Berry on Kerry

[Ed Iglehart]

Orion Magazine has just published an online article by Wendell Berry
entitled: " Some Notes for the Kerry Campaign, If Wanted".  It can be
found at:

http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/sidebars/Patriotism/index_Wendell_Berry.html

"We need, for a
change, an agriculture policy that focuses above all on the health of
the land and the economic prosperity of smaller farmers, rather than the
agribusiness corporations."

"Along with all the rest of the world's people, we have inherited
ancient instructions for the stewardship and good husbandry of the
earth, with clear warnings, now significantly verified, of the disasters
that will (and already do) attend our failure. We have responded by
continuing our elaborately rationalized destructions. But bad precedent
is no excuse for bad behavior. The Bush attitude toward the natural
(God-given) world is sacrilegious and wildly uneconomic."


FYI, with apologies to the uninterested
xx
ed

Some Notes for the Kerry Campaign, If Wanted
by Wendell Berry

Facing this year's presidential election, our people are bitterly
divided. This division is perhaps as great a threat to our future as is
the possibility of a second term for Mr. Bush. And so the paramount
question for Sen. Kerry's campaign is how to oppose Mr. Bush effectively
without so exacerbating the country's political differences as to reduce
the possibility of effective government should Sen. Kerry win the
election.

One answer, I believe, is to base the campaign solidly and clearly upon
our traditional principles of politics and religion. (I am reluctant to
say that religion ought to be a political issue in the United States,
but it is unstoppably an issue in this campaign.) If the campaign is
based soundly enough on principles, then it can be carried out, at least
by Democrats, as a reasoned argument, and thus without sensationalizing
personal and emotional differences. The further great advantage is that
the Bush administration can be shown all too handily to be in violation
of many of our country's traditional political and religious
principles.

Our government was understood by its founders, and it is understood by
many of us still, as a government of laws -- of laws based in part on
the laws of God. But the Bush administration, by various arrogations of
power, has led us dangerously in the direction of autocracy. A
government of laws cannot pardonably ignore either the rights of its
citizens or its international treaties. A lot of people now long for
national officials who are constantly and strictly mindful of our Bill
of Rights.

Our government has a long -- though imperfect and incomplete -- history
of international cooperation, the good results of which are now
seriously threatened by Mr. Bush's unilateralism and his doctrine of
preemptive war.

Both our political and religious traditions instruct us that the truth
makes us free. Our kind of government can govern effectively only by
telling the truth, just as effective citizenship depends on knowing the
truth. Official secrecy and official lies, even in a "good cause," can
carry us toward tyranny. Our government is meant to conduct the public's
business in public.

Traditionally we have believed, and sometimes have acted on our belief,
that political democracy depends upon a significant measure of economic
democracy. Since World War II we have changed rapidly from a country
owned by many people to a country owned by a few. This has been
explicitly the program of some administrations, including that of Mr.
Bush. We need an administration that is opposed to such a program. This
country should not be entirely owned and run by the great corporations.

Our federal system was conceived as a way to balance national unity
with local self-determination and self-sufficiency. Terrorism has made
local economic integrity more necessary than ever before. All the
regions of our country are dangerously dependent on long-distance
transportation. The emphasis in agriculture should now be on genetic
diversity, local adaptation, and conservation of energy. We need, for a
change, an agriculture policy that focuses above all on the health of
the land and the economic prosperity of smaller farmers, rather than the
agribusiness corporations.

Along with all the rest of the world's people, we have inherited
ancient instructions for the stewardship and good husbandry of the
earth, with clear warnings, now significantly verified, of the disasters
that will (and already do) attend our failure. We have responded by
continuing our elaborately rationalized destructions. But bad precedent
is no excuse for bad behavior. The Bush attitude toward the natural
(God-given) world is sacrilegious and wildly uneconomic.

The human norm, as established by Christ (and others), is love even for
enemies, forgiveness, neighborliness, and peace. It is therefore
troubling that members of the present administration, while making much
of their commitment to Christ, are insisting on the normality of hatred,
greed, revenge, and unremitting war. To make us afraid, they speak much
of the willingness of our terrorist enemies to kill themselves in order
to kill us, as if this were an innovation. They forget, or they would
like us to forget, that our policy of nuclear defense has been suicidal
from the beginning. Our increasing destructiveness of the natural world
is likewise suicidal. Such desperate security and prosperity cannot be
reconciled with reverence for our Creator, who endowed all humans with
certain inalienable rights, including life.

However obscured by a history that has fallen short, our religious
principles are justice, mercy, peaceableness, and lovingkindness toward
fellow humans and the gifts of nature; as our political principles are
freedom confirmed in law, honesty, and public accountability. These are
not the principles of a party. They are our free inheritance as human
beings and as citizens living under the Constitution of the United
States.

--------------------------------------

The managing editor of Orion, Peter Stiglen ( editor at orionsociety.org )
had this to say about reprinting:

Dear Alden,

You may certainly have our permission to reprint the Wendell Berry
piece in the Lansing State Journal, so long as proper credit is given to
the writer, and that the following attribution be included:

"This article was first published on OrionOnline.org, the website of
Orion magazine."

Kind regards,
Peter Stiglin
Managing Editor, OrionOnline
Associate Editor, Orion Magazine
www.oriononline.org







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