To be a Christian is to suffer and forgive, not to seek vengence, to take on additional suffering rather than refuse to feel the sufferings of others. So we cry out with the wounded Lebanese and Gazan Palestinians and ask the Lord to heal their wounds, which means suffering for him and for us. We take their suffering into our hearts - we do not push it away. In their faces, we seek our own, and above all, we see the face of Jesus. We hear the crack of every bomb blast and in them, we remember the words of Isaiah, "He took our infirmites and bore our diseases." Our worst disease being the pride that makes other human beings our necessary if unwilling sacrifices to our safety and security, a goal as illusory as the rhetoric we use to justify it. We cannot find Jesus' healing power in outrage and million dollar missles, but in a power that does not come from magic or technology. "Jesus' healing power is not to be found in his supreme power over sickness and disease." Listen carefully here - the power we are dealing with is not miraculous as we have come to think of that term - an unknown spiritual technology. "His power to heal is the power of his suffering. He heals by 'carrying' our sickness. 'Through his wounds we are healed' (Isa. 53:5). His passion and his self-surrender on Golgotha are the secret of his healing of the sick." Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life.
Are we willing to open our hearts to this suffering? Can we take on the wounded, weak, helpless, and disabled human life which God has made a part of his eternal life? Do we have the courage to stand with despised and say, "This is my family!"? "God heals the sicknesses and the griefs by the making the sicknesses and the griefs his suffering and his grief. In the image of the crucified God the sick and dying can see themselves, because in them the crucified God recognizes himself. Through his passion Jesus brings God into the God-forsakeness of the sick and into the desolation of dying. The crucified God embraces every sick life and makes it his life, so that he can communicate his own eternal life. And for that reason the crucified One is both the source of healing and consolation in suffering."
"The top United Nations aid official today made an urgent appeal for a 'humanitarian truce' lasting at least three days between Israel and Hezbollah to allow children, the wounded and the elderly to escape the fighting and food, medicine and other emergency supplies to get through to the conflict zones." Unfortunately, our Christian President and his devout administration have damned those children to quick and slow deaths. Such simple humanity is deleted in the drive for absolute security, "Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon proclaimed that 'maximum firepower has to be used.' As justification, he cited the meeting in Rome, from which 'we have in effect obtained the authorization to continue our operations until Hisbullah is no longer present in southern Lebanon.'" We hear the deafening applause of our Christian brethern to this butchery and wonder we have so few priests in the Catholic Church.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Nobody is Safe
First, the reality that you won't see on CNN: "In Tyre, a city in southern Lebanon and the country’s fourth-largest urban area, the main hospital has run out of room in its morgue. The dead are being buried in mass graves.
'Carpenters are running out of wood for coffins,' reported the New York Times. 'Bodies are stacked three or four high in a truck at the local hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.'
'The morbid reality of Israel’s bombing campaign of the south is reaching almost every corner of this city...[W]ild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh, officials said. Officials at the Tyre Government Hospital inside a local Palestinian refugee camp said they counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue.'
The Holy See has also spoken out: "The Holy Father has declared July 23rd to be a day dedicated to prayers and penance for people of all religious faiths 'to implore God for the precious gift of peace.' In a brief statement issued by the Vatican press office on July 20, Pope Benedict XVI urged prayers for 'an immediate cese fire between the (warring) sides,' the establishment of 'a humaitarian corridor in order to bring aid to the suffering people,' and the start of 'reasonable and responsible negotiations so as to end the objective situation of injustice exisitng in that region.'
I share this information with you in hopes that you will find a way to share it with the priests and people of your (arch)dioceses. Also, I wanted you to be aware that both the Holy See have spoken out on the current crisis in the Middle East and you can find those statements on the USCCB website: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2006/06-145.shtml.
Unfortunately, these statements make no mention of the provocations which the Israelis have inflicted on the Palestinians just in the last eight weeks. In the words of Alexander Cockburn: "Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32." CounterPunch, July 21, 2006.
Devoid of context, the charges made against Hezbollah and Hamas become pretexts for may soon amount to ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon, paid for by your tax dollars. Do the good bishops mention that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel’s attacks on civilian residential districts are children? "That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN. He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads." Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch, July 22-23, 2006. Our bishops seem unable to ask questions as simple as "If Israel is targeting Hizbollah, why are Israeli bombs falling on northern Lebanon? Why are they falling on Beirut? Why are they falling on civilian airports? On schools and hospitals?"
In fact, though I welcome statements in support of those suffering so grievously in Lebanon, when they tacitly accept the equivalence between a few rocket attacks and the destruction of an entire country's infrastructure, such statements become complicit in the terror campaign long planned and currently being carried out by Israel. We must raise our voices against such immoral unbalanced statements. Where is the church that is the voice of the poor? Are we not eating and drinking damnation unto ourselves when we sit silently while blatant crimes are carried out in our names and with our money? Where are the bishops who will speak about that?
In the end, we must trust in the reality of divine justice with all our hearts, for divine justice is what guarantees the instability of unjust conditions - it is the power of life that eats away continuously at the foundations of the empire of violence. Only by more and more violence can these unjust conditions be kept upon an even keel. The rulers of Israel and the U.S. must keep adding more and more police, more and more military control to preserve the illusion of their dominance. The trajectory is clearly toward toward total annihilation of the living world that will never cease to resist their lust for power for its own sake. "All that grows on the foundation of injustice is organized peacelessness. So unjust systems have feet of clay. They have no lasting development. The hidden presence in world history of the divine justice in God's Spirit 'destabilizes', so to speak, human systems of injustice, and sees to it that they cannot last." Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life. May each one reading this blog become part of that destabilization!
'Carpenters are running out of wood for coffins,' reported the New York Times. 'Bodies are stacked three or four high in a truck at the local hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble.'
'The morbid reality of Israel’s bombing campaign of the south is reaching almost every corner of this city...[W]ild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village of Hosh, officials said. Officials at the Tyre Government Hospital inside a local Palestinian refugee camp said they counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue.'
The Holy See has also spoken out: "The Holy Father has declared July 23rd to be a day dedicated to prayers and penance for people of all religious faiths 'to implore God for the precious gift of peace.' In a brief statement issued by the Vatican press office on July 20, Pope Benedict XVI urged prayers for 'an immediate cese fire between the (warring) sides,' the establishment of 'a humaitarian corridor in order to bring aid to the suffering people,' and the start of 'reasonable and responsible negotiations so as to end the objective situation of injustice exisitng in that region.'
I share this information with you in hopes that you will find a way to share it with the priests and people of your (arch)dioceses. Also, I wanted you to be aware that both the Holy See have spoken out on the current crisis in the Middle East and you can find those statements on the USCCB website: http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2006/06-145.shtml.
Unfortunately, these statements make no mention of the provocations which the Israelis have inflicted on the Palestinians just in the last eight weeks. In the words of Alexander Cockburn: "Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32." CounterPunch, July 21, 2006.
Devoid of context, the charges made against Hezbollah and Hamas become pretexts for may soon amount to ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon, paid for by your tax dollars. Do the good bishops mention that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel’s attacks on civilian residential districts are children? "That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN. He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads." Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch, July 22-23, 2006. Our bishops seem unable to ask questions as simple as "If Israel is targeting Hizbollah, why are Israeli bombs falling on northern Lebanon? Why are they falling on Beirut? Why are they falling on civilian airports? On schools and hospitals?"
In fact, though I welcome statements in support of those suffering so grievously in Lebanon, when they tacitly accept the equivalence between a few rocket attacks and the destruction of an entire country's infrastructure, such statements become complicit in the terror campaign long planned and currently being carried out by Israel. We must raise our voices against such immoral unbalanced statements. Where is the church that is the voice of the poor? Are we not eating and drinking damnation unto ourselves when we sit silently while blatant crimes are carried out in our names and with our money? Where are the bishops who will speak about that?
In the end, we must trust in the reality of divine justice with all our hearts, for divine justice is what guarantees the instability of unjust conditions - it is the power of life that eats away continuously at the foundations of the empire of violence. Only by more and more violence can these unjust conditions be kept upon an even keel. The rulers of Israel and the U.S. must keep adding more and more police, more and more military control to preserve the illusion of their dominance. The trajectory is clearly toward toward total annihilation of the living world that will never cease to resist their lust for power for its own sake. "All that grows on the foundation of injustice is organized peacelessness. So unjust systems have feet of clay. They have no lasting development. The hidden presence in world history of the divine justice in God's Spirit 'destabilizes', so to speak, human systems of injustice, and sees to it that they cannot last." Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life. May each one reading this blog become part of that destabilization!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Let Freedom Ring
"Imagine your 14-year-old sister or your 14-year-old daughter. Imagine her being gang-raped by a group of psychopaths and then the girl was killed and her body burned to cover up the rape. Finally, her parents and her five-year-old sister were also killed. Hail the American heroes... Raise your heads high supporters of the 'liberation' - your troops have made you proud today. I don't believe the troops should be tried in American courts. I believe they should be handed over to the people in the area and only then will justice be properly served. And our ass of a PM, Nouri Al-Maliki, is requesting an 'independent investigation', ensconced safely in his American guarded compound because it wasn't his daughter or sister who was raped, probably tortured and killed. His family is abroad safe from the hands of furious Iraqis and psychotic American troops." Bagdad Burning, July 11, 2006.
The acceptance of responsibility for this crime begins in the heart of each Christian who truly loves his or her God. In the face of such crimes, we must examine the violence that lives within ourselves and pledge to work inwardly and outwardly day and night until it diminishes and is at last becomes controllable, under the grace of God.
"Why did we elect Bush? Because we are George W. Bush. As individuals, as families, as religious communities, we aren't; but as a nation, he is the perfect representative of what we are and what we want. He is the nation's Id. We are attracted and repulsed by him, which is why he's never quite won election, and has always had to cheat his way back into power. But he isn't to blame; we are." Adventus, July 14, 2006.
Though Bush bears a unique responsibility (or rather, a lack of responsibility), we participate in his abdication by our silence and passivity. Before we can be truly healed, we must recognize the inner Bush. He is that part of us that loves to exult in consumables, that roars with delight at the SUV in the Internet-enabled garage, that plays our part in war movies where we stand with pride before the barbaric hordes of subhumans consumed with jealousy for our 'way of life'. We must recognize that this drive lives within us and seek, slowly, with patience, humility, and what was once called 'character', to live the future that Jesus Christ has bought for us with his death and resurrection. We are the future that lies beyond the Machiavellian exploitation that has brought us to the edge of ecological death, if only we will embrace it. What we see before us is what we have wished for - it has been granted to us. What we see in the Middle East today is the hell of having our own way. Can we let it go? Can we let God have his way?
Are these extreme statements? I think that they are simply reflections of the truths of the Catholic Catechism - "we gain responsibility for the sins of others when we "cooperate with them . . . by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; by protecting evil-doers."
Our silence as Catholics in the face of an illegal invasion and occupation has added the sins of this administration to our own sins, reluctant as most Catholics are to admit the reality of social sin. The following is a reflection, I believe, of the constant teaching of the Church by the Most Reverend John Michael Botean, of the Rumanian Catholic diocese of Canton, Ohio, who has said: "...any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just war theory. Thus, any killing associated with it is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder. Direct participation in this war is the moral equivalent of direct participation in an abortion. For the Catholics of the Eparchy of St. George, I hereby authoritatively state that such direct participation is intrinsically and gravely evil and therefore absolutely forbidden."
The acceptance of responsibility for this crime begins in the heart of each Christian who truly loves his or her God. In the face of such crimes, we must examine the violence that lives within ourselves and pledge to work inwardly and outwardly day and night until it diminishes and is at last becomes controllable, under the grace of God.
"Why did we elect Bush? Because we are George W. Bush. As individuals, as families, as religious communities, we aren't; but as a nation, he is the perfect representative of what we are and what we want. He is the nation's Id. We are attracted and repulsed by him, which is why he's never quite won election, and has always had to cheat his way back into power. But he isn't to blame; we are." Adventus, July 14, 2006.
Though Bush bears a unique responsibility (or rather, a lack of responsibility), we participate in his abdication by our silence and passivity. Before we can be truly healed, we must recognize the inner Bush. He is that part of us that loves to exult in consumables, that roars with delight at the SUV in the Internet-enabled garage, that plays our part in war movies where we stand with pride before the barbaric hordes of subhumans consumed with jealousy for our 'way of life'. We must recognize that this drive lives within us and seek, slowly, with patience, humility, and what was once called 'character', to live the future that Jesus Christ has bought for us with his death and resurrection. We are the future that lies beyond the Machiavellian exploitation that has brought us to the edge of ecological death, if only we will embrace it. What we see before us is what we have wished for - it has been granted to us. What we see in the Middle East today is the hell of having our own way. Can we let it go? Can we let God have his way?
Are these extreme statements? I think that they are simply reflections of the truths of the Catholic Catechism - "we gain responsibility for the sins of others when we "cooperate with them . . . by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; by protecting evil-doers."
Our silence as Catholics in the face of an illegal invasion and occupation has added the sins of this administration to our own sins, reluctant as most Catholics are to admit the reality of social sin. The following is a reflection, I believe, of the constant teaching of the Church by the Most Reverend John Michael Botean, of the Rumanian Catholic diocese of Canton, Ohio, who has said: "...any direct participation and support of this war against the people of Iraq is objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin. Beyond a reasonable doubt this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ. With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal standards of the Catholic just war theory. Thus, any killing associated with it is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder. Direct participation in this war is the moral equivalent of direct participation in an abortion. For the Catholics of the Eparchy of St. George, I hereby authoritatively state that such direct participation is intrinsically and gravely evil and therefore absolutely forbidden."
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Bearing Injustice
"...there can be no liberation from sin without bearing of sin, that injustice cannot be eradicated unless it is borne" - Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator.
"[Lieutenant] Watada said he was morally obligated to obey the Constitution, not what he claimed were unlawful orders to join in an illegal war. He also released a DVD statement criticizing what he said was the 'wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people.'"
As Christians, we must ask why Lieutant Ehren Watada has chosen the path of suffering for his conviction that as one who has sworn loyalty to the Constitution and what it represents, as well as to the value of human life (a truly "pro-life" position) that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. It is an acceptance of personal responsibility, a clear-eyed recognition of the fact that our actions directly contribute to contempt for human life or defend it. To defer to authority in a situation where there is serious doubt about whether that authority is deliberately violating the dignity of human life is to implicitly accept that violation. Paul's words are often cited in this type of situation, "You must all obey the governing authorities. Since all government comes from God, the civil authorities were appointed by God, and so anyone who resists authority is rebelling against God's decision, and such an act is bound to be punished." Romans 13:1. But Paul is not saying that government inherently represents God and must be obeyed as He must be, but that "the state is a servant of God for our good. It has no legitimacy or authority in and of itself, apart from subjection to the rule of God." - Brian Walsh, Colossians Remixed. When that authority is abused by men contemptuous of God to destroy innocent human life, then their authority is abrogated and no longer commands obedience. In fact, to obey such men once we see the true nature of their deeds in good conscience is not to follow Christ, but to strike and insult him as did the Roman soldiers.
In future years, this case may become a classic illustration of Paul's words, because Lieut. Watada is embodying precisely what Paul called government to be - an honest upholder of God's will. "And when the state clearly abrogates its responsibility to do good, when it acts against the will of God, then the Christian community has a responsibility to call it back to the its rightful duty and even to engage in civil disobedience (see Acts 12: 6 - 2). The state has no authority to do evil." Colossians Remixed. In his person and by his willingness to suffer, he is upholding the governmental obligation to the rule of law that the government itself has abandoned. Lieut. Watada believes that since "...the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order." Of course, I keenly realize that Lieut. Watada has made no explicitly Christian references as part of the motivation for his act, but I submit that his act is Christian, as is every true defence of justice. His act upholds the sanctity of international and domestic law precisely as it defends the innocent against unjust invasion and occupation. In Catholic moral terms, he has formed his conscience to recognize the value of law and justice. To fail to follow his rightly-formed conscience at this point would be a renunciation of the light of God's truth, no matter the terms in which he explains his deed to himself. He has also received direct corraboration from the Supreme Court which in Hamden vs. Rumsfeld last week "broadly ruled that the Administration has violated both national and international law." Hamdan and Watada, The Nation. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that the President's actions "violates the Constitution and War Powers Act which limits the president in his role as commander in chief from using the armed forces in any way he sees fit." These are precisely the principles that Lieut. Watada seeks to uphold.
Now comes the time of suffering. Lieut. Watada will be subjected to persecution and contempt by the military, as well as the current administration. He may soon be sent to prison for a far longer period that those convicted of murdering and torturing the Iraqi people. Will you stand up for him? Please visit http://www.thankyoult.org/ and show your support for him in any way that your conscience moves you. Can a Christian do any less than bear the suffering which the sin of this government has caused? Lieut. Watada has shown us how. Watch the video: http://www.thankyoult.org/mmedia/msg-13jun06.html.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
The Face of Integrity
Lieut. Ehren Watada said with respect to Iraq deployment, "My participation would make me party to war crimes." On June 22, he refused deployment with the following words: "I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our aggression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America’s laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today."
As a Catholic, what I find so remarkable about Lieut. Watada's decision is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Christians now serving in Iraq have not made his decision - in fact, many have chosen not to fulfill their oath or their duty of conscience to our Lord or in the case of Catholics, to our Holy Father who has been absolutely consistent in opposition to this war. Please support Lieut. Watada by going to his website and signing the petition and consider making a donation: http://www.thankyoult.org/
If you wish to examine the full legal case supporting Lieut. Watada's position, see the Nation article: http://www.warcrimeswatch.org/news_details.cfm?artid=1676&cat=1. The immediate consequence for those who follow our risen Lord is to ask what we are doing to show that we also oppose these ongoing crimes. This is not simply one cause among many, it unifies many causes into a single cry of conscience. If we are now unwilling to stand for the least of these, the Iraqi people who are being butchered and tortured as a direct consequence of our actions, then what future cause will we be willing to be held accountable for? Pro-lifers, why are not as willing to protect the innocent living? Christians of all persuasions, how can you not see the face of Jesus in brutalized faces of those we have reduced to misery?
Lt. Watada now faces possible charges of mutiny. "The conservative group Military Families Voice of Victory is already "demanding the Army prosecute Lt. Watada to the fullest extent under the Uniform Code of Military Justice." Our Lord guides our footsteps along the path of mutiny against the powers of this world. Or to let the Lieutenant have the final say, "When you are looking your children in the eye in the future, or when you are at the end of your life, you want to look back on your life and know that at a very important moment, when I had the opportunity to make the right decisions, I did so, even knowing there were negative consequences." Would that the millions of followers of Jesus in this country and in the military would do the same.
Monday, June 26, 2006
The Roots of Hope
At the root of hope is the sense not just that our world can get better in a quantitative way, i.e. that we can obtain more of the things that currently seem to satisfy us, but that there are fulfillments that we cannot imagine that wait for us to become worthy of. Often it is our own lack of imagination that limits our ability to achieve this worthiness. Conservatives tend to view hope as hope for more of the things of this world - Christians see hope as hatred of this world in favor of an as-yet-unimaginable fulfillment that makes these seem petty and worthless.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Hope and Fantasy
Even by their own admission, conservatives, both in religion and politics, offer no hope for a just social future. What they offer, and suggest we should trim our expectations within, are endless doses of more of what we have today. Let our eyes be turned to another world if we want true satisfaction. This world can offer nothing but further refinements and variations on what we see before us at this instant. In the words of Ecclesiastes: "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and what vanity it all is, what chasing of the wind! What is twisted cannot be straightened, what is not there cannot be counted."
Yet there is a voice in us that cannot be silenced. Much as we might acknowledge the "tragic wisdom" of conservatism, and as heavy as it is with signs of ultimacy, we cannot accept it as ultimate and remain living creatures of a living God. "If Paul calls death the 'last enemy', then the opposite is also true: that the risen Christ, and with him the resurrection hope, must be declared to be the enemy of death and of a world that puts up with death. Faith takes up this contradiction and thus becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, where it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It doesn not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present." Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope.
Those who tell us we must accept violence and war, "traditional" Christians as they may be, stumble into telling us that the world as it is cannot be changed fundamentally, that there is nothing to hang our hope from this unfulfilled present on. In fact, they are at home in a world whose violence does not affect them, or so they believe. This "acceptance" is actually assigned to the victims of our violence who must quell their hopes as the Iraqis have been forced to do. If they are surrounded by barbarians on all sides, do we not all share complicity in their fate?
The recent speech by Barack Obama encapsulates the hidden hopelessness that animates this "traditionalism": "The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it's supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it's supposed to work. They don't believe -- they don't believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we're better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody's responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees."
They don't believe in the common good, the notion that we must hope not only for our individual futures, but that there is a social dimension to our hope which we cannot detach anymore than we can detach our skins. This relates directly to the war in Iraq since so much of the criticism of the war is not based on compassion for the Iraqi people - one of the rarest sentiments available in media today - but on the loss of the sense of obligation to others. If we can't be immediately successful in bringing the blessings of flat-tax "democracy" to Iraq, then we quit. Whatever is not instantly successful in creating economic wealth for individuals and corporations is a failure that should be abandoned. We have universal obligations, but an administration such as this can't even conceive of the true nature of such obligations, much less carry them out effectively. The world they would create has individual hope, but no social hope. Were their policy to succeed, that would be the real tragedy because it would imply that they are right to destroy our hope in a just social order. Our opposition to these policies and to the war must lay on a deeper basis. We must base our opposition not on hopelessness, but on hope. "That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality, is due to our unquenchable hope." Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope. Let us pray that hope never dies in the heart of the Iraqi people.
Yet there is a voice in us that cannot be silenced. Much as we might acknowledge the "tragic wisdom" of conservatism, and as heavy as it is with signs of ultimacy, we cannot accept it as ultimate and remain living creatures of a living God. "If Paul calls death the 'last enemy', then the opposite is also true: that the risen Christ, and with him the resurrection hope, must be declared to be the enemy of death and of a world that puts up with death. Faith takes up this contradiction and thus becomes itself a contradiction to the world of death. That is why faith, where it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It doesn not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present." Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope.
Those who tell us we must accept violence and war, "traditional" Christians as they may be, stumble into telling us that the world as it is cannot be changed fundamentally, that there is nothing to hang our hope from this unfulfilled present on. In fact, they are at home in a world whose violence does not affect them, or so they believe. This "acceptance" is actually assigned to the victims of our violence who must quell their hopes as the Iraqis have been forced to do. If they are surrounded by barbarians on all sides, do we not all share complicity in their fate?
The recent speech by Barack Obama encapsulates the hidden hopelessness that animates this "traditionalism": "The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it's supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it's supposed to work. They don't believe -- they don't believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we're better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody's responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees."
They don't believe in the common good, the notion that we must hope not only for our individual futures, but that there is a social dimension to our hope which we cannot detach anymore than we can detach our skins. This relates directly to the war in Iraq since so much of the criticism of the war is not based on compassion for the Iraqi people - one of the rarest sentiments available in media today - but on the loss of the sense of obligation to others. If we can't be immediately successful in bringing the blessings of flat-tax "democracy" to Iraq, then we quit. Whatever is not instantly successful in creating economic wealth for individuals and corporations is a failure that should be abandoned. We have universal obligations, but an administration such as this can't even conceive of the true nature of such obligations, much less carry them out effectively. The world they would create has individual hope, but no social hope. Were their policy to succeed, that would be the real tragedy because it would imply that they are right to destroy our hope in a just social order. Our opposition to these policies and to the war must lay on a deeper basis. We must base our opposition not on hopelessness, but on hope. "That we do not reconcile ourselves, that there is no pleasant harmony between us and reality, is due to our unquenchable hope." Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope. Let us pray that hope never dies in the heart of the Iraqi people.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
The Kingdom of Heaven
The kingdom of heaven grows from the soil of our hope. Christians have often been told that true humility is the acceptance of things as they are, that to aspire to change the world is to despise the gifts of God. In fact, true love of the gift means to love what one has been given so much that one wishes to eliminate what mars it and to see so deeply into it that one sees more than what lies fixed within our undeveloped perceptions of it. To love what is without faith is to try to love the frozen expanse that sin has etched on the face of God's creation. To say with the marketers of savage capitalism that human nature cannot be weaned from its slavery to greed, that violence is endemic to technological progress, or that oppression is the price of comfort, is not to be content with one's lot. It is a cry of despair that no technological marvel will ever compensate, no multi-million dollar home ever solace.
War is the illusion of despair that whispers to us with aweful finality that violence can never be quelled except by more violence. Of course, we must be "realistic". Ultimately, the serpent whispers, it is the only way to stop the works of evil and depraved people.
The current episode in Iraq will one day be told from the perspective of a world which saw beyond the fearful clinging to "realism" which has resulted in the agonizing deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. That world will unfold the cynical hypocrisy of lust, which leads to the degradation of women in that country, both by the U.S. military and by Islamist rigidities which cling more desperately to the past the more dead it becomes. That world will uncover the desire for revenge writhing beneath the smirks of soldiers stamping on the faces of those unfortunate enough to be born Arab and Muslim. Again, the serpent whispers, the depraved understand only violence and torture - you must learn the universal language.
What lurks behind the fundamentalist Christian drive to believe in a fixed, unalterable and utterly depraved human nature, a world order that makes irrational slaves subject to a spiritual dictator, makes literalist orthodoxy more important that the spirit of life that breathes through everything that God has made - is it not clear? We want a God that looks like us, that we can control, who stays within the boundaries we have made.
War is the illusion of despair that whispers to us with aweful finality that violence can never be quelled except by more violence. Of course, we must be "realistic". Ultimately, the serpent whispers, it is the only way to stop the works of evil and depraved people.
The current episode in Iraq will one day be told from the perspective of a world which saw beyond the fearful clinging to "realism" which has resulted in the agonizing deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. That world will unfold the cynical hypocrisy of lust, which leads to the degradation of women in that country, both by the U.S. military and by Islamist rigidities which cling more desperately to the past the more dead it becomes. That world will uncover the desire for revenge writhing beneath the smirks of soldiers stamping on the faces of those unfortunate enough to be born Arab and Muslim. Again, the serpent whispers, the depraved understand only violence and torture - you must learn the universal language.
What lurks behind the fundamentalist Christian drive to believe in a fixed, unalterable and utterly depraved human nature, a world order that makes irrational slaves subject to a spiritual dictator, makes literalist orthodoxy more important that the spirit of life that breathes through everything that God has made - is it not clear? We want a God that looks like us, that we can control, who stays within the boundaries we have made.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Rejoice Not in the Death of Anyone
Should your enemy fall, do not rejoice,
When he stumbles do not let your heart exult;
For fear that at the the sight Yahweh will be displeased
And turn his anger away from him.
Proverbs 24:17
When he stumbles do not let your heart exult;
For fear that at the the sight Yahweh will be displeased
And turn his anger away from him.
Proverbs 24:17
State Terrorism
"These attacks on the homes of civilians in Iraq ... are designed to terrorize Iraqis into opposing the insurgency. Since the main activity of the occupation military in Iraq is to patrol hostile cities looking for a firefight, or enter homes to capture suspected insurgents, the policy of firing into people's homes is the centerpiece of that policy. Sadly, terrorism is the linchpin of U.S. military policy in Iraq." - What is the Significance of the Haditha Massacre? Michael Schwartz, ZNET, June 11, 2006.
It is time for Christians to take a larger and less naive perspective on events such as the massacre at Haditha. We have been bemoaning such atrocities since the first Indian massacres took place in the sixteenth century, though without the volume that such crimes deserved. However, with each act of cruelty and slaughter, the memory of the last one is erased, and attempts to draw connections between them is denounced as "conspiracy theories." In fact, the conspiracy is quite open - even a cursory review of military statements reveal that terrorizing civilians in Iraq is government policy, yet somehow Christians seem incapable of drawing the necessary conclusions - that we are faced with structural sin, not merely individual sin. Structural sin doesn't have the same dramatic flair or the immediate sense of personal identification that individual sin has. It requires a different perspective and careful analysis, which most Christians do not see their faith calling them to.
The media strategy with regard to Haditha for the moment seems to be to incant the phrase "the jury is still out", or "let the investigation run its course". Their purpose is to keep our attention focused on the legal process rather than the moral issue involved in sending troops to violently occupy a country. By keeping our attention on the inconclusiveness of the investigation, they accomplish two goals: 1) To dull the impact of the killings by placing them within a cloud of legal uncertainty. The attention span for most atrocities currently is around three or four news days. The investigation will obviously not reach a conclusion before attention has moved to other subjects. This is the same strategy they used successfully with Abu Ghraib. 2) To remove the story from the political/moral realm to the realm of the legal. This is done so that questions about the power and legitimacy of the military agents that would undermine the administration's role are displaced by procedural questions about the acts themselves. This allows them to diffuse the moral outrage provoked by these acts by diverting inquiry into legal ambiguities that substitute for the moral inquiry we should be conducting.
The result will be that the state's legitimacy in carrying out the occupation will be reinforced. The dues of moral outrage will be paid, but the massacre's impact diffused by constantly focusing on the legal procedures of investigation. Since only the state can guarantee the legitimacy of the investigative process, it's authority will be increased and the requirement that it remain in Iraq sustained. The most important mission of the media is to ensure that questions about whether the occupation itself inevitably leads to "atrocity-producing situations" are successfully repressed.
In the next few weeks, attention will focus on the question of whether the soldiers followed the "rules of engagement." The media will convoke round tables and discussion to keep the legal issue firmly at the center of public attention. The same rules that allow women and children to be killed by the tens of thousands in Iraq will be manipulated to enhance the authority of the murderers.
It is time for Christians to take a larger and less naive perspective on events such as the massacre at Haditha. We have been bemoaning such atrocities since the first Indian massacres took place in the sixteenth century, though without the volume that such crimes deserved. However, with each act of cruelty and slaughter, the memory of the last one is erased, and attempts to draw connections between them is denounced as "conspiracy theories." In fact, the conspiracy is quite open - even a cursory review of military statements reveal that terrorizing civilians in Iraq is government policy, yet somehow Christians seem incapable of drawing the necessary conclusions - that we are faced with structural sin, not merely individual sin. Structural sin doesn't have the same dramatic flair or the immediate sense of personal identification that individual sin has. It requires a different perspective and careful analysis, which most Christians do not see their faith calling them to.
The media strategy with regard to Haditha for the moment seems to be to incant the phrase "the jury is still out", or "let the investigation run its course". Their purpose is to keep our attention focused on the legal process rather than the moral issue involved in sending troops to violently occupy a country. By keeping our attention on the inconclusiveness of the investigation, they accomplish two goals: 1) To dull the impact of the killings by placing them within a cloud of legal uncertainty. The attention span for most atrocities currently is around three or four news days. The investigation will obviously not reach a conclusion before attention has moved to other subjects. This is the same strategy they used successfully with Abu Ghraib. 2) To remove the story from the political/moral realm to the realm of the legal. This is done so that questions about the power and legitimacy of the military agents that would undermine the administration's role are displaced by procedural questions about the acts themselves. This allows them to diffuse the moral outrage provoked by these acts by diverting inquiry into legal ambiguities that substitute for the moral inquiry we should be conducting.
The result will be that the state's legitimacy in carrying out the occupation will be reinforced. The dues of moral outrage will be paid, but the massacre's impact diffused by constantly focusing on the legal procedures of investigation. Since only the state can guarantee the legitimacy of the investigative process, it's authority will be increased and the requirement that it remain in Iraq sustained. The most important mission of the media is to ensure that questions about whether the occupation itself inevitably leads to "atrocity-producing situations" are successfully repressed.
In the next few weeks, attention will focus on the question of whether the soldiers followed the "rules of engagement." The media will convoke round tables and discussion to keep the legal issue firmly at the center of public attention. The same rules that allow women and children to be killed by the tens of thousands in Iraq will be manipulated to enhance the authority of the murderers.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
The Mystery of Haditha
Over the past five days I have been meditating on Haditha and reliving the war crimes of Vietnam in the just re-released "Winter Soldier", in which Vietnam veterans recount the war crimes they participated in and witnessed. Soldiers in both Iraq and Vietnam were driven by the same overwhelming powers, powers which require that the human soul be degraded in order to justify its conquest. Since it is the purpose of this blog to situate the events of the U.S. war in the Middle East within a larger political and spiritual perspective, I'd like to begin this week's meditation with a quote from Roger Williams in the 1600s, reflecting on the systematic massacre of the Indians by the Puritans, where he described the motivating force as "... a depraved appetite after the great vanities, dreams and shadows of the this vanishing life, great portions of land, land in this wilderness, as if men were in as great necessity and danger for want of great portions of land, as poor, hungry, thirsty seamen have, after a sick and stormy, a long and starving passage. This is one of the gods of New England, which the living and most high Eternal will destroy and famish."
The spirit of this blog, at its best, is, I hope, the spirit that spoke through Roger Williams in this passage. The true Christian voice has always been here in America, even as the massacres were being carried out while "praising God" and bearing his cross around the neck. What was so striking about the testimony of the soldiers in "Winter Soldier" was the palpable sense of spiritual cleansing that radiated from them as they confessed the crimes that they had committed and been conditioned into committing. Once we admit who and what we have become, then we are free to receive Christ's healing grace. That is why this voice is here - it is the constant cry of confession of our internal and external violence. Those who have tried to justify the Haditha massacre, which in reality represents a whole series of depredations on the Iraqi people, have stifled the healing that might have taken place. A great healing is on the way, but there must first be a wave of repentance, a renunciation of the hunger for the "great vanities" and a recognition that it is by our own hands that much of the earth remains engrossed in the vanities of our creation.
This spiritual cleansing can release the oppressor from his oppression, a part of God's compassion for the sinner that rarely gets mentioned by either the right-wing that strives to excuse murder or the left that concentrates exclusively on the victim. In the words of Jurgen Moltmann, "Guilt without the experience of atonement leads to the repression of guilt, to the compounding of injustice, and to the compulsion to repeat the injust act. Unless his guilt is forgiven the guilty person cannot live...Since no one can live with guilt over injustice and violence, because it is unendurable, and since it cannot be got rid of through repression, or by pushing it off on to someone or something else, the person concerned 'has forfeited the right to live', as people use to say. Even if the person is never punished, he never finds the strength to affirm a life that has personally been so negated."
So how is soldier who gave way in a moment of unendurable frustration and constant dehumanization and murdered women and children to be healed? Again Moltmann: "God suffers injustice and violence as an injury to his love because, and in so far as, he holds fast to his love for the unjust and the person who commits violence. So his love must overcome his anger by 'reconciling itself' to the pain it has caused. This is what happens when God 'carries' or 'bears' the sins of his people." The soldiers who committed this massacre can only receive Christ's healing power if we allow them to face their guilt. The cruelest possible act for Iraqis and Americans alike is to deny their (and our) responsibility - to pretend that it was only a mistake or an isolated psychological aberration. Such denial of responsibility ends the healing process and encases the perpetrators in their lifeless guilt.
The spirit of this blog, at its best, is, I hope, the spirit that spoke through Roger Williams in this passage. The true Christian voice has always been here in America, even as the massacres were being carried out while "praising God" and bearing his cross around the neck. What was so striking about the testimony of the soldiers in "Winter Soldier" was the palpable sense of spiritual cleansing that radiated from them as they confessed the crimes that they had committed and been conditioned into committing. Once we admit who and what we have become, then we are free to receive Christ's healing grace. That is why this voice is here - it is the constant cry of confession of our internal and external violence. Those who have tried to justify the Haditha massacre, which in reality represents a whole series of depredations on the Iraqi people, have stifled the healing that might have taken place. A great healing is on the way, but there must first be a wave of repentance, a renunciation of the hunger for the "great vanities" and a recognition that it is by our own hands that much of the earth remains engrossed in the vanities of our creation.
This spiritual cleansing can release the oppressor from his oppression, a part of God's compassion for the sinner that rarely gets mentioned by either the right-wing that strives to excuse murder or the left that concentrates exclusively on the victim. In the words of Jurgen Moltmann, "Guilt without the experience of atonement leads to the repression of guilt, to the compounding of injustice, and to the compulsion to repeat the injust act. Unless his guilt is forgiven the guilty person cannot live...Since no one can live with guilt over injustice and violence, because it is unendurable, and since it cannot be got rid of through repression, or by pushing it off on to someone or something else, the person concerned 'has forfeited the right to live', as people use to say. Even if the person is never punished, he never finds the strength to affirm a life that has personally been so negated."
So how is soldier who gave way in a moment of unendurable frustration and constant dehumanization and murdered women and children to be healed? Again Moltmann: "God suffers injustice and violence as an injury to his love because, and in so far as, he holds fast to his love for the unjust and the person who commits violence. So his love must overcome his anger by 'reconciling itself' to the pain it has caused. This is what happens when God 'carries' or 'bears' the sins of his people." The soldiers who committed this massacre can only receive Christ's healing power if we allow them to face their guilt. The cruelest possible act for Iraqis and Americans alike is to deny their (and our) responsibility - to pretend that it was only a mistake or an isolated psychological aberration. Such denial of responsibility ends the healing process and encases the perpetrators in their lifeless guilt.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Unindicted Co-conspiriators
As progressives, we are often given (and give) the impression that once the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Bush troika are defeated, then things can go back to normal and we progressives can renew our battles with the success they formerly met. In fact, this is probably as much an illusion as the wonderworld that the troika tries to paint. What this ignores is that most of us are former progressives who became involved with the pro-business culture of the eighties and nineties, sparked by the explosion in information technologies. This industry has two characteristics that make it hostile to progressive politics, though one might suppose otherwise when its origins are considered. First, to keep up with this industry, even post-boom, requires the dedication of a monk. No one who is not willing to commit themselves 24X7 to enhancing their skills and understanding will be able to survive for long. Being a technologist is largely a matter of facing one crisis and revolution after another - it is almost a pure case of Darwinian capitalist exploitation. Of course, it's supposed to be exciting and fulfilling to do technology all the time, but in reality this is true in most cases only for the very young. Therefore, it is physically impossible for those who work in this industry to spare time for progressive activities. Secondly, the very subject causes attention to be focused on purely technical issues, as if they were the heart of life. It tends to abstract and objectify human problems into a set of technical specifications which can be solved by the application of well-known techniques. We make money when that situation is true, so we are highly motivated to believe it is so. The entrepeneurial push of most technology companies strongly reinforces the culture of individual superiority and the elimination of cooperation.
Consider, for instance, the willingness of Yahoo, Google and MSN to filter search engine traffic for anything that might offend the political sensibility of the Chinese segment of the empire. I don't think we should be surprised when many of the sources of Internet news that progressives depend on suddenly and mysteriously start disappearing. The technological revolutionaries have demonstrated their commitment to profit and their willingness to cooperate with the forces that guarantee that profit. Their supposed commitment to progressive values (usually with the qualification 'libertarian') is much shakier.
Consider, for instance, the willingness of Yahoo, Google and MSN to filter search engine traffic for anything that might offend the political sensibility of the Chinese segment of the empire. I don't think we should be surprised when many of the sources of Internet news that progressives depend on suddenly and mysteriously start disappearing. The technological revolutionaries have demonstrated their commitment to profit and their willingness to cooperate with the forces that guarantee that profit. Their supposed commitment to progressive values (usually with the qualification 'libertarian') is much shakier.
The Party of Death
"God, you are known throughout Judah, Israel glories in your name.
Your tent is pitched in Salem, your command post on Zion.
There you break flaming arrows, shield and sword and war itself!
Majestic and circled with light, you seize your prey; stouthearted soldiers
are stripped of their plunder.
Dazed, they cannot lift a hand.
At your battle cry, God of Jacob, horse and rider are stunned.
You, the one who strikes fear; who can stand up to your anger!
Your verdict sounds from heaven; earth reels, then is still, when you stand as judge
to defend the oppressed." - Psalm 76.
"In the first minutes after the shock of the blast, residents said, silence reigned on the street of walled courtyards, brick homes and tiny palm groves. Marines appeared stunned, or purposeful, as they moved around the burning Humvee, witnesses said.
Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away.
It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.
In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.
Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.
A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.
Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.
The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.
Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.
The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif's pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.
Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived -- saved, she said, by her mother's blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.
Townspeople led a Washington Post reporter this week to the girl they identified as Safa. Wearing a ponytail and tracksuit, the girl said her mother died trying to gather the girls. The girl burst into tears after a few words. The older couple caring for her apologized and asked the reporter to leave.
Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.
Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired."
"Just because I believe in the 'resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come' I must already resist the forces of death and annihilation here and now, and must love life here on earth so much that I try with everything I have to free it from exploitation, oppression and alienation. And the opposite is equally true because I love life, and stand up for its justice, and fight for its freedom wherever it is threatened, I hope that one day death will be swallowed up in the victory of life, and that then 'there will be no mourning nor crying nor pain any more' (Rev. 21:4)" - Jurgen Moltmann.
The forces of death crowd into our hearts every day. I do not excuse the soldiers who carried out this bloody and unjustified massacre, but many of us can recognize the forces that drove them to it - the forces that so easily drive us. The tension straps us into our societal binding - the slightest resistance causes chafing. Every minute, we wonder if a sudden explosion at work will mean an end to all the dreams of our life. We fight without ceasing to preserve a pool of hope that is constantly drying out. Then the explosion comes and the tightness of the binding gives way. We shout - we are momentarily loosed from the bonds that make us see human beings in the faces of others. We become agents of another - our fingers now owned by the machine twitch and twitch and the children die. God save us from the body of this death!
The principal to keep hold of in the face of such massacres is to recognize that what they have done cannot be isolated, much as the military court system and our news media will attempt to do. Their first impulse is to rope off this "incident" (that they were unable to cover up) and point to it as a legal problem. It is not a legal problem - it is part of a much larger picture that includes our own assent to violence in the wake of 9/11. Of course, the picture is much larger than even that. Just as in Vietnam, those soldiers were acting out of a hidden consensus that fundamentally approves of violence and seems incapable of grasping that all violence involves injustice, lies, and oppression. Soldiers are conditioned to be as violent as possible, yet they are told that they must obey rules. But rules turn to dust before the fundamental forces that drove them into the "theatre of war" in the first place. Those forces are the falsehoods that now must be covered up with violence. No matter what the rules say, these men were indeed obeying their master.
"The trouble with violence is that it changes not too much, but too little. Nonviolence is more radical because it is more truthful. Violence always ends up calling on lies to defend it, just as lies call on violence to defend them. By contrast, truth is naked, vulnerable as Christ, its only weapon Christ's own, God's love. So the very love of God that found oppression, poverty, and corruption intolerable, this same love, rather than inflict suffering - even on those imposing it on the poor - took suffering upon itself. What can only be said cynically of another - 'It is better that one man should die than that an entire nation perish' (ah, the demands of national security!) - can be said in utter truthfulness about oneself: 'It is better that I should die rather than a single other person perish.' That's finally how truth disarms, and there is no better way." - William Sloan Coffin.
Your tent is pitched in Salem, your command post on Zion.
There you break flaming arrows, shield and sword and war itself!
Majestic and circled with light, you seize your prey; stouthearted soldiers
are stripped of their plunder.
Dazed, they cannot lift a hand.
At your battle cry, God of Jacob, horse and rider are stunned.
You, the one who strikes fear; who can stand up to your anger!
Your verdict sounds from heaven; earth reels, then is still, when you stand as judge
to defend the oppressed." - Psalm 76.
"In the first minutes after the shock of the blast, residents said, silence reigned on the street of walled courtyards, brick homes and tiny palm groves. Marines appeared stunned, or purposeful, as they moved around the burning Humvee, witnesses said.
Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away.
It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.
In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.
Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.
A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.
Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.
The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.
Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.
The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif's pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.
Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived -- saved, she said, by her mother's blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.
Townspeople led a Washington Post reporter this week to the girl they identified as Safa. Wearing a ponytail and tracksuit, the girl said her mother died trying to gather the girls. The girl burst into tears after a few words. The older couple caring for her apologized and asked the reporter to leave.
Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.
Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired."
"Just because I believe in the 'resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come' I must already resist the forces of death and annihilation here and now, and must love life here on earth so much that I try with everything I have to free it from exploitation, oppression and alienation. And the opposite is equally true because I love life, and stand up for its justice, and fight for its freedom wherever it is threatened, I hope that one day death will be swallowed up in the victory of life, and that then 'there will be no mourning nor crying nor pain any more' (Rev. 21:4)" - Jurgen Moltmann.
The forces of death crowd into our hearts every day. I do not excuse the soldiers who carried out this bloody and unjustified massacre, but many of us can recognize the forces that drove them to it - the forces that so easily drive us. The tension straps us into our societal binding - the slightest resistance causes chafing. Every minute, we wonder if a sudden explosion at work will mean an end to all the dreams of our life. We fight without ceasing to preserve a pool of hope that is constantly drying out. Then the explosion comes and the tightness of the binding gives way. We shout - we are momentarily loosed from the bonds that make us see human beings in the faces of others. We become agents of another - our fingers now owned by the machine twitch and twitch and the children die. God save us from the body of this death!
The principal to keep hold of in the face of such massacres is to recognize that what they have done cannot be isolated, much as the military court system and our news media will attempt to do. Their first impulse is to rope off this "incident" (that they were unable to cover up) and point to it as a legal problem. It is not a legal problem - it is part of a much larger picture that includes our own assent to violence in the wake of 9/11. Of course, the picture is much larger than even that. Just as in Vietnam, those soldiers were acting out of a hidden consensus that fundamentally approves of violence and seems incapable of grasping that all violence involves injustice, lies, and oppression. Soldiers are conditioned to be as violent as possible, yet they are told that they must obey rules. But rules turn to dust before the fundamental forces that drove them into the "theatre of war" in the first place. Those forces are the falsehoods that now must be covered up with violence. No matter what the rules say, these men were indeed obeying their master.
"The trouble with violence is that it changes not too much, but too little. Nonviolence is more radical because it is more truthful. Violence always ends up calling on lies to defend it, just as lies call on violence to defend them. By contrast, truth is naked, vulnerable as Christ, its only weapon Christ's own, God's love. So the very love of God that found oppression, poverty, and corruption intolerable, this same love, rather than inflict suffering - even on those imposing it on the poor - took suffering upon itself. What can only be said cynically of another - 'It is better that one man should die than that an entire nation perish' (ah, the demands of national security!) - can be said in utter truthfulness about oneself: 'It is better that I should die rather than a single other person perish.' That's finally how truth disarms, and there is no better way." - William Sloan Coffin.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Laughing Monsters
Come, consider the works of the Lord,
the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth.
He puts an end to wars over all the earth;
the bow he breaks, the spear he snaps.
He burns the shields with fire.
"Be still and know that I am God,
supreme among the nations, supreme on the earth!"
Future generations will look back on us and think of most of us as monsters in human form, though laughing monsters. Cyclops's who judged each other according to how responsively they reacted to each other's cynicism, justifying their existence by the amount of distraction they could produce. While God's creation was dying around us, we hid our bodies in amusement parks, tried to believe in self-made paradises as tawdry, as full of empty parodies of what once might have been great as our hearts have become when the chattering pauses. The one absolute taboo in our culture is to not be amusing - to be serious and, therefore, BORING. Unfortunately, to care about something is to be serious about your relationship with that thing - to be heavy is to be connected. Those who feel no connection laugh easily - there's always another situation to keep them distracted. To laugh is to be detached, to view life at an ironic distance, from which it can be violated.
Our descent into hell has begun: "A US lawmaker and former Marine colonel accused US Marines of killing innocent Iraqi civilians after a Marine comrade had been killed by a roadside bomb.
"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," John Murtha told reporters. The November 19 incident occurred in Haditha, Iraq.
"There was no firefight" that led to the shootings at close range, the Vietnam war veteran said, denying early official accounts, which said that a roadside bomb had killed the Iraqis.
"There were no (roadside bombs) that killed these innocent people," he said.
Time magazine reported the shootings on March 27, based on an Iraqi human rights group and locals, who said that 15 unarmed Iraqis died, including women and children, when Marines barged into their home throwing grenades and shooting.
"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine," Murtha said.
At least three Marine officers are under official investigation, and no report has been released, Army Times said Tuesday."
"The fact that U.S. Marines -- the few, the proud, etc. -- were capable of such bestiality says something ominous about the psychological state of the American military after three years of being stretched to the limit. These weren't draftees or Guardsmen or pathetic losers like Calley. These were professionals, supposedly the best of the best, and yet they threw away their training, their code and their honor, and drenched themselves and their flag in the blood of innocents. They simply snapped, in other words, and it makes me wonder how many more like them are out there -- one IED or ambush away from going beserk."
They threw it away. Honor, professionalism (the Holy Grail of our age), their code... And we "Christians" throw it away when we stew in our impotent mope, waiting for God knows what to begin to act, to speak for the living Christ, living in the women and children whom our silence has killed, to scream out the window if we can't think of anything better. "If we wish to resist the cynical annihilation of what is alive in the world of human beings and nature, we must first of all resist in ourselves the tendency to grow accustomed to this annihilation. It is not merely mass death that is so frightful. It is even more the fact that people have gradually got used to it, and have become callous toward the suffering of the victims." Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life.
the redoubtable deeds he has done on the earth.
He puts an end to wars over all the earth;
the bow he breaks, the spear he snaps.
He burns the shields with fire.
"Be still and know that I am God,
supreme among the nations, supreme on the earth!"
Future generations will look back on us and think of most of us as monsters in human form, though laughing monsters. Cyclops's who judged each other according to how responsively they reacted to each other's cynicism, justifying their existence by the amount of distraction they could produce. While God's creation was dying around us, we hid our bodies in amusement parks, tried to believe in self-made paradises as tawdry, as full of empty parodies of what once might have been great as our hearts have become when the chattering pauses. The one absolute taboo in our culture is to not be amusing - to be serious and, therefore, BORING. Unfortunately, to care about something is to be serious about your relationship with that thing - to be heavy is to be connected. Those who feel no connection laugh easily - there's always another situation to keep them distracted. To laugh is to be detached, to view life at an ironic distance, from which it can be violated.
Our descent into hell has begun: "A US lawmaker and former Marine colonel accused US Marines of killing innocent Iraqi civilians after a Marine comrade had been killed by a roadside bomb.
"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," John Murtha told reporters. The November 19 incident occurred in Haditha, Iraq.
"There was no firefight" that led to the shootings at close range, the Vietnam war veteran said, denying early official accounts, which said that a roadside bomb had killed the Iraqis.
"There were no (roadside bombs) that killed these innocent people," he said.
Time magazine reported the shootings on March 27, based on an Iraqi human rights group and locals, who said that 15 unarmed Iraqis died, including women and children, when Marines barged into their home throwing grenades and shooting.
"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine," Murtha said.
At least three Marine officers are under official investigation, and no report has been released, Army Times said Tuesday."
"The fact that U.S. Marines -- the few, the proud, etc. -- were capable of such bestiality says something ominous about the psychological state of the American military after three years of being stretched to the limit. These weren't draftees or Guardsmen or pathetic losers like Calley. These were professionals, supposedly the best of the best, and yet they threw away their training, their code and their honor, and drenched themselves and their flag in the blood of innocents. They simply snapped, in other words, and it makes me wonder how many more like them are out there -- one IED or ambush away from going beserk."
They threw it away. Honor, professionalism (the Holy Grail of our age), their code... And we "Christians" throw it away when we stew in our impotent mope, waiting for God knows what to begin to act, to speak for the living Christ, living in the women and children whom our silence has killed, to scream out the window if we can't think of anything better. "If we wish to resist the cynical annihilation of what is alive in the world of human beings and nature, we must first of all resist in ourselves the tendency to grow accustomed to this annihilation. It is not merely mass death that is so frightful. It is even more the fact that people have gradually got used to it, and have become callous toward the suffering of the victims." Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life.
Friday, May 12, 2006
The Chains Begin to Hurt
"The more the patient detects the tokens of returning health, the more restless and expectant he will be. That is the paradoxical situation of the children of God in the world. The hope that sways them is due largely not to what they are lacking but to what they have already received..."
"When freedom is close, the chains begin to hurt. If there were no such thing as freedom, or if every hope for liberation in us were dead, we should get used to our chains and, once having got used to them, should no longer feel them." - Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life.
But we feel them yet. We know what freedom feels like - we see it in the eyes of those we are free with, in the eyes of our brothers.
"There is an important struggle going on for the soul of Christianity, which should be of concern to everyone, Christian or not. The debate is not just at the level of arguments over whether, for example, certain Old Testament passages should be interpreted to condemn homosexuality. The deeper struggle is over whether Christianity is to be understood as a closed set of answers that leads to the intensification of these boundaries, or as an invitation to explore questions that help people transcend boundaries." - Robert Jensen, "Why I am a Christian (Sort of)", March 6, 2006.
"The chains begin to hurt, for we already sense that we have the power to break them." - Jurgen Moltmann.
"It's a little disconcerting, but it offers one enormous consolation: we do not have to wait until 'after the revolution' to begin to get a glimpse of what genuine freedom might be like. Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution." - Andre Grubacic, "Power and Revolution", May 11, 2006.
"When freedom is close, the chains begin to hurt. If there were no such thing as freedom, or if every hope for liberation in us were dead, we should get used to our chains and, once having got used to them, should no longer feel them." - Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life.
But we feel them yet. We know what freedom feels like - we see it in the eyes of those we are free with, in the eyes of our brothers.
"There is an important struggle going on for the soul of Christianity, which should be of concern to everyone, Christian or not. The debate is not just at the level of arguments over whether, for example, certain Old Testament passages should be interpreted to condemn homosexuality. The deeper struggle is over whether Christianity is to be understood as a closed set of answers that leads to the intensification of these boundaries, or as an invitation to explore questions that help people transcend boundaries." - Robert Jensen, "Why I am a Christian (Sort of)", March 6, 2006.
"The chains begin to hurt, for we already sense that we have the power to break them." - Jurgen Moltmann.
"It's a little disconcerting, but it offers one enormous consolation: we do not have to wait until 'after the revolution' to begin to get a glimpse of what genuine freedom might be like. Freedom only exists in the moment of revolution." - Andre Grubacic, "Power and Revolution", May 11, 2006.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Descent Into Hell
We begin with two quotes. One to show what war is doing to our soldiers in Iraq and another to frame these effects in the underlying social forces that continually freeze the love which God never ceases to sneak into our hearts:
"The narrowness of his vision is exactly how even the best and most humane soldier unwillingly becomes a monster, and the people who create war know this. Out of grief and rage, with the stench of his buddy's shredded flesh in his nostrils, the soldier stops asking questions and then begins making up his own rules with a rifle. He has touched the heart of darkness and there's no going back ever. Embracing the whore called war destroys morality, and doing all this in a dishonorable cause compounds the damage." Tony Swindell, "Our Descent into Hell has Begun", Counterpunch, May 4, 2006.
The next from "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy: "Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time - Christians, humanitarians or simply good-hearted people - into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth....It all comes down to the fact that men think there are circumstances when they may treat their fellow beings without love, but no such circumstances ever exist."
To make someone a soldier is to tell them that killing is good. We cordone off an area and say, "In this area, under these circumstances, the normal moral rules which we established in the churches and enforced through law no longer apply. Instead, the opposite rules now apply. Put an end to the compassion that wells up in your heart for the weak ones whom you must now destroy. No longer quell your violence and anger, but let them boil. Let cruelty grow strong within you and feel its power to the tips of your fingers. Go to the outer bounds of what restraints of humanity you have managed to imbibe. Let all that go and release the demons within that you have so long repressed. Let the gun be your argument and fire the only reason you know."
Now the stage is set. We have discovered the circumstance in which we may treat our fellow human beings without love. But, of course, we discover these circumstances every day. Under ideal circumstances, when the parousia occurs, we will learn to love our brothers, but not in the particular circumstance that confronts us today. Love is impossible here and I surrender myself to this impossibility more or less reluctantly. We have now cordoned off such an area in Iraq and the Iraqis act with the violence which our actions have established in that area.
A recent post on the wonderful Adventus blog summarizes much of what I try to convey here as a Catholic and Christian: "The nature of humanity is not bestial, only held in check by power and reason. And the nature of the universe is to do justice, and love mercy. Freedom is rooted, not in power or in order, but in justice. Seek justice, and you will have freedom; seek justice, and you will establish order; seek justice, and you will not need to concern yourself with law." The war in Iraq, in its most generous interpretation, is an attempt to impose what we call "law and order" on the social chaos that is Iraq. It is a manifestation of the unshakeable faith in force which is the true faith of America at present. America has apparently lost its faith in the deep underlying justice that lives in Christ and the mercy that God showed us on the Cross. Instead, they believe in the efficacy of smart bombs to establish order and justice in the hearts of Iraqis. Such "faith" will sooner or later destroy its bearer. Those of us who surrendered to this empty and cowardly faith in war-imposed "order" as the bringer of justice moan in our spirits for God's cleansing river to pour over us and through us. In the words of Martin Luther King, "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
"The narrowness of his vision is exactly how even the best and most humane soldier unwillingly becomes a monster, and the people who create war know this. Out of grief and rage, with the stench of his buddy's shredded flesh in his nostrils, the soldier stops asking questions and then begins making up his own rules with a rifle. He has touched the heart of darkness and there's no going back ever. Embracing the whore called war destroys morality, and doing all this in a dishonorable cause compounds the damage." Tony Swindell, "Our Descent into Hell has Begun", Counterpunch, May 4, 2006.
The next from "Resurrection" by Leo Tolstoy: "Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time - Christians, humanitarians or simply good-hearted people - into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth....It all comes down to the fact that men think there are circumstances when they may treat their fellow beings without love, but no such circumstances ever exist."
To make someone a soldier is to tell them that killing is good. We cordone off an area and say, "In this area, under these circumstances, the normal moral rules which we established in the churches and enforced through law no longer apply. Instead, the opposite rules now apply. Put an end to the compassion that wells up in your heart for the weak ones whom you must now destroy. No longer quell your violence and anger, but let them boil. Let cruelty grow strong within you and feel its power to the tips of your fingers. Go to the outer bounds of what restraints of humanity you have managed to imbibe. Let all that go and release the demons within that you have so long repressed. Let the gun be your argument and fire the only reason you know."
Now the stage is set. We have discovered the circumstance in which we may treat our fellow human beings without love. But, of course, we discover these circumstances every day. Under ideal circumstances, when the parousia occurs, we will learn to love our brothers, but not in the particular circumstance that confronts us today. Love is impossible here and I surrender myself to this impossibility more or less reluctantly. We have now cordoned off such an area in Iraq and the Iraqis act with the violence which our actions have established in that area.
A recent post on the wonderful Adventus blog summarizes much of what I try to convey here as a Catholic and Christian: "The nature of humanity is not bestial, only held in check by power and reason. And the nature of the universe is to do justice, and love mercy. Freedom is rooted, not in power or in order, but in justice. Seek justice, and you will have freedom; seek justice, and you will establish order; seek justice, and you will not need to concern yourself with law." The war in Iraq, in its most generous interpretation, is an attempt to impose what we call "law and order" on the social chaos that is Iraq. It is a manifestation of the unshakeable faith in force which is the true faith of America at present. America has apparently lost its faith in the deep underlying justice that lives in Christ and the mercy that God showed us on the Cross. Instead, they believe in the efficacy of smart bombs to establish order and justice in the hearts of Iraqis. Such "faith" will sooner or later destroy its bearer. Those of us who surrendered to this empty and cowardly faith in war-imposed "order" as the bringer of justice moan in our spirits for God's cleansing river to pour over us and through us. In the words of Martin Luther King, "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Your silence will not protect you
And all the dead air is alive. With the smell of America's God.
- Harold Pinter, "War With Iraq"
"'And now abide faith...' The abiding faith this country needs for its spiritual restoration and future health is the faith of the prophets who loved Israel, but whose love for their country was often measured by their deep disappointment with it. Prophetic faith is full of anger, yet it is always anchored in the greatness and goodness of God, not in hatred of enemies. Prophetic faith recognizes that economic tyranny can be as great as political tyranny. Prophetic faith sees justic as central, not ancillary, to salvation. It recognizes that God's undonditional concern for justice is not an anthropomorphism (a projection upon God of our human attributes), but rather that our concern for justice is a theomorphism: to the degree that we embody justice, God takes form within us.'" - William Sloan Coffin
The human being who follows Christ is the embodiment of justice - he lives for the justice that lives in the honesty of the bright green spring leaves.
"For American liberty to be restored and extended, American Christians need to carry on with their country the same lovers' quarrel that the prophets of old carried on with Israel, and that God consistently carries on with the whole world. We must say Yes to what we can, and No to what we must. We must see that when a government betrays the ideals of a country, it is an act of loyalty to oppose the government. We must take the road less traveled and be more concerned with our country saving its soul than with it losing face. 'I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just.' (Thomas Jefferson)." - William Sloan Coffin
From a recent appearance by Sister Joan Chittister: "...there is an inconsistency operating in the churches about the absolute value of life. Obviously, life is not always an "absolute" value. At least not where men are concerned. When men interrupt life, it is not absolute. We can kill, they tell us, to defend the state, to punish for the state, to “defend” ourselves. And we can kill the innocent, bomb them to smithereens, threaten the future of the whole world, if we want to and still be holy. Our churches find cruise missiles "a matter of theological doubt." But not condoms; not birth control pills; not stem cells; not fertilized ovum. How can this be?"
- Harold Pinter, "War With Iraq"
"'And now abide faith...' The abiding faith this country needs for its spiritual restoration and future health is the faith of the prophets who loved Israel, but whose love for their country was often measured by their deep disappointment with it. Prophetic faith is full of anger, yet it is always anchored in the greatness and goodness of God, not in hatred of enemies. Prophetic faith recognizes that economic tyranny can be as great as political tyranny. Prophetic faith sees justic as central, not ancillary, to salvation. It recognizes that God's undonditional concern for justice is not an anthropomorphism (a projection upon God of our human attributes), but rather that our concern for justice is a theomorphism: to the degree that we embody justice, God takes form within us.'" - William Sloan Coffin
The human being who follows Christ is the embodiment of justice - he lives for the justice that lives in the honesty of the bright green spring leaves.
"For American liberty to be restored and extended, American Christians need to carry on with their country the same lovers' quarrel that the prophets of old carried on with Israel, and that God consistently carries on with the whole world. We must say Yes to what we can, and No to what we must. We must see that when a government betrays the ideals of a country, it is an act of loyalty to oppose the government. We must take the road less traveled and be more concerned with our country saving its soul than with it losing face. 'I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just.' (Thomas Jefferson)." - William Sloan Coffin
From a recent appearance by Sister Joan Chittister: "...there is an inconsistency operating in the churches about the absolute value of life. Obviously, life is not always an "absolute" value. At least not where men are concerned. When men interrupt life, it is not absolute. We can kill, they tell us, to defend the state, to punish for the state, to “defend” ourselves. And we can kill the innocent, bomb them to smithereens, threaten the future of the whole world, if we want to and still be holy. Our churches find cruise missiles "a matter of theological doubt." But not condoms; not birth control pills; not stem cells; not fertilized ovum. How can this be?"
Friday, April 28, 2006
End the Silence
"I take a holy vow to never kill again." - Neil Young, Living With War.
All of us, whether we admit it or not, are living with war in our hearts. We can stop this war anytime we wish. The act of stopping hate in our hearts, whether it be for the co-worker that constantly obstructs our efforts or for a President that kills without a twinge of compassion because he has the power not to care, is the act that ends the powers that be. We can destroy his power because we have the power to care whether we hate or not. When we stop hating, we destroy the power of this world. When we start loving our brothers in Iraq and in Iran, then we bring the kingdom of God to life in our hearts.
"If democracy is not all it’s cracked up to be, and a war for oil is blatantly immoral and unproductive, the question still remains-- why do we fight? More precisely, why should we fight? When is enough killing enough? Why does man so casually accept war, which brings so much suffering to so many, when so little is achieved? Why do those who suffer and die so willingly accept the excuses for the wars that need not be fought? Why do so many defer to those who are enthused about war, and who claim it’s a solution to a problem, without asking them why they themselves do not fight? It’s always other men and other men’s children who must sacrifice life and limb for the reasons that make no sense, reasons that are said to be our patriotic duty to fight and die for. How many useless wars have been fought for lies that deserved no hearing? When will it all end?" HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
BEFORE THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, September 8, 2005
Let me summarize the feelings that Neil Young and a chorus of American voices now are crying, "For American liberty to be restored and extended, American Christians need to carry on with their country the same lovers' quareel that the prophets of old carried on with Israel, and that God consistently carries on with the whole world. We must say Yes to what we can, and No to what we must. We must see that when a government betrays the ideals of a country, it is an act of loyalty to oppose the government. We must take the road less traveled and be more concerned with our country saving its soul than with it losing face. "I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just" (Thomas Jefferson)." - William Sloan Coffin.
All of us, whether we admit it or not, are living with war in our hearts. We can stop this war anytime we wish. The act of stopping hate in our hearts, whether it be for the co-worker that constantly obstructs our efforts or for a President that kills without a twinge of compassion because he has the power not to care, is the act that ends the powers that be. We can destroy his power because we have the power to care whether we hate or not. When we stop hating, we destroy the power of this world. When we start loving our brothers in Iraq and in Iran, then we bring the kingdom of God to life in our hearts.
"If democracy is not all it’s cracked up to be, and a war for oil is blatantly immoral and unproductive, the question still remains-- why do we fight? More precisely, why should we fight? When is enough killing enough? Why does man so casually accept war, which brings so much suffering to so many, when so little is achieved? Why do those who suffer and die so willingly accept the excuses for the wars that need not be fought? Why do so many defer to those who are enthused about war, and who claim it’s a solution to a problem, without asking them why they themselves do not fight? It’s always other men and other men’s children who must sacrifice life and limb for the reasons that make no sense, reasons that are said to be our patriotic duty to fight and die for. How many useless wars have been fought for lies that deserved no hearing? When will it all end?" HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
BEFORE THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, September 8, 2005
Let me summarize the feelings that Neil Young and a chorus of American voices now are crying, "For American liberty to be restored and extended, American Christians need to carry on with their country the same lovers' quareel that the prophets of old carried on with Israel, and that God consistently carries on with the whole world. We must say Yes to what we can, and No to what we must. We must see that when a government betrays the ideals of a country, it is an act of loyalty to oppose the government. We must take the road less traveled and be more concerned with our country saving its soul than with it losing face. "I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just" (Thomas Jefferson)." - William Sloan Coffin.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
The Silence, Vast and Still
Larry Beinhart's recent piece in Common Dreams (In Silence, the War Continues) should be read by all who care about putting out the war that rages in our hearts and overflows onto the bodies of the innocent. After laying out the case that the Iraq War constitutes a war crime, indeed the "supreme international crime": "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." - Nuremburg Tribunal, article 109.
How far have we fallen from the days when America spearheaded the movement to make war illegal? As Beinhart shows, the major difference between those times and ours is not the prevalence of violence, or even its justification, but the sheer emptiness with which we the children have greeted the advent of this crime. Our ancesters may have been more instinctive in their aggression, but a latent moral outrage flared even in the most brutal days, a flare that has flickered out in our hearts. Knowing we are cowards, the news media shields us from the horrors we have unleashed on the innocent. And we are glad to be shielded. We have become unworthy of the fire of justice.
The major difference between the crime of the 1930's and our own is the self-willed muffling of our conscience, or in the words of Beinhart, "There are no mitigating circumstances, except, perhaps, the silence.
The silence, vast and still, came from the media. It came from our other politicians. From our historians, lawyers and generals, from our priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams, who failed to step forward and say, wait, once upon a time we said that waging an aggressive war was the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Once upon a time we hung people for the crime of waging an aggressive war.
We are continuing that war. We have already begun the preparations for another war.
We may not be able to stop this administration from committing war crimes, we may not be able to bring them to justice, but we can end the silence."
How far have we fallen from the days when America spearheaded the movement to make war illegal? As Beinhart shows, the major difference between those times and ours is not the prevalence of violence, or even its justification, but the sheer emptiness with which we the children have greeted the advent of this crime. Our ancesters may have been more instinctive in their aggression, but a latent moral outrage flared even in the most brutal days, a flare that has flickered out in our hearts. Knowing we are cowards, the news media shields us from the horrors we have unleashed on the innocent. And we are glad to be shielded. We have become unworthy of the fire of justice.
The major difference between the crime of the 1930's and our own is the self-willed muffling of our conscience, or in the words of Beinhart, "There are no mitigating circumstances, except, perhaps, the silence.
The silence, vast and still, came from the media. It came from our other politicians. From our historians, lawyers and generals, from our priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams, who failed to step forward and say, wait, once upon a time we said that waging an aggressive war was the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Once upon a time we hung people for the crime of waging an aggressive war.
We are continuing that war. We have already begun the preparations for another war.
We may not be able to stop this administration from committing war crimes, we may not be able to bring them to justice, but we can end the silence."
Christian Solidarity
Yesterday it was revealed that Mary McCarthy at the CIA was probably the source of the revelations about the secret prisons to which the CIA rendered suspected terrorists in order to torture them. What must the Christian attitude be toward those who uncover grave human rights abuses which are currently being carried out by this administration? This woman took an oath to protect the secrets of this government - can we defend her action without diminishing the virtue of keeping one's promises? The Church teaches us that "Professional secrets - for example, those of political office holders, soldiers, physicians, and lawyers - or confidential information given under the seal of secrecy must be kept, save in exceptional cases where keeping the secret is bound to cause very grave harm to the one who confided it, to the one who received it or to a third party, and where the very grave harm can be avoided only by divulging the truth. Even if not confided under the seal of secrecy, private information prejudicial to another is not to be divulged without a grave and proportionate reason." Catechism #2491. Is not the torture of a fellow human being precisely the exceptional case that the Catechism provides for? In fact, is this situation not precisely the "ticking bomb" scenario so beloved of the right-wing media? Our brothers are currently being held in secret prisons where they are being tortured and perhaps murdered. The CIA knows where they are and knows the harm that they are doing to these images of God. The only way to render them justice is to raise a public outcry that may awaken the latent shame that lies in the heart of the most bureaucratic abuser. Does the obligation to free the victims of such injustice overrule the obligation to protect "professional secrets"? If only those who wear the name of Christian would start proclaiming the truth from the bowels of this Bluebeard which we blindly call our security, that sea of tears, then at last the cleansing process could begin. Let us pray that those in government will claim their status as sons and daughters of God and throw off the paralysis that seals their lips while the image of God is degraded and done to death. The Christian support which Mary McCarthy receives will say much about our commitment to God's love.
"For men and women in a nuclear world, when the human race has outgrown war but hardly knows it yet, Jesus more than ever is the best way to liberation, freedom, and peace. The hostility that churned up Cain and that others throughout the centuries have sought to perpetuate, Jesus seeks to ground. That makes it our calling to ground, not to perpetuate, hostility. The violence stops here, with each one of us who claims Christ's holy name. The gossip, the false witness borne against a neighbor, the cold unconcern for warm human beings - all forms of violence, everything that violates human nature - stops with us." William Sloan Coffin.
"For men and women in a nuclear world, when the human race has outgrown war but hardly knows it yet, Jesus more than ever is the best way to liberation, freedom, and peace. The hostility that churned up Cain and that others throughout the centuries have sought to perpetuate, Jesus seeks to ground. That makes it our calling to ground, not to perpetuate, hostility. The violence stops here, with each one of us who claims Christ's holy name. The gossip, the false witness borne against a neighbor, the cold unconcern for warm human beings - all forms of violence, everything that violates human nature - stops with us." William Sloan Coffin.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
