Resurrection

I've just finished my annual binge of Holy Week services, starting with Tenebrae on Wednesday evening, then Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and finally the Great Vigil that starts at 4:30 on Easter morning with the lighting of the New Fire, a long series of lections that trace the human relation to God through Creation and Flood, Exodus, Captivity and prophetic promise, followed by the first Eucharist of Easter. Three hours from dark to dawn. Holy Week done right demands an immense investment of time, emotion, and imagination. One relives the events of the Passion, but then we are asked to imagine the unimaginable: Christ rising from death, and ourselves living on as resurrected people in a world marked by sin and death. It's a long journey.

Jesus began his life as a homeless refugee, as we recalled last December on Holy Innocents, just three days after Christmas. King Herod, like President Assad, chose to murder the next generation of his subjects rather than risk loss of power, and Jesus's family, like so many today, fled to the precarious safety of exile. Jesus's ministry started in the shadow of his cousin John, whose outspoken calling-out of power got him beheaded by Herod's successor. Jesus made a practice of breaking laws and customs, dining with tax collectors and healing on the sabbath, overturning the tables of currency traders and slighting local power-brokers. His entry into Jerusalem seems to have been misconstrued as an insurrection, and his execution was a triumph of Roman and priestly power, working in collusion to preserve the uneasy status quo of military occupation and theocratic authority. We know about these things from today's headlines.

 When Jesus advised a disingenuous questioner to "render unto Caesar" what was owed in taxes, he was misunderstood, then and now, as urging a kind of quietist acceptance of that status quo. But the real force of his message was the second part: "render unto God what is God's." If his executioners mistook him for a secular Messiah or revolutionary, they missed the point: Jesus is telling us that what we see--the world we live in--isn't Caesar's at all, but God's. Seeing that truth is one way to understand what it means to live as a resurrected person. It may seem like the world belongs to the billionaires and the imperialists, the Trumps and the terrorists, the powerful and the possessive, that whole cohort of Caesar's henchmen. But no, all that is the detritus of sin and death.

We are invited to discard all that and be reborn, with Jesus, into a new kind of world. That's where we need our imaginations. We need to learn to see the world in a new way, not for what it seems to be but what it could be, a world characterized by acts of kindness, compassion, and love. It's not easy--Caesar's folks make it hard to see beyond the deadly realities to that better place--but we are called to try. I'm not very far along that road, which I think of as the road to Emmaus. If you know that story, which happens the day after Easter, you know that a couple of disillusioned followers of Jesus are walking from Jerusalem to a nearby town when a clueless stranger joins them, the only man in Jerusalem who doesn't seem to know about Friday's execution. But he knows a lot of other stuff, and enlightens them about the Scriptures as they walk along. Then as suppertime arrives he blesses their bread and wine--and vanishes! They are left with a body of doctrine, a sacramental meal, and the impression that the resurrected Jesus was there, really, but then he wasn't. That's how I feel about the Resurrection.

It seems odd to be posting--on a blog that is largely political, no less--about something as personal as religious faith. But the personal is political, as the women's movement taught us long ago, and so is Jesus's teaching and example. In response to an irreparably fallen world, he chose death. In the face of rampant injustice and inequality, environmental desecration, brutal intolerance and massive dislocation of peoples, the tiny fixes that pass for political solutions in our paralyzed governmental systems are desperately inadequate. I may go on about Bernie Sanders and the French far left and the need for a revolution in sustainable energy production, but at the end of the day I often feel that our only realistic, pragmatic hope is to live the Resurrection. As we Christians like to say, He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Shock Waves from the Brussels Bombing

I've never visited Brussels--just passed through a couple of times. But I feel as though I've spent a portion of my life there. You see, for many years the European Union has been a sort of fantasmatic object for me: the large, progressive, ultra-civilized super-nation that would someday take its place--take our place--as leader of a more humane free world. Climate policy, aid to developing nations, refugee asylum, diplomatic instead of military interventions--in all these ways I imagined an EU that was already taking the lead, or soon would, in building a more suitable version of western civilization. Capital of the EU, Brussels was also for me the capital of this hallucinatory vision.

Except in very selective instances, of course, that humane, progressive EU has never really existed. The Union has been governed more from Frankfurt or Berlin anyhow, and has been the engine for inequality, a financialized economy, German economic imperialism, and the disastrous imposition of the euro on fragile member-states. For every progressive law emanating out of Brussels, it seems that two or three silly bureaucratic rules are bound to follow. Even before its inept responses to crises in Greece, Ukraine, and the migrants on its borders, the EU seemed headed for disunion.

But Brussels remains a potent symbol of something like my own fantasmatic ideal of a progressive West. As such, along with Paris--the cultural capital of that derealized empire--it is therefore something of an ideal target for the Islamist forces that would like to destroy that culture and that empire. Secular, democratic, libidinal, innovative, and yes, infectious--the West is no doubt incompatible with the static, authoritarian, 7th-century fantasm the Islamists would like to replace it with. Something has to give.

I don't know where this will end. Michel Houellebecq's novel Submission, published on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attack, offers one possibility: a denatured, listless West that simply surrenders to a more vigorous, ascendent Muslim culture. I don't expect that to happen soon, though its converse--a violent authoritarianism à la LePen or Trump, leading to some sort of Armageddon-like struggle--doesn't seem as remote now as it did a year ago.

Somewhere in the ideal middle between those extremes--a sort of Brussels of the mind--lies the possibility for a tolerant multi-culturalism, democratic in form but protective of religious and cultural prerogatives. Would such a thing 'fix' the problem? No--it would also require some evolution in the retrograde Islamic quarters that are feeding this existential struggle. There I bow out--my ignorance prevents me from having any useful suggestions. But in the meanwhile all of us in the beleaguered West need to make sure that events like the Brussels bombing are heard as a call for tolerance, understanding, and increased support for Europe's (and America's) alienated young Muslims. Hard as that may seem, the alternatives are much, much worse.

Brown Shirts

To be clear: I don't think Donald Trump will be our next president. I don't rule it out, however, in part because Hillary Clinton's is a candidacy with many vulnerabilities. I still think Sanders would be the stronger candidate, undercutting Trump's faux outsider status in many ways--but that point now looks moot. Trump as we see him still seems clownish, void of any substantial policy ideas, and almost incapable of lucid speech. But all that could change, if and when he becomes the Republican nominee. A Trump 'makeover' into a more conventional, even respectable candidate--while retaining the belligerent, insulting rhetoric and directing it against Clinton--could be more formidable than many now think. I'm frankly nervous about what could happen this fall.

But even if we're spared the worst--and 'treated' to a Clinton presidency, with all its ambiguities and compromises--Trump has already impaired our democratic legacy in so many ways it's hard to know where to start. Here I want to focus on just one aspect: his strategic use of violence and intimidation. It began with his response to hecklers, denouncing them and inviting supporters to 'punch them in the nose.' Trump made his position even clearer when he offered to pay legal expenses for a supporter who flagrantly attacked a protestor in North Carolina. Last week, Trump rallies seemed poised on the edge of violence. And now Trump has suggested his supporters would 'riot' at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland if he fails to gain nomination.

Like so many of Trump's most objectionable qualities, this one merely amplifies a tendency already visible in the Republican party. We should recall that in November, 2000, planeloads of Republican operatives were flown in to Miami from Washington to stage a riot at the Dade County elections bureau; their actions successfully halted the re-counting of ballots until the Supreme Court was able to halt it by injunction and award the election to Bush. The fact of a putsch--which is what this combined action of rioters and Court amounted to--was obscured by the Court's official language, Gore's feckless surrender, and the public's willingness to move on behind a new president they regarded as moderate. But it was a putsch nonetheless.

Now Trump seems to be incorporating violence as part of his campaign rhetoric: his belligerent remarks directed against foreign powers, but also his direct calls for mob violence against protestors and opponents. And more seriously, he seems to be threatening to bring violence to the electoral process, specifically at the nominating convention. But as with so many things Trump, how seriously should we take this?

My answer: very seriously. We aren't in Weimar territory yet, but the chronic economic stagnation we face is very real, and so is the anger it is eliciting. Our political process has reached near-paralysis in the Congress, and the majority party in the Senate is openly flouting its constitutional obligation to confirm justices, in a way that will paralyze the judicial branch and undermine the Constitution. Trump's generic 'punch 'em in the nose', his vague claims that government as such no longer works, his calls to delegate all powers to a strong man such as himself--all this has appeal in direct proportion to the dysfunctions of the federal government, and that dysfunction is beginning to look as permanent and structural as the economic stagnation.

I'm no scholar of German history--or Italian, or Spanish--but I fear that we are looking at the early stages of fascism. We may as a citizenry and an electorate pull back from the precipice and elect a 'safe' president this time around. But the breaches in civility and civic process that have happened in the Trump campaign will stand as precedents in any case. The intransigent social problems that have given rise to this movement are unlikely to resolve in a 'safe,' moderate administration. The Pandora's Box of brown shirtism has been opened these last few weeks and months. Our Republic is in a dangerous place.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Class Consciousness and Love Downton Abbey

One of my indulgences of late has been binging on various long-form TV series--first The Wire, followed by Mad Men and Tremé, Friday Night Lights, and a host of others, sampled and discarded--but to my great surprise the one that has given me the most pleasure is the one that just ended on Sunday: Downton Abbey. My attraction makes no sense: I am no anglophile, certainly no fan of producer/writer Julian Fellowes's tory politics; in 'real life,' jacobin that I am, I would have confiscated Downton through taxation before it reached its second season. And yet I join the millions of fans on both sides of the pond who hung on every word, and wander about, now that it's over, in a state of displaced grief. Why?

It's not an easy question, as countless critics have shown with their facetious resumés of the predictable plot lines, their facile parodies of recurrent gestures and clichéd dialogue, their painstaking notice taken of every inconsistency or improbability of plot. Has any 6-season wonder ever received such relentlessly acerbic criticism? And it's all true, of course--the whole upstairs/downstairs Great House setting was already hackneyed before Fellowes wrote his pilot, and even a frequently inspired writer such as he is will be overreaching at numerous moments in the 59-episode run. Yes, it was easy to laugh at Downton, and many did.

But I somehow joined the milllions who didn't laugh long, and came eagerly back for more, though I still find my affection for the show--for almost everything about the show--something of a mystery. But the task of analysis is to shine light on those dark places in the psyche, so here goes.

What most characterized Downton, both the show and the world it represented,  was its consistency, stability, predicability, its conformity to fairly strict rules. There was security in those starched outfits and the knowledge that the characters would for the most part leave them on. Security in knowing that the Crawleys would remain Crawleys, despite internal blood-feuds, sudden deaths, unwise investments, and unwelcome pregnancy. That absolute loyalty to family, class, and social position may be preposterously out of date--one recalls for example the House of Lords futilely intervening  against the ecologists and animal lovers to preserve fox hunting--but the values of family and loyalty on display transcend the particular reactionary politics of Lord Grantham and reflect a timeless value: very few of us aspire to be the 7th Earl of Grantham, but most of us would love to have families who protect our interests as the Crawleys protect theirs.

Love really is the operative word in Fellowes's world, saccharine at times--though we see plenty of jealousy, resentment, disquiet, and even a little anger. In the end, though, Downton returns to its utopian condition, a place where everyone finds shelter (variable in quality depending on one's station, but shelter nonetheless), and always will. Even the outcast Barrow finds redemption and returns with grace in the final episode. Outside forces assail this little fortress--from the accident of the Titanic to the vast tragedy of the Great War, from petty snobbery to the intrusions of homicide investigations, and most of al, the specter of change as Labour forms a government, government agents visit the estate's pig farms, and a chamber maid turns secretary and then philanthropist--but through it all the bonds of love are only strengthened until at the end absolutely everyone is paired with someone or something to love. Is it any wonder a person of sensibility would like to spend at least an hour a week in such a place?

Yes, yes, yes, I know it's all about fantasy and escapism. but the psychological face-offs are nonetheless realistic in the best sense more often than not. Mary's snobbism, for example, is hardly a revelation (though it's magnificently acted by Michelle Dockery), but the late moment when she and the footman Barrow recognize each other's propensity for misery, recognize each other in their arrogance as profoundly semblants--is brilliant. Likewise the pairing of Lord Grantham and Carson, the ways they share Lady Mary as proud fathers. Or the inadvertent revelation, après-coup, by Gwen the returned chamber-maid of how nobly Lady Sybil assisted her in her mobility--and the way this accidental stranger thus reshapes the vision Sybil's dearest family will now carry of her. Such moments are the work of a brilliant novelist of the old school.

Real dramas, real conflicts, even a little real history, played for the most part with credible accuracy but contained within the utterly secure enclosure of a timeless and invulnerable world--that's the magic formula. For several seasons I wondered how Fellowes would handle the inevitable dissolution of Downton, as he gave us glimpses of other Great Houses and great families giving up their estates and joining bourgeois society. Toward the end I realized that such would never happen to Downton. What we treasured was its impossible determination to stand against time (unlike that flower petal that falls, time after time, in the opening sequence, to tease us with the possibility of demise). And stand it does in the final episode, each character soldered into place, ready to withstand whatever new buffetings come its way. In and against our own world, poised on the brink of disaster, devolution and decay, could any place of refuge be more desirable than Downton Abbey?

The Trumpet Is Blasting--Wake Up!

Will the Trump candidacy finally cross one bridge too far and go down in shame? Will the Republican Party split out another candidate, under another party label, and perhaps restructure our two-party system after 150 years? Will Hillary--or Bernie!--cruise to the White House below the turbulence that has the whole Republican establishment in crisis mode? Or will Trump trim his sails just enough to accommodate some more reluctant followers, along with a throng of Obama- and Hillary-haters on his joy ride to a newer, whiter, more callous America? It is of course too early to know the answers to any of these questions, but what we know already should make us pause and reflect.

First, we know that this charismatic love affair between Trump and millions of voters is for real. It has survived and thrived on a host of gaffes, insults, lies, and blunders--just like the most passionate of abusive relationships. But to put it that way is to personalize it--Trump's game. Yes, the man weirdly fascinates throngs of spectators (while disgusting plenty of others like me). His is a singularly polarizing personality, the ultimate bully--a fit subject for what they used to call deviant psychology.

But the more profound truth lies in the invisible subsoil that has nourished this invasive plant. I mean the failed economy, the social and economic desperation that is the real crux of the Trump movement. This desperation has been building for 30 years or more of profit-hoarding by the rich, as many economists have now realized (a convenient summary can be found in this recent column by Thomas Edsall in the Times). A globalized, financialized, debt-driven, hi-tech, information-based, race-to-the-bottom economy--these are among the various ways to describe the profound changes that have left many working people struggling to maintain their standard of living and their self-respect. These people are angry. They are desperate. They are looking for scapegoats. And they love Trump because he incites the anger they feel. This is a stark reality, gestating here and there for decades on the margins of the conservative movement. It has now burst full-blown on the scene of our common political life. Whatever happens with Trump, it will still be there, festering.

Will it help if amid all the fuss Hillary Clinton triangulates her way into the presidency? A little, maybe: at least a centrist Supreme Court may act as a bulwark against certain excesses. Even if President Clinton II finds a way to work with the Congress, though, what would she do to redirect the economy to serve the marginalized legions of Trump? She is herself a pure product of the existing system. She proposes band-aid solutions, palliatives, adjustments, but hardly the sort of restructuring that could relaunch the American adventure and bring actual hope, not in a mythical past but in a reinvented future. Could the Sanders 'revolution' achieve this? Possibly, but I suspect that every victory would by pyrrhic, every triumph the occasion for more bitter resistance.

The problem is not just ours in America. Stagnating economies in all the older democracies have produced Trump-like figures named LePen or Wilders or Farage, demonizing immigrants and Muslims, calling for ethnic purity and 'telling it like it is'--i.e. demanding the right to racist defamation. In short, all of us constituents of this world-system have reached a common impasse, where our global economy will support only a fraction of its wealthier citizens in the fashion they have come to insist on. The rest are suffering, and in one political system after another they are showing they are mad as hell. Brexit, 'the Wall,' deportation, refusal of asylum--it's a global tidal wave of hostility and mean-spiritedness. And it's cresting, this movement, at the very moment when accelerating global climate change requires concerted, generous, far-sighted collective response.

Given the limited set of choices that confront us and all those other electorates, it may seem fatuous to call for radical reform, 'revolution,' a new kind of world-system, but frankly, dear readers, nothing less will do. We need to somehow engage ourselves, and our fellow citizens around the world, in that brilliant adventure to rebuild our energy systems, our agriculture, our cultures, our ways of living and our measures for happiness, success, well-being--a complete reversion from our defunct consumer and finance-driven economy into something sustainable, clean, cooperative, shared. No app will do it--this is the stuff of total revolution. The powerful (as Luke's Mary says, channeling Isaiah) must be thrown down from their high places, and the rich sent empty away. The time is now. Trump's poisonous blast is our warning cry, our call to action. For all its surreality, it's real, it's here, and it's happening. Don't wait to see who wins.

Blame Massachusetts

Citizens of a certain age will remember the smug bumper sticker that appeared on selected Volvos and dorm room walls in 1973: Don't Blame Me--I'm from Massachusetts. We alone in this state could claim to have conferred our electoral votes on George McGovern while the rest of the nation joined Richard Nixon in reviling him. Soon enough, Watergate blew up, Nixon went rogue, and his presidency ended up in history's ashcan. Weren't we smarty-pants, here in Massachusetts?

As I survey the wreckage of Super Tuesday, alas, I have the uneasy feeling that we could have done it again, only this time, Massachusetts, we missed our cue. Here's why. With a shift of just 2% or so of the Democratic primary voters, yesterday's headlines would have read "Sanders wins Mainstream Blue State," along with his victories in the Minnesota caucuses, in New Hampshire, and his near-miss in Iowa. Instead of post-mortems on his insurgency, which they would now like to reduce to a symbolic tour, the Times and others would have had to face a crucial fact: while Clinton piles up delegates in red states that she will never carry in November, Sanders is igniting fires in blue states where it really counts.

Would it really matter, though, if we were waking up today to a narrow Sanders victory? Here's why I think so. Trump is beginning to raise the specter of a real threat--say "President Trump to yourself five times out loud--and the reason is fervor: for all the wrong reasons, people are turning out for him in historic numbers, new voters or usual stay-at-homes, galvanized by his unsavory aggressions. [I will return to the question of this perverse appeal in a future post.] Against what could become a juggernaut, Hillary Clinton is a disturbing counter-force. Not many voters really, really like her. But, you say, they will get highly motivated by fear of Trump. Maybe, but turnout to vote against someone is never as effective as voting for your hero. And the turnout on Tuesday showed just that: Trump's actual voter counts reached historic highs, while Clinton and the Democrats were turning out 30% fewer voters than Obama in previous cycles. Think about that: it's a disastrous number.

This is not the fault of Sanders. Everyone agrees he is bringing new voters into the process, importing the kind of true-believer zeal that carried Obama, and could carry Sanders in a general election. Hillary? Not so much. Will she benefit vicariously from all the excitement she squelched six months before the election? Don't count on it.

But all this is just a big what-if, because Sanders didn't quite make it in Massachusetts, and the mainstreamers, always eager to discount Bernie, will now have their way. Yes, Clinton could still stumble, and big delegate pools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, California, and the other key states might still tilt Bernie's way. Unlikely, but possible. But IF ONLY Bernie had the momentum of winning a major, certified blue state like Massachusetts, instead of coming close but losing, that feat would be a whole lot less improbable. That's the shame of Massachusetts, and of voters like me who showed up for Bernie but didn't lift a finger to campaign for him. We missed our rendezvous with history, folks, and in November we could be paying big-time for our mistake.