The Most Important Question: On Inevitability And The War On Terror

What I am attempting here today might be overly ambitious. But I want to get at the most important thing you need to know about the so-called War on Terror. I am not suggesting that the War on Terror is false or foolhardy. There is undoubtedly the Islam-fueled machinery of terrorism aimed at the West. But what I am suggesting is that the War on Terror is not really aptly named. It would be like calling the practice of medicine a "War on Pain". Pain is only a symptom. Of course, sometimes medicine can only treat symptoms; the common cold is so treated. But a medical War on Pain is about etiology, about causes and origins. It is not about pain per se, but what the pain signifies. Hence, medicine is about treating causes; about eradicating threats to health. But even that is not the ultimate aim of medicine. Medicine is not ultimately about a War on Pain or Causes. It is ultimately about a War on Death.

Similarly, the War on Terror, playing out as a war on symptoms, should be a war against causes. But the causes are not failed foreign policy or trade imbalances or territory occupations. Those themselves are symptomatic. What the war is ultimately about is something far scarier, and far more elusive. The War on Terror is really a war about the nature of God. My aim is for this essay to be the most important thing you've ever read about radical Islam, and its aggressions toward the West. And it is to suggest two things: The West either needs to completely redefine its use of military force in this war, or it needs to stop such force altogether. In short, the War on Terror might be better fought by theologians than soldiers.

I begin with the National Geographic documentary "Inside 9/11". This well-done though imperfect and incomplete 4-hour film defines the key "causes" of 9/11, though it reaches only back into the deep history of 1980. That this is a tremendous shortfall is obvious, though the reason for this mistake is likewise obvious: Islam and the West have been at 0dds for over 1000 years, so a line must be drawn somewhere. What happened in 1980? The former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, an invasion which was nothing but struggle for the Soviets for 8 years. Eventually, Muslim fighters – the mujahideen – backed with weapons supplied by the US' CIA, forced the great socialist state to retreat in defeat.

This defeat set the tone for men like Osama bin Laden (OBL): They were on the right side of God, as Allah decreed. This religious confidence would expand, finding itself expressed in the "defeat" of American forces in Mogadishu (backed by OBL) made infamous in the film, "Black Hawk Down" (I have read that Somalia celebrates an annual holiday in honor of its victory over America); through September 11, as Muslim crowds cheered the demolition of the World Trade Center; and even on through to today, as Israel completes its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Where does this confidence come from? Why do Muslims cheer as thousands die? And why have no major Islamic leaders – political or religious – denounced those horrific acts?

The confidence of Islam and its glee over and seeming indifference to death comes from one of the most important teachings of Islam. It is to this teaching that I will now turn.

al-Qadar

If you are at all familiar with the Calvinistic idea of predestination, then you are on the road to understanding the Islamic teaching of al-Qadar. It is, in simplest possible terms, the idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing Allah wills and decrees and foreknows every thing that comes to pass. That this teaching is fraught with difficulty is admitted by Muslim scholars the world over, as many struggle to maintain a concept of human free will in the presence of an omnipotent Allah. Of course, this same problem exists for Christian theologians, particularly those in the Calvinist tradition.

Granted, I have perhaps over-simplified the doctrine, but I have stated its essence accurately. One online definition and description is to be found here; a more thorough one can be read here or at this link.

Let me share three things I've learned over the years as I've studied this. First, this doctrine is not peripheral or tangential to Islam, it is essential. In fact, it is the sixth of the Six Articles of Belief. "Islam", let us remember, means "to submit or surrender"; the surrender of the Muslim (one who surrenders) to the will of Allah. Second, to deny or challenge this foundational doctrine is to risk divine judgment. And third, this teaching has led many to believe that Islam is essentially fatalistic: That there is nothing in life but inevitabililty; there is no personal control over destiny. In fact, G.K. Chesterton nearly 100 years ago repeatedly referred to Islam as the religion of fatalism. Muslims have actually addressed this charge (for an example, go here). For a discussion about such fate, study this link.

I want to highlight two statements regarding al-Qadar from sources already cited:

"Al-Qadar is a matter of Allah's Knowledge. No one can uncover his own Qadar but after it happens. One's intention to perform a deed precedes the action itself. He does not know what Al-Qadar holds for him."

"Allah created everything and nothing happens without His permission. He said that all actions taken by His slave happen by His Will, (If Allah had willed, succeeding generations would not have fought against each other, after clear Versus of Allah had come to them, but they differed, some of them believed and others disbelieved. If Allah had willed, they would not have fought against one another, but Allah does what He likes.) [2:253] and, (And if We had willed, surely! We would have given every person his guidance, but the Word from Me took effect (about evil-doers), that I will fill Hell with Jinn and mankind together.) [32:13].

"As for the mind, the universe is Allah's Kingdom and mankind are a part of this Kingdom. Therefore, all mankind are owned by Allah. The slave cannot do anything in this Kingdom unless its Lord, Allah, gives him permission."

THE PROBLEM

I hope the reader can guess where I am going here. I am suggesting something entirely simple, and it is this: When something occurs, whether it be the defeat of the Soviet army, the withdrawal of American troops from Somalia, a bombing in London or Madrid, or the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, Muslims MUST view those events as Allah's will, his Qadar. There is no other choice. And if you've read the articles to which I've linked, then you know that al-Qadar is not an easy teaching for Muslims: It is nearly impossible for them to separate a person's freedom from Allah's decree. In fact, if I were a Muslim, I would always choose, largely because of the difficulty of the teaching, to assign all actions to a sovereign deity in order not to offend that deity's omnipotent honor.

Osama bin Laden himself submits to this teaching, as proven by his comments released in December 2001. Surely we all remember the videotape, with OBL sitting in a cave speaking about 9/11 to a Saudi sheik? What did they say about the World Trade Center? They said this, translated of course [UBL is Usama bin Laden, a variant spelling]:

UBL: (... Inaudible...) we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (... Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

Shaykh: Allah be praised.

UBL: We were at (... inaudible...) when the event took place. We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5: 30 p. m. our time. I was sitting with Dr. Ahmad Abu-al-(( Khair)). Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington. The news continued and no mention of the attack until the end. At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center.

Shaykh: Allah be praised.

UBL: After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it.

Shaykh: I listened to the news and I was sitting. We didn't... we were not thinking about anything, and all of a sudden, Allah willing, we were talking about how come we didn't have anything, and all of a sudden the news came and everyone was overjoyed and everyone until the next day, in the morning, was talking about what was happening and we stayed until four o'clock, listening to the news every time a little bit different, everyone was very joyous and saying "Allah is great," "Allah is great," "We are thankful to Allah," "Praise Allah." And I was happy for the happiness of my brothers. That day the congratulations were coming on the phone non-stop. The mother was receiving phone calls continuously. Thank Allah. Allah is great, praise be to Allah.

(Quoting the verse from the Quran) Shaykh: "Fight them, Allah will torture them, with your hands, he will torture them. He will deceive them and he will give you victory. Allah will forgive the believers, he is knowledgeable about everything."

Shaykh: No doubt it is a clear victory. Allah has bestowed on us... honor on us... and he will give us blessing and more victory during this holy month of Ramadan. And this is what everyone is hoping for. Thank Allah America came out of its caves. We hit her the first hit and the next one will hit her with the hands of the believers, the good believers, the strong believers. By Allah it is a great work. Allah prepares for you a great reward for this work.

(Read the complete transcript here)

What is the response to OBL's having learned that the towers have collapsed? "Allah be praised". It is more than anyone hoped for.

Hence, that the towers collapsed PROVES to (most?) Muslims that they were MEANT to collapse, by divine decree. In fact each terrorism attack that succeeds vindicates militant Islam's belief in its superiority to the religions of other nations. Moreover, Muslims can't really denounce something if it has already occurred: Allah willed it!

Where does that then leave us? It leaves us in the heart of a theological debate, even if each of us in the West living under Osama bin Laden's fatwa is an atheist. There is no way around this religious issue. It is the heart of the struggle, and that struggle begs this most important question: Is the deity of Islam WILLING the West's destruction or not?

It is food for thought.

(CLICK HERE for Part II)

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All rights reserved.

Inside My Heart: Brother, Take My Hand. Let's Leave This Place

It is impossible for me to fully process what I have just seen (National Geographic's "Inside 9/11"). My earlier posts seem trivial, petulant, even foolish. This whole story – the West's struggle with Islam – is bigger than any one, or any ten thousand minds, can comprehend.

Tonight, I have cried. I have shouted out profanities. I have called out to God (as one woman screamed out in the WTC dust cloud for Jesus to save her).

But I have not suffered. Everything around me is comfortable, safe, stable.

For now.

A New York Muslim falls as he tries to escape the imploding tower. A Hasidic Jew stands over him, reaches down. "Brother, take my hand. Let's leave this place."

A moment of choking, smothering chaos. Suddenly, a hand of Shalom, of Salaam. The Good Samaritan. Love thy neighbor. Love your enemies.

Breathtaking, in more ways than one.

Of course, Osama bin Laden's quote posted at the end of the film, is a mindbender: We love death, the U.S. loves life. That is the difference.

It is the difference indeed.

Contratimes

Disappointed: Inside 9/11 From The Outside

[This begins below with Play By Play...]

Last night's first chapter of the two-part series, "Inside 9/11", was just OK. The National Geographic Society did all it could to impress us with its, well, geography, with satellite image-based graphics adorning its jam-packed timeline, but the graphics and attendant audio effects eventually felt overdone and irritating.

That said, I was disappointed by this one fact: The series did not mention Iraq once - other than a passing remark about perfectly forged Iraqi passports. There may have been more references, and I may have missed them, but I doubt it.

Why should this upset me? Because there is the underlying myth pervading particularly the liberal landscape that Iraq and 9/11 are completely – and eternally, it seems – unrelated. In fact, the NGS writers mention OBL's fatwa – barely, but only in reference to America's alliance with Saudi Arabia. While that alliance irked him to no end, it was America's aggression toward Iraq that pissed him off. See my Mr. President, What About ...

Moreover, it was a Clintonite, Karen Mylroie, I believe, who made a strong case in 1994 that Iraq President Saddam Hussein was involved in the first major attack on the WTC in 1993. Of course, this is all lost in the left's tedious repeating of the lie that the 9/11 Commission found no connection between 9/11 and Hussein. To counteract that lie, the Commission held press conferences to denounce that finding, pointing out that it had only concluded that there was no "collaborative" connection between Hussein and the 9/11 terrorists.

But the Able Danger scandal, hot as hell, places doubt on the veracity of both the Commission's findings and the recollections of the former Clinton administration. This much is clear: Clinton REALLY screwed up. I am not stating this in any partisan way. It is true, plain and simple.

Lastly, I am disappointed by the NGC's reference to one terrorist who was raised in the lands apparently stolen by Israel during the Six Days' War. The suggestion is that he was a member of the oppressed, which he was. But he was not oppressed solely by land-hungry oppressors. He was oppressed by the aggressions of his own people and the 20-plus other PLO nations intent on the sole destruction of Israel. After all, it was Israel's neighbors who first attacked Israel: The Six Days' War was a defensive measure on all objective counts, save maybe the Quakers'.

Contratimes

Play By Play: Inside 9/11, LIVE

While I have family members rocking out right now to the Rolling Stones in Fenway Park, I sit and watch the National Geographic Channel's "Inside 9/11". It is a highly-publicized four-hour documentary examining the timeline leading up to September 11.

Here are a few thoughts during the 10:23 commercial break.

• The show fails to mention the Clinton administration's failure to declare the Feb 26, 1993 bombing attack on the World Trade Center as an act of war. Instead, the administration chose to view it, and subsequent attacks around the world, as criminal acts. This separated the F.B.I and C.I.A. in ways indeterminable.In fact, the show hardly mentions Clinton's leadership at all, until
• The impeachment scandal is highlighted, as well as Clinton's acquittal by the Senate. I am sorry, but the implication is that if Clinton had not been harassed by puritanical officials obsessed with his sex-life, Clinton would have been free to better track, capture and/or destroy Osama bin Laden. In other words, that Clinton could not do his job because of the harassment by such devils as Ken Starr. No sense is given that Clinton brought the Lewinsky scandal upon himself.
• Ah, there is, right now (the show is back on), mention that Clinton went into retreat during the waning months of his final term, thus harming morale throughout the military establishment.
• Oops. Now we're told that Bush was "on vacation" in August of 2001, when he received a brief warning of an attack. It's all designed to implicate. No mention that Clinton's sexual recklessness destroyed his effectiveness. But Bush showing off his chainsaw prowess; that's something else. Sure, there's Clinton hugging Monica in that hat, BUT that's Clinton's "Private Life." Of course, Bush's vacation is not his private life.

It is clear that Clinton dropped the ball. Eight years of neglect of bin Laden's threats. Yes, Bush was too domestically fixated during the first months of his term, largely due to wanting to win America's blessing after the 2000 election debacle. But he and his administration are on the scene for but a few months. Clinton had 8 years to do better than his successor...

More later...

Contratimes

Sui Generis

It's Sunday morning, I've been stung by a bee, had my coffee, and just finished reading Ann Coulter's latest essay, Cindy Sheehan - Commander in Grief. Ann makes a remarkably similar argument, in parts, to what I drafted yesterday. However, since she is my superior and quicker to the punchline, I abdicate any claim to originality (as I do most days anyway), recognizing that her opinions may have, through the course of any news cycle, influenced mine without my notice.

In a lighter, more personal note, how is it (pain always generates mild obsession) that while pedalling my mountain bike at full speed on the way to this perfect little café, I could get stung on the back of the left thigh? Such a nasty little surprise.

Last night I watched much of the film, "A Beautiful Mind", the story of the genius and mentally ill mathematician John Nash. (With Jennifer Connolly playing Nash's wife, my closest male friends have repeatedly referred to the film as "A Beautiful Wife." Again, hardly an original thought. But an accurate one, nonetheless. I mean, she was distractingly beautiful in that film.)

If the film is at all accurate, Nash was obsessed, at least at Princeton, with publishing an original thought. Such a goal is notable, and must be closely allied with obsession. I can with all clarity admit that I've not once had an original thought, nor have I uttered an original sentence at a dinner party. To pursue originality, to actually create something sui generis, one-of-a-kind, must either be a stroke of luck or demand all one's faculties, or both.

And I can pretty much say that if I've heard an original thought offered while sitting at this café or clinking glasses over paté, the thought is usually remarkably deficient, even ridiculous.

With this in mind, I ask myself why I should bother writing about that which is popular, known, unoriginal? Why repeat the oft repeated, and engage in the infinite loop?

Because I am striving, along with the rest of you, for a glimpse of the transcendent, the new, the detour around the morass. I am looking for those off- and on-ramps that lead to something eternal, fixed, indubitable, even fresh; new vistas, insights, epiphanies, each to help me make sense of the world in which I find myself.

It is not asking too much, is it?

But sometimes stating the obvious, telling the plain truth about an object in common sense terms, is possibly a stroke of genius. Originality is perhaps too aggressively pursued; and by too many people enamored of the creative spirit irrespective of the poverty of that which is created. It is possible, as I've stated in other ways, to be so creative as to be of no artistic good (in the truest sense of artistic); and of no earthly good. We can be so enamored of the artistic image that we can no longer see anything but canvas and clay, the much cheaper representations of the real things we no longer see, nor care to. It is like wedding guests huddled around dozens of digital cameras, oohing and ahhing over images of the very things they can see in three dimensions if they would just lift their eyes. Even a woman I met in NYC, a survivor of 9/11, shared with me that once she WATCHED the film clips of that tragic day, it became more real to her. (I recall as a teenager, after a tragic weekend in which three schoolmates were killed, that I did not weep at wake or funeral. I wept after the fact, when I read the obituaries.)

So, in a world divorced from the ground of being, with people disconnected from the ISNESS of things, stating the obvious, or even just searching for it without comment or analysis, may indeed be an ingenius act of creation; and a true protest.

Enjoy this August day. See it, taste it, touch it. Whatever you do, don't miss it. Even if it stings you in the rear.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

At A Loss

Cindy Sheehan is hot right now, so hot her name is probably a hipper search word than "Jessica Simpson" or "Jude Law". Strange how things change so quickly. Ms. Sheehan was totally unknown to me until about 10 days ago. Prior to that I was dealing with the Downing Street Memo or Dick Cheney or Maureen Dowd; Abu Ghraib or Karl Rove, John Roberts, or even John Bolton. Now, as indictments are drafted against UN officials involved in the UN Oil-For-Food scandal with Iraq, and the Clinton presidency and the 9/11 commission teeter under the severe weight of the Able Danger revelations, the latest Propaganda-For-News fad is a woman camped out at the end of a Texas driveway.

For a great look at Ms. Sheehan's views, please see Christopher Hitchens' recent op-eds, Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle and What Cindy Sheehan Really Wants. (Hey, anyone who puts "sinister" and "piffle" in the same headline has got to be worth reading.) As you read Hitchens, take time to follow the many links he posts in his essay. It is quite a tour. That Mr. Hitchens and I would not agree on much matters little to me. What matters is that he has a handle on this latest gratuitous info-mercial presented by the main-stream media and the leftists who have exploited it.

I have no strong views about Ms. Sheehan. She will soon be forgotten. This is in no way meant to diminish her grief. It is merely meant to mentally prepare myself for the next cause celebre that will beg for my attention. And since my time on earth is finite, I need to use that time as wisely and frugally as possible. After all, any time spent on anything is time one can never retrieve.

But today I want to expend my time on two things central to the story of the Crawford standoff, where Ms. Sheehan, I believe, expects President Bush to Crawl-Forward to her in deep contrition.

The first is a rebuff of the silly, vapid remarks offered by two Boston talk-radio personalities who believe President Bush should meet – individually – with the "parents" of all soldiers killed in the "War on Terror". Of course, this sort of expectation comes from the same folks who believe the President should not waste so much time vacationing. But what greater vacation would there be from presidential duties than meeting with grieving loved ones individually? Moreover, why limit visits to parents? Why not step- and grandparents, wives, husbands, fiances, girlfriends and children?

A simple math calculation may move us along to the next scene in this absurd theater. Let us assume that when the year is done, 2000 American troops will have been killed in Iraq. Let us give them each 2 parents. That leaves us with 4000 grieving moms and dads, though some soldiers will have only one parent, others might have four (counting step-parents). Let us assume that 25 percent of the soldiers leave behind a spouse. That makes for 4500 grieving family members. Now let's assume that there are 750 children left behind; 750 fiances, and 500 girlfriends and boyfriends. That gives us about 6500 people the president should comfort with his counsel. Now, assuming that Mr. Bush meets with all these people, giving them 5 minutes each (not much) of his time, his aides will have to earmark 32,500 minutes for such services. That's a mere 541.66 hours. If President Bush worked 24-hours a day, without rest, he could dispense his comforts in 3.22 weeks. At 12-hour days, he could fulfill his pastoral duties in 6.44 weeks.

And this does not include comforting grieving siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

The question is this: What is the cutoff number of dead soldiers that makes it impossible for the President to speak to grieving parents face-to-face, one-on-one? Is 1000 a good number? Do 2000 dead soldiers leave behind too many loved ones to receive presidential solace? Who among us dares to come forward with the number?

"A NOBLE CAUSE"

Ms. Sheehan claims that she wants to know why her son died. She offers that she heard Mr. Bush speak about her son dying for a noble cause. What noble cause, Mr. Bush? is her question. And her other question is whether the President has encouraged his own daughters to enlist in the fight if the cause is indeed as noble as he claims.

Ms. Sheehan's question about the President's daughters is mired in the fallacious. Ms. Sheehan connects support of a war with participation: If you support X, put your money where your mouth is, and put on your boots. But one need not be involved in X in order to rightly support it. I can support my child's love of skateboarding without trying the sport myself (I could be wheelchair bound). I could send my parents to a nursing home without living there myself; or I could support my neighbor sending his son to camp, though neither of us had ever gone camping. I appreciate opera without singing opera; I appreciate Ms. Sheehan's right to speech without participating in her sort of remonstrance.

But if Ms. Sheehan's logic is to be followed, she herself cannot speak against something unless she is involved in that which she rebukes. Her statements lead to the absurd situation where the opera singer smugly dismisses the critic's reviews on the basis that the critic himself is not an opera singer. If Mr. Bush cannot call the war noble without direct participation (why would his daughters' enlistment qualify and not his own?), then Ms. Sheehan cannot call it ignoble without direct involvement (and losing a son is not direct involvement). Moreover, if BOTH the President's daughters did enlist and were killed, would that give him twice the cachet that Ms. Sheehan apparently possesses?

Lastly, who among us would want to be either the Commander-in-Chief, or the daughters of that commander? The Bush family has and will long continue to live under state protection, surrounded by safeguards. Ms. Sheehan has lost something dear to her: her son. But the entire Bush family has also sacrificed something: their freedom. While Ms. Sheehan is free enough to grieve her son's death by camping ad infinitum outside a Crawford ranch, the Bush daughters could not safely camp there, or anywhere, for five minutes (without being surrounded by perhaps the best security forces in the world). Does anyone really envy the gulag which is the Bush compound at Kennebunkport? Is that really a vacation behind the security fence at Crawford?

I would not sacrifice one second of my life to be in President Bush's shoes, would you?

The sacrifices of the Iraq War, many of which are hidden, are nonetheless ubiquitous. Most will never capture the film producer's attention. But those who sacrifice are not just among the many grieving mothers. They are everywhere among us.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women: Conclusions and Solutions

[This series begins with Kicking At The Darkness.]

Let us imagine an America where all abortions are illegal. What is the one thing we would discover should that ever happen?

We we would discover that abortions will be performed, irrespective of the law.

Let us imagine America with no restrictions (we're pretty much there now) on abortion. What is the one thing we would know should that be the case?

We would know that babies will be aborted by some if not by many women, for callous, gratuitous, self-indulgent reasons. Of course, that already happens now. We know that.

Given what we know in either scenario, what solution is there to the abortion problem? On the one hand there are the pro-choicers, adamant that all women have the right to "reproductive freedom" (Orwellian newspeak, of course); that outlawing abortion, even restricting it, is tantamount to embracing a medieval ethos, returning women to back-alley abortionists. For sure, this reaction is justifiable only if everything else remains equal, i.e. motherhood remains devalued, being feminist means being like men, and the world maintains an inhospitable posture towards mothers, including unwed ones, and children (especially those from the "disadvantaged" sectors, where abortions are often sought). Moreover, abortion advocates repeatedly speak about making abortion "safe and rare." How this latter idea jives with mandating that all women have access to the complete apparatus conjoined to "reproductive freedom" is elusive and vague.

But let us assume that the abortion advocates are doggedly serious about making abortion safe and rare. What do they mean? Do they mean that rarity is guaranteed by contraceptive measures; that promiscuity should be treated benignly as long as abortion and the concomitant diseases of promiscuity are rare and safely treated? Or do they mean something more?

Now, on the other hand, we have the pro-lifers, many of whom believe that abortion should be outlawed in all instances. OK. Voila! I'll give them their wish – abortion is completely illegal in all corners of the United States. However, abortions will still occur. Now what? Convict and sentence? OK, let's do that, with severity. But guess what? Abortions will still occur, as will "bad abortions." Where does that leave us as a "culture of life"?

KEEPING THINGS RARE

It requires no great feat of mind to ascertain one supreme fact concerning the philosophy of psychology embraced and followed by pro-choice activists, and that fact is this: The pro-choice zeitgeist demands that no one feel guilty except those who make other people feel guilty. Should a woman feel guilt for sexual indiscretions or promiscuity? Of course not. Such behavior is in fact empowering, and is a behavior to which the complete women is entitled. Should a woman feel guilty about slashing her body with razors, scarring herself into the psych ward? Of course not, as she is lashing out at the repressions of her family, or the cultural exploitation of the female form, or the abuses hurled upon her by patriarchal males and their phallic ideologies. Should a woman feel guilt about aborting her unborn child, no matter the circumstance? Of course not!

You get the picture. The sexually permissive avoid guilt and shame like the plague, though they do not mind abashing the sexually pure for their alleged prudishness. Hence, it is impossible for this subset to countenance an over-turning or restricting of Roe v. Wade, precisely because it would suggest that abortion is wrong, and hence necessitating shame and guilt. This, to the abortion advocate, simply will not do.

But surely if abortion is to be "rare", there is something untoward about it, something indecent. We want cancers to be rare, and foul water. Conversely we want healthy bodies and clean water to flow with prodigality, with abundance. No one who delights in something, even if the thing is inherently benign, would wish to delight in that thing rarely. We want poverty and disease and tragedy and grief to be rare, if not obliterated. Hence, as abortion rights advocates, hoping for the rarity of abortions implies that abortion is undesirable. What, pray tell, is anyone thus doing to make abortion a rare occurrence?

A SOLUTION?

How do we, as a people divided on this issue, find a solution?

I have already made several suggestions in this series. First, all of us, particularly women, need to return to a sense that women's bodies are holy places: that the womb is a sacrament, and that motherhood is neither blight nor misfortune, nor something that "ruins" a woman's figure and sex appeal. Women's bodies are not playthings for men; nor are they idols for their indulgence. Recall with me that thousands of years ago women were placed in temples as prostitutes, incorporated into an idolatrous cult – often in honor of a female deity – in which men would gratify their lusts with sick and disturbed license. Curiously, things have not changed that much at all, as women (and men) continue to be treated as objects in the cult of mammon, sexually abusing one another for some sort of beatific vision which never comes.

Hence, if women would truly rebel against the male idea that female sexuality is mostly an orgasmic lark, and instead embrace the ideal that, as holy vessels, they must make men EARN their way in; if they put up a truly feminine fight against the cheapening of the female body (fueled by feminists); not only would women truly feel empowered, men would have to become better men. As it is, it is EASY for men to get the ONE THING THEY MOST WANT from women: Why, in this permissive and casual milieu in which consequence is treated with indifference, would a man strive to be A GREAT MAN for a woman if he can, even as a married man, find women ready to satisfy his lusts for the most superficial reasons (eg. he's cute, funny, successful, wealthy, etc.)? Why be NOBLE when nobility is no longer a prerequisite? Why be a gentleman if women are encouraged – truly – to be self-determined harlots in the cult in which we now live, granting nearly free access to their wondrous bodies for the smallest price?

Second, embracing biology, with a true understanding of human anatomy and physiology, would transform sexual ethos. An erect penis is not a toy; nor is it a weapon. It is a procreative delivery system, designed and equipped to deliver, not LOVE, nor even pleasure. It is designed to deliver a fertilizing agent; and it is so designed even if we deny its basic and incontrovertible structures. It is the fertilizing sperm and the receptive life-giving egg which together create pleasure, even sexual pleasure, for the children beyond ourselves. For if sex is truly about pleasure alone, then who would not want to share that pleasure beyond the bed, and on into the very DNA of children born of such pleasure? One look at an ejaculating penis, with its vigorous, tenacious sperm, combined with the hospitable reception of egg and womb, and one instantly realizes that sex is about sharing the joy, beauty and laughter of life with some one beyond our immediate gratification: SEX is always about someone else, if you truly see it on the biological level.

Sadly, men and women are wildly divorced from the purposes of their own bodies, though brashly believing that they are more in tune with the body's workings than their prudish ancestors. (Associated with this, we need to transform culture so that birth pangs and babies' cries are more exciting and desired than the sounds and spasms of orgasm.)

Third, people truly need to unite in making the world, not a perfect welfare state, but a wondrous nursery, full of the adventure and thrills of being parents with children. Killing babies is not a solution. It is the neglect of a solution. Creating a culture in which a mother in the most dire situation nonetheless thrills at the thought of delivering a child to an applauding populace will transform the world! Mothers, even single ones, are WONDERFUL, and so are their babies. Welcome to the nursery, where we have all joined hands to truly help!

(I have a dear elderly friend, a staunch Democrat, who once defended her political party with the response, "I believe I am my brother's keeper." That this is a religiously-rooted idea is worth noting, though not necessarily germane. The point is that she does not really believe she is her brother's keeper. She believes the state, funded by her many tax dollars, should be her brother's keeper. And she believes that the state should force others to fund the same sort of ideal. I AM NOT advocating that kind of idea here. I am calling for something entirely more personal and private.)

Lastly, we need to reach a compromise, and here I propose one. The American judiciary and legislature should make all legal provisions to ensure that abortions are safe and indeed rare, making abortion accessible, but not easy. Abortions will occur, so there is no reason the state should turn a cold shoulder to that reality. This involvement by the state and judiciary would appease the pro-abortion lobby, particularly if that group is sincere in its desire that abortions are rare and safe.

And, to appease the pro-life groups, the executive branch, as executors of the state, should be permitted and even encouraged to constantly declare what the vast majority of Americans believe: That abortion is not right or desirable, and that the state would plead with people not to participate in such a procedure. Moreover, the executive branch, along with the Congress and judiciary, may want to reconsider referring to abortion as a "right", particularly since it is gender specific (half the population does not have this right). Granted, abortion is not really a right now: it is justified in an alleged right to privacy. But having some branch of the government say that abortion is wrong and that America encourages the delivery of all children; and that America further recognizes that not all pregnancies will make it to full term, would go a long way to bridging the gap between Americans divided along the fault lines of abortion.

These essays, I hope, prove one thing. It is possible to be pro-choice and pro-life. Let us opt for making life more abundant, and not death. Shall we do less than the birds and the bees?

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part V

[This series on abortion rights begin with Kicking At The Darkness. Hence, this is actually part VI, with Kicking At The Darkness serving as prologue.]

Perchance some readers who have pored through this series might conclude I lack sensitivity toward the plights and struggles of women, and the struggles facing babies born into families incapable of properly raising children. Let me make a few assurances:

Let it be said that I know what it is like living in a home where one is not wanted. I know what it is like to see mental illness ravage a family. I have seen a child who should have been surrendered to adoption agents instead be beaten and battered physically and emotionally. I have lied to the social worker who came to investigate such neglect. I have known what it is like to struggle through unplanned pregnancy; and to see the child's mother storm off toward the abortionist. I have fought to keep a child from the abortionist's hands; I have known what it is like to be a single-parent.

I have known the friend who, with his wife, counts the birthdays of their first child which they aborted for a reason neither of them can ascertain, three happy children later. I have known the friend who turns snide and cruel at dinner parties, angry at the pro-lifers in attendance, defensive of her abortions, though no one has mentioned abortion at all during conversations; nor does anyone sit in judgement upon her. I have known the sorrow of a woman and man desperately seeking pregnancy, who seethed with anger when contemplating the millions of women who treat pregnancy like so much bad make-up, like a bad hair day with cramps. And I have known the anger of a co-worker who once told me, right outside my office door, how she had separated from and divorced her unfaithful husband, with whom she had had three lovely children (all nearly fully grown), and yet, upon discovering she was pregnant with their fourth child just days after she threw him out, chose to abort that baby. "There was no way I was going to bring that bastard's kid into the world," she said.

And I have seen the parents and siblings of unimaginably handicapped children gathered round them at birthdays and graduations, smiling and crying and beaming at some small connection or achievement, cameras clicking away at light impossible to see.

And I have asked, "Which is better: To live and suffer, and at least have the possibility to say 'yea' or 'nay' to life's difficulty, or never to exist at all?"

Recently I read a news report about a man who murdered his wife because she wanted to cuddle after intercourse. He just wanted to watch a sports event on TV. Cuddling was too difficult. No doubt she'd be alive right now if she had been more male in her sexuality, you know, sex without all that other stuff, all the frills and tassels and details women generally desire. Screw, and then kill her. It's been done millions and millions of times, it's just that many men murder their lovers' hearts. They leave the body for someone else. Boys, being boys, no doubt.

This news story shines a dim light in the darkness of our sex-without-consequences culture. Women should be more masculine in their sexual propensities, and everyone will get along just fine.

The other day I visited a blog where the young woman writing was asking for advice how she could REALLY please her boyfriend sexually. She wrote that they had "done the PiV thing, the anal thing, the oral thing ..." but she really wanted to blow his mind. "Any suggestions?"

Just think about what she has written. She has made reference to the PiV thing, the penis-in-vagina THING. Could there be a more reductionistic statement about sex? Could she have possibly drafted a blog that dripped with more indifference and joylessness? Could she have sucked the life out of sex any more proficiently, or thrust upon us a more ennui-laden view of her world?

Any suggestions, she asks? Yes, I've got a few. How about turning your boyfriend on, not with premarital sex, but premarital love? How about turning him on with the wild fantasy that you'd like him to impregnate you; that you'd like to try using your body for what it is so clearly designed to do, and that you'd like him to do the same, in the sacrament of holy matrimony? Or would that be just too boring, too much of the baby-in-utero thing; too much like real living and not the abyss from which you beg advice from internet strangers, the hundreds who tell you how to misuse your soul and body even more? And I further suggest that you consider two things: Your husband is most likely out there, somewhere, perhaps clicking through the internet. What sort of person will he find when he finds you, at your oh-so-progressive website? Think that'll be good for your relationship, your sexual past made public? And what of your future children? Surely this sort of website is the kind of thing you will hide away from them, no? Or is it a shining moment of your utterly self-defined womanhood?

You see, the climate is rife with efforts to divorce women from what their bodies and emotional needs actually are. In other words, there is an existential estrangement not only between men and women, there is one between a woman and her womb. For most women have been duped into believing their wombs are mere playthings, mere jungle-gyms for cute men. In other words, they've been seduced into being something other than female.

And no other seducers are more dangerously anti-feminine than the pro-choice batterers of the sacred female. Essentially the pro-choice model is entirely one of redefining a woman's body. For the message is this: Go ahead, be indifferent, casual, even reckless with your womb. Divorce it from who you are, deep, in your soul. If you want to entertain men, if you want to experience PLEASURE, go ahead. And if the outcome is not quite what you think, we can help you, we can send in other men with tools and poisons and anti-biotics, and we will dispense with the problem in a manner professional, casual and yet sensitive to your needs. So what if this may lead to women being perceived as objects more thoroughly, more fully, than ever before. We can help with the problem. Trust us.

THE COLOR OF WATER

If you have not read James McBride's The Color Of Water, I urge you to do so. It is a brilliant biography/memoir of dirt poor black children (you'll see what I mean) raised by their very-white mother in Brooklyn's projects. It is a stunning piece of storytelling, and it is a stunning view at what life can be when life is affirmed and chosen, with all its risks, rather than the death and abandonment associated with the choice of abortion.

Let us concede: There are harrowing issues facing people every minute of every day. There are children treated brutally every morning, or at bedtime, or even during evening prayers. But, such living is to be preferred over non-existence, is it not? Surely we should leave the choice of a life's value to those who are living that life? Surely each of us is entitled to life itself, and to make our own decision whether death or life is the more glorious option? For that, I believe, is the point of so many poignant and powerful stories, like The Color of Water: Life is a choice one makes for the benefit of others, so that they may make their own choices.

What is the most important thing a person can do? Is it to cure cancer? build a cathedral? create a new energy source? Or is it to create a child, and to actively and consciously choose to raise that child? For what is the cure of cancer, if there are no people procreating to enjoy such treatment, or to applaud such accomplishment? What is the beauty of a cathedral, if it is not to awe and inspire the living and their progeny? Why create alternative fuels, if no child benefits from its efficiency and cleanliness?

No doubt all these things are important, as are the many things people do. No doubt there are those who cannot procreate, for all sorts of reasons, reasons mostly deemed tragic, unnatural, or abnormal (such as deformity, injury, illness, or birth defect). And there is no doubt that Nature has given us a message in the very behaviors of most of the highest verterbrates: procreation is a powerful, joyous, beauteous and inspiring act and responsibility. It is fraught with purpose, depth, meaning, redemption. There is no alienation in nature (except that caused by predation or competition due to scarcity) observed in mammalian parents: they do not wonder about purpose, or "relationship" or meaning, precisely because they embrace life exactly as it is, male and female, and do not treat life or sex as sport or recreation or some other casual dalliance or hobby. Sex itself is purposive, and, if we could just get on with treating our bodies and souls as they are defined by nature, we would find that men and women could bridge the alienation inherent in wrong living.

Do not believe what you see and hear in the machine of media and information: we are not gods and goddesses who can live life in blithe indifference, a human safety net spread beneath our recklessness. We are fallen gods and goddesses, in need of a solution. And that solution is simple: We need to start being real men, real women. Our children are calling out to us from near and far, pleading with us to change.

And a change needs to take place. Be radical. Look at your genitals and understand: They are not toys. There is a purpose beyond superficial stimulation. Let the birds and the bees show you what it is, for they know better than the high and mighty among our own very confused species.

Contratimes

To finish this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

My Faithful Readers

Greetings!

I am at a loss. My computer has been down since Tuesday morning. This and the previous post have been written in borrowed cyberspace. As a result of my recent binary corruptions, I am unable to post my normal essays. Nor can I post any photographs. How long this shall be the case is unknown, but I am trying to get things up and running with all diligence.

Since you're here, why not introduce yourself. Many of you come regularly without offering me the slightest hint of who you are, why you return, and what you like or dislike here. Feedback is always helpful. One critic recently described my website as "too partisan," which it may be, and that it was insufficiently "against the times" (which is what Contratimes means). This too, may be true. But the name Contratimes is not meant to address the times in general, though zeitgeist (spirit of the age) does undoubtedly imply that. The name actually was borne in opposition to that international-shaper of the zeitgeist, the New York Times. It is really that to which I stand in opposition. I may indeed be partisan, but I am not hiding that, and I think my partisanship is merely where I land on my feet: I am no party activist. Nor am I hiding my disdain for the New York Times, particularly its opinion makers. That any paper should have as much influence over America should be disturbing, particularly when its many writers are not the best and brightest among us. Not all of its staff drive me batty. But most of it does.

Also, what looks like partisanship is really my reacting to the lies and misrepresentations presented by the left: These are the ones most often heard, whether in the papers, on TV news, or at poetry readings. And, I must admit to a bit of provincialism here, as I am in a fairly liberal place, where the vast majority of bumper stickers lean left. I wonder if conservatives festoon their cars and trucks in red states with as much propaganda as leftists in blue states. Perhaps. But the leftists pretty much dominate in the northeast, and it is the northeast that has generally shaped the intellectual and political trends of the country (I said "generally").

I would love your input as to how I can make this site better for you. Of course, it is still rather new. I'd like to know what brings you back.

If you'd like to email me, try the email link in my profile. I still can access that from anywhere.

Peace to you all,

Contratimes

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part IV

[This series on abortion begins with Kicking At The Darkness.]

Perhaps it's too easy to ask, or too trite, "Why can't we all get along?" Perhaps it's too much to expect from people, with each person oft taking sides, identifying with his or her tribe, to the detriment of civility. Abortion rights discussions are rarely dispassionate; are rarely objective and enjoyed in the cool calm of civil discourse. I doubt I could ever get a member of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League, see note below) to read any of this series with an open mind. Similarly I doubt an Operation Rescue activist would likely sit still through a NARAL protest speech. We are each (myself included) quick to link arms with friend in order to shun foe. It is hardly helpful. What might be helpful is if we could only listen well; to be quick to hear, and slow to speak.

In the spring of 1984, after being drafted in a spontaneous enlistment during breakfast in my college dining commons, I traveled by bus to the Massachusetts State House (in Boston) to join a pro-life protest group. It would be the first, and last, rally I would attend as a participant. What I was technically attending was a counter-demonstration to a large pro-choice rally inside the capitol building. Admittedly I was vague about the event, and I was a bit concerned about losing valuable class and study time marching away the day on the edge of the Boston Common.

As we disembarked from the bus, each of us was handed a sign, a placard, and directed to march clockwise at the foot of the stairs leading to the State House. I particularly liked my sign, with "I support the rights of unborn women" painted in bold print. My girlfriend grabbed another sign, and we were off. (She and I would eventually see ourselves on the front page of the Metro section of The Boston Globe, in the center of a wide-angle news photograph.)

During this 'peaceful' demonstration, bands of pentecostalist-type folks (mostly women) would occasionally mill around and break out with scripture-laced, quasi-prophetic utterances directed at pro-choice passersby. Sometimes these religious would raise hands toward the State House and speak in tongues. One woman, a very large and intimidating woman, would belt out "Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" Shouts of "Sodom and Gomorrah!" would also occasionally ring out.

At one point, each of us was permitted into the State House foyer, where we could hear various pro-choice speakers address their fellow Roe v. Wade advocates. To my consternation, the pro-lifers around me would erupt in a cacophony of doom-laden rebukes, citing scripture, while the pro-choicers would rebuff them with wild insults. But it was the pro-lifers that set me on edge. The "spiritual warfare" in which they were engaging struck me as dehumanizing and heavy-handed. Even my girlfriend disliked it, as she started shouting "Listen to them! Let them speak!" in a plea that courtesy be shown to the pro-choice speakers.

I left my girlfriend and headed outside, where she later joined me in the slow, marching circuit.

Suddenly, from nowhere it seemed, a man appeared in front of us in full Nazi uniform, a hideous rubber mask over his head. The uniform was perfect: red, black, swaztikas on arm bands, jack-boots. Everything looked authentic and complete. He held up a sign with his left hand which read: "Women of Choice I salute you." And then he held up his right hand in salute.

"Heil Hitler!" He shouted towards us and the State House. I believe he even clicked his heels.

Needless to say, this character sent a wild rush of confusion through my whole being. I wasn't sure what he meant: I had heard pro-lifers referred to as Nazis in their tactics and dogmatism, and alleged fanaticism. Was he directing his mockery at me?

I moved closer toward the man, but only moments after the pentecostalists, prophets and preacher-types hastened their way to him. As I drew closer, the gang of prophets circled the man, and started rebuking him, hurling prayers and exorcisms, hands raised toward heaven. The large woman started shouting, "The Devil is among us, the Devil is among us!"

Through the din I could hear a muffled sound, so I moved within inches of the man and, looking into his eyes – the only flesh of his I could see – my own eyes were opened: The man was elderly, and scared out of his wits, eyes bulging in panic. And from under the rubber which was his mask (he never lifted it up, which to this day stumps me), I could hear his muffled shouts at his accusers: "I am on your side! I am on your side!" He fixed his eyes on mine, as if to beg that I make his position clear.

I turned to my girlfriend, told her what I had heard, and turned away from the scene. I searched my soul for what I was feeling, and what I wanted to do. "Is this the way?" I kept asking myself, "Is this who you are?" After a few minutes I turned around to look at the protesters I had earlier joined. A semblance of peace had been restored. The prophets were back holding their signs, the circuit complete. And there, at the bottom of the steps to the State House was the Nazi-impersonater, once the devil incarnate, now saluting pro-choice women as they left the building.

"I am done," I declared to my girlfriend. I leaned my sign against the wall near where the news photographer had stood earlier in the day. "You can join me, if you'd like," I said. She smiled, a little sadly, I thought, though I knew she was not sad with me. She leaned her sign against mine, grabbed my hand, and, sensing my lead, ran with me at full speed toward the Boston Common. I pulled my hand from her's as I leaped over a park bench, her mirthful laugh filling my soul with pride. And then we joined our hands again, losing ourselves in the city, each having made a choice, both so full of life.

***

We do not get along, it seems to me, because we refuse to understand. And we refuse to humble ourselves enough to understand what is being said, and why it is being said. We are quick to love our own rightness, and slow to love the rightness of others; or we are too rough to properly correct those who are indeed wrong.

I am guilty. I know my sins. They are legion. But I believe that I am called to understand that which is hardly understandable. I am called to find the common ground, the humanity and the tragedy of humanity, and to be a peacemaker in the midst of tribal strife. I am called to be a healing salve, not a wounding sword. I am called to be a friend, not a foe. I am called to life, not to death.

I am called toward the Common. Come. Run with me.

Contratimes

[I am not finished, so bear with me]

To continue with this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

[NARAL is in the midst of a controversial ad campaign in which Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is described as a proponent of bombing abortion clinics. See story here, and the challenge to it here. Then ask yourself whether the most powerful abortion lobby in the US is honest. Talk about tribalism!]

A Few Comments

1. Should I be disconcerted that the most visited post ever published at Contratimes had to do with a man who for two weeks struggled to remove a padlock from his testicles? Sunday's post was the most popular by a long shot. Perhaps I should reconsider my goals. What do you think?

2. Part of the Sunday post's popularity had to due with a spammed comment left in the COMMENTS box. This bit of spam drew people from all over the world (I think that's good) to Contratimes, but it appears it is also responsible for dumping a virus here as well. I am not certain of the virus' genesis; but the anomalous traffic to Contratimes suggests a source. That is why I've deleted the comments left in Sunday's COMMENTS box: following the links left there might lead some Contratimes readers into trouble.

3. As my readers know, I've been addressing the approaching confirmation battle of U.S. Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in several of my latest posts. The abortion series is directly related to that pending confirmation struggle. As I stated in "In With A Bang, Kicking Down Your Privacy", Mr. Roberts' very private world is being kicked about – in the name of privacy. The New York Times, in fact, reportedly made legal inquiries into whether the private adoption papers of Roberts' two adopted children were in fact legally and forever sealed. Can you imagine? I suspect the NYT's motive was perhaps to find the birth mother(s) of Roberts' daughters (I heard this idea later bandied about by Sean Hannity) and inquire of their opinions about choice, or even, well, privacy. Amazing that the left, whose paper of record is the NYT, decries the alleged invasiveness of the Patriot Act, and yet invades private worlds every day. It's typical Michael Moore maliciousness.

4. The recent news that millionaire leftists are pooling together their resources in order to finance liberal think tanks is positively Orwellian. These liberals continue to declare that they repeatedly fail to effectively communicate their message because (no chortling) the right dominates the media. The Orwell part is easy: The left's paranoia is so much abracadabra, so much smoke and mirrors, all in an effort to distract observers from the fact that the left is in a place of dominance, and has been for a long time. Democrats have long held control over the Big Three TV networks and CNN; the New York Times (the country's paper of record which has not endorsed a Republican since ...), the LA Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post (to name a few); NPR (the largest talk-radio network in the country) and PBS; MOST college and university faculty departments; the Daily Show, SNL and most if not all late-night TV talkshows; and virtually every Hollywood production. Of course, we are leaving out the vast number of philanthropic organizations that fund progressive and socialist ideals (just check out most of the underwriters to NPR programming to see where they fall politically); and those which fund the "arts." That this all adds up to a lack of access to the media by the left is laughable. And as far as think tanks are concerned, isn't the Brookings Institution chock-full of former Clinton staffers?

5. In light of all this, the 2004 election results are shocking. President Bush won the popular vote by what, 3.5 million or so votes? Just think about that for a moment. Here is a president seeking reelection who has taken us to "war illegally" and is a "tyrant", who has "ruined the economy", "lied to the American people" and "falsified intelligence"; a president who served "big business", "greased the palms of his big-oil friends" and "gives tax-cuts to the rich;" in short, here is an unpopular president (as "bad as Hitler"), arguably a weak candidate, who has most of the press and college faculties against him, and yet he still manages to win. What, pray tell, would have been the size of John Kerry's defeat had his opponent been a POPULAR candidate? And, do you think the millionaire left might want to reconsider its goals: The left does not need money for think tanks; it needs some thoughts to put in those tanks, thoughts that are true, good, just and effective. (Can you believe that over the weekend, at a rally somewhere in this country, a Democratic mayor stood up and once again bellowed that Bush and the U.S. Supreme Court "stole the election in 2000"? Talk about fresh ideas.)

6. Dear Democrats: It's not the medium, it's the message.

Peace.

Contratimes

[I return to the abortion series tomorrow.]

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Emu (domesticated), Peterborough, NH. Camera: Canon EOS 3. Lens: Sigma EX APO 300/2.8 with 1.4x extender. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS. Exposure: 1/1000 @ f4. Monopod. Click on image for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Call The Locksmith (Only In New Hampshire)

Well, I thought it'd be nice if we took a little break from our serious discussion on abortion. This is really the FIRST diversion ever taken here at Contratimes. It's time to laugh, cringe, or even cross your legs.

So please enjoy this news report. Click on it and tell me what you think. It's straight out of New Hampshire, and it's the kind of story any person might wish to tell – but only if it happened to someone else. The national media will have a blast drafting headlines for this one. (To leave a comment, click "Comments" shown below.)

Contratimes

PS. For the initial report, click here.

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part III

[This series begins with Kicking At The Darkness.]

In this, the fourth of a series on abortion rights in America (inspired largely by the pending confirmation hearings of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court), I refer the reader to a statement in my last essay. There I stated that pro-lifers are not anti-choice. And I believe that I defended that statement ably. But now I want to examine whether pro-choice people are anti-life. And I would say that pro-choicers are as passionate about living as the most strident pro-lifer. Such passions are not without their contradictions, as most pro-lifers support the death penalty for serious crimes, whereas most pro-choicers do not. It is hard to be consistent; it is hard to be balanced. But here, we try.

I once sat on a New Hampshire porch talking with a woman who worked as a professional therapist. She was, and remains, 30 years my senior. She is what one might call, "New Age"; a radical feminist progressive, a vegetarian full of mysticism and, of course, opinion. Our friendship began when I was fresh out of college when Gail (not her real name), hired me to be her house painter and perennial housesitter. But once, while sitting watching a summer thunderstorm roll in from the southwest, Gail and I engaged in a conversation about hunting and abortion. The two topics were not directly connected; it's just how our conversation fell. And I can so clearly recall that conversation because of two opinions she offered passionately, her passion all the more fierce because I was an incongruity, at least to her: I was pro-life through and through, anti-death penalty, and (the shock!) also a vegetarian. I was anti-war, anti-hunting, anti-road kill. I was chockful of love for all living things.

But Gail wandered off into some truly strange territory. On the one hand, she clearly and vociferously opposed hunting. In fact, she had nearly severed all ties with her only son, solely because he was a hunter. She could not fathom how anyone could eat anything that did not grow on a vine.

To say that Gail was New Age is a bit of an understatement. She was all crystals and yoga and meditation, enhanced with a little marijuana. She and I even once attended a conference at Hampshire College in the New Age shangri-la of Western Massachusetts for a conference organized by psychotherapists for world peace and harmony.

So later in our conversation Gail expressed her feelings, in mystical overtones, about abortion. A believer in reincarnation, Gail proclaimed that her advice to would-be mothers facing the choice of abortion was to point out that it was not the baby's time.

"I tell them to say to the baby, 'You've come too soon, you're not welcome here. Try again later, when the world is ready for you.'"

Gail never heard my response to her admission. I am not one to trounce a sensitively-held religious ideal in the midst of a debate. But if I had said anything, it might have been something profound, like "What the hell?"

You see, Gail, passionate about life, was quite reckless about death. And she was ridiculously hypocritical. For it takes no great leap of mind to see that Gail's advice could be said by any hunter to any unfortunate deer, moose or elk: "I am sorry to do this, but I must send you back. Your time has not yet come. You are not welcome right now. Try again."

That Gail would offer this kind of apparently sympathetic advice to a woman about to kill a baby, and yet not grant that kind of grace to her son who wants to shoot a deer, is quite telling.

Moreover, Gail's view is rooted in pantheism. It is not merely rooted in sentiment, but in the pervasive New Age spirituality of most radical feminists. Such feminists renounce the "patriarchal" religions and attendant deities of "male-dominated" religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (as they are perceived). Such feminists almost always embrace a deity that is female, if they embrace a deity at all, and that female is usually associated with the Gaia, or the Mother Earth (or some such derivation or variation).

Thus, such feminists can and do take a cavalier approach to death, at least fetal death. For as the Mother Earth controls her body with her own types of abortion (earthquakes, disease, monsoons, landslides, pestilence), so too do women control their own bodies. Gaia can always give her "souls" another chance; another incarnation.

Can the reader think of a more threatening idea toward life than this? I can. It is the idea of reincarnation in general, irrespective of feminism and gods and goddesses. For it is easy to see how a tyrant or a murderer or an oppressive political system could easily slide into large-scale genocide. If everyone is to be reincarnated ad infinitum, or even once, why then fret about their deaths at all? Why NOT thin the herd, so to speak, for the good of the many, especially when the many are "not ready" or "not yet welcoming?"

Honestly, the patriarchal religions of the West (if they are patriarchal, which is debatable), especially Christianity, could never be so cavalier about life or death, as in that religion each person is unique and timely, and has only one shot at living. In fact, science is far more Christian in this sense than Hinduism or various reincarnation systems, as science pretty much concludes that one life is all one gets.

Hence it is possible that being pro-choice is to be pro-life, but what view of life is it that countenances death of children as a solution to a problem? At least the hunter is trying to feed a family. What does the death of a child actually give us, better lives?

A BROAD STROKE

Let me posit something I've nothing more than anecdotal evidence for believing. I believe that abortion and child abuse (as well as the abuse of women) are correlated. Granted, prior to Roe v. Wade children and women were abused. But I believe that Roe v. Wade moves us farther from and not closer to a solution of those problems.

Let's stipulate that abortion proponents support life, but their position is not life at any cost, but life that is worth living, a life of quality. Let's further stipulate that some children will today be born into families that should not be allowed to even care for a pet fish. But it must be asked, does accepting Roe v. Wade make for a better world?

I don't think so. If a father and mother can kill a child one minute before it is born, why can they not kick a baby around a bit one minute after it is born? If a mother can abort her child one week before delivery (partial-birth abortion) because of threats to her mental health, then why can't she drown that child one week later, when her postpartum depression proves her mental illness? You see the picture.

If you have a low view of a thing, you are likely to treat it poorly. If you believe dogs are scum, you are likely not to care for dogs. If you believe Jews are half-human, you are not likely going to afford them full human rights. If you believe babies in utero are the property of their mothers, and are only children if deemed so by their mothers (a standard pro-choice belief), then it is quite likely that you will not cherish children very much. (I am not stating that this is the outcome for all pro-choice mothers. But I think it is a dangerous underlying social current.) Violence against children in utero negatively feeds violence against all children ex utero to some degree. I don't see how that can be denied.

So where are we? We are here: Life is fraught with danger and oppression. Both pro-life and pro-choice groups attempt to overcome such dangers and oppression. But it is clear that being pro-choice is not enough to keep violence and oppression at bay. Pro-life approaches, though clearly flawed, thus foster a more convivial world and worldview. Any view that believes a high-quality of life is preserved by killing unborn babies is not much of a view.

(Again, I am not through here, so be patient.)

Contratimes

To continue this series, read here.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

[Photo: Blue Jay in the rain. Camera: Canon EOS 3. Lens: Sigma APO EX 300/2.8 with 1.4 extender. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS. Exposure: 1/30 @ f 5.6 Tripod and cable release. Click on image for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part II

So far in this series, which actually begins with Kicking At The Darkness, we have discussed whether the human fetus is in fact human, and whether abortion rights actually liberate women. We have concluded both that the fetus is indeed human, and that women are actually oppressed by abortion and its advocacy.

Today (and the next few days) I turn to some harsh realities. Each bitter pill is presented for context and to give us some guidance–along with honest understanding of the world–as we wiggle through the minefield which is the abortion debate.

First, recall with me the practices of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who was ousted in 1989. Ceausescu's attempt to create an abundant supply of citizens by mandating pregnancy created despicable horrors. Forced quarterly gynecological exams for women, even at the workplace, and vicious punishments for aborting a child, were just a small part of his heartlessness. Countless children were abandoned by frightened and already impoverished mothers, later placed and then neglected in hideously underfunded and squalid orphanages. There has hardly been a more grotesque abuse of children and the sacred mothers who, by nature and not by government fiat, are indeed equipped to bring those very children to life. It is enough to make the skin crawl and the soul crouch in a corner.

It is this horrendous historical fact that colors the abortion debate in our country for countless abortion rights advocates. Outlawing abortion, as Ceaucescu did, appears to many one small step, or even a large one, toward mandating pregnancy. It is a legitimate fear.

But there is a counterpoint to this that is equally horrible, perhaps to be revealed in its full brutality by social scientists ten, twenty or a hundred years hence. It is the horror that is entirely Chinese, and could easily become entirely American. That horror is forced abortion; the mandated termination of prenatal life. Just as a dictator may use anti-abortion sentiments to draft laws forcing women into pregnancy, a dictator could use pro-choice sentiments to force women into sterility.

Prudence would have us pause here and ask, Which outcome is more likely in America? Would a pro-life democracy, proud of its celebration of women and children, turn vicious and contra-natural, forcing women to be baby-makers for the state? Or would a pro-choice democracy devolve into forcing women to abort their babies, perhaps to abate population growth, also in a contra-natural imposition against women and children? Who knows?

My particular confidence is in this: Democracies are less likely to turn to drastic impositions. After all, forcing women to abort or to conceive are historical practices, not of democracy, but of communism (Romanian and Chinese respectively). And I hold particular allegiance to something perhaps viscerally and not rationally inferred: I don't believe a pro-life democracy is likely to force women into mandatory baby-making, largely for consistency's sake. For pro-lifers don't want to oppress either babies or mothers, or even potential mothers. But a pro-choice democracy already has a strike against it: If it can permit a mother to kill a child in utero, it is not too far from encouraging such killing. The distance between permission to kill and insisting on it is less than it is between protecting a child from death and forcing a woman into pregnancy.

How can I make such a claim? Because pro-lifers are not anti-choice. They recognize that any woman can choose to kill her baby, they just don't recognize that such a choice should be legal (and funded and protected by the citizenry, particularly those who oppose it). They don't want to prevent a woman from choosing to kill her baby any more than they want to prevent a man from stealing a car. Laws are not really preventative; they are punative. Speeding laws are not drafted to keep you from choosing to speed. They are drafted to punish you if you do. And pro-lifers recognize that most women, including the vast number of women who've aborted a child, nearly always have a choice: To have sex or not (or to have unprotected sex or not). The choice comes not in the consequences stage. It comes in the initial stage. And that choice is (usually) always free.

And what, if any, is the punishment for a woman who aborts a baby in a pro-life society? My guess is that it is the same as a pro-choice one: A woman has to bear the consequences of her "choice", which is the intentional killing of her child. This is not imposed in some sort of trial; there are to be no sentencing hearings for mothers who abort. There will just be self-loathing, sorrow, remorse. And these do not come from outside; they come not from church or country club. They come from within: The women I know who have had abortions punish themselves every day (and those who do not are largely in some sort of denial).

Let me try my hand at pointing out the paradox: The "punishment" for a mother's actions in a pro-life society, where abortion would be illegal, is to give birth, or to feel guilt for choosing not to; and the "blessing" of a pro-choice society is the legal power to choose to kill. But which society produces the harsher terms–the one where children are born, or the one where they are permitted to be killed? The one society claims to desire to protect life, and it does, making failure to participate in that protection the only painful thing. The other society claims to protect freedom, and it does, though its proof of that freedom is the freedom to kill. Which society do you believe would produce the least amount of suffering, the greatest amount of winners?

For sharper focus, think of the name of Planned Parenthood, the international non-profit organization committed to family planning. Think of what Planned Parenthood stands for: It stands for parenthood that is planned. Ironically, Planned Parenthood is hugely pro-choice. Why is this ironic? For this simple reason: planning for anything, like a vacation or a business venture or a wedding, should always include contingency plans for THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT PLANNED. What, pray tell, does a wedding planner do if she has not planned for a rainstorm spoiling a wedding under the stars? You get the idea.

Well, here's Planned Parenthood's contingency plan for parenthood that is unplanned: Something could always be killed–in the name of freedom, of course.

Clearly, that is no plan at all.

(I am not through yet, so be patient.)

Contratimes
To continue this series, read here.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Nesting tree swallows contend over mate and nesting box, Hancock, NH. Camera: Canon A2. Lens: Sigma 300/4 APO Macro with Sigma 1.4x EX APO extender. Film: Fujicolor 400. Exposure: 1/1500 @ f5.6. Monopod. Click on photo for larger view. All rights reserved.]

Of Birds And Bees, And The Free Oppression Of Women, Part I

Before our foray into the topic at hand, permit me one small divergence, though this aside bears a tangential relationship to what I will be discussing today. Various plaintiffs, most notably the New York Times, have lamented President G.W. Bush's "recess appointment" of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. It is no small appointment. And for those of you who do not know what a "recess appointment" is, it is nothing more than a presidential appointment that occurs when the Senate is in recess. Ideally, the Senate would confirm a nominee. But if the Senate stalls or threatens to stall its procedural obligations, the president is constitutionally permitted to appoint someone, in this case Bolton, to a post while the Senate is out jet-skiing off Nantucket. It is not an act of demagoguery.

Do you know how many times Bill Clinton exercised this executive privilege? Once? Twice? Three times? No. He exercised this power 140 times.

***

[This series actually begins here.]

Contratimes' readers know without me telling them that the nomination of judge John Roberts to the United States Supreme Court is almost entirely controversial because of Roe v. Wade. If confirmed, will Roberts vote to overturn women's right to abortion, or will he protect that right? It is a good question. But what I want to focus on here is why the right to abortion is so important to pro-choice Americans, particularly why it is so important politically.

I can sum the whole thing up in one word: equality.

The political aspects of 'equality' are important, and thoroughly essential to the pro-abortion lobby. I will discuss this further in a moment. But first, my thesis: Abortion rights, or "reproductive freedoms", do not liberate women. Abortion oppresses women.

DEFENDING MY THESIS

The political attractiveness of the right to abortion is in abortion's alleged power to liberate women from the tyranny not only of nature, but men in general. Women gain equality in having the power not to be enslaved to nature's majestic rhythms, and in having the power to determine their reproductive fate on their own terms. Abortion provides a "level playing field" for women, ensuring that they can pursue education and career and all that life has to offer in a planned and deliberate way. Abortion makes men and women equal in the workplace and in the workforce, as women can "choose" to be freed from the burdens nature places on them through pregnancy, and thus follow their career without detour.

Here's a question: Does abortion make men equal to women, or does it make women equal to men? Think about it for a moment.

Now, this question. What can women do better than men, by definition? The answer is simple. Women can produce babies better than men, infinitely better than men. Hence, let us answer the question I asked a moment ago: Abortion makes women equal to men, but it does not make men equal to women. I apologize if I am stating the obvious, but there is power in the obvious, particularly when we have forgotten the rather plain facts.

Let's put this all another way. Abortion rights advocates are not trying to protect a law, or certain abortifacients, in order to make men like women. They are not insisting that Roe v. Wade commands men to have babies in order to guarantee equality between the sexes. No, abortion rights activists want to ensure that women can be like men: Women can have sex and not have to deliver a child. Ever.

What do we know about sex that is as plain as the genitalia that comprises sexuality? We know this: Men transcend the consequence of sexual intercourse. Men cannot ever get pregnant after ejaculating in the wondrous womb that is the incubator of all human life. Men can hit and run, so to speak. And they don't have to worry if their period is late.

Women, on the other hand, are completely different in the reproductive dance. They can be literally transformed by the relatively simple act of intercourse. They are not transcendent; they are not "outside" the post-coital experience. They, by their very natures, must be part of what happens next.

Can you see where I am going with this? I hope so.

Abortion masculinizes women. It gives them a medical, man-made option to be something other than a woman: It gives them the power to be like a man. In short, they can have sex, all the sex they want, and not HAVE to bear forth the consequences of the pursuit of so much endless pleasure. They can have sex and not fret about career, or education, or the annoying things associated with pregnancy. Women can be like men.

And you know what? Men love abortion for THIS very reason: It means that women can be reduced to sex objects all the more. It means that men can also have all the sex they want, as long as they find pro-choice women who will be complicit with them in their wanton lust for pleasure. It means that men are more likely to find sex easier and more available (it is) because women, now freed economically and reproductively (like men), and accessible in the workplace (again, like men, where the men once dominated), can participate in sex that does not "mean anything" (or as much), as it once did (or was supposed to).

No wonder (and here's a fact) more men than women support abortion rights! It gets men off the hook sexually. It sets them free to seduce and conquer. It sets them free to reduce women to well, men with vaginas and breasts. Amazingly, the post-modern woman even embraces this reality (as depicted in shows like "Sex and the City"), where women, long unable to do so because of the constraints of biology, now celebrate casual sex as empowerment. (I recall a moment in Animal Dreams, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver, when the heroine, doing spoons with a man she's been having sex with for weeks, responds with surprise when he suggests more depth to their relationship. "I never led you on," she replies. Feminists everywhere shout a triumphant cheer: Women can be shallow too! Such power!)

The fact is this: "Reproductive freedom" for women means that women can choose to define themselves in a male way in a male world. There is nothing feminist about this idea. The idea is entirely masculinist.

A true feminist, in trying to rescue women from hordes of caddish men, would call women to do what they do best, and create a nursery out of the world. Women, instead of participating in the post-modern, male-dominated sexual morés, should do what their very bodies do better than anything on the planet: they should make the world a place where every child is IN FACT wanted, by women, and bring forth all the children they can. And that, I declare, would bring men to their knees. That's the revolt we need, led by fecund females everywhere.

Hear me, sisters! Your bodies are sacred temples. Stop letting men, and imitative feminists, treat your bodies like a toy or sports arena. Make a man EARN the right to enter your sacred halls. Stop letting the men–and the society they've created with your help–dictate the conditions when your hallowed sanctuary is open for pleasure. You do not open your womb because a man is cute, or has a nice car, a big wallet, a great job, or has made you feel good about yourself with flowers and gentle whispers. You do not open your cathedral because it might feel good, or end your loneliness. Nay, you open yourself when you find someone who can appreciate the cathedral, and is ready to help care for it when it fills up with life and responsibility.

It's time to transform the world. It begins with a choice, and that choice is to see a woman as a sacred being, as a sacrament. She is not to submit to the very male idea of equality and abortion, even when that idea is couched in terms of liberation and choice.

Emptying the womb does not set women free. Protecting it does. Legalized abortion is a chain around the neck of women everywhere, keeping them right where men want them. It's time for a change. A truly feminine one.

Contratimes

To continue this series, read here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
[Photo: Bee-like Tachinid Fly on dandelion, Sharon, NH. Camera: Canon A2. Lens: Sigma 300/4 APO macro, with Sigma 1.4 EX APO extender. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100VS Exposure: not recorded. Tripod. Click on image for larger view.]

Kicking At The Darkness

Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn sings in his angst-touched love song, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, that "Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight/Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." It is a powerful image, full of spectral glory. And kicking at darkness is, in a sense, my very ambition. I'll spare the reader the metaphysical details, but the idea of kicking at darkness until it bleeds daylight carries with it all the spiritual force of Jacob wrestling with the angel; or Neo conquering the Matrix as Agent Smith fractures in supernova splendor.

A close look at my blogger profile reveals that I list among life's blessings the nearly ineffable beauty of babies. There is in each baby's perfect fingernails (always clipped to perfection at birth), or in its fresh-from-the-bakery skin, all the mystery of life in perpetuity, inexplicable in its power – a seed planted in the dark earth yielding the entire universe. For each child is indeed all the force of the cosmos (there is no life without the infinitely broad cosmic womb); each baby the incarnation of swirling suns and tidal moons. What does it take to make a baby? All the power and eons of the universe. There are no shortcuts, no sleight-of-hand, to master such impenetrable magic.

But images of light and tiny, gripping hands are not enough to save me today. For I am sickened this afternoon, here in the full light of August's sun. I find myself haunted by an image I saw not long ago while working at a New England prep school. During a photo shoot, I entered the school's computer lab unannounced. There were shrieks of disgust and shock emitted by a dozen or so students gathered around glowing computer screens, each student apparently unaware of my "adult" presence. And quivering in digital vibrancy on every computer screen was the source of all the tumult: It was a color photograph of a man seated in a restaurant booth – a napkin tucked into his shirt collar and a knife and fork in each hand – looking hungrily at the meal before him. What was on the platter? A roasted human fetus.

Kick at the darkness ....

I am sorry to pass along this violence against all that is meant to be pure, lovely, peaceful. But I share this for one reason: Do not be quick to conceive incorrectly that which is conceived in the fertile womb. Do not for a moment think that the unborn are so much superfluous tissue, or accidental bits of bio-mass. We must be provoked, we must kick our way toward the light of honest, simple truth.

Have you ever wondered why, if human fetuses are not human, do we not eat them? Why cringe at the thought of a fetus served to a wealthy connoisseur; or in soup kitchens to the hungry poor? After all, if the human fetus (all 40 million of them since Roe v. Wade) is not a human, have we missed a golden opportunity to feed countless mouths eager for food? In fact, could we not harvest such fetuses as crops, perhaps using petri dishes and sperm- and ova-banks for the production of a new nutrient-rich food source, a sort of veal for the open-minded?

Enough. I've said too much. The unborn are human. Prep-schoolers shrieking at a mere image prove it.

My point is not really about abortion. It is about our slow descent into carelessness. Trust me when I say this: there are and will be pro-abortion activists who will respond to my observations not with revulsion, but with a quasi-academic air of acceptance. They will wonder aloud whether it might be a tenable idea to eat fetuses, all in the posture of open-minded consideration. They will ask about biases against the Fetuses-for-Food program; and they will speculate as to how certain social structures condition people to react squeamishly; and they shall offer arguments against taboo. But their motives will not be one whit academic: Their motives are solely energized to keep abortion legal.

Was it not George Orwell who said that “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men"? Let me then state the obvious.

Each of us once kicked at the darkness. We pressed at it with our hands, even after we sucked our thumbs, the thumbs we didn't know we had. And we kicked at the darkness until it did in fact bleed daylight: The daylight of the world, bolting toward us like lightning, as we kicked our helpless, trusting way through the birth canal, toward the light which bleeds all around us, right now, with the full force of the cosmos pulsing in our veins.

The world felt us kicking, it felt us fighting to overcome. Shame that the very cosmos, which should be considered one giant nursery, with "Welcome" banners unfurled from star to star, has, at least for some, become a hostile place, with the brutal light of the abortionist's hand forced into the warm and safe dark; giant hands ripping out little ones.

Which hands are the more wonderful; whose hands the more welcoming?

Contratimes

To continue reading the series, go here.

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes

[Photo: Stained glass at All Saints' Church, Peterborough, NH. From the book, "The Stained Glass of All Saints'". Camera: Canon EOS3 Lens: Canon EF 28-105/3.5-4.5 IS. Film: Kodak Ektachrome 100 VS. Exposure: 1/60 @ f5.6. Click on photo for larger view. All rights reserved.]