I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong

No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder, kill, and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such evil injustice must come to an end.
Image courtesy of Wiki.

More on Ali and the US opposition to War Opposers, including popular, black ones at a time when war was more popular than US citizens:

In 1964, Ali failed the U.S. Armed Forces qualifying test because his writing and spelling skills were sub-par. However, in early 1966, the tests were revised and Ali was reclassified as 1A.^[10] This classification meant he was now eligible for the draft and induction into the U.S. Army during a time when the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. When notified of this status, he declared that he would refuse to serve in the United States Army and publicly considered himself a conscientious objector.^[10] Ali stated: "War is against the teachings of the Holy Qur'an. I'm not trying to dodge the draft. We are not supposed to take part in no wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger. We don't take part in Christian wars or wars of any unbelievers." He famously said in 1966: "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs..."

Widespread protests against the Vietnam War had not yet begun, but with that one phrase, Ali articulated the reason to oppose the war for a generation of young Americans, and his words served as a touchstone for the racial and antiwar upheavals that would rock the 1960s. Ali's example inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. – who had been reluctant to alienate the Johnson Administration and its support of the civil rights agenda – to voice his own opposition to the war for the first time.^[62]

Rare for a heavyweight boxing champion in those days, Ali spoke at Howard University, where he gave his popular "Black Is Best" speech to 4,000 cheering students and community intellectuals after he was invited to speak by sociology professor Nathan Hare on behalf of the Black Power Committee, a student protest group.^[63][64]

Appearing shortly thereafter for his scheduled induction into the U.S. Armed Forces on April 28, 1967 in Houston, he refused three times to step forward at the call of his name. An officer warned him he was committing a felony punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $10,000. Once more, Ali refused to budge when his name was called. As a result, he was arrested and on the same day the New York State Athletic Commission suspended his boxing license and stripped him of his title. Other boxing commissions followed suit. Ali would not be able to obtain a license to box in any state for over three years.^[65]

At the trial on June 20, 1967, after only 21 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Ali guilty.^[10] After a Court of Appeals upheld the conviction, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. During this time, the public began turning against the war and support for Ali began to grow. Ali supported himself by speaking at colleges and universities across the country, where opposition to the war was especially strong. On June 28, 1971, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction for refusing induction by unanimous decision in Clay v. United States.^[10] The decision was not based on, nor did it address, the merits of Clay's/Ali's claims per se; rather, the government's failure to specify which claims were rejected and which were sustained, constituted the grounds upon which the Court reversed the conviction.^[66]

On "From the Sky"

We here (well, me here) at the Left Cheek care about following the radical message of equity and justice that Jesus Christ, the prophets and the apostles shared some thousands of years ago in some backwater provinces of the Empire's reach - where violence and complacency were means of keeping rebellious forces in line.

Empire has a funny way of making its citizens believe it's the right and natural thing - even as it destroys families and people. As long as we're a "good" nation with "good" intentions, we don't want to question it too much. We don't question rape culture in our own country. We rarely question how we treat immigrants or the homeless or criminals. And we don't question the concept of racism, war, safety, or collateral damage - as long as those concepts don't affect us directly. We rarely question how comfort and dominance is shaped by the suffering of others. Unless we are the others who are suffering.

So writer, filmmaker, critic and my friend Ian Ebright - who has featured our guest blogs occasionally at his site The Broken Telegraph - is putting together a fictional film about a father and son living under the reach of the American Empire as potential collateral damage. From the Kickstarter page for the movie (which is hoping to raise $18,500 in one month):

'From the Sky' takes viewers beneath the headlines by telling a fictional story of a noble father Hakeem and his troubled teenage son Abbas as they journey across a volatile region of the Middle East.
The story opens to reveal Abbas suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to a tragic past and the frequent presence of drones flying overhead. Soon, a turn of events forces Abbas to make a choice about which way he will go in life: the way modeled by his father, or a different path articulated by the charismatic character Dhiya.
The film will be among the first (if not the first) narrative works of cinema from the U.S. to show the impact of drone strikes on civilians in the Arab world. The film also explores the roots of extremism and ultimately asks a universal question: When we are harmed, will we take the wide road of retaliation or a more narrow path by responding in life-giving ways? (please read more at the site)

If, like myself, you believe that true education leads to freedom and that that education involves the arts because true education is not just cognitive but involves the senses. Learning about others - as we learn about ourselves - is sensual. This is a great learning opportunity. Let us invest in this opportunity and not allow it to go to waste.

And the Violent Bear It Away

There is no place for violence. But violence has no mind, so it doesn't mind. It makes its own spot and throws everything else to the ground. It is the ultimate parasite, feeding and growing and bloodying itself while sucking the world dry. The Great Impaler. The Alpha and Omega of vampires.

Violence is unremittingly evil. It is a scourge, and it doesn't matter who commits it nor whom receives it nor whether or not the recipients "deserved" it or not in this regard: It is always an evil.**

Always. Every time.

Violence shows itself unremittingly and unforgivably in every battle field, through each bomb, in each bullet, via each threat or word or war.

But war is not the only form of violence.

Rape is violence.*
Poverty is violence.
Subduing is violence.
Child abuse is violence.
Apartheid is violence.
Prison is violence.
Rape culture is violence.
Emotional abuse is violence.
Police brutality is violence.
Racism is violence.
Sexism is violence.
Verbal abuse is violence.
Patriarchialism is violence.
Segregation is violence.
Apartheid is violence.
Pollution is violence.
Hitting is violence.**

Can we agree that, whether or not violence should ever happen, that when it does happen, it is wrong and evil? Can we come to terms that violence should be avoided as much as possible? Can we at least agree that we need to reduce violence, that our children should not have to be subject to repeat violence and that the effects of violence upon us and particularly our children is damaging to individuals as well as in social functions?

Can we see to it that violence is mitigated? Can there be a social force rising from deliberate and vigilant groups and communities of people to meet and turn these forms of violence on their heads? Who will rise? What will our answer for violence be? Who has the answer? And what does that answer look like?

Seriously. I wanna know.
------------------------------------------------
*This includes any form of non-consensual, coercive sex between an adult and another adult. Child molestation, bestiality, date rape, and - to a certain extent - forcing your spouse/significant other to have sex with you or risk incurring God's wrath. I'm looking at you, Mark Driscoll and any fellow Complementarian Christians who teach this.

**I want to make a very important distinction here. The effect of violence needs to be accounted for in terms of power, and that is what I wanted to get to here. The power that a colonial/imperialist nation commits over tribes or adults over children or men over women or police over civilians, etc. Defending oneself from a clear and present danger - unless done in a lethal manner - should not be construed a form of violence in itself and - when it causes less overall violence than what would or could be done without defending self (or neighbor), then it is a good. But this gets more complex and may need some more clarification and nuance throughout. More than I can give here. The rape victim should never feel responsible - for instance - for not being able to prevent her or his own rape - yet that is often what the victim hears when such arguments are aired. So... I would like to continue this conversation in the comments section. Please, let's continue this conversation.

I Don't Need Truthers

I don't need Truthers to tell me our rememberences of 9/11/01 are irresponsible. Are deadly. Are poisonous. Are selfish. Are ego-centric. Are violent. Are unnecessary.

I don't need conspiracy theorists to tell me that we have raced into bludgeoning violence. Rushed into a schoolyard fight with spiked bats and automatic weapons and tanks.

That we have killed seventy-times-seventy of "theirs" than they have killed of "ours."

Nor that there is no "they" or "us." Unless we are speaking of those on top of the  capital, economic, cultural, industrial, and political orders against those of us here. On the ground. Running around and playing their games just in order that we may eek out an existence. Risking our lives in the efforts to take the lives of others. Because the American God is a God of Vengeance and Retribution.

And oil. And contracts.

And racist nationalism.

And this God demands sacrifices. It demands money. Trillions. It demands lives. Millions.

The American God of Vengeance and Retribution demands toddlers and mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins and wives and husbands and infants and teenagers and the recently deployed and college students and taxi drivers and bakers and nurses and teachers and "the help" and... the list goes on.

These are not the people we remember. We remember An Attack By Them.

The Attack By Them is justification - an eternal loop of crashing, inflated justification - to blow holes through children and send kids to do things that kids should never have to witness. The adults, the American adults continue to say that we Will Never Forget The Attack By Them. On Our Soil.

But we seem to have little problem forgetting our capital, economic, cultural, industrial, political violence upon on Them predating the Attack By Them.

And a thousand times over since then.

I don't need a Truther to tell me that this is a horrible, violent, monstrous sham. A con game, where we all, Christians and Muslims, Euro-Americans, Mid-Asians, and Middle-Easterners, poor and working class, veterans and their victims, lose. The house of cards is stacked against us. And when it falls, we lose it all.

If you remember, remember us all.

Daddy Warbangs and Mars

Prominent Evangelical and figurehead within the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land has recently protested against protesting against militant racism. In a sense, it shouldn't have been such a surprise, since several years ago he came out for other acts of violent racism and militantism in supporting the Iraqi War as being "Just".

As head of the SBC's panel on Ethics and Religion, Land gave his sanctioning and blessing to the most obvious case of an unjust war in recent memory:

How do you reflect on the war as a Christian?
I believe in just-war theory, and the first item in just-war criteria is that it has to be a just cause. I believe our cause in Iraq was just; I think it was one of the more noble things we've done. We went to liberate a country that was in the grip of a terrible dictator who had perpetrated horrible atrocities and crimes against humanity, against his own people, as well as his neighbors...
The idea of American exceptionalism is not a doctrine of empire, it's not a doctrine of domination, it's a doctrine of responsibility and obligation. We have a responsibility and an obligation based upon the blessings that have been showered upon us as a nation and as a people to help others when we can.

While highlighting the atrocities of Hussein, he ignores the atrocities his own government committed on the entire populace of Iraq. But it's apparently okay for Americans to murder - we have a moral obligation from god (as we know based upon his financial blessings upon us), so bombing a few (quarter million at the least directly died from military action, mostly civilians) and displacing millions more is worth it to deliver American-style democracy to the grateful and expectant.

Of course, that good ol' American-style democracy is best when bloodily forced upon the people - not when they do it themselves, or speak up or demand their own fates on their own. They can't possibly be smart and civil enough for that. They are, after all, an inferior people, right Richard Land?

You're welcome, Iraq! And for that privilege, we just expect a little payment, a moment of generosity for our hard work on your behalf. We'll just take some of your oil. Thanks!

Brown people, according to the Christian War Patriarchs, can't fend for themselves 'cuz they're like little children. Better let the White Man do it. This is why Land was so upset when all this noise was happening on behalf of Trayvon Martin. Stop making a fuss; Let the White Man take care of this issue on our time. Just trust us.

But the Christian War Patriarchy is nothing if not resourceful. Not only is it abundantly racist, it's also overwhelmingly sexist. Not only is it defending and upholding war, it's glorifying it in church, making it the normative process of worshiping our new god, Mars.

A Pastor After God's Own Heart!

Equating love of God with having a hard-on for war are apparently also essential elements of Sunday morning worship (via iMonk). Douglas Wilson starts with the presuppositions (like his colleagues in homophobia and patriarchialism, Mark Driscoll and John Piper) that contemporary American churches are effeminate and that being inadequately testosterone-run is bad. Rather than suggest that both female and male voices need to be listened to, appreciated and welcomed within the church (well, it is a gender Apartheid after all), rather than suggesting that women would feel most appreciated if they were actually included in the decisions and leadership and direction of the church, Wilson believes they would be best if they would just let the Man decide.

[I]t includes them, brings them along, and makes them feel safe. If you reach the men, you will reach the women.

Those women-folk will appreciate it if we tell them what they need to hear. They'll be safe if only men, and men alone, were running the show. Little girls can't fend for themselves! Better let the menfolk handle this! Gird yourselves, men, we are preparing for war! And if she disagrees with this aspect of seeking for god and being protected, well she wasn't worth our attention in the first place. Only hot, confused, scared girls for the True Christian Church!

Moreover, you will find yourself reaching the worthiest of women, the true mothers in Israel.

Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Folks, we've been reaching the wrong kind of women. The kind that apparently, aren't worthy of the love of Jesus and our good protection. Being subversive and having an opinion automatically disqualifies the ladyfolks. As if having ladybits wasn't bad enough, when you have a vagina AND you talk out of turn, you're clearly unworthy.

But you know you're going to a sissy-ass church when...

2. Your music minister is more concerned that the choir trills their r's correctly than that they fill the sanctuary with loud sounds of battle.

Yeah. Real men, the type of men who subdue and subjugate women like property or little children or animals or something else they obviously don't respect protect their womens, are the type who love them so much that they're willing to kill unnecessarily for them. They love their women so much, that it's impossible to imagine anything else but killing and maybe even being kilt - I mean, of course, silly me, kilts.

7. The minister wears a robe, but the effect is not that of being robed for battle. If that same minister were to wear a kilt, everybody would think it was a skirt from a nearby all-girls private school. But, contrariwise, if the minister were able to wear a kilt in such a way as to terrify sinners with the imagined sound of skirling bagpipes, and the sounds of a small version of Armageddon across the misty moors, and the sermon text were a claymore whistling over their heads, then that kind of man could think about a robe if he wanted;

Wearing a robe is girly and femminy and queer. If you're going to wear a robe, it should be made out of leather and be in camouflage, or it should be an homage to Braveheart, the most Jesus-y of all the godly movies every made.

Trust us, it is. Don't worry about why. That should be obvious, silly girls...

Pro-Life: It Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means (pt. 2)

Second in a series on abortion and Evangelicals

The anti-abortion movement is now setting its sights on birth control and labeling it a Religious Freedom issue. Rather than what it is, a Religious Tyranny issue.

Just like with same-sex marriage laws, this has nothing to do with the ability of religious practitioners to follow their conscience without the constraint of government upon them. This is about their right to impose their morality onto others - even if they have to entirely devise new definitions in order to do so.

Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!

But this isn't anything new to Randall Terry, Chuck Colson, Richard Land and other leaders of the contemporary "pro-life" movement. They're used to flubbing and fibbing when it suits them. They do this every time there's a new same-sex marriage equality bill going around. "The government is trying to determine who churches should marry," they say in a horrible chorus of horribleness. "The gays is trying to get special treatment," ignoring the fact that they are the one given this special treatment to live life as married individuals without being persecuted for it.

Preventing every last form of abortion, to them, is caring for the least of these. Poverty reduction, pacifism, any other type of activism that leads to protection of any other post-born life - according to the Contemporary Pro-Lifers, these are mere distractions and cannot be solved before Jesus comes back.

So don't even bother. The only fight worth having is against abortion - and related areas. Like homosexuals.

Seriously. That's the response.

They worry incessantly that through universal healthcare they may someday, possibly, through their taxes, have to pay for contraceptives and even some abortions. 

Even if those abortions turn out to be medical emergencies, it's still a non-starter.

Which brings us to another point. The CPL leaders deny that abortion is ever a viable option. Even when the woman's life is at risk. They are committed to the idea that, not only is the fetus a human life, but it is a superior life - superior to criminals, superior to soldiers, superior to civilians of foreign states, superior to the poor, superior to immigrants. And certainly superior to the women who would give birth to them.

This commitment is justified by the theological concept that the pre-born have yet to sin. So, unlike their slutty mothers, they have no right to die if at all preventable.

That is, until after they are born and they sin.

Then they're allowed to starve...

That Term Does Not Mean What You Think It Does (pt.1)

First in a series on abortion and Evangelicals

In this time of national confusion, I'd like to clarify something. The term "pro-life" - like the term "Christian" - has been co-opted and carried away by the violent.

To be pro-life originally meant to be actively pursuing for the protection and good of all of human life. When we hear that term today, it is used to self-describe those who are merely against abortion - usually in almost all cases. Often they are against euthanasia, but not necessarily. And usually against all forms of that as well.

Most of those that proudly carry the label "pro-life", however, are pro-expansionism. The Evangelical Christian Neo-Con mouthpiece WORLD Magazine, for example, was cheer-leading the War Upon Iraq (I'd be surprised if they weren't currently pushing for war at Iran as well) before and throughout the attack. So was honorary Evangelical Rick Santorum. And the vast majority of staunchly Contemporary Pro-Life Evangelical churches, including the one I was heavily active in at the time. With few regrets towards that war or, really, any other war enacted upon by the United States. They are all "Just Wars" because the United States is a "Just Nation."

Pro-life.

Although they are often active in impoverished communities throughout the world through such charitable agencies as Compassion, Int'l and Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse, they rarely ever accept a call for global justice (as Compassion tries to nudge them towards) as that would mean giving up their relative comforts.

So, while millions die yearly from preventive causes, these Contemporary Pro-Lifers actually advocate against broader justice concerns that would save those lives.

Pro-life.

They also overwhelmingly defend the death penalty. This is another area where the original pro-life constituents fundamentally, overwhelmingly disagreed. They understood that pursuit of vindictive punishments lead to trials not pursuant to justice but to guilt and appeasement of the lust for blood. They know that not only are there many innocent people on death row, but that the capital punishment does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of lethal violence. The current crop of "pro-life" individuals and institutions has cheered on the multiple dozens of executions that Texas Gov Rick Perry oversaw.

Pro-life.

The currently co-opted pro-life movement tends to be also be pro-guns rights. They advocate for looser gun control laws. Guns, by the way, not used for survival or even gaming. Guns used to kill or maim another human being. One "pro-life" commenter at a pastor friend of mine's Facebook page said that it's practically a moral obligation to shoot off the head of someone who breaks into his house. I'd hate to see the gun rack he's put under his bed, or think about the very real danger he's putting his family in. Which is much more real than the dangers of a night-time raid on his house by a bandit. Does it matter, though, as long as he labels himself...

Pro-life?

It seems that, to the majority of those that label themselves pro-life, it is okay for the US government to be involved in taking lives, but not in sustaining them.

This is the bastardized current version of Pro-life.

I can't even say it's Orwellian. Newspeak would corrupt a term by implying the its intended end results - so the department overseeing war would be the Dept of Peace, and the department overseeing brainwashing would be the Dept of Love.  If that method were used here, the contemporary pro-life movement would be described as pro-death.

And that would sadly but actually be a more accurate descriptor.

Read pt 2 here

Just Just War?

I'd like to know what war is or was truly just. I'm especially asking fellow Christians. What would qualify as a just war?

And by just, I mean it follows these three guidelines:

1. It is fought for just cause - meaning for protection of vulnerable peoples, not for, say, property or value.
2. It is inevitable. It could not have been avoided, nor could there have been a non-violent solution.
3. It is limited in it reach and only goes as far - only - as absolutely necessary. Ie, no civilian deaths.

Under these guidelines, I'd like to know what conflict could ever have qualified as a Just War.

Ron Paul's Other Wars

Because I'm such a big-mouth anti-war person, I meet a lot of other people who are also anti-war. Some of them have a very identifiable Christian-based consciousness against all things empire-a-violence based. I count as good friends Kurt Willems, Ian EbrightPN,  and other Christians who are opposed to war because they believe that war opposes the person and practices of Jesus. I also meet others who are opposed to war on principled and practical grounds, some of whom have first hand experiences of the ravages of rampant militarism and wars, which I, gratefully, do not. They may or may not be against all forms of violence. They may be atheists or Muslims. They may be progressives or socialists or libertarians or anarchists. But they're important allies. So if I disagree with them on a certain point or two, it's water. If I don't need to get into an impractical rant, I'd rather not (well, not always).

Many of these latter - and some of the former - group allies, however, also belong to the Ron Paul camp. I can understand their fascination with the only current major political candidate that is against occupational wars as well as the only candidate who's even openly suggesting ceasing the costly, ineffectual, dangerous, and racist war on drugs. For these alone, I commend whole-heartedly Ron Paul and his supporters. However, these efforts do not stand on their own, and Paul acolytes fail to see the dark side of the gynecologist's views and faith. I propose that while Rep. Paul wants to end three very detrimental wars, he is advocating for several other detrimental wars.



Ending:

• War on Terror

Unlike most of the GOP field, Paul doesn't seem to be or even pretend to be disgusted or scared by Muslims or Arabs or any of the Scary Other. He has correctly pointed out that the terrorist attacks weren't as a result of some weird, non-sensical "hatred of our freedoms", but as a backlash against our intrusion into sacred and public spaces of those we have no business intruding. (I would add, however, that the attacks also were directed at our the greatest symbol of our financial institutions and we should consider the attacks a statement against the financial ruin that the multinational corporations are committing in the so-called developing world).

Ron Paul has made it clear that he desires to end our empirical invasions into sovereign nations, whether through financial "aid" (military hardware support) given to allies such as Israel and used to propagate ethnic cleansing or against the nations' own people, or through the presence of our standing armies intruding into their lands (although I'm not so sure what he feels about removing all Americans with large guns from the sovereign nations... but at least those from the US government) or through drones and deadly covert operations carried out from far away.

• War on Liberties

Additionally, and in many ways as important, is his willingness to vote against the strikes on habeus corpus and the Bill of Rights that have disguised themselves under the newspeak of "Patriot Acts" and related bills. It's not that I don't want to get into any further business on this topic, but I think writers like Glenn Greenwald have this much more exhaustively covered than I do.

Outside of Ron, and (gulp!) his son Rand, there doesn't seem to be many dissenting voices left on capital hill against the big brother invasion and the police state that we are becoming. This is another reason to take him somewhat seriously.

• War on Drugs

African-Americans and Latinos do not use drugs any more frequently or per capita than Whites and Asian Americans do. And yet they are arrested, charged, and imprisoned for the crime of possessing small amounts of marijuana at a ratio of up to eighteen times as much as their white counterparts. To be brief about it, this is what is properly deemed The New Jim Crow Laws, set in place to incarcerate and incapacitate large sections of the minority population in America that the dominant culture finds threatening.

This is not to mention the hampering and violence that the illicit drug trade has caused in so-called Narcostates like Northern Mexico now or much of Colombia previously. The WoD is an immense, racist, classist, losing battle pursued only for political purposes. It helps the Prison Industrial Complex by making these private companies that specialize in building immense structures of torture and detention look like they're providing a necessary and good public service for all communities by locking up such a large segment of the young population. The WoD is a way of controlling a seemingly subversive people group - and it effectively robs large segments of the African American and Latino communities from competing with Whites for better-paying jobs as well distancing them from their right to vote and the ability to hold political sway.

The War on Drugs is a win-win for the White power structure and, as such, a challenge against it from within Washington is a welcome change-of-pace.

However, having said that, let's look at the flip side. Ron Paul would be

Starting or continuing:

• War on Government Protection

While his desire to end the Dept of Ed may be questionable (I'd rather overhaul it completely. As it is, it serves the Educational Industrial Complex. Not get rid of it, mind you. Fundamentally change it), it's not as dreadful* as his wanting to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance.

Paul and other Free Markies trust that the free market would force businesses to self-regulate. However, Free Marketstry is a bad religion; it's blind faith having absolutely no connection with reality or history or logic. Business, by its very nature, is concerned primarily with the bottom-line and needs checks against it to have a sort of conscience. Consumers, fittingly, consume what they consider to be the biggest bang for their buck - especially when they have little bucks with which to bang. Which is why Wal-Mart, with its horrible employment practices and crappy clothes, is pulling in much more money than much more ethical companies. I'd name some, but since every other major company is following their model, there really aren't many to highlight anymore.


Boycotting a product not meeting up to moral or ethical standards doesn't work on its own. Especially if those with the most to lose are those with the least amount of consumer, purchasing power. Ending the EPA would effectively and quite literally kill the most vulnerable people (the poor, which are disproportionately people of color), as they are those most in need of protection from topical erosion, poisoned water and earth, lead paint, mercury, toxins, heavy air pollutants, etc. And this is but one example.

Another example? How about his continual and bizarre criticisms of the Civil Rights Act? The nicest that can be said about that is that at least he's honest that he's still against the bill. In a HuffPo article,

Paul explained that while he supports the fact that the legislation repealed the notorious Jim Crow laws, which forced racial segregation, he believes it is the government, not the people, that causes racial tensions by passing overreaching laws that institutionalize slavery and segregation.

It's a core Paleo-Conservative argument. It's always some smooth variant of this: "Racism is caused by those N####-lovers and the fact that they're always trying to shove the Black Man's equalness down our throats. If they would stop trying to be equal, we wouldn't have no racism!"

Or how about Paul's continued suggestions that women frustrated by sexual harassment in the workplace should leave the work force because they're not suited to the environment? In one of his books, he makes it clear that it is not the government's job to get involved in such affairs. Paul also said, on the air fairly recently, that harassed women should not bring the courts in when feeling sexually abused because of "some joke."

I don't know what Paul envisions government's role to be, but it would not include protection.

• War on Financial Stability of Ethnic Minorities and Women

While it may be true that African-Americans traffic in drug peddling more frequently per capita than their white counterparts, that is largely due to it being a means of economic survival to some within a people group systemically marginalized economically and politically. Underground economies are necessary when communities are largely restricted from the over-ground economy - which is not to say that the Black Economy is centered on illicit drugs or illicit trading, nor that most blacks are not working at over ground economic jobs (though often that work needs to be supplemented by hairdressing or child care work, for example). And while Rep. Paul is right to point that out the error of the War on Drugs, he doesn't seem in the least concerned in the reasons why Black and Brown folks are disproportionately identified with illicit trafficking. Paul focuses on few of the symptoms of White Supremacy without acknowledging the root causes or even the bark of racism.

It's as if, when we get rid of illegal drug trafficking and decriminalize drugs, then Black men will no longer be disproportionately imprisoned and they will be welcomed into their choice of living wage jobs. (Oh, and the streets in their segregated neighborhoods will be sparkling with gold cakes!) But since Paul wants to additionally take down some of the few equalizers out there - including the Department of Education - and since he seems interested in curtailing the Justice Department so that it doesn't get involved in the discriminatory affairs of the workplace, it is excruciatingly obvious that he thinks very little of the economic survival of those most** exploited in this country's racist history. Rather, he is only FURTHER exploiting them.

Or, as I read on one tweet, "'I'm against the War on Drugs' is the new 'I have lots of Black friends!'"

But it's not like poor White people are going to get much of a break either. Since he favors unrestricted business, don't expect to make a living wage at your service job (if you have enough luck to actually get and maintain a job in the US). And if you're not making enough to get by, don't expect any monetary assistance from the government.

Or, really, any sort of assistance...

Also, since the roads are being privatized, you're gonna have to start paying for the privilege of traveling, too.

Good luck trying to maintain those middle class buffer jobs...

• War on Identity of non-White Cultures

Paul's solution to racism? That each person would be treated as an individual (read: White person. Of the Caucasian genre). It's more of the same "color-blind" approach that liberals, moderates, and conservatives (of the non-paleo variety) have been pushing for the last sixty years and that only exacerbates racial conflict. The color-blind theory says, "If we tell people to stop bringing up race and refer to ourselves as only belonging to ourselves - with no anchoring in history or culture or family or traditions - then everything will be good."

People need anchoring. We may like to believe that we are independent free-spirits, but no person exists within a vacuum. If there is no tie to our roots as people, we drift to the dominant culture and whatever they tell us they want us to be.

Blahs.
Consumers.
Worker bees.
Toy Soldiers.
Slaves. 
Wallets.
Company Property.

That's ignorance, and Paul's blatant about it. Yet he continues to call himself an "anti-racist." I have heard that same foolish language from people who defend caricatures of blacks characters (or should I say, they defend their right to usurp what they figure to be linguistic characteristics of Black speech and thought for comedic levity) and from the fine Freepers at Free Republic. And assorted other White Supremacists.

The color-blind apologists are missing some major points, though. 1) We are people. And people are grounded in history and culture. I am proud of my Irish and Puerto Rican heritage. These are strong people who've faced much oppression and fought and continue to fight against the dominion of empire rule. That's just but one example. 2) To try and erase our racial/cultural/ethnic histories and identities and start with any sort of clean slate (which is the premise of color-blindness) is to rob people of their identity, leaving them only with the moorings that corporate society sells them (pop culture, for instance). Of course, this is ALREADY happening. It's just that Ron Paul's wants to ramp up that procedure - whether or not he admits it or believes it.

Paul's concern with racism isn't as a sociological factor and an institutional means of subjugating so much as it can be a political tool. On the one hand, he can claim to be against racism by being against the War on Drugs and even the War on Terrorism. But on the other hand, he sends clear signals that he is also against the "racism" of Affirmative Action and other so-called preferential treatments of people of color. It's the same old dog-whistle used by White Supremacy without acknowledging the root causes of racism or why we need such anti-racist actions (flawed though they may be) as Affirmative Action.

• War on Democracy

Democracy is much more than the concept of voting for one of two or more choices. It means that all are treated as equal and each has equal access. Paul's brand of libertarianism proposes that all rights are inherently property-based. The rights over the self begin with the acknowledgement that we are our own property and then it extends from there to whatever else we may own. Which is nice if one has plenty of property.

Actually, I don't see how his philosophy is any different than the corporatists out there now, except that his political practice is genuinely Corporatist. Where other Tea Party pols and candidates give lip service to reducing government's involvement in the affairs of private business, RPizzle is the real gold-danged deal. His entire platform is to centered on the idea of getting that old intrusive government out of the way of the Free Market hand. The Free Market, if you are not aware, is an entire religion into itself with its own priests, gods, hierarchies, sacraments, demons, theological framework, sacrifices (usually of the human variety, but en masse, like little seen in religion since the Crusades and the Reformation Wars), and mystical whimsical powers. The Hand of the Providential Free Market knows all, guides all, "frees" all.

Which is to say that the way in which businesses and financial institutions operate, when unhindered by the restrictions of governmental interference, will institute a New Morality. Wrongs will be righted. Unless they're re-enforced, that is, and institutionalized. Corporations will have unlimited power and people will have little access and little say - unless they are wealthy enough to be a majority stock-holder. That is anti-democratic. Ron Paul and the rest of the current GOP crop) are advocating for an America ruled by the few, for the benefit of the few.

• War on the Public Welfare

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

Gutting and phasing out of Social Security, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, financial aid, food stamps...

For someone who expressly runs on the idea that he [alone!] can guarantee the salvation of the Constitution of the United States of America, he sure likes to play loose with some of the actual Constitution. I know there's some debate about the actual "general Welfare" clause, but I can guarantee it means that roads should not be privatized.

In fact, Paul went on Fox News to debate with Chris Wallace, of all people, that Medicare is unconstitutional and that only EXTREME liberals/Democrats argue otherwise, disregarding the fact that even Justice Scaliani disagrees.

• War on Immigrants and Any Openness to the Rest of the World

Ron Paul sees immigrants as a burden on the US, rather than as, say, people and families that actually benefit America. As such, he is strongly against both a "welfare state" and against easy access to citizenship, both of which he sees as drawing in immigrants (you know, like bugs...).

Paul has stated that he wants to complete an impenetrable border fence around the US. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be around the whole of the US, or just around the Mexican-y parts of it. He also wants to send all undocumented immigrants out of the country (nice cost-saving procedure. Oh, wait. It isn't).  Additionally, he wants to change the fourteenth amendment so that anyone born in the States to non-citizens is not a citizen by birth. He also wants to bring our troops home so that they can guard our borders.

Some of my Paul-ine friends are against these desires, as it betrays their loyalty to both human dignity and the anarchy part of anarcho-capitalism. But it's really just a part of his grander scheme of not just non-interventionism, but complete withdraw of the US government from responsibility to the rest of the world.

He not only doesn't want to support the Zionist genocide against Palestinians that costs the US millions of dollars a year (and the reasons for his lack of love for that don't seem very clear. he has been accused of virulent antisemitism), he also doesn't want to have ANY relationship to international bodies of accountability.

Except for international conglomerates. They are free to roam about - and rape and steal from - the world unhindered. Not their money, so much. But their business...

• War on Non-White, Non-Hetero Personhood

Now, I'm not going to say that Ron Paul is himself a racist. I don't think he is, at least not in the classic sense. But he doesn't seem to understand the ravaging effects that his policies (save the WoD, which he overemphasizes) would have on people of color or anyone wishing to marry in a non-traditional (read: heterosexual) manner. He's no worse in many ways than his Republican counterparts (especially that douchebag Newt Gingrich) who openly revile Blacks, Muslims, the GLBTQ community, Latinos, women, liberals, the poor, non-Christians, anti-capitalists, etc, etc. But even they aren't affiliated with neo-Nazi and aggressively White Supremacist groups. Even they, as far as I know, have never had letters addressed in their name that they published.

The white supremacists, survivalists and anti-Zionists who have rallied behind his candidacy have not exactly been warmly welcomed. “I wouldn’t be happy with that,” Mr. Paul said in an interview Friday when asked about getting help from volunteers with anti-Jewish or antiblack views.
But he did not disavow their support. “If they want to endorse me, they’re endorsing what I do or say — it has nothing to do with endorsing what they say,” said Mr. Paul...

What Paul fails to acknowledge here is that the White Supremacists are endorsing him because his policies are very identical to what they desire.

Although he could make a distinguishable, unilateral break from them and their philosophies and what they stand for, he doesn't. There has never been any ownership of his part in or apology for those newsletters, which were a part of building up his base and raising money for his ventures while he was taking a break from the House.

But he and his proponents constantly point to his stance on the War on Drugs as if that somehow excuses his racist ties and policy. As some friends have pointed out, it's disrespectful and disingenuous to associate people of color solely with drugs and criminality. The majority of African Americans do not do drugs, the majority of them are not nor have been imprisoned. Legalizing drugs also does not mean that African Americans and Latinos will automatically be given proper treatment before the law. It does not guarantee fair treatment before judges, juries, lawyers, witnesses. It does not mean that the color of their skin and their dialect will not automatically impugn a false and damning sense of guilt upon them before White people.

Some pro-Paul bloggers have even gone so far as to dig up old photos from his medicine-practicing days to show that he's not a racist. "Notice his body language," they demand us. "He obviously feels comfortable around black people."

Ok. You know who says stuff like this? Racists trying to prove they're not racist.

For White people who are not clear on the comcept: It is demeaning for human beings to be treated like trophies and show pieces and trotted around as if they are domesticated pets. And that's how Ron Paul's fans are treating Africa Americans in relation to Paul's racist policies. Humiliating and belittling entire people groups is NOT conducive to demonstrating that one is NOT racist against those same groups.

The sooner Paul and his fans realize this, the more respect they will be given. Unfortunately, it may be too late for Paul's career.


I propose we find another anti-war candidate to get across anti-war ideas. Preferably, one who is not trying to start several other wars...

-------------------------------------------
PN: I apologize for the incorrect spelling of my dear friend's last name, but Ebrite just sounds so much more nostalgic and, ergo, awesome!
*In my estimation, maybe I'm missing something. Oh yes, federal aid for college students. I haven't heard of is plan for that, but I assume it has something to do with block grants and the "artificial inflation of university tuition." The bottom line is that that may be defensible.)
**I haven't heard him refer to American Indians, but I'm sure he has some explaining to do when referring to property rights in this country...

Related links:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/12/23/flashback-ron-paul-believed-that-the-federal-government-should-have-paid-off-slave-masters-to-free-the-slaves/
http://www.dankennedy.net/2011/12/26/more-on-ron-pauls-ties-to-the-racist-far-right/

I Love the Smell of Nutmeg in the Morning - WoCIO,IYWI 4

Part four of a series on the so-called War on Christmas

pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

Not to put too fine a point on it, but why do Christians - the very people who are supposed to follow the Prince of Peace, have such a violence fetish? Why is it that when we feel offense, it becomes a war?

The Culture Wars.
The War on Christmas.
The War on the Unborn.
The War on the Family (which is actually a war by certain Christians against families that don't match up to their definition of family).

Are we even aware of what actual war actually is?



War is murder. War is ravaging. War is destroying everything good. War is rape. War is burning flesh and starving babies and choking on gasses and surviving shrapnel. War is severed limbs and lost friends.

War is something that I severely do not want my daughter to have to face. It is something that I've personally long conscientiously objected to. It's something that I don't wish on my worst enemies.

So I have to ask: In comparing a perceived (but not real*) slight to our religious sensibilities to war, are we trying to trivialize the horribleness of war - and dehumanize the very people affected by it - or are we fetishizing violence to the point of looking for fights where there is none in the hopes of getting our kinks?

---------------------------------------------

*"Happy Holidays" is an inclusive manner of greeting someone in a pluralistic society during a holy season. Meaning that those that celebrate Christmas are not excluded, but rather others who celebrate another tradition are added and not excluded.

Lynchings, Draggings, and Strange Fruit

Last night it seemed as if most of us were Troy Davis. We all asked who will break the bonds of oppression in our land - the land of the free. We all sang "Will the Circle Be Unbroken", We all listened to Billie's "Strange Fruit".

We saw in Mr. Davis a symbol and a man. An innocent black person charged and executed for the mere fact of the color of his skin. And those who had never before given much of a thought to the fairness of the criminal system began to loudly render doubts and tear off old allegiances.

Howard University students protesting

Sometimes we sat in front of the White House lawn with duct tape over our mouths and black power fists raised, symbolizing the power of a unified people that are shut up in a society that does not appreciate all its members. Sometimes we lit candles and knelt in humble petition to a greater Force of Love.

Last night, we all felt one with this man, this soul in Georgia. But how many of us cared for the soul of a white supremacist in Texas who's heart was so full of evil that he dragged a black man for miles from behind his truck until the victim, James Byrd, Jr., was virtually shredded? Shredded and bloody and bruised and left for dead, like our innocent imagination.

How many of us were Dick Gregory last night? Gregory, the famed boundaries-pushing comedian and civil rights activist attended Jasper County, where Lawrence Brewster was killed by the state of Texas last night, to commit a hunger fast over the moral crime of capital punishment.

When do the State qualify to kill somebody and the government qualify to kill somebody and it's all right? It's never all right to kill somebody intentionally. There are people who kill people. They are not the State. They are not the government. I don't pay taxes to them.

The heart of Lawrence Brewster and the heart of the men and women who convicted Troy Davis to die are not so different. They are motivated by violence and blood lust. And that is what is in much of our collective DNA in America. It is an evil that must be addressed and rooted out.

America will not be free as a society until we recognize that violence is evil in all its forms. State-sanctioned violence does not make the violence sacred. It demoralizes the state. The state that aggregates and cooperates in wars promotes and aggregates violence both abroad and at home. Citizens learn through the action, language and symbols of their state (and those that the state endorses) that when there are difficulties or differences with others, then the primary solution to the "problem" is through violence. When the Other is too difficult or asserts her power or humanity to the detriment of our profit motives and bottom lines, she is no longer a human who shares flesh and blood with us, who breathes in the same air and drinks the same water as us, but a lesser creature to be dealt with in extreme and severe brutality. Because, we assure ourselves, that is the only language such sub-humans understand: The whip; the bomb; the tank; the grenade.

This is what happens when souls and bodies are reduced to figures and numbers.

When entire people groups are labeled savage, uncivilized, barbaric, terrorist by another people group that is really no better. This is what happens when our response to being attacked is to wage war on those who attacked you, and those that live in proximity to those that attacked you. And those who look like those who attack you. And those who are not joining your efforts in attacking those who look like those who attacked you can also be expected to attack. Because, in our society, we are the true, the good, the virtuous, the right.

But are we truly?

What kind of strange fruit hangs from our trees?

Occupation Is Nine-Tenths the Law

Former US president Jimmy Carter says there's no downside to recognizing Palestine's statehood.

But that's a bold-faced lie. Carter should be ashamed of himself. A. Shamed.

For goodness' sake! What about the multimillion dollar pro-Israeli lobby? What of Caterpillar and other multi-nationals that will suffer from their loss of profits? Won't anybody listen to their cries??

Who will speak up for the poor multinational corps?? Don't they have needs as well as the Palestinians. If they prick, do the displaced not bleed? If they bulldoze, do not the occupied lose their centuries-old homes?

Woe, woe to the injustice heaped upon Caterpillar, Motorola, DefenSoft, RapiScan. In great sorrow am I for General Mills, Unilever, Bobcat Company, Volvo, Ace Hardware, Blockbuster, Siemens. Better they had not been born than to face such travesty!

Who is looking out for these companies' bottom lines? Who will protect their multi-billions? They are just trying to feed their families while Palestinians are forcibly evacuated from their lands and livelihoods. If someone suffers, isn't it only right that someone else profits from that suffering?

-----------------------------------------

In other occupation news, I found one that I could ACTUALLY get behind. Who wants to fly to NYC with me and info-bomb (and sit-out) the freedom-hatin' Wall Streetians? Liberty Plaza, go!

Narcissistic Stockholm Syndrome I: Profits of the War Machine

Note: This entry was originally posted at

The Broken Telegraph (a wonderful site on its own).

Part two here, part three here.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

- Mahatma Gandhi

Someone out there is planning a counter-demonstration to a peace march.

Oddly enough, it's not Boeing, Haliburton, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, nor any of the other war profiteers taking out the banners and megaphones to stymie the influence of the peace activists.

It is a Marine who served in Vietnam.

Please don't miss the irony of this. A man who suffered under the direction and fingers of war-mongers and war-profiteers believes that those who oppose those same mongers and profiteers need to be opposed. That those who oppose brutality are the villains.

It's as if he's fallen love with his captors.

He seems to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Not unlike the vast majority of Americans whom also adore the Conquering Warlords, the Invested Bankers who finance them, and their Corporate Bosses.

But we shan't talk badly about them, shan't we? Republican President George W. Bush got a little bit of flack for starting some wars. And he was called some bad names. And that made others very, very angry. For to them, it's much more disrespectful to kill a man's reputation than to kill an actual man.

But, ultimately, who was hurt more? Who has been harmed worse: the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who lost their lives, homes, families, basic needs through the acts of aggression of the American War Machine, or the leader (or is it puppet?) of the AWM who was compared to Hitler a few times?

photo © 2009 Steve Jurvetson | more info (via: Wylio)

And now a Democratic president of these United States is feeling the heat.

Not as much heat as the dozens of civilians who have come into contact with our Patriot bombs, but, maybe just a little bit, right?

The most current manifestation of America's War Machine was sold as a necessary way to stop a mad dictator (Gadhafi) from killing his own people (Libyans - who were not just being fired at from the air, but so confused by hordes of mercenaries hired to kill off Gadhafi's opposition that many started attacking any person of sub-Saharan descent), to level the playing field a little bit. And if, perhaps, there was a way it could be limited to the agreed-upon No-Fly Zone action, then perhaps it would be justifiable. That is, if the War Machine weren't so apt to make sure that their mission isn't accomplished first.

And it will be. Because they'd like to replace Gadhafi with someone more compliant to US and coalition (meaning, Other Corporation-backed "democracies") desires.

A cruise missile blasted Moammar Gadhafi's residential compound in an attack that carried as much symbolism as military effect, and fighter jets destroyed a line of tanks moving on the rebel capital. The U.S. said the international assault would hit any government forces attacking the opposition.

The War Machine is itself only one of several arms of Empire. And Empire exists for the aim of Empire. In the current US climate, the driving force of Empire is corporate need. And corporations need cheap gas. So, um, congratulations, Libyans! We'll be able to liberate you AND get cheaper gas.

We thank you for your sacrifice. It allows us to more easily oblige with our captors.

pt 2, pt. 3

Tea Partyin', Partyin', Something...

photo © 2011 Gwyneth Anne Bronwynne Jones | more info (via: Wylio)
I think we should just get one thing straight: the part of the universe that we are not parts of are not necessarily monoliths. The "Black Community" is not of one voice about anything, let alone everything. I can't tell you how many of my more-conservative friends I've had to correct about us progressives (that, for example, we don't necessarily believe in bigger government or more taxes), and how they've shown me that not all conservatives hate or blame immigrants (documented or not), the poor, homosexuals, etc.

I'm almost daily trying to convince fellow progressives to explore the option of voting third party, and they're wondering why some of us are practically handing the keys to the H-bomb button to Sarah Palin.

Today's lesson is brought to us by the letter T. As in "Tea Parties." Notice the deliberation with which I painfully point out the plurality here*. Not, "Tea PartY", but the plural version. Because it's not one single movement, or ideology, or people group. Just as Evangelicals shouldn't be known simply as followers of James Dobson, Jim Wallis, or (Lord, please no!) Franklin Graham, nor does every Tea Partier belong to the racist and arrogant class of the Mark Williamses or the arrogant and racist class of the Andrew Breitbarts or the pro-bullying, anti-gay, blame-deflecting class of Rich Swier. None of which, ironically, have any class. Or morals.

These butt-hats don't represent all of the Tea Party. Just parts of it (apparently, the parts that call itself Tea Party Nation and the Tea Party Express). Tea Partiers don't agree on racism, bullying, or theocracy, or even owning guns. They ostensibly say that taxes are too high and that government spending is out-of-control. Among this crowd are some black and Latino conservatives.

We may not agree with them much of what they espouse - and even if I did, I would completely distance myself from the likes of Bachmann, Breitbart, Palin, and Swier, that guy with the sign of President Obama in an "African witchdoctor" get-up, or that California douchebag who distributed emails of watermelon outside the White House lawn - but we can find points of interest and agreement with most of those on "the other side".

Conservatives, moderates, libertarians, progressives, liberals, anarchists, and lefties can agree on any number of issues - as long as we're not all tied down to the definitions given us by the lazy media. The leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention and I may disagree about any number of matters, but when it comes to giving migrants a fair chance in this country, we're on the same page. Many L&O types are as well, including this lovely conservative Republican mayor of a small town in Georgia, Paul Bridges.

Many TP'ers are against wars, as are many of the conservative and liberal libertarians and anarchists. That is an area that progressives (and like-minded liberals and moderates, etc.) can join together and will NEED to join together in order to challenge the Military-Industrial Complex that has taken control of both parties in the United States.

My friends, I ask only of you what Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young asked:


We can change the world!

-----------------------------------

*Bad, pseudo-intellectual self joke...

Bi-Losing!

While we're investigating if someone used Congressional stationary or office computers to relay saucy pix of his crotch, I'd like to also investigate those who may have sold out their Congressional office and Constitutional duty (the welfare of We the People) to the highest bidders.

But that would implicate nearly everybody, right Minority Leader Pelosi?

Our national media is a step removed from complete tabloid takeover, and the citizens of this nation, if judged by its consumerist interest, is heading toward a Tablodia, while we're being governed by Kluptocracy.

Not the kind of Kluptocracy that libertarians and Randites like to bemoan: the one that looks like a bureaucratic and fat Robin Hood that steals from the hard-working and disperses to the lazy parasites. The US Kluptocracy works for its corporate masters and delivers funds from the working class (and increasingly, the middle class) and gives to its Robber Barons.

photo © 2007 Nina Hale | more info (via: Wylio)

If we're going to talk about lies, how about the fact that the Bush tax cuts (Happy Anniversary!), rather than giving us a prolonged season of growth, cost us 2.5 trillion dollars. More than the stimulus plans combined and with nothing to show for it - at least not for the other 98%.

Let us talk about the fact that we were led to a devastating, useless, and costly war (this one coming on $800 billion) on a seismic threshold of bloody and battered lies and deceit and misleads - and that that war has led to a ramping up of our Homeland Security needs, an increase and intrusion of our military might into other countries, and countless innocent deaths (not to mention that some suspect that the true, actual cost of these wars is three times that reported).

How about the lie that the lives of Arabs and Muslims is not as important as the lives of Americans, or Israelis?

Speaking of which, and back to Weiner, how about the whoppers he told while defending APAIC? Including these murderous falsehoods:

There is no Israeli occupation of the West Bank, no Israeli military presence there

The Goldstone Report was not based on the laws of war.

Israel is at war with 20 neighbors. (Or the twin lie that the Arab countries want to push Israel out to the sea).

American progressives should support Israel limiting free speech about its character as a Jewish state.

Egypt is an "Islamic state."

And then there's the continually absurd distortion that it is the poor who are waging class war when, at most, they are pointing out the obvious: that they are being attacked and sucked out by the rich and their manipulations (many psychological, such as the constant warfare with our brains they emit through their relentless adverts).

But of course the lies that we care about here are the juicy, sexy lies. Not the ones where people die by the boatload because of lack of access - or because they happen to live in a region that's supposedly visited by known terrorists. The ones where we find out who slept with who and who owes who a big, fat, huge diamond ring to alleviate the psychological, social, and sexual sins he (usually) has committed.

And since CNN and TMZ aren't going to do their jobs - unless their jobs are telling us all about the drug-fueled sex romps of Charlie Sheen - I am of the opinion that pastors should be. That, at the least, Christian ministers should and could be the prophetic voice in the wilderness. That we should be doing what Breuggeman calls de-scripting from the dominant script of technological, therapeutic, consumerist militarism (although I must say that my problem isn't so much with technology itself but that it is largely used to advance the causes of leisure, consumerism, and militarism).

In a land that continually self-identifies as Christian, where the predominant view is that God is real and the Bible is God's word to us, shouldn't we use that context to the benefit: to declare that God hates lies. God hates hatred. God is love and life and those that counter those counter God. Those of us that declare the evangelion - the Good News - of God need to run a counter script to the murderous lies and deceptions and distractions of contemporary celebrity and militaristic jingoism.

Why is it that it tends to be Christians instead who confuse love of country's empire (and American Exceptionalism) with love of Jesus' otherworldly (and frankly, odd and anti-natural) Kingdom? Are pastors afraid - much like they were in the antebellum South and apartheid South Africa - of confronting the demons within their own churches? Could it be that they're afraid of losing parishioners, or even of losing their jobs? This is a sad state of affairs for our nation, then. But the job is left to lay ministers and professional ministers to administer God's proclamations and free the bonds of the captives. When we are free of mind and spirit, then we can lead others to freedom as well.

I leave my pastor readers and Christian ministry friends with some Walter Breuggeman from his 19 Theses:

1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognized, but everybody has a script.

2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.

3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.

4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.

5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.

6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.

7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, too enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.

8. The task of descripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.

9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.

10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character – the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.

11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.

12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must be taken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.

13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves – liberals and conservatives – in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so to debilitate the focus of the script.

14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, “Do you renounce the dominant script?”

15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this illusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighboring of all kinds.

16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.

17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.

18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is equally present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of the old script and embrace of the new script.

19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, my God, what would happen if you took all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult.