Dispatches From The Edge | Italy: The Barbarians At The Gates

 Paestum, Italy

Walls tell you a lot about a country’s history. Since their purpose is to keep people out who want to get in, they generally mean trouble. In the case of this stunning ruin of a city southeast of Naples, back in the 6^th century BC the Greeks were trying to keep out the Etruscans who didn’t cotton to a colony plunked down in their midst.

Italy has lots of walls, particularly in the north and center where towns and cities cluster on the high ground. The Italians did not build on mountain tops for the view. What is picturesque now was safe haven from the barbarians back then.

Except, the barbarians are back, only this time they are not tribes with scary names like Goths, Huns and Lombards. Today the brutes have bland sounding labels like the International Monetary Fund IMF), the European Union (EU) and Moody’s. And some of the worst are homegrown: Silvio Berlusconi and Giullo Tremonti.

Italy is in deep trouble, though it is hardly alone. While the headlines go to Greece, Portugal and Spain, Italy has the second highest rate of debt in Europe and one of the lowest growth rates. On July 8, Italian bond yields jumped to a nine-year high, and the country’s stock market tanked. Given that Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone, if it is in trouble, so is the Euro. And, unlike Portugal, Greece or Ireland, Italy is far too big for a bail out (not that the thuggish austerity programs being forced on all three of those countries have anything in common with “bail outs.” They are simply taxpayers covering ruinous speculation binges by French, German and Dutch banks).

There are signs that the Italian economy is running off the rails, but the signs are subtle. Lots of locked houses and long grass, for instance.

The locked houses are in Pompeii, where the government no longer has the money to shore up the walls of the 2,000 year-old city. From the Pompeii of glorious mosaics and stunning frescos it has become a ghost town that one views from roads and sidewalks.

The immense Doric temples at Paestum are wonderfully preserved, but grass has reclaimed much of the rest of the site. It is charming to wander through the ruins, finding lovely mosaic floors, peristyle gardens or swimming pools, but the Italian authorities did not let the grass grow in order to stimulate the curiosity of tourists; they don’t have the money to cut it.

There is a sense in this country that people are holding their breath. The current center-right government is pushing through a $68 billion austerity package that will increase the retirement age, cut medical benefits, and lay off state workers, but many of the cuts will not take effect until 2013 and 2014. Hoping to avoid the wrath of voters, the current finance minister, Giullo Tremonti, has back loaded the cuts so they won’t take effect until after next spring’s elections.

As in ancient Rome, there are graffiti everywhere. There are hammers and sickles painted on the walls in Naples, as well as scrawls threatening “death to the Communists.” The left took power here in the last elections and is currently locked in a battle with the local Mafia over corruption. A cursory glance at this teeming, energetic, and most Italian of cities suggests the left is holding its own: the Mafia’s tactic of flooding the place with garbage is not working. The streets are chaotic, loud, and anarchic, but clean.

Sometimes it is hard to decide if Italians are holding their breath or their noses. For instance, Tremonti’s political advisor, Marco Milanese, a member of parliament, was arrested last week as part of a corruption investigation, forcing Tremonti to give up using Milanese’s luxury flat in Rome. In the meantime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi secretly tried to slip a clause into the budget bill that would delay paying a huge $1.5 billion fine against his flagship media company, Fininvest.

Compared to social unrest in Greece, Spain, Britain and Portugal, Italy has been relatively tranquil. While the Greeks are in open rebellion against the austerity packages of the IMF and the EU, Italian demonstrations have been big but generally quiet. Tremonti told the Financial Times that Italians are different than Greeks and would accept austerity, because “The Italian people understand,” he said, “their demand is to be serious and rigorous. People are strongly in favor of this discipline.”

Tremonti is whistling past the graveyard, his words an eerie echo of Greek Prime Minister George Papandrerou’s comment that Greeks were “unified” behind the government program.” Outside the parliament Athens seeths with rage, and hundreds of thousands of Greeks battle tear gas and police batons to demonstrate quite the opposite. A recent poll found that 80 percent of the Greeks oppose the austerity plan.

There is nothing to indicate that Italians won’t follow the Greeks into the streets once the cuts hit home here. A stencil on a wall in Citta de Castello shows two stick figures, one firing a gun at the head of the other. Underneath the picture is one word: “capitalism.”

Europe (and much of the world) is currently in the throes of a counterrevolution led by a combination of local capitalists and international finance. Using the crisis sparked by bank speculation, its goals are to weaken trade unions, roll back social services and pensions, and privatize as much as possible. Wages have fallen across the continent, and temporary jobs with sketchy or non-existent benefits have grown at the expense of regular employment.

The “crisis” is a one-way street. As a Financial Times analysis pointed out last month, “Millionaires across the world are richer they were before the financial crisis, the latest sign that the wealthy have weathered the downturn far better than other groups.”

The number of millionaires in North America went from 2.7 to 3.4 million from 2008 to 2010 and, in Europe, from 2.6 to 3.1 million during the same time period. Italy was the only EU country that saw a slight drop in the number of millionaires: 179 to 170. The countries with the largest number of millionaires are, in decreasing order, the U.S., Japan, Germany, China and Britain.

Capital is playing hardball in this counterrevolution.

On one level, governments like in Greece have unleashed their police in an effort to drive the hundreds of thousands of young people, teachers, government workers and trade unionists off the streets.

On another level, rating agencies like Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch deliberately downgrade bonds in order to protect private investors. When investors are asked to absorb some of the losses that their speculation generated, the rating agencies step in and make an offer no country can refuse: drop efforts to make private speculators pay or we tank your bonds and drive up the cost of borrowing money.  “The credit rating agencies are playing politics not economics. The timing of the downgrades are not a coincidence,” one “senior EU official” told the Financial Times.

The “bailout” will not stop Greece from defaulting on its debt (with Ireland, Portugal and Spain likely to follow). Nor is there any way for a country like Greece to climb back out of the debt pit as long as its currency policies are dictated by Germany and France.

Italy has some experience with this business of crisis and currency, although its current leaders choose to ignore it. Back in the early 19^th century, Naples was the largest city in Italy, and the south had a diverse and dynamic economy. It was the first region in Italy to build railroads, but the madness of the Catholic Church derailed the effort by blocking passage through the Papal States. Pope Gregory XVI called rails “roads to hell.”

According to Sir Martin Jacomb, former Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the sabotage of railway development marks the beginning of the south’s decline. But it wasn’t until the lira was made the national currency in 1861 that “ it [the south] lost its ability to correct its uncompetitive position. Able and enterprising people moved to the north or emigrated, and the situation became permanent, as it remains today. The tragedy endures.”

Southern Italy has been locked into poverty for close to 200 years, a fate that is almost certain to befall other periphery members of the EU. Generations of poverty and emigration will be the price tag for protecting the investments of the very people who brought the current economic crisis on. The Citta di Castello stencil was, if anything, an understatement.

So far Italy is quiet, but everyone is aware that the coup of capital is being contested in the streets of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Britain, as it will eventually be in Rome, Naples, and Milan.

In the aftermath of the Peterloo massacre in 1819, where the British government sent cavalry to scatter a massive demonstration demanding political reform, an enraged Percy Bysshe Shelly penned “The Mask of Anarchy,” which ended in words that today’s powerful would do well to consider:

“Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number—

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you—

Ye are many—they are few.”

Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com

APOCALYPSE NEAR?

I confess: As a young man I was caught up in the “End-Times” web – much like millions of the religious right today. In 1968 for my high-school senior term paper, I wrote how the `67 Six-Day War was a biblical fulfillment which spelled the beginning of the end for life as we know it. I was so obsessed by looking for the Antichrist, I failed to see Jesus Christ and the core Christian principles – “Love your neighbor as yourself; do good to those that do bad to you; give all that you have to feed the poor; etc.”

I believe the fundamentalist branch of the church has gone down the same wrong path and in doing so, has further constricted itself into incorporating all sorts of extreme conservative views which serve to support mythological visions. From experience I recognize the hypnotic spell.

Any person, group, or political party not in total agreement with their apocalyptic world view, therefore, is of the dark side. Democrats are as evil as Communists, atheists, or Satanists – but probably more so, because they wield political muscle in this country and must be destroyed in order for righteousness and the coming messianic reign to prevail where the “chosen” rule over the subservient infidel class for a millennium.

This is the view of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Glenn Beck, and several other Republican leaders. This is America’s Achilles Heel, its arbitros. Because around one-third of the nation subscribes to the ideology and are determined to change the course of history to fit the view. Whereas, Cheney fixed the intelligence to fit the policy for an illegal invasion, fundamentalists are fixing the nation into the role they perceive it should serve in establishing a theocratic government for the Millennial Reign.

Name any apocalyptic cult in America. Now pinpoint its politics. Notice any similarities? All are right-wing. All are/were gun-lovers and Second Amendment enthusiasts. All are/were anti-government and believe the government is out to take their guns and desecrate their god. All predict an imminent tribulation followed by Armageddon – which must take place as a welcome mat for the returning Messiah. All are thirsting for fulfillment – which means they must work through the Republican Party because of its staunch endorsement of social/religious conservatism.

The recent religious cult based in California predicted the end back on May 21, 2011. What party did they primarily identify with? The End-of-the-World date-setters for all centuries in American history were on the right, never the left. Now, consider how eschatological theology has ballooned in this country over the last forty years. What effect has this had on politics and the subsequent course we are forced to take as a nation?

The Number One danger to America is the marriage of the religious right to extreme conservatism. Why do so many Americans vote Republican – against their own best interests and that of the nation? Religion. If these millions were in their right mind, does it seem plausible they would support granting tax breaks and subsidies to the obscenely rich to the detriment of the nation they supposedly love?

Their patriotism belongs to ideology, not country.

Meanwhile the debt ceiling crisis is ready to explode over the entire world, and at the core of the Republican intransigence is its religious base. Yes, the people that long for world calamity so their prophetic dreams may come true are energized by the crisis. Republicans don’t care about America; they care about their mythological views coming to pass. Fundamentalists don’t care about the poor; they care about events in Israel and the Middle East making their apocalyptic vision a reality. That’s where their focus is. It’s not Christian; it’s anti-Christian.

Back in Washington – We have a President that still values compromise over accomplishing what is essential for the nation’s welfare. It seems every decision is bent to the right to appease a stubborn adversary. We have an Attorney General appointed by Obama who is determined not to prosecute Karl Rove and others that committed barefaced treason while in the Bush administration. They let them off the hook, and now these same characters are returning the favor by destroying Obama and Democrats in huge PR campaigns not even in the election cycle. The TV ads paid for by Crossroads America, Rove’s group of secret billionaires (Koch, etc.) are aired all across the U.S. without rebuttal.

http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2011/06/crossroads-america-ad-launching-next.html

We face depression for two reasons: (1) Republican bullies; (2) Democrat cowards. Obama fails to see his opponents clearly because he stubbornly views that all issues can be negotiated into reasonable settlement. He places bedrock principles and programs (Social Security, Medicare, fair taxation) on the table as bargaining chips in his primary drive to please the other side in the hope they’ll reciprocate in kind. Naturally, they see him in a weakened position; who doesn’t? As a result, we lose everything – hammered to hell by employing Obama’s concepts. Does he not realize how much the right hates him because it links him to the devil? Does he not realize, by compromising away middle-class rights, seniors’ safety nets, and core Democratic programs fought for by blood and tears for years that he’s losing union support? Without unions, the Democratic Party becomes a shell. What is wrong with Barack Obama?

The cult has overtaken sanity in America. In a few days we shall see whether we throw ourselves into full-blown depression or just a nagging second great recession – both due to Republicanism. The Apocalypse will come as a result of those that believe in it coupled with the spineless that allowed it.

Should I Take REAL Wellness to the Next Level?

Lately, I've been thinking: maybe I should start a church. I got the idea, of all places, from the Wall Street Journal. (See Graeme Wood, "What Hubbard Wrought: The story behind the belief system that attracted Tom Cruise and Kirstie Alley," Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2011.)

I could make stuff up, like Joe Smith (gold plates), Vonnegut's Bokonon (boko-maru, grandalloons and karasses) and, more recently (1950), L. Ron Hubbard (Teegeeack, audits and the intergalactic warlord Xenu). I could prosper and grow rich with the Church of REAL Wellness, serving my flock. I could fund a few politicians, demand respect for my beliefs and have laws passed and customs nourished that rendered any criticism of my religion as disrespectful, maybe even blasphemous.

I chould do this but, as Richard Nixon would counsel, it would be wrong. Such practices are typical of religions, existing and fictional. But, it is not my nature to herd compliant sheep, unleash holy wars, erect gaudy temples, brainwash followers or invent insane accounts of revelation and self-glorifying commandments. No, I should instead pursue a different course. I should design a kinder, gentler church, one founded on reason (a first among the genre), exuberance rather than sorrow and fear, athleticism and liberty (another first, for as Ingersoll remarked, the bible "imprisons the brain and corrupts the heart").

I chould do such a thing, but at the moment, I lack what Republican presidential candidates brag about having, a "fire in the belly" for the mission. It takes a lot of work, not to mention creativity, to make up the kind of stuff that goes into a new religion. Also, I'd have to find my own John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Kirstie Alley-level celebrities to front for The Church of REAL Wellness. Who wants to spend that much time hanging out in Hollywood recruiting?

Perhaps this will change, and you might yet have an opportunity to convert to The Church of REAL Wellness.

Donald B. Ardell is the Well Infidel. He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and meaning and purpose over spirituality. His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance and liberty are reflected in his books (14), newsletter (583 editions of a weekly report) and many speeches.. Write Don at awr.realwellness@gmail.com

Are Science and Reason Losing the Battle With Ideology?

It sure looks that way to this observer of our irredeemably polarized, zero-sum, increasingly bizarre culture. More on that shortly, but first an enthusiastic endorsement for the work of a fellow columnist here at TPJmagazine. Loren Adams always informs and entertains, and in his July 10 column, “The Curse,” he forcefully captures the life-and-death seriousness of a chronic disease eating away at the constitution of the nation (capital C, too). The disease is the left-right schism, “the great divide” that has long afflicted this country but which we have more or less managed to control, at least since the Civil War. Until now.

Adams says the divide is dangerously widening again, and he lays the blame for the latest crisis in our democracy squarely on the modern Republican Party, which has become an intentional, well-coordinated agent of social destruction:

“[The Republican Party’s] political operatives made a conscious decision three decades ago to win at any cost, including compromising traditional values that moderated our political system to civility and accepted standards of discourse. No longer is there a conscience to constrain; all tactics are on-the-table. As part of the conscious decision to include the unconscionable, the GOP has embraced deceit, fear, greed, and hate as part of its fabric. The composition is damaging to the nation as a whole, not just the party, and they care not. All that matters is [the] objective; winning is the only thing that counts. The end justifies the means.”

Adams sees us decaying, and perhaps dying, as a nation because of the enormous burden the Republicans have deliberately and shamelessly imposed on our always fragile social contract (loyal opposition and all that). I urge you to read his column – or read it again. His rotting-corpse metaphor alone is worth the time.

I agree with Loren nearly a hundred percent. And if our country is not close to death, it is surely on the verge of permanent disability, no longer able to provide the opportunity for a decent standard of living and a sense of security for most of its citizens. And no longer an optimistic, cheerful nation, but a dour, resentful, suspicious, and hostile place. A Republican kind of place.

The toxic Republican Party can be imagined as a big tent bulging with delusional ideologues, not all of them ideologically compatible, except in an opportunistic sense. The point is that the tent is so full of ignorant, brainwashed true believers and opportunists that no one who respects reason and evidence will be inclined to seek admission to participate in good faith. Looking inside the Republican big top, the most prominent recognizable ideologies on display are: radical political and social conservatism, fundagelical religion, libertarianism, the strange new concoction known as the Tea Party, and an assortment of odious, far-right hate groups. All of them are extreme in their ideological certitude, and fanatically determined. Working together as they do, they constitute a formidable political army with its own ministry of propaganda, the ubiquitous right-wing broadcast media (although it looks like Faux News could be in for a bit of a rough ride – and may they suffer the torments of the damned).

Characterizing right-wing ideologues as delusional is, admittedly, borderline redundant. Ideology, by its very nature, leads to denial of reality and a tendency towards fanaticism. Here’s why: Ideologues turn science and reason upside down, starting with non-negotiable, faith-based premises and then twisting, distorting, or denying all evidence that does not conform to their preconceived “truths.” And along with the majority, including many on the left, they extol faith as a virtue, even though it is diametrically opposed to science. Last time I checked, science was the only reliable method of advancing our understanding, prediction, and control of reality. It is a fair question to ask what insights ideology has ever provided about the nature of reality?

Because they publicly proclaim speculative, non-evidence-based beliefs to be The Truth, ideologues of every stripe almost invariably end up in a position from which their only face-saving option is to double down and use every available tactic they can get away with, including: denialism; lying (and do they ever lie – to themselves and others); demonizing the opposition and those who don’t conform to their narrow, usually regressive, world view; employing every logical fallacy ever cataloged; using political power to disenfranchise the poor and the elderly; aggressively and deceitfully undermining science and science education when it contradicts their unsupported beliefs. The U.S. furnishes a prime example of a society threatened by an epidemic of toxic ideologies run amok.

It is easy to come up with prominent and familiar ideologies that exemplify all or most of the above traits: communism, fascism, U.S. conservatism, Islamism, religion and the paranormal, alternative medicine, the anti-vaccination movement, conspiracy theories, and perhaps some environmental and animal-rights movements. There are ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum; but I’m arguing that those on the political/cultural/religious right are, by far, the most dangerous at this point in time. So let me take this opportunity to once again issue my recurring warning: The right wing in the U.S. is poised to gain power – to win at any cost, as Loren Adams puts it – and the first and highest priority for all reasonable Americans must be to keep power out of their hands. This is a Paul Revere moment, but you’d never know it from the business-as-usual demeanor of the U.S. mainstream media. Or the accommodationist Obama administration. Or a great many progressives and moderates. And the rest of the world just shakes their heads as we Americans go about our lives as if things were normal, not as if we were on the brink of forfeiting all our hard-won social progress.

I predict that if the right does gain power in this election cycle, the Bush administration will look like a sunday school picnic by comparison. (Go on, try to tell me I’m wrong about that. But be sure to read the religious and political rights’ own widely available words before you do.) What we’re seeing now from the House Republican majority is just weak tea compared to the toxic brew they’ll force down our throats once they’ve consolidated power. It doesn’t take much digging to see what’s coming, including the final nail in the coffin of meaningful democracy.)

As I said, ideologues share a strong, emotional, often fanatical, devotion to a set of core beliefs that are not verified, not adequately supported by sound, real-world evidence. Their fanaticism pushes them to organize and form coalitions with compatible groups and to probe for weaknesses and push for advantages in every domain. They are often well-disciplined, well-funded, and relentless. A perfect example of discipline comes from the protestant religious right and the Catholic Church. Protestant fundamentalism has a rather notorious antipathy to Catholicism and often refers to the Church as “the great whore” and the pope as the “anti-Christ.” They say those things even with five conservative Catholics and one moderate Catholic sitting on the Supreme Court. So where is the right-wing Catholic outrage at such defamation? The point is that even with such profound animosities festering just below the surface, conservatives are still disciplined enough to keep the lid on their differences in the interest of winning the bigger political battle against hated liberalism.

So are the regressives winning? Yeah, I think so. It is hugely dispiriting to see how much power, influence and support the delusional right has and how so many Americans have been duped into voting for malevolent ideologues and against their own interests. So while I agree with Loren Adams about Republican tactics and ruthlessness, I would add that I think the root cause of conservative personality disorder lies in an innate human proclivity for ideology. We are natural-born ideologues, which may have served us well in the Stone Age but is lethal now. Reverting to pre-Enlightenment superstitions is no longer a survival option.

The only long-term antidote to cultural decay is Jefferson’s informed citizenry, a rational majority that understands the primacy of genuine evidence as the basis for belief, decision-making, and the preservation of constitutional democracy. Obviously we are a long, long way from that ideal. For the present, the goal is to keep the deluded fanatics out of power so at least we’ll have a chance to begin to work towards a nation of informed, responsible, critical thinkers. This will only occur through a vastly improved education system, an undertaking the right will continue to undermine at every stage. And right now it looks as if they will succeed before the task even gets underway.

As Dr. Michael Shermer says in his new book, “The Believing Brain,” the way forward is to embrace the spirit of scientific inquiry. Not just esoteric laboratory science, but widespread scientific thinking throughout the populace. As Shermer says,

“I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.”

Science is intrinsically skeptical and thus resists the tendency towards faith-based certitude, or ideology. Skepticism is really just applied scientific reasoning that says I won’t accept anything as even provisionally true without sufficient evidence (hence, atheism). Any other attitude towards reality opens the door to all kinds of unsupported nonsense, which is where we are now as a culture. Lamentably, that’s where intellectually undisciplined human nature takes us. The antidote is the acquired discipline of skeptical, scientific rigor.

Many right-wing opponents of science – religious, cultural, corporate, and political – love to trot out the canard that science is just another faith-based belief system. To which I say, when feeling charitable, “That’s total rubbish!” Science is not based on “faith,” but on evidence and reason. Look at it this way: All our reliable knowledge is based on evidence from observation and experiment. That isn’t “faith” in the unknown or the unverified, it’s confidence in the known based on centuries of disciplined investigation. Just look at the results that accrued once humans started using and refining the scientific method! The heart of the method is called induction, which boils down to this: if we can document and/or produce a cause-and-effect pattern repeatedly under given conditions, it is likely the pattern will occur the next time those conditions obtain, and possibly under somewhat different conditions as well (which can be the basis for a systematic replication). That’s not faith, that’s practical common sense; we rely on science because it works. I’m sure there’s no need to provide examples of the prodigious accomplishments of science.

Of course science can’t say with absolute certainty that just because something has always occurred in a certain way that it always will; that’s why scientists readily concede that their laws and theories are provisional – a disconfirming observation might occur at any time. But just because something is theoretically possible – and damn near anything is – doesn’t mean it’s real. I guess we can’t even prove beyond doubt that reality is real; but it’s pointless to let that kind of philosophical uncertainty impede us, so we go with what works. And that’s not “faith,” at least not in the sense intended by science deniers.

So we’re justified in saying the sun will rise in the east – tomorrow and every day. We COULD turn out to be wrong at some point; but what possible value is there in doubting something that has always proven to be true? Better to say that under specified observational or experimental conditions, we have ALWAYS gotten this result, so we carry on with confidence it will persist in the future. Eventually we come to know enough about various aspects of reality to make reliable predictions and to exert impressive control over real-world outcomes. That’s science: empirical, pragmatic, highly effective. It’s not absolute, and it’s not without difficulties – after all, it’s a human enterprise. Still we just keep at it and trust it because of its track record: and we keep seeing progress in our knowledge, understanding, prediction, and control. The scientific method works where nothing else comes close. Certainly not any ideology.

GODFATHER MURDOCH – UNFIT AND IMPROPER

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

                                                    Shakespeare. Julius Caesar.

Cassius’s aggrieved complaint against the overweening power of Julius Caesar in ancient Rome, pretty well expresses the sentiments of awe-stricken fear and subservience that until last week gripped so many members of today’s political establishment when confronted by the apparently impregnable power and reach of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Whether or not the present scandal turns out to be quite the stuff of a world-shattering Hubris/Nemesis cataclysm, remains to be seen. But there is no doubting the seriousness of the crisis facing the Godfather and his filial lieutenants. Something unimaginable just a few weeks ago is now just foreseeable: could this possibly be the beginning of the end for News Corporation, Murdoch’s multi-billion dollar media empire?

The pace of developments in the last week or so has been astonishing. On July 10, the News of the World, the tabloid Sunday newspaper at the heart of the hacking scandal, with a circulation of 2.6 million, was closed down by News International. This was probably done   in an attempt to take the heat off Rebekah Brooks who had edited the paper in 2002 when a particularly egregious hacking case occurred. A week ago (July 8) it was still assumed that Murdoch’s bid to take over the 61% of BSkyB that he doesn’t already own would be successful. He has now been compelled to withdraw the bid and, given the deepening crisis arising from the hacking scandal in Britain, it is almost impossible to see how it can be revived in the foreseeable future, if at all. The fall-out from the scandal has now reached the United States, with the possibility of an FBI investigation which could turn up evidence of News International journalists attempting to hack into the cell-phones of 9/11 victims. On July 14 summonses were issued compelling Rupert and James Murdoch to attend a session of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, to answer questions under oath about criminal activities perpetrated by News International journalists, and about attempts to cover up such activities. Rebekah Brooks, who is a UK citizen and was until yesterday chief executive officer of News Corp, will also attend the session. She has just resigned as CEO.

The scale of the hacking scandal at the News of the World has shocked even those inured to the cynical amorality of tabloid journalism. In pursuit of salacious gossip and sensationalism to boost market share, “public interest” is interpreted simply to mean whatever interests readers of the News of the World and the Sun. As layer after layer of subterfuge and concealment has been stripped away in what at last looks like a serious police investigation, the stench of rot emerging from the Murdoch stables has become overpowering. The illegal phone hacking of celebrities and even members of the royal family should come as no surprise; but hacking the cell phone of an abducted child who had already been murdered, and the deletion of messages to enable the hacker to eaves-drop on the messages left by distraught parents and friends, plumbed unimaginable depths of depravity. The same practice was employed against the bereaved relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. It is revelations such as these that finally projected the hacking scandal to the forefront of media attention and turned it from the largely ignored concern of one or two “quality” broadsheets into a national and international sensation.

While it is still too early to be sure, there is reason to believe that this story is unlikely to be wound up quickly, which would enable the lid to be put back on the murky practices that have been revealed. This is because the crisis rocking Murdoch’s media empire does not stop there. It also engulfs the Metropolitan Police and, to an extent, members of the political establishment including the prime minister, David Cameron. Every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher has, to one degree or another, been beholden to Murdoch. Leaders of the Tory and Labour parties, whether in power or in opposition, have deferred to him, sought his endorsement and feared the withdrawal of his favor. His influence over the political establishment has been malign and a serious affront to democracy. The same goes for the relationship between the Murdoch press and the Metropolitan Police. Here, the lid is now being lifted on a rotten brew of corruption. From what has emerged already it is clear that a range of malpractices including bribery on a colossal scale, systematic cover-ups of criminal practices, huge cash payments to buy the silence of victims of phone hacking, collusion in the commission of crimes and deliberate withholding of evidence from the victims of crimes and serious misdemeanors. An earlier police enquiry into allegations of phone-hacking failed to reveal evidence that it was endemic at the News of the World, and simply corroborated the paper’s lies claiming that it was a case of one “rotten apple”. Now things are changing. The sheer volume of evidence and the growing numbers of victims emerging, have compelled the Met to re-open the enquiry. In the process it has become clear that collusion between the police and the News of the World went right to the top, involving high-ranking officers who have gone straight from the police service into jobs as journalists and consultants with News International. And still this is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg.

The same cozy relationship has existed between the government and luminaries of News International. Andy Coulson, was editor of News of the World between 2003 and 2007. He resigned when a journalist was convicted for hacking into the phones of members of the royal family. Coulson claimed, implausibly, that he knew nothing about it. Actually the practice was rampant and obviously encouraged, if not prescribed from above. Yet Coulson was subsequently engaged by Cameron as his director of communications, a post he continued to hold after Cameron became prime minister in 2010. Anyone with any sense at all could see that Coulson must not only have known about the phone hacking which was rampant under his editorship, but must also have approved it. Yet the prime minister continued to defend him long after it became clear that the man was a duplicitous mediocrity unfit to hold any respectable office. Under the increasing weight of evidence he was forced to resign in January of this year. Cameron defended him to the bitter end and has continued to claim him as a friend even after his arrest last week. To say that this raises serious questions about Cameron’s judgment is something of an understatement. Coulson was arrested last week.

Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the News of the World in 2002 at the time of the hacking scandal involving the murdered child, Milly Dowler, (about which she claims to have known nothing) was subsequently elevated by Murdoch to CEO of News Corp. Although described by her defenders Rupert and James Murdoch, as “an outstanding journalist of her generation”, she might be more accurately described as someone closely resembling her colleague Andy Coulson - an ambitious, duplicitous mediocrity. But then, it is people such as these that rise to the top of the pile in the Godfather’s media empire. The characteristics they must possess if they are to succeed have nothing to do with serious journalism. They are ruthless ambition, single-minded pursuit of wealth and power, cavalier disregard for the truth and unquestioning belief in their ability to manipulate public opinion to accept whatever is in the interests the corporate powers they serve. They call it good public relations.

On the 19^th July – alas, too late for this column – Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks will be questioned by the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. They are availing themselves of the most expensive legal advice designed to limit the enormous damage that has already been done to the Godfather’s global interests by the NoW hacking scandal. Whatever the outcome, the big story is Murdoch’s pulling out of the BSkyB bid. This is a major reverse for him and could mark the beginning of a global melt-down. Last week it became clear that if the bid had been allowed to go to the media regulator, Ofcom, News Corp would not have been considered a “fit and proper” company to control BSkyB. Now, there are moves afoot to strip News Corp of the 31% of BSkyB Murdoch already owns. The Godfather has reason to be very worried.

In this situation the prime minister has been caught off-balance due to his close association with Coulson, Brooks and Murdoch. This has enabled Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour opposition to seize the initiative. To his credit, he has done so with alacrity and skill, thereby invigorating his leadership of the party and setting the agenda for what appears to be an extraordinary all-party united-front in opposition to Murdoch and News Corp’s ambitions in Britain.

But in most media coverage of a story that has dominated the headlines of the broadsheets and TV channels for the past two weeks, one important element has been largely missing. The hacking scandal would not have come to light had it not been for the diligent, genuinely investigative journalism of the liberal newspaper, The Guardian, which, incidentally is the only daily British newspaper to be owned by a trust (The Scott Trust). Most of the media world is dominated by global companies and billionaires. It is hardly surprising that The Guardian, along with the BBC, is a regular target of the right-wing press in Britain. One of the main reasons that so few of the other newspapers showed any interest in the revelations carried by The Guardian is that so many of them dredge their dirt from the same gutter as the NoW and The Sun. It is obviously too much to hope that the scandal now engulfing Murdoch will put an end to the practices that his media have perfected. This is the only way the tabloid press knows how to operate. The claim upon which their modus operandi is based, namely that they give the public what it wants, is as valid as drug dealers who could claim that they are simply meeting the needs of addicts.

This, of course, is Murdoch’s justification for the style and political content of his pride and joy in the U.S. - Fox News. Referring to the Godfather’s political agenda on that paragon of unbiased communication, liberal columnist Will Hutton writes in The Observer (17. July) “Mr Murdoch is apologizing this weekend for the behaviour of his papers over phone-hacking. That, as western economies totter on the precipice, is not all for which he has to apologise.”

Should the FDA Regulate Religions?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the government agency responsible for regulating food, dietary supplements, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, biologics and blood products in the United States. Perhaps religion should be added to the FDA mission. Seriously, don't you think warning labels are as consequential concerning the dangers of religious promises and the consequences of fundamentalist addiction, as are the contents of cigarette packages? Tobacco kills, sure enough, but not nearly as efficiently or dramatically as weapons of mass destruction, some of which are now or soon will be in the hands of religious fanatics (e.g., in the nations of Iran, Israel, Pakistan and, eventually perhaps, non-state terrorist groups. In his 2008 film "Religulous," Bill Maher offered this observation: "Because of its power (religion) to divert man to destructive courses, the world could actually come to an end. The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people."

Is this too harsh or, from my own perspective, optimistic? In my view, expecting religion "to die" within this or even another century seems unrealistic. Many philosophers and prominent leaders forecast the end of religion during the Enlightenment era in Europe and even in 19th century America. Alas, this bright side expectation was not to be. So, let's focus less on hopes for the death of religion and work instead for a little supervision, especially in this country, where secularism is under assault by aggressive Christianity.

What's there not to like about a little regulation of religion? Everyone is and would be free to worship whomever he/she pleases as desired, provided doing so does not inhibit or hazard the rights of others, believers and on-believers alike. Regulation of religious practices, if necessary due to suspected violations of the rights of others, would protect those rights.

I think people underestimate the mischief that religions excite from some enthusiasts. Just the other day, the Wall Street Journal contained an interesting piece by Mitch Horowitz entitled, "When Spirituality Kills: How should society regulate New Age gurus or Christian Scientists?" (See Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2011.) The article described the harmful practices of self-help, New Age sweat lodge guru James Ray. In 2009, Ray's followers paid a small fortune to be subjected to 36hours in a hut with no food and water, roasting in an Arizona sweat ceremony designed by the guru as "spiritually therapeutic." Health and safety issues were neglected, and no watchdog agency had authority to watch over and protect the Ray faithful. The only protection the Ray faithful had was their own common sense, and obviously the 56 participants were in serious arrears in this regard else they would not have been or at least remained there for so long. Three devotees died. The WSJ report cited other similar instances of religious lunacy and associated fatalities, including cases of Christian Science "mental healings" gone bad.

After reading the column, my first response was, "Why limit regulation to New Age gurus and Christian Scientists? How many New Age gurus or Christian Scientists were among the unlicensed pilots run amuck on 9/11? The WSJ piece made no mention of the Crusades, the Inquisition or other persecutions, holy wars and horrors of unregulated theocracies. Nor was attention given to ways that toxic superstitions threaten secular societies, particularly our own.

In his best-seller Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Daniel Dennett identified many other ways that religion threatens the rights of secularists when seeking to control everyone's moral behavior by imposing their dogmas. Examples include "denying access to contraception while outlawing termination of pregnancy, criminalizing sexual acts between consenting adults, banning stem cell research, refusing the terminally ill access to assisted death, preventing inoculation of young girls against cervical cancer, and degrading science education with religious doctrine."

Regulation is required, it seems to me, not only against organizations that kill but also those that restrict freedoms and diminish the quality of life for all, not only their fervent supporters.

Donald B. Ardell is the Well Infidel. He favors evidence over faith, reason over revelation and meaning and purpose over spirituality. His enthusiasm for reason, exuberance and liberty are reflected in his books (14), newsletter (582 editions of a weekly report) and many speeches.. Write Don at awr.realwellness@gmail.com