Karl Schlotterbeck

There’s a German word I find applicable in these times in which so many people are suffering by neglect, invasion, bullets, bombs, bigotry, oppression, and persecution. It’s a word for those of us who feel the suffering of the world and have grown weary in the constant struggle that all people might enjoy dignity, respect, and self-determination. That word is Weltschmerz. It describes the sadness and weariness in a world that is full of pain.

The world seems dark. Political extremists have infected mainstream politics with ugliness, mainstream candidates and their minions refuse to accept voters’ choices, a televised insurrection that attempted to destroy constitutional processes is gaslit with pretenses of imaginary election fraud, and one presidential candidate speaks openly about jailing his political opponents and releasing convicted criminals. Women’s wombs have become the property of some state governments as politicians insert themselves between a woman and her doctor, dictating medical procedures that have already resulted in death – all under the “pro-life” banner that doesn’t give a damn about living children, especially if they are not white. An entire political party can craft its identity around paranoid hatred and persecution of any minority they can try to blame for their troubles. A large swath of politicians can justify the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian children and possibly more than 100,000 innocent civilians and call it “self-defense” with a straight face, turning a blind eye to televised genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Political debates can be won on lies slickly told rather than substance and truth. Oil, chemical, and tobacco companies can lie for decades about their toxic products, their victims left to suffer and die while they line the coffers of greedy and unscrupulous “politicians.” One lobbyist has more political influence than any legitimate constituency.

Any notion of truth is sacrificed for profit, dogmatism, exploitation, manipulation, and self-interest. Millions of dollars can be spent on bombs and bullets used to kill innocent people. Public servants who tell the truth – like meteorologists or election officials – receive death threats from right-wing extremists.

Proliferation of the internet could have meant a shared search for the truth and reality but now the most demented of ideas, rumors, innuendos take on a life of their own, fueled by the faux grievances, obsessions, self-interests, fears, and emotional imbalances of pathetic people who are happy to spread the diseases of their minds.

A radical anti-democratic religious movement has made public its sinister plans to take over government and our social institutions to make America a theocracy. Conspiracy theorists concoct hidden conspiracies in their alternate realities while such plans as this (and Project 2025) are openly trying to take over our lives, control media, and establish an American religion. Similarly, large swaths of Christianity have been hijacked for personal gain and political power with identity politics used to push for oppression and self-interest rather than liberation. Most of modern religion in our American world has been freed from any connection to the spirituality that gave it birth. (My last book was about this, called Shadows in the Light of God).

For all its chest beating, pomp and circumstance, America is behind other developed nations in so many ways that have meaning to everyday people. Healthcare is a privilege in America, and it is being made increasingly difficult to vote by people who are afraid of losing elections (again).

Clouds of the Dark Ages are being spewed out of places of religious and political corruption to make it easier to exploit people and land where everything becomes a resource and commodity for someone else’s profit. America has developed so many fault lines. Some seem new but that’s because they are only now becoming visible. Some are being manufactured to serve exploitation. Some justify passivity in the face of evil, claiming that it’s their god’s hand in everything or it’s the “End Times.”

My usual lightheartedness has been burdened by all these shadows. It’s hard to bear the heartbreak. It makes it hard to sing, to write, to create art. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by love to and from the people around me. I have hope for the next generations as well as sorrow for the world we are leaving them, and anger at the challenges they face because of self-serving politicians, corporations, and robber barons.

All of this darkness is what makes a scene from Lord of the Rings so poignant. When Frodo seems to be giving up, Samwise eloquently reminds him that there’s still beauty in the world and that it’s worth fighting for. That scene itself is some of the beauty of this world. Knowing something about large astrological cycles helps. But perhaps beauty is the best remedy for Weltschmerz – recognizing it, finding it, and creating it.

It’s been a year and a half since I canceled our membership in Melaleuca. We were not in it to make sales or have a downline. We were attracted to their environmentally friendly face, their use of concentrates that reduced plastic containers, and discounts for “members.” The products themselves were quite adequate.

It was annoying that we were required to purchase a certain amount of produce each month using a point system. The point value of items could change month to month. These required purchases left us with more products than we could use in a month. In fact, we still have a store of various products and won’t run out any time soon.

Then, their ecological packaging fell behind competitors who offered laundry strips and biodegradable packaging. This was not a deal breaker, but it meant we needed less of their plastic packaged products.

I tried their touted supplements that made no difference in my health.

Things took a dark turn for me when I discovered that Frank VanderSloot’s family (the founder and then CEO of Melaleuca) lobbied against marriage equality in California although he lived in Idaho. (I understand that he has had a nuanced change of heart by now and asserts that all should have the same rights. But then to dismiss the dignity of a tenth of the population might not be good for business. I cannot say what’s in his heart.)

With a little research I found the opensecrets.org website. The VanderSloot family has given millions of dollars to organizations and the political party that ever seeks to reduce the government’s ability to regulate businesses that would pump toxins into our environment. The same party wanting to take away women’s rights (already partially successful), to cut taxes for those who need it least, as well as degrading our social safety nets. This is not my idea of wellness since I see personal, environmental, and social wellness to be intertwined. Now, I’m not saying that the VanderSloots’ personal values align with what we see in today’s Republican Party, but they nevertheless enable those who do.

I twice wrote via U.S. Mail to Mr. VanderSloot about my concerns, hoping to hear some justification and to resolve my dissonance, but I received no reply either time.

It seemed that Melaleuca’s version of wellness applied only to the alleged purity of their products while the world in which we live, and our children will inherit, can be poisoned. I began to see the cynical business model built on a façade of promoting wellness but whose profits are used to support the poisoning of our land, waters, air, and body politic. After all, the more toxic the environment becomes, the more valuable becomes organic and non-toxic products.

This was a dealbreaker for me. I want the land, the water, and the air to be clean, our legislators to represent ordinary people, and all people of this world to be respected and valued.

Environmentally safe products are more important than ever and I hope that one day any company that cares about our wellness will recognize the importance of keeping toxins out of the things we eat, use, breathe, drink, and wear.

I am pleased that so many people are buoyed by the joyous promises of this season and who take opportunities to connect with loved ones of all kinds to wish them well and, for many, to renew their faith in humanity and in whatever it is that they believe. We look for light and beauty in each other and in displays of colorful lights.

But all the cards and emails from friends, family, and businesses wishing peace and good will have begun to ring hollow for me. Promises of “renewal” have come to mean an empty ritual of repetition – making the new year like the last one, and the one before that, and so on. Our money will be used to kill more children and other innocent people through bombing, burying, or willful neglect. One of our political parties will continue to do everything possible to encourage the worst of humanity and to block any attempt to ease the suffering of vulnerable people. There is no holiday from death, poverty, or commercialism – thus showing us what our culture values most.

All those promises of renewal and rebirth seem little more than performative rituals because the promised transformations are beaten down by “special interests.” We turn back all too quickly to our routines of individual survival and commerce. It is evident that the American religion is Capitalism. Anyone with wealth becomes its priests, their money sacred and kept from even those who generated it. Anyone with hopes for wealth (beyond their need) becomes the true believers in its ideology. One’s value is counted in dollars, in power, and in image. Wealth and property have a higher value than human life. We get all solemn as we sacrifice our soldiers for the wealth and resources of the highest bidder, but we do it again and again.

Everybody loves the baby Jesus until he grows up to tell the wealthy to sell what they have and give it to the poor, and all of us to care for the immigrant and downtrodden, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless – all that “woke” business – let alone love one another.

I work to dull the pain of feeling the suffering of children and other innocents, and the horror that many Americans embrace Fascist rhetoric and ideology, and that some of the worst examples of humankind are competing to rule our nation – all while this country pretends to be the shining light on the hill, a bastion of democracy, and a country built on laws. Would that these holidays could become genuinely holy days once more.

It’s all these discrepancies that make such holidays as this hard for me to celebrate as I used to. But the love of family and friends endures. The world still holds such beauty, and nature also gives me hope. Spring will come (for us). The Sun will rise again and again. And in all this, I still wish everyone a Happy New Year – one that will bring blessings of all kinds and perhaps the discovery of what beauty is possible for us.

Wishing a happy new year for all, and that the blessings of life, light, and love come to us all.

Trees stand naked against the wind.
They’ve drawn their life deep within,
But still they stand in the open air –
Remind us that they’re always there.

Winds blow bold,
The night comes fast.
Sun shines cold,
The night sky vast.

It’s waiting that makes the night seem long.
Surrender to the dark and offer up your song.
Enter the mystery and resolve to know
What the night and dark would gladly show.

There’s a light that’s hid
In the dark of night –
A shining in the shadows.
The open heart’s glow must show the way
Through the deepest night and brightest day.

We learn in the dark
Again and again:
The truest star
Shines within.

Karl Schlotterbeck, 2005

Where do the tears of terror go
when there’s no one alive to hear them?

Who hears the sad screams
silenced by bullets and bombs?

So easy to stop the beating heart
at a command or by a button.

Who are these monsters deaf and blind
to anything but their hatred ­-
hatred that feeds on the corpses
of children, of women,
and of innocent men?
They have lost their humanity.

Religion has not cured this disease
but used to fan its flames.

Where do the unshed tears go
when the bombs come in the night?
No time for these tears
of wide-eyed fear,
or time to say ‘good-bye.’

The tears dry
on the child’s cold face.

---

Donald Trump Makes the Call
Donald Trump called forth a malignant and devouring monster that had lived among us for centuries. It hid in churches, under hoods, in political movements and parties. It found a home in the dogmas of conservatism, states’ rights, conspiracy theories, nationalism disguised as patriotism and tradition. It destroyed the hopes, dreams, and lives of ordinary people, but fed a greedy aristocracy. It was protected by those who accepted lynchings, starving children, bigotry, and all manner of fear and distrust. The monster heeded the call of its president to turn carefully cultivated fear into unthinking hatred. A minority party took over the American government and made it clear it would do anything to maintain its power and undermine our democracy. It has come to look increasingly like a cult, demanding conformity to its narrowing dogmas, exiling those who will not conform, and using Donald Trump as its mascot as long as he is useful.

Clarence Thomas Extends an Invitation
Now Clarence Thomas has made the Supreme Court the tip of the spear in a religious war waged by the Right to move America toward a theocracy that bears no resemblance to anything holy. This minority has become a Christian Taliban hell-bent on establishing a Christian Sharia. Thomas, too, has heeded the call of the monster and sends it toward its targets. In the recent Dobbs ruling, while one justice said the ruling applied only to Roe v. Wade, Thomas wrote a dissenting concurrence and expressed his desire that other cases based on the same provisions should be re-litigated – on things like contraception and the right to marry a person of one’s choosing. He notably omitted the one that granted him his inter-racial marriage. In his concurring opinion, he has overtly extended an invitation to other bigots to bring lawsuits to take away more of our rights.

These monstrous rulings reveal the willingness of a large sector of our society to sacrifice the health, self-determination, and economic stability of our citizens to this minority’s religious and political dogmas. This monster has no scruples, and devours anything it needs to feed its power. At least now we see better who they are and know they cannot be trusted with power. Their only desire is for power, control, and domination. They offer nothing to the world but its degradation.

A Religious War
We used to call it a “culture war” but the battle lines are stark now with calls to move religion into the halls of government, to give tax dollars to religious schools, and to harass devotees of other faiths; with false claims that America was founded as a (white) Christian nation, that God gave us the constitution, and that America has a “manifest destiny” that justifies its genocide and broken treaties. It seems that some rights are from their god and some are not – depending on how they selectively read their scriptures and whether the rights cut into corporate profits.

I don’t think it’s religion itself that is the problem, but the arrogance of religious zealots that hunger for secular power and claim some divine right to dominate others – as they’ve done for thousands of years. No, it’s not a religious problem but a human one that uses religion as a tool for power and the religion’s savior as little more than a mascot.

History Repeating Itself
There’s nothing new here. My Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods gives account of this sad element in humankind’s relationship with religion going back to the earliest of times. The persistence of it does not give me hope that things will change without more soul-searching, deep thought, self-reflection, and direct action than we may be willing to do. But the alternative becomes increasingly destructive. Perhaps in the face of immanent destruction we may be motivated to embrace our ideals and principles instead of our heroes, mascots, and celebrities – especially those under the thrall of this monster let loose into the world fed by ignorance, fear, bigotry, hatred, and pseudo-religion.

* Matthew 10:26 and the back jacket copy of Shadows in the Light of God: Revelation to Dogma, Prophets to Priesthoods.

I awoke in the night worried about the fate women – not just pregnant or childbearing-age women, but all women. This society has never protected women well from domination and abuse by men, let alone from rape. Women have been little more than property, trophies, or slave labor. When my mother was born, women could not vote in this country. Now it has been declared by a handful of individuals that states can, if they wish, invade the relationship between a woman and her doctor and make medical decisions about her body and the subsequent course of her life. She is a hostage of the state.

To that, I say this: if the state forces a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, the state must be held accountable along with those who implement such an abomination. So, if the state claims this authority to take dominion over a woman, her body, and her future, the following factors become the state’s responsibilities:

1. Healthcare and proper nutrition for the mother throughout the pregnancy, birth, and childcare years, through to the child’s independence.
2. If the mother is the primary childcare provider, she is owed not only wages for this important work, but also compensation for the disruption to her educational and vocational trajectory.
3. Financial support of the child’s healthcare and education, through to gainful employment in a trade or profession.

After all, if the state assumes control, the state must assume responsibility for the outcomes of that control.

No state has any right to tell a woman what happens inside her body, for her life, or to take away her self-determination. Whatever happened to the idea that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable? As for the father, he has contributed one cell and that is the proportion of his rights in comparison to all that the mother’s body and life contribute to the life of the child.

As I said in the first sentence, this is not just about pregnancy. This decision by these people reveals the value of women in our society in the 21^st century. Women are expected to be second class citizens – if citizens at all – whose role is birthing, childcare, and service to men regardless of their dreams, education, talents, and potential contributions to our society. If women are diminished, we are all diminished.

This is not the society I wanted my daughters and grandchildren to grow up in. I want the females in my family – and women everywhere – to have all the rights that men enjoy: sovereignty, bodily autonomy, and self-determination. To do less is an affront to us all and brings shame on our society and its political, secular, and religious institutions that have promoted this patriarchal misogyny.

For many of us, peaceful sleep may be difficult to come by until these heinous acts are corrected, their creators are removed from power, all citizens have the same rights, and we can move once more toward a compassionate, democratic, people-centered, secular society based on shared values rather than domination, greed, and power invested in a minority of twisted power brokers.

The Smith-Rock debacle at the Oscars did not occur in a vacuum. It encapsulates many of the dysfunctions in our society: denigration disguised as “humor,” attention to women’s appearance, privileges of celebrity and the dangers of giving status to wounded men, the passivity of an indifferent audience, private demons playing out on a public stage, victimizing of people with medical conditions, and toxic masculinity. We saw the misogyny of making fun of a woman who, for her own reasons, did not conform to the role expected of her in this man’s world.

If Smith’s actions were perpetrated by an audience member, security would have ejected him without question, and he’d have been turned over to the police. But we see that status has its privileges that allow perpetrators to act with impunity. Even if it’s true that Rock didn’t want Smith ejected or criminally charged, it does not change the law or moral violation. Smith’s actions were an affront to the audience, the academy, and to the larger audience as well.

He certainly wasn’t acting to prevent or protect anyone or anything. His was an act of angry revenge. Ironically, his actions made him the center of attention, which make it easier to downgrade Rock’s actions – as if violence against another man should engender respect. Imagine what might have happened if, when he accepted his Oscar, Smith would have addressed the insults and disrespect by Rock. His later words about love would not have rung so hollow.

Thus, these are not aberrations, but a reflect our society at large.

It’s all too common to see victims created by other wounded victims.

Aggrieved victims feel justified in committing crimes of violence against another, against a minority, or against the government.

Unhealed wounds and immature acting out are dangerous in people of power, status, and celebrity as we saw in the previous president and some of our current legislators.

Women are overwhelmingly judged through their appearance, as if everything she does has meaning for the world of men. Too many men think they are the center of the universe.

Humor has become a tactic of avoiding real issues, and degrading others is now a common practice in politics as well as in “entertainment.” Denigration is a humor for the witless.

Neither man honored himself that night, nor those he claimed to care for. And they reflected back to us the unwholesome state of our American society built on privilege, status, dominance, aggression, and toxic patriarchy.