the tribe has spoken


Today another 4 soldiers were killed in Iraq. That statistic falls on our ears like the adjusted rate of inflation, or housing starts, or the cost of living, or the median price of a single family home. Numbers, not unlike voters, are suprememly malleable, elastic, manipulated. The numbers of wounded soldiers in Iraq and other places we simply do not want to know: what the blind man cannot see and the deaf man cannot hear does not exist in the mind of the typical voter. The mantra of the new millennium is "what we do not know cannot harm us" and if there is anxiety, fear, concern, we are told to repeat until feelings of relative normalcy return.

Just as this prescription began to lose its efficacy the terror alert status leapt to fiery orange; after a few months of intermittent hot-to-less-hot readiness, this too began to wane. But salvation, in the form of Mother Nature arrived and the ruling classes began beating the drums of economic disaster - bluish-red hurricane surviving Gulf coasters pitted against red brush fired midwesterners against blue mudsliding West Coasters. 'There cannot possibly be enough to go around in the face of so many catastrophic events' they say, wringing their hands. 'We have to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, tighten the belt, help one another out.'

That our belts have been retrofitted with the awl of recession for at least three consecutive decades is of no concern to the autocrats. That the "greatest generation" is the wealthiest for the first time in the history of this country is of no consequence, and at the direct expense of their own children and grandchildren is unimportant. The electorate now firmly buys the pap that Congress has been peddling since Ronald Reagan decided to trickle down on the rest of us: "I got mine, honey -- you go find a way and get your own!"

A generation of families with no living wage has begun to take its toll - more diabetes, more obesity, more stress related illnesses, more suicide among young people, the statistics go on and on, and if you are a normal American you have stopped reading this somewhere in the second paragraph. The rest of you may or may not decide to stick with me.

Joe Six-Pack is now faced with a peculiar dillemma: open said eyes (not to mention mind), take the cotton out of his collective ears and pay attention to what is happening in our country. Surrepticious wiretapping of US citizens has been de riguer since the fall of 2001. The president has declared war without declaring war and claims all of the priviledges while accepting none of the responsibilities. Our Vice President moonlights for Halliburton and gets yearly bonuses and the IRS and Congress find nothing unusual about this particularly odious form of war profiteering. Corporations default on pension funds while giving executives record salaries and bonuses. The standard of living for the average American household is a fraction of what it was a mere 40 years ago. Why are none of these things cause for outrage?

It is a foregone conclusion that most of the red states and a fair amount of the blue states support the war in Iraq based soley on the NIMBY proposition (not In My Back Yard) that iot is better to have a relative and or friend die at the hands of a growing number of terrorists than live with the uncertainty that a much smaller body of terrorists may succeed again in harming a fraction of the US public, on American soil. If you attempt to apply reason to this anxiety about hijacked planes or trains or buses and remind fellow citizens that many many more die as a result of gunshot wounds, for example, or traffic accidents, they refuse to deal with the threat from a small band of ideaologues rationally.

This peculiar brand of groupthink extends back to the panthesim of our past, when sacrifices to elemental beings could assuage the bloodthirst 0f men. Tribal sacrifice is considered a barbaric custom that lives in the remote outbacks and savannahs of our planet where civilised men have not yet extended the much vaunted capitalistic model. And yet people who could and should know better agree with the dim witted idea that "better to bring the battle to the enemy rather than sacrifice civillians." That our troops are young and idealistic if not technically virginal and thrown into a savage desert rather than a fiery volcano -- these facts do not change the basic template of the age old model at all.

That our brave soldiers remain very much part of the fabric of American life, and despite the fact that the deaths, maimings and traumas to each of them rip holes in the fabric of our communities, our United Sates and our President continue to insist that we are safer for invading a sovereign nation under false pretenses. We are shown mass graves where thousands were butchered - and those who care enough to remain informed knew of these things at least a decade ago; we are cautioned that the old Iraqi government was corrupt - a laughable justification for war, as our own Congress is rife with scandal andf abuse. Worst of all, the idea that the government of Iraqw so corrupt, the treatment of Iraqis so abhorrent it had to stop is an insult to the victims of genocide in Rwanda, Darfur and other nations, an insult to the countries who have entered into treaties with the US only to have the current administration declare them void, a slap to the abject poor within our own country with no running water, no shelter and no food - many of them vctims of natural disaster, far too many more permanent underclasses.

The legacy of the last thirty some years of GOP rule has been the elimination of our civilization and an embrace of a draconian contest among the populace. Where once a person born with a profound handicap was considered a ward of the public and provided with the means for a dignified life, now the mentally ill and the indigent are literally thrown to the gutters and dependent upon the mercy of passerby to survive at all. Where once libraries and a meaningful education were a right of each citizen, now they are luxuries many communities cannot afford. Where once corprations and businesses were held accountable for the way they disributed profits among the owners, executives and workers, there now exists a free-for-all where a bankrupt company still pays outrageous sums to the very people who were in charge of running the company into the ground. Pollution controls, cafe standards, meat and dairy inspections, Head Start and infancy programs, block grants... these things are now a part of our memory and not in our future.

The responsibility of a citizen is not an easy one: to remain informed and to hold those who govern accountable. A republic is not a tribe - we do not have the luxury of blind obedience or mob rule. Instead we are each commissioned with the duty to make known the truth when ignorance is accepted as fact. We are charged with the work of educating ourselves rather than following blindly down what seems the easier, softer road. We elect representatives, not elders who dictate what we will know and when we will know it and just in case - just in case such a circumstance as we find ourselves in today should befall us as a nation - we have the ability to impeach, to censure, to demand answers and to self governance.

While it may be easier to allow the witch doctor or shaman all the power and responsibility, we are each the guardian of the sacred spirit of democracy. We can revert to a red-state mentality where what was good 100 years ago is good today, but as a society we are fooling ourselves. The world and the rules that govern it are not sepia toned and inviolate. The challenges of life a hundred years ago were in many ways much less desperate than those of the modern United States. Homelessness and hunger were certainly no worse. Floods, hurricanes and fires devastated communities and the US government did not demand private donors pick up the pieces. The free market was an important element of the economy, but so was the employer, the congress, the church.

There is hope in all of these sobering statistics: those who can comrehend their importance have a near-omniscient grasp on American and World economics and politics. These brighter minds may yet demand accountability from their representatives, and a return to agovernment that serves even the weakest members of its society. Until then, I will use my sage and sweetgrass, my amber and patchouli, my snowflake obsidian and jet to keep at bay the greed and the avarice that has overtaken my local goverment all the way to the federal courts, the executive and the legislative branches of government, the national media. I will keep faith in the Constitution and pray it be restored from the perversion it has become, and I will trust that our republic will become a better place for my children and my grandchildren.

Perhaps we have gone past the place and time where a simple vote will cleanse the electorate. Maybe a shape-shifting shaman is what America needs. If so, bring it on, gods of smoke and water. Cleanse the soul of this people and make their blind eyes see the truth - that whatever happens to the least of us affects us all. Ho! And may tomorrow begin with a prayer of thanks for what we have an a plea for the lives of those who come after. Amen!