Tag Archives: patriotism

Fear–or Faith? Despair–or Hope? Hate–or Love? So What's It Gonna Be, President Bush?

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President Bush revealed his very human moral ambivalence in unscripted remarks following a recent speech in Philadelphia, when he said, “My job as president is to see the world the way it is, not the way we hope it is.”

 

To the contrary. I still count on my president to resist the temptation to give in to his darkest fears. Although 9/11 filled us all with doubts about the redeemability of terrorists—the ones who “lurk, hide, plan and plot” and coldly use violence to achieve their political aims—all the more reason, then, that President Bush should offer us all a consistent spiritual vision of a forgivable world where all of God’s children are lovable and capable of learning, right down to the last sorry, blackhearted, spotted, faithless self (that’s all of us, at times.)

 

Although President Bush has faith in the ideals of freedom and liberty, and professes a Christian faith, he still doesn’t “get” that he—and all other global leaders who resort to violence to achieve their political aims, whether offensively or defensively, through snipers, spies, armies, bombs, torture, economic policies, suicide attacks, or any other form of aggression—are demonstrating the same faithlessness and fatalism, the same motives and methods used by the very “evildoers” who, Mr. Bush believes, can never “become hospitable and decent citizens of the world.”

 

However admirable his desire to fulfill his oath to protect his countrymen, President Bush has abandoned his most formidable weapon against terror—faith in mankind's redeemability. Of late, instead of spiritual vision, he’s offered us instead only the worst fruits of spiritual defeatism—endless war, immense armies and arsenals, disrespectful nation-building, and huge, unwieldy, cruel intelligence-gathering bureaucracies.

 

Our fragile planet’s only hope during these chaotic times is our steadfast faith, hope, and love for all of God’s violent, prodigal sons and daughters everywhere, who will one day beat their swords into ploughshares and be welcomed back into the peaceful community of mankind.

 

Which will it be, President Bush? Are you a visionary leader who can accept that Americans may suffer some tragic injustices along with our fellow-earthlings, yet resist adding to their sum? Can you lead the world in solving the real problems of the 21st century, and in creating the new global reality we long for?

 

Or will you one day be remembered as just another in a long line of frightened, bloody world leaders who reacted blindly to their own fears and the paranoia of others, and ended up creating human nightmares far worse than any dreamed of by their enemies?

 

Only spiritual leadership can provide the understanding, acceptance, and appreciation necessary to unify the planet’s five polarized cultures—Africans, South Americans, China, the Muslim world, and the West. Only idealistic leadership can inspire each of these cultures to achieve its own unique ideals, hopes, and dreams, while respecting and supporting the quality of human life everywhere. Only non-violent leadership can address the century’s most urgent problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, greed, hunger, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence, itself.

 

So what's it gonna be, President Bush? Fear–or faith? Despair–or hope? Hate–or love?

 

Will the real President Bush please stand up, and lead?

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Way to Peace in the Middle East

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Today’s bloody unity in Iraq can be maintained only by imposition of yet another inhumane, repressive KGB-type police state, backed by a huge, permanent, deadly U.S. occupation. It is in no one’s best interests to continue to force our own fallible western institutions upon historically self-identified “Kurds,” “Sunnis,” and “Shiites” fiercely loyal to their own unique sets of traditions, religious beliefs, and leadership, and committed to political self-determination and separatist destinies. Remember that it was foreigners who once arbitrarily invented “Iraq’s” national borders, and who cynically installed a vicious dictator (Saddam) to squish these three distinct groups together for our own imagined selfish interests.

 

After a century of violent outside interference, “Iraqis” justifiably don’t trust us, and don’t want us over there “helping” them—except as invited guests. Before we drain the last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy, we can choose to back away from all militaristic regional leaders, and instead transfer our most generous financial, diplomatic and media support to non-violent, popular cultural representatives of each distinct ethnicity, who can then work cooperatively to minimize civil unrest and instability, and light the way toward mutual achievement of their own (equally fallible) highest priorities, ideals and solutions.

 

And yes, the United States will have to stand in line humbly to buy oil at market prices, just like every other nation.

 

Terrorism breeds wherever angry youths seeth under inflammatory external ruthless tyrannies. There is no violent “way” to peace and stability in the Middle East, or at home. Peace is the way.

Questions and Perspectives on Iraq

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Will somebody please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests for the west to continue to attempt to impose unity and western political institutions upon “Iraqis,” instead of helping self-identified “Kurds,” ”Sunnis,” and “Shiites” achieve self-determination, and their own highest ideals and priorities, each in their own unique and uniquely valuable ways?

 

I’m not a foreign policy specialist. I’m only a U.S. citizen loyally attempting to keep up with politics and uphold the highest traditional U.S. ideals by reading two newspapers and occasionally following CSpan. But try as I may, in all my reading and listening, I have not been able to conclude that Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis want to be united under one government. All evidence points to the contrary: each of the three groups apparently very much wants to control its own historically-separate destiny, now and into the future, each maintaining a fierce (and admirable) loyalty to their own unique set of traditions, culture, religious beliefs, values, and leadership.

 

How can we ever end this war and achieve long-lasting peace, in that region or here at home, without recognizing the very reason why each of these three ethnicities has so long been fighting against us and amongst one another—for the right (to which Americans give lip-service) to democratic political self-determination for all peoples everywhere?

 

After decades of cruel war and occupation by western countries, Iraqis seem to have reasonably concluded that they must fight back against western politicians who would encroach upon their families, friends, and the lands of their ancestors, and who would impose foreign values, institutions and approaches upon them through forced coalitions and nationhood.

 

I have read some of the regional instability arguments against partitioning Iraq into three nations, but am so far unconvinced that all interested nations and peoples—including “Iraqis”—wouldn’t be far better off if we in the U.S. just changed our foreign policy to support democratic self-determination and separate nationhood for each of the three historical ethnicities that we once, so unwisely, forced together under one dictator. I also remain mystified as to why (other than ignorance) the U.S. didn’t choose this more peaceful and lasting alternative approach to our current destructive, unjust, costly, protracted and unwinnable war, years ago. (But that’s another question….)

 

As long as we ignore the self-deterministic aspirations of these three ethnicities, the U.S. must settle, in Iraq as we have elsewhere, for minimal, shameful goals of imposed “civil quiet,” via yet one more cynically-installed, tyrannical, ruthless, repressive KGB-type police state backed by an endless, costly, inflammatory, deadly U.S. occupation.

 

How did we ever conclude that violent suppression of a popular movement for personal liberty would more likely result in peace and freedom than generous support for local freedom of choice?

 

We cannot win this war until Middle Easterners feel that they too have won a freedom they can believe in. And we can’t achieve a win-win outcome by imposing an outdated political and military solution grounded in untested assumptions, a solution which many in the west persist in believing is “in our best interests.”

 

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

 

We can choose to minimize the impacts of future civic unrest during inevitable land grabs and power struggles in the Middle East, by withholding military and financial support from all regional leaders who have historically used militaristic, terrorizing, violent approaches to achieving peace, and offer instead generous financial, diplomatic and media support only to those leaders who are popularly respected as most peaceful and most representative of the highest ideals and traditions of each ethnic group.

 

President Bush’s proposed “Strategy for Victory in Iraq” has identified four goals to be achieved in Iraq before troop withdrawal: peace, unity, stability, and security. But before the war, most (albeit dispirited) “Iraqis” already “enjoyed” exactly those four conditions under Saddam–the only exception being dissidents fighting for political self-determination.

 

What then have we been fighting for? What has our costly war accomplished? And for what and for whom are we still fighting?

 

Terrorism breeds and grows in regions where angry young people seeth under unjust, externally-imposed militaristic tyrannies.

 

So will someone please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests—ours, or any others’–to keep on imposing our own beloved but fallible western institutions and values upon the people of the Middle East—right on up to the time when we drain the very last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy–instead of peacefully and generously granting (Christian!) charity to the best and brightest leaders of every region, assisting them in lighting their own peoples’ way to achieving their own unique and uniquely valuable (if equally fallible) highest ideals and priorities–each in their own way?

 

 

 

 

 

Please send your thoughts to epharmon@adelphia.net ! And thank you for your loyal and caring support for the quality of human life everywhere.

 

My Father the Terrorist

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He was a man who would kill and maim innocent children and civilians if he was told to do so by his leaders … Who would boldly face certain death for his beliefs … Who believed that death and destruction solved problems … Who believed in retaliating violently, and avenging losses … Who would kill anyone he was told was a threat to his safety, home, land, family, traditions and beliefs … Who would kill and die anywhere in the world to further his people’s interests, and to spread their ways around the world ….

 

He was a man who thought terror a reasonable means of achieving political, social and economic goals.

 

He was also a U.S. Army career officer, a highly decorated war hero, attorney, horseman, poet, woodsman, musician, scratch-handicap golfer, linguist, historian, and gentle, patriotic, idealistic, loving son, husband, brother, friend … father.

 

My father.

 

With such an admirable, lovable person in my family, how could I ever come to see soldiers in any way similar to terrorists, when they seem so completely different to everyone else?

 

True, both soldiers and terrorists deal in violence and death. But surely a righteous cause justifies a violent means? So, are terrorists ever right? Are soldiers often wrong? Is it possible that the problem is violence itself?

 

What could soldiers and terrorists possibly have in common?

 

Both soldiers and terrorists are often idealistic (or religious) youth, drawn to the disciplined, hard, masculine life and camaraderie of like-minded patriotic friends who share their desire to contribute to a better world. Soldiers and terrorists alike hope they won’t have to kill or be killed, and certainly not maimed, tortured or imprisoned, but yearn instead to do some good, to see the world, make a living, and maybe get in on some of the action they’ve seen in the movies.

 

Soldiers and terrorists often join up because they haven’t found alternative work they feel as passionate about. Both soldiers and terrorists often feel angry about the way the world is, and about their own lives, too. They feel their backs are against the wall, it’s someone else’s fault, and blood must be shed to right the wrongs.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists are fiercely loyal to armed forces of sorts, especially to their esteemed leaders and fellow-travelers. Soldiers take pride in being part of thrilling national armies; terrorists take equal pride in being part of glorious insurgencies against tyrannies or foreign invasions. Soldiers everywhere fight for governments they look up to and trust. Terrorists fight against governments they consider oppressive, illegitimate, unfair or unrepresentative. Both soldiers and terrorists, however, believe that what they’ve learned from their culture is true; both also believe they are right.

 

Statesmen put their faith in negotiation, believing that even infinite diplomacy is ultimately more effective, humane, lasting, ethical—and less costly, in every sense—than recurrent, endless escalations of violence which create new problems for future generations while leaving old ones unresolved. Seasoned diplomats resign themselves to accepting that a certain amount of horrific injustice will unavoidably be inflicted upon even the just. Nevertheless, they resist threatening more violence, or using past injustices to argue for adding to the total sum of injustice.

 

Soldiers and terrorists, on the other hand, trust that somehow their violent acts will alleviate conflicts, solve problems, and create lasting peace. Soldiers and terrorists alike count on charismatic political leaders who often possess dubious legitimacy and logic, unreliable integrity, small abilities and selfish hidden agendas. Soldiers and terrorists nevertheless count on such fallible leaders to negotiate for them, and to tell them when their approaches to political change (peaceful protest, diplomacy, cooperative organizing, and other tedious and deliberate efforts within “the system”) seem not to be “working.” Both soldiers and terrorists believe their decisions to use violence are moral, since they’re following orders from a higher, more knowledgeable authority.

 

Many youthful idealists sign up for soldiering and terrorizing because they find action more comfortable than talk. Compared with diplomats and statesmen who’ve spent lifetimes acquiring subtle understandings of regional issues, history, culture, conflicts old and new, trade, treaties, protocol, language, negotiation and communication, soldiers and terrorists (and politicians) often have short fuses, and limited, black-or-white/right-or-wrong views on political realities and options.

 

One reason so many young men (and women) are enlisted to die in terrorist violence and war is that those with more life experience are less likely to jump in to violence as wholeheartedly and innocently as the more easily-persuaded young.

 

Soldiers and terrorists alike, in a sad, special sense, are defeatists; they’ve chosen their careers because they are philosophically prepared to turn to violence at a moment’s notice, whenever politics-as-usual is declared to be insufficient to insure their group’s safety or to protect or promote their interests. Although both soldiers and terrorists are often religious, they both reject, as unrealistic, too-difficult and “vague,” the universal teachings of religious faiths everywhere: treat others as you would wish to be treated, love thy neighbor as thyself, be meek and mild, thou shalt not kill, blessed are the peacemakers, be as gentle as doves, forgive seventy times seven, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you would have them do to you….

 

When urgently exhorted to war or to terrorist action by demagogues and impatient, opportunistic leaders, inexperienced soldiers and terrorists often turn too quickly toward alpha-male, testosterone-based, kill-or-be-killed, survival-of-the-fittest solutions. They and their less-experienced leaders find protracted negotiating an effeminate sign of weakness, a waste of time, preferring instead to rely upon immediate, power-based solutions such as lethal weaponry and overwhelming force.

 

When soldiers and terrorists see trouble coming, they are trained to shoot, not talk, to prevail and overpower, to shock and awe, never give a inch, and never show weakness. They look for advantage, not fairness; dominance, not equality. They see enemies, not future allies, and react to fear by inducing more fear in their foes.

 

Of course, both soldiers and terrorists alike invariably fervently believe that they are the good guys, “our” guys in the white hats—valiant saviours, protectors—while the evil ones opposing them are the bad guys in the black hats, the “enemy”—blood-thirsty, soulless, unfeeling, vicious, ignorant, faithless, cowardly, stupid, inhuman.

 

Sadly, both soldiers and terrorists believe in and contribute to the widely-accepted cultural notion that their violent roles are necessary and useful ones that will make an overall positive difference, at least for their side. Both soldiers and terrorists justify the chaos they leave behind them—the blighted lives, shattered dreams and pointless, gruesome deaths of civilians and combatants on both sides, the wanton killing of innocents from accidents, starvation, disease, economic disruption, and conventional and nuclear bombs—by blaming the stupidity, intransigence, and cruelty of their enemies, or by chalking up their own abhorrent results to “necessary collateral damage”—morally virtuous, because essential to a worthy cause.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists believe that violence saved “us” in the past and will save “us” again in the future—forgetting that only living victors get to write the history books, and that alternative non-violent solutions have never been given anything like a fair trial, have never received anything like equivalent consideration and financial and leadership support.

 

Both soldiers and terrorists choose any time, place or method necessary to defeat their enemies and win their wars, maximizing strategic, economic and political advantages, and minimizing losses. Both soldiers and terrorists believe that any means, however cruel and unfair, are justified by their own often changing noble ends and causes.

 

Older, battle-weary soldiers and terrorists gradually lose their faith in violent solutions, bitterly shutting down their sad memories. A few hold onto their past convictions even more strongly, angrily defending them. Many keep right on walking the lonely paths they’ve carved out. A gutsy few manage the difficult shift to exploring new kinds of civilian or military contributions.

 

Ninety percent of the victims of both terrorism and war are civilians….

 

It is difficult indeed to change the way one has traditionally seen soldiers and terrorists, to reverse millennia of cultural conditioning, to come around instead to recognizing that both soldiers and terrorists began as well-meaning, misguided victims themselves, brainwashed into analogous goals, methods and results which both later find repugnant, impossible to live with and to explain.

 

Every mother’s son, every child’s father, every lover’s darling, every beloved brother and friend, whether soldier or terrorist, was born to be a giving, kind, tender and beautiful good soul, the person we love and know them to be.

 

The only difference between our soldiers and their terrorists (and soldiers) is that the ones we love use violence for our side, to defend and further our interests, while the ones we hate use violence to fight for their side. Without a doubt, both ours and theirs, soldiers and terrorists alike, resort to unspeakably appalling violent solutions to achieve political, social and economic goals.

 

My gentle father would, I think, have been proud to honor the selfless sacrifices of all our courageous and well-intentioned dead and maimed, past and present … all our brave revolutionary sons and daughters … all our uprising slaves and civil war champions on both sides … in fact, all courageous soldiers and veterans and impassioned idealists everywhere, from every time and place … and all their victims, with this request:

 

May we reconsider whether we wish to repeat the violent mistakes of the past. May we recognize that there are as many ways to live in this world as there are people who live in it. May we accept that people everywhere want the same thing—to live out their lives in peace. May we all work non-violently to understand and serve the priorities of others everywhere who are different from us. May we learn the thousand and one non-violent ways to resolve conflicts….

 

Life on earth is at stake.

 

I think my father would have been proud to see today’s soldiers and terrorists put down their weapons and become non-violent warriors fighting this century’s magnificent battles by protecting people everywhere from the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence itself. I think my father would have saluted their expanded allegiance and heartfelt pledge, to protect, respect, and support, with their lives, and not only their deaths, human life everywhere.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

Please feel free to reprint this essay in its entirety. Copyright reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

We Need Not Add to the Sum of Human Injustice

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The Washington Post reports that soon after 9/11, President Bush established secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, and authorized agents there to rescind the human rights of captured suspected terrorists, and to subject them to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. I remember when many Americans thought Soviet-style KGB undercover skullduggery and thuggery sufficient proof that the Russians were “the bad guys….”

 

The 21st century is a risky time for everyone; however, not all nations are targets of international terrorism. The safest countries today aren’t those brandishing the biggest sticks, but rather those courageously upholding impeccable international reputations for humility, fairness and diplomacy.

 

Secret government agencies can turn on their own citizenry; power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We wouldn’t need a judiciary if it were always obvious who the bad guys are. Courts are instituted to protect presumed innocents—even suspected terrorists caught in the act, even our own “strange” citizens who may seem guilty—until their guilt is proven by a court of law. If any individual is excepted from due process, if any person can be held above or below the law, then we have no rule of law.

 

We can’t prevent more 9/11’s, save our soldiers, or keep our grandchildren safe, as long as we keep adding to the number of our envious, frightened, angry enemies. It is up to American citizens to risk peace, not war; to risk caring, not fear; to risk generosity, not hate. We can elect proven statesmen to lead our country, and together offer to citizens of all nations the high moral ground of a sound spiritual and ethical example.

 

Our most powerful “weapon” is our national reputation. As long as the U.S. is seen as a rich, selfish country careless of human welfare and disrespectful of international opinion, no stirring words, no proud history, and certainly no amount of spending on intelligence and defense can protect us from our multiplying enemies.

 

Along with the rest of our fellow-earthlings, Americans risk suffering terrible injustices during this best and worst of all possible centuries. However, we need never choose to add to the sum of human injustice.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Mice-Like Men: Libby and Cheney

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My country—the richest, most powerful country in the history of this planet, is currently in the hands of men who conceive of life, power, and politics in the meanest, smallest, most fearful, vengeful way imaginable.

 

Consider this quote in yesterday’s Washington Post (Sunday, October 23rd), from an article about I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Dick Cheney:

 

“Libby greatly admires the work of Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and military historian who posits that warfare is an inevitable part of civilization, evil is a basic condition of humanity, and tyrants must be confronted by the harshest possible means. (In late 2002, a few months before the Iraq invasion, Cheney—also a Hanson devotee—invited the historian to the vice president’s mansion for a small dinner gathering that included Libby.)…Hanson’s stark perspective comports with Libby’s view on Iraq. He was among the administration’s fiercest proponents of the invasion, and his office prepared a 48-page document of intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in February 2003. (Powell couldn’t confirm a lot of the data and wound up not using much of it.)”

 

Humanity's greatest courageous and visionary leaders have historically appealed to and built upon the best that humanity is capable of, instead of looking for or reacting to the worst. How did our great country get put in charge of tiny, scared, quaking little mice?

 

I’m sure Libby and Cheney love their country, mean well, and work hard from within their narrow, frightened versions of how the world works, but they are benighted, misinformed, misguided, and do not boldly make policy or decisions based on the highest ideals and values that hold us all together and make our fragile planet go 'round.

 

We all must suffer some injustice, but we don't have to add to its sum. We can risk peace, not war.

 

I can only hope our most democratic processes soon remove from positions of influence forever, Libby, Cheney and other leaders who govern as they do.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

Thanks, Eppy Harmon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Know This Man?

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Click on my latest posting, a quiz/drawing/political cartoon called “Soldier,” on the left side of this blog…. So what do you think?

epharmon@adelphia.net

Thanks, eppy

 

 

 

Lead Me On, Oh Great Commander in Chief. But Whither?

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My favorite new show, Commander in Chief, shows promise for extending West Wing’s visionary qualities, and then some. Too bad Commander also bodes equivalent stumbles along the same dark lines of its predecessor—too much emphasis upon the quick use of military force to resolve diplomatic crises.

 

Military force doesn’t solve problems, it creates them. Will Geena Davis, aka President Mackenzie, learn this while in office? Will Commander showcase the long list of options any nation has to throw at problems, other than the show and/or use of force? Will Commander de-emphasize testosterone-filled approaches, and demonstrate instead the range of strengths any leader, male or female, can find in more “feminine” approaches? The show's producers will be glad to know that I'm awaiting their answers in great suspense….

 

And what if Geena does experience a direct provocation by another government? Why not try really clever media coverage…. What if the American public insists on revenge and retaliation? Try education, forbearance, charity…. What if Americans die? Try rituals of national mourning for fallen martyrs, or any one of the other thousand approaches to diplomacy…. What if there’s a terrorist attack by a known force? Try investigations, and high-level meetings….

 

And keep on trying. Peace and democracy aren’t missions that can be accomplished. They’re missions that never end. You can’t end a war against an abstract noun. Besides, there will always be one more bomb-throwing terrorist to provide an excuse for one more retaliation. I hope Geena teaches us that sometimes you just have to endure a certain amount of injustice—but you almost never have to add to it.

 

What if a woman who is convicted of adultery is about to be buried to her neck in the sand and then stoned to death? Geena could have focused overwhelming international attention on that country’s leaders, and then shipped in thousands of well-paid, white-clad, unarmed international forces of young innocent collegiate pacifists, silent disapproving witnesses to evil deeds, all willing to die for their ideals—just as our current youthful military volunteers are willing to die for theirs.

 

What a moral message this would send! What culture could continue to kill unarmed, disapproving children while an international press looked on? Maybe the poor adulterer would die, but maybe no other adulterers would, the next time. Geena's point would be made, her lesson taught, her stance clarified, her insistence noted. Conversations would be started. Maybe minds would even be changed.

 

We don’t have to do away with our military forces. We can still use them to defend our country from those who would invade our shores or climb with their guns through our windows (I haven’t seen much of this lately, but it could happen…) We can still call up our national guard for times of natural catastrophes.

 

A new, improved Commander in Chief would have a few long-simmering unsolvable conflicts aggravatingly popping up throughout the show’s lifespan. We could watch these conflicts wend their ponderous and circuitous diplomatic ways through the series, in alarming fits and infuriating starts, week after week, year upon year—and each time, see Geena turn down the easy options of violence. We could grow to love the wisdom and expertise of her trusted diplomats, who have already spent half their lives preparing to tackle just such thorny problems, and who will spend the rest of their lives patiently addressing them, instead of mucking them up with ever more violence, leading, of course, to ever more hatred… and violence…and more hatred…and more violence.

 

I don’t want to see any more episodes in which Geena impresses me with fast, decisive, tough and completely hokey short-sighted violent “solutions” which only postpone and ultimately exacerbate the original problems (remember Iraq?) I want to see her impress me with her wisdom, vision, and forbearance. I want to see deliberate, consensus-building, thoughtful international answers bearing the weight of the whole world behind them.

 

I’d like to see well-written episodes dealing with moments of national hysteria over provocations, complete with their inexorable drumbeats in favor of retaliation, revenge and war, and then I want to see Geena demonstrate some of the myriad, no, infinite alternatives to loutish thuggery. Isn’t that what leadership is? Or is it really all about one's readiness to whip out one's six-guns and shoot ‘em up? I don’t think so. C’mon, TV producers, make my day….

 

I’d like to see Geena diplomatically rebuild a couple of really shaky international relationships, offer aid to one of our so-called enemies in their moment of need, implement fair trade rules for globalization…. I want to see her lead, and become even more visionary than she already is.

 

Some day, when Congress gets around to legislating a cabinet-level Department of Peace (H.R 3760 and S. 1756), I look forward to seeing the show belatedly renamed “Commander in Peace.”

 

Some day perhaps we’ll see Geena back again, a full-lipped, swivel-hipped Indian-style crone, still leading her tribe patiently and diplomatically past each new day's conflict toward the greater safety, prosperity and contentment that await us all on the other side.

 

 

 

James Agee Does Bill Bennett

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If Bill Bennett had just said, “abort every baby” or even “abort every white baby” instead of “abort every black baby,” he could have made his point just as well without coming across like a totally insensitive Ku Klux Klanner.

 

On the other hand, this whole controversy boils down to: How are we treating all the babies who are born into our culture? Not to mention, our planet?

 

Here’s what James Agee had to say about the matter, back in 1939:

 

“In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again. And in him, too, once more, and of each of us, our terrific responsibility towards human life; towards the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of error, of God.” (from Let Us Now Praise Famous Men)

 

 

(I would like to add that I think Bill Bennett a fine, admirable person who has worked hard and taken many personal risks in his life in order to add beauty and goodness to the world. Like all of us, he's entitled to mistakes and shortcomings, none of which are important. When someone has such long suits, and works so hard to make the most of them, sometimes their (our) short suits seem (in contrast) very short. I thank the world for Dr. Bennett's gifts and life, wish him well, and trust that he won't be daunted by his recent negative publicity….) Keep up the good work, Dr. Bennett!

 

 

 

Against the Politics of Terror

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A few days ago, I stopped at a neighborhood lemonade stand to sample the wares of three young girls raising money for the Red Cross. With love and idealism in their shining eyes, they shared their excitement about a rumor that some of Hurricane Katrina’s victims might even actually be coming to their very own (upper-middle class) elementary school! Each child shared her warmest intentions for reaching out to any such newcomers with open arms.

 

Later that day I read a story about a poor, young black man who had made the decision to leave Louisiana forever for his new home of Michigan, where so many generous people had offered him job opportunities, housing, possessions, counseling, training and friendship.

 

How is it that we fall all over ourselves to help victims of distant disasters, when daily we overlook or shy away from the sad, disaffected children already in our midst, or from our own hopeless, desperate fellow-citizens living in hovels just miles away?

 

Catastrophes like Katrina force us to recognize that we are all the same, and that we must all pull together in our unpredictable, leaky little boats or drown separately. Katrina lifted us all over the many carefully-constructed barriers we have erected to defend ourselves against the unfamiliar and the frightening, and once again allowed our fundamental humanity to emerge.

 

Like people everywhere, Americans are at heart deeply caring, idealistic and generous. We believe in equality of opportunity. We want to help the poor. We welcome interracial harmony. We hate war.

 

Yet as soon as media coverage of 9/11 died down, as soon as the deadly tides of the tsunami subsided, all our self-serving demagogues and warmongers jumped right back onto the public airwaves and the net with their steady drumbeat of political hatred and shrill argument, once again stirring up all our doubts and fears. 

 

They'll be back again, after Katrina, drumming up new terrors.

 

Confused and afraid, we repeatedly elect leaders who accept the status quo of separate and unequal neighborhoods and schools and services and pay and health in America. Confused and afraid, we wring our hands and mumble something about the poor always being with us, crossing our fingers that there but for the grace of God we won’t go down right along with them. Confused and afraid, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars yearly to send our armies to every corner of God’s once-green earth, to shoot complete strangers in the face beside their families, in the homes of their ancestors, in order to “protect our national interests”—leaving our citizenry bereft, with less than no money to spend on our own domestic challenges.

 

Every available statistic has shown that the chasm between rich and poor and black and white in America has widened and deepened. Yet many other countries have found very good ways to strengthen their economies, and to equitably distribute their wealth, goods, security, opportunity, education, health and jobs. Such exemplary nations have relatively inexpensive little militias which tend to stay home and mind their own businesses; not surprisingly, terrorists leave them alone in return.

 

Perhaps we need to let our own raging national terrors subside long enough to notice the enviable results of these other more peaceful nations. Perhaps we might reconsider adopting some of their social, economic and political approaches. Maybe we should reject all the clever, self-serving fear-based religious and political arguments we continually listen to, the ones that serve mostly to frighten us and separate us all further and further from one another. Maybe we need to spend more of our tax money lifting humanity out of poverty and racism, rather than wasting it on pushing distant cultures around and telling them how best to live their lives. Maybe instead of using bullets and bombs, we could create our own good example, for other nations, of what a compassionate and just democracy might look like.  

 

America will someday once again be a proud land of peace and equal opportunity for all, but only when we commit to working together in faith, hope and love—and not in fear—to find compassionate political solutions to all our challenges both at home and abroad.