In what looks like unlimited spending by corporations on domestic American elections, the corruption of the American democracy, and loud declaration of “corporations as people”, there do appear to be rules regulating the behavior of the hated “Super PACs”. But what are these rules? Are they being followed? And more importantly, are they being enforced?!
Read on to find out.
Thoreau’s Walden
Best 23rd Birthday Ever !
Being forgotten is not usually something people wish for. At the moment, however, a debate is raging in Europe about the right of citizens to be forgotten when it comes to information stored on the Internet.
Like SOPA and PIPA earlier this year, new provisions in the EU’s Data Protection Directive are raising questions about speech, privacy, censorship and what it means to publish on the web.
Yes Internt, Yes Thin Lizzy, Rock On!
As president, Newt Gingrich vows to defy Supreme Court decisions he does not agree with, and make justices testify before Congress. But can he do it? And is he right in believing that the judiciary is the least accountable branch of government?
Take a read and let me know what you think. I’d love to get some reasoned historical perspective on this issue.
Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
From Congress’ partisan battles, to the toppling of Middle-East dictators, the near collapse of the European Union and the response of “Occupiers” to a growing global economic disparity, 2011 has been a year mostly of high-stakes drama and front-row tragedy.
Texan band with an English twinge. Maybe I hear it everywhere I can, so far from home.
Roscoe — Midlake
A time-lapsed, tilt-shifted day in California
A few wise words from Mark Twain
In Old Europe, religion molded men – told them what they could and could not do if they wanted to make it to heaven. In America, the mayflower men embarked upon a life, in a new Jerusalem, in which they would have a voice in their religion – and it was these men in turn who molded new forms of religion.
The new Americans wanted to control their religion as easily as they wanted to control the land – whether or not either was theirs to take, cultivate, and ultimately change. In America, religion and the freedom of action were not only moving in the same direction, but were intimately united.
Much to Tocqueville’s surprise and awe, “Christian liberty” – a supposed oxymoron, actually existed in America. And evidently it still does: The original 1892 pledge of allegiance read: “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” A 1954 amendment created the phrase: ‘One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.” In 1954, God was still a central tenet of American life, and so was freedom.
In the new American context, the unexpected synthesis of evangelical religion and republican political ideology created a religion that was cultural, intellectual and ideological, and a politics that was deeply principled. Religion has left an enduring stamp on public discourse, and republicanism on American religion. The Bible and the constitution sit side by side. And belief in both is necessary to be a good American - in the modern world as much as in the seventeenth century.
The constitution was not a religious document. The founding fathers were far from uniform believers. Still, they knew that their ancestors had come from Europe for freedom of religion, and had broken from Britain for freedom of governance. Freedom, religion and republicanism came to represent the same thing. America. And for some Americans now, one cannot be lost without losing the whole.
Belief in the Bible is the religious analogue to political trust in the American constitution; without biblical morality, some believe political morality is impossible. In other words, for many Americans, their representatives cannot accept abortion and same-sex marriage, and still be trusted to make key political decisions.
As difficult as it is for Europeans to understand, this is why the Moral Majority continues to be influential, why abortion is still a issue of national concern, why Obama’s “suspect” religion has become the new rallying cry of the Fox news network, and why now, more than ever, liberal politicians need to prove their “moral” credentials to win.
Religion and the American notion of freedom still rule the day, but as Tocqueville so rightly saw, undoubtedly ‘the sovereign authority is religious’ - and those people who both believe and are involved in politics (defined by many as the protection of the freedoms in the constitution), are actually working to limit the freedom of those with whom they do not agree. If Tocqueville was struck by the multitude of sects and how accepting they were, today, the limits of acceptable American religion are being more and more narrowly defined.
For an interesting point about the increasing homogeneity of the (religious) right, and the growing diversity of the left, check out http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-05-09-big-question-what-story-about-americas-future-can-unite-us-left
Still Dreaming.
