We gather on this Independence Day weekend, wondering about our freedoms, wondering about our country’s faith in its own origins and values, wondering what, if anything we may do to forward the vision of our ancestors, a vision of a country where ALL are free, all are valued, all are given equal opportunity. May our shared wondering turn to hope.

from "America, Fascism + God" by Davidson Loehr

In an essay coyly titled "Fascism Anyone?" Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies social and political agendas common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of fourteen "identifying characteristics of fascism." See if they sound familiar.

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism. Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights. Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assignations, long incarcerations of prisoners, and so on.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists; and so on,
4. Supremacy of the military. Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant sexism. The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as are homophobia and antigay legislation [in] national policy.
6. Controlled mass media. Sometimes the media are directly controlled by government regulation, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation or sympathetic media spokespeople, and executives. Censorship, usually in wartime, is very common.
7. Obsession with national security. Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and government are intertwined. Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate power is protected. The industrial and business aristocracies of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business-government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor power is suppressed. Because the organizing power of labor is the only threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even stolen outright by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent elections. Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against, or even assassination of, opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political-district boundaries, an manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

This list will be familiar to students of political science. But it should be familiar to students of religion as well, for much of it mirrors the social and political agenda of religious fundamentalism worldwide. It is both accurate and helpful for us to understand fundamentalism as religious fascism, and fascism as political fundamentalism. They both come from very primitive parts of us that have always been the default setting of our species: amity toward our In-group; enmity toward out-groups; hierarchical deference to alpha-male figures; a powerful identification with our territory; and so forth. It is that brutal default setting that all civilizations have tried to rise above, but it is always a fragile thing, civilization, and has to be achieved over and over and over again. (Davidson Loehr, America, Fascism + GOD: Sermons from a Heretical Preacher (White Junction, Vermont, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, pp. 78-81).

"Returning Pride to America"

How do you intend to celebrate this "Fourth of July," our Independence Day? Will you have a family barbeque? Will you play baseball? (How about them Beavers??) Will you and your lived ones go to a fire-works display somewhere? (I shall be on an airplane, flying across country for a family wedding in the Boston area.)

Will you think about this country in which we live? Will you consider what it has meant to you in past? Will you be willing to explore where you think it is going and what you might be able to do to reclaim the greatness of its original premises, to assist it in reclaiming its pride in the larger world?

Make no mistake, the United States of America is being viewed as a country on the down-slide. Around the world we are seen as imperialist bullies, who have no respect for other cultures and world views, who don’t live up to our own vaunted values of freedom and acceptance of diversity, not even within our own country. I am not pretending that there are other cultures in which I would rather live. But I also don’t subscribe to the notion that we must honor our country, right or wrong. I genuinely believe that we only maintain our values by constant vigilance.

What are the values upon which this country was founded? Certainly the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate today, stated that all men (and, by extension, women) are created equal, that we share certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, Thomas Jefferson, a declared Unitarian though he supported the Anglican Church in his parish, echoed the values of many Unitarians on this continent. These values assumed that people should be free to fulfill their unique destiny, free to think without constraint, and free to explore their possibilities within the context of this growing nation. This understanding of freedom directly relates to the notion of being "liberal," for the Latin root of liberal is liber, meaning free. Let us not forget that!

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his Annual Message to Congress on January 6, 1941, laid out "Four Freedoms" that were important for all human beings:

These ideals are clearly echoed in our Unitarian Universalist Purposes and Principles when we state that we affirm and promote "the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all." We share the American values because we were among those who founded this nation and set those values.

In our reading today, Dr. Lawrence Britt sounds a loud trumpet call to awaken us to the possibility that, far from living out these ideals for every one in this country – much less the world, we are rapidly being led into fascism. We need to become clear about our concerns for the direction we are heading, overcome our apathy and sense of powerlessness, and find ways to return to the sources of our pride and reclaim our values, not just verbally, but in every day practice of life.

We could reclaim our power as Unitarian Universalist an as citizens of the U.S. simply by calling people to care for the environment, to support good public education that guarantees every person tools to succeed in this world, to offer universal and better quality health care for all our people, to assure honest work and affordable shelter for all our people, to live as if we truly believe in the capacity of human beings to use our reason well and to accept differences - not as challenges to supremacy but as enriching spice in the stew of life. If we actually lived these values, we would surely change the direction of our country.

But it will also assuredly take more than talking and thinking about these values. We are called to do something some of us eschew: to act in this world as if our actions matter. We are called to overcome our analysis paralysis (which sank John Kerry in a sea of words), and provide a clear, succinct message that can be backed by not sunsetting our environmental laws, by funding education at least as much as defense, by offering reasonable single payer health care that does not depend upon an employer, by caring for one another, despite our differences in ethnicity, religion, gender expression, etc. We are called to stick our necks out, for at least one good cause (pick your favorite), and put our energies behind the efforts of that cause.

The United States of America and the Unitarian and Universalist faith movements on this continent grew up together and it is no accident that we share the same values. It is up to us to return those values to the public forum, to assert their importance in every day life, to step past the distractions that those who favor corporate power put before us, whether it be flag burning, gay marriage, or abortion. We must get on with the job, as believers in the power and possibilities of free people, of insisting that we maintain our freedoms. We need to insist that voting machines have a paper trail, in addition to the easily hacked electronics. We need to require that companies that pollute pay for the cost of cleaning up their pollution. We must pressure our legislators to stop cutting education and health care first, while wildly funding pork projects and a runaway defense budget. These are religious statements, as well as political ones. If, as we assert, we affirm and promote "the inherent worth and dignity of every person;" if we truly believe in "world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all," we need to stop being "sunshine liberals," and take the risks that are necessary to challenge the current direction of our country and remind the country to return to its roots.

And this is a spiritual issue. Spirituality is the experience of connection to oneness in and through all of life that makes it impossible for us to avoid being aware that there are serious problems in our world, problems we need to address and work to solve. To not respond to the present direction we are heading is to disconnect from our reality – and that is decidedly NOT spiritual.

Maybe what we really need to do is to envision an even better country than our foremothers and forefathers did. Maybe we can expand our hearts and minds, As F.D.R. did, to encompass a world where all human beings are free to experience the rights and responsibilities that lead to mature, whole people, not the juvenile, fragmented, self-absorbed, and un-resilient people we currently seem to be.

Consider a prediction of novelist Thomas Wolfe:

Or the challenge offered by Langston Hughes:

May it be so - with respect, responsibility, and relish for the process.

So Be it! Blessed Be!