Maikimo.net taxonomy tags

While I was discouraged, a friend reminded me why dissent is vital, why we must keep speaking out against religio-political cultures of corruption and oppression everywhere, and especially here in “the land of the free” (the U.S. description of itself):

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”
—Dr. ML King, from a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963¹

Yes. Some significant number of us frogs have to stay alert and show the others how to jump out of the pot before we all cook. (“Yes, I know you think it feels like a hot bath in here. But I’m tellin’ you, I see bubbles on the bottom.”)

Here’s another nugget of Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) wisdom I recall as I ponder another correlative between prevailing political worldview and violent outcomes, the tenacious belief that ends justify means.

I consider that since “ends justify means” means anything goes as long as it gets you the results you want, it is a belief that is fundamentally immoral. (I think this is the historical philosophical assessment as well.)

MLK presents the same conclusion in a powerful, positive form:

“And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Christmas Sermon,” 24 Dec 1967 (38 years ago)

A “war on terror” can only reliably lead to more violence, more war, more terror. Any peaceful outcomes would be by chance; thus this “war” is not a very wise investment of a nation’s youth and much of its treasury if the goal is peace.

Hence I infer that the engines of war are driven by those who do not want peace: industrial war profiteering (e.g. Halliburton) is one obvious motivation for promoting unending war, another is that of apocalyptic Christians who think they’re “helping God out” by bringing on Armageddon.

Neither motivation, it should go without saying, coheres with the Gospel.

We can’t very well say “Peace on earth, good will toward men” and at the same time say “except now, because now war is the solution.” Unless we’re nuts.

And once we’re paying attention, I don’t think we’re nuts.

(See also Myth of redemptive violence.)

Some years ago as I was taking a course on Martin Luther King’s life, sermons, and writings, I suddenly realized I was already older than MLK ever got. What a knock upside the head that was. Now I realize I’m older than John F. Kennedy ever got. JFK’s life ended as mine was getting underway, and now I’ve been here longer than he was. I think I need to lie down.

¹While this “silent” quote is uniformly attributed to MLK, I see it is only hinted at, not directly present in, his April 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

In this critical time, Eyes Wide Open speaks directly to our hearts and minds, shattering the claim that the war has made America safer and challenging us to confront our fears and let our dreams, not our nightmares, shape our collective future.

Something spiritual shifted today. [Wed, Sept. 22, 2004]

Pretty unmistakeable. A sea change, I think. Steph noticed it, too.

A weight lifted. A breeze of hope, incoming fresh air. I think it’s political.

As usual, I sense these things kind of like a barometer, then it takes me several days to concretely identify what happened. I’ll be back.

2004-09-30 update:
Today as I look at the assembly line of B/C yard signs in my neighborhood — even as someone steals my Kerry/Edwards sign, again and again — the breeze of hope seems faint at times. Is this America? And yet …

Last Sunday I walked in the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) Walk-As-One fundraiser in downtown Memphis. Fascinating people and surroundings! I noticed with some relief that as you drive from affluent suburb to downtown, the B/C signs slowly give way to Kerry/Edwards signs. Once downtown, I didn’t see one B/C sign.

In the midst of the multicolored throng of smiling brothers and sisters walking with me, and especially as we passed the Lorraine Motel where MLK was killed, now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, I recalled that the God of scripture, history, and my experience is primarily about community and justice, as conveyed in the prophet Micah’s summary (or its more familiar translation, if you prefer) —

He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.

Compared with this, today’s prevailing political understanding of community and justice seems lacking to me — Denying free speech to neighbors as in my neighborhood and across the country? Denying rights to people who are different, even unto writing discrimination into the U.S. Constitution? Bearing false witness against others, of which the reason given for invading Iraq is a prime example? Killing men, women, and children with bombs (“collateral damage”) almost indiscriminately? Sending people into poverty while favoring the wealthy with tax cuts? Passing the curse of a crushing debt onto our children and grandchildren? Avoiding responsibility saying “it’s not my fault — he did it, she did it, they did it”? Ridiculing knowledge, thoughtfulness, and wisdom? Being adamantly unrepentant? I find behaviors like these completely opposed to Micah’s understanding of what God is looking for in us.

Yet even in the face of these destructive winds, I detect the breeze of hope. We will not succumb to this curse. The spiritual shift I felt last week is a critical mass of us clicking into awareness: We will no longer be captive to fear and deception. We will no longer tolerate lies, hate, and endless war masquerading as the will of God. As Martin puts it, we will “overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”

I share Martin’s “abiding faith in America” and “audacious faith in the future of mankind.” With him I audaciously believe that “unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” And I will work to my dying day to speak this word, to help bring about this reality.

If faith has taught me anything, it’s that the highway of retribution and violence we’re on leads to hell. We’re approaching the last exit before we hit desert. Let’s take it.

2004-10-03 update:
I’m not wild about Kerry’s saying “I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are,” of course, but I assume that’s an essential criterion for the bloodthirsty vote. Why this unappealing stance doesn’t dissuade me is summed up by GussieFN in this succinct analogy praising competence:

Kerry and Bush have the same plan on the war
and Tiger Woods and I have the same plan on the golf course.
What’s the point, again?

Seymour Hersh writes a new article in The New Yorker, Moving Targets, that begins —

The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. … [The Special Forces group’s] highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.

This radical Pentagon news once again juxtaposes contrasting concepts on the teleprompter in my head …

An American who has advised the civilian authority in Baghdad said, “The only way we can win is to go unconventional. We’re going to have to play their game. Guerrilla versus guerrilla. Terrorism versus terrorism. We’ve got to scare the Iraqis into submission.”

Can logic — or sanity — encompass both these beliefs? (I think not.)

One of the key planners of [this] Special Forces offensive is Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin … In October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Boykin, while giving Sunday-morning talks in uniform to church groups, had repeatedly equated the Muslim world with Satan. Last June … he told a congregation in Oregon that “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.” … The Muslim world hates America, he said, “because we are a nation of believers.”

(emphasis mine)

Boykin says we are a nation of believers. But believers in whom?

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
—Jesus (Luke 6:46, NIV)

[story link via Meteor Blades at Daily Kos]

Eric Blumrich makes hard-hitting, thought-provoking political animation features. I think of them as Bush war machine anti-propaganda that is presented — for effect — in propagandistic style. This one, “Victory” (870KB), concludes with a striking juxtaposition of two speeches:

See also Eric’s video Dr. Bushlove (600KB), which is also striking. Its title refers to the movie Dr. Strangelove, and in doing so (as I read into it) it’s a comment on the strange kind of “love” that’s willing to kill thousands and thousands of innocent civilians under the guise of “liberating” them.

Note that both animations contain graphic still photos of the carnage in Iraq.