In early 2000 I had completed a manuscript on salmon and
sustainability, learning in the process never to eat anything from a salmon
farm.  I was planning another
manuscript on forest conservation and some more articles on democracy as an
emergent order.  Those latter would have been very abstract ‘social
sciencey’ stuff for the most part. 
I laughed that my first book was Pagans and Christians, as I’d
never planned to write on such stuff. But I figured the rest of my work would be on
environmental issues.   I didn’t like the religious right, but George Bush seemed not
all that threatening even if I didn’t like him either.  I believed my biggest
contribution to both my country and to my values as a Pagan was to work in the
environmental field. 
 

Then 9-11 happened, and the authoritarian right, religious
and secular alike, appeared to dominate the country.  Expressing a different opinion in passing, as had the Dixie
Chicks, was enough to get you vilified by every ignorant yahoo from coast to
coast.  Idiots talked of “freedom
fries” and cast a wary eye at “French toast.”  Neoconservatives even wrote about Europe, especially France, becoming our enemy.

Two values central to Paganism as I practice it, the Sacred
Feminine and the sacredness of Nature, were constant targets of the radical
right.  Even more worrisomely,
these people argued through character assassination and lying.  They did not respect either facts or
logic, nor did they ever assume one could disagree with them for honorable
reasons.  I like a good discussion
as much as anyone – if those involved try to be honest and attend to the evidence and the logic
of their arguments.  But these
people mostly did not.

In the 60s I had found a similar attitude among the Stalinists,
Trotskyists, and Maoists who did so much to pollute the student movement, but
they were never in positions of real power.  These current guys were in office  in Washington, DC.  They were writing the laws.  “Conservatives” who under Clinton were always
talking of limited government, the risk of tyranny, the rule of law, and the
constitution as if they took these things seriously were scrapping them faster
than I’d ever seen before upon their assuming power. 

I was appalled.

After deep soul searching I gave up the research I loved, on
Nature and living well with it, to do all I could to fight the moral monsters
who were taking over my country and the demonic ideologies they called “fundamentalist
Christianity” and “conservatism” – although this conservatism had as much in common with that of Barry Goldwater as Saddam Hussein did with George Washington,  rather like the similarity of their ‘Christianity’ to the words of Jesus.

I told myself I
never wanted to be in the position all too many decent Germans probably were in 1938:
wondering whether the Nazis would have come to power if they had opposed them
hard enough.

In my judgment the danger unleashed by Bush, Cheney, and
9-11 has not passed.  We are, unfortunately, a two party system where one is often corrupt and the other is bonkers.  The radical
right is doing everything it can to make our country ungovernable.  Given enough chaos, many people in an
ungovernable country eventually seek strong authority. 

This is what makes “Christian”
subversion in the armed forces, and in Blackwater, so dangerous.  They are more than happy to provide the
“strong hand” people tired of chaos often seek – and are trying to stir up
chaos to enlarge public demand or at least toleration for such a change.  I think they will ultimately fail, but
at a still unknown cost to this country they claim to love, as they seek its
destruction.

And so long as I believe the religious right and its Republican servants are a danger to this country, I will do what I can to oppose them.  When they sink into the obscurity they so richly deserve, I’ll devote what time I have left to dealing with issues I really love.

Till then, so long as I have it, this blog will frequently deal with politics.  But know that I do it from a sense of responsibility as an American, a Pagan, and a human being.   I’d rather study that noble fish, the salmon.