Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 11.10.05

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     11.10.05

1. Same-sex marriage    11.10 6:30am

2. Veterans Day service 11.11 10:30am
3. Counter recruit      11.11 12noon
4. Palestine vigil      11.11 4:15pm
5. Block club           11.11 6pm
6. Teresa/Cuba/film     11.11 6:30pm
7. I am Cuba/film       11.11 6:30pm
8. Aging GLBT/video     11.11 7pm
9. Chante/photos        11.11 7pm
10. Colombia/rights     11.11 7pm
11. Environment/Holm    11.11 7pm
12. Arab film festival  11.11-17
13. Seward arts fest    11.11-12

14. Diana Johnstone   - Paris is burning
15. Andrew Schmookler - The concept of evil: valid, politically important
16. ed                - If I existed (poem)

--------1 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Same-sex marriage 11.10 6:30am

Paula Ruddy has organized a 47-seat bus to take people to Thursday
morning's counter-presence outside of the Pastors' Summit in Eden Prairie
(see below).

The bus will leave from the parking lot St Joan of Arc Catholic Church
(4537 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis) at 6:30am and return by 10am.

If you or anyone you know is interested in using this bus for
transportation to and from the Summit, call Paula at 763-549-0881.

People of Faith for Equal Civil Marriage Rights
You are invited to join people of faith from a range of religious
denominations for a peaceful gathering outside the "Pastors' Summit" at
Grace Church on Thursday, November 10.

7:30-9am, Thursday November 10.

Spring Road entrance to Grace Church - 9301 Eden Prairie Rd., Eden Prairie
(for map and directions, visit http://www.atgrace.com/contact/map.php).

The Pastors' Summit aims to rally Evangelical pastors, Catholic priests,
and Jewish rabbis (and by extension their congregations) to support the
proposed constitutional amendment banning same-gender civil marriage and
any legal equivalents, such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.

OUR MESSAGE:

The proposed "marriage amendment" is not about protecting sacramental
marriage - which owing to the separation of church and state, needs no
protection; it is about discriminating against families.  If passed, it
would deny same-gender couples and their families the 1138 protections
afforded to families headed by opposite-gender couples.  If passed, this
amendment would mark the first time in history that the Minnesota
Constitution would be amended to enshrine discrimination, rather than
extend rights to people.

*As people of faith who respect the distinction between church and state,
we come together to express our concern and outrage that certain churches
have entered the political arena so as to deny *GLBT people equal civil
marriage rights or any legal equivalent*.*

*We are religious people who recognize that when these churches talk about
the "sanctity of marriage," they are referring to the religious or
sacramental aspect of matrimony, not the civil aspect of marriage.  It is
the right to civil marriage that we are seeking to protect and ensure for
all American citizens - including GLBT citizens.*

Signs will be provided./*

We hope you can join us on November 10.  Please forward this e-mail to
others you think might be interested in joining us./*

For more information call Randi at **952-294-8311 *or Michael at
612-201-4534*.**


--------2 of 16--------

From: Veterans For Peace <vfpchapter27 [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Veterans Day service 11.11 10:30am

Veterans for Peace will conduct a bell ringing service honoring Armistice
Day at 11am at the First Shot Memorial just west of the Veterans Service
Building on the State Capitol Approach. Gathering at 10:30am, a brief
reading at 10:50am, bell ringing service at 11am, followed by the reading
of the names of the listed fatal military personnel casualties in the Iraq
and Afghanistan invasion and occupation

Veterans for Peace, Chapter 27 St. Stephens Community Center 2123 Clinton
Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 821-9141 TwinCitiesVFP.org


--------3 of 16--------

From: sarah standefer <scsrn [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Counter recruit 11.11 12noon

Counter Recruitment Demonstration
 Our Children Are Not Cannon Fodder
Fridays   NOON-1
Recruiting Office at the U of M
At Washington and Oak St.  next to Chipolte
for info call Barb Mishler 612-871-7871


--------4 of 16--------

From: peace 2u <tkanous [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Palestine vigil 11.11 4:15pm

Every Friday
Vigil to End the Occupation of Palestine

4:15-5:15pm
Summit & Snelling, St. Paul

There are now millions of Palestinians who are refugees due to Israel's
refusal to recognize their right under international law to return to
their own homes since 1948.


--------5 of 16--------

From: Allison Chapman <achapman01 [at] hamline.edu>
Subject: Block club 11.11 6pm

The Hamline Midway Coalition Block Club Steering Committee is holding our
annual, Block Club Coordinators Workshop, tomorrow night at the old Wilson
Jr. High (631 Albert St.) from 6-9 PM.

The theme will be, "Reclaiming Our Streets."

We would love to have a couple of block club leaders (or community
organizers) from other parts of the city to share ideas with us (and
hopefully take a few away with you). If you are interested in attending,
please contact Jun-Li at the Hamline Midway Coaltion ASAP at 651-646-1986.

We usually get 25-30 block club coordinators from our district to attend
these annual workshops. If you are a Block Club Coordinator in the Hamline
Midway area and have not RSVP'ed, please do so ASAP.

Allison Chapman achapman01 [at] hamline.edu


--------6 of 16--------

From: Mary Turck <mturck [at] americas.org>
Subject: Teresa/Cuba/film 11.11 6:30pm

November 11 - 6:30pm. Noche Cultural: FREE. Resource Center of the
Americas, 3019 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis 55406 FFI: 612-276-0788.
Portait of Teresa focuses on the challenges facing a mother, wife, and
textile worker in revolutionary Cuba of the 1970s. This is one of Cuba's
most popular movies from veteran director Pastor Vega.


--------7 of 16--------

From: Adam Sekuler <adam [at] mnfilmarts.org>
Subject: I am Cuba/film 11.11 6:30pm

I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba)
November 11-17
At 6:30 & 9:30pm nightly 3:30pm Sat & Sun. also
AT THE BELL AUDITORIUM

A new 35mm print of a truly breathtaking and historic cinematic
achievement that should be compulsory viewing for anyone serious about
film. Made only a week after the Cuban missile crisis but only finally
recognised in the '90s, I am Cuba is blessed with some of the most
extraordinary camerawork ever undertaken. Ostensibly the film is Communist
propaganda, celebrating the progress achieved by the Cuban Revolution and
dramatizing four examples of previous injustice to the common man. It's
still pushing the boundaries of pure cinema, a stirring and unforgettable
experience - a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch,
mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The result is a supreme
masterpiece of the poetic documentary form and an engaging time capsule of
the first flush of life after the revolution.

Tickets to this screening are $8 general, $6.50 students/seniors, $5 MFA
mebers

The Bell Auditorium is the nationšs only dedicated year-round non-fiction
film screen. It is located at 10 Church Street SE in Minneapolis inside
the Bell Museum of Natural History. More information can be found at
www.mnfilmarts.org/bell or by calling 612.331.7563


--------8 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Aging GLBT/video 11.11 7pm

Fri Nov 11:
OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change) presents the video, "Project
Visibility", which brings a face to the issues of aging within the GLBT
population. 7pm at Amazon Bookstore, 4755 Chicago Ave S, Minneapolis.


--------9 of 16--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Chante/photos 11.11 7pm

Generations for Peace: Photography Exhibit and Talk by Chante Wolf

Friday, November 11, 7pm. St. Martin's Table, 2001 Riverside Avenue,
Minneapolis. A photography exhibit and talk by artist, Chante Wolf,
presenting her story from Air Force-warrior to Veteran for Peace-maker.
The photography exhibit will run throughout the month of November, Monday
through Saturday, 11am to 3pm. Endorsed by WAMM.


--------10 of 16--------

From: Merideth Cleary <meriberry15 [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Colombia/rights 11.11 7pm

Keynote speaker: Bernardo Vivas
November 11 7pm

Macalester College in the Carnegie Science Building (in the basement)

Afro-Colombian Human Rights Activist to speak on the paramilitaries,
ecocide, and the non-violent resistence in the Cacarica peace community in
Colombia.

For more info contact - Merideth Cleary @ 612-702-8542 or
gentelatinauswa [at] yahoo.com

Organized by Witness for Peace and Macalester Students


--------11 of 16--------

From: lynette <lynette [at] prettyhorses.net>
Subject: Environment/Holm 11.11 7pm

Friday, November 11

Carolyn Raffensperger talks about her book: "Precautionary Tools for
Reshaping Environmental Policy,"  7pm at Magers and Quinn Booksellers;
3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis.

Bill Holm makes a rare Twin Cities bookstore appearance to entertain with
poetry and fiction. 7:30 pm at Magers and Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave S,
Minneapolis, MN


--------12 of 16--------

From: mizna-announce <mizna-announce [at] mizna.org>
Subject: Arab film festival 11.11-17

Third Annual Minneapolis Arab Film Festival
November 11-17
Heights Theater
3951 Central Avenue NE
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The third annual Minneapolis Arab Film Festival is a week long event
showcasing feature-length films, documentaries, and shorts that explore
themes related to the Arab and Arab American experience. This annual
festival continues to speak to the void in presentation of artistic
expression by Arabs in the West and strives to combat stereotypical
representation by highlighting the work of Arab artists. The Arab Film
Festival will include post-screening discussions with filmmakers Mai
Masri, Azza El-Hassan, and Hisham Bishri as well as local scholars
Mohammed Bamyeh, Fouzi Slisli and Mazher Al-Zo'by.

Tickets:
$5 students/low income; $8 general public
$50 festival pass; $40 festival pass students/Mizna subscribers

See our website for the schedule of films:  http://www.mizna.org
Email Mizna for more information:  Mizna [at] Mizna.org

---
From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>

Mizna's Arab Film Fest: Sophisticated Cinema of Drama and Documentaries
by Lydia Howell

A Lebanese pop singer. Islam's prophet gets a bio-pic. Friendship and
family. Arab feminism and female sexuality. Life under occupation.

Mizna's third annual Arab Film Festival (Fri. Nov.11-17) offers 35 films,
encomapssing fictional features, documentaries and short eclectic works.

"We got to choose from the best of 21 countries. We looked for works that
were artistic, political and cutting-edge with messages Americans don't
get very often," says Kathryn Haddad, executive director of Mizna, the
Minneapolis-based national Arab-American Literary Arts Journal, hosting
the festival.

"Documentaries are something assoiated with the Middle East. Everything is
about the news and events of the day--and rightfully so, because the U.S.
has its hands in the MIddle East in ways that Americans should know,"
Haddad acknowledges. "But, when it comes to stories, to seeing the human
side, fiction can do that in ways that maybe documentaries can't."

Hollywood cranks out increasingly contrived thrillers, few of which can
match the suspense of Palestinian/Italian production "Private"
(Thur Nov 17, 7:30pm). Inspired by true events, Saverio Costanzo"s drama
shows a middle-class Palestinian family who's house is taken over by the
Israeli Army for use as a survellience post. Mohammed, the gentle
patriarch, quietly refuses to vacant and the family beoome nightly
prisoners confined to one room. with soldiers living upstairs.
Absolutely gripping to the last moment, this Palestinian film-maker living
in Rome, evokes Alfred HItchcck's ability to frighten by what you don't
see, but, only hear. How each family member reacts to the almost
unbearable pressure is an in-depth psycholigical study of and metaphor for
Palestinian reality under Israeli Occupation

"In 2004, the Italian production company attempted to enter "Private" in
the Academy Awards' Foreign Film category, It was rejected because it
wasn't in Italian," says Haddad. "In 2003, "Divine Intervention", another
Palestinian film was rejected because they said Palestine isn't a
country!"

Short films explore fact and fiction. A banned Egyption short story "House
of Flesh" is an exquisite tale of female sexuality, aching with erotism.
"They Were Here" is a ghostly look at labor through an abandoned Syrian
plant. "Hamida" ,from Tunisia views, a simple event from a schizophrenic's
perspective. "Face A, Face B" is acclaimed stage director Rabih Mrone's
memory piece about growing up during Lebanon's civil war.

"One of my favorite films is "We Loved Each Other So Much" (Sun. Nov.13,
10am). Maybe because I'm Lebanese myself," Haddad enthused. "Amazingly
artistically done, how he entwined the history of the Lebanese civil war
with the famed and beloved singer, Fairuz. She's been singing about 50
years and is loved across the Middle East and her music is avaailable
here."

Fairuz's voice echoes jazz phrasing, as if Astrud Gilberto, ("Girl From
Ipanema"), was Arab. Multiple views prevail:a strongly nationalistic
Christian cab driver; a Palestinian, who as a teenager joined a terrorist
group; a housewife who's apartment was bombed; a photographer.  Their
convergence through Fairuz's haunting voice testifies to art's redemptive
power.

The name 'Osama', (meaning 'lion'), is as common in Arab countries as
'John' is in ours. "Being Osama" (Sun Nov 13, 4pm), follows five diverse
Arab men: devout Muslim teacher, an assimulated Egyptian CD importer, a
young Palestinian rocker, a traditional Lebanese musican, a young Syrian
activist. Each share their first name with bin Laden in post-9/11
Montreal.

Far more than in most film festivals, women's works are well represented,
with many films from a Palestinian perspective rarely seen by Americans.
Mai Mari's "Frontiers of Dreams and Fears" (Sat Nov 12, 7:30pm) centers on
the tenacity of friendship between two Palestinian girls living in
separate refugee camps. Azza El-Hassan's "Kings and Extras" (Mon.Nov.
Nov.14, 7:30pm) follows a trail of contradictory clues in a mystery of the
absurd trying to find vanished Palestinian archives.  Both women speak
after their screenings.

"Where is Iraq? (Wed Nov 16, 7:30pm)should be required viewing. Director
Baz Shamoun's returns to his ravaged homeland after 27 years' exile. On
the Jordan/Iraq border, Iraquis remember Saddam's grim rule yet, look at
the U.S. occupation, asking "Are we another Palestine?"

"It was really important for us to show films about Iraq from Iraqui
peoples' perspective. We wanted to do a whole day or more of films from
Iraq but, we didn't get many films - for obvious reasons," Haddad is
sober. "Ironically, Mizna's first Arab Film Festival opened the day the
U.S. invaded Iraq."

Mizna's Third Annual Arab Film Festival, Fri Nov 11-Nov 17, $8 general/$5
studentslow-income,$50 pass general/$40 students-Mizna members, Heights
Theatre, 3951 Central Ave. NE, MInneapolis (612)788-6920 Complete
schedule: www.mizna.org


--------13 of 16--------

From: Erik Riese <erik [at] tcq.net>
Subject: Seward arts festival 11.11-12

The Sixth Annual Seward Arts Festival
Now an expanded two days.
Friday and Saturday, November 11 & 12, 2005
Complete details at http://www.sewardarts.org/


--------14 of 16--------

Paris is Burning
Rage in the Banlieue
By DIANA JOHNSTONE
CounterPunch
November 9, 2005

Montmartre, Paris.

The furious youth in the French suburban housing blocks known as the
banlieue are expressing themselves by setting cars on fire. And not only
cars: schools, creches, sports centers. So far, they are not using words,
at least not audibly. So everyone else is free to speak for them, or
against them, and offer his or her verbal interpretation of what these
actions mean, or should mean. Since these interpretations differ sharply,
there is a polarizing debate going on as to what this is really about and
what should be done about it.

I live on the northern edge of Paris, on the non-tourist backside of
Montmartre. It is probably the most mixed neighborhood in Paris. It
includes Barbs, the setting for Emile Zola's working class novel
"L'Assommoir", which later became the main pole of North African
immigration. More recently, there is a large and growing population of
sub-Saharan African immigrants, as well as a considerable Tamoul
community. The streets are full of life, lots of young children, African
grocers, all sorts of shops and people, and despite a certain amount of
drug dealing, I feel perfectly safe, even late at night.

This neighborhood is not far from the northeastern banlieue where the
riots began. But the banlieue is something else. Its specific nature is
one of the factors behind the current outburst of violence. But it is only
one of the factors.

It's easy to pontificate on this subject, and the cliches all come easily
to mind. But I would like to try to analyse the situation by examining one
by one the factors and arguments relating to this crisis.

1. The rioters themselves.

Only the right, or more precisely the far right, would reduce the problem
to the rioters themselves. The National Front is, predictably, describing
the situation as "civil war" and calling for the government to send in the
Army. This is a very minority position. So far as I am aware, its
strongest expression has come from the United States, in an article by
Daniel Pipes in the Jewish World Review charactizing the riots as an
Islamic "intifada" as a "turning point" in a new religious war in Europe.

Who exactly are the rioters? So far, this is not very clear, since the
hit-and-run arson attacks appear to be imitative but unorganized. The
rioters are young males, mostly, it seems, in their mid-teens, who
identify with the two teen-agers who were accidentally electrocuted last
October 27 when, running from police, they scaled a wall and took refuge
in an industrial generator. Ironically, in this crucial case the deaths
were the result of fear rather than of direct police brutality. This
widespread fear of police reflects gratuitous and heavy handed police
harassment, but there is also the undisputed fact that in areas with 40%
unemployment and large numbers of school dropouts, there has been a
proliferation of drug dealing and various forms of petty crime, often in
the form of forcing school kids to surrender such items as cell phones.
Police toughness has had no visible success in stemming such activities.

The rioting youths seem to be predominantly, but not exclusively, of
African or North African origin. They are certainly not all Muslims, and
there is no indication that most of them are particularly attached to any
religion. Muslim religious authorities condemn the riots, and one has gone
so far as to issue a fatwa against the violence, but this seems to serve
more to distance the Muslim authorities from the rioters than to influence
them.

They are a minority in their communities, and their destructive action is
overwhelmingly condemned within those communities, whose members are the
ones whose cars or schools or buses are being burned. Nevertheless, there
is considerable sympathy in these communities for the anger and
hopelessness underlying this explosion of violence. After several nights
of such troubles, parents and other citizens are organizing in various
neighborhoods to dissuade kids from violence. This is likely to be more
effective than the curfews on unaccompanied kids under 16 favored by the
right.

2. Housing.

The apartment blocks of the banlieue of French cities are similar to those
surrounding cities in most of Europe. They were part of the rapid
urbanization that occurred during the economic prosperity of the 1960s.
They were not built to be "ghettos" but to provide decent housing to the
waves of immigrants, both from the countryside and from abroad, drawn by
industrial employment. They replaced shanty towns and relieved the
pressure on inner city neighborhoods, where working class families were
crowded into unhealthy flats with no private toilet. For working people,
the banlieue apartments are much more spacious and well equipped than
those in affordable neighborhoods of Paris.

There are two things wrong with them. One is aesthetic: they lack the
charm of the city, they are monotonous, and they are far away from the
pleasures of urban life. But what has turned them into "ghettoes" is the
deindustrialization of the past decades. The nearby factories have shut
down, and the sons and grandsons of factory workers are jobless. It is
easier for those with French names and French complexions to move up into
the service sector, and out to other neighborhoods.

3. Racism.

Why this difficulty? Because, while racist attitudes are widely and
vigorously condemned, and in social terms racial discrimination is
probably less practiced in France than in other Western countries (as
indicated, among other things, by an exceptionally high percentage of
racially mixed marriages), those individuals who are in a position to hire
employees, or to rent housing, are less likely to choose someone with an
exotic name, or an exotic look, than someone who appears "normal". This is
bitterly resented, and the fact that many second and third generation
French youth of African origin have made successful careers is no
consolation to those who are left behind.

4. The economy.

By any reasonable standard, this is the central factor. If jobs were not
so scarce, qualified youth would not be unemployed because of their
origin. If public funding for social activities in the banlieue had not
been cut back by the current government in favor of a single-minded
emphasis on "security", things might be slightly better. But essentially,
it is the current worldwide economic model that is at the root of these
troubles. Back to that later.

5. The Sarkozy factor.

As the whole world must know by now, Nicolas Sarkozy, former mayor of the
opulent Western Paris suburb of Neuilly (nothing to do with the
banlieue!), wants to be President of the French Republic. Not a day goes
by without seeing him, as Interior Minister, rushing here and there in
front of television cameras, busy, busy, busy. His naked ambition borders
the pathological. His strategy, however, has been calculated, and until
recently has looked ominously successful, as he managed to take over the
UMP (Union de la Majorit Prsidentielle), supposed to be the party of
President Jacques Chirac, and turned it against him.

This strategy has included a move to win over the electorate of the
National Front, which hates Gaullists in general and Chirac in particular.
The key to this is, of course, emphasizing "security". But cleverly
enough, Sarkozy has combined this with a bid to woo French Muslims, and
other religions, by taking his distance from French secularism to call for
dialogue with religious leaders. This fits with his pro-American
neoliberal economic preferences - full throttle privatization and
deregulation - inasmuch as the shelter of identity communities is the
necessary substitute for the abandoned welfare state.

Enforcing the law is the job of an Interior Minister. But after withdrawal
of the "proximity police", put in by the previous Socialist government in
order to develop contact with the community (for too short a time to be
tested), Sarkozy has favored spectacular raids by heavily decked out
police squads that act as provocations. To grab maximum media attention,
he has strutted through troubled banlieues announcing his determination to
clean up the "rabble" (racaille).

This performance is surely a significant factor in the riots. It also
provides a unifying theme for the left: Sarkozy must resign! The
conservative government is virtually obliged for the moment to give a show
of unity, but whenever it is convenient, one can be sure that both Chirac
and his protg, prime minister Dominique de Villepin, would be simply
delighted to throw Sarkozy to the wolves.

6. The Middle East.

Sarkozy, by his choice of trips abroad, has underlined his desire for
closest possible relations with the United States and Israel. This
provides a second reason for him to be hated by youth in the banlieue,
where identification with the Palestinians is widespread and daily images
of violence in the Middle East and the war in Iraq have a considerable
impact. Perhaps one can guess that had Chirac not refused to follow the
United States into Iraq, the banlieue would have exploded earlier and more
violently than today. The feeling of exclusion among youth of Arab origin
is enormously exacerbated by the spectacle of Western aggression against
the Arab world.

* * *
I come back to the economic factor. Dominique de Villepin, in competition
with Sarkozy, has taken a more humanist line: restoration of social aids
to the banlieue previously instituted by the Socialist government, plus
yet another program for job-creation. But since such measures have been
taken before without notable effect, one can doubt their efficacy now.

I would conclude by acknowledging that for ruling politicians, the
situation is without immediate solution. Order may be restored, subsidies
may be granted to neighborhood associations, but no short-term measure can
solve the basic problem: the deep rupture between the "winners" and the
"losers" in a cutthroat game of capitalist competition. In some ways,
these alienated youth in the banlieue, however much they feel left out of
French society, are very French in this respect: like angry farmers or
workers, they go into the streets with their discontent. This is a gesture
that the French tolerate and try to understand to a degree perhaps
unequaled in other societies.

But then what? Soviet bloc communism collapsed because it failed to meet
the demands for more freedom of the most privileged sectors of the
population. American-style capitalism has triumphed worldwide, but it in
turn is threatened with eventual collapse because it fails to meet the
needs of the less privileged sectors. They are showing that they can
retaliate by creating mayhem. The banlieue is not really an isolated
world, European countries are more tightly packed than the United States,
and there is not enough room for riots to go on without bothering society
as a whole. The only real long-term solution must provide integration for
all the population.

This fact is largely recognized. The question that is yet to be honestly
faced, is: how? Alternating governments try to introduce incentives for
private enterprise to provide jobs, but this is clearly not working.
Meanwhile, privatization continues, and with it disappears the
government's capacity to effectively provide social services and jobs.

The only answer is to call a halt to the privatization process and return
to the mixed economy that was the basis for the European social model,
currently being destroyed by so-called "reforms". France is selling off
its utilities, from Electricit de France to the autoroute network. Such
measures are likely to deepen the social disaster. Advanced industrial
economies require governments capable of taking measures to provide a
minimum of socio-economic equality, in response to democratic demand, and
this is possible only if they possess the necessary economic resources to
subsidize indispensible social programs and to stimulate job creation,
including the growth of small private enterprise. One can only hope that
the current crisis in France, which so far lacks a coherent political
dimension, will hasten the political revolt against the neoliberal
economic dogma which is plunging the whole world into chaos.

Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and
Western Delusions published by Monthly Review Press. She can be reached
at: dianajohnstone [at] compuserve.com


--------15 of 16--------

The Concept of Evil: Why It's Intellectually Valid and Politically and
Spiritually Important
by Andrew Bard Schmookler
Published on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Our present rulers don't want the Geneva Conventions ban on torture to
hold them back. Other Americans are struggling to return our country to a
willingness to be ruled by law, and to sheer human decency.

Our present government has no interest in restraining greed to avoid
potentially catastrophic climate change and other degradations of the
biosphere. Others in this country are devoting our energies to moving
America toward a way of life in harmony with earth's living systems.

The forces now dominating America are moving relentlessly to shift power
from the weak and vulnerable to those already mighty, and to transfer
wealth from those who have less to those already rich beyond any rational
need for more. Many of us are striving to create a country where
principles of justice hold sway.

Such struggles have characterized the whole sweep of civilized history. On
the one side are forces that care for life and work to create and maintain
life-serving structures. On the other side are forces that tear such
structures apart.

To understand the interplay among such forces, the religious tradition of
our civilization has employed the idea of "the struggle between good and
evil".

But that's a concept rejected by many of my sophisticated - and, for the
most part, liberal-minded - friends. [This progressive accepts it - ed]

For one thing, some do not regard the moral dimension as being truly
fundamental to the nature of reality. They've been persuaded by that
philosophic current that sees an unbridgeable gap between "is" and
"ought"; they believe that moral judgments are just subjective
preferences.

But it is particularly the concept of "evil" that they reject. Too
primitive a notion, they say - manifesting black-and-white thinking. Too
dangerous a notion - fostering demonization and self-righteous
self-delusion.

By becoming more tolerant and more aware of psychological complexities,
they see themselves as having advanced beyond the terms of our ancient
spiritual traditions.

But I've come lately to believe that the concept of evil captures a vital
human reality. So vital that its disappearance from the cognitive maps of
many modern sophisticated people is a dangerous development - dangerous
because when people do not recognize the nature of the forces they are up
against, they will be less able to deal with them effectively.

           How the concept of "evil" became more real for me

Much of my adult life has been spent studying the play of destructive
forces in the human system. (The word "evil" even occurs in the subtitle
of one of my books.) But it was not until recently that my experience of
these destructive forces plumbed me so deeply that the notion of "evil"
became a palpable reality.

Part of what opened that door, I believe, was my having had, in the spring
of 2004, a spiritual breakthrough regarding the very opposite of evil.
This experience gave me a vision of a Wholeness and a deeper sense of
reverence for the good, the true, and the beautiful. This experience
seems, in retrospect, to have sensitized me to those forces that work to
destroy such wonderful forms of good order.

Another part of what opened the door, it seems, was that for the first
time it was from inside their domain that I was examining such evil
forces. In other words, it is one thing to study the pathologies of Nazi
Germany or Stalinist Russia from the safe remove - in space and time - of
my own comparatively humane America. But it is quite another thing to
experience dark forces coming to rule the world around me.

           Political underpinnings of a spiritual realization

Although my thrust here goes beyond the level of politics, the best way to
bring that realization to life here is to report on those perceptions of
our contemporary political drama that brought the concept of evil to life
for me.

Something important is now visible in our politics, but the heart of it is
not at the political level - not, that is, at that level where liberals
and conservatives divide. What's alarming about the political forces that
have taken over is not the conservative nature of their stated political
positions, nor the traditional nature of their stated moral values.
America would do fine, I believe, with leaders who were in reality the
moral and political conservatives these people claim to be.

The problem with the forces now ruling America is, rather, at that deeper,
moral and spiritual level - the level from which spring values like
fairness and honesty and compassion that are shared by decent Americans of
all political stripes.

It is at this level, as I see it, that these ruling forces have been
unusually adept at obscuring their true nature: under the sheep's clothing
of a false righteousness, these forces are giving free rein to the wolf of
their unbridled lust for self-aggrandizement.

Indeed, it was my witnessing the success of that deception in seducing
many basically good people that led me to confront the nature of evil more
deeply than I ever have before.

                 The face of evil hidden in plain view

The dark truth of America's current peril is not hidden away, awaiting
revelations from secret tapes. It's right there in front of our faces,
playing out chapter-by-chapter on the news on prime time TV.

It's there in the way these forces have injected what I call a "culture of
falsehood" into the American body politic. With their almost habitual
disregard of truthfulness in their own utterances, their contempt for
science and for objective analysis of all sorts, their insistence on
forcing reality to conform to their beliefs rather than vice versa -
America's current rulers are degrading that heritage of honest
deliberation on which American democracy rests.

It's visible in how unrestrained by any notion of justice or the common
good these forces have been in their insatiable pursuit of wealth and
power for themselves and their cronies.

It's visible in the unscrupulous way they pursue political advantage - for
example in their consistent practice of character assassination against
any who might meaningfully challenge them.

And it is visible, too, in their consistent fostering of division - both
among groups within America and between America and the world. By
systematically focusing on those issues that divide Americans, and never
on those values that we share, these ruling forces have made the American
people more polarized than the pollsters have ever seen before. And, by
their way of wielding American power on the world stage, they have made
this country the object of more hatred and distrust from the peoples of
the world - even among our traditional friends - than ever before.

And it's there perhaps above all in their consistent dismantling of the
traditional structures of good order - in their consistent degradation of
the structures of international order, of environmental regulation, of
Constitutional restraint on political power - all those structures that
might otherwise restrain their freedom of action.

If, as I believe, goodness is to be understood in terms of wholeness - the
arrangement of the parts of a system in a harmonious, well-ordered and
life-serving way - then surely evil, as the opposite of goodness, will
involve the kind of destruction of harmony and good order manifested by
such developments as those I've just described.

But it's not only the destructiveness of these ascendant forces that led
me to my new sense that evil was an important concept. There is also
something in the dynamics of their rise to power, as I'll soon relate,
that made the ancient notion of "the battle of good and evil" seem valid
and important.

               The liberal discomfort with the idea of evil

When I began to speak out about my sense that dark forces were
consolidating their grip on our country, I did not feel a need to use the
e-word. It seemed adequate to use less spiritually loaded terms like
"ruthless" and "amoral" and "dishonest" and "bullying".

But as I continued to explore the dark spaces that I'd seen, those words
soon seemed insufficient. There was another element that these words did
not capture, and soon I was speaking to liberal audiences about the "evil
forces" at work.

Although the people in these audiences opposed many of the same trends and
practices that alarmed me, many were not comfortable with my using that
ancient and freighted term "evil to describe them. I came to understand
that underlying this discomfort was a worldview. And I've come to believe
that this worldview - widespread in liberal America - is part of what has
made it possible for such dark forces to gain power.

For this reason, I have been glad to confront the controversy raised by my
using this deep and spiritual concept.

                Objections to the concept of "evil"

One objection I've heard from liberals is that it can't be right to see
our current ruling group as agents of evil forces "because they really
believe that what they're doing is right". But it is a complete non
sequitur that if people believe in their rightness that they can't be the
instruments of evil.

As if most of the world's evil weren't done by people who'd persuaded
themselves they were doing right - from the torturers of the Inquisitions,
to the Nazi mass murderers, to the men who flew the planes into the World
Trade Center.

As if the psychologists hadn't shown us that, if you understand people
only in terms of the motives they acknowledge in themselves, you'll hardly
understand them at all.

Indeed, if part of the essence of evil is a pattern of brokenness, one
would expect precisely that kind of psychic brokenness "that profound
disconnect in the realm of self-knowledge" in which people can persuade
themselves that they are doing God's work when in fact they are serving
their own darkest impulses.

A related objection - and perhaps the most frequent one - is that one
should never label others "evildoers" because, historically, so much human
destructiveness has accompanied such accusations.

Admittedly, through the millennia, great peril has surrounded people's
wielding of the ideas of good and evil. But the same has been true for all
ideas about which people feel passionately - God, truth, love of country.
Any beliefs that come from the core of people can lead to destructive or
constructive consequences depending on how whole and clear, or how broken
and twisted, are the souls or psyches of those who hold them.

So while there are reasons for great caution when operating from the
deepest and most passionately felt beliefs, it hardly follows that we
should reject these beliefs or ignore them when we act in the world. In
particular, from the fact that the idea of "evil" has often been used in
distorted and destructive ways, it does not follow that it's never
important and right to label as "evil" the forces one sees at work.

             Moral relativism and the opening of the door

Perhaps the deepest element in the widespread liberal resistance to the
idea of evil lies in the strain of thought called "moral relativism". It's
surprising how widely such thinking has infiltrated our culture. Among
students I've dealt with across two generations, it's been common to hear
- even from those who describe themselves as Biblical Christians - such
statements as "What the Nazis did at Auschwitz isn't what I would have
done, but from within their perspective it was right, and so it was right
for them".

The idea that there is no important distinction to be made between right
desire and wrong desire has its sources in modern philosophical thought
but is probably most powerfully driven by our consumerist economy, which
doesn't care what kind of impulse we gratify so long as we seek our
gratification through what can be bought and sold.

But whatever the sources of this moral relativism, among the results of
this failure to distinguish between choices that are good and those that
are not has been a radical transformation - a degradation - in this
nation's cultural expressions.

Compare, for example, the films made in the 40s and 50s with those of more
recent vintage. The older ones are filled with an ethos of aspiration
toward an ideal, toward some image of how human life should be lived. In
recent decades, movies are more likely to encourage us to indulge our most
crass, even our most debauched, impulses. We're more apt to see a film
about a serial killer than about anyone worthy of our admiration.

This unraveling of old moral ideals, in which American liberalism has been
largely complicit, is one of those cultural developments that has
diminished the power of the forces of goodness to resist the advance of
evil.

And it is in that interplay between opposing forces that we find one
indication of the value of the idea of "evil": when there's an opening,
the forces opposed to goodness will advance. We see an opportunism in
these forces, as if they were animated by some spirit of darkness looking
to expand its empire.

       "Evil" as transcending the level of the individual actor

Another clue comes from how, in this interplay, these forces work through
human beings - as if the forces were the master and the people their
instruments.

Some people reject the ideal of evil because they believe it takes what is
happening inside human beings and projects it out onto some beyond us that
works to drive human events in a twisted and destructive direction.

And accordingly, I have heard liberal and enlightened people say things
like, "This supposed 'evil' is just a projection of what is really just
inside us as human individuals".

But talking about the motives for human action as lying within us is an
over-simplification. Yes, of course, our motivations are inside us. But we
ourselves are substantially molded by those systems  - cultural,
historical - in which we are embedded.

Just as a hen has been described as an egg's way of creating another egg,
so also can we human "individuals" be seen as our culture's way of
perpetuating certain patterns. Through our socialization and our
life-experiences generally our culture creates us - for better and for
worse - in its own image.

    History isn't made just by people; it's also made by forces.

This is the vital dimension that wasn't captured by talking about the
ruthlessness or amorality of individuals, and that led me to use the
"e-word". I saw something about the way that those forces operate, about
how patterns can lurk in the cultural interstices, awaiting the chance to
impose themselves again.

When I saw, for example, how that manipulative genius, Karl Rove, effected
his seduction of many traditionalist Americans, I recognized an old
pattern - one used a century before to seduce poor whites in the Jim Crow
South.

In the Jim Crow South, and now again in Karl Rove's America, the leaders
inflame passions around peripheral issues to distract their supporters
from what the leaders are really doing with their power. A century ago,
the hot-button distraction was racial purity. Now, the leaders whip people
up about issues of moral purity. In both cases, unjust leaders use
deception to exacerbate divisions useful to magnifying their own power and
wealth.

Dark patterns lurk in the system, like some dormant virus, ready to erupt
when the culture's immune system weakens.

      Good and evil as forces contending to spread their patterns

Wholeness begets wholeness; division begets division. The patterns compete
in the human arena.

Wholeness within the human being consists of harmony among the elements of
the psyche. The crucial challenge here is to reconcile the natural
energies of the human creature with the need for order in the overarching
human system. But when the surrounding order imposes too harsh and
punitive a morality - when the culture wages war against the creature -
such harmony becomes impossible.

Brokenness begets brokenness.

The broken regime of racial persecution in the American South - as Lillian
Smith showed in her classic Killers of the Dream - built upon the broken
psyche of white Southerners brought up with harsh moral strictures that
prevented the harmonious integration of natural sexual impulses. The
forbidden impulses were then projected out to be rediscovered - and
punished - in the darker race.

In Nazi Germany - as Alice Miller showed in For Your Own Good - the broken
regime of ethnic annihilation built upon the psychic brokenness created by
generations of child-rearing practices that legitimated the systematic
brutal treatment of children. What was driven underground in the child
emerged with a fury against "inferior peoples" to be destroyed in the name
of the noble Fatherland.

In each case, the pattern of brokenness gets spread from the culture to
the individual and then back again. The harsh culture, making war against
the natural needs and will of the growing human, spreads its pattern of
division by preventing the human creature from reconciling - or even
acknowledging - the elements within it.

At its core, the lie of false righteousness is a lie to oneself - a basic
split between a person's real inner experience, which is rejected for
being intolerably painful, and the false representation of that
experience, which is fabricated as an escape from that pain.

And such a broken psyche - with its conscious identification with a harsh
morality and its estrangement from the natural creature - needs to find
"enemies" against whom to enact its inner conflicts and divisions.

It has been said, "by their fruits shall ye know them". Thus the nature of
a ruling spirit shows itself by the pattern it imprints upon its domain.
This is why that systematic fomenting of division and conflict - within
America and between America and the world - is so clear an indication of
the nature of the spirit that has lately been ruling this country. That
spirit that tears things apart is an evil spirit.

              The opportunism of "evil forces"

What's new in America is not the existence of these destructive patterns
and forces but rather their ascendancy to such dominance.

America has long contained an empire-building impulse, but until now it
has largely been balanced by ideals about a just order that should
displace the rule of "might makes right". In earlier times, the American
nation employed a destructive combination of arrogance and hypocrisy to
dispossess the natives of this continent of their lands. But only now has
that unwholesome posture become the essence of the face presented to the
world at large.

American capitalism has long had an element of systemic insatiability, but
till now that voraciousness has been held in check, at least to a
meaningful degree, by ideas about responsibility to the greater good.
We've long known, for example - from the stories of the tobacco and
asbestos industries - that America's corporate systems are prone to
succumb to the temptation to put profits ahead of caring for life. But it
is only now that - to the alarm of much of the rest of the world - the
deadly pattern of those industries has become enshrined as national
policy: in the present White House, we now know, the scientific reports
regarding potentially catastrophic climate change was being denied and
distorted to keep public concern from interfering with corporate America's
immediate profits.

In a morally healthy society, the darker elements are kept subordinate to
the dictates of good order. They are held in check by those frameworks
that a culture has developed at all levels -in the psyche, in the realms
of cultural expression, in the domain of governance - to nurture and
protect good order. But when these frameworks break down, as they have in
America in our times, the dark forces - the old patterns of brokenness -
that lurk in a society will arise opportunistically to tear things apart.

After decades of an imaginative life - in television and movies, for
example - that continually rehearses Americans in the indulgence of their
lower selves, fewer people can recognize the good, and fewer still are
devoted to it. Amoral desire gains in force, and counterfeit goodness more
readily passes as the real thing.

After well over a decade of a talk radio culture that teaches people to
indulge their self-serving beliefs, the gratifications of wishful thinking
erode the structures of integrity in the pursuit of truth. Without that
ethic of intellectual responsibility that requires that we bow to the
truth, it becomes far easier for deceptions to win out in the corrupted
"marketplace of ideas".

          The deep insight of the Western religious tradition

The nature of evil as I believe I've glimpsed it, then, goes beyond its
being destructive of the good. It is also central to evil that - unlike
the destructiveness of a tsunami - it works through the realm of human
choice.  And it is its use of the wounding and twisting of the human
spirit that gives evil its morally dark and cruel aspect.

But it is also its operating on a scale far vaster than the individual
human will, and its opportunism in spreading its patterns of brokenness,
that give the impression of a vast spirit at work in the world, expanding
its empire wherever there is an opening.

(The force of goodness works similarly in many ways. But not in all ways,
for the process of building wholeness has inherent differences from the
process of tearing it apart.)

I am not inclined, myself, to credit our religious tradition's
personification of these forces as mighty and eternal conscious beings
- like God and Satan - possessing benign or malign intent, and standing
behind the forces of good and evil at play in the world. To me, these
forces have appeared as empirical forces embedded in the dynamics of human
systems unfolding through time. These forces seem comprehensible in
naturalistic terms, but also so vast and enduring that they require an
expansion of our usual narrow perspective for us to perceive them; so
subtle and transcendent in their operation that they do seem of a
spiritual nature - acting as if they were animated by benign or malign
intention.

But whatever the ultimate nature of these forces, the religious traditions
of our civilization, it now seems to me, have grasped a most basic truth
about how such forces - for good and for evil - act in the world. It no
longer seems to me a primitive notion - but rather a factual reality -
that there is a battle for the power to shape human affairs between the
forces that weave things together well and those that tear things apart.

The traditional religious vision of "the struggle between good and evil" I
now see as embodying deep insight, as a way of naming something quite real
and most fundamental in shaping our destiny. And calling things by their
right names is important - particularly for those things that are at once
so difficult for us to grasp on the basis of our immediate and mundane
experience and so vital to understanding what's happening in our world and
what we are called upon to do to about it.

Andrew Bard Schmookler has recently launched his website
NoneSoBlind.org devoted to understanding the roots of America's present
moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous
moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The
Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY
Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral
Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations
in both red and blue states. Schmookler can be reached at
andythebard [at] comcast.net

=
[Not only is evil a valid concept, but BushCo and the powers behind it are
evil. And given the power of the US, the US imperial state is now the most
evil force in the history of the world. Is is a very dark time; nothing
seems to be too evil for our dollared elite to ram it down the world's
throat. We like to think of the US state as good, innocent, superior;  we
like to imagine that all charges against it as doing evil are baseless,
requiring us to do nothing but ridicule as mentally unbalanced those who
bring the charges.  BushCo et al love when we sitting ducks think this
way, for it lets them proceed to steal everything. Our main chance is to
recognize this evil in all its faces, disguises, lies, outrages, and FIGHT
it. If we let it win we are in hell. -ed]


--------16 of 16--------

 If I existed,
 God says, Bush Cheney and Rove
 wouldn't. Q.E.D.


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   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
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