Pray Without Ceasing

Gaza's Spiritual Renaissance Man

2009-05-24T10:09:00.010-05:00

On May 21, the Israeli daily Haaretz published an Associated Press (AP) article about the aftermath of the killing of four Palestinian chldren by Israeli forces during the IDF's genocidal attack on Gaza in January. AP often, some observers say typically, self-censors news about Palestinian children killed by the IDF. The story excerpted below is the kind of news article that AP writers and editors know Israeli censors will let pass because of its tacit, uncritical acceptance of Israel's genocidal policies and actions in the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories. Even so, it is also a true story about a Gaza doctor's remarkable triumph over the most demoralizing and destructive passions known to man.

This frankly astonishing story of forgiveness has not received the attention it deserves in Western mainstream media, which aren't much interested in forgiveness and love, especially when the hero is a selfless Palestinian Muslim physician. After all, why confuse Western audiences with a news story that momentarily draws back the curtains of disinformation, ignorance, and cognitive dissonance to reveal an all too rare glimpse of spiritual reality?

"Hate and revenge is a disease, and I don't want to be diseased or sick." --Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish

Gaza doctor whose family were killed by IDF fundraises for Israeli hospital by The Associated Press

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Gaza infertility specialist, is a familiar figure to Israelis - a Palestinian who crossed the lines of enmity years ago to work in Israeli hospitals and become a frequent guest on Israeli TV and radio.

But the interview he did on Jan. 16, as Israeli forces waged war on Gaza's Hamas rulers, was horrifyingly different: Israeli tank shells had just killed three of his daughters, and he was phoning an Israeli journalist-friend, live on the air, to plead for help in evacuating the wounded, including another daughter and a niece.

Four months later, far from voicing bitterness over his loss, Abuelaish is trying to turn his tragedy into hope, raising money for a scholarship fund for Gaza girls and an Israeli hospital, and preaching reconciliation.

"We need to open our eyes, our minds and to have big hearts, to smash the mental and physical barriers and borders, to build the broken trust," said the Harvard-trained son of a Gaza laborer, sitting in the apartment where 14-year-old Aya, 15-year-old Mayar and 21-year-old Bissan were killed two days before the war ended.

At a time when U.S. President Barack Obama has begun a round of meetings with Middle East leaders on how to end the Middle East conflict, Abuelaish's story illuminates the reality at ground level. With Israelis and Palestinians increasingly separated by fences and fear, it has offered a rare example of suffering on one side drawing empathy from the other.

Born in Gaza's largest refugee camp, the eldest of nine children, the 54-year-old doctor navigates easily between worlds. One day, he's bowing in Muslim prayer in Gaza. The next, he's chatting with fellow physicians at Tel Hashomer, a leading Tel Aviv-area hospital.

During the Gaza war, launched to end Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns, Israeli journalists often turned to him for a Gaza perspective, delivered in his fluent Hebrew.

Abuelaish, a widower, and his children, ages 6 to 21, spent the war in their apartment on the second floor of the five-story family building he shares with his brothers and their families in the town of Jebaliya, close to the border with Israel.

On Jan. 3, after a week of air attacks, Israeli tanks and ground forces moved into the Gaza Strip, including the doctor's neighborhood, and over the next two weeks would fire heavily, demolishing homes they said were thought to serve as Hamas positions.

On Jan. 16, Abuelaish was due to be interviewed by phone by Channel 10, a commercial Israeli TV station.

Four of his older daughters - Aya, Mayar, Bissan and 17-year-old Shada - were in their room that day, along with his niece Noor, 17. Shortly after 4:30 p.m., the first shell crashed into the home.

Abuelaish ran to the girls' room. "Aya, Mayar, Bissan and Noor were dead, their bodies torn, pools of blood on the floor," he said. "Shada was badly wounded in the right eye and hand."

"I don't want anyone to witness what I witnessed," Abuelaish said quietly.

He scooped up Shada. A second shell struck, critically wounding 12-year-old niece Ghaida and two of the doctor's brothers.

The doctor quickly took charge.

Fearing that Ghaida would die and Shada go blind, he called his friend, Shlomi Eldar, Palestinian affairs reporter for Israel's Channel 10 TV.

Eldar aired their conversation live ... [and] fought back tears as he urged anyone from the Israeli military who was watching the program to help the doctor. Then he worked the phones to get someone to rescue the family, said Ofer Shelah, a Channel 10 anchorman.

"Everybody was flabbergasted," he recalled. "It was a very shocking, human moment for everyone involved."

Palestinian ambulances couldn't reach the house for fear of coming under Israeli fire, so the family left on foot for the nearest Palestinian hospital, with teenagers carrying the wounded on makeshift stretchers. After many phone calls, Gaza ambulances drove the wounded to the border for a transfer to Tel Hashomer that was covered live by Channel 10 during evening prime time.

Shelah said he believes the doctor's tragedy changed attitudes. Israeli public support for the offensive remained strong, as a justified response to years of rocket fire, but Abuelaish made them empathize for the first time with Gaza civilians, he said. "He is such a winning person and his response was so noble that you couldn't sweep it under the rug as Palestinian propaganda, Shelah said."

The army says ... it had repeatedly urged the doctor and others in the building to leave for their own safety.

Abuelaish denies getting warnings and insists there were no militants in his building or any shooting in the area until the tank shells struck. ...

But Abuelaish says time is too precious to be wasted on arguments. "Hate and revenge is a disease, he says, and I don't want to be diseased or sick."

He is now walking a path others have traveled before him, among them several hundred bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents who come together in what they call The Parents' Circle.

"In both societies, people are willing to listen to the bereaved," said an Israeli leader of the group, Roni Hirshenson, who has lost two sons to the conflict, one of them in a Palestinian suicide bombing.

"The message is that if the families of victims on both sides speak out together, we can overcome the hatred and act with reason," said Hirshenson, 67, who visited Abuelaish at Tel Hashomer after the war to try to comfort him. ...

The doctor is taking up a teaching position at the University of Toronto in the fall and will probably leave with his surviving children, Abdullah, 6; Ghafa, 9, Mohammed, 13; Dalal, 20; and Shada. Shada's eyesight was saved, and last week she was at home sitting in front of a pile of books, cramming for her high school finals.

Abuelaish will also spend part of each year teaching at Haifa University in Israel, and plans to return to Gaza in five years.

He plans to write a book about his life to make the case for coexistence. In partnership with Tel Hashomer, he is helping to raise money for a conference center there, to be named after his daughters.

"I lost three precious daughters, but I have another five [children]" he said. "I have a future, I have my people, and hatred and revenge can be driven out by love and wisdom."

Below are some passages from a modern classic that may help Western audiences put Dr. Abuelaish's truly remarkable ability to co-exist and work with Israelis despite Israel's brutal policies in the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories, and his inspirational efforts to rise above the tragic loss of three daughters and a niece, into perspective.

100:4.1 Religious living is devoted living, and devoted living is creative living, original and spontaneous. New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns. New meanings only emerge amid conflict; and conflict persists only in the face of refusal to espouse the higher values connoted in superior meanings.

100:4.2 Religious perplexities are inevitable; there can be no growth without psychic conflict and spiritual agitation. The organization of a philosophic standard of living entails considerable commotion in the philosophic realms of the mind. Loyalties are not exercised in behalf of the great, the good, the true, and the noble without a struggle. Effort is attendant upon clarification of spiritual vision and enhancement of cosmic insight. And the human intellect protests against being weaned from subsisting upon the nonspiritual energies of temporal existence. The slothful animal mind rebels at the effort required to wrestle with cosmic problem solving.

100:4.3 But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE. Health, mental efficiency, and happiness arise from the unification of physical systems, mind systems, and spirit systems. Of health and sanity man understands much, but of happiness he has truly realized very little. The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.

When we better understand the necessity of focusing on our common goals, our common interests, and the values that we hold in common, we will find better ways to live together, in peace.

After all, "Ones man's collateral damage is another man's child."

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. — Jesus, Luke 6:31, King James Version.

Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. — The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Hadith

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. — Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a

Gillespie: Senator Tom Harkin Calls for Release of Torture Photos

2009-05-17T07:32:00.001-05:00

Senator Tom Harkin deserves a lot of credit for taking the stand he has on the torture photos, in my opinion. The senator is Catholic, and I have come to realize that Catholics, perhaps more than some other denominations, seem to understand that torture is

simply not an issue on which we can be silent.

Perhaps the finest book about the military and war that I've read over the years is Soldier, a memoir by Lt. Col. Anthony B. Herbert, a career U.S. Army officer who served in Korea and in Vietnam. Herbert, too, is Catholic, and his is a remarkable book about an equally remarkable life. Entering the Army before he was legally old enough, Herbert saw action as an enlisted man in Korea. After Korea, he left the Army to earn a BA in English and later a Masters in Psychology. He returned to the Army as an officer and during the Vietnam war commanded a line battalion of the 173rd Infantry Brigade, the outfit my childhood friend Philip Reeder (1949-1968) served and died in, too, too young. Herbert turned his battalion into one of the highest rated combat units of the war. But he witnessed torture in Vietnam, and he steadfastly refused to turn a blind eye to those crimes. Speaking out against the war and against torture while still in uniform, Herbert paid a high price for his efforts, sacrificing his very promising military career and a great deal more.

Herbert's story left me wondering what would cause a man who was so deeply dedicated to the U.S. military to make that kind of sacrifice. It was several years before I found an answer to that question one day while reading something about Mary Karr, author of the blockbuster best-selling memoir The Liar's Club. Though I can't recall ever having met Karr, we both grew up in Southeast Texas, in towns not 15 miles apart, as contemporaries, and later left the South and studied writing in various places including Cambridge, MA. Our experiences are similar in other ways, too. After a "lifetime of undiluted agnosticism," Karr converted to Catholicism in 1996. She has talked of the experiences that led her to a place to practice her faith. As I read an interview in which Karr spoke about those experiences, I came across this short, memorable paragraph: "A lot of things appeal to me about a lot of religions. I would have thought I was going to end up Episcopalian, but the fact that there wasn't a body on the cross was too subtle for me. And the carnality of the [Catholic] Church really drew me--that there is a body on the cross, that we are hunks of meat."

As I read those words, I suddenly understood why Anthony Herbert had sacrificed his military career and why Catholics, perhaps more often than those of some other Christian faith traditions, seem to understand, at great depth, the issue of torture.

"There is a body on the cross."

As it happens I'm not Catholic, but I think we all need to support Sen. Harkin on this issue.

Sen. Tom Harkin Calls for Release of Torture Photos

by Michael Gillespie
for The Independent Monitor
5/15/2009 – 1,766 words

Speaking to Iowa Public Radio (IPR) audiences on Thursday, May 14, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) called for President Obama to release to the public photos depicting the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This is one time I think I’ll have to disagree with the president. I think the photos should be released,” said Harkin in response to a question put to him by Ben Kieffer, host of IPR’s popular daily public affairs program, The Exchange.

Kieffer had asked Harkin, “Yesterday President Obama declared that he would try to block the court ordered release of photos that show U.S. troops abusing prisoners. He said this abrupt reversal of his position came out of concern that the pictures would further inflame anti-American opinion and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is your view of the president’s reversal?”

“I think the public has a right to know what was done by government officials. That’s the very basis of our democracy. That’s especially true when it concerns official government policy that was in direct conflict with our most basic values and where laws were broken,” said Harkin. The experienced and influential lawmaker and former Navy pilot served 10 years in the House of Representatives before his election to the Senate in 1984.

“This is one where a lot of the blame has been put on lower ranking military people … I think we need to know, more and more, who authorized this at the highest levels. So, I think these pictures should be put out. We have to tell the world again that one of the good things about America is our transparency, and we will look at things and we will investigate things to find out who did these deeds. So, I disagree with the president on this one,” said Harkin.

Harkin serves on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee on the Defense Subcommittee and on the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee.

Harkin’s call for President Obama to allow the Department of Justice to release at least 44 additional prisoner abuse photos, as ordered by Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2005, came on the same day that the Appropriations Committee released the "Highlights of FY 2009 Supplemental". The bill totals $91.3 billion. It includes "$73 billion in new non-emergency, discretionary spending authority for the Department of Defense under the Defense Subcommittee’s jurisdiction." The Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee title of the supplemental totals "$6.878 billion to address urgent diplomatic, humanitarian, development and security requirements in countries and regions where U.S. security interests are facing major challenges."

“Do you worry that [Obama] is buckling on this under pressure on this from people like Dick Cheney?” Kieffer asked Harkin.

“I can’t imagine that Dick Cheney could make him buckle ... I just think that he’s probably getting a lot of input from the military and all the others. I don’t know whether [CIA Director] Leon Panetta’s been involved in this or not, I just don’t know, but whatever advice he’s gotten has been wrong, and I dare say the pictures are going to come out. … You can’t keep these under wraps forever. One way or the other, they’re gonna get out. I think the president ought to be forthright and say, ‘You know, what we did was wrong, and those who authorized this ought to be held accountable,’” said Harkin.

Kieffer reminded his listeners of Harkin’s military service and his involvement in an abuse and torture controversy during the Vietnam era, pressing the senator again on the issue of potential risks associated with the release of the photos.

“Senator, you were in the military as a Navy pilot. You flew battle damaged planes from Vietnam and the Philippines to Japan for repair. Later, as an aide on a Congressional visit to a South Vietnamese island, prison island of Con Son in 1970, you photographed so-called ‘tiger cages’ in which political prisoners were being kept, and these pictures you took, some made it to Life magazine. So you certainly know the power of images. Don’t you worry that this will further inflame anti-American opinion around the world as the president argues, that this will endanger our troops when we are, perhaps, on the road to gaining greater goodwill?” asked Kieffer.

Harkin turned the tough question to his advantage, using it as an opportunity to tell his constituents that his position on the controversial issue is one informed by personal experience, thoughtful reflection, and deep conviction.

“Well, interesting you mention that whole ‘tiger cage’ episode. As you know, I was working in the House at the time as a staff member. I was also told not to release those pictures. I was told it was going to damage our troops in Vietnam, it was going to harm our people, our prisoners of war in North Vietnam. Basically, I was really excoriated and told that I shouldn’t release them, but I felt that I had a higher obligation. I had an obligation to those people who were in those prison camps, who were there unjustly, being tortured, put to death. And I felt the United States should not be involved, and I knew, at that point in time, I knew that this was being condoned and actually over—there was oversight by some of our government agencies. And by putting those pictures out, I think that it—all these people released from these prison cells, some of them went on to lead very distinguished lives in Vietnam and here in America. It put an end, at least at that time, to some of the really, I think, illegal things that we were doing in those ‘tiger cages’. So, I’m very sensitive to this. If there are pictures out there, they ought to be made public. These things have to be made public. I feel very strongly about that,” said Harkin.

Harkin’s official web site notes that he “went to Washington in 1969 to join the staff of Iowa Congressman Neal Smith. As a staff member accompanying a congressional delegation to South Vietnam, he independently investigated and photographed the infamous ‘tiger cage’ cells at a secret prison on Con Son Island, where prisoners—many of them students—were being tortured and kept in inhumane conditions. Despite pressure to suppress his findings, Tom’s photos and eyewitness account were published in Life magazine. As a result, hundreds of abused prisoners were released.

“In 1972, Tom and [his wife] Ruth graduated in the same class at Catholic University of America Law School in Washington, D.C. They returned to Iowa, and settled in Ames. Tom worked with Polk County Legal Aid, assisting low-income Iowans who could not afford legal help. Ruth won election as Story County Attorney, becoming the first female elected to this position.”

Kieffer asked again about the political implications of former Vice-President Cheney’s high-profile role in the torture controversy.

“How do you view the ‘front and center’ role of former Vice-President Dick Cheney as the foremost defender of the Bush administration within recent days?” asked Kieffer.

“I just don’t think Dick Cheney has any credibility at all left. Here’s someone who consistently lied, and I use that word in all of its meaning, lied to the American people about Iraq, about Saddam Hussein, about weapons of mass destruction. He is the only vice-president in history who went down to the CIA and inserted himself in CIA operations as the vice-president. So, Cheney, to me, is someone who had a world view, he had a belief in what the world was like, and what our enemies were like, and the real world did not comport with his belief system. Now he wants to continue to say that his belief system trumps everything, whereas the facts and reality are completely different,” said Harkin.

“From a purely partisan perspective as a Democrat you must be happy to see someone like Cheney with such low approval ratings be the public face of the opposition,” said Kieffer.

“Well, when Dick Cheney gets up and denigrates Colin Powell and holds up as the epitome of what a Republican is Rush Limbaugh, I can understand why more and more moderate Republicans are becoming Democrats,” replied Harkin.

Powell, Secretary of State during former President George W. Bush’s first term, endorsed Obama during the final weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign. Powell’s former Chief-of-Staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, testified on June 18, 2008 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture that well over 100 detainees had died in U.S. custody and that 27 of those deaths had officially been declared to be homicides.

Cheney’s office is widely reported to have been at the center of the Bush administration’s “enhanced” or “harsh interrogation technique” policy. On December 15, 2008, Cheney told ABC News that, “I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the [CIA] in effect came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.”

After WWII, the U.S. government tried and convicted Japanese military officers of war crimes for waterboarding prisoners.

On May 10, Cheney told CBS’s Face the Nation that President Obama’s decision to dismantle the Bush administration’s interrogation programs had made the USA more susceptible to terrorist attacks.

In an article published on May 14, Wilkerson, a Republican, wrote, “My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering 'the Cheney methods of interrogation', simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

"What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the 'Cheney interrogation methods' will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

"Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002—well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion—its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida. So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee ‘was compliant’ (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, ‘revealed’ such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop. There in fact were no such contacts.”

Funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, known as the “Global War on Terror” during the Bush administration but re-branded in late March as “Overseas Contingency Operations” by the Obama administration, is dependent upon Appropriations Committee approval.

Gillespie: Corporate News Outlets Ignore Interfaith Appeal for Peace

2007-12-28T12:53:00.000-06:00

Corporate News Outlets Ignore Interfaith Appeal for Peace

by Michael Gillespie

12/26/07

Des Moines, IA – The Iowa Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) and The Shalom Center, headquartered in Philadelphia, teamed up recently to promote the Interfaith Peace Committee (IPC)’s call for peace in the Middle East and campaign against a U.S. attack on Iran. The IPC’s statement, "A Pax on Both Our Houses" (pax is Latin for peace), calls on the government of the United States to “end all actions, threats, plans, or support for war against Iran,” and for the religious authorities of Iran to “end all threats against the existence of Israel and all denials of the historical truth of the Nazi Holocaust, and to make clear that Iran will not support violence against civilians by its own or other forces, and to reaffirm for the future their prohibition of any effort to seek nuclear weapons for Iran.”

The statement also calls for “the governments of both nations at once to open direct talks on all issues of mutual concern, looking toward a mutual peace” and for “the American government to move forward in the spirit of humility and generosity, rather than arrogance and domination, toward a broad peace settlement in the entire Middle East, including an end to the occupation of Iraq, peace between Israel and Palestine and all the other states in the region, and a major international effort to protect human rights and promote grass-roots economic development in the region.”

That the statement makes no mention of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, nor of any plans for a nuclear-free Middle East, nor of an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory no doubt made endorsement easier for many of the American Jewish signatories, the list of which includes at least 25 Rabbis. Despite its glaring omissions and lack of specificity, this statement by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders constitutes an important and timely appeal to civil rulers to step away from the brink of a catastrophic wider war and choose peace. It proposes real and immediate if somewhat vaguely defined alternatives to neoconservative militarism, and it proves that Christians, Jews, and Muslims can reason together, compromise, and agree to move forward together toward common goals.

“A Pax on Both Our Houses” has been endorsed by more than 60 nationally and internationally recognized Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders including Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church, USA; Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ; Rev. James Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist Church; Rabbi Or N. Rose, Associate Dean, Rabbinical School of Hebrew College; Rabbi Shelia Peltz Weinberg, Institute for Jewish Spirituality; Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun; Imam Madhi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America; and Sheila Musaji, Editor of The American Muslim. Many of the leaders who signed the statement, including both Bray and Mattson, did so in their capacities as leaders of the organizations they serve.

The Shalom Center, which describes itself as “a network of American Jews who draw on Jewish tradition and spirituality to seek peace, pursue justice, heal the earth, and build community,” was founded in 1983 “to address the raging nuclear arms race from a Jewish perspective.” Hoping to gain the attention of mainstream media news organizations and presidential candidates, the Shalom Center’s director, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, partnered with the Iowa Chapter of the MFSA, which purchased a full page advertisement in the December 20 edition of the Des Moines Register. Waskow traveled to Des Moines for a press conference on December 19 to put the call for peace before the public and the 2008 presidential candidates campaigning in Iowa.

“A Pax on Both Our Houses,” a very significant interfaith call for peace in the Middle East, quickly and easily garnered support among leading progressive political, social, and religious organizations in Iowa. Vernon Naffier, President of the Progressive Coalition of Central Iowa, endorsed “A Pax on Both Our Houses.” So did the Catholic Peace Ministry; the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) of Iowa; and the Board of Church and Society, Iowa Annual Conference, United Methodist Church.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) sent an aide, Margaret Vernon, to the press conference to read a statement favoring diplomatic engagement with Iran. Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie attended the press conference and by all accounts delivered a moving statement of support for peace in the Middle East. In addition to Waskow, Cownie, Vernon, and Naffier, also speaking at the press conference were Dr. David Drake, former Clerk of the Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting and a member of the Iowa Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility who recently returned from a two week visit to Iran sponsored by the Fellowship for Reconciliation; Inez Ireland, on behalf of UMC Bishop of Iowa Gregory Palmer; Jeffrey Weiss, representing AFSC Iowa; and Eloise Cranke, representing MFSA Iowa.

The only people invited who didn’t bother to show up for the press conference were the reporters.

Given that this interfaith effort to prevent an attack on Iran comes at what may be a crucial moment during a war in which religion plays a far more complex role than in the past, during a time when religion and theology are finding dramatically increased expression in public life and in the political arena and in ways that directly impact political decision-making at the highest levels of government, the evident indifference of so many mainstream media organizations to the Shalom Center/MFSA Iowa press conference in support of “A Pax on Both Our Houses” seems almost inexplicably counterintuitive.

Rev. Chester Guinn of the MFSA said he personally delivered the group’s press release about “A Pax on Both Our Houses” and invitation to the press conference to the Des Moines Register, to local television and radio stations, to the Associated Press (AP) including a personal e-mail to Mike Glover, Iowa Statehouse Correspondent and Chief Political Writer for the Des Moines bureau of the AP, and to CNN. Yet not even one representative of the local mainstream media news organizations, print or broadcast, showed up for the press conference. Only one national mainstream media news organization showed any interest whatsoever; a New York Times reporter listened to the news conference via telephone.

Guinn said he feels that mainstream media have decided to divert the public’s attention from the war/peace issue to domestic concerns.

“If a sentence or two appears in a New York Times article reflecting that Iowans still regard the Middle East war issue more important that domestic issues, we will be very pleased,” said Guinn.

And despite their concerted efforts that’s about all these would-be peacemakers got from corporate media. On December 20, the New York Times published a four-sentence article headlined "Religious Leaders Call for Talks with Iran" in the National Briefing section. The article did not name any of the organizations involved nor any of the organizers or signatories. The nation’s self-described newspaper of record buried its dismissive note, less than 100 words about an important interfaith initiative in behalf of peace, on page 24.

Guinn’s and others’ concerns about efforts by mainstream news media organizations to downplay public interest in the crises in the Middle East and the war in Iraq in particular are well founded according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the nation’s most prominent media watchdog group. A FAIR Media Advisory dated 12/19/07 is titled “War Is Over--Say the Pundits: But it’s media, not voters, who seem to have lost interest in Iraq.” FAIR reports that, “To hear many in the mainstream media tell it, the Iraq War is of diminishing importance to American voters. But the evidence for such a shift in the electorate is thin at best--suggesting that journalists and pundits are really the ones who would rather not talk about Iraq as we head into an election year.”

Mainstream media news organizations’ apparent disinterest in and indifference to interfaith or multireligious efforts in support of peace come into sharper focus when considered against the backdrop of the cacophony of Jewish and Christian Zionist voices who enjoy ready access the nation’s largest and most widely-read, -viewed, and -listened to print and broadcast news organizations while promoting war.

John Hagee, pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, is the author of a book titled Jerusalem Countdown in which “he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ,” according to Sara Posner’s August 2006 article for Alternet. “In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book’s publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause ‘a political earthquake,’” wrote Posner. An on-line archive search reveals that Hagee has been featured or quoted in at least ten articles (totaling more than 8,500 words) published in the New York Times since 1996. Other Christian Zionist leaders and supporters of Israel, including Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, have enjoyed similar access to the nation’s newspapers and broadcast news outlets. An article by Elizabeth White appearing in the Houston Chronicle and others newspapers on December 23 reported that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister whose meteoric rise in the polls has made him a serious contender for the 2008 Republican nomination, had that Sunday preached to more than 5,000 worshipers at Hagee’s church in San Antonio. Huckabee’s candidacy has been endorsed by Hagee and by Tim LaHaye, author of the best-selling Left Behind series, Christian Zionist propaganda disguised as poorly-crafted fiction. LaHaye has been accused of promoting theocracy by Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP), located at Cornell University. Both Hagee and LaHaye have been criticized for overtly anti-Catholic rhetoric.

Leading Jewish neoconservative commentator Norman Podhoretz also enjoys ready access to mainstream media news outlets. His advocacy of U.S. military action against Iran has received wide attention in the mainstream media. On May 30, the Wall Street Journal published a commentary by Podhoretz titled, “The Case for Bombing Iran: I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.” Podhoretz, a foreign policy advisor to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for the 2008 Republican nomination, is one of the signatories of the “Statement of Principles” of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century. Podhoretz was awarded the President Medal of Freedom, the highest honor a U.S. president can bestow on a civilian, by George W. Bush in 2004.

The difference in mainstream media news organizations’ treatment of religious voices promoting peace, compared to the coverage accorded those promoting uncritical support of Israel, vilifying Islam and predominately Arab and Muslim nations, and promoting U.S. military action against Iran, could hardly be more stark or more obviously a threat to a society that values social stability, racial harmony, and its long tradition of religious pluralism.

An article by Allan C. Brownfeld in the January 2008 issue of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs calls attention to the dangerously hyperbolic rhetoric of the Jewish far-Right. “In certain Jewish circles,” writes Brownfeld, “today’s world is being compared to 1938, just before the Nazi assault on Poland began World War II. An April conference in New York entitled ‘Is it 1938 Again’ featured such speakers as Norman Podhoretz, Alan Dershowitz, Hillel Halkin and Malcolm Hoenlein.”

Brownfeld notes that, “In a recent Commentary essay [Podhoretz] depicted President Ahmadinejad as a revolutionary, ‘like Hitler … whose objective is to overturn the going international system and to replace it … with a new world order dominated by Iran.’”

“‘I pray with all my heart,’ Podhoretz concluded, that President Bush, ‘will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions toward both us and Israel,’” writes Brownfeld.

“Not only are these individuals and groups promoting a pre-emptive war against Iran completely unrepresentative of American Jewish opinion, but they are advocating a policy which would be harmful to the interests of Israel, the U.S., and the larger world. Hopefully, sanity will prevail and these wolf-criers with an agenda will be isolated as the extremists they are,” writes Brownfeld.

Many mainstream media news organizations were duped by falsified intelligence reports and overawed by the jingoistic excess that characterized the Bush administration’s slick public relations campaign designed to incite Americans’ patriotic fervor in support of the rush to war in and occupation of Iraq.

During a Q & A session after his presentation at a Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) conference at Iowa State University’s Greenlee School in February 2007, this reporter asked Richard Doak, a then-recently retired senior member of the Des Moines Register editorial board, why press coverage of the Bush administration’s case the invasion of Iraq proved to be such a fiasco. Doak’s reply included his frank admission that, “We were intimidated. Reporters didn't question the administration's claims.”

Doak gets points for honesty and candor in responding to that question, but some still recall that in 2003, in the months after Rachel Corrie was run over and crushed in Rafah, Gaza, by a 60-ton armored Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Force (IDF), the editorial board that Doak headed reneged, without notification or explanation, on a promise that the Corrie family’s op-ed piece about Rachel’s death would appear in the Des Moines Register. Such callous disregard for the grieving Iowa family shocked most who learned of it. In any case, Doak’s answer doesn’t begin to adequately address the enormously damaging and still widening credibility gap at the heart of Americans’ well-documented distrust of and lack of respect for professional or, more accurately, corporate journalism and mainstream media news organizations today.

That the Bush administration’s effort to turn the nation’s major news organizations into cheerleading squads for an ill-conceived, illegal, unjust, unnecessary, unwinnable, disastrously counterproductive, and cripplingly expensive preventive war of choice in Iraq was so largely successful is arguably one result of a more general collapse of ethical standards and norms in professional journalism associated with decades of consolidation in corporate media and the consequent exclusion of independent voices from the public discussion. Almost five years after the invasion of Iraq, most mainstream media news organizations seem to be as studiously disinterested in interfaith initiatives as ever and equally indifferent to the concerns of citizens, community leaders, and community organizations involved in various peacemaking initiatives. In Iowa, a well-established pattern reflects that disinterest and indifference.

The Iowa Dialog Center (IDC) hosted its Annual Friendship and Dialog Dinner, an interfaith event, on October 10 at the Embassy Suites on the River in Des Moines. About 75 people attended. The IDC had sponsored a trip to Turkey for 11 Americans, mostly Iowans, mostly people with some connection to churches and other Christian religious organizations. One of those who went on the trip, Rev. Karen Parker, a recently retired Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) pastor and former assistant to the Bishop of the Pacifica Synod, presented the keynote address at the dinner. Later, another of the travelers talked about his experiences during the two-week visit to Turkey, and there was a sad, funny, and instructive moment during the Q & A that followed. Apparently unaware who had provided the meal he had just finished, one of the dinner guests bestirred himself to ask, “Where are the voices of the moderate Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11?” The speaker, one of the clerics who had traveled to Turkey with the IDC, looked mildly embarrassed. He paused, smiled, and replied saying that the question was “very similar to one some of our Turkish hosts asked of us.” Many in the audience politely attempted to stifle their laughter.

Mainstream media news organizations all too often traffic in stereotypes and ignorance. The unthinking guest at the IDC dinner who asked about moderate Muslims was parroting a question--a misleading complaint, really--that he, like all of us, has heard again and again because it has rolled off the mainstream media conveyor belt for years: “Where are the moderate Muslim voices?” Far better questions would be: “Where is mainstream media news coverage of moderate Muslim voices?” “Where is mainstream media news coverage of local activities in support of tolerance, interfaith conversation and cooperation, peace, and social justice?” And, “Where is mainstream media news coverage of the many voices, organizations, and activities at local, state, regional, and national levels representing the sentiment of the vast majority of Americans, the 70 percent who want the war in Iraq brought to an end?”

It's no wonder some of our country’s allies and would-be allies, aghast at the arrogance and exclusivist zealotry that has characterized our U.S. Middle East foreign policy since 9/11--though the serious imbalance in U.S. Middle East foreign policy was evident long before that tragic day--are now investing in non-profit organizations at the local, state, and regional levels in cities across America in a desperate attempt to engage and educate Americans outside the Washington beltway through interfaith conversation and intercultural interaction. This is necessary because, in addition to ignoring interfaith and peace and social justice community events happening right under their noses here at home, mainstream media corporations also persistently fail to provide Americans with unbiased, accurate, substantive, and useful information about the world beyond our borders and the impact of our government’s policies and actions there.

This reporter has covered dozens of local dinners, conferences, fairs, meetings, celebrations, and speeches with a focus on interfaith dialog and intercultural relations here in Iowa over the past several years, far more often than not as the only journalist in attendance, and that was the case at the IDC's annual Friendship and Dialog Dinner. As he so often does, Mayor Frank Cownie found time in his busy schedule to put in an appearance, but, just as at the more recent press conference announcing “A Pax on Both Our Houses,” reporters from the Des Moines Register and other local mainstream media news outlets who had been invited failed to appear.

Is it asking too much to expect the Gannett Co., Inc., the largest newspaper publisher in the nation and a leading international news and information corporation that publishes the Des Moines Register and 84 other daily newspapers in the U.S., including USA Today, with a combined daily paid circulation of more than 7 million (not to mention the 23 television stations Gannett operates in the U.S., its nearly 1,000 non-daily publications, or its international assets), to devote the resources necessary to report on these kinds of events? Surely, if the newspaper’s editors valued such activities or their professional responsibility to report the news, the Des Moines Register, with 1,000 employees, would find a way to assign one or two reporters to devote a few hours a week to local interfaith, intercultural, peace, and social justice organizations’ events and activities. Publisher Laura Hollingsworth has written that, “The Register’s job is to connect, lead and inspire. And that means delivering information to our community when and how they want it.” But perhaps she and Editor Carolyn Washburn view reportage that might encourage interfaith cooperation and promote peace as inconsistent with Gannett’s ownership of Army Times Publishing Co., publishers of Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times, which Gannett’s web site describes as “the ‘bibles’ of the military market”? Or, perhaps they fear the wrath of Jewish and Christian Zionist business owners who advertise in the newspaper?

While the Des Moines Register generally fails to report on interfaith activities and peace and social justice community events happening on its doorstep, some of the newspaper’s columnists deserve credit for their efforts, as does the newspaper’s editorial page for publishing letters that address these events and issues.

Millions of Americans voted against war in 2006. Hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens have marched against war and taken part in other activities in support of justice and peace in the Middle East. Many thousands of Americans from a variety of backgrounds have worked diligently for years to improve community relations, build and strengthen community-based interfaith and intercultural organizations, and promote peace. There is still much work to be done.

“I doubt if waging a direct attack on any segment of the media is worth the effort when our energy is already overtaxed,” said Guinn, already looking to the future and the next major event on the community calendar.

“Plans for the production of My Name Is Rachel Corrie in Des Moines and possibly Ames are moving ahead,” said Guinn, “Time: Saturday, Jan. 26, 2 pm matinee and 7:30 pm evening performance. Place: Grace United Methodist Church. Suggested admission donation: Adults $20, students $10.”

This reporter would like to cordially invite Laura Hollingsworth and Carolyn Washburn to attend the Des Moines production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, in the hope that they might find inspiration in a truly courageous young woman’s words and actions.

Jensen: We Are All Prophets Now

2007-09-27T22:42:00.000-05:00

We Are All Prophets Now: Responsibilities and Risks in the Prophetic Voice
by Robert Jensen

It may be the fate of humans always to believe that we live at the most important time in history, that our moment is the decisive moment. But even factoring in this tendency toward collective self-centeredness, it is difficult to ignore that today we face multiple crises -- economic, political, cultural, and, most crucially, ecological -- which have the potential to make ongoing life on the scale we know it impossible. Predictions about the specifics of the trajectory are beyond our capabilities, but we can know -- if we choose to know -- that we must solve problems for which there are no apparent solutions and face “questions that go beyond the available answers,” to borrow Wes Jackson’s phrase.[1] These threats have been building for the past 10,000 years, intensifying in the past two centuries to levels that only the foolhardy would ignore. The bills for the two most destructive revolutions in human history -- the agricultural and industrial revolutions -- are coming due, sooner than we think.[2]

Never before in this world have we had such a need for strong, principled, charismatic leadership. In the United States, where such leadership is most desperately needed at this crucial moment, we can look around the national scene -- whether in politics, business, religion, or intellectual life -- and see that no one is up to the task.

Thank goodness for that.

It would be seductive, as we stand at the edge of these cascading crises, to look for leaders. But where would they lead us? How would they answer the unanswerable questions and solve the unsolvable problems? Better to recognize that we are at a moment when leaders cannot help us, because we need to go deeper than leadership can take us. Perhaps there are no inspiring figures on the scene because authentic leaders know that we are heading into new territory for which old models of movements and politics are insufficient, and rather than trying to claim a place at the front of the parade they are struggling to understand the direction we should be moving, just like the rest of us.

So, let us stop looking for leaders, stop praying for prophets. Instead, let us recognize that we all must strive to be prophets now. We are all prophets now. It is time for each of us to take responsibility for speaking in the prophetic voice.

I don’t mean this in the shallow sense of the term prophecy, claiming to be able to see the future. The complexity of these crises makes any claims to predict the details of what lies ahead utterly absurd. All we can say is that, absent a radical change in our relationship to each other and the non-human world immediately, we’re in for a rough ride in the coming decades. Though I think the consequences of that ride are likely to be more overwhelming than ever before, certainly people at other crucial times in history have understood that they had to face crises without definitive understanding or clear paths. The barriers to that understanding are not only in the world but in ourselves, and facing our collective failures is most important. A 25-year-old Karl Marx wrote about this in 1843:

The internal difficulties seem to be almost greater than the external obstacles. For although no doubt exists on the question of “Whence,” all the greater confusion prevails on the question of “Whither.” Not only has a state of general anarchy set in among the reformers, but everyone will have to admit to himself that he has no exact idea what the future ought to be. On the other hand, it is precisely the advantage of the new trend that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only want to find the new world through criticism of the old one. Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it.[3]

We should instead understand the prophetic as the calling out of injustice, the willingness to confront not only the abuses of the powerful but our own complicity. To speak prophetically requires us first to see honestly -- both how our world is structured by illegitimate authority that causes suffering beyond the telling, and how we who live in the privileged parts of the world are implicated in that suffering. In that same letter, Marx went on to discuss the need for this kind of “ruthless criticism”:

But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.

To speak prophetically is to refuse to shrink from what we discover about the injustice of the world. It is to name the wars of empire as unjust; to name an economic system that leaves half the world in abject poverty as unjust; to name the dominance of men, of heterosexuals, of white people as unjust. And it is to name the human destruction of Creation as the most profound human crime in our time on this planet. At the same time, to speak prophetically is to refuse to shrink from our own place in these systems. We must confront the powers that be, and ourselves.

The basics of the prophetic

What can we say about this task of speaking in the prophetic voice? The prophets of the Old Testament offer some guidance.

First, let us remember that the prophets did not see themselves as having special status, but rather were ordinary people. When the king’s priest confronted Amos for naming the injustice of his day, Amazi’ah called Amos a “seer” and commanded him to pack his bags and head to Judah and “never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Amos rejected the label:

[14] Then Amos answered Amazi’ah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,

[15] and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

[Amos 7:14-15]

Nor did the prophets seek out their calling. Jeremiah told God he did not know how to speak, claiming to be only a youth. God didn’t buy the excuse:

[7] But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;

for to all to whom I send you you shall go,

and whatever I command you you shall speak.

[8] Be not afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.”

[9] Then the LORD put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

[10] See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to break down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.”

[Jer. 1:7-10]

Nor was it typically much fun to fill the role of a prophet. On this, Jeremiah was blunt:

[9] Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me,

all my bones shake;

I am like a drunken man,

like a man overcome by wine,

because of the LORD

and because of his holy words.

[Jer. 23:9]

And, finally, the Old Testament reminds us that to speak prophetically involves more than just articulating abstract principles which are relatively easy to proclaim. For example, these inspiring words from Micah are quoted often:

[8] He has showed you, O man, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

[Mic. 6:8]

That is an eloquent way to summarize our core obligations, but at that level of generality it is one that virtually all would endorse. Cite that verse and everyone will nod approvingly. But remember that Micah also was calling out the injustice around him, often in harsh terms:

[12] Your rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
[13] Therefore I have begun to smite you,
making you desolate because of your sins.
[14] You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save I will give to the sword.
[15] You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

[Mic. 6:12-15]

And:

[2] The godly man has perished from the earth,

and there is none upright among men;

they all lie in wait for blood,

and each hunts his brother with a net.

[3] Their hands are upon what is evil, to do it diligently;

the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,

and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;

thus they weave it together.

[4] The best of them is like a brier,

the most upright of them a thorn hedge.

The day of their watchmen, of their punishment, has come;

now their confusion is at hand.

[Mic. 7:2-4]

To speak with such passion requires a clarity in our own hearts, minds, and souls. To speak with that clarity to others requires that we have first examined our own lives. When we call out others, they typically ask us -- and rightfully so -- whether we have asked the same questions of ourselves. When we have asked and answered for ourselves, then we can find the courage to speak in that prophetic voice, knowing that we have confronted those questions and are willing to struggle with our own failures.

Our task is not to shine the light on others, but to shine the light through ourselves onto that which is unjust in the world. When we have been honest with ourselves, that light gains intensity and focus as it passes through us. If we have turned away from a ruthless criticism of ourselves, that light will never reach the world and will illuminate nothing but our own limitations and fears.

Risk assessment

That process is not easy, especially in a culture that offers those of us who are privileged a steady stream of rewards for suppressing these thoughts and not facing these struggles. It is easy to turn away from injustice and turn to supermarkets with endless shelves of food, to glasses overflowing with wine, to television’s stories that lull us to sleep on those nights when food and drink have not erased completely our troubling thoughts of the world.

It’s also not easy to speak prophetically because in unjust systems the people who carry out the system’s orders usually don’t seem to be bad people. The corporate CEO who throws workers out of their jobs to increase profits also is a great softball coach on the weekends. The colonel who orders cluster bombs dropped in civilian areas, ensuring that children will die for years to come, also is a caring parent. The real estate developer who destroys habitat to put up McMansions also keeps a lovely garden at home. And all of them, no doubt, contribute generously to their churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Many of us, in fact, do jobs that we know contribute to the unjust distribution of resources and the steady erosion of the planet’s ability to sustain life. I don’t exempt myself from this; I work at the University of Texas at Austin, where -- no matter how much critical material I teach in my courses -- I help legitimate an ideological factory system that certifies students to go off in the world and fire those workers, drop those bombs, and destroy that habitat.

So how are we to find the strength to speak in the prophetic voice? The answer is in the collective. Unless one is truly a saint, it is difficult to resist all the temptations and confront self and others without support. We think of prophets as lonely figures who have stepped out, or been cast out, of a society for speaking the truth bluntly. But even if an occasional idiosyncratic figure can speak from such a solitary place, most of us cannot endure that kind of isolation. So, we must speak prophetically together, not in unison or in lockstep -- speaking prophetically means speaking from one’s own heart, which will mean our voices are always distinctive -- but in solidarity.

But even when we are surrounded by those who share our concerns for the world and for each other, there are always risks if we are to take up this role. To claim the prophetic voice that is in each of us, we have to assess those risks so that we can deal with them sensibly. Here I want to borrow from an exercise developed by Allan G. Johnson.[4] At a conference for activists working on issues around racial justice, Johnson posed three questions about risk. My slightly modified version of his list is:

1. What are the risks you would have to take (or have taken) if you actively work for social justice in a way that is self-critical and challenges powerful institutions and people?

2. What are the risks if you don’t do that work?

3. If you take the risks in #1, in order to survive and thrive what do you need from:

· yourself

· others

· institutions and organizations (public and private)

When people with relatively high levels of privilege do not make a conscious attempt to assess accurately these things, we tend to overestimate the risks of acting and underestimate the risks of not acting. In other words, privilege makes it easy to avoid our responsibilities. So, it’s important for us to consider these questions carefully, not just for what we learn about ourselves but to help us in reaching out to others. We need support, and others need us to support them, to understand the risks they face. We need each other to encourage us to take risks.

The prophetic path to love

We live in a society that appears to be awash in political talk and religious activity. But, in fact, we live in a deeply depoliticized society, full of political chatter on cable TV but lacking spaces in which we can have meaningful discussions about how to address problems that politicians often ignore. We live in a largely soulless culture in which megachurches flourish, but many of us search for something beyond doctrine and dogma to help us answer questions that preachers often ignore. We live in a world in which politics is too often little more than public spectacle and religion is too easily cordoned off as a private matter.

In such a society, we don’t need more politicians who avoid the pressing problems that have no apparent solutions. We don’t need more preachers afraid of the questions that go beyond the available answers. And we don’t need a prophet. We need prophets, ordinary people like us who are willing to tap into the prophetic voice that I believe is within us all.

To speak in that voice is not to claim exclusive insight or definitive knowledge; it is not to speak arrogantly. To speak in the prophetic voice is not to proclaim the truth self-righteously but to claim our rightful place in the collective struggle to understand the truth, which we do in order to deepen our capacity to love. This we should never forget: We seek the prophetic voice within us to allow us to love more fully, something that Paul understood. When we call out injustice, when we find the courage to speak truths in a fallen world, it can be easy to be consumed by our anger and our grief, to lose track of that love. I know this, painfully, from experience.

So, as we go forward to find the courage to speak prophetically, we should hold onto these words from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

[2] And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

[1Cor. 13: 2]

Let us seek knowledge. Pray that we stay strong in our faith in each other, that we help each other find the courage to speak prophetically. But, more than anything, let us remember to keep our hearts open so that we do not lose the capacity to love, always more. Let us leave here today taking seriously -- as if our lives depended on it -- a question posed in song by one among us who regularly dares to speak in the prophetic voice, Michael Franti:

“Is your love enough, or can you love some more?”[5]

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org. His latest book is Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007). Jensen is also the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html.

[1] Wes Jackson, “Toward an Ignorance-Based Worldview,” The Land Report, Spring 2005, pp. 14-16.

[2] For more on this, see my 2003 interview with Wes Jackson, http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/wesjackson.htm.

[3] Karl Marx, letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm

[4] Johnson has written two widely used texts about power and privilege: The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005); and Privilege, Power, and Difference, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005). For more information, see http://www.agjohnson.us/

[5] Michael Franti and Spearhead, “Is Love Enough?” from the 2006 CD “Yell Fire!” That question also runs throughout Franti’s video documenting his trip to Iraq, Palestine, and Israel, “I Know I’m Not Alone,” http://www.iknowimnotalone.com/

Marsh: God and Country

2007-07-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

God and Country:
What it means to be a Christian after George W. Bush
By Charles Marsh
July 8, 2007

If God's on our side, He'll stop the next war. -- Bob Dylan

EARLY ONE SUNDAY morning in the spring of 2003, in the quiet hours before services would begin at the evangelical church where I worship in Charlottesville, Virginia, I opened files compiled by my research assistant and read the statements drafted by Christians around the world in opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.

The experience was profoundly moving and shaming: From Pentecostals in Brazil to the Christian Councils of Ghana, from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East to the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, from Pope John Paul II to the The Waldensian Reformed Church of Italy and the Christian Conference of Asia, the voices of our brothers and sisters in the global ecumenical church spoke in unison.

Why did American evangelicals not pause for a moment in the rush to war to consider the near-unanimous disapproval of the global Christian community? The worldwide Christian opposition seems to me the most neglected story related to the religious debate about Iraq: Despite approval for the president's decision to go to war by 87 percent of white evangelicals in April 2003, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts poll, almost every Christian leader in the world (and almost every nonevangelical leader in the United States) voiced opposition to the war.

In their enthusiastic support of the White House's decision to invade Iraq, evangelicals in the United States practiced an ecumenical isolationism that mirrored the prevailing political trend. Rush Limbaugh may have pleased his "dittoheads" in mocking the dissenting pastors, archbishops, bishops, and church leaders who stuck their noses into our nation's foreign policy, but the people in the United States who call themselves Christian must organize their priorities and values on a different standard than partisan loyalty.

These past six years have been transformative in the religious history of the United States. It is arguably the passing of the evangelical moment -- if not the end of evangelicalism's cultural and political relevance, then certainly the loss of its theological credibility. Conservative evangelical elites, in exchange for political access and power, have ransacked the faith and trivialized its convictions. It is as though these Christians consider themselves to be recipients of a special revelation, as if God has whispered eternal secrets in their ears and summoned them to world-historic leadership in the present and future.

One thing, however, is clear: Any hope for renewal depends on the willingness to reach out to our brothers and sisters abroad. We must reshape the way we live in the global Christian community and form a deeper link to the human family and to life. To do this, we must begin by learning to be quieter, and by reaffirming the simple fact that our faith transcends political loyalty or nationhood.

. . .

In a German concentration camp in 1944, the theologian, pastor, and Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer pondered the future of the church in Germany as it lay in the ruins of its fatal allegiance to Hitler.

"The time of words is over," he wrote. "Our being a Christian today will be limited to two things: prayer and righteous action."

Bonhoeffer, who had actively opposed the Nazis since the passage of the Aryan Laws of 1933 and was executed in April 1945, believed that the church had so compromised its witness to Jesus Christ that it was now incapable of "taking the word of reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world." The misuse of the language of faith had humiliated the Word; any hope for renewal would need to begin with the humble recognition that God was most certainly tired of all our talk.

It is time to give Bonhoeffer's meditations a new hearing. With many other Christians in the United States and many more abroad, I have watched with horror in recent years as the name of Jesus has been used to serve national ambitions and justify war. Forgetting the difference between discipleship and partisanship, and with complete indifference to the wisdom and insights of the Christian tradition, we have recast the faith according to our cultural preferences and baptized our prejudices, along with our will-to-power, in the shallow waters of civic piety.

By the time American troops began bombing Baghdad before sunrise on March 20, 2003, the collective effort of the evangelical elites had sanctified the president's decision and encouraged the laity to believe that the war was God's will for the nation. Evangelicals preached for the war, prayed for the war, sang for the war, and offered God's blessings on the war.

Sometime after Operation Iraqi Freedom began, I made a remarkable discovery. I had gone to one of my local Christian bookstores to find a Bible for my goddaughter. On a whim, I also decided to look for a Holy Spirit lapel pin, in the symbolic shape of a dove, the kind that had always been easy to find in the display case in the front. Many people in my church and in the places where I traveled had been wearing the American flag on their lapel for months now. It seemed like a pretty good time for Christians to put the Spirit back on.

But the doves were nowhere in sight. In the place near the front where I once would have found them, I was greeted instead by a full assortment of patriotic accessories -- red-white-and-blue ties, bandanas, buttons, handkerchiefs, "I support our troops" ribbons, "God Bless America" gear, and an extraordinary cross and flag button with the two images interlocked. I felt slightly panicked by the new arrangement. I asked the clerk behind the counter where the doves had gone. The man's response was jarring, although the remark might well be remembered as an apt theological summation of our present religious age. "They're in the back with the other discounted items," he said, nodding in that direction.

I have thought of this visit to the local Christian bookstore many times in the past several years. I remember the outrage I felt when I saw a photograph in Time magazine during the 2004 presidential election of Christian Coalition activists in Ohio. Two men, both white, and both identified as Coalition members, are holding two crosses aloft. The crosses upon closer inspection appear to be made of balloons twisted together. Across the beam-section of one of the crosses was the "Bush-Cheney" logo, and alongside the president's name was the image of an American flag. In the second cross, the president's name appeared in full at the places where Jesus's hands were nailed.

. . .

Like Bonhoeffer, I fear that the gospel has been humiliated in our time. But if this has happened, it is not because the message -- the good news that God loves us unconditionally in Jesus Christ, that we are freed and forgiven in God's amazing grace -- has changed. Nor is it due to the machinations of secularists, or because the post-Enlightenment world has dispensed with the hypothesis of God. The Christian faith has not only endured modernity and post-modernity, but flourished in its new settings.

The gospel has been humiliated because too many American Christians have decided that there are more important things to talk about. We would rather talk about our country, our values, our troops, and our way of life; and although we might think we are paying tribute to God when we speak of these other things, we are only flattering ourselves.

If only holiness were measured by the volume of our incessant chatter, we would be universally praised as the most holy nation on earth. But in our fretful, theatrical piety, we have come to mistake noisiness for holiness, and we have presumed to know, with a clarity and certitude that not even the angels dared claim, the divine will for the world. We have organized our needs with the confidence that God is on our side, now and always, whether we feed the poor or corral them into ghettos.

To a nation filled with intense religious fervor, the Hebrew prophet Amos said: You are not the holy people you imagine yourselves to be. Though the land is filled with festivals and assemblies, with songs and melodies, and with so much pious talk, these are not sounds and sights that are pleasing to the Lord. "Take away from me the noise of your congregations," Amos says, "you who have turned justice into poison."

Psalm 46 tells us, "Be still and know that I am God." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic work on Christian community, "Life Together," spoke of a silence "before the Word." He affirmed the wisdom of the Psalmist, and spoke of a listening silence that brings "clarification, purification, and concentration upon the essential thing."

After all the talk and the noise, it is time for Christians in the United States to enter a season of quietness, being still, and learning to wait on God (perhaps for the first time).

Bonhoeffer wrote "Life Together" during the years he directed an illegal seminary in the North German village of Finkenwalde. The school's mission was training pastors in the Confessing Church, a reform movement that opposed the nazified German Evangelical Church. Bonhoeffer had served in the Abwehr, the Nazi counterintelligence agency, as a double agent -- helping Jewish families escape to Switzerland and organizing a coup attempt against the Nazi regime -- and he participated in several assassination attempts on Hitler. For Bonhoeffer, being still in a time of enormous historical and ecclesial crisis was no invitation to idleness or indifference; rather, it was a call to discernment and responsible action.

. . .

Indeed, there are times when silence is an admonition fraught with danger. Martin Luther King Jr. warned of the "appalling silence of the good people" and those who turned their faces from suffering and oppression. But Dr. King also knew that careful and respectful speech was born of honest discernment of God's moral demands for the present age -- a discernment that begins in humility and quiet introspection.

I came of age in the American South in the 1960s, and the moral values shared by most families in the churches of my childhood were deeply interwoven with our culture's hold on white supremacy. The vigilant and quite often neurotic defense we made of the Southern Way of Life blinded us not only to the sufferings of African-Americans -- the victims of our collective self-righteousness -- but also to our spiritual arrogance and group pride. We believed that our conception of Christianity and our cherished family values were the most wholesome and pure the world had ever known. Inside this serene delusion, we presumed ourselves to be paragons of virtue, although we rarely lifted a finger to help anyone but our own.

It was unsettling to learn, sometime in my adolescence, that the moral values I inherited as a white Southerner were not the marks of true Christian piety.

When Jesus spoke of the family, he had in mind the new community of God. "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he said one day upon hearing that his family was asking for him. "Here are my mother and my brothers!" Jesus said, pointing to the people gathered around him, who marveled at his words. "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Jesus knew that loyalty to the Kingdom of Heaven would often require the renunciation of family traditions, habits, culture, and custom.

Today, in the national debate on faith and politics, there are signs of hope as an emerging generation of Christian leaders holds out the promise of a more comprehensively just and moral account of faith than the narrow agendas of the Christian right. In particular, the success of Sojourners magazine editor Jim Wallis's 2005 book, "God's Politics," introduced many Americans to a vibrant culture of progressive Christianity ready to exert its growing influence over national politics and mobilize the churches around global poverty and AIDS relief.

And there are other encouraging signs: Criticisms of torture and detention practices of the US military by prominent Christian conservatives have been symbolically powerful moments. The emerging environmental consciousness among an increasing number of evangelical leaders and laity signals a more holistic social mission.

Even so, as welcome as these developments are, no explicitly partisan movement -- left or right -- to reclaim the soul of politics can reckon successfully with the grave effects of the Christian saturation of the American public square. Unless conditioned by clear and public confession of our support of the immoral and catastrophic war in Iraq, and our complicity in the humiliation of the Word, these efforts will lack coherence and a vital center.

Franklin Graham, the evangelist (and son of Billy Graham), boasted that the American invasion of Iraq opens up exciting new opportunities for missions to non-Christian Arabs. This is not what the Hebrew or Christian prophets meant by righteousness and discipleship. In fact, the grotesque notion that preemptive war and the destruction of innocent life pave the way for the preaching of the Christian message strikes me as a mockery and a betrayal.

But if Franklin Graham speaks truthfully of the Christian faith and its mission in the world -- as many evangelicals seem to believe -- then we should have none of it. Rather, we should join the ranks of righteous unbelievers and big-hearted humanists who rage against cruelty and oppression with the intensity of people who live fully in this world. I am certain that it would be better for Christians to stand in solidarity with compassionate atheists and agnostics, firmly resolved against injustice and cruelty, than to sing "Amazing Grace" with the heroic masses who cannot tell the difference between the cross and the flag.

Charles Marsh is professor of religion and director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia. This essay is adapted from his new book, "Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity" (Oxford).

Cummings: Presidential Scholar Confronts President

2007-07-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

Published on Saturday, June 30, 2007 by the Boston Globe Presidential Scholar Confronts the President; Gives Bush Letter Decrying Torture"

by Claire Cummings

WELLESLEY — Usually, the high school seniors who win the federal government’s highest honor just go to the White House, pick up their Presidential Scholars medal, and get their picture taken for posterity with the president.

Mari Oye had other ideas.

In the Georgetown University dormitory the night before the big moment, the newly minted Wellesley High graduate persuaded 49 of her 140 fellow scholars to sign a letter she and a dozen others had drafted and she had just written longhand on notebook paper, calling on President Bush to reject torture and treat terrorism suspects humanely.

Text of the letter handed to President Bush by Mari Oye

Mr. President.

As members of the presidential scholars class of 2007, we have been told that we represent the best and brightest of our nation. Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to voice our convictions. We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.

Signed

Before the scholars posed for a photo with Bush on Monday, she handed him the letter. He put it in his pocket and took it out after the photo shoot. Reading silently to himself, the president looked up quizzically at Oye and said, according to her, “We agree. America doesn’t torture people.”

The minute-long confrontation earned the Yale-bound student a mention in The New York Times and other national media outlets. Dana Perino , White House deputy press secretary, also responded later Monday. “The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights,” Perino said.

Some other presidential scholars were not happy, saying that the letter’s presentation spoiled their moment.

“I’m sure we can all agree torture is not a good thing. It was just the means of how they were going about it,” said Amanda Berbert , 18, of Centerville, Utah.

Oye is not backing down.

“I really felt l could not just go down and smile for the camera and not say anything,” she said in an interview yesterday at her home. “There are some things that are more important than the decorum of protocol.”

A US Department of Education spokeswoman said yesterday the students who signed the letter would not be stripped of their scholar titles. “Freedom of speech is one of the cornerstones of our democracy and we’re glad American students are exercising a right that so many others around the world aren’t able to enjoy,” Katherine McLane said.

Oye, 18 , said her Quaker background has greatly influenced her activism, teaching her “to follow the course of what is right.” At Wellesley High, she helped an Afghan soap-making cooperative, founded by women under threat from the Taliban, find a market in the United States. She also found time to be on the school’s track and cross-country teams.

As a child, her mother said, Oye didn’t take naps because she said she “didn’t want to miss anything.” Oye was encouraged to speak up at the White House by her mother, Willa Michener , who regrets that when she was a presidential scholar in 1968, she did not tell President Lyndon B. Johnson about her opposition to the Vietnam War. Michener took the advice of her favorite teacher, who said there were other ways to protest.

“I would have defied my president, but I didn’t want to defy my beloved English teacher,” she said.

Michener, 55, a former lawyer for the US Treasury, said her daughter called her by cellphone to tell her what she had done while Michener was touring the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. “When she had the opportunity to make a statement, she took it so I was as pleased as could be,” she said yesterday.

Oye’s father, Kenneth, 57, an MIT professor who was on business in Switzerland, was proud when he was told, Michener said.

Oye said her activism was also influenced by her grandparents on her father’s side, who were in internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Her grandfather, George Oye , died this spring and she mentioned his experiences in the brief conversation with the president about the letter, she said.

“My grandfather was not angry or bitter after the internment, but he came out with a strong sense of wanting to help people,” she said.

Oye wasn’t trying to draw attention to herself, she said, but respectfully expressing a view that many Americans share.

“I don’t think there are enough opportunities for people to do that, whether they’re a general or Cabinet member or the American public,” she said. “With all the pain and suffering that happens around the world right now, it would have been extremely inappropriate not to use the opportunity to make a difference.”

She plans to study English or international relations in the fall. She said she has no idea what she wants to do, but insists politics is not in her future.

“I hope to never run for political office in my life.”

Bacevich: A Memorial Day Message

2007-05-28T16:25:00.000-05:00

I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty.

By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, May 27, 2007

Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.

Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.

This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. By encouraging "the terrorists," opponents of the Iraq conflict increase the risk to U.S. troops. Although the First Amendment protects antiwar critics from being tried for treason, it provides no protection for the hardly less serious charge of failing to support the troops -- today's civic equivalent of dereliction of duty.

What exactly is a father's duty when his son is sent into harm's way?

Among the many ways to answer that question, mine was this one: As my son was doing his utmost to be a good soldier, I strove to be a good citizen.

As a citizen, I have tried since Sept. 11, 2001, to promote a critical understanding of U.S. foreign policy. I know that even now, people of good will find much to admire in Bush's response to that awful day. They applaud his doctrine of preventive war. They endorse his crusade to spread democracy across the Muslim world and to eliminate tyranny from the face of the Earth. They insist not only that his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was correct but that the war there can still be won. Some -- the members of the "the-surge-is-already-working" school of thought -- even profess to see victory just over the horizon.

I believe that such notions are dead wrong and doomed to fail. In books, articles and op-ed pieces, in talks to audiences large and small, I have said as much. "The long war is an unwinnable one," I wrote in this section of The Washington Post in August 2005. "The United States needs to liquidate its presence in Iraq, placing the onus on Iraqis to decide their fate and creating the space for other regional powers to assist in brokering a political settlement. We've done all that we can do."

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others -- teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks -- to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."

To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party. After my son's death, my state's senators, Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, telephoned to express their condolences. Stephen F. Lynch, our congressman, attended my son's wake. Kerry was present for the funeral Mass. My family and I greatly appreciated such gestures. But when I suggested to each of them the necessity of ending the war, I got the brushoff. More accurately, after ever so briefly pretending to listen, each treated me to a convoluted explanation that said in essence: Don't blame me.

To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier -- brave and steadfast and irrepressible.

I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.

Andrew J. Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University. His son died May 13 after a suicide bomb explosion in Salah al-Din province.

Alberts: Christian Imperialism

2007-05-23T14:48:00.000-05:00

Christian Zealotry and the Occupation of Iraq:
Faith-Based Imperialism

By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

The very nature of Christianity is imperialistic. A resurrected Christ reportedly told his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore," he ordered them, "and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey [italics added] everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus' assumed resurrection is believed to be proof of his own unique divinity as the only Son of God and savior of the world. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," he is recorded as asserting. "No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) It is about authority and obedience far more than about individuality and equality. Thus Christianity is embraced by most adherents as "the highest revelation of God."

In the words of The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church: "We believe the Christian Church is the community of all true believers under the Lordship of Christ. . . . the redemptive fellowship in which the Word of God is preached by men divinely called . . . {It} exists for the . . . edification of believers and the redemption of the world" [italics added]. ("Article V The Church," pages 67, 68) Jesus' death on the cross is also central to many Christians imperialistic claim of possessing the global religious truth for all human beings. A favorite authoritative verse is John 3: 16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." [italics added] As the passion of the Christ-makers dictates: Jesus died on the cross "for the sins of the whole world," and whoever believes in his sacrificial act of atonement, as the only pure Son of God, will not perish but inherit eternal life. Thus may an otherwise theologically damned hell-bent humanity escape the eternal punishment of an otherwise loving god.

"The sins of the whole world?" It all started innocently enough, if one believes in the literal truth of the Bible. "In the beginning God created" Adam and Eve and a womb-like Garden of Eden for them. Unfortunately, they committed the "first" or "original" sin: they disobeyed their god by eating from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" and their "eyes [were] opened" and they became "wise . . . like God, knowing good and evil," which evidently was taboo. So an obedience-demanding, apparently jealous god banished them from the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3) Thus much of hierarchical and "bibliarchical" Christianity would have us believe that Adam and Eve actually existed, or represent mythical truth, and that their disobedience marks or symbolizes "the fall" of the human race: i.e. all human beings thereafter inherited Adam and Eve's disobedient, sinful nature. The only saving grace for all people is prayed often in many Christian churches: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of they tender mercy didst give thine only Son

Jesus Christ to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, who made there, by the offering of himself, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world." [italics added] ("The Great Thanksgiving," Holy Communion ritual, The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989, p.28)

"Original sin" of a real or mythical Adam and Eve? Or taking a bite to see the light, and cutting the "umbiblical" cord of patriarchy and moral obliviousness? Disobedience? Or individuation? Religion as power over people? Or as empowerment of people? Mindless? Or mindful of right and wrong?

On any given Sunday in almost any given Christian church one may hear professions of an ingrained imperialistic faith. It may be heard in a call to worship: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, . . . full of grace and truth. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known [italics added] (John 1).

On any given Sunday, faith-based imperial- ism may take wings in an opening hymn: "From all that dwell below the skies, let the Creator's praise arise; let the Redeemer's name be sung, through every land by every tongue." (Words: Isaac Watts; Music: John Hatton, The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 101)

A similar affirmation of an imperialistic faith, often said in unison in Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches, is the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; . . . rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and he will come to judge the living and the dead" [italics added]. ("Apostles' Creed," Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Faith-based imperialism may be reflected in the Scripture lesson read at a given Sunday service: "Therefore God has exalted him and bestowed on him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." [italics added] (Philippians 2:9-11) Then may follow "the Word of God . . . preached by men divinely called" to lead "the community of all true believers." Here again the emphasis is far more on believing than on being. Far more on submission and domination than on liberation and equality.

Faith-based imperialism is oblivious to its own self-contradictions. On any given Sunday one may hear the following prayer "For Peace": "Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace [italics added] as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever, Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, The Episcopal Church, 1979 p. 815) Here is unawareness of the "banners" under which people of other faiths may "glory."

At any given Sunday service, the closing hymn may sound an imperialistic note: "We've a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right, a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light . . . For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, and the dawning to noon-day bright; and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light." (Words and Music by Ernest Nichol, 1896, The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 569) And following the hymn, this benediction may be said: "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time now and forever. Amen" [italics added] (Jude 1: 24, 25)

Faith-based imperialism is especially seen in claims regarding which Christians represent "the one true church." Catholicism teaches it alone possesses "the keys to the Kingdom," since disciple Simon Peter, who became the first apostle, is recorded as recognizing Jesus' unique divinity: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and Jesus rewarded him with, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven . . ." [italics added] (Matthew 16: 16-19)

Citing the above Scripture as its authority, the Catechism of the Catholic Church stakes Catholicism's claim as the one true church: "This is the sole [italics added] Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic." (811, p. 232). The Catechism continues, "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church . . . subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in commune with him." (816, p. 234) The Catechism then reinforces its imperialistic authority: "The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: 'For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.'" [italics added] (Ibid) The Catholic Church's bottom line: "God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." (848, p.244) Faith-based imperialism, in Germany, in other European countries, and in America, made it easier for Hitler's fascist Nazi ideology to murder some six million Jews in the 1930's and 1940's.

If Catholics find their imperialistic authority in their Church, evangelical and other Christians find it in their Bible. Many evangelical Christian websites declare that salvation is not through any "church but through Jesus Christ alone." Christian Resources Net, for example, states Catholicism's position: "The Second Vatican Council Decree on Ecumenism explains: 'For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. Vertification: pg. 215, #816" But Catholicism is wrong because, "When checking God's Word on this subject, two critical facts leap out: 1. The Bible never remotely indicates that one must go through a church to obtain salvation. 2. Literally hundreds of Scriptures proclaim that salvation is a free gift from God, readily available to anyone, but only through Jesus Christ" [italics added). Christian Resources Net then proceeds to list at least 20 Scriptures, including, "Neither is there salvation in any other (except Jesus): for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4: 10,12" ("Catholic Beliefs vs. the Beliefs of God")

The historic pervasiveness of faith-based imperialism is seen in United Methodism's invitation to church membership: "The Church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time, for the conduct of worship and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments, the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline, the edification of believers and the conversion of the world. All of every age and station, stand in need of the means of grace which it alone supplies." [italics added] (The United Methodist Book of Worship, 1992, page 106) These words are in keeping with the mission of The United Methodist Church, which "affirms that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world, and Lord of all." And, "as we make disciples, we respect persons of all religious faiths and we defend religious freedom for all persons. . . . We embrace Jesus' mandates to love God and to love our neighbor and to make disciples of all peoples." [italics added] (The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2004, pp.87,88)

United Methodists, and other evangelical Christians, appear to want their "cake of superiority" and eat at the table of equality, too. How can one "respect persons of all religious faiths" and "love our neighbor" if the intent is to convert and "make disciples" of them? Such "respect" and "love" for "persons of all faiths" appear to be code words needed to rationalize the very opposite. Such evangelism reveals a subtle, inherent disrespect for "persons of all [other] religious faiths." It represents another example of the obliviousness of an imperialistic faith to its own self-contradiction.

Evangelical Christianity is imperialistic. It presupposes that one's religious belief is better than another's. That one's faith is superior and another's inferior. That one's religion is true and another's false. Here there is not respect but religiously code-worded disrespect and inequality, with ingrained paternalism and arrogance that assume, "My faith is best for you." Here another's reality is unconsciously interpreted rather than consciously experienced. Here there is the negating of another's identity and inherent worth and right to believe as he or she chooses and to be who she or he is.

Faith-based imperial- ism en- courages obliv- iousness to the rights and well-being of people of other religions. It is believed to restrict an evangelical Christian's capacity to identify with and perceive the reality of people of differing beliefs. It discourages walking in the shoes of different believers or non-believers. It violates the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you (Luke 6:31) It sets limits on empathy for and caring about what happens to persons beyond one's own "true believers." Where there is caring, it is often with proselytizing strings attached. It encourages an ethnocentric, "our kind" only interpretation of Jesus' commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39) Faith-based imperialism puts people of other faiths out of mind and out of sight, which obliviousness is subtle and pervasive and has deadly consequences.

Here there are prayers by ministers and priests at various public gatherings that often end with, "In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ"-as if only Christians were in attendance. Here there is an unsigned note placed on the altar of the interfaith chapel in a big metropolitan hospital: "A chapel without a cross? Is this what has happened to Christianity in our country? Sad" (underlined three times). Here there is President Bush's United Methodist minister, Rev. Kirbyson Caldwell, ending his Benediction at Bush's January 2001 Inauguration with, "We respectfully submit this humble prayer in the name that's above all other names [italics added], Jesus, the Christ. Let all who agree say amen." Here there is evangelical Christian-professing Bush himself justifying a criminal war against Iraq with, "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every man and woman in the world." ("Acceptance Speech to Republican Convention Delegates," The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2004) A "gift" wrapped in "shock and awe" bombs and brutal occupation. And here Bush's faith-based initiatives also serve to numb Christian consciences and buy support for a criminal war.

Christians, whose faith-based imperialism prevents them from being aware of the Jews and Muslims in their midst, are far more likely to be oblivious to the Jews and Muslims being oppressed around them-or beyond them by their government in their name. Thus can an unchallenged self-professing evangelical Christian President Bush say at a news conference, "I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace." (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003) And two weeks later unleash 21,000 pound "shock and awe" bombs on the people of Iraq-a war of choice planned by his administration long before the horrific 9/11/2001 attack against America which then served as a pretext for his criminal war.

The faith-based imperialism of many Christians apparently prevents them from perceiving the fear-mongering lies on which this "Jesus changed my heart"-president based his administration's unnecessary war. Belief in a superior faith and country may be preventing them from imagining and feeling the overwhelming death and destruction this falsely-based war is causing.

The facts should be shockingly clear by now. Saddam Hussein did not possess imminent "mushroom-cloud"-threatening weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the terrible 9/11/2001 attack against America. The person practicing a "game of deception" regarding weapons of mass destruction was not Hussein, as President Bush repeatedly charged, but Bush himself. War crimes against humanity, disguised as "Operation Iraqi Freedom," are being committed: hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children dead; the country's life-sustaining infrastructure devastated; some four million civilians forced to become refugees inside and outside their country; a deadly massive civil war raging, triggered by the US-led invasion and occupation; and thus far over 3400 American soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in body and mind, along with the terrible waste of our nation's resources.

The faith-based imperialism of Christians is assumed to well serve the Bush administration. A Christian evangelical-professing President Bush can attend an Easter service, where he again "prayed for peace at an Army post that has sent thousands of soldiers to Iraq." ("Prayer for Peace," The Boston Globe, Apr. 9, 2007) A public Easter "prayer for peace" for the ears of his god or for the eyes of Christians? The contradiction between his "prayer for peace" and his insistence that Congress continue to fund his war, with no timetable for withdrawal of troops attached, appears to still fall on many imperialistically conditioned minds and hearts.

The obliviousness of faith-based imperialism to its own self-contradiction was on display in President and Mrs. Bush's visit to Virginia Tech, after the shocking killing of thirty-one students and a professor by another student who then killed himself. A tragic heart-rending massacre in Virginia, leading to memorial scrvices throughout America. People readily identified with the victims and wept with their families, as did Bush and his wife, who hugged and shed tears with families and students. And Bush was quoted as saying, "Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. . . . They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone," he continued, "and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation." ("Bush offers condolences at Virginia Tech," Forbes.com, Apr. 17, 2007) Reported also was "first lady Laura Bush [who] said she met with two families that had lost their only child." She was then quoted, " ' The idea of that for any parent [italics added] is so devastating that it's hard for us to imagine what they are going through,' she told CBS News." (Ibid)

It is evidently "hard" for many Christians with an imperialistic mind-set to "imagine . . . any parent" in Iraq, never mind "what they are going through" in our name.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi mothers and fathers and sons and daughters "leaving behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."-because of Bush himself and his neo-conservative advisors. All one had to do was read the headlines before and after the horrible killings at Virginia Tech: "Dozens killed in violence across Iraq" ( The Boston Globe, April 11, 2007); "85 people found dead across Iraq," (The Boston Globe, Apr. 18, 2007); "Bombs Rip Through Baghdad in Wave of Attacks, Killing 171," (The New York Times, Apr. 19, 2007); "Suicide car bomb kills 9 US soldiers," (The Boston Globe, Apr. 24, 2007); "Dozens killed in bomb attack in Shiite Shrine," (The New York Times, Apr. 29, 2007). Tragically, faith-based imperialism fails to make the connection between Blacksburg and Baghdad. "Those who lives were taken, did nothing to deserve their fate." "The idea of that for any parent is so devastating that it's hard for us to imagine."

The failure of faith-based imperialism to recognize its own self-contradiction is especially seen in another response of President Bush to the horrible killings at Virginia Tech. When asked what lesson might be drawn from it, he responded, " 'Make sure when you see somebody, know somebody exhibiting abnormal behavior,' do something about it." ("Bush seeks war support in small Ohio town," Los Angeles Times, Apr. 19, 2007).

When you see somebody . . . exhibiting abnormal behavior?" The person "exhibiting" the most dangerous "abnormal behavior" is President Bush himself:

Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of mass deaths and destruction. Facing the evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof-and the smoking gun that would come in the form of a 'mushroom cloud.' ("President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat," Cincinnati Ohio, The White House, Oct. 7, 2002);

I pray daily, I pray for wisdom and guidance and strength. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace. (The New York Times, Mar. 7, 2003);

Tomorrow is a moment of truth [italics added] for the world. ("President Bush: March 'Moment of Truth' for World in Iraq," The White House, Mar. 17, 2003);

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. . . . Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision, and speed, and boldness the world has never seen before. . . . You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces. This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. ("Test of Bush Speech: President declares end to major combat in Iraq," CBS NEWS, May 1, 2003) "Mission accomplished."

I pray daily . . . for wisdom and guidance and strength. . . . I pray for peace.

There are some that feel like if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they are talking about if that is the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on.' ("Bush warns militants who attack U.S. troops in Iraq," by Sean Loughlin, CNN.com/inside politics, July 3, 2003)

I pray daily. . . . I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind. . . . I see dangers that exist and its important for us to deal with them. ("Bush sets case as 'war president,'" BBC NEWS, Feb. 8, 2004)

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Islamic fascists. Evil doers. All they can think about is evil. Flat evil. Killers. Murderers of women and children. Terrorists. Lenin and Hitler [types]. [A never-ending] global war on terrorism. They want to create a unified totalitarian Islamic state and destroy the free world. A struggle for civilization. The war on terror . . . is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st Century and the calling of our generation.

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. . . . It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through. . . . Congress can do its part by passing the war-spending bill without strings [a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq] and without delay. ("Bush Pleads for Patience in Iraq on War's Anniversary," by David Stout, The New York Times, Mar. 19, 2007)

I pray for peace. I pray for peace.

The faith-based imperialism of many Christians is believed to have enabled and accommodated the "I pray for peace" psychopathic insanity of the most dangerous man on the face of the earth. The "I pray for wisdom and guidance and strength" evangelical Christian President who uses "God" and "freedom" and bended knee to murder and maim and displace millions of children of "any parent" in Iraq, who "were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." The pious President who brings not the biblical "oil of gladness" to Iraq but who seeks to oil America's military-industrial-complex there and to control the oil under its ground. The "war president" whose intent is not to liberate but occupy Iraq and use its land as a military base for his administration's aim to dominate "the darkest corners of our [Muslim] world . . . [with] this untamed fire of freedom." ("Transcript of President Bush's Inaugural Address," (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005)

Many Christians have allowed President Bush to get away with mass murder. Their faith-based imperialism is short-sighted and narrow-minded: it apparently cannot see or feel beyond its own kind-unless there are evangelistic strings attached.

Faith-based imperialism is self-deceptive because it is unreflective. An insecure person's overriding need for authority and certainty can lead him or her to give up the inalienable right to think for herself or himself. Here Adam and Eve's eating of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is interpreted as evil rather than as good. Their "sin" was opening their "eyes" and knowing the difference between good and evil. Here obedience is the cardinal virtue and critical thinking for oneself the cardinal sin. Here religion is about authority not authenticity. Here is where a deluded political or religious leader gets much of his and her power. Here one is told which neighbor to love and which to hate. Here the Jesus of history is kept in the shadows of a resurrected Christ. Here salvation is re-interpreted as an individual matter apart from institutionalized political and economic realities that greatly determine who, in the gospel words of Jesus, may actually "have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10)

Faith-based imperialism does violence to the reality of oppressed people-Jewish and Muslim-and obscures what Jesus was really about. He was not about dying for the sins of the world so that believers everywhere could inherit eternal life, but about setting at liberty the oppressed Jews in his country from Roman occupation. (Luke 4:18) The great conspiracy of the early Christian Church was turning Jesus' model of liberation from an oppressive state into one of accommodation to the state. Why? It is safer today, as in the past, to believe that Jesus died for the sins of the world than to join in seeking, as he did, to rid the world of political, corporate and military sins that deny other people their birthright of freedom and fulfillment to be who they are. It is safer to worship a

liberator than to follow in his liberation footsteps. Tellingly, the imperialistic command of a resurrected Christ to his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," was a Christological formulation of the early Christian Church created long after Jesus and his disciples lived.

The early Christians apparently stood history on its head in order to put a resurrected Jesus on his feet-and give him legs and wings. They transported him from a political to a theological realm in order to survive, evangelize and flourish in the Roman world. (See Alberts, "Decoding the Coders of Christ," Counterpunch, June 14, 2006)

Religion is doing what the prophets worshiped not worshiping what they did. Jesus was recorded as emphasizing an often overlooked way to eternal life: by behavior, not be belief. When a lawyer tested him by asking, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered that the greatest commandments were the way: love of one's god and one's neighbor as oneself. "Do this [italics added] he said, and you will live." (Luke 10:25-28)

Jesus did not say which neighbor to love. Nor specify the neighbor's race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation. Which evidently led the lawyer to test Jesus further by asking, "And who is my neighbor?" And Jesus said any person robbed of life and in need of a Good Samaritan. And there were no proselytizing strings attached. (Ibid, 10:29-37) Jesus is quoted as saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." (Matthew 5:9) He warned about "hypocrites [who] love to stand and pray . . . so that they may be seen by others." (Matthew 6:5) "Hypocrites," in our day, who publicly "pray for peace" and really have the power to make peace but use it to make war. "Hypocrites" whose deception is based on their belief that Americans are in awe of authority and stupid.

The Bible says Jesus transcended faith-based imperialism with, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies . . . so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun shine on the evil and the good, and send his rain on the just and on the unjust." And his anti-imperialistic bottom line: "If you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing then others? [italics added] (Matthew 5:43-47)

Many Christians do more than love only those who love them. The Jesus of history has inspired people of faith to cross sectarian, nationalistic, and racial borders and embrace people everywhere as sisters and brothers. Such Christians believe that their god's steeple is the aspirations of all people. His alter the common ground on which everyone walks. And Jesus' cross the oppression from which any individual or group is seeking to liberate himself or herself or itself. They are "peacemakers," and oppose our country's criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq. They sing another hymn: "O young and fearless Prophet of ancient Galilee, thy life is still a summons to serve humanity; to make our thoughts and actions less prone to please the crowd, to stand with humble courage for truth with hearts uncowed." ("O Young and Fearless Prophet," words by S. Ralph Harlow; Music by John B Dykes) Hymnal of The United Methodist Church, 1989, p.444) These Christians have moved beyond faith-based imperialism to faith-based "humanity." And more movement by people of faith is especially needed now.

Just as state and local governments are passing resolutions calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, people of faith should censure them in their own local, regional and general bodies. And The United Methodist Church should be out in front of such a movement as Bush and Cheney are Methodists. People of faith should also urge Congress to impeach them for their war crimes and to really "support the troops" by ending this criminal war now and bringing them home to their loved ones and communities. Religion is about "knowing good and evil" and being "peacemakers."

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain, and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion. This article is being presented as an address on May 27, 2007 at The Community Church of Boston where Rev. Alberts was minister from 1978 to 1991. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

Bandow: Who Would Jesus Kill?

2007-05-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

Who Would Jesus Kill?

by Doug Bandow

Religion, not patriotism, truly is the last refuge of the scoundrel. While most believers want to worship God and serve their fellow human beings, a few people twist the sacred for personal and political profit. Indeed, claiming that "God is on my side" plays the ultimate trump in any dispute.

Yet ambitious fraudsters are usually found out. More dangerous are those who genuinely believe that they are commanded to do ill. When bad policy is perceived as divine dogma, innocent people inevitably suffer.

So it has been with the Iraq war. Some self-professed Christians have so fervently backed the conflict that they might as well be sporting wristbands emblazoned with the slogan, "Who Would Jesus Kill?"

Today most people of faith believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The strongest opposition, according to a recent Gallup poll, comes from black Protestants, 78% to 18%, and Jews, 77%-21%. Catholics followed, with 53% to 46%.

But Mormons backed the war, 72% to 27%. White Protestants continued to support the conflict, 55% to 43%. Evangelicals have been among the Bush administration's most consistent backers. Although even their support for the war has dropped, last fall 58 percent of evangelicals still endorsed the invasion.

Moreover, many of the most important and visible members of the Religious Right, from the late Jerry Falwell to Pat Robertson of the 700 Club to James Dobson of Focus on the Family to Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, backed President George W. Bush's decision to go do war. The image is jarring: followers of the Prince of Peace enthusiastically advocating war, celebrating the decision to loose death and destruction upon other peoples.

The problem of war has long bedeviled Christendom. Pacifism is the most consistent Christian response. But pacifism does not prevent war or end violence. It only changes who triumphs after violence is unleashed.

In some cases, where war was begun over essentially frivolous causes between largely civilized powers with extremely limited ends, nonresistance might be the best, that is, least harmful, policy. However, in cases of aggression by evil, malignant powers, pacifism would expand the scope and magnify the consequences of evil. Unfortunately, war almost always presents Christians with difficult moral choices in complex geopolitical situations.

The ancient doctrine of "just war" should aid Christians in making such judgments. War must be a last resort; the authority waging war must be legitimate; the force employed must be proportional to the injury; non-combatants must not to be targeted; the war must be fought to redress a wrong; there must be a reasonable chance of success; the ultimate goal must be to reestablish peace. Unfortunately, however, though these principles are sound, they have been routinely used by war advocates to justify even the most dubious conflicts. Including Iraq.

Instead of critically reviewing the case for and against invading that nation, many evangelicals blithely accepted the Bush administration's war rationale. They implicitly trusted the president, their co-religionist, relying on the administration's dubious (and quickly discredited) claims.

For instance, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson cited administration arguments in explaining that just war theory should be "stretched" to include preemption of terrorism. He added: "Of course, all of this presupposes solid intelligence and the goodwill of U.S. and Western leaders." Alas, it turns out that such intelligence was entirely lacking.

Richard Land pointed to Hussein's development "at breakneck speed of weapons of mass destruction he plans to use against America and her allies" and the "direct line from those who attacked the U.S. [on 9/11] back to the nation of Iraq." Of course, both claims were false.

Other evangelical leaders made a humanitarian case for war. James Dobson argued that "we are faced with another brutal tyrant. Saddam Hussein must be stopped. Appeasement of tyrants is never successful." Gary Bauer, Chairman of Campaign for Working Families, observed that "Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a hell hole of torture and mass murder" and that "he allowed Iraq to become a safe haven for terrorists."

Rev. Falwell entitled one article "God is Pro-War." Until Christ's return, he contended, "Christians must live as Galatians 6:2 instructs: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ'." Charles Stanley, pastor of Atlanta's First Baptist Church, argued that there are "biblical grounds" for a government to go to war "to liberate others in the world who are enslaved."

Scripture does tell believers to lay down their lives for others. But it does not instruct Christians to lay down other people's lives, as in taking the nation into war. Believers get no credit from instructing other people to do the sacrificing. Moreover, the consequences of the Iraq war and occupation – horrific violence and hundreds of thousands of deaths – is anything but humanitarian.

A number of religious leaders now rely on a bootstrap argument: the U.S. cannot leave because of what Iraq has become after the president followed their earlier advice to invade. That is, Washington must clean up the geopolitical mess that it created. In this view, the explosion of terrorist activity and sustained slaughter means the U.S. obviously cannot (and perhaps never can) leave. Said James Dobson of President Bush: "When it comes to the threat of terror, he gets it." Richard Land contended that evangelicals "want Iraq to become a stable democracy and they're not willing to give up yet."

But the Bible emphasizes the importance of wisdom, which naturally leads to prudence in making public policy. Indeed, James explained: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." (James 1:5) The exercise of this wisdom suggests that the continuing occupation of Iraq is creating more terrorism and more deaths. Godly wisdom also counsels against increasing human sacrifice on behalf of goals that appear to be growing ever more distant.

Some on the Religious Right emphasized politics over policy. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church denounced war opponents: "Why any churchman would choose to support [Saddam Hussein's regime] rather than to support our own president, I don't know." Pat Robertson, who previously had kind words for African dictators Mobutu Sese Seko and Charles Taylor, announced in late 2005 that "carping criticism" of President Bush "amounts to treason." Although scripture enjoins prayer for and obedience to the political authorities, it does not demand blind support for bad, indeed, catastrophic (and arguably immoral), policy decisions by those leaders.

Finally, a desire to spur evangelism may have animated some on the Religious Right to back the war. Roberta Combs of the Christian Coalition argued in November 2003: "In the new country, under the new democracy, why should the official religion be Muslim? I think as Iraq becomes a democracy, there are going to be a lot of churches springing up." Although a bevy of Christian ministries moved into Iraq after the U.S. invasion, the subsequent explosion of violence has ended most organized proselytizing. Moreover, as many as half of Iraq's historic Christian community has fled the country in response to rising persecution. In short, Christians are now among the biggest victims of U.S. policy.

Obviously, people of good will can differ on the justification for any war, including Iraq. Christians can legitimately, though unpersuasively, in my view, believe that this war was necessary and just. However, the pro-war claims by leading representatives of American evangelicalism are embarrassing – actually, shockingly humiliating – after four years of war. Especially since few of the religious warriors even now are willing to reflect on the wisdom of their support for a war that has failed disastrously. For the most part, big-name evangelicals continue to believe that there was nothing wrong with initiating aggressive war against Iraq. Rather, they essentially see the problem as Washington's failure to kill enough Iraqis. (Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals was one of the few to be pained by the consequences of the war. Richard Land argued that the problems in Iraq were caused by an inadequate number of troops. Several other war advocates refused to respond when I contacted them.)

The evangelical community has softened a bit in its support for the war, but it remains among the deepest reservoirs of administration support. While the war may have dampened turnout last fall, most conservative Christians stuck with the administration. Those who drifted away did so out of disgust with the Mark Foley scandal or GOP spending abuses more than because of Iraq. After the election white evangelicals were far more likely to cite values than the war as the most important election issue.

Further evidence of conservative Christian enthusiasm for the Iraq war is surprising support for Rudy Giuliani for president. More white Protestants back Giuliani than the other leading Republicans even though he is a social liberal. They point to his tough attitude towards terrorism, apparently conflating Iraq with efforts to prevent new terror attacks.

Continuing conservative Christian support for the war centers around three arguments: 1) terrorists must be defeated; 2) freedom must be guaranteed for the Iraqi people; and 3) Israel must be safeguarded. The sad irony is that the war makes all three goals harder to achieve.

Iraq has created a cause celebre that has spurred terrorist recruitment, both of Iraqis and jihadists in nations around the world, including Britain, Indonesia, and Spain, all of which have suffered devastating terrorist attacks. Iraq also has created a perfect training ground for urban terrorism; the problem is likely to worsen so long as the U.S. occupies the country.

America's presence in Iraq has not and will not create a liberal, capitalist, democratic state. The primary problem for Iraq is sectarian division, not terrorism, which is exacerbated by the U.S. occupation. Ultimately, only the Iraqis will be able to find the path to peace and unity. Washington erred in believing that it could impose a Western political order on Iraq, that the latter possessed the underlying civic culture and civil institutions necessary for a functioning liberal democracy. Unfortunately, the U.S. invasion unleashed untold death and violence rather than civic mindedness and religious tolerance. Washington must not commit the further mistake of assuming that a continuing military occupation can create the necessary culture and institutions.

As for Israel, there is no special Christian duty to what is, after all, a secular nation ruled by atheists. Modern Israel shares geography with ancient Israel, nothing more. Anyway, Israel is a regional superpower capable of deterring any of its neighbors; many proud Israelis bridle at the image of their nation as a helpless pygmy requiring Washington's protection.

Israel's primary problem is internal: how to maintain a state that is both Jewish and democratic while occupying territory containing several million Muslim Palestinians. Christian supporters of Israel face the same conundrum, since the dictates of Biblical justice apply to Palestinians no less than to Israelis. The path to peace is never going to be easy, but by stoking Islamist passions the U.S. occupation of Iraq inflames still further Arab antagonism towards Israel and increases the terrorist forces likely to turn their eventual attention to Israel. Indeed, many Israelis today fear the spread of al-Qaeda to the territories, perhaps the one Muslim area yet free of bin Laden's pestilent activities.

All of these arguments, then, recommend an American withdrawal from Iraq. The administration's case for continued occupation is based on the same ideological fantasies which led to the initial invasion. The Bush administration and its neoconservative Greek chorus have been wrong about every issue – Iraq's WMD threat and terrorist ties; the reception to be accorded U.S. troops; the popularity of Iraqi exiles maneuvering for power; the number of American soldiers and amount of American money necessary for reconstruction; the willingness of other nations to aid the U.S. effort; the evolution of a tolerant and liberal Iraqi democracy; and the spread of pro-American democracies throughout the Middle East. No one should treat seriously the administration's latest promises of progress in Iraq. American evangelicals, in particular, should stop being fooled simply because the president shares their theology.

Of course, Iraq is not the only foreign policy issue for the Religious Right. Many of the movement's forays into international issues have been modest – backing legislation to pressure North Korea on human rights and combat AIDS in Africa. Evangelicals such as Richard Land also are pressing immigration reform which combines improved border control with legalization of the millions who already have entered America.

However, religious conservatives increasingly are promoting military action abroad. More than a century ago President William McKinley claimed that he prayerfully decided to seize the Philippines after ousting Spain in the Spanish-American war – an occupation resulted in hundreds of thousands of needless deaths among Filipinos who resisted U.S. imperialistic control. But later it was religious progressives who seemed most enthused about war, enthusiastically campaigning for Woodrow Wilson's supposed crusade for democracy in World War I, for instance.

Today, however, some evangelicals promote conflict all over. A number of Christians put the interests of Israel ahead of those of America. (A more benign interpretation is that they view the most extreme policies of Israel's Likud party as also benefiting the U.S., but the practical consequences are the same.) So-called Christian Zionists demand that Washington support Israel irrespective of its actions, so long as Israel is expanding at the expense of surrounding Arab populations. For instance, evangelical leaders ranging from John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, to James Dobson did more than just support Israel's invasion of Lebanon; they urged Israel to attack more broadly and fiercely.

Some evangelicals also target Iran. Dobson, trading his expertise in family psychology for opinions in foreign policy, recently compared Iran's president to Adolf Hitler. Dobson then proclaimed: "somebody ought to be standing up and saying, 'We are being threatened and we are going to meet this with force – whatever's necessary'."

Intervention in Sudan, though predominantly a left-wing cause, also has gained traction among the Religious Right. Last October a couple of dozen evangelical leaders, including such Iraq war enthusiasts as Richard Land, signed a letter supporting military action in Sudan. So does Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), the evangelical turned Catholic running for president.

A preference for hawkish intervention influences other political issues. For instance, last fall Concerned Women of America called for the confirmation of John Bolton as UN ambassador. Although well-qualified for the post, Bolton is highly controversial, a partisan lightening rod loved by the right and detested by the left. CWA cited Bolton's "background and credentials," leaving unexplained why his appointment was a religious issue.

None of these positions is ipso facto illegitimate. But Christians should be particularly humble before advocating war. War means killing, of innocent and criminal alike. It means destroying the social stability and security that creates an environment conducive for people to worship God, raise families, create communities, work productively, and achieve success – in short, to enjoy safe and satisfying lives. Wars rarely turn out as expected, and the unintended consequences, as in Iraq, often are catastrophic.

Indeed, in Iraq the U.S. has essentially killed hundreds of thousands of people in the name of humanitarianism. Christians, even more than their unbelieving neighbors, should be pained by the horror of sectarian conflict unleashed by the actions of their government with their support. Believers especially should eschew nationalistic triumphalism in pursuit of war. And when they err, like predicting health, wealth, liberty, and happiness in occupied Iraq, they should acknowledge fault – and seek forgiveness. At the very least they should exhibit humility before saddling their white horses to begin another crusade.

Thankfully, some religious activists have begun to fight for the political soul of Christian warrior wannabees. There is a small evangelical religious (and antiwar) left, represented by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine, for instance

The website Believers Against the War warns: "many of God's people have forsaken the gospel of Christ and turned their hearts toward the corrupted teachings of men. Political allegiances have been bought in exchange for the love of sound doctrine – many are being led astray." The group advocates that believers "learn what the Bible has to say about peace," talk to their ministers, protest against the war, contact legislators and journalists, learn about the military, and pray. Believers against the War asserts simply: "The war in Iraq is ungodly, immoral, and unconstitutional – and we should pull all of our combat troops out immediately!"

Another like-minded group is KingdomCitizenship.org. Founder Timothy L. Price is no pacifist, but understandably worries that "to America's enemies, Jesus, who is the alleged focus of Christianity, becomes the advocate of the invaders as He was in the Crusades." Price appropriately asserts "the Kingdom of God as wholly separate from America or its interests."

There is no one Christian foreign policy. Christians and other people of faith can legitimately disagree about the validity of war, including Iraq, and its consequences. But by any measure Iraq today is a disaster, the product of a very un-Christian mix of callousness, ignorance, partisanship, selfishness, incompetence, and hubris. The experience in Iraq should prompt religious conservatives to step back in humility and reconsider their tendency to confuse ideology with theology, and politics with faith. The debacle in Iraq has discredited much of America's political establishment, but perhaps none more than members of the Religious Right. Followers of the Prince of Peace should be particularly ashamed of serving as the apostles of war.

Carroll: The Disappearance of War-Broken Soldiers

2007-05-12T20:06:00.000-05:00

The Disappearance of War-Broken Soldiers

by James Carroll

My earliest memory of a trip to the doctor is a happy one. I was 6 or 7. I had hurt my arm, and, because I desperately wanted a cast and a sling, I insisted it was broken. I remember that the doctor was kind, and he gently let me know that my arm was only sprained. Nevertheless, he wrapped it in a tan elastic bandage, and prescribed a sling for me. One of the reasons I loved that sling was its brown color. It was an Army sling. Because we were a military family, the hospital where Mom had taken me was Walter Reed.

For many years my associations with that complex of Georgian brick buildings in the far northwest of Washington were only positive. I grew up believing that military medicine is the best in the world, and that that was especially so in Washington. My father received comprehensive care in his last years at Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base, and my elderly mother had a major operation at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. The recent revelations of shoddy care offered to soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan at Walter Reed were doubly shocking to me. Last week, a special commission reported that those failures were the result of bureaucratic mismanagement, but I wondered — was something else at work in the way those soldiers were treated?

Bethesda is the key. Around the time of my visit to Walter Reed, James Forrestal, recently retired secretary of Defense, was admitted to Bethesda as a patient, and I now understand his welfare was not the hospital’s paramount concern. This was the spring of 1949, and tensions with the Soviet Union were running high. Forrestal had stoked those tensions, helping to put in place what might now be reckoned a paranoid foreign policy. That was why, when he had a psychological breakdown — he was found catatonic in his Pentagon office, he was reported seen running through the streets in his pajamas crying “The Russians are coming!” — the clinical paranoia of the secretary of Defense was treated as a national secret. When Forrestal was admitted to Bethesda, he was not assigned to the locked psychiatric ward on the first floor because of the questions that would raise. Instead, he was put in the unsupervised VIP suite on the 16th floor. May 22, he killed himself by jumping from the unbarred window of his bedroom.

No one at the Navy hospital wished Forrestal ill, but keeping his condition secret was more important than keeping him safe. So-called national security trumped patient health, which resulted in unacknowledged pressures on diagnosis and treatment. “Operational fatigue” was the condition which Navy doctors ascribed to Forrestal, establishing appearances that all he needed was a little rest. This concern for public perception led directly to tragedy. In the culture of neglect at today’s Walter Reed, the commitment may be defined as a contrary one , since the object of public perception is not appearances, but disappearances. War-broken soldiers must disappear.

For reasons of national security — namely, to shore up popular support for war policy — the Defense Department has long underplayed the tragic consequences of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Returning corpses (soon to number 4,000) are shrouded in secrecy. The suffering of the wounded (more than 26,000) is kept out of the nation’s awareness. It is not that the medical professionals at Walter Reed are callous or uncaring. It is that the entire system is geared to making the men and women who carry visible signs of the war’s cost slide back into the general population unnoticed. An inhospitable hospital serves that purpose. Mold infested walls of the Walter Reed housing units are the functional equivalent of unbarred windows at Bethesda.

Of all of the lies that the Bush administration has promoted, none is more egregious than that it “supports the troops.” Unlike the others, that lie holds. In its name, Bush vetoed the war appropriations bill last week, as if the welfare of young and vulnerable soldiers is his chief concern. American soldiers are pawns in the game the president is playing with history. No longer capable of pretending that national security requires American presence in Iraq, Bush is simply refusing to acknowledge that what he did was wrong. He’s like a child insisting that his arm is broken, when it isn’t. In Bush’s case, the fake dressing for which he longs are human lives.

James Carroll’s column appears regularly in The Boston Globe.

Short: "If Jesus Christ was here today . . ."

2007-05-03T18:12:00.000-05:00

MP Clare Short Slams Lack of Christian Radicalism

May 1, 2007 - Ekklesia

Clare Short MP, the former Secretary of State for International Development, has spoken of her belief that the world’s richest countries are collaborating in slavery today in the same way Christian Churches collaborated in the Slave Trade over 200 years ago.

Speaking outside The Royal Exchange in the City of London earlier today at JustShare’s annual May Day event, she claimed modern day slavery is part of a vicious circle that will not disappear until we in the developed world change our whole attitude to how we live our lives.

“You can’t take the evil of slavery out of the world and abolish it without making the world more just,” she said. “You will never prevent people living in bonded labour or from getting caught up in sex trafficking while they are so desperate that they have no other choice but to sell themselves. As long as we in the West crave ever more excess, we conspire in their desperation, exploiting it and make ourselves sick in the process. We are well off, yet our society has never been more miserable. We suffer today from the disease of excess, from obesity, drug and alcohol abuse and resulting family breakdown. We must change the way we live, change the way the world is governed and create a new world order, both for ourselves and globally.”

Ms. Short also highlighted the necessity to curb excess for environmental reasons and attacked the lack of action on the part of the churches when it came to campaigning for social and economic justice. “If Jesus Christ was here today he would not be pleased with us,” she said. “I think he would be stunned by the wealth of the churches and their lack of radicalism.”

Joel Edwards of the Evangelical Alliance backed her words, calling on Christians to “fight the evil that exploits vulnerable women trafficked into prostitution in our city and ask questions about the migrant workers who break their backs to produce our cut-price food.” While standing, as he put it, “in one of the richest and most powerful square miles in the world,” he called on those present to “look at the image of God” in people enslaved by global poverty and inequality, and harness their power as “consumers, business or fund managers to demand justice.”

Aiden McQuade, the Director of Antislavery International provided some hope for the future at the JustShare event: “There are 12 million people enslaved worldwide today and each one represents a devastating blow to lives and hopes,” he said. “But we must remember that slavery, at the time it was abolished, was as fundamental to the Western economy as oil is today. Today offers us the chance to reflect on the past and in it find inspiration for the future.”

JustShare is a coalition of churches and development agencies seeking seeks to address the widening gap between rich and poor in the global economy. JustShare encourages dialogue with banks and financial institutions in the City of London in order to achieve positive change. It holds regular debates, training seminars and other events to promote justice for the poorest in the world and a just share of the world’s resources for all.

Ifill: Trash Talk Radio

2007-04-10T17:07:00.000-05:00

Published on Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Trash Talk Radio
by Gwen Ifill

Let’s say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.

The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.

I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.

Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.

It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week.”

Carroll: Americans Face a Moral Reckoning

2007-03-26T16:13:00.000-05:00

Americans Face A Moral Reckoning
by James Carroll

You have been reading The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, the classic account of what in Vietnam is called the American war. The title of Bao Ninh’s novel captures the feeling of grief and loss that always comes in the wake of violent conflict. Allowing room for fear, grief, and loss must define the dominant experience in Iraq today, where the suffering caused by this American war mounts inexorably.

But sorrow has also emerged as a note of life in the Unites States lately. Many comparisons are drawn between this nation’s misadventures in Iraq and Vietnam, but what you are most aware of is the return of a clenched feeling in your chest, a knot of distressed sadness that is tied to your country’s reiteration of the tragic error. After the chaotic end of the Vietnam War in 1975, you were like many Americans in thinking with relief that the nation would never know — or cause — such sorrow again.

The sorrow is back. Everywhere you go, friends greet one another with a choked acknowledgment of a nearly unspeakable frustration at what unfolds in Iraq. This seems true whether people oppose the war absolutely, or only on pragmatic terms; whether they want US troops out at once, or over time. Even about those distinctions, little remains to be said. Bush’s contemptuous carelessness, his inner circle’s corrupt enabling, the Pentagon’s dependable launching of folly after folly, the Democrats’ ineffectual kibitzing, even your heartfelt concern for the troops — these subjects have exhausted themselves. The “surge” of the January escalation was preceded by the surge of public anguish that resulted in Republican losses in November. That election was a stirring rejection of the administration’s purposes in Iraq, a rejection promptly seconded by the Iraq Study Group. But so what? Bush’s purposes hold steady, and their poison tide now laps at Iran.

Why should you not be demoralized and depressed? But the sorrow of war goes deeper than the mistaken policies of a stubborn president. Next to Bao Ninh’s book on your shelf stands The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson. That title suggests how far into the bone of your nation the pins of this problem are sunk. In effect, the disastrous American war in Iraq is the text, while America’s militarized way of being in the world is the context. Armed power at the service of US economic sway has made a putative enemy of a vast population around the globe, and that enemy’s vanguard are the terrorists. Violent opposition to the American agenda increases with each surge from Washington, whatever its character. Both text and context reveal that every dream of empire brings sorrow, obviously so to the victims of imperial violence, but also to the imperial dreamers, whether or not they consciously associate with what is being done in their name.

But the word sorrow implies more than grief and loss. The palpable sadness of a people reluctantly at war can push toward a fuller moral reckoning with the condition of a nation that has made its own economic supremacy an absolute value. To take on the question of an economy advanced with little regard for its sustainability, much less for its justice, implies a move away from the focus on Bush’s venality to a broader responsibility. How do the sorrows of war and empire implicate you?

The simplest truth is that the economic system that so benefits you is steadily eroding democracy by transferring the power to shape the future, both within states and among them, to ever smaller elites. At the same time, wealth multiplies and concentrates itself, while impoverishing more and more human beings. Everything from US oil consumption, to global trade structures, to the iron law of cheap labor, to immigration policies, to the psychology of the gated community, to the gated idea of national sovereignty, to the distractions of celebrity culture — all of this supports what is called the American way of life. Yours. If finally seen to be the source of multiple sorrows at home and abroad, can this way of life prompt a deeper confrontation with its true costs and consequences? You need not reduce social ills to personal morality — or let Bush off the hook for his wholly owned war — to acknowledge the complicity attached to mere citizenship in a war-making, imperial nation. In that case, can you measure your sorrow against the word’s other meaning, which is contrition?

James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Boston Globe.

James Carroll was born in Chicago in 1943, and raised in Washington where his father, an Air Force general, served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Carroll attended Georgetown University before entering the seminary to train for the Catholic priesthood. He received BA and MA degrees from St. Paul’s College, the Paulist Fathers’ seminary in Washington, and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. Carroll served as Catholic Chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974 and then left the priesthood to become a writer.

In 1974 Carroll was Playwright-in-Residence at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, MA. In 1976 he published his first novel, Madonna Red, which was translated into seven languages. Since then he has published nine additional novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Mortal Friends (1978), Family Trade (1982), and Prince of Peace (1984). His novels The City Below (1994) and Secret Father (2003) were named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times. Carroll’s essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Daedalus, and other publications. His op-ed page column has run weekly in the Boston Globe since 1992.

Carroll’s memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, received the 1996 National Book Award in nonfiction and other awards. His book Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, published in 2001, was a New York Times bestseller and was honored as one of the Best Books of 2001 by the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and others. It was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, and won the Melcher Book Award, the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award, and National Jewish Book Award in History. Responding to the Catholic sex abuse crisis in 2002, Carroll published Toward A New Catholic Church: The Promise of Reform. In 2004 he published Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War, adapted from his Boston Globe columns since 9/11. In May 2005, he published House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, a history of the Pentagon, which the Chicago Tribune called “the first great non-fiction book of the new millennium.”

Carroll is a regular participant in on-going Jewish-Christian-Muslim encounters at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Carroll is a member of the Council of PEN-New England, which he chaired for four years. He has been a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School. He is a trustee of the Boston Public Library, a member of the Advisory Board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University, and a member of the Dean’s Council at the Harvard Divinity School. Carroll is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University.

James Carroll lives in Boston with his wife, the novelist Alexandra Marshall. They have two grown children.

Ramesh: An Activist Returns to the Novel

2007-03-11T15:42:00.001-05:00

An Activist Returns To The Novel
by Randeep Ramesh

Many had written off the chances that Arundhati Roy would return to the world of fiction. Her astounding first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Booker in 1997. Ten years and 6 million copies later there was still no repeat of the lyrical, whirling debut. Instead Roy turned to lobbing literary Molotov cocktails at Enron, George Bush's war on terror and the World Trade Organisation in the form of incendiary polemics. No one could accuse her of having writers' block: she churned out six books, collections of her essays with titles such as Power Politics and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire.

Dispensing with story-writing, she pursued a career in social activism, appearing at anti-war rallies and using her celebrity to raise the profiles of unfashionable causes - Kashmiris on death row, the rights of tribal communities in India, hardscrabble suicides in the country's farming belt.

But recently the 45-year-old quietly announced that she would be stepping back from the public stage to write her second novel. The last person to know, apparently, was her agent, David Godwin, who had negotiated for her a million-dollar advance for The God of Small Things. "David rang me saying, 'Why did you not tell me? I have had hundreds of calls from publishers.' I thought it was so funny, I mean let's have a bidding war for a non-existent book," Roy says.

Sitting in her Delhi rooftop flat, whose dark tiled and light wood-lined interior the former architecture student designed, Roy says she has already begun writing the new novel but has no idea when it will be finished. The whisper was that it would be about Kashmir, the revolt-scarred Himalayan state, but Roy shakes her head sending ripples through her grey-flecked curls. "It is not true. My fiction is never about an issue. I don't set myself some political task and weave a story around it. I might as well write a straightforward nonfiction piece if that is what I wanted to do."

A clue about where Roy is heading may be gleaned from her current reading. On her coffee table rests a book by Bono, while at her bedside are works by the radical American founding father Thomas Paine and Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. What these two writers share is their defence of the French Revolution, and an empathy with the lower classes who pulled down the ruling elite. "In so many ways Paris then could be Delhi now. It is a conceit to think that all that we say is new and original."

Roy says India today, like pre-revolutionary France, is poised "on the edge of violence". As she sees it, the country of her birth is not coming together but coming apart - convulsed by "corporate globalisation" at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. "The inequalities become untenable."

Roy says she is not taking refuge from her politics in the world of literature. She answers her own door and makes guests tea herself, remarkable in a country where even middle-class households have servants. She is still married to filmmaker Pradip Krishen but the flat is "her space". He lives in another house.

"Living with my own contradictions is hard enough - forcing my political views on someone else, on their lifestyle and the choices they make is not something I want to do. It distorts a relationship beyond redemption. So, I decided to have my own place."

Roy's dire predictions about India have left her isolated when mainstream opinion seems convinced that the country, with its nuclear bombs and slick Bollywood movies, is the next superpower-in-waiting. Roy says some parts of the country, such as the western state of Gujarat - the scene of a bloody pogrom against Muslims five years ago - are off limits to her because of her campaigning.

A few years ago she was briefly imprisoned for contempt of court while protesting against the country's controversial Narmada Dam project. The God of Small Things produced obscenity charges and a court case that ran for a decade, only to be dismissed last month.

She first shot to prominence in 1994 with a scathing film review entitled The Great Indian Rape Trick, about the movie Bandit Queen, in which she questioned the right to "restage the rape of a living woman without her permission".

Roy has been consistent in her view that writers have a responsibility to their subjects. She says she could not read the blockbuster Maximum City, a portrait of Mumbai by expatriate Indian writer Suketu Mehta, because the book contains a passage in which the writer is a bystander while people in custody are beaten and tortured by the city's police.

"When you witness torture you are seeing someone humiliated. In front of you. It is not a neutral act. Certainly you have the permission of the torturer, but you do not have the permission of the tortured [to record it]."

Unlike other Indian-born writers who have relocated to the US and Europe, Roy is determined to remain a thorn in the side of the establishment in India. "Here you see what's happening. People are driven out of villages, driven out of the cities, there's a kind of insanity in the air and all of it held down by our mesmeric, pelvic-thrusting Bollywood movies. The Indian middle class has just embarked on this orgy of consumerism."

But she admits that the kinds of non-violent protests she has taken part in for a decade have failed in India, a republic founded on the Gandhi-ite principles of peaceful resistance. "I am not such an uninhibited fan of Gandhi. After all, Gandhi was a superstar. When he went on a hunger strike he was a superstar on a hunger strike. But I don't believe in superstar politics. If people in a slum are on a hunger strike, no one gives a shit."

Roy says activists have been "exhausted" by their attempts to influence the courts and the press and now says she does not "condemn people taking up arms" in the face of state repression.

"It would be immoral for me to preach violence unless I were prepared to resort to it myself. But equally, it is immoral for me to advocate feelgood marches and hunger strikes when I'm not bearing the brunt of unspeakable violence. I certainly do not volunteer to tell Iraqis or Kashmiris or Palestinians that if they went on a mass hunger strike they would get rid of the military occupation. Civil disobedience doesn't seem to be paying dividends."

Instead of the Indian state caving in to the moral righteousness of the numerous causes Roy supports, she says it merely moved to co-opt its adversaries. The power of argument, even in the world's biggest democracy, has been shrunk by the argument of power.

Roy says she was aghast to learn that a fellow Indian environmental campaigner accepted a million-dollar award from the transnational metals firm Alcan, which has been accused of grabbing tribal land in eastern India. The tentacles of big business have learned to embrace non-government organisations. The result, she claims, is that the charitable trusts of Tata, India's largest private company, fund "half the activists in the country".

She feels frustrated by the state's ability to brush aside non-violent resistance movements. "This has sapped the energy from people's movements. The very Gandhian Narmada movement [the grassroots group which campaigned against big dams in India] knocked on the door of every democratic institution for years and has been humiliated. It has not managed to stop a single dam from going ahead. In fact the dam industry has a new spring in its step."

Roy says she had given ideological opponents a handy hate figure. "In India I'm portrayed more as a hysterical, lying, anti-national harridan.

"In this adversarial game that goes on, you can get pinned down to spewing facts and numbers, but those are not the only truths ... I've done that. I've fought that battle," she says. "But the distillation of those things into literature is a different kind of intervention."

Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

2007-02-03T11:54:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
The Texas Observer
Sharp Reporting from the Strangest State in the Union

Statement from The Texas Observer (obituary follows)

To Our Readers and Friends

Molly Ivins left her editor's chair at The Texas Observer more than 30 years ago and went on to play a larger stage. But she never left us behind. She remained convinced that Texas needed a progressive, independent voice to call the powerful to account and to stand up for the common folk. She kept our voice alive. More than once, when the paper was on the brink of insolvency, she delivered speeches and gave us the honorariums. She donated royalties from her best-selling book Shrub to keep the doors open. Her determination and efforts sustained the Observer as a magazine, as a family, and as a community.

Molly was a hero. She was a mentor. She was a liberal. She was a patriot. She was a friend. And she always will be. With Molly's death we have lost someone we hold dear. What she has left behind we will hold dearer still.

Despite her failing health, and an impending ice storm, Molly insisted on being driven to the Observer’s most recent public event in early January so she could thank our supporters.

Observer writers are useful, she explained to the crowd, in much the same way as good hunting dogs. Turn them loose, let them hunt. When they return with their prey, pat them on the head, say a few words of praise, and set them loose to hunt again.

For the time being, The Texas Observer's web site will be dedicated to remembering Molly, her work, her wit, her contributions to the political discourse of a nation. We invite readers to submit their own thoughts and recollections, to say a few words of praise.

Then, we will return to the hunt.

Obituary for Molly Ivins

Syndicated political columnist Molly Ivins died of breast cancer Wednesday evening at her home in Austin. She was 62 years old, and had much, much more to give this world. She remained cheerful despite Texas politics. She emphasized the more hilarious aspects of both state and national government, and consequently never had to write fiction. She said, “Good thing we’ve still got politics—finest form of free entertainment ever invented.”

Molly had a large family, many namesakes, hundreds of close friends, thousands of colleagues and hundreds of thousands of readers.

She and her two siblings, Sara (Ivins) Maley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Andy Ivins of London, Texas, grew up in Houston. Her father, James Ivins, was a corporate lawyer and a Republican, which meant she always had someone to disagree with over the dinner table. Her mother, Margot, was a homemaker with a B.A. in psychology from Smith College.

In addition to her brother and sister, Molly is survived by sister-in-law Carla Ivins, nephew Drew and niece Darby; niece Margot Hutchison and her husband, Neil, and their children Sam, Andy and Charlie of San Diego, Calif. and nephew Paul Maley and his wife, Karianna, and their children Marty, Anneli and Finnbar of Eltham, Victoria, Australia.

Molly followed her mother to Smith and received a B.A. in 1966, followed by an M.A. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an honorary doctorate from Haverford College.

Her full list of books and awards will be abbreviated here. In addition to compilations of her brilliant, hilarious liberal columns, she wrote with Lou Dubose Shrub: The Short But Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (Random House 2000) and Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America (Random House 2003). She was working on a Random House book documenting the Bush administration’s assault on the Bill of Rights when she died.

Molly, being practical, used many of her most prestigious awards as trivets while serving exquisite French dishes at her dinner parties. Her awards include the William Allen White Award from the University of Kansas, the Eugene V. Debs award in the field of journalism, many awards for advocacy of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the David Nyhan Prize from the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School at Harvard.

Although short, Molly’s life was writ large. She was as eloquent a speaker and teacher as she was a writer, and her quips will last at least as long as Will Rogers’. She dubbed George W. Bush “Shrub” and Texas Governor Rick Perry “Good Hair.”

Molly always said in her official résumé that the two honors she valued the most were (1) when the Minneapolis Police Department named their mascot pig after her (She was covering the police beat at the time.) and (2) when she was banned from speaking on the Texas A&M University campus at least once during her years as co-editor of The Texas Observer (1970-76). However, she said with great sincerity that she would be proudest of all to die sober, and she did.

She worked as a reporter for The New York Times (1976-82) in New York and Albany and later as Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief covering nine mountain states by herself. After working for the staid Times where she was heavily edited, Molly cut loose and became a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald. When the Herald folded, she signed on as a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In 2001, she became syndicated, eventually appearing in 400 newspapers.

She never lost her love for The Texas Observer or her conviction that a free society relies on public-interest journalism. She found that brand of journalism the most fun.

In recent years she shamelessly used her national and international contacts to raise funds for the Observer, which has always survived on a shoestring. More than $400,000 was contributed to the feisty little journal at a roast honoring Molly in Austin October 8.

Molly’s enduring message is, “Raise more hell.”

To read more about Molly Ivins or to make a comment about her, go to www.texasobserver.org. Tax-deductible contributions in her honor may be made to The Texas Observer, 307 West Seventh Street, Austin, TX 78701 or the American Civil Liberties Union, 127 Broad Street, 18th floor, New York, NY 10004, www.aclu.org.

A memorial service for Molly will be held on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1201 Lavaca, Austin, TX.

Gonsalves: Be Your Own King

2007-01-15T11:01:00.000-06:00

Be Your Own King
By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet. Posted January 15, 2007.

"We cannot remain silent as our nation engages in one of history's most cruel and senseless wars. During these days of human travail we must encourage creative dissenters. We need them because the thunder of their fearless voices will be the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and the clamor of war hysteria." - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: A paid federal feel-good holiday in which America congratulates itself on how "far" we've come since the good ol' days of unchallenged white supremacy, traditionally celebrated with "Keep the Dream Alive" exhortations and Negro spirituals.

Though King's dream speech is recognized as a watershed moment in the history of U.S. race relations, the post-King era, in which my generation (and today's youngins) came of age, has made its own unwitting contributions: hip hop and 9/11 political rage, which is inextricably linked to the xenophobia swirling around the "illegal immigrant debate."

Hip hop has integrated the cultural landscape that today's youth roam. And 9/11 made Arabs and Muslims America's new niggers -- the target of blanket stereotypes, hypocritical moral scrutiny, and even open attack.

Behind all the Kumbaya-ism is the relevant King -- the prophetic preacher who talked about, not just race, but war and poverty.

Yes, it's true that King apparently pulled a Jayson Blair on a college paper. He wasn't always faithful to his wife and because of his rough, stubbly facial hair, he used shaving lotion that stank so bad, he had to douse himself in Aramis aftershave to make himself smell like a King again.

And have you seen that famous picture of King, taken just moments after he was shot in the neck on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel? Two of his aides are kneeling next to his limp body, pointing in the direction of where they thought the shot had been fired.

If that picture had been taken just a few seconds earlier, it would have captured King with a cigarette in his hand. One of King's aides removed the cigarette before it could be photographed.

While haters point to these things as proof that King is unworthy of adulation, it had the opposite effect on me, similar to my reaction when I discovered Thomas Jefferson owned and fathered slaves. I was inspired because King (and Jefferson) were no longer mythical gods but flawed human beings who achieved greatness. That means ordinary people like me could do extraordinary things, despite fundamental flaws.

One King question I do share with Reagan-Bush admirers, though -- why did Ronald Reagan sign the bill that made King's birthday a federal holiday?

The great African-American preacher Charles "the Harvard Whooper" Adams raised the question during a 1998 sermon at the celebrated Riverside Church.

As Michael Eric Dyson quotes Adams in his very relevant King biography, "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.," the holiday bill was passed by essentially the same Congress, "and signed by the same President, that had refused to pass a new civil rights bill in the 1980s."

These lawmakers are the same folks, Adams went on to say, that "refused to demand the immediate release of Nelson Mandela; ... devastated the Civil Rights Commission; amputated the legs and arms of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; cut off necessary support systems for the poor ... polluted the air, destroyed jobs; (and) carried on an illegal war in Nicaragua."

"Now why did Ronald Reagan sign that bill? Could it be that Mr. Reagan understood that the ease-ee-est way to get rid of Martin Luther King Jr. is to worship him? To honor him with a holiday that he never would have wanted -- to celebrate his birth and his death, without committing ourselves to his vision and his love. It is easier to praise a dead hero than to recognize and follow a living prophet."

And here's the kicker: "the best way to dismiss any challenge is to exalt and adore the empirical source through which the challenge has come."

Amen, Rev'run Adams. Forget King worship. Be your own King and let them hear the thunder of your fearless voice.

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.

Jackson: Peace is at the heart of the Christmas Story

2006-12-19T21:39:00.000-06:00

Published on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 by the Chicago Sun-Times
Peace Is At the Heart of the Christmas Story
by Jesse Jackson

Christmas -- the mass celebrating the birth of Christ -- is the biggest shopping season of the year. To save Christmas, some on the right seem to think the best thing is to commercialize it. They insist stores advertise "Christmas sales," not holiday sales. They judge leaders by whether they send out cards wishing a "Merry Christmas," and not simply a happy holiday.

But shopping isn't the point of the story. It's not about exchanging Christmas cards, or about holiday parties. The story of Christmas is about a couple -- Mary and Joseph -- forced by an oppressive imperial government to leave their home to travel far to be counted in the census. When they got there, they were like immigrants, homeless in a strange land. The innkeeper had no room for the strange couple. If he had understood who the baby was, he would have offered them his bed.

Christmas is the story of a child born in a cow's barn, and placed in a manger, a makeshift crib. Mary and Joseph had no address, so it wasn't about exchanging cards. It wasn't about purchasing gifts. Yes, wise men left their daily ways, followed the star, and brought gifts to the child, while others might have stayed away from a poor child with little hope. The wise men were wise not because of the value of their gifts, but in their ability to see what the innkeeper missed: the potential of the infant asleep in a wooden manger. The Christmas story instructs us to treasure every child -- even what are now delicately called "at risk children" -- for we do not know what gifts even the poorest child of a homeless couple may possess.

What is Christmas about? It is about an oppressed people praying for a Messiah, a mighty warrior who would conquer their oppressors. He would come, they thought, assemble a great army and conquer the Roman legions. The expectation grew so high that even Herod grew uneasy. But when the Messiah came, he came as the prince of peace, not the marshal of war. He taught love and hope and charity, not violence and vengeance. He was the greatest liberator of them all, but he carried no arms, and provisioned no army. His army would transform the world, but it consisted of the legions of the faithful struggling to follow in his path.

Clearly, too few get the point of the story. Sales are reportedly up this year, particularly in the high-end, exclusive stores. But the moral report is grim. In this rich country, poverty is up, homelessness is up, hunger is up. Inequality is at obscene levels. The United States witnesses record numbers of billionaires and growing numbers of families without shelter, working people without health insurance, poor children without adequate nutrition. After Katrina, the saints didn't come marching into New Orleans. And even now, the survivors are still scattered across the 50 states, their homes still not rebuilt, their government still failing them. Poverty has been erased not from our streets but from our public debate, as politicians cater to their wealthy donors or their largely middle-income voters.

Peace reports are also dire. Our soldiers are mired in armed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our cities are girded against terrorist attack. We spend more than $500 billion a year on the mightiest military that the world has ever known, but we are more insecure than ever. We turn our backs on the genocide taking place in Darfur. We stain our own reputation -- and our own Constitution -- with torture, renditions and detentions without review. The image of the hooded prisoner of Abu Ghraib -- arms outstretched, bag over his head, electric shock device attached to his body -- indicts us all as we remember the suffering of the cross.

You don't have to be Christian to understand the point of the Christmas story. So let each of us pledge to celebrate the real deal this year. It's far more important that the Christmas story be in our souls than our stores. Let us gather and embrace our families. Let us join together to protect the babies in the dawn of life, care for the elderly in the dusk of life. Let us nurture the sick, shelter the homeless. Stop for the stranger on the Jericho Road. Work for the promise of peace. Surely that is the point of the story.

Some Presidents Speak of Prayer, Mutual Respect and Love, Mean it, and are Taken Seriously

2006-12-11T18:25:00.000-06:00

As our 39th president, James Earl Carter, Jr., who brokered the Camp David Accords, the Middle East's longest lasting and most important peace treaty, speaks out eloquently again in behalf of peace and justice in his new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, and nobly weathers the slanders of those who have no use for peace or justice, it's high time Americans took another look and listened carefully once again to the parting words our 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower. Wise statesmen work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interests of their national or racial groups.

Click here to access video of the 34th President's Farewell Address to the Nation: Burn these Republican Words into Your Mind

Posted by Evan Derkacz on December 11, 2006 at 1:35 PM.

On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower said goodbye to public office with an address that concluded with the words below [strangely, the Eisenhower Library's version and the audio in the video to the right, differ slightly. Brackets represent the text in the Library version omitted from the audio file...].

You're familiar with the warnings in this speech against the "military-industrial complex," but the subtler parts of the speech are every bit as powerful and refreshing...

"As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

"During the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

"[Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.]

"[Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.] Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war - as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years - I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

"Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

"So - in this my last good night to you as your President - I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

"You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith, that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace, with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

"To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

"We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love."

Arnold: The Way to Egress

2006-12-01T17:32:00.000-06:00

Published on Friday, December 1, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
The Way to the Egress
by Caroline Arnold

Phineas Taylor Barnum, the great 19th century American showman who was called the "Prince of Humbug," kept people moving through his exhibitions with signs pointing "This way to the Egress."

It is unclear how many customers were actually tricked into exiting by seeking an egress, but people everywhere are tickled by that story, which slyly suggests that others are ignorant and gullible.

Similarly, we like to quote P.T. Barnum as saying "There’s a sucker born every minute." But he didn’t say that, which is another story to tickle our funnybones, and possibly offer an instructive story for this Christmas season, when we desperately need an egress from a cruel, unjust war, and from a chamber of horrors including torture, civil war and nuclear weapons.

In 1868, in the wake of evangelists preaching that there had once been giants roaming the earth, George Hull had an anatomically correct giant carved from a slab of gypsum 12' x 4' x 2' , buried it beside a barn near Cardiff NY, and "discovered" it a year later. Hull immediately started charging a quarter to see the wonder, then quickly doubled the price.

Clergymen decreed it was a fossilized giant from Biblical times; scientists decided it was an authentic ancient statue.; no-one suggested it was a hoax. Hull soon sold a majority interest in his ‘Cardiff Giant’ for $30,000 to a syndicate headed by David Hannum, who moved it to Syracuse and charged $1 to view it.

Naturally, P.T. Barnum wanted piece of this action, and tried to buy the giant for $50,000. When he was rebuffed he quietly hired a crew to carve another giant, which he put on display with public announcements that he had purchased the Cardiff Giant and that Hannum was exhibiting a fake. Newspapers quickly circulated Barnum’s story – he was already a celebrity for his showmanship, and fakery sold even more newspapers than fossils.

Hannum, believing his figure was a real fossil, angrily proclaimed "There’s a sucker born every minute" (in reference to the ‘fools’ who paid to see Barnum’s ‘fake’) and sued Barnum for discrediting his giant. After George Hull confessed to his original hoax the judge ruled that Barnum couldn’t be sued for calling a fake a fake, and the case was dropped. But somehow, the "sucker born every minute" phrase got attributed to Barnum, who perhaps didn’t deserve it.

Without doubt P.T Barnum was America’s greatest practitioner of humbug, hype, and hucksterism – but he was apparently a decent man. While he was willing, even eager, to supply the public with the wonder and novelty they craved (for a price) he drew the line at deliberate deception, and even worked to expose spiritualist mediums who preyed on bereaved families.

Though he claimed to hate politics, P.T. Barnum was an active Republican and served in the Connecticut legislature, where he spoke in support of ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment: "A human soul is not to be trifled with. It may inhabit the body of a Chinaman, a Turk, an Arab or a Hottentot - it is still an immortal spirit!"

For six years we have had a "Prince of Humbug" in the White House, assuming that Americans are ignorant, gullible suckers and mindless consumers of whatever hucksterism and hoaxes he deploys to support his neocon agenda, like "weapons of mass destruction," "war on terror," or "enhanced interrogation techniques." The news media have tamely played along.

But since the election the MSM is returning to reality. This week they called the civil war in Iraq a "civil war," and started using the word "withdrawal" in reference to Iraq.

Also this week a Christmas wreath in the form of a peace symbol sparked accusations that it "signified Satan" and was "anti-Christ." But instead of generating outrage among the gullible about a "liberal war on Christmas," it triggered scorn and ridicule from the public.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was exposed as a humbug when Toto ripped aside a curtain and revealed an ordinary stammering mortal, who admitted he was powerless to get Dorothy egress from Oz. In this fable, however, the wizard admits his humbuggery, but shows Dorothy that she has herself the power to get home from Oz .

Americans aren’t ignorant and gullible suckers; we really do care about important things, we want meaning in our lives, we value fundamental things -- our children, our life companions and homes, our neighbors’ welfare and our planet’s health; honesty, mutual respect, justice, mercy; our heritage of Christmas and holiday observances.

This Christmas Americans have started to pull back the curtain on a White House that has been scaring and awing us into ever more inhuman and un-Christian actions. We must be cautious: so far there is little evidence that Bush is giving up his efforts to legitimize first-strike strategic delivery systems for nuclear or conventional weapons, and we may yet be trapped by giants of nuclear war and global warming.

But for Christmas this year let’s try not accusing one another of being suckers, stupid, ignorant or evil, and recognize our common humanity. To Scrooge’s "Bah, Humbug!" let's reply with Tiny Tim’s "God bless us, every one!"

To the humbug in the White House, let's say "This way to the Egress, Mr. President." It’s not humbug, it’s a way to go toward peace on earth and other good Christian and universal values, a way to stop trifling with human souls, and a few steps toward giving all humans the power to go home to whatever Kansas their hearts’ desire.

Caroline Arnold csarnold@neo.rr.com served 12 years on the staff of U.S. Senator John Glenn. In retirement she is active with the Portage Democratic Coalition http://www.pdcohio.us/aboutus.html and the Akron Council on World Affairs http://www.akronworldaffairs.org/.

Arnold: Turkeys: Personal, Political, and Planetary

2006-11-23T13:11:00.000-06:00

Published on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Turkeys: Personal, Political & Planetary
by Caroline Arnold

My Thanksgiving for the election outcome was quickly tempered by gobbling from assorted turkeys – personal, political, and planetary.

Reviewing my personal finances at my kitchen table I found myself stymied by a bill from Kaiser Permanente, my HMO for the past 21 years, for $48.68 for small miscellaneous charges over the past 22 months, apparently bits of various office visits that neither Medicare nor Kaiser covered.

This is the third time in the last two years that Kaiser has gone prospecting among my past medical services to come up with me owing them money. I would be tempted to think this is an artifact of the Medicare drug plan that Congress designed, but I can’t document it. The amounts are fairly minuscule, under $100 at a time, but in my monthly budgets they show up in majuscule.

I live on just under $1500/mo after my HMO and Medicare premiums are deducted and my property taxes paid. This month I learned that my monthly Kaiser premium for 2007 will increase by $35, effectively cancelling any cost-of-living increase.

I try to be rational, and budget carefully, and have enough each month to contribute to causes and charities that help my neighbors, my nation and my planet. This month I had already made modest donations to my church, a national progressive organization, local food pantries and environmental projects, and local public radio, and was hoping to squeeze out another couple of $25 donations.

Then a reminder to make a follow-up appointment at Kaiser about my high blood pressure made me angry: go to the doctor, so that in few months I can be billed for something else they decide not to pay for. The doctor, of course, will find my blood pressure is too high (you bet it is) and prescribe more drugs, so that I can pay some added tribute to the pharmaceutical industry.

It’s hard not to feel like a cash cow for insurers and drug companies. I could decline to be jerked around with their accounting maneuvers and fight back, or spend my days "shopping" for better deals for medical crises I may never have. I could refuse to take their *questionable drugs, and risk dying sooner. Or I could redesign my life to avoid stresses that raise my blood pressure, though I figure that’s not basically different from being dead.

What discourages me is that there is no person or place to which I can take these frustrations. Calling "Customer Service" would change nothing and maybe give me a stroke; the good folks who staff those phones don’t make the policies, have no power to change anything, and need their jobs. Writing a letter would be costly in time, attention and high blood pressure, and generate nothing but more platitudes about keeping costs affordable.

Rationally, I suppose I should drop everything else and work for single-payer health care, though that really isn’t how I want to spend my remaining years. Worse, I doubt that the American populace or polity can master their cultural, ideological, commercial and political baggage to get to government-managed, tax-supported, universally available health care in my lifetime.

And there are other large political turkeys on the table this season: Corruption, Education, Energy, Jobs, Trade, Nukes (both military and civilian) Poverty, War, Torture, Iraq, Iran, Israel.

And Impeachment. The impeachment turkey is NOT off the table. The anger voters showed at Bush’s high crimes of homicide/genocide, torture and kidnaping, at his incompetence/ insouciance in dealing with the aftermath of Katrina, at his lying and spying and wrecking habeas corpus and Constitutional protections will not and must not be assuaged by a "do-it better-next-time" brush-off.

The biggest fowl of all, of course, is our beleaguered and fevered planet, which we have all treated like a turkey with our profligate economic policies, haphazard environmental regulation, and personal habits of consumption and travel.

This week distinguished economist Joseph Stiglitz said, "We have but one planet, and should treasure it. Global warming is a risk that we simply cannot afford to ignore anymore."

And retiring UN chief Kofi Annan stated: "The message is clear. Global climate change must take its place alongside those threats -- conflict, poverty, the proliferation of deadly weapons -- that have traditionally monopolized first-order political attention."

Thanksgiving at my dining-room table will be somber this year. Like many seniors, I don’t want to spend my remaining days grubbing around for my own comfort, convenience or longevity, nor fending off predatory businesses, nor watching local wetlands or continental ecosystems destroyed by human actions. I’d like to use my energy and experience at making the world a little better for my children and grandchildren – and everyone’s children and grandchildren.

I especially dread watching daily the world-wide slaughter of the innocent and unarmed, knowing that not only am I powerless to stop it, but that my beloved country practices and defends terrorism, torture and genocide, and manufactures and sells weapons of mass destruction, that we have failed to end genocide in Darfur, and will not move to halt the killing of Palestinians in their own homes.

We who repudiated Bush’s policies and practices in the election of 2007 must stay at the table and keep impeachment on the menu, or we will once again become the turkeys to be consumed by endless war, corporate profiteering in mindless markets, brutal murder of our brothers and sisters, and heartless exploitation of our precious planet.

And for myself this Thanksgiving? Damn the high blood pressure – full steam ahead!

Caroline Arnold served 12 years on the staff of U.S. Senator John Glenn. In retirement she is active with the Portage Democratic Coalition and the Akron Council on World Affairs

This column first appeared in the Kent Ravenna Record Courier (Ohio) Kent Ravenna Record Courier (Ohio)

Williamson: Waging Peace

2006-11-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

Published on Thursday, November 16, 2006 by the Boston Globe and Common Dreams
Waging Peace

by Marianne Williamson

In the United States, 12 children each day die from gun violence. Homicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2001, with rates 10 times that of other leading industrialized nations. In 2005, there were more than 190,000 reported victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assaults. Acts of terrorism worldwide are up since the start of the Iraq war. War itself has killed more than half a million Americans since World War II.

A bill before Congress would establish a US Department of Peace. This measure would provide practical, nonviolent solutions for the problems of domestic and international conflict. It would apply the institutional heft of the US government to a serious effort not merely at avoiding war or waging war more effectively. It would take America to the next evolutionary step: It would proactively wage peace.

The problem of violence is a many layered one, and its solution needs to be as well. . . . While no one action -- governmental or otherwise -- will provide a single solution to such an entrenched and deeply rooted problem, the problem must be treated as an all-systems breakdown that requires an all-systems response.

A Department of Peace would address the causal issues of violence -- from human disenfranchisement to societal dysfunction -- thus saving money and human heartache.

Domestically, the department would develop policies and allocate resources to reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, child abuse, and various other forms of societal discord. The secretary of peace would work with the secretary of education to develop curriculums to teach students alternative conflict resolution techniques and strategies.

Internationally, the Department of Peace would advise the president and Congress on the most innovative techniques and ideas for peace-creation among nations. A peace academy, on par with the military service academies, would train civilian peacekeepers and work with the military in the latest nonviolent conflict resolution strategies and approaches. In short, a Department of Peace would work hand in hand with existing government agencies and structures to help ensure that conflict, when it occurs, does not boil over into life-destroying behavior.

Last month, President George W. Bush said at a conference of school officials, police officers, and youth advocates that communities need a list of "best practices" to prevent and respond to the kinds of school attacks that have occurred in recent weeks. "It seems to me, a lot of our attention should be on preventing" such incidents, Bush said. That would require, he said, "a mosaic of programs." The Department of Peace would give structure and design to the mosaic, providing much-needed assistance to city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs as well as developing new programs based on best practices nationally.

Throughout America, there are countless peace-builders and peace-building projects. Those skilled in ameliorating the effects of violence -- from conflict resolution experts to nonviolent communicators -- have proven their effectiveness at treating root causes of violence. Yet these programs receive only pennies in comparison to the tremendous costs of violence.

A 2004 World Health Report estimated the cost of interpersonal violence in the United States (excluding war-related costs) at $300 billion per year. We currently allocate more than $400 billion per year to the Department of Defense, not including the cost of the war in Iraq. The financial cost alone is enough to motivate many to support this bill, but the human carnage is simply a cost that should never be permitted in a civilized society.

Marianne Williamson is founder and chair of the board of The Peace Alliance.

Dear: Joan Baez, After All these Years

2006-10-27T17:24:00.000-05:00

Published on Friday, October 27, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Joan Baez, After All These Years

By John Dear

"Come back, Woodie Guthrie, Come back, Mahatma Gandhi,” sang Joan Baez in her beatific soprano. “Come back to us Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. We’re marching into Selma as the bells of freedom ring.”

She’s been singing for peace and civil rights for forty-eight years. Originally inspired by Pete Seeger, she captured the attention of the nation in the early 1960s, her politically charged music propelling her to the cover of Time magazine long before Bob Dylan and the Beatles. To my mind, as soon as she sang “All My Trials, Lord,” the 1960s were born and the culture turned a corner. Music and politics would never be the same.

Today, she’s better than ever. Her voice is strong, her vision clear, and her call for peace and justice just as urgent. She continues to use her extraordinary talent for global peace and brings the power of music to the needs of the world.

Joan Baez has long been one of my heroes. She was in New Mexico last week to perform a slew of folk songs against the latest U.S. war, including Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side,” “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” and “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.” She also sang “Finlandia” and a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace.” “Any Day Now/ Baez Sings Dylan” is my favorite of her CDs, but she has just released a great new CD, Bowery Songs, with these inspiring songs recorded live in New York.

I was thrilled that Bruce Springsteen recently recorded some of Pete Seeger’s folk music and anti-war songs, and hope Joan gets the same recognition. If I had any say in the matter, she’d win a place in the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammies, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Joan learned from Pete Seeger and then the writings of Gandhi to use her art for social change. She shows us that every peace and justice movement needs every possible creative outlet--music, painting, poetry, drama, film and literature--to help uphold the vision of a new world without war, poverty or nuclear weapons. These movements need everyone of us to contribute whatever we can. In fact, everything we do should serve peace and justice, the coming of God’s reign of nonviolence here on earth.

Over the years, Joan has helped me with various causes and protests. Once, an envelope from her arrived at my door and nestled inside was a large drawing she made of me speaking for peace. She’s a friend and more—she’s one of my teachers.

After the show I told her stories of my recent civil disobedience action against the U.S. war on Iraq, the September 11th Peace Walk from Thomas Merton’s hermitage to Louisville, and our ongoing campaign to disarm Los Alamos. But then I grew pensive and confessed a nagging thought. The actions are necessary, I said, but they sure seem futile.

“Well, John, you know what Gandhi said, right?”

“What?”

“Full effort is full victory.”

“Okay, Joan,” I returned. “I'll keep at it.”

Joan herself has kept at it a long time. She walked for civil rights in the South, befriended Dr. King, sang at the 1963 March on Washington, read poetry with Thomas Merton in his hermitage, sang to Dorothy Day as she sat behind bars with the United Farmworkers, and supported dozens of movements for social change, from Poland to Chile to Nicaragua. In the 70s she ventured on a perilous trip to Vietnam, and like Daniel Berrigan and Howard Zinn, suffered under an interminable U.S. bombing raid.

Joan, like Dan, King, Merton and Day, has a rare commitment to nonviolence. Armed only with her guitar and her voice, she helps us envision a world without war or injustice. And to make her songs authentic, she practices what she sings. She marches, organizes, gets arrested, has refused to pay part of her taxes, and has joined countless demonstrations. Last month, for example, she was the featured guest in Prague at the national birthday party in honor of Vaclav Havel, the heroic former president of the Czech Republic.

We can create a new world of nonviolence, she teaches, “by studying, experimenting with every possible alternative to violence on every level. By learning how to say ‘No’ to the nation-state, 'No' to war taxes, 'No' to military conscription, 'No' to killing in general, and 'Yes' to cooperation, to building new institutions based on the assumption that murder in any form is ruled out, by making and keeping in touch with nonviolent contacts all over the world, by engaging ourselves at every possible chance in dialogue with people to try to change the consensus that it's okay to kill.”

In her famous essay, “What Would You Do If?” she concluded, “The only thing that’s been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.”

These days she ends her concerts with a moving rendition of Steve Earle’s hymn, “Jerusalem.” It rises like a prayer. Her prayer is her song and her life is her witness. Between witness and song, she still stirs hope for peace. After all these years.

“I believe they’ll come a day
when the lion and the lamb
will lie down in peace together
in Jerusalem.

“They’ll be no barricades then.
And they’ll be no wires or walls.
And we can wash all this blood from our hands,
all this hatred from our souls.

“And I believe that on that day
the children of Abraham
will lay down their swords
forever in Jerusalem.”

* ** *** ** *

John Dear is a Jesuit priest, peace activist, and author, most recently, of “You Will Be My Witnesses” and “The Questions of Jesus.” For info, see: www.johndear.org

Adams: Vote for Love

2006-10-24T16:25:00.000-05:00

Published on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

On November 7, Be Smart: Vote for Love

by Patch Adams

While the State Department’s Alberto Fernandez felt obligated to take back his comments that elements of U.S. policy in Iraq have been arrogant and stupid, the truth is that U.S. policy post-9/11 has been driven by arrogance and stupidity. What could be stupider than the idea that violence could end the threat of terrorism and make us safer at home? Simple logic tells us that responding to terror with more violence will only lead to more terror and more violence. Now we have that logic confirmed by the grim facts on the ground in Iraq.

Isn’t it time for a radical change of course? There’s only one thing more powerful than violence, and that’s love. So shouldn’t we be fighting violence with love? I don’t mean relational love. I mean treating people with love. Feeding them. Educating them. Healing them. That kind of love.

As a doctor—and a clown—I’ve seen the tremendous healing power of love. The number one factor for surviving a heart attack is having a loving community. A study of 4,000 women with breast cancer found that with a little love—six hour-long support sessions—their survival rate increased five-fold. With the situation in Iraq imploding, tensions increasing with Iran and North Korea, and our government’s policies leading more and more people to hate Americans, it’s time to take the healing power of love to the global level. It’s time for a love platform.

What’s a love platform? It’s a set of policies that shows compassion for the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor. It’s a platform that treats the environment with the loving respect it deserves.

A love platform would call for kissing, not killing. You switch two little letters and you get a whole new outlook on life. Kissing, not killing.

A love platform would put women in charge—women with loving instincts who would treat the world the way my mother treated my friends when they came to my house. She fed them, she wiped their noses, she was nice. That’s it. We’d have a policy called “Be Nice.” If everyone treated people like my mother did, we’d put an end to violence.

We need to create a massive global movement for loving. It would be like the Peace Corps times 10,000. People who have resources would go, en masse, to help those without. People with skills would teach those without. People who are healthy would take care of those who are sick.

We’d save cabinet positions for the Amish people who embraced the family of the man who killed their children. We’d put in charge of foreign policy the people who lost loved ones on 9/11 but insisted that revenge was not the answer, or the women of CODEPINK who tried desperately to stop the war in Iraq before it even began.

It really amazes me that we spend so many hours as a society focusing on love as sex or love that some consider perverse: Mark Foley sending emails to underage boys, Bill Clinton with an intern, love between people of the same sex. But we spend no time focusing on the big love that should drive our lives and our policies, i.e. love for the human family. We spend no time in school teaching young people how to grow up to be loving adults. The media gives us never-ending examples of violence and hate, but rarely gives us the uplifting examples of the kid who spends his lunch money on feeding the homeless. We hear about the brave soldiers who fight, but not about the people—often women—who force the soldiers to put down their guns.

For those who say that a love platform is ridiculous and naive, I ask them to compare the results of the $300 billion we’ve spent on war in Iraq with what we would get if we had spent that money on setting up health clinics all over the world and feeding people who are hungry. I travel around the world and meet lots of people who fear and hate us. If we spent our energy and resources uplifting people in need—spreading laughter and light instead of bombs and bullets—we’d live in a world that was happier, healthier and safer.

So come November 7, be smart. Vote out stupid and arrogant candidates who think that occupying Iraq by force or bombing Iran will make us safe. And vote for candidates who understand the simple notion that love is not only the best medicine, it’s also smart policy.

Patch Adams, M.D., is a nationally known speaker on wellness, laughter, humor and life. To support peace candidates, go to www.givepeaceavote.org.

Cook: Teach Your Children Well?

2006-10-20T17:22:00.000-05:00

Craig Scott, left, lost his sister, Rachel Joy Scott, at Columbine on April 20, 1999.

Published on Friday, October 20, 2006 by the CommonDreams.org

Nation's Leaders Mislead Youth by Preaching Peace, Practicing War

by David Cook

On April 20, 1999, a Colorado student named Craig Scott watched his sister and two friends die when they were shot to death by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, fellow classmates at Columbine High School. Before the noon sun began to set, Klebold and Harris killed ten others before killing themselves.

Two days later, President Clinton felt the need to speak out against the Columbine violence, which had shipwrecked the nation. Traveling to a public high school in Alexandria, Virginia, he held the attention of a student peer mediation club, saying to them, "We must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons."

After his speech to the Virginia students, as columnist Colman McCarthy writes, Clinton returned to the White House and, before turning in for bed, gave the order to resume bombing in Serbia. That day in Belgrade, United States military planes, backed with the blessing of our president, streaked across the sky, dropping 500-pound bombs that would fall into the homes and towns of innocent people. That same night in Colorado, thousands of miles away, a community began its long mourning.

Flash forward to last week, as the Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania prompted President Bush to call a similar, post-Columbine conference on character and school violence. Present during the Maryland conference (alongside Attorney General Gonzales and Secretary of Education Spellings) was Craig Scott, the now-23-year-old who had lost his sister and friends in the Columbine shooting. During the only meaningful moment of the conference, Scott stood and addressed the president.

"I've grown up in a culture today that doesn't teach me anything of substance, of value, how it bombards me every day with messages of emptiness and shallowness. And the youth are crying for something to stand for, something to believe in. If it weren't for my faith or my family, I possibly could have fallen into the lies that our culture tells us. But now I've traveled, I've spoken to over a million teens across this country….I've seen depression, anger and loneliness, students without direction or purpose….I've seen students who called themselves cutters, have cut themselves because that's the way they know to take out the pain that they're dealing with. I've learned a lot about my generation. And I've learned a lot since I lost my friends and my sister.''

And then Scott said the greatest words the president or anyone else could hope to ever hear:

"And the main thing I've learned is that kindness and compassion can be the biggest antidotes to anger and hatred, and I believe the biggest antidotes to violence.''

The president responded in the only way he could, which was to thank Scott, applaud him and then ask for a copy of his speech.

The next day, researchers from Johns Hopkins released an updated body count for the war in Iraq. An estimated 600,000 civilians have died since the war began. These are not soldiers or armed resisters; these are mothers, grandfathers, children playing outside. Families, just like yours, just like mine.

God forgive me should I ever truly understand how presidents Clinton and Bush are able to mouth the hollow words about protecting children ("We must…teach them to express their anger and resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons") and then, hours later, give the damnable blessing for military movements that kill other people's children. This is madness, and it is the hell-bent delusion of violence that allows the president of the United States to stand up before a crowded room of parents, reporters and survivors and announce his intentions to better protect American schoolchildren, and then, before the same day's sun sets, continue to sit on a war that has killed more than half-a-million souls.

And a nation of 300 million barely opens its mouth.

When the war began, President Bush openly declared his intentions to use violence against this axis of evil. He gave this speech inside the halls of the National Cathedral and Christians across the country cheered, seeing no paradox, no problem with declaring war inside the church walls of Christ. Since then, it has been proven that the war and its reasons were manufactured, and that the war-makers and military-engineers and weapons-manufacturers have again orchestrated the dance that is our nation's great addiction: not oil, but violence. Craig Scott looked the president in the eyes and told him the greatest sentence he will ever hear: "Kindness and compassion can be the biggest antidotes to anger and hatred, and I believe the biggest antidotes to violence.'' The president presumably smiled back, applauded Scott and then sat back down.

We must not sit down with the president. I do not speak as a Democrat or Republican, for violence is bi-partisan: the same delusion that infects President Bush and Rumsfeld also made sick President Clinton and Cohen, Kennedy and McNamara. Instead I speak as a human and a Christian that believes in the sacredness of every living life (in Colorado, Belgrade or Iraq) and, more importantly, in the power of the God of Love whose faintest whisper is enough to make straight the crookedest path, disarm the mightiest weapon, and crumble the heart of ten thousand Hitlers. And I do not believe that this God achieves the salvation of the earth through soldiers, generals or presidents that proclaim war.

Violence is violence is violence. It will never bring about true peace or justice anymore than darkness creates light. It is impossible. Craig Scott and the Amish know this. So do Christ and King and Gandhi.

Napoleon once said that, if you have bayonets, it is impossible to sit on them. America has buried in its earth thousands of nuclear weapons. We preach false words about character and justice in schools while continuing to fund a system that, one day, will be tempted to use those nuclear weapons. Has there ever been a weapon created that we have not used?

Yes. There is one, and it goes by many names. Truth. Love. Reconciliation. Dialogue. Faith. Forgiveness.

* ** *** ** *

David Cook is a former journalist for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press. He currently teaches American history at Girls Preparatory School and can be reached at dcook7@gmail.com.

Comly Beattie: Prayers for Peace

2006-10-07T18:24:00.000-05:00

At the Edge of the Abyss: Prayers for Peace
By Missy Comley Beattie

A few days ago, I was walking down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when I noticed colorful ribbons, hanging from the iron fence in front and around the side of the magnificent Marble Collegiate Church. The green, blue, and gold streamers enticed me to cross the street and read the marker explaining the significance of the project called Prayers for Peace. The gold ribbons display the names and ages of our servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and represent prayers for their families. The blue are prayers for Iraqi dead and wounded with their names and ages, and the green ribbons represent prayers for peace. I sifted through them, determined to find my nephew's name. I knew that seeing it would bring tears. I cried, though, long before I found him. Some of our dead were 18-years-old. Many of the Iraqi dead were just months old.

The marker includes a message from Senior Minister, Dr. Arthur Caliandro:

On the Sunday following the end of the Gulf War, I attended a Quaker meeting. You may be aware that at Quaker meetings there is typically no formal spoken liturgy. People enter in silence and speak when moved by the Spirit. Of all the comments made that day, the one I remember was from a man who was about my age: 'I know how to protest war,' he said, 'but I don't know how to make peace.' It seems that man speaks for most of the world.

Long before their grandson, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase Comley, was killed in Iraq, my parents wondered why so many among the clergy have remained silent about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I had given my mother a copy of The Reverend William Sloane Coffin's book Credo. Coffin, who died in April, was a Christian clergyman and antiwar activist who worked tirelessly for social justice, believing that it is crucial to Christianity.

Coffin had this to say about the war that has now claimed almost 3,000 coalition soldiers and, possibly, a half million Iraqis:

The war against Iraq is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, justice, purpose, and motives, the worst war in American history. Of course, we feel for the Iraqis so long and cruelly oppressed, and we support our military men and women; but we don't support their military mission. They were not called to defend America but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for, but rather to kill for, their country, and in an illegal and unjust war opposed by the UN Security Council and virtually the entire world. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters serving in the military?

We have just left September and, already, October is a deadly month for our troops. We have lost 26 coalition soldiers in a week. Who knows the accurate number of Iraqis killed?

George Bush is still saying, "Stay the course."

He should read Credo and learn from Coffin's timeless wisdom: "If you're at the edge of an abyss the only progressive step is backward!"

In 2004, Coffin said in an interview conducted by Bob Abernethy, editor and host of RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY: "almost every square inch of the Earth's surface is soaked with the tears and blood of the innocent and it's not God's doing. It's our doing. That's human malpractice."

Coffin lived and breathed the activism that was central to his faith.

Recently, I read that the minister of George Bush's church has voiced opposition to the war. In fact, United Methodist Church leaders signed a Declaration of Peace in September to end the war and bring the troops home. Other denomination leaders are organizing as well, engaging in nonviolent acts of protest-even risking arrest. Sadly, though, many members of the clergy remain silent, fearful of alienating their congregation. I'm sure this is the case in my parents' Kentucky community, although I've been assured by people in the peace movement there that this formerly red state has taken on a purple hue.

Surely, it is time for all members of the clergy to call for peace. Surely, it is time for each of us to demand it.

* ** *** ** *

Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com

Clark: The Day We Took Over the Senate

2006-09-28T18:18:00.000-05:00

The Day We Took Over the Senate by Gordon Clark

Even for these now veteran activist eyes, it was a glorious and inspiring sight to see.

On Tuesday, September 26, more than 100 nonviolent activists took over the central lobby and atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, and staged a protest of the war in Iraq while dozens and dozens of Senate staffers looked on. For one hour, at least, American opposition to the war in Iraq became the central focus for these offices of the U.S. Senate, and 71 individuals were arrested for making this happen.

The action was organized by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (formerly the Iraq Pledge of Resistance), as part of the week of anti-war actions around the country organized by the Declaration of Peace campaign.

The action started that morning with a rally and interfaith service at Upper Senate Park. Another remarkable aspect of the day was the presence of national religious leaders, such as Jackie Lynn, head of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and Rick Ufford-Chase, Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and for the past two years the moderator of the 216th Presbyterian General Assembly - the highest office in the denomination. They were not only participating themselves in our nonviolent direct action, but were now urging their faith communities to begin following suit.

At the end of the rally and service we formed a procession to go by the Capitol building and then on to the Senate office buildings. Police stopped us after three blocks, telling us that the large procession constituted an unpermitted demonstration and that we would not be allowed to continue. It was at this point that one affinity group broke away, and crossed police lines and Constitution Ave., carrying a coffin to the steps of the Capitol. Sixteen were arrested for that act of nonviolent witness.

The remaining 200 or so of us, however, were suddenly left without any police presence at all, since literally every one of their officers had followed the coffin. As our goal was to get to the offices of the U.S. Senate, we decided to simply turn around and head back up Constitution Ave. to the Senate office buildings - which we did without incident until some of the police realized their mistake, came roaring back and set up a line to stop us in front of the Russell Senate Office Building, one block short of our ultimate goal.

A small group of us conducted negotiations with an officer of the Capitol Police for 15-20 minutes. Although they continued to assert that our procession was illegal and could not continue - if we wanted to visit our Senators, they said, we had to return to Upper Senate Park (where we did have a permit), leave all our signs and banners behind and break up into small groups - the officer in charge was a model of courtesy, and in fact, an extremely friendly fellow. When their "final" decision was made, our decision was to stay put. We intended to proceed as a group, no matter what, and if they felt compelled to arrest us they would have to do it right there.

The police gave a five minute warning, but that five minutes passed and nothing happened. Ten of our number managed to cross the police line and get to the Russell building entrance, where they were promptly detained and arrested. Others called their senators' offices to demand to know why weren't being allowed in to see them. A giant Gandhi puppet, carrying a sign that said "Be the change you want to see in the world," came rolling down Constitution Ave. and evoked a huge cheer from our crowd, all the more so because the same puppet had earlier been stopped by police who refused to allow it near the Capitol complex. Interestingly, Gandhi was now being given an entire lane of traffic on Constitution Ave.

While all this was happening, Rick Ufford-Chase continued to negotiate with the police. Rick is a pretty darn friendly guy himself, and apparently a heck of a negotiator, since after another 15-20 minutes it was announced that if we left our large banners behind, we would be allowed to proceed as a group, enter the Hart Senate Office Building, and reassemble after passing through security. Rick had re-emphasized our commitment to nonviolence, and had patiently explained that our planned action in the Hart atrium would be a respectful, interfaith-led protest of the war in Iraq. The police explained that if we did that, we would likely be arrested inside the Hart building.

When this agreement was announced, it was immediately apparent how remarkable and unprecedented it was. The Capitol police would allow us to continue what they considered an unpermitted demonstration, and then enter a Senate office building - for the express purpose of carrying out another illegal demonstration. (The charge given those arrested inside was "unlawful assembly.")

While a number of us continued a protest outside, more than 100 of us entered the Hart building. For those not familiar with it, the Hart Senate Office Building is really quite beautiful and unlike any other congressional office building, in that it is designed around a giant, open, building-high lobby and atrium, with senate offices lining the seven stories facing on to the atrium. If you control the atrium, you essentially control the entire building.

And that is precisely what we did. With some reading the names of the dead or holding up peace signs on the balconies surrounding the lobby, a large group assembled in a circle on the first floor for our nonviolent witness against the war. As it went on, the balconies filled with onlookers, until finally all seven stories, on all four sides, were lined with senate staffers and visitors watching the protest and eventual arrests. Several applauded and gave thumbs up. The protest also garnered the front page and a full inside page spread of the following day's Roll Call newspaper, meaning that every office on Capitol Hill knew about it within 24 hours.

I have often heard "this is what democracy looks like" chanted during street marches and protests. Standing in this august senate office building, with our protest being watched by a majority of the people working there, I had the profound feeling that this is exactly what democracy should look like. If our elected leaders refuse to heed the will of the people, then we the people will take over their offices until they do. It happens in other countries around the world, usually to our great approval, so why not here in the U.S. as well? Truly, this was democracy in its purest and finest form.

People were peacefully arrested, and led away. They joined their colleagues from the previous arrests, and had by all accounts a time of great community and fellowship during the several hours it took the police to process and release them all. Those of us waiting outside the police station heard frequent outbursts of laughter and applause. The police officer in charge sought me out at the end to thank me several times over, and stated plainly that they were glad they were able to help us accomplish what we wanted to do that day.

Relationships with police are a complicated and challenging matter for our movement, a source of often heated debate. And this particular police force in question had a somewhat different interpretation of our goal, believing we were there "to be arrested." (While the nonviolent activist is willing to risk arrest and make other sacrifices, our goal is not to be arrested. We usually end up reminding the police of this, and inviting them to not arrest us the next time, but rather to join us.)

The fact remains, though, that this is one of several examples - we've been doing nonviolent actions since before the Iraq war began - where different police forces in the nation's capital not only treated us well, but actually helped us achieve our goal. A large part of that has to do with our own commitment to nonviolence, which leads us to treat all people, including our adversaries and even arresting officers, with openness and respect. Respect them, and often they will respect you in return.

Just as important, though, is the fact that many of these police, possibly even the large majority of them, actually agree with us and support what we're doing. They have privately told our activists this on many, many occasions. They have brothers and sisters and buddies in the military, and lost some of them, and they are just as sick of this war as we are. It reminds one directly of the epilogue in the updated edition of Howard Zinn's classic People's History of the United States, where he argues that a "revolt of the palace guards" may be part of how a peaceful revolution happens in this country. Listening to and working with these police, one gets the feeling the revolution may be a little closer than we think.

Above all, though, we achieved our goal, and for a least one hour on a Tuesday in September, we brought the work of a Senate office building to a standstill, and made loud and clear our demand that the immoral, illegal and unjust occupation of Iraq must end. If we can continue to ramp up our actions in this way, including the extremely important electoral work for this fall, we can and will compel members of Congress to heed our demand.

Gordon Clark is the convener of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, formerly the Iraq Pledge of Resistance. For news stories and images of these actions, as well as more information, go to www.iraqpledge.org, or www.declarationofpeace.org

Keillor: What Really Makes our Nation Strong

2006-09-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

What Really Makes our Nation Strong
by Garrison Keillor
Published on Thursday, September 7, 2006 by the Baltimore Sun (Maryland)

Growing up in the '50s, we imagined our country defended by guided missiles poised in bunkers, jet fighters on the tarmac and pilots in the ready room prepared to scramble, a colonel with a black briefcase sitting in the hall outside the president's bedroom, but Sept. 11 gave us a clearer picture. We have a vast array of hardware, a multitude of colonels, a lot of bureaucratic confusion, and a nation vulnerable to attack.

The Federal Aviation Administration has now acknowledged that the third of the four planes seized by the 19 men with box cutters had already hit the Pentagon before the FAA finally called there to say there was a problem. The FAA lied to the 9/11 commission about this, then took two years to ascertain the facts - a 51-minute gap in defense - and released the finding on the Friday before Labor Day, an excellent burial site for bad news.

So America is not the secure fortress we grew up imagining. Perhaps it never was. What protects us is what has protected us for 230 years: our magnificent isolation. After the disasters of the 20th century, Europe put nationalism aside and adopted civilization, but we have oceans on either side, so if the president turns out to be a shallow, jingoistic fool with a small, rigid agenda and little knowledge of the world, we expect to survive it somehow. Life goes on.

It's hard for Americans to visualize the collapse of our country. It's as unthinkable as one's own demise. Europeans are different: They've seen disaster, even the British. They know it was a near thing back in 1940. My old Danish mother-in-law remembered the occupation clearly 40 years later and was teary-eyed when she talked about it. Francis Scott Key certainly could envision the demise of the United States in 1814 when he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Abraham Lincoln was haunted by the thought. We are not, apparently, though five years ago we saw a shadow.

We really are one people at heart. We all believe that when thousands of people are trapped in the Superdome without food or water, it is the duty of government, the federal government if necessary, to come to their rescue and to restore them to the civil mean and not abandon them to fate. Right there is the basis of liberalism. Conservatives tried to introduce a new idea - it's your fault if you get caught in a storm - and this idea was rejected by nine out of 10 people once they saw the pictures. The issue is whether we care about people who don't get on television.

Last week, I sat and listened to a roomful of parents talk about their battles with public schools in behalf of their children who suffer from dyslexia, or apraxia, or ADD, or some other disability - sagas of ferocious parental love vs. stonewall bureaucracy in the quest for basic, needful things - and how some of them had uprooted their families and moved to Minnesota so their children could attend better schools. You couldn't tell if those parents were Republicans or Democrats. They simply were prepared to move mountains so their kids could have a chance. So are we all.

And that's the mission of politics: to give our kids as good a chance as we had. They say that liberals have run out of new ideas - it's like saying that Christians have run out of new ideas. Maybe the old doctrine of grace is good enough.

I don't get much hope from Democrats these days, a timid and skittish bunch, slow to learn, unable to sing the hymns and express the steady optimism that is at the heart of the heart of the country. I get no hope at all from Republicans, whose policies seem predicated on the Second Coming occurring in the very near future.

If Jesus does not descend through the clouds to take them directly to paradise, and do it now, they are going to have to answer to the rest of us.

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.

Smith: A Bowl of Cucumbers and a Pot of Beans

2006-08-09T23:40:00.000-05:00

Published on Wednesday, August 9, 2006
by CommonDreams.org
A Bowl of Cucumbers and a Pot of Beans
by Debi Smith

Maybe it was just midnight mind talking. You know, that tendency to get all worried, scared, panicky, stressed about things in the middle of the dark and silent night that wouldn't ordinarily bother you in the light of day? Or at least not as much.

I woke -- around 1:30 -- got up for a glass of water, went back to bed and was unable to get back to sleep for more than an hour. Laid there worrying, of all things, about my writing/blogging. Even considered getting up and deleting all my blogs.

Why?

Several reasons.

Maybe I should be more private. More "off the grid." Less involved with "the vast machine."

Maybe my friends will think I'm strange if they read what I write.

Maybe I suck at writing.

Maybe my opinion is irrelevant.

Maybe it's a waste of my time.

Maybe there are better/more helpful things I could be doing.

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe the other.

I eventually fell asleep. And here I am, the next morning, writing again. I am strangely compelled.

Perhaps it's because of a deep and acute need to push through the shallow and inane in search of deeper awareness and understanding that I am compelled. Yeah, sometimes I worry that I ain't got what it takes. That I'm not capable of diving any deeper than the surface. But no, that's not true. I can dive deep. I can take it all in. And it's not just true for me. We all can. But mostly we don't. Mostly we prefer the shallows. Perhaps it's the sheer scope of all there is to fathom (pun partially intended), that gives us the bends -- some of us even before we descend. For me personally, the problem intensifies back on the surface where I have an even harder time breathing and describing and processing what I've seen.

Once in a while, one particular thing/observation/idea/event will come along and grab my attention and focus and I am compelled to write. And suddenly I feel totally absorbed, connected, fluid, coherent. And the end result feels meaningful and useful.

But lately/usually I feel overwhelmed by everything going on in the world. There is SO much that needs our attention and focus. So damn much. Where to begin? And what have I been writing about? Dreams, soccer, making silly audioblogs, doing the laundry...

Yet, these things are important too, and not necessarily little or meaningless. They are the ordinary in life that we cherish. They are the ordinary that bind us.

I was reading a regretful but important article this morning, After Bomb Kills Loved Ones, Life Turns Ghostly, that tells of the tragic and devastating effect war has had upon one particular Lebanese man. A man who is, among other things, a husband and a father.

I don't know what it means to live in a land where bombs are dropping, and pray I never will -- though if we in America did understand this, maybe we'd be less likely to make the bombs, less likely to be in the business of profiting from them, less likely to export them, less likely to drop them, less likely to support the government that does...maybe.

No, I don't know what it means to live with the very real threat of a bomb landing on my loved ones or me. How can one live normally with such a threat? But I read the article and was touched by the semblance of the ordinary that existed immediately before bombs dropped and destroyed most of this man's family and self.

The rooms were still neatly composed, life suspended. Dishes were done. Laundry — tiny pink pants, a head scarf, a bra — was hanging on lines. But details showed something was wrong. The clothes were dusty from the pulverized concrete and soot of the explosion. A bowl of cucumbers and a pot of beans in the refrigerator were covered with mold.

I just can't imagine it. Can't imagine what it must be like to walk into the rubble and find your five year old daughter torn apart -- her torso and an arm separate from the rest of her body. To find your wife crushed to death. Can't imagine it.

I can't imagine what it's like to do the dishes, hang the laundry, and then run next door hoping to find shelter from a bomb only to be blown to bits.

I can't imagine how the United States is contributing to this carnage. Can't imagine how we have been visiting the same spectre of destruction and carnage and death (oh the shock and awe of it) upon thousands and thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians for over three years now. And for what? Can't imagine how war is still a thing of the present. Can't imagine why we haven't found a better way.

There are so many other things I can't imagine. Yet they are happening. And they are overwhelming.

Maybe the only way to work through it at the moment, is to take decompression stops along the way. Little writes here and there. Go to the dark places and witness what's there. And once back on the surface -- out of the dark otherworld of fear -- work more diligently at a world I can imagine.

We can all do this, can't we?

Former Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell once said:

"[In outer space] you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."

Can we imagine ourselves, like Edgar Mitchell, out in space looking back at our precious planet and all its beautiful people and imagine a world like no other we've ever known? A world of peace, joy, equality, love, health, liberty, justice and unity for all--including the sons of bitches in power? Can we imagine all of us getting together for a bowl of cucumbers and a pot of beans?"

That's what I choose to imagine the next time I have an attack of midnight mind.

Like Buddha said:

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."

Debi lives in Ashland, Oregon and is -- among other things -- a mother of two thinking about all the other mothers around the world who are concerned for their children. You may contact her at debi@mind.net or access her blogs through www.babelonpages.blogspot.com

Cobb: World War III is a War on Children

2006-08-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

WWIII: Whose Side are You On?
Published on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at CommonDreams.org
by Karen Horst Cobb

They may have been hit by an Israeli bomb, but they are victims of the Hezbollah. We have to create a reality where those Lebanese children would have been at school today instead of being sheltered and held hostage in that building, and where Israeli children in Shemona could go to school without fear of Katyusha rockets. It is our enemies who specifically target women and children, and when we do it, we apologize.
-- Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the UN, Sunday on Meet the Press
What I heard Mr. Gellerman say in response to the killing of the children of Qana was similar to the words of other abusers.

It isn’t my fault I beat my wife. She was asking for it … she never knows when to shut up. Anyway I am not an abuser because I always apologize afterward. As far as the rape? Well, she was asking for it because of the way she looks.
This is a more easily accessible framing of the forces of evil unleashed in the world. "World War III" is a world war on children and the citizen soldiers in all locations, conducted with psy-ops propaganda using blame, excuses, and the insistence that the world remain an impotent silent witness of religious- and state-sponsored terrorism.

The “precision guided missile” found its target just like the manufacturer promised. It was launched by Israel with precision, satellite intelligence, and forethought but the ambassador explained it wasn‘t their fault. Another precisely guided missile hit the UN target a few days earlier killing four innocent peacemakers who had called all day to report their location was being targeted. Sunday’s target was a house where poor children and their families huddled in fear. How can the world be manipulated to support more killing of innocent people and refuse to hold the perpetrators responsible in the court of public opinion? The US Republicans and Democrats both of whom claim that taking responsibility is a a core value of their party refuse to speak out. Sunday July 30th 2006 I decided whose side I will be on in World War III. It became crystal clear. I am on the side of the Children! I am on the side of all children EVERYWHERE! This politically motivated World War III is a war on Children.

As an ambassador for the children I would like to negotiate a ceasefire. It might not be lasting in your frame of reference, it might not be strategic, but if it lasts 6 months that will be half the lifetime of the youngest one who was killed on Sunday. If it lasts four weeks it will be the entire lifetime of the one month old lying in the morgue. It might give some older children a few more weeks to play another game with their cousins, or celebrate one more birthday, or learn their multiplication tables all the way up to the twelves. As an ambassador to the world’s children I want to begin by clearly defining the meaning of the word "child." Child: a viable maturing fetus living outside of a womb. Perhaps this clarification will cause Christians in the US to value these little human lives whom Jesus referred to as the least of these among us. After all, it was weapons and weapon technology of the US purchased by the taxpayers and gifted to Israel which killed the children of Qana this Sunday. Qana, the place where we are told Jesus turned water into wine.

The repetitive drip of the media faucet reminds us that Israel has a right to defend herself. If one follows that reasoning then the people of Lebanon now also have the right to defend themselves. If Lebanon has the obligation to disarm Hezbollah then it stands to reason that the US has the obligation to disarm its contract military in Iraq. They are not official members of the US military but are a violent group who are part of an ancient religious sect who worships the god mammon. This logic also would conclude that the US is obligated to disarm all the members of the NRA if our nation is ever invaded and occupied.

If the definition of a terrorist is one who targets civilians to create terror, then the “shock and awe” perpetrated on Iraq was also an act of terrorism. The daily military activity over Palestine, sonic booms in the middle of the night, and the ominous presence of the heavily armed guards who stand at the checkpoints in the prison known as Gaza is also terrorism. Some can argue that all forms of sanctions which deny food, water, power, and medical care to children are designed to terrorize the innocent. Some are sponsored by the state and some are sponsored by individuals and rogue militia who are desperate. In Israel this logic would extend to the well-organized group of settlers who dress in black with ski masks and use wooden clubs, chains, and rocks to harass Palestinian children on their way to school while the military stands by and does nothing. Recently two members of the Christian peacemaker team who escort the children to school to protect them and offer themselves as human shields were severely beaten in the village of Al-Tuwani in the southern Hebron hills. The police did nothing, the military did nothing, and the militia remains to target and terrorize Palestinian children in the future.

In the US the “potential child” the size of the dot at the end of a sentence was protected by the US government last week supposedly by moral Christian republicans. Yet this same lobby denies the call for a ceasefire because it will not be a “lasting” solution. Life is filled with temporary solutions because we are mortal. Life is temporary. The behaviors of the abuser are well known. There are cycles of abuse and profuse lame apologies accompanied by self-justifying explanations of why the victim “deserved” it. In the case of Israel and Lebanon we have the US playing the role of the family friend who turns his back and bites his lower lip waiting for the thug to finish his violence. It is similar to the “brown shirts” who kicked and beat an innocent person while a conflicted comrade turned his back. Or perhaps also like the loan shark who has his underling break the knees of a debtor while he enjoys a peaceful dinner with his family.

Jesus explained that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities. (politics and land holders). And spiritual wickedness in high places (political/religious leaders controlled by lust and covetousness). The nature of evil is to dominate, control, and possess. There is the test for exposing the evil nature of the abusive spouse as well as abusive national leaders. The test questions are: Does this entity seek to dominate? Does this entity seek to control? Does this entity seek to possess?

As an ambassador for the children I implore all good people in all countries to take the side of the children in WWIII-- the Lebanese children, the Iraqi children, the Israeli children, and the children of the Sudan and all other regions where children are being killed and wounded by those who worship power. No religion supports the murder of children except for those who openly worship evil. If Judaism worships an honorable and just God and the Torah teaches righteousness then prove it by your actions. If Islam means peace and a commitment to social justice then prove it by your actions. If Jesus is the Messiah with good news based on grace then prove it by your actions. If religions of the world must engage in competition let them compete in outdoing each other in acts of kindness toward children.

God creates, builds, sustains, and regenerates, but men are addicted to destruction. In the past men fought the battles with similar weapons. The winner of the competition won the spoils. Today however the men use women and children and disproportionate weaponry. Israel and the US have hundreds of thousands of the most advanced weapons while their opponents have home-made explosives and suicide bombs. If Israeli men and men from the surrounding areas and men from the United States want to continue competing for land and security and use the power of their religious leaders, let them do it away from the children. In satire I might suggest a designated area of land set aside for military men and religious leaders to carry out their ineffective, violent problem solving . As the male descendents of Ishmael and Isaac wrestle over who daddy God likes best, the women and children are left in peaceful areas where they are free to pray, worship, learn, grow, dance, and create. The sign of an internationally accepted demilitarized zone is the presence of a child.

As the ambassador for the children of the world I beg all men to put aside their vengeance, desire for land, and score cards of righteousness. A war on children has been declared. Thousands each day in the world are aborted from the Earth. On Sunday many very very late term abortions occurred and US Christians for the most part remained silent. Israeli children sitting in a café may be blown to bits. The lives of Arab and Persian children appear to be of little regard to those who give the commands and carry out orders. People who consider themselves kind do nothing, turn their backs, go shopping and remain silent. Jesus said “a child shall lead them;” he also explained that unless you become as little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Let it be on Earth as it is in Heaven is my prayer. Immediately After 911 many agreed with the sentiment, "we are all Americans now." Many American politicians agree with the often-repeated sentiment "we are all Israelis now." The global cry of all kind people in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, the United States, and all other nations of the world can instead be "we are all children now!"

As an ambassador for the children I call for a permanent ceasefire and an immediate end to the war on children. Blessed are the peacemakers; let us boldly stand together for the innocents.

Authors comment: I went on record Oct 25, 2004 as one who is "No Longer a Christian" due to the substituted GI-Joe Jesus for the Prince of Peace who delivered the Sermon on the Mount. I am a member of the “church in exile.” I can not worship at any church which does not actively oppose the killing of children. With this article I now pledge my allegiance and declare my primary citizenship to the Kingdom of Heaven. My religion has been stolen and increasingly I am becoming a refugee in America as the Constitution is replaced with Imperial power and the Bill of Rights is erased. If I am to remain ethical and committed to kindness I must be willing to stand alone. I know there are many others who are standing alone. I can be contacted at cairnhcobb@msn.com.

7.17.06 Chopra: Who Owns Christianity?

2006-07-17T21:30:00.001-05:00

Published on Monday, July 17, 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Who Owns Christianity?
by Deepak Chopra

Not many people of moderate persuasion have much sway in the church any more. I was reminded why recently when the Episcopal Church did two important things: It elected a woman bishop to head the denomination, and it backtracked on appointing gay bishops. The first move seems Christian. Women deserve to hold church office as much as political office (one diocese, however, was so incensed that it voted to leave the church, and worldwide there are still Anglican movements that do not permit women to be bishops or ordained priests).

The second move was an act of cowardice because it did not reflect the ideals of love in Christianity and was motivated by reactionaries in the Episcopal denomination. Countering a long tradition of laissez-faire tolerance, the reactionaries have gotten tough and threatened to form their own church if gays are promoted in the priesthood. The worldwide Anglicans are more intolerant, upholding that homosexuality is forbidden, unnatural, wrong or an outright sin, depending on who is doing the disapproving.

You'd think that someone would stand up and ask a simple question: Who are we to condemn gays if Christ didn't? In fact, who are we to condemn any sinner, since Christ didn't? Christianity is about forgiveness, and for the past two decades, as fundamentalism swept through every Protestant denomination, moderates and liberals have been driven out, and were roundly condemned as they left. Along with them went tolerance and forgiveness, not to mention love.

Did Christ teach love or is that just a liberal bias? In the current climate, it's hard to remember, but one thing is certain: Once a tight cabal of fundamentalists takes over any denomination, Christ's teachings go out the window. The reversal of Christianity from a religion of love to a religion of hate is the greatest religious tragedy of our time.

Those of us who haven't been swept up in worldwide fundamentalism, which has corrupted Islam, Hinduism and Judaism as well, have been caught in a double bind. We can't join any sect that preaches intolerance, yet we can't fight it, either, because by definition fighting is a form of intolerance. To escape this double bind, moderates have stayed silent and stayed home. But that tactic failed. As healthy as it is to nourish your own devotion and faith, it's disastrous to allow extremists to take over the church, because the statehouse, the board of education, the Congress, and eventually the presidency are next.

Perhaps civil society will solve the problem of religious extremism. So far it hasn't. America finds itself in the sad plight of being the world's most prominent secular society hijacked by sectarians. One can only hope that the church comes to its senses and regains its moral center. If that doesn't occur, the core teachings of Christ will be lost, for all intents and purposes, to this generation.

Deepak Chopra came to the U.S. in 1970 from his native India to practice medicine, a career that evolved into the field of mind-body medicine. His breakthrough book, "Quantum Healing," brought him public recognition in 1989. Since then he has written more than 42 books and travels worldwide as a spiritual speaker who fuses Western science with Eastern wisdom. He lives in La Jolla with his wife, Rita, and has two grown children and two grandchildren. Dr. Chopra heads the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California, which specializes in many alternative treatment modalities including Ayurveda.

6.8.06 Hebert: Baking a Prayer for Peace

2006-06-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

Baking a Prayer for Peace
By Patricia Hebert
Wednesday, June 7, 2006

When the United States engaged Iraq in a war, we were visiting family in Florida. One morning, while reading the local newspaper, a very small book announcement caught my eye. Nawal Nasrallah was self publishing a cookbook titled, "Delights from the Garden of Eden -- A cookbook and a History of the Iraqi Cuisine."

I was intrigued for two reasons. The first being, my father-in-law had just used the same self-publishing company to get his book out, and I was struggling with the idea of how we could, as a people, hate an entire country for the actions of a few.

I went on the Web to find out more about this author and her book. What I found amazed me. First of all, I had traveled 1,500 miles to read about a remarkable author who lived not 30 miles from my house. Ms. Nasrallah is quite remarkable. She is a teacher, a wife, a mother, a person who has suffered, and seen war. She fled Iraq the day that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Without waiting another moment, I bought her book. As a mother with children of my own, I wanted to get to know the Iraqi mothers and their children. I knew through her writings and her recipes I would gain an understanding of the peaceful Iraqi people.

The book arrived the day after we returned from our trip. Being a baker, I turned to the cakes and breads. My first foray into Iraqi cooking was the Energizing Fruit Cake (Kekat al-Fawakih al-Mujaffafa). It is a wonderful cake made with dried fruit and nuts. Much lighter than the traditional English fruit cake that gets passed around at Christmas. And true to her word, one slice of this cake in the morning is enough to carry you until dinner. Of course, it is so good, I find it hard not to eat two slices and then I still dream about more.

The next recipe I tried was the Gold'n Spicy Pumpkin Bread (Kekat al-Shijar al-Ahmer). This was another hit with the family, and friends. And I found myself baking these breads and giving them to people or bringing them to church bake sales. For example, when a neighbor's son returned from the war I baked a bread and dropped it over. I didn't make a big deal out of it. But in my heart I knew that baking this bread was a prayer of thanksgiving for his return and also a prayer for the innocent people in Iraq.

It's been years now, and several Iraqi dishes like Scotch Eggs (Bazmaward) are mixed in among our other standards meals. Offered with each recipe is a prayer for peace. This weekend, we are having an anniversary celebration at our parish and as an alternative to donuts after the 8 a.m. Mass I offered to bake some Energizing Fruit Cake. And along with this cake, a prayer.

5.30.06 Jensen: The Four Fundamentalisms

2006-05-30T21:53:00.000-05:00

The Four Fundamentalisms
By ROBERT JENSEN

The most important words anyone said to me in the weeks immediately after September 11, 2001, came from my friend James Koplin. While acknowledging the significance of that day, he said, simply: "I was in a profound state of grief about the world before 9/11, and nothing that happened on that day has significantly changed what the world looks like to me."

Because Jim is a bit older and considerably smarter than I, it took me some time to catch up to him, but eventually I recognized his insight. He was warning me that even we lefties -- trained to keep an eye on systems and structures of power rather than obsessing about individual politicians and single events -- were missing the point if we accepted the conventional wisdom that 9/11 "changed everything," as the saying went then. He was right, and today I want to talk about four fundamentalisms loose in the world and the long-term crisis to which they point.

Before we head there, a note on the short-term crisis: I have been involved in U.S. organizing against the so-called "war on terror," which has provided cover for the attempts to expand and deepen U.S. control over the strategically crucial resources of Central Asia and the Middle East, part of a global strategy that the Bush administration openly acknowledges is aimed at unchallengeable U.S domination of the world. For U.S. planners, that "world" includes not only the land and seas -- and, of course, the resources beneath them -- but space above as well. It is our world to arrange and dispose of as they see fit, in support of our "blessed lifestyle." Other nations can have a place in that world as long as they are willing to assume the role that the United States determines appropriate. The vision of U.S. policymakers is of a world very ordered, by them.

This description of U.S. policy is no caricature. Anyone who doubts my summary can simply read the National Security Strategy document released in 2002 and the 2006 update and review post-World War II U.S. history. Read and review, but only if you don't mind waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat of fear. But as scary as these paranoid, power-mad policymakers' delusions may be, Jim was talking about a feeling beyond that fear -- a grief that is much broader and goes much deeper.

Opposing the war-of-the-moment -- and going beyond that to challenge the whole imperial project -- is important. But also important is the work of thinking through the nature of the larger forces that leave us in this grief-stricken position. We need to go beyond Bush. We should recognize the seriousness of the threat that this particular gang of thieves and thugs poses and resist their policies, but not mistake them for the core of the problem.

FUNDAMENTALISMS

One way to come to terms with these forces is to understand the United States as a society in the grip of four fundamentalisms. In ascending order of threat, I identify these fundamentalisms as religious, national, economic, and technological. All share some similar characteristics, while each poses a particular threat to sustainable democracy and sustainable life on the planet. Each needs separate analysis and strategies for resistance.

Let's start by defining fundamentalism. The term has a specific meaning in Protestant history (an early 20th century movement to promote "The Fundamentals"), but I want to use it in a more general fashion to describe any intellectual/political/theological position that asserts an absolute certainty in the truth and/or righteousness of a belief system. Such fundamentalism leads to an inclination to want to marginalize, or in some cases eliminate, alternative ways to understand and organize the world. After all, what's the point of engaging in honest dialogue with those who believe in heretical systems that are so clearly wrong or even evil? In this sense, fundamentalism is an extreme form of hubris, a delusional overconfidence not only in one's beliefs but in the ability of humans to know much of anything definitively. In the way I use the term, fundamentalism isn't unique to religious people but is instead a feature of a certain approach to the world, rooted in the mistaking of very limited knowledge for wisdom.

The antidote to fundamentalism is humility, that recognition of just how contingent our knowledge about the world is. We need to adopt what sustainable agriculture researcher Wes Jackson calls "an ignorance-based worldview," an approach to world that acknowledges that what we don't know dwarfs what we do know about a complex world. Acknowledging our basic ignorance does not mean we should revel in stupidity, but rather should spur us to recognize that we have an obligation to act intelligently on the basis not only of what we know but what we don't know. When properly understood, I think such humility is implicit in traditional/indigenous systems and also the key lesson to be taken from the Enlightenment and modern science (a contentious claim, perhaps, given the way in which modern science tends to overreach). The Enlightenment insight, however, is not that human reason can know everything, but that we can give up attempts to know everything and be satisfied with knowing what we can know. That is, we can be content in making it up as we go along, cautiously. One of the tragedies of the modern world is that too few have learned that lesson.

Fundamentalists, no matter what the specific belief system, believe in their ability to know a lot. That is why it can be so easy for fundamentalists to move from one totalizing belief system to another. For example, I have a faculty colleague who shifted from being a dogmatic communist to a dogmatic right-wing evangelical Christian. When people hear of his conversion they often express amazement, though to me it always seemed easy to understand -- he went from one fundamentalism to another. What matters is not so much the content but the shape of the belief system. Such systems should worry us.

That said, not all fundamentalisms pose the same danger to democracy and sustainability. So, let's go through the four I have identified: religious, national, economic, and technological.

RELIGION AND NATION

The fundamentalism that attracts the most attention is religious. In the United States, the predominant form is Christian. Elsewhere in the world, Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu fundamentalisms are attractive to some significant portion of populations, either spread across a diaspora or concentrated in one region, or both. Given all the attention focused on religious fundamentalism, I'll assume everyone has at least a passing acquaintance with the phenomenon and is aware of its threats.

But religious fundamentalism is not necessarily the most serious fundamentalist threat loose in the world today. Certainly much evil has been done in the world in the name of religion, especially the fundamentalist varieties, and we can expect more in the future. But, moving up the list, we also can see clearly the problems posed by national fundamentalism.

Nationalism poses a threat everywhere but should especially concern us in the United States, where the capacity for destruction in the hands of the most powerful state in the history of the world is exacerbated by a pathological hyper-patriotism that tends to suppress internal criticism and leave many unable to hear critique from outside. In other writing (Chapter 3 of Citizens of the Empire) I have outlined in some detail an argument that patriotism is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Here, let me simply point out that because a nation-state is an abstraction (lines on a map, not a naturally occurring object), assertions of patriotism (defined as love of or loyalty to a nation-state) raise a simple question: To what we are pledging our love and loyalty? How is that abstraction made real? I conclude that all the possible answers are indefensible and that instead of pledging allegiance to a nation, we should acknowledge and celebrate our connections to real people in our lives while also declaring a commitment to universal principles, but reject offering commitment to arbitrary political units that in the modern era have been the vehicle for such barbarism and brutality.

That critique applies across the board, but because of our power and peculiar history, a rejection of national fundamentalism is most crucial in the United States. The dominant conception of that history is captured in the phrase "the city upon a hill," the notion that the United States came into the world as the first democracy, a beacon to the world. In addition to setting the example, as soon as it had the capacity to project its power around the world, the United States claimed to be the vehicle for bringing democracy to that world. These are particularly odd claims for a nation that owes its very existence to one of the most successful genocides in recorded history, the near-complete extermination of indigenous peoples to secure the land and resource base for the United States. Odder still when one looks at the U.S. practice of African slavery that propelled the United States into the industrial world, and considers the enduring apartheid system -- once formal and now informal -- that arose from it. And odd-to-the-point-of-bizarre in the context of imperial America's behavior in the world since it emerged as the lone superpower and made central to its foreign policy in the post-WWII era attacks on any challenge in the Third World to U.S. dominance.

While all the empires that have committed great crimes -- the British, French, Belgians, Japanese, Russians and then the Soviets -- have justified their exploitation of others by the alleged benefits it brought to the people being exploited, there is no power so convinced of its own benevolence as the United States. The culture is delusional in its commitment to this mythology, which is why today one can find on the other side of the world peasant farmers with no formal education who understand better the nature of U.S. power than many faculty members at elite U.S. universities. This national fundamentalism rooted in the assumption of the benevolence of U.S. foreign and military policy works to trump critical inquiry. As long as a significant component of the U.S. public -- and virtually the entire elite -- accept this national fundamentalism, the world is at risk.

ECONOMICS

Economic fundamentalism, synonymous these days with market fundamentalism, presents another grave threat. After fall of the Soviet system, the naturalness of capitalism is now taken to be beyond question. The dominant assumption about corporate capitalism in the United States is not simply that it is the best among competing economic systems, but that it is the only sane and rational way to organize an economy in the contemporary world.

In capitalism, (1) property, including capital assets, is owned and controlled by private persons; (2) people sell their labor for money wages, and (3) goods and services are allocated by markets. In contemporary market fundamentalism, also referred to as neoliberalism, it's assumed that most extensive use of markets possible will unleash maximal competition, resulting in the greatest good -- and all this is inherently just, no matter what the results. The reigning ideology of so-called "free trade" seeks to impose this neoliberalism everywhere on the globe. In this fundamentalism, it is an article of faith that the "invisible hand" of the market always provides the preferred result, no matter how awful the consequences may be for real people.

A corresponding tenet of the market fundamentalist view is that the government should not interfere in any of this; the appropriate role of government, we are told, is to stay out of the economy. This is probably the most ridiculous aspect of the ideology, for the obvious reason that it is the government that establishes the rules for the system (currency, contract law, etc.) and decides whether the wealth accumulated under previous sets of rules should be allowed to remain in the hands of those who accumulated it (typically in ways immoral, illegal, or both; we should recall the quip that behind every great fortune is a great crime) or be redistributed. To argue that government should stay out of the economy merely obscures the obvious fact that without the government -- that is, without rules established through some kind of collective action -- there would be no economy. The government can't stay out because it's in from the ground floor, and assertions that government intervention into markets is inherently illegitimate are just silly.

Adding to the absurdity of all this is the hypocrisy of the market fundamentalists, who are quick to call on government to bail them out when things go sour (in recent U.S history, the savings-and-loan and auto industries are the most outrageous examples). And then there's the reality of how some government programs -- most notably the military and space departments -- act as conduits for the transfer of public money to private corporations under the guise of "national defense" and the "exploration of space." And then there's the problem of market failure -- the inability of private markets to provide some goods or provide other goods at the most desirable levels -- of which economists are well aware.

In other words, economic fundamentalism -- the worship of markets combined with steadfast denial about how the system actually operates -- leads to a world in which not only are facts irrelevant to the debate, but people learn to ignore their own experience.

On the facts: There is a widening gap between rich and poor, both worldwide and within most nations. According to U.N. statistics, about a quarter of the world's population lives on less than $1 a day and nearly half live on less than $2. The 2005 U.N. Report on the World Social Situation, aptly titled "The Inequality Predicament," stresses:

"Ignoring inequality in the pursuit of development is perilous. Focusing exclusively on economic growth and income generation as a development strategy is ineffective, as it leads to the accumulation of wealth by a few and deepens the poverty of many; such an approach does not acknowledge the intergenerational transmission of poverty."

That's where the data lead. But I want to highlight the power of this fundamentalism by reminding us of a common acronym: TGIF. Everyone in the United States knows what that means: "Thank God it's Friday." The majority of Americans don't just know what TGIF stands for, they feel it in their bones. That's a way of saying that a majority of Americans do work they generally do not like and do not believe is really worth doing. That's a way of saying that we have an economy in which most people spend at least a third of their lives doing things they don't want to do and don't believe are valuable. We are told this is a way of organizing an economy that is natural.

TECHNOLOGY

Religious, national, and economic fundamentalisms are dangerous. They are systems of thought -- or, more accurately, systems of non-thought; as Wes Jackson puts it, "fundamentalism takes over where thought leaves off" -- that are at the core of much of the organized violence in the world today. They are systems that are deployed to constrain real freedom and justify illegitimate authority. But it may turn out that those fundamentalisms are child's play compared with U.S. society's technological fundamentalism.

Most concisely defined, technological fundamentalism is the assumption that the increasing use of increasingly more sophisticated high-energy, advanced technology is always a good thing and that any problems caused by the unintended consequences of such technology eventually can be remedied by more technology. Those who question such declarations are often said to be "anti-technology," which is a meaningless insult. All human beings use technology of some kind, whether it's stone tools or computers. An anti-fundamentalist position is not that all technology is bad, but that the introduction of new technology should be evaluated on the basis of its effects -- predictable and unpredictable -- on human communities and the non-human world, with an understanding of the limits of our knowledge.

Our experience with unintended consequences is fairly clear. For example, there's the case of automobiles and the burning of petroleum in internal-combustion engines, which gave us the interstate highway system and contributes to global warming. We haven't quite figured out how to cope with these problems, and in retrospect it might have been wise to go slower in the development of a transportation system based on the car and think through the consequences.

Or how about CFCs and the ozone hole? Chlorofluorocarbons have a variety of industrial, commercial, and household applications, including in air conditioning. They were thought to be a miracle chemical when introduced in the 1930s -- non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-reactive with other chemical compounds. But in the 1980s, researchers began to understand that while CFCs are stable in the troposphere, when they move to the stratosphere and are broken down by strong ultraviolet light they release chlorine atoms that deplete the ozone layer. This unintended effect deflated the exuberance a bit. Depletion of the ozone layer means that more UV radiation reaches the Earth's surface, and overexposure to UV radiation is a cause of skin cancer, cataracts, and immune suppression.

But, the technological fundamentalists might argue, we got a handle on that one and banned CFCs, and now the ozone hole is closing. True enough, but what lessons have been learned? Society didn't react to the news about CFCs by thinking about ways to step back from a world that has become dependent on air conditioning, but instead looked for replacements to keep the air conditioning running. So, the reasonable question is: When will the unintended effects of the CFC replacements become visible? If not the ozone hole, what's next? There's no way to predict, but it seems reasonable to ask the question and sensible to assume the worst.

This technological fundamentalism makes it clear why Jackson's call for an ignorance-based worldview is so important. If we were to step back and confront honestly the technologies we have unleashed -- out of that hubris, believing our knowledge is adequate to control the consequences of our science and technology -- I doubt any of us would ever get a good night's sleep. We humans have been overdriving our intellectual headlights for some time, most dramatically in the second half of the 20th century. Most obviously, there are two places we have gone, with reckless abandon, where we had no business going -- into the atom and into the cell.

On the former: The deeper we break into the energy package, the greater the risks we take. Building fires with sticks gathered from around the camp is relatively easy to manage, but breaking into increasingly earlier material of the universe -- such as fossil fuels and, eventually, heavy metal uranium -- is quite a different project, more complex and far beyond our capacity to control. Likewise, manipulating plants through selective breeding is local and manageable, whereas breaking into the workings of the gene -- the foundational material of life -- takes us to places we have no way to understand.

We live now in the uncomfortable position of realizing we have moved too far and too fast, outstripping our capacity to manage safely the world we have created. The answer is not some naïve return to a romanticized past, but a recognition of what we have created and a systematic evaluation of how to step back from our most dangerous missteps.

REDEFINING A GOOD LIFE

Central to that project is realizing that we have to learn to live with less, which we can accomplish only when we recognize that living with less is crucial not only to ecological survival but long-term human fulfillment. People in the United States live with an abundance of most everything -- except meaning. The people who have the most in material terms seem to spend the most time in therapy, searching for answers to their own alienation. This "blessed lifestyle" -- a term Bush's spokesman used in 2000 to describe the president's view of U.S. affluence -- perhaps is more accurately also seen as a curse.

Let's return to CFCs and air-conditioning. To someone who lives in Texas, with its miserable heat half the year, it's reasonable to ask: If not air-conditioning, then what? One possible reasonable response is, of course, to vacate Texas, a strategy I ponder often. More realistic: The "cracker house," a term from Florida and Georgia to describe houses built before air-conditioning that utilize shade, cross-ventilation, and various building techniques to create a livable space even in the summer in the deep South. Of course, even with all that, there are times when it's hot in a cracker house -- so hot that one doesn't want to do much of anything but drink iced tea and sit on the porch. That raises a question: What's so bad about sitting on the porch drinking iced tea instead of sitting inside in an air-conditioned house?

A world that steps back from high-energy/high-technology answers to all questions will no doubt be a harder world in some ways. But the way people cope without such "solutions" can help create and solidify human bonds. In this sense, the high-energy/high-technology world often contributes to impoverished relationships and the destruction of longstanding cultural practices and the information those practices carry. So, stepping back from this fundamentalism is not simply sacrifice but an exchange of a certain kind of comfort and easy amusement for a different set of rewards.

Articulating this is important in a world in which people have come to believe the good life is synonymous with consumption and the ability to acquire increasingly sophisticated technology. To miss the way in which turning from the high-energy/high-technology can improve our lives, then, supports the techno-fundamentalists, such as this writer in the Wired magazine:

"Green-minded activists failed to move the broader public not because they were wrong about the problems, but because the solutions they offered were unappealing to most people. They called for tightening belts and curbing appetites, turning down the thermostat and living lower on the food chain. They rejected technology, business, and prosperity in favor of returning to a simpler way of life. No wonder the movement got so little traction. Asking people in the world's wealthiest, most advanced societies to turn their backs on the very forces that drove such abundance is naïve at best."

Naïve, perhaps, but not as naïve as the belief that unsustainable systems can be sustained indefinitely. With that writer's limited vision -- which is what passes for vision in this culture -- it's not surprising that he advocates economic and technological fundamentalist solutions:

"With climate change hard upon us, a new green movement is taking shape, one that embraces environmentalism's concerns but rejects its worn-out answers. Technology can be a font of endlessly creative solutions. Business can be a vehicle for change. Prosperity can help us build the kind of world we want. Scientific exploration, innovative design, and cultural evolution are the most powerful tools we have. Entrepreneurial zeal and market forces, guided by sustainable policies, can propel the world into a bright green future."

In other words: Let's ignore our experience and throw the dice. Let's take naiveté to new heights. Let's forget all we should have learned.

WHAT'S NEXT?

So far, it appears my criticism has been of the fundamentalist versions of religion, nation, capitalism, and high-technology. But the problem goes deeper than the most exaggerated versions of these systems. If there is to be a livable future, religion as we know it, the nation-state, capitalism, and what we think of as advanced technology will have to give way to new ways of understanding the world and organizing ourselves. We still have to find ways to struggle with the mystery of the world through ritual and art; organize ourselves politically; produce and distribute goods and services; and create the tools we need to do all these things. But the existing systems have proven inadequate to the task. On each front, we need major conceptual revolutions.

I don't pretend to have answers, nor should anyone else. We are at the beginning of a long process of redefining what it means to be human in relation to others and to the non-human world. We are still formulating questions. Some find this a depressing situation, but we could just as well see it as a time that opens incredible opportunities for creativity. To live in unsettled times -- especially times in which it's not difficult to imagine life as we know it becoming increasingly untenable -- is both frightening and exhilarating. In that sense, my friend's acknowledgement of profound grief need not scare us but instead can be a place from which we see clearly and gather the strength to move forward.

What is that path? Tracking the four fundamentalisms, we can see some turns we need to make.

Technologically: We need to stop talking about progress in terms that reflexively glorify faster and more powerful devices, and instead adopt a standard for judging progress based on the real effects on humans and the wider world of which we are a part.

Economically: We need to stop talking about growth in terms of more production and adopt a standard for economic growth and development based on meeting human needs.

Nationally: We need to stop talking about national security and the national interest -- code words for serving the goals of the powerful -- and focus on people's interests in being secure in the basics: food, shelter, education, and communal solidarity.

Religiously: We need to stop trying to pin down God. We can understand God as simply the name we give to that which is beyond our ability to understand, and recognize that the attempt to create rules for how to know God is always a failed project.

I want to end by reinforcing the ultimate importance of that recognition: Most of the world is complex beyond our ability to comprehend. It's not that there's nothing we can know through our rational faculties, but that it's essential we recognize the limits of those faculties. We need to reject the fundamentalist streak in all of us, religious or secular, whatever our political affiliation.

We need to stop mistaking cleverness for wisdom. We need to embrace our limits -- our ignorance -- in the hopes that we can stop being so stupid.

When we do that we are coming to terms with the kind of animals we are, in all our glory and all our limitations. That embrace of our limitations is an embrace of a larger world of which we are a part, more glorious than most of us ever experience.

When we do that -- if we can find our way clear to do that -- I think we make possible love in this world. Not an idealized love, but a real love that recognizes the joy that is possible and the grief that is inevitable.

It is my dream to live in that world, to live in that love.

There is much work to be done if we want that world. There is enormous struggle that can't be avoided. When we allow ourselves to face it, we will realize that ahead of us there is suffering beyond description, as well as potential for transcending that suffering.

There is grief and joy.

And there is nothing to do but face it.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the board of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

5.22.06 Moyers: Pass the Bread

2006-05-22T20:46:00.000-05:00

Pass the Bread
by Bill Moyers
Text of Baccalaureate Address
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
May 20, 2006

I will make this brief because I know you have much to do between now and your farewell to Hamilton tomorrow, and that you are eager to get out and enjoy this perfect day in this glorious weather that somehow never gets mentioned in your promotional and recruitment literature.

One of my closest friends and colleagues, David Bate, graduated in 1938, and patriot that he is, headed right for the U.S. Navy where he served throughout World War II. David's father graduated from Hamilton in 1908 and two of his children continued the tradition. I asked David what he learned at Hamilton and he told me Hamilton is where you discover that being smart has nothing to do with being warm and dry...Just kidding! Thank you for inviting Judith and me to share this occasion with you. Fifty years ago both of us turned the same corner you are turning today and left college for the great beyond. Looking back across half a century I wish our speaker at the time had said something really useful--something that would have better prepared us for what lay ahead. I wish he had said: "Don't Go."

So I have been thinking seriously about what I might say to you in this Baccalaureate service. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone from my generation should be saying anything to your generation except, "We're sorry. We're really sorry for the mess you're inheriting. We are sorry for the war in Iraq. For the huge debts you will have to pay for without getting a new social infrastructure in return. We're sorry for the polarized country. The corporate scandals. The corrupt politics. Our imperiled democracy. We're sorry for the sprawl and our addiction to oil and for all those toxins in the environment. Sorry about all this, class of 2006. Good luck cleaning it up."

You're going to have your hands full, frankly. I don't need to tell you of the gloomy scenarios being written for your time. Three books on my desk right now question whether human beings will even survive the 21st century. Just listen to their titles: The Long Emergency: Surviving the Convergence Catastrophe; Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; The Winds of Change: Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations.

These are just three of the recent books that make the apocalypse prophesied in the Bible...the Revelations of St. John...look like child's play. I won't summarize them for you except to say that they spell out Doomsday scenarios for global catastrophe. There's another recent book called The Revenge of Gaia that could well have been subtitled, "The Earth Strikes Back," because the author, James Lovelock, says human consumption, our obsession with technology, and our habit of "playing God" are stripping bare nature's assets until the Earth's only consolation will be to take us down with her. Before this century is over, he writes, "Billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be kept in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable." So there you have it: The future of the race, to be joined in a final and fatal march of the penguins.

Of course that's not the only scenario. You can Google your way to a lot of optimistic possibilities. For one, the digital revolution that will transform how we do business and live our lives, including active intelligent wireless devices that in just a short time could link every aspect of our physical world and even human brains, creating hundreds of thousands of small-scale business opportunities. There are medical breakthroughs that will conquer many ills and extend longevity. Economic changes will lift hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty in the next 25 years, dwarfing anything that's come along in the previous 100 years. These are possible scenarios, too. But I'm a journalist, not a prophet. I can't say which of these scenarios will prove true. You won't be bored, that's for sure. I just wish I were going to be around to see what you do with the peril and the promise.

Since I won't be around, I want to take this opportunity to say a thing or two that have nothing to do with my professional work as a journalist. What I have to say today is very personal. Here it is:

If the world confuses you a little, it confuses me a lot. When I graduated fifty years ago I thought I had the answers. But life is where you get your answers questioned, and the odds are that you can look forward to being even more perplexed fifty years from now than you are at this very moment. If your parents level with you, truly speak their hearts, I suspect they would tell you life confuses them, too, and that it rarely turns out the way you thought it would.

I find I am alternatively afraid, cantankerous, bewildered, often hostile, sometimes gracious, and battered by a hundred new sensations every day. I can be filled with a pessimism as gloomy as the depth of the middle ages, yet deep within me I'm possessed of a hope that simply won't quit. A friend on Wall Street said one day that he was optimistic about the market, and I asked him, "Then why do you look so worried?" He replied, "Because I'm not sure my optimism is justified." Neither am I. So I vacillate between the determination to act, to change things, and the desire to retreat into the snuggeries of self, family and friends.

I wonder if any of us in this great, disputatious, over-analyzed, over-televised and under-tenderized country know what the deuce we're talking about, myself included. All my illusions are up for grabs, and I find myself re-assessing many of the assumptions that served me comfortable much of my life.

Earlier this week I heard on the radio a discussion in New York City about the new Disney Broadway production of Tarzan, the jungle hero so popular when I was growing up. I remember as a kid almost dislocating my tonsils trying to recreate his unearthly sound, swinging on a great vine in a graceful arc toward the rescue of his distressed mate, Jane, hollering bloody murder all the time. So what have we learned since? That Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weismuller, who played Tarzan in the movies, never made that noise. It was a recording of three men, one a baritone, one a tenor, and one a hog caller from Arkansas--all yelling to the top of their lungs. This world is hard on believers.

As a young man I was drawn to politics. I took part in two national campaigns, served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and have covered politics ever since. But I understand now what Thomas Jefferson meant back in 1789 when he wrote: "I am not a Federalist because I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men, whether in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or anything else. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Of course we know there'll be no parties in Heaven. No Democrats, no Republicans, no liberals, no conservatives, no libertarians or socialists. Just us Baptists.

The hardest struggle of all is to reconcile life's polar realities. I love books, Beethoven, and chocolate brownies. Yet how do I justify my pleasure in these in a world where millions are illiterate, the music never plays, and children go hungry through the night? How do I live sanely in a world so unsafe for so many?

I don't know what they taught you here at Hamilton about all this, but I trust you are not leaving here without thinking about how you will respond to the dissonance in our culture, the rivalry between beauty and bestiality in the world, and the conflicts in your own soul. All of us have to choose sides on this journey. But the question is not so much who we are going to fight against as it is which side of our own nature will we nurture: The side that can grow weary and even cynical and believe that everything is futile, or the side that for all the vulgarity, brutality, and cruelty, yearns to affirm, connect and signify. Albert Camus got it right: There is beauty in the world as well as humiliation, "And we have to strive, hard as it is, not to be unfaithful...in the presence of one or the other.

That's really what brings me here this afternoon. I did put myself in your place, and asked what I'd want a stranger from another generation to tell me if I had to sit through his speech. Well, I'd want to hear the truth: The truth is, life's a tough act, the world's a hard place, and along the way you will meet a fair share of fools, knaves and clowns--even act the fool yourself from time to time when your guard is down or you've had too much wine. I'd like to be told that I will experience separation, loss and betrayal, that I'll wonder at times where have all the flowers gone.

I would want to be told that while life includes a lot of luck, life is more than luck. It is sacrifice, study, and work; appointments kept, deadlines met, promises honored. I'd like to be told that it's okay to love your country right or wrong, but it's not right to be silent when your country is wrong. And I would like to be encouraged not to give up on the American experience. To remember that the same culture which produced the Ku Klux Klan, Tom DeLay and Abu Ghraib, also brought forth the Peace Corps, Martin Luther King and Hamilton College.

And I would like to be told that there is more to this life than I can see, earn, or learn in my time. That beyond the day-to-day spectacle are cosmic mysteries we don't understand. That in the meantime--and the meantime is where we live--we infinitesimal particles of creation carry on the miracle of loving, laughing and being here now, by giving, sharing and growing now.

Let me tell you one of my favorite stories. I read it a long time ago and it's stayed with me. There was a man named Shalom Aleicheim. He was one of the accursed of the Earth. Every misfortune imaginable befell him. He lost his wife, his children neglected him, his house burned down, his job disappeared--everything he touched turned to dust. Yet through all this Shalom kept returning good for evil everywhere he could until he died. When the angels heard he was arriving at Heaven's gate, they hurried down to greet him. Even the Lord was there, so great was this man's fame for goodness. It was the custom in Heaven that every newcomer was interrogated by the prosecuting angel, to assure that all trespasses on Earth had been atoned. But when Shalom reached those gates, the prosecuting angel arose, and for the first time in the memory of Heaven, said, "There are no charges." Then the angel for the defense arose and rehearsed all the hardships this man had endured and recounted how in all the difficult circumstances of his life he had remained true to himself and returned good for evil.

When the angel was finished, the Lord said, "Not since Job himself have we heard of a life such as this one." And then, turning to Shalom, he said, "Ask, and it shall be given to you."

The old man raised his eyes and said, "Well, if I could start every day with a hot buttered roll..." And at that the Lord and all the angels wept, at the preciousness of what he was asking for, at the beauty of simple things : a buttered roll, a clean bed, a beautiful summer day, someone to love and be loved by. These supply joy and meaning on this earthly journey.

So I brought this with me. It's an ordinary breakfast roll, perhaps one like Shalom asked for. I brought it because it drives home the last thing I want to say to you. Bread is the great re-enforcer of the reality principle. Bread is life. But if you're like me you have a thousand and more times repeated the ordinary experience of eating bread without a thought for the process that brings it to your table. The reality is physical: I need this bread to live. But the reality is also social: I need others to provide the bread. I depend for bread on hundreds of people I don't know and will never meet. If they fail me, I go hungry. If I offer them nothing of value in exchange for their loaf, I betray them. The people who grow the wheat, process and store the grain, and transport it from farm to city; who bake it, package it, and market it--these people and I are bound together in an intricate reciprocal bargain. We exchange value.

This reciprocity sustains us. If you doubt it, look around you. Hamilton College was raised here by people before your time, people you'll never know, who were nonetheless thinking of you before you were born. You have received what they built and bequeathed, and in your time you will give something back. That's the deal. On and on it goes, from generation to generation.

Civilization sustains and supports us. The core of its value is bread. But bread is its great metaphor. All my life I've prayed the Lord's Prayer, and I've never prayed, "Give me this day my daily bread." It is always, "Give us this day our daily bread." Bread and life are shared realities. They do not happen in isolation. Civilization is an unnatural act. We have to make it happen, you and I, together with all the other strangers. And because we and strangers have to agree on the difference between a horse thief and a horse trader, the distinction is ethical. Without it, a society becomes a war against all, and a market for the wolves becomes a slaughter for the lambs. My generation hasn't done the best job at honoring this ethical bargain, and our failure explains the mess we're handing over to you. You may be our last chance to get it right. So good luck, Godspeed, enjoy these last few hours together, and don't forget to pass the bread.

5.13.06 Almond: Condoleezza Rice at Boston College? I Quit

2006-05-13T13:36:00.000-05:00

Condoleezza Rice at Boston College? I Quit

By Steve Almond

An open letter to William P. Leahy, SJ, president of Boston College.

Dear Father Leahy,
I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College.

I am doing so -- after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret -- as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year's graduation.

Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice's actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive.

But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.

She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.

The public record of her deceits is extensive. During the ramp-up to the Iraq war, she made 29 false or misleading public statements concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, according to a congressional investigation by the House Committee on Government Reform.

To cite one example:

In an effort to build the case for war, then-National Security Adviser Rice repeatedly asserted that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear weapon, and specifically seeking uranium in Africa.

In July of 2003, after these claims were disproved, Rice said: ''Now if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the president, the vice president, or to me."

Rice's own deputy, Stephen Hadley, later admitted that the CIA had sent her a memo eight months earlier warning against the use of this claim.

In the three years since the war began, Rice has continued to misrepresent or simply ignore the truth about our deadly adventure in Iraq.

Like the president whom she serves so faithfully, she refuses to recognize her errors or the tragic consequences of those errors to the young soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq. She is a diplomat whose central allegiance is not to the democratic cause of this nation, but absolute power.

This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006.

It is this last notion I find most reprehensible: that Boston College would entrust to Rice the role of moral exemplar.

To be clear: I am not questioning her intellectual gifts or academic accomplishments. Nor her potentially inspiring role as a powerful woman of color.

But these are not the factors by which a commencement speaker should be judged. It is the content of one's character that matters here -- the reverence for truth and knowledge that Boston College purports to champion.

Rice does not personify these values; she repudiates them. Whatever inspiring rhetoric she might present to the graduating class, her actions as a citizen and politician tell a different story.

Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors?

That hard work in the corporate sector might gain them a spot on the board of Chevron? That they, too, might someday have an oil tanker named after them? That it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?

Given the widespread objection to inviting Rice, I would like to think you will rescind the offer. But that is clearly not going to happen.

Like the administration in Washington, you appear too proud to admit to your mistake. Instead, you will mouth a bunch of platitudes, all of which boil down to: You don't want to lose face.

In this sense, you leave me no choice.

I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both.

I would like to apologize to my students and prospective students. I would also urge them to investigate the words and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech.

Steve Almond is the author of the story collections ''The Evil B. B. Chow" and ''My Life in Heavy Metal."

5.5.06 Thomas: Where Are All the Leaders of Faith?

2006-05-05T22:08:00.000-05:00

Thursday, May 4, 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Where Are All the Leaders of Faith?
by Helen Thomas

Where are the activist priests and ministers who took strong stands during the Vietnam War and hit the streets with their protests?

Three years into the war against Iraq, the silence of the clergy is deafening, despite U.S. abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and a reported American policy of shipping detainees to secret prisons abroad where, presumably, they can be tortured.

There are U.S. chaplains of many faiths serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, ministering to the men and women in uniform and reaching out to local religious leaders in both countries.

But here at home, the clergy seems to be in the same boat as the news media and most members of Congress: they are victims of the post-Sept. 11 syndrome that equates any criticism of U.S. policy with lack of patriotism.

The clergy are not alone. There is a disquieting public acceptance of the status quo. Although the Iraq war has a role in President Bush's declining standing in public opinion polls, rising gas prices may be having a bigger impact on his popularity.

During the Vietnam War, the clergy were vocal leaders of the peace movement and they picked up and marched.

I was reminded of that bygone era -- a time when everyone got involved -- with the passing last month of Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a Presbyterian minister who served as chaplain at Yale University and pastor at Riverside Church in New York.

He was a follower of civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and a liberal, to put it mildly.

Coffin went on the dangerous Freedom rides in the South in the 1960s and worked for human rights of African Americans. He became famous for his protests against the Vietnam War and later espoused the causes of gay rights and anti-nuclear proliferation. He hailed from a wealthy family, attended Ivy League schools, and served in World War II. Before attending a theological seminary, he worked for the CIA.

But he will be most remembered for his moral courage.

The Nation magazine -- which counted Coffin as a contributor -- quoted Coffin as saying he had the "sense of fulfillment from being in the right fight."

Writer and artist Robert Shetterly, Coffin's good friend, wrote on CommonDreams.org a eulogy of Coffin based on his long association with the minister, dating back to an anti-Vietnam War rally at Yale in 1968.

He recalled that Coffin had written in his latest book "Credo," a 2004 collection of his writings, that "the war against Iraq is as disastrous as it is unnecessary; perhaps in terms of its wisdom, purpose and motives, the worst war in American history. Our military men and women were not called to defend America, but rather to attack Iraq. They were not called to die for America, but rather to kill for their country. What more unpatriotic thing could we have asked of our sons and daughters?"

Shetterly's perception of Coffin was that he was not self-righteous and that he had doubts about his own convictions at times. He also wrote that Coffin made mistakes but learned from them.

Shetterly said Coffin "spent his life trying to atone for having followed military orders in 1945, putting 3,000 white Russians who fought against the Stalin communist regime, on a train from Germany to Moscow "and sure execution."

Some of Coffin's quotes are memorable.

After Sept. 11, he said the U.S. government should have vowed "to see justice done, but by force of law only, not by the law of force." He also said that "the world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love."

Lest I have selected Coffin's only intellectual qualities, Shetterly also describes his human side and said that he liked "a good drink. A good joke. A good song. A moral act. A worthy laugh."

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers and a member of the White House press corps.

4.22.06 Cobb: Divine Mushroom Cloud: A Call to Worship

2006-04-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

Divine Mushroom Cloud: A Call to Worship
by Karen Horst Cobb

On June 2nd the god of America will be paraded before the people of the earth causing them to tremble in fear. Americans will again marvel as they worship the god of their own creation. Just like the restless Israelites in the desert who grew inpatient with god and fashioned a golden calf to protect them we have grown inpatient with god and fashioned a shiny idol of power. Southern Methodist University is working with the new clergy of death who have named the idol Divine Strake.

Divine: Having the nature of or being a deity. Of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a deity: sought divine guidance through meditation. Being in the service or worship of a deity; sacred. Superhuman; godlike. Supremely good or beautiful; magnificent: a divine performance of the concerto. Extremely pleasant; delightful: had a divine time at the ball. Heavenly; perfect.

The 700 tons of explosives designed to simulate the effects of a nuclear weapon will create a glorious mushroom cloud. The goal of the ammonium nitrate and fuel to be detonated on Shoshone land will cover Las Vegas with a mushroom cloud and will measure 3.5 on the Richter scale. Some believe it is in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty which banned all testing for nuclear weapons. This simulated explosion will show the "enemy" and the war planners how the real thing will impact the ground and the air in which a nuclear bomb is detonated. Specifically, it is designed to simulate using a tactical nuclear weapon on underground facilities like the ones we are told exist in Iran. If this were the real thing the death toll would be huge, people would be incinerated in a flash with no chance to "duck and cover", much of Nevada would be contaminated with radiation. For any who might survive in the surrounding area they would experience a curse of cancers and deformities which may effect their children and their children's children. The evidence of America's idolatry is clear. We have named it Divine, worship it in our churches and trust in its power.

The names for our God used to be the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace but the names of America's idol are Divine Hates, Divine Helcat, Divine War Hawk and we practice nuclear stockpile stewardship. Many people who identify themselves as being born again , who profess to be dead to self and alive in Christ, now put their trust in and honor the development and use of nuclear weapons. It seems that a massive shell game of mass destruction has occurred. The wizards of treachery have taken away the love of Jesus while his worshipers were distracted by politics. They have been manipulated by fear but Jesus said, " perfect love casts out fear."

Perhaps it is because many are unhappy in their daily lives due to relationship problems, economic difficulties or feelings of being disconnected. Perhaps they fear some impending doom and want to quickly alleviate their discomfort with the belief that there is a mighty force which can prevent more harm from reaching our shores. Perhaps they want to just "bring it on" so there are no scary surprises in the future. Perhaps they have an emotional need to believe they and their families are more valuable to God than those of other lands and cultures.

The Israelites who experienced the same human anxieties responded in the same way. They fashioned a golden calf which represented their need to find security against hunger, poverty and attack. They gave of their wealth to create it and celebrated their ingenuity and their ability to make a god. We read that God was angry with the people for corrupting themselves and for forgetting his promises to them. They trusted in the golden calf as they made peace offerings to it and believed it would protect them from the evil doers. After they had given their resources to the effort and confessed their faith in its ability to protect them they continued to party. Much as today's Christians supported invading the middle east after September 11 and then went shopping.

Clearly when the nuclear genie was first summoned from the bottle the nation gathered round and worshiped the power of their ingenuity. The Israelites began to follow the pillar of cloud after they repented from idolatry . We however, are following the mushroom cloud of our false god of divine hate and testing its power in the Nevada desert. Each year at tax time we contribute our wealth just like the gold smelters in the desert did when they took off their gold earrings to fashion the shiny calf. We sign our continuing pledge on our tax returns and offer our resources to our devouring nuclear god. As a nation we look for aggressive leaders who are able to bully the rest of the world. We bring out our god and parade it before our enemies and boast of its power.

Just like the Israelites in the desert we beg for a god to go before us so no harm comes our way. The actions of the fearful and proud calf worshipers of ancient times resulted in the Ten Commandments. The first and greatest is "you shall have no other Gods before me" (Exodus 34:12) and the other nine Jesus summed up as loving your neighbor as your self. Clearly many Christians in America have broken the first and greatest commandment which results in the breaking of all the rest. We can not embrace our neighbors with mushroom clouds. The nuclear god is a jealous god who will consume us all. We clearly have named our idol divine and support its worship in many of our churches.

Some leaders of America's churches remain silent on the topic of war while others proclaim its glory. Most embrace the writings and teachings of St. Augustine. When Rome was sacked by the Visigoths, the non-resistant Christians were blamed. Just war theory provided a way out of adherence to the peaceful teachings of Christ. It was a way to merge Christianity and nationalism. The church in America conveniently applied and misapplied the principles of Just war to rally the political Christians to support the war in Iraq. This embracing of violence works well for most church leaders since many of their parishioners work for companies who have military contracts, or have family members in the military as our state religion advances.

The trust in military might by many religious leaders is obvious. There are many blatant examples among political Christians. Jerry Falwell stated on CNN, "Blow them all away in the name of the lord." He and others like him are Zion's Christian Soldiers. The Council for National Policy (CNP) is the group of America's political preachers and leaders who worship the divine weapons and meet in secret. These efforts are fueled as the parishioners of mainline denominations are influenced by the para-church organization Promise Keepers. These well attended meetings are held in stadiums and attended by thousands as they support and honor the common perception of men as military aggressors. There are smaller para-church organizations which are drawing believers of all demographics into idolatry of military might. We named it Divine, we worship it and we give it power to protect us from evil.

As you have been told over and over," All options are on the table when it comes to Iran. Our president has told us he is the "decider" of who the evil doers are and who deserves to be killed. We are trusting in a man to use our man made god to destroy a perception of "evil". If the president's war planners carry out their plans many agree it would be the active beginning of WW III The nations of the world are already choosing sides and will contribute their own divine weapons to the efforts. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO) gives us an idea of how the two sides of a nuclear war will shake out.

Will we use a nuclear weapon against a threat which does not yet exist and call upon the god of this world - the god of power, dominance and military might? Robert Oppenheimer called the atomic bomb the destroyer of worlds. It has become our source of wealth, power, and the focus of our technology. We have made a deal with the devil and worship at the feet of destructive power. Many Christians won't publicly say they put their trust in our nuclear arsenal but secretly they breathe a sigh of relief that we have a national god of our very own and possess Divine weapons. Our trust in this powerful entity makes it easier to pursue the American dream and just keep shopping and owning more stuff to fill the love shaped hole in our hearts.

There are some Christians who have renounced the god of war, but more of our church leaders just remain silent. Is there any act of violence that our government could do which would cause church leaders who profess their love for the teaching of Jesus to make bold statements of love?. There is torture and they remain silent, there is imprisonment without charges and they remain silent, There are anal probes and sexual humiliation and they remain silent, there are children and women taken hostages, and they remain silent. There is the use of depleted uranium weapons which cause heinous birth defects and they remain silent, there are bomblets which children think are toys but which blow off limbs and kill them and the Christian leaders remain silent, There is the hell fire use of white phosphorous and they remain silent. There are proud boastful leaders who use Jesus' name while committing acts of extortion, thievery, and domination and falsely hold themselves up as martyrs for the false Christian god. Yet, most church leaders remain silent.

If the nuclear god is called upon to save us will they continue to remain silent? Will they continue to worship the power of the mushroom cloud in our churches? Is there any thing of Christ's words and example for which church leaders will take a stand? Is there any egregious act from which they can not look away? Those who live by the bomb will die by the bomb! This statement is not some sort of esoteric spiritual magic but is a result of natural consequences and the wisdom of the Living God. Sin is sin because the natural consequences are sure destruction. Death and destruction has been pronounced divine, churches preach it from the pulpit and look away from it's hellish fire destruction and human suffering.

Some want to ignore the issue and wash their hands of responsibly by repeating statements concerning the inevitable destruction of the "last days". Some repeat sentiments of old time hymns, "this world is not my home." Some voice the belief that we are to honor our leaders whom Christ placed in power. Or overwhelmed by the immensity of the situation, some acknowledge it's bad but just sigh, " what can you do?" There still is time to return to the peaceful message of Jesus. There is a Christ-like remnant, a church in exile and strong peace churches. Begin today to speak out.

Perhaps these are the "last days" but do you want to be on the side of love and compassion or on the side of death suffering and destruction? Will you be found worshiping the power of the living God or the power of the idol of death? Like it or not, for now this world is our home. Maybe you do not value your earthly existence but your earthy family members will suffer and die without you speaking a word of protest. In fact you will have contributed to the mass destruction. In a representative government the citizens are the leaders and responsible for influencing the laws. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it is our responsibility to try. Yes it is bad but you can and you must do everything in your power to speak out to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.

The test on June 2nd, the trial run of the use of a nuclear weapon is still six weeks away. Perhaps we can make a difference and change the course of history. Everyone has three people representing them in Washington where the powers are unleashed. We each have two US senators and one US representative. If you don't know how to contact yours find out. Start by speaking out and shaping the actions of our representative government. Then, work in any way you can to make every church a peace church and live love and compassion. Chose ye this day whom you will serve.

Karen Horst Cobb wrote No Longer a Christian and No Longer a Christian - Part II published by CommonDreams.org in the fall of 2004 and several other articles on false christianity. She is a mother and a grandmother, and with God's grace, tries to follow the example of Christ as she speaks Christ's message to the world that there is no Government Issue Jesus (GI-Joe Jesus.) cairnhcobb@msn.com

4.14.06 Cordaro: A Good Friday Message

2006-04-13T11:34:00.000-05:00

Frank Cordaro climbs over the gate at the STARC Armory near Des Moines to protest of the presence of Iowa National Guard troops in Iraq in November 2004.

Good Friday – April 14, 2006

DEATH IS UNIVERSAL AND PERSONAL

Death for us humans is both universal and personal. It is universal because no one gets off the planet alive. It is also personal because each one of us must experience our own death. No one can die our deaths for us.

My first real experience of death came with the death of my father, George. There was no one in the world I loved more than my dad. He was a teacher, coach and athletic director of Dowling Catholic High School at the time when it was the all-boys catholic high school in Des Moines. His whole life was directed to serving and loving his God, his family and his work at Dowling, in that order. I cannot say too many good things about my dad. He was honest, true and a friend to all. He lived his life passionately with a strong sense of purpose and meaning. He was a gentle man with a contagious spirit. I lived my life to please him. He was that good.

When my dad died of a heart attack my senior year at Dowling on Easter Sunday morning April 6, 1969, my world collapsed. As he lay dying in a room at Mercy Hospital they let his three oldest children go in to see him, one at a time. There was no time left for my three younger brothers to see him. I was the last in the family to see him alive, though he was barely alive at that time. All I can remember saying to him was "Don't worry Dad. God will take care of everything." I must have said this at least three times. All my dad could do was look at me and let his eyes speak. In them I saw his fear, his love and his understanding.

It took me years to sort out the many layers of meaning of my father's death. For a very long time I had a real fear of death. It was not until I was a parish priest that I acquired some comfort around death. Being a parish priest afforded me rich and meaningful experiences with the dying. As a priest I could walk into the middle of a dying person's last days, hours and even minutes and ask the most important and personal questions. To ask a dying person if they are ready to die is to ask a person to open themselves to the deepest things in their hearts. It was often the most moving and humbling thing I did as a priest, revealing to me, through others, what true faith in God is all about.

My second most personal encounter with death was my own near death experience of dying from a heart attack in September 2001. It was a killer heart attack, the pain was unbearable. I was lucky I was five minutes away from the hospital. Another 10 minutes getting to the hospital would have cost me my life.

I remember being in great pain as I was being taken to the operating room. There was no time to pray or think or do anything to prepare. I managed at my last moment of consciousness to give myself over to God. When I awoke after surgery, I was still in great pain, drugged out on meds, with lots of tubes and needles in my body. As I gradually got my wits back, the first thing I realized was that for me death had ceased to be a metaphor. It had no meaning for me. All I remember was coming out of a kind of darkness, though calling it darkness is saying too much. It was more like nothingness. It was weeks before I was able to use words to explain this experience and months before I thought in metaphoric terms about death again.

MY GOD, MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? (Mark 15:34)

Nobody knows for certain what was on the mind of Jesus when he was dying on the cross. No one ever will. I am certain I know what was not on his mind. I do not believe he was thinking he was the sacrificial blood offering demanded by his Father, God, for the sins of the world. All such sacrificial language used to give meaning to Jesus' death came after his death and resurrection, a kind of theological "Monday Morning Quarterbacking", where the meaning for events is given in hindsight.

Furthermore, I do not believe that Jesus' goal in life was to get nailed to a cross. Certainly, the fact that he foresaw in his continued public speaking and acting out of the Kingdom of God's demands that he was putting his life in jeopardy was no great divine insight. Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero all foresaw their probability of being killed for their peace and justice work. None of these modern martyrs lived to die, not do I believe did Jesus. Jesus' crucifixion was a consequence of his being faithful to his mission and call from God. Jesus set out in his life to correct the faults of his own tradition; in the process he realized the old covenant based on law could not be fixed. What was needed was a new covenant based on love. This covenant was based on a truer understanding of the nature of God and God's relationship to humanity. This covenant's two working principles were unconditional love and unlimited forgiveness. Jesus believed that God operated under these principles and that human beings could do the same. Jesus instinctively knew that worldly powers would violently resist this new covenant and he knew he risked his life to follow it as would others who joined him.

WAS JESUS' SUFFERING SINGULAR OR UNIVERSAL?

The way we answer this question will greatly determine our understanding of who Jesus is. There are many who believe Jesus' suffering and death was a singular event in human history. (Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, comes to mind as an example of this thinking.) Because Jesus was taking on the sins of the world, his suffering and death are unmatched by any other human suffering and
death. Though countless others had suffered the same fate as Jesus and countless more have suffered longer and more gruesome forms of torture and death, none can compare to Jesus' suffering and death. This line of thinking placed in our modern context is not helpful. It is hard to take Jesus' humanity seriously if you believe that Jesus' suffering and death were singular and beyond all ordinary human suffering.

The hardest thing facing the New Testament authors was convincing people of their time that Jesus was the Son of God and there were no others beside him. That God had sons was not a problem for first century people. Greek mythology is full of stories that involve the father god Zeus' many affairs with human women and the various 'sons' that were produced (e.g., Hercules, Dionysius, etc.). In addition, everyone knew that god had a very famous 'son.' They knew his name and where he lived. His name was Caesar and he lived in Rome. Convincing people that a poor Jewish peasant, a vagabond preacher who fell afoul with the Romans and got crucified in Jerusalem, had a greater claim to God's sonship than Caesar greatly affected how the New Testament was written, especially the four gospels. The problem we have today is exactly the opposite. For most professing Christians, the divine side of Jesus is a given, it's his human side that is not seriously believed.

One way to take Jesus' humanity seriously is to understand his suffering and death as all too common and universal, a reality that people lived with in Jesus' day and in our own. The truth is anywhere the poor and oppressed exist we'll find violent political repression. This is a common human experience. Just as Jesus did, we can find people who are nonviolent, justice-seeking peacemakers in these poor and oppressed communities. Many of these people end up suffering from the same violent political repression that dominates the poor and the oppressed. This is how the saints and martyrs throughout history have joined in Jesus' redemptive work to heal and restore our broken world.

This does not mean only the suffering that ends in martyrdom is nredemptive. All human suffering can serve a redemptive purpose. However, the suffering that comes with those who die for the faith and/or die as a result of their nonviolent resistance to injustice and oppression represents the normative kind of suffering in the manner that Jesus suffered. The Catholic Church recognizes this hierarchy of redemptive suffering when it officially certifies a person a martyr who died for the faith.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Romero are good examples of how redemptive suffering works today. After each one of their deaths, countless people were inspired by their lives and have tried to follow their example. These are examples where true blood sacrifice can be redeeming.

Not all blood sacrifice inspires people to do "good." The "powers" and "principalities" (Rom 8:36) are also sustained by blood sacrifice. These are the people who believe in redemptive violence as a means to serve God and country. In this regard, the 2000 plus U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the suicide bomber martyrs from the middle east die for the same theological reasons, only on different sides of a win/lose struggle.

When I think of the Middle East, the lands of the Bible, and all the violent forces at work there and our own U.S. contribution to the violence, my heart breaks. Is it as hopeless as it seems? Only with New Testament eyes do I see signs of hope. When I call to mind two Americans who tried to bring the nonviolent love of Christ to the region at the cost of their lives -- Rachel Corrie and Tom Fox -- I say, "Amen!" Rachel Corrie was run over and killed by a U.S. made bulldozer trying to stop the Israeli Government from destroying a Palestinian family's home. The body of Tom Fox, who was one of the four Christian Peace Makers who were kidnapped . . . was found in February . . . with fatal bullet wounds.

These two U.S. peacemakers hardly match the 2000 plus deaths of U.S. soldiers sent to make war in the Middle East. Then I'm reminded that Jesus died alone on the cross, abandoned by all his friends and disciples and that the Roman Empire and its heirs are firmly in control of our world despite the truth of the first Easter Sunday Resurrection claims. This is the case despite a long litany of saints and martyrs known and unknown. Then it dawns on me just how big a leap of faith a person has to make to truly believe in Jesus' new covenant of love.

* * *

A former priest, Frank Cordaro is now serving a six month federal sentence (his most recent of several) for nonviolent direct action. He and other members of the Catholic Worker community regularly protest against nuclear weapons and the war in Iraq, which they oppose on the basis of their faith and their understanding of the meaning and value of the teachings of Jesus.

3.28.06 Rigby: Why We Let an Atheist Join Our Church

2006-03-28T16:43:00.000-06:00

March 27, 2006

The Teachings of Christ are Spiritual and Political
Why We Let an Atheist Join Our Church

By JIM RIGBY

After years of advocacy for progressive causes, I am used to angry mail -- often from fellow Christians -- when I take a political or theological position that challenges conservative or fundamentalist views.

So, I wasn't surprised when many were unhappy about the decision of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX, where I am the pastor, to let a self-professed atheist become a member. But the intensity and tone of the condemnations were surprising; this wave of mail feels different, more desperate, like people have been backed against a wall.

Ironically, the new member, a longtime leftist political activist and professor in Austin, has been getting mail from fellow atheists skeptical of his decision.

"How can you do this?" both sides are asking. To me they ask, "How can you let someone join the church who cannot affirm the divinity of Christ? Does nothing matter to you liberals?" To Robert Jensen they ask, "How, as an atheist, can you surrender your mind to a superstitious institution that birthed the inquisition and the crusades?"

Neither the church nor Jensen views his membership as surrendering anything, but instead as an attempt to build connections. Such efforts are crucial in a world where there seems not to be a lot of wood to build the bridges we need. And the shame is, while we fight among ourselves, the world is burning.

In my ministry, I have had to live in two worlds. I have spiritual friends who are trying to celebrate the mystery of life, and activist friends who are trying to change the world. Somehow these two enterprises have been separated, but I don't believe either option represents a complete life. Apolitical spirituality runs the danger of giving charity instead of justice, while atheistic humanism runs the danger of offering facts instead of meaning. This divide between spirituality and activism is a betrayal of the deeper roots of both.

The Book of James argues that merely believing in the existence of God means nothing; he jokes that even the demons believe that. Some of the meanest people I have ever met believed in God. The Nazis marched across Europe with belts reading "God is with us," singing some of the same hymns and reciting some of the same creeds that the church uses today. With a few notable exceptions, the German church hid in liturgy and theology while their brothers and sisters burned. Surely, the holocaust is a permanent rebuttal of that kind of detached creedal Christianity.

It's been interesting to see that atheists can be just as narrow-minded as believers. Some of Jensen's critics expressed an infallible belief that religious people like me are idiots by definition. Inflexible beliefs on matters where one has no experience is superstition whether one is a believer or in an atheist.

Atheism can become self-parody when it forms a rigid belief system about religion. There is a difference between true atheism and anti-theism. Atheism can be the naked pursuit of truth, but anti-theism is more often the adolescent joy of upsetting and mocking religious people.

I can understand the urge to make fun of religious people; many of the voices which speak for religion make me want to crawl under the table. But we also must remember that Stalinists -- claiming to be atheistic materialists -- were as savage and superstitious as the inquisitors.

Without religion we would eliminate some of the worst chapters in human history brought on by the religious inquisitors and religious terrorists. But we would also eliminate some of history's best chapters. Imagine a world with no Gandhi, no Martin Luther King, and no Dorothy Day.

Some people argue that evolution disproves religion. I would say that evolution helps us understand why religion is inevitable in human beings. Our upper brain functions are built on top of a marshy swamp of animal instincts, and we are rational only in spurts. Much of our most important processes are irrational, even more are unconscious altogether. To say we will be purely scientific and objective is an act of imaginary dissociation from the liquid core of our own being. In Sartre's words it is "bad faith".

Advertisers know this swampy core and sell to it. Televangelists know this swampy core and manipulate it. Politicians know this swampy core and appeal to it. While progressives are trying to be purely logical, propagandists are playing that irrational core like a drum.

If there's hope of saving the world from the clutches of propaganda it will not be because we refute it rationally. If we save our world it will be because we learned how to speak about personal meaning in a way that is adaptive to natural processes and compatible with universal human rights. Nothing else will do.

Hegel defined religion as putting philosophy into pictures. Strange and foreboding topics like hermeneutics and metaphysics can be taught to almost anyone if they are put in story form. While it is important not to accept these images literally, it is just as important not to reject them literally.

Because life is an ineffable mystery, religion speaks in pictures and symbols. To accept or reject the symbols literally is to miss the point from two different sides. Those who fight over whether God exists are like foolish pedestrians who praise or curse a red light as they step into oncoming traffic. The question isn't whether God exists like a brick exists, but rather "what part of our experience does the symbol ëGod' reveal and what parts does it obscure?"

The problem with most religious discussions is that we are usually swimming in a sea of undefined terms. What sense does it make to ask whether God exists if we don't define what we mean by the term "God." For some it's easier to reconcile themselves to the universe by picturing a large person overseeing the process, while others reconcile themselves to the ground by using impersonal elemental images. These approaches are in conflict only when we forget what we are trying to do in the first place, which is to harmonize with the ground of our being.

Locke and Kant struggled to identify the ultimate categories that shape human perception, which is also the business of religion. We cannot think about being itself because it is too basic. We are like flowers that immerge out of a soil too primordial to be understood in plant terms; we can neither speak about the ground of our being nor ignore it. Religion is a kind of art that reconciles us to the ground out of which we emerge.

As William James pointed out, religion is not merely hypothetical opinion about the world. Religion is most essentially a decision to be engaged in a world that cannot be understood and offers no guarantees. "God" is a symbol of the truth that stands outside our widest context. "God" is a symbol of the reality deeper than our ultimate concern. "God" is a symbol of the mystery that lies between the poles of our clearest rational dichotomy. The point is not to affirm the reality of the symbol itself, but to affirm the reality to which the symbol points.

Part of the apoplexy triggered by Dr. Jensen came from his statement that he was joining our church for "political reasons." If one defines politics as partisan wrangling then Jensen's comments can be seen as calculating and manipulative, but if politics is about how we treat each other, then he is joining the church for the same reason the apostles did -- to help save our world.

The religion of Jesus is both spiritual and political. Jesus said in his first sermon that he had come to preach good news to the poor. He taught that love fulfills the law and the prophets, and spoke of a coming movement of God that would lift up the poor and oppressed. Jesus let a doubter like Thomas serve that cause long before the disciple could affirm any creed. Jesus said that people who blaspheme him or God would be forgiven but those who blaspheme the Spirit (of love) would not be. Religion is not about groveling before a savior, it's joining in the work of saving our world.

One last irony is that early Christians were sometimes accused of being atheists. Like true Muslims and Jews, the early Christians refused to worship human images of God. While I have nothing against the creeds per se, if they do not sing of a love for all humankind they are evil and must be renounced as idolatrous. Surely the essence of Christianity or any religion is not found in dogma but in the life of love of which the creeds sing. If God had wanted us to simply recite creeds, Jesus would have come as a parrot.

Is there still room in the church for Thomas? Doubters are an essential part of the team. The atheism of Ingersoll and Kropotkin is very much like the mysticism of Schweitzer and Dorothy Day. In fact, I cannot help but imagine they would all join in common cause to serve our world had they lived at the same place and time.

"Whoever has love has God." That's what the Bible says. So the question before my church was not whether Dr. Jensen could recite religious syllables like a cockatiel, but whether he would follow the core teachings of Jesus and learn more and grow more into Christ's universal love of which the creeds sing. This he pledged to do.

I repeat: while we are fighting among ourselves, our world is burning.

Jim Rigby is pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. He can be reached at jrigby0000@aol.com.

3.10.06 We Mourn the Loss of Tom Fox

2006-03-11T11:40:00.000-06:00

CPT Release: We Mourn the Loss of Tom Fox
10 March 2006

In grief we tremble before God who wraps us with compassion. The death of our beloved colleague and friend pierces us with pain. Tom Fox’s body was found in Baghdad yesterday.

Christian Peacemaker Teams extends our deep and heartfelt condolences to the family and community of Tom Fox, with whom we have traveled so closely in these days of crisis.

We mourn the loss of Tom Fox who combined a lightness of spirit, a firm opposition to all oppression, and the recognition of God in everyone.

We renew our plea for the safe release of Harmeet Sooden, Jim Loney and Norman Kember. Each of our teammates has responded to Jesus’ prophetic call to live out a nonviolent alternative to the cycle of violence and revenge.

In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done. In Tom’s own words: "We reject violence to punish anyone. We ask that there be no retaliation on relatives or property. We forgive those who consider us their enemies. We hope that in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening nonviolently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.”

Even as we grieve the loss of our beloved colleague, we stand in the light of his strong witness to the power of love and the courage of nonviolence. That light reveals the way out of fear and grief and war.

Through these days of crisis, Christian Peacemaker Teams has been surrounded and upheld by a great outpouring of compassion: messages of support, acts of mercy, prayers, and public actions offered by the most senior religious councils and by school children, by political leaders and by those organizing for justice and human rights, by friends in distant nations and by strangers near at hand. These words and actions sustain us. While one of our teammates is lost to us, the strength of this outpouring is not lost to God’s movement for just peace among all peoples.

At the forefront of that support are strong and courageous actions from Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world for which we are profoundly grateful. Their graciousness inspires us to continue working for the day when Christians speak up as boldly for the human rights of thousands Iraqis still detained illegally by the United States and United Kingdom.

Such an outpouring of action for justice and peace would be a fitting memorial for Tom. Let us all join our voices on behalf of those who continue to suffer under occupation, whose loved ones have been killed or are missing. In so doing, we may hasten the day when both those who are wrongly detained and those who bear arms will return safely to their homes. In such a peace we will find solace for our grief.

Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney: “With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God’s grace, we will struggle for justice. With God’s abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies.” We continue in hope for Jim, Harmeet and Norman’s safe return home safe.

Contact: Dr. Doug Pritchard, CPT Co-Director 416-423-5525 (Canada) and Rev. Carol Rose, CPT Co-Director, Kryss Chupp, 773-277-0253 (USA)

12.14.05 Adam had'em - Clowning around with old and new words and images

2006-03-08T10:03:00.000-06:00

History has it that Shakespeare was a partner in a newly organized company, The Chamberlain's Men, which dominated "the Elizabethan and the Jacobean stage (in the later period under the sponsorship of King James himself), performing publicly at the famous Globe playhouse and for smaller audiences at the Blackfriars. Along with its best-known actors, Richard Burbage and William Kemp, he received payment for presenting two plays before the Queen at court during the Christmas festivities of 1594. The Chamberlain's Men had not infrequent occasion to offer such command performances; and after 1603, when the troup became His Majesty's Servants, its sharers were officially treated as members of the royal household." (Harry Levin in The Riverside Shakespeare, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1974)

In some modern productions of Hamlet, the first twenty-five or so lines of Act V, Scene I are cut out, presumably because the meaning of and humor in its double and triple entendre, being little understood by those who live at such a remove from the experience of people for whom the Bible was life's single most informative text and from writers and actors who worked under the patronage of kings and princes, have been rendered obscure by the mists of time.

SCENE I. A churchyard. Enter two Clowns [with spades, & mattocks].

First Clown: Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

Second Clown: I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave straight. The crowner [coroner] hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

First Clown: How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence?

Second Clown: Why, 'tis found so.

First Clown: It must be 'se offendendo'; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches - it is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

Second Clown: Nay, but hear you, goodman delver--

First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good, here stands the man, good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes,--mark you that; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself, argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

Second Clown: But is this law?

First Clown: Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.

Second Clown: Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.

First Clown: Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

Second Clown: Was he a gentleman?

First Clown: He was the first that ever bore arms.

Second Clown: Why, he had none.

First Clown: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged, 'could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee, if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself--

Second Clown: Go to.

First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

First Clown: I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill. Now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

Second Clown: 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?'

First Clown: Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

Second Clown: Marry, now I can tell.

First Clown: To't.

Second Clown: Mass, I cannot tell.

[Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance]

First Clown: Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when you are asked this question next, say 'a grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[Exit Second Clown. First Clown digs and sings]

First Clown: In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet,
To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

HAMLET: Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

HORATIO: Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET: 'Tis e'en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

First Clown [sings]: But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me intil the land,
As if I had never been such.

[throws up a skull]

HAMLET: That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIO: It might, my lord.

HAMLET: Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

HORATIO: Ay, my lord.

HAMLET: Why, e'en so, and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

First Clown [Sings]: A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet,
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up another skull]

HAMLET: There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO: Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET: Is not parchment made of sheepskins?

HORATIO: Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET: They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?

First Clown: Mine, sir. [Sings]
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.

First Clown: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours. For my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.

HAMLET : 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine, 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

First Clown: 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to you.

HAMLET: What man dost thou dig it for?

First Clown: For no man, sir.

HAMLET: What woman, then?

First Clown: For none, neither.

HAMLET: Who is to be buried in't?

First Clown: One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

HAMLET: How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

First Clown: Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

HAMLET: How long is that since?

First Clown: Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

First Clown: Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.

HAMLET: Why?

First Clown: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLET: How came he mad?

First Clown: Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET: How strangely?

First Clown: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

HAMLET: Upon what ground?

First Clown: Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLET: How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

First Clown: I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die--as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in--he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET: Why he more than another?

First Clown: Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.

HAMLET: Whose was it?

First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLET: Nay, I know not.

First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET: This?

First Clown: E'en that.

HAMLET: Let me see. [takes the skull]
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I knownot how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, lether paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO: What's that, my lord?

HAMLET: Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'the earth?

HORATIO: E'en so.

HAMLET: And smelt so? pah! [puts down the skull]

HORATIO: E'en so, my lord.

HAMLET: To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO: 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

HAMLET: No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus, Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
But soft! but soft awhile, here comes the King.

* * *

True it is, you mortals are of earthly, animal origin; your frame is indeed dust. But if you actually will, if you really desire, surely the heritage of the ages is yours, and you shall someday serve throughout the universes in your true characters -- children of the Supreme God of experience and divine sons of the Paradise Father of all personalities. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 112)

The spirit never drives, only leads. If you are a willing learner, if you want to attain spirit levels and reach divine heights, if you sincerely desire to reach the eternal goal, then the divine Spirit will gently and lovingly lead you along the pathway of sonship and spiritual progress. Every step you take must be one of willingness, intelligent and cheerful cooperation. The domination of the Spirit is never tainted with coercion nor compromised by compulsion. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 34)

Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight; religion prevents all collective movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Together with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 99)

No social system or political regime which denies the reality of God can contribute in any constructive and lasting manner to the advancement of human civilization. But Christianity, as it is subdivided and secularized today, presents the greatest single obstacle to its further advancement; especially is this true concerning the Orient. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 195)

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. — Jesus, Luke 6:31, King James Version.

Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. — The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Hadith

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. — Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a

God assigns angels to do many things on earth. They are ministering spirits sent to serve . . .(Hebrews 1:14)

The Discerner of Spirits. A special liaison exists between the counselors and advisers of the second Havona circle and these reflective angels. They are the only seconaphim attached to the Universal Censors but are probably the most uniquely specialized of all their fellows. Regardless of the source or channel of information, no matter how meager the evidence at hand, when it is subjected to their reflective scrutiny, these discerners will forthwith inform us as to the true motive, the actual purpose, and the real nature of its origin. I marvel at the superb functioning of these angels, who so unerringly reflect the actual moral and spiritual character of any individual concerned in a focal exposure.

The Discerners of Spirits carry on these intricate services by virtue of inherent "spiritual insight," if I may use such words in an endeavor to convey to the human mind the thought that these reflective angels thus function intuitively, inherently, and unerringly. When the Universal Censors behold these presentations, they are face to face with the naked soul of the reflected individual; and this very certainty and perfection of portraiture in part explains why the Censors can always function so justly as righteous judges. The discerners always accompany the Censors on any mission away from Uversa, and they are just as effective out in the universes as at their Uversa headquarters.

I assure you that all these transactions of the spirit world are real, that they take place in accordance with established usages and in harmony with the immutable laws of the universal domains. The beings of every newly created order, immediately upon receiving the breath of life, are instantly reflected on high; a living portrayal of the creature nature and potential is flashed to the superuniverse headquarters. Thus, by means of the discerners, are the Censors made fully cognizant of exactly "what manner of spirit" has been born on the worlds of space.

So it is with mortal man: The Mother Spirit of Salvington knows you fully, for the Holy Spirit on your world "searches all things," and whatsoever the divine Spirit knows of you is immediately available whenever the secoraphic discerners reflect with the Spirit concerning the Spirit's knowledge of you. It should, however, be mentioned that the knowledge and plans of the Father fragments are not reflectible. The discerners can and do reflect the presence of the Adjusters (and the Censors pronounce them divine), but they cannot decipher the content of the mindedness of the Mystery Monitors.

In the same manner as their fellows, these angels are created serially and in seven reflective types, but these types are not assigned individually to the separate services of the superuniverse administrators. All tertiary seconaphim are collectively assigned to the Trinitized Sons of Attainment, and these ascendant sons use them interchangeably; that is, the Mighty Messengers can and do utilize any of the tertiary types, and so do their co-ordinates, Those High in Authority and Those without Name and Number. These seven types of tertiary seconaphim are:

The Significance of Origins. The ascendant Trinitized Sons of a superuniverse government are charged with the responsibility of dealing with all issues growing out of the origin of any individual, race, or world; and the significance of origin is the paramount question in all our plans for the cosmic advancement of the living creatures of the realm. All relationships and the application of ethics grow out of the fundamental facts of origin. Origin is the basis of the relational reaction of the Gods. Always does the Conjoint Actor "take note of the man, in what manner he was born."

With the higher descendant beings, origin is simply a fact to be ascertained; but with the ascending beings, including the lower orders of angels, the nature and circumstances of origin are not always so clear, though of equally vital importance at almost every turn of universe affairs—hence the value of having at our disposal a series of reflective seconaphim who can instantly portray anything required respecting the genesis of any being in either the central universe or throughout the entire realm of a superuniverse.

The Significances of Origins are the living ready-reference genealogies of the vast hosts of beings—men, angels, and others—who inhabit the seven superuniverses. They are always ready to supply their superiors with an up-to-date, replete, and trustworthy estimate of the ancestral factors and the current actual status of any individual on any world of their respective superuniverses; and their computation of possessed facts is always up to the minute.

The Memory of Mercy. These are the actual, full and replete, living records of the mercy which has been extended to individuals and races by the tender ministrations of the instrumentalities of the Infinite Spirit in the mission of adapting the justice of righteousness to the status of the realms, as disclosed by the portrayals of the Significance of Origins. The Memory of Mercy discloses the moral debt of the children of mercy—their spiritual liabilities—to be set down against their assets of the saving provision established by the Sons of God. In revealing the Father's pre-existent mercy, the Sons of God establish the necessary credit to insure the survival of all. And then, in accordance with the findings of the Significance of Origins, a mercy credit is established for the survival of each rational creature, a credit of lavish proportions and one of sufficient grace to insure the survival of every soul who really desires divine citizenship.

The Memory of Mercy is a living trial balance, a current statement of your account with the supernatural forces of the realms. These are the living records of mercy ministration which are read into the testimony of the courts of Uversa when each individual's right to unending life comes up for adjudication, when "thrones are cast up and the Ancients of Days are seated. The broadcasts of Uversa issue and come forth from before them; thousands upon thousands minister to them, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before them. The judgment is set, and the books are opened." And the books which are opened on such a momentous occasion are the living records of the tertiary seconaphim of the superuniverses. The formal records are on file to corroborate the testimony of the Memories of Mercy if they are required.

The Memory of Mercy must show that the saving credit established by the Sons of God has been fully and faithfully paid out in the loving ministry of the patient personalities of the Third Source and Center. But when mercy is exhausted, when the "memory" thereof testifies to its depletion, then does justice prevail and righteousness decree. For mercy is not to be thrust upon those who despise it; mercy is not a gift to be trampled under foot by the persistent rebels of time. Nevertheless, though mercy is thus precious and dearly bestowed, your individual drawing credits are always far in excess of your ability to exhaust the reserve if you are sincere of purpose and honest of heart.

The mercy reflectors, with their tertiary associates, engage in numerous superuniverse ministries, including the teaching of the ascending creatures. Among many other things the Significances of Origins teach these ascenders how to apply spirit ethics, and following such training, the Memories of Mercy teach them how to be truly merciful. While the spirit techniques of mercy ministry are beyond your concept, you should even now understand that mercy is a quality of growth. You should realize that there is a great reward of personal satisfaction in being first just, next fair, then patient, then kind. And then, on that foundation, if you choose and have it in your heart, you can take the next step and really show mercy; but you cannot exhibit mercy in and of itself. These steps must be traversed; otherwise there can be no genuine mercy. There may be patronage, condescension, or charity—even pity—but not mercy. True mercy comes only as the beautiful climax to these preceding adjuncts to group understanding, mutual appreciation, fraternal fellowship, spiritual communion, and divine harmony.

The Import of Time. Time is the one universal endowment of all will creatures; it is the "one talent" intrusted to all intelligent beings. You all have time in which to insure your survival; and time is fatally squandered only when it is buried in neglect, when you fail so to utilize it as to make certain the survival of your soul. Failure to improve one's time to the fullest extent possible does not impose fatal penalties; it merely retards the pilgrim of time in his journey of ascent. If survival is gained, all other losses can be retrieved.

In the assignment of trusts the counsel of the Imports of Time is invaluable. Time is a vital factor in everything this side of Havona and Paradise. In the final judgment before the Ancients of Days, time is an element of evidence. The Imports of Time must always afford testimony to show that every defendant has had ample time for making decisions, achieving choice.

These time evaluators are also the secret of prophecy; they portray the element of time which will be required in the completion of any undertaking . . . The Gods foresee, hence foreknow; but the ascendant authorities of the universes of time must consult the Imports of Time to be able to forecast events of the future.

You will first encounter these beings on the mansion worlds, and they will there instruct you in the advantageous use of that which you call "time," both in its positive employment, work, and in its negative utilization, rest. Both uses of time are important.

The Solemnity of Trust. Trust is the crucial test of will creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery, character. These seconaphim accomplish a double purpose in the economy of the superuniverses: They portray to all will creatures the sense of the obligation, sacredness, and solemnity of trust. At the same time they unerringly reflect to the governing authorities the exact trustworthiness of any candidate for confidence or trust.

On Urantia, you grotesquely essay to read character and to estimate specific abilities, but on Uversa we actually do these things in perfection. These seconaphim weigh trustworthiness in the living scales of unerring character appraisal, and when they have looked at you, we have only to look at them to know the limitations of your ability to discharge responsibility, execute trust, and fulfill missions. Your assets of trustworthiness are clearly set forth alongside your liabilities of possible default or betrayal.

It is the plan of your superiors to advance you by augmented trusts just as fast as your character is sufficiently developed to gracefully bear these added responsibilities, but to overload the individual only courts disaster and insures disappointment. And the mistake of placing responsibility prematurely upon either man or angel may be avoided by utilizing the ministry of these infallible estimators of the trust capacity of the individuals of time and space. These seconaphim ever accompany Those High in Authority, and never do these executives make assignments until their candidates have been weighed in the secoraphic balances and pronounced "not wanting."

The Sanctity of Service. The privilege of service immediately follows the discovery of trustworthiness. Nothing can stand between you and opportunity for increased service except your own untrustworthiness, your lack of capacity for appreciation of the solemnity of trust.

Service—purposeful service, not slavery—is productive of the highest satisfaction and is expressive of the divinest dignity. Service—more service, increased service, difficult service, adventurous service, and at last divine and perfect service—is the goal of time and the destination of space. But ever will the play cycles of time alternate with the service cycles of progress. And after the service of time there follows the superservice of eternity. During the play of time you should envision the work of eternity, even as you will, during the service of eternity, reminisce the play of time.

The universal economy is based on intake and output; throughout the eternal career you will never encounter monotony of inaction or stagnation of personality. Progress is made possible by inherent motion, advancement grows out of the divine capacity for action, and achievement is the child of imaginative adventure. But inherent in this capacity for achievement is the responsibility of ethics, the necessity for recognizing that the world and the universe are filled with a multitude of differing types of beings. All of this magnificent creation, including yourself, was not made just for you. This is not an egocentric universe. The Gods have decreed, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and said your Master Son, "He who would be greatest among you let him be server of all." (The Urantia Papers, Paper 28)

. . . no Son could hope for final success without the incessant co-operation of the Divine Minister and her vast assemblage of spirit helpers, the daughters of God, who so faithfully and valiantly struggle for the welfare of mortal men and the glory of their divine parents. (The Urantia Book, Paper 33)

The angels develop an abiding affection for their human associates; and you would, if you could only visualize the seraphim, develop a warm affection for them. Divested of material bodies, given spirit forms, you would be very near the angels in many attributes of personality. They share most of your emotions and experience some additional ones. The only emotion actuating you which is somewhat difficult for them to comprehend is the legacy of animal fear that bulks so large in the mental life of the average [person]. The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety. (The Urantia Book, Paper 113)

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House carrying a commerative WWII Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol. Being a collector of badges, he wished to trade the gun to President Richard Nixon for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) badge. Elvis got his badge, and the pistol is now on display at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Presley died as a result of his addiction to drugs; Nixon was forced to resign from the presidency in disgrace after he was caught trying to cover up a failed burglary carried out by political espionage operatives in the employ of his re-election campaign.

Elvis was a reader of the Urantia Papers, as were and are a number of other famous people. These include Norman Lear, who had one of the more influential careers in the history of television (All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman); Star Trek creator/writer/producer Gene Roddenberry; science fiction author Frank Herbert (Dune); Buffy St. Marie (Canadian Native American musician, composer, visual artist, educator and social activist); Mo Segal (founder of Celestial Seasonings); actor Jackie Gleason (The Honeymooners); and rock-and-roll legends Jimmy Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, the Moody Blues, Spirit, and Janis Joplin. The Urantia Papers' popularity among entertainment industry figures is one of the best kept open secrets of our time. Because some of the Papers' teachings have been perceived to conflict with Zionist and fundamentalist Christian theology and ideology, most of the entertainment industry figures publicly associated with the Papers, as you may have noted, are either dead, and thus at no risk of reprisal, or are Jewish and independently wealthy and thus able to afford to be open about beliefs that might well otherwise put them at risk of reprisal. Many other entertainers have been and are readers of the Urantia Papers but are discreet about their interest in the Papers. It has been reliably reported that several U.S. presidents have been readers, and Ronald Reagan is said to have had the text on a bookshelf in the Oval Office, though it may be difficult for some to imagine that he was a serious student of the Papers. For many years the Urantia Papers were the subject of a copyright dispute in the federal courts. The dispute is perceived by many to have been one result of a well organized and largely successful covert effort by powerful ethnic and religious special interest groups to suppress the text and co-opt and marginalize reader organizations. Pat Robertson is one among many fundamentalist Christian leaders who believe the Holy Bible is the literal and inerrant word of God and who have publicly condemned the Urantia Papers. Robertson also predicted the world would end in 1982 following a war in the Middle East. That didn't happen, but Robertson and many of his celebrity Christian Zionist doomsday cult colleagues are still trying to gin up their world-ending war, an indication of what passes for "religious idealism" in the minds of some who claim to be followers of the Prince of Peace. A 2001 federal court ruling put the Urantia Papers in the public domain.

* * *

Political wisdom. Emotional maturity is essential to self-control. Only emotional maturity will insure the substitution of international techniques of civilized adjudication for the barbarous arbitrament of war. Wise statesmen will sometime work for the welfare of humanity even while they strive to promote the interest of their national or racial groups. Selfish political sagacity is ultimately suicidal—destructive of all those enduring qualities which insure planetary group survival. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 52)

". . . this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." President George W. Bush, September 16, 2001

Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage. It may even engender the spirit of the crusader, which is more than dangerous if not controlled by spiritual insight and loyal devotion to the commonplace social obligations of human loyalties. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 100)

Idealism can never survive on an evolving planet if the idealists in each generation permit themselves to be exterminated . . . And here is the great test of idealism: Can an advanced society maintain that military preparedness which renders it secure from all attack by its . . . neighbors without yielding to the temptation to employ this military strength in offensive operations against other peoples for purposes of selfish gain or national aggrandizement? National survival demands preparedness, and religious idealism alone can prevent the prostitution of preparedness into aggression. Only love, brotherhood, can prevent the strong from oppressing the weak. (The Urantia Papers, Paper 71)

The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and loyalty of many twent[y-first]-century men [and women], would rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement. (The Urantia Book, Paper 2)