"Where the hell is our outrage?"

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. (Ephesians 4:25-28)

I am not at all surprised that a fuss is made about John Edwards being characterized as “angry.” We all recall what happened to Howard Dean when he demonstrated passion four years ago. “Omigod, bar the gates, there’s a madman on the loose!” I loved that he vocalized excitement and passion in front of a crowd of eager supporters but it was characterized as some kind of out-of-control emotional extreme of the sort that “just isn’t done.” I doubt that any horses were startled but the media establishment was, for a moment, startled out of its mindless torpor and the herd mentality took its revenge.

Scott Galindez at Truthout writes:

The corporate media over the last couple of months has been pushing a notion that John Edwards sounds "angry". Are we witnessing another attempt to take down a candidate that threatens the corporate power structure?
…
John Edwards is angry and he has every right to be. All Americans should be angry at what is going on in our country. Our treasure is being sacrificed in an illegal unjust war in Iraq. Our jobs are being exported overseas. Health care costs are rising while wages decline. Our civil liberties have been threatened by an administration that thinks it is above the law.
...
I see Edwards as expressing the view of many patriotic Americans who are fed up with corporate control of our government. It is only the corporate media that is trying to tell the American people Edwards's message is angry and un-presidential.

I see in Edwards the kind of anger that fires a passion for justice on behalf of others. I see in Bush the kind of anger that is petty, petulant, and self-centered. You tell me whose style is more “presidential.”

For a bit of context, we can turn to an outstanding capitalist, Lee Iacocca.

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. [emphasis mine]

That is from an excerpt of his 2007 book Where Have All the Leaders Gone? He wrote it with Catherine Whitney and it is published by Scribner.

Iacocca also says (and since the excerpt is online to tout his book I feel I can share more):

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

Some words of Edwards:

Here's what's happened corporate greed and political calculation have taken over our government and sold out the middle class. Washington isn't looking out for the middle class because Washington doesn't work for the middle class anymore ... that is wrong. It doesn't say life, liberty and the pursuit of endless corporate profit in the Declaration of Independence. America is about opportunity for you ... and your families, your children. But our government is selling out their future at the command of lobbyists and their corporate clients and we have to rise up together and stop it. We have to rise up and say, no more. Not on our watch.

Makes me think of FDR changing the course of America after the robber barons had enjoyed their heyday. A, if not THE, driving passion of the neocons is reversing everything FDR did in the New Deal so that America will once again serve corporate interests instead of the common weal of the People. Deregulation, privatization, tax breaks for the wealthy, free reign for the rich and powerful to become more so at the expense of all the rest. We are witnessing the intentional destruction of the middle class. It has happened repeatedly in history and it means the elimination of the educated and moderately prosperous forces who have the leisure to plan, organize, and resist tyranny, oligarchy, and monopoly. When folks give all their attention and energy to mere survival, they cannot easily resist the powerful.

Randi Rhodes has a great comment on the anomaly that corporations are treated in our legal system as having the status of persons. "If corporations were persons they would get colonoscopies." [quoted from memory of a speech she gave]

If we are to consider corporations as "persons" before the law, then I like to think of verse 28 above in terms of corporations: "Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy." I do not mean some token donations they can use as tax deductions either but serious contribution to society. Oh hell, how about paying their share of the cost of a healthy and strong society in a chunk of taxes that would do more good in social services than in enriching their already-wealthy CEOs?

The passage from Ephesians calls for speaking truth. It also allows a role for anger, not to consume us (we aren't to go to bed with anger eating away at our heart), but so that we give no room to the devil. The devil is "the accuser" who will remind us of all our own failings and tell us we have no right to be angry, no right to stand up for ourselves and others. The devil will tell us to STFU and remain docile, passive, oppressed, betrayed, abused, manipulated, and ignored. Meanwhile evil can flourish, injustice prevail, and the worship of Mammon and Moloch proceed undisturbed. Let's be "bipartisan" and thus unable to do anything of substance. Don't rock the boat, don't mess with the status quo.

I say, Get your mad on. Get angry. Stand up. Speak out. Fight for our nation--not on distant battlefields but here at home, in forums large and small, letters to the editor and to congresscritters, petitions, water cooler discussions, and in the voting booth. We the People have a nation to win back from those who only want to use us instead of serve us.

Hooray for John Edwards and for the passion that fires him! I'm angry too and I don't intend to get over it.

Note: While I personally prefer Edwards over the other candidates I am in no way associated with his campaign and these comments reflect my thoughts only.
--the BB