The End of The Enlightenment

[Guest guest]

When governmental and religious authorities move to suppress and

replace independent thought by doctrine and spin we move into another

new modern day dark ages.

 

 

http://www.mytown.ca/johnkelley/

 

The End of The Enlightenment

 

I haven't been able to write for a week and now I know why. I have

been watching the events in the U.S. and abroad with increasing

concern over the survivability of the enlightenment. You know, the

philosophy that says we have the ability to make decisions for

ourselves based on one's reason, objective observation and mutual

decision making.

 

The Declaration of Independence was clear about the influence that

common men should have over their own lives. " We hold these truths to

be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed

by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these

rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just

powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of

Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the

People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in

such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety

and Happiness. " These thoughts are based directly in the thinking of

the Enlightenment that reason should prevail over office, privilege or

brute power.

 

Unfortunately when we review history we realize that the battle for

enlightened thought is a constant battle against those who would

control the lives of others. We fail to realize most of the time that

we have been living in a small microcosm of history that has more

downs than ups, more devastation and war then peace, more exploitation

the elevation of mankind. And that our current run at moving up the

evolutionary scale has stopped and we are headed down for a while, if

not forever.

 

The selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI disheartened

me greatly. Any sign that the church was going to come down on the

side of humanity rather then authority has vanished. One of the last

chances for a moral voice to salvage mankind from his own hand will

not be there. Indeed we may see the end of the Age of Enlightenment in

my time. Am I not overreacting you say? I think not.

 

This is a 78 year old man who claims a purity and knowledge of God and

his will, but has never held a women he loves in his arms lost in

passion or ever held his child in his arms right after its birth,

still speckled with its mother's blood. He also has never lost his job

to an immigrant, or to " outsourcing " , or found himself with an

unexpected pregnancy he can't afford without hurting the other

children because his new job with Wal-Mart makes him just enough money

to deny him public assistance with food, healthcare and childcare but

not enough to afford the company plan. He has never found himself, 15

and pregnant by his father or found himself with HIV because the

church told him artificial contraception was a sin. He seems to have

never found himself in the situation of a young trusting altar boy

molested by his priest or what felt what it is like to be rejected as

a homosexual.

 

This is a man who is proud to have crushed the " heresy " of liberation

theology, as leading to upheaval and empowerment of the masses,

reflecting the familiar fear of loss of authority in Benedict's

history. A man who has never had to go home and tell that woman he

loves that he has to move his family into the slums of a giant city

because cheap corn has flooded the market and they cannot live on the

land at those prices. Who never has to send his 13 year old daughter

to work in a maquiladora for $1.75 a day for long shifts where the

workload is increased constantly so they won't lose the job to slave

labor in China. Who has never had to leave his family to migrate

across the border to try and get a job working for a contractor who

steals half his wage to work in the fields all day, living in a

crowded room so he can send money home.

 

Conservatives like to point out his intellect, but the problem is that

Benedict's intellect is limited to his experience, almost all in top

down institutions, a policeman father, the Nazi Youth Corps, a German

boot camp, the seminary, academia, Vatican service. He has not even

had the experience of pastoral ministry, caring directly for the needs

of a flock and the conflicts of life with dogma. So his intellect is

limited by a perspective based on limited experience.

 

This is a man who we know was raised in Hitler's Germany. Even though

he denies any affiliation with it he expresses through his history of

dogma driven authoritarianism an obvious affinity for his experience

with Nazism. It is said that he was turned from a moderate liberal

(whatever the that is) to a conservative by student demands for

equality and the right to question authority while on the faculty of

University of Tübingen. His reaction appears to be a fear based view

that saw the disorder of change in the sixties as comparable to the

conditions of economic and cultural chaos feared by the establishment

with the rise of Bolshevism. Much of the justification for the

barbarism of the Nazis was the threat that the Bolshevik driven tide

of trade unionism posed to the established order of wealth. While

denying any affiliation with Nazism, he reflects that same reactionary

dictatorial style to the concept of the masses having a voice in their

own fate.

 

From 1981 - 2005, Ratzinger was appointed by John Paul VI as the head

of the Doctrine of Faith. As his pro George Bush Cardinal Ratzinger

Fan Club (yes there is such a thing www.ratzingerfanclub.com )

gleefully states: " As " Grand Inquisitor " for Mother Rome, Ratzinger

kept himself busy in service to the Truth: correcting theological

error, silencing dissenting theologians, and stomping down heresy

wherever it may rear its ugly head -- and, consequently, had received

somewhat of a notorious reputation among the liberal media and

'enlightened' intellegensia (ironically sic) of pseudo-Catholic

universities. " The truth it seems is only available to theologians and

American Presidents. His criticism of modernity, atheism, other forms

of Christianity ( " deficient " ), let alone other world religions

demonstrates a fear of things outside of his experience as inferior

and to be feared as threats to authority. This prejudice is made of

fear of the unknown, the uncontrollable, like the human spirit.

Benedict's view is to pluck out the offending eye, to make the church

smaller, more orthodox, exclusionary and to fight the heretical ideas

of free thought and action. If he was an isolated anachronism in the

world that would be one thing, but he represents another converging

river of power concentrated on authoritarianism in the world.

 

George " silver spoon " Bush also suffers from the same lack of

perspective, only the attempt at intellectual discipline is missing.

Seemingly a concrete thinker, Bush believes everything he says, and

believes in a simple right or wrong, black or white view of things

unruffled by the nuances of real life. He sees himself as having a

predetermined destiny to change history, a man to follow

unquestioningly. His appeal is that he has such simple sounding

answers for everything he appeals to average people who are scared of

change in the world. But like Menken said " For every problem there is

always a simple solution, and it is usually wrong " . But in a

confusing, overwhelming world, simple seems good, and when you are

scared you cling on to simple. The reality is that he doesn't have the

intellectual ability or moral boundaries to prevent him from

justifying to himself any action.

 

The reality is he seems to have the vacuousness of a slightly dull

fraternity brother that everyone puts up with because he's got a

really nice car. The fault of his enemies is that they

" misunderestimate " him. The opposition doesn't really think that he

can be that stupid, that ego centric, that megalomaniacal. But they

are wrong, his history would indicate that Bush is driven by the fear

that he really is a failure, willing to do anything to avoid that

prospect, driven to do anything to avoid that awful truth of his own

incompetence. A very dangerous circumstance for the rest of us.

 

When all is said and done he is little more then a car salesman doing

the advertisement for the big car companies. " Come on down, we're

practically giving these cars away " . The real power brokers don't have

to be elected. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Kristoff, the other

Neo-Cons driven by a view of world domination, that believes the rest

of us need to be fooled for our own good. They have no problem lying

straight to our faces. Propaganda is just a tool to them to be used

without the complications of moral compunction. After all these people

visualize a corporate world government (the WTO) dominated by a

nuclear space weaponry and mercenary armies as their " white man's burden " .

 

Their willing assistants are thousands of corporate names that you

have never heard. They are driven by greed or the need to make the

next quarterly profit goals. Functionaries in a monstrous machine

called the corporation, that has no problem subverting science, waging

war, stripping resources, poisoning land, air and water, exploiting

slave labor, destroying communities or anything else that stands in

the way of profit. With corporate control of the press informing the

public is secondary to selling product and manipulating public

opinion. But, you say not everyone in business is unethical. You may

be right, but let one of these men falter in his mission and he will

soon be replaced by someone who will push the machine's drive for

short term profit.

 

Joining these power hunters to repress free thought, is James Dobson,

Randall Terry, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and the other theocrats who

are pursuing a " Christian Nation " . They want to have the FCC police

public discussion to their acceptable subjects, information on birth

control and abortion suppressed, to deny you a job based on not only

your sexual orientation but also your religion. They have many allies

in congress, as illustrated by James Frist, the Senate Majority

Leader's appearance at their national judge bashing event. These

people believe that they should have dominion over this country

including its laws, your thoughts and your actions. If you don't think

they are dangerous listen to some of their statements of belief:

 

" State Universities are breeding grounds, quite literally, for

sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV), homosexual behavior,

unwanted pregnancies, abortions, alcoholism, and drug abuse. " James Dobson

 

" I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and

travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag.

You don't know until election night. " --Ralph Reed

 

" I hope...to see the day when...in...our country we won't have any

public schools. The churches will have taken them over and Christians

will be running them. What a happy day that will be! " --Rev. Jerry Falwell

 

" Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of

hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good.... If a Christian voted for

Clinton, he sinned against God. It's that simple.... Our goal is a

Christian Nation... we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to

conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want

Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I've got a

hot flash. God rules. " --Randall Terry

 

" You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the

Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing.

Nonsense. I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I

can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be

nice to them (Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991) The goal

of all of these groups is like Ratzinger, to declare those who

disagree with them as " heretical " and marginalize their participation

in society, even if that means a majority of the people on the planet.

 

Most of these people including George Bush are products of experience

that told them that they could always, bully or buy their way out of

their mistakes, except this time they can't and you and I are all

going on the ride with them if we allow it. They all live in constant

fear that the masses will rise up and take away their power and

privilege so they prey on fear and hopelessness to gain more an more

control. This is the real axis of evil, the one who wants us to return

to what was called " the dark ages " when knowledge was suppressed, the

lower classes excluded from education except that chosen by and for

the hierarchy of the church, commerce was completely controlled by

feudal lords and their mercenaries. They all want to limit your

thinking, your discussion, your thoughts, your actions. But, don't

worry it only lasted about 1,000 years.

 

" Fear terrorism, outsourcing is good for America, there is no global

warming, government is the problem, deficits don't matter, don't watch

this, don't read this, turn your head from Darfur, ignore AIDs in

Africa, take Prozac, give your child Ritalin. Fill that empty hole in

your soul with cheap goods from China you get at Wal-Mart and

" reality " TV. "

 

The candle of enlightenment is in danger or flickering out and the

dark ages again loom large on the horizon, indeed human survival

itself is in the balance. Time is short. You think I exaggerate, I

think not.

 

 

John M. Kelley is a teacher, writer and radio interview host in Corpus

Christi, Texas who worries daily about the country he is leaving his

grandchildren.

Greatblueheron777

www.radiofreecorpus.com