Halloween Ghosts

Halloween is more complex psychologically than we like to admit. As those ancient pagan Celts knew, the best way to deal with our fears is to objectify them into friendly ghosts. Yet, those spirits also reveal a dark side, the grim reaper that haunts our personal and cultural lives with every waking and sleeping moment.

So on this Halloween let me share some of those ghosts that have come to life and that I fear most. I fear that:

• The War in Iraq is our nation’s most serious blunder from which we and the world will suffer for decades, perhaps centuries, to come;
• Americans still live with a kind of “orientalism” that treats the people of the near east as less than fully human; a racism that undervalues their worth and value as persons; killing persons there is justified so we will be safe on our soil;
• America has become a political system that assigns the fighting of its wars to the underclass;
• As our middle class shrinks and a higher percentage of our wealth is retained by the smallest percentage of our population in US history, our society seems to have settled in for a long winter’s nap of consumption at Wal-Mart’s; our most precious freedom has become the “freedom to consume”;
• We continue to confuse the national self interests of Israel with what is best for American foreign policy;
• America cannot abide the truth that we have already lost the war in Iraq and have not really won a war since W.W. II;
• No strong leader will emerge to lead the Democratic party, and it will break into a number of factions; and
• While our balance of party political affiliations may shift in Congress and many State Houses on November 7^th, it will not result in any major policy changes reflected in our foreign or domestic affairs.

But there is hope that in future Halloweens we can retire some of these worn and useless costumes. Let’s work to bring on the spirits reflected in so much of our past as a nation that used its resources and intelligence to create a world of peace.

Merle