Friday, September 28, 2012
Lies Our Fathers Told Us
"And this, children, is the reason we are at war in Viet Nam..."
Or so I was told as a child. If we let the Communists win in Viet Nam, there would be no stopping them. The Communists hated freedom, you see, and they wished to take away our shiny new modern appliances and enslave us all. If Communists had their way, we would all be subject to Five-Year Plans and sentenced to concentration camps for wanting to make a profit, or for laughing in public. Or for wearing bright clothes instead of a drab, military-style uniform. Yes, if the Communists were allowed to prevail, the future looked grim indeed.
In the 1960's through the 1980's, the phrase "Communist bloc" hit one's ears with such a heavy thud--much like the phrase "Muslim world" does today. And like the Cold War era of my youth, a similar rhetoric confronts us: "If we let the Taliban win in Afghanistan, children, there will be no stopping them. The Taliban hate freedom, you see, and they want all women everywhere to wear the burka. So if they are allowed to win in Afghanistan"--where, we conveniently forget, they were CIA-trained freedom fighters in a struggle to the death with Communism--"there will be minarets in every American town, blasting their hated Arabic propaganda at all hours of the day and night, and we will be forced to go to mosques and pray to their Moon god instead of our sweet Jesus and, if we refuse, they will chop off our heads."
I'm no fan of the Taliban, but neither do I appreciate being lied to. Similar lies are being told about the Palestinians--and have been for as long as I can remember. But the state of Israel is not an island of civilization in a sea of savage barbarism: it is an apartheid state engaged in the systematic liquidation of an indigenous population. There has to be an end to the lies, and to the theft and the violence that they are meant to cover up and justify.
Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us (Ecclesiasticus 44:1); but let us banish the liars from our midst and their lies from our ears, for we have suffered them gladly for far too long and they have profited mightily at our expense and at the expense of the weak and the vulnerable.
Where are the prophetic voices to call us back from further bloodshed? To call us back to what sense we have left?
Monday, September 24, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Christian Anti-Semitism and the Impulse Towards Violence
Ouch!
Despite the offensiveness of this brief diatribe, its anonymous author has a point. Christians face a serious challenge. While it may make sense to them to deify a first century Palestinian apocalypticist and to worship him as a god, there are many people on the planet who look at what they do, scratch their heads in bewilderment, and decline to follow suit. Traditionally, Christians view the rejection of their religion by others as evidence of a "hardness of heart." And when they ceased being a persecuted minority and took the reigns of the Roman state, Christians went on the offensive: purging their own ranks of heretics and seeking out non-conformists and torturing and killing them. In various ways, this impulse to violence on the part of Christians continues to the present day.
After the Second World War, some Christians felt chastened by the orgy of violence that their German co-religionists had visited upon European Jews and a new, post-holocaust form of ecumenicism set in. But it appears that the warming of Christian-Jewish relations in the last half century has opened the door to a new form of "anti-semitism" directed towards Muslims. Christian attacks upon the Prophet Muhammad and defended as "free speech" fall into this category. In my view, such attacks do indeed constitute instances of free speech and must be defended as such. But let us not be naive: it is free speech exercised with the intent to wound. And when individuals who have been wounded succumb to the visceral impulse to strike back, it is disingenuous (to say the least) to play the victim.
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7).
In my copy of the New Testament, Jesus is recalled to have said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44--if you don't believe me, look it up). Perhaps I have come into possession of an unexpurgated edition. Many people who identify themselves as Christians do not appear to find these words in their copy of Matthew's gospel, or do not feel that Jesus intended his words to apply to them. As an Alfarabian Abrahamic pluralist and practicing Tolstoyan I can only say: the gospel writer wrote those words and attributed them to Jesus in a sermon he is portrayed to have preached to his disciples. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, it would seem logical to presume that he intended those words for you.
As the diatribist says: "Makes perfect sense."
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Where Have You Gone, Jackie Robinson, A Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes To You...
Jackie Robinson's lifetime batting average in the major leagues was .311. He was just as effective playing in the field. Baseball manager Charlie Dressen said "Give me five players like Robinson and a pitcher and I'll beat any team in baseball."
Robinson's Presidential counterpart, Barack Obama, has been less impressive in the field or at the plate. Swept into office in 2008 with an Electoral College landslide (365 electoral votes), the American people also gave Obama clear Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. In the House of Representatives, Democrats took 21 seats from Republicans (giving them 257 seats to the Republicans' 178) and in the Senate, Democrats held 57 seats (to 41 Republican).
Obama had two years (before the 2010 mid-term elections) in which to implement the agenda of sweeping change that his candidacy had appeared to promise. He had the good will of the electorate and Congressional support.
But he balked. The reasons for this are unclear, but the evidence is overwhelming. President Obama and 2008 Candidate Obama are like two different people.
His immediate Presidential predecessor, Halliburton, Inc., stole the 2000 election and squeaked by in 2004, and yet governed as if the American people had given it the mandate that they would give to Obama in 2008 to repair the damage done.
In 2012, Obama is running for re-election. Presidential second terms are rarely productive of much besides scandal and a final two years of lame duck quacking about "legacy." Obama would like to have the opportunity to tarnish his reputation further. Such is the state of American Presidential politics in 2012.
Where have you gone, Jackie Robinson?
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Pro-Israel Religious Right Defined
Human beings with nothing better to do than hate other human beings.
To paraphrase Bob Dylan: "They are idiots, babe/It's a wonder they can even feed themselves..."
To paraphrase Bob Dylan: "They are idiots, babe/It's a wonder they can even feed themselves..."
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
The Difference Between Compromise and Capitulation
Compromise looks like this:
Capitulation looks like this:
End of story.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
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