Wild Willie, aka Wee Willie, aka Wonderful Willie, aka Weeping Willie, aka Wanton Willie, aka Wild Bill Aycock, pointed out of the screen at me and at every other viewer. "Fall to your knees right now and beg his forgiveness, " he commanded. "God is the ultimate source of all redemption. Stop turning your back on the last hope of humanity. This is your responsibility! Fall to your knees and let the tears flow from your eyes. Beg his forgiveness. Rededicate your life to all that is good and clean and holy and come back to his loving embrace. Redeem yourself and redeem the God that expresses himself through all of us. Now is the time of our last hope." Wild Bill Aycock stepped out from behind the podium and fell to his own knees, the tears already streaming from his eyes. "Join me now in this prayer, in this holy declaration. Let us cast out the mischievous demons of doubt and despair. Let us cast out the libertine urges of our desperate souls. Let us be reborn in a new spirit of holiness. Let us rediscover our strength together. Pray with me now!"
I sat there stunned-at the front of the theater, people I knew, people I recognized, were falling to their knees in front of the swollen, goblin-like, grotesque countenance of the man. Even more terrifying, I wanted to join them. I wanted to believe too. I almost rose from my chair-but I held myself back, so caught up was I in my doubt and disbelief and despair.
"Dear God, this is your humble and obedient servant," Aycock said. "I have sinned. I have lost my faith, and my strength has ,failed me. My flesh has become like water, and my bones are as dust. My eyes no longer see your blessed countenance or your bountiful mercy. I have failed thee, and I am mightily offended at mine own weakness. I would pluck out my own eyes, I would cut off my own arm, I would cast myself out. I hate my sins, and I hate myself for my weakness. I am without hope because I have failed thee.
"Dear Father, I have seen the cost of my sins. I have seen the terrible deadly price that all of us have had to pay-all the dying, all the dreadful deaths and diseases and despair. I have seen my proud cities cast into ruin and my fields blighted with famine. I have seen my children wither and die.
"But all of that is as dust on the wind, my Lord, compared to the terrible wounds that I have inflicted on you. I have betrayed you, my Lord. I have betrayed the covenant that stood between us. My sins are written in your blood, my Lord. I deserve nothing but contempt.
"But, O my Lord, my dear God in hell, I pray to you now, knowing that the fountain of your love is endless, that the wellsprings of your compassion are bountiful and infinite, that you ask only that we come to you with open hearts, so that we may be filled with your love wherever we go and that we may do your work wherever it is wanted and needed.
"Dear Lord-look into my heart and see that my sorrow is sincere. See that my repentance is complete and let me be washed free of hatefulness and vengeance and despair. Please, Lord, I am on my knees before you, begging-please forgive me my failings and let me once more go out into the world with clean hands and a joyful heart.
"Let me renew my efforts on your behalf. Let me be a particle of healing and growth on your planet. Let me do good wherever I walk. Let me sow the seeds of plentiful riches for all who seek them. Dear Lord, renew my soul so that I may do the work of heaven. Let me pick up my staff and go out into your fields again, once more ready to be a part of your great plan and to do my part of your blessed work.
"Dear Lord, please grant me the smallest particle of your infinite strength and wisdom. Renew unto me and all around me the cleansing waters of your infinite love; wash me in its cooling draughts and let me quench my thirst at the fountain of your forgiveness and let me feed my soul at the table of your blessings. Dear Lord, look at my brothers and sisters and see that we are all ready for your renewal now. Let us be one with you again so that we can cast out the monsters that even now besiege us in the holy temple of your Earth. Dear Lord, we join you in the hell that we created. Dear Lord…"
The tears were streaming down his cheeks and mine; but at least Willie knew why he was crying. I was crying in confusion and terror.
Willie didn't know the worst of it. I had looked down into hell and seen what was happening to the rest of God's children. Somehow, I found my way out past all those who were wailing on the floor in front of the screen.
"Hot Seat," April 3rd broadcast: (cont'd)
ROBISON:… Okay, so you think it's working. Well, what about me and Dorothy Chin and all the others? What happens when one of us doesn't want to be in this circle of yours? What are you going to do with us? Kill us? Kick us out? What?
FOREMAN: You're having trouble with this, aren't you, John? You can't separate the idea from the person who speaks it. This isn't a circle of people. It's an environment of ideas, and all people are part of that environment.
ROBISON: Oh, booshwah! You keep saying you want alignment on a larger purpose. Well, we saw how Stalin and Hitler created alignment in their countries. They had to kill anyone who disagreed with them. How far are you prepared to go in search of your alignment? Are you going to build concentration camps to hold all the people who don't align with you? All this gingerbread-language is just another wheelbarrow load of west coast psychobabble, another way for left-wing elitists like you to argue for totalitarianism. You're still talking about shutting down every American's God-given right to disagree-
FOREMAN: (interrupting) Shut up, you blithering idiot. It's my turn to talk now. I'm your guest, not your prisoner! Or didn't they teach manners at that fancy eastern school you got kicked out of? You asked me a question-and I'm going to answer you.
The truth is, you're terribly afraid that somebody is going to treat you as badly as you treat others. That's why you don't dare let anyone disagree with you on your own show. You're practicing the very totalitarianism you claim to despise. If I tried that, you'd call me the worst kind of hypocrite.
FOREMAN: (continuing after commercial)… I'm going to tell you something that disturbs me mightily. I lie awake nights worrying about it. It's old news, but it hasn't lost its power to disturb: "The first casualty when war comes is truth." Hiram Johnson said that to the United States Senate in 1917.
This is not your dilemma alone. It worries all of us, most especially the President. One of the questions she keeps asking is, "How do we unite ourselves to fight this war without giving up the most precious things in ourselves and our system of government that we want to preserve?" The question comes up over and over and over again, in almost every late-night brainstorming session at the White House. The President calls us the Colloquium on Applied Philosophy, but we're really just a roomful of old fossils looking at the problem of how a government can wield its authority as justly as possible, particularly in a time of global crisis.
ROBISON: Right. And you still insist that there's no secret group and no secret plan?
FOREMAN: There's no secret group and there's no secret plan. The videolog of every single session is publicly available on the Administration Service Net.
We're not secret and we have no authority. All we do is make recommendations to the President, because she has asked us for our advice.
ROBISON: And what about the rights of the people? Don't we get a voice? What about democracy? What about the right to disagree?
FOREMAN: That's what we're doing here, John. Disagreeing. Our system is based on the premise that the government is accountable to the people. Some people have interpreted that to mean that the people have the right to disagree with the government-but that's an inaccurate way to say it, and ultimately it's an inaccurate way to think about it, because it ennobles disagreement for the sake of disagreement. Disagreement is not in itself inherently virtuous.