To Serve Machines (on lavoshe with endives and a garlic aioli)

In the war between the worlds, the machine must win, having the most reasons and being the manifestation of groupthink. The machine, after all, is programmed in committee, planned by many and overseen by others. Man is only man, a soft, fallible fleshly mass, consumed with and driven by his own subjectivity, so fragile a thing, so worthless. Much better to be the hand, leg or mouth of the machine, to have the machine make the decisions and the Man execute them according to pre-established protocols. Mistakes decrease and efficiency increases.

To act under orders is the easiest. Our conscience is freed by our having submitted our will to another, and, even better, to a procedure. A procedure requires planning, approvals and protocols. It is the logical extension of power, the amoral procedure. It is also the main support of power.

Recently, at the border between Detroit, Mich. and Windsor, Ontario, an ambulance was stopped by US agents as it headed to the hospital. The State took this step despite the Canadians having followed the procedure to cross by way of calling ahead to expedite their crossing. All was as it should be except that “the computer” announced a random inspection of the next vehicle, which happened to be said ambulance. Inside the ambulance, a man whose heart had stopped twice that night lay on the gurney.

The human impulse in us must be to throw out the required inspection in light of what was by all accounts a life or death matter. But today, in America, the human impulse barely registers. “The computer” tells us what must be done. “The computer” must be obeyed.

(No doubt the Germans in World War II with their IBM calculating machines were no less dependent on the outcome of the machine’s calculation to determine just how many will die, when and at what cost or potential gain. Sure, there was more going on in Germany than mere mechanization of thought, but the “achievements” of the Third Reich would have been greatly diminished without them.)

Right now, even as I type, the machine corrects my typing, my spelling, even (poor thing) my grammar—or at least suggests ways to normalize my prosaic musings. The machine returns results when we search for something on the internet, places ads next to the results and even recognizes us with a friendly greeting when we visit Amazon (always with the suggestion that it might have mistaken us for somebody else—“Not Christian Burk?”). The machine tells us when to end our dreams and face the day. Tells us to leave our dinner and family to talk to a telemarketer on the phone. Says “Walk” or “Don’t Walk” across the street. Makes us feel good, or at least more passive, at night in front of its soothing glow, pretty faces, moving music and evocative colors.

We live to follow the machine. We lust after it as it takes on more shapes than Proteus: Camaro, iPhone, HDTV, Harley, Xbox 360. We work that we might spend even more time with the machine, get to know it, to love it, even more.

Our massive brains, ingenuity, boundless ambition, capacity to imagine, gift of speech and occasional empathy have brought us to this pinnacle: enslavement to the machine. And like any good slave, we will always forgive our master’s failures as our own errors.

I am the chief among these sinners heretofore mentioned. I admit a fascination, a passion, a lust for Hephaestus’ newest toys. I yearn to hold the next thing. And I find, when I do, that its abilities, its beauty, its elegance and even its substance never compare to its perfection when held only in my mind as an abstract magical creation which has never before existed.

It takes me aback: how I can whore myself out to so many little pieces of silicon, metal and plastic. And then to see that it is not just me, but that I’m in good company with so many fellow travelers through this sea of techno garbage. Meanwhile, as I am figuring out a way to speed up my computer with more RAM and the newest operating system, involving, of course, outlays of cash, I watch, befuddled and wide-eyed the waves of humanity that pours out of the homeless shelter at 8 a.m. as I make my way to work.

But the large machine I travel in keeps me safe from such misery. Behind guilt-proof glass I roll past, staring a little. Humanity . . . so dirty, cluttered and confused. Much better I find to stick with the machine. At least, I know where I’m going, what to do and what to expect. Better the devil you know, right?

Wading through the dark waters

The dream last night, or what I still remember 17 hours later:

Water everywhere.

Driving along on a highway along the waters’ edge, with small beach fronts to the right. Someone is telling me about it. Expensive, I imagine, though they are hardly little strips of land, with some sand, enough room for a gazebo-like tent right along the water. A lake, I’m told. Separated from the highway by a guardrail. This doesn’t stop the car I’m in from going off the road into the sand, gazing too long at the beach, I drive into it. Back on the road soon, a short scare.

Later in the dream, another body of water, a wide shallow stream. It darkens, deepens as I look further on. But nearby it is inches deep, less than a foot. We, me and others, are walking through it. A beaver/otter/woodchuck is swimming in it close to us. A huge frog, larger than a dinner plate is sitting on the mud by the water, full grown but still sporting part of its tail. It hops in the water and swims. The beaver-thing is swimming close to it. I know what will happen but dread it, not wanting to see it. The beaver swims after the frog and bites into it, the water turning a dark, cloudy red.

Now out of the water, behind or next to some buildings. The landscape is still the same. I think it is the West somewhere. We see so much sky and all around is only dried mud, perhaps mountains in the distance, far away. But we are on this dried mud behind one pink and one blue stucco (maybe) building. Another frog is there, smaller, adult, I catch it easily. Pick it up and it looks like it has some kind of milky coating. Maybe to keep it from drying out.

That’s it.

Now, as I was thinking of the dreams this morning, the scene with the beaver and the frog struck me. I think I am the frog. I have always loved them and even jumped around the house like a frog. I’m fully grown, but for my tail, this childhood relic that I can’t shake. I am in my element, but there is one better, or some threat. I wondered that I might be seeing my own death. I don’t like to think that that’s it, but I don’t know what to make of it.

The one saving feature is that the frog image returns in a less habitable environment (not water this time), but it’s managed to insulate itself from its greatest threat, which, in the second scenario is the dry heat, which would also kill the frog by drying it out.

Consider, too, the mythic importance of water, approaching, crossing, the waters of the underworld in order to be born again or renewed for the coming year (if looking at as a cycle).

Oddly, today I actually did run into/over something in the road while driving with Colin on our way home from soccer practice. As in my dream, I am distracted by something on our right, in this case, a “road closed” sign which, as I was looking at it, didn’t really seem to blocking the part of the road it was supposed to. In my distraction, I ran over the base of one of those orange construction barrels (the barrel was nowhere).

No frogs seen today, though.

Why so pale and wan fond lover?

The more I think about writing, the less I think my life worth writing about? True, it is my life, but it is not "high" life.

The long black vessels of the Greeks
The chains wrapped around a slaves' feet
The gunpowder crack of revolution
The long journey over the dangerous plains.

These are not my experiences. They are not the experiences of my peers. We know only scant labor, fears mostly imaginary, dangers mostly promoted by the news. We are a scattered, lesser people, driven away from the true language we may have once spoken: clear cries at the sight of another morning. How true it must have once been that the Lord's mercies are renewed every morning.

Today, we take our blessings, make our own miracles, thank you. We don't need help like we once did. We are the eye in the sky, the lighthouse at the top of the world. We see all, know all and can't find the country on the map.

What is worth the mention of us? Nothing great. Are we to memorialize the non-greatness of this day, the paltry portions of courage we have brought to our communal table? Are we to remember our own indifference to human suffering as close as the next room, as far as Africa is from our hearts?

Endless lines, buckets of ink, and the sweat of too many brows have poured forth on this great mystery: how a people with nearly everything can be satisfied with nothing, can only hope to engorge their greed souls with the ever-present hope of more. Such terrible food. And what small portions.

We want to read about struggle. We want to see adversity overcome against all odds. We even want to see a qualified success, some glimpse of the spirit that we sometimes need to know we might have once had ourselves if not for the deadening weight of the every day.

Strange days. Shaken and stirred but only in the teapots. We live a butterfly effect daily. We flap our lips, a storm surges, great typhoon over Japan. We eat our own coal and drink piss to stay alive. We can be that hungry, that thirsty. Somewhere. A snug misunderstatement of a life in this landlocked city. This country isolated by wide waters. We won't always be so safe and yet be afraid.

Maybe, maybe we will actually be in danger. May have our lives on the deadline of our times and have to brave face it. Today, that's a future memory. Tomorrow, it may be the present task. I wait. I order the flies about me about. Asking them to take a small cloak to cover the eye of night. Let my deeds be dark. Let all the sordid morsels make a meal of this resistance we feel.

What's so Great about the Greeks?

I just read 300 by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley (colorist). It is a brief exploration of the Greek concept of arete (greatness or virtue, one's full potential realized). From my understanding (read: the few classes I took in college), Greeks prized arete above all else. For them, it was the only way to live on beyond death, through great, noble, heroic deeds or excellence on the field of battle, in athletic competition or in the arts.

In 300, Leonidas, king of Sparta, and his 300 personal guard (with the "help" of the other Greeks) take on Persia's legions, under the rule of Xerxes, self-proclaimed "Lord of Lords (that sure has a ring to it, don't you think. Leonidas, his Spartans and the rest of the Greeks, to be fair, fight a tactically brilliant and ruthless battle, giving no quarter. It is only when they are betrayed by a spurned would-be Spartan warrior that the Persians find a hole in the Greek defenses. The tide of the battle turns, and the Spartans face certain defeat. They fight on with Leonidas leading the charge. He takes one last shot at Xerxes with a javelin and is shot through with innumerable arrows while Xerxes suffers only a slashed cheek. In a "remember-the-alamo"-like sequel, a combined Greek force goes on to defeat the Persians some time later.

From the beginning and to the end, Leonidas is both resigned and accepting of his fate. In a way, he succeeds. He achieves arete.

The samurai, too, had a similar concept, at least from what I understand in talking about Japanese culture with my father-in-law. After their usefulness as warriors receded, they went into professional fields in which they used the same rigor and pursuit of the excellent to guide them.

I don't want to confuse culture with religion here unnecessarily but it seems that Christianity does not have a strong tradition of striving for excellence. Rather, there is an interesting countervailing force that guides us to live for God and for others. There is no room for craft or art in that. The argument could be made that God's commandments don't preclude great actions, but they hardly seem to be the focus. Glory in battle would be about the last thing that would fit in with Christian ideals.

However, look at Christ, the disciples and the tradition of the saints.They take on a certain cast in light of their sacrifices. In the case of Jesus and his disciples, they are known first by their great works. But Jesus becomes who he is meant to be when he is crucified. Why else would we attach such significance to the cross? It is a symbol of his greatness, of his sacrifice and of our salvation, all of it wrapped up in one.

Hagiographies, too, are replete with stories of people willing to die for their faith, though not to kill for it. Saints become what themselves, enter into their sainthood at the point of their embrace of martyrdom, whether they actually die or not. The miracles performed by them are almost like the natural by-product of their faith, like a surplus of their godliness overflowing onto other people and things around them (Elisha's cloak or Jesus's robe).

I wonder, then, if we are to follow the commandments to love God and others that these other things will necessarily happen, that's God's greatness will be with us. And if not, is it because we are not following his word, or is it that some of us are just not to experience "greatness?" Maybe greatness can be small?

In the end, it makes me think of that old philosophical koan: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If Leonidas died sacrificially for Sparta and no one knew or told his tale, does that diminish the greatness of it? Did Miller consider his own role in enacting and increasing the greatness, the arete, of the Spartans in spreading the story to his readers and now to those who watched the movie? Is there a silent, invisible arete?

Off topic: Beautiful children of Omaha

Ravings from an "Expert" Who Failed to Rate a Bush Chat Invite

George Bush wants to know why people don't like him. He wants to know what happened to his popularity, all his political capital. He's meeting with writers, historians, philosophers. But I've got an idea for him:

Meet with the people you're supposed to represent.

I'm sure that a roomful of people gathered at random would tell him a lot more than any collection of "experts."

But that would go against Bush's whole philosophy (and that of his Administration): people are sheep, easily led, dumb beasts who can't speak for themselves. Consider the run up to the war in Iraq: millions of people protested. They called for other solutions, begged not to start a war, asked for more inspections. Bush's response: Piss off, we've got a war to fight, whether you like it or not. At that point, enough people were afraid of terrorists that Bush could pretty much do whatever he wanted (and did). But that kind of fear is hard to maintain, even if the threat level never drops below "elevated."

But if he were to assemble a few groups of citizens he might hear what's really going on. And that's the danger. Presidents and elected officials of many levels don't really have to connect in any genuine way with their constituents. People talk about the bubble of Washington, a self-contained universe with its own set of agendas, topsy-turvy political ecologies and concentrations of power. It should be the most plugged-in kind of place, gaging the pulse of the nation and the world, tracking trends in the political landscape (at least).

But by many accounts, it's provincial, looking inward as much if not more than it looks outward, concerned with its own affairs more than those of whom it claims to speak and work for.

It's no surprise. Washington is a collection of organizations, agencies, departments, and branches, all of which exhibit the same basic tendency of its human progenitors--survival of self first. They don't about kitchen table issues in politics. This is more like "dinner table politics:" if I don't eat as much as I can, somebody else will, so better eat fast. My in-laws say you're either "the quick or the hungry."

If everything you do is reduced to how much you can gain for yourself in the budget process (if you're a government entity) or through earmarks and donations (if you're a non-profit), than that job of self-preservation becomes the priority.

It's like the way that the GOP had become so obviously enamored of merely gaining and holding power in Washington rather than actually governing. How else can we explain our lack of leadership in the areas of the climate change, education for all people, job creation for our changing economy, energy and our reliance on fossil fuels, global diplomacy, true electoral reform, health care for every citizen, etc.? So if George Bush wants to hear why he and his administration is on the outs with Americans, he should probably take a look at the above list. Then, combine that with the venality and self-serving power-mongering of himself and his cronies. Put it all together and you get the general measure of the sordid reign of King George. So where's not to like?

Remember the Sabbath?

I don't want to go to church. But I don't want to feel guilty about not going to church. Going to church, being with fellow Christians, should be like coming home, taking off your shoes, relaxing after a day at work and resting in their presence. Instead, I always feel unworthy of most of my fellow church-goers, like they are the modern-day equivalent of St. Pious or St. Applepie-us. I don't know my saints, clearly.

How do we get beyond feeling like a naughty child on Sunday mornings with the newspaper and coffee, kids playing nearby or downstairs, and NPR drifting in from the other room? How do we not think ourselves lapsed in ignoring our weekly obligations to God?

But does God really care if we are at church or home? Maybe it's that at church I actually spend a little time trying to plug into the divine presence, approach the mysterious, commune with the Creator with my peer communicants. At home, my prayers, if I make them, are individual, like diary entries, or a blog with only one reader. When praying, singing, or learning en masse, we become pilgrims together, heading toward the New Jerusalem.

So often, though, the cares of the day take over, the urgent but not important (as opposed to the important but not always apparently urgent work of God). I consider how distracting the kids really are at church, how hard it is to make my emotional pilgrimage. How I might help my wife around the house. How I really just want to see and hang out with them anyway.

I resist the need to see God at church, my cutting him out of other areas; but the other places, the kitchen, the basement, the back yard, don't necessarily seem imbued with his presence, so crowded as they often are by yelling kids or me and my yelling at the kids. Still, when the children playing together, side-by-side or with each other with their legos or tinker toys, I sometimes think that heaven has this kind of interplay of egos with each other in a genuine give and take. I just don't usually find it at church.

Dying for a cup of coffee

In a darkened hut, on a dirt floor, a young woman stirs beans as they roast on a skillet. She then breaks the brown beans in a bowel with a wooden pestle. She brews the coffee and pours in through a long-stemmed pot into wide cups sitting on a crate. The members of the family gathered around the coffee each take a cup and drink, themselves sitting on their own crates or squatting.

Somewhere else, a man wakes up before sunrise, walks downstairs through the dining room to the kitchen and turns on the light overhead. From the freezer he picks a Kenya dark roast, fills the electric grinder, and presses the button for 20 seconds. After filling the basket of the drip coffee maker, he pours distilled water it into the coffee maker. He presses the "on" button and 5 minutes later drinks a cup at the kitchen table as he takes in the morning news on the radio or internet.

These two parties are linked by coffee. But they are at different ends of its chain. The first is in Ethiopia, where coffee originated and where it is still a major export crop. The other is in the US and represents the biggest consumer of coffee in the world. One is dirt poor and getting poorer. The other is richer than ever. One is brown or black. The other is white.

The documentary Black Gold tells the story of coffee, where it comes from, where it goes and how the money flows. In the coffee market, much like other commodities, the farmers don't make the money. The traders, processors and marketers do. Coffee contracts in 2005 totaled $140 billion dollars. Starbucks alone has over 13,000 outlets. But, according the movie, every $3 cup of coffee earns a farmer only 3¢.

So, what is the morality of a cup of joe?

In the next few entries, I want to look at coffee and our relationship with it and its producers as people in the West and as Christians. I hope to illuminate its role in our lives and work and our role as believers in changing the lives of others.

What Enron taught us (and how we all managed to miss class that day)

I've seen it before, but I saw it again tonight and my dander is up once more.

Independent Lens showed Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room tonight. Oh sure, it's fun to watch the giant fall, to see the pedestal of Ozymandias:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(Thanks, P.B. Shelley [which does not stand for Peanut Butter, by the way]).

O! the glorious irony of it all, or predictability, or whatever.

But how my blood boils to think of how unwittingly we watched California endure Enron's shadow passing over it with its rolling blackouts. We are suckers, waiting for our PT Barnum. We are those pheasants on Dick Cheney's hunting ranch, waiting to be released for our cursory last flight. We are easy pickings. All of us.

The worst part: we actually still believe what we hear and see, "believing old men's lies," as Pound says in "Mauberley."

Gas prices keep going up and up and up. Iraq is frying in our very hot war over there. We've got one political scandal after another rocking this administration.

This isn't a matter of the emperor having no clothes. "In fact, here he comes down the runway in a piece that's perfect for any occasion. This year's hottest fashion: the American flag wrap. You'll always fit in with these bold stripes and plucky stars. Just the thing to show you love your country. No critic would dare touch you with this little number on. Body armor meets Teflon with a freedom of movement inspired by Freedom itself. And the best is, it's made in China." Disclaimer: The American flag does not guarantee any protection against attacks either of a verbal or physical nature and cannot be relied on for medical care for families of servicemen following their discharge from the US armed forces. Any references to "Freedom" in the particular or abstract are purely theoretical except in the case of administration officials, its operatives and proxies, and are not transferable to any citizen not directly under the administration's employ.

It's time to stop accepting lies and excuses. We all know that life has gotten worse under Bush's time on the throne. (In case we forgot, Enron was one of GWB's biggest contributors in 2000, and Ken Lay lent his sagacity to the Cheney Energy Task Force. But, thankfully, neither of those two actions have had any repercussions in the present. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.)

How many other "black boxes" of information are we willing to believe? Are we always to play the swooning audience to the melodrama of greedy corporate misinformation meets sinister government propaganda who decide to seduce the wallflower media?

So many days I want to just turn off the radio, stop listening and read some poetry or fiction (particularly having just learned that Gilbert Sorrentino died last year. Made me take down Mulligan Stew yet again and leaf through its hilarious pages. One of my favorite tidbits of downright silliness meets literary criticism in a metafictional land: "You can always tell a good poem if your hair stands up while you cut yourself shaving."). But somehow I keep thinking, "You can't just look away. The world will never change unless you help even a little."

In the words of Mario Savio:
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

I don't know how do this. But I know that I feel this way. I wonder how many of us feel this way. "Stop the Bush train. We want to get off . . . and close down the line for good . . . and sell the engines for scrap . . . and reclaim the last 6 years of our lives."

And find out the truth at some point.

But doesn't God live at CHURCH?

I've been reading Carl Jung's essay "Achetypes of the Collective Unconscious," which has got me thinking: do we keep the "Divine" in church (where it can be properly revered, censed and what have you) or do we welcome it in to the rest of our lives (where it can see that we pick our nose and how long it takes us to go to the bathroom)? The question is simply to we pray best when in front of the altar or while on the throne?

I don't really know. I struggle with both, actually. But maybe because I grew up Protestant, it is easier for me to see my failure to comply with bringing God everywhere than with properly observing his divinity while at church (again, though, not great at either).

Why the point about being a Protestant? We were the image breakers, after all, the iconoclasts, who would have no mere objects of wood, dye or metal to which we would bow or pray. Instead, we'd rather go to church all the time. Two times on Sunday, then small-groups on Monday, Bible study on Wednesday, revival Friday night (at which you re-dedicate your life) and Saturday drama practice or Men's Group. You think I'm joking? I am not.

Instead of integrating our faith into the rest of our life, we simply made faith (and a very particularized expression of it) into our lives.

I recall a neighbor who lived on the first floor of the apartment I rented while in college. Every time I left out the side door, I would go past her front door and could hear her singing loudly to praise music that was coming (loudly) from the radio or TV. Then, I would find her little boy outside, either bored or hungry, and usually just hanging around on the stoop.

OK, extreme example. But it seemed to me that she wanted to be in church so bad that she neglected all else.

I've never been like that. I'll leave church all pumped up, excited to read some more of the Bible, which I started doing either because of the sermon or despite it. I'll get home, have lunch, yell at the kids, play with the kids, do some work, clean up my office, and that unstruck iron of my religious fervor is cold to the touch. It is replaced by a sense of guilt that hangs around and gets progressively stronger until it, like a turkey timer, is about to pop on Sunday morning (We have GOT to go to church "for the kids' sake"). By the time the sermon is over, my guilt has been replaced by zeal. I'm on fire again. And so it goes.

Still, I never wanted to be one of those people that said "Praise the Lord" instead of "that's great" upon hearing about the Bears going into the SuperBowl or that Whole Foods had that feta we liked in stock. It also sounded a little fakey, a little too churched for my taste.

But who am I? No one's making me say things. Yes, but I felt bad not saying that as well.

Or "Good luck?" What a can of worms. See, Christians don't believe in luck because all things are ordained by God, not by chance. So, don't ever say "good luck" to someone, say "God bless you," just like George Bush: "God Bless America." And, you can't be lucky or unlucky for the same reason. So . . . we are blessed to have enough money for Thai tonight or we are not blessed and so must put it on the credit card. That doesn't really fit with orthodoxy, either. You see the dilemma.

more on this . . .

Conspiracy of Christianity (part 1)

In the freshly minted earth (imagine steam or mist rising off it as it cools or heats up in the predawn light), God says "Let us make man in our image," the first conspiracy.

We could say that the act of creating the Earth itself is a kind of conspiracy, but consider the root: "conspirare, 'to breath together,' and so 'to combine or unit in some purpose.'" Another meaning used today is "to plot in secret," even as one person.

Still, if God's first conspiracy was to create Man, then conspiracies in themselves are not all bad. Indeed, the way Christians see it, God's own conspiracies, usually involving people of faith, thwart the evil intent of those plotted by Satan. It is a great war between foes with humans as the co-conspirators.

Granted, not all Christians see themselves in this way, but in 2004 I was made aware that a rumor on the Christian internet (a part of the Web with bible quotes cross-stitched and hanging on the walls) that Barack Obama may be the anti-Christ. If he was conspiring to take over government and lead this country into Satan's open arms, plunging the world into Armeggedon, then Christians were going to do something about it. (Of course, given the predominate interpretation Revelation by evangelical Christians, we should have welcomed the anti-Christ, as that would have put the Rapture on the fast-track, right?)

In fact, some folks see satan in every whisp of smoke just as others see angels in every cloud break. But if we stick to the "conspiracy as planning together" model, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are participants in a conspiracy. But you can bet that they think themselves the victims of one.

It is not unlike Thomas Friedman's analysis of the Arab world from The World is Flat: "They have been raised to believe that Islam is the perfect and cmplete expression of God's monthestic mesaage and that the Prophet Muhammed is God's last and most perfect messenger." But "[they] can and do look around and see that the Arab-Muslim world, in too many cases, has fallen behind the rest of the planet."

The reason: conspiracy, one in which the West is trying to keep down the Muslims. So al-Qaeda and its revolutionary kin flourish and conspire to take down the West.

Here in the West, we have our own disaffected groups, namely the working class. More than any other group, they have been the grassroots of the religious right's power, even if some of the green has come from business interests. The working class tends to be more religious and to see their religion has affecting their material circumstance. How do I know this? Well, I've lived it, and continue to live it, so I suppose it's personal and anecdotal, but I'm sure that the folks at the Pew Research Center would probably back me up on this.

The working class in the West has seen its real wages fall over three decades. And we wonder why Christians feel left out of mainstream? Just like those jaded Arab youths who see the West corrupting and controlling the world and flaunting it with the likes of Madonna and Bush, the Christian working class have watched their own power contract while culture goes to hell all around them. It must be some kind of conspiracy. That's the only explanation. God wouldn't let this happen, right?

Christians have consiracy written into their spiritual DNA. It's impossible to extract without killing the subject. But it may not be a bad thing. It helps us see meaning where it may not be apparent. It may provide a filter through which to understand the overload of information coming in from all quarters. It may provide us with a place to stand "as ignorant armies clash by night." But it is exploitable. That's a weakness. And it has been used against us.

Like some Muslims and the caliphate, certain Christians are driven to act in an almost pavlovian response to the description of the US as a "Christian nation." Is there something in the Bible I missed? The only nation with which I remember God having a relationship was Israel, to whom he had made promises, covenants that are referred to specifically in the Bible.

Still, there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting a nation whose leaders and people are dedicated to God's purposes. What is wrong is that we think we can get there by making gay marriage illegal, setting up a monument to the ten commandments or bringing prayer to schools. In these ways, and so many others, Christians have conspired to influence government, and, by extension, the people governed, in order to bring about a more perfect union with God.

Remember "the gay agenda?" As a kid, I heard the reason they try to convert straight people is that they can't breed. CONSPIRACY. And now they want to adopt, so that they can start inculcating them with "gayness" as children? CONSPIRACY. And who will fight our war in the Middle-East if every good-looking boy in America fails the don't ask-don't tell test? OK, sorry. Little over the top there, but you get the picture.

Christians feel that they have somehow been conspired against and are looking for people with whom to conspire in their own favor. It's quite natural, quite human, but probably less Godly than we'd like to think ourselves. It is more about retribution than compassion, more revenge than righteousness.

From the realpolitik, it is hurting us. We often act against our own interests, just because it will get a little of our dignity back. Consider working class people and their falling in with the GOP, often against their own economic interests.

(I know that there's more on this in me, but I'm not sure where yet. I'll get back to you on this.)