GOP Hero, Saint Thomas More, was a Communist

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Thomas More --now 'Saint Thomas More' --was surely the most prominent “secular humanist” in England during the reign of Henry VIII. What makes More a “humanist”, like his friend Erasmus, is his belief in the perfectibility of humankind. What makes More a “secularist” was his insistence, unto his own death, in the separation of “God’s law” and “man’s law”, a principle that we refer to as the separation of Church and State.  Lest we forget, More died at the hands of an all powerful "state". Though it was not Henry VIII who said l'etat, c'est moi he might as well have done.

When the GOP embarked upon its unholy crusade to impeach Bill Clinton, it's many flacks tried to lend an imprimatur of legitimacy to their schemes by invoking the name of St/Sir Thomas More.

Typically, the GOP and prosecutor Kenneth Star specifically, mangled More and, in the process, proved themselves to be a party of mediocre intellects, opportunists, shallow sophists, perhaps, liars to a person! The following excerpt from Starr's interview with Diane Sawyer...

Kenneth Starr: Well, I love the letter and the spirit of the law, but it`s the letter of the law that protects us all. And, you know, St. Thomas Moore, Sir Thomas Moore put it so elegantly, you know, in A Man For All Seasons. He took the law very seriously and said, `That`s what protects us. It`s not the will of a human being. It`s not Henry VIII`s will. Henry VIII is under the law. We are all equal under the law.

In fact --no where in the play A Man For All Seasons did the character of Sir Thomas More say anything resembling that. More defended the obedience to "...man`s law, not God`s" [that makes More a secular humanist --a bad word among many throughout the right wing] and never made reference to either Henry VIII's law by name or description. The actual exchange that both David Schippers and Starr are both so fond of misquoting is as follows:

Roper: So now you`d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get at the Devil?
Roper: I`d cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh! (advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you --where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws --man's laws, not God's [emphasis mine]--and if you cut them down --and you’re just the man to do it --d`you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I`d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety`s sake.

In yet another memorable exchange:

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.

The dialogue above was written by Robert Bolt for the play and movie: A Man for All Seasons. But should you want to read the original More you will find comments equally biting, equally witty, comments that will most certainly curl the hair of modern right wing reactionaries and intellectual gnomes! More, they will charge, is a socialist for his comments having to do with the business class:

...so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.

--Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

Clearly, none of the Republicans attacking Bill Clinton had understood the movie. None of them had bothered to learn anything about their “hero” other than what they had seen in a movie. Indeed, this film is among the best movies ever made. Sadly, the real meaning of the film was lost on Kenneth Starr. He came away from it having learned all the wrong lessons and that may be worse than having learned nothing at all.

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BBC: The World Rejects Bush's Policies

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

For a brief time following the events of 911 the United States enjoyed widespread support throughout the world. It took a George W. Bush to squander all that goodwill. It is not surprising that along with a Congressional majority and over 90 percent approval rating, the policies of George W. Bush are now almost universally reviled. A new world wide poll by the BBC suggests that US policies are almost universally rejected, denounced by majorities as high as two-thirds or more on most issues and much higher on still others.

Bush may have enjoyed a longer honeymoon with the rest of the world had he not insisted upon waging a war of aggression against Iraq, a nation having nothing whatsoever to do with 911, a nation about which Bush lied repeatedly in order to wage his war. Bush's numbers have gone down as the war rages on and on without end and, increasingly without hope. The numbers prove that the world now views the US, under Bush, as a rogue nation.

Getting reviews as bad as those for the Iraq war is the the issue of global warming. On this issue, often denied and derided be the GOP, Bush is proven as wrong, armed, and dangerous as he was on Iraq. Bush is now escalating his failed war on Iraq but failure on global warming carries with it even more catastrophic results.

Everyone can be wrong once in a while. And almost everyone is wrong from time to time with regard to issues less critical to the very survival of the planet. It takes a particularly evil genius to be so consistently wrong about almost everything and with such dire consequences.

Ironically and tragically, it is the magnitude of Bush's crimes that afford him a measure of invincibility. Those who are merely and routinely wrong about mundane issues are promptly sacked. Those, like Bush, who are monumentally wrong, are often promoted by a small and still powerful cabal who fear drowning in the wake of a sinking Titanic. Clinging tenaciously to power, this class of conscienceless courtiers will prop Bush up until all are swept away in the inevitable political Tsunami.

Such a political apocalypse was described by the great British screenwriter Sir Robert Bolt, whose script for A Man for All Seasons portrayed a frightened nobility in danger of being swamped in Wolsey's wake. As the execution of Sir Thomas More proved: there is rarely a convenient escape for fence-sitters. As in a play by Ibsen, Shakespeare, or, indeed, Bolt himself, Bush set into motion a tragic dialectic with the words: "You are either with us or you are for the terrorists".

On every issue, however, the world has rejected Bush and his divisive policies. Is Bush so stupid that he would suggest that some two thirds of the world's population are terrorists?

It is most certainly a mistake to divide up the world into black and white, good and evil. Yet that is what Bush has done. Though he would not compromise when pressed against the wall, Bolt's portrayal of Thomas More is that of a man who would have avoided the "either/or", a man who would have preferred the life of the common man to that of the existential hero.

More: God made the angels to show Him splendor, as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping.

-A Man for All Seasons, Screenplay by Robert Bolt

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