As Much Truth As One Can Bear

This is not the official version of American history, but that it very nearly sums it up can scarcely be doubted by anyone with the courage to look into the faces one encounters all over this land: who listens to the voices, hearing incessantly the buried uneasiness, the bewilderment, the unadmitted despair, hearing the arrogant, jaunty, fathomless, utterly astounding ignorance; a cultivated ignorance of all things public, and a terrified ignorance of all things private; translating itself, visibly, hourly, into a hatred of all that is strange or vivid — and what is vivid is always strange; into a hatred, at last, of life.

James Baldwin’s review of Elia Kazan’s The Arrangement (p. 286).

James Baldwin’s uncollected writings have just been published with the title The Cross of Redemption. In essay after essay, review and profile and letter and political column, he reminds us in unvarnished observation that Americans are masters of denial, always looking for the bright side, always running from the truth of our realities. His warnings are as prescient today as when these pieces were published in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. We have not resolved the issues of race in America, we have more enemies abroad than we can imagine and for good reason, the earth will not sustain the ravages we are inflicting upon it. War serves only the interests of bigots and the war industry.

So if one were to take a stab at the truths of this mid-term election cycle, they might include these observations and guesses. The progressive agenda is not popular. Americans’ perceived self-interest blinds them to realities of the costs of wars abroad in terms of well-being at home and long term national security. When political leaders are unwilling to identify and advocate for the sacrifices we must make to ensure a sustainable future, the corporate world will teach those lessons through market practices that enrich the wealthy and impoverish the poor. When the media world celebrates theatrics to capture viewers and abandons investigative analysis, we become conditioned to receiving only as much truth as the lowest common denominator can bear.

The poets and peacemakers must step into the breach. This is the time to ground our message in the sacred texts and the proven principles of peace and justice, truth and love. As Vincent Harding says in the forthcoming Fall issue of Fellowship magazine: “I think we”˜ve got to sing more. I think we’ve got to dance more. I think we’ve got to shout more. I think we’ve got to read poetry more. I think we’ve got to do all the things that arouse the creative impulses in us — we’ve got to love more.”

Based on the experience of the past two years and the mid-term election cycle in particular, we might well expect continuing Congressional deadlock, further loosening of regulatory efforts especially in the fields of finance and investment, a stabilized commitment to warring throughout the Middle East and its economic expression of arms manufacture and sales domestically, and a blind eye turned to energy and climate issues which may, in the end, be the ultimate engine of our demise as an empire, as well as as a species.

So, in the spirit of denial (pragmatic not cynical), what are the bright sides of the moment? What can we do in response to the emerging election results? First we can actively and aggressively leverage the lame duck session of Congress to move a few items to closure, in particular the New Start Treaty which is out of committee and ready to be passed. Reducing the number of deployed nuclear warheads is a good thing, a small step in the right direction of total abolition of nuclear weapons. Its passage is essential to expanding the conversation of regional nuclear free zones and other anti-armament conventions.

Secondly, we can aggressively test the potential for continued churning in elected houses by identifying progressive candidates for the 2012 election and urging them forward immediately. Robert Naiman makes a related argument for a progressive primary for 2012 starting now. The creative impulse at work: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/751

Thirdly, we can sharply focus our message that war is not the answer, identifying the costs in moral, human, spiritual, economic, and political costs so that more than 1% of the electorate uses the issue of opposition to endless wars to choose among candidates in the next election.

Fourthly we can gather collectively to develop strategy and program which will heighten our capacity to bear the truth by learning the facts and speaking them boldly in the streets, in the media, in the halls of legislative bodies, and in our prayers for world of greater equity, justice and peace for all peoples.

If you are in the metropolitan New York area, you can join me and others as a part of this conversation at the Regional Antiwar Conference on Saturday, November 6th from noon to 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s on-the-Bowery. Register at www.NationalPeaceConference.org.