I think a turning point in American history occurred on Sept. 16, 2001, when then Vice President Dick Cheney said, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful.
That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”
I think that was the day that American idealism, and with it democracy, died. The dark side signaled the end of checks and balances in government and the end of constitutional rule of law. It was a spiritual shift in American values. What swept in was a permanent militarist war economy, driven by the needs of the wealthy elite that had decided to discipline and rule the world through terror and theft.
As a Christian, I can’t help but think that demonic spiritualties are now governing the temperaments and decisions of those in positions of authority.
A demonic spirituality is a self-absorbed way of life that insists upon obedience to power. Those who dissent are no longer tolerated nor valued.
Rather, they must be exterminated and removed from society.
Recently retired General Wesley Clark, who basically comes from the Clinton-wing of the Democratic Party, was quoted in response to the mass shooting in Chattanooga, as saying, “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war. ... If these people are radicalized, and they don’t support the United States, and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”
One could say that Clark was just reacting but the very next day he twitted out further responses that deepened his commitment to such policies. In my opinion, Clark is a canary of the elite. He is one of their minions who probe and test public opinion. And just as Cheney signaled the end of democracy, I think Clark is signaling the move into a more rigorous fascism, a tightening of control over the populace.
As Americans, we have been manipulated since 9/11 into an ongoing culture of trauma. War, in the propaganda of the plutocracy, is a moral security blanket that vanquishes fear. Those who attempt to organize against war will be increasingly targeted as unpatriotic and seditious. Perhaps this is why Christians are so silent. Where is Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s moral voice today?
Rev. Rich Lang is the District Superintendent of the Seattle/King County United Methodist Church. He can be contacted at [email protected]