To Which Institution Would You Entrust YOUR Freedom: The Catholic Church or a Secular Republic?

The "Opinion" section of the weekend Wall Street Journal devoted half a page to Archbishop Timothy Dolan's grievances against Obama Administration guidelines for the Affordable Health Care Act. James Taranto's intervew, "When the Archbishop Met the President," was rich in irony. The Archbishop, a high official of an institution with a history of burning alive those who disagreed with its mandates in this life and burning them again for eternity in a hellish afterlife, spoke as if his church were entitled to stand as a credible arbiter of liberty or morality. The appalling gall of such hypocrisy is mind boggling. Actually, it's more than that - it's gobsmackering.

The U.S. Conference of Bishops opposes the birth-control mandate in the health care guidelines because, well, basically because the Catholic Church does not like sex. The church will permit it in instances where sexual union (missionary positions only, with the man on top) may boost membership in their cult, but that's about it. The Catholic leadership labels opposition to their dogmatic rules as "morally toxic." Just the other day (April 5), Pope Benedict XVI assailed disobedience among priests, decrying the efforts of reform-minded Catholics who dare to ask for reforms that would allow the ordination of women and the abolition of celibacy. So much for free speech under Catholicism. In my view, the phrase "morally toxic" better applies to the nature of a superstition that restricts liberty, joy, exuberance and choice in favor of sin, fear, guilt and shame. The Catholic Church is unequalled today in its capacity for Orwellian doublespeak.

In the interview noted above, the Archbishop repeats a mantra of deceit with multiple references to the church as a defender of "the rights of conscience" and "moral imperatives," selflessly guarding against infringments on "religious liberty." Orwell would love it, no doubt.

Mr. Dolan implies that the president and other "ideologues ... favor an ever-more-powerful secular government." Well, as opposed to what - a weaker secular government relative to the forces of theocracy, such as the U.S. Conference of Bishops?

In 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy promised a gathering of ministers in Houston - and the nation, that "my Catholic faith will not inspire my decisions in the White House." What does Dolan think of that? "That's worrisome," he stated.

Well, at least he did not throw up. Rather, the archbishop and the writer of the WSJ article take comfort from the fact that "devout Catholic Rick Santorum is running on the promise that his faith will inform his decisions" and that the U.S. Supreme Court ... has had a Catholic majority since 2006."

I suspect more than a few readers of even the WSJ take little comfort in the candidacy of Mr. Santorum or the composition of the Catholic dominated Supreme Court.

Let freedom - and a more powerful secular government, ring. And prevail.

ROTTEN TO THE CORE AND OVER-RIPE FOR CHANGE: Corporate Power and Wealth in Austerity Britain

In recent weeks the Con-Lib Dem government has suffered several set-backs which have seriously affected their poll ratings. George Osborne’s budget, the highlights of which were the reduction to 45p in the pound of the 50p income tax rate for those earning more than £150.000, and freezing the tax threshold for pensioners, did nothing to improve the Chancellor’s popularity.  Encouragement of panic-buying of fuel as a political ploy to outmaneuver the tanker-drivers’ union, Unite, by playing on fears of a strike over the Easter break, backfired when it led to chaos at filling stations and traffic jams. For the first time in many years, almost all the press, including Murdoch’s titles, turned on the government. Then there was the “cash for access” scandal.

The Tory party treasurer, self-made multi-millionaire Peter Cruddas, was secretly filmed by a Sunday Times Insight Team posing as foreign businessmen, boasting that he could gain them access to the prime minister. For the “premier league” payment of £250.000 they would be invited to dinner at Downing Street and have the chance to influence policy. When told that they were based in an offshore tax haven, which would make their payments illegal under British election law, Cruddas told them that there were ways of getting round this. Needless to say, when the story hit the headlines, Cruddas was forced to resign and Cameron claimed, to universal disbelief, that cash could not buy access to him or his government. If further proof were needed that nothing has changed in the shabby practices and hypocrisy of the power elites who govern Britain, this story provided it. As in the case of “cash for honours” that took what was left of the gilt from Blair’s New Labour administration, first came the exposure, then the frantic attempts to conceal or deny the wrongdoing. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this story has been the involvement of Rupert Murdoch. If anyone doubted that the Sunday Times story carried his imprimatur such doubts were expelled by the old man’s gleeful tweets to his 200,000 twitter followers. Cameron, he tweeted, should have “followed history and flogged some seats in the Lords, if they still have value.” This would “follow the precedent of centuries.” Then, with chutzpah which even by his standards was astounding, he concluded that Cameron must re-establish trust, because “without trust, democracy and order will go.” For the Godfather, forced by unwelcome events to pretend a humility that doesn’t suit his character, this small revenge upon those who have jilted him must be rather sweet. It may convince him that he can still influence political events, in this instance by upsetting the apple cart. In a less publicized part of the Insight Team’s exposure, Cruddas claims that Cameron is secretly happy at the prospect of  Scottish independence and the break-up of the Union, publicly opposing it on expedient grounds. Indeed, he may think that, rid of Scotland where the Tories have only one MP, their future dominance of an English parliament at Westminster would be secure.

A week or so of such mishaps and bad headlines as these resulted in Labour gaining a ten point lead in the opinion polls. This was very welcome to them as the party seemed to have made little impact against the government. This, despite a flat-lining economy, passage through parliament of the deeply unpopular health and social welfare bill and the obvious fact that the cuts imposed in the name of “deficit reduction” were falling most heavily on the poorest sections of society. Then came the bombshell of the Bradford West by-election. Before attempting to evaluate this astonishing event, it is worth considering the wider political background, both nationally and internationally, against which it occurred.

It suits the interests of the power elites to treat the population as an infinitely manipulable mass; consumers to whom policies and concepts have to be sold. Leading politicians need to be effective PR people, like David Cameron.  In the past this sort of thing was called “propaganda”, and some governments, usually fascist, actually had ministers of propaganda. At least they did not resort to dissimulation to describe what they were doing, though what they were doing amounted to systematic lying. Now, instead of ministers of propaganda, we have “directors of communications”. It sounds better - more democratic. The present government has tried to persuade as many people as possible that:

1. The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 which led to the £multi-billion bail-out of the banks at taxpayers’ expense, necessitates the imposition of many years of extreme austerity in order to eliminate the deficit.
2. It is perfectly acceptable for the recapitalized banks to return to “business as usual”.
3.  Despite the fact that the cuts are hitting the poorest hardest, and that bankers and top FTSE executives are paying themselves mega-bonuses and salaries, “we” are somehow “all in this together”.
4. The pain “we” are all supposed to be suffering is in the “national interest” and therefore should be accepted with fortitude and without protest. Strikes and resistance “hold the country to ransom” and are “against the public interest.”   
5. We should all try to compensate for the loss of public services that are being decimated by the cuts, the libraries that are being closed and charities whose funding has been withdrawn, by volunteering to work unpaid to build a “big society”.    
6. Despite the fact that the invasion of Iraq was illegal in international law and was a disaster resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and 176 British soldiers, it was supported by both Labour and Tories politicians as necessary in “the war against terror.” 
7. The war in Afghanistan is justified as in Britain’s national interest. The invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in an 11 year war which is obviously un-winnable, has so far led to the deaths of thousands of Afghanis and over 400 British military personnel. Justifications for the war have included: (a) To destroy al Qaida’s base and kill or capture Osama Bin Laden (b) Regime change: get rid of the Taliban (c) Stamp out the heroin trade (d) Support a transition to democracy in Afghanistan, and “make our streets safe from terrorism.”

A sizeable part of the British media is engaged in an operation to fool all of the people all of the time. Even those sections that are supposed to be “balanced” and “objective” usually accept without argument the most dogmatically asserted of the government’s claims, to which the Labour opposition also subscribes, – such as the claim that the deficit must be eliminated over one or two parliaments and that severe cuts in public spending are necessary to reduce it. But there are signs that in growing numbers people are not being fooled.

The scandal around phone-hacking eventually blew up into a full-scale crisis for the Murdoch Empire. This is still running and a lot more unsavoury matter is sure to emerge. And the government is deeply mired in it. Consider some of the facts that have emerged and how the cumulative effects have impacted on the government, particularly on David Cameron.

He, like Blair before him, was keen to get as close as possible to Murdoch. He appointed Andy Coulson (former editor of the News of the World) as his director of communications. It was clear to anyone not willfully blind that this man was a devious charlatan. The fact that Cameron defended him as a close friend tells us much about the prime minister. Similarly, his friendship with Rebekah Brooks shows the same predilection for brutally ambitious people of very dubious character. These are the people Cameron chooses as friends and political associates, and it is the political association that is crucial. They have both been arrested by the Metropolitan Police and are at present on bail.  The former treasurer and deputy chairman of the Tory party, Baron Ashcroft, is the 37th richest man in Britain with a personal fortune of £1.1 billion. A close friend of Foreign Secretary William Hague, he did not pay tax in the UK on his overseas earnings. His main business operations are in the Commonwealth country of Belize, where he admits that his interests have been ”exempt from certain taxes for 30 years.”  Now comes the Cruddas affair, just the latest in a line of scandals revealing the close association between the political elite and their super-rich friends and associates, many of whose operations seem to be clearly criminal.

 New Labour was locked into the same type of associations. Blair was (and is) notoriously prone to associate with the wealthiest and most powerful people. He has now joined their ranks. Miliband’s failure to break decisively with New Labour’s tarnished heritage is one factor in Labour’s inability to provide a serious opposition to the Tory–led coalition. There is widespread and growing dissatisfaction with all three of the biggest mainstream political parties in Britain. Amongst young people, particularly young working class people from all ethnic backgrounds, there is anger and resentment about lack of jobs and opportunities, about the prohibitive cost of higher education – in short, about a future without hope. And this is the crisis - for which the Westminster political establishment has neither solution nor comprehension - that exploded at the Bradford West by-election.

There has been a lot of commentary on George Galloway’s sensational victory at Bradford West. Much of it has been hot air; much, tendentious. It has been argued that this was a one-off result, that it was due entirely to unscrupulous pandering to the Muslim electorate. Galloway has been attacked from both left and right. He has over the years made many enemies, and, indeed, there is much in his political career that is, to say the least, less than admirable. But let us look at what happened.

Bradford West was considered a safe Labour seat. The Labour majority was more than 5.000. In the by-election, 18.341 votes were cast for Galloway; 8.201 for the Labour candidate, Hussain. The coalition parties, Tory and Lib Dem polled 4.251 votes, a mere 13%. Galloway’s majority was over 10.000. He polled more than all the other candidates combined, taking a larger share of the vote than in any by-election since 1945. Cutting through all the excuses and all the sour grapes from his opponents, the most telling comment was made by Guardian economics columnist, Larry Elliott, who, referring to Galloway’s opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, commented that the result was “not really about the failed war against the Taliban; it is about the failed war against poverty.” Youth unemployment in Bradford is twice Britain’s national average, which puts it over 40%. Incomes in Bradford are lower than the average of the UK and the EU. The Labour council has implemented £67 million of cuts in the city and slashed over 1000 jobs.

Although Galaway’s larger-than-life personality was obviously a factor in this result, it cannot satisfactorily explain the scale of his victory. While it would be rash to rush to conclusions that could turn out to be wrong, something very serious may be stirring in the most deprived regions of Britain, particularly amongst the young. Surprisingly, it seems that very large numbers of Muslim women who have never voted before, turned out to vote for Galloway. It remains to be seen whether the Respect party, or other marginal groups will be able to repeat results like this. Until now, groups to the left of the Labour party have, with very few exceptions, when they have chosen to contest elections, failed to make any impact at all. This may now be changing. If it is, it will be a very welcome. The sooner the sclerotic practice of Westminster parliamentary politics is shaken out of its complacency, the better.

A Secular Democracy Imperiled by Creeping Talibanism

There was a great rally of infidels, atheists, freethinkers, agnostics and other non-faith guided Americans from throughout the country in Washington, D.C. on March 24th. The cheerful crowd was there to celebrate reason, a quality one organizer, Richard Dawkins, termed a crowning virtue.

Dawkins wrote an op-ed piece about the rally in the Washington Post two days before the event. It began with a rhetorical question, How have we come to the point where reason needs a rally to defend it? Well, anyone who has paid attention to the presidential primary campaign of the Republican Party knew that Dawkins was only too aware of what has brought Americans to such a point.

In my work, Reason is the R in REAL wellness. Unfortunately, reason is not an element addressed in worksite wellness educational programs. For that matter, reason is not addressed in health books, lectures or workshops, either. Instead, weight loss diets, exercise advice and stress management techniques are the focus of professionals seeking to encourage better habits for well-being. It may be time for quality of life advocates to broaden their health offerings. The fact is a near critical mass of voters do not seem to be making the connection between reason - a skill nourished by respect for science, evidence and logic, with health or wellness. That is why I rarely send the term wellness out in the world anymore unprotected by the attributive adjective acronym REAL.

But, consider this: Is there an alternative to reason? Alas, there is and it's not pretty. It can be seen in the  Republican Party's medieval approach to public policy and governance, a method Dawkins describes as a swamp of primitive superstition and supernatural gullibility.  (Source: Richard Dawkins, Who would rally against reason? Washington Post, March 21, 2012.)

Dawkins credits reason for making it possible for humans to know the age of earth and the universe (4.6 and 13.8 billion years, respectively), what we're made of (atoms), where we came from (evolved from other species), why all species are adapted to their environments (natural selection of their DNA), how to explain night and day (Earth spins on its axis) and why we have winter and summer (Earth is tilted) and so much else (see article referenced above) that liberated us from ancient fears of ghosts and devils, evil spirits...magic spells and witches’ curses. Yet, Republican politicians offer leaders such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum as substitutes for "educated intellectuals and élitists-politicians.

The Republicans want to restrict women's access to contraception, gut public education and shift the role of government to that of promoting big business and imposing religiously morality. They oppose universal health care, they want to eliminate Planned Parenthood and end regulations that inhibit profits. They succeed at persuading Tea Party enthusiasts and other more or less average Americans to vote against their economic self-interests because so many Americans are so reason-impaired gullible.

It's a sorry situation. We need Reason rallies in every state, every city and town in the country. We need REAL wellness in every school, workplace, home and yes, especially in every church. Of course, the latter would not exist if reason took hold.

In her weekly column in the Tampa Bay Times, Robyn Blumner summed up the case nicely for this and further reason rallies and promotions

I worry that we get the elected officials we deserve. By electing politicians who claim they can cut taxes and slash the deficit, as well as bring gas prices down to $2.50 per gallon, we get leaders without principles. Honesty is a dangerous trait in American politics. Jon Huntsman doomed his chances with the Republican primary voter by accepting the vast scientific evidence for evolution and climate change, and admitting it out loud. Our level of scientific illiteracy is  alarming, too.

All of this is freakishly concerning, and then Santorum comes along with his self-styled brand of American Talibanism that is actually gaining ground. And I think to myself, 'Now that's something to worry about.' (Robyn E. Blumner, "In fear of American Talibanism," The Tampa Bay Times, March 15, 2012.)

I have similar fears, which is why I believe the promotion of reason with REAL wellness is not only important for health and well-being but also for quality of life. The latter requires that we do all we can to discourage and reject the Republican-led drift toward creeping Talibanism that imperils our secular democracy.

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Donald B. Ardell is the Well Infidel. He wrote High Level Wellness in 1976 (Rodale Press) and many other books since, including Die Healthy, 14 Days to Wellness and most recently, Aging Beyond Belief and REAL Wellness. Since 1984, Don has produced 680 editions of the Ardell Wellness Report. Don's website at SeekWellness.com/wellness is the largest repository of wellness essays. 

Don is one of ten Americans given the Healthy America Fitness Leaders Award in 1991 by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. In 2010, he was granted the Lifetime Achievement Prize by the German Wellness Association in Dusseldorf; in July 2011, he was honored with the Halbert L. Dunn Award by the National Wellness Institute.  

Don has won many national and four world championships in triathlon and duathlon, his most recent world titles coming in 2009 in the Gold Coast of Australia and 2010 in Budapest, Hungary.

A free subscription to Don's wellness report is available on request - write Don at awr.realwellness@gmail.com 

The Big-Spending Republicans and the Military Industrial Complex: Part I

“Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”  Dick Cheney

Often, I am criticized for making negative remarks about another person’s politics, one’s preference for political candidates, and the tandem threat of the GOP and Fox News (fair and balanced, of course), but not necessarily in that order.  It is a fair criticism, too, for I have been relentless in attempting to skewer the Republicans for all their blatant stealing by picking the pockets of innocent American taxpayers.  Republicans stealing?  Well, I never.  But let me explain.  When a president like (take Reagan, puh-lease) stumps hard in his 8 years in the White House to beef up our military so the United States (under God, of course) could bring Russia (he called them the Evil Empire) to their knees, what does that tell you?  At the time I thought the world must think us to be quite loony, not to mention Biblically-corrupted nut cases.  During those 8 years in the White House Reagan attacked and sent troops into Grenada.  Stayed only a couple of weeks then decided Grenada was safe again from Communism, and the U.S. troops departed.  My, my, and didn’t Reagan have some of our Tom Cat jet fighters strafe Libya, too?  The Pentagon had to pinch themselves at Reagan’s ability to inspire military buildup and borrowing the funds to do such a good job during peacetime.  It was a Hollywood masterpiece.  Reagan was convincing.  But what did we get for our military money spent during Reagan’s 8-years in the White House? 

First, in Reagan’s goading Congress successfully during peacetime to borrow and spend an astonishing $3 Trillion that America did not have in our Treasury, just WTF did it accomplish?  Well, that little presidential wink-and-nod play cost taxpayers the $3 Trillion PLUS interest compounded on that very amount since Reagan left office, and, well that is 24 years of compounded interest. Duuuude!  At 3% compounded for 24 years?  Please don’t tell me the damage that piece of “conservative” slight of hand work did to our Treasury.  So what did we get for our money?  Better still what did Cheney mean when he said, “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter?!!!”  And what part did that little borrowing and spending spree that elated the Military Industrial Complex play in Ben Bernanke’s Frankenstein printing more U.S. Dollars as America scrambles to pay its debts NOW?  AND don’t forget the gargantuan interest on the National Debt!  But, no, just take the $3 Trillion by itself; what did it cost us common folk American taxpayers in the long and short run, financially?  How much does it cost us to pay the Chinese EVERY YEAR just to pay the interest on just the $3 Trillion Reagan borrowed and spent to bring Russia to its knees?  And what does it really say about the Great Communicator now that years later our own National Debt is at $15 Trillion and Russia is in the black, flaunting a $2 Trillion surplus to the world and the dumb ass Yanks that tried to bring Mother Russia to her knees?  Thank you very much, Gipper.  Russia must have been doing just fine all those years they spent on their knees, what?  And we know that Halliburton was doing fine, too, but that’s another story, isn’t it?

The interest we pay China does not benefit one single American!  It does not pay a PENNY for healthcare, no SCHIPS (affordable healthcare for children of low-income families), or one dime to fund Social Security, Medicare, or college Pell Grants or Education funding of any kind, for that matter.  NOTHING.  The interest we have to scramble to pay due to reckless borrowing and spending on an imaginary foe, The Evil Empire of Russia, if you please, has shown us smooth-out how the Gipper sold America down the river!  And the interest we now pay has contributed greatly to the killing of our Dollar and the demise of America’s financial survival.  And the thunderclouds of INFLATION looming on the horizon. Each and every year, that interest the U.S. must pay China (thank you Dick Cheney for your sage comments on how Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter) plus other vast amounts of borrowing and spending has brought us to the edge of the financial cliff.  Sweet.  The only thing at this point that is keeping America alive is the money it can borrow and continue to borrow from the Chinese (China now owns $1.2 Trillion of U.S. Debt).  Or the Japanese (Japan holds $1.01 Trillion of U.S. National Debt).  The American people don’t even own a paltry $1 Trillion of U.S. Debt (makes you go slack-jawed, don’t it?), but others like the U.K., Brazil, own triple-digit Billions of dollars of U.S. Debt.  We taxpayers pay big interest to all the foreign countries that lend us money to operate as a sovereign nation, and we get NOTHING for it!  Cheney was right:  Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter, but he was not talking about us, the common American taxpayer.  He was talking about the good old boys, the Military Industrial Complex like his own Halliburton that gets to sell Uncle Sam $500 hammers on NO-BID contracts.  And if that don’t burn a taxpayer’s ass or two we must all be brain-dead.  But I think it’s plain that Cheney wasn’t talking about us, the American taxpayer.

Imagine what we could have done with the interest if we did not have to pay it to the likes of China with no benefit to America or Americans.  Just imagine.  To borrow and spend in peacetime to defeat the Evil Empire sounds fanatically Biblical.  And stupid.  Russia is alive and well, thank you very much Mr. Reagan, and has a $2 Trillion dollar surplus in their Treasury when America has a deplorable $15 Trillion dollar debt (and counting).  The Evil Empire is in the black and has a SURPLUS, O Great Communicator, and we American hamburger-flippers here in America are still manufacturing products like fries and Big Macs here at McDonald’s.

But if such high-level stealing is true, then who is the thief?  A GOP president labeled the thief in question quite well.  Ike said to beware of the Military Industrial Complex.  Broken down, Ike said there were corporations who were willing to spend billions of dollars to get lucrative NO-BID government contracts.  So who did these arms and hardware companies steal from?  Why us, the American people, who else?  Taxes flow into the U.S. Treasury.  Congress and the president recommend and approve military budgets.  U.S. Treasury dollars flow out to the Pentagon and Military Industrial Complex corporations who charge Uncle Sam $500 for a single hammer!  Is it rocket science to predict that the Pentagon and Halliburton are living beyond our means?  Or that a friend in the White House and Congress can pull it off?  No matter how much it all stinks?

So how do they manage to pull it off?  Is the American taxpayer in such a deep coma that he doesn’t notice?  How does this love affair between government and the Military Industrial Complex manage to deceive the American taxpayer?  It still befuddles my world when that question is asked because it appears that Congress is more than willing to award contracts at bizarre high prices to these Military Industrial Complex corporations.  And what is Congress’ reward for doing so?  Well very large sums of campaign contributions to insure their reelection, maybe?  You think?

So that isn’t exactly stealing is it?  Duh…YES.  Think it might be a bit subversive and dishonest to allow certain favored corporations the right to sell Uncle Sam jet fighters, tanks, or firearms without the litmus test of competition bidders to keep the whole thing honest?  You know, like in allowing other companies to make a competitive bid on the military hardware we are paying for with our tax dollars?  How do we know if the bid is a good one?  How do we know that the company with the no-bid contract is not gouging us, the taxpayer who must pay Uncle Sam’s bills?  Well, the no-bid price of $500 for a single hammer is a pretty good indicator, right?  And after all whose tax dollar is it?

The GAO has tried to collar these government-spending thieves before for all things our government arbitrarily says it needs to function.  Some of the GAO findings reveal that in many instances exorbitant prices are paid out to these NO-BID government contractors selling products and services to the U.S. Government:  $500 hammers and $600 toilet seats.  And in my view, when you can buy a hammer, a good hammer, at The Home Depot for $19.95 there must be a thief in the equation.  When your government, if it were to decide to exercise its very oath to serve in the best interests of you and me, I think they might become conscientious buyers, e.g., and emulate Wal-Mart who shops the best price for its bottom line and its stockholders.  Our government is a runaway train full of drunken thieves who are laughing their way down the track of our own destruction.  By stealing and pocketing tax dollars that belong to the people who paid their taxes in good faith that our representatives would exercise prudence and fiduciary control over our tax dollars.  And to serve us, the people, not the corporations who bribe them with huge sums of money tagged as campaign contributions.  Have they no shame?  Can Dick Cheney really believe that “Deficits don’t matter.” without feeling a twinge of guilt?  Will Satan have a change of heart and begin to do charity work for the Salvation Army? 

So why do I pick on Republicans when the Democrats have their own way of abusing the American taxpayer?  I will get to them next in Part II, but let me say that under 8 years of Reagan and 8 years of Bush II (who borrowed and spent even more than Reagan:  a cool $4 Trillion), I become very sad to think that our country has been stolen away by bandits apparently in bed with government, the very lethal union of thieves that Ike warned us about.  Stay tuned. 

Heroes of Science and Secularism: A Series

Welcome to the first in a series of posts calling attention to men and women you may not have heard of – women and men who are making significant contributions to science and secularism. I won’t call them unsung heroes, as they are well known in their fields and spheres of influence; but neither are they famous at the level of Richard Dawkins, or even Sam Harris. But like those luminaries, some of them have had books on the New York Times’ bestseller list.

The plan for future posts is to keep the introductory comments brief and let my heroes speak for themselves via links to audios, videos, and written materials. So this time only, I’ll ask you to endure a few paragraphs of preliminary explanations.

It’s probably just me preaching to the choir again, but I still feel the need to comment on why I’m using the descriptive noun hero in a gender-neutral sense. To my ear and sensibilities feminine terms like heroine nearly always seem to detract from what is important about a person by needlessly calling attention to their gender. Consider the deservedly archaic aviatrix, or the ludicrous mayoress or governess. Or instructress, inventress, proprietress/proprietrix (LOL). Don’t you agree there’s something kind of weird about talking that way? Thankfully, those words and others like them have fallen into disuse; and what I’m saying is that all routinely feminized nouns like heroine need to join them in the linguistic hall of shame. We live in a society where more women than men graduate college, for chrissakes, where women have taken their rightful, earned places in all fields at all levels (although we’re still awaiting a woman president, but thank Zeus the anti-woman Michelle Bachmann never got any traction). So let’s drop all gratuitous, patronizing gender distinctions as I do in this series, which features only heroes – women, men, and groups.

Now about the relationship of science and secularism, which will also be obvious to many readers. After much thought I concluded that science and secularism together covered damn near everything that’s important to me in the public domain. Science subsumes reason, logic, skepticism, critical thinking, transparency, rejection of authority, and the primacy of repeatable evidence. Secularism, which in this country theoretically separates church and state, is a necessary condition for science to function effectively. It takes very little imagination to see how science, and ultimately everything, would suffer under an American Taliban – a Christian fundagelical theocracy – which is clearly a goal of the shockingly successful religious right.

So science and secularism are interdependent, inextricably intertwined (I just had to use that phrase at least once). In the broadest sense, science covers everything we know – and I mean everything we have been able to verify, directly and indirectly. (Of course not everything we know has to be verified scientifically (e.g., the Eiffel Tower is located in Paris); but if something can’t be properly verified, then we are, or should be, obliged to be skeptical of its existence (other than in the minds of believers). On the other hand, skepticism of well-verified scientific findings is perverse and prevalent, especially among those who identify as conservatives or Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Science is, of necessity, open, transparent, and universal; it requires freedom of thought and expression; it cannot be censored or constrained by dogma. And it should be abundantly clear that political and religious ideologies are mortal enemies of science; they would make scientific inquiry and findings subordinate to their dogmas; they would cut off its head, tear out its heart, and turn what was left into an evil instrument of oppression and aggression. 

The role of science in a secular society seems obvious and in alignment with common sense and the principles enacted by the founders of this nation, to wit: let our laws and public policy be informed and guided by verifiable evidence and reason. Given the nature of the world we live in, anything less is a prescription for disaster. I was going to say long-term disaster, but the long term is already upon us. What happens in the next few years will most likely be a template for the future of the country.

So on my list of heroes are people who are fighting to reclaim and secure a future that is safe for science and reason. Most of them are atheists or agnostics; a few, like Frank Schaeffer, Barry Linn, and Kenneth Miller, are practicing Christians. And of course there are many awesome women, including Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. So far no Muslim or Christian fundagelical is within shouting distance of making my list, so be sure to let me know if you come up with a qualified candidate (which I find hard to imagine). END OF INTRODUCTION

Now, at last, meet my first Hero of Science and Secularism, Sean Faircloth, public speaker extraordinaire and the most important person you may not have heard of. It has been less than a year since I first heard him speak on a video posted at the website of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. That short talk really resonated with my thoughts and fears about the religious right, and I was blown away by Faircloth’s deep understanding of the issues and his compelling plan to counter the theocratic threat to what’s left of our freedom and democracy. So I immediately forwarded the video to everyone on my email list along with effusive words of praise and an expression of uncharacteristic hopefulness.

As my long-suffering friends and tens of readers are aware, it takes a lot to rouse me from my pessimism regarding the United States’ and the world’s collective future. And yet that's what Faircloth accomplished in a 31-minute talk and with his new book, Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What We Can Do About It. In his book and his speeches he puts forward a realistic vision and a strategy for reversing “creeping theocracy” and bringing about the tolerant, secular society we all want to live in. His many examples of real harm being done to real people in many unsuspected ways provide a way to connect with regular folks who are not aware of the nature and extent of the threat from the religious right.  

Faircloth is saying it's time for a change in the priorities of the secular movement, time to focus on public policy issues and to reclaim the moral high ground. (We know the religious right is profoundly immoral, but the majority of  citizens do not.) And he actually succeeds in making me believe that our message can be presented so as to capture the attention of the non-theocratic majority of Americans – to help them understand and feel what's at stake. And to energize them to support efforts to undo the growing list of wrongs perpetrated and perpetuated in the name of religion.   

As much as anyone, I love to mock conservatives, theocrats, wingnuts, and Republigoons™ – all those proto-fascists who are poisoning our public and private spaces. It’s satisfying to show, again and again, how ignorant and how wrong they are about everything (which, of course, never changes their minds). But if we’re going to reverse the insidious theocratic trend, we need to recruit and organize support at all levels, just as the right has been doing for 30 years or more, and with alarming success. I see Faircloth as a present-day Paul Revere sounding the alarm, telling us to tone down our internecine differences and focus our collective efforts on saving the things we most value about this country.

Addendum: Attack of the Theocrats was published before Rick Santorum entered the Republican race for president. I have to think that Santorum’s menacing theocratic positions are an incredible gift to secularists. If the majority of Americans aren’t revolted and scared shitless by the implications of his regressive agenda, they soon will be with some help from people like Sean Faircloth. And us.  

SAVE THE WORLD - INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO COME OUT OF THEIR CLOSETS

I understand how a person could be indoctrinated as a child into believing a lot of crap about gods and demons and angels and talking snakes and Noah's ark and a worldwide flood and a virgin giving birth and the history of the earth and our Super Special place in it. Believe me, I understand it perfectly, because I was such a child. But why is it that by young adulthood (or even earlier) some of us effortlessly begin to take these stories less and less seriously, some are compelled to go beyond that and seek out satisfactory explanations for the glaring inconsistencies and baffling nonsense of religious doctrine, and yet others become ever more enamored with those absurd myths taught to them in childhood? And why do some people, in the face of mountains of compelling evidence from multiple scientific disciplines that directly contradicts these myths, dig in even deeper and spin ever more farcical rationalizations like 'Adam and Eve must have lived with dinosaurs and they were all happy vegetarians until Eve sinned and god had a big tantrum?'

Iris Vander Pluym, Let's not refer to conservatism as a mental illness because why, again? PerryStreetPalace, March 5, 2012

Why, indeed, do adults continue to believe things that were part of childhood indoctrinations that are, at least to some of us, confounding if not incomprehensible?  

I have no idea. I suspect a good answer would be quite complicated. The consensus seems to be to show respect for the beliefs of others, regardless of how glarin the inconsistencies or baffling the nonsense of doctrines and myths taught in childhood. I have, over the course of almost three-quarters of a century, come to the conclusion that this is not in the best interests of society or one's sense of free speech. Respect for others is one thing - and I embrace it fully; respect for beliefs sincerely understood but deemed to be hazardous in one way or another is quite another. I think it's one's patriotic duty to initiate a civil dialogue or at least to advise those attached to what appear to be illusions to consider a reality check. In short, I favor initiating discussions that might in time enable some to come out of closets of unreason into the light of the natural world. 

Promoting wellness while taking a detour around dysfunctional beliefs invites diminishing returns. 

I like the phrase diminishing returns. It's so useful. I often find myself deciding, after a period of time reading a book, visiting a website, even watching an overpriced movie, that it's time to move on - well before the end arrives. More energies invested in certain books, websites or movies-or other matters of diverse kinds, seem unlikely to facilitate much new knowledge, information or pleasure. Returns, in other words, will diminish.  

Wellness promoters - take note. A lot of people, that is, most of us, have been indoctrinated in negative ways as children - and many have not gotten over much of the malprogramming. The result is a population not just mired in superstitions but also stuck in a wide range of secular illusions, such as astrology, homeopathy, conspiracy theories, UFO visitations by pillaging Scientologists from planet Orgone in the Thetan Galaxy z12 and so on and on. Such adults generally do not, at first, welcome reasoned explanations at odds with their beliefs. They care little that their treasured world-views lack scientific support. At first, anything that's different from what one knows and is used to tends to be defended. Take the long view. 

The indoctrination that enables the spread of odd belief systems continues in the modern age. Legions of well educated-and undereducated adults, remain chained, mentally, to dysfunctional, absurdist beliefs and unhealthy attitudes-and I'm not referring only to the Republican presidential primaries. Lame expectations and assorted illusions are not limited to politics, or even to gods, demons, angels and talking snakes. Childhood propaganda, also known as cultural norms, transmit little recognized but deeply held beliefs about how and what to eat, whether to be active and how to respond to stress-all baseline issues that affect lifestyle practices and health status.

Americans would be well served if wellness enthusiasts broadened their agendas. I'd like to see wellness enthusiasts devote part of their mission to undermining systems that place undue faith in experts, in government and in childhood propaganda. Faith, after all, is believing without evidence, without knowledge or, as Mark Twain put it, in what you know ain't so. Arthur Schopenhauer observed, Faith and knowledge are related as the two scales of balance; when the one goes up, the other goes down. (Parerga and Paralipomena.) Schopenhauer compared the conditions for faith to the environment of glow worms, creatures that shine only when it's dark. He saw faith as reliant on a certain amount of ignorance ... the element in which alone they can exist. 

Let's promote an attitude of healthy skepticism as a default setting for everyone. Vast numbers of people believe utter nonsense. There's no way to dance around

this. People who think like Alice in Wonderland may believe otherwise: There's no use trying, one can't believe impossible things. Of course, we know that is not true, in the real world or in Wonderland. To quote the Queen, I dare-say you haven't had much practice. When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. 

My suggested partial remedy is to recommend REAL wellness as a foundation for a healthy lifestyle. Let the wellness concept be a starting point for initiating interesting discussions about psychological as well as physical well-being.  

REAL wellness is a sound basis for a healthy lifestyle, yes, but it is much more. It's a mindset focused on four key dimensions: 

1.       A reliance on reason (thinking critically and respecting evidence-based knowledge) instead of faith and superstition.  

2.       Living life with joy and exuberance rather than settling for simply coping with or trying to avoid illness.  

3.       A lifelong commitment to athleticism, that is, becoming and remaining very physically fit while eating wisely.  

4.       Always promoting liberty for oneself and others (e.g., safeguarding the separation of state and church).

These elements are vital to uncommonly high quality of life and therefore should be raised and artfully discussed, especially with strangers to such an orientation. 

In your own modest fashion, you can make a REAL wellness difference for someone, or several persons. The bold approach I recommend for professional wellness promoters or anyone seeking to have a positive affect on someone's life, is to speak/write and otherwise be honest, frank, truthful and explicit. Don't shy from politely observing that only a lunatic would believe such and such! Ha ha. I'm kidding. You have to be polite, likable, charming and suave, as I hope to be someday in advancing REAL wellness ideas amongst my relatives, friends, associates and anyone else whose attention I capture for a possible teachable moment. 

Americans have long been credited with having a willingness to deal with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. Yet, much of what Americans believe is based on propaganda that shaped our formative years. Some of these things are bright and beautiful, others not so much. As part of wellness, let's get ideas out of the closet for closer scrutiny. Everyone is free to believe what he/she wishes, but not all have had equal opportunity to ponder the case for reason, joy, personal freedoms and freethought. Let's scrutinize so-called revealed truths, some of which might be just a little suspicious. John F. Kennedy favored this approach. He often spoke of encouraging others to decide what is sound and what is bogus. He said, We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. Just so.  

Let's display our true colors, prove our mettle as change agents and guide as many as we can to assess if they might inadvertently dwell at times in closets that inhibit their richest possibilities for an examined life. 

Be well, look on the bright side and consider this, from Matt Frewer: Never knock on death's door, ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!

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Donald B. Ardell, Ph.D., is the Well Infidel. He wrote High Level Wellness in 1976 (Rodale Press) and a dozen more books since, including Die Healthy, 14 Days to Wellness and most recently, Aging Beyond Belief and REAL Wellness. 

High Level Wellness helped spark the wellness movement. Since 1984, Don has produced approximately 700 editions of the Ardell Wellness Report. The four major quality of life dimensions addressed in this weekly newsletter are reason, exuberance, athleticism and liberty. Don's website at SeekWellness is the largest repository of wellness essays in the world. 

Don is a long-term member of the board of trustees of the National Wellness Institute. He is one of ten Americans given the Healthy America Fitness Leaders Award in 1991 by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. In 2010, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Prize by the German Wellness Association in Dusseldorf; in July 2011, he was honored with the Halbert L. Dunn Award by the National Wellness Institute.

Don has won numerous national and four world championships in triathlon and duathlon, his most recent world titles coming in Australia and Hungary in 209 and 2010, respectively.