An Invitation to the Barricades Based Upon a Realization of the Nature of Our Oppressors and the Need to Live with Integrity

T. Thorn Coyle always has something interesting to say, but this week, her posts keep resonating with things that I've been thinking about, especially within the overall themes of how we thrive in today's world. She says:

"I see that change is possible. Humans can deal with each other in forthright and adult ways, and have fun while they are at it. It is this signal I will follow, not the noise.

I mentioned to my homeopath this morning that my integrity is my only currency. She said it is the only thing any of us have. Yet humans support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time. Why is this? What blinds us? Fear, greed and neediness."

It's interesting, because I've been thinking about the fact that it is the complete lack of integrity that makes the Bush administration and its supporters, both within the mainstream media and in general, so impossible to deal with. The recent Mary Cheney brouhaha is just one tiny example. She's gay, she's openly gay. She's made a good living off the very fact that she is gay and can supposedly help, for example, Coors attract more gay customers. Her father mentioned shortly before the Republican convention that she was gay. Yet, she and her mama are willing to try to make political capital and sell books by pretending to be highly offended that, when asked a question about gays (that never would have come up at all but for Republican pandering to an inflammable base of gay-haters) Kerry and Edwards mentioned that she was gay. No integrity. How do you deal with that? Kerry's fumbled it up until now. I think the answer may be to do something that liberals have been reluctant to do up until now: to begin to directly challenge these people's integrity.

And of course, Mary Cheney's only one small example in a tsunami of acts that simply reek of a lack of integrity: from the 2000 "election" to the misuse of 9/11 to lying us into an illegal, immoral war to robbing from the poor and the old and the sick to give to the rich to illegal spying on Americans to torture to secret jails with no due process to swift boating and planting kerned documents to polluting the air and calling it "Clear Skies," everything these people do is tainted by a lack of integrity. They don't even feel a need to be consistent; they're happy to claim today that impeaching a president would be the end of the world when just a few years ago they impeached Clinton over a blow job. Kay Bailey Hutchinson got caught recently asserting that lying isn't an impeachable offence, although she'd said the exact opposite about Clinton. Debbie Howell will continue to lie on the pages of the WaPo about whether Democrats were beneficiaries of Abramoff's bribes, even when it's been clearly shown that that is not the case.

Which brings us back, I think, to Ms. Coyle's question: If our integrity is our only currency, the only thing any of us have, why do we support people and systems that have little to no integrity all the time? Why is this? What blinds us? Coyle answers: Fear, greed and neediness. And perhaps she's right. Particularly about the role that fear plays in this process. In particular, I think we are afraid to simply announce and be forced to act upon the fact that we are dealing with people who have no integrity. We're not talking about differences of opinion, about people of good will honestly disagreeing about legitimate policy differences. We're talking about the fact that we're dealing with people -- the people in charge of our government and the largest most powerful nation on Earth -- who lack all integrity. It's an extreme statement to make and liberals have become too terrified of being called extreme, fringe, wacky, dirty hippies, tree huggers, kooks. So it's that fear.

More, though, there's a fear associated with what happens once you admit to yourself and announce to the world that your opponent lacks all integrity. Our system of democratic government, with its checks and balances and respect for diversity, is based to a larger degree than we often recognize upon the premise that even our opponents will act with integrity, that everyone will play by the rules. Once that's no longer the case, when you have a large group of powerful people who refuse to follow any of the rules, our democracy doesn't really provide the tools to deal with that. We can't vote them out of office when they have their fingers on the Diebold hard drive. We can't convince our fellow Americans to vote them out of office when they have blackmail dirt obtained by illegal spying on key members of the media and their bosses.

So, what do we do? How do we thrive when the entire system created to allow us to thrive no longer works, when it's been infected by a complete lack of integrity? If the first part of the answer to that question is to always behave with integrity ourselves, what does that mean in this new world?

I can't remember now where I read it, but I saw something on the web a week or so ago about a woman who attended a political debate where the Republican began by refusing to disavow ads that were clearly dishonest. She said that, on reflection, she wished that she hadn't sat quietly, following the moderator's rule that audience members not ask questions. She wished she'd stood up and announced her objection and refused to sit down until the Republican did the thing that integrity would have required him (or her, I just can't remember) to do. Maybe that's the way we ourselves behave with integrity when dealing with those who have none.

But it's only part of the answer. I think the other part is to acknowledge that we're living in a new world and that new solutions -- possibly involving mass civil disobedience -- are going to be necessary. That's scary, but dealing with the fear that brings up may be necessary in order for us to thrive. Sometimes, a forest fire is necessary to clear old growth and allow new trees to grow. Sometimes, forest fire is the only way for the forest to preserve its own integrity.

I'm not saying anything original. In fact, some guys with long hair said it very eloquently over 200 years ago:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."