random intervals, the reality of the renascent and growing American Revolution will become apparent to even the most sheepish American. If done in a proper spirit of fun and camaraderie, we can even employ this strategy of division to multiply our forces, educating our fellow citizens about the need to join the movement to guarantee the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world. This is how the Revolution began, when men and women spoke to their neighbors about their common problems without fear of offending those who might believe in different solutions. If there is one best answer then we must find it together.


If Americans can unite in the common cause of restoring democracy to the United States by calling for the passage of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood, they will end economic slavery not only in the US but in the world. A People once truly united can never be divided. I look forward to the coming day when I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and sisters in a free nation that is part of a globally interconnected free world. Together we can watch the destruction and fall of the Imperial Death Star to the strains of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

THE AMERICAN STORY

Today's blog is reprinted from Tomgrams with the permission of the author. It is a great way to look at why both conservatives and liberals have difficulty understanding the other's point of view. We must find a way to common ground if we as a nation are going to Take Back America for the People.

The President Trapped in a Myth and a War

No politician who aspires to real influence on the national level can afford to reject that myth or even express real doubts about it, at least in public, as Barack Obama surely knows. Not surprisingly, President Obama has embraced the myth in his most important speeches: The bad guys are always out there. (“Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world.”) The good guys have no choice but to fight against the evildoers. (“Force may sometimes be necessary.”)

 

Because every myth has variants, though, politicians can still make choices. In Obama’s version of the myth, the federal government can be a force for good. So he has a domestic fight on his hands every day against right-wingers who cast the government as an agent of darkness.

He’s not likely to stand a chance of winning that battle if he tries to take on the myth of national security as well.  Bill Clinton once put it all-too-accurately: "When people are insecure” -- which is exactly when they rely most on their myths -- “they'd rather have somebody [in the White House] who is strong and wrong than someone who's weak and right."

That’s a truth everyone in the room undoubtedly had in mind back in the fall of 2009 when the top military field commanders came to the White House to talk about Afghanistan. Where else, after all, could our military act out the drama of civilized America staving off the savages? And what better-cast candidates for the role of savages could there be than the Taliban and al-Qaeda?

The generals who run the war also had to confront another vital question: Could they still act out some contemporary version of the myth of good against evil? They’ve given up on the possibility of victory in Afghanistan.  So there’s no real chance to go for the classic version of the myth in which the good guys totally vanquish the bad guys.

But since the Cold War era, the myth has demanded only that the good guys don’t lose -- that they merely “contain” the evildoers who “hate our freedoms” (especially our freedom to make and keep money) and will swoop down to destroy us if we give them the chance.

These days the generals must sense that even the containment version of the myth is in trouble. Their predecessors failed to enact it in Vietnam, and though the judgment of history is still out on the Iraq War, it's looking ever more dim, too. If the U.S. loses in Afghanistan, the American public might abandon the myth that justifies the military establishment and its gargantuan budget.  As a result, the generals prefer to fight on eternally.

President Obama is trapped at this point. He risks losing both a war and a presidency. Yet if he tries to ease up on the war accelerator, he knows he’ll be pilloried by an alliance of military and right-wing forces as a “cut-and-run” weakling.

If he’s ever tempted to forget that domestic political reality, the mass media are always ready to remind him. Just glance at the 145,000 Google hits on “Obama wimp.” Even his liberal friends at the New York Times asked in a prominent headline, “Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?” have

Within the confines of the national insecurity myth, of course, those are the only two options. If pressure is ever going to develop to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, progressives will have to offer a new option that actually speaks to Americans.

To Myth or Not to Myth

And there’s the problem.  Myths are like scientific theories. No mountain of facts and logic, however convincing, can change believers’ minds -- until a more convincing myth comes along.

A handful of progressive political thinkers are trying to persuade the American left to understand this truth and start offering new political myths (their technical term is “framing narratives”). George Lakoff is probably the best known. His books are bestsellers. His articles on websites invariably go to the top of “most read” and “most emailed” lists. Yet he can’t seem to make much of a dent in the actual policies and practices he’d like to change.

Progressives still shower the public with facts and arguments that are hard to refute, as (in the case of the Afghan War) the American people know.  After all, more than 60% of them now tell pollsters that the war was a “mistake.” Yet the war goes on and progressives remain the most marginal of players in the American political game because they don’t have a great myth to offer. In fact, they’ve hardly got any good ones.

Political scientist David Ricci claims there’s not much progressives can do about it, precisely because they already have one very successful myth that prevents them -- oh, the irony! -- from taking the power of myths seriously.  The progressive heritage, as he tells it, goes back to the eighteenth century Enlightenment, when the radicals of the day decided that fact and logic were the source of all truth and the only path to peace and freedom.

The Bible and all the other ancient tales bind us to the past, they argued.  As a result, humanity was letting dead people lock us into the injustices that bred endless war and suffering. It was time to let human reason open up a better future.

If progressives believe they are myth-less, though, they’re blind to the one mythic plot they share with the rest of America: good against evil. Progressives act out that myth on the political battlefield every day, passionately fighting to defeat right-wing evildoers.

The problem is (and forgive me for repeating an old anti-left cliché of the 1960s, but it’s true here): the progressives’ political myth tells only what they’re against, not what they’re for.

In fact, deep down, most progressives do have a dim sense of their deepest principles: the Enlightenment ideals of peace, freedom, and equality based on the Romantic ideal of what Lakoff calls empathy, extended to all humanity and the biosphere as well.

But progressives don’t wrap their policy prescriptions in mythic language that says clearly, simply, and patriotically what they’re for. As a result, they can’t compete with the myth of national insecurity.  They’ve got nothing to offer in its place, which is at least one reason why, despite growing opposition to the Afghan War, they can’t build a strong enough constituency to help -- or force -- Obama to end it.

All they can do is demand that he sacrifice his domestic agenda, and -- no small matter for any politician -- his second-term chances, on the altar of principle. As a result, they end up in a political never-never-land, which might feel good but isn’t going to save a single Afghan life.

No individual, much less a committee, can sit down and create a new myth. Myths grow organically from the life of a community.  Progressives would find their myth emerging spontaneously if they just spent a lot more time thinking and talking about their most basic worldview and values, the underlying premises that lead them to hold their political positions with such passion.

A strong progressive myth could make it safer for a president to change course and perhaps save his presidency. Failure to stave off the bad guys destroyed Lyndon Johnson and gravely wounded George W. Bush. I suspect Obama would love to have a great progressive myth keep him from a similar fate. He won’t create it, but he’d probably be delighted to see it appear on the horizon.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin. 

To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest superb TomCast audio interview in which Chernus discusses “us versus them” and “us with them” myths, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.  He can be reached at Chernus@colorado.edu.

Copyright 2011 Ira Chernus

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To read another version of the roots of the American vision of democracy, here is a short essay from Stop the Madness: The Diary of a Soldier For Peace in the War to Take Back America: 
THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES