And that’s why Obama can’t win the general election. When a white man in THE average American town can attack a black man in broad daylight in the direct view of dozens of witnesses, and get by with it, a black man cannot be elected president.

And so much for the notion that the younger generations are somehow more racially progressive and tolerant than the old farts with whom I hang out.

Radio talkers on the right love to expound upon the notion of “political correctness” and pride themselves on speaking out in favor of “the right thing,” regardless of political protocols and the constraints of social polity. In fact, hardly anyone actually does the “politically incorrect” thing, especially talk show hosts. Comedian Rush Limbaugh, for instance, initiated his “Operation Chaos” specifically because “someone has to bloody up Obama, and WE (the right) CAN’T DO IT.” So much for right wing bravado in the face of political correctness.

But Rush, Hannity, Beck and their ilk are not alone in dodging a real discussion of racism. The media (including the blogosphere) have carefully avoided even a rudimentary discussion of what  may ultimately decide the race between Obama and McCain, that is, the true depth of racism around the country as compared to the illusion embraced by journalists and politicians who should know better. Ignoring, as usual, the lessons of history, pretty much everyone writing about the election instead cites the impending election season as the final inevitable step toward the jubilee dreamt of long ago by slaves and abolitionists alike. Dodging the question of race during the primaries was a huge mistake, one made mostly by the educated elite that many believe run this country without regard to the rights, dreams and aspirations of their economic, social and political inferiors.

While the life experiences of white folks and black folks are obviously different on the question of race, one perspective is common to both races … and both races get that shared perspective wrong. A black man of my age might be able to recollect dozens of times in his life when his dignity was insulted by white men. And a white man can usually recollect a time or two, especially during the civil rights campaigns, when his dignity was likewise affronted by a black man aggressively pursuing his liberation from Jim Crow. But if you ask them today what they think about racism, both would undoubtedly agree that things are better these days. And both would be wrong. Racism is alive and well in this country. What’s different is where it hides its ugly head.

The illusion that race relations are all sweetness and light results from a variety of factors. If you work for a major corporation, or for the government, or most any large business, your employee handbook will lay out the protocols for dealing with workplace diversity, and the penalties for failing to uphold those principles. Schools likewise waste a lot of paper instructing students and faculty alike on complex sets of rules to enforce what would be, in the absence of color, nothing more than common courtesy. Likewise unions, professional associations and similar groups codify every aspect of interpersonal relationships regarding race. As a result it’s possible for most people to go through long periods of time without needing to face racially produced conflict. That’s the corporate illusion.

Then there’s the social illusion, the one that’s shattered every day someplace in America by incidents like the one I described in my opening paragraph. Most folks in America, black and white, think rather well of themselves, often despite all public evidence to the contrary. And most folks like to believe that they are courteous to, and respectful of, their fellow man. And most of the time they are, at least in public. All in all, most folks, most of the time, are reasonable people who will not go out of their way to provoke conflict, especially racial conflict. That’s the good news, for everyone of all races.

The bad news is that there’s a significant percentage of folks for whom race is the overweening consideration in their lives. I can’t quantify their numbers, but you know one or two yourself, whether you want to or not. They may be in-laws or neighbors and they don’t realize they are insulting you by assuming that you share their low opinion of other races and cultures. In public, mixed gatherings (like caucuses), they would never stand against the majority of decent folks, but in the privacy of the voting booth they can express their racial angst without you knowing about it. That is why the caucus states were never a true measure of Senator Obama’s popularity with democrats.

Blacks and whites share a common thread of self deception regarding race. Both races tend to downplay the incidence of racism in today’s American culture. And both sides tend to underestimate the depth of hatred that some folks hold in their hearts. I have more than once confounded black friends by pointing out that blacks give white folks at large way more credit than they deserve for racial tolerance. Everything being relative and experience being reality, most white folks are blissfully unaware that of all the advantages they enjoy, the simple luck of being born white is paramount.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t …

One of the more esoteric of the political arts is the ability to finesse unavoidable situations that negatively impact the candidate’s electability. Obama’s had two of these situations, and has been badly bitten by both.

In today’s real world of political religiosity, a candidate with no church is truly a lost soul amongst his religiously connected opposition. So when Obama entered politics, he sensibly chose a church that offered a little leverage in local politics, just as all politicians today must do if they are to be successful. Strangely, this consideration has seemingly become important beyond the head count of believers. Today, even infidels prefer that their candidates possess at least a modicum of “public religion.”

The church Obama chose as a young black politician, Trinity United Church of Christ, is said to be the largest church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, with over 8,500 members. Its congregation includes the best and brightest of Chicago’s black community and Obama’s membership there undoubtedly yielded some significant political benefit over the years he was a member. The same can be said for virtually every congressman and senator in Washington regarding their particular religious congregation.

None of this was a problem until the presidential vetting process began and his opponents left and right started digging through his past, looking for chinks in his armor. That’s when the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his “God Damn America” pastor, and his church, were victimized by the political aspirations of Senator Obama.

It is never morally correct to deliberately misrepresent the words of other men, or to hold them responsible for words they have never publicly embraced. It is, however, the immoral business of political operatives to dredge through the past of political candidates in search of anything at all that can be used to destroy their credibility and better the chances of the candidate they support (or for whom they work). When the damning words are those of an acquaintance, the sound bites assume the willing capitulation of logic by the listener and point to some kind of inferred culpability on the part of the candidate. That’s what happened to Obama.

The worst enemy of any writer, philosopher or preacher is the partial quotation of a larger thought or composition. Rather than worrying about being plagiarized, we should worry about being incompletely plagiarized. If you have a few moments and you are interested in the context of Reverend Wright’s comments, here’s the complete context of his remarks. There’s a bit more to it than “God Damn America.”

Senator Obama has, of course, renounced Trinity United, Reverend Wright, and all his comments. That’s a shame, and it’s the “damned if you do” of the equation. There will be congregants in black churches all across America who will feel that his denunciations of Reverend Wright were wrong, and who will call him to account for abandoning church and preacher. That’s wrong, especially in light of Senator McCain’s free pass from white church goers on his noisy white preachers.

I have, my whole life, flirted with religion, sometimes very seriously. At one point I thought that I’d be a preacher, but after waiting vainly for several years, I finally figured out that all those preacher stories about being “called” were probably either bogus or the result of over stimulation at the foot of an extraordinarily good preacher. I’m not claiming theological expertise here, merely speaking to the perspective from which I view the current election.

I’ve spent a lot of time in churches and along the way I’ve picked up a little bit of insight into the business of preaching. If you’re of my age and of a similar spiritual disposition, you’ve probably noticed a pattern or two yourself. An expert can listen to a preacher and after only a moment or two, like the blind guy in the beer commercial, identify from the sound and cadence of the sermon the seminary attended by the speaker and the spiritual heritage from which he is descended. That’s true of white preachers as well as black.

Most white evangelicals preach from an emphasis on hell and damnation. Their primary tools are fire, brimstone, fear and guilt, and the bogeymen of their sermons historically reflect the peculiar angst of the day. In the days of slavery, white churches in the south provided the spiritual certitude that slavery was scripturally sound. And Nat Turner provided white angst aplenty.

Amongst the slave population, however, the preachers were untrained slaves whose exhortations typically reflected on their bondage and their hope for freedom down the road. And despite white efforts to suppress the news, Nat Turner’s story was as widely known among blacks as among whites and black angst was multiplied by the knowledge of Turner’s grisly demise.

Most folks have at one time or another witnessed the miracle of thousands of birds rising in unison, filling the air with whirring wings and break neck speed, all without the seemingly inevitable collisions one might expect in such crowded surroundings. It’s a phenomenon known as “flock consciousness.” I once heard it argued with some logic that this same natural phenomenon somehow accounted for the distrust of one race for the other. White folks, for example, and black, somehow both subconsciously recall the fears of their ancestors, wherein slave owners feared fire and murder in the night, and black folks the retribution sure to follow.

I don’t buy that, at least not the supernatural part of it. But I do buy the notion that the problems of racism today are the natural result of chattel slavery in the agrarian south in the face of widespread moral indignation in the north, resulting in the greatest national schism in our national history, and the complete ruination of the south and all its institutions. From that everything else follows. While the miseries visited upon the white population of the south during reconstruction pale in comparison with the miseries of the slave, they were nevertheless sufficient to give rise to the KKK and Jim Crow, which were sufficient to bring about the further national miseries of the civil rights battles to follow. Perhaps, in the face of the first credible presidential campaign by a black man, it is natural that all of the old animosities should be amplified, with all the ramifications that implies. Natural, but tragically unfortunate.

The consternation with which The Reverend Wright’s “God damn America” sermon was greeted by the media and public at large illustrates well the simple fact that most folks, black and white, do not have any real insight into the lives of their counterparts of the opposite color. Too many white folks subscribe to the quaint notion that black folks are monolithic, that they all think and vote alike. That’s certainly not the case. Likewise, certain white folks hold the notion that all black preachers speak from the same book. That’s certainly no more true of black preachers than white. And yet those perceptions exist.

An example of the diversity of opinion within the black religious community is the ministry of The Hon. James David Manning, who believes that Obama, Oprah Winfrey and The Reverend Wright are “The Trinity of Hell.” Unless you’re a You Tube fan, you probably will not have heard of him. Trust me, before the campaign is over, you will. The GOP will find a way to use his message to their advantage.

The Reverend Wright’s sermons calling the white man to account for his crimes against black folks are no more nor less meritorious or blasphemous than the sermons of white preachers decrying children born out of wedlock while implying that this is mostly a fact in the black community. Both themes are generally enthusiastically embraced by the respective congregations.

The great failing of democratic politics is the mistaken notion that just because an idea or proposal is good, said idea will be adopted by the majority of the voting public. And the great strength of the republican party is the ability to not only recognize an ugly truth, but to act on it and benefit from it.

Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” was popularized by strategist Kevin Phillips, though according to Wikipedia, he did not originate it.

The following is from a 1970 New York Times article, quoted in *Wikipedia:

“From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

I use this quote not so much to explain Nixon’s strategy as to point out the ruthlessness of republican politics and republican operatives.

None of this is new, in fact I’d trace much of today’s acrimony to Newt Gingrich’s infamous 1996 GOPAC memorandum, “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” which was a campaign guide to prospective republican candidates. If you’re old enough, you’ll recall being surprised at the cohesion of the GOP message of the day. If you’re at all current on national politics, you’ll recognize the same message, along with a new found zeal contemplating the success of their campaign to insure, insofar as possible, the nomination of Barack Obama, a candidate who is a black man, and who will become even blacker as the campaign season draws closer to its end. The GOP will make sure that happens.

Who can blame black folks for their enthusiasm for Obama? And who can blame women for their enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton? The election of either would have represented a giant step forward for America and a huge boost to our international esteem.

When Abraham Lincoln made Grant general-in-chief he did so because Grant recognized and appreciated “the arithmetic” of the war. It’s a lesson the GOP has learned well and one that is seemingly completely beyond the grasp of the top democrats. Blacks make up about 12.4 percent of Americans nationwide. That’s not enough to swing an election, even if they vote as a bloc.

I like Obama and I like Joe Biden. Both are bright and intelligent men who would, I believe, restore some of the international prestige that’s been squandered by the Bush administration and perhaps return the country to pay-as-you-go government in Washington.

But they can’t win in the face of the racism that still exists in this country, a fact that’s been ignored by the democratic idealists and dreamers, white and black, young and old, male and female, who drove the democratic primaries to a final showdown between the two candidates most unlikely to prevail against a GOP united in racism and misogyny.

In the years since the civil rights marches, we’ve (black and white alike) followed a very decorous and deceptive little dance around the subject of racism, a dance that’s deceived us into the erroneous notion that everything’s coming up roses in America’s social garden. And the foolish notion that a woman, or a black man, could somehow be elected President of this country.

Had Hillary won the primary, by this point in time the GOP would have painted her as a classic bitch getting bitchier every day, just as Obama has been cast as a black man getting blacker every day. Make no mistake about it, the race card was first played by the GOP. It will continue to be their trump card as the season winds down to its sad but inevitable conclusion, a McCain presidency.

Politics is about numbers. There were never enough black folks in the country to elect Obama by themselves. And there were never enough Hillary lovers to overcome the Hillary haters. In fact, the only chance either had required partnership with the other. As the VP nominee, Hillary might have helped Obama to a win. Joe Biden has plenty of foreign policy expertise, but he didn’t have the votes in the primaries and that’s unlikely to change.

Barbara Bush should have had the honesty, when Dubya was still a young man, to explain to him that he was not real smart. Hillary’s mother should have had the honesty to explain to her that as a woman she’d bump her head against the glass ceiling. And Obama’s white mother or grandmother should have had the honesty to explain to him that ours is a racist country unlikely to embrace even the most meritorious black man when offered a white alternative, however limited he might be.

The “hell’s” of this turn of events are multiple. First, as a white man of good reputation, Biden was probably the most electable of the three going in. Second, an unknown number of Hillary’s voters will vote for McCain (if he chooses a woman VP that number will increase even more). And last, because he’s black, the racists among us will most likely deny Obama his chance to serve.

If you thought the election of 2000 was a tragedy and that of 2004 made you sad, prepare to be sickened by what looms ahead.

Do you know your IQ score? Most folks don’t. As a general rule, most jobs don’t require IQ tests (nor do most jobs, including most professional jobs, require extraordinary intelligence).  (Note on the chart that virtually all of the professions include members with IQs of less than one hundred … only the medical professions exceed that beginning step, and that only by six or seven IQ points).Likewise, most colleges do not require IQ tests. But if you’ve taken the SAT preparatory to college, you can extrapolate that score into equivalent IQ by a variety of methods outlined on this website (where you may also take an IQ test).

If you’re an ex-GI, even though you’ve never taken an IQ test, you know your IQ within a point or two. The military classification battery, like IQ tests, measures a variety of skills and extrapolates a couple of them into what’s called the GT (General Technical) score, which every GI, walking, riding, flying or floating will remember since it determined your eligibility for practically every school or job available in your service. That score correlates very closely with IQ.

Take a look at this chart showing the distribution of IQ across the population:You’ll notice that fully 68 percent of the population lie between 85 and 115 IQ. Therefore, 6.8 of every ten folks who read this article lie within that range and should derive some sense of satisfaction that they are, in every sense of the word, “normal.” How much satisfaction depends upon which side of the “normal” range your particular score falls. If you fall to the low end of the “normal” scale, 85, you are ineligible for service in the military. If you fall to the high side, 115, there’s practically no profession that is beyond your powers of intellect.

The chart also shows that some thirty two percent are outside the “normal” range, with half being above the “normal” range and half below. The half at the lower end suffer some degree of mental impairment ranging from mild to extreme and the half at the upper end are endowed with extraordinary brain power, ranging from slightly smarter than the average bear to smart enough to fool most of the people most of the time.

So, you may ask, what’s the point? Actually, there are two, perspective and perspicacity, both of which are related to the “g” of intelligence that is the ultimate target of researchers in the area of IQ … and how those two related traits are applied in the art of politics.

“G” is the intangible of intelligence that is thought to explain the fact that a person who tests well on one type of test almost invariably tests well on others, while those who do poorly on one test generally do poorly on others as well.

Readers will note that I placed quotation marks around the word normal above. I did that in anticipation of the usual arguments such a discussion is bound to produce, and I did it because in my experience most situations do not require advanced logic to solve. In fact, most propositions involve the overweening importance of one or more aspects of the question, making the proper response almost unavoidable. Consider this simple lesson, learned at the knee of the best troop leader I ever knew, a man who made five combat jumps over Europe and held some of the nation’s highest decorations, but also a man with hardly any formal education who’d reached the rather exalted position of Sergeant Major mostly on the strength of his common sense. He said, “when you’re faced with a decision, most of the time there will be things you know, things you think you know and some things that you may believe to be true. In every case, you act only on what you KNOW.”

That simple advice will get you through most of the problems you’ll encounter in life. But it won’t help you understand politics, a business in which the principal players are engaged in a highly complex program designed to influence your vote. The old saw is: “How do you know when a politician is lying?” The answer, of course, is “whenever he moves his lips.”

But most Americans believe that they can outperform the polygraph and that they recognize a lie when they hear it. The esteemed Trent Lott, of Mississippi, said as much last night in the orgy of “analysis” that followed the Republican “debate.” He could recognize a lie “by the look in their eyes.” Like President Bush, he believes that the eyes truly are the mirror of the soul.

And the TV analysts, of course (and despite their rather poor powers of political prognostication this last year or so) are even more prescient. They explain that John McCain, for example, “hates” Mitt Romney, or that Hillary and Barack Obama likewise hate one another. In fact, no one but The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

But back to the point. Perspective, particularly in politics, is the ability to put yourself into the head of the person you want to influence in order to discern the factors that influence him and to accurately understand the odds for or against the particular lie, distortion or misrepresentation that’s streaming from his mouth at any given moment. It is the ability to understand not just the proposition itself, but also its genesis.

Perspicacity is the keenness of intellect and shrewdness of mind that enables one to understand the methods, motives and mendacities of our fellow men. It is the small, sharp voice in your head that insists upon reason in argument, demanding fact rather than insinuation and discarding hyperbole and anecdote as the detritus of lazy minds.And, as I indicated above, these two traits are closely related to the “g” of intelligence. So how do I sum this up?

One of the mantras of this website is the following: “People can and do look at the same set of circumstances and yet arrive at completely different conclusions.”

That sounds like a proposition whose solution lies in intellect, in other words, that one side is right and the other is wrong for reasons that the person of average IQ should be able to discern and enumerate. But that conclusion must be wrong.

I know that because neither of the two principal political parties indulges in rhetoric that is designed to persuade persons of “normal” intellect. In fact, closely examined, virtually every political ad you’ll see on TV is designed instead to appeal to those most susceptible to manipulation, those who not only can’t see both perspectives but cannot even discern change from the status quo … those on the bottom range of IQ. So the next time you look at a political ad and are offended by its lack of intellectual merit, consider that it was not designed to appeal to you, but rather to your less intellectual neighbor, who is, as you personally know, dumb as hell.

Consider also the following proposition, which has to do with sentience:  Folks who are dumb as dirt are not aware of the fact.

Please feel free to comment on this article.  And if you’d like to discuss it in detail, please feel free to register with Faded Glory, our associated political forum.

And sadly, on the day after the election, roughly half of Americans wake up to find out that they were flat out wrong in their aspirations, that they had backed a loser and that for the next four years they will be the subject of cruel jokes and pranks at the hands of those in front of whom they’d publicly proclaimed the mental and moral superiority of their man (or woman). The founders guarded against this very thing by providing for the secret vote, but Americans are not secret about politics. Your boss, your neighbor, your friend … do they know how you vote? Of course they do, and if you vote the wrong way, you’ll get your chain yanked for the next four years. Now this is not an unknown fact. In modern times, most presidential elections have been close and everybody knows it. Certainly no one in their right mind would wager money on a proposition that guarantees you’ll lose half the time.  But presidential politics is not the equivalent of going to Las Vegas and risking money at the blackjack table, or if you’re particularly naive, at the roulette wheel. Leaving Vegas, you might have to pawn your Rolex for a flight home, but it’s only money. In politics, especially public politics, it’s your dignity that’s at risk, something held more dearly by most folks (especially men) than most anything else. The funniest jokes are always those in which the protagonist slips on a banana peel, busts his butt and loses his dignity. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton got rich losing their dignity on film and both have their counterparts in modern movies. Real life’s different. In real life you enter the world naked and leave it naked. In the interval between most folks try to preserve their dignity at all costs. Given the risk to personal dignity, the practice of presidential prognostication is an endeavor that’s inherently arrogant. And it takes an arrogant man indeed to bet his dignity on a fifty/fifty proposition.

But we all do it. I’m a one-eyed old man with a wooden leg, a pacemaker and practically no dignity left at all (said loss all my personal fault) …  but I’ll bet what little dignity I have left on the turn of the next election. And so will most readers.
If you’re thinking of going out on the limb in the office or workplace on behalf of one or the other of the different presidential pretenders, willingly accepting that you are apt to be the subject of widespread office derision if you’re wrong, it helps to have a good set of standards against which to judge the risks to your dignity. For that reason, I long ago devised the kindly old doctor’s nine rules of political prognostication, which I resurrect (with appropriate updates) for the use of Patriot readers during the campaign that’s already droned on for way too long.

Rule 1: Remember that Webster, in his definition of politics, did not draw distinctions between democratic politics and republican politics. Politics is politics, period. The rule applies to politicians, as well. “One thing we’ve been consistent about regarding politicians, is that they are more alike than not. They are, in fact, so much alike that almost anything you can say of one, can accurately be said of almost any other. Politicians are more alike than Baptists, Catholics, Jews, or any other religious aggregation. So it should be no surprise both parties scramble for the constitutional high ground and both parties kiss the collective posteriors of the religious right.” From “Impeaching The Constitution,” in October, ’98’s Gridlock & Load (now on hiatus).

Rule 2: The Wise Old Doctor’s Short Course In Politics” — PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING.  “Though it’s sometimes difficult to understand, different folks can and do look at the same set of facts and arrive at completely different conclusions. That’s the essence of politics. The art of politics is knowing how to adjust and refine your position on any given issue to appeal to the widest possible audience. The hell of politics, for most of us, is that we don’t understand or practice the art of politics, leaving us at the mercy of those who do.” From “The Essence, The Art and The Hell of Politics,” in February, ’98’s issue.

Rule 3: “Don’t Ignore The People,” which will go down in history as The Republican’s Great Mistake of ‘98: “For politicians, the hell of politics lies in its essence. Whereas the scientist knows that certain elements, when mixed in certain ratios with other elements, will always result in a predictable reaction, the politician can never be entirely sure how any one voter, or group of voters, will react to any given issue, or comment. For that reason, politicians are very reluctant to introduce a new issue and are very careful about what they say and don’t say regarding current issues.” From “The Essence, The Art and The Hell of Politics.”

Rule 4: “Don’t Fool Yourself.” That’s the politician’s job, and all of them are trying their level best to do it. Logic should tell even the most dim-witted among us that if you don’t trust all your family, friends and neighbors, that it’s the height of folly to trust some stranger in Washington you’re never met, especially a stranger who’s trying to sell you a bill of goods, regardless of party. Read and listen with discrimination. Find the facts.

Rule 5: Be cool and dispassionate. Politics is a pragmatic business. If you have an overwhelming passion for one side of a political question, factor that into your analysis. The more you believe, the heavier you should weigh the other side. Remember that political graveyards are full of politicians and pundits who met their demise absolutely convinced that the public would back them. The trick to politics is not so much in leading the public, as republicans seem to believe, but rather in reflecting the public.

Rule 6: If you want to know what the majority think, don’t hang out with the minority. If you’re traveling in circles where everyone says, “Amen,” don’t be taken in by the enthusiasm. You’re probably just preaching to the choir.

Rule 7: Frank Zappa’s General Rule of All Purpose Perspective: “Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” So it is with politics.

Rule 8: When everyone you know says you’ve misunderstood the problem, pay attention. You could be getting something wrong!

Rule 9: “Mankind are very odd creatures: One half censure what they practice, the other half practice what they censure; the rest always say and do as they ought.” Poor Richard

In one of the paragraphs above, I believe I promised another of my amazingly prescient presidential political prognostications. Here’s a prediction and a couple of bets:

I predict that the next President of The United States will not be a republican. I’ll give two to one odds that he or she will not be a democrat. And I’ll likewise give two to one odds that the next president will be someone who is not currently in the contest.

Before the end of March, the current bunch will have shredded one another into mere shadows of their former selves and new candidates will emerge, sane men who realized that it was madness to squander millions of dollars so far in advance of the decision point.

One such man is Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City. Much has been made of his potential candidacy, with an extensive spread in Newsweek (11 pages),  a long article on ABC and the formation of a “draft Bloomberg” web site. Bloomberg possesses a number of attributes that would be valuable in the office of chief executive of the United States. He’s a very rich man, with a fortune some say approaches or exceeds fifteen billion dollars, all of which he apparently made honestly (if it is otherwise, we will hear of it within moments of his announcement, if it comes). His political experience includes stints as a democrat, a republican and an independent. Some would say that smacks of “flip flopping,” but I’d point out it’s also evidence of a strong streak of pragmatism, another good quality for a president. Will he run? I believe that he will, for just the reasons mentioned in the Newsweek article. He sees himself not as a knight in shining armor on a quest to slay the dragon of corrupt politics, but rather as the modern day personification of his childhood hero, Johnny Tremain, intent on saving the nation. And just day before yesterday, it was reported that he visited Texan Clay Mulford, the political guru who managed the campaigns of Ross Perot, the last billionaire to run for the nation’s highest office.

Will there be someone else? Surely there will be. Every republican left standing stated plainly in the first GOP debates that they reject the theory of evolution, an idea that most Americans, including a large percentage of Christian voters, consider nothing short of  scientific apostasy. Of the three leading GOP contenders, Huckabee, a natural for the evangelical vote, faces criticism from the conservative side of the GOP aisle for his past dabbling in old fashioned social liberalism as governor of Arkansas. John McCain, whose heroism was first savaged by the far right in the 2000 elections, has embraced the albatross of the Iraq war and is once again under attack by those who consider his actions in a North Vietnamese prison to have somehow been dishonorable. Caught between the pincers of Iraq and attacks on his Vietnam service, it seems hard to believe that he will survive the final cut.  Rudy Guliani carries too much baggage from New York, his abortion politics and his personal domestic life to carry the votes he needs. Mitt Romney, another flip flopper cum pragmatist, despite his money and determination to spend it, is a Mormon, a subject upon which he cannot flip flop and about which pragmatism says that Americans simply are not going to elect a Latter Day Saint. That leaves Ron Paul, a nominal republican who is a libertarian at heart. He’s a personal favorite of mine because he comes closest to the kind of candidate the founders might have preferred. But despite his grass roots support, he has virtually no chance. He’s been ganged at every GOP debate, both by the other candidates and the moderators and especially by party insiders. With that kind of field, opportunity knocks. Someplace out there is a rich republican, a life long evangelical who’s been married to the same woman, who doesn’t drink, smoke or swear and otherwise epitomizes the perfect being that one must apparently be to win in the GOP. I expect that person will be announced by Dr. Dobson or one of his proxies and that it will happen very soon.

And what about the democrats? If ever there’s been an election in which a yellow dog could actually win, it’s this one. I won’t tell you what the polls say. You already know that. Americans in their majority are not satisfied with Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy and a variety of other things which they lay at the feet of the GOP. There should be no way that democrats can lose. Maybe that’s what they had in mind when they winnowed their candidates down to three (Kucinich was “winnowed” by MSNBC). Of those, one is not only a woman, but perhaps the most hated woman in America, at least from the GOP side of the house. The other is a very bright, well educated black man who is further handicapped by his name, Barrack Obama. And the third is John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate in the last election, a man handicapped by both his looks and his agenda, which sometimes sounds like Kucinich light. Kucinich is also betrayed by his looks (despite his stunning wife). A small man with a big mouth and big ideas, Kucinich proposes things which are unattainable in this political age. Unfortunately, like Dr. Paul, Kucinich is philosophically too far to the extreme end of his party and has no chance. So if not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards, then who? That’s a big question, and some of those available have already declared support for one or the other of the present bunch of democrats.

Of course there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong. How do I handle that, and how should you handle it should your rash predictions fail to materialize? Well, I have experience at being wrong and my usual tactic is to deny that I ever said it, since I know that most folks won’t look it up. For those who do look it up, I usually say that I must have been out of my mind at the moment. Maybe you should try that one first. I’ve never had anyone disagree

Please feel free to add your comments.

Yesterday, the 16th of December, what they were not talking about was the Iraq war. In fact, on most days, in most newspapers, precious little is being printed regarding the Iraq war. And when something is printed, more often than not it’s buried on the inside pages.

By circulation, the biggest newspaper in the United States is “USA Today.” The only mention of the war yesterday was a small head reading ”Bush to Congress: Troops need money, not just pledges.” Another small head concerned increased Iraqi oil output.

The Wall Street Journal, the nation’s second largest newspaper, is a subscription only website, and so I have no idea what was on their front page (but would place a blind bet of a dollar to a doughnut that they had nothing to say about the war either). It will be interesting, in future weeks, to see if Rupert Murdoch lives up to his pledge to open up the site to advertising based online free access.

The NY Times, widely known as the “Newspaper of record” of the U.S. (despite their claims to the contrary) is the nation’s third largest newspaper by circulation. Let the record show that yesterday they had nothing to say about Iraq worth putting on their front page.

The LA Times, fourth in size, the Chicago Tribune, fifth in size, the Washington Post, sixth in size, the NY Daily News, seventh, the NY Post, eighth, The Denver Post, ninth, and finally the Dallas Morning News, had nothing to say about our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, on 15 December, the Department of Defense confirmed the deaths of Private Daren A. Smith, 19, of Helena, Montana on 13 December in Baghdad, and Sergeant First Class Jonathan A. Lowery, of Houlton, Maine, who died on December 14th, of wounds suffered in Mosul.

Much has been made of the apparent fact that the anti-war movement in today’s America is largely impotent insofar as influencing the administration’s war policy is concerned. One of the reasons is that newspapers and television carry nowhere near the volumn of war news carried by newspapers and television during the period of the Vietnam war. We do not see the carnage on the evening news, or in our newspapers. And that’s a net loss for everyone. A nation at war needs to be reminded, daily, of the cost of war, especially the cost in blood.

It’s the same on the major opinion magazines on TV … Only two, Keith Olberman and George Stephanopoulis, regularly recognize the sacrifice of the soldiers who die each week. In a nation where the “support our troops” ribbons are ubiquitous on cars, trucks and bikes, most of the citizens aren’t really all that interested in what our guys are doing, and how they’re dying, in Iraq.

Nor have we heard much in the “debates” among the presidential contenders of both parties. That much at least is easy to understand. Most of them (the contenders at least) have dirty hands on the war.

And as far as The President is concerned, judging from his most recent remarks, there might as well be no war in Iraq (but may be a new one in Iran, despite the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

As the Vietnam war dragged on month after weary month, and more and more GIs died, news coverage in the US increased and the demands for peace became stronger. That in itself generated more and more news. By comparison, the Iraq experience has shown just the opposite. Since Saddam was done in by the Iraqis (with plentiful assistance from the administration), the war has receded week by week into the inner folds of the newspapers and seldom deserves a mention on TV.

It is as though there is some kind of tacit agreement amongst the news media that other things are more important (and insofar as their bottom line is concerned, other things may well be more important), like Britney Spears underwear (or lack thereof), or, God Forbid, Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends on “The Girls Next Door.”

And now, of course, we are entering “the holiday season,” when TV will be running all the traditional shows, from several versions of “A Christmas Carol” to “Miracle on 34th Street.” Strange that Scrooge and Santa Claus trump news of the deadly struggle in which so many of our young men and women are involved every day, on behalf, mostly, of the president and politicians who set this deadly target practice in motion by unnecessarily interfering in the affairs of a country posing no threat to America or to our interests in the area (those interests having been permanently secured by Gulf War I and the virtually complete destruction of Saddam’s army, as well as the partition of the country into three parts, two of which were effectively beyond his control).

None of this is an accident on the part of the media, or the politicians. My right wing friends will not like this, and will disavow it, but the plain simple fact regarding newspapers is that they are supported mostly by advertising rather than circulation. They therefore have a very tenuous relationship with their advertisers, peace with whom is a higher priority than just the news. In a world where push polls by the media themselves ask the reader to rate the “entertainment” value of various news programs and commentators, it seems clear to me that at least some of those advertisers are making their weight felt in the newsroom.

In the old days, television, at least, was different. The news budgets for the traditional networks were considerably less than now, and news shows were not expected to be big money earners. The competition between the networks was on the basis of quality and credibility. Now, of course, those same networks’ news shows are expected to produce revenue toward the bottom line. A lot of that has to do with the shelving of the Fairness Doctrine, which I think has worked to the net loss of the American people at large.

Now, none of this has anything whatsoever to do with ignorance on the part of newspaper editors, television news producers or The President and other politicians as to what most Americans want. They know that, down to the minutest detail. This is the most polled country in the world and Americans’ opinions on virtually every question are well known, and, well, … ignored.

A CBS News/New York Times Poll of Dec. 5-9, 2007, shows that those polled considered Iraq the most important question facing the country. (See polling point.com for all the polls). A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll of November 30 to December 3rd, 2007, did the same. The difference in percentages among the different polls is negligible. Health care and the economy are next in most polls. Not a single poll mentioned morals or family values as a top consideration.

Yet, on the republican side, especially, and increasingly among democrats, those are the issues most often mentioned by the presidential aspirants of both parties. I guess it’s safer, politically, to be against gay marriage or stem cell research than to  be against putting our troops in harm’s way for no good reason.

Most Americans understand the word “democracy” to mean that the majority rules, though that’s not really what the dictionary says. The dictionary defines democracy as a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and implemented by their elected representatives in fair and open elections. Nevertheless, most politicians feel no obligation to vote as the majority of their constituents would have them do. On those occasions (many) when their personal ambition or opinion is at odds with their constituents, they fall back upon their honorable obligation to “do what’s best for the people,” who are always, on those occasions, “not sufficiently informed as to make the proper decision” (Read, “The President or politician”) has access to information not known to the public). In fact, most politicians, of both parties, act as though doing the public’s will is somehow offensive to the republic. The logic of that proposition is hard to discern.

Robert E. Lee, surveying the carnage against the Federal Forces wrought by his artillery and intrenched infantry on Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg, said, “It is well that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it.” I fear that America’s leaders, especially in the administration, have come to love war too well by far and wonder how this came to pass. I suspect that it is because too few Americans have any direct involvement with the war, too few have sons or daughters in harm’s way, and too few politicians, by far, have sufficient conscience to reverse, for moral reasons, a decision that was, on both the right and left sides of Congress, purely a political equation and one brought to fruition by outright fraud and deception by The President and his administration with the complicity of congressmen and senators on both sides of the aisle.

We no longer have a democracy in America. For those who quibble, we don’t really even have a republic. We have a country in which the will of the people has been measured, published and is well known to pretty much everyone, including politicians and presidential candidates. The talk in the barbershop and around the water cooler is not about gay marriage, it is not about abortion and it is not about religion. In real life people don’t try to impose their personal religion or morality upon their peers, and they certainly don’t expose those beliefs to a test of popularity in the workplace. Face to face, conversation with strangers and workmates seldom touches on anything beyond the inoffensive mundane. That’s how polite society gets on with life (and it’s how I always thought America worked).

The polls, like them or hate them, are in remarkable agreement regarding the political priorities of the majority of Americans. Everyone knows what it is that Americans want. And yet none of those who could actually give Americans and the world the gift of peace in Iraq and the world are willing to even talk about it, let along bring it to pass. The very folks who have it within their grasp to solve the health care crisis, to address the dearth of good jobs in this country, to find a humane answer to the immigration question, all top priorities with most Americans, simply will not listen to the voice of America in her majority and are uniformly unwilling to discuss anything beyond the most divisive of issues, which are in most cases of little interest to the majority of voters.

Those conditions don’t describe a democracy, or a republic. They are more common to banana republic dictators and their rubber stamp legislatures. In politics, at least, we are increasingly a third world country.

America is desperately in need of competent and able leadership, a president whose sentiments are with the middle of America, a president who will implement the priorities of the majority, while protecting the prerogatives of the minority. Above all we need a president who recognizes that his first priority as president should be protecting the freedoms and democracy of his own people, rather than trying to force those values upon an increasingly unwilling world.

Feel free to comment on this article (no registration required and your email address is not posted) of if you wish to discuss it in good company, feel free to join the gang at Faded Glory, our associated political forum.

Convenience, Customer Service and Protective Packaging, or”Those were the good old days”

Among other things, the dictionary tells us that “conveniences” are things that are “easy to obtain, use, or reach.”

Fast food joints are “convenient.” In fact you’ll find them in every town and hamlet, and at virtually every intersection on every interstate highway in the land, most of them with drive-through windows. Nothing is easier to “reach” than Ronald McDonald or “The King,” and given a five dollar bill, nothing is easier to obtain than a Big Mac. Or is it? A significant percentage of the time what you wanted, and ordered, is not what you find in your bag. And I can personally assure you that the consequences of a long term diet of “convenience” foods, including medical treatment for strokes and heart disease, are in fact very inconvenient.

What about “convenience” stores? Here in Indiana Village Pantries are everywhere, along with Rickers. Your area may instead have Seven Elevens, Cracker Barrels or one of the thousands of other brands found all across the country. But does “ubiquitous” translate into convenience? I think not, especially when price is factored in. The more expensive an item, the less “easy to obtain.”

I expect most folks would agree that the cell phone is foremost among today’s convenience appliances. I’d argue that most folks haven’t thought it out very well. What’s “convenient” about a device that empowers those who’d gleefully disturb the peaceful ruminations of an old man who wants nothing more devoutly than to be left alone? And what’s “convenient” about a device with buttons so small they can’t be pushed without the aid of a pencil, and a screen that’s so small old folks need to find their reading glasses before making a call?

Who’s Fooling Whom?

The fact is that corporate America’s been fooling most of America for too many years, perhaps because it’s pretty “inconvenient” to dig for the truth of their various marketing claims.

Remember the early years of Walmart? Their motto was “Always the Lowest Price. Always.” That’s no longer their motto. Now it’s “Everyday low prices-Always.” You can thank the National Advertising Review Board for that. They investigated the claim and found that it’s simply not true. But Walmart’s done a pretty good job of convincing a huge percentage of Americans that it is.

They’ve also done a pretty good job of convincing folks that they are convenient. But are they? Here in Middletown, U.S.A., we have two, one on the north side and one on the south side. Both are located in high traffic areas, both have acres of parking and both take up acres of space for the store itself. For folks my age and for folks who are “mobility challenged,” walking a half mile loop from the parking lot, through the store and back to the car is hardly convenient. (In the interest of full disclosure, my only trip to Walmart occurred at two in the morning, when my VCR crapped out in the middle of a very good movie). On that trip I discovered something others my age might find useful … these folks are so anxious to make the sale that they’ll bring merchandise to the service desk for your inspection and comparison.

Anxious as retailers are to fool us on convenience and price, most of the deception is of the “self” sort.

The best example is product packaging. Because of the Tylenol scare of many years ago, we now have super packaging, packaging that requires tools to reach the products we’ve purchased, or ingenuity and dexterity that’s beyond the reach of the aged and infirm. I’m reminded of the old gentleman who was found dead behind his mule, clutching a bottle of nitroglycerine in a child proof package that he was unable to open.

That single incident (the Tylenol scare) may have been the genesis of the worst corporate sin ever visited upon a thirsty America … the advent of canned beer and soda. The cans, of course, ensure the purity of the product and served as a fine marketing excuse for cans over bottles … taste be damned. In fact, the can allowed “bottleing” companies to do away with the bottle washing operation completely. None of this has been very “convenient” for beer or soda drinkers.

I’m holding in my hand one of the most useful products yet invented for the computer age. It’s called a Sony Microvault. It’s a USB flash drive about an inch wide and three or four inches long and holds up to eight gigs of data. It came in a hardened plastic package about four inches wide by six inches long. To open the package I had to dig through the garage until I found a pair of tin snips. I’d be willing to bet big bucks that in more than one home in America there’s a package bought months ago and still unopened. Convenient? Certainly not!

I’m not picking on Sony. These days virtually every small product of any value whatsoever is likewise packaged in materials that are virtually indestructible. In many cases (the Sony Microvault for instance) the packaging is both bigger and heavier than the product itself. I’d guess that a bushel basket would hold a couple of thousand Microvaults. But the packaged product is a different story. A couple of thousand, with packaging, would probably fill a pretty big part of a semi-trailer, and a pretty big hole in your local landfill. Convenient? No. Costly? Yes.

The questions of packaging and central production, though, have ramifications more serious than the inconvenience of using small hand tools to obtain your merchandise. President Bush and VP Cheney, in their seemingly never ending and ever growing fear of Nukes and Germs,have overlooked what would probably be the easiest and most effective weapon of terror … packaged foods.

When was the last time you had a really good sausage? If you’re younger, it’s likely that you have no sound basis for comparison, having grown up with the homogenous mixes of finely minced meats, institutionally seasoned, that comprise the commercial sausage market of today. Smoked sausage, keilbasa, bratwurst … all have the same homogenous texture and are so lightly seasoned as to be almost tasteless. I can’t prove it but it’s my guess that lots of companies buy unseasoned sausage mixes and after adding seasonings sell it under different types and brands. I’m told that it’s still possible, in Chicago and New York, to buy old fashioned kielbasa, but I couldn’t prove that by personal experience. My last Polish sausage in Chicago was bought between the bus station and O’Hare, and it sucked. To be fair, maybe it’s still possible to obtain a decent sausage, somewhere in the U.S.A., but I doubt it’s possible to find one as good as those served in the forties and fifties. And that’s really inconvenient.

Hamburger in particular is packaged in wholesale lots in central locations and shipped nationwide. Just a few weeks ago we had the spectacle of Topps Meat Company recalling 21.7 MILLION pounds of packaged ground beef suspected of E.Coli (read fecal) contamination. Cargill also had a recall because of E.Coli. In fact, food recalls have become rather common, with hardly a month passing without some packaged food product being recalled because of contamination. Replace the E.Coli bacteria with something more potent and thousands could die.

So what do you do if you suspect you’ve purchased contaminated meat from your local supermarket? Like everything else in today’s world of convenience, you simply pick up your phone and call the 1-800 number on the package. That will connect you to a service representative located somewhere in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, a man or woman who probably speaks better English than either of us, but who does so with an accent almost impossible to decipher. After working his way through his checklist, you’ll be told that the food may be returned for a full refund. That’s customer service in 21st century America.

While I’m on the subject of foods, let’s consider the myriad ways in which the retail food industry’s quest for market share screws the consumer, especially the older consumer. A lot of major brands are guilty. Kraft, original makers of the main staple of the working man’s table, Macaroni and Cheese (a pale reflecion of the original product), now makes a variety of takeoffs on the original product, so many that the original can be hard to find. Campbell’s soup company, who surely sells more soup than anyone on the planet, now makes so many different kinds of soup that weak eyes can find it difficult to locate what they’re looking for. My favorite, Pepper Pot, hasn’t been available for years and the old standby, Mushroom, now comes in so many varieties that the original can be hard to find. Even Ritz Crackers have been diluted … Vegetable Ritz, low sodium Ritz, low fat Ritz … everything but the old standby. Or perhaps I couldn’t see the Ritz because of the other Ritz.

If you live long enough, you’ll recognize the truth in the old saying that “life is on a wheel.” Indiana had one of the earliest and most successful light rail systems in the U.S. during the period from around 1900 to the mid-thirties. Now there’s talk of a new system. Likewise bottles are becoming more ubiquitous once again. And Microbreweries are not only using bottles, they’re also restoring to a large degree the brewing diversity that marked America’s early cities. And cell phones? There’s finally a new company that offers a larger phone, with larger screen and buttons and a simplified menu that provides only the really convenient stuff such as your personal phone directory.

All of this is, of course, a rehash of the sentiment about “the good old days.” But I’m not yet senile enough to believe that everything was good about the old days. My ancient Buick’s got nearly a hundred thirty thousand miles on it, with no major repairs. My son, who commutes, has a two year old Impala with even more miles. As much as I liked my old 52 Ford, the fact is that it (and most other cars of the day) was done after a lot less than a hundred thousand miles.

Nevertheless, “the good old days” had a lot to recommend them. If you were in your car, on duty or off, you were unreachable by phone. If you were enjoying the cool breeze of a summer evening under the old oak tree, no one other than your family was likely to disturb your reverie.

I hope I survive to see a few more turns of the wheel. I’d like nothing more than a short walk to the corner grocery to buy a fresh cut steak, wrapped in easily opened (and disposed of) Kraft paper and closed with paper tape, eaten in company with my grandchildren in front of a television not clouded with the threat of imminent visual assault by every imaginable permutation of T&A and language poisonous enough to shame a sailor. The convenience of that can only be imagined.

I heard that advice repeatedly while I was growing up, from both my father and my mother. I heard it before my first date, before my first job interview and sometimes when we arrived at the homes of relatives and friends. It’s probably the best advice one can get concerning how to get along in society at large. But it’s damnably hard to follow.

That’s because, in politics and religion, “Perspective is everything.”

That’s been the main mantra of this website since its beginning in April, 1996. It sounds simple, but it is not. It’s more than just the notion that we should “walk a mile” in the shoes of someone we’re trying to understand, or that we should examine our politics from the viewpoint of the other party. It is first an acknowledgement that all questions, particularly political and religious questions, involve nuance the significance of which can only be divined by study, and second, a reminder that however strongly held your convictions in one direction they are opposed by convictions just as strongly held by folks of the opposite persuasion.

In the January, 1998 issue of The Patriot, I said:

“Though it’s sometimes difficult to understand, different folks can and do look at the same set of facts and arrive at completely different conclusions. That’s the essence of politics.” It might be fairly added that it’s also the essence of religion.

I also noted that, “The art of politics is knowing how to adjust and refine your position on any given issue to appeal to the widest possible audience. The hell of politics, for most of us, is that we don’t understand or practice the art of politics, leaving us at the mercy of those who do.”

“Those who do”at the moment are involved in the earliest presidential campaign in our history and each of them are doing their level best to “refine their positions” to “appeal to the widest possible audience.” The winner will be the party best able to do that. In the end, though, the biggest percentage of voters won by each party will consist of their own base of party faithful, folks who see things from only one perspective, that of their particular party.

In America, in most elections, that “particular party” is either democratic or republican. Third parties seldom do well enough to challenge the status quo liberal/conservative balance. Somehow, implausible as the idea sounds, every four years the two parties spread their big tents to include a virtual managerie of groups, causes and issues, many of which are anathema to members of their own parties. Nobody gets everything they want and many get none of what they want, witness the evangelical political community, whose members continue to vote republican, though the party has done nothing whatever to legislate or amend against abortion, gay marriage or the “homosexual agenda.” Dr. Dobson aside, when he (and others) steered the flock into the GOP, he simultaneously triggered their herding instincts and provided them with an outlet for the pent up angst of those who perceive themselves as under attack. Even those who get little, or nothing, from their party platform, once having self identified as republican, or democrat, will do little to resist the freedom to hate their political opposites and to toast the party with many with whom they have little in common. While Dr. Dobson may indeed pull off a third party run by some ambitious and incautious soul, most of his flock will continue to vote with the GOP, despite his recommendations. Politics, I believe, is stronger than religion (a proposition I’ll address in the wake of the primaries, which, I susect, may not produce our next president).

Ambrose Bierce, in his “Devil’s Dictionary,” said that politics is “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” That’s a pretty good definition, and a pretty good perspective from which to approach the general discussion of politics and parties.

Mark Twain, in “The Character of Man,” his autobiography, said:

“Look at the tyranny of party–at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty–a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes–and which turns voters into chattles, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves, are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion and freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master.”

Both Bierce and Twain have it right. Unless you’re a member of the very elite group of folks who have the ear of republican politicians, or democratic politicians, the only influence you have over your party, and the only interest you share, is your vote … and that influence only becomes manifest in the aftermath of elections insuring that half the country will be dissatisfied with the results.

There was a time in our national history, not that long ago, when both politicians and voters, aware of the divisive power of religion, avoided the subject insofar as possible within the context of political campaigns. It (religion) played a small role in the campaign of Al Smith, in 1928, but that role had more to do with attracting Catholic ethnic voters who’d previously not participated in the process than with the inexplicable doctrine of Catholicism. It should also be noted that at the time of the Smith campaign, the KKK was rampant throughout the country and that Catholics, more so than Blacks or Jews of the time, were the main targets of the organized Klan. JFK, by contrast, ran at a time when the Klan (and a large portion of the electorate) was reverting to their post civil war concentration on the harrassment of our black brethren and Nixon and the GOP were reemphasizing their “southern strategy,” the gist of which had little to do with religion, which is at the core of the campaign currently underway.

In today’s campaign, candidates both left and right do not talk in terms of Franklin’s “public religion,” the traditional vernacular of politics. The “Creator” and the “laws of nature and of Nature’s God” of the Declaration of Independence are not the Creator and laws of the religious right in the GOP, or indeed of the majority of religious Americans, for that God was singularly without denomination and, like today, a significant percentage of Americans were either without religion or indifferent as to the denomination. In fact, by denomination, today’s religious America bears little semblance to the America of the founders.

In the America of 1776, Congregationalists were in the majority, with a little over twenty percent of churchgoers of the day. Next were Presbyterians, at about nineteen percent, Baptists at almost seventeen percent, Episcopalians at a little less than sixteen percent, Methodists at about two and a half percent and Catholics at less than two percent.*

Today’s situation is reflected in a recent Pew Poll showing that eighty two percent of Americans self identify as Christians. Of that group, 52 percent self identified as Protestant  and twenty four percent as Catholic. Only two percent were Mormon.

It’s that “Protestant” appellation that dirties the waters of contemporaneous religious comparison. In 1776 only two percent of Americans were Catholic. Today it’s better than twenty-four percent while Congregationalists hardly exist at less than one percent and Presbyterians fare hardly better at just 2.7 percent. Surprisingly, the number of Baptists has remained relatively the same, falling just a point or two.

It’s different today in terms of political clout, with Baptists and other evangelicals wielding influence way beyond the approximately 22 percent of the population they represent. Catholics, at 24.5 percent outnumber the evangelicals by themselves. With the addition of Methodists/Wesleyans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans and Jews, the most mainstream of religions, that plurality rises to 41.6 percent. One wonders at the relative quietude of the religious majority in the face of the pushy angst of today’s minority Evangelical community and their insistance on the “my way or the highway” approach to both politics and religion.

Now, if any of this, in the eyes of the reader, is construed as an attack on religion, let me disavow that notion. I fully subscribe to the sentiments of Mark Twain, who said in his biography that: “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. I would not interfere with any one’s religion, either to strengthen it or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one’s religion can affect his hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be. But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life–hence it is a valuable possession to him.”

That said, I also subscribe to another perspective of Twain’s, namely that, “In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”

“It’s in the book.” That refrain, or one very much like it, is at the guts of every religious argument. “The Bible says,” “The Koran says,” and “The Torah says,” are often the words chosen to declare moral and pious victory in religious discussions all over the world. Christians, Jews and Muslims devoutly study their particular “good book” with all the zeal only true believers possess, and in so doing acquire or reinforce the bias and misconception peculiar to their particular religion, and know with complete certitude that they are going to heaven while their infidel neighbor is going to burn in hell. And all the while most of them know precious little about the Holy Books themselves.

I know from personal experience, and from personal observation, that America holds many, many lay people who are diligent about reading their Bibles, Torahs and Korans. Indeed, many can quote scripture the way Burton quoted Shakespeare. Likewise, I know from personal experience that when the discussion turns to the Holy Book itself, laymen are far less sure of their facts. Even in the case of preachers, both professionals (seminarians) and lay preachers (way too many for a supposedly educated American congregation), that’s often the case. We are, all of us, Christian, Jew and Muslim, lay people and preachers, doing exactly as Twain described, getting our religion at second hand, from a book about which we know less than we know about brain surgery. It might be time to reexamine the books themselves, and learn a bit more about how they came to be, and at whose hands.

We are living in a time of religious war, not just in this country but around the world. The high rhetoric employed by America in justification of the Iraq war notwithstanding, if Iraqis and other mideastern Muslims believe they are fighting for their religion, it’s a religious war. And here at home, we’re waging a likewise religious war in the current overlong presidential campaign. It’s not just the GOP who are embarrassing themselves by unanimity on the question of intelligent design, demanding equity alongside science in our classrooms. Democrats are pandering even more feverishly in their effort to claim their share of the born again vote. Dennis Kucinich may have seen a UFO, but apparently, for the first time since Jimmy Carter, the democrats have seen Jesus Christ. Nothing like a losing political hand to bring that about and nothing better to illustrate the common law marriage of American religion and American politics. In that sense, we have become a third world nation.

Even in the political depths that surrounded him in the months leading up to his second term campaign, Abe Lincoln said that he relied upon the ultimate wisdom of the people. I’ve subscribed to that notion more than once over the years, but recently I have come to question his idea that “the people” are possessed of a collective wisdom that always leads to the right decision. In fact, I’ve come to suspect that Mencken had it right: “All professional philosophers tend to assume that common sense means the mental habit of the common man. Nothing could be further from the mark. The common man is chiefly to be distinguished by his plentiful lack of common sense: he believes things on evidence that is too scanty, or that distorts the plain facts, or that is full of non sequiturs. Common sense really involves making full use of all the demonstrable evidence—and of nothing but the demonstrable evidence.”

But perhaps I’m wrong about the people. It does seem that Americans always move at the half step, as though fearful of where the next full step will lead. After all, we’ve come full circle on Iraq, from unreasoning euphoria at the success of our troops to a more or less universal dissatisfaction with the status quo. Change is coming and it’s coming because Americans in their majority want it so. Perhaps the current presidential campaign will inspire, by its universal exposure of religious influence on worldly propositions, a universal rejection of the politics of religion and a return to the politics of good old American pragmatism.

Let the reader beware the notion that I am a great fan of Bierce, Twain or Mencken. Though each of these men are celebrated in American literature, their contemporaneous reputations were not without slur, each of them having been variously described as racists, scoundrels, anti-religion and worse. On the other hand each of them were serious thinkers and each of them, in his own way, enriched American life, philosophy and literature. The words they wrote, and the quotations I’ve used, each speak in a unique way to Lincoln’s notion of the collective wisdom of “the people.”

Allow me to let Mencken have the last word. Though I don’t subscribe to his every word, nevertheless he had a pretty good grasp of religion and politics and their proper relationship to the philosophy of American freedom:

“I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

“I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

“I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.

“I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

“I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech.

“I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

“I believe in the reality of progress.

“I…But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Please feel free to add your comments to this article or to discuss it at Faded Glory, our associated political forum.

*On attributions generally: Whenever I use materials not mine I always endeavor to give their owner proper attribution. These particular figures, however, are transcribed from personal notes made on another occasion and were without attribution in my notes. I believe, however, that they are as accurate as any others readily available. Because statistics of this kind tend to vary according to the religious bias of the transcriber, readers may feel free to refine them in accordance with their own sources. For purposes of this article the absolute accuracy of the numbers is not paramount.