It's not that I actually have a complaint to write about, but I really do wonder if people can still tell the difference between illegal and unethical behavior and obeying the law, not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well. I say this because I believe we have let the spirit of the law slip dramatically in this country, believing that only getting to the bottom line matters. This goes for things like believing that the end justifies the means as well. Does it? Have we so abandoned our principles that we only consider what will get us what we want? Why are we so willing to discard the principles that made us so unique as a nation up until current events turned us into sheep with fangs?
We really are cowardly, you know; despite the brave window decals we place on our rear windows. Why is that? Well, in one significant area, we claim to support our troops and the mission the president says is vital to our nation in Iraq. Nonetheless we allow our soldiers to return for three or four consecutive tours of duty in a war zone and don't even blink an eye at their travails at having to do so. At the height of the Vietnam War we did not do that, nor did we require that in WW1 or WW2. Battle is a devastating experience, yet all we offer is yellow ribbons and waving flags. Where are the volunteers from the cheerleaders of this war? If you support the war, and you are not in uniform, then, I say you are a coward.
Have we forgotten the slogan that old men start wars yet young men fight them? Who are these old men who start wars anyway? Well in this case, the 17 members of the president's first administration who beat the drums of war all had deferments from the Vietnam War. How's that? The planners and propagandists for this war (Wolfowitz, Fife, Cheney, et. al.) somehow managed to claim they had other priorities while their fellow citizens died in Vietnam and came home either in a casket, or mentally and physically scarred for life. We allow that now? We excuse that? We actually think that these Chickenhawks are American heroes? They must be since the president handed out medals to them. There is something wrong here. Even the current president (a cheerleader during college and an avowed "C" student) is able to act the part of a war hero with impunity even though he left his National Guard post in 1972 and disappeared into the political thicket in Alabama. And no one is able to challenge that?
I wonder what would have happened if George Washington had given up at Valley Forge, and just slipped away leaving the fight to his second in commmand or other staff officers, saying, "I've got to go home to Martha and take care of my surveying business." Would he have lived that down? We have no trouble condemning Benedict Arnold for his one traitorous act, even though as one of our ablest generals (and a successful merchant-businessman) he turned the Revolutionary War around at Saratoga, and hacked his way through the Maine forests in the hopes of wresting Canada from British control too.
We give lip service to the actual bravery of our forefathers and at the same time excuse malfeasance in our current leaders. Here's a current example. It is my understanding that wiretapping is illegal unless the specific criminal is identified and the police get a court order. The president declares a national emergency, enlists the aid of the major phone companies, and conducts massive wiretapping in the name of the war on terror. We allow that because....because why?? Are we really quaking in our boots that somehow somebody will do us harm? No, we are just followers, sheep, sheeple as the bloggers say. We mindlessly follow the leader because he is the leader. Come again?? Now we offer immunity to the phone companies who participated because they were just following orders. What's that?? We hung Nazi officers after WW2 for claiming the same thing. We did not buy that excuse then and we should not buy that excuse now. Why? I'll tell you why.
As part of the officers code of conduct there is a part about not betraying one's principles, about being honorable, and defending the constitution. Taking the oath to uphold the constitution does not absolve a soldier or an officer, or even a member of government from leaving his or her principles at home once they take on the responsibilities of defending the country. Nazi soldiers and Japanese soldiers, and Italian soldiers could not claim that. It's a twinkie defense. We either hung them or imprisoned them - after a trial and major tribunals to repair the social fabric afte the Second World War. After a trial. After a tribunal. Get the irony? Now we do just the opposite and then claim a kangaroo court in Guantanamo will absolve us from our sins.
So, lawyers for the administration, namely John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, and others, claim we are not bound by the Geneva Convention if we re-name our adversaries "enemy combatants" and hold them off shore where we are not legally bound to obey our own laws against torture and humane treatment so we can extract vital information in midieval fashion from those we suspect of being in league with the enemy. How interesting. Europe abandoned torture over 400 years ago because it does not get people to tell the truth. Yet we, in our American wisdom, employ it now - in violation of all the principles we hold (excuse me, held) so dear, because we are told it will get us vital information that will save us from another 9/11 attack.
How convenient for those who wish to not be held accountable for their actions. First we claim a national emergency and the president must be granted extraordinary powers to save us. Extraordinary behavior for a nation that claims that The People are the government. We give a man who cannot even speak English coherently dictatorial powers in the name of saving our asses from a mushroom cloud that was proven not even to be on the planning table of a regional tinpot dictator. Then we excuse it because nothing has happened so it must be working. Are we aware that after taking power as Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolph Hitler declared a national emergency in order to run a weary nation no longer able to defend itself from an internal gang of brown shirt wearing thugs, who claimed Jews were out to destroy the country? We forget our history, and relive the circumstances in our ignorance.
And guess what? All those guns you guys have to protect yourselves from the enemy will eventually have to be used to protect yourselves from your own government - the government you gave away in the name of saving you from the trouble of defending it yourselves.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Government by Deus ex Machina
Recently I received a spam message complaining about the lack of mentions of God in the daily life of Americans. As with many of these types of messages I was enjoined to defend God in some way, as if He needed defending, and put "In God We Trust" on every piece of mail I sent out, or message I created. Well, what if I don't agree? And I don't. Emphatically.
I was raised in the tradition that my religious beliefs were my business and my business alone. If I was to demonstrate my faith, I could act on the principles in public, but it would not be necessary to stand on a street corner and shout the "Good News" to passersby. That, as Jesus said in the New Testament (The Christian testament), is just showing off. Showing off doesn't count, so, I would consider, would be all that testifying, witnessing, and "Praise the Lord's." What about actually doing stuff, like visiting the sick, building homes, and the rest of the working in the vineyard.
So it really pains me to see these temples to Christian prosperity on every street corner proclaiming that "my mortgage is bigger than your mortgage" while millions go hungry. Didn't this Jewish carpenter Christians are so fond of calling by name say, "sell all you have and follow me." I think that all that is at work here is not Christian practice, but sanctuary envy.
Speaking of Christian practice, and it is a practice, why all the Old Testament Bible thumping? The old is the old and the new is a very short document. Christians are supposed to do stuff, not name buildings after the Prophets (although they can). So while everybody is in Sunday school learning about David and Goliath and trying to disprove evolution by taking the Bible literally, Jesus is sitting at the well telling the woman drawing water that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the Word. Yet every Sunday in Church and all week long on the public access channel, sanctimonious men and women constantly refer to the words in the Bible as being inviolate and direct from God. I guess they forgot about things like barely literate scribes rewriting material they can hardly read themselves handing down mistakes through the ages. And besides, I believe it is damned rude to use the Jewish testament and books of the prophets to prop up Christian beliefs. It should be able to standon its own if people acutally exercised it in every day life.
It is this spititual illiteracy that bothers me. A failure to look beyond the Word and grasp the import of the message. It is not what Jesus may or may have done, but what people today need to do. Just writing "In God We Trust" will not do it. Besides, that was inserted into the Pledge of Alegiance in 1953 a the height of anti-Communist hysteria (Those Godlesss Commies!). And we do it now in the face of Islamic fundamentalism as well, trying to claim the high ground by raising up an altar to the Book instead of actually practicing Christianity. It is just like putting ribbons on your car but refusing to join the Army to serve in the Iraq War you support because it isn't convenient.
Those very kinds of people also said they wouldn't go to the marriage feast because they had other things to do. So the countryside got drafted and the snobs were left to run their errands.
Worshiping symbols, yellow ribbons, the flag, a golden calf, does not come an inch closer to the practice of the principles you espouse. Shout from the altar or podium all you wish, but unless you can write your own letters from the Richmond jail, or stand in the rain to oppose torture by our own government, you don't do anymore than add to global warming.
If we are going to trust in anything we need to trust in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, since they guarantee our rights and outline our responsibilities in this country. The president is not, by any stretch of the imagination capable of doing that; the man who said he wanted to be dictator because telling evreybody what to do is easier than negotiation and diplomacy. By hoping that somehow Jesus is going to deliver us from our own failure to govern ourselves, we will surely get the authoritarian theocratic government Islam is so proud of. Under a theocratic government you don't practice the religion of your choice, but that of the State. We had that once and we rejected it for what it was, an excuse for powerful men to seize control of the State all the while claiming they did it in the name of God. Baloney!
Under the Divine Right of Kings and signeurship of the Middle Ages (a mind set of fundamentalists evreywhere and acutal practice in the Middle East), here is what you get: conformity. Slavish adherance to a rule of men who claim an authority based upon belief rather than merit or the will of the people. The so-called prophets in polygamist colonies go for the 14 year old girls first, just like the lords did in the Middle Ages - first night rights. The right to deflower the virgins in the village. Slavish devotion to Jim Jones got 900 mindless people drinking cyanide laced kool aid. When Marx said that religion was the opium of the people, I believe he was asserting the principles of the Enlightenment; specifically that we should think for ourselves, question the sacred cows of authority, and practice the principles of living we so glibly toss around, but never get around to putting into action.
I was raised in the tradition that my religious beliefs were my business and my business alone. If I was to demonstrate my faith, I could act on the principles in public, but it would not be necessary to stand on a street corner and shout the "Good News" to passersby. That, as Jesus said in the New Testament (The Christian testament), is just showing off. Showing off doesn't count, so, I would consider, would be all that testifying, witnessing, and "Praise the Lord's." What about actually doing stuff, like visiting the sick, building homes, and the rest of the working in the vineyard.
So it really pains me to see these temples to Christian prosperity on every street corner proclaiming that "my mortgage is bigger than your mortgage" while millions go hungry. Didn't this Jewish carpenter Christians are so fond of calling by name say, "sell all you have and follow me." I think that all that is at work here is not Christian practice, but sanctuary envy.
Speaking of Christian practice, and it is a practice, why all the Old Testament Bible thumping? The old is the old and the new is a very short document. Christians are supposed to do stuff, not name buildings after the Prophets (although they can). So while everybody is in Sunday school learning about David and Goliath and trying to disprove evolution by taking the Bible literally, Jesus is sitting at the well telling the woman drawing water that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the Word. Yet every Sunday in Church and all week long on the public access channel, sanctimonious men and women constantly refer to the words in the Bible as being inviolate and direct from God. I guess they forgot about things like barely literate scribes rewriting material they can hardly read themselves handing down mistakes through the ages. And besides, I believe it is damned rude to use the Jewish testament and books of the prophets to prop up Christian beliefs. It should be able to standon its own if people acutally exercised it in every day life.
It is this spititual illiteracy that bothers me. A failure to look beyond the Word and grasp the import of the message. It is not what Jesus may or may have done, but what people today need to do. Just writing "In God We Trust" will not do it. Besides, that was inserted into the Pledge of Alegiance in 1953 a the height of anti-Communist hysteria (Those Godlesss Commies!). And we do it now in the face of Islamic fundamentalism as well, trying to claim the high ground by raising up an altar to the Book instead of actually practicing Christianity. It is just like putting ribbons on your car but refusing to join the Army to serve in the Iraq War you support because it isn't convenient.
Those very kinds of people also said they wouldn't go to the marriage feast because they had other things to do. So the countryside got drafted and the snobs were left to run their errands.
Worshiping symbols, yellow ribbons, the flag, a golden calf, does not come an inch closer to the practice of the principles you espouse. Shout from the altar or podium all you wish, but unless you can write your own letters from the Richmond jail, or stand in the rain to oppose torture by our own government, you don't do anymore than add to global warming.
If we are going to trust in anything we need to trust in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, since they guarantee our rights and outline our responsibilities in this country. The president is not, by any stretch of the imagination capable of doing that; the man who said he wanted to be dictator because telling evreybody what to do is easier than negotiation and diplomacy. By hoping that somehow Jesus is going to deliver us from our own failure to govern ourselves, we will surely get the authoritarian theocratic government Islam is so proud of. Under a theocratic government you don't practice the religion of your choice, but that of the State. We had that once and we rejected it for what it was, an excuse for powerful men to seize control of the State all the while claiming they did it in the name of God. Baloney!
Under the Divine Right of Kings and signeurship of the Middle Ages (a mind set of fundamentalists evreywhere and acutal practice in the Middle East), here is what you get: conformity. Slavish adherance to a rule of men who claim an authority based upon belief rather than merit or the will of the people. The so-called prophets in polygamist colonies go for the 14 year old girls first, just like the lords did in the Middle Ages - first night rights. The right to deflower the virgins in the village. Slavish devotion to Jim Jones got 900 mindless people drinking cyanide laced kool aid. When Marx said that religion was the opium of the people, I believe he was asserting the principles of the Enlightenment; specifically that we should think for ourselves, question the sacred cows of authority, and practice the principles of living we so glibly toss around, but never get around to putting into action.
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